G. L. Piatakov (1890-1937) - A Mirror of Soviet History

The President and Fellows of Harvard College
G. L. Piatakov (1890-1937): A Mirror of Soviet History

Author(s): ANDREA GRAZIOSI
Source: Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1/2 (June 1992), pp. 102-166
Published by: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41036453
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G. L. Piatakov(1890-1937): A MirrorofSovietHistory*
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
I. INTRODUCTION
If I had to definewhat I am tryingto do, I would say thatI am attemptingto
writea piece of the "normal"1historyof a phenomenonwhich is so atypical, "abnormal," and thus so scientificallyinteresting,as the historyof the
USSR in the twentiethcentury.
I would add thatI hope in this way to contributeto the reconstructionof
thatcrucial period in European historythathas been definedas the Thirty
Years' War of our time. Indeed, I believe thatSoviet historyis an integral
partof a series of phenomena linked to the FirstWorld War. This is not to
deny the importance of the imperial Russian past. To the contrary,the
impact of the war in each countrywas filteredthroughthe peculiaritiesof
thatcountry'shistory,and the historicalmaterialsedimentedin each countrytriggeredthe subsequent historicaldevelopments.This material was in
partthe fruitof such common processes- experienced everywherealbeit in
different ways- as urbanization, industrialization, and some cultural
phenomena and was in partabsolutely specific.And yet,it would be a serious mistakenot to take into account, even when studyingsmall portionsof
Soviet history,thatthis historyitselfis part of thatprocess of "going backward" (the quotationmarks are necessary because, of course, historynever
moves backward) and of the barbarizaron of the continentwhich followed
World War I and which was immediatelyfelt,thoughin differentways, by
Croce and Meinecke, Cassirer and Rostovtsev.
modifiedafterworking
beforethecrisisof theSovietstateand slightly
Thispaper,written
whichhaveemergedfrommy
in Russianarchivesin 1992,putsforthsomeof thehypotheses
criticism.
researchinthehopethattheywillreceivefurther
During1990- 1991,1 discussedthe
andcolleaguesat thecole des Hautestudesen SciencesSociales (Paris),
paperwithfriends
of Harvard,Yale, and Michigan(AnnArbor).
and at theUniversities
at theKennanInstitute,
theHarvard
idea. The EHESS, theKennanInstitute,
The titleis, I think,Paul Bushkovitch's
the TsSGO MGU, the ItalianMinistryof Research,and the
UkrainianResearchInstitute,
ItalianNationalResearchCouncilmadeitswriting
possible.
1 I
say "normal"because,as a consequenceof its political,ideological,and moralcharge,
Soviethistory
has,at times,beendealtwithin rather
strangeways.
PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY
103
I have decidedto writemypiece of this"normal"historyof theUSSR

throughthe biographyof GeorgiiLeonidovichPiatakov(1890-1937), a
who was, duringthe
Russianbornin Kiev intoa familyof industrialists,
course of his life,a leader of the Left Communists;a founderand first
of the UkrainianCommunistParty(KP[b]U); the premierof a
secretary
duringthe Civil War; the presidentof the State Bank (Gosgovernment
bank)and of theFirstLabor Army;and,above all, theorganizerof Soviet
of the SupremeCouncil of National
as vice-president
industrialization
in
as first
of
the
1920s
and
deputyof theCommissariat
Economy(VSNKh)
in
included
(NKTP) in the 1930s.Lenin, his "Testament,"
Heavy Industry
Bolshevikleaders,notingthathe
Piatakovamongthe six mostimportant
was a manof exceptionalabilities,thoughone who tendedto see onlythe
administrative
side of a problem.And,Piatakovwas a friendof Bukharin
and a close collaborator
of FeliksDzerwhomhe betrayed,
and of Trotsky,
to whose deathshe was in some way
zhinskiiand Sergo Ordzhonikidze,
connected.
This briefoutlinealone wouldbe sufficient
explanationforthereasons
aboutPiatakov.2It was
behindmychoice,giventhatlittlehas been written
territories
not,however,thefactthathis lifeis one of themanyunexplored
thatattracted
me. Rather,I chose Piatakov'slifeto study
of Soviethistory
- thatof nationality
and that
becauseof therolehe playedin twokeyfields
in theeconomy whoseinterplay
of stateintervention
determined
theoutand becauseitpromisedinteresting
comeof Soviethistory,
intothe
insights
and
the
of
workings ideology
"personal"question.
unlike other biographiesthat have been published
Furthermore,
Trotsky'sand Bukharin's,forexample whoserelevanceto Soviethistory
ceases around1929, Piatakov'sbiographyseemed to me to constitute
a
observation
not
for
the
Civil
War
and the 1920s, but
good
point,
only
a largerslice of Soviethistory,
all the
equallyforthe 1930s.It thusreflects
moreso in view of thevarietyof people and places withwhichPiatakov
was linked.
2 See his
inDeiateliSSSR i oktiabr'skoi
inEntsiklopedicheskii
slorevoliutsii,
autobiography
vaf Granat41, pt. 2, 133 (Moscow, 1989; new edition);J. Bushneil,"Pyatakov,"in The
ModernEncyclopediaof Russianand SovietHistory(GulfBreeze,Fla., 1976-1989); V. F.
"H. L. Piatakov:Epizodyzhyttiai diial'nostina Ukraini,"Ukrains'kyi
Soldatenko,
istorychnyi
zhurnaU1989,no. 4; V. F. Soldatenkoand M. M. Sapun,"SekretrpershohoTsK KPbU," in
Pro mynule
M. M. Sapun,H. Piatakov:
(Kiev, 1989); andtheforthcoming
zaradymaibutrioho
"
do polytychnoho
Shtrykhy
portreta(Kiev, 1992). I havepublished 'BuildingtheFirstSystem
in History':Piatakov'sVSNKh and the Crisis of the NEP, 1923-1926,"
of State Industry
Cahiersdu monderusseetsovitique32, no. 4 (October-December
1991):539-80.
104
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
Lastly, Piatakov's life provides a window onto thatEuropean panorama

of which I have spoken, not only because of his Ukrainian experience, or
because of the special relationshe had withGermany,but also because his
life is in itselfan interestingreflectionof the "aberration"of European historyafter1914, as well as of some of its rootsin the previous period.
Before beginning,it is necessary to mentionsome of the limitationsand
some of the biases of this essay. These derive firstof all fromthe fact that
this is a work still in progress. I am, therefore,still submerged in its
"details"; hence the roughnessof many of the generalizationsI propose.
Then, thoughit is truethatI have already worked on all of the periods of
Piatakov's life and on all the problemsof a certainimportanceconnected to
it, it is also truethatnot all of the work is at the same point of completion.
There is, therefore,a certain lack of balance between the various parts of
thispaper; as in the case of the generalizationsproposed, I feel thatthiswill
not entirelyjeopardize its success.
Obviously, the sources used to date also lead to biases. My work was
planned and begun before the opening of the Soviet archives, and this is
visible in the end product. To fill this gap, in addition to resortingto the
available archives (like those of Trotskyor the French ones for the period
of Piatakov's stay in Paris), I thendecided to be as ecumenical as possible
in the collection of sources; I believe I have collected and looked at a
significantpart of the available material,including Piatakov's edited writings (which numberin the thousands,if we consider theprikazyhe wrote).
Eventually, I was able to begin working in the formerSoviet archives,
whose immenseriches I have, however,only begun to exploit.3
A particulartype of bias derives fromthe historicalperiod upon which I
focus. It is all the more importantbecause using the figureof Piatakov to try
to discuss movements,and thuspossible periodizations,of Soviet historyis
at the centerof thisessay. Therefore,it is necessaryto be aware of what we
see and what we do not if we detach the period delimitatedby Piatakov's
life fromthathistoryand treatit as thoughit were an isolated section. To
give an example: to end with 1937 means thatour historyends withthe triumph of despotism. If we had ended in the early 1930s say in
1932-1933 - with a biographyof Smilga or of Riutin,for example; or in
3 I was able to workin TsGANKh,TsGAOR, and theformer
CentralPartyArchives(TsPA;
nowRTsKhlDNI) and foundplentyof material.However,whilePiatakov'sactivitiesas chairand of
manof theTsPKP in theDonbass,of theTsUGPromVSNKh, of theGlavkontskom,
mostof theNKTP papersweredestroyed
well documented,
Gosbankareextremely
by firein
I have notyetbeen able to see Piatakov'spersonalfond,if such a thing
1941. Furthermore,
exists.See also fh.14.
105
or againin theearly1960s;thenwe
1953-1954, at thedeathofthedictator;
wouldhave seen thingsverydifferently:
a terrible
crisisin thebuildingof
thedespotismwhichwe see triumphant
in 1937 (thinkof thefamine,the
suicideof Stalin's wife,Ordzhonikidze'showl of pain in thefallof 1932
overthestateof industry,
decadenceof
case; theserpentine
etc.) in thefirst
the"pure"formof despotismin the second;the firstseriouscrisisof the
matureindustrial
administrative
system,whichfollowedtheKhrushchevian
boom of the 1950s thatwas made possibleby theremovalof despoticrestrictions
and by thegeographicexpansionof theempire,in thethird.If,
fromourtimes(also
lastly,we had chosento look backoverSoviethistory
sincethetimespancoveredbytheSovietsystemis
possiblebiographically,
shortenoughto be includedin thelives of mensuchas Mikoian,Molotov,
or Kaganovich),we shouldthenbe dealingwiththeend of thesystemthat
Piatakovhelpedto create.
Finally,thereare limitsand biases connectedto theperspective
imposed
thisman,one inevitably
findsoneself
bythechoiceofPiatakov.In studying
a historyof elitesand of bureaucracies
producing"traditional"
history,
thatis, of a state in whichcontinuity
has a special importance.
Ours is
also thehistoryof a "truebeliever,"in whichideologyand ideas playeda
roletheydid notplayin reality.In thecase of theSovietUnion,whichhas
bias
alreadybeenanalyzedexcessivelyin an ideologicalkey,thisparticular
is especiallyserious.As Ciliga noted,manyof theStalinistssoon tookas
theirmotto,and appliedgenerally,
thatmaximwhichLenincoinedforthe
conflicts
and
which
threwat Ordzhonikizde
as an accusaintraparty
Trotsky
tionin a bitterletterof the 1920s: "ktoveritna slovo- totidiot."Furtherand his urban-industrial
more,given Piatakov's interests
experience,our
is
one
which
leaves
the
whose
is obvious
history
countryside,
importance
andwellknown,in thebackground.
A fewwords,in conclusion,abouttheorganization
of thisessay. Of all
theperspectives
openedby Piatakov'sexperiences,I have chosento concentrateon those whichoffera view onto some particular"pieces" of
Soviethistory.
I havetried
By usingthefactsconnectedwithhisbiography,
to composean accountof themovements
and developments
of thesepieces
and in thisway to followtheevolutionof theSovietsystemfromdiverse
standpoints.These standpointsare: ideology, psychology,despotism,
theWestand,to use Piatakov'sown words,"thebuildingofthe
nationality,
106
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
firstsystem of state industryin history,"somethingquite differentfrom

simple "industrialization."4
II. IDEOLOGY
The years from 1915 to 1918 are a good startingpoint. These were the
years of leftcommunism,when Bukharinand Evgeniia Bosh were the people closest to Piatakov. There are two points concerningtheirpositions at
thattimeto which I would like to call thereader's attention.
The firstconcerns the series of problems linked to state, nation, and
World War I. To tackle these problems, in 1916 the trio,in conflictwith
Lenin and under the influenceof the European Left, elaborated a platform
of remarkablehistorical and political blindness. Faced with a war which,
particularlyin Eastern Europe, revolved around the nationalityproblem,
and from which numerous new, more-or-less national5 states were to
emerge, this platformaffirmedthat both the question of state and that of
nation, and in particularthat of the national state, were dead, no longer
relevant,no longer on the agenda. With this "theoretical" baggage- we
- Piatakov and Bosh
shall returnto it in the section devoted to nationality
went back to the Kiev of 1917, where they at firstcompletelyignored the
veryvisible nationalisticunrestunderway,as is confirmedby theirdecision
not to discuss the national movement in the party (only at the Bund's
insistencedid Piatakov eventuallyaccept discussion of the activitiesof the
Rada).
The second point concerns the impossibilityfor socialist revolution in
the backward tsaristempire. Of this the Piatakov of 1917 was convinced,
and in agreementwith him were many other Bolsheviks, such as Rykov
and, in particular,many leaders of the futureLeft,such as Preobrazhenskii.
This position was partlyresponsible for the unorthodoxline Piatakov followed in Kiev and forthe polemicizing withLenin. And, the position itself
was soon contradicted by reality- in this case the welcome reality of
4 SinceI shalldeal withthesame
frommorethanone pointofview,somerepetiphenomena
to limitthemas muchas possible.
tionsareunavoidable.I havetried,however,
5
of a new multinational
of theold empiresled to theformation
Actually,thedisintegration
state,i.e.,theSovietUnion,as wellas to thebirthof manystatesthatclaimedto be "national"
inhabited
butwerenot- at leastin thesensethattheyincludedvastterritories
bylargenational
minorities
(Poland,Czechoslovakia,Romania,etc.,come to mind).Fromthispointof view,
WorldWarI was justone stepforward,
one,in thattragicprocessof
thoughquitean important
EasternEuropeanhisstateswhichhas dominated
of nationally
theformation
"homogeneous"
on
observations
contemporary
toryduringthe past centuryand a half.The mostintelligent
are perhapsthoseof L. von Mises,Nation,
and on itstragicperspectives
whatwas happening
New York,1983).
Stateand theEconomy(Vienna,1919;reprint,
107
October. This appeared to Piatakov as a "miracle," whose performance

transformedLenin, to use Piatakov's words of 1928, into a "miracle man,"
able to "make the impossible possible."6 Lenin thusceased to be simplythe
most importantleader of the partyand became its vozhd in a new, literal
sense (the word was, of course, already in use to indicate the leaders of political parties), as is demonstratedby the 1920 celebrations of Lenin's
fiftieth
birthday,which were not dissimilarto the better-knowncelebrations
of 1929, except forthe factthatLenin, unlike Stalin, seems to have opposed
them.
categories thatthe
Reality thus disclaimed both of the key interpretative
young Piatakov had borrowed fromwhat he had defined as his "orthodox
Marxism." He who had rejected both the frameof the "national" state and
the possibilityof socialism in "Russia" found himself working for a new
state thatcalled itself socialist and whose existence could not be theoretically explained and at the same time operatingin a contextmarked by the
birth,or attemptedbirth,of numerous national and non-nationalstates as
well as by the confrontationamong them.Withoutbotheringto look foran
explanation forthe evident contradictionbetween facts and ideas, Piatakov
immediatelyagreed to work forthe "miracle" of October as the commissar
of the new Gosbank.
What led Piatakov to believe thatthiscontradictioncould be ignoredwas
probablya combinationof the pressingtasks of the day and his enthusiasm
and desire to get thingsdone and, above all, the hope of a European revolution, of whose inevitabilityand proximityhe was firmlyconvinced (he
spoke at the time, and with reason, of an "enormous geological upheaval
underway"). In this way the conditions- including the psychological
ones- were created for a jump toward subjectivism and irrationality,tendencies which were in fact being announced by the appearance of the
vozhd and miracles. Thus began that slide of the Left's theoreticalpositions,which was soon to bringit to conclusions thatcontrastedsharplywith
its aspirations.
At the beginningof 1918, however, everythingwas still hanging in the
balance, as is shown by the contradictoryattitudeof the Left Communists.
On the one hand, they were acutely aware of the precarious nature of the
new power, which had been established in an "immature"countryand was
thusconstantlythreatenedby the danger of a petit-bourgeoispererozhdenie
thatwould have opened the doors to the reinstatementof capitalism. They
were, therefore,moved by a sense of urgencythatinspiredthemto propose
6 Thesewordsecho
themuchmorefamousand quitesimilarones used by Carlyle
strikingly
to introduce
his"heroes."
108
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
extremeeconomic and social measures to consolidate the young state. On

and "anti-statism,"the same
the otherhand, in the name of internationalism
"national
socialist"
Brest's
option and the slogan of the
people rejected
"socialist motherlandin danger" launched by Lenin and Trotsky,thereby
showing their willingness to destroy that same creature they anxiously
wished to defend.
The second knot of problems is linked to the Ukrainian experience of
1918-1919, to Trotsky,and to Stalin. This was a period clearly divided in
two: the firstpartis markedby the "great revolutionarywave" triggeredby
the end of the FirstWorld War, in which Piatakov saw a confirmationof his
previous positions; the second is marked by the subsequent "reflux"of that
wave, to use the words of Radek and Piatakov, who, however, consoled
themselveswiththe thoughtthatit was soon to be followed by others.The
refluxculminated in the disaster of the late spring and summer of 1919
when, afterthe high point of the hopes of March, everythingprecipitated
withthe almost simultaneouscollapse in Bavaria, Hungary,and Ukraine. In
the latter,in particular,providing"confirmation"of the fears of 1918, the
peasant stikhiia "opened the way" for the victory of the Whites, thus
the conviction that the immediate danger to the new power
strengthening
in
the
lay
petit-bourgeoisocean of the countryside.
During the general collapse of May-June 1919, in which realityand the
power over it seemed to escape all control,lying"in formand in substance
outside the sphereof influenceof the party"(I quote here a documentof the
Ukrainian Central Committeeof May 1919), all the leaders of the KP(b)U
looked for someone to lean on. In a remarkablereversal,since until a few
weeks beforehe had been partof the militaryopposition,Piatakov ended up
"choosing" Trotsky.
Why he did so is a question which cannot be dealt withhere. The answer
is connected with Trotsky's personal fascinationand his methods,with the
profoundaffinitywhich Piatakov feltfor some of the characteristicsof the
head of the Red Army,as well as with his aversion to the "Right" of the
KP(b)U, closely connectedto the "mafia" of Tsaritsyn.
What should be stressed,rather,is that this meeting with Trotsky,and
the defeat thatled to it, marked Piatakov's "Brest-Litovsk."It was thenand not,forthereasons we have seen, the year before- thathe took his first
real step toward a national or, better,an "imperial" socialist option, which
we could defineas "Rakovskian." I do not mean, of course, thatthis option
was firstfollowed by Rakovskii, who indeed was the last to submitto it,but
that he was the firstto formulate it clearly. I have in mind here the
Rakovskii who, fromconfinementin 1928, remarkedthatin a social situationmarkedby serious defeatand by the stagnationof the workers' political
109
activity,both in the USSR and in Europe, and in a political situationlike

that in the Soviet Union, in which the only active social force was the
bureaucracy,the revolutionarieshad no choice but to side withthe bureaucracy and, in so doing, go against theirideals or testifyto theirfaithin those
ideals fromexile or fromprison.Of course, 1919 was not yet 1928, and Piatakov thentook only the firststeps along thatpath. But the "discoveries" he
made at the time,throughTrotsky,clearly indicated the directionthatpath
was to take.
In the firstplace, therewas the discoveryof "Russia" and the East. After
the defeats of the summer had barred the way to Europe, which went
throughUkraine and Hungary,Trotskyproposed sending the unemployed
"Ukrainian" (in quotation marks because few of them were actually
Ukrainian) leaders to the Urals, which were to be transformedinto a bastion
of the revolution.For Piatakov, who was sent to lead the FirstLabor Army,
his timein the Urals meanthis firstseparationfromEurope and, thoughin a
sincerelyrevolutionaryform,his discovery of the imperial,Asiatic dimension of the new (and of the old) state.
In the second place, freshfroma disastercaused partlyby the navet of
the Left,Piatakov discovered,throughTrotsky,the value of bureaucracy,of
- in theirharderand more primcommand,and of administrativeefficiency
itive,militaryversions. Aftersome months,the leader of the militaryopposition, who loved to dress as a "Ukrainian brigand," was discovered by
Liberman in smart uniform and shining boots jumping to attentionto
answer a telephone call fromTrotsky.Trotsky,we mightsay, had become
in Piatakov's eyes a new "miracle man," who personifiedefficiency,hardness, "culture,"and organizationand who, with these qualities, was saving
therevolution.
Eight years of collaboration and joint reflectionfollowed this meeting.
The firstfour, 1920-1923, were the more intense. The year 1919-1920,
markedby debate about militarizationand the creationof the Labor Armies,
was dedicated to reflectionsof an almost Weberian savor on bureaucrats
and bureaucracy. We will returnto these in the last section. Here I wish
only to say that the discovery of bureaucracy was without doubt "antiMarxist" (to be convinced of this,it is enough to recall how simplisticand
Utopianthe theoryof the state and of its apparatus is not only in Marx and
Engels but also in the Lenin of State and Revolution,even thoughthe latter
was soon forced to rethinkhis ideas on the matter).We have here a first
example of thatprocess of selection to which ideology was then subjected
by the actual situation:those pieces which best fitthe needs of the moment
were favoredand thenintegrated,where the theorywas foundlacking, with
partsdictatedby "common sense."
110
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
The thirdknot is that marked by the beginningof the New Economic

