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Was Stalin Really Necessary Some Problems of Soviet
Economic Policy Alec Nove Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Alec Nove
ISBN(s): 9780415682404, 0415682401
Edition: Reprint
File Details: PDF, 12.92 MB
Year: 2011
Language: english
 Routledge Revivals

Was Stalin Really Necessary?

First published in 1964, Was Stalin Really Necessary? is a thought-provoking

work which deals with many aspects of the Soviet political economy, planning
problems and statistics. Professor Nove starts with an attempt to evaluate the
rationality of Stalinism and discusses the possible political consequences of the
search for greater economic efficiency, which is followed by a controversial
discussion of Kremlinology. The author goes on to analyse the situation of the
peasants as reflected in literary journals, then looks at industrial and agri-
cultural problems. There are elaborate statistical surveys of occupational pat-
terns and the purchasing power of wages, followed by an examination of the
irrational statistical reflection of irrational economic decisions. Professor
Nove’s essay on social welfare was, unlike some of his other work, used in the
Soviet press as evidence against over-enthusiastic cold-warriors, among whom
the author was not always popular. Finally, the author seeks to generalise
about the evolution of world communism. This reissue will be very welcome
to all those with an interest in Soviet politics, economics and history.
This page intentionally left blank
Was Stalin Really Necessary?
Some Problems of Soviet Political Economy

Alec Nove
First published in 1964
by George Allen & Unwin Ltd
This edition first published in 2011 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 1964 George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Publisher’s Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points
out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes
correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

A Library of Congress record exists under LC Control Number: 64019788

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-69207-6 (set)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-68240-4 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-203-80282-3 (ebk)
WAS ST ALIN REALLY NECESSAR Y?
 by the same author

THE SOVIET ECONOMY

'A shrewd and weIl informed book ... essential

information about the Soviet economy for
economists and students of economics.' Times
Literary Supplement

'Tbe most balanced attempt yet in the English

language to describe Soviet economy as it is ...
sane and perceptive analysis.' The Economist
 Was Stalin
Really Necessary?
SOME PROBLEMS OF
SOVIET POLITICAL ECONOMY

BY

ALEe NOVE
James Bonar Professor of Economics
Director of Institute of Soviet and East European Studies
at the University of Glasgow

London
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET
 FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1964

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of
private study, research, criticism or review, as
permitted under the Copyright Act, 1956, no portion
may be reproduced by any process without wrillen
permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the
publishers.

© George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1964

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

in 11 point Times type
BY SIMSON SHAND LTD
LONDON, HERTFORD AND HARLOW
 To
[rene, David, Perry and Charles
who make it all worth while
This page intentionally left blank
 INTRODUCTION

Most ofthe papers comprising the present volume have appeared

in various journals, conference reports or compendia, in the
course of the last ten years. They have, I trust, sufficient homo-
geneity in subject-matter to justify their coexistence within the
same binding, being all concerned with Soviet communism. In a
rapidly-changing setting, it is important to observe the dates on
which the previously-published papers first saw the light of day.
I have tried to bring the facts and arguments up to date, when
necessary, by adding a few paragraphs to some of the papers,
and in some instances also adding footnotes or modifying a now
obsolete statement, and there will be no difficulty in identifying
such after-thoughts. I am most grateful to the editors of journals
and synopses for permission to reprint, and acknowledgments
are made in each instance.
I am very conscious of the existence of a number of loose ends
in argument, which partly reflects the fact that this collection
inc1udes essays written at different times and for different pur-
poses, and partly genuine and continuing perplexities. The critical
reader will doubtless query the meaning or meanings which
should be attached to the word 'rationality', and such areader
would be right. Many of the articles are concerned with a search
for rationality in many ofits various senses. For we are here very
elose to the heart of the problem of Soviet (or any other) 'political
economy'. Rationality can be considered from many different
points ofview. Thus, one may define a set of objectives and con-
sider to be rational the achievement of these objectives with the
least expenditure of resources. However, even within this rather
narrow conception of the problem, complications arise. Thus
supposing the economically most rational means of achieving
certain economic objectives would give rise to grave political
embarrassment, or to rebellion, or could not be effectively car-
ried through by the existing administrative or planning machine;
are the resulting compromises, representing distinctly sub-
optimal paths from the economic point ofview, 'irrational'? Are
British Governments acting irrationally in not abolishing agri-
cultural subsidies, or the American President in not eliminating
agricultural support prices? To assert such propositions means
giving to purely economic considerations a primacy they hardly
10 Introduction
deserve, as weIl as showing oneself innocent of political realities.
Needless to say, political and social considerations (though
different ones) exist in the Soviet Union also. There are political
and social rationalities with patterns of their own, alongside
economic ones.
But this is far from being the end of the matter. There are
micro and macro rationalities, levels of rationality, which may
conflict with one another. Thus a form of organization which
coped adequately with problems of a war economy in Great
Britain, and was in principle certainly rational, necessarily in-
volved bureaucratic inefficiencies and inflexibilities which would
not have arisen in a free enterprise economy. Each isolated mani-
festation of such errors or omissions is an example of irrational
aIlocation or behaviour. But the system of economic controls
did its job and it was impossible to run a war by giving free play
to market forces. The micro-irrationalities must then be seen as
part of the cost of running the economy in a certain basically
rational way; it is generally conceded that the cost was worth
paying. This must greatly affect our judgment of the war economy
as such. One is reminded here of the political economy of deve-
lopment, on which so much good sense has been written by
Albert O. Hirschman. The effective 'strategy' is one which enables
one to overcome political, economic and social obstacles, using
highly imperfect instruments for the purpose (and by 'instru-
ments' one can mean both economic measuring-rods and institu-
tions). In practice, a further complication must be introduced.
Ends and means are not distinct, but shade into one another and
interact. Hardly ever, in the Soviet Union or elsewhere, can
economic policy be related to a clear and unambiguous objec-
tive, which can then be reached by some optimum route which
provides a criterion of 'rationality'.
Why not abandon the term, then? Because to do so is to
evade the duty ofidentifying error. The duty exists, even though
it is a hard and complex task. Misuse of resources can and does
occur on a vast scale, which no 'higher rationality' can excuse.
Systems or methods can outlive their usefulness. The cost of a
given organizational or institutional arrangement might become
intolerably high, because of the evolution of the economy and of
society, andJor because the special conditions which had given
rise to these arrangements no longer exist. There is then a con-
 Introduction 11
flict, growing 'contradictions', and the would-be reformers argue
that rationality demands change while 'conservatives' resist it,
often with success. One sees this in England, where the educa-
tional system designed for training rulers of empire is challenged
by the requirements ofmodern European reality. One sees it on
a larger scale in political and economic problems currently faced
in the Soviet Union.
It is important to distinguish rationality and rationale. Thus
there was a rationale in Stalin's massacre of military officers in
1937-38, or for Khrushchev's agricuItural campaigns in more
recent years, in the sense that there was a logical explanation for
these events. Yet these actions must be seen as manifestations of
irrationality, viewed from the standpoint of military and agri-
cultural efficiency respectively.
Mention of 'logic', 'rationality', 'rationale', is apt to lead to
accusations of determinism, historicism and other -isms with a
pejorative flavour. Suffice it to say that events can have a logic
without being inevitable, and that, as we weIl know, men may
even be conscious of the rationality of a given course of action
without necessarily acting. Scottish sporting landlords may know
that they stand in the way of a more economic use of deer
'forests', but they may stilI prefer economic irrationality and go
on stalking deer undisturbed. Soviet leaders must be aware that
private plots are a valuable addition to peasant income and to
food supplies, but adopt a negative attitude to themall the same.
In passing, it is perhaps worth mentioning that some philosopher-
critics of alleged 'determinism' seem never to have heard of the
law of large numbers. The validity of generalizations about
social-economic 'regularities' (Zakonomernosti, Gesetzmässig-
keiten, odd that there is no real English equivalent) cannot be
upset merely by proof that an individual is often free to choose.
Thus the birth rate in the Uni ted Kingdom in 1964 can be fore-
cast with fair accuracy, but the birth of any one child is a matter
where unpredictable and 'free' individual behaviour (plus acci-
dent) is indeed the determinant. The increase in secondary
education in this country since the war is a 'determined' neces-
sity, but the educational career ofyoung Robinson or McTavish
depends on luck, personal ambition and other unpredictable
factors. But I had better resist the temptation to enter into an
argument which goes beyond the scope of the present book.
 12 Introduction
The principal emphasis in these pages is on matters economic.
This reflects the professional preoccupations of the author and
not his estimate of the relative importance of economic factors
in the development of Soviet society. The reader can deduce the
author's views on this controversial topic from the first two
papers in the collection. It is my hope that in some of the pages
that follow some readers may find ideas, facts or figures which
will he1p in the understanding of Soviet reality. No doubt errors
of fact and interpretation can also readily be found , but this will
be due to the numerous human failings of the author and not to
any attempt to prove the validity of any particular politicalline.
It is always worth trying to seek explanations for events, without
either denouncing or justifying.
We are moving into aperiod in which many of the sterile
controversies of the past no longer obstruct the task of scholar-
ship. Thus virtually every scholar in the fie1d now accepts that
Stalin's rule was a bloody tyranny, although of course we can
and do differ about its causes and the political morals which
should be drawn from its existence. There is also a wide con-
census about both the extent and the limitations of Soviet
economic achievement, although there is room for legitimate
disagreement about the relative 'weight' of elements of strength
and weakness. Of course, there is plenty of scope for debate, but
increasingly it can be conducted in scholarly language and can
be made to rest upon an accepted basis of fact. Even statistical
argument across ideological dividing lines can occasionally be
polite, both si des using data and not abuse as the basis of their
case. We have even had a most convincing demonstration, in a
Soviet periodical, of the error of an American calculation, the
American error consisting in an exaggeration of Soviet relatively
to American industrial performance. 1 Admittedly this is, so far,
a unique event, but greater confidence, sophistication, successes
in a number of endeavours, may be breeding new attitudes and
can lead to an increase in the range of subjects on which scholarly
exchange of differing views is possible. Which will be all to the
good. But where, as in agriculture, there is a wide gap between
plan and performance, of which prominent politicians are pard-
cularly sensible, serious discussion is still very difficult. In fact,
Soviet economic journals too are handicapped in dealing with
1 See v. Kudrov, Vestnik Statistik; No. 7, 1963.
 Introduction 13
farming questions, which is doubtless why the best material
about the village appears in the literary monthlies. Hence the
artic1e in this volume on peasants in literature is not primarily
an exercise in belles-lettres. (Incidentally, a very critical reviewer
of my book on the Soviet economy chose to accuse me of 'bor-
rowing' my literary references from secondary American sources,
apparentlyon the assumption that mere economists cannot or
do not read Russian literature for themselves. Perhaps Monsieur
Barton, the reviewer, will admit that in this respect he was
wrong, though he is fully entitled to dislike everything else in the
book in question.)
Dubravko Matko, now of the University of Glasgow, did
much in the preparation of this collection and in bringing some
of the articles up to date. Alastair McAulay, research scholar at
Glasgow, read several papers and made some valuable sugges-
tions. J. A. Newth, lecturer at Glasgow, greatly helped with the
paper on the comparison of living standards. R. Beermann, also
of Glasgow, found several references and publications which
were most useful in the paper on the peasants. Some of the
papers are based on presentations at Seminars, at the London
School of Economics, St Antony's College, Oxford, and else-
where, and benefited from being subjected to the fire of many
deserved criticisms. Among critics perhaps I may mention parti-
cularly Leonard Schapiro, who, without converting me to his
interpretation of certain events, has over a long period com-
pelled me to rethink many important questions, and also Jacob
Miller for his constant refusal to accept superficial explanations
for events great and small. To everyone are due my grateful
thanks, and all mistakes are due not to them but to me. Finally,
the fact that a confused jumble of offprints, photostats and
addenda ever got organized is due in no small measure to Mrs
M. Chaney.

