CHAPTER 3 1906-1907: CONFIRMING LEGITIMACY Believing himself more deserving of a leadership role than Lenin, after Stockholm Djugashvili felt a need to shape an independent identity which would confirm his legitimacy as a leader of the revolutionary proletariat. Consequently, in 1906 and 1907 documenting his leadership qualities, authenticating his proletarian standing, and creating a new hero-identity for himself became important concerns for Djugashvili. One shortcoming as a leader that Djugashvili felt was his lack of mastery of theory or, rather, his lack of a reputation as a master of theory. In What Is To Be Done? Lenin had stated, A man who is flabby and shaky on questions of theory is not a revolutionary, but a wretched amateur!" 1 To prove himself a professional revolutionary hard, not flabby the practical activist took the plunge into the waters of theory. The day after his What Is To Be Done? appeared, Djugashvili began serial publication of Anarchism or Socialism? an extended work in which he strove to win his spurs as a theoretician. 2 It was in its chapters that Djugashvili described his father the failed cobbler who had become a proletarian. Publication of the full work was not completed until April 1907. In analyzing Anarchism or Socialism? Philip Pomper has detected a passage in which he thinks Djugashvili had himself in mind. Only a few pages into the piece, Djugashvili wrote that Anything in life which is born and grows day after day is invincible, its progress cannot be checked. This is to say, for example, if the proletariat as a class is born and grows day after day, no matter how weak and small in numbers it may be today, in the long run it must triumph. Why? Because it is growing, gaining strength and marching forward. On the other hand, whatever in life is growing old and advancing to its grave must inevitably sustain defeat, even if today it represents a titanic force. 3 Pomper perceptively interprets these lines as reflecting Djugashvili s unshakeable faith in himself or his chosen people the proletariat. 4 This is true enough. But there is broader
2 import to Djugashvili s words, which may best be understood in the context of the challenge to Lenin s leadership implicit in his article of the previous day. Because Djugashvili s conviction that the proletariat will be victorious no matter how weak it may be today expresses a candid assessment of his own momentary position and his personal self-confidence, then it follows that his forecast that whatever in life is growing old and advancing to its grave must inevitably sustain defeat, even if today it represents a titanic force reflects his thinking about Lenin. It was fitting for Djugashvili, who earlier had envisioned Lenin as a giant, to see him now as a titanic force to be fought and, of course, defeated by the young but invincible true-proletarian hero. And it is hardly surprising that Djugashvili thought of the older man as advancing to [his] grave : only the day before he had affirmed his duty to dig a grave for the leadership role of bourgeois democrats. Such wishful fantasies were a natural outgrowth of the frustration felt by the embittered young Georgian who was unable, in reality, to mount a challenge to Lenin s dominance. Aspiring heroes need heroic names, and in signing his What Is To Be Done? on June 20 Djugashvili gave himself one: Koba. It was the name of a hero created by a popular Georgian novelist, A. Kazbegi, whose books appealed greatly to nationalistic Georgians suffering under the Russian yoke in the latter decades of the nineteenth century and offered readers especially youthful ones imaginary heroes and victories to sustain and inspire them. Typical of Kazbegi s heroes, the fictional Koba, an outlaw in a world ruled by craven exploiters, embodied a simple but deeply held code which exalted steadfast and disciplined loyalty to one s group, constant vigilance against the ever present threat of being betrayed to one s enemies, and patient determination at any cost to avenge victims of treason and oppression. Of course, he ultimately triumphed. Strongly drawn to the character, Djugashvili had used Koba s name since adolescence, but taking it as his Party nom de guerre endowed it with greater significance as an expression of his political persona. We may suppose that it expressed his loyalty to or oneness with the
3 proletariat and its cause, his determination to take vengeance on those who oppressed or betrayed the proletariat, and his certainty of prevailing in the long run. The Koba identity, Pomper points out, prepared Stalin for a revolutionary career. 5 Fittingly, the newly renamed Koba gave his new journalistic enterprise the title New Life, which like What Is To Be Done? he stole from the revolutionary Lenin of pre-tammerfors days. 6 Beside attesting to Djugashvili's new life as a revolutionary, his "Koba" identity also seems to have expressed his sense of being an outsider, an outlaw, apart both from Russian society and after Stockholm also from the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). Alienation from the Party is evident in Koba s maiden article of June 1906, What Is To Be Done?" With the bad taste of Stockholm then still very fresh in his mouth, he appears to have wanted to avoid even stating the name of the Party. Nowhere in the article did he mention the RSDLP, directly or indirectly. Of the recent Party Congress or its decisions he said not one word. When he specified the duty which lay ahead, it was not the duty of the Party but rather our duty. 7 Koba s first published words envisioned a triumphant popular revolution led by true and determined proletarian heroes who, he added parenthetically, should be Social Democrats rather than by the Social Democratic Party, commanded by bourgeois intellectual waverers who had failed as leaders in 1905. For him, starting a New Life meant breaking with the past. But actually making a new life as a hero was more difficult than proclaiming one. However deeply Koba was alienated from the Party, bolting from it was not a viable course of action. He had no choice, organizationally or ideologically, save to remain in Russia s only Marxist party. Troublesome, too, was his alienation from the man who had served both as his model hero and the authority who had legitimized his own militancy. Standing alone against both a hostile Party and his former hero, Koba needed reassurances that his stand was right. One source of support, albeit short lived, was his fellow Georgian militant and ally at Tammerfors, the worker-activist G. P. Telia, who, though several months younger
