LECTURE#20

How, when and why did Stalin become a full dictator? The creation of the USSR (1923). V. Mayakovsky. «The new culture for the new man», the «the big style». Lenin’s death (1924). Stalin’s vs. Trotsky; Stalin vs. Zinovyev & Kamenev. The arch – bureaucrat. The murder of Sergey Kirov (1934). The three great Moscow trials of 1936 – 1938. A savage campaign of terror against the armed forces (1937 – 1939).

THE GREAT PURGES BY J. STALIN

As this process unfolded, Stalin consolidated near-absolute power using the 1934 assassination of Sergei Kirov (which many suspect Stalin of having planned) as a pretext to launch the Great Purges against his suspected political and ideological opponents, most notably the old cadres and the rank and file of the Bolshevik Party. Trotsky had already been expelled from the party in 1927, exiled to Kazakhstan in 1928 and then expelled from the USSR entirely in 1929. Stalin used the purges to politically and physically destroy his other formal rivals (and former allies) accusing Zinoviev and Kamenev of being behind Kirov''s assassination and planning to overthrow Stalin. Ultimately, those supposedly involved in this and other conspiracies numbered in the tens of thousands with various Old Bolsheviks and senior party members blamed with conspiracy and sabotage which were used to explain industrial accidents, production shortfalls and other failures of Stalin''s regime. Measures used against opposition and suspected opposition ranged from imprisonment in work camps (Gulags) to execution to assassination (of Trotsky''s son Lev Sedov and likely of Sergei Kirov - Trotsky himself was to die at the hands of one of Stalin''s assassins in 1940). The period between 1936-1937 is often called the Great Terror, with thousands of people (even merely suspected of opposing Stalin''s regime) being killed or imprisoned. Stalin is reputed to have personally signed 40,000 death warrants of suspected political opponents.

During this period, the practice of mass arrest, torture, and imprisonment or execution without trial, of anyone suspected by the secret police of opposing Stalin''s regime became commonplace. By the NKVD''s own estimates, 681,692 people were shot during 1937-38 alone (although many historians think that this was an undercount), and millions of people were transported to Gulag work camps.

Several show trials were held in Moscow, to serve as examples for the trials that local courts were expected to carry out elsewhere in the country. There were four key trials from 1936 to 1938, The Trial of the Sixteen was the first (December 1936); then the Trial of the Seventeen (January 1937); then the trial of Red Army generals, including Marshal Tukhachevsky (June 1937); and finally the Trial of the Twenty One (including Bukharin) in March 1938.

In spite of the Stalin''s seemingly progressive constitution, enacted in 1936, the party''s power was in reality subordinated by the secret police, the mechanism whereby Stalin secured his dictatorship through state terror.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Soviet_Union_%281953-1985%29

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1936 Constitution of the U.S.S.R.

Adopted December 1936

Chapter I
The Organization of Soviet Society

Article 1. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a socialist state of workers and peasants.

Article 2. The Soviets of Working People''s Deputies, which grew and attained strength as a result of the overthrow of the landlords and capitalists and the achievement of the dictatorship of the proletariat, constitute the political foundation of the U.S.S.R.

Article 3. In the U.S.S.R. all power belongs to the working people of town and country as represented by the Soviets of Working People''s Deputies.

Article 4. The socialist system of economy and the socialist ownership of the means and instruments of production firmly established as a result of the abolition of the capitalist system of economy, the abrogation of private ownership of the means and instruments of production and the abolition of the exploitation of man by man, constitute'' the economic foundation of the U.S.S.R.

Article 5. Socialist property in the U.S.S.R. exists either in the form of state property (the possession of the whole people), or in the form of cooperative and collective-farm property (that of a collective farm or property of a cooperative association).

Article 6. The land, its natural deposits, waters, forests, mills, factories, mines, rail, water and air transport, banks, post, telegraph and telephones, large state-organized agricultural enterprises (state farms, machine and tractor stations and the like) as well as municipal enterprises and the bulk of the dwelling houses in the cities and industrial localities, are state property, that is, belong to the whole people.

Article 7. Public enterprises in collective farms and cooperative organizations, with their livestock and implements, the products of the collective farms and cooperative organizations, as well as their common buildings, constitute the common socialist property of the collective farms and cooperative organizations. In addition to its basic income from the public collective-farm enterprise, every household in a collective farm has for its personal use a small plot of land attached to the dwelling and, as its personal property, a subsidiary establishment on the plot, a dwelling house, livestock, poultry and minor agricultural implements in accordance with the statutes of the agricultural artel.

Article 8. The land occupied by collective farms is secured to them for their use free of charge and for an unlimited time, that is, in perpetuity.

Article 9. Alongside the socialist system of economy, which is the predominant form of economy in the U.S.S.R., the law permits the small private economy of individual peasants and handicraftsman based on their personal labour and precluding the exploitation of the labour of others.

Article 10. The right of citizens to personal ownership of their incomes from work and of their savings, of their dwelling houses and subsidiary household economy, their household furniture and utensils and articles of personal use and convenience, as well as the right of inheritance of personal property of citizens, is protected by law.

Article 11. The economic life of the U.S.S.R. is determined and directed by the state national economic plan with the aim of increasing the public wealth, of steadily improving the material conditions of the working people and raising their cultural level, of consolidating the independence of the U.S.S.R. and strengthening its defensive capacity.

Article 12. In the U.S.S.R. work is a duty and a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."

The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."

Chapter II
The Organization of the Soviet State

Article 13. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a federal state, formed on the basis of the voluntary association of Soviet Socialist Republics having equal rights, namely:
The Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Azerbaidjan Soviet Socialist Republic
The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic
The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic
The Tadjik Soviet Socialist Republic
The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic
The Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic
The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic
The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Article 14. The jurisdiction of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as represented by its highest organs of state authority and organs of government, covers:
Representation of the Union in international relations, conclusion and ratification of treaties with other states;
Questions of war and peace;
Admission of new republics into the U.S.S.R.;
Control over the observance of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. and ensuring conformity of the Constitutions of the Union Republics with the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.;
Confirmation of alterations of boundaries between Union Republics;
Confirmation of the formation of new territories and regions and also of new Autonomous Republics within Union Republics;
Organization of the defence of the U.S.S.R. and direction of all the armed forces of the U.S.S.R.;
Foreign trade on the basis of state monopoly;
Safeguarding the security of the state;
Establishment of the national economic plans of the U.S.S.R.;
Approval of the single state budget of the U.S.S.R. as well as of the taxes and revenues which go to the all-Union, Republican and local budgets;
Administration of the banks, industrial and agricultural establishments and enterprises and trading enterprises of all-Union importance;
Administration of transport and, communications;
Direction of the monetary and credit system;
Organization of state insurance;
Raising and granting of loans;
Establishment of the basic principles for the use of land as well as for the use of natural deposits, forests and waters;
Establishment of the basic principles in the spheres of education and public health;
Organization of a uniform system of national economic statistics;
Establishment of the principles of labour legislation;
Legislation on the judicial system and judicial procedure; criminal and civil codes;
Laws on citizenship of the Union; laws on the rights of foreigners;
Issuing of all-Union acts of amnesty.

Article 15. The sovereignty of the Union Republics is limited only within the provisions set forth in the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. Outside of these provisions, each Union Republic exercises state authority independently. The U.S.S.R. protects the sovereign rights of the Union Republics.

Article 16. Each Union Republic has its own Constitution, which takes account of the specific features of the Republic and is drawn up in full conformity with the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.

Article 17. To every Union Republic is reserved the right freely to secede from the U.S.S.R.

Article 18. The territory of a Union Republic may not be altered without its consent.

Article 19. The laws of the U.S.S.R. have the same force within the territory of every Union Republic.

Article 20. In the event of a discrepancy between a law of a Union Republic and an all-Union law, the all-Union law prevails.

Article 21. A single Union citizenship is established for all citizens of the U.S.S.R.

Every citizen of a Union Republic is a citizen of the U.S.S.R.

Article 22. The Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic consists of the Altai, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Ordjonikidze, Maritime and Khabarovsk Territories; the Archangel, Vologda, Voronezh, Gorky, Ivanovo, Irkutsk, Kalinin, Kirov, Kuibyshev, Kursk, Leningrad, Molotov, Moscow, Murmansk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Orel, Penza, Rostov, Ryazan, Saratov, Sverdlovsk, Smolensk, Stalingrad, Tambov, Tula, Chelyabinsk, Chita, Chkalov and Yaroslavl Regions; The Tatar, Bashkir, Daghestan, Buryat-Mongolian, Kabardino-Balkarian, Kalmyk, Komi, Crimean, Mari, Mordovian, Volga German, North Ossetian, Udmurt, Checheno-Ingush, Chuvash and Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics; and the Adygei, Jewish, Karachai, Oirot, Khakass and Cherkess Autonomous Regions.

