Krishna
Soviet Russia occupied many countries originally of people with different languages and religious beliefs. Buddhist temples were also part of it. Stalin’s father was a cobbler and his mother a washerwoman and a seamstress. He initially joined a seminary in Caucus and studied to become a priest. After the first world war, the German kaiser was deposed. Russia’s two powerful neighbouring empires, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires had both disappeared.
In addition, in this delightful book, we learn that Napoleon was born the second of eight children in Corsica. Now, Corsica was annexed only the year before his birth by France (from Genoa) which enabled Napoleon to attend a French military school and gradually rise to the pinnacle of power later. The plebian Adolf Hitler was born in Austro- Hungarian empire and relocated to Munich ‘just in time to enlist in the imperial German army for World War I.
Version 1.0.0After the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, he was arrested and thrown in jail but the judge, ignoring the applicable law, chose not to deport the non-German citizen. (He chose German citizenship later, in 1932, just one year before becoming Chancellor and starting on his dictatorial regime of The Third Reich).
Stalin too was born in Georgia but it was annexed already by Russia and so he was indisputably considered Russian. But his ascent to power was aided by many historical accidents, including the many strokes and early death of Lenin in 1924. And Stalin’s birth name? Soso Jughashvili.
Stalin’s vilage of Batum and Baku were ravaged by smallpox and other (then fatal) diseases that killed many of his neighbours but left him alive. The 1905 failed socialist revolution produced an investigation and many extrajudicial killings of the then communist leaders but left Stalin untouched!
He also cuckolded many comrades before his ascent to power – none managed to kill him in revenge.
Britain was then the preeminent power in the world. The eulogistic phrase ‘the sun never sets’ was first applied to the Spanish Empire and borrowed for British, and it stuck. But even though French (Napoleon) was defeated and China’s Qing dynasty declined. Two other powers emerged. One was Bismark’s unification of Germany and the rise of Meiji power in Japan.
Two Germans exercised great influence over Russia. Bismark as a threat and Karl Marx as inspiration. Bismark himself was an interesting figure. He was a country squire from a Protestant Junker family. He was a solid drinker and womanizer. He had had no administrative experience as late as 1862 – he had been ambassador to France and Russia. But he had risen to the Chancellor’s position in just less than 10 years.
He divided his enemies and crushed Denmark, Austria and France in mini wars. Personally, he was not imposing. He did not possess a strong voice or self confidence in speaking and did not spend much time in public! He was a consummate strategist though, with many balls up in the air at one time, politically speaking.
It is surprising that young Stalin had a misshapen body but a great intellect. He was also a mischievous boy. Stalin’s parents were poor and were serfs.
Russian conquest of the Caucus – at the expense of the Ottoman Empire – was slow and brutal and included mass expelling of indigenous people so that Slav peasants could occupy the lands. This assimilation of the Caucus is what enabled Stalin to be born a Russian citizen. Georgia’s Christian rules, battling both the Muslim Ottomans and the Muslim Safavids invited Christian Russia’s protection, in effect become a vassal for the Tsar, and were formally annexed soon after (1801 – 1810). While Georgia was subjugated thus, the ‘Russian’ administration overwhelmingly employed Georgians who were favoured as fellow Christians over others.
Stalin’s father Beso married a young and pretty girl. Both were serfs. Four years into marriage, when the bride Keke was just twenty, Ioseb (the future Stalin, Ioseb being Joseph) was born. When you do the math, it turns out that she married when she was 16 (and Beso, eight years older, was 24). Well, he was really the third child to the couple but since the first two did not survive, he was the eldest surviving son. Ioseb was nicknamed ‘Soso’
When he was a young boy, momentous events were transpiring in Europe. Germany in French Versailles, founded The Second Reich. In Japan, the Shogunate of Edo (later Tokyo) was overthrown and the old deposed emperor reinstated. His dynasty took the name Meiji (meaning ‘Enlightened Rule’). The USA was just emerging from the Civil War.
