On Stalin's Team The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politic by Sheila Fitzpatrick

 On Stalin's Team

The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politic by Sheila Fitzpatrick is a new book by Melbourne University Press of great actuality.

In this book it is taken in consideration not just Stalin but also all that people with which he interacted with: a team who made the difference. 

Most people think that Stalin had taken largely the final decisions alone, and in part it was true: but every decision was also shared and discussed by Stalin with his team of trusted people. Which was the main difference between Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin? 

Stalin didn't want to operate alone, as the other two dictators did, specifies the author. No: he interacted largely with these trusted people: they weren't in contrapposition with him of course, but each of them occupied specific fields and with great competency.

Every issue was discussed with Stalin, who tended to organize meetings, but also informal encounters with them all.

During the decades of power of Stalin some of these members died: one, replacing a member of the team was Khrushcev.  

The final years were hallucinating and Molotov and Mikoyan saved their skin because of the death of Stalin as we will see later.

The team from a certain time at that part talked largely of the post-Stalin: also, with a certain worry. What would have happened? But the team had prepared the succession of Stalin and so the transiction after all hasn't been so traumatic: the writer underlines, for the Russian standard. 

There is to add that after Stalin's death, the team decided to remove, physically remove, Beria, because of his ambition.

Stalin was at the same time charming and cruel writes the author: Fitzpatrick defines in this biography in particular Stalin and his men, looking at the dictactor through the eyes of his own team. These people were scared and fascinated at the same time by their leader. 

Everything started with Lenin and his Bolshevik current, in grade to defeat the one created by Trosky. Lenin was one of the ones who decided for the extermination of the Romanov. He hadn't never forgotten that once the tzar had killed one of his brothers.

At that time the character of Stalin was still hidden by other people close to Lenin.Lenin had spent the years before the war in Europe, Italy as well, with other people who would have later driven the revolution with him. 

The years of Lenin weren't long. He suffered of several stroks in 1922: survived in poor conditions other two years but for sure who took decisions were the members of the Politburo, so for naming someone Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev. 

Stalin became general secretary of the party. Lenin in the while, also if infirm, tried to let know his voice: Stalin and Trotsky were the most powerful and able men, but Stalin appeared to him too rude for being secretary of the party. Once dead in 1924, what it was done was not to create factionalisms: Trotsky at the end was pretty marginalized. 

Stalin became the new leader: plenty of ego and in love with several women, his team wasn't too diversified: it was composed mainly by Russians: there was a lack of intellectuals,  and no Jews.Two of the members of the teams that we want to remember for different reasons were Molotov and Voroshilov: the second born in Ukraine in a very poor family, worked in the Donbass mines when he was 10 years: at 15 years worked in a factory and when 17 joined the Revolutionary movement and then the politician career. Trotsky and his men continued during the years an opposition but there wasn't anything to do: Trotsky was forced to leave forever Russia for Turkey: although the country loved a lot was Germany, Germany refused to help him.

Once Trotsky over, it was clear something: that that men had an immense power in their hands. Just them. And Stalin so thought that a revolution was the best thing to do: it was in fact necessary to build a socialist system in the shortest possible time, accellerating also the process of industrialization.

Anyway, problems for Stalin and his team were different ones: in 1928 grain although aboundant fell fall below expectations.

Stalin in a trip in Siberia concluded that the only thing to do was to use the force to get the grain out of the villages. It was the beginning of strong repressions that meant the forced collectivization: for the peasants it means less and less money but forced grain deliveries.

If people tried opposition, they were deported. Five million of peasants during this period were deported. The State fought also against priests. They were massively arrested. This battle started in 1928 ending up only 5 years later. Being pretty firm in this battle, the rest of the team fell admired for their own leader. The process of industrialization necessary because Stalin felt a lot of competition with the western part of the world.

Exportation of grain became an important voice in Russia. Of course there were people who tried to sabotage Stalin: if Stalin had problems with peasants, priests, in the cities, the main problems were intellectuals.

Ukraine gave problems and there was a certain embarassment in taking strong measures against engineers seen as that part of bourgeois not loved by people because Kaganovich thought that the central government of Ukraine could be considered too lax. 

But internal problems for Stalin were also others: some of the people of his team, the right part, started to protest, and simply Stalin couldn't permit it.

Anyway, later after the Cultural Revolution, Stalin searched the most students, Communists, proletarians.

The chapter three maybe it is the most beautiful one because describes Stalin and his men privately: what they loved to do in their free time, sports, etc, their wives, children and much more.

In the while, in the Soviet Empire during the 1930s celebrations passed also through the reintroduction of uniforms and decorations and a new folklore associated to Stalin was borning: several foreign intellectuals fell fascinated by him. 

An example? H.G. Wells who wrote that he hadn't met any other man more decent and honest: although the big, great and good impressions received Wells anyway remained skeptical regarding the repression and violence used in Russia. This success with a lot of reporters, intellectuals of the Western countries had been lived very well and with suprise by Stalin and the rest of his team, considering the sense of inferiority felt with foreigners when they had to deal with them.

