On the virtues of Stalin

Glory to the Great Stalin! Painting in oil, 1952

In 1927, when Trotsky was being expelled from the Bolshevik Party, the atmosphere was very and very heated. One cavalry commander met Stalin at the stairs and threatened to cut off his ears. He even pretended he is unsheathing the sabre to proceed.

So what did Stalin do?

Stalin shut up and said nothing

Like obviously, everyone around could see Stalin is super angry. But he still said nothing and did nothing, and he did not respond to that in any way.

Does it strike you as a common, expectable behaviour?

For me, it looks absolutely extraordinary, otherworldly almost.

Which brings us to an important point:

Nobody becomes powerful accidentally

If they do, they lose it in a blink of an eye.

So, if you, for example, are in power, that means you have qualities for seizing the power and keeping the power, that most other people don’t. You must be special in some way.

And no, being an opportunistic asshole does not strike me as a sufficient explanation. There are plenty of opportunistic assholes around, but only few of them climb very high. There must be something else.

***

If Joseph Stalin seized an absolute control over the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union, the most plausible explanation for that is that Joseph Stalin has some extremely rare virtues, that almost nobody in Russia, on the planet Earth has.

Stalin was a highly virtuous man, almost to the impossible level.

And one of the most principal, central virtues that allowed him to become who he has become is:

Non-reactivity

Stalin was not just smart. Like he was smart, but that was not enough

More importantly, he was astonishingly non-reactive in his behaviour.

Shut the fucking up and proceed with the plan (= expelling Trotsky) without responding to provocations in any way whatsoever was the only correct course of action in that situation. And it is very easy to see why:

You are in the year 1927. You are sort of the leader of Bolshevik Party, but your power is far from absolute. The great majority of the population doesn’t know your name and even the higher ranks of the party see you as just another of the ruling oligarchs, and not necessarily the greatest one. You are not the God Emperor you will be in a few years, and you are too weak to make a bid to become one. Most of the Party will turn on you, if you try. In fact, most of the Party will turn on you if they think you may try it in the future. So it is not only that you should not make any bid for the God Emperor position, but also that nobody must suspect you have such aspirations. No one must see you as overly ambitious, and no must understand you are in fact seizing power.

Honestly, you are not even very popular. Most people have no idea who you are, and you don’t have many ardent supporters. Trotsky, on the other hand, has many, and, as the former commander of the army, has many fans in the military, including among the high command. It is very plausible that should you make any wrong move, they will try to kill you