Stalin was scarred by small pox and carried a pockmarked face. He was also struck by a horse drawn carriage gaining a limp. His hand was somewhat useless. But he was eager of mind and learnt by himself (an autodidact).
Stalin was compared to Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. Thanks to that we get glimpses into the life of both. We learn that Ivan’s father died when he was three and the mother when he was seven. Even though he was the royal heir, the caretakers treated him cruelly, making him beg for his food. He saw murders committed in his name by his oppressors and feared for his life. He developed cruelty as a shield. Cut of wings of birds and threw cats and dogs off the balcony when he was still very young.
Peter’s father died too when he waw four. His life was threatened thereafter by the warring factions of the father’s two wives. Stalin was travelling towards priesthood for himself!
Tbilisi in Georgian means ‘warm place’ because of the hot springs found there.
Stalin discovered Marxism under the tutelage of Lado. Georgia was known in Russian as Gruzia and mention of even the name in Russian publications was banned as there was ‘no Georgia’ according to Russia – only two provinces as a part of Russia.
Hitler, meanwhile moved to Germany from Hapsburg empire and learnt German. He too proclaimed an intention to become a priest, but aspired to be an artist. Hitler did badly in the technical school his father forced him to and passed (barely) and moved back to Vienna in 1905 where he failed to get admitted to art school. He lived a bohemian existence, selling watercolours and eating into his inheritance money (His father had died by then).
And slowly, Stalin learnt of the struggles of the newly ’emancipated’ peasants and turned to socialism. Then, by the help of some former classmates in the seminary, he was converted to Marxism. At all times, he aspired to be the leader in whatever small group he was operating in and was very domineering. His friendship even depended on whether he got his way with the other person or not.
Interestingly, even before the idea of socialism or Marxism, there existed communes of farmers who helped out each other (and so shared the spoils) during hard times for one. The idea of communism was just an extension.
Russian empire under Tsar was ripe for revolution since many were upset. It started with Peter the Great. Even though Peter reformed the administrative state, he centralized all power in his hands and did not even delegate as he did not trust his own government. He labelled himself Emperor and thus got Russia used to an autocratic government. He loathed the west and used it as a technical source – but he westernized Russian thought. So Russian elite lived at the pleasure of the sovereign and therefore never experienced individual liberty or power to defy the authorities.
In the name of preventing the world powers like Britain and France carving up China as they did Africa, Russia built a trans Russian railway that went right through the Chinese territory of Mongolia to Vladivostok.
Meanwhile, Japan, though poor was rising as a military power. It was exporting consumables (albeit within East Asia) and also rapidly building up its navy. Japan had already defeated China in a war over the Korean peninsula and had also seized Taiwan. While creating contingency plans in the event of a Japanese threat, the ruling circle of Russia belittled “tha asiatics” as easily conquerable.
Russia and Japan both claimed Manchuria (occupied by Russia) and Korea (by Japan) as their own and suspicious about different voices speaking different things from Russia and not believing the negotiations to clear the impasse, Japan struck and sank several Russian naval ships, to the profound shock and sorrow of Russia and personally, Tsar Nicholas II.
When workers tried to present their complaints peacefully to the Tsar, led by an orthodox priest, they were shot at and several killed! The Tsar himself was away. This reduced the remaining credibility of the Tsar.
Strikes spread all over the empire.
As Stalin was rotting in political and financial wilderness, Nicholas II the Tsar, got rid of the one man who was striving to bring order – out of jealousy. Stolypin was dismissed, and later assassinated and the chaos became complete.
Lenin comes across as a wily manipulator, gaining control for his Bolshevik faction in the Communist hierarchy over rival factions. Lenin gained control of the entire Central Committee (using the absence of the main Menshevik faction) and nominated 18 of the 20 posts to his faction, including the exiled Jugashvili (Stalin).
