Soviet Russia

334 Pages·1947·31.763 MB·English

by  David J. Dallin

SOVIET RUSSIA
BY
DAVID DALLIN
J.
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH SHAPLEN
REVISED
AND
ENLARGED EDITION
NEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1947
Copyright, 1944, 1947, by Yale University Press
REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form
(except by reviewers for the public press),
withoutwrittenpermission from the publishers.
THE AMASA STONE MATHER
MEMORIAL PUBLICATION FUND
The present volume is the twenty-second work published by
the Yale University Press on the Amasa Stone Mather Me-
morial Publication Fund. This Foundation was established
August 25, 1922, by a gift to Yale University from Samuel
Mather, Esq., of Cleveland, Ohio, in pursuance of a pledge
made in June, 1922, on the fifteenth anniversary ofthe gradua-
tion of his son, Amasa Stone Mather, who was born in
Cleveland on August 20, 1884, and -vyas graduated from Yale
College in the Class of 1907. Subsequently, after traveling
abroad, he returned to Cleveland, where he soon won a recog-
nized position in the business life of the city and where he
actively interested himself also in the work of many organiza-
tions devoted to the betterment of the community and to the
welfare ofthe nation. His death from pneumonia on February
9, 1920, wasundoubtedly hastened by nis characteristic unwill-
ingness ever to spare himself, even when ill, in the discharge
ofhis duties orinhis efforts toprotectandfurtherthe interests
committedto his care by hisassociates.
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
A
real and durableresolution oftheincreasinginter-
national tensions can come only from Russia, in the
No
shape of an internal transformation. other solu-
tion would be stable. Unless the political system in Russia
undergoes fundamental changes, the ups and downs in the
relationship of the powers will continue and the trend to-
ward a new war will become stronger. Some conflicts will
be resolved but new ones will arise. Some problems will be
worked out, butnewones will take theirplace. Thestate of
armed peace or, rather, armedarmistice, with allits inherent
dangers and the inevitable bloody ending, will continue.
Eitheran internal transformation of Russia’s political sys-
tem will prevent a war, or a war will lead to an upheaval in
Russia. Another war would certainly mean a gigantic de-
feat for her; in the course of such awar much more would
be buried than Sovietism and Stalinism. From such a war
Russia would emerge divided into several states, surrounded
by hating nations, pushed far back into the East, im-
poverished and drained of blood. It would be a terrible and
tragic ending of a great and glorious revolution.
This is the dilemma. To the world the solution of it
means peace or war. To Russiait means peace or defeat and
degra—dation. It is up to the people of Russia to choose the
road ^thepeople, butnotthe officialleadership.Theleader-
ship is committed to a political line which for decades has
not varied essentially, despite zigzags and compromises.
This leadership, with all its realism and cynicism, is walk-
ing blindfoldtoward a deep abyss, because it is committed
to follow a prescribed course. Itis unable to travel aroad of
peaceful evolution and it cannot change its nature.
A
fresh proof that it cannot and will not change was
supplied during the last war years when hopes had risen
high, in Russia as well as abroad, that the Moscow govern-
ment had entered the road of a gradual transmutation, that
vi The Real Soviet Russia
the oldideashadbeendiscarded andthat, withvictorywon,
the rigid internal system would be liberalized. In Russia
the conviction was widespread that everything would
change after the war, that there would be no going back to
the old oppression, and that the first days of peace would
meanthe dawn of anewfreedom.
This was only an illusion, a bitter self-delusion. The
ideological retreat made by the Soviet regime during the
war proved to be a well-calculated maneuver, and democ-
racy merely a convenient slogan. A new purge, or rather a
combinationofseveral purges, begunin the summerof 1946
is intended again to streamline everything and everyone
into a new “Socialist offensive” to compensate for the tem-
porary wartime retreat. The mechanism is again being
tightened.
An icy wind blows anew from the East. It extinguishes
the firstray of hope thathas been cherishedby intellectuals
and peasants, by workers and prisoners, and last but not
least,bymanyaSovietArmyleader. “Socialistoffensive” on
the march inside Russia always means an irritation of
Russianrelationships with the world abroad. Sovietinternal
poUcies and foreign policies are insolubly tied together, as
theywere during the last period ofprerevolutionary Russia.
