When Stalin was Brought to Court in Soviet Russia
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- čas přidán 13. 05. 2024
- In this video we discuss how Stalin went to court in April 1918, as part of a conflict with the Menshevik leader Julius Martov. While a minor court case, this incident exemplifies the state of the press in early Soviet Russia, and how it factored into the overarching conflict between the Bolsheviks and the opposition parties.
Timestamps
- 00:00 - Introduction
- 00:24 - Martov's Article
- 01:15 - Background: Stalin's Robberies
- 02:17 - First Trial
- 04:28 - Second Trial
- 05:41 - Soviet Executive Fight
- 06:22 - Third Trial
- 07:45 - Aftermath
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Bibliography
- Archives of the following newspapers: Izvestiia, Pravda, Vpered (Moscow, 1917-18).
- Brovkin, Vladimir. The Mensheviks After October: Socialist Opposition and the Rise of the Bolshevik Dictatorship. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
- Kotkin, Stephen. Statin. Vol. 1: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928. New York: Penguin Press, 2014.
- Kun, Miklôs. Stalin: An Unknown Portrait. Budapest: CEU Press, 2003.
- Rendle, Matthew. "Defining the 'Political' Crime: Revolutionary Tribunals in Early Soviet Russia," Europe-Asia Studies 65, no. 9 (2013): 1771-1788.
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#history #sovietunion
I admire Martov's attempts to force the Bolsheviks to the table on issues like press censorship. The problem is that these are pretty theoretical topics to be considering in the midst of a civil war. Trotsky said of Martov: "The man's misfortune was that fate made him a politician in a time of revolution, without endowing him with the necessary resources of will power." I think attempting to take Bolsheviks to court instead of organizing their overthrow bears this out.
The Mensheviks were weak and lacked willpower. The Bolsheviks did not. Therefore the Bolsheviks won out.
tbh there was no way to overthrow the Bolsheviks. Mensheviks were definition of spent force by end of 1917, and were largely absorbed by either White or Red organisations. They simply had nothing new to offer to people and dissapeared. They had those few months, but partly due to being, well, socialdemocrats which in itself is political nonsense; and partly due to truly difficult situation, they mismanaged the country horribly and dissapeared from floorboards of history. They simply represented a political dead end - the only people who could improve the situation were bolsheviks themselves
The Bolsheviks saved Russia from a pack of greedy Europeans and Anglo-Saxons, just like Putin does today..
As a Russian with a special love for the XX century history I have never heard about this court case before. Really love your videos, they’re always informative, rooted in context and easy to watch and process!
Thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed it
@@nojrantsis the voice AI text-to-speech or yours? And if it's yours, may I ask where you're from?
@@AlphaChinoz Yes that is me. I don't know why I talk like this, I was raised in New Jersey haha
There's so much online history of the USSR but I've yet to come across even one other site which has such a detailed, minute-by-minute ground level approach like yours does. I 'd never heard of this incident before, but it's another excellent demonstration of the confused and conflicted patchwork that eventually stumbled into the Soviet (in name only) State. Most historians take the easy way out, shoehorning a linear structure on very loose events.I really feel you may be breaking new ground here, methodologically speaking.More please!!!
Thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I was surprised to find this topic is practically unknown, at least on CZcams, but it serves as such a fascinating case study for the state of affairs at the time. I have quite a few ideas for similar videos, coming soon...
Their literature is also amazing. Among the best of the best in the whole world.
i love when people can use a sorta small situation like this to illustrate how widely unstable and fractured all of Soviet Russia was at the time as well as the increasing distaste towards criticism directed at the bolsheviks. fantastic work!
Thank you! I agree, I was originally drawn to this topic since it's funny and unexpected, but I came to realize it says a lot about the state of affairs at the time.
yes thats what happens in a civil war where you need to mobilize all avaible resources for war as your nation is invaded by both imperialists and their collaborators.
"We do a little terrorism"
-Ioseb "Koba" Dzhugashvili
sounds like Martov was still expecting the promised democracy to be real
Just like Kennedy...
yes,soviet democracy was very real whether you like to know it or not.
@@justarandompersonininterne6583 just not for very long.
@@novelseeker4410 i agree,soviets lost their power in 70s due to massive bureucracy utilizing its power to strip away power from them.
@@justarandompersonininterne6583 the soviets lost power when Lenin put his party commissars in charge of them in an effort to quell unrest. These were the days when the bureaucracy you complain about was established.
Splendid video as always, I love your intonation
Thank you! The recording (and re-recording) process is something I spend a lot of time on, so I'm glad to hear people find it enjoyable
> jooOO-seph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union
killer opening
This is currently my absolute favourite history CZcams channel, please never stop
Thank you!
Another great one and nice use of a relatively small incident to depict the political context
new video, im hyped to learn something new!