4 than the 27-year old Koba, died in March 1907. In a memorial tribute, 8 Koba described his friend, a former domestic servant and carpenter, as a man of irreproachable character and inestimable value for the Party who personified the best features of the proletarian. Attributing to Telia amazing capabilities, inexhaustible energy, independence, profound love for the cause, heroic determination and apostolic talent, Koba concluded that Men like Telia are encountered only in the ranks of the proletariat, only the proletariat gives birth to heroes like Telia, and the proletariat will take revenge on the accursed system to which our comrade, the workingman G. Telia, fell victim. Despite a promise to avoid excessive eulogy and to say only what is true, Koba clearly idealized Telia, thereby attesting to his friend s importance as a source of validation and support. Though their lives were not identical, the mourner strove to liken Telia to himself. As Koba described him, Telia was born in poverty in a Georgian village, had become a Marxist organizer-agitator, led a mass demonstration in Tiflis, been hunted by the police, written for Brdzola (a Georgian socialist paper), set up an underground printing plant, been confined in Kutaisi prison, become a Bolshevik after reading Lenin s What Is To Be Done? and One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, attended the Tammerfors Conference, and written on the subject of anarchism versus socialism all of which Koba himself had done. But Koba had not been a worker, as Telia had been; though a child of poverty, his own claim to proletarian status was vicarious. 9 In likening the workingman G. Telia to himself, then, Koba was attempting to authenticate himself as a real member of the working class. 10 Men like Telia are encountered only in the ranks of the proletariat, Koba said, and only the proletariat gives birth to heroes like Telia. Stalin needed to be recognized as a true proletarian. Perhaps no one understood this better than his old Georgian colleague Yenukidze, who in a brief reminiscence in 1930 ascribed to Stalin a proletarian background and a uniquely effective way of relating to workers. 11 But the importance to Stalin of being associated with real proletarians is nowhere clearer than in remarks he himself made to workers during a visit in 1926 to the
5 Tiflis railroad workshops. Offering to give a true picture of what I was formerly, and to whom I owe my present position in our Party, he remembered that Comrade Arakel said here that in the old days he regarded himself as one of my teachers, and myself as his pupil. That is perfectly true, comrades. I really was, and still am, one of the pupils of the advanced workers of the Tiflis railroad workshops I recall the year 1898, when I was first put in charge of a study circle of workers from the railway workshops I recall the days when in the home of Comrade Sturua, and in the presence of Djibladze (he was also one of my teachers at that time), Chodrishvili, Chkheidze, Bochorishvili, Ninua and other advanced workers of Tiflis, I received my first lessons in practical work. Compared with these comrades, I was then quite a young man. I may have been a little better read than many of them were, but as a practical worker I was unquestionably a novice in those days. It was here, among these comrades, that I received my first baptism in the revolutionary struggle. It was here, among these comrades, that I became an apprentice in the art of revolution. As you see, my first teachers were Tiflis workers. Permit me to extend to them my sincere comradely thanks. I recall, further, the years 1907-09, when, by the will of the Party, I was transferred to work in Baku. Three years of revolutionary activity among the workers in the oil fields steeled me as a practical fighter and as one of the local practical leaders. Association with such advanced workers in Baku as Vatsek, Saratovets, Fioletov and others taught me what it means to lead large masses of workers. It was there, in Baku, that I thus received my second baptism in the revolutionary struggle. There I became a journeyman in the art of revolution. Permit me to extend my sincere comradely thanks to my Baku teachers. 12 Certainly Stalin calculated his words to present himself in politically useful lights. For example, he went on to credit the guidance of my great teacher, Lenin, in helping him become a revolutionary master workman in 1917. 13 But the foremost intent of his remarks was to attest to his authenticity as a proletarian, as is particularly clear in the metaphor as apprentice, journeyman, and master workman that he chose to characterize himself. Notwithstanding the self-legitimizing purpose of Stalin s speech, it also betrays real affection for the worker-comrades of his youth, with whom he was no doubt more comfortable than with members of the privileged orders. That his sentiments were genuine is indicated by his appreciative but politically incorrect remembrance of several Tiflis workers who became prominent Mensheviks, most notably Djibladze and Chkheidze.
