Stalin: An Insider’s Account: Part 1 (of 3)

His Bolshevik credentials were also impressive. Djilas mentions Stalin's renown "among Communists" for being "an expert on the nationalities question." Khrushchev cites his "revolutionary spirit" and declares that "one of his strongest qualities," for which "he was greatly respected," was that "he was incorruptible and irreconcilable in class questions." He concludes that Stalin's "pretensions to a very special role in our history were well founded."

However, intelligence and party spirit only partly explain his singular rise to power. Equally important were his extraordinary psychological skills. He "sized up people quickly," Djilas discovered, and "particularly distinguished himself by his skill in exploiting people's weaknesses."

He used many tricks to manipulate people. "He possessed in a high degree the gift for silence," his secretary Poskrebyshev declared, "and in this respect he was unique in a country where everybody talks far too much." This silence was a deliberate strategy of his, used to discover people's plans and to conceal his own.

This then gave him the opportunity to make cunning plots. He would feign support for one group and use them to crush his rivals, before switching sides and attacking his former allies. Kamenev, for instance, saw him change "his theories according to the need he has of getting rid of somebody at such-and-such a moment," Lenin observed his tendency to "make a rotten compromise in order then to deceive" and Trotsky saw a man always "busy with intrigues" who "seeks to strike, not at the ideas of his opponent, but at his skull." Bukharin called Stalin "an unscrupulous intriguer, who sacrifices everything else to the preservation of his power...He changes his theories according to whom he needs to get rid of next." "At any given moment," Bukharin said, "he will change his theories in order to get rid of someone." He also tellingly observed that Stalin was "a master of 'dosing'- of giving the right dose at the right time."

Bibliography:
M. Djilas, Conversations With Stalin, (New York, 1962)
N. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, (London, 1971)
E. Radzinsky Stalin, (London, 1996)
R. Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, (London, 1992)
R. Conquest, Stalin: Breaker of Nations, (New York, 1991)
D. Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, (London, 1991)
C. Ward, Stalin's Russia, (London, 1993)
G. Zhukov, The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov, (London, 1971)

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