We learn that Benito Mussolini, born to a poor artisan and who was named for a Mexican revolutionary, also was a master of manipulation. Benito relocated to Switzerland where he worked as a casual labourer. He became leader by expelling all moderate socialists from the party.
Lenin’s real name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and he took the name Lenin from the Lena river in Siberia where he had spent his exile. When miners in Siberia protested against meager salary, horrid working conditions in the mines (flooding) and terrible food, and went on strike, the tsarist government massacred 150 of them and protests spread like wildfire all over Russia. This was 1912.
That Alexei, the crown prince had haemophilia – which prevents blood from clotting – (a genetic gift from Queen Victoria of Britain, whose granddaughter, the German Princess Alexandra brought in by marrying Nicholas II the tsar at that time) was a closely guarded secret. So the dynasty was in danger anyway with the possibility of a future king bleeding to death with an accidental injury with furniture, let alone a war. But Nicholas and Alexandra were blind to the danger even undermining Stolypin’s attempts to usher in a constitutional monarchy like Britain’s.
For an article in Pravda, he assumed the nom de plume ‘man of steel’ or Stalin.
What makes this book stand apart from other history tomes is how he places the context of world events. For example, we learn the root causes of what started the World War I. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. That part we know well from many descriptions. But this one tells you that he was the nephew to Kaiser, and since Kaiser’s own son was killed himself, Franz was the next to the throne. And recently the Ottoman empire which was declining in influence had lost Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austro-Hungarian empire! The Young Bosnia, labelled as a terrorist group was creating mayhem through minor terrorist acts and decided to murder Franz as a spectacular display and it was facilitated by advance news in the newspapers on the day, time, and exact route that would be taken by Franz Ferdinand!
We all know that all the planned attempts failed but the archduke changed his route the last minute and fell because one of the Young Bosnia group happened to be there. Even then the driver went the wrong way, unfamiliar with the new route, and stalled the car almost in front of the assassin! He killed both the Archduke and his wife, the latter bullet intended for the governer in the back seat.
The Tsar acceded to the war mainly to consolidate his power in the face of an increasingly obstreperous Duma (or the parliament) and to whip up patriotic fervour among the populace and increase in his popularity. The public hated the puppet Duma and concentration of power in the hands of Nicholas II in the absence of war.
Lenin used the First World War’s destruction to argue that capitalism had failed and led nations to immeasurable misery and destruction and only Marxism can create peace and prosperity.
The hypocrisy of the capitalist nations who were fighting for ‘democracy’ in Europe while enslaving and violently suppressing resistance in their colonies, helped Lenin establish capitalism as the scourge of subdued nations. In German controlled South West Africa, for instance, when the colonized Herroro rebelled in 1904 – 1907, suppression escalated to extermination : about 75% of the natives were wiped out by Germany. Tiny Belgium itself, in pursuit of glory and riches, enslaved, mutilated, and tortured perhaps half of Congo’s population, eighty times its own size.
It is interesting that he was a skirt chaser all his life and even in lonely Siberian exile he managed to seduce many girls, producing bastards and abandoned them all – the girls and the children.
Rasputin was trusted by the Tsar and his wife Alexandra. He was uneducated, and was born in Siberia. Unlike the Casanova-like image, he was reputed to smell like a goat from his habit of not taking baths. He was a notorious lover though, as he identified with the outlawed sect of Khylsty who taught that one ought to be ‘sinning in order to drive out sin’. He approached female singers in a restaurant end exposed his penis while striking up a conversation. Alexandra supported him, using him to get her will as ‘God’s orders’. People were afraid of him and his influence. In addition, Rasputin had convinced her that he could ‘cure the crown prince’s haemophilia”.
In 1916, Rasputin was assassinated and his mutilated body was found floating in an icy river.
The revolution that followed is portrayed well. People protesting were machine gunned and seemed to back down but the next day crowds gathered again and even some police went to the side of protesters and it was all over within hours.