September 1963
This page intentionally left blank
 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION page 9

I. POLITICAL ECONOMY
1. Was Stalin really necessary? 17
2. The uses and abuses 0/ Kremlinology 40
3. The politics 0/ economic rationality 51

11. INDUSTRIAL GROWTH AND PLANNING

4. The prospects 0/ Soviet economic growth 67
5. The problem 0/ 'success indicators' in
Soviet industry 83
6. Soviet planning: re/orms in prospect 99
7. Principal problems 0/ Soviet planning 119

III. AGRICULTURE
8. The peasants in Soviet literature since
Stalin 137
9. Soviet agriculture marks time 150
10. Rural taxation in the USSR 172
11. Incentives /or peasants and
administrators 186

IV. LABOUR, WELFARE

12. A study 0/ Soviet wages 206
13. Sodal welfare in the USSR 220

V. STATISTICS
14. The purchasing power 0/ the Soviet rouble 239
15. Occupational patterns in the USSR and
Great Britain 260
16. Economic irrationality and irrational
statistics 286

VI. IDEOLOGY
17. Communism 300

GLOSSARY 309

~EX 310
This page intentionally left blank
 I. POLITICAL ECONOMY

1. Was StaUn really necessary? *

Stalin has suffered a dramatic post-mortem demotion, and a

monument to his victims is to be erected in Moscow. The
present Soviet leadership is thus disassociating itself publicly
from many of the highly disagreeable features of Stalin's rule,
while claiming for the Party and the Soviet system the credit for
making Russia a great economic and military power. Is this a
logically consistent standpoint? How far was Stalin, or Stalin-
ism, an integral, unavoidable, 'necessary' part of the achieve-
ments of the period? How much of the evil associated with the
Stalin system is attributable to the peculiar character of the late
dictator, and how much was the consequence of the policies
adopted by the large majority of the Bolshevik party, or of the
effort of a small and dedicated minority to impose very rapid
industrialization on a peasant country?
To ask these questions is ofinterest from several standpoints.
Firstly, in trying to answer them we might be able to see a little
more clearly the meaning of such misused terms as 'determin-
ism', causality, or the role of personality in history, and so
continue to explore some of the problems which E. H. Carr
presented in so stimulating a way in his Treve1yan lectures.
Secondly, an examination of the circumstances which brought
Stalin to power and led tO-Of provided an opportunity for-
crimes on a massive scale is sure1y of very practical interest,
since it might help in understanding how to avoid arepetition
of these circumstances, particularly in those underdeveloped
countries which are being tempted by their very real difficulties
to take the totalitarian road.

To some people, the word 'necessary' smacks of 'historicism',

* From Encounter, April 1962.
18 Was Stalin really necessary?
of a belief in inevitability, or suggests that the author wishes to
find some historie justifieation, a whitewash to be applied to
Stalin and his system. This is far from being my intention.
'Neeessity' is used here with no moral strings attaehed. If I say
that to travel to Oxford it is necessary to go to Paddington
station, this implies no approval, moral or otherwise, of the
service provided by the Western Region of British Railways,
sti11less of the projeet of making the journey to Oxford. It is
simply that if I wish to do A, it involves doing B.
It is true that there may be alternatives. One might, for
instance, do not B but C, or D. Thus I could go to Oxford by
car, or by bus. However, it could be that these physically pos-
sible methods are not in fact open to me; I may not own a car,
and shortage of time prec1udes taking the bus. Thus a judgment
on the 'necessity' or otherwise of an action in pursuit of a given
purpose requires some consideration of what could have been
done instead.
The range of choice is not, in practice, limited only by what
is physically possible. There are also aetions which are exc1uded
by religious or ideological principle. For example, it is not in
fact open to a rabbi to eat a harn sandwich or an orthodox
Hindu to eat cow-meat. Thus if an 'alternative' happens to
involve such acts, it is not Jor them an alternative at all. This is
because, were they to act otherwise, they would cease to be what
they in fact are. A rabbi does not eat pork; were he to do so,
he would not be a rabbi. The fact that he is a rabbi would also
affeet his outlook, his 'freedom' to choose between alternative
modes of conduct, where religious law is less strict: for instanee,
there is nothing in the Talmud or in Deuteronomy ab out smok-
ing on the Sabbath, but rabbis would tend to be the kind of
people who, faced with this 'new' problem, would give the
answer 'no'.
Thus, to eome nearer our subject, there may have been a
number of solutions to the problems posed by Russia of the
'twenties which the Communists could not have chosen because
they were Communists, and in considering the practical alter-
natives before them we have to bear this in mind. In doing so,
we are by no means driven to any generalizations about the
'inevitability' of the Russian revolution or of the Bolshevik
seizure of power, and a Jortiori we need not assurne that non-
 Was StaUn really necessary? 19
Bolsheviks could not have found some other ways of coping
with the problems of the period. (Indeed, though the problems
would still have been acute, they might in important respects
have been different.) Before his assassination in 1911, the last
intelligent Tsarist Prime Minister, Stolypin, expressed the belief
that his land reform measures would create in about twenty
years a prosperous peasantry which would provide a stable
foundation for society and the throne. No one will know if he
would have been right, if he had not been murdered, if the Tsar
had been wise, if Rasputin had not existed, if the war had not
broken out .... But of what use is it to indulge in such specula-
tions? A nineteenth-century Russian blank-verse play provides,
if somewhat inaccurately, a relevant comment:

IJ, iJ, if grandma had a beard,

She would be grandpa . ...

In assessing the choices open to the Bolsheviks in, say, 1926,

the events before that date must be taken as given. The real
question, surely, is to consider the practical alternatives which
Stalin and his colleagues had before them.

In doing so, we should certainly not assume that what happened

was inevitable. 'Necessity' and 'inevitable' are quite distinct
concepts, though some critics seem to confuse them. Two simple
and probably uncontroversial propositions will illustrate this:
it was necessary for eighteenth-century Poland to make drastic
changes in its constitution if she were to survive as an indepen-
dent state; and for China around 1890 a strong, modernizing
government was urgently necessary if many disasters were to
be avoided. Yet the 'necessary' steps were not taken and the
disasters occurred. Unless we believe that whatever was not
avoided was for that reason unavoidable, we would wish to
examine the actions which men took, their choices between
available alternatives, and see whether viable alternatives in fact
existed.
At this point, many historians-at times one feels E. H. Carr
is among them-tend to brush aside impatiently any talk of
what might have been; they are concerned, they would claim,
with chronicling and explaining what was. Curiously, this line
20 Was StaUn really necessary?
is often taken both by those who believe in strict historical deter-
minism, i.e. that what happened had to happen, and by those
who consider history to be merely a chronological series of
events, i.e. that by implication anything could have happened.
Both these apparently opposite extremes agree in not examining
the actual possibilities as they were seen by the statesmen of the
period. Yet how can one speak meaningfully ofthe reasons for,
or causes of, any political act unless one implicitly or explicitly
considers what could have been done instead? In other words,
we must be concerned with freedom of choice, or its converse,
necessity, whether we like it or not, unless we hold either that
freedom of choice is infinite or that it is non-existent.
There are several more things to be said on the subject of
'necessity'. One of these concerns what might be called conse-
quences of consequences, or indirect effects. For example, it is
difficult to marry a wife without simultaneously acquiring a
mother-in-law. Or, moving nearer to our subject, a sergeant is
an unavoidable element in an army, and the needs of discipline
involve giving hirn powers over his men which he is likely to
abu se. Bullying NCOs are like1y to be found if an army exists,
and so, given the necessity for an army, they become an inevit-
able consequence of its existence, just as the mother-in-law is an
unavoidable appendage of a 'necessary' wife. Thus, getting still
nearer to the point, a situation which requires many bureaucrats,
or which gives exceptional power to many policemen, may bring
into action certain forces, certain behavioural tendencies, which
are typical of bureaucrats or policemen and which, though not
needed or desired as such, cannot in the circumstances be
avoided.
The saying that 'you cannot make omelettes without breaking
eggs' (or its Russian equivalent: 'if you chop trees, the chips
fly') has been used so often as an excuse for excesses and crimes,
that we sometimes forget that you really cannot make omelettes
without breaking eggs ....

Now on to Stalin, or rather to Stalinism, since the idea of

'necessity' does not of course mean that the leader had to be a
Georgian with a long moustache, but rather a tough dicta tor
ruling a totalitarian state of the Stalinist type. What were the
practical alternatives before the Bolsheviks in the late 'twenties,
 Was StaUn really necessary? 21
which contributed to the creation of the Stalinist regime, or, if
one prefers a different formulation, gave the opportunity to
ambitious men to achieve so high a degree of absolutism?
The key problem before the Bolsheviks concerned the linked
questions of industrialization and political power. They felt they
had to industrialize for several reasons, some of which they
shared with non-Bolshevik predecessors. Thus the Tsarist
Minister, Count Witte, as well as Stalin, believed that to achieve
national strength and maintain independence, Russia needed a
modern industry, especially heavy industry. The national-
defence argument, relabelled 'defence of the revolution', was
greatly strengthened by the belief that the Russian revolution
was in constant danger from a hostile capitalist environment,
militarily and technically far stronger than the USSR. Then
there was the belief that the building of socialism or communism
involved industrialization, and, more immediately, that a 'pro-
letarian dictatorship' was insecure so long as it ruled in an over-
whelmingly petty-bourgeois, peasant, environment. There had
to be a large increase in the number and importance of the
proletariat, while the rise of a rich 'kulak' dass in the villages
was regarded as a dangerous (or potentially dangerous) resur-
gence of capitalism. It was dear, by 1927, that it was useless to
wait for 'world revolution' to solve these problems. These pro-
positions were common to the protagonists of the various plat-
forms of the middle 'twenties. Thus even the 'moderate' Buk-
harin wrote: 'If there were a fall in the relative weight of the
working dass in its political and its social and dass power, ...
this would subvert the basis of the proletarian dictatorship, the
basis of our government.'l He too spoke in principle of the
'struggle against the kulak, against the capitalist road', and
warned of the 'kulak danger'.2 He too, even in the context of
an attack on Zinoviev and the 'left' opposition, argued the need
for 'changing the production relations of our country'.3
Until about 1927, a rapid rise in industrial production resulted
from the reactivation of pre-revolutionary productive capacity,
which fell into disuse and disrepair in the civil war period.
1 'The Results of the United Plenum ofthe Central and Control Commissions
of the Party' (1927).
• Speech on 'The Results of the 14th Party Congress' (January 5, 1926).
• Speech to the XXIII special conference of the Leningrad provincial party
organization (1926).
22 Was StaUn really necessary?
However, it now became urgent to find material and financial
means to expand the industrial base. This at once brought
the peasant problem to the fore. The revolution had distributed
land to twenty-five million families, most of whom were able or
willing to provide only small marketable surpluses. Supplies
of food to the towns and for export fell, peasant consumption
rose. Yet the off-farm surplus must grow rapidly to sustain
industrialization, especially where large-scale loans from abroad
could scarcely be expected. As the 'left' opposition vigorously
pointed out, the peasant, the bulk of the population, had
somehow to be made to contribute produce and money, to
provide the bulk of 'primitive Socialist accumulation'.