Policy. Piatakov, still a "true believer," accepted the new policy without
reserve,but in his own way. To do thishe appealed to the analyses made in
November 1917, when, on the basis of Hilferding,he had admittedthe possibilitythat in a backward countrythe nationalized commanding heights
could coexist for some time with small property,especially in the countryside. Care was necessary, though,to ensure thatthis compromise work in
favor of large industry.In the words of Bukharin,who in 1921 still shared
Piatakov's positions,the main danger was the economic razrukha and the
main task the buildingof "our greatsocialized industry."Since, to fulfillthe
latter,more productswere needed, it was rightto give more space to those
able to guaranteethese products(i.e., the petit-bourgeoiseconomic formations) so long as theywere used forbuildinglarge industry.
Paradoxically, then,the NEP did mark a "dangerous" break (due to the
openings which it created for the petite bourgeosie), but beneath it there
was a continuityembodied by the pursuitof the interestsof large "socialized" industry.When thisindustry,to quote Bukharinagain, was once more
"v polnuiu boevuiu gatovnost'," the momentwould have come to turnthe
tiller in a new direction (it was on the basis of these argumentsthat,in
1925, against Bukharin's "betrayal,"Piatakov was to demand a perelom in
economic policy).
The period of the launching of the NEP was also marked by other
significant ideological developments. In 1922, for example, Piatakov
presided over the trial of the Socialist Revolutionaryparty,the firstof the
Soviet "show" trialsof internationalrenown.In so doing he expressed on a
new level of intensitythatfanatic anti-socialism,thatmania for "unmasking," and that ferocious sectarianism, which were the birthmarksof
Bolshevism. On the one hand, this gives us a measure of the abyss which
the years of the Civil War had opened between the Bolsheviks, even the
"old" ones, and the humanitariantraditionsof European socialism. On the
other,it gives us a clue to the varietyof materialsthatwere going into the
constructionof the "Stalinist" ideology, which also fed on the extremization
of already existing elements, an extremizationthat,at least ideologically,
was perhaps in the beginning a product of true believers like Piatakov.
Here, perhaps, we have a lesser example of Stalin's extraordinaryability,
which he showed in the 1920s (and which cannot fail to strike whoever
examines that decade), to "listen" to the most widely differingcontributions,and thento use themin his own way.7
7 Far more
fromthispointof view are theoriginsof a substantial
partof Stalin's
interesting
"workerism"(whose spell has charmedmore than one Western
1928-1929 antiworker
111
If, fromPiatakov' s standpoint,1921 could be seen in some ways under

the banner of continuity,the autumnof 1923, on the otherhand, marked a
very importantrupture,caused by a series of simultaneousevents, namely:
the failureof the revolutionin Germany;the scissors crisis; the formalbirth
of the opposition; and the firstserious conflictsover the directionof large
stateindustry(we should rememberthatPiatakov was at thattime the vicepresidentof the VSNKh, withexecutive powers).
After the Ruhr crisis and the explosion of hyper-inflation,
all of the
Soviet leaders, includingTrotskyand his followers,had great expectations
forGermany.Piatakov and Radek, in particular,were sent to strengthenthe
leadershipof the German party.In fact,since it was believed thatthe objective conditions in Germany were "ripe" for socialism, the general agreement was that the seizure of power there was essentially a question of
correct "subjective" action and thus necessitated a strongleadership. But
the newly arrivedRadek and Piatakov found themselvesfaced witha party
unable to organize or manage the insurrection,and thussupportedits recall.
The disappointmentwas greatand, given the premises,reflectionson the
causes for the failure were founded exclusively on subjective considerations.The defeatwas explained by resorting,on the one hand, to the subjective mistakes of the Communistsand, on the other,to the behavior of the
Social Democrats, who at the crucial momenthad sided with the "fascists"
(this was the termRadek, Piatakov, and Trotskyused to definethe new German governmentin 1923) or had proved to be "fascists" themselves (as,
apparently,Zinov'ev stated). After the stage marked by the trial of the
Socialist Revolutionaries,the nascent theoryof social-fascism thus made a
- in the documents of both the
decisive step forward
opposition and its
futureallies.
To these motivations Piatakov himself added a profound pessimism
about the revolutionarysocial "subjects"- the Western proletariatin gen- which he felt had entered a
eral and the Russian one in particular
long
season of passivity. This pessimism made him famous: Serge, Pascal, and
Mikoian spoke of it,the lattermakingfunof it; and, formally,it markedthe
death of the hope thatthe revolutionin Europe would come to justifyfrom
outside and a posteriori the October miracle. Especially among those who
had viewed the latteras theoreticalnonsense, awareness of the fragilityof
Soviet power now reached unprecedented heights. And the sense of
urgency,of the "must be done," was now feltmore tragically.It gave a particular color to the famous debate on industrialization,sharpeningdissent
withinthe Soviet leadership.
anddistortion
ofShliapnikov'sideas.
academic)in thetheft
112
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
Piatakov's otherpersonal reactionto the events of the end of 1923- yet

anotherimportantstep along the road taken in 1919- must be seen in this
context.The explanation for the scissors crisis thatPiatakov, Osinskii, and
V. M. Smirnov advanced is a good illustration of this point. Larin
denounced the "istericheskii idealizm," the "idealizm eserovskogo gimnazista" which animated it, and, in fact- as in the German case everythingwas made to depend on subjective factors.A multiplicationof
subjective commitmentand personal effortwas thus the solution also proposed forinternalmatters.For Piatakov, thattranslateditselfintoa renewed
administrativeeffortat the VSNKh, aimed, in his own words, at accelerating as much as possible the constructionof the first"sistema gosudarstvennoi promyshlennosti"in history.
These considerationsprofoundlyinfluencedPiatakov's type of opposition, which became increasinglyless political and increasinglytied to the
rhythmsand directionsof "building." This position led him to move closer
to whomevermightsatisfythose needs and, in particular,laid the basis for
convergence with Stalin. Certainly,the "socialism in one country"thatStalin proposed was still, in Piatakov's eyes, taintedby Bukharin's influence,
which gave it a pacific, moderate,and isolationistcontent.But there is no
doubt thatPiatakov was encouraged to distance himselffromTrotsky(who
always put politics and internationalismfirst)and to approach the Stalinist
group because of his idea of concentratingon building withinthe USSR,
leaving aside internationalpolitics (partlybecause of the pessimism mentioned above) and- why not?- leaving aside internalpolitics too, since
what really counted, after all, was the economy. This convergence was
objectively encouraged by the policies Piatakov followed at the VSNKh,
which accelerated the NEP crisis and leftStalin and his followersfacingthe
need to make decisions.
What remained,now, of Piatakov's Marxism, or, betterstill,what had it
become? Its humanitarianaspect, linked to socialist traditions,had been
swept away, as we have seen, by the Civil War. At a theoreticallevel, there
remained a resistantcore of certain categories that were, in fact, so many
filtersdeformingreality.I have in mind, for example, Piatakov's mythical
vision of the functioningof the economy- to which we shall returnin the
last section- which was a major influencein determiningthe decisions that
led to the NEP crisis. On the political plane, one could referonce again to
the wantof the Marxisttheoryof the state,which blinded Piatakov in a context characterizedby the birthand expansion of a new great state; to the
obsession with "class" analysis, which distracted attention from more
importantphenomena, and to the "theoretical"aversion for the peasants
the greatmajorityof thepopulation.
113
These and other"residues" were integratedinto a cult of the stateand its

machinery,linkedto some pieces of Marxism (forexample, nationalization)
but "enriched" by the accent on the importanceof subjective action and its
tools- bureaucracy for one.8 Significantly,in those years the two terms
"sotsialisticheskii"and "gosudarstvennyi"became interchangeable;indeed,
before the ideological explosion of 1928-1929, the second termprogressively replaced the firstin internaleconomic documents.This interchangeabilitywas perhaps a clue to the fact thatthe question regardingthe nature
of the new stateborn fromthe Civil War was still unresolvedideologically.
And the progressiveprevalence of the second termperhaps indicated how
realitywas in fact resolving the question before the launching of the great
ideological operationwe have just mentionedconfused thingsagain. All of
this was increasinglycemented by that subjectivism and voluntarismthat
we have already seen developing.
The fifthand crucial knotis thatrepresentedby Piatakov's own personal
crisis of 1927-1928. These were the years of his exile in Paris as torgpred,
of forced inactivity,while in Moscow the "inept" Kuibyshev, to whom the
VSNKh had been entrusted,was lettingeverythingthathad been built up
over the previous years go to rack and ruin. After the FifteenthParty
Congress (December 1927), Piatakov was sent back to Paris- a clear sign
of the "respect" which he was accorded- while his second wife and his old
comrades were firstimprisonedand then sent into very differentkinds of
in February,he became the firstof the Trotskyites
exile. Shortlythereafter,
to capitulate,with a statementthathis formercomrades (Radek firstof all)
judged a monumentof hypocrisy.
What part cynicism and hypocrisyplayed in this choice is, of course,
difficultto assess. I am inclined to believe that the motives behind
Piatakov's gesturewere much more complicated and thathis personal crisis
was of a very serious nature (as we shall see in the next section). It is,
rather,in Radek's own later "conversion" and behavior thata much purer
formof cynicismcan be seen.9 It is undeniable, however, thatfor Piatakov
8 In thismodifiedversion,Marxismbecame the heirto
Hegelismalso as a state-building
ideology(in "extreme"conditions).We have here,I believe,one of thereasonsforits great
success in our century,
as an important
sourceof "nationalsocialist"ideologies(whichof
coursehadmanyothercomponents).
See also fhs.11 and 12.
9 In Ordzhonikidze's
secretfondare preserved
a fewletterswritten
at thebeginning
of 1928
by Radekto theGPU, theTsKK, and to his wife.Whereasin lettersto Trotskywritten
during
thesame periodhe posed as a fiercefighter
againstStalinism,herehe beggedforfavorsand
evenbeforebeingsentintoexile.Especiallyimpressive
is a letterof 9 March
pettyprivileges,
addressedto his wife,but actuallywritten
withtheknowledgethat"others"
1928, formally
wouldreadit,as was in factthecase. In thisletter,Piatakovis openlyaccusedof hypocrisy.
One cannot"sincerely"
capitulatetoo soon,writesRadek,addingthatwhenhe himselfdoes,in
114
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
too, the momentmarked the end of ideology in the traditionalsense of the

term(in the sense we are usually led to use when speaking of Bolshevik
leaders or, at least, of the believers among them).This was also the moment
of the "end of politics," again in the sense we usually give the term.In an
attempt,no doubt,to justifythe betrayalof Trotsky,politics was now seen
as a weave of personal squabbles, founded on the personal struggle for
power, almost as "somethingdirty.""Politics" of this sortdid not count for
much. What counted, as Piatakov repeated in his declarations to the
FifteenthParty Congress, was the actual work of building and, on a perof participatingin thatbuilding.
sonal level, theopportunity
What we have here is the definitive"Rakovskian" option, which went
hand in hand with an increasinglypessimistic vision of the internaland
internationalsituations,marked by a defeat "vserez i nadolgo," as V. M.
Smirnov wrote. Naturally,it was difficult,on the subjective level, to be or
remain pessimistic and still work furiouslyat the task of building. In the
next section we shall see how this contradictionwas resolved. Here, I
would like to emphasize thatthe sudden ideological change of 1927-1928
was a phenomenonthatdid not concernPiatakov alone, and is one to which
I feel insufficient
attentionhas been paid.
The type of "ideology" which at thattime was gaining ground is fairly
well representedby the words with which Kuibyshev celebrated Stalin's
victoryover the zagotovkicrisis in February 1928 with his "Urals-Siberian
methods" (which triggeredthe process that later ended in collectivization
and famine). "It is undeniable," said Kuibyshev, "that the administrative
pressure. . . , the mobilizationof all the forces of the party,the meddlingin
the sphere of action of lower bodies. . . have given indisputableresults.. . .
The will of the state has combatted the economic situation,using all the
means theproletarian state had at its disposal, and it has won* (my italics).
Thus, at the end of the 1920s, the foundationsfor the ideology of the
"Stalinists" consisted of a mixtureof statism,voluntarism,grubost' (the
well-knowninsultthrownat Stalin by Lenin in 1923, now transformedby
Stalin and his followersinto somethingto boast of), cult of might,and the
delusion that"everythingwas possible."10 These elements were embodied
theerrorsofthe
he willdo so "iskrenno,
theperhapsnottoodistantfuture,
otkryto"
denouncing
past.
10 In theshortrun, the
became
ofpushingfromabove,everything
way,giventheintensity
by
reallypossible,and Soviet societyseemedto come closerand closerto the Stalinists'1929
definedby one of thebestyoungUkrainianhistorians,
ideal,recently
Oleg Khlevniuk,as a
"well-composedmechanism,at the top of which is a directivecenterthatis maximally
bothfromsocietyandfromtheobligationto takeintoaccountanysocioeconomic
independent
masses."Reality,however,started
and at itsbase- consciousanddisciplined
laws whatsoever,
was to come.Moshe
overit,a dayofreckoning
to kickbackverysoonand,foreach "victory"
115
at firstin the party,which concentratedwill and power, and only indirectly

transferredto Stalin, the party's leader. Soon, however, this transferwas
complete: in December 1929, throughthe mechanismof the celebrationsfor
his fiftieth
birthday,Stalin became officiallythe new vozhd , autonomously
endowed withmiraculouspowers.
It is worthpausing a momentto stresshow this new ideology of the Stalinistleadership,foundedon the almost unlimitedpower of the subject over
history,on "vozhdism" and on a particularform of "national socialism,"
distinctlyechoed developments taking place in many parts of Europe,
though in differentways. Similar ideas were then spreading in widely
differingcontexts- in Poland, in Germany,in Italy of course, and among
the Jewishnationalists(think,for example, of Vladimir Jabotinskyand his
dream of achieving the Jewishstate in "one sudden, irresistibleact of will")
and the Ukrainian nationalists, where the phenomenon was particularly
interestingbecause it took on differentforms in emigration(according to
Roman Szporluk, the pillars of the OUN 1929 ideology were "the primacy
of 'will' over 'reason' and the proposal to establish a one-partystateheaded
by an elite witha single leader"), in Galicia and among the National Communiststemporarilyin power.
From this standpoint,"national socialism" (to be sure, not the extreme
Hitlerianvariety) and "vozhdism" appear as key categories with which to
interpretEuropean historybetween the two wars. In the USSR, as everywhere else, theyof course took on idiosyncraticforms- thatof "imperial"
the hypothesisthat
socialism,11forexample- but theirdiffusionstrengthens
were
at
work:
the
Great
first
of
factors
War,
all, the state-building
unifying
or rebuildingprocesses which followed it,12and certain cultural fashions
Lewinhas analyzedthesocial contextor,better,
thesocial "void"thatfacilitated
thespreadof
similarillusionsandoffered
theStalinistelitesuchopportunities.
11 One couldthinkof
"imperial"socialism(I resortto quotationmarksbecausethereis someformtakenby nationalsocialismin countries
thingparadoxicalin theterm)as theparticular
wherethedominant
is notstrongenoughto
nationality
possessinga strongimperialtradition,
of "xy" for"xylonians,"
or is unwillingto do so (theconcretepossibility
propounda program
theimperialbondsmayexplainthis).Fromthispointof view,"imperial"socialof renewing
ismis, at leastin itsideology,morepalatablethannationalsocialismproper,
especiallyifcomwith
paredwiththeversionof thelatterthatemergesaftera seriousnationalcrisisin countries
a strongnationalminority.
In particular,
its Russianvariety,
thanksto its linkwithMarxism,
remainedparticularly
"agreeable"in spiteof thetransformations
imposeduponit by theCivil
War(as such,it was one of thepreconditions
fortheBolsheviks'victory).See also fns.8 and
12.
12 The formation
of a greatnumberof new statessince 1945 has presentedus witha new,
kinds. The link betweenthis
bigger wave of "national socialisms" of many different
and certaincircumstances
of state-building
has thusbeen confirmed.
Of course,
phenomenon
one shouldnotundervalue
theaspectsof socialism(as well as of Marxism)thatare linkedto
theemancipation
oftheworking
classes,northinkthatsocialismhas beentheonlyideologyof
116
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
that had spread throughoutEurope before the war and that the war had
nourished:note, forexample, the renewed interestin Carlyle or Spengler's
success. It is interestingto note thatin 1922 Piatakov devoted an essay precisely to Spengler, attacking him for his glorificationof the "velikoe
iskusstvo povelevat' stikhiiamizhizni, osnovannoe na proniknoveniiv ee
vozmozhnostii na predvideniiee khoda" thatguaranteedthe "new Caesar"
the "kljuch k gospodvstu nad drugimi" and deridinghis hymnsto "beton,
stai', zheleznye nervy i gosudarstvennykhmuzhei." Six years later these
same words neatly summed up an importantpart of both Piatakov's credo
and thatof his new comrades.13
This credo was not,of course, a monolith,and in Piatakov it took rather
peculiar forms.In particular,the state of "exaltation" caused by the weight
of the past and by thatof betrayalmeant thatthe "end of ideology" took on
the formof a descent intopsychopathology.For example, in March 1928, in
an emotional discussion he had with N. Valentinov immediatelyafterhis
capitulation,Piatakov exalted the miracle party which could do anything
and which made anythingpossible (in Rakovskii's words,which guaranteed
"power" to Piatakov and those like him). For the party,Piatakov said, a
- to destroyhimself,to betrayhis own
man mustbe preparedto do anything
friends,to change his own mind.
Within a few months,for Piatakov, too, this miracle partytook on the
personal featuresof Stalin, the new miracle man able to make historyjump
at his will. The ways in which these jumps were produced- the violence,
the administrativepressure,the grubosf- took second place to the results.
But then,Piatakov, like many others,recognized in these methods important pieces of his own Civil War experience, when he, too, had ordered
mass shootings,had been criticizedby Lenin forhis grubosf, and had sent
the "mandarinnyeetikety"to hell in the Donbass in order to obtain the
requiredresults.
at work.It is a fact,however,thatin thepastone hundred

or rebuilding
recently
state-building
of socialism,
has beenthemaincomponent
scale,state-building
yearsor so, on an international
ideolhas becomethemostimportant
and socialism,in itsvarious"nationalsocialistic"forms,
See also fns.8 and 11.
ogyavailableto state-(re)builders.
13 This was a return
to thetimeswhen,to use OttoHintze'swords,it was believedthat"will
In thissense,sinceMarxismhad been
andcalculation"explainedeverything.
power,planning,
anddefeatedtheseideas,thenewcredowas an
whichhad fought
partoftheculturalmovement
of
to itsbirth,as well as to thedevelopment
one. MaximGorky'scontribution
"anti-Marxist"
cannotbe
also greatly
theideologyusedto "cover"it(to whichWilliMnzenberg
contributed),
his cynicism,and his great,
thirdrate"Nietzscheanism,"
overestimated.
Gorky'shalf-baked,
creativecapacitiesin thefieldof ideologywereextremely
appealingto Stalinand theother
autodidactsof his innercircle.Fromthispointof view,therecently
publishedStalin-Gorky
andrevealing.
is quiteinteresting
1929correspondence
117
heldmanysurprises
of thenew miracleman,though,
The characteristics
with
a
like
forPiatakov.He was no longerdealing
leader,
Lenin,whomhe
could respectand withwhomhe could enterintodiscussions(in 1921,for
Leninin a privateletter
butharshly
reproached
example,Piatakovironically
towardtheproblemof concession).
attitude
forhis schematicand simplistic
- as Trotsky
had beenfor
modelto admire
Norwas he adoptinga "perfect"
himafter1919 (in thesame year,1920-1921, Piatakov's lettersto Trotsky
thanthoseaddressedto Lenin).Rather,he had
weremuchmoresubservient
was
wellawareofthisas, once again,his letters
and
founda boss to serve
of the 1930s clearlyreveal(quiteoften,his lettersaddressedto Ordzhonikidzeor Kuibyshevcontainformulaic
expressionssuchas "ifI. V. agrees,"
himkhoto
Stalin
had alreadynick-named
those
close
etc.). And,indeed,
is dominus,the appellation
ziain ("boss"; perhapsthe closesttranslation
afterDiocletian).Thispattern
adoptedbythe"Asianized"Romanemperors
was alreadyformalizedby 1929 when,as Boris Souvarineobserved,Piatakovbecame the firstof the Bolshevikleaders"to pay personalfeudal
forprohomage"to Stalin.In exchange,he askedforthepostof "minister
he obtainedfirstat theGosbankand
duction"in thenew state,something
thenat the NKTP. However,Piatakovfoundhimselfcarryingout these
of thenew lordratherthanin thehopedas a serf-superintendent
functions
for"civilized"forms.
- that
We have thus come to the sixth and last knot of problems
will
of
necesThe
discussion
of
these
the
1930s.
problems
by
represented
sitybe briefhere,becauseofwhatI havejustsaid aboutthegrowingweight
of "psychic"factorsoverand above ideologicalones in Piatakov's case and
at theend
thatideologyand politicsunderwent
aboutthegeneticmutation
ofthe1920s.
Thisobviouslydoes notmeanthatin the1930stheStalinisteliteand the
new social stratathatrevolvedaroundit possessedno "ideology."On the
theywereproducing
manyideologies,bothforinternal
consumpcontrary,
tionand forthe"masses,"thatwereadded to and superimposed
uponthat
whichhad emergedat theend of thepreviousdecade. For thisreason,too,
however,theideologyof 1917 can be said to be dead by 1930,at leastin
thesense thatit is of littleuse in explainingthebehaviorand decisionsof
thegroupin power,even if fragmented
partsof its dead bodystillplayed
rolesof a certainimportance
and even if some personsto a certaindegree
stillbelievedthattheybelievedin theold ideology.Furthermore,
Piatakov
is nota good vantagepointfromwhichto observethenew and complex
ideologicalproduction:in the 1930s he publishednothingdirectlyconnectedto cultureor politics,and whatremainsof his activitiesfromthose
- mostlyto
letters
years is a few speeches, a handfulof semi-private
118
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
Ordzhonikidze- and, above all, countless prikazy about the direction of