Meanwhile, a Marxist faction is waiting for communism to take root via socialism first and so do not want a revolution. Stalin initially supports it, to the fury of Lenin in exile, but comes around to Lenin’s views eventually. He becomes the editor of Pravda.
Nicholas II abdicates and a provisional government takes over. Lenin returns but Kerensky, another Marxist, becomes the war minister. The soldiers during WW I are demoralized and the desertion rate reaches 18%! The new government makes a lot of bad decisions.
First, they decide to continue aggression against Germany. The reason is twofold – they think Germany has been fatally weakened and will not survive another winter. Since Russia wants a say in the post war discussions, they want to make a good show until then and so invade Germany! Second, the high rate of desertion is bad for the army’s morale and fighting will bring back some discipline.
Lenin turns on his propaganda machine that accuses the government to ‘sacrifice Russian soldiers’ lives for the moneybags in France and England’. German propaganda also echoes the views so that the soldiers are thrown into doubt. They are aghast that the same government preached against the decision of Nicholas II for an offensive, and now that he is gone, want to follow the same policy? There is confusion all around.
The offensive happened and Russia was tore into by Germany which advanced deep into Soviet territory, occupying Ukraine. Kerensky was politically finished and Lenin’s views were accepted as ‘not extremist but practical’. Even the intellectual Trotsky signed up for Lenin’s view.
Trotsky’s real name was Lieb (or Lev in Russian) Bronstein and he was another Ukranian. He became a revolutionary and was arrested and thrown in Siberia. He adopted the surname of one of his jailors and became Lev Trotsky. He then escaped to London, where he met Lenin. He castigated Lenin but later agreed to join his party – surprisingly enough.
The coup where the Bolshviks seized power is well told. However it is interesting to see that while Stalin worked from inside Russia, until the last minute, Lenin was hiding out in Finland.
Lenin precariously hung to power for quite a while and now demanded that Russia surrender abjectly to Germany. He won the day but Russia lost a huge amount of territory to Germany in the ‘surrender’ deal and was subject to a huge humiliation. Trotsky who has forcefully argued for delay tactics that made the terms of defeat worse, had to resign as a foreign minister.
Lenin and his Bolshevik faction had to evacuate from St Petersberg to Moscow fearing a total rout by the Germans who were still advancing relentlessly, conquering everything in their path!
Once in Moscow, they occupy Kremlin, the house Catheine the Great had built in Moscow for the residence when he came over from St Petersberg. Moscow was a sleepy little town, dirty and dilapidated because of the war.
Nicholas, his wife, the crown prince Alexei (who was only 13 at that time) and even younger daughters were first imprisoned and later massacred without trial by a paranoid Lenin fearing monarchist’s plot to resurrect the tsar – with no evidence. This was done secretly and their bodies were disfigured by acid to remove any possibility of identification later and buried in unmarked plots of earth.
In abject surrender, when the British landed on Russian soil, Lenin made a deal with the Germans giving up Latvia and Lithuania to them for protection. He was also facing a rebellion that he was sure would end the Bolshevik regime even as it started!
Lenin was short of guards and when he went to address a party meeting, on his way back into the car was shot and was bleeding profusely.
In order to retain their precarious control, the Bolsheviks unleashed ‘Red Terror’ massacering 6185 summary executions as they themselves boasted.
It is interesting that the Treaty of Verseilles, so punitive on Germany, also created the country Czechoslovakia, as proposed and surprisingly agreed to, by Austria, a losing side in WW 1
Also, even if the terms were punitive, there was no enforcement on Germany or its ally, Russia. USA went back home; England withdrew, satisfied. France had not the resources for enforcement. This is one thing that allowed both Russia and Germany to grow strong. Russia was even excluded from the peace conference with the result seen as a ‘cook up’ by the winning powers and thus as illegitimate.
Germany’s pariah status and difficult penalties would drive it into Russia’s arms initially, as both struggled to rebuild their countries after the devastating war.