6 After Stockholm Koba also found kinship and support in the work of two prominent German Social Democrats, Karl Kautsky and August Bebel. For more than a year, Kautsky would serve Koba as the authority he needed. Already in 1905 Djugashvili had written favorably of Kautsky, finding his criticisms of intellectuals especially appealing, and he cited him extensively in defending Lenin s What Is To Be Done? 14 He referred to Kautsky again in early 1906 as an authority on the land issue, this time in preference to the wayward Lenin. A greater tribute came soon after Stockholm when Koba said that Kautsky and Bebel, like Bolsheviks, were revolutionary Marxists. 15 When Kautsky published an article in 1906 entitled The Driving Forces and Prospects of the Russian Revolution, Koba brought out a Georgian translation in February 1907 and prefaced the pamphlet with the claim that the views of Kautsky who he called an outstanding theoretician of Social Democracy and a great authority agreed with the positions of the Bolsheviks. Interestingly, Koba explained the Bolshevik positions by referencing Lenin, but he cited only works written before Stockholm and conferred no praise on his former hero. 16 For Kautsky, however, more words of high praise followed. 17 After 1907 Koba s enthusiasm for the German cooled; unfortunately, his writings offer no explanation why. Bebel, unlike Kautsky a man of the proletariat, enjoyed a longer favor with Koba. Several times in 1905 and 1906 the Georgian quoted and mentioned him favorably. 18 These references may take on additional meaning in view of Bebel's efforts during 1904 and 1905 against Lenin's desires to unite the divided Russian Social Democrats. 19 Between 1909 and 1912 Djugashvili repeatedly pointed to Bebel as an example of the kind of leader that the Russian working class needed to produce if it was to emancipate itself. 20 Most significant, however, is a tribute Koba wrote in March 1910 honoring the German on his seventieth birthday. 21 In language reminiscent of his eulogy to Telia, Koba noted that Only the militant proletariat could have produced a man like Bebel, virile, eternally young and eternally forward looking, and expressed admiration for Bebel s thirst for learning,
7 independence of mind, firmness of belief, moral strength, uncompromising attitude, and industry. In summarizing Bebel s life, Koba described him as a child of poverty who had lost his father when still a boy (as had Koba), then raised himself up by studying and by opposing authority, refused to forsake the struggle for socialism despite repression, and stood firm in defense of revolutionary tactics against compromisers who favored entering the Kaiser s government. Because few specific events in Bebel s life corresponded with events in his own, Koba could not establish so strong an identification with Bebel as he had with Telia, but he nonetheless managed to describe his subject s broad experiences and positions in ways suggestive of his own. As in the eulogy to Telia, his evident purpose in making this association was to cast himself as a legitimate proletarian hero, this time on a grander scale. Koba s admiration for Kautsky and Bebel may have led the Georgian to visit Germany. Interviewed in 1931 by German journalist Emil Ludwig, Stalin said that If there is one nation to which we are attracted... they are the Germans, and he claimed to have been in Berlin for 2-3 months in 1907 as well as in Dresden and Chemnitz. An experience illustrative of the German love of order that he related to Ludwig suggests that he might have been in contact with a German Social Democratic Party organization. 22 There is no evidence, however, to confirm his statements. It does seem highly probable, though, that he did at least pass through Germany in 1907 en route to and from the Fifth Party Congress, held in London in May and June. Perhaps on these occasions he stayed over in Germany hoping to meet Kautsky and Bebel or studying the workings of the German Party, or perhaps his statements to Ludwig are nothing more than exaggerated accounts of brief transits through Germany meant to suggest that he had had broad experience of European socialism. In the identity that Djugashvili-Koba was shaping for himself after Tammerfors and Stockholm, authenticating himself as a true proletarian was the most important element. By labeling his father in 1907 as a proletarian, using the pseudonym Besoshvili to
