Stalin: A Biography

The intensity of political work had been hectic from the moment Stalin had reached Petrograd. A typical day would involve meetings at the Central Committee’s offices at the Kseshinskaya mansion. Often these would last into the night. Stalin was not one of the party’s orators; according to one of his associates, ‘he avoided making speeches at mass meetings’.¹² His failings were obvious. His voice did not carry without a microphone¹³ and he spoke with a thick accent. He did not declaim or swagger like a natural actor. If a speaker from the Central Committee was required, the choice would usually fall upon Grigori Zinoviev (or Lev Trotski and Anatoli Lunacharski who joined the Bolsheviks in summer). Occasionally Lenin, too, turned out for an open meeting after conquering his own initial diffidence. Stalin steered clear of such functions unless specially requested by the Central Committee. Policy-making and organisation were his preferred activities. He also liked tasks associated with the editing of Pravda. Although his work was done behind the scenes, it was not limited to the internal administration of the party. That role fell to Yakov Sverdlov, who headed the Central Committee Secretariat. Stalin was rising in the party without the rest of the party yet noticing. But those who concluded that he was a ‘grey blank’ simply demonstrated their ignorance of central party life.¹⁴

He did not get round to moving in with the Alliluev family as agreed in March.¹⁵ Yet they had kept the room free for him, and the Alliluev youngsters — especially Anna and Nadya — were eagerly looking forward to his coming. Like other Bolshevik leaders, he slept where and when he could. He was making new friends. He also took out women he fancied. It was a disorderly, exhausting existence, but it was not one without its social pleasures.

Meanwhile the Provisional Government failed to keep clear of trouble after April. Among its problems was conflict between its liberal and socialist members. The Mensheviks Irakli Tsereteli and Mikhail Skobelev and the Socialist-Revolutionary Viktor Chernov insisted that regional self-rule should be granted to Finland and Ukraine. The Kadets walked out on 2 July rather than accept cabinet responsibility. The Socialist-Revolutionary Minister of Military Affairs, Alexander Kerenski, had started an offensive against the Central Powers a few days earlier. Political crisis ensued. The Bolsheviks, having embarrassed the Provisional Government in spring, wanted to test the political waters again. They organised a massive protest demonstration on 4 July. Their slogan was ‘All Power to the Soviets!’ and they aimed to supplant the government. Kronstadt garrison sailors were invited to participate with their weapons in hand. The Provisional Government, supported by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, banned the demonstration. But such was the popular discontent that crowds went on gathering in Petrograd. At the last moment the Bolshevik Central Committee feared the use of superior force by the authorities and strove to call off the demonstration. Yet the Provisional Government had had enough. Lenin’s financial connections with the German government were exposed and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Petrograd Bolsheviks went into hiding as leading figures such as Lev Trotski, Lev Kamenev and Alexandra Kollontai were taken into custody.

The Alliluevs put their vacant room at Lenin’s disposal. On the run from the authorities in the ‘July Days’ he took refuge at first with the Bolshevik activist Nikolai Poletaev. But Poletaev as a former Duma deputy was well known, and Lenin was grateful to move in with the Alliluevs. He stayed there for a few days before arranging to flee north to the countryside at Razliv. Disguise was essential. He decided to get rid of his beard and moustache. Stalin, who arrived at the Alliluevs’ to see him off, performed the task of the party’s barber-in-chief.¹⁶ (It would be some years before he became its master butcher.) When Lenin looked in the mirror he was pleased: ‘It’s very good now. I look just like a Finnish peasant, and there’s hardly anyone who will recognise me.’¹⁷ While Lenin stayed with the Alliluevs, Stalin moved in with fellow bachelors Vyacheslav Molotov and Pëtr Zalutski — as well as with Ivan Smilga and his wife — in a largish apartment on Petrograd Side.¹⁸ Molotov and Stalin put their disputes behind them after Stalin admitted: ‘You were the nearest of all to Lenin in the initial stage, in April.’¹⁹ There were new strains, however, on their relationship. In old age Molotov recalled that when they shared a flat, Stalin poached a girlfriend — a certain Marusya — off him.²⁰