Plus Stalin and the team didn't speak at all any foreign language and it meant a lot to them. Stalin tried, but strangely didn't learn any language fluently. He did some short trips in Western Europe, but brief moments that couldn't make a great difference. Something that must be signaled: the languages that Stalin would have wanted to learn included esperanto as well. 

Spies and fear of them were a problem for Stalin and the others, diffident of that west part of the world that they didn't know too much and that they considered sometimes hostile: the problem became serious when Polland spied Ukraine during the years of the famine like also the idea of attacks from foreigners countries.

When some members of the team had to attend cures,treatments, they went in western countries like Switzerland, Stalin included, sometimes: these visits in the west part of the world had to be approved.

Western journalists sometimes were considered spies, but there is also to say that Stalin and his team were also affectionated to most of them and they wanted to do good impression: an example is the Paris Exhibition of 1936: everyone was impressed by Russia and its talents!

Stalin of course continued to feel a lot of competition against the West, desidering the collapse of that system because of its own contradictions, loved to saying. 

In 1935 Russian grain in doubt for Italy because of the Abyssinian war. Stalin said speaking about Italy and France vs. Germany and England: " The stronger the quarrel between them will be, the better for the USSR. We can sell grain to both of them, so that they can quarrel. It's not in our interest that now one of them beats the other. It's in our interest that their quarrel is as long as possible, but without a quick victory for one or the other." 

Russia tries its best for being an integral part of Europe. For example with the Spanish Revolution. An intellectual wrote to Stalin: it was necessary an anti-fascist organization.

Another beautiful initiative organized was the Congress of the Defence of Culture in Paris in June 1935, attended by Foster, André Gide, Aldous Huxley, Bertold Brecht, Walter Benjamin, with Russian writers as Isaac Babel, Ehrenburg and Boris Pasternack, in this case a non-communist one.

Plus European intellectuals were invited in Russia to see "The Soviet Experiment" and a lot of them afforded there. George Bernad Shaw, as remarked in the book by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky Countries that Don't Exist by Columbia Press, appreciated Stalin a lot; then to Russia also the sisters Webbs, André Gide, Paul Robeson from the USA. Most of these intellectuals remained enchanted by what they saw, and by the same Stalin, so, apart a critic, and the removal of the final part of the work by the Webbs, at first: Soviet Communism: a New Civilization? (became Soviet Communism) inviting intellectuals of other countries who didn't know the Communism was a big success.

Stalin would have continued to be a patron of intellectuals, writers and artists.

Internally, Stalin had to cope in the 1930s with the great purges, that meant a moment of great tension in the country. Not just unknown people were arrested, but also personal friends of Stalin's team, and no one survived in the Trotsky family remained in Russia: also the first wife of Trotsky was killed. Oh, in the while Trotsky was now in exhile in sunny Mexico.

Time passed by and the last World War was approaching. If at first Russia looked with curiosity at what was going on, then seeing that certain territories of their interest were under the lenses of Hitler, they decided to enter in war. It was a brutal war, but at the end Russia and USA became the most powerful winners and the world became  divided in two blocks: one democratic and another one, Communist.

Molotov started to be known and appreciated after the second world war conflict. Many russian politicians travelled in the world for being known; Stalin did it, as well.

If the members of teams didn't speak any foreign languages, they tried to give a best education to their own children although results not always exceptionals. 

In 1945 the first heart attack of Stalin, and the first discussion on succession, something that, naturally soon or late would have happened. Stalin, with the years tended to spend always much more time in the South of the Soviet Empire because sick: he was also becoming old. When Novikov, an Ambassador of the USA, returned to the USA, told that Stalin was ageing and that these big responsibilities on his shoulders became too many. Personal tragedies and his loneliness didn't pay. 

He became irrational, requesting things that couldn't be done for the good of the country: no one listened to him and so he gave up, understanding maybe that he was weak. There was a very dangerous heavy attack in 1952 against Molotov and Mikoyan considered too close to the USA. There was great panic. These members and friends tried their best to meet Stalin again but, simply, the leader was losing his mind and considered with a certain hate also people of his own family!

The end of Stalin created the condition for the beginning of a new era marked by Khrushchev.

I personally hadn't read any books on Stalin, like also I haven't read any books on Hitler, Mussolini or other dictators, but I admit that I really enjoyed reading this book. Written taking in consideration the point of view of Stalin, first of all it was possible thanks to the author, to investigate his existence, his choices, in decades crucials for Europe and Russia. Plus, I found absolutely urgent the reading of this book because of what we are experiencing. In part I modified my schedule because of the European war that we are experiencing. The understanding of countries, their thoughts, can create the possibiliy for a return to a frank dialogue.  

I am so sorry with you Melbourne Univeristy Presss for the long delay but reading a pdf with the big heat we experienced was impossible. I will absolutely accept next time the physical copy! 

Highly recommended book! A book for everyone, clear, simple.

Anna Maria Polidori