The arguments around these problems were inextricably en-

tangled in the political factional struggles of the 'twenties. 1 The
moderate wing, led by Bukharin, believed that it was possible
to advance slowly towards industrialization 'at the pace of a
tortoise',2 a pace severe1y limited by what the peasant was will-
ing to do voluntarily. This was sometimes described as 'riding
towards socialism on a peasant nag'. The logic of this policy
demanded priority for developing consumers' goods industries,
to make more cloth to encourage the peasants to seIl more food.
At first, Stalin sided with the moderates.
The case against the Bukharin line was of several different
kinds. Firstly, free trade with the peasants could only provide
adequate surplus es if the better-off peasants (i.e. those known
as kulaks) were allowed to expand, since they were the most
efficient producers and provided a large part of the marketable
produce. Yet all the Bolshevik leaders (including, despite
momentary aberrations, Bukharin hirnself) found this ideo-
logically and politically unacceptable. A strong group of inde-
pendent, rich peasants was Stolypin's dream as a basis for
Tsardom. It was the Bolsheviks' nightmare, as totally incon-
sistent in the long run with their rule or with a socialist trans-
formation of 'petty-bourgeois' Russia. But this made the
Bukharin approach of doubtful internal consistency. This was
understood at the time by intelligent non-party men. Thus the
1 See A. Erlich: The Soviet Industrialisation Debate (Harvard, 1960) for a most
valuable account of the interaction between the debates and the economic
realities of the period. The account given here is necessarily oversimplified.
a Bukharin's words, speech of January 5, 1926.
 Was Stalin really necessary? 23
famous economist Kondratiev, later to perish in the purges,
declared in 1927: 'If you want a higher rate of accumulation
... then the stronger elements of the village must be allowed to
exploit (the weaker)', in other words that the 'kulaks' must
expand their holdings and employ landless labourers. 1 The
'peasant nag' could not pull the cart; or it, and the peasant,
would pull in the wrong direction.
A second reason eoneerned the pace of the tortoise. The
Bolsheviks were in a hurry. They saw themselves threatened by
'imperialist interventionists'. Even though some war scarees
were manufactured for faetional reasons, the Party as a whole
believed that war against them would come before very long.
This argued not merely for speed, but also for priority to heavy
and not light industry, since it provided a basis for an arms
industry. Still another reason was a less tangible but still very
real one: the necessity of maintaining political elan, of not
appearing to accept for an indefinite period a poliey of gradual-
ism based on the peasant, whieh would have demoralized the
Party and so gravely weakened the regime. It was wideIy feIt,
in and out of Russia, that by 1927 the regime had reached a
cul-de-sac. I have in front of me a contemporary Menshevik
pamphlet published abroad, by P. A. Garvi,2 which describes
its dilemma quite c1early, and indeed the political and economic
problem was extremely pressing: to justify its existence, to
justify the Party dictatorship in the name of the proletariat, a
rapid move forward was urgent; but sueh a move forward would
hardly be consistent with the 'alliance with the peasants' which
was the foundation of the policy of the moderates in the 'twen-
ties. Stalin at this point swung over towards the left, and his
policy of all-out industrialization and colleetivization was a
means of breaking out of the cul-de-sac, of mobilizing the Party
to smash peasant resistance, to make possible the aequisition of
farm surpluses without having to pay the price which any free
peasants or free peasant associations would have demanded. He
may well have feIt he had little choice. It is worth quoting from
the reminiscences of another Menshevik, who in the late 'twen-
ties was working in the Soviet planning organs: 'The financial
1 Paper read at a plenum of the AgricuItural Economics Research Institute.
Moscow, 1927.
I Zakat bolshevisma (Twilight of BoIshevism) (Riga, 1928).
24 Was Stalin really necessary?
base of the first five-year plan, until Stalin found it in levying
tribute on the peasants, in primitive accumulation by the methods
of Tamerlane, was extremely precarious .... (It seemed likely
that) everything would go to the devil. ... No wonder that no
one, literally no one, of the well-informed economists, believed
or could believe in the fulfilment (of the plan).'!

It does not matter in the present context whether Stalin made

this shift through personal conviction of its necessity, or because
this seemed to him to be a clever power-man oeuvre. The clever-
ness in any case large1y consisted in knowing that he would thus
strengthen his position by becoming the spokesman of the view
which was widely popular among Party activists. The 'leftists',
destroyed organizationally by Stalin in earlier years, had a con-
siderable following. Stalin's left-turn brought many of them to
his support-though this did not save them from being shot in
due course on Stalin's orders. It is probably the case that he had
at this time genuine majority support within the Party for his
policy, though many had reservations about certain excesses, of
which more will be said. But if this be so, the policy as such
cannot be attributed to Stalin personally, and therefore the
consequences which flowed from its adoption must be a matter
of more than personal responsibility.
Let us examine some of these consequences. Collectivization
could not be voluntary. Rapid industrialization, especially with
priority for heavy industry, meant areduction in living stan-
dards, despite contrary promises in the first five-year plans. This
meant a sharp increase in the degree of coercion, in the powers
of the police, in the unpopularity of the regime. The aims of the
bulk of the people were bound to be in conflict with the aims of
the Party. It should be added that this conflict is probably bound
to arise in some form wherever the state is responsible for finan-
cing rapid industrialization; the sacrifices are then imposed by
political authority, and the masses of 'small' people do not and
cannot provide voluntarily the necessary savings, since in the
nature of things their present abstinence cannot be linked with
a future return which they as individuals can identify. However,
this possibly unavoidable unpopularity was greatly increased in
1 N. Valentinov, in Sotsialisticheskii Vestnik (New York), April, 1961. (Em-
phasis mine.)
 Was Stalin really necessary? 25
the USSR by the sheer pace of the advance and by the attack on
peasant property, and, as we shall see, both these factors reacted
adversely on production of consumers' goods and so led to still
further hardships and even greater unpopularity. The strains
and priorities involved in a rapid move forward required a high
degree of economic centralization, to prevent resources from
being diverted to satisfy needs which were urgent but of a non-
priority character. In this situation, the Party was the one body
capable of carrying out enormous changes and resisting social
and economic pressures in a hostile environment; this was
bound to affect its structure. For a number of years it had
already been in proeess of transformation from a political into
apower machine. The problems involved in the 'revolution
from above' intensified the process of turning it into an obedient
instrument for changing, suppressing, controlling.

This, in turn, required hierarchical subordination, and suppres-

sion of discussion; therefore there had to be an unquestioned
commander-in-ehief. Below hirn, toughness in exeeuting un-
popular orders beeame the highest qualification for Party office.
The emergenee of Stalin, and of Stalin-type buIlying offieials of
the sergeant-major species, was accompanied by the decline in
the importance ofthe eosmopolitanjournalist-intellectual type of
party leader who had played so prominent a role earlier.
The rise of Stalin to supreme authority was surely connected
with the belief among many Party members that he was the
kind of man who could cope with this kind of situation. Of
course, it could weIl be that Stalin tended to adopt policies
which caused hirn and his type to be regarded as indispensable,
and he promoted men to offiee in the Party because they were
loyal to hirn. Personal ambition, adesire for power, were im-
portant factors in shaping events. But this is so obvious, so
clearly visible on the surface, that the underlying problems,
poliey choices and logical eonsequences of policies need to be
stressed.
Let us recapitulate: the Communists needed dictatorial power
if they were to continue to rule; if they were to take effective
steps towards industrialization these steps were bound to give
rise to problems which would require further tightening of poli-
tical and economic control. While we cannot say, without much
26 Was Stalin really necessary?
further research, whether a Bukharinite or other moderate policy
was impossible, once the decision to move fast was taken this
had very radical consequences; the need for a tough, coercive
government correspondingly increased. Given the nature of the
Party apparatus, the mental and political development of the
Russian masses, the logic of police rule, these policies were
bound to lead to a conflict with the peasantry and to excesses
of various kinds. Thus, given the premises, certain elements of
what may be called Stalinism followed, were objective 'neces-
sities'. In this sense, and to this extent, Stalin was, so to speak,
operating within the logical consequences of Leninism.
It is an essential part of Lenin's views that the Party was to
seize power and use it to change Russian society; this is what
distinguished him from the Mensheviks who believed that con-
ditions for socialism should ripen within society. Lenin also
suppressed opposition parties and required stern discipline from
his own followers. (It is impossible to ban free speech outside
the Party without purging the Party of those who express 'wrong'
views within it.) Indeed Lenin promoted Stalin because he knew
he was tough, would 'prepare peppery dishes', though he had
last-minute regrets about it. While it would be going too far to
describe Stalin as a true Leninist, if only because Lenin was
neither personally brutal nor an oriental despot, Stalin un-
doubtedly carried through some of the logical consequences of
Lenin's policies and ideas. This remains true even though Lenin
thought that the peasant problem could be solved by voluntary
co-operation, and would probably have recoiled at the con-
ditions of forced collectivization.
Is it necessary to stress that this does not make these actions
right, or good? Yes, it is, because so many critics assume that
to explain is to justify. So it must be said several times that no
moral conc1usions follow, that even the most vicious acts by
politicians and others generally have causes which must be
analysed. We are here only concerned to disentangle the special
contribution of Stalin, the extent to which Stalinism was, so to
speak, situation-determined. This is relevant, indeed, to one's
picture of Stalin's personal responsibility, but in no way absolves
him of such responsibility. If in order to do A it proves necessary
to do B, we can, after all, refuse to do B, abandon or modify the
aim of attaining A, or resign, or, in extreme circumstances-
 Was Stalin really necessary? 27
like Stalin's old cOlnrade Ordzhonikidze-commit suicide.

But Stalin's personal responsibility goes far beyond his being

the voice and leader of a party majority in a given historical
situation. For one cannot possibly argue that all the immense
eviIs of the Stalin era flowed inescapably from the policy deci-
sions of 1928-29. In assessing Stalin's personal role in bringing
these eviIs about, it is useful to approach the facts from two
angles. There was, first, the category of evils which sprang from
policy choices which Stalin made and which he need not have
made; in other words we are here concerned with consequences
(perhaps necessary) ofunnecessary decisions. The other category
consists of evil actions which can reasonably be attributed to
Stalin and which are his direct responsibility.
Of course, these categories shade into one another, as do
murder and manslaughter. In the first case, the evils were in a
sense situation-determined, but Stalin had a large hand in deter-
mining the situation. In the second, his guilt is as clear as a
politician's guilt can be.
The most obvious examples of the first category are: the
brutality of collectivization and the madly excessive pace of
industrial development. In each case, we are dealing with 'exces-
sive excesses', since we have already noted that collectivization
without coercion was impossible, and rapid industrialization
was bound to cause stresses and strains.