Excellent video. Your channel focuses on a period that few people know about and that few people discuss. Thanks for making this.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Great video, I had never heard about this before
Thank you! Glad to hear I was able to shine a light on this for people.
The amount of effort in these video's is honestly staggering, always overjoyed to see whenever a new video comes out!
Thank you! I appreciate the support
I liked this video. I don't have questions or complaints but I do have a suggestion:
This story of Stalin's trial has the potential to be a part of a longer video series looking at how this early period in the post-revolutionary USSR developed and evolved from democratic norms towards - and culminating in - dictatorship, oppression, and ultimately the terror of Stalin.
You should develop this theme further in future videos.
Thank you! I agree, there's a lot of potential to continue this theme throughout the rest of Soviet history, and I definitely plan to continue in similar videos.
soviet union was a democracy. you can both go check soviet constituton and cia on how it operated. It was that way until 80s.
@@justarandompersonininterne6583 There are good jokes - and there is the Soviet Constitution. 😂
@simianessense and so is ur life.
@@user-ke7px1oy1c Well, I will admit it wasn't funny for those who had to live under it; it was just a kind of tragic-comedy for the historians who have studied the difference between reality and what is written on a piece of paper.
What an incredible story and wonderful video❤❤
Thank you! I appreciate it
Commenting for the algorithm. But I hope your channel keeps growing, Russian history interwar is soooo overlooked. ❤
I meant history abt Russia that isn't just centered around wars*
Thank you! I agree, it seems like most Soviet/Russian content on CZcams is centered around WW2, but there's so much more to talk about.
This channel is truly underrated. Nice audio quality, not too impressive but good looking editing and of course very high quality content always informative, presented in an interesting way and historically as accurate as one can get in this field. Your videos are all gems in a sea of garbage history content, please continue releasing them. You can’t get better bite sized info on very niche topics anywhere else. Much love.
Thank you! Glad to hear people enjoy the videos
great stuff
Thank you!
This was interesting, I have not heard of this before.
awesome video. you never hear anybody talking about this even though its such and intriguing event in early soviet history.
Thank you! I agree, this is a very obscure part of the history but also quite fascinating.
What I also find interesting is that Lavrentiy Beria was reportedly supposed to be executed by the Bolsheviks during the Civil War - could be interesting to imagine what could’ve happened had Beria not become Stalin’s right-hand man during the purges or been overthrown after Stalin’s death…
even more interesting, as far as Beria goes, supposedly it came out, after Stalin died, that he, "deep down", actually was considerably "divergent" with Stalin's views on many 'key' things, which one wouldn't quite expect from a secret police leader as "hardline" as him.
For example, it seems that, after Stalin's death, Beria presided over *actual* investigations of the doctors accused by Stalin in the "Doctor's Plot" and... *had them freed*. Huh... Not only that, but he supposedly *admitted* that the plot was fabricated, *and* the secret policemen who directly had a hand in it were arrested! :o
interesting
FWIW, Kruschchev, supposedly, also "claims" that Beria, during the final days of Stalin's life, "secretly cursed" his name, so to speak, whenever Stalin lost consciousness. lol
Not to mention this tidbit:
"Shortly after Stalin's death, Beria announced triumphantly to the Politburo that he had "done [Stalin] in" and "saved [us] all", according to Molotov's memoirs"
Hard to know what to make of all of said post-Stalin revelations regarding Beria. Was he just a "shrewd and conniving" Soviet leader who "knew how to get and keep power for a while", esp. to keep himself from 'being done in' by things like the Purge, while having "secretly anti-Stalinist views along" (while also, to some degree, probably being a psychopath)
Or... after first joining the NKVD, for example, did he "have a big change of heart" on a lot of major issues by 1953??
Hmmm...
we may never know, sadly.
Another gem! I’ve been trying to find a good English book on the power struggle following Lenin’s death that isn’t specifically a Stalin biography. Do you know of any such book? I know James Harris has one in the works. Thanks!
I'll be covering this in a few videos from now, but here's a few books to start with. I know you said a non-Stalin biography, but Stephen Kotkin's "Stalin" (volume one) in my opinion goes far beyond just Stalin, and covers that period of history is great detail. Moshe Lewin's "Lenin's Last Struggle" is pretty much one of the classics on this question, if a bit old (focusing more so on the period just before Lenin's death, but it carries over). Robert V. Daniels has also written a lot on this topic; "Conscience of the Revolution" for example is a great overview of all the various power struggles during the first decade after the revolution.
If I may chime in here, if memory serves, there was also very-interesting book I came across a while ago- supposedly part of a 7-part series. I think the author's name was Vadim Rakov or Rygov or something like that. I know his first name was Vadim.