Article 23. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic consists of the Vinnitsa, Volynsk, Voroshilovgrad, Dnepropetrovsk, Drogobych, Zhitomir, Zaporozhe, Izmail, Kamenets-Podolsk, Kiev, Kirovograd, Lvov, Nikolaev, Odessa, Poltava, Rovno, Stalino, Stanislav, Sumy, Tarnopol, Kharkov, Chemigov and Chernovitsy Regions.

Article 24. The Azerbaidian Soviet Socialist Republic includes the, Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region.

Article 25. The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic includes the Abkhazian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Adjar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the South Ossetian Autonomous Region.

Article 26. The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic consists of the Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, Ferghana, and Khorezm Regions, and the Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Article 27. The Tadjik Soviet Socialist Republic consists of the Garm, Kuliab, Leninabad and Stalinabad Regions, and the Gomo-Badakhshan Autonomous Region.

Article 28. The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic consists of the Akmolinsk, Aktyubinsk, Alma-Ata, East Kazakhstan, Guryev, Djambul, West Kazakhstan, Karaganda, Kzyl-Orda, Kustanai, Pavlodar, North Kazakhstan. Semipalatinsk, and South Kazakhstan Regions.

Article 29. The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic consists of the Baranovichi, Byelostok, Brest, Vileika, Vitebsk, Gomel, Minsk, Moghilev, Pinsk and Polessye Regions.

Article 29a. The Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic consists of the Ashkhabad, Krasnovodsk, Mari, Tashauz and Chardzhou Regions.

Article 29b. The Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic consists of the Dzhalal-Abad, Issyk-Kul, Osh, Tian-Shan and Frunze Regions.

Chapter III
The Highest Organs of State Authority of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Article 30. The highest organ of state authority of the U.S.S.R. is the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

Article 31. The Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. exercises all rights vested in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in accordance with all articles of the Constitution, in so far as they do not, by virtue of the Constitution, come within the jurisdiction of organs of the U.S.S.R. that are accountable to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., that is, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. and the People''s Commissariats of the U.S.S.R.

Article 32. The legislative power of the U.S.S.R. is exercised exclusively by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

Article 33. The Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. consists of two Chambers: the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities.

Article 34. The Soviet of the Union is elected by the citizens of the U.S.S.R. according to electoral areas on the basis of one deputy for every 300,000 of the population.

Article 35. The Soviet of Nationalities is elected by the citizens of the U.S.S.R. according to Union and Autonomous Republics, Autonomous Regions and national areas on the basis of twenty-five deputies from each Union Republic, eleven deputies from each Autonomous Republic, five deputies from each Autonomous Region and one deputy from each national area.

Article 36. The Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. is elected for a term of four years.

Article 37. Both Chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities, have equal rights.

Article 38. The Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities have an equal right to initiate legislation.

Article 39. A law is considered adopted if passed by both Chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. by a simple majority vote in each.

Article 40. Laws passed by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. are published in the languages of the Union Republics over the signatures of the President and Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

Article 41. Sessions of the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities begin and terminate simultaneously.

Article 42. The Soviet of the Union elects a Chairman of the Soviet of the Union and two Vice-Chairmen.

Article 43. The Soviet of Nationalities elects a Chairman of the Soviet of Nationalities and two Vice-Chairmen.

Article 44. The Chairmen of the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities preside over the sittings of the respective Chambers and direct the procedure of these bodies.

Article 45. Joint sittings of both Chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. are presided over alternately by the Chairman of the Soviet of the Union and the Chairman of the Soviet of Nationalities.

Article 46. Sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. are convened by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. twice a year.

Special sessions are convened by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. at its discretion or on the demand of one of the Union Republics.

Article 47. In the event of disagreement between the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities, the question is referred for settlement to a conciliation commission formed on a parity basis. If the conciliation commission fails to arrive at an agreement, or if its decision fails to satisfy one of the Chambers, the question is considered for a second time by the Chambers. Failing agreement between the two Chambers, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. dissolves the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. and orders new elections.

Article 48. The Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. at a joint sitting of both Chambers elects the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. consisting of a President of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., sixteen Vice-Presidents, a Secretary of the Presidium and twenty-four members of the Presidium.

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. is accountable to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. for all its activities.

Article 49. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.:
Convenes the sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.;
Interprets laws of the U.S.S.R. in operation, issues decrees;
Dissolves the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. in conformity with Article 47 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. and orders new elections;
Conducts referendums on its own initiative or on the demand of one of the Union Republics;
Annuls decisions and orders of the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. and of the Councils of People''s Commissars of the Union Republics in case they do not conform to law;
In the intervals between sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., relieves of their posts and appoints People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. on the recommendation of the Chairman of the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R., subject to subsequent confirmation by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.;
Awards decorations and confers titles of honour of the U.S.S.R.;
Exercises the right of pardon;
Appoints and removes the higher commands of the armed forces of the U.S.S.R.;
In the intervals between sessions of. the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., proclaims a state of war in the event of armed attack on the U.S.S.R., or whenever necessary to fulfil international treaty obligations concerning mutual defence against aggression
Orders general or partial mobilization;
Ratifies international, treaties;
Appoints and recalls plenipotentiary representatives of the U.S.S.R. to foreign states;
Receives the credentials and letters of recall of diplomatic representatives accredited to it by foreign states;
Proclaims martial law in separate localities or throughout the U.S.S.R. in the interests of the defence of the U.S.S.R. or for the purpose of ensuring public order and state security.

Article 50. The Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities elect Credentials Commissions which verify the credentials of the members of the respective Chambers.

On the recommendation of the Credentials Commissions, the Chambers decide either to endorse the credentials or to annul the election of the deputies concerned.

Article 51. The Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., when it deems necessary, appoints commissions of inquiry and investigation on any matter.

It is the duty of all institutions and public servants to comply with the demands of these commissions and to submit to them the necessary materials and documents.

Article 52. A member of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. may not be prosecuted or arrested without the consent of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., and during the period when the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. is not in session, without the consent of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

Article 53. On the expiration of the term of office of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., or after the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet prior to the expiration of its term of office, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. retains its powers until the formation of a new Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. by the newly-elected Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

Article 54. On the expiration of the term of office of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., or in the event of its dissolution prior to the expiration of its term of office, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. orders new elections to be held within a period not exceeding two months from the date of expiration of the term of office or dissolution of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

Article 55. The newly-elected Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. is convened by the outgoing Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. not later than one month after the elections.

Article 56. The Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. at a joint sitting of both Chambers, appoints the Government of the U.S.S.R., namely, the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R.

Chapter IV
The Highest Organs of State Authority of the Union Republics

Article 57. The highest organ of state authority of a Union Republic is the Supreme Soviet of the Union Republic.

Article 58. The Supreme Soviet of a Union Republic is elected by the citizens of the Republic for a term of four years.

The basis of representation is established by the Constitution of the Union Republic.

Article 59. The Supreme Soviet of a Union Republic is the sole legislative organ of the Republic.

Article 60. The Supreme Soviet of a Union Republic:
Adopts the Constitution of the Republic and amends it in conformity with part articles of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.;
Confirms the Constitutions of the Autonomous Republics forming part of it and defines the boundaries of their territories;
Approves the national economic plan and also the budget of the Republic;
Exercises the right of amnesty and pardon of citizens sentenced by the judicial organs of the Union Republic.

Article 61. The Supreme Soviet of a Union Republic elects the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Union Republic, consisting of a Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Union Republic, Vice-Chairmen, a Secretary of the Presidium and members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Union Republic. The powers of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of a Union Republic are defined by the Constitution of the Union Republic.

Article 62. The Supreme Soviet of a Union Republic elects a Chairman and Vice-Chairmen to conduct its sittings.

Article 63. The Supreme Soviet of a Union Republic appoints the Government of the Union Republic, namely, the Council of People''s Commissars of the Union Republic.

Chapter V
The Organs of Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Article 64. The highest executive and administrative organ of state authority of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R.