The cement that bound Russia with the West was called
Adolf Hitler. With his disappearance and with his empire
smashed, hatred above everything else animates the Soviet
leadership’s attitude today toward the democratic world.
In order to understand andforesee the foreign policies of
the SovietGovernment one must understand Soviet domes-
tic policy. The two are opposite sides of the same medal.
Only by studying the general concepts dominating Soviet
activityathome, the established social relationships, and the
direction of internal political development, is it possible to
comprehend Soviet foreign policy and avoid the naive and
dangerous mistakes which have occurred so frequently dur-
ing the last years.
New
Preface to the Edition vii
AppreciationisexpressedtoGeorgeDenickeandVladimir
Zenzinov,authoritiesinthefieldofinternationalliteratureon
Russia, for their substantial help in the preparation of this
book. To Dr. N. M. Jasny I am indebted for advice and
factual material on Russian economy; to Professor Alfred
Vagts for valuable help on the difficult problem of war
casualties. Much labor was devoted by Mrs. Tillie Klorman
and the late Joseph Shaplen in helping to shape the literary
form of this book. The staff of the Slavonic Division of the
NewYorkPublicLibrarygavemeinvaluableaid. Thecharts
were prepared by Alexander DaUin and drawn by W. C.
Kirkwood.
11
CONTENTS
L “Klyukva”
I
IL The So-calledEvolution of Communism 15
TheRevolutionIs NotYetEnded 20
The State Does NotDie 3
Stalin and His PartyintheWar 37
Marxism-Leninism in the War 43
AftertheWar 50
IIL The Devil’s Name Is Trotsky 53
IV. The New Religious Policy 68
V. The Soviet Concept of Foreign Policy 91
“Suspicion” and “Mistrust” 95
Wars Will Be Inevitable 10
Peaceful But Aggressive 104
VI. TheNewSocialStructure 108
More Inequality! 109
“Socialism Is Inequality” 115
TheMeltingPotandtheNewSocialClasses 118
Industrial Expansion on Communist Lines 123
ThePopulationProblem 129
VII. The New UpperClasses, L Their Rise 137
Communism and the Intelligentsia 139
FluctuationsinPolicy 142
A Strange Amalgam 148
RapidIncrease 154
TheLeviathan 158
VIII. The New Upper Classes, IL TheirFuture 163
Rigid Hierarchy 163
Vague Programs 166
The CommunistPartyandtheIntelligentsia 70
1
21
X The Real Soviet Russia
Standards ofLiving 173
FutureDevelopmentandDifferenti_at_ion 175
IX. The Working Class 179
WhyNo Labor MovementinRussi_a? 183
The Standard ofLiving 188
The Workers and the Communist Party 196
X. The Peasantry 203
“Right” and “Left” Communism 203
The Kolkhoz 209
OldWineinNewBottles 21
The “Millionaires” 216
TheCommunistPartyintheVillage 217
TheWar andAfter 219
XI. Forced Labor 227
LaborasanInstrumentofCorrection 23
The First Labor Camps 235
Successful Development 239
The Five-Year Plans 241
TheNetworkofLaborCamps 249
XII. The CommunistParty of the Soviet Union 263
Lenin’s Party ' 268
MoldingtheParty 270
Stalin and His Party 275
The RealParty 279
TheKomsomol 283
XIII. The Army and the Secret Police 291
XIV. AfterTHE War 301
Sources
314
Index 321
THE REAL SOVIET RUSSIA
I
“KLYUKVA”
Foreigners have been discovering Russia in recent
yearswiththesamerapturewithwhichColumbusdis-
covered America. Nearly every month some intrepid
traveler, having exchanged the edict of the King of Spain
for the credentials of an American newspaper, and the
wooden Santa Maria for a winged Douglas, produces a
weighty book, containing the results of his observations in
Russia. This literary output has created a very sizable li-
brary. Theauthors arehonest, decentfolkwho often donot
know either the language or the country; who today are in
India, tomorrow in Tierra del Fuego, and, in between, in
Moscow; and who invariably try to be nice to the powers-
that-be in each country. For this reason, because of their
energy, American speed, and desire to combine whatever
objectivity they possess with “hot news,” they produce
books, some of them called scientific, some political, which
would justify the Russian people in exclaimingin horror, as
do the Indians in a certain operetta, when Columbus comes
ashore, “Woe to us, we are discovered!”
