CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: THE KEY ROLE OF SECRETARIAT IN STALIN'S VICTORY

CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: THE KEY ROLE OF SECRETARIAT IN STALIN'S VICTORY. Contains: the key role of the secretariat, struggle for power at all levels, Stalin's measures applauded, deception and passive resistance,

1. HISTORY CAMBRIDGE A2 (PAPER 4)
PRESENTATION 7
STALIN MODULE
THE KEY ROLE
OF SECRETARIAT
IN STALIN’S VICTORY

2. POWERPOINT BASED ON
Niels Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power: The Role of Stalin’s Secret Chancellery
in the Soviet System of Government, 1978
Lynch, Stalin’s Russia 1924-53, Chapters 1 and 2
Harris, Stalin - a new history
Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed, Trotsky: 1921–1929, pp. 88–118

3. THE KEY ROLE OF SECRETARIAT
The Secretariat did play a key role in Stalin’s victory over the Left and
Right Oppositions in the 1920s, but not in ways that we have traditionally
understood it. The Secretariat was an exceedingly blunt instrument of
political struggle. It was barely able to manage its bureaucratic functions,
including the assignment of cadres to key posts.
There is no evidence to suggest that the fact of appointment was the
basis for a special relationship between senior officials and Stalin. Stalin
could not automatically command the support of officials in leading Party
and state organs. The Secretariat did, however, provide Stalin with an
invaluable source of information on the needs and concerns of senior
Party and state officials.

4. STRUGGLE FOR POWER AT ALL LEVELS
In particular, the correspondence of the Secretariat shows that these
officials were anxious to put an end to the factional conflicts of the 1920s.
Factional conflict, in the sense of a struggle for power, had not been
limited to the Politburo leadership.
The creation and expansion of the new Soviet state had provoked
struggles for power at all levels. Out of the relatively loose order of the
Bolshevik underground, a new structure of power was created, and the
conflicts among officials and new institutions were severe.
Leading officials faced constant challenges from subordinates, and the
conflicts among Party leaders in Moscow only exacerbated them.

5. STALIN’S MEASURES APPLAUDED
In the early 1920s, the Secretariat was charged with bringing order to the
bureaucratic chaos and the General Secretary was in a unique position to
take advantage.
Stalin’s measures to limit ‘Party democracy’ were welcomed by
institutional leaders, who were thus freed from the challenges that almost
inevitably arose when policy was openly discussed.
His measures against the ‘Oppositions’ were similarly applauded — and
aggressively implemented — because they opened the door to the
repression of their own rivals.
In this sense, Stalin’s rise to power was made possible by the active
collusion of leading Party and state officials.

6. DECEPTION AND PASSIVE RESISTANCE
Though Stalin provided security of tenure to Party secretaries, his actions
did not guarantee him votes in Central Committee plena and Party
Congresses. The secretaries did not passively submit to directives.
They had their own agendas of which they were aggressive advocates.
Of course, they could not speak out against the ‘Central Committee line’.
They had seen to that. But in the early 1930s, when central policy headed
in directions disturbing to them, deception, foot dragging, and other
forms of passive resistance became a fact of political life.
Stalin could no longer be confident of his control of a Party apparatus that
was indeed populated with ‘double-dealers’.

7. This picture of Stalin’s
insecurity, reinforced by
evidence from recent
document collections,
challenges fundamental
assumptions about the
nature of political power
in the 1930s.
In spite of years of
relatively free archival
access, we have a long
way to go before our
assumptions are placed
on more solid empirical
ground.