Article 65. The Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. is responsible to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. and accountable to it; and in the intervals between sessions of the Supreme Soviet it is responsible and accountable to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

Article 66. The Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. issues decisions and orders on the basis and in pursuance of the laws in operation, and supervises their execution.

Article 67. Decisions and Orders of the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. are binding throughout the territory of the U.S.S.R.

Article 68. The Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R.:
Coordinates and directs the work of the All-Union and Union-Republican People''s Commissariats of the U.S.S.R. and of other institutions, economic and cultural, under its administration;
Adopts measures to carry out the national economic plan and the state budget, and to strengthen the credit and monetary system;
Adopts measures for the maintenance of public order, for the protection of the interests of the state, and for the safeguarding of the rights of citizens;
Exercises general guidance in respect of relations with foreign states;
Fixes the annual contingent of citizens to be called up for military service and directs the general organization and development of the armed forces of the country;
Sets up, whenever necessary, special committees and Central Administrations under the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. for matters concerning economic, cultural and defence organization and development.

Article 69. The Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. has the right, in respect of those branches of administration and economy which come within the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R., to suspend decisions and orders of the Councils of People''s Commissars of the Union Republics and to annul orders and instructions of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R.

Article 70. The Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. is appointed by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. and consists of:
The Chairman of the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R.;
The Vice-Chairmen of the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R.;
The Chairman of the State Planning Commission of the U.S.S.R.;
The People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R.;
The Chairman of the Committee on Arts;
The Chairman of the Committee on Higher Education;
The Chairman of the Board of the State Bank.

Article 71. The Government of the U.S.S.R. or a People''s Commissar of the U.S.S.R. to whom a question of a member of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. is addressed must give a verbal or written reply in the respective Chamber within a period not exceeding three days.

Article 72. The People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. direct the branches of state administration which come within the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R.

Article 73. The People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. issue, within the limits of the jurisdiction of the respective People''s Commissariats, orders and instructions on the basis and in pursuance of the laws in operation, and also of decisions and orders of the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R., and supervise their execution.

Article 74. The People''s Commissariats of the U.S.S.R. are either All-Union or Union-Republican Commissariats.

Article 75. The All-Union People''s Commissariats direct the branches of state administration entrusted to them throughout the territory of the U.S.S.R. either directly or through bodies appointed by them.

Article 76. The Union-Republican People''s Commissariats, as a rule, direct the branches of state administration entrusted to them through the corresponding People''s Commissariats of the Union Republics; they administer directly only a definite and limited number of enterprises according to a list confirmed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

Article 77. The following People''s Commissariats are All-Union People''s Commissariats: Defence, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, Railways, Post and Telegraph and Telephones, Maritime Transport, River Transport, Coal Industry, Oil Industry, Power Stations, Electrical Industry, Iron and Steel Industry, Non-Ferrous Metallurgy, Chemical Industry, Aviation Industry, Shipbuilding Industry, Munitions, Armaments, Heavy Machine-building, Medium Machine-building, General Machine-building, Navy, Agricultural Procurement, Construction, Paper and Cellulose Industry.

Article 78. The following People''s Commissariats are Union-Republican People''s Commissariats: Food Industry, Fish Industry, Meat and Dairy Industry, Light Industry, Textile Industry, Timber Industry, Agriculture State Grain and Livestock Farms, Finance, Trade, Internal Affairs, State Security, Justice, Public Health, Building Materials Industry, State Control.

Chapter VI
The Organs of Government of the Union Republics

Article 79. The highest executive and administrative organ of state authority of a Union Republic is the Council of People''s Commissars of the Union Republic.

Article 80. The Council of People''s Commissars of a Union Republic is responsible to the Supreme Soviet of the Union Republic and accountable to it; and in the intervals between sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the Union Republic it is responsible and accountable to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the respective Union Republic.

Article 81. The Council of People''s Commissars of a Union Republic issues decisions and orders on the basis and in pursuance of the laws in operation of the U.S.S.R. and of the Union Republic, and of the decisions and orders of the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R., and supervises their execution.

Article 82. The Council of People''s Commissars of a Union Republic has the right to suspend decisions and orders of Councils of People''s Commissars of Autonomous Republics, and to annul decisions and orders of Executive Committees of Soviets of Working People''s Deputies of Territories, Regions and Autonomous Regions.[/p]
Article 83. The Council of People''s Commissars of a Union Republic is appointed by the Supreme Soviet of the Union Republic and consists of:
The Chairman of the Council of People''s Commissars of the Union Republic;
The Vice-Chairmen;
The Chairman of the State Planning Commission;
The People''s Commissars of:
The Food Industry, Fish Industry, Meat and Dairy Industry, Light Industry, Textile Industry, Timber Industry, Building Materials Industry, Agriculture, State Grain and Livestock Farms, Finance, Trade, Internal Affairs, State Security, Justice, Public Health, State Control, Education, Local Industry, Municipal Economy, Social Maintenance, Automobile Transport, The Chief of the Arts Administration, The Representatives of the All-Union People''s Commissariats.

Article 84. The People''s Commissars of a Union Republic direct the branches of state administration which come under the jurisdiction of the Union Republic.

Article 85. The People''s Commissars of a Union Republic issue, within the limits of the jurisdiction of their respective People''s Commissariats, orders and instructions on the basis and in pursuance of the laws of the U.S.S.R. and of the Union Republic, of the decisions and orders of the Council of People''s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. and that of the Union Republic, and of the orders and instructions of the Union Republican People''s Commissariats of the U.S.S.R.

Article 86. The People''s Commissariats of a Union Republic are either Union-Republican or Republican Commissariats.

Article 87. The Union-Republican People''s Commissariats direct the branches of state administration entrusted to them, and are subordinate both to the Council bf People''s Commissars of the Union Republic and to the corresponding'' Union-Republican People''s Commissariats of the U.S.S.R.

Article 88. The Republican People''s Commissariats direct the branches of state administration entrusted to them and are directly subordinate to the Council of People''s Commissars of the Union Republic.

Chapter VII
The Highest Organs of State Authority of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics

Article 89. The highest organ of state authority of an Autonomous Republic is the Supreme Soviet of the respective Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Article 90. The Supreme Soviet of an Autonomous Republic is elected by the citizens of the Republic for a term of four years on the basis of representation established by the Constitution of the Autonomous Republic.

Article 91. The Supreme Soviet of an Autonomous Republic is the sole legislative organ of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Article 92. Each Autonomous Republic has its own Constitution which takes account of the specific features of the Autonomous Republic and is drawn up in full conformity with the Constitution of the Union Republic.

Article 93. The Supreme Soviet of an Autonomous Republic elects the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Autonomous Republic and appoints the Council of People''s Commissars of the Autonomous Republic, in accordance with its Constitution.

Chapter VIII
The Local Organs of state Authority
Article 94. The organs of state authority in territories, regions, autonomous regions, areas, districts, cities and rural localities (stations, villages, hamlets, kishlaks, auls) are the Soviets of Working People''s Deputies.

Article 95. The Soviets of Working People''s Deputies of territories, regions, autonomous regions, areas, districts, cities and rural localities (stations, villages, hamlets, kishlaks, auls) are elected by the working People of the respective territories, regions, autonomous regions, areas, districts, cities or rural localities for a term of two years.

Article 96. The basis of representation for Soviets of Working People''s Deputies is defined by the Constitutions of the Union Republics.

Article 97. The Soviets of Working People''s Deputies direct the work of the organs of administration subordinate to them, ensure the maintenance of public order, the observance of the laws and the protection of the rights of citizens, direct local economic and cultural organization and development and draw up the local budgets.

Article 98. The Soviets of Working People''s Deputies adopt decisions and issue orders within the limits of the powers vested in them by the laws of the U.S.S.R. and of the Union Republic.

Article 99. The executive and administrative organs of the Soviets of Working People''s Deputies of territories, regions, autonomous'' regions, areas, districts, cities and rural localities are the Executive Committees elected by them, consisting of a Chairman, Vice-Chairmen, a Secretary and members.

Article 100. The executive and administrative organ of rural Soviets of Working People''s Deputies in small localities, in accordance with the Constitutions of the Union Republics, is the Chairman, the Vice-Chairman, and the Secretary elected by them.

Article 101. The executive organs of the Soviets of Working People''s Deputies are directly accountable both to the Soviets of Working People''s Deputies which elected them and to the executive organ of the superior Soviet of Working People''s Deputies.