industry.14
The numberof theseprikazy,the varietyof the subjects theycover, and
the importanceand detail of the questions they address are proof of the
maniacal natureof Piatakov's dedication to the building of that systemof
large state industry,which was now perhaps the only threadlinkinghim to
the past. Although this constructiontook place under conditions and at a
cost very differentfromthose he had imagined, it did respect some of the
principleshe had established in the 1920s: the absolute privilege accorded
to large state industry;the openness towardthe West- now limitedto technology alone; the high investment"rhythms,"etc. Togetherwiththese principles survived some traces of the old beliefs in this process of building.
Here and there,in certainof Piatakov's speeches, in the memoirs of some
in additionto professionsof faithin the superior"builders" like Frankfurt,
ityof the systemof state industryover its capitalistcompetitors,apparently
sincere hopes surfacedthat,once the foundationswere laid (at the price of
the unheard-ofsacrificesimposed upon the population), chapters that had
temporarilybeen closed could be reopened.
But more often, at least in those "builders" in whom the ideological
matrixhad been strongerand especially in many of those who had been of
the opposition (one could also refer, for example, to Gvakhariia,
Ordzhonikidze's favorite),instead of the old ideology we findan "ideology
of fanatical work," of identificationwith heavy industry,of dedication to
the new gosudarstvennost', of building for the sake of building, in which,
perhaps,these people buried themselvesin the hope of forgettingwhat they
were doing. Victor Krawchenko has some very convincing pages on this.
And it sufficesto read the last, long, handwrittenletterfromthe Urals sent
by Piatakov to Ordzhonikidzethe veryday beforehis arrest(which he knew
to be imminent,thoughstill hoped to avoid)- a letterpacked with technicalities and industrialproblems- to realize thatforPiatakov, too, work was
the magic drug which up to the last minute kept life bearable (and was,
perhaps, also a guarantee of physical survival, with the delusion that one
would become "indispensable").
14 After1932,mostoftheNKTP prikazywerenotpublished.BorisB. Lebedev,thearchivist

to thankhimforhis help and kindness),
in chargeof theNKTP fond(I takethisopportunity
70 to 80 percentremainedsecret.Happily,theseescaped the
calculatesthatapproximately
s secretfondin the
can be foundin the latter'
1941 fire.Piatakov'slettersto Ordzhonikidze
former
CentralPartyArchives.
119
Among the thingsneeding to be "forgotten,"besides the conditions in

which the "building" was takingplace, therewas thatwhich the day-to-day
politicshad by now become forPiatakov and many membersof Stalin's circle: a succession of servile acts, of blackmail, of fear and desperation.This
traumaticexperience, for which the super-workat the NKTP could not
compensate, contributedto Piatakov's outbreak of "madness" in 1936,
which we will discuss at the end of the next section.
III. PSYCHOLOGY
Piatakov's life is strikingbecause of its tragicquality,the dramaticseries of
ups and downs, of suicides, massacres, insanity,alcoholism, betrayals,and
intriguesthatdogged its various phases. In this respect,his life is a faithful
mirrorof the cataclysmic natureof Soviet historybetween 1917 and 1937
(or even 1953). It also provides a clear window into the life of the "old
Bolsheviks," showing us the state of "exhaustion" those few thousandpeople had reached by 1936-1937. But Piatakov's life is also a mirror,though
of smallerdimensions,of European history.We are, afterall, discussing the
life of an intellectualwitha European education and of a European culture,
who adhered to a European ideology and whose destinyis deeply scarred
by progressivepersonal regressionand progressivebarbarizaron.
To follow the evolution of Piatakov's life froma "psychological" standpoint, we will mainly trustto the chronologyoutlined in the previous section. But here we must startwithevents preceding the outbreakof the war,
with the anarchistexperience of 1905-1907 in Ukraine. This experience
was a scarringone, markedas it was by thousandsof victimsof both terror
and repressionand by an astonishinglevel of desperationamong its young
- a desperation that can be felt even today when looking
participants
throughRussian anarchistnewspapers of the time, with theirlists of suicides, accompanied by pictures of young, angry men, among whom, as
Weizmann says in his memoirs, young Jews were particularlynumerous
and gloomy.
The young Piatakov took an active part in those desperate events, sharing ideas in which were reflected,though often coarsely, some of the
"crisis" ideologies thathad emerged in Europe at the end of the nineteenth
century(referringto the Russian anarchistsof those days, Avrich has spoken of "self-styled Nietzschean supermen," and Goethe's motto, "Im
Anfang war die Tat," interpretedin a "heroic" key, was, for example, the
masthead of the Chernoe znamia). Piatakov joined the group led by Justin
Zhuk, a young worker and a hero of anarcho-communism,who was later
sentencedto death, thencommutedto life katorga, for the murderof some
guards during a robbery at one of the factories managed by Piatakov's
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
120
father(freed in 1917, Zhuk died in the Civil War fightingfor the Reds).
Thus, Piatakov's privileged education, the "gentility"of his family background, and his "Western culture" were very soon subjected to severe
shocks, which exposed the fragilityof these influencesin a countrysuch as
the First World War revealed
the Russian Empire (and, shortlythereafter,
theirfragilityon a European scale).

At the time of the robbery,Piatakov, who had broken offrelationswith
the anarchists,was already in St. Petersburg,enrolled at the Faculty of Law
in orderto studyeconomics. He did not go back to Kiev, except for a brief
intervalin 1911, until1917, just in timeforthe revolutionand the Ukrainian
Civil War, perhapsthe most ferociousone.
For Piatakov, the Civil War was a continual succession of victoriesand
defeats.The Bolsheviks had to seize power threetimesin Ukraine,since the
firsttwo attemptsboth ended in catastrophy.Moments of exaltation were
thus followed by periods of deep depression. Both were linked to and
amplifiedby events in Europe, primarilyin Germanyand Hungary.
This violent see-sawing between extremesof states of mind was accompanied by thepracticeof violence toutcourt,of which we will mentiononly
a few episodes: the barbaricmurderof Piatakov's brotherLeonid in Kiev in
January1918; his service in a machine-gununitin March and April of that
year (Piatakov was thusnot spared the key experience of being a soldier in
the First World War); and above all, the active part he played in the outbreaks of generalized crueltyover the followingmonthsand years. Already
at the end of 1918, afterthe firststage of the Red Terror,Piatakov had
argued for mass shootings. In Kharkiv in June 1919, as presidentof the
local RevolutionaryTribunal,he publiclyexalted terror,while in the prisons
of the city terriblethingswere taking place (this stance disgusted the old
Korolenko, who protested against it). A few months before, in March,
Piatakov's formercompanion,Evgeniia Bosh, had directedthe massacres in
Astrakhan', and the following year Piatakov, who had participatedin the
assault at Perekop, was apparentlyin charge of the even more terriblemassacres which took place in the Crimea afterthe defeat at Vrangel' (it is said
that many tens of thousands were shot in a few days). According to
Veresaev, even Dzerzhinskii was indignantat Piatakov's and his friend
Bela Kun's ferocity.
From a theoretical,Marxist standpoint(and so, for Piatakov, in rational
terms),all of the above was takingplace withina process which,as we have
said, was losing its meaning or, rather,was becoming increasinglydifficult
to explain in spite of theever-growingresortto rhetoricaland psychological
exaltation.
12 1
and to the psychic destabilization

Adding to these sources of irrationality
of
caused
such
levels
violence, in the spring of 1919 the
by
inevitably
Bolshevik leaders' already paranoid fear of the peasants reached new
heights in Ukraine. The reasons for this were the repeated revolts of the
Ukrainian peasants, and the recurrent"betrayal" of the partisan detachmentsthathad allowed the Bolsheviks to take Kiev at the beginningof the
year.
A very distinctivepsychological trait,which was shared- thoughsomewhat more blandly- by all the partyand which also had ideological roots,
thus became accentuated,because of "national" reasons, in thatpart of the
new Soviet elite that was being formedon the "southernfront."This trait
was the strongfeeling of being "foreignersin theirown land," surrounded
by a hostile population- the peasants primarilybut also the intelligentsiia
(in Ukraine,because of its national aspirations,but note, too, the Bolshevik
reaction to the Russian intelligentsiiastrikes of 1917-1918). From this
point of view, on the southernfronta substantialpart of the new elite was
actually, and not just psychologically or symbolically, that "conquering
minority"mentionedby Lenin, that"special race" of which Stalin was later
to speak (even thoughnot too much weightshould be given to words). This
feeling probably peaked among the elite's most ideological members,like
Piatakov, since both the supportersof the NEP and the Stalinistseventually
found,each in theirown way, some importantchannels of contactwithcertain sectors of the population, both culturallyand as a representationof
interests.
The Bolsheviks, and in particularthe "old Bolsheviks," were thusdeeply
affectedby the experiences of 1917-1921, especially when these experiences had been endured at the "front" (this was, I believe, the essential
differencebetween Piatakov and Bukharin, who stayed in Moscow, and
perhaps the root of theirsubsequent break). It is well known thatthe political consequences of the impact of these experiences worried Lenin. Here,
however, I would like to underlinethe physical and moral components:the
disease, exhaustion,the remorseforwhat one had done- factorswhich certainly existed, and which apparentlyaffectedDzerzhinskii himself,if we
can believe what Abramovitchsaid about the nightDzerzhinskii got drunk
and begged to be killed to atone for the blood he had spilt. Certainlythere
- it was perhaps at thispoint thatPiatakov had his first
was heavy drinking
brush with alcoholism- and a growing use of drugs,cocaine in particular,
especially but not only in the Cheka (according to Anjelica Balabanoff,
Bela Kun was an addict; of course, the Whites too had similarproblems,as
indicated by the case of General Slashchev). The inevitable result of all
these pressures was an acute instability,and, indeed, two phenomena we
122
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
have already mentionedpoint to this: the desperate clinging to the force of

the will and to subjective action and the need, felt by many, to lean on
someone, on a miracle man, on the voihd .
Afterexperiences and pressures of this sort, the calm of the following
period of 1922-1926, however real, could only be precarious. This results
quite clearly fromPiatakov's life. For him,too, therewas a returnto stability.His transferto the quieterMoscow afteryears in the "violentprovinces"
and his collaboration with Lenin, his close relationshipwith Trotsky,and,
lastlyand above all, his job at the VSNKh and his initialcollaboration with
Dzerzhinskii were the pillars of this new condition. According to Ipat'ev,
duringthis time Piatakov went as far as to regretthe barbaric acts he had
committedduringthe Civil War.
The ups and downs mentionedabove persisted,however, and alongside
elements of stability,new elements of crisis continuallyappeared. These
included the German defeat of 1923, in which Piatakov had been directly
involved,and the pessimism and gloominess which thatcaused; the birthof
the opposition and the conflicts and bitterness accompanying it; the
he had in settingup a new family(a common phenomenonof the
difficulty
1920s for Bolshevik leaders; Pascal speaks of it); and the suicide of
Evgeniia Bosh in 1925, withinthe contextof ruthlessinternalpower struggles.15
Despite feelingsof remorse,the barbarismof the Civil War continuedto
surface,as can be seen by the trialof the Socialist Revolutionaryparty,of
which Piatakov was president. And the fears- of pererozhdenie, of the
- were still ever present,as were the
peasant stikhiia,of being surrounded
sense of insecurityand the paranoia of the elite, especially of thatpart of
the elite which feltmore acutely thatit was occupying a place to which it
was not "historically"entitled.
- in Piatakov's case, but also
The few years of the NEP were, therefore
in differentways for the whole of the USSR a shortintervalof disturbed
stability,below whose surfacethe processes which had begun in the previthe
ous years continuedto simmerand, occasionally, to erupt.Furthermore,
was
first
there
soon
rested
gave way:
pillars on which Piatakov's stability
Lenin's death; then the progressive cracks in Piatakov's relationshipwith
- specifically,the loss of an only-too-perfect
model that Piatakov
Trotsky
had triedto follow (it is well known that,besides being prodigiouslyable
and "intelligent,"Trotskydid not drink,smoke, or waste time in frivolity);
15 A fewyearslater,V. M. Smirnovspokeof Bosh's suicideas one ofthemanycommitted
in
those days by "old Bolsheviks"who foundthe situationunbearableand were physically
and,I wouldadd,morallyexhausted.
(EvgeniiaBosh was herselfseriouslyill),politically,
123
and, lastly,therewas the loss of his job at the VSNKh.

As an oppositionleader, Piatakov would sooner or laterhave lost thatjob
in any case. But the way in which he was removed in a sense sums up what
we have just said. At the Central Committee of July 1926, Dzerzhinskii,
who rightup to the last minutehad treatedPiatakov as his main collaborator, denounced him as the traitorwho was leading the NEP to a crisis,
profitingfromthe trusthe had been shown. Piatakov frequentlyinterrupted
him. A few moments later, Dzerzhinskii fell down dead. For Piatakov,
therefore,the brief intervalof tranquilityofferedby the NEP ended tragically somewhat earlier than it did for the rest of the country.A period of
profoundpersonal crisis began which,fromthe point of view of his stateof
mind,can be said to have continuedup to the end of 1930.
The personal crisis revolved around his desertionof Trotsky,which in
effect meant deserting his entire circle and, despite all the possible
justifications,desertingmany of his ideals. That desertioncame about at a
time when Piatakov hoped thatStalin and his followerswould be willing to
continue the line he had marked out in the industrialfield, and to entrust
him with leading it.16 Alongside this hope, there was already the fear
inspired by Stalin- a fear Piatakov disclosed in the words he used in
reproachingTrotskyforthe accusations he had made to the gensek at a Politburomeeting in the summerof 1927: "he will never forgetyou for this:
neitheryou, nor yourchildren,nor yourgrandchildren."
Piatakov's desertion of the opposition, complete at the end of 1927,
meant,too, the betrayalof his wife Zina who was imprisonedand deported,
whereas he returnedto Paris. Here, Piatakov was leftalone, withhis secretaryMoskalev, once again an exile in a countryhe hated. All the witnesses
speak of a terribleperiod, of chain-smoking,of drinking.Some go as faras
to speak of deliriumtremens.
In this state,in February1928, Piatakov signed his "capitulation" to Stalin. In the followingyear came the "feudal homage" which we have already
mentioned.Both were acts which implied both personal submission ("nasiliem nad samim soboiu nuzhnyirezul'tat dostigaetsia," said Piatakov at the
timeto Valentinov) as well as political suicide, as Trotskyrightlyremarked
when he spoke of Piatakov and otherslike him as zombies.
16 This was
thenthe TsKK boss, promisedhim duringthe
probablywhatOrdzhonikidze,
Piatakov's surrender.
It was perhapsin thosedaysthatPiatakovstarted
negotiations
preceding
to look at Ordzhonikidze
in a new way,as a sourceof psychological
ratherthanjust political
support.
124
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
monthswas followedby a
On thepersonalplane,thedespairof thefirst
of
true
exaltation.
This
from
theway in whichPiaemergesclearly
period
takovjustifiedhis decisions in his 1928 conversationwith Valentinov
(quoted above) and from his speeches of 1928-1929. These were
illuminated
byideologicalsparksofthemostextremenature,
pickingup the
and containedthe themeof an
threadsof ideas of ten yearspreviously,
of
especiallythepersonalexertions,
appealto thespiritandto theexertions,
theCivilWar.
Thus it was withexaltation,ideologicalas well as psychological,that
betweenpessimismand
Piatakovresolvedon thepersonalleveltheconflict
building.On theeconomiclevel,thisexaltationwas embodiedin thecredit
reformlaunched in 1930 and inspiredby the most nave ideas of
1917- 1918.Its failurewas alreadyevidentby thesecondhalfof thatyear,
of theFirst
of thefirstoffensivethrust
markedby thegeneralship-wreck
Five-YearPlan.
Thisnewcrisis,whichforPiatakovwas, again,also a personalone, saw
theend of thepreviousexaltation,in a climatecharacterized
by renewed
fear.Forexample,justbeforeemigrating,
Ipat'evsaw the"brave"Piatakov,
on
excusesfornotintervening
whomhe had admiredin thepast,mumbling
he
well
knew.
whose
and
behalfof persecuted
spetsy
integrity competence
The factis thatPiatakovwas alreadypayingthepriceof his 1928 choices.
at theGosbank,Sher,had been arrestedforsaboHis second-in-command
And insinuations
caused by thecreditreform.
because
of
the
damage
tage
on Piatakov's own accountweregrowing,as was blackmail(proofof his
distantMenshevistsympathieswere publishedin Kiev). Stalin,perhaps
disappointedby the trusthe had placed in one he had thoughtof as an
hadbegunhiscat-and-mouse
game.
experteconomist,
leadersoftheoppovictimsweretheformer
Thisgame,whosepreferred
sition,continuedin subsequentyears.Piatakov,however,was at firstsaved
fromitsmostdevastating
consequences,thanksto Stalin'sdecisionto give
advice.Thatchanceconhimanotherchance,perhapson Ordzhonikidze's
sistedof a job at theVSNKh, soon to be followedby thatof conducting
withGermany.His enormoussuccessin thisfieldin
economicnegotiations
April1931gave Piatakova newlease on life,built,as we have seen,around
who was by now also a sourceof
theNKTP and aroundOrdzhonikidze,
- such
ofpersonaldevotion
in
fact,
And,
expressions
support.
psychological
k
lichno
sluzhebnoi
riada
as "ia, pomimovsiakogo
subordinatsii,
prosto
no odnim
tebeochen'khoroshootnoshus'i schitaiutebia,khotiai starshim,
- can be foundoverand overagain
iz samykhmaikhblizkikhtovarishchei"
in Piatakov's post-1931 lettersto Sergo.A certainpercentageof adulation,
in line withthespiritof theday, and thedesireto keep Ordzhonikidze's
125
protectiondo not rule out, I believe, an elementof sincerity.17

We thuscome back to the dualism of the 1930s, which we mentionedin
the last section. On the one hand there was the NKTP firstdeputy- in
Weissberg's words, a man "of iron will and boundless energy,"who "knew
personally every importantworks or factoryin the country,"who "never
seemed to stop workingand at threeo'clock in the morningcould still be
foundhard at it in his office."On the other,therewas Stalin's slave and victim,the fearful"red-hairedJudas," to use the words of Trotsky's son, who
met him by chance in Berlin and saw him turnand runaway (very different
behavior,forexample, fromthatof I. N. Smirnov,who promised and gave
his old friendsinformationabout the crisis in the USSR).
And yetPiatakov, too, musthave "seen" what was happening,the conditions in which building was taking place, the famine in Ukraine, the suicides of old acquaintances like Mykola Skrypnyk.And, even if Piatakov
was no Bukharin, who reacted with bursts of tears and depression, the
events of those years must in some way have marked him. In view of his
though,it is hard to believe what Berger,the ex-secretary
workingrhythms,
of the Communistpartyof Palestine, said of a Piatakov entirelyaware of
the harmhe was doing, of the lie he was living,and who was again drowning these feelings in drink.Perhaps Berger was mixing him up with Preobrazhenskii,who apparentlydrank, or with Smilga and Smirnov who, in
1931, were, in fact,again of the opposition.But it is certainthatPiatakov in
those years knew littleor no stability,had no privatelife,and lived through
extremelydifficultmomentspsychologically (apart from anythingelse, it
seems that his wife, from whom he eventually separated, had become an
alcoholic).
It is not surprising,therefore,thatwhen it became clear that Stalin had
also got the NKTP - Piatakov's reason for living- in his sights,Piatakov's
crisis reached a new stage. The attack on the NKTP, which began in 1935,
became a full-fledgedone in 1936. By Juneof thatyear, afterhaving tried
to defend his creation and having failed, Piatakov was a man ready to do
anything.
In line with the above-mentioneddualism, his reactions followed two
lines. On the one side, Piatakov put,as never before,his fate in the hands of
Ordzhonikidze,renewingup to the last minutehis pledges of friendshipand
personal devotion ("you appear for me not only as a member of the Politburo and a People's Commissar; you are forme the comrade to whom I am
personallyattachedwithall my soul") as well as of unselfishdedication to a
17 See also fn.16.
126
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
common cause, disruptedby unjustaccusations.18

