The Tyrant as Editor

Enlarge Image By Holly Case Joseph Djugashvili was a student in a theological seminary when he came across the writings of Vladimir Lenin and decided to ecome a Bolshevi! revolutionary" #hereafter$ in addition to lowing things up$ ro ing an!s$ and organi%ing stri!es$ he ecame an editor$ wor!ing at two papers in Ba!u and then as editor of the first Bolshevi! daily$ Pravda" Lenin admired Djugashvili&s editing' Djugashvili admired Lenin$ and rejected () articles he su mitted to Pravda" Djugashvili *later +talin, was a ruthless person$ and a serious editor" #he +oviet historian -i!hail .efter has written a out coming across a manuscript on the .erman statesman /tto von Bismarc! edited y +talin&s own hand" #he mar!ed0up copy dated from 12(3$ when the +oviet 4nion was allied with 5a%i .ermany" 6nowing that +talin had een responsi le for so much death and suffering$ .efter searched 7for traces of those horri le things in the oo!"7 He found none" 8hat he saw instead was 7reasona le editing$ pointing to 9uite a good taste and an understanding of history"7 +talin had also made a surprising change in the manuscript" In the conclusion$ the author closed with a warning to the .ermans lest they renege on the alliance and attac! :ussia" +talin cut it" 8hen the author o jected$ pleading that the warning was the whole point of the oo!$ +talin replied$ 7But why are you scaring them; Let them try" """7 <nd indeed they did$ costing more than =3 million lives>most of them +oviet" But the glory was +talin&s in the end" #he editor is the unseen hand with the power to change meaning and message$ even the course of history" Bac! when copy0proofs were still manually cut$ pasted$ and photographed efore printing$ a lue pencil was the instrument of choice for editors ecause lue was not visi le when photographed" #he editorial intervention was invisi le y design" +talin always seemed to have a lue pencil on hand$ and many of the ways he used it stand in direct contrast to common assumptions a out his person and thoughts" He edited ideology out or played it down$ cut references to himself and his achievements$ and even e?hi ited fle?i ility of mind$ reversing some of his own prior edits" +o while +talin&s voice rang in every ear$ his portrait hung in every office and factory$ and o ed in every choreographed parade$ the +talin ehind the lue pencil remained invisi le" 8hat&s more$ he allowed very few details of his private life to ecome pu lic !nowledge$ leading the +talin iographer :o ert +ervice to comment on the remar!a le 7austerity7 of the 7+talin cult"7 But we should not confuse +talin&s self0effacement with modesty" #hough we tend to associate invisi ility with the mee!$ there is a flip side that the graffiti artist Ban!sy understands etter than most@ 7invisi ility is a superpower"7

Aor +talin$ editing was a passion that e?tended well eyond the realm of pu lished te?ts" #races of his lue pencil can e seen on memoranda and speeches of high0ran!ing party officials *7against whom is this thesis directed;7, and on comic caricatures s!etched y mem ers of his inner circle during their endless nocturnal meetings *7CorrectB7 or 7+how all mem ers of the Colit uro7," During the .erman siege of +talingrad *12(D0(=,$ he encircled the city from the west with his lue pencil on a large wall map in the 6remlin$ and$ in the summer of 12(($ he redrew the orders of Coland in lue" <t a meeting with 8inston Churchill a few months later$ the British prime minister watched as +talin 7too! his lue pencil and made a large tic!7 indicating his approval of the 7percentages agreement7 for the division of Europe into 8estern and +oviet spheres of influence after the war" #he few who visited the +oviet leader in his 6remlin study mention the lue pencil in their memoirs" .eorgy Ehu!ov$ commander of the +oviet military during 8orld 8ar II$ o served that 7+talin usually made notes in lue pencil and he wrote very fast$ in a old hand$ and legi ly"7 #he Fugoslav Communist -ilovan Gilas was surprised to find that +talin was not the calm$ self0assured man he !new from photographs and newsreels@ He was not 9uiet a moment" He toyed with his pipe """ or drew circles with a lue pencil around words indicating the main su jects for discussion$ which he then crossed out with slanting lines as each part of the discussion was nearing an end$ and he !ept turning his head this way and that while he fidgeted in his seat" #he +tanford historian 5orman 5aimar! descri es the mar!s left y +talin&s pencil as 7greasy7 and 7thic! and pasty"7 He notes that +talin edited 7virtually every internal document of importance$7 and the scope of what he considered internal and important was very road" Editing a iologist&s speech for an international conference in 12(H$ +talin used an array of colored pencils>red$ green$ lue>to strip the tal! of references to 7+oviet7 science and 7 ourgeois7 philosophy" He also crossed out an entire page on how science is 7class0oriented y its very nature7 and wrote in the margin 7Ha0ha0haBBB <nd what a out mathematics; <nd what a out Darwinism;7 +talin e?cised people>indeed whole peoples>out of the manuscript of worldly e?istence" Even when not wielding his lue pencil$ +talin&s editorial %eal was all0consuming" He e?cised people>indeed whole peoples>out of the manuscript of worldly e?istence$ had them vanished from photographs and le?icons$ changed their words and the meanings of their words$ edited conversations as they happened$ ac!ing his interlocutors into more desira le *to him, formulations" 7#he Coles have een visiting here$7 he told the former Comintern chief .eorgi Dimitrov in 12(H" 7I as! them@ 8hat do you thin! of Dimitrov&s statement; #hey say@ < good thing" <nd I tell them that it isn&t a good thing" #hen they reply that they$ too$ thin! it isn&t a good thing"7 <ll editors$ wrote the cultural historian Jac9ues Bar%un$ 7show a common ias@ """ what the editor would prefer is prefera le"7 Being an author is well and good$ and +talin wrote several oo!s>the word 7author7 does after all share a root with the word 7authority7> ut he !new that editing was a higher power" 5aimar! argues that editing is as much a part of +talinist ideology as anything he said or wrote" #his insight warrants amplification" 4nder +talinism$ anyone could spea! or write$ ut since +talin was the supreme gate!eeper of the censorship hierarchy and the gulag system$ the power to edit was power itself"

Cu lished in 12=H$ The Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) is one of the most famous ideological wor!s of the last century" <s the historian 8alter La9ueur writes in his memoirs$ 7Every Communist had to read it at the time' it was 9uoted in every article$ translated into every language' the total circulation was in the tens of millions"7 #he story of how it came into eing reveals much a out the power of writers and editors$ and a out +talin&s otherwise inscruta le editorial persona" < new edition of the Short Course edited y the historians David Branden erger and -i!hail Eelenov is forthcoming from Fale 4niversity Cress under the title Stalin's Catechism A Critical !dition of the Short Course on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" It shows many of the revisions +talin made to the wor! along with a detailed production and reception history" #he oo! promises to e a revelation$ for it will ma!e +talin the editor star!ly visi le" #he +oviet 4nion was in e?istence for almost D3 years efore its ruling party had an official history" 8hile entire rigades of historians *and they were called rigades, had een at wor! since the 121) revolution$ +talin did not approve of their efforts" In 12=1 he dissed them in a speech as 7archive rats7 who had failed to pull together a compelling narrative of the party&s achievements" #hat was efore the purge" In 12=( a high0ran!ing mem er of the Communist Carty$ +ergei 6irov$ was assassinated" His death$ li!ely orchestrated y +talin himself$ was used to initiate a mass persecution that would result in over a million imprisoned and hundreds of thousands !illed" <mong the targets were mem ers of the party&s ureaucratic elite" #hey were interrogated$ tortured$ and forced to give pu lic confessions efore eing shot in the ac! of the head" It&s difficult to write a compelling history without a sta le cast of characters" 5o author could !eep up with all the deletions" *7#he editor&s secret weapon$7 writes the author and oo! editor Harriet :u in$ 7is the delete utton"7, In spite of all this$ or perhaps ecause of it$ +talin was assured y 6irov&s replacement in the party hierarchy that 7a whole collective farm7 of historians was at wor! on an official history" #wo men>Femelyan Faroslavs!y and Cyotr Cospelov>led the team" #ogether they produced an H330page typescript$ which they presented to +talin late in 12=)" His initial response will e familiar to anyone who has wor!ed with an editor@ 7-a!e it twice as short"7 #hey did@ with great difficulty$ in record time$ and without complaint" 8hen +talin received the pared0down manuscript$ he still was not pleased@ 75o &collective farm& will ever e a le to get this right$7 he fumed$ and egan to rewrite it himself" <ll this too! place during the #hird -oscow #rial$ in which 5i!olai Bu!harin$ a high0ran!ing Bolshevi! and +talin&s former supporter$ was accused of participating in a road conspiracy to ta!e down the +oviet regime" #he trial ended with Bu!harin&s 7final plea7>the confession that inspired <rthur 6oestler&s 12(3 novel #arkness at $oon>and e?ecution" In e?tensive marginal notes on the draft Short Course% +talin instructed the authors to ratchet up the aura of conspiracy threatening oth party and state from inside and out" #he purge was history in the ma!ing" :evise$ resu mit"