Chapter IX
The Courts and the Procurator''s Office

Article 102. In the U.S.S.R. justice is administered by the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R., the Supreme Courts of the Union Republics, the Territorial and the Regional courts, the courts of the Autonomous Republics and the Autonomous Regions, the Area courts, the special courts of the U.S.S.R. established by decision of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., and the People''s Courts.

Article 103. In all courts cases are tried with the participation of people''s assessors, except in cases specially provided for by law.

Article 104. The Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. is the highest judicial organ. The Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. is charged with the supervision of the judicial activities of all the judicial organs of the U.S.S.R. and of the Union Republics.

Article 105. The Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. and the special courts of the U.S.S.R. are elected by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. for a term of five years.

Article 106. The Supreme Courts of the Union Republics are elected by the Supreme Soviets of the Union Republics for a term of five years.

Article 107. The Supreme Courts of the Autonomous Republics are elected by the Supreme Soviets of the Autonomous Republics for a term of five years.

Article 108. The Territorial and the Regional courts, the courts of the Autonomous Regions and the Area courts are elected by the Territorial, Regional or Area Soviets of Working People''s Deputies or by the Soviets of Working People''s Deputies of the Autonomous Regions for a term of five years.

Article 109. People''s Courts are elected by the citizens of the district on the basis of universal, direct and equal suffrage by secret ballot for a term of three years.

Article 110. Judicial proceedings are conducted in the language of the Union Republic, Autonomous Republic or Autonomous Region, persons not knowing this language being guaranteed every opportunity of fully acquainting themselves with the material of the case through an interpreter and likewise the right to use their own language in court.

Article 111. In all courts of the U.S.S.R. cases are heard in public, unless otherwise provided for by law, and the accused is guaranteed the right to be defended by Counsel.

Article 112. Judges are independent and subject only to the law.

Article 113. Supreme supervisory power over the strict execution of the laws by all People''s Commissariats and institutions subordinated to them, as well as by public servants and citizens of the U.S.S.R., is vested in the Procurator of the U.S.S.R.

Article 114. The Procurator of the U.S.S.R. is appointed by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. for a term of seven years.

Article 115. Procurators of Republics, Territories and Regions, as well as Procurators of Autonomous Republics and Autonomous Regions, are appointed by the Procurator of the U.S.S.R. for a term of five years.

Article 116. Area, district and city procurators are appointed for a term of five years by the Procurators of the Union Republics, subject to the approval of the Procurator of the U.S.S.R.

Article 117. The organs of the Procurator''s Office perform their functions independently of any local organs whatsoever, being subordinate solely to the Procurator of the U.S.S.R.

Chapter X
Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens

Article 118. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its quantity and quality.

The right to work is ensured by the socialist organization of the national economy, the steady growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of unemployment.

Article 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.

Article 120. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.

Article 121. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native language, and by the organization in the factories, state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic training for the working people.

Article 122. Women in the U.S.S.R. are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life. The possibility of exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting them an equal right with men to work, payment for work, rest and leisure, social insurance and education, and by state protection of the interests of mother and child, pre-maternity and maternity leave with full pay, and the provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens.

Article 123. Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.[/p]

Article 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.[/p]

Article 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:
freedom of speech;
freedom of the press;
freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;
freedom of street processions and demonstrations.

These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.

Article 126. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to develop the organizational initiative and political activity of the masses of the people, citizens of the U.S.S.R. are ensured the right to unite in public organizations--trade unions, cooperative associations, youth organizations,'' sport and defence organizations, cultural, technical and scientific societies; and the most active and politically most conscious citizens in the ranks of the working class and other sections of the working people unite in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), which is the vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and is the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state.

Article 127. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed inviolability of the person. No person may be placed under arrest except by decision of a court or with the sanction of a procurator.

Article 128. The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.

Article 129. The U.S.S.R. affords the right of asylum to foreign citizens persecuted for defending the interests of the working people, or for their scientific activities, or for their struggle for national liberation.

Article 130. It is the duty of every citizen of the U.S.S.R. to abide by the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to observe the laws, to maintain labour discipline, honestly to perform public duties, and to respect the rules of socialist intercourse.

Article 131. It is the duty of every citizen of the U.S.S.R. to safeguard and strengthen public, socialist property as the sacred and inviolable foundation of the Soviet system, as the source of the wealth and might of the country, as the source of the prosperous and cultured life of all the working people.

Persons committing offences against public, socialist property are enemies of the people.

Article 132. Universal military service is law. Military service in the Workers'' and Peasants'' Red Army is an honourable duty of the citizens of the U.S.S.R.

Article 133. To defend the fatherland is the sacred duty of every citizen of the U.S.S.R. Treason to the country--violation of the oath of allegiance, desertion to the enemy, impairing the military power of the state, espionage is punishable with all the severity of the law as the most heinous of crimes.

Chapter XI
The Electoral System

Article 134. Members of all Soviets of Working People''s Deputies--of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the Supreme Soviets of the Union Republics, the Soviets of Working People''s Deputies of the Territories and Regions, the Supreme Soviets of the Autonomous Republics, and Soviets of Working People''s Deputies of Autonomous Regions, area, district, city and rural (station, village, hamlet, kishlak, aul) Soviets of Working People''s Deputies--are chosen by the electors on the basis of universal, direct and equal suffrage by secret ballot.

Article 135. Elections of deputies are universal: all citizens of the U.S.S.R. who have reached the age of eighteen, irrespective of race or nationality, religion, educational and residential qualifications, social origin, property status or past activities, have the right to vote in the election of deputies and to be elected, with the exception of insane persons and persons who have been convicted by a court of law and whose sentences include deprivation of electoral rights.

Article 136. Elections of deputies are equal: each citizen has one vote; all citizens participate in elections on an equal footing.

Article 137. Women have the right to elect and be elected on equal terms with men.

Article 138. Citizens serving in the Red Army have the right to elect and be elected on equal terms with all other citizens.

Article 139. Elections of deputies are direct: all Soviets of Working People''s Deputies, from rural and city Soviets of Working People''s Deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., inclusive, are elected by the citizens by direct vote.

Article 140. Voting at elections of deputies is secret.

Article 141. Candidates for election are nominated according to electoral areas. The right to nominate candidates is secured to public organizations and societies of the working people: Communist Party organizations, trade unions, cooperatives, youth organizations and cultural societies.

Article 142. It is the duty of every deputy to report to his electors on his work and on the work of the Soviet of Working People''s Deputies, and he is liable to be recalled at any time in the manner established by law upon decision of a majority of the electors.

Chapter XII
Arms, Flag, Capital

Article 143. The arms of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics consist of a sickle and hammer against a globe depicted in the rays of the sun and surrounded by ears of grain with the inscription "Workers of All Countries, Unite!" in the languages of the Union Republics. At the top of the arms is a five-pointed star. Socialist Republics is of red cloth with the sickle and hammer depicted in gold in the upper corner near the staff and above them a five-pointed red star bordered in gold. The ratio of the width to the length is 1: 2.

Article 145. The capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is the City of Moscow.

Chapter XIII
Procedure for Amending the Constitution

Article 146. The Constitution of the U.S.S.R. may be amended only by decision of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. adopted by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the votes cast in each of its Chambers.

http://www.soviet-empire.com
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THE PURGE

(By G. Rempel, Western New England College)

Lenin and Dzerzhinskii, not Stalin, organized the first Soviet institutions of police coercion and terror. It happened not long a after the October Revolution. During the Civil War the Cheka made widespread use of torture and execution squads to deal with counter-revolutionaries, speculators, liberal and socialist politicians, and other alleged "enemies of the people."

A large number of such ''''enemies'''' were placed in concentration camps or executed between 1918 and 1920. Under NEP such drastic methods were no longer required, but the Soviet authorities still relied on the secret police, which was known as the GPU between 1922 and 1923 and the OGPU between 1923 and 1934. The secret police was used to prevent priests, non-Bolshevik socialists, White Guardists, and dispossessed landowners and bourgeois from trying to regain for themselves some of the influence over Russian affairs that they had just lost in the course of the Revolution and the Civil War.

In addition, the Soviet state refused to tolerate work stoppages or violations of its economic regulations by kulaks, private traders, and entrepreneurs. A considerable number of such kulaks, Nepmen, and ''''instigators'''' of discontent among workers were arrested and put in concentration (i.e., ''''corrective labor'''') camps during the twenties.

