68
PARTISAN REVIEW
patnotlc; in every nation the most ardent patriot is the staunchest
Bolshevik.
As
a creative political idea, not merely or so much as a general
theoretical conception of the nature of politics but as an idea fitted
to
implement politics in action, multi-national Bolshevism ranks with
Marx's theory of the state, Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolu–
tion, or Lenin's analysis of capitalism in the stage of finance-imperial–
ism.
3.
It may, however, be objected that there has here been attributed
to Stalin qualities that do not of right belong to him individually,
but rather to the movement of which he is a part, or,
in
personal
terms, to him together with his associates, to the "Stalin clique" which
directs the Soviet regime. On such a version, we might still, even
faced with theJ acts of the war years, believe Stalin only a front man
for the bureaucracy, and not in himself remarkable.
I readily agree that, unde11 the circumstances of large and com–
plex civilizations, no man is able, by his own and isolate atomic
powers, to play the hero. In Stalin's case, as in all others, his personal
talents would not have been enough to constitute him a great man,
a hero,
if
it were not for the group with which he functions and, in–
deed, the general historical and institutional background of
his
act–
ivities. Nevertheless, certain features of the events of recent years
point to as decisive a role for Stalin individually as that of almost
any other great man
in
modem history. The most symptomatic of
these are minor. One is the incident to which I have already referred:
Stalin's public assumption of full military responsibility long before
military victory was assured. A second is the almost absolute symbolic
significance which the name of Stalin has acquired for those who, by
choice or necessity, follow Soviet directives. A third, many times
repeated since 1939, is this: routine, even very important, negotiations
between the Soviet Union and other states are carried on by Molotov
or lesser officials. But the meetings that become crucial, at which the
big question is settled, the pay-off made, the knife driven home, are
those at which Stalin, often unexpectedly, appears.
Whatever may be the exact and scattered facts, we are
in
any -
case justified when we attribute to Stalin qualities belonging more
literally to the group of him and his associates. We always myth–
ologize the bare historical record. The existence of heroes, like that
of the gods, is not so much a question of fact. Heroes and gods alike