But +talin was still not satisfied" In the ne?t round of su stantial edits$ he used his lue pencil to mute the conspiracy he had previously pushed the authors to amplify *italics indicate an insertion,@ #he +oviet people unanimously approved the court&s verdict>the verdict of the people annihilation of the Bukharin-Trotsky &an& and 'assed on to ne(t )usiness" #he +oviet land was thus purged of a dangerous gang of heinous and insidious enemies of the people$ whose monstrous villainies surpassed all of the dar!est crimes and most vile treason of all times and all peoples" #he reversal ma!es sense in light of +talin&s other changes in the manuscript$ mostly deletions" *Faroslavs!y@ 75ever in my life have I seen such editing"7, He cut the cast of characters y half$ diminishing the significance of oth heroes and villains@ 78hat do e?emplary individuals really give us;7 he wondered" 7It&s ideas that really matter$ not individuals"7 <s if to offer the ultimate confirmation of this claim$ he cut most references to himself" #hese colossal achievements were attained """ than!s to the )old% revolutionary and wise policy of Comrade +talin the Party and the *overnment" Faroslavs!y protested +talin&s self0e?cisions" 7#his is of course an illustration of your great modesty$7 he wrote to the general secretary$ 7which is a wonderful trait for any Bolshevi! to have" But you elong to history and your participation in the party&s construction must e fully depicted"7 +talin didn&t udge" +talin&s lue pencil was an instrument he used to transform himself into an idea and$ ultimately$ an ideology" /f -ar? had come -ar?ism$ out of Lenin Leninism' such was the mise0en0scIne within which +talin>through his tireless revisions>was ecoming +talinism" 8riting a out +oviet memoirs of the +talinist period and after$ Irina Caperno$ a +lavicist at the 4niversity of California at Ber!eley$ notes that the editor 7is not a real person or persons$ ut a function$ or persona"7 In his iography of +talin from 12=J$ Henri Bar usse wrote@ 7+talin is the Lenin of today"7 He meant that +talin had effectively ecome a persona$ an idea that transcended the person" It was a compliment" <nd others felt its force" Before meeting him in 12(=$ Gilas imagined the +oviet leader as a 7pure idea$ """ something infalli le and sinless"7 +talin&s victims in the .reat Curge were called 7revisionists"7 5o one may edit the editor" /f the 1D chapters of the Short Course% +talin wrote to its authors after receiving the manuscript$ 7it turned out to e necessary to fundamentally revise 11 of them"7 His was a near total revision" -ar?ism0Leninism>and therefore also +talinism as presented y the Short Course>was orn of what Hannah <rendt called 7the refusal to view or accept anything &as it is& and """ the consistent interpretation of everything as eing only a stage of some further development"7 It represented a shift toward seeing the world with the eye of an editor" Literally" <s Jonathan +per er notes in his recent oo!$ +arl ,ar( A $ineteenthCentury -ife% -ar?&s career as an editor was 7always one of his chief forms of political activism"7 #here were those>most nota ly his supreme antagonist$ Leon #rots!y>who claimed that +talin was an ideological um ler$ 7a solutely incapa le of theoretical$ that is$ of a stract

thought"7 +talinism was nothing ut a self0serving revision of oth past and future$ #rots!y wrote in 12=3$ crafted 7to justify %ig%ags after the event$ to conceal yesterday&s mista!es and conse9uently to prepare tomorrow&s"7 8hile #rots!y was right that +talin&s ideas were largely corrections$ edits of an e?isting model$ he was wrong to assume that theory is something inherently pure$ a new irth as yet untainted y revision" +talin&s o sessive editing of the socialist project .as his ideology$ a manifestation of the idea that the final draft of history could e just one edit away" 78e still lac! a satisfactory theory of +talinism$7 writes +lavoj KiLe!" Cerhaps such a theory$ when it comes$ should ta!e +talin&s editorial mania seriously$ not merely as a personal tic$ ut as a way of seeing the world and understanding history" Aollowing pu lication of the Short Course% which gave the author as 7< commission of the <CC* , Central Committee$7 +talin e?plained@ 78e were presented with """ a draft te?t and we fundamentally revised it"7 #he +oviet leader&s deployment of the 7royal we7 suggests that he suffered from what 6oestler called the 7shamefacedness a out the first person singular which the Carty had inculcated in its disciples"7 */nce a young department