On the other,Piatakov "spoke" to the boss himself: first,throughthe
insane article he wrote in Julyexaltingthe trialagainst the two "putridcarcasses" (Kamenev and Zinov'ev); and, even more extremely,by going
directlyto Ezhov and tellinghim that,in order to demonstratehis fidelity,
he was willing to kill with his own hands all those accused in the trial,
includinghis formerwife- a proposal whose absurdityeven Ezhov derided
(a recentlypublished letterof Ezhov to Stalin of 8 August 1936 tells the
story).
In bothof Piatakov's reactions,as Lel'chuk has pointedout, it is possible
to see "politics" at work. Piatakov, like Radek and many others,was trying
to save himself,playing his own game. Yet, follydictatedthe rules and the
"game" itselfgives us a good idea of the abyss into which Piatakov had fallen. That process of progressive"barbarization"of which we have spoken
had reached its peak.
The followingmonthsbroughtPiatakov's arrest,torture,and trial.At the
end of the trial,Piatakov read a declaration,probablywrittenby Vyshinskii
and personallyrevised by Stalin. One sentence,however, could have been
his own: "And here I stand before you in filth,crushed by my own crimes,
bereftof everythingthroughmy own fault,a man who has lost his party,
who has no friends,who has lost his family,who has lost his very self."
These words aptly describe the situationof the whole group of those "true
believers" of intellectualoriginswho had thenreached the end of theirparabola. These words are also representativeof the failureof the entiregroup
of the old Bolsheviks, sanctioned,we mightsay, a few days afterPiatakov's
executionby Ordzhonikidze's suicide.
All this, togetherwith what has been said on Piatakov's "reasonings"
during1927-1928, seems to indicatethatthereis an anachronismin Arthur
Koestler's Darkness at Noon. The reflectionsand considerationswhich that
book attributesto the "old Bolsheviks" in 1936- 1938, seem to be ratherthe
reasoning with which some (in others,like Radek, cynicism was already
18 It is
in Augustand at thebeginwritten
to Ordzhonikidze,
thatin his lastletters
interesting
his personaldevotionto Stalin.The letters,
underlined
Piatakovrepeatedly
ningof September,
alone.This leads one to think
forOrdzhonikidze
werelikelywritten
mostofthemhandwritten,
that
to thehypothesis
that,up to thatpoint,Sergostill"believed"in Stalinand lendscredibility
suicide- perhapsas a personalprotestagainsthis "leader,"once he
he indeedcommitted
which
discoveredhe had been"betrayed"
by him.Of course,thetheoryof a politicalmurder,
evidenceseemsto
has recently
regainedground,cannotbe ruledout,thoughthepsychological
speakagainstit.
127
then quite prominent19)of the opposition leaders had "justified" their

surrenderto Stalin ten years before (reasoning which, by the way, Koestler
knew very well, as he had belonged to thatcircle). For the old Bolsheviks,
the actual climate and realityof 1936-1938 were, I believe, completelydifferent.20
IV. DESPOTISM
From our standpoint,the evolutionof Stalin's personal power appears as the
problem of the birthof the Stalinistgroup, of the progressiveformationof
the personal following, of the druzhina of the new prince. And this last
appears as a process of continual superimpositionof particular groups,
which graduallyjoin the oldest "Caucasian" following- a process in which
each new addition, in its own way, marks a new stage in Soviet history.
ThroughPiatakov, we can catch some glimpses of thisprocess.
The firstsuch glimpse is thatof the winningover to "Stalinism" of the
so-called "Russian" right wing of the KP(b)U, and subsequently of the
entire KP(b)U. It brings us to that fundamental question of the
- noticed immediatelyby Trotsky- between the building up
relationships
of Stalin's power, the Civil War, and the problem of nationalityand the
Southernfront(Ukraine was soon to become partof the latter,also fromthe
standpointof the formationof the Stalinistdruzhina). And it indicates that
the ascent of Stalinism can be at least partiallyexplained as a special case
of thatprocess of formationand consolidation of "reactionary"(extremist)
forces in the alien provinces of multinationalstates,and of the use of these
forces against "democratic" (moderate) developments in the center,
analyzed by Ludwig von Mises in 1919.
It all started,as we know, in the summerof 1918, with the birthof the
Tsaritsyn"mafia,"based on the TenthArmywhich had been formedin May
and June of that year from the Red detachmentsthat concentratedin the
Donbass after the German invasion of Ukraine. Among its leaders were
Voroshilov and Rukhimovich. Like the core of their troops, they were
formerworkers,membersof the multinationalproletariatof the Left Bank
and of the South-East,where the anti-Ukrainian,"rightwing" of the newly
born KP(b)U had its basis. As Voroshilov himself stated at the Eighth
Congress, it was Stalin who helped them build their "special" army; its
leaders thusbecame his staunchfollowers.
19 Seefn.9.
20 An
forwhatwas happeningin 1936-1938 was soughtratherby
ideologicaljustification
some of theimprisoned
Stalinists.Theirline of reasoning,
however(reportedin some of the
memoirson prisonsandcamps),hada quitedifferent
content
andstyle.
128
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
Stalin's influenceupon the Ukrainianpartyalso continuedto grow in the

following monthsbecause of his position as narkomnats.In this capacity,
he was the boss withwhom all the leaders, of the Left and the Right,of the
KP(b)U as well as leaders of the othernational parties,had to deal. Some
may have minimizedhis importancein those years because of the underestimation of the nationalityfactorsin the Civil War and in Soviet historyin
general,but the extentof importanceemerges clearly in his November 1918
clashes withPiatakov and A. Bubnov. Piatakov, who had known Stalin as a
"moderate" in Petrogradin March 1917, and who had perhaps collaborated
withhim duringthe nationalizationof the banks, now foundhimselffacing
Stalin as the leader whose authorizationhe needed to form the second
Ukrainian Bolshevik government(a project that was initially obstructed
bothby Moscow and by the rightwing of the KP[b]U).
From Stalin's interventionsin those and the followingmonths,and especially from his interventionin the internalconflictswhich lacerated the
KP(b)U, it is clear thathe was attemptingto create a personal following.
Thanks to his position,to his contacts withRukhimovich,Voroshilov (who
had returnedto Ukraine at the end of 1918, partlyto comply withTrotsky's
protests,and who had immediatelymade Piatakov furiousby falsifyingthe
of the
latter's signatureon a decree appointinghimselfcommander-in-chief
in
as
Ukraine
had
served
Ukrainian army),and Ordzhonikidze (who
plenipotentiaryministerfor supplies), Stalin won the trustof Kviring, Lebed',
Artem,Chubar, and Petrovskii.Two of the Kosior brothers,who had initiallysided withthe Left,later associated withthis group. Eventually,Bubnov, Zatonskii, and Gamarnik- Piatakov's most faithful friends and
collaborators- also "recognized" the leadership of Stalin (who in
November 1918 justified to them his reliance on the "Right" during the
"retreat"of the previous months with the motto "vsiakomu ovoshu svoe
vremiia").
With the exception of this trio,the social, national, and cultural backgroundsof the new adepts were fairlyuniform.Like Voroshilov and Rukhimovich, theywere membersof urban national "minorities"(Russian, Jewish, Polish, etc.), withno formaleducation and of workingclass origin,who
foundit hard to toleratethebirthof a Ukrainiannation,althoughforreasons
other than the "ideological-internationalist"ones Piatakov upheld. The
group was united not only by common origins and attitudes,but also by a
profoundaversion for Trotskyand his methodsand style,which had been,
at first,a furtherimportantmeetinggroundwiththe Left.
The problemhere is thatof the militaryoppositionand of its "souls." We
know that Stalin kept formallyclear of it and criticized some of its positions. But this "alliance" (in quotationmarks because of the innerconflicts
129
whichlaceratedit; think,forexample,of Piatakov'sdistasteforVoroshiofficers

betweennewlypromoted
and Leftists,
lov) betweenproto-Stalinists
Marxist
intelwithlittleor no ideologicaleducation,and
of low extraction,
lectuals,was an important
stepbothin theevolutionof Stalin'spower(Piatakovand V. M. Smirnovwereamongthosefew of its leaderswho were
slowtojoin Stalin'sfollowing)andin thatoftheideologyof Stalinism.
to note how this"alliance" was not only foundedon
It is interesting
conflicts(some of themrecent)against"common"enemies(forexample,
thoseof the Tsaritsynmafiaon one side and of Piatakov,Bubnov,and
on theotherwithVatsetisand themilitary
Antonov-Ovseenko
specialistsof
Trotsky'sentourage)butwas also foundedon a seriesof "misunderstandintoa seriesof objectiveconvergences.We
ings" thatwere transformed
fromdifferent
have alreadymentionedhow bothgroups,thoughstarting
As
for"nationalism."
positions,reacheda commonpositionof intolerance
therecently
publishedminutesof theclosed sessionof theEighthCongress
also appliedto military
show,thesame phenomenon
questions.Here,too,
side
were
On
the
one
distant.
were
the pointsof origin
those,oftenexNCOs of the tsaristarmy,who had recentlyachievedpositionsof great
once again to theirold officers
power,who wouldnottoleratesubmitting
and who would
in
"alien"
to
(or
people general,including"intellectuals"),
work
or
methods
not accept any criticismof their
(which,we should
and abuse; as Okulov
of brutality
consistedfromthebeginning
remember,
and
the
in
fall
of
1918
the
reignedin
corporalpunishment
whip
reported,
blindto that
Voroshilov'sarmy).On theotherside weretheintellectuals,
to the use of
whip,butonce again worriedby thetrendtowardresorting
of the
of thesocial composition
becauseof the"denaturing"
tsaristofficers
of theseredniaki.But averRed Armythatwas a resultof theconscription
sionforthepeasants(as, first,
subjectsof commandand,second,
refractory
socialand ideologicalmaterial)andforthe"bourgeoisspecialas refractory
thetwogroups.
ists"unified
The crisisof thespringand summerof 1919 in Ukraine,and,moregenof Stalin'spersonal
consolidation
erally,in theSouth,markedthedefinitive
hold on thegroupof the"Ukrainian"leaders.While Piatakovwas being
won over by Trotsky,Artem,who was perhapsthe most authoritative
in
was writing
memberof thegroupand who had also servedat Tsaritsyn,
could come fromStalin,who
his lettersthattheonlyhope forthesituation
thusemergedfromthecrisisas a thirdvozhd' thougha minorone. This
by Trotsky,who wentto Ukrainein May 1919 to
processwas facilitated
- boththoselinkedto themethodsof
eradicatethe"Ukrainianpeculiarities
the Leftand the military
oppositionand thoseembodiedin thereal partizanshchina
of theUkrainianpeasants.In his pitilessstruggleagainstthe
130
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
and
latter,Trotskyfound in the formersome ratheruseful instruments,21
wrote laudatoryreportsto Lenin about Voroshilov's seriousness and determinationin eradicatingthe peasant "bands." And yet,by takingharshmeasures also against local bolshevik potentates,withoutany concern for the
impact this mighthave on his own "popularity,"thatis, withoutany political or personal considerations,Trotskymade himself the targetof much
hatred (Piatakov, always an "unpopular" leader, was to inheritthis trait
fromhim).
Stalin's conquest of the "Russian" rightof the KP(b)U laid the foundations forhis subsequent conquest of the entireparty,which passed through
the repression of its detsist majorityat the Fourth Conference of March
1920 (Stalin then representedthe Russian CC) and was sanctioned at the
end of 1920 by the nominationof Molotov, and not Piatakov, as party
secretary.And, in 1921, Stalin was already harvestingthe firstfruitsof his
conquest, withthe success of the anti-Trotskyite
"intrigues"in the Donbass.
Piatakov had become the dictatorof thiscrucial economic region,the place
of originof many leaders of the "Russian" rightof the KP(b)U, at the end
of 1920. Despite his successes and Lenin's opposition,a year laterMoscow
was forcedto sanctionhis removal,loudly requestedby the Ukrainianparty
which was orchestratedby Stalin (the episode is particularlyinteresting
because, in theirattack against an entrenchedbureaucracy,the "Stalinists"
resortedforthe firsttime to thatmix of populism,spets-bdiing,
workerism,
and appeal to other bureaucracies' offendedhonor and revanchistdesires
thatre-emerged,again in the Donbass but in much more refinedforms,in
1928 withthe Shakhtyaffairand in 1935 withStakhanovism).
Of course, the conquest of the KP(b)U by "Stalinism"22was facilitated
21 Thereare
- improperly
- to
stillused today
manymeaningsforthetermpartizanshchina,
coverdifferent
and conflicting
such as Voroshilov'sdetachments,
theUkrainian
phenomena,
as the 1919 military
jacquerie,and such a variegatedpoliticalphenomenon
opposition.Precisely the example of Voroshilov'senthusiasmand pitilessnessin the fightagainstthe
it
Ukrainian
suffices
to provehow misleadingtheuse of thetermmaybe. Therefore,
partisans
wouldprobablybe morecorrectto reservethetermfortheUkrainianpeasantinsurgents,
who,
fromthispointof view, wereamongthe firstexamples(anotherbeingrepresented
by their
in a semi-developed
of
ofa popularly
basedpartisanmovement
Mexicancounterparts)
country
ofusingsucha movement
thetwentieth
It maybe addedthatin 1918Piatakovthought
century.
of our
one of themostimportant
in orderto takepower,thusanticipating
politicalphenomena
in denouncing
In 1919,of theBolshevikleaders,onlyAntonov-Ovseenko,
Trotsky's
century.
to defend"true"partizanshchina
andVoroshilov'spolicies,in somewayscontinued
(giventhe
conditionsand thetimesin whichhis memoirswerewritten,
althoughextremely
interesting,
on thissubject).On thecontinuity
betweenthe1919 partitrustworthy
theyarenotcompletely
tocollectivization,
see fh.33.
andthe1930resistance
san movement
22 This termtookon, overtheyears,a numberof meanings.Withthiscaveat,I believeit is
possibleto use it.
13 1
by thefactthat,until1922,theKP(b)U was, as BohdanKrawchenkohas

bureaucratic
non-Ukrainian
an "urbanmilitary
written,
apparatus."As early
as 1919-1921, however,certainelementshad emergedthatforeshadowed
thereasonsforthatalliancebetweenStalinand theUkrainianwingof the
leadershipof the KP(b)U, reachedin 1923 afterthe greatclashes of late
in thenextsection).I havein mind,forexam1922(to whichwe willreturn
the KP(b)U's agreementwiththe "Soviet"
ple, thepolemicssurrounding
Ukrainianparties,theBorotbistsfirstof all, opposedby Piatakovand the
Leftbutsupported
by Artemand approvedby Stalin.Anothercontributing
- a fear
factorwas fearof the militarist
Trotskyand his hypercentralism
confirmedin the eyes of Ukrainianswhen Piatakov became one of
Trotsky'sfollowersand behavedas he did in theDonbass. Here,to quote
accusationsof the time,Piatakovacted like "a conquistadoramong the
Papuans," unitingthe frontof his adversaries(Russian workers,local
Ukrainianleaderset al.). As Trotskyhad done in 1919,Piabureaucracies,
takovthuspaved the way forthe victoryof his enemiesand servedas
of local leadersthatthecentralist
confirmation
to themajority
dangerlay in
howeverbitter.
Trotskyism,
againstwhichStalinmightbe theantidote,
These conclusions,paradoxicalin thelightof laterdevelopments,
must
at the timehave seemed sensibleto manyrepublicanand local leaders.
What Sergo Mikoianhas called Stalin's 1920s "reasonableness"can be
seen at workhere,in theabilitywithwhichthenetworkof allianceswas
wovenwhichled to Piatakov's removal,in thecontradictions
and "barter"
at thenarkomnats
withthe"republicanpowers,"and,above all, in thepact
withthestrongnationalities
of 1923. It is probablethatStalinalreadywore
thisreasonableness
as a mask,butit is certainthatit convincedmanyand
thatitwas one of thetoolsthatenabledhimto takepower.Thisreasonableeven withthosewho represented
ness,thewillingnessto reachagreement
he actuallydespisedand was laterquick to crush,shows us, I
interests
overothercontenders
believe,one reasonforStalin'ssuperiority
duringthe
of
the
I
have
in
his
mind
"freedom,"
years
powerstruggle.
meaninghis
- in thefieldsof bothideologyand behavior("vsiakomu
lack of principles
ovoshusvoe vremiia"was indeedStalin'smotto),whichcontrastssharply
with Trotsky'smany ideological constraintsand close friendships
and
differs,
too,fromKamenev'sandZinov'ev's morecircumscribed
cynicism.
In theearly 1920s,as we know,thegroupthathad emergedfromthe
Civil War was joined by the"secretaries,"
Kaganovichfirstof all (he, too,
by theway,was a "Ukrainian"and an old friendof Voroshilovand Kviring),who helpedStalinin his conquestof thepartyapparatus.Studying
Piatakovwe see littleof it. But fromthehistoryof the spreadof Lenin's
in which,as we havesaid,Piatakovwas citedas one ofthesix
"Testament,"
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
132
main leaders of the party,it clearly emerges thatin January1923 Stalin was
already, in Fotieva's expression,the "Big Stalin," to whom everythingwas
referred,even against Lenin's instructions.Piatakov was aware of this,and,
despite his ties withTrotsky(politically,a finishedman at the verymoment
of Lenin's death), he was already beginningto fear and respect Stalin. He
knew, by the way, that at least in terms of respect, Stalin and his group
returnedthe sentiment:for example, duringthe "intrigues"to remove Piatakov fromthe Donbass, Ordzhonikidze,even while attackinghim stressed
his great administrativeabilities in the economic field.These contradictory
sentiments perhaps emerged already during Trotsky's replacement as
Commissar of War by Frunze,when Piatakov behaved ambiguously.
In the following years, this mutual appreciationgrew perceptiblyif not
openly. As we have said, the Piatakov who was preparingthe great fixed
capital investmentsplan for industryat the OSVOK (the Conference for
Investmentsin Fixed Capital) was looking carefullyat Stalin's socialism in
one country.And perhapsthe factthatPiatakov was leftat the VSNKh until
July 1926, one of the few opposition leaders who kept any great executive
powers, shows thatthe otherside, too, was looking "carefully"at his work.
Between 1926 and 1929, as we know, "Big Stalin" 's personal power
increased enormously, entering a new phase at the end of that period.
Piatakov's life gives us only some glimpses of the firstpart of this evolution: of the convergenceof vast sectorsof the partyarounda new versionof
socialism in one country;of the last stages of Trotsky's marginalization,
linked partlyto his insistenceon the importanceof internationalquestions
(which by now even people like Preobrazhenskiiwere puttingin second
place); and of the growthin the party,even at its highestlevels, of fear for
thegensek.
Glimpses of the genetic mutation of 1928-1929 however, are more

interesting.As we have seen in the previous sections, Stalin was then
"crowned," througha pre-arrangedoperation, as the new vozhd' of the
party and of the country.This involved, and was made possible by, a
significantenlargementof his following,which, for example, the majority
of the ex-Trotskyites,including Piatakov, now joined. Stalin thus found
himselfat the head of a much larger and more varied group than thatof a
few years previously,temporarilyunitedby thatideology of the will, of the
partyand the stateas thatwill's tools, and of the leader as its embodiment.
But if the Stalin of 1929 was a vozhd and a khoziain for everyone, he
was not these thingsin the same way foreveryone.And he did not embody
stateand partyin the same way in the eyes of all of his followers.This can
be seen, forexample, in the relationshipbetween Stalin and Ordzhonikidze
and in thatbetween Stalin and Piatakov in the early 1930s. For Ordzhoni-
133
kidze, an exponent of the group that had helped him seize power, Stalin
was, if not a primus interpares, an authoritative"older brother"to respect
and admire,but with whom it was also possible to quarrel (in a 1933 letter
to Ordzhonikidze,whom he was tryingto appease over the reductionof the
NKTP resources,Kaganovich, while calling him "drug," reservedforStalin
the term"nash glavnyi drug"). For Piatakov, Stalin was already the master
to whom one had to pay absolute obedience as a personal vassal who knew
he had a past to be forgiven.
Among the older Stalinists, too, there were importantdifferences.
Despite all the ideological mutations, at least some of them- perhaps
Kirov, Mikoian, and Ordzhonikidzehimself- stillthoughttheywere building something "socialist." For Molotov, Kaganovich, Poskrebyshev, and
others like them,the situationwas different.For these, the word khoziain
took on yetanothermeaning.
The Stalinist group that launched the assault of 1928-1929 was thus
held togetherby common ideological traitsand by certain shared characteristicsof behavior and temperament,and was unitedby the figureof Stalin, in whom each in his own way recognized his own master.But, like all
stratifiedgroups, it was also fracturedby faultlines, which Piatakov's evolutionand personal ties help us to see more clearly. And the "despotism" of
the early 1930s, though an undeniable reality, was a still immature
phenomenon.
The terribletrialsof those years changed everything.At the end of 1932,
in a climate in which even proposals of tyrannicidecirculated among the
country's top leaders, the above-mentioned fault lines emerged more
clearly. They also became more and more complex, with those gouged out
by the events in progress superimposed on those resulting from the
of the Stalinistgroup.
variegatednatureof the stratification
The fault lines broughtabout by events were deeply influencedby the
division of tasks duringthe "assault," in its turndeterminedby chance, by
the dictator's calculations, by the "preferences"of his followers,etc. The
fundamentaldistinction,substantiallyrespected despite the many cases of
overlapping,was between those who took over industryand the cities and
those who had the real "dirtyjob" - the breaking of the peasants and the
nationalities.
The victoriesof the end of 1933 did not heal these fractures,and, as we
know, at the Congress of the "Victors," agreementwas not complete. For
some, the victoryhad been achieved despite Stalin (even if, at the end of
1932, perhaps for fear of falling with him, they had not the courage to
remove him). For others, victory could and would be translated into a
lesseningof the hold: theyhoped fora returnof the "reasonable" Stalin.
134
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
had gone through

