Stalin's Genocides by Norman M. Naimark

served for a time on the Volga as the Bolshevik chief of the Tsaritsyn front. The Red effort in Tsaritsyn had been in chaos and was threatened with collapse when Lenin sent Stalin to shore up its defenses. On setting about his tasks, Stalin wrote to Lenin: “I harry and abuse all those who deserve it, and hope for early improvements. Be sure, we will spare no one, neither ourselves nor others.” In response to Lenin’s worries about the reliability of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in Tsaritsyn, Stalin stated: “As for the hysteri-cal maniacs, be sure that our hand shall not falter; with enemies we shall act as enemies.” Stalin worked closely with the Cheka to bring order to the Red effort and to crush potential political opponents. Klement Voroshilov, who commanded the military in Tsaritsyn, described one typical case where “Stalin’s decision was brief: ‘Shoot!’
    The engineer Alexeyev, his two sons, and several officers with them, some belonging to the [alleged oppositional]
    organization, others only suspected, were seized by the Cheka and immediately shot without trial.”13
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    chapter 2
    The Civil War in Tsaritsyn proved to be a defining moment in Stalin’s growing rivalry with Trotsky, who was commander of the Red Army. Stalin was incensed by the use of former imperial army generals and specialists in the army; he was convinced that they impeded the progress of the Red forces and undermined the cause of the Bolsheviks. Trotsky, on the other hand, thought it was necessary to employ this military talent in the struggle against the Whites. Meanwhile, Trotsky was openly skeptical of the crude Georgian’s leadership abilities and was very critical of Stalin’s inexperience and bungling in military affairs.
    The two denounced each other to Lenin and agitated for primacy in decisions on the Tsaritsyn front.
    Despite Trotsky’s allegations, Stalin proved capable of organizing the Reds’ resistance to the Whites and of successfully carrying out the fundamental task of securing territory. Here, for the first time, Stalin experienced mass bloodletting, including summary executions and violent reprisals. To say he was responsible for the Bolsheviks’ violence on the Volga front would be an exaggeration. But it is also clear that he did not shy away from taking the most extreme measures to secure Soviet power. In this, however, he was no less violent than Lenin himself, who was known to call for the demonstrative hanging of hundreds of peasants from hilltops (“hang without fail, so the people see”), as a way to quell uprisings, and to shoot supposed White opponents on the spot.14 In any case, as Jörg Baberowski, among others, has argued, “In the excesses of the Civil War, Stalinism was brought to the world.”15
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    Stalin also participated as a front commander in the Polish–Soviet War in 1920–21. Once again, questions were raised among the Bolshevik leaders about his lack of military prowess. Eventually, he was criticized—not surprisingly, especially by Trotsky—for having refused to sign on for the Warsaw offensive in favor of his own attack on Lwów. But the fact that the Poles successfully resisted the Red Army and were able to gain a favorable peace at Riga that guaranteed them advantageous borders to the east was not due just to Stalin’s failings. The Soviet defeat in this war was not lost on Stalin—it seemed no defeat was; he had a long memory in this connection. His animus toward the Poles reappeared in vicious ways in the years to come. And, of course, his rivalry with Trotsky was further intensified; already by this point, writes Robert Service,
    “he was biding his time to take his revenge.”16
    Hard, cold, cruel, and impassive, Stalin experienced the victory of the revolution over its enemies and the establishment of Soviet power not as a source of joy and comfort, but as a challenge to his position within the Soviet hierarchy. His lust for personal