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PARTISAN REVIEW
well as
it
did to the might of the Reichswehr backed by the industrial
plant of Western Europe. The reason, it is now clear, is that we were
taught by Trotsky that the new Soviet bureaucracy, sapped of
all
revolutionary energy and intent only on preserving its own power,
acted as a brake on the productive forces of a socialist society, and
that the bureaucratic jockeying for power and privilege, personified
in the primitive Machiavellism of Stalin, stamped out the initiative
and creative force of the Russian people. Yes, we were wrong; and
though we still have not arrived at a satisfying analysis of the Soviet
regime, one thing is sure: that as we revise our estimate of the
bureaucracy we must retouch the portrait of its leader. So, too, on the
plane of international politics, while we need not go along with
Burnham in presenting
a.
certificate of "greatness" to Stalin for every
one of his moves and turns, nevertheless it is plain that Stalin lately
has been throwing around his political weight-in
his
dealings with
Roosevelt and Churchill as well as
his
high-handed policies in eastern
Europe- in a way that scarcely suggests the back-stage maneuverer.
Thus, as a nationalist figure, as a figure representing and direct–
ing the combined interests of the bureaucracy and the nation, Stalin
takes on a new dimension. And it may well be that history will place
him
on a par with Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Frederick, Bis–
marck and other heroes. But having said this, we have covered only
half the question, for to understand fully the role of any such person
as Stalin it is also necessary to measure him against the historic tasks
placed before
him.
Winston Churchill, for example,
is
certainly a
gifted and really important "mediocrity": there is no denying his
large accomplishment in keeping intact the British Empire through
the darkest days in its history; but what a pigmy he would
be
if he
had the mission of carrying out one of the great humanist or intel–
lectual traditions of the modern world. Stalin, on the other hand,
must be seen as the "heir" of the Marxist movement and of the first
successful socialist revolution-and look what he has done with its
theoretical scope, its human aims, its moral grandeur. One need
hardly labor the point that, whatever political stand we take on the
present Soviet regime, neither its theory nor its practice
has
anything
to do with the spirit of socialism. And it is clear that only a "great"
villain could have so perverted and debased the Marxist doctrines,
reducing them to a set of crude rationalizations for purely Russian
power policies-policies that have led to the crushing of every
genuine socialist movement throughout Europe. Hence Burnham only
confuses the issue by puffing up th95e policies--or tactics--into the
so-called theory of "multi-national bolshevism" and what he calls