Anyway.. the book is called "Was There An Alternative?" I'm not sure how 'in-depth' it goes regarding the power struggles post-Lenin, but, nonetheless, it does do a pretty-good job of being quite informative, nonetheless. supposedly the author had pretty-good access to archives, for one
The author is, admittedly, a Trotskyist, and the book's subtitle- now that I've re-checked, for memory's sake- is largely about "Trotskyism" as a 'potential alternative' (though Vadim also discusses the Left Opposition, fwiw) but, nonetheless, he probably does cover a lot of ground (esp. given how many parts there are).
@@Whoo711 Yes that's right, "Was There An Alternative?" by Vadim Rogovin. I haven't read his entire series, only the standalone English version, but from what I remember I would say it's fairly informative. It was also influential in disspelling many misconceptions in regards to Trotsky in the post-Soviet period. However, you also have to keep in mind that it is coming from a Trotskyist perspective, which colors some of the conclusions about Trotsky as a "more correct" alternative.
you've heard it a lot in this comment box already but thank you for your work man, as a russian i can tell you that there are no videos on the subject of revolutionary Russia in russian which were as good and informative as yours are.
is the next video gonna be about the 4th soviet congress?
Thank you for the support! I'm glad to hear you find these videos informative. Yes, I am currently working on the 4th Soviet Congress video, which I think will be released soon.
Looks like it's going to be a fruitful May that year, and this year!
Looking forward to alternated Soviet History for once with Cody, and an entire series of Soviet History with Noj Rants!
0:00 He looks so frightening and so funny at the same time , like a sort of angry super Mario😅
here we go
Very interesting topic, I have never heard of this before.
Martovs logic is convincing and he seems to be a brave man.
I had to do a double take at 7:55, that's not Lev Sovnovksy but Lev Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist
Woops, I think you're right. For whatever reason he seems to come up when searching for pictures of Sosnovsky, thank you for bringing that to my attention.
Would really love a full series on the "narrowing" of political speech/opposition throughout 1918, would be interesting to learn how Soviet Russia went from a "multi"-party state to a single party one
The next few videos in the Election Series (as well as the "How the Bolsheviks Destroyed the Soviets" video if you haven't seen it already) will cover this in more detail. After that, I'd be happy to make some more videos going into detail about specific events, similar to this video.
@@nojrants many thanks! keep up the good work, your content is so unique!
That's a picture of psychologist Lev Vygotsky on 7:55, not Lev Sosnovsky
Surely those Mansheviks and Martov would have a happy trip after they criticized Stalin.
Fascinating!
Were such cases mainly just talked about and reported on in the press and among various folks involved (not to mention the parties themselves), or were, in fact, special 'revolutionary tribunal records/archives' also kept that scholars have, from time to time, consulted for "confirmation" of this or that?
Or did Bolshevik leaders simply that think that, because theirs was a "special system", keeping such official judicial records wasn't quite "essential" or "necessary"?
Interestingly enough, if memory serves, I think that I heard that, for one reason or another, official 'records'/archives of Cheka operations have never been 'made public', and it's rumored, if not confirmed, that they were likely "destroyed" or "lost" shortly thereafter?
Though, funny enough, I recently found out that one of the former leaders behind glasnost and perestroika, Alexander Yakovlev, actually wrote a book supposedly "chronicling" a 'shitload' of folks killed by the Soviet regime (esp. under Stalin), though I'm not sure if it goes as "far back" as the Cheka era (though, if memory serves, I think I actually heard about Yakovlev's book, funny enough, *on* a Wiki page about the Red Terror?)
Yes, we actually have the transcript of the case preserved in the Russian archives. So not only can we compare the Menshevik version of the story from Vpered and the Bolshevik version from Izvestiia, we can compare both to the transcript (which has become available in the last few decades). So for example we can see that Izvestiia left out any mention of Martov's witnesses, since that would be problematic for Stalin, but the transcript confirms they were named during the trial after all.
In general, stenographic reports were taken for all such cases, but they wouldn't necessarily be published verbatim. Individuals would still report what happened in newspapers and could be reasonably trusted as accurate, which is part of the reason why the trials were quietly shelved. The version published in Vpered pretty much follows the transcript in terms of the events.
Perhaps I will make a video on this in the future, but in general the Soviet archives began to open in the 1980s and 90s, leading to a renaissance of scholarship, but in the past 20 years that openness has been quietly reversed. Certain records, especially those having to do with the secret police, were either never fully explored in the first place or have since become closed. With recent events in Russia, access to archives (especially uncovering new documents) has become a lot more challenging.
Love it
In Soviet Russia Stallin put Court on trial.
Question.
Where kadet news papers banned before this?
Yes, for example Rech' (the main Kadet newspaper) was closed down just after the October Revolution. The Kadet Party itself was actually suppressed in its entirety by this time.
