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PARTISAN REVIEW
of his nature. His empiricism always compels him to choose the path
of least resistance. That is why, as a rule, at all the great turning
points of history this near-sighted revolutionist assumes an opportunist
position.... At the same time he is invariably inclined to favor the
most resolute actions in solving the problems he has mastered. Under
all conditions well-organized violence seems to
him
the shortest dis–
tance between two points. . . . He is a kind of opportunist with a
bomb." Trotsky reports that as early as 1924 he predicted that in
the absence of new and significant mass-movements in Russia, or in
western Europe and in Asia, Stalin would "automatically" become
dictator.
One wonders whether Trotsky would have revised his estimate
of Stalin had he lived to observe his performance during the war.
Such a revision was lately attempted by James Burnham (
cf.
"Lenin's
Heir,"
PARTISAN
REVIEW, Winter 1945), who argued that though
Trotsky's sketch of Stalin seemed credible until the war, the evidence
of the war years compels the recognition that he is "a great man in
the grand style." It is true, of course, that his policies have in recent
years been marked not by the cautious and chiefly defensive manipu–
lations typical of him in the past but by an heretofore unsuspected
"boldness and dash"; hence it can be said that his use of the oppor–
tunities that came to him during the war appears not to jibe with
Trotsky's .appraisal of his talents. One might speculate, for instance,
that his success in eliminating his party-opponents and the consequent
experience of total power has added more than a cubit to his political
stature. Still, that by no means invalidates Trotsky's characterization
of him as a "mediocrity." It is necessary to keep in mind the exact
terms of Trotsky's analysis. He was comparing Stalin not to Genghis
Khan, Ivan the Terrible, or even Hitler and Rimmler, but to such
major revolutionary figures as Lenin and ... Trotsky. Now there can
be no doubt that as a Marxist theoretician .and as a leader of the
working classes against oppression and exploitation-and that, after
all,
is what Stalin pretends to be- he is worse than a mediocrity;
as the boss of a system of state serfdom, however, he is nothing less
than a genius-the Grand Inquisitor raised to supreme power by that
organization of organizations, the totalitarian state. And the reason
that Trotsky's appraisal of Stalin seems so questionable at present is
that we can no longer accept the premise which permitted the com–
parison of Stalin, even if negatively, with the aforementioned revo–
lutionary figures. For thus to compare them is willy-nilly to identify
their aims with his, whereas the fact is that Stalin's aims have long