Take collectivization first. Some over-zealous officials were

presumably bound to overdo things, especially since the typical
Party man was a townsman with no understanding or sympathy
for peasants and their problems. But these officials received
orders to impose rapid collectivization, to deport kulaks, to
seize all livestock, and Stalin was surely the source of these
orders. The deportation of the kulaks (which in reality meant
anyone who voiced opposition to collectivization) removed at
one blow the most efficient farmers. There had been no serious
preparation of the measures, no clear orders about how a collec-
tive farm should be run. Chinese experience, at least before the
communes, suggests that milder ways of proceeding are possible.
In any event, the attempt to collectivize all private livestock
ended in disaster and a retreat. It is worth reproducing the
28 Was StaUn really necessary?
figures from the official handbook of agricultural statistics:

LIVESTOCK POPULATION
(Million of Head)
1928 1934
Horses 32'1 15'4
Cattle 60·1 33·5
Pigs . . 22·0 11'5
Sheep .. 97·3 32·9

Yet already by 1934 private livestock holdings were again

permitted, and in 1938 over threequarters of all cows, over two-
thirds of all pigs, nearly two-thirds of all sheep, were in private
hands. This is evidence of a disastrous error.
Its consequences were profound. Peasant hostility and bitter-
ness were greatly intensified. For many years there were in fact
no net investments in agriculture, since the new tractors merely
went to replace some of the slaughtered horses. Acute food
shortage made itself felt-though the state's control over pro-
duce ensured that most of those who died in the resulting famine
were peasants and not townsmen. But once all this happened,
the case for coercion was greatly strengthened, the need for
police measures became more urgent than ever, the power ofthe
censorship was increased, freedom of speech had still further to
be curtailed, as part of the necessities of remaining in power and
continuing the industrial revolution in an environment grown
more hostile as a result of such policies. So Stalin's policy deci-
sions led to events which contributed greatly to the further
growth of totalitarianism and the police state.

The same is true of the attempt to do the impossible on the

industrial front in the years of the first five-year plan. Much of
the effort was simply wasted, as when food was taken from
hungry peasants and exported to pay for machines which rusted
in the open or were wrecked by untrained workmen. At the
same time, the closing of many private workshops deprived the
people of consumers' goods which the state, intent on building
steelworks and machine-shops, was quite unable to provide.
Again, living standards suffered, the hatred of many citizens for
the regime increased, the NKVD had to be expanded and the
logic of police rule followed. But Stalin had a big role in the
 Was StaUn really necessary? 29
initial decisions to jump too far too fast. l (It is interesting to
note that Mao, who should have leamt the lessons of history,
repeated many of these mistakes in China's 'great leap forward'
of 1958-59, which suggests that there are certain errors which
Communists repeatedly commit, possibly due to the suppression,
in 'anti-rightist' campaigns, of the voices of moderation and
common sense.)
One of the consequences of these acute hardships was isola-
tion from foreign countries. Economists often speak of the
'demonstration effect' , i.e. of the effect of the knowledge of
higher living standards abroad on the citizens of poor and
underdeve10ped countries. This knowledge may act as a spur to
effort-but it also generates resistance to sacrifice. Stalin and his
regime systematically 'shie1ded' Soviet citizens from knowledge
of the outside world, by censorship, by cutting off personal
contacts, by misinformation. The need to do so, in their eyes,
was greatly increased by the extent of the drop in living standards
in the early 'thirties.

But we must now come to Stalin's more direct contribution to

the brutality and terrorism of the Stalin era.
There was, firstly, his needless cruelty which showed itself
already in the methods used to impose collectivization. The
great purges were surely not 'objective1y necessary'. To explain
them one has to take into account Stalin's thirst for supreme
power, his intense pathological suspiciousness, i.e. matters per-
taining to Stalin's personal position and character. These led
him to massacre the majority ofthe 'Stalinist' central committee
elected in 1934, who had supported or at the very least tolerated
Stalin's policies up to that date. The facts suggest that they
believed that relaxation was possible and desirable; many of
them seem to have died for the crime of saying so. Nor was there
any 'police logic' for the scale and drastic nature of the purges.
Indeed, the police chiefs figured prominently among the victims.
True, there was a kind of 'snowballing' of arrests, which might
have got out of control in 1938, but this was due large1y to the
effect of the terror on the police, who had to show zeal or go
under. Nor can any 'necessity' explain the post-war repressions,
1 N. Jasny, in his Soviet Industrialisation, 1938-52 (Chicago, 1961), has much
to say about the chaotic planning of the early 'thirties.
30 Was Stalin really necessary?
the death of Voznesensky, the so-called 'Leningrad affair', the
shooting of the Jewish intellectuals, the 'doctors' plot'. Stalin
played so prominently a personal role in establishing a reign of
terror in the Party and the country that he must bear direct
responsibility even where executions were the result of false
information supplied to hirn by his subordinates for reasons of
their own.
The atmosphere of terror had, of course, far-reaching con-
sequences in every sphere of Soviet life. It became particularly
grotesque and purposeless in the last years of Stalin, when the
social and economic developments, plus victory in war, provided
the Soviet regime with a much firmer base among the people, so
that a considerable part of the discontent was the result, rather
than the cause, of repressive measures. Many obviously overdue
reforms had to await his death. As did Tsar Nicholas I, a century
earlier, Stalin was able to delay 'necessary' changes.

Many other examples can be given ofthe personal role ofStalin.

On the economic front, the miserable state of the peasants in
1953 was due largely to Stalin's obstinate refusal to face the
facts and listen to serious advice. He contributed greatly to
wasteful and grandiose schemes to 'transform nature', and to a
wasteful and grandiose style of architecture. In the military
field, history will, I think, support Khrushchev's accusation that
Stalin's inability to see the signs of a German attack, his un-
willingness to allow preparations, his massacre of the best Soviet
officers, all made a personal contribution to the Russian disas-
ters of 1941. Stalin personally insisted on his own deification,
the rewriting ofhistory, the creation ofmyths. Some myths were
based on lies which he himself publicly uttered. For instance, in
1935 he announced : eWe have had no poor for two or three
years now'-and this when bread had reached the highest price,
in relation to wages, that it had ever attained in Soviet history.
Or equally ridiculous was his claim, in 1947, that Moscow 'had
completely abolished slums'. In this personal way he made im-
possible all serious discussion either of living standards or the
housing problem, just as his wildly false assertions about 'Buk-
harin and Trotsky, agents of Hitler and the Mikado', made the
writing of Soviet history impossible in Russia. One could argue
that the myth about 'voluntary collectivization' was an objec-
 Was StaUn really necessary? 31
tively necessary lie, in the sense of transcending Stalin's person-
ality; indeed, this lie figures in the Party programme adopted by
the twenty-second Congress last November. But Stalin's lies
went very much beyond this, and beyond the distortions and
myths which can be ascribed to other politicians in other
countries.
Throughout Russia, officials at all levels modelled themselves
on Stalin, and each succeeded in imposing more unnecessary
misery on more subordinates, stultifying initiative, penalizing
intelligence, discouraging originality. The price of all this is still
being paid.
The urgent need to prepare for war has often been advanced
as an excuse for Stalin's industrial 'tempos' and for the terror.
This can hardly be accepted. In the worst years of social coercion
and over-ambitious plans, i.e. 1929-33, Hitler was only just
climbing to power, and Comintern policy showed that he was
not then regarded as the main enemy. It is possible that Stalin
was liquidating all potentialopponents in the Purges of 1936-38
as a precaution in case war broke out, though this seems doubt-
ful for a variety of reasons. But it is quite false to use the result
of the war as ex-post-factum justification of Stalinism. Perhaps,
with less harsh policies, the greater degree of loyalty in 1941
would have offset a smaller industrial base? In any event the
Purges not only led to the slaughter of the best military officers
but also halted the growth of heavy industry.

The attentive reader will have noticed that this analysis has
some features in common with Khrushchev's. Before 1934,
Stalin had been carrying out policies which commanded the
assent of a majority of the Party and which, like collectivization,
had been accepted as necessary and irreversible by the bulk of
Party members, whatever their reservations about particular
mistakes and acts of brutality. However, after that date he took
more and more personal, arbitrary measures, massacred much
of the Party, behaved like an oriental despot. It is true that he
was also arbitrary before 1934, and that he took some wise
decisions after that date; but there is a case for placing a quali-
tative change around then.
But this is by no means the end of the matter. It is not only
a question ofmaking some obvious remarks concerning Khrush-
32 Was Stalin really necessary?
chev's own role during the terror. Of much more general signi-
ficance is the fact that the events prior to 1934, including the
building-up of Stalin into an all-powerful and infallible dictator
(by men many of whom he afterwards massacred), cannot be
disassociated with what followed; at the very least they provided
Stalin with his opportunity. This is where the historian must
avoid the twin and opposite pitfalls of regarding what happened
as inevitable, and regarding it as a chapter of 'personalized'
accidents. At each stage there are choices to be made, though
the range of possible choices is generally much narrower than
people suppose. In 1928 any practicable Bolshevik programme
would have been harsh and unpopular. It might not have been
so harsh and unpopular but for choices which need not neces-
sarily have been made. If before 1934, i.e. in the very period of
maximum social coercion, Stalin truly represented the will of
the Party, and Khrushchev argues that he did, some totalitarian
consequences logically follow. One of these, as already sug-
gested, is the semi-militarized party led by a Fuehrer, a dictator,
because without an unquestioned leader the consequences of the
policies adopted could not be faced.
But, even if it is true that the triumph of a dictator may be
explained by objective circumstances which certainly existed in
the Soviet situation, the acts of a dictator once he has 'arrived'
involve a considerable (though of course not infinite) degree of
personal choice. Those who gave hirn the opportunity to act in
an arbitrary and cruel way, who adopted policies which involved
arbitrariness and coercion on a big scale, cannot ascribe sub-
sequent events to the wickedness of one man or his immediate
associates and claim that their hands are clean, even indeed if
they were shot themselves on Stalin's orders. The whole-hog
Stalin, in other words, was not 'necessary', but the possibility
of a Stalin was a necessary consequence of the effort of a
minority group to keep power and to carry out a vast social-
economic revolution in a very short time. And some
elements of Stalinism were, in those circumstances, scarcely
avoidable.

The serious problem for us is to see how far certain elements of

Stalinism, in the sense of purposefully-applied social coercion,
imposed by a party in the name of an ideology, are likely or
 Was StaUn really necessary? 33
liable to accompany rapid economic development even in non-
Communist countries.
For it is surely true that many of the problems tackled by
Stalin so brutally are present elsewhere, though events in the
USSR were, of course, deeply affected by peculiar features of
Russia and of Bolshevism. The West should indeed emphasize
the high cost in human and material terms of a Stalin, and show
that the rise of such a man to supreme power in the Soviet
Union was, to use the familiar Soviet-Marxist jargon phrase,
'not accidental'. Indeed, some Western historians who normally
write 'personalist' and empiricist his tory will begin to see the
virtues of an approach they normally deride as 'historicist'; they
will analyse Soviet his tory to establish patterns, regularities,
'necessities', which lead to Stalin. By contrast, an embarrassed
Khrushchev will be-is being-forced to give an un-Marxist
emphasis to personal and accidental factors.
But, of course, we must not confine our search for 'necessities'
in history only to instances which happen to serve a propagan-
dist purpose. This would be a typically Soviet approach to
historiography, only in reverse. It is particularly important to
think very seriously about the inter-relationship of coercion and
industrialization, about the nature of the obstacles and vicious
circles which drive men to think in totalitarian terms. Unless we
realize how complex are the problems which development
brings, how irrelevant are many of our ideas to the practical
possibilities open to statesmen in these countries, we may un-
consciously drive them towards the road which led to Stalin.
They cannot be satisfied with 'the pace of a tortoise'.