But Stalin,too,had "changed."The trialsthecountry
himintoa masterin thefullsenseof thewordin theeyes
had transformed
the
of manypeople: his immediatefollowersat the personalsecretariat,
membersof his recently
renewedintimate
circle,manyof theintermediate
cadresof the party,the majorityof the "organs'" officers(to whomhe
forthecrimescommitted
and
duringcollectivization
guaranteed
immunity
thefamine),and even in theeyes of a considerablesegmentof thepopulationat large.23
Those same trials,as Stalinhimselfhad experiencedthem,had accenhis "wickedness."Soviethistoryhas provedonce
tuatedand transformed
again theexistenceof that"repulsiveimperialmadness"of whichBurckof Montesquieu'sobserhardthad spokenand proved,too,thetruthfulness
of thepersonalcharacterof thedespot,once
vationsabouttheimportance
one has beenproduced.The new depthsto whichStalin'smalevolentstyle
as a "master"had sunkwereagainin evidencein his relationswithformer
Zinov'ev,and Kamenev.With
oppositionleaderssuchas Preobrazhenskii,
became
Stalin's
wicked,provingthatTrotsky's
them,
increasingly
game
about the futureof the "capitulationists"
1928 forebodings
were,if anytoooptimistic.
thing,
However,as in theearly1930s,itseemedthatPiatakovwouldmanageto
avoid theworstconsequencesof thisnew turnof thescrew.His services
he
werestillpreciousand,unliketheotherex-opposition
(exceptBukharin),
could counton powerfulprotectors.
Thingssoon began to go differently,
however,andthelasttwoyearsofPiatakov's lifesaw therapidriseof what
ofthiscoincided
MosheLewinhas called"highStalinism."The affirmation
notonlyof Piatakovandof
with,and was madepossibleby,thedestruction
butalso of a largepartof theoriginalStalinist
the"last-minute
followers,"
in a processin whicha princeand his trainweresubstituted
druzhina,
by a
the
thus
saw
not
only
rupture
despotand his circle.The years1936-1938
ofthecontinuity
bytheold Bolshevismbutalso thepartialruprepresented
of
of theStalinistgroup.It was thetriumph
tureof thesubjectivecontinuity
but
one
that
in
rare
a phenomenon
a new personaldespotism,
history
quite
- age of theformation
in "particular"
conditionsof
thetwentieth
century
newstates has allowedus toobservequitefrequently.
innumerable
23 This was a
was
of the upheavalsof thoseyears.Then,a new social stratum
by-product
of thepopulathegreatmajority
raisedto newheightsby thesamewavethatwas submerging
theveryseriousnessof thecrisisled manyto graspholdof everything
tion.Furthermore,
they
theiconofan infallible
leader,in orderto stayafloat.Needlessto say,thiswas
could,including
also a measureofthesuccessofthe"cult"campaignlaunchedin 1929.
135
V. NATIONALITY(UKRAINE)
Ukrainewas thecruxof thenationality
question,especiallybeforeWorld
War II. ThroughPiatakov's connectionswith Ukraine,his life clearly
showsus theimportance
of thatproblemin theformation
and development
of theSovietsystem.In so faras is possiblefromPiatakov'sexperiences,
I
will tryto outlinethemainphasesthrough
whichthenationality
question
passedduringhis lifespan.Giventheperspective
adopted,thisoutlinewill
be constructed
froma centralist
as a piece of the"unitary"
hisviewpoint,
toryof a renewedplurinational
system,such as theSovietone was. And,
lies: in spiteof well-known
and important
perhapsitis herethattheinterest
Richard
first
of
all
Soviet
even its
exceptions
Pipes
historiography,
Westerncomponent,
has sometimesdeniedand moreoftendownplayedor
ignoredthenationality
question,possiblyso as notto "complicate"things
toomuch,thusdelegating
theproblemto nationalhistoriographies.24
Piatakov's fatherwas, in Kostiuk's words,a "predstavitel'russkogo
krupnovokapitala"in Ukraine;at least,thisis how he was consideredin
nationalistic
reason(bornin St. Petersburg
in 1846,
circles,and notwithout
he had movedto Ukraineto administer
one of thecountry'slargestsugar
mills,whichbelongedfirstto PrinceVorontsovand was laterinherited
by
thewidowof theimperialober-egermeister,
CountessBalasheva;later,he
foundedhisown industrial
theson was to be
companies).Mutatismutandis,
even
more
it
was
his adherenceto Marxism
judged
harshly.Paradoxically,
as an internationalist
Piatakov'stransformation,
ideologywhichfacilitated
to use Lenin's expression,intoa championof GreatRussianchauvinism.
Two ideologicaltenetspavedthewayforthis.
The first
was thealready-mentioned
convictionthat,sincetheconfrontationwas to be directlybetweenfinancecapitaland socialism,thenational
statewas an out-of-date
In theseconditions,the slogan of
phenomenon.
nationalself-determination
made no sense,indeed,was "reactionary,"
and
hadtobe replacedbythatof"downwithfrontiers."
The second was Piatakov's adherenceto the ideas with which the
- much more respectfulthan Piatakov of
Austro-Marxist
Karl Renner
had
tried
to
defend
theexistenceof a resurrected
Austrominority
rights
Hungarianstate.These ideas,sharplycriticizedbyvon Mises fromboththe
economicand nationalstandpoints,
werebased on theconceptof the"large
^
To historians
of thenationalproblems,and especiallyto thoseof Ukraine,thefollowing
sectionwill thusseemobviousand perhapsquitesuperficial.
I decidedto include
Nonetheless,
it becauseI believethatwithouttakingintoaccountthenationalquestionit is impossibleto
- orto understand
- thehistory
write
oftheUSSR as a historically
someunitary
phenomenon,
which
the
USSR
had
beenforseventyyears.
thing
undoubtedly
136
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
economic region," more oftenthan not plurinational,which was held to be

the only economically viable entity.In Piatakov they took a particularly
extreme form,to the extent that Lenin defined him as a theoreticianof
"imperialisteconomism."
Piatakov's Marxism thus contained the premises whereby it could be
transformedinto a particularversion of the imperial ideology shared by
many Russian intellectuals,especially those living in Ukraine. If peculiar
because of the formsit took, Piatakov' s anti-Ukrainianismwas thus fairly
typical.As Gol'denveizer wrotein his memoirs,afterthe FebruaryRevolu"
tion the Kiev intelligentsiiaconsidered "grubaia beztaktnost' any attempt
to raise the Ukrainian problem. This ill-feeling was particularlyacute
among those of the Left, Mensheviks and esery included, as demonstrated
by the anti-Ukrainianstance of the Kiev Soviet and Duma or by Murav'ev's
behavior. In this sense Piatakov's Marxism was ready to be transformed
intoone of the factorswhich latermade possible the particulartype of state
(empire) building thattook place duringthe Civil War25 (think,for example, of the new significancethat could be taken on by the slogan "down
withfrontiers").
did not come about in a linear way, however, and its
This transformation
tortuoussteps can be seen in two phenomena. The firstis the role played by
the acceptance of the October "miracle," also in regard to the nationality
question, in the slide of some Marxist intellectualstoward positions that
were a grotesque caricatureof those theyhad previously held. Before that
happened and despite his theoreticalpositions,a Piatakov convinced of the
impossibilityof socialism in "Russia" collaborated, for example, with the
Rada and the other Ukrainian socialist parties and was reprimandedby
Moscow forit.
This collaboration points to the second phenomenon, which brings us
back to the reasons the new plurinationalstateorganismbeing formedtook
on the peculiar and novel structureof a "union" of republics at the moment
of its birthand which has already been analyzed, for example, by Frank
Sysyn in connectionwithNestor Makhno's evolution. This phenomenonis
the relative independence of the revolutionaryprocess in Ukraine (a
Ukraine thatat firstseemed not to include the Donbass).
25 In
polemicson the subject,I thinkit can be said thatthe late
spite of the recurrent
- whichpreventedthe consolidationof a
1918-early 1919 Bolshevikvictoryin Ukraine
state
Ukrainiannationalstateand thus opened the door to the rebirthof a multinational
- was in factthe resultof an "adventure"
conductedby a small groupof Leftist
formation
it
leaders,motivated
by ideologyand headedby Piatakov,whooftendefiedthecenter,putting
ofthefait-accompli.
in front
137
In fact,Piatakov's activityboth in 1917 and, in spite of the rupturewhich

the October Revolution marked in this fieldtoo, duringthe Civil War offers
a good measurementof the progress in the development of a Ukrainian
national-political frame of reference, to which at firsthe undoubtedly
belonged (as shown by the fact that,unlike Voroshilov or Kviring, before
his Trotskyiteoption he was recognized by the Ukrainians as the representativeof a tendencywhich,thoughhostile,was internalto theirworld).
Afterthe Brest-Litovskpeace, for example, like all the leaders of the
Left,Piatakov resignedfromhis post. But, unlike the others,he leftstraight
away for Ukraine, to continue the war against the Germans and, with the
volunteerunitsof the "Red Cossacks," to keep alive the flameof the revolution in Europe.
The enemy of nationalismwas thus transformedinto the defenderof the
independence and the specific natureof Ukraine. And, as such, he was the
ally of Mykola Skrypnykagainst the "Russian" Bolsheviks of Kharkiv,
Katerynoslav,and Luhans'k in the building of an independentKP(b)U, of
which he became the firstsecretary.Naturally,behind his pro-Ukrainian
stance, which went as far as to sustain the new party's complete independence fromthe Russian one, therewere divergences with Moscow over the
peace, with attemptsto get around its effects,beginning with those in
Ukraine, doubts about the new power's "independent" ability to survive,
and hopes for a European revolution. But, Piatakov's behavior in fact
confirmedUkraine's relativeothernesscompared to Russia and showed that
Kiev was stillone of Piatakov's centersof action.
The rapid defeat at the hands of the Germans did not substantiallyalter
anything,and, indeed, by the summerof 1918 Piatakov went so faras to set
himselfup as the theoreticianof the revolutionarypotentialof the Ukrainian
peasants, on whom he "gambled" in August, despite the violent opposition
of Kviring and his group, proclaimingan insurrection,which immediately
aborted. At the Second Congress of the KP(b)U (October 1918) the Right
criticizedhim and, thanksto the supportof Moscow, gained the majorityin
the Central Committee. Despite the "truth"of some of Kviring's observations about the Ukrainian peasants- revolutionaries,to be sure, but certainly not of the Bolshevik line- Piatakov's position immediatelyseemed
to be vindicated by the defeat of Germany and the rapid expansion of the
peasant insurrectionin Ukraine.
It was at this time that Piatakov, afterhaving overcome the opposition
fromMoscow, became for a few weeks the premierof the new Bolshevik
government.He was quickly removed fromthatposition,fora series of reasons thatcannot be analyzed here. What is of interesthere, rather,as in the
previous sections, is the defeat and ship-wreckof the Bolshevik power in
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
138
Ukraine between April and June 1919. Kviring's position was now vindicated by the great peasant jacquerie (partlystimulatedby the insane agricultural policies implementedby that alliance between the Left and the
proto-Staliniststhat held power in Kiev). The assault launched by the
"peasant ocean" on a Bolshevik power whose local compositionwas, as we
have just seen, ratherinterestingfromthe standpointof laterdevelopments,
confirmedto Piatakov, Voroshilov, Rukhimovich, Kosior et al. that the
most dangerous enemy of the new power was the "ukrainskaia
krest'ianskaiastikhiia,"the militantspear-head of the only social force still
presentin "Russia" thatcould open the way for the restorationof capitalism.
Paradoxically, then, the lesson that the experience of those months

- and to Stalin as theirheadtaughtto the leaders of the Southernfront
was the opposite of thatwhich the nationalistleaders learned. The lattersaw
the peasants as the weak pointof the nationalmovement;forthe former,the
Ukrainian countrysidebecame instead the symbol of and the breeding
groundforhostile "nationalism."26
The crisis of the second Bolshevik Ukrainiangovernmentcoincided with
Piatakov's definitivemove to a hypercentralistposition: already at the
EighthCongress, althoughsiding with Smirnovon militarymatters,he had
exalted centralismagainst the nationaldemands. In April,once again secretaryof the KP(b)U, he opposed negotiationswiththe Ukrainian Soviet parties (i.e., those favorable to the new power). Between May and June,he
accelerated negotiationswith Moscow to centralize most of the Ukrainian
commissariats' powers in the Russian ones. Soon after,his collaboration
with Trotskybegan. Thus Piatakov's Rakovskian, bureaucratic-"imperial"
option,mentionedin the second section above, has also been corroborated
on the "national" plane.
Afterthe second half of 1919, except forthe intervalin the Donbass during 1921, Piatakov was no longer in Ukraine and he no longerdealt directly
with the nationalityquestion. His experiences, however, can be used for
some other reflectionson the evolution of the nationalityquestion in the
USSR.
In the section on "Despotism," we mentionedthe coalition of Stalin and
the leadership of the KP(b)U in opposition to the Trotskyitesand the first
signs of a possible alliance between the Stalinistsand the "national" wing of
the Ukrainianparty.In 1921-1922, these signals were contradictedfirstby
the purges directedby Lebed' and then,and above all, by the great clashes
at the end of 1922 over the nationalityquestion, which saw the defeat of
26 See also fn.34.
139
underLenin,of whichtheUkrainians
Stalin'spositionbya compositefront
Withthebirthof theUSSR, this
a
were strongcomponent.
led by Skrypnyk
frontimposeda solutionthat,at leastfromtheformalstandpoint
(thecreafoundedon nationalrepublics),hadenormousand
tionof a federalstructure
In theshorttermitrepresented
thesecondof thefunimportance.
long-term
damentalcompromisesthatwent into creatingthe essence of the NEP:
awareof itsown weakness,thenew statecenterthathad emergedfromthe
butalso withthe
Civil War now madea pactnotonlywiththecountryside
in
as
the
case
of
thepactwiththe
national
And,just
"strong"
leaderships.27
showeda
peasants(or of thatwiththespetsy),thepactwiththenationalities
in theyearsimmediately
also ofcontent,
certainvitality,
following.
thisvitality
tooktheformof an alliancebetweensomeof
Paradoxically,
the winnersand the defeatedStalin- an alliance thatsurfacedalreadyin
monthsof that
1923,at theTwelfthCongress.As is well known,in thefirst
in
had
Lenin's
to
his
lead,
request
place, "a fightto
year,Trotsky rejected
the death"against"greatRussianchauvinism"forthe supremacyin the
of his
party.As Danilov has toldus, it was, above all else, considerations
"Jewishorigins"thatstoppedTrotsky(thatis, factors,again, connected
In addition,he may have been concernedover the
with"nationality").
discontent
thata battleof thissortwould have caused amonghis closest
- primarily
collaborators
Piatakov,who was then,accordingto Souvarine,
themostauthoritative
afterTrotsky
and who,at theend
himself,
Trotskyite
of 1922, was close to the positionheld by the gensekon the nationality
question.28
Undertheimpetusof defeat,and becauseof theneedto findallies in the
struggleagainstTrotskyand in thestruggleplannedagainstKamenevand
Zinov'ev,thegensekradicallychangeddirectionduringthesame months,
fruitof his "freegivingproofof his greatabilityat politicalmaneuvers,
dom"fromprinciples.
Takinggood care to expose themenaceof Trotskyite
hypercentralism,
he offeredtheleadersof thestrongnationalities
notonlydecisivesupport
fortheirpoliciesof korenizatsiia,
butalso theprospectof industrialization
in
tune
with
their
needs
shallreturn
to thislater).
(we
policies
27 In smallerand weaker
republics(Georgiais theobviousexample),thecentralpowersfrom
thebeginning
showeda quitedifferent
face.
28 Fromthis
of yetanotherriftin therelapointof view, 1922-1923 markedthebeginning
tionshipbetweenTrotskyand Piatakov.This riftgrewin thefollowingyears,whenPiatakov
foundhimselfmoreand more in agreementwithStalin,and especiallywithhis "private"
on thenationalquestion.Trotskyfolloweda different
thoughts,
path,whichin the 1930s led
himto recognizeUkraine'srightto independence.
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
140
of the top
The offerwas accepted. It soon produced a general reshuffling
officesin the republics,followed by the arrivalin Ukraine of a Kaganovich
who promised to carry throughthe Ukrainization of the party in forced
stages (it is probable that,in spite of the general aversion which soon surrounded him and the conflictswith Shumsky,Kaganovich 's energyand art
of "pushing"- an ability at which the Stalinists excelled- inspired the
admirationof Ukrainianleaders who were soon to become its victims).29
In return,the entire leadership of the KP(b)U (not just its old Stalinist
core) guaranteed its supportof Stalin in the strugglefirstagainst Trotsky
and then against his other adversaries. This bargain must have seemed
extremelyadvantageous to the Ukrainians,since theirpartappeared to consist of collaboratingwith a "reasonable" thoughauthoritarianpartnerin the
defeatof a common enemy. In fact,as had already happened in the Donbass
in 1921, it was now the Trotskyites who in day-to-daylife appeared to be
the most consistentsupportersof centralpower and its "rationality,"attacking the interestsof the "local bureaucracies." For example, in the 1920s Piatakov conducted a fierce battle at the VSNKh to remove resources and
powers fromthe Ukrainian SNKh, which on various occasions he accused
of "particularism,"inadequacy, and corruption.
Here we returnto the difficultiesthatTrotsky'sentouragecaused him in
his attemptto take over the reins of an anti-Stalin frontbased on the
nationalities.Despite the "universallyesteemed" Rakovskii and his orientation in favorof Ukraine,it was ratherPiatakov's behavior in the 1920s that
provided the model for the attitudewith which an importantpart of the
oppositiontreatedthe nationalityquestion at thattime.
One mightrecall, for example, the way in which Vladislav Kosior,30in
the Vorkutaof the 1930s, described to H. Kostiuk the feelingsof scorn and
annoyance that the Left, the youth,and the intellectualsin particularhad
felt ten years previously for the nationalityquestion, its "provincialism,"
and narrow-mindedness.Similar feelings also surfaced in the opposition's
officialdocuments.For example, in the 1927 platform,the section dedicated
to the nationalityquestion began by attackingboth Great Russian chauvin-
29
Kaganovichwas alreadyin the 1920s Stalin's"specialmission"man,capableof pushing
to
of Ukrainians.It is difficult
as well as fortheextermination
forUkrainization
efficiently
withKaganovichon thesuccessful
thatStalinmodeledhis relationship
avoid theimpression
one- interpreted,
("Asiatic,""feudal")menhowever,accordingtohisprimitive
Lenin-Trotsky
of his "courtJews"(among whomthe
talit.Kaganovichthusbecame the mostimportant
Radekofthe1930smustalso be counted,thoughin a different
way).
30 Of thethreeKosiorbrothers,
Vladislavwas theonlyone who remaineda memberof the
opposition.
141
ism and "nationalism in general."31It continuedby defendingthe multinational proletariatin the towns, denouncing the NEP for having encouraged
the development of private capitalism and nationalism in "backward
regions," and criticizing the "natsionalizatsiia mestnogo apparata" conducted at the expense of the "national minorities"(even though,in principle, the platformwas in favor of ukrainizatsiia,turkizatsiia,etc.- if properly conducted- and demanded bigger investmentsin the more backward
republics).
Of course, this attitudeof the Left was not withoutits own logic. It was
true that the korenizatsiia policies often took crude, provincial, even
"mafioso" formsand that,in consequence, the quality of the bureaucratic
machinery often deteriorated and unpalatable new leadership groups
emerged; it was also truethatthese policies gave rise to pettydisputes and
nourished rancor among the nationalities. But the republican and local
leaderships understoodperfectlywell that they were objects of scorn and
reacted accordingly,looking fora dialogue withStalin.
Such a dialogue was made easier by other characteristicsof the local
powers thatlikewise irritatedthe opposition.At the republicanlevel, in fact,
formsof power were evolving which to some extent retraced the central
developmentsand pointed to the diffusionof mentalitiessimilarto those of
the elite in power in Moscow. An example of this is the growthin the practice of the leaders' "cults," already widespread by the mid-1920s at the
obkom as well as at the republican level (in Ukraine, for example,
Skrypnyk's"cult" was launched).
It is not surprising,therefore,if at the FifteenthCongress in 1927 the
leadership of the KP(b)U once again sided with Stalin (who, incidentally,
had agreed to recall Kaganovich to Moscow) in the final struggleagainst
the opposition. Nor if,in the two followingyears, the leadership sided with
Stalin in opposition to Bukharin and in the launching of the "great offensive."
It is noteworthythat in 1929, in order to criticize Bukharin, Skrypnyk
broughtout of the closet his ten-year-oldfriendshipwithPiatakov, who was
elected as a symbol of centralismand anti-republicanism.But Piatakov was
by now a supporterof Stalin, and it is not easy to understandthe reasons for
thepolitical blindness shown by the Ukrainianleaders. To the reasons listed
above, however, must be added an interestingphenomenon of the end of
that decade that,as far as I know, was firstdescribed in referenceto the
31 Froma certain
pointof view,the 1920s ideologyof theLeftcan thusbe seen as a special
case ofthat"good imperialideal"analyzedbyRonaldGrigory
Suny,amongothers.Foritsrossiiskaia(in contrast
to russkaia)form,
thesovetskaiaone was substituted.
142
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
Karelian leadership.The hope spread among the national leadershipthatthe