8 express identification with him, and likening the real proletarians Telia and Bebel to himself, Djugashvili was trying to paint a convincing picture of himself as a real proletarian. But he was not content just to validate his own claims. The assertions in his homages to Telia and Bebel that only the proletariat gives birth to such heroes explicitly excluded persons of privileged background from the ranks of heroes and leaders of the proletarian revolution. He also asserted this exclusionary view in his first article after Stockholm when he called upon workers to become revolutionary leaders and take the places of the privileged intellectuals who had been leading the proletariat in a less than honorable way. But though he regarded Lenin as one of the privileged leaders to be replaced and envisioned himself as the new hero-leader who would avenge the sufferings of the proletariat, he could not fully break free of the deep hold that Lenin once had had on him. The lingering power of that hold is demonstrated by his continuing high regard for What Is To Be Done?, his acceptance of its stricture that a leader must be strong in matters of theory as well as practice, and especially his mimicking its title in launching his new identity as Koba. The pre-tammerfors Lenin that Djugashvili had once imagined would continue for many years to serve as his ideal of a revolutionary leader, but after Tammerfors and Stockholm the living Lenin would rarely rise high in Djugashvili s estimation. 1 LCW, 5:466. 2 SW, 1:297-391. See also Pomper, 177, and Tucker, Stalin, 117-18. 3 SW, 1:301. Emphases in the original. 4 Pomper, 178. 5 Pomper, 160-63; on Koba and Kazbegi, see also Tucker, Stalin, 78-82; David Marshall Lang, A Modern History of Soviet Georgia (New York, 1962), 114-15; and Donald Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia (Oxford, 1994), 195-99. 6 Lenin served as an editor of the Social Democratic newspaper Novaia Zhizn (New Life) upon his return to Russia in November 1905. In the weeks prior to Tammerfors, Novaia
9 Zhizn served as the major vehicle for his views. See Vladimir Il'ich Lenin: Biograficheskaia khronika (hereafter VILBK), 12 vols. (Moscow, 1970-1982), 2:196-201, and LCW, 10:29-87. It is possible that a short article by Lenin in Novaia Zhizn on the subject of socialism and anarchism (LCW, 10:71-74) inspired Djugashvili s choice of this topic in 1906 for his first foray into theory. 7 Ra vaketot, Akhali Tskhovreba, June 20, 1906. 8 SW, 2:28-32. Emphases in the extracts quoted from this work are in the original. 9 When Stalin was about eight years old, it is probable that his father took him to work briefly at the Adelkhanov shoe factory in Tiflis; no other potentially proletarian work experience is known. The only other job of any kind he is known to have held was from December 1899 to March 1900 in a part-time clerical capacity at the Tiflis Observatory. 10 A note in Stalin s Works claims that on September 29, 1907, he delivered a speech at the grave of Khanlar Safaraliev, a workingman Bolshevik who was killed by the hired agents of the capitalists (SW, 2:425). Though no text of his remarks is known to exist, Stalin s inclusion of this note in his Works suggests that this eulogy (like the note itself) was another effort at identifying with the proletariat. 11 A. Yenukidze, Leaves From My Reminiscences, in The Life of Stalin: A Symposium (New York, 1930), 91-92. 12 SW, 8:182-84. 13 SW, 8:184. 14 SW, 1:90, 101, 112-17, 129-31, 164-68, and 173-74. 15 SW, 1:243. 16 SW, 2:1-13. 17 In March 1907 Koba described Kautsky as that outstanding Marxist and a true Marxist (SW, 2:21-22). In the summer of 1907 Koba also quoted Kautsky approvingly in attacking a Menshevik position (SW, 2:64). 18 SW, 1:185, 243, 269, 295. 19 See Robert C. Williams, Lenin and His Critics, 1904-1914 (Bloomington, 1986), 50-51, 67. 20 SW, 2:156, 213-14, 223. 21 SW, 2:206-14. 22 SW, 13:115, 124; Emil Ludwig, Nine Etched From Life (New York, 1934), 378, and Stalin, 212-13.