NOVE ON STALIN: A COMMENT

Alec Nove's article 'Was Stalin really necessary?' is very stimu-

lating. Although his answer to the basic question posed is not
quite clear, one can agree with most of what he says. Still, my
own inclination is to say 'Quite, quite unnecessary!' and so I
should like to make a few comments on the way Nove handIed
the three central issues:
(1) What is the meaning of historical necessity?
(2) Was the forcible collectivization necessary?
B
 34 Was Stalin really necessary?
(3) Was the Great Purge linked with the 1929-31 economic
upheaval or was it only a consequence of Stalin's 'excesses'?

1. Nove argues that historical necessity is not historically

immanent (why exactly is it historieal?) but is to be understood
as the existence of objective and subjective factors limiting the
range of possible choice. The subjective factors are concerned
with the Aristotelian essences ofthose taking decisions. 'A rabbi
does not eat pork; were he to do so, he would not be a rabbi.'
Similarly: 'There may have been a number of solutions to the
problems posed by Russia of the 'twenties which the Com-
munists could not have chosen because they were Communists.'
That may be true, but if historical necessity is so defined then
each regime carries within it its own 'inevitability'. The Indian
Congress Party, for instance, cannot do certain things without
ceasing to be an Indian Congress Party, and Soviet Russia's
'historical necessities' are thus irrelevant to it by definition. Is
this the conclusion Mr Nove wanted to draw? He rightly rejects
Marxist 'historical inevitability', but then in his reasoning the
belief in it is surely a subjective factor without which the Soviet
Communists wou1d not be Communists. It thus follows that,
however mistaken and however 'voluntaristic' their acts, they
are in Nove's scheme in a sense all 'necessary' by definition. This
is, of course, part of a genuine paradox; but it largely rests on
how the words 'possible' and 'necessary' are defined. Is this
begging the whole question? If 'really necessary' is not the same
as 'historically necessary', why is it not?
2. The answer to the second question is given in the affirma-
tive: Yes, Nove argues, forcible collectivization was necessary.
This is not the answer implied by Gomulka, and Khrushchev
himself admitted at the twenty-second Congress the possibility
of a different road to socialism in countries 'where peasants are
deeply attached to private property'. The Polish Communists
have quickly reproduced this passage offering a doctrinal legi-
timation of their present practice. If this is so, doesn't it cast
doubt on the 'necessity' of Stalin's forcible collectivization?
Peasants everywhere are attached to their property; so were
they in Russia. It is interesting to compare Nove's conclusions
on the subject with those given in the official Polish Communist
theoretical journal Nowe Drogi (No. 12, 1961):
 Was StaUn really necessary? 35
Apart from objective factors there are also subjective factors.
There are no situations in which the Party or the individuals
do not have possibility of choice, in which definite problems
cannot be solved by different methods, less costly, and avoid-
ing many unnecessary sufferings and negative effects.

Would Nove reject this in favour ofthe Khrushchevianjusti-

fication of Stalin's 'necessities' (minus his 'excesses')? Is there
not enough evidence that the whole monstrous character of
Soviet collectivization was connected more with political than
with econornic necessities?
3. According to Nove, forcible collectivization stemmed from
objective necessities and only its excesses (which Stalin also con-
dernned) resulted from subjective factors and indirect effects.
This apparently is not the case with the great purges of 1936-38.
In his view, 'the great purges cannot possibly be derived from
any "objective necessity" arising from past policies. They can
be derived from Stalin's thirst for supreme power, his intense,
pathological suspiciousness'.
This is an astonishing argument. It is enough to look at the
record (for example, in the chapter on the subject in Leonard
Schapiro's history of The Communist Party of the Soviet Union)
to see that historical evidence points to a precisely opposite
conc1usion. The Great Purge was more than intimate1y linked
with the past policies of forcible collectivization. Nobody, of
course, would deny Stalin's 'thirst for power', but this was also
an operative factor in the previous instances. 'Given the nature
of the system', Stalin had at each stage been taking decisions
which large1y conditioned his subsequent actions (and 'Stalin
would not be Stalin, if he had done otherwise').
Collectivization may be regarded either as an end in itself,
or as a means to secure industrial growth. In the former case,
the problems besetting Soviet agriculture today cast doubt on
the econornic rationality of coHectivization; in the latter case,
in the perspective of 1931, Stalin may weH have feIt that the
drastic method of squeezing agriculture in order to build industry
quickly may be the only one, but three decades later this does
not seem so certain and there is no reason to fall into the trap of
post hoc ergo propter hoc type of reasoning. In any case the
econornic perspective is not the only one. What may seem econo-
36 Was Stalin really necessary?
mically necessary may not be 'really necessary' if the human
price to be paid is too high. It is only too easy to confuse retro-
spectively doctrinal necessity with economic necessity and then
make it into a 'historical necessity'.
The exc1usively economic perspective probably accounts for
Nove's conc1usion on the great purges. 'Objective necessity' in
this context means for hirn more or less plausible economic
reasons; and these, he seems to suggest, may have justified
drastic steps in 1931 but not after 1934 when the economic situa-
tion improved. But in political perspective there were apparently
reasons more compelling than the economic one for Stalin to act
as he did.
For an economist there may be a temptation to qualifyecono-
mic reasons as 'objective necessity', but not political reasons.
This reflects a certain economic determinism. It is an oversim-
plification to regard Stalinism as just a function of the necessities
of industrialization in 'backward Russia'. Stalin had risen to
power before his 'second revolution' and not as a result of it.
There is no historical reason to confer an economic justification
on his would-be imitators in the underdeveloped countries, how-
ever harsh may be the conditions of the industrial 'take-off' in
them.
LEOPOLD LABEDZ
Survey, London.