Stalin-led perelom would also be the key to the rapid economic developmentof theirrepublics and hence to an increase in theirpower throughthe
strongactivationof state initiative.From a certainstandpoint,then,the fact
of the leaders of the republicsjoining in the Stalinistoffensivecan be seen
as the firstinstanceof thatfortunewhich the Soviet model of development
was to have with the political and intellectual elites of the "backward"
countries:the Soviet model promised them enormous opportunitiesand at
the same time satisfiedtheirpenchantforlarge projects and theirinterestin
keepinggrowthin the hands of the state(thatis, in theirown hands).
to the Ukrainianleaders- thoughprobablynot exclusively
Furthermore,
to them the prospect of rapid industrializationand urbanizationpromised
a solution to a fundamentalproblem: the building of that"base" necessary
for real statehood,the lack of which had determinedthe partial failure of
the effortsof 1917-1919 (Orest Subtelny's "missing Ukrainians" of the
previous tsaristmodernizationand the already-mentionedproblems created
forthe Ukrainiannational movementby having to findsupportprimarilyin
the countryside).
In this vein, Stalin's warning,"You won't get far with Ukrainizingthe
schools only. . . . You must introduce industrializationto succeed," was
now received with favor- the more so since, thanks also to Piatakov's
removal fromthe VSNKh in 1926, in the First Five-Year Plan at least, in
confirmationof the "pact" of which we have spoken, the volume of industrial investmentsdestined for Ukraine was satisfactory(it became even
more so thanks to the "populist" policy in favor of the local economic
bureaucracies adopted between 1927 and 1930 by the new Stalinistleadership of the VSNKh,32 which included many of Piatakov's old adversaries
fromthe KP(b)U, such as Kviring,Rukhimovich,and I. Kosior).
Similar factorsconcur to explain the Ukrainians' adhesion to other Stalinist policies of the period: to the extremes of pushing from above, for
example, in which, as we have said, the Ukrainian leaders had already
founda useful tool to implementUkrainizationon the basis of "regulations,
laws, rules, and threatsof dismissal;" or to the hunt for the "bourgeois"
spetsy,launched in 1928 and which soon culminatedin the Donbass. It is
well known that the top leadership and the spetsy of the all-Union
- often encouraged by Piatakov, who was their natural leader
enterprises
both in the 1920s and in the 1930s, and who stilldefendedthempublicly in
1929- were adamant in theiropposition to Ukrainization.And, as the data
about the nationalcompositionof miningengineersbetween 1926 and 1929
"
"
32 See
my 'BuildingtheFirstSystemofStateIndustry,'citedin fn.2.
143
demonstrates,many of the young men who participatedin the attack and

benefitedfromit were Ukrainians.
In the long term, especially, some of the Ukrainians' hopes were
fulfilled:althoughtherewere shortcomings(which we will returnto at the
end of this essay), the urbanizationand the industrializationof the 1930s
really did change the faces of Ukrainiancities and factories.From the political point of view, however, Ukrainians were disillusioned immediately.
The assault triggeredby the centerand the crisis it provoked broughtabout
a dizzying growthof centralismthat firstdented and then completely destroyedthe informal"pact" between Stalin and the leaders of the republics;
the more general compromisebetween the new state and the republics thus
fell withthe others,thatwiththe peasantryfirstof all.
By the end of 1929, the NKZem of the republics were already centralwithPiatakov's returnto the leadershipof industry,
ized. Shortlythereafter,
the claims put forwardin the industrialsphere against the republican SNKh
began to be satisfiedwhile, already in the Second Five-Year Plan, the percentage of investmentsdestinedforUkraine dropped. At the same time the
tragedywas unleashed that,throughcollectivization and famine,was very
and national leaderships, startingwith
rapidlyto wipe out self-government
Ukraine.
From our viewpoint, only some aspects of this catastrophe and of its
consequences can be mentioned.
In the firstplace, the catastropheappears as the finalsettlingof accounts
stillopen between the old leadershipgroup of the "SouthernFront"(including the 1919 Bolshevik Ukrainian government) and the "ukrainskaia
krest'ianskaiastikhiia."In February1930, and thenonce more at the end of
1932, thishad again provoked,thoughin very differentforms,that"loss of
control"already lamentedin 1919 and denounced eleven and thirteenyears
later in almost identical words in officialdocuments (Balitskii's 1919 and
1930 secret reportson the Ukrainian peasants' revoltsprovide yet another,
and quite impressive,documentof thiscontinuity,in realityas well as in the
elite's mind33).
33 Balitskii's1919
reportsdescribetherevoltof Germancolonistsand Greek,Russian,and
Ukrainianpeasantsin theareassurrounding
Odessa, as well as thesituationin thecity.They
can be foundin the TsGAOR. The 1930 reportsare in Ordzhonikidze'ssecretfondin the
former
TsPA. Thoughwritten
withan eye to theofficialline (Balitskiihimselfwas by 1930
afraidof tellingthenakedtruth,
as he had donein 1919),thereports
provebeyonda doubtthat
theUkrainian
(as well as eventsin the
peasants'"massovyevolneniia"againstcollectivization
These "volneniia,"parCaucasus) wereone of themainfactorsbehindStalin'sMarchretreat.
ticularlystrongalong the bordersand in the okrug,whichin 1919 had been "platsdarmom
dvizheniia,"also continuedafterStalin's article.Only at theend of March
povstancheskogo
was thesituation
calm.The peasants'sloganswere"Doloi kollektivizatsiiu,"
"Vozrelatively
144
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
This time,to be certainof the stikhiia's elimination,the powers-that-be

stopped at nothingand decided to do the job properly,liquidatingas well
- the elite of the Ukrainianrepublic- and proceeded to
the "superstructure"
its de-Ukrainization.34
The process of de-Ukrainizationwas entrustedto Postyshev; in January
1933 he was given the extraordinarypowers needed. The concession of
these powers- the Italian diplomatsspoke at the timeof a Ukraine "granted
in fee" to Postyshev- suggests, though,that the annulmentof Ukrainian
independence was not a one-step process. In other words, the difficultyof
the goal meantthatit was necessary to go throughan intermediatephase, in
froma subordinatebut largelyindependent
which Ukraine was transformed
of
sorts.
into
a
vice-royalty
republic
This vice-royaltywas indeed governedby a viceroywitha mandate from
the centerwho, forthe most part,had no jurisdictionover importantsectors
such as industry(with the creation of the NKTP in January1932, the process of centralizationhoped forby Piatakov had taken anotherstep forward
and, in 1934, the most importanttraces of local power in this field were
eliminated). But it was still a vice-royaltywith a viceroy, a phenomenon
which obstructedthe birthof the personal despotismdiscussed in the previous section.
Stalin's distastefor"arrogantfeudal lords" and his intentto "put themin
their place" (I use his own words) emerged openly at the Seventeenth
to those who in the
Congress. As Stalin himselfadded, he was also referring
in this category
include
We
services."
may rightly
past had rendered"great
those who had "won" in the preceding years on the key frontsof the great
offensiveand who had been able to do so thanksto the exceptional powers
theyhad been grantedand which were now accumulated in theirhands.
The most glaring examples of these "feudal lords" were Kirov in Leningrad,Ordzhonikidze and Piatakov at the NKTP, and Postyshev in Kiev.
Their liquidation was necessary for the transitionto high Stalinism,in part
because- and we go back to the intricaciesof the divisions produced in the
early 1930s in the original Stalinist druzhina this very situation with
svobodnaiatorvratitenam khlebi inventar',""Doloi sovetskuiuvlast'," "Da zdravstvuet

samostiinaUkraina."To repressthem,between1 February
govlia,"butalso "Da zdravstvuet
and 650 wereshot(withoutcountingdeportations
and 15 March,25,000 peoplewerearrested
andthevictimsofdekulakization).
34 In the
long run,however,the weaknessesof Stalin's analysisof the nationalquestion
emerged.The liquidationof the "peasantbase" did not solve the problem.Far fromit, as
had realizedduringtheCivil War,
nationalists
today'seventsseemto prove,and as Ukrainian
to which
was actuallya ratherprecarioussupportfora nationalmovement,
thecountryside
on theotherhand,gavenewlife.
andindustrialization,
urbanization
145
regard to Stalin meant that they could findcommon understanding,overcoming the greatdivide between those who had dealt withcityand industry
and those who crushed peasants and nationalities. And, indeed, with
Kirov's death and Ordzhonikidze's suicide, Postyshev, who had perhaps
thoughtof an alliance withthe latter,was the head of the last opposition of
any importanceof the 1930s. His elimination,as well as thatof most of the
leadershipof the KP(b)U, which we have seen fightingPiatakov and joining
Stalinism in 1918-1919, marked the end of yet anotherphase in the relationshipbetween thecenterand Ukraine.
VI. THE WEST (GERMANY)
I will trynow to outline the evolution of the significanceof the term"the
West" and of relationswiththe West as theyappear to us throughthe stages
of Piatakov' s life. I have already definedPiatakov' s education and culture
in a general way as "Western." Looked at closely, however, the environmentin which he grew up was, to be specific,partof thatGerman-centered
systemwhich thenexisted, demarcatedby very clearly definedboundaries,
withinthe Western universe and which was so importantbefore the Great
War and also, to a lesser extent,afterit.
To the young Piatakov the West was "Germany" (in its widest sense),
and he was influencedby it throughvarious channels: the musical activity
of his mother,forexample, who also taughthim to play the piano ably; the
business of his father,an inzhener-tekhnolog
whose work was regulatedby
the Ukrainiansugar cartel and its links withits German counterpart;and his
studies at the Kiev real noe uchilishche (real Schule). Later on, this "German" influencewas strengthenedby his years at the Faculty of Law at St.
PetersburgUniversityand, above all, by his adherence to Marxism, mediated by the worksof Kautsky,Renner,and Hilferding.
Even duringhis years in exile spent,aftera briefstop-overin the United
States, in Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway, Piatakov continued to move
within this German-centeredgalaxy. This remained true in 1917-1918,
which he spent looking toward Petrogradbut also toward Berlin, Vienna,
and Budapest.
From a certainstandpoint,therefore,Piatakov may also be considered a
- thougha lesser and marginalone- in the crisis of that
protagonist
system
which had Germany at its center. This crisis, triggeredby the First World
War but which dragged on over the followingdecades, was in fact acutely
feltby Piatakov, who often summed it up in the expression "Evropa- eto
vulkan," where by "Europe" he meant the above-mentionedsystem.If that
is so, then,the expression, in addition to revealing the limitsof Piatakov' s
vision, gained an irresistiblering of truth,althoughclearly it was not to be
146
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
theexpected "socialist" lava thatwould pour forthfromthatvolcano.

Piatakov's first,meaningfulcontact with a differentand wider Europe
and West came at the end of 1917 when, called to Petrograd,he took over
the directionof the Gosbank and worked to nationalize the banks and to
annul the foreign loans taken out by the tsaristgovernment(the decree
regarding the annulment appears to be his). This decision was clearly
inspiredby the convictionthattheywere on the eve of a "European" revolution,but it also reveals the limits of Piatakov's perception (and that of
many like him) of Europe and the West.
Despite the factthathe fascinatedforeigncreditorswithhis culturedpersona, "speaking Italian with the Italians, Danish with the Danes, Swedish
with the Swedes," Piatakov did not in fact understandthatthe catastrophe
would not have involved the whole of Europe equally. Nor did he want to
listen to friends such as the Frenchman Sadoul or the Swedish banker
Aschberg (the son of a Russian Jew), who warned thatannullingthe debts
was a geste maladroitwhich would laterbe regretted,as it made thatpartof
the West which was less affectedby the crisis even more hostile to the new
state.
A few days afterthe decision not to recognize the foreign debts, the
hopes for a "European" revolutionreceived a firstblow from the BrestLitovsk peace. From the standpointof relations with the West and Germany,however, and of the idea of themthatwas gaining ground,thisblow
did not mark a breakingpoint. In fact, Piatakov judged the peace to be a
transitoryphenomenoneven though,like all Left Communists,he worried
about the stability which that peace gave to Germany and about the
"national socialist" dangerswhich the new statefaced.
These "dangers," at least in the ideological field, took a particularly
interestingform. Probablythroughthe mediationof Larin, who had studied
the German war economy and had tranformedit into a mythand who had
just been promoted to the leadership of the VSNKh to replace the Left
Communistswho had resigned,Lenin now put forwardhis own version of
"state capitalism" and enteredinto a polemical debate with the Left. "The
mostconcreteexample" of statecapitalism- he wrote- was Germany,"the
last word in the contemporarytechniquesof large capitalismand of planned
organization,"placed, however,at the service of imperialism.In 1918, then,
divided between
there were "two equal parts of socialism," unfortunately
two differentcountries:in Germanywas to be found the economic organization, in Russia the political revolution. The latter's duty was thus to
"study" the German example and to "introduce it with maximum energy,
and withoutbeing afraid of dictatorialmethods,so long as they speed its
application" in "barbaricRussia."
147
The quotation certainly does not sum up Lenin's thought; the Left
opposed thisprogramand it was soon dropped. And yet,it helps us, I think,
to see more clearly the path thatthe Bolshevik leadership was taking.First,
to take the German war economy as a model meant adopting a
socioeconomic programthatinvolved a move backward towardthe reduced
social differentiationcaused by the war, which everywhere imposed a
returnto the "state" as the core foundationin a momentof crisis. On the
theoreticalplane, this operation was made easier by the mediation of the
socialist and Marxisttraditions,which recognized in statisma superiorform
of handling the economy. But these traditionstook on new forms,which
were bettersuitedto the Civil War- the referenceis to its interpretations
as
a challenge to state (re)builders- and which made it possible to cope with
it.
The lack of understandingof what "capitalism" was, as shown by
Lenin's words, was also significant.Following Sombart ratherthan Marx,
Lenin identifiedcapitalism withmodern large industryand its organization
ratherthan with a self-renewingsystem. This identificationimplied, and
fed,the delusion thatcapitalism had reached the limitof its possibilitiesand
that it would be enough to copy its "last word" to ensure far superior
developmenton the basis of the more advanced formof social organization
created in the USSR.
A similar design inspiredPiatakov's proposals and decisions duringthe
following decades, but in March 1918 he was not thinkingthis way. In
order to fightagainst "state capitalism" and "socialist patriotism,"Piatakov
moved to Ukraine to combat the Germans, in the hope of keeping the
conflictalive and again involving "socialist" Russia in it. Piatakov thus
gambled on the fragilityof the centralempires and on the imminentexplosion of the European volcano.
A period marked by ups and downs now began also withregard to relations with the West (again identifiedwith "Germany," in 1918 the main
craterof the volcano). These upheavals, closely connected to the psychological ones we have discussed, were graduallyto quell the hopes on which
the initialgamble had been based.
The firstdefeat, in April 1918, did not alter Piatakov's convictions:
although the volcano's eruptionwas close, no one could predict its exact
moment.And, indeed, in August, when he again believed the momenthad
come, Piatakov took the initiativeonce more, proclaimingthe insurrection
in Ukraine. It was anotherdefeat. Finally, in November, the long-awaited
moment seemed to have come. Piatakov, "in sheepskin cloak and pointed
furcap witha revolverat his side," celebrated the German revolutionat the
Kremlin and then rushed to Ukraine where, among other activities, he
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
148
conducted negotiations with the soviets of the German and AustroHungariansoldiers who were tryingto get home.
With the landing of the Ententetroops in the Black Sea ports,Piatakov,
now the prime ministerof the UkrainianGovernment,again found himself
facing a broader "West." His reactions of this time lay bare his lack of
understandingof the real characteristicsof the crisis triggeredby the war to
the west of Germany.Misunderstandingthe meaning and the scope of the
mutiniesin the Allied troops,he enthusiasticallygreetedtheirlanding,feeling thatit opened the door to war withthe Allies and thus to the revolution
in the West (in its widest sense now). The line he followed during those
days certainlycontributedtoward convincing Lenin of the need to remove
such an irresponsibleman fromhis post.
In March, news of the revolutionin Hungary,headed by his friendBela
Kun, and soon thereafterof revolution in Bavaria seemed to confirm
Piatakov's hopes and changed the situationonce more. To Piatakov, again
secretaryof the KP(b)U, the road to "Europe" (which had again become
Central Europe) now seemed wide open. But it soon closed anew, disastrously,and the time had come for the two discoveries mentionedabove:
thatof the need to come to termswith what could be done in the new, isolated state; and thatof the new state's "Asiatic" dimension. Hopes for the
"West" were again fueled brieflyduringthe war against Poland, in which
Piatakov participated,only to be dampened again by a defeat thatmarked,
objectivelyif not yetsubjectively,thebeginningof a new phase.
During the followingyear, for the firsttime we come across a Piatakov
who looks withdifferent
eyes towardthe West, as to a "technical" model to
imitate.This was an obvious consequence of the needs of reconstructionin
the Donbass but also a firststep in a new direction.At the subjective level,
however, hopes for revolutionin Germany were still alive, and the West
model. As we can see
was not yet reduced to a simple technical-industrial
from articles Piatakov wrote at the time- for example, the one on
Spengler- or fromhis collaborationwithsome journals of the era thatpublished writingsby importantWesterneconomists,he still viewed the West,
in particularGermany,as a more general culturalreferencepoint.
The events of the next months,however, accelerated the progressive
reorientationof his attitudetowardthe West and towardGermany.In April
1922 the Treatyof Rapallo was signed. Shortlyafter,the negotiationsconcerning foreign concessions were entrusted precisely to Piatakov. In
December, in the interestsof quicker industrialdevelopment,he announced
thathe himselfwas in favorof wideningeconomic relationswiththe West,
thus siding with those who proposed a modificationin the monopoly of
foreigntrade.
149
In any case, the conscious step toward a new phase in the conception of
the West and of relations with it came about later, coinciding with the
defeat of the German revolutionof October 1923 thatformallysanctioned
theclosing of the era begun in 1917.
This defeatrepresented,once and forall, the dashing of any hopes foran
a posteriori and ab externojustificationof the events of October, and, as
discussed earlier, Piatakov emerged marked by a pessimism that took the
form of a growing subjective commitmentto internal matters. As he
repeated in numerous articles, it was now time to build in the USSR,
quickly and well. But, build what? The answer to this question, which Piatakov never asked directly,was, as we have said, the "firstsystemof state
- a systemthat would take as its models the technical
industryin history"
and organizationalhigh pointsof the West, thatis, of Germanyand, in part,
of the United States (the 1921-1922 reorganizationof industryinto trusts
and syndicates,or cartels, was a clear indication of this), but that would
differfromthem in one essential element: the means of productionwould
be state property(this difference,or better,this "superiority"was soon
embodied in an organism Piatakov himselfcreated at the end of 1923, the
TsUGProm- more on this in the last section). The echo of Lenin's 1918
position (and of Hilferding's theories) is, I believe, undeniable, and in this
we can findthe roots of that"confusion" between gosudarstvennyiand sotsialisticheskiiin the 1920s.
From the standpointof relationswiththe West, thiswas the decisive step
thattransformedthe West into a technical-industrial
prototype,into a point
of referencethat was not cultural in a broad sense but was ratherstrictly
economic (and, indeed, the decision to put internalmattersfirstwas now
increasinglyaccompanied by a sense of superiorityover the "decadent"
West). But Piatakov still rejected isolationism:he maintainedthe necessity
forSoviet industryto testitselfon the world market,to become the equal of
whatever was best in the most developed countries (a need that implied,
obviously,rapid modernizationof industry).From this stance, Piatakov criticized his formerfriendBukharinand Bukharin's socialism in one country
based on cooperation and gradualism- ridiculous tools for a man who
wantedto build a stateindustryon the standardof Germany.
During his threeyears at the VSNKh, Piatakov did everythingpossible
to apply thisprogram.In his speeches, forexample, we findquotationsfrom
German accountingmanuals, fromAntonWeber's writingson the raionirovanie of industry,and fromHenry Ford's memoirs. The American debates
of those years on corporativeplanningare echoed in his vision of the plan,
to which we will return.
150
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
In October 1925, these options were embodied in the firstimportant

economic German-Sovietagreement.The date is significant:for Piatakov,
who at that time still controlled Soviet industry,and who had planned its
expansion on this basis, the years between 1925 and 1930 were to have
been the years of the FirstFive-Year Plan. The agreementsigned withGermany at the beginningof thisperiod thus implicitlyunderlinedthe decision
to take Germany as the compass by which to steer Soviet industrial
development.
In July1926, however,Piatakov was forcedto leave the VSNKh. Sent as
a trade representativeto a city he despised, he again had to deal with that
partof the West least touched by the crisis and was faced once more with
the problemsunleashed by the decision to annul the foreigndebts. In 1927,
in fact, he belonged to the Soviet delegation that negotiated with France
(which he called a "painted whore") to obtain new fundsin exchange fora
partial recognitionof the old debts. Piatakov and the opposition supported
thisplan, at least undercertainconditions,since it was necessary in orderto
regain access to the internationalcapital markets.This position,dictatedby
the desire to accelerate investmentsin industryas much as possible, again
gave proofof the factthatthe Left recognized the importanceof keeping up
relationswith the developed world, which was still its beacon, thoughto a
lesser and ever diminishingextent.
Internally,the removal of the Trotskyitegroup from the responsibility
fordirectingindustryand industrialpolicy, and its substitutionwithleaders
who had had less exposure to or contactwithforeigncountries,marked the
beginning of an interval which was to last about three years. At least
superficially,this period was characterized by a decrease in German
influence(which neverentirelydisappeared: think,forexample, of the 1929
reformof industryand of the introductionof the obedinenie, inspiredby the
konzern)and by a growthin the influenceof otherWesternexperiences. Of
the latter,though,many of the Stalinist leaders had a "mythical" vision,
fruitof superficialknowledge and of intellectualshallowness, as is shown
by theirrelationswiththe United States between 1928 and 1930. The great
fascinationwith"American methods,"which lefthighlyvisible traces in the
literatureof the timeand which has deceived more thanone historian,is yet
anotherindex of the diffusionof a mentality,thatof "miraculism,"which
we have already mentioned.But thismentalityalso allows us a look at some
of thereasons forthe crisis in industryof 1931 - 1933.
The "American model" at firstseemed to offerthe solution to some of
the most pressing problems of industrialization.Everyone knew that the
"American methods" consisted in mass productioncarried out by unskilled
labor. The formerwas what was needed in the USSR, which was rich in the
15 1
latter.Thus it was self-evidentthat it was necessary to "do as they do in