The decision to collectivize agriculture and to hasten industrialization in the late twenties almost necessarily led to rapid expansion of the secret police and prison camp apparatus. The most immediate problem of police control naturally concerned the peasantry, which desperately resisted collectivization. The Soviet state not only used police intimidation, class warfare, and the army to deal with particularly serious cases of peasant resistance to collectivization but it also deported millions of members of peasant families (especially those labeled as kulaks) to forced settlements and concentration camps. As early as 1930 the rapidly growing prison-camp population required the creation of a special Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps headed by G. G. Iagoda, who had worked for the secret police since the Civil War and was soon to become the chairman of the NKVD.

The technical intelligentsia also posed a problem, for in the late twenties a large proportion of them still questioned the wisdom of forced industrialization. It was apparently in an effort to cow and intimidate such technical experts that the Soviet secret police staged the first of its famous ''''show trials'''' during the early years of rapid industrialization. In these trials, the first of which took place in 1928, a number of Russian and foreign engineers and technical specialists were tried, convicted, and, in many instances, executed for having allegedly attempted to ''''wreck'''' and sabotage the First Five-Year Plan under the orders of French, Polish, German, or British capitalists.

In almost all cases the accused were convicted not on the basis of evidence but on that of confessions obtained through torture, continuous interrogations over extended periods of time, and threatened reprisals against the wives and children of the accused. It seems to have been especially the experience gained in the course of these trials that enabled the Soviet secret police to perfect the torture and inquisitorial methods that it was to use so effectively in the ''''Great Purge'''' of the second part of the thirties.

At the beginning of the thirties Stalin still had not achieved complete control over the secret police as a reliable instrument of his own personal dictatorship. Thus in 1932, when Old Bolshevik M. N. Riutin circulated in party circles a 200-page anti-Stalin document demanding the abandonment of forced collectivization, the reduction of investment in industry, and the removal of Stalin, "the grave digger of the Revolution and of Russia," from his post at the head of the party, Stalin failed in his efforts to have Riutin shot. Indeed, the matter was referred by the secret police to higher party authorities, and Stalin experienced the humiliation of being unable to obtain a Politburo majority in favor of Riutin''s execution. At the beginning of 1933 he experienced another setback when he could not obtain from the Politburo approval of the death penalty for A. P. Smirnov, a party member since 1896, for having advocated ideas similar to those of Riutin among a small number of old Bolshevik workers in Moscow. Both episodes illustrated that there were limits beyond which many normally pro-Stalin police officials and Politburo members still were not willing to go.

The years 1933-1934 were relatively quiet and peaceful one in a decade of Soviet history generally characterized by brutal police terror and radical social and economic change. For Stalin the most trying year of that decade was certainly 1932, when the outcome of his desperate struggle with the peasantry was still uncertain and when Nadezhda Allilueva, his second wife, committed suicide after having dared to criticize him for the suffering collectivization had caused countless Soviet peasants. However, senior-level party leaders, including his former left-wing and right-wing opponents, sided with Stalin and against the peasants, while hundreds of thousands of less prominent Communists, especially Ukrainians and members of other national minorities who had shown insufficient zeal during the collectivization campaign, were expelled from the party during 1933 and the first months of 1934.

As for the peasants themselves, their will to resist Collectivization was broken after millions of them died during the terrible and man-made famine of the winter 1932-1933. Having won this major battle, certain party leaders decided that the extreme and often cruel methods employed during the period of the First Five-Year Plan were no longer necessary. In the Politburo a ''''liberal'''' faction appears to have spoken out in favor of easing pressures on the population and forgiving some of the sins of opposition leaders.

In mid-1933 Zinoviev and Kamenev were allowed to return from Siberia, where they had been sent in 1932 in connection with the Riutin affair, and (as they had already done on previous occasions) to confess their various errors. At the Seventeenth Party Congress early in 1934, party members forgot many of their previous differences and united in extravagant praise of Stalin''s leadership; but a majority of those present endorsed Ordzhonikidze''s proposal that the party should scale down the rate of economic growth projected for the Second Five Year Plan. Such a reduction in the rate of industrial growth was clearly contrary to the wishes of Stalin, who, as early as 1931, had warned against the dangers of Russia''s backwardness:
"We are fifty to a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we will be crushed."
The brief period of relaxed tension and good feeling ended abruptly in December 1934 with the murder of S. M. Kirov, the head of the Leningrad party organization and a full member of the Politburo since 1930. Kirov, a brilliant orator and an extremely popular figure in party circles, reportedly had supported Politburo ''''liberals'''' in opposing Riutin''s execution and favoring a reduction of the tempo of industrialization. Stalin may well have resented Kirov''s popularity. The circumstances of Kirov''s death, as Khrushchev remarked in his secret speech of 1956, have never been fully explained. It seems clear that the assassin, an emotionally unstable individual and a party member since 1920, could never have reached Kirov''s normally carefully guarded office without assistance from someone within the secret police. Stalin''s personal responsibility for the murder of Kirov is probable but not certain.

Stalin used Kirov''s murder as a pretext to exorcise the spirit of reconciliation and relaxation that had prevailed in party Circles during 1933 and 1934 and to create a new atmosphere of fear, tension, and terror. Stalin''s insistence in 1932 that Riutin, who had committed no crime other than that of agitating against Stalin, should be shot was one indication that he had been thinking along these lines for at least several years. In July 1934 OGPU was abolished and its functions transferred to a new police organization, the Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), headed by Iagoda, a loyal Stalinist and until then chief of the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps. This reorganized and expanded Soviet police apparatus went into action immediately after Kirov''s assassination.

In December 1934 and in January 1935 tens of thousands of people were arrested and deported to Siberia and the Arctic region. A number of people were also executed, very few of whom had even the remotest connection with the Kirov case. Included among those arrested were Zinoviev, Kamenev, and sixteen other members of an alleged ''''Moscow Center,'''' whom a special Military Collegium found guilty of ''''moral'''' responsibility for Kirov''s murder. Although the confessions obtained from the preliminary interrogations and at the public show trial were not very convincing, the 18 defendant were found guilty and sentenced to terms of 5 to 10 years of imprisonment.

Between early 1935 and mid-1936 Stalin''s agents carefully prepared for the great ''''Trotskiite-Zinoviev Terrorist Center'''' trial of August 19-24, 1936. One probable Politburo opponent of the execution of prominent old Bolsheviks disappeared when Kuibyshev suddenly died under mysterious circumstance on January 26, 1935; and the scruples of other reluctant Politburo members seem to have been overcome through a combination of persuasion and thinly veiled threats.

At the same time, Iagoda''s NKVD apparatus worked indefatigably and successfully to induce prominent old Bolsheviks to admit that they had committed treason against and betrayed the cause of Marxist revolution in Russia. One particularly effective threat used by NKVD after April 1935 was the reminder that the death penalty could be legally applied to children from ''''traitors'''''' families down to the age of 12. Others, as Khrushchev put it in 1956, were unable ''''to bear barbaric tortures'''' and ''''charged themselves (at the order of the investigative judge-falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and unlikely Crimes.'''' But all majority of the old Bolsheviks arrested between 1935 and 1938 seemed to have had sufficient strength of mind, body and character to withstand NKVD torture, threats, and uninterrupted interrogations well enough to be rejected as unsuitable material for display at the public show trials that were staged during this period.

Between 1936 and 1938 an estimated 850,000 members, or 36% of the total membership, were purged from the party. The exact fate of these hundreds of thousands of party members is not known, but it is certain that all large proportion of them perished in Concentration camps. Well-known and veteran Communists were particularly vulnerable to brutal treatment by the NKVD. Of the 1956 delegates to the Seventeenth Party Congress (the so-called ''''victors'' Congress'''') of 1934, a majority of 1108 were arrested on charges of counterrevolutionary activities.

According to Khrushchev, 98 of the 139 members and candidate members of the Central Committee elected by this same Congress were shot. Special efforts were made by the NKVD and public prosecutors to discredit old Bolsheviks who had stood close to Lenin at the three great show trials held between August 1936 and March 1938. In the first of these trials, that of the ''''Trotskiite-Zinoviev Terrorist Center,'''' Kamenev, Zinoviev, and 14 others confessed either fully or partially to having conspired with Trotskii to assassinate party leaders and were found guilty and shot.