'WAS ST ALIN NECESSAR y?': A REJOINDER

It is always a pleasure to cross swords with my old friend

Leopold Labedz, who never fails to be a stimulating opponent.
He takes me to task [Encounter, August] for my judgment ofthe
necessity or otherwise of Stalin. I do not deny the validity of
some of his comments, but on occasion he seems to misunder-
stand what I was trying to say. My artic1e [Encounter, April] was
concerned, first, to discuss the personal role of Stalin, i.e. the
extent to which his terror regime was situation-determined;
secondly, I was concerned to identify the extent to which the
situation itself, inc1uding the horrors of forced collectivization,
flowed from the existence of a Communist dictatorship which
was trying to industrialize a predominantly peasant country
quickly. I do not pretend that these are the only questions which
 Was StaUn really necessary? 37
should be asked in a survey ofthe political and economic history
of the Soviet Union. Nor indeed are they the kind of questions
which permit of a definitive answer. They are, nonetheless,
matters which are interesting to discuss.
I do not quite understand the point of Labedz's criticism of
my discussion of necessity. He both accepts and rejects the pro-
position that the choices of politicians are limited by their own
ideological attitudes and beliefs. Surely, if one is trying to iden-
tify the role of an individual, it is significant to identify the ideo-
logicallimitations on his choice which would apply not only to
him but also to the overwhelming majority of his party com-
rades. For example, no leader of the British Labour Party is in
a position to denationalize an existing nationalized industry,
and this is surely an elementary political fact. A Conservative is
less limited in this respect, though no doubt he would be pre-
cluded by his beliefs from advocating certain solutions which
would be acceptable to the Labour Party. All this is obvious,
and I do not see why the same kind of logic cannot be applied
to the choices available to the Bolsheviks. Labedz complains
that 'if historical necessity is so defined, then each regime carries
with it its own inevitability'. The word 'inevitability' is his, not
mine. It does carry with it its own limitations on the range of
practicable choices. He points out that, if my logic were valid,
the Indian Congress Party must be seen as having a different
field of choices from that which was or would be available to
the Communists. A minute's reflection would cause hirn to see
that this is not only the case, but self-evidently the case. Why is
this a criticism?
Labedz also asserts that I expressed the view that 'forcible
collectivization was necessary'. In doing so he again shows a
misunderstanding of the subject of my article, which was Stalin
and not collectivization as such. I carefully made the point that
non-Communists would have found some totally different solu-
tion; I also quite specifically left open the question ofthe possible
viability of alternative policies. What I tried to do was to stress
the considerations which led to the decision to impose collec-
tivization, looking for the impersonallogic of events, noting that
the bulk of the Communist Party, including former opposition-
ists, rallied round the Party in its campaign against the peasants.
All this is relevant to the assessment of Stalin's personal role. I
38 Was Stalin really necessary?
also noted that voluntary collectivization was a non-starter in
the circumstances, and that in those same circumstances forced
collectivization would be associated with excesses. The actual
methods used, not without a great deal of personal encourage-
ment from Stalin, led to excesses and brutalities on a vast scale.
What happened then is not part of any model for underdeve10ped
countries to follow. It is rather a terrible warning, and I never
suggested otherwise.
Labedz roundly asserts that I deny any connection between
collectivization and the great purge. Perhaps he would re-read
my artic1e, where I devote much space to establishing the con-
nection between the harshness and brutalities of collectivization
and the increasing intensity of police repression. But the events
which followed Kirov's death, and especially the great massacres
of 1936-38, were no necessary consequence of the events before
1934. Labedz seems to overlook the distinction between a causal
connection and a necessary connection, though admittedly the
distinction is never absolute, but is rather one of degree. 0/
course the events of 1929-34 were part of the essential back-
ground of the purges. But was it a 10gical consequence of collec-
tivization for Stalin to massacre the majority of the members
of his own faction, the very men who carried collectivization
through? Is there not some evidence for the proposition that this
massacre followed an attempt by his colleagues to restrain Stalin's
growing arbitrariness and blood-Ietting? True, the earlier events
created an atmosphere in which a mass purge became possible.
However, as recent Chinese experience suggests, disastrous 'leaps
forward' can sometimes be followed by a sinking of differences
in an effort to put matters right, rather than by mass shootings.
Labedz would seem to ascribe to me the belief that I accept
only economic and social logic, and not a political logic of
events. This is sure1y not the case. The desire of the Communist
leadership to maintain itself in power was an essential element
in the choices which they made, inc1uding the decision to collec-
tivize. The relative importance of this aspect of the decision is a
matter on which legitimate disagreement is possible, but I no-
where denied that this was a significant factor. Did the events of
1936-38 follow from political necessity? Ifthey did, and I failed
to allow for this, I am guilty of error. However, despite carefully
reading Schapiro's book, I still believe that what I called the
 Was StaUn really necessary? 39
'whoie hog Stalinist terror' was primarily aimed at securing the
absolute dictatorship of Joseph Stalin, over the Party and every-
one else. (Schapiro's chapter on the purges is entitled: 'Stalin's
Victory Over the Party'!) I say this while entirely accepting the
proposition that politicallogic led to toughness and to numerous
restrietions on human freedom. It is true that the power manoeu-
vring of Stalin did indeed have its own logie and its own 'regu-
larities' . However, sinee my paper was eoneerned with identifying
Stalin's personal role, I naturally treated aetions in furtheranee
of Stalin's career as attributable to Stalin rather than to the im-
personallogic of events. I am surprised that Labedz should be so
insistent on historical inevitability and the inexorable march of
History, ete., etc. On other occasions he and those who think
like him seem to take a somewhat different view of the role of
personality.
A. NOVE
 2. The uses and abuses 01
Krem linology *
The object of this article is to discuss the relative significance of
various methods of studying the Soviet Union, and it is con-
venient for this purpose to use 'Kremlinology' as a peg on which
to hang the discussion. By 'Kremlinology' I mean the method of
analysis which lays great stress on a careful study of the pro-
motion, demotion and interaction of personalities, and also on
the exact wording of pronouncements of certain conventional or
formal kinds. On the whole, I take the view that this can be
greatly overdone, and once gave a talk under the title of 'Down
with Kremlinology'. However, it must be emphasized that 'down'
does not mean 'out', but rather 'down to the second division', to
use footballing language. It is certainly useful to study the sort
of things which Krernlinologists study. The problem is-how
useful, relative to other things.
A critique of Krernlinology involves two important points of
principle. The first is the role of personality in history in general,
in Soviet history in particular. The second relates to the validity
of the technique of Kremlinology as a guide to personality
struggles or to policy clashes. The two points are to some extent
independent of one another. Thus one may weIl hold the view
that the decision about who is to succeed Khrushchev is of vital
importance to the entire world, and none the less argue that we
cannot disco ver who will succeed hirn by watching the careers of
the supporters ofBrezhnev, Polyanski, Kozlov or other possible
contenders, or the precise wording of Pravda editorials. We will
discuss later on the extent to which the traditional methods of
Kremlinology are helpful even within the narrower confines of
power-struggle analysis. But, first, what is the case for the
Kremlinological approach?
On a naive level, it consists of variations on the theme of the
weIl-known generalization, 'history is about chaps'. The bio-
graphies of politicians, on this view, are political history. It
• From Survey, January 1964.
 The uses and abuses 0/ Kremlinology 41
would not then matter particularly whether two (imaginary)
comrades named Bushkin and Kukushkin stand for different
policies. A conflict between them, if such exists, is by definition
both relevant and important. Such an approach is common
enough among diplomats and newspaper correspondents, and
rightly so. It is an essential part of their jobs to report the rise
and fall of personalities. The promotion, demotion and ambi-
tions of politicians must be reported, whether or not there results
any change ofpoliey. This is at least as true ofthe Soviet Union
as of any other eountry.
But the Soviet Union is a special ease, argue the Kremlino-
logists. Political strife does not take plaee there in the open, it
is eonducted behind the scenes, and little hints appear in obseure
ways. These may be eonneeted with the rise and fall of individuals
in the hierarchy or with signifieant poliey shifts. Hints may be
found in obseure paragraphs or in some peeuliar rewording of
eertain formal statements. This is the bit of the iceberg that
shows above the surfaee. Rumours of confliet within the leader-
ship are always denied even when the political battle is in full
swing, as it was on the eve of Malenkov's fall and in the struggle
with the anti-party group. Yet acute observers did spot some
tell-tale signs. Then it is also argued that poliey issues in the
USSR are in a special way subordinated to the power struggle,
that it shows a misunderstanding of Soviet political realities to
study issues in themselves. This view can readily be supported
by evidenee which shows that pronouneements on poliey, ideo-
logy and philosophy have been repeatedly used as missiles in
political in-fighting. It is also said, again with justiee, that the
penalties of defeat in Soviet politl~s have been exeeptionally
severe, and that this has affeeted the behaviour of the actors on
the political stage. It is also undeniable that the decisions of
politicians affect many more aspeets of the lives of the people in
the Soviet Union than is the ease in Western countries. It may
also be legitimate1y argued, though this point is often pushed
too far, that in the Soviet Union politics control social-economie
reality, making nonsense of any analysis based on economic
determinism. Thus, for example, forcible colleetivization and the
first five-year plan represented a politically-inspired attempt to
change drastically the then existing eeonomic and social milieu;
these policies could hardly be regarded as a reflection of the
 42 Was StaUn really necessary?
dass structure of Soviet society in 1928. All this does seem to
add up to a powerful case for Kremlinology. The more intelli-
gent practitioners of the art would presumably not deny that
many things happen in the Soviet Union which have no causal
connection with the power struggle, or that real problems do
not exist. They would surely also agree that the power of the
Soviet totalitarian state is not absolute, that it is limited not only
by physical fact (a quart will not go into a pint pot, in Moscow
as in London) but also by certain social and economic realities.
In fact, the discussion between sensible Kremlinologists and their
sensible opponents is concerned with emphasis. Neither side
would assert that the preoccupations of the other are nonsen-
sicaI. Both would admit that it is possible to go too far in either
totally ignoring the power struggle or in considering nothing
else. In the one case one abstracts from an important aspect of
Soviet politicallife, in the other the analysis becomes one-sided
and superficiaI. It is likely that we would all agree that the
emphasis which one places on Kremlinological analysis is partly
related to time-scale. The more one is concerned with 'micro-
history' , the greater the role of the manoeuvres of individual
politicians. Conversely, developments over a longer period tend
to have causes of a less personal kind.
What weaknesses are there in the Kremlinologists' case? In
the first place, I feel that they tend to over-estimate some of the
differences between Soviet and Western political systems. No
one would deny that there are important differences, but in
virtually all countries politicians are ambitious men who intrigue
against one another, who in the course of their intrigues do not
always say what they mean, and are known to adopt policies
with one or both eyes on the consequences of these policies to
their political ambitions. An unambitious politician would prob-
ably be in another profession. Adesire for power and a capacity
for intrigue are a common denominator. As I am reading these
words, I have in front of me an article by the Evening Standard's
political correspondent, published on June 25, 1963, which con-
tains the following words: 'It is a truism that politics is con-
cerned with power. EquaIly its motive force is ambition to wield
that power, directly or indirectly.' It is sometimes necessary to
remind over-enthusiastic Kremlinologists that such words as
these can be used, as they were used, about Great Britain as weIl
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
never masturbated, had first had coitus at the age of eighteen, and
had since visited brothels frequently. He had never felt any
inclination for his own sex, and had never experienced any sexual
excitement when S. kissed him. He had always had pleasure in coitus
normally performed. His lascivious dreams had always been of
women. With indignation, and pointing to his descent from a healthy
and respectable family, he repels the insinuation of having been
given to passive pederasty. Until the gossip about them came to his
ears, he had been innocent and devoid of suspicion. The anal
anomalies he tries to explain in the same way that he did at the trial.
Auto-masturbation in ano he denies.
It should be noted that Mr. J. S. claims to be no less astonished
by the charge against his brother of male-love than those more
closely associated with him. Yet he could not understand what
attached his brother to G.; and all the explanations which S. made to
him concerning his relation to G. were vain.
The author took the trouble to observe Dr. S. and G., in a natural
way, while they were dining, in company with S.’s brother and Mrs.
S., in Graz. This observation revealed not the slightest sign of
improper friendship.
The general impression which Dr. S. made on me was that of a
nervous, sanguine, somewhat overstrained individual, but, at the
same time, kind, open-hearted, and very emotional.
Dr. S. is physically strong, somewhat corpulent, with a
symmetrical, brachycephalic cranium. The genitals are well
developed; the penis somewhat bellied; the prepuce somewhat
hypertrophied.
Opinion.—Pederasty is, unfortunately, not infrequent among
mankind to-day; but still, occurring among the peoples of Europe, it
is an unusual, perverse, and even monstrous manner of sexual
gratification. It presumes a congenital or acquired perversion of the
sexual instinct, and, at the same time, defect of moral sense that is
either original or acquired, as a result of pathological influences.
 Medico-legal science is thoroughly conversant with the physical
and psychical conditions from which this aberration of the sexual
instinct arises; and in the concrete and doubtful case it seems
requisite to ascertain whether these empirical, subjective conditions
necessary for pederasty are present. Too, it is essential to distinguish
between active and passive pederasty.
Active pederasty occurs:—
I. As a non-pathological phenomenon:—
1. As a means of sexual gratification, in case of great sexual
desire, with enforced abstinence from natural sexual intercourse.
2. In old debauchees, who have become satiated with normal
sexual intercourse, and more or less impotent, and also morally
depraved; and who resort to pederasty, in order to excite their lust
with this new stimulus, and aid their virility, that has sunk so low
psychically and physically.
3. Traditionally, among certain barbarous races that are devoid
of morality.
II. As a pathological phenomenon:—
1. Upon the basis of congenital contrary sexual instinct, with
repugnance for sexual intercourse with women, or even absolute
incapability of it. But, as even Casper knew, pederasty, under such
conditions, is very infrequent. The so-called urning satisfies himself
with a man by means of passive or mutual onanism, or by means of
coitus-like acts (e.g., coitus inter femora); and he resorts to pederasty
only very exceptionally, as a result of intense sexual desire, or with a
low or lowered moral sense, out of desire to please another.
2. On the basis of acquired contrary sexual instinct:—
(a) As a result of long years of onanism, which finally causes
impotence for women with continuance of intense sexual desire.
(b) As a result of severe mental disease (senile dementia, brain-
softening of the insane, etc.), in which, as experience teaches, an
inversion of the sexual instinct may take place.
Passive pederasty occurs:—
 I. As a non-pathological phenomenon:—
1. In individuals of the lowest class, who, having had the
misfortune to be seduced in boyhood by debauchees, endured pain
and disgust for the sake of money, and became depraved morally, so
that, in more mature years, they have fallen so low that they take
pleasure in being male prostitutes.
2. Under circumstances analogous to those of I, 1,—as a
remuneration to another for having allowed active pederasty.
II. As a pathological phenomenon:—
1. In individuals affected with contrary sexual instinct, with
endurance of pain and disgust, as a return to men for the bestowal of
sexual favors.
2. In urnings who feel toward men like women, out of desire and
lust. In such female-men there is horror feminæ and absolute
incapability for sexual intercourse with women. Character and
inclinations are feminine.
The empirical facts that have been gathered by legal medicine
and psychiatry are all included in this classification. Before the court
of medical science, it would be necessary to prove that a man
belonged to one of the above categories in order to carry the
conviction that he was a pederast.
In the life and character of Dr. S., one searches in vain for signs
which place him in one of the categories of active pederasts which
science has established. He is neither one forced to sexual
abstinence, nor one made impotent for women by debauchery;
neither is he congenitally male-loving, nor alienated from women by
masturbation, and attracted to men through continuance of sexual
desire; and, finally, he is not sexually perverse as a result of severe
mental disease.
In fact, the general conditions necessary for the occurrence of
pederasty are wanting in him,—moral imbecility or moral depravity,
on the one hand, and inordinate sexual desire, on the other.
It is likewise impossible to classify the accomplice, G., in any of
the empirical categories of passive pederasty; for he possesses
neither the peculiarities of the male prostitute nor the clinical marks
of effemination; and he has not the anthropological and clinical
stigmata of the female-man. He is, in fact, the very opposite of all
this.
In order to make a pederastic relation between the two plausible
medico-scientifically, it would be requisite for Dr. S. to present the
antecedents and marks of the active pederasts of I, 2, and G., those of
the passive pederasts of II, 1 or 2.
The assumption lying at the basis of the verdict is, from a
psychological stand-point, legally untenable.
With the same right, every man might be considered a pederast.
It remains to consider whether the explanations given by Dr. S. and
G. of their remarkable friendship are psychologically valid.
Psychologically it is not without parallel that so sentimental and
eccentric a man as S.—without any sexual excitement whatever—
should entertain a transcendental friendship. It suffices to recall the
friendship of school-girls, the self-sacrificing friendship of
sentimental young persons in general, and the partiality which this
sensitive man sometimes showed even for domestic animals,—where
no one would think of sodomy. With S.’s mental character,
extraordinary friendship for the youth G. may be easily
comprehended. The openness of this friendship permits the
conclusion that it was innocent, much rather than that it depended
upon sensual passion.
The defendants succeeded in obtaining a new trial. The new trial
took place on March 7, 1890. There was much evidence presented in
favor of the accused.
The previous moral life of S. was generally acknowledged. The
Sister of Charity who cared for G. in S.’s house, never noticed
anything suspicious in the intercourse between S. and G. S.’s former
friends testified to his morality, his deep friendship, and his habit of
kissing them on meeting or leaving them. The anal abnormalities
previously found on G. were no longer present. Experts called by the
court allowed the possibility that they had been due simply to digital
manipulations; their diagnostic value in any case was contested by
the experts called by the defense.
The court recognized that the imputed crime had not been
proved, and exonerated the defendants.