America." Within a couple of years, however, when the moment came to
startup the firstlarge "American" factories,unforeseenproblems came to
light (for example, the greater the desire to streamline production and
entrustit to unskilled labor, the greaterthe need fora largerand more solid
technical-administrative
structure).Thus, in the end, the osvoenie of mass
productionshowed itselfto be one of the most difficultproblemsthe leadership of Soviet industrywas called upon to solve in the 1930s.35
When Piatakov rejoined thatleadership at the end of 1930, these problems appeared as partof the more general crisis of the five-year"plan." He
was at firstentrustedwith importingmachineryfor the chemical industry,
which enabled him to renew contactwithGermany.Immediatelyafterward,
he was charged withnegotiatinga new, importanteconomic agreementwith
Germany.Under the pressure of Soviet needs, as well as those of German
industry,hard hit by the crisis, negotiationswere completed by April 1931
with the signing of the Pjatakow Abkommen,which was to be a decisive
documentin the salvation of industrialization.
Thanks to Piatakov's effortsand to those of his friendRozengol'ts, who
in the 1920s had been responsibleforthe application of partof the "secret"
military-industrialGerman-Soviet agreements and who was now the
commissar for foreigntrade, Germany became once again the model for
Soviet industrialization.ThroughPiatakov, who had remaineda few months
in Germany as the VSNKh plenipotentiary,in July,Soviet industryhad
placed orders for almost a billion deutsche marks,posing the basis for its
re-equipment.By the end of the year, while importsfromother countries
had rapidly fallen, the German percentage of total Soviet imports had
jumped from23.7 to 37.2 percentand reached 46.7 percentin 1932.36
The "West" was at this point reduced to Germany alone. But Germany,
too, was now a model only on the technological plane. The 1929 crisis
helped Piatakov to look down on Germanyand on the entireWest and reassured him of the lightnessof his decisions. Indeed, this crisis confirmedto
him that Europe- and, above all, Germany- was still a vulkan. The fact
that,"despite its technology,its engineersand its skilled workers,"German
industrywas languishing,whereas Soviet industrywas "flying"- as Piatakov declared in January1932 when the critical phase of industrialization
seemed to have been overcome and no one yet expected the catastropheof
1932-1933 - was in his eyes confirmationof the superiorityof the Soviet
35 This is an
"thatlookstransferable"
but"maynotbe as
interesting
exampleof technology
analyzedbyA. O. Hirschman.
easilycopiedas itlooks,"a phenomenon
perceptively
36 Theseshiftsareevenmoredramatic
ifmachinery
aloneis considered.
152
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
socioeconomic forms.Total state propertyand the "plan" as expression of

the will of the state worked. And, indeed, these policies were envied and
admired by the great German industrialmagnates, one of whom told Piatakov that"it would be good if,just as your Central Committee is doing,
Briiningpresentedus with his five-yearplan and led the strugglefor that
five-yearplan."
These desires were soon to be in some way satisfiedby the advent of
Nazism, which caused Germanyto make anotherjump forwardin thatprocess of "parallel aberration"(but withdifferent
contentand forms)of which
we have spoken. Piatakov's evaluation of Nazism is not known. It is probable thatthe contentof this new eruptionof the "volcano Europe" amazed
him. It is certainhe had to adapt to it to take into account the Soviet raison
d tat. In the years immediatelyfollowing 1933, in fact,Stalin used the old
left-wingleaders to launch his message to the new German powers and to
maintainrelationswith thema latere of Litvinov's policies. Hilger speaks
of a Radek sent in 1934 to express admirationforthe dedication of the Nazi
youthand the organizingtalentof the National Socialists. The less unpalatable job of continuingto look aftereconomic relations between the two
stateswas assigned to Piatakov.
From 1933 on, these relationssuffereda swiftdecline. In the shortterm,
this was caused not so much by Hitler's advent to power, the impact of
which, at least in 1933, was not noticeable (the German percentage of
importsfor thatyear remained at 43.5 percent,and in FebruaryHitlerconsentedto the salvaging of Soviet foreigncredit),as by the terriblecrisis that
struckthe USSR in the autumnof 1932, forcingit to reduce foreigntradeto
a minimum.
This decision to reduce foreigntrade, imposed by circumstances,was
later confirmedon the basis of the "victory"reached throughindustrialization. The "latest word" on the capitalistic technology had by now been
introducedin the USSR, and so it was possible to establish economic selfsufficiency.Thus, the phase ended in which the West and Germanyin particular were, for the USSR, reference points in the technical-industrial
field.37The economic isolationismthathad characterizedthe firstversion of
socialism in one countryreemergedin a new form.Piatakov, who was convinced of the superiorityof the Soviet economy and who feltthatit should
be open, continuedto disagree withthischoice.
37 This
theSovietsystemmetin
stagewas to be reopenedin the1960s,due to thedifficulties
is briefly
discussedin thelastsectionofthisessay.
The phenomen
thefieldofinnovation.
153
It is worthpointingout that autarkyextended to the economic field an

isolationismthat,as Hilger has observed, was already presentin the political fieldat the end of the 1920s, barely covered by the renewed propaganTaken as a whole, thisphenomenonis in line withwhat Hintze
dist fervor.38
wroteof isolation as a conditionforthe developmentof "imperial" systems,
which desire to be the whole and cannot toleratethe notion of a society of
equal states. It would almost seem thatStalin, busy withthe buildingof his
own "empire," remedied the lack of this isolation, which theirgeography
guaranteedto empiresof the past, by buildingthroughideology and through
all the other means at his disposal an artificialisolation that,in fact, succeeded in holdingfirmforsome decades.
In the three following years, Piatakov continued, with Rozengol'ts, to
follow what was left of the USSR's economic relations with Germany.
There were still the old debts to renegotiateor to pay, especially those contractedin 1931-1933. The firstgold to arrive fromthe camps in Siberia
(Kolyma included) was used forthis,and it was also this gold thatenabled
Schacht to overcome the currencycrisis of 1934. Then, in December 1935,
Piatakov went to Germanyone last time to negotiatethe concession of new
loans.
One year later,Vyshinskiiused this tripto "prove" Piatakov' s contacts
withTrotsky(whom Piatakov had supposedly met in Norway) and withthe
German secret services, of which he was accused of being an agent. Even
Piatakov's demise, therefore,was marked by that interweavingof Soviet
and German experiences thathad dominatedhis life.
VII. THE INDUSTRIAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM
As we have said, Piatakov's culturalbackground,rightfromhis childhood,
was basically German and we have seen how, startingfrom his father's
experience with the Kiev sugar cartel and his adherence to Marxism, this
was particularlytrueof his economic culture.We also know thatthe central
German economic experience was the relapoint of the nineteenth-century
between
state
and
tionship
economy,on which both List's "national" school
later
the
historical
(and
school) and the Marxist approach concentratedtheir
attention,theoreticalas well as practical.The appearance of industryand its
rapid developmentas an indispensable prerequisiteof the independence of
any state, to say nothingof a great power, "forced" the German state to
tackle the problem of industrialization.By taking responsibilityfor this,
even though only indirectly,Germany added a new dimension to that
38 Litvinov's1933- 1935
andtemporarily
alteredthistrend.
politicalinitiatives
onlypartially
154
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
"harnessingof all the militaryand financialpower of the country"by states

that wanted to become "independentpolitical powers," which, for Hintze,
had been the nucleus of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century
state-building.
From thisstandpoint,Piatakov's experience as organizerof Soviet industrializationwas a furtherstep forwardalong this path,markedby the direct
handlingof industryand of industrializationby the state.
This extremizationof the relationshipbetween state and economy had
multiple roots- for example: Marxist economic theory; the traditional
of the tsariststate,which in this area had already
economic interventionism
"reached and overtaken"Germanyin orderto compensate foran even more
serious backwardness and to satisfyan equally great ambition for power;
the Great War, which everywherehad reinforcedstate interventionin the
social and economic fieldsat theexpense of society; the accentuationof this
process in the formerRussian Empire,due to the Civil War; the psychological characteristicsof the new Soviet elite, withits internationalambition,its
aspirationsto modernity,its sense of urgency,and its feeling of being surrounded; and, lastly,the factthatthiselite found itselfat the head of a state
that was weak, backward, and isolated in such a volatile arena as Europe
was in the firsthalf of the twentiethcentury.
But these (and other) factorsdid not operate in a linear, predetermined
way, and throughthe life and activitiesof Piatakov we can see some of the
stages of the process which, in the USSR of the 1930s, broughtabout the
birthof the firststate economic system founded on industrythat history
remembers.
As in the previous sections, we will begin here with 1917, with
Piatakov's experience at the Gosbank. Together with otheryoung intellectuals, such as Osinskii, who were close to him, Piatakov discovered his
administrativetalentsand a tasteand capacity forcommand. And like them,
he fell forthe firsttime into the "trap" consistingof the apparentpossibility
of directingthe economy throughdecrees, a possibilitymade very credible
by the institutionaland social void leftby war and revolution.
These decrees were inspiredby what was for these young men "the last
word" on the subject of economic theory,Hilferding'sversion of Marxism.
The aim, expounded by Piatakov in a series of articles that appeared in
the banking
Pravda and were much appreciatedby Lenin, was to transform
of
into
an
central
a
to
reduced
bank,
organ governmentand
single
system,
general accountingof the nationalizedeconomy.
Here again we findthat,in reality,the finalgoal of such a policy could
only be a step back. The new guise taken on by thispolicy, aiming at involution,is worthnotingsince it was to reappear several times over the following years and is typicalof the way in which some intellectualsreacted to
155
economic and social development. The differentiationproduced by this

development(in our case, forexample, the multiplicationand specialization
of banks, of accounts and of formsof finance) was judged to be a useless
and expensive complication, to be rationalized through a process of
"simplification."This process in turnwas an indispensable prerequisitefor
leading the entireeconomy froma single center,so that,by "simplifying,"
Piatakov and the Bolshevik leadership were also building the foundations
fortheirown domination(as well as bringingthemselvesinto line withthe
trendsof the time,triggeredby the war, and unconsciouslypreparingthemselves to tackle the Civil War).
This centralistprogramof reducing society to one large firmwas mitigated, though,at the end of 1917 by two factors.First,as we have said, Piatakov,followingHilferding,recognized thatin "backward" Russia, centralized governmentof the economy would have to be limited at firstto the
commanding heights (banks, large industry,transport,etc.). Second, centralism was in open contradictionwith other positions held by the Left
Communists. For example, theirprogram of April 1918 stronglystressed
localism, the election of organs of leadershipfromthe grass roots,collegialism and, while admittingits necessity,expressed strongreservationover the
use of the spetsy. Unlike the considerations linked to the analysis of the
Russian situation, and thus by their very nature contingent,these were
"principles." But reality,sub specie of civil war, operated on themthatprocess of selection of which we have spoken and which made Marxism an
even fitter
ideology forstate-buildingin backward conditions.
In Piatakov's case, the firstimportantstep of this process of "selection"
was the 1919 defeat of the second, partlyleft-wing,Ukrainian Bolshevik
government.We have seen how Piatakov came throughthisby linkinghimself to Trotsky,and we have mentionedthe "discoveries" he made at that
time, in the firstplace the realization of how indispensable it was for any
power, and in particularfor a newly born power strugglingto affirmitself,
to have a stable and efficientbureaucraticsystem.39This was what triggered
Piatakov's reflectionsabout bureaucracy (mentioned above in the second
39
ofthevalueand importance
ofthebureaucratic
Recognition
apparatuswas,ofcourse,gento it. In goingthrough
theformer
Sovietarchives,ithas beenimpossible
eral,as was resorting
notto be impressed
by thespeedwithwhichthatapparatusand itsrulesdeveloped,as well as
to makeit work.By early1919,every
by thegiganticdimensionsof theBolsheviks'efforts
evenof small,local organizations,
was recordedinprotokoly
thatwerelatercarefully
meeting,
Each organization
had itsown legal office,whichpreparedelaboratedocuments
for
preserved.
use in relationships
withotherbureaucracies.
It couldbe said,therefore,
that,especiallygiven
theconditions
and thetimes,theBolsheviks'bureaucratic
whichabsorbedan enormous
effort,
amountofenergy,
was extraordinarily
successful.This mayhelpexplainwhysucha paradoxical systemas theone theycreatedcouldliveon forso manydecades.
156
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
section), which had some points in common with Lenin's thinkingbut

which differedin importantaspects.40Piatakov's reflectionsdeveloped to
some extentin contrastwith the formsand dynamics of the nascent Soviet
bureaucraticsystem,which was growing chaotically. Through criticismof
what was to be called "war communism,"some typicalnegative traitsof all
bureaucraticsystems were determined:for example, the tendencyto give
rise to a sortof "centralizedfeudalism,"if a strongcentralpower is lacking.
This economic feudalism became known then as glavkizm,but it was to
appear again and again in Soviet historyunder differentnames (for exam-
ple, as "ministerialism").
Trotsky and Piatakov elaborated a complex strategyto deal with the
bureaucratic chaos. The militaryexperience- the only successful oneconvinced themthatone possible solution was to extend it. Hence the proposal for "militarization"(another case of adopting a movement "backward" as a goal, since the army is one of the "original" bureaucraticsystems). Locally, this took the formof the Labor Armies, which centralized
power at the level of large economic "regions" (the Urals, Ukraine, etc.).
The armies were created in orderto get the local economies moving again,
in military-style,and to combat the paralysis caused by the conflicts
between the "plenipotentiaries"of the various centralorgans.
These experiences have not been studied extensively. Having become
the chairmanof the First Labor Army in the Urals (February-May 1920),
Piatakov championed edinonachalie and clashed violently with the local
powers and withthe workers,in thiscase the Cheliabinsk miners.The latter
clash is particularlyinterestingbecause it sheds some lighton thatinterplay
between Russian "traditions,"contingencies,and ideology which presided
over the rapid appearance withinthe new elite of a ratherstrongantiworker
bias and which soon hardened into a model for the considerationand treatment of labor. For Piatakov, traditionswere representedby his childhood,
spent in a company "town" of the Russian type,stronglyinfluencedby the
heritage of serfdom and "modernized" by his father's progressive
40 Trueto theiranalyticalconsistency
(or logicalextremism),
Trotskyand Piatakovwentas
and of its progressiveexpansion.
the necessityfora "good" bureaucracy
faras theorizing
itwas indeedpossible"to throw
that"in a peasantcountry"
admitted
Lenin,instead,reluctantly
which
thebureaucracy,
and thecapitalists"butnot,unfortunately,
outthetsar,thelandowners
This positionwas ofcoursequiteunrealeffort."
"couldonlybe reducedby slow and stubborn
inconwhileincreasingits tasks.This theoretical
istic,sinceone cannotreducebureaucracy
1930s
1920s
and
in
the
led
efforts
the
of
sources
of
the
was
one
recurrent,
Sisyphean
sistency
Bolshevikleaders.One mightthink,forexample,of Ordzhonikizde's
by well-intentioned
witheach cut (as well as
tenureat theRKI, spentpruningan apparatuswhichgrewstronger
becauseofthehavocwrought
less efficient
bythepruners'efforts).
157
benevolence;41 contingencies by the pressing needs of the moment; and

ideology by the idea of planning (which leaves little or no room for the
independentactions of "subordinates") and, above all, by Marxism's labor
theoryof value which,unlike othertheoriesof value, makes the exploitation
of such exploiof the workersthe source of all riches and the intensification
tation the royal way to cope with economic difficultiesand to allow for
accumulation. On the strengthof these convictions,Piatakov firstappealed
to the "honor" of the workersand then,deluded by the miners' response,
decided to resortto other means of bringingpressure to bear in order to
increase production (means represented by a combination of harsh,
military-likediscipline and a rigid "paternalism" thatruled out any "autonomous" behavior by the workers),suscitatingindignantprotests.
Trotskyand Piatakov completed theirreflectionson bureaucracyand its
workings by elaborating a new conception of the "plan," which in time
stronglyinfluencedLenin himself.The birthof this new notionof planning
was regulatedby two factors:militaryexperience, filteredby contact with
theGeneral Staff,and the failureof previous attemptsat planningcaused by
the crisis of those years. Trotskycriticizedthe navet of the idea, typicalof
the socialist tradition,of a general plan "worked out on paper" by economists and statisticiansand then "applied" to reality.He proposed a "single"
plan to be built piece by piece, progressivelyenlarging the experience of
centralizeddirection,established firstin some key sectors of the economy,
and building and extendingon a parallel level the necessary administrative
apparatus. At the root of this proposal was, of course, the application of
udarnichestvoin the economic field- the idea of choosing the "decisive
fronts"on which to concentrateand fromwhich to begin anew when faced
with difficulties.This way, that administrativeconception of the plan
which, as Zaleski has shown, was later to constitutethe essence of the
Soviet "planning" experience, came to life togetherwith the use of the
udarnikimethods in the economy, which was in later years to be the standard way in which the Soviet leadershipreacted to economic troubles.
41 The
was theMariinskiisakharnyi
zavod (in Kiev gubemiia,Cherkassyuezd),built
factory
in 1876 and located on the RightBank, on the Moshnogorodishchenskoe
estate,which
extendedformorethan42,000 desiatins(8,000 of thesereservedforgrowingbeets),inhabitatedby approximately
75,000 male "souls" at the beginningof the twentieth
century.The
majorityof themwere Ukrainianpeasants(called malorossy,in a publicationedited by
Piatakov's father),
whosestable,skilledworkforcewas
seasonallyemployedby thefactory,
Russian.JewsandPoles livedin thetwosmalltownsoftheestate.Piatakov's father
soonmade
thefactory
a modelone,raisingsalariesandproviding
freeheatingandelectricity,
decenthousand
ing (woodenkazarmyfortheless skilledmen,woodenand stonehousesformasterovye
anda hospitalthatcouldalso serveas a library
anda tearoomfortheworkforce.
technicians),
158
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
The ideas and conceptionselaborated in 1919-1920 were not abandoned