Between the first and the second trials NKVD chief Iagoda incurred Stalin''s displeasure by failing to display proper zeal and persistence in pressing charges against the Chairmen of the Council of People''s Commissars Rykov and party theoretician Bukharin. In Sept. 1936 Iagoda was replaced by N. I. Ezhov, whose first important victims consisted of a mixed group of economic administrators and one-time supporters of Trotskii. They were accused of having attempted to carry out a conspiracy organized by Trotskii and by German and Japanese Fascists to ''''wreck'''' the Soviet economy and overthrow the Soviet government.

Tried and found guilty as the ''''Anti-Soviet Trotskiite Center'''' in January 1937, 13 of the accused were shot and 4 received prison sentences varying between 8 and 10 years. Most noteworthy among the accused was the assistant to Heavy Industry Commissar Ordzhonikidze, G. L. Piatakov. Ordzhonikidze, who attempted to save the life of this man whose organizational talents had been an important factor in the development of Soviet heavy industry during the thirties, either committed suicide or was murdered by the secret police in February 1937.

During the period of more than a year that separated the second and third major show trials, Stalin and Ezhov purged the army of its best officers and the NKVD of Iagoda''s closest associates. At the same time, they conducted mass terror against the entire Soviet population, paying particular attention to such groups as professional people, national minorities, priests, the Komsomol, and the families of alleged ''''enemies of the people.''''

It was only toward the latter part of 1938 that the number of those in concentration camps reached its maximum of a probable 8 to 10 million. But as early as the summer of 1937 the Soviet urban population lived in constant fear of being denounced by malicious neighbors or empty-headed chatterboxes, which usually led to arrest and deportation to the arctic region or Siberia. Once in a concentration camp their chances for survival were not good. The annual mortality rate in these camps seems to have been in the neighborhood of 20 per cent during the years Ezhov headed the NKVD. Ex-NKVD chief Iagoda himself was arrested in March 1937, and 3,000 of his most trusted former NKVD assistants reportedly were executed in the course of that same year.

In May and June the arrest of Marshal Tukhachevskii, who more than anyone else was responsible for the development of the Red Army into an effective fighting force, and of other senior-level military officers followed that of Iagoda. Charged with espionage and treason on the behalf of foreign powers. Tukhachevskii and the other military ''''conspirators'''' were tried by all special and secret court, found guilty, and shot. Tukhachevskii and his immediate associates denied these charges; and the only ''''real'''' evidence to establish their guilt was all falsified dossier that had been planted with the NKVD by the German Gestapo.

Their execution marked the beginning of all general purge of the army that was to eliminate 3 of the 5 marshals, 14 of the 16 army commanders, and approximately half of the 70 to 80,000 men in the entire officer corps. Needless to say, this purge necessarily had an extremely deleterious effect on the effectiveness of the Red Army''s military leadership.

The third great trial, that of the ''''Anti-Soviet Bloc of Rightists and Trotskiites,'''' took place in March 1938 and involved party theoretician Bukharin, ex-chairman of the Council of People''s Commissars Rykov, former NKVD chief Iagoda, and 18 others. On this occasion the accused were not only charged with having carried out espionage for Germany and Japan and with conspiracy against the leaders of the USSR but also with having planned in the past the murder of Kirov, Lenin, Maxim Gorkii, and others. In regard to Iagoda, it is of course possible that some of the charges may have contained more than a grain of truth.

On the other hand, Rykov and Bukharin probably acted with all clear conscience when they denied their complicity in murder plots and espionage; but they admitted--apparently in an effort to protect their families or out of loyalty to the party--their general responsibility for the various crimes allegedly committed by the ''''Anti-Soviet Bloc of Rightists and Trotskiites.'''' At the trial all 21 of the accused delivered one form or another of all confession for the prosecution and, on this basis alone, were found guilty. Three of the defendants received sentences of 15 to 25 years; the others, including Bukharin, Rykov, and Iagoda, were sentenced to death.

In the latter part of 1938 the Soviet leadership decided to lessen the intensity of the purge in the army and party and to reduce the rate of inflow of new prisoners into concentration camps. By that time the uncontrolled expansion of the forced labor and settlement camps (which then contained approximately 10 per cent of the total Soviet labor force according to one estimate) and the decline of morale in the party and army made the continuation of Ezhov''s extreme methods seem undesirable.

In December 1938 Ezhov was replaced as NKVD head by L. P. Beria, all Georgian party official and servile flatterer of Stalin; in February 1939 Ezhov disappeared from the scene and died or was shot at an undisclosed later date. Under Beria the number of mass arrests declined, and many people in prison or awaiting trial were released.

Terror was, however, by no means abandoned as an instrument of political rule; indeed, four of the six executed members of Stalin''s Politburo perished between 1939 and 1941. Ezhov''s former NKVD associates and additional party and army figures were also purged during these years, and many ordinary citizens continued to be arrested. But the number of concentration camp inmates declined during 1939-1940; it again climbed after 1940 as millions of Poles, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Germans, and other non-Russians were deported to the Soviet Arctic region and Siberia.

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STALIN VS. TROTSKY

I. Dzhugashvili and Bronstein

Joseph Stalin, born Dzhugashvili, and Leon Trotsky, born Bronstein, were the same age, and both had been from early youth members of the Russian Social Democratic party. As dedicated Communists, they had common basic outlook: they were philosophical materialists, committed to the unity of theory and practice and bent upon spreading Communism throughout the whole world. While Lenin was alive (at any rate until 1922) both men had a secure place in his favor and therefore in the party as a whole. Since 1917, at least, Trotsky had supported Lenin on the main issues and seemed to have more of his candor and flexibility than Stalin. However, as Lenin sickened and died, the mutual antagonism between Trotsky and Stalin, who had never been compatible, deepened into a life-and-death struggle.

A. Stalin

It is difficult to compare the later lives of the two men, for Stalin achieved sole power and Trotsky was exiled. Since Trotsky thus escaped Stalin''s dilemmas, it is uncertain how he would have responded to them, although he detested Stalin''s rule. Stalin hated his adversary so deeply that he caused his name to be written simply "Judas Trotsky" in officially commissioned books, but he borrowed many of his ideas and methods. Their earlier lives, however, suggest something of the personal differences which were to be complicated by disagreements over doctrine and practice.
Stalin was the eldest surviving child of the shoemaker Vissarion Dzhugashvili of Gori in Georgia. Today the hut in which he was born is preserved by a temple-like structure erected over it. As a boy he attended a church school in Gori and then the theological seminary in Tiflis. Today the seminary has been converted into a museum of medieval Georgian art. Young Joseph joined a Marxist society known as Mesame-Dasi while a student at the seminary, but it is not clear whether this had anything to do with his expulsion in 1899. During the next two years his Marxism crystallized, and his first Marxist essays appeared in a Georgian newspaper in 1901. At that time he was already an enthusiastic defender of Lenin and the other orthodox Marxist exiles who published the newspaper Iskra. His literary style was not then distinguished; in fact, it never got much better.

Stalin was active in the revolutionary movement in Tiflis, Batum, and elsewhere, not as Dzhugashvili, nor yet "Stalin," but as "Koba." This meant something like "courageous" in Turkish, and it was also the name of a labeled Georgian freebooter. It is uncertain which the nickname first signified. Later he was called, indeed, practically dubbed himself, the "Lenin of the Cauccasus." However, he was not necessarily the most outstanding leader of the Caucasian Social Democrats, nor even of the Georgian Bolsheviks after the party split in 1903. The great majority of the Marxists in Georgia became and stayed Menshevik. Among the Bolsheviks Stalin was prominent, but that did not mean a great deal. Very soon after the news of the London Congress of 1903 reached the Caucasus, he took a firmly pro-Bolshevik stand, and he continued to do so in 1905. it seems that it was at the Tammerfors Party conference at the end of 1905, that Stalin first met Lenin.

After the Revolution of 1905, in defiance of the ban of the then Menshevik-controlled Party, "Koba" led "fighting squads" in raiding banks in order to augment scant Party funds. In one raid in Tifiis a squad seized ad quarter of a million rubles. This is the basis of the legend that Stalin was a bank robber. But he did not act as gunman, and he did not pocket the proceeds. He spent much of the period between revolutions in jail or in exile, but made a few important trips abroad in 1912.

By this time the Bolshevik organizations in Russia had been gravely weakened, and the Bolsheviks of the Caucasus had assumed an importance quite out of proportion to their numbers. Stalin had became editor of the Party newspaper, Pravda, and he was co-opted by Lenin onto the Party Central Committee just after the Prague conference of 1912, at which the Bolsheviks broke permanently with the other Marxist factions. He visited Lenin in exile and spent some time with him. As a result of their talks, he wrote an essay on the "nationalities question" which led Lenin to inform Gorky that a "wonderful Georgian" had done a fine job on the subject. The pseudonym with which the pamphlet was signed was "K. Stalin."