[146]
Lesbian Love.

Where the sexual intercourse is between adults,

its legal importance is very slight; it could come into
consideration only in Austria. In connection with
urningism, this phenomenon is of anthropological
and clinical value. The relation is the same, mutatis
mutandis, as between men. Lesbian love does not
seem to approach urningism in frequency. The
majority of female urnings do not act in obedience to
an innate impulse, but they are developed under
conditions analogous to those which produce the
urning by cultivation.
These “forbidden friendships” flourish especially
in penal institutions for females.
Kraussold (op. cit.) reports: “The female prisoners often have
such friendships, which, when possible, extend to mutual
manustupration.
“But temporary manual gratification is not the only purpose of
such friendships. They are made to be enduring,—entered into
systematically, so to speak,—and intense jealousy and a passion for
love are developed which could scarcely be surpassed between
persons of opposite sex. When the friend of one prisoner is merely
smiled at by another, there are often the most violent scenes of
jealousy, and even beatings.
“When the violent prisoner has been put in irons, in accordance
with the prison-regulations, she says ‘she has had a child by her
friend.’”
We are indebted to Parent-Duchatelet (“De la
prostitution,” 1857, vol. i, p. 159) for interesting
communications concerning Lesbian love.
According to this experienced author, repugnance for the most
disgusting and perverse acts (coitus in axilla, inter mammæ, etc.)
which men perform on prostitutes is not infrequently responsible for
driving these unfortunate creatures to Lesbian love. From his
statements it is seen that it is essentially prostitutes of great
sensuality who, unsatisfied with intercourse with impotent or
perverse men, and impelled by their disgusting practices, come to
indulge in it.
Besides these, there are prostitutes who let themselves be known
as given to tribadism; persons who have been in prisons for years,
and in these hot-beds of Lesbian love, ex abstinentia, acquired this
vice.
It is interesting to know that prostitutes hate those who practice
tribadism,—just as men abhor pederasts; but female prisoners do not
regard the vice as indecent.
Parent mentions the case of a prostitute who, while intoxicated,
tried to force another to Lesbian love. The latter became so enraged
that she denounced the indecent woman to the police. Taxil (op. cit.
p. 166, 170) reports similar instances.
Mantegazza (“Anthropol. culturhistorische Studien,” p. 97) also
finds that sexual intercourse between women has especially the
significance of a vice which arises on the basis of unsatisfied
hyperæsthesia sexualis.
In many cases of this kind, however, aside from congenital
contrary sexual instinct, one gains the impression that, just as in men
(vide supra), the cultivated vice gradually leads to acquired contrary
sexual instinct, with repugnance for sexual intercourse with the
opposite sex.
At least Parent’s cases were probably of this nature. The
correspondence with the lover was quite as sentimental and
exaggerated in tone as it is between lovers of the opposite sex;
unfaithfulness and separation broke the heart of the one abandoned;
jealousy was unbridled, and led to bloody revenge. The following
cases of Lesbian love, by Mantegazza, are certainly pathological, and
possibly examples of congenital contrary sexual instinct:—
1. On July 5, 1777, a woman was brought before a court in
London, who, dressed as a man, had been married to three different
women. She was recognized as a woman, and sentenced to
imprisonment for six months.
2. In 1773, another woman, dressed as a man, courted a girl, and
asked for her hand; but the trick did not succeed.
3. Two women lived together as man and wife for thirty years.
On her death-bed the “husband” confessed her secret to those about
her.
Coffignon (op. cit., p. 301) makes later statements worthy of
notice.
He reports that this vice is, of late, quite the fashion,—partly
owing to novels on the subject, and partly as a result of excessive
work on sewing-machines, the sleeping of female servants in the
same bed, seduction in schools by depraved pupils, or seduction of
daughters by perverse servants.
The author declares that this vice (“saphism”) is met more
frequently among ladies of the aristocracy and prostitutes.
He does not differentiate physiological and pathological cases,
nor, among the latter, the acquired and congenital cases. The details
of a few cases, which are certainly pathological, correspond exactly
with the facts that are known about men of contrary sexuality.
The saphists have their places of meeting, recognize each other
by peculiar glances, carriage, etc. Saphistic pairs like to dress and
ornament themselves alike, etc. They are then called “petites sœurs”
(little sisters).
7. Necrophilia.[147]
 (Austrian Statutes, § 306.)
This horrible kind of sexual indulgence is so
monstrous that the presumption of a psychopathic
state is, under all circumstances, justified; and
Maschka’s recommendation, that the mental
condition of the perpetrator should always be
investigated, is well founded. In any case, an
abnormal and decidedly perverse sensuality is
required to overcome the natural repugnance which
man has for a corpse, and permit a feeling of pleasure
to be experienced in sexual congress with a cadaver.
Unfortunately, in the majority of the cases
reported, the mental condition was not examined; so
that the question whether necrophilia is compatible
with mental soundness must remain open. But any
one having knowledge of the horrible aberrations of
the sexual instinct would not venture, without further
consideration, to answer the question in the negative.
 8. Incest.

(Austrian Statutes, § 132; Abridgment, § 189;

German Statutes, § 174.)
The preservation of the moral purity of family
[148]
life is a product of civilization; and feelings of
intense displeasure arise in an ethically intact man at
thought of lustful feeling toward a member of the
same family. Only great sensuality and defective
ideas of laws and morals can lead to incest.
Both conditions may, in tainted families, be
operative. Drinking and a state of intoxication in
men; weak-mindedness which does not allow the
development of the feeling of shame, and which,
under certain circumstances, is associated with
eroticism in females,—these facilitate the occurrence
of incestuous acts. External conditions which
facilitate their occurrence are due to defective
separation of the sexes among the lower classes.
As a decidedly pathological phenomenon, the
author has found incest in states of congenital and
acquired mental weakness, and infrequently in cases
of epilepsy and paranoia.
In many of the cases, probably a majority, it is
not possible, however, to find a pathological basis for
the act which so deeply wounds not only the tie of
blood, but also the feeling of a civilized people. But in
many of the cases reported in literature, to the honor
of humanity, the presumption of a psychopathic basis
is possible.
In the Feldtmann case (Marc-Ideler, vol. i, p. 18), where a father
constantly made immoral attacks on his adult daughter, and finally
killed her, the unnatural father was weak-minded and, besides,
probably subject to periodical mental disease. In another case of
incest between father and daughter (loc. cit., p. 247), the latter, at
least, was weak-minded. Lombroso (Archiv. di Psichiatria, viii, p.
519) reports the case of a peasant, aged 42, who practiced incest with
his daughters, aged, respectively, 22, 19, and 11; he even forced the
youngest to prostitute herself, and then visited her in a brothel. The
medico-legal examination showed predisposition, intellectual and
moral imbecility, and alcoholism.
There was no mental examination in the case reported by
Schürmeyer (Deutsche Zeitschr. für Staatsarzneikunde, xxii, H. 1), in
which a mother laid her son of five and a half years on herself, and
practiced abuse with him; and in that given by Lafarque (Journ.
Méd. de Bordeaux, 1874), where a girl, aged 17, laid her brother,
aged 13, upon herself, brought about membrorum conjunctionem,
and performed masturbation on him.
The following cases are those of tainted individuals: Magnan
(Ann. méd.-psych., 1885) mentions an unmarried woman, aged 29,
who, though indifferent toward other children or even men, suffered
frightfully in the presence of her nephew, and could scarcely control
her impulse to cohabit with him. This sexual peculiarity continued
only as long as the nephew was quite young.
Legrand (Ann. méd.-psych., May, 1876) mentions a girl, aged 15,
who seduced her brother into all manner of sexual excesses on her
person; and when, after two years of this incestuous practice, her
brother died, she attempted to murder a relative. In the same article
there is the case of a married woman, aged 36, who hung her open
breast out of a window, and indulged in abuse with her brother, aged
18; and also the case of a mother, aged 39, who practiced incest with
her son, with whom she was madly in love, became pregnant by him,
and induced abortion.
Through Casper we know that depraved mothers
in large cities sometimes treat their little daughters in
a most horrible fashion, in order to prepare them for
the sexual use of debauchees. This crime belongs
elsewhere.
 9. Immoral Acts with Persons in the Care
of Others; Seduction (Austrian).

(Austrian Statutes, § 131; Abridgment, § 188; German

Statutes, § 173).
Allied to incest, but still less repugnant to moral
sensibility, are those cases in which persons seduce
those entrusted to them for care or education, and
who are more or less dependent upon them, to
commit or suffer vicious practices. Such acts, which
especially deserve legal punishment, seem only
exceptionally to have psychopathic significance.
 INDEX.

