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Boris Bazhanov
During the Civil War that killed nine million, the bourgeoisie fought the Bolsheviks with arms. Defeated, what could it do? Commit suicide? Drown its sorrow in vodka? Convert to Bolshevism? There were better options. As soon as it became clear that the Bolshevik Revolution was victorious, elements of the bourgeoisie consciously infiltrated the Party, to combat it from within and to prepare the conditions for a bourgeois coup d'état.
Boris Bazhanov wrote a very instructive book about this subject, called Avec Staline dans le Kremlin (With Stalin in the Kremlin). Bazhanov was born in 1900, so he was 17 to 19 years old during the revolution in Ukraine, his native region. In his book, Bazhanov proudly published a photocopy of a document, dated August 9, 1923, naming him assistant to Stalin. The decision of the organization bureau reads: `Comrade Bazhanov is named assistant to Comrade Stalin, Secretary of the CC'. Bazhanov made this comment: `Soldier of the anti-Bolshevik army, I had imposed upon myself the difficult and perilous task of penetrating right into the heart of the enemy headquarters. I had succeeded'.
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Boris Bajanov, Avec Staline dans le Kremlin (Paris: Les Éditions de France, 1930), pp. 2--3.
The young Bazhanov, as Stalin's assistant, had become Secretary of the Politburo and had to take notes of the meetings. He was 23 years old. In his book, written in 1930, he explained how his political career started, when he saw the Bolshevik Army arrive in Kiev. He was 19 years old.
`The Bolsheviks seized it in 1919, sowing terror. To spit at them in their face would have only given me 10 bullets. I took another path. To save the élite of my city, I covered myself with the mask of communist ideology.'
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Ibid. , p. 7.
`Starting in 1920, the open struggle against the Bolshevik plague ended. To fight against it from outside had become impossible. It had to be mined from within. A Trojan Horse had to be infiltrated into the communist fortress .... All the threads of the dictatorship converged in the single knot of the Politburo. The coup d'état would have to come from there.'
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Ibid. , pp. 4--5.
During the years 1923--1924, Bazhanov attended all the meetings of the Politburo. He was able to hold on to different positions until his flight in 1928.
Many other bourgeois intellectuals had the genius of this young nineteen-year-old Ukrainian.
The workers and the peasants who made the Revolution by shedding their blood had little culture or education. They could defeat the bourgeoisie with their courage, their heroism, their hatred of oppression. But to organize the new society, culture and education were necessary. Intellectuals from the old society, both young and old, sufficiently able and flexible people, recognized the opportunities. They decided to change arms and battle tactics. They would confront these uncouth brutes by working for them. Boris Bazhanov's path was exemplary.
Next: George Solomon Up: How did the Previous: How did the
Fri Aug 25 09:03:42 PDT 1995