At the outbreak of World War I Stalin was in Siberian exile, sharing a hut with Sverdlov, future Chairman of the Presidium (president} of the Soviet republic, who, it seems, found Stalin an uncomradely hut partner. Stalin chose not to try to escape during the war. In 1916 he was summoned to Krasnoiarsk to be drafted but was found physically unfit for military service owing to his withered left arm. During the war period he apparently wrote next to nothing.

Liberated by the February Revolution, Stalin hastened to Petrograd and, as the only member of the Central Committee on the spot, assumed temporary leadership of the Bolshevik Party. Like almost all other Bolsheviks, he became identified with the movement for reunification with the Mensheviks. When Lenin arrived and sharply castigated such tendencies to compromise, Stalin was as dumfounded as anyone else, but he took his scolding without protest. He owed his position in the Party to the fact that he worked hard and did not argue with his comrades, especially Lenin.

B. Trotsky

Trotsky, like Stalin, was born in 1879. His real name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein. His father was a well-to-do Jewish farmer in the Ukrainian province of Kherson. He attended school in Odessa, developing an early brilliance and bookishness. He reports his observation of the composition of his class: "the tale-bearers and envious at one pole, the frank, courageous boys at the other, and the neutral, vacillating mass in the middle." He was to apply the same threefold classification to his fellow revolutionaries and fellow citizens of the Empire and the world. In his teens he went to Nikolaev, met a number of populists, became enamored of a girl in the group, and accepted the populist doctrine. Soon, however, he became converted to Marxism, engaged in revolutionary activity, and for it spent his eighteenth birthday in jail. He was exiled to Siberia but soon escaped and arrived in London in 1902 to join Lenin. In Western Europe he met another young lady. The girl from Nikolaev was known as Mrs. Bronstein, the Parisian as Mrs. Trotsky, and neither seemed to complain.

After the II Congress in 1903 Trotsky was for a time associated with the Mensheviks, but in 1905 he developed an independent doctrinal line and between revolutions belonged to neither the Bolshevik nor the Menshevik wing. In 1905 he won renown for his brief chairmanship of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers'' Deputies. During the next few years he tried to reunite the Party and for that reason refrained form trying to build a faction of his own. None of the other groups found this pose to its taste. During the years just before World War I Trotsky''s anti-factionalist stand became in effect an anti-Leninist one. After the war began he went to New York, and it was from there that he traveled to Russia in the spring of 1917. During the summer he joined the Bolshevik Party, although he clearly implied that his only reason for doing so was that the party had belatedly adopted the analysis and tactical line which he had espoused all along.

His ability and his logic did not always endear him to his comrades, but his oratorical and practical gifts did win him broad popularity among the urban workers and soldiers in late 1917 and during the Civil War. having failed as foreign commissar to put into effect his dialectical but quixotic policy of "no war, no peace," he had become war commissar, and his most brilliant success was achieved in organizing the finally victorious Red Army. As war commissar he clashed with Stalin, who ensconced himself at Tsaritsyn with some of his old friends from Caucasus days and flouted Trotsky''s authority. However, Stalin was as yet no adversary in the field of theory and policy, which Trotsky considered fundamental.

As the triumvirate took form, Trotsky was plainly the most important figure outside it. But no one regarded Stalin as the most eminent of the three. Zinoviev, especially, had an international prestige which Stalin lacked, while both Kamenev and he were regarded as theorists in a way Stalin was not--and a Communist leader had to be a theorist. As the struggle developed between Trotsky and the triumvirs, Stalin counted less on his own influence than on Trotsky''s vulnerability. He did not at first try to turn the struggle into a personal contest. An eye witness has told the story of how Zinoviev and Kamenev would snub Trotsky in Politburo meetings, while Stalin would greet him warmly

II. Trotsky Against the Triumvirate

On the eve of Lenin''s death, the Thirteenth Party Conference published, on Stalin''s motion, the decision empowering the Central Committee to expel Party members for factionalism. At the moment the leader died a new sanctity enveloped his every word and deed, including this decision, in which Lenin had taken part. Simultaneously the triumvirs decreed a new recruiting campaign, nominally with a view to strengthening the actual worker element in Party ranks. Actually Stalin, as general secretary, was able to bolster his own influence by guiding the Party machinery in selecting new members. In a few short weeks nearly a quarter of a million men and women were admitted in the new "Lenin enrollment."

At the time of the XIII Party Congress in May 1924, the economic situation was improving sufficiently to enable the triumvirs to call their critics to account. Zinoviev openly attacked Trotsky and demanded that he retract his "errors." As Stalin had only shortly before opposed Zinoviev''s demand for Trotsky''s arrest, he found it wise to remain in the background. Trotsky replied to Zinoviev with a cri de coeur which went to the root of his whole position, morally requiring him to sit passive in the face of doom:

The party in the last analysis is always right because the party is the single historic instrument given to the proletariat for the solution of its fundamental problems. I have already said that in front of one''s own party nothing could be easier than to say: all my criticisms, my statements, my warnings, my protests--the whole thing was a mere mistake. I, however, comrades, cannot say that, because I do not think it. I know that one must not be right against the party. One can be right only with the party, and through the party, for history has created no other road for the realization of what is right.

The Congress was unmoved. It promptly took steps to discipline the Russian Troskyites, as well as dissidents in the other parties of the Comintern.

A. "Permanent Revolution"

After the XIII Congress, as far as could be seen the chief antagonists were Trotsky on the one hand and Zinoviev and Kamenev on the other. In the autumn of 1924 Trotsky published The Lessons of October, in which he distinguished between objectively revolutionary situations and subjective failures of revolutionary leaders in such situations. As illustrations oft he latter, he cited Zinoviev''s and Kamenev''s opposition to Lenin''s decision to launch an armed uprising in the fall of 1917--thus reopening an extremely ugly wound--and he also implied that Zinoviev was largely responsible for the failure of the German Communist revolt of 1923.

Trotsky restated his old theory of "permanent revolution," with its emphasis on the world leadership of the proletariat and its implicit challenge to the Leninist position on the role of the poor peasantry in building socialism. "October," said Trotsky, was the crucial stage in the history of the Party. "October" meant to him the time when Lenin adopted Trotsky''s theory of permanent revolution--at least in the sense of rapid passage from the bourgeois to the socialist stage.

Trotsky had made a tactical error. By his emphasis on "October" he opened the way for Zinoviev and Kamenev to retaliate by reminding the Party again of Trotsky''s sharp disagreements with Lenin prior to 1917. Stalin''s caution had reaped its reward. Since he was not directly drawn into this controversy, he was in a position to make public statements in November which in effect forgave Zinoviev and Kamenev for their earlier mistakes--he even acknowledged some of his own--but forcefully recalled to his hearers the fact that Trotsky was, after all, a newcomer in Party ranks.

B. "Socialism in one country"

Meanwhile Stalin unleashed a new weapon, which Trotsky probably had not considered him capable of producing. He set forth a theoretical position of his own from which he could challenge Trotsky. in order to do so he had to reverse himself within the space of a few months. In Foundations of Leninism~ published early in 1924, he had denied that a proletarian dictatorship could establish socialism before the victory of the world revolution. A few months later, in Problems of Leninism, he advanced his theory of "Socialism in one country."

The theory was an innovation and a repudiation of some things which Lenin had said years earlier; but it was a perfectly logical extension of what Lenin had said and done in 1917 and later. If the Russian Communists were not to be indefinitely bogged down in the NEP state, they must push on to socialism, even if the world revolution was still further delayed. Authority for such an effort could be found in Lenin. Like Lenin, Trotsky believed the building of socialism could begin in Russia alone. But what Stalin did was to assert that it could be completed with success and to furnish reasons for his contention. Russia was an enormous country, rich in natural resources. Provided that "capitalist" intervention was not renewed, the Russian proletariat, drawing on Russia''s great potential wealth and protected by its vast spaces, could accomplish the task.