head>and +talin&s future son0in0law>dared to spea! for the party 7in his own name"7 7Ha0ha0haB7 pronounced the greasy pencil" 75onsenseB7 and 7.et outB7, His primary addition to the Short Course was a long section on the philosophy of dialectical materialism$ which -ar? *and Engels,$ Lenin$ and +talin all saw as the principle underlying reality" +talin cited Lenin@ 7In its proper meaning """ dialectics is the study of the contradiction .ithin the very essence of thin&s"7 /ne such contradiction lies at the heart of -ar?ism0 Leninism&s editorial drive$ for despite its 7refusal to view or accept anything &as it is$&7 -ar?ism0Leninism>and a ove all +talinism>forever chases the o jectively perfect edit$ the one that ears no further revision' history&s final draft" <s +talin wrote in the Short Course% 7Hence +ocialism is converted from a dream of a etter future for humanity into a science"7 #he desire to put an end to the otherwise intermina le editorial process is perhaps why +talin&s victims in the .reat Curge>the presumed worst enemies of -ar?ism0Leninism> were called 7revisionists"7 5o one may edit the editor" But the revision continues$ e?posing a fatal flaw in the editorial spirit of the modern age that renders the almighty editor impotent in the end" Ariedrich 5iet%sche descri ed it this way in his Untimely ,editations *1H)J,@ #hey clap their e?tinguishers over the wittiest te?t$ they smear their thic! rushstro!es over the most charming drawing$ all of these interventions are meant to e viewed as &corrections"& """ But their critical pens never cease flowing$ for they have lost the power over them and are eing led y them rather than leading them" It is precisely in this e?cessiveness of their critical outpourings$ in the lac! of control over themselves$ in what the :omans called impotentia$ that the wea!ness of the modern personality etrays itself" #he afterlife of the Short Course confirms 5iet%sche&s criti9ue$ for the editorial mania unleashed y +talin consumed his own legacy" /nce it was pu lished$ some party cadres complained that the Short Course was too o tuse" 8here were the heroes$ where was the +oviet motherland$ indeed where was +talin; +talin reacted to such criticisms with irritation and launched a radical overhaul of the +oviet educational system to encourage self0study of the te?t rather than leaving it for under9ualified

instructors to discuss in classrooms and reading circles" :eaders should approach the Short Course the way Luther meant the laity to approach the Bi le@ a sent the middleman" But it didn&t wor!" 8ithin little over a year$ the old networ!s of study circles and ad hoc courses re0emerged$ 7complemented$7 Branden erger and Eelenov write in their forthcoming edition$ 7 y do%ens of improvised au?iliary te?ts and readers pu lished in the provinces$7 all for the purpose of illuminating the Short Course" #his grass0roots revision of +talin&s plan meant the return of heroes to the story of the party&s evolution$ and a tenacious clinging to the +talin personality cult" #he second$ still more ra%en revision came after +talin&s death" <t the D3th Congress of the Communist Carty of the +oviet 4nion$ in Ae ruary of 12MJ$ +talin&s successor$ 5i!ita 6hrushchev$ su mitted his own radical edit of +talin&s legacy" In his 7+ecret +peech7> perhaps the most famous$ if not the only e?ample of a head of state reflecting e?plicitly on editorial practice>he condemned +talin&s hu ris and cruelty$ ta!ing aim at +talin the editor@ 7Comrades """ it is impermissi le and foreign to the spirit of -ar?ism0Leninism to elevate one person$ to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics$ a!in to those of a god" +uch a man supposedly !nows everything$ sees everything$ thin!s for everyone$ can do anything$ is infalli le in his ehavior$7 6hrushchev egan" 78ho did this; +talin himself$ not in his role as a strategist$ ut in the role of an author0editor"7 #here followed a itter condemnation of the Short Course% during which 6hrushchev pulled a +talin$ ac!ing the dead leader into a position at odds with the facts@ Does this oo! correctly depict the party&s efforts in the socialist transformation of our country; """ 5o>the oo! spea!s principally a out +talin$ a out his speeches and a out his reports" Everything is tied to his name without the smallest e?ception" <nd when +talin himself claimed that he wrote The Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)$ this arouses nothing less than indignation" Can a -ar?ist0Leninist really write a out himself in such a way$ praising himself to the s!ies; He who lives y the lue pencil must !now that history is su ject to revision" Holly Case is an associate 'rofessor of history at Cornell University"
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