All's Fair in Party Warfare

In 1933, the poet Osip Mandelshtam described Stalin’s deputies and hangers-on as a “rabble of thin-necked leaders – fawning half-men for him to play with, they whinny, purr or whine as he prates and points a finger.” That this

proved a prophetically accurate description of Stalin’s rule is shown in the many cases where Stalin set one group of his cronies against the other in a battle to the death. A prime example of this is the infamous Leningrad Affair, which came to a head 50 years ago this February.

Interestingly, the substance and events surrounding this allegedly treasonous conspiracy (in which thousands would be sent to the camps) were not made public until Khrushchev’s Secret Speech of 1956, and then only superficially. The real story of this post-war purge has only come to light in the last 10 years.

The affair revolved around the balance of power Stalin constantly manipulated in his Politburo, as a way to ensure his total dictatorship. And it began with a death. On August 31, 1948, Leningrad Communist Party boss and heir-apparent to the Soviet throne Andrei Zhdanov (whose son was married to Stalin’s only daughter, Svetlana) died of an apparent heart attack after months of ill health. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Georgy Malenkov, a long-time rival of Zhdanov’s, had just returned to Moscow from near-disgrace and political exile in Tashkent. Malenkov and his supporters had recently suffered a purge, and it is speculated that, in Zhdanov’s death, Malenkov saw an opportunity to redress their losses. Notably, Malenkov had Lavrenti Beria on his side – the latter had convinced Stalin to bring Malenkov back to Moscow.

The target was two key Zhdanov loyalists: Nikolai Voznesensky, a politburo member and chairman of Gosplan, and Alexei Kuznetsov, head of the Communist Party Central Committee’s Personnel Department. But they were only the tip of the iceberg. Other prominent party leaders and Zhdanov protégés were also targetted, such as Mikhail Rodionov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation, and Alexei Kosygin, Minister of  Finance (who, amazingly, would survive the purge and rise again). All were younger, up-and-coming party leaders, and their capabilities, particularly on the economic front, were a threat to the “old guard.”

Joseph Stalin had supported the promotion of “new blood” in the Party after the war. Specifically, he had praised Voznesensky and Kuznetsov, saying they were worthy to lead the party and government after he, Stalin, had departed. Meanwhile, Stalin supported and encouraged Malenkov and Beria in their attempt to compromise the younger leaders. It was a classic case of divide-and-rule.

In October 1948, at a session of the USSR Council of Ministers (headed by Malenkov), the Minister of Trade reported that the country had accumulated R5 billion in unsold goods. To remedy the situation, the Council of Ministers decided to hold interregional wholesale fairs in November-December 1948. Thus, Leningrad leaders decided to hold an All-Russian wholesale fair in their city on January 10-20, 1949. Rodionov wrote to Malenkov, announcing the fair. Malenkov responded in a letter on January 13, saying that the fair was illegal, that Kuznetsov, Mikhail Rodionov, Pyotr Popkov and Yakov Kapustin were conducting the fair without Central Committee approval. This, despite the Council of Ministers’ decision (which Malenkov said was not “official”). Beria and Minister of Foreign Trade Anastas Mikoyan stood behind Malenkov. The battle lines were drawn.

Meanwhile, a month earlier, in December 1948, the Central Committee had received an anonymous letter which claimed that, during the most recent Leningrad Party Conference, negative votes against a number of Leningrad leaders were registered (all in all just 10 votes), but that the leaders had nonetheless claimed “unanimous support.” Needless to say, for any Soviet leader to allege there was or should be internal party democracy, was ludicrous hypocrisy.

On February 15, 1949, the Politburo issued its resolution “On Anti-Party Actions of Central Committee Member Kuznetsov and Deputy Central Committee Members Rodionov and Popkov.” This infamous resolution triggered the Leningrad Affair, accusing the three of “separatism” and “anti-state” actions caused by “a sick and non-Bolshevik deviation.” Interestingly, the substance of the accusations were not known widely in the party, even in the Central Committee. Khrushchev, who was the Ukrainian leader at the time and would not be transferred back to Moscow until the end of 1949, said he “never saw the indictments in the Leningrad case,” and concluded, based on conversations he overheard between Malenkov and Beria, that the charges were of nationalism and opposition to the Central Committee.

Regardless of the charges, it was a frame-up on all counts. The resolution claimed that the Leningrad fair had resulted in unjustified costs. Stalin fired the accused, then had them arrested (and then their families, protégés, etc.). In typical fashion, the accusations started with “economic crimes,” but ended in “espionage” and “contacts with British intelligence.” Stalin’s hangmen, led by MGB Chairman Viktor Abakumov, arrested party leaders in other regions and Soviet republics. The Leningrad Affair turned into a full-scale purge echoing the Great Terror of a decade previous, with victims humiliated, beaten up and tortured. Over 2,000 leaders at different levels were fired and stripped of their titles and positions, to say nothing of those who were arrested (estimated at over 1300, with some 100 executed).

“Who directed the investigation?” Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs. “Stalin himself did. But if Stalin was the conductor, then Beria was the first violinist. Why do I say that? Because Abakumov, who actually supervised the prosecution, was Beria’s man; he never reported to anyone, not even to Stalin, without first checking with Beria.”

The court trial preparation lasted more than a year. In January 1950, Abakumov presented Stalin with a list of 44 persons that were arrested and whom he suggested be tried in secret by the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court. The trial, whose results were predetermined, took place in Leningrad on September 29-30, 1950. On the second day of the trial, Abakumov presented Stalin with another list, this one of six defendants who ought to be executed. Stalin approved the list and on October 1, 1950 the sentence was made public: in addition to those who received different prison terms (mostly 10 and 15 years), Voznesensky, Kuznetsov, Rodionov, Popkov, Kapustin and Pyotr Lazutin were sentenced to death and shot one hour after the sentence was announced. Other arrests and court trials continued throughout the country until August 1952.

In 1951, Abakumov would himself be arrested after being denounced first by a rival, then by a deputy. The latter, Mikhail Ryumin, accused Abakumov of covering up a “Doctor’s Plot” to murder Soviet leaders. Abakumov languished in jail for three years – where his patron Beria was unable to help him. Then, after Stalin’s death, Abakumov and those complicit in fabricating the Leningrad Affair were tried and convicted. For his part, Abakumov, who said he merely followed Stalin’s orders, was executed in December 1954.

The tyrant was dead by then, but his tactics of pitting his subordinates against one another was still working. Stalin had brought Khrushchev back to Moscow in late 1949, in the middle of the Leningrad Affair, as a counterbalance to the growing influence of Malenkov and Beria. When Stalin died, Khrushchev used the scandal surrounding the Leningrad Affair to undermine Malenkov and increase his own standing. Ironically, the Leningrad Affair, which Malenkov and Beria spearheaded to strengthen their power, came back to haunt them both and played a large part in their downfall and in Khrushchev’s rise.

Interestingly, while, in today’s Russia, physical extermination of political adversaries has gone the way of the “leading role” of the communist party, repeated, irrational shake-ups in the Russian political elite continue. Indeed, the present Kremlin leadership’s system of “checks and balances” for steadying the influence of “oligarchs” shows that divide-and-rule tactics of pitting apparatchiks against one other remains deep-rooted in the mentality of Russian rulers.  RL