For a time, however, the theory of "socialism in one country" was overshadowed by the acrimonious personal struggle between Trotsky and the two most prominent triumvirs. In January 1925 the Central Committee removed Trotsky from the War Commissariat, even though he remained in uneasy possession of a seat on the Politburo. This was the decisive blow. Although he was still not completely crushed, Trotsky receded to the background. If he had been another kind of man, he might have tried to use the Red Army against his adversaries, but his loyalty to the Party was paramount, and he accepted his deposition without trying to resist.

Although Trotsky was defeated, Zinoviev and Kamenev soon discovered that the victory was not theirs. In March 1925 the Fourteenth Conference of the Party accepted Stalin''s theory of "socialism in one country," while Zinoviev and Kamenev paid little attention. Soon afterward Stalin was able to break up the triumvirate quietly. Too late Zinoviev and Kamenev attacked Stalin''s new theory. By the middle of 1925 he had found new allies in Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky, who accepted "socialism in one country." Far from yet aspiring openly to individual power, Stalin chose to be regarded as a mediator, and he asserted that "after Ilich [Lenin]" collegial--or what would later be called "collective"--leadership was the only conceivable way of running the party.

III. Stalin allied with the Right

Rykov had become Lenin''s successor as chairman of the Council of People''s Commissars. Tomsky was the leader of the Soviet trade-unions. Bukharin, the "Left" Communist of 1918, was now, like Rykov and Tomsky, on the "right" and the leader of those who felt that the NEP was a success, and while indeed socialism might be built in Russia, the ground was secure and there was no great need for haste. Zinoviev and Kamenev, on the contrary, were profoundly uneasy about the continuation of the NEP, but they had been abruptly thrust into the minority. In the autumn of 1925 Zinoviev published his Leninism, attacking NEP as a policy of "continuous retreat," and demanded a renewal of the "policy of 1918" directed against the kulak. Zinoviev managed to use his position in Leningrad to rally the powerful Party organization there to is support, in opposition to the new Politburo majority.

Zinoviev and Kamenev tardily recognized Stalin as the man from whom they had most to fear and carefully prepared an attack on him for the XIV Party Congress, to be held in December 1925. However, the plan completely miscarried. Kamenev, who spoke most sharply in criticism of Stalin at the Congress, was punished by demotion from full member to candidate member of the Politburo. As reconstituted just after the Congress, the Politburo had three new full members: Molotov, Voroshilov, and Kalinin, all loyal henchmen of Stalin''s. Stalin also added several supporters to the list of candidate members of the Politburo and to the newly enlarged Central Committee.

Shortly before, Voroshilov had replaced Michael Frunze, who had been named Trotsky''s successor but had died soon afterward, as war commissar. Stalin had established a formidable position of strength within both Party and government. Leningrad remained the only stronghold of resistance, and Stalin followed up his victory at the XIV Congress by sending Sergei Kirov to replace Zinoviev as Party leader there, ordering him to clean out the opposition.

Only then, in the spring of 1926, when the supporters of all three had been scattered, did Zinoviev and Kamenev make common cause with Trotsky. Stalin''s reaction was, "Ah, they have granted themselves a mutual amnesty"--since a few short months earlier they had been bitterly attacking each other. The three were united enough in their opposition to continuance of the NEP and the "alliance with the middle peasantry" on which it was based; but their past personal antagonisms made their alliance an uneasy and incongruous one.

In the meantime the Right wing oft he Politburo was championing the NEP and all that it implied. Bukharin advised the peasants, "Enrich yourselves,'' which was a phrase Guizot had used under the French monarchy of Louis Philippe, whatever Marxist glosses might be given it. At the XIV Congress Bukharin had set forth the basis on which he accepted Stalin''s theory of "socialism in one country": "We shall creep at a snail''s pace, but...we are building socialism and ... we shall complete the building of it." This amounted to a frame of mind to which the NEP idea was congenial, rather than something uneasily and temporarily accepted for tactical reasons.

For the time being, however, Stalin was less concerned about policy than with getting rid of his enemies in the Left Opposition led by Zinoviev and Trotsky, which was not hard for him to do. In July 1926 Lashevich, a Zinovievite who was Voroshilov''s deputy war commissar, was accused for organizing oppositionist groups within the Red Army and was dismissed. Stalin seized the opportunity to expel Zinoviev from the Politburo. On October 4 all the major opposition leaders replied with a statement admitting violation of Party statutes and pledging disbandment of the opposition, but they could not refrain from repeating their policy criticisms of the Politburo majority.

Stalin''s reply was to remove Trotsky from the Politburo and Zinoviev from the presidency of the Comintern. However, lesser figures in the opposition leadership were allowed to recant and to obtain well-publicized rewards fro their submission. At the end of October 1926 the Fifteenth Party Conference sanctioned all these maneuvers and applauded Stalin''s description of the opposition leaders as "Social Democratic" deviators who were reverting to the line of the Second International.

By the beginning of 1927 the Left Opposition had thus lost any immediate hope of success, but its leaders were not yet silenced. Trotsky and his colleagues attacked the Politburo for "Thermidorism, degeneration, Menshevism, betrayal, treachery, kulak-nepman policy against the workers, against the poor peasants, against the Chinese revolution," as the Stalinist writer Popov sums it up. The opposition leaders were able to blame the Politburo majority for a series of foreign setbacks: Britain''s rupture of diplomatic relations with the USSR, the assassination of the Soviet ambassador in Warsaw, and especially the crushing of the Chinese Communists by Chiang-Kai-shek.
In an article submitted to Pravda, Trotsky climaxed opposition criticism by calling on his adherents to follow the example of Clemenceau (who had opened the way to take over as French premier by attacking his predecessor''s failures in World War I) in case war engulfed the USSR (a prospect taken seriously by the Communists in 1927). However, advocating a change of government was dangerous in the Soviet Union. If, as all good Communists agreed, the existing regime represented the proletariat, then any move to change it was bound to be anti-proletarian and therefore treasonable. For that reason Stalin promptly engineered the expulsion of Trotsky and Zinoviev from the Central Committee. After the two men led street demonstrations on the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution (November 7, 1927), they were expelled from the Party.

The way was now clear for Stalin to oust the opposition from the Party en masse. The XV Congress, in December 1927, decreed as much. It might have been expected that Stalin''s tactics would have drawn his opponents together, but on the contrary, the result was that they were neatly split down the middle. Trotsky refused to accept the Congress decision and was thereupon exiled to Alma Ata in Central Asia. But Zinoviev and Kamenev submitted and renounced their earlier-stated views. They were permitted to crawl back into the Party.

IV. Trotsky Defeated
As far as the Soviet Communist Party and the Comintern were concerned, the controversy between Stalin and Trotsky was now at an end. The followers of Trotsky left what they henceforth called "Stalinist" ranks and attempted to build their own parties and organize them into a Fourth International. The dispute shook and divided the Communist parties throughout the world as no such controversy before or since ever did (the immediately ensuing struggle between Stalin and Bukharin had fewer repercussions abroad, for it seemed to center on the peasant, for whom most Communists never had any use).

By 1927, however, Trotsky and his sympathizers had given up any immediate hope of overcoming Stalin''s ascendancy from within the Russian Party. They declared that a "bureaucracy" had come to power in the USSR, and that it must be eliminated. This assertion was difficult to explain on Marxist grounds, unless it were to be on the basis of Marx''s analysis of Oriental society, and the Trotskyites shrank from that. Since Trotsky continued to believe that a distorted socialism still existed in the USSR, it was also difficult to think of any way through which the Stalinist leadership could be displaced without disturbing the economic foundation. As a result the Trotskyites had to retreat into a position comparable to that of the prewar Social Democrats, opposing all existing governments and declaring that there could be no basic improvement unless they took power. They never managed to do so anywhere.

The rank and file of the world''s Communists had little chance to observe the personal differences and antagonisms between Stalin and Trotsky, and supported one or the other on the basis of his theoretical position. The differences may be briefly formulated thus: Trotsky declared that it was impossible to build socialism in Russia because the peasants did not want it. That it would only be possible to do so if the workers of the West revolted, and he was right. Stalin declared that it was impossible to wait for the Western workers to revolt before building socialism, because they were not likely to revolt in the immediate future. Therefore socialism could be built in Russia only if the Party used the peasantry, and he was also right.

However, that the Western workers were not Communist, Trotsky could never admit. He could only assert that they would be soon. The Russian peasants were not Communist, Stalin could never admit, but he could try to compel them to be. As a result Trotsky retreated into utopianism, while Stalin proceeded to establish a minority dictatorship built on terror.

Materials taken from : http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/russia/lectures