Yesterday I wrote about how Stalin turned a military decision into a power grab during the Russian Civil War — and nearly lost Moscow in the process. The more interesting question is why it worked.
It’s easy to believe what we already suspect, thanks to the irrational fear that dominates our thoughts.
Besides Stalin’s drive to accumulate political power, the public and party’s mood was characterized by intense exhaustion and fear due to war weariness — World War 1, the Russian Revolution, and now the Civil War — suspicion and distrust, disillusionment, and the fear of repression.
People were fuelled with fear and paranoia — and all they could see was their most powerful military commander, Leon Trotsky, handing over their army to an enemy.
They were missing the ability to tolerate uncertainty. And strategy — real strategy — requires exactly that. You have to trust a process whose outcome you can’t guarantee, with people you’re not sure of, in a situation you can’t fully control. That’s terrifying under normal circumstances. Under existential pressure, it’s almost impossible.
Lenin, the Politburo, and the Central Command heard Trotsky asking them to hand over the army to the very officers they had just defeated. And the worst part was that some of these very officers had already defected to the White Army.
So when Stalin reframed this move as Trotsky surrounding himself with traitors, Lenin — the de facto leader of Soviet Russia — couldn’t recognize a political maneuver. Only a warning he couldn’t afford to ignore.
At that moment, backing Stalin’s catastrophic military plan over Trotsky’s sound one felt like the right thing to do.