What is also shocking is the historical events in Europe that were inspired by the brief success of communists in Russia. In January 1919 a worker revolution featuring an armed uprising was joined by the newly formed communist party of Germany but was crushed ruthlessly. Its leader, one Karl, was assassinated by a right wing nationalist militia. Next was a State Republic declared in Bavaria, later taken over by the communists. They released the prisoners, formed a Red Army and told Lenin in a letter that they had won in Bavaria. Lenin was delighted. 30, 000 soldiers from Germany crushed the newfound republic. More than 1000 leftists were killed and the leader, Eisner was assassinated by a ring wing extremist. That was the end of it.
Italy also saw communists fomenting trouble and organizing mass strikes, factory occupations and in some northern cities, political takeover too. In response grew a right wing movement called fascism – cue Benito Mussolini some years later.
In Hungary, a Soviet Republic was declared by Bela Kun, a communist. Encouraged by its success, Lenin crowed that ‘before the year [1919] was out, the whole of Europe will be the Soviet”. A reign of terror unfolded in Hungary. Priests, churches, manor houses and the gentry came in for brutal attack. They formed a Red Guard and Kun attempted a similar coup in Vienna.
Disappointed that Mother Russia did not send an army to help, Kun anyway invaded Czechoslovakia to reclaim Slovakia and invaded Romania to reclaim Transylvania. But it all failed, and the communists resigned in August 1919. Kun himself fled to Vienna.
Romanian forces entered Hungary and instituted its own White Terror against the leftists and Jews, killing at least 6000 in cold blood. A right wing dictatorship would take root with the leaders of the remaining population after Romania plundered and withdrew.
Stalin meanwhile constantly plotted to undermine his rival Trotsky at every turn but it was Trotsky who rushed to the Bolshevik’s defense when three White Armies marched towards Moscow and it at one point seemed destined to crumble. He was given the Order of the Red Banner and inexplicably, Stalin received one too, on the same day.
Trotsky was arguably the cause of saving the Bolshevik empire during the Whites rebellion but he did not garner greater fame than Stalin. His insistence on absorbing former tsarist officers from nobility created resentment among the Bolsheviks which Stalin ruthlessly fanned and exploited.
In the period between the two World Wars interesting things happen. First, Germany and Russia sign a secret treaty to trade with each other at lower tariffs (like the latter Most Favoured Nation status) and also military cooperation. Russia goes through severe famine where people are forced to eat poisonous roots, rats, dogs, cats and even human flesh to survive.
Unfortunately, this book falls prey to what a lot of other books ‘that could have been great but are not’ do. Descend into trivialities. It describes in soporific details the politics and power struggle that ensues after Lenin suddenly becomes incapacitated. I understand that this is a historical account and deserves telling as it happened but what happened to summarizing some events to keep the tempo? The book suddenly reads like a completely different book of dry historical events narrated with no attempt at all at keeping the reader awake. What a pity!
The only thing of interest in the 50 odd pages of blather is that Stalin fondly imagined a revolution in Germany that would make it communist – and thus open the door for a Communist Europe – and funded a rebellion which fizzled out badly.
Lenin dies in 1024 and Trotsky is vilified and outgunned by Stalin, whose power became absolute and who completed building a personal dictatorship inside the communist regime.
The rise of fascism is described well. Benito Mussolini in 1922 had just won 35 out of the 500 seats in the Italian parliament but was demanding to be made Prime Minister. He threatened to march on Rome if denied, with his black shirts known as squadristi. They were lightly armed and their numbers were vastly exaggerated. King Vittorio backed off from the threatened confrontation, thus Mussolini gained from a colossal bluff of armed conflict. On the contrary, the army, even the pope thought ‘Mussolini should be given the chance to restore order as an antidote to the left’.