Abuse, unnatural, 404

Acts for self-humiliation, 134
Æsthetics and sexuality, 10
Amor lesbicus, 428
Anæsthesia sexualis, acquired, 47
congenital, 42
Androgyny, 304
Areas, erogenous, 31
Attraction, sexual, 16

Baudelaire, 122
Binet, 18, 19, 21, 121
Bondage, sexual, 141
Bote, 202
Boys, whipping of (sadistic), 82
Brunn, 19

Cæsars, 58
Capitals as breeding-places of sensuality, 7
Christianity, influence of, 4, 6
contrasted with Mohammedanism, 5
Cohabitation, 32
Contrary sexual instinct, 185
causes of, 188
degrees of, 187
Corpses, mutilation of, 67
Cruelty, passively endured, 89
and love, 9
and lust, 9
sources of, 86

Decadence, moral, 6
Defemination, 197
Defilement of women, 79
Delirium acutum, 54
Dementia and psychopathia sexualis, 361
paretic, and psychopathia sexualis, 363
Descartes, 162
Diagnosis of contrary sexuality, 319
Durga, 57

Effemination, 279
Ejaculation centre, 31
affections of, 36
Epilepsy and psychopathia sexualis, 364
Equus eroticus, 111
Erection centre, 24
affections of, 35
Esquirol, 220, 221
Eviration, 197
Exhibition, 382
Eyes, neuropathic, 21

Family life, 6
Fetichism, 17
and crime, 401
 of apron, 170
of feathers, 182
of female attire, 167
of female person, 157
of foot and shoe, 123, 176
of furs, 181
of hair, 20
of hand, 158
of handkerchief, 171
of glove, 175
of material, 180
of odors, 21
of silk, 183
of velvet, 180
of voice, 22
religious, 17
Fiction and sexual perversion, 123
Flagellation, 28, 152
and masochism, 99
differentiation of, 100
for reflex effect, 99
heroines of, 29
Flagellum salutis, 29
Friendship and love, 19
Frigiditas uxoris, 46
Frottage, 394

Gley, 226
Griesinger, 224
Gynandry, 304

Hair, as a fetich, 20
Hair-despoilers, 162, 164, 165
Herodotus, 200
Hermaphroditism, psychical, 230
cases of, 232–255
Hippocrates, 201
Homo-sexuality, 185, 255
acquired, 188
causes of, 188
congenital, 222
degrees of, I, 191; II, 197; III, 202; IV, 216
explanation of, 227
Holder, 202
Hyperæsthesia sexualis, 48
cases of, 51–55
Hypnosis, therapeutics, 322–357
Hysteria, 375

Idiocy and psychopathia sexualis, 358

Imbecility and contrary sexuality, 359
Ink, throwing of, 80
Insanity, and contrary sexuality, 358
periodical, 372
Incest, 431

Japanese women, 3
Juvenal, 31

Kiernan, 227
Kiernan’s explanation of sadism, 152
Kleist, 88

Ladame’s case, 344

Libido sexualis, 24–32
Love and cruelty, 9
and friendship, 19
and religion, 8
 fetichism of, 19
Lesbian, 428
of man and woman compared, 15
platonic, 11, 12
true, 11
youthful, 11
Lust and cruelty, 10, 57
and battle, 58, 60
and murder, 62, 397
and the passive endurance of cruelty, 90
and plunder, 58
Lupercal, 31
Lydston, 162, 227

Magnan, 20, 227

Mania, 373
Mantegazza, 7, 227
Marschalls Gilles de Rays, 58
Maudsley, 1
Masoch, Sacher-, 89
Masochism, 89
and flagellation, 99
and sadism, 148
 explanation of, 139
in women, 137
larvated, 123
rudimentary, 101
symbolic, 115
Melancholia, 374
Messalinas, 88
Metamorphosis sexualis paranoica, 216
transition to, 202
Modesty, origin of, 2, 15
in women, 15
Mohammedan women, 5
Morality, progress in, 5
Morals, decadence of, and pathology, 6
Mujerados, 201

Necrophilia, 430
Nervi erigentes, 24
Neuroses, cerebral, 36
sexual, 34
spinal, 35
Nymphomania, 373
Olfactory fetichism, 21
hallucinations and sexuality, 28
sense and sexual sense, 26

Paradoxia sexualis, 37
Paræsthesia sexualis, 56
Paranoia, 376
Pathological sexuality in its legal aspects, 378
Pathology, general, 34
special, 358
Pederasty, 408
cultivated, 414
false imputation of, 420
Penthesilia, 88
Perfumes as a fetich, 21, 26
Physiology, 23
Priapism, 35
Prognosis of contrary sexuality, 319
Psychology, sexual, 1
Psychopathia sexualis periodica, 371
Puberty, its psychological importance, 7
 relation to poetry, 7
to religious feeling, 7
Pueblo Indians, 201

Rape, 397
Religion and sensuality, 8
Reversal of sexual feeling, 191
Robbery, 401
Rousseau, 119

Sacher-Masoch, 89
Sade, Marquis de, 57, 71
Sadism, 57, 401
and masochism, 148
atavistic, 152
cases of, 62–67
in women, 87
physiological relations of, 59
symbolic, 81
with animals, 84
with other objects, 82
Satyriasis, 373
Schema of sexual neuroses, 34
Schopenhauer, 41
Scythians, insanity of the, 200
Schrenk-Notzing’s case, 351
Senile libido, 40, 41
Sensuality, 5
religious equivalent of, 8
Servants, immoral acts of, with children, 432
Sexuality, source of ethical feeling, 1
and the social feeling, 1
simple reversal of, 191
Sexual attraction, 16
bondage, 141
desire, physiology of, 23
instinct in childhood, 37
in old age, 38
promptings, first, 7
satisfaction in received cruelty and abuse, 91
selection, 2
Shoe-fetichism, 123
cases of, 124–134
Silk-fetichism, 183
Siva, 57
Sodomy, 404
Spanking, dangers of, 28
Stefanowsky, 123
Sterility, 13
Sulphuric acid, throwing of, 80
Suggestion, hypnotic, 322–357

Theft, 401
Torture of animals, 401
Therapy of contrary sexuality, 321

Ulrichs, 227
Urning, memorial of one, 410
Urnings, 255
cases of, 257–279
laws concerning, 413

Vampirism, 87
Vanity, 16
Velvet-fetichism, 180
Violation of children, 402
Viraginity, 279
Virility, loss of, 12
Voice as a fetich, 22

Westermarck, 15, 16, 20

Westphal, 224
Whitechapel murderer, 64
Woman, elevation of, 3
in Old Testament and Gospels, 4
position of, 2
sexual appetite of, 15
rôle of, 13
Woman-haters’ ball, 417
Women, defilement of, 79
injury of, 70
masochism in, 137

Zones, erogenous, 31

1. “Meanwhile, until Philosophy shall at last unite and maintain

the world, Hunger and Love impel it onward.”
 2. Hartmann’s philosophical view of love, in the “Philosophy of
the Unconscious,” p. 583, Berlin, 1869, is the following: “Love causes
more pain than pleasure. Pleasure is illusory. Reason would cause
love to be avoided if it were not for the fatal sexual instinct;
therefore, it would be best for a man to have himself castrated.” The
same opinion, minus the consequence, is also expressed by
Schopenhauer (“Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” 3. Aufl., Bd. ii,
p. 586 u. ff.).

3. “No physical or moral misery, no suffering, however corrupt it

may be, should frighten him who has devoted himself to a knowledge
of man and the sacred ministry of medicine; in that he is obliged to
see all things, let him be permitted to say all things.”

4. The Latin is left untranslated.

5. The works of Moll and von Schrenck-Notzing have since

appeared.—Trans.

6. Die Suggestions-Therapie, etc., F. Enke, Stuttgart, 1892.

7. Comp. Lombroso, “The Criminal.”

8. Comp. Westermarck, “History of Human Marriage.”

McMillan & Co., 1891.

9. This generally entertained idea, also held by many historians,

requires some limitation, in that the symbolic and sacramental
character of marriage was first made clear and unequivocal by the
Council of Trent, even though there was ever in the spirit of
Christianity that which would free woman and raise her from the
inferior position occupied by her in the ancient world and the Old
Testament.
That this took place so late may well be due in part to the
traditions of Genesis of the secondary creation of woman from the
rib of man, and of her part in the Fall, and the consequent curse:
“Thy will shall be to thy husband.” Since the Fall, for which the Old
Testament made woman responsible, became the corner-stone of the
fabric of churchteachings, the wife’s social position could but remain
inferior until the spirit of Christianity had gained a victory over
tradition and scholasticism.
It is remarkable that, with the exception of the interdiction of
putting away a wife (Matt. xix, 9), the gospels contain nothing
favoring woman. Gentleness toward the adulteress and the repentant
Magdalene does not affect the position of the wife in itself. The
Epistles of Paul specifically declare that the position of woman shall
not be altered (II Corinth. xi, 3–12; Ephes. v, 22: “Wives, submit
yourselves unto your husbands;” and 33, “And the wife see that she
reverence her husband”).
Passages in Tertullian show how the Fathers of the Church were
prejudiced against woman by Eve’s guilt: “Woman, thou shouldst
forever go in sorrow and rags, thy eyes filled with tears! Thou hast
brought man to the ground!” St. Hieronymus has nothing good to say
of woman. He says, “Woman is a door for the devil, a way to evil, the
sting of the scorpion.” (“De cultu feminarum,” i, 1.)
Canonical Law declares: “Only man was created in the image of
God, not woman; therefore, woman should serve him and be his
maid!”
The Provincial Council of Macon, in the sixth century, earnestly
debated the question whether woman had a soul.
The effect of these ideas in the Church on the peoples embracing
Christianity was direct. Among the Germans, after the acceptance of
the new faith, for the foregoing reason, the weregild for a wife—the
simple expression of her value—decreased (J. Falke, “Die ritterliche
Gesellschaft,” p. 49. Berlin, 1862). Concerning the value of each sex
among the Jews, vide Leviticus, xxvii, 3 and 4.
Moreover, polygamy, which is expressly recognized in the Old
Testament (Deut. xxi, 15), is nowhere explicitly interdicted in the
New Testament. Christian princes (e.g., the Marovingian kings,
Clotar I, Childebert I, Pepin I, and many of the royal Franks) lived in
polygamy; and at that time the Church made no opposition to it
(Weinhold, “Die deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter,” ii, p. 15). Comp.
also Unger, “Die Ehe,” etc., and the excellent work by Louis Bridel,
“La femme et le droit,” Paris, 1884.

10. Comp. Friedländer “Sittengeschichte Roms.” Wiedemeister,

“Der Cäsarenwahnsinn.” Suetonius. Moreau, “Des aberrations du
sens génésique.”

11. These statements, however, are opposed to Friedreich (“Hdb.

d. gerichtsärztl Praxis,” i, p. 271, 1843), and also Lombroso (op. cit.,
p. 42), according to whom pederasty is very frequent among the
uncivilized Americans.

12. Comp. Friedreich, “gerichtl. Psychologie,” p. 389, who has

collected numerous examples. Thus the nun Blanbekin was always
troubled with the thought about what had become of the part lost at
the circumcision of Christ. Veronica Juliani, canonized by Pope Pius
II, in memory of the divine lion, took an actual lion in her bed and
kissed it, and let it suck from her breast; and even secreted a few
drops of milk for it. St. Catherine, of Genoa, often burned with such
inward fire that, in order to cool herself, she would lie down on the
ground and cry “Love, love, I can endure it no longer!” At the same
time she felt a peculiar inclination for her confessor. One day she
lifted his hand to her nose and smelled an odor which penetrated to
her heart, “a heavenly perfume, so delightful that it would wake the
dead.” St. Armelle and St. Elizabeth were troubled with a similar
longing for the child Jesus. The temptations of St. Anthony, of
Padua, are well known. An old prayer is significant: “O, that I had
found thee, Holy Emanuel; O, that I had thee in my bed to bring
delight to body and soul. Come and be mine, and my heart shall be
thy resting-place.”

13. Comp. Friedreich, “Diagnostik der psych. Krankheiten,” p.

347 u. ff.; Neumann, “Lehrb. d. Psychiatrie,” p. 80.