A
Suchisthefate ofRussia. certainFrench traveler, upon
visiting there a century ago, was intrigued by a plant which
the Russians called klyukva, a cranberry plant used in the
manufactureofapopularbeverage.Klyukvagrowsonsmall,
lowbushes.ButuponhisreturntoFrancethenotedexplorer
relatedhowhedrankteaw—ithRussiangrandees“sousI’ombre
d’unklukvamajestueux” underthe shade ofamajestickly-
ukva. His report provokedlaughter in Russia, and the word
“klyukva” came to beused as signifying a certainkind of ri-
diculous misinformation.
The Real Soviet Russia
2
Asanexamplewemayciteayoungjournalistwho triesto
be objective, butwhoapparentlyneversawwomenworking
He
in either American or Russian industrial plants. reports
thatinRussia “thewomen areneitherentirelymasculine nor
entirely feminine They look like a mixture of both
. . .
sexes, they are differentfrom any otherwomen.”
Anotherwriter, the editorofaNewYorknewspaper, dis-
—
covers that “the Russians rarely say ‘da’ yes; they say
”
mostly ‘da-da-da.’
One author of a widely circulated book reports seriously
the alleged fact gleaned in Moscow that “only one per cent
of the Russian people were literate before the Revolution.”
The fact is, as is well known, that the proportionwas about
40percentofthepopulationovernine years. Buthe wanted
to be obliging to the government by showing the low level
ofliteracyithadtocontendwithatthebeginningofitsrule.
Another writer, for the same reason, reveals the state of ed-
ucation in Russia as the most extraordinary in the world:
“nearly half of the people in Russia know German.” In
reality, only about 5 to 6 percent are familiarwith that lan-
guage.
One writer, having failed to grasp the Russian word for
boiled water, says it is “kippy tuck” (kipyatok)-, a photog-
rapher, having snapped the picture of a woman from Tam-
bov, explains that the city of that name is located in Siberia,
althoughTambovissevenhundredmilesdistantfromSiberia.
Another author calls Stalin’s father Illarion, although he
couldhavelearnedthe correctnamefromalmost anyperson
inthestreet.
In abook published in the United States by a serious and
well-known organization devoted to the study of foreign
policywe find the following bit of information concerning
the agrarian question in Russia: “By 1914 only one-third of
the peasants owned land . . . The rest were landless peas-
ants who worked as tenants or farm hands on the estates
of big land owners.” All of which is pure nonsense. The
“Klyukva”
3
percentage of landless peasants before the Revolution was
negligible, although the lot of the peasantry was not envi-
able.
Inthesamebookwelearnthat“thereareabout 00million
3
Slavs in Europe.” The actual number is between 180 and
190 million.
A
good many people are familiarwith the “white nights”
enjoyedbyLeningrad,locatedinthesixtiethdegreeofnorth
latitude. But a lady journalist, having visited only Moscow,
and having heard something about “white nights,” informs
herreadersintheUnitedStatesinklyukvastyle: “Thewhite
nights of Moscow is a phrase that Muscovites have used for
centuries, but with the war it has taken on another mean-
ing.”
In general, geography and history suffer most. Take the
German town of Tilsit, for example. In October, 1943, a
newspaper in Virginia published this: “In the course of the
lastcenturies many a conference took place in Russia which
decided the fate of Europe: the Tilsit conference of
1807 .”
. .
The system of limited free enterprise reintroduced in
1921 in Soviet Russia was abolished about five years after
Lenin’s death (1924). But a military pubhshing house de-
clares in a book that “when Lenin felt that the movement
toward Socialism could proceed, he abandoned the NEP.”
The same book offers the following gem of historic lore
bearing upon events of 1917: “When Lenin saw that the
revolution might become a democratic or bourgeois revolu-
tion he joined with Trotsky in violent action. Qvil war
ensued.”
It is strange that all such nonsense is written mainly with
respect to Russia. No one writes that Manchester is in Ire-
land or Lyons in Belgium; that the Germans do not say
“ja” but “ja-ja-ja,” and that the Italians are all illiterate.
Careful verification offacts is obligatory for all other coun-
tries.Whyisthe exceptionmadeforRussia?