It was all show and Mussolini was invited and became Prime Minister. He was just thirty nine years old then. He won the next election by a landslide, surprising even himself probably. When Giomo Mattiotti claimed the election was won by fraud, he predicted his own death, which was fulfilled when he was bundled into a car and murdered by fascists just eleven days later after he had made his speech. There were huge anti Mussolini protests but the King refused to dismiss him, and the opposition walked out, giving Mussolini all the power to do as he pleased!!
He immediately outlawed all parties except the fascists and curbed the press. A fascist party card was a prerequisite for employment in universities and schools. He also started calling himself duce.
The Russian communists falsely thought that Fascism was a kind of Socialist order. Meanwhile, Soviet counterintelligence was growing. They broke European codes so that they could read telegrams sent from Moscow embassy to Germany, England, and later, Poland. The British broke Soviet codes later.
Mongolia was the one country to have undergone Communist takeover and so USSR (by then formed as a federation by Stalin) gave all the help it could, while pulling strings to influence the internal affairs.
Germany, smarting under the punitive restrictions after WW I was helped by Russia to evade some sanctions by building arms and training in Russia and helped in turn with industrial knowhow and also promise of technology transfers. This is how Germany and Russia grew close together before even WW II.
Where the author shines is in the geopolitical context. For instance, Germany was trying for a rapprochement with the Western powers, much to the chagrin of Russia, which first tried to instigate a communist revolution within Germany and when that failed, tried to get Germans to help them make armaments. Germany was reluctant lest it be seen as an anti British move, whom they were trying to please. They offered just a neutrality pact with Russia which said that if any outside country was to attack either, the other would remain neutral. This survived until Hitler, as you may remember.
We learn that Romania too acquired a fascist government, in fact the third largest after Germany and Italy, in the 1920s.
After Japan annexed Korea, eastern Russia was flooded with feeling Koreans, especially in Vladivostok region. Russia started worrying about Japanese spies masquerating as Korean refugees in its own soil.
After a further dose of blather about internal politics (and how Trotsky was outmaneuvered and expelled by Stalin from the Politburo) the book turns to internal Chinese politics of that era and the book gets fascinating again. (Yes, I know it will turn drab after this, but at least let us enjoy the parts that are good!)
The empire crumbled and a republic was created in 1911. But chaos ensured,. In Peking (as it was known then), the capital, a quasi-government was formed. It was internationally recognized but the nationalists, from a party called Kuomintang, tried to woo the lower orders and set upa rival government in Canton. And the Soviets meddled and created the Chinese Communist Party. In the first meeting, fifty three party members attended, among them a nondescript member from Hunan called Mao Zedong). Soviet advisors helped it grow exponentially and also helped set up a hierarchical party unlike the amorphous blob it was.
Neither Kuomintang nor the Communists were a mass party then. Sun Yat Sen, the founder of Kuomintang invited the Soviet Communists for Red Army’s help. (The Chinese Communists were cooperating with Kuomintang to form a government, as a bulwark against Japanese aggression). The Chinese military was formed and trained by the Soviets as well.
The Soviets funded the Chinese Communist party and Kuomintang both, showering them with money and weaponry.
Chiang Kai Shek was a protege of Sun Yat Sen and after he died of liver cancer in 1925 (he was 58), Chiang won the battle for succession of Kuomintang. Due to successive occupations (first by the brutal Japanese occupation and then the British) the Chinese communists, like the Nationalists of Kuomintang, were more into anti imperialism than the class struggle of the Marxist philosophy.
Lenin and Stalin supported the Communists cooperating with the nationalists to capture the government and then subvert from within. While covering Soviet aid, Chiang distrusted the communists and arrested communists in military including the Soviet advisors. He wanted to break up and dissolve all trade unions.
Russia kept giving support to Chiang even as he started openly massacring communists in Shanghai. He also captured secret Communist documents about how they will take over China at the right time. Stalin was roundly criticized for his mistakes in China.
Contains some gems but you have to go through a lot of detailed boring administrative trivia (in my opinion of course) to get to it.
Do not regret reading it, but I don’t think I was enthralled.
5/10
— Krishna