Could you make a video on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church since the beginning of 20th century until today?
Cody from alternate history hub??
Song? It's got those Escape From New York vibes
its original
All the music is stuff I improvise for the videos myself, although toward the end here I went into something sort of like the song "At Dawn" by the Soviet band Alliance.
cool video your voice reminds me of burger king foot lettuce but with a deeper voice
a menacing burger king foot lettuce
Brest Litovsk one of the greatest shames in russian history.
any book recommendations w this level of detail for non russian speakers?
All the books mentioned in the description I definitely recommend. Kotkin's two (soon to be three) books on Stalin are all very detailed, and talk a lot about the surrounding history, not just the man himself. Brovkin's book is great, although it's more focused on the Menshevik perspective. There's a chapter there regarding this event if you want to read in more detail. Depending on what you are interested in I can give a more specific book recommendation.
@@nojrants thank you so much, I know its later than youve discussed, but I am very interested in the Stalin/Bukharin power struggle & the overall fight around New Economic Policy. lmk if you have any other recs, imma definitely check out Kotkin's biography.
@@nojrants thanks i just seen the bib good looks; Its a little later than what youve covered so far, but I am v interested in the Stalin/ Bukharin power struggle, and the political struggle for New Economic Policy overall. I just got Kotkin's first two volumes (i loved magnetic mountain), any other specific recs on that?
@@jamontiqueq8763 In that case, another good book to check out might be Robert V. Daniels' "Conscience of the Revolution". It focuses on all the various oppositions within the Communist Party, including in regards to the debate surrounding the NEP.
Lore of When Stalin was Brought to Court in Soviet Russia momentum 100
Excuse me but i can't help but comment that your voice is soo similar to Althistoryhub's. Great and informative video as always!
Thank you! I've never noticed that before, but not that you mention it I can kind of hear it haha
Did Stalin ever take part in any election?
Yes, Stalin was elected to the Constituent Assembly as a deputy for the Petrograd City district, and was also a delegate to every Soviet Congress until his death.
So are you going to suspend the Elections series a bit and go over some civil war era stuff?
Knowing more about the various White Governments would be nice
I'm still working on the election series, but I plan to make one-off videos like this along the way, maybe in an alternating pattern roughly. The next video will be the 4th Soviet Congress, which should be coming soon. And I agree, a video on the White Movement is needed.
you're my fav martovite ❤
I swear I'm not a Martovite haha, but he does seem to come up a lot
@@nojrants in your next video with martov can you refer to him as lenins ex husband
Seems like you're mispronouncing Vpered as "Spiryot", "Fpiryot" is moreso the target.
Stalin's "Not a bad idea..." thought bubble made me chuckle.
As a Russian native speaker: “Fpir’yot” is actual the most accurate way to pronounce it.
Thank you, I'll keep that in mind! I'm still working on my pronounciation haha (English included half the time)
Gimme your bibliography.
Also... did one of the Soviet papers *actually* refer to Stalin as "Bolshevik Crybaby"??🤣😂
nice
No haha, that was just me distilling all the various articles down into a headline that would capture the spirit of them.
@@nojrants you cheeky bugger ;)
I LOVE COURT CASES I’M OVER HERE SETTING PRECEDENT I GOT LAW UNDER MY GAVEL I’M SETTIN PRECEDENT
Thank you for being able to resarch and debunk myths of the bolshievks has being unquestioned and uncontested popular revoultionaries. your videos bring a needed complexity to truly understanding the climate of revoutlionary russian that i have yet to see anywhere else.
1:52 didn’t you just say that they were involved in a robbery where several bystanders were killed ?
Politically motivated gangster killers would surely lose their heads under a oppressive regime
Yes, the perpetrators would have normally faced the death penalty. But in regards to the people shown, they were all arrested outside Russia and managed to escape execution.
Kamo was arrested in Germany and actually feigned insanity for a long period of time (which is a funny story in of itself). Any prospect of a death sentence was delayed until he "mentally recovered", but he ended up escaping from the asylum before then.
Litvinov wasn't a participant in the robbery, but rather one of the people meant to fence the stolen bills. He was caught in France with marked banknotes and was deported; the Russian government clamored for extradition, but this was rejected. Most of the Bolsheviks who were caught were similarly people trying to use the bills in continental Europe.
Stalin was arrested in March 1908, but it appears they could not pin the Tiflis robbery on him at the time, so he was exiled instead. There are also unsubstantiated rumors that Stalin may have informed on people to reduce his sentence, which if true would help explain his survival during this period.
"Mensheviks are lame" lol
That's nice, but where's the sources?
They appear visually on screen throughout the video in the form of footnotes, and also are listed in the bibliography in the description.
W Stalin as always
W big mab
Unironically using