6
PARTISAN REVlEW
towards the principal Stalinist myth, which now occupies so great a place
in Soviet art.
From an historical distance the October insurrection seems much more
planned and monolithic than what it prov'ed to be in reality. In fact, there
were lacking neither vacillations, search for solutions, nor impulsive begin.
nings which led nowhere. Thus, at the meeting of the Central Committee
on the 16th of October, improvised in one night, in the absence of the most
active leaders of the Petrograd Soviets, it was decided to round out the
general-staff of the insurrection with an auxiliary "Center" created by the
party and composed of Sverdlov, Stalin, Bubnov, Uritzky and Djerjinsky.
At the very same time at the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, a Revolution–
ary
Military Committee was formed which from the moment of its appear·
ance did so much work towards the preparation of the insurrection that the
"Center," appointed the night before, was forgotten by everybody, even
by
its own members. There were more than a few of such improvisations in the
whirlwind of this period.
*
Stalin never belonged to the Military Revolution–
ary Committee, did not appear at
Smolny,
staff headquarters of the revolu–
tion, had nothing to do with the practical preparation of the insurrection,
but was to be found editing
Pravda
and writing drab articles, which were very
little read. During the following years nobody once mentioned the "Prac–
tical Center." In memoirs of participants in the insurrection-and there is
no shortage of these-the name of Stalin is not once mentioned. Stalin
himself, in an article on the anniversary of the October insurrection, in the
Pravda
of November 7, 1918, describing all the groups and individuals
who took part in the insurrection, does not say a word about the "Practical
Center." Nevertheless, the old minutes, discovered by chance in 1924 and
falsely interpreted, have served as a base for the bureaucratic legend. In
every compilation, bibliographical guide, even in recently edited school
books, the revolutionary "Center" has a prominent place with Stalin at its
head. Furthermore, no one has tried, not even out of a sense of decency,
to explain where and how this "Center" established its headquarters, to
whom it gave orders and what they were, and whether minutes were taken
where they are. We have here all the features of the Moscow trials.
**
With the docility which distinguishes it, Soviet art so-called, has made
this bureaucratic myth into one of its favorite subjects for artistic creation.
Sverdlov, Djerjinsky, Uritsky and Bubnov are represented in oils or
in tempera, seated or standing around Stalin and following his words with
rapt attention. The building where the "Center" has headquarters, is inten–
tionally depicted in a vague fashion, in order to avoid the embarrassing
question of the address. What can one hope for or demand of artists who
*
This question is fully developed in my
History of the RPssian Revolution
in the
chapter entitled "Legends of the Bureaucracy."
•• For the cinematic elaboration of this mythical "Center," see page 55 of this issue.
