MOLOTOV: Lenin, of course. He was severe. In some cases he was harsher than Stalin. Read his messages to Dzerzhinsky. He often resorted to extreme measures when necessary. He ordered the suppression of the Tambov uprising, that everything be burned to the ground. I was present at the discussion. He would not have tolerated any opposition, even had it appeared. I recall how he reproached Stalin for his softness and liberalism. “What kind of a dictatorship do we have? We have a milk-and-honey power, and not a dictatorship!”
CHUEV: Where is it written that he reproached Stalin?
MOLOTOV: It was in a small circle among us.
Here is a telegram from Lenin to a provincial food commissar in his native Simbirsk in 1919: “The starving workers of Petrograd and Moscow are complaining about your inefficient management…. I demand from you maximum energy, a no-holds-barred attitude to the job, and thorough assistance to the starving workers. If you fail, I will be forced to arrest the entire staff of your institutions and to bring them to trial…. You must immediately load and send off two trains of 30 cars each. Send a telegram when this is complete. If it is confirmed that, by four clock, you did not send the grain and made the peasants wait until morning, you will be shot. Sovnarkom Chairman, Lenin.”
I remember another case. Lenin had received a letter from a poor peasant of Rostov province saying that things were bad with them, that no one paid any attention to them, the poor peasants, that there was no help for them and that, on the contrary, they were oppressed.
Lenin proposed the formation of a group of “Sverdlovers [adults from Sverdlov University]….” Lenin directed this group to go to the place in question and, if the report was confirmed, to shoot guilty parties right then and there and to rectify the situation.
What could be more concrete? Shoot on the spot and that’s that! Such things happened. It was outside the law, but we had to do it…. Lenin was a strong character. If necessary, he seized people by the scruff of their necks.
CHUEV: They say that Lenin had nothing to do with the execution of the tsar’s family in 1918, that it was a decision of the local authorities following Kolchak’s attack…. But some people say it was revenge for Lenin’s brother.
MOLOTOV: They make Lenin out to be a crank. They are small-fry philistines who think this.
Don’t be naive.
I think that, without Lenin, no one would have dared to make such a decision. Lenin was implacable when the Revolution, Soviet power, and communism were at stake. Indeed, had we implemented democratic solutions to all problems, this would surely have damaged the state and the party. Issues would have dragged on for too long and nothing good would have come of this sort of formal democracy. Lenin often resolved critical problems by himself, on his own authority.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 107-109
Stalin was one of Lenin’s most trusted comrades, and was often Lenin’s first pick for dispatching to critical hotspots during the civil war. Even post-war, he remained a close confidant.
The log of Lenin’s activities during this time (May 25-Oct. 2, 1922) indicates Stalin to have been the most frequent visitor to Gorky, meeting with Lenin 12 times; according to Bukharin, Stalin was the only member of the Central Committee whom Lenin asked to see during the most serious stages of his illness. According to Maria Ulianova, these were very affectionate encounters: “Lenin met [Stalin] in a friendly manner, he joked, laughed, asked that I entertain him, offer him wine, and so on. During this and further visits, they also discussed Trotsky in my presence, and it was apparent that here Lenin sided with Stalin against Trotsky.” Lenin also frequently communicated with Stalin in writing. His archive contains many notes to Stalin requesting his advice on every conceivable issue, including questions of foreign policy. Worried lest Stalin overwork himself, he asked that the Politburo instruct him to take two days’ rest in the country every week. After learning from Lunacharsky that Stalin lived in shabby quarters, he saw to it that something better was found for him. There is no record of similar intimacy between Lenin and any other member of the Politburo.
After obtaining Lenin’s consent and then settling matters among themselves, the triumvirate [Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev] would present to the Politburo and the Sovnarkom resolutions that these bodies approved as a matter of course. Trotsky either voted with the majority or abstained. By virtue of their collaboration in a Politburo that at the time had only seven members (in addition to them and the absent Lenin, Trotsky, Tomsky, and Bukharin), the troika could have its way on all issues and isolate Trotsky, who had not a single supporter in that body.
Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1993, p. 464-466
Until the end of 1922, Stalin’s relations with Lenin were extremely close. From the end of May until the beginning of October in that year, Stalin visited Lenin at Gorky 12 times, more often than any other person. As Lenin’s sister Maria wrote to the Presidium of the Combined Plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of July 1926:
“Lenin valued Stalin very highly…. Lenin used to call him out and would give him the most intimate instructions, instructions of the sort one can only give to someone one particularly trusts, someone one knows as a sincere revolutionary, as a close comrade…. In fact, during the entire time of his illness, as long as he had the possibility of seeing his comrades, he most frequently invited Comrade Stalin, and during the most difficult moments of his illness Stalin was the only member of the Central Committee he invited.”
This letter was written to bolster Stalin in the savage internecine struggle going on in the leadership, but it nevertheless reflects the reality.
Volkogonov, Dmitrii. Lenin: A New Biography. New York: Free Press, 1994, p. 268
CHUEV: Who was more severe, Lenin or Stalin?
MOLOTOV: Lenin, of course. He was severe. In some cases he was harsher than Stalin. Read his messages to Dzerzhinsky. He often resorted to extreme measures when necessary. He ordered the suppression of the Tambov uprising, that everything be burned to the ground. I was present at the discussion. He would not have tolerated any opposition, even had it appeared. I recall how he reproached Stalin for his softness and liberalism. “What kind of a dictatorship do we have? We have a milk-and-honey power, and not a dictatorship!”
CHUEV: Where is it written that he reproached Stalin?
MOLOTOV: It was in a small circle among us. Here is a telegram from Lenin to a provincial food commissar in his native Simbirsk in 1919: “The starving workers of Petrograd and Moscow are complaining about your inefficient management…. I demand from you maximum energy, a no-holds-barred attitude to the job, and thorough assistance to the starving workers. If you fail, I will be forced to arrest the entire staff of your institutions and to bring them to trial…. You must immediately load and send off two trains of 30 cars each. Send a telegram when this is complete. If it is confirmed that, by four clock, you did not send the grain and made the peasants wait until morning, you will be shot. Sovnarkom Chairman, Lenin.”
I remember another case. Lenin had received a letter from a poor peasant of Rostov province saying that things were bad with them, that no one paid any attention to them, the poor peasants, that there was no help for them and that, on the contrary, they were oppressed.
Lenin proposed the formation of a group of “Sverdlovers [adults from Sverdlov University]….” Lenin directed this group to go to the place in question and, if the report was confirmed, to shoot guilty parties right then and there and to rectify the situation.
What could be more concrete? Shoot on the spot and that’s that! Such things happened. It was outside the law, but we had to do it…. Lenin was a strong character. If necessary, he seized people by the scruff of their necks.
CHUEV: They say that Lenin had nothing to do with the execution of the tsar’s family in 1918, that it was a decision of the local authorities following Kolchak’s attack…. But some people say it was revenge for Lenin’s brother.
MOLOTOV: They make Lenin out to be a crank. They are small-fry philistines who think this.
Don’t be naive.
I think that, without Lenin, no one would have dared to make such a decision. Lenin was implacable when the Revolution, Soviet power, and communism were at stake. Indeed, had we implemented democratic solutions to all problems, this would surely have damaged the state and the party. Issues would have dragged on for too long and nothing good would have come of this sort of formal democracy. Lenin often resolved critical problems by himself, on his own authority.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 107-109
My god, I love Lenin far more now than I did a minute ago. Thank you comrade
Possibly the most based person to ever walk on earth
Not to Stalin
Oops
Stalin was one of Lenin’s most trusted comrades, and was often Lenin’s first pick for dispatching to critical hotspots during the civil war. Even post-war, he remained a close confidant.
Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1993, p. 464-466
Volkogonov, Dmitrii. Lenin: A New Biography. New York: Free Press, 1994, p. 268