withthe beginningof the NEP. As we have seen, Piatakov and most of the
Left,includingBukharin,accepted the NEP as a necessaryretreatto make it
possible to concentrateeffortsand resources on large industryin crisis (that
is, as a particulargrand case of economic udarnichestvo).At a lower level,
therewere also very strongelements of continuityin the administrationof
large industry,for example, the Donbass in 1921, led under the banner of
"the dictatorshipof coal." There, Piatakov devoted himselfto the building
made greatuse of the local Labor
of a moshchnyiapparat of administration,
labor
to
obtain
and
(which he continuedto consider as skot
Army
organize
and to treataccordingly,but in the best possible way since he was a good
khoziain42),trieddespite the crisis and the famine to importWestern technology, and, as we know, again came into conflictwith trade unions and
local organizations.
The continuityin the methodsof directingthose "commanding heights"
retainedby the statealso surfacedin the followingyear, when Lenin, partly
convinced by Trotsky's ideas, invitedPiatakov to proceed to the podtiagivanie of the Gosplan apparatus. This is anotherexample of the impact the
Civil War had on the selection of ideas and methodsof the formerLeftists.
In April 1918, the "tovarishchiuvlekaiushchiesiapodtiagivaniem"had been
attacked in Kommunist.In 1922, Piatakov, who had become a "prominent
and strong-willedadministrator"(in the words of Mikoian), was perhaps the
greatestSoviet "specialist" on the subject.
In 1923, the same methods were applied to industryin general, as Piatakov, who had become vice-presidentof the VSNKh, took over its leadership,as witnessessay, "s tiazheloi rukoi." In time,however,the NEP began
to influenceeven Piatakov's styleand methods,both throughTrotskywho,
at the beginningof 1923, was entrustedwiththe elaborationof the program
forthe organizationof industry,and, above all, because of the rapid appearance of new powers and new ideas, with which Piatakov was forced to
come to terms.He thencame to recognize, thoughin his own way, the role
of the marketand of accounting,maintainedgood relationswith the spetsy
42 In his 1921
ofthe
as chairman
withLenin,as wellas in hisvariousreports
correspondence
thecontrolof foodin particular
TsPKP oftheDonbass,Piatakovmadeclearthathe considered
It was preciselyoverthisconand of rabsnabin generaltheessentialtoolsof "management."
trolthathe clashedwiththetradeunions,whichhe consideredat thispointas obstaclesto a
of theworkforce.And,it was becausetheAmericanswouldhavetreated
"correct"
utilization
of concessionsin
theirworkersbetterthanhis "company"thatPiatakovopposedthegranting
he ordered
theDonbass,as he openlywroteto Leninon 8 April1921. In thosesamemonths,
in orderto bettertheir"social
and miningtownships
massevictionsof peoplefromindustrial
andimprovetheworkers'"attitudes."
composition"
159
(of whom he became a champion), and did his utmost not to come into
conflictwithworkersand tradeunions,leaving labor relationsto others.
Althoughhis day-to-daypractice and style of work changed, his principles did not. Piatakov remained trueto the programsexpounded by Bukharin in 1921, and maintainedthatthe NEP should be used to build "the first
state systemof industryin history,"the firststep in the methodicalbuilding
of that"system" of the entirenationalized economy which the Bolsheviks
had "naively" attemptedto attainwithina few monthsduringthe Civil War.
Piatakov thusdedicated the fouryears spentat the VSNKh to the organization of this "sistema gosudarstvennoipromyshlennosti."43
Using a specially created organism,the TsentraVnoe Upravlenie GosudarstvennoiPromyshlennosti(which, as I said, was to exemplifySoviet "superiority,"that
is, stateownershipof the means of production,over the German model), he
soon managed to transform
the trusts,initiallyendowed withthe capacity to
act independentlyon the market,into organs of the central administration,
thoughstillautonomousones. This reorganization,intendedto turnindustry
into a single organism, agile but centralized, was in Piatakov's view the
indispensable prerequisitefor the launching of a great investmentplan for
technological modernization,to be worked out centrallyand not leftto the
vagaries of the market.
Having finishedthe firstjob in 1924, Piatakov dedicated 1925 to the
second job - creating and leading a new body, the OSVOK, which was
of the original plancharged withdrawingup thisplan. The transformation
thus
took
another
now
to
take shape alongning conceptions
step forward;
side the ideas worked out in 1920 was the notionof the plan as a long-term
investmentprogramof an industryeffectivelyreduced to a single "corporation."
Because of this "single" characterand because of the conception of the
USSR as a "large integratedeconomic area" to be built by concentrating
certain types of production,specializing in each "region," and installing
relations of mutual interdependence,the investmentplan outlined under
Piatakov's leadership clashed with the interestsof many of the republican
leaders as well as with those of the workingclasses. The conflictswith the
Ukrainian SNKh of the 1920s are to the point here: appealing to what he
believed to be abstractconcepts of economic "rationality,"Piatakov found
himselfrepresentingthe interestsof the high economic bureaucracy,which
was one of the main forces locally opposing korenizatsiia (Lenin's prophesy about Piatakov's "imperialist economism" thus came true in new
forms). With regard to the workingclasses, as a recentlypublished 1925
"
"
43 See
my 'BuildingtheFirstSystemofStateIndustry,'(fh.2 above).
160
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
letterto Dzerzhinskii makes clear, at this point Piatakov already seriously

considered employing forced labor- "rationally" treatedof course- on a
large scale to open the new economic regionsenvisioned by his plan.
It is interestingto note the effect of the residue of Marxism on
Piatakov's years at the VSNKh. We have just spoken of the effectsof his
contemptfor the nationalityquestion. In addition to this,therewas a conviction of the superiorityof the plan over the market,especially regarding
investments,and of state industryover private industry.On the basis of
these tenets,not only was the privatesectorpreventedfromdeveloping but
the use of the "market" to decide state industry'scapital investmentswas
also barred,thus aggravatingthe imbalance between demand and supply as
well as inflation.At the same time,the labor theoryof value deformedthe
image of the productionprocess and its costs, obstructedthe adoption of
modernaccountingpractices,and encouraged, as we noted,the adoption of
anti-workerpractices, especially duringa period in which "accumulation"
appeared to be the most importanttask.
Thus, Piatakov's job at the VSNKh, thoughconducted with a maximum
of seriousness and competence,did in fact accelerate the crisis of the NEP,
and Dzerzhinskii's accusations of 1926 were more thanjustified.And yet,
fromanotherstandpoint,Piatakov's work of the 1920s had itsjustifications
and can be seen as yet anothervariantof a verycommon phenomenonand,
in a certainsense, as inevitable.I have in mind here the substitutionof the
statefora "market"which in backward countriesdoes not really exist or, in
any case, is not able to shoulderthose tasks with which the need to "exist"
saddles the state.We come back to what we said at the beginningabout the
relationshipbetween state and industrialization,of which the USSR of the
1920s is yet anotherexample. The NEP, in fact,embodies one of the many
mixes in which the historyof our centuryabounds. What made
state-market
it differentwas the ideology of an importantpartof the elite which, at least
in industry,immediately led to a particularlyextreme version of those
mixes and which,above all, in the name of exasperated statism,took a dogmatic stance towardmixes in general,as to stages to be overcome on a path
already markedout.
Again, we are dealing here withthe version of "Marxism" thatemerged
fromthe Civil War and with the latter's socioeconomic effects.These elements combined pathologically at the end of the decade, when Piatakov
launched his credit reformsas part of the Stalinistoffensive.This reform
was inspired,as we have said, by the theoriesof 1917, and it proposed to
concentratethe entire credit activityin the Gosbank, to reduce relations
between the bank and economic bodies to a single type, and to introduce
automaticmechanisms of financingregulatedby the plan. This was a new
161
illustrationof the simplification-moving backward bipole, and it was

Piatakov's personal contributionto the chaos of the FirstFive-Year Plan. In
fact, the reformgave new energy to the inflationaryimpetus and caused
already primitiveaccounting practices in the factoriesto be abandoned so
that, despite the "plan," the factories found themselves operating in the
dark. The disasterbroughtabout a furtherselection of the officialeconomic
theory,which then abandoned the dream of a rational,centralized government of the economy througha single banking center. The inability of
"Marxism" to functionas a general economic theorywas thus implicitly
admitted,as was the Soviet state's inabilityto govern the whole economy
underthose conditions.
This inability and this retreatwere embodied by Piatakov's returnto
large industry,on which he now concentratedas he had in 1921, but under
different
conditions,as a war against thepeasantrywas now being waged.
The following period, which extends from 1931 to the beginning of
1934, can be divided into two segments. The firstsegment ends with the
early monthsof 1932, when the retreatbegun the previous year was completed with the launching of the NKTP and the pull back from a unitary
directionof industry.It was a time of reforms,among themthe well-known
reformsof 1931, inspired by banal common sense rediscovered afterthe
senselessness of the previous threeyears; the treatywith Germany and the
subsequent re-equippingof Soviet industry;and the adoption of the udarniki methods of "planning" inside industryitself,which meant concentrating on certainlarge projectsand on certain"fronts."
At the end of 1931, the attemptsto make up for the false start of
1929-1930 appeared to be bearing fruit.A few months later, however,
industrywas overwhelmed by the great disaster of 1932-1933, which
involved the whole country.The year fromthe autumn of 1932 to thatof
1933 was thus a very difficultone for the leadership of the NKTP, which
came throughthe trial thanks to its subjective effortsand to unheard-of
pressureson workers,technicians,and cadres, and thanksto the privileges
the state granted to heavy industry.At the end of 1933, Ordzhonikidze's
commissariatcould, in any case, count itselfamong the "victors."
As was evident from the collection of NKTP prikazy and is now
confirmedby the correspondence between Piatakov and Ordzhonikidze,
Piatakov played a decisive role in this victory.At the beginningof 1932,
Ordzhonikidze appointed Piatakov firstdeputyof the new commissariat,in
charge of "general and financialaffairs,"in otherwords, of overseeing the
entireundertaking.Thus, it was Piatakov who prepared almost all the measures taken by the NKTP center (in spite of the 1941 firewhich destroyed
the majority of the NKTP papers, it is still possible to find in Russian
162
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
archives many lettersfrom Sergo to Stalin and the CC, accompanied by

notes fromPiatakov thatask Sergo to write,adding "esli mozhno, ia proekt
pis'ma sostavil"). It was Piatakov who chose much of the higherechelons
of the commissariat,on the basis of merit,competence, and devotion (in
this regard,it is strikingto read what Barmine writesabout the difference
between Piatakov's and Voroshilov's collaboratorsduringthose years).44It
was he who made the NKTP into a "reactionary"structure,as some American authors have written,grotesquely commentingon the prevalence of
people with highereducation and of "dubious" social origin in its leadership. It was he who perfectedthe cultivated version of those methods to
keep the bureaucraticmachine under pressure, later described by Bek in
Novoe naznachenie. And it was he who decided, in general termsat least,45
which factorieswere to be built and where, following the plans eleborated
at the OSVOK duringthe previous decade and broughtup to date by the
large conferenceon the raionirovanie of industryin the Second Five-Year
Plan.
Piatakov was inspired by the same idea of the 1920s: to build a large
modern system of state industry,this time limited to heavy industry,
because of the retreatwe have mentioned.This programwas facilitatedby
the physical existence abroad of the blueprintsto follow, which made it
possible for the "planners" to give themselves definitegoals for industrial
investments.But the amount of effortrequired should not be underestimated: it can be judged by thinkingof the difficultiesinvolved in the
sectorsof industry.
simultaneouscreationof whole interdependent
The results of this effortwere surprising.By the middle of 1934, the
long-desired,modern"systemof stateindustry"existed and functioned.But
its productivitywas low and thisclashed withthe tenetsof its creators,Piatakov and Ordzhonikidze in particular.They believed such a systemto be
far superiorto its "capitalist" competitors;thus,in theireyes, low productivitycould only be some sortof teethingproblemto be speedily overcome
by forcingthe cadres and the work force of Soviet industryto make great
strides,at the same time takingmeasures to bettertheirliving conditions-
somethingmade possible by the previously won victories (Piatakov then

defended, in opposition to M. Kaganovich, a "paternalistic-progressive"
44 The
variablesin theworking
ofall
qualityoftheupperechelonsis one of thefundamental
increaseswith
bureaucratic
systems,whichare basically"subjective"systems.Its importance
lackof socialandeconomiccounterthesesystems'degreeof"purity,"
i.e.,withtheincreasing
actions.
weightsto thebureaucracies'
45 Stalinand the"littleStalins"had,of course,their"favorite"
projects,theirhobby-horses,
cause ofbothchangesin theplansand
likeKaragandaor thegreatcanals.This was yetanother
wasteofresources.
163
style of management, stronglyreminiscent of his father's, which was,

perhaps,also to be extendedto forcedlabor).
Beginning withthe end of 1934, on the basis of these self-delusions,the
leaders of the NKTP began to push for rapid increases in productivity.But
the well-knowndifficultiesof the Soviet system,primarilythose connected
with the organizationof supplies, frustratedtheirefforts.Increases in productivitywere obtained, such as those any systemcan give, especially if it
is "new," well-directed,and under pressure,but these increases were well
below expectations. A perverse mechanism was thus created inside the
commissariat,whereby its leadership no longer trustedthe intentionsand
abilities of its subordinates.This lack of trusttook on various forms,and
alongside Piatakov's "rational" doubts and his attemptsto elaborate policies
to reverse the situation,the psychological mechanisms, methods, and the
faith in "miracles" of 1928-1930, which had appeared to be overcome,
now resurfacedin Ordzhonikidze.
It was in this climate that, in the autumn of 1935, Stakhanovism
appeared (in the Donbass, which was, as in the Civil War, in 1921, or in
1928, the naturalbreedinggroundforStalin's initiatives).The phenomenon
of Stakhanovismand its originsare complex, but it is certainthatStalin and
his circle were quick to seize it as a tool to attackthe NKTP. Because of the
state of mindjust described,for long monthsits leaders (and especially the
nave Ordzhonikidze) not only did not answer thisattack,but took partin it,
activelycollaboratingin theirown destruction.
The liquidation of the NKTP was, partly for this reason, a relatively
rapid affair.In June 1936 the battlehad already been won. In JulyPiatakov
lost his post as firstdeputycommissar. In September he was arrested,and
then, in swift succession, tortured,tried, and shot at the end of January
1937. A few weeks later,aftera violent quarrel with Stalin, Ordzhonikidze
committedsuicide.
Thus, another importantobstacle to the affirmationof pure despotism,
anotherof the great "vice-royalties" created in the firsthalf of the 1930s,
was liquidated. That this is what was in fact happeningis confirmedby the
rapid crumblingof the commissariatitself,which had already begun during
the last weeks of Ordzhonikidze's life. In December 1936, the war industry
was detached fromthe NKTP and constitutedas an independentcommissariat. A year later, most of the leadership of the old NKTP had been
purged,and in the place of one single large body therewere threeindependent commissariats. By 1941, the total number of commissariats created
fromthe destructionof the NKTP had reached seventeen.
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
164
The Soviet system's entrance into an acute despotic phase thus also
involved a change of phase for its "modern" industrialsub-system,as is
shown, for example, by the "biography" of Piatakov's substituteas first
deputycommissar of the NKTP. In March 1937, before the commissariat's
definitive liquidation, this post was entrusted to Avraamii Pavlovich
Zaveniagin. A young man froma workingclass family,he, too, came from
the Donbass, had served on Piatakov's staffin 1921 (siding against him
duringthe "intrigues"of those days), and in the 1930s had been the head of
the metallurgysector of the NKTP and the nachaVnik of Magnitogorsk.
From our standpoint,however,his latercareer is farmore significantin that
it is connectedto the NKVD, to Beriia, to forcedlabor. Zaveniagin was first
sent to "build" Noril'sk. Then, promotedto deputycommissar for the interior, in 1941 he was entrustedwith the economic administrationof the
Gulag.46
Beneath the undoubtedfracturemarkedby the shiftingof power, including economic power, toward the "organs" (according to recentlypublished
data, the NKVD percentage of capital investmentsreached 14 percent in
of the
1941, more than doubling the 1937 figure)and by the fragmentation
NKTP, there were, however, importantelements of continuity.From the
organizationalpoint of view the new commissariatswere oftennone other
than the old glavnoe upravlenie of the NKTP, so that, despite the reexplosion of glavkizmand the difficultiesconnected with the liquidation of
the coordinatingcenter (difficultiesaggravated by the purges), the system
set up between 1933 and 1935 was essentially still intact.Also still intact
was the technologicaland productivestructureof heavy industry.
On the basis of these elements,Piatakov's work in industrycan be measured from the standpointof the Soviet regime, leaving aside its human,
social, and environmentalcosts, which, incidentally,were greatlyenlarged
by decisions that were not directlyfunctionalor necessary to the type of
industrializationchosen.
In the short run, the "victory" of 1931-1934, and the industrial
apparatusbuiltduringthatperiod by competentand devoted leaders, contributed to the victory in the Second World War. The Soviet system then
demonstratedthe fitnessof an administeredeconomy, not burdened by an
irremediabletechnicaland productiveimbalance, to wage war (afterall, the
war economy had been one of the models that had inspired the Soviet
leadership).
46 UnderKhrushchev,
in chargeof
Zaveniaginbecame once again a "regular"minister,
of thesuddenshiftin thenatureof the
indication
machinebuilding.Thischangeis yetanother
SovietsystemthatfollowedStalin'sdeath.Zaveniagindiedin 1956.
165
In the intermediaterun,the abilityof Soviet industryto remain competitive with Western industryin some key sectors for several decades (until
the West made a new technological jump forward) bears evidence of the
fact that "the latest word" in Western technology had indeed been introduced in the 1930s and, thus, of Piatakov's seriousness and competence
(among other things,it was he who drew up the investmentplan for the
second half of the decade, implementedafterhis death). In the lightof other
stateeffortsin the industrialfieldin othercountries,thisresultis not at all a
poor one; indeed, thereis no doubt that,togetherwiththe territorialexpansion of the following years, it constitutesone of the objective bases that
ensuredthe survivalof fragmentsof the Stalinistmyth.
But in the long run, the limitationsof the building of the 1920s and
1930s emerged and the success we have spoken of was transformedinto a
disaster, even from the standpointof the most privileged sector, that of
heavy industry.It was a disasterthatcompromisedthe very survival of the
regime. The reasons forthis are naturallycomplex, and I will mentiononly
one of them,linkedto the typeof buildingcarriedon at thattime.
Despite the fact that it was "things"- factories,dams, roads, schools,
canals, that is, the material aspects of building- that were privileged, it
would be a mistake to believe that only "things" were being built. Soviet
industrializationwas not a "simple industrialization"(if such a thingexists)
but somethingmore and somethingdifferent.Along withfactories,a system
was being built,that"firstsystemof stateindustryin history"of which Piatakov had dreamt (recently, in the USSR, this system has been termed
"administrativnaiasistema"; thisexpression is acceptable, but to distinguish
the Soviet situationI would add the adjective "industrial,"as historyis rich
in examples of administrativesystemsbased on agriculture).
Like all systems,the Soviet one, too, was able to do certainthingsbetter
than others. As we have seen, some of its abilities and some of its limitations included the mobilization of short-termavailable resources in emergency situations,the imitationof models already in existence elsewhere and
theirintroductionin forced stages; or troubleswiththe organizationof supplies and withproductivity.
There were otherthingsit was unable to do. Some, such as the inability
to take into account, at least partially,the impact of industrializationon the
environment,were not disastrous for the regime, except, perhaps, in the
very long term.But otherswere, among themthe inabilityto get underway
an independentdevelopmentof the "intensive" type thatwould allow spontaneous innovationon a large scale, withoutrelyingupon importedmodels
(one thinksimmediatelyof the lack of understandingshown by Lenin in
1918 of what capitalism was all about, and of what Hirschmanhas written
ANDREA GRAZIOSI
166
about the inner contradictions,voire the impossibilityof "creative" planning). This inabilitywas all the more complete because the Soviet system
builtin the 1930s was, unlikethatof the 1920s, of the pure type.
We conclude by coming back to what we said at the beginning.Starting
fromthe nineteenthcentury,industrializationhas been a task "imposed" on
many states by the fightfor survival. But state-ledindustrializationhas its
price, not only in the shortterm(borne essentiallyby the population), but
also in the long one. The price in the long run is paid partlyby the regime;
how high the paymentis depends on the extentof stateinvolvement,on the
ideology which governs it, and on the degree of openness to other
economies. This has been witnessedby manycountrieswithexperiences we
could define as mixed, which have had to come to terms,sooner or later,
with the inheritanceleft by this type of "industrialization."In an extreme
case, such as the USSR, or in the states emerging from its collapse, this
inheritanceis heavier, involves and complicates national questions, and has
to be liquidated all at once.

Its purityand its degree of isolation have, in fact,grantedto the system
created in the 1930s a long life, supportedby the presence of enormous
resources and by victoryin the Second World War. The Soviet industrial
administrativesystemhas thus managed to complete its cycle, begun at the
timeof the FirstWorld War, to the veryend, reachingthe thresholdof sudden collapse.
University
ofNaples

G. L. Piatakov (1890-1937) - A Mirror of Soviet History

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The President and Fellows of Harvard College

G. L. Piatakov (1890-1937): A Mirror of Soviet History

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

I have decidedto writemypiece of this"normal"historyof theUSSR

Lastly, Piatakov's life provides a window onto thatEuropean panorama

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

firstsystem of state industryin history,"somethingquite differentfrom

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

October. This appeared to Piatakov as a "miracle," whose performance

extremeeconomic and social measures to consolidate the young state. On

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

activity,both in the USSR and in Europe, and in a political situationlike

The thirdknot is that marked by the beginningof the New Economic

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

If, fromPiatakov' s standpoint,1921 could be seen in some ways under

Piatakov's otherpersonal reactionto the events of the end of 1923- yet

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

These and other"residues" were integratedinto a cult of the stateand its

too, the momentmarked the end of ideology in the traditionalsense of the

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

at firstin the party,which concentratedwill and power, and only indirectly

at work.It is a fact,however,thatin thepastone hundred

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

Ordzhonikidze- and, above all, countless prikazy about the direction of

14 After1932,mostoftheNKTP prikazywerenotpublished.BorisB. Lebedev,thearchivist

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

Among the thingsneeding to be "forgotten,"besides the conditions in

theirfragilityon a European scale).

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

and to the psychic destabilization

have already mentionedpoint to this: the desperate clinging to the force of

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

and, lastly,therewas the loss of his job at the VSNKh.

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

protectiondo not rule out, I believe, an elementof sincerity.17

common cause, disruptedby unjustaccusations.18

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

then quite prominent19)of the opposition leaders had "justified" their

Stalin's influenceupon the Ukrainianpartyalso continuedto grow in the

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

whichlaceratedit; think,forexample,of Piatakov'sdistasteforVoroshiofficers

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

by thefactthat,until1922,theKP(b)U was, as BohdanKrawchenkohas

Glimpses of the genetic mutation of 1928-1929 however, are more

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

had gone through

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

economic region," more oftenthan not plurinational,which was held to be

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

In fact,Piatakov's activityboth in 1917 and, in spite of the rupturewhich

Paradoxically, then, the lesson that the experience of those months

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

Karelian leadership.The hope spread among the national leadershipthatthe

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

demonstrates,many of the young men who participatedin the attack and

This time,to be certainof the stikhiia's elimination,the powers-that-be

svobodnaiatorvratitenam khlebi inventar',""Doloi sovetskuiuvlast'," "Da zdravstvuet

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

theexpected "socialist" lava thatwould pour forthfromthatvolcano.

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY

In October 1925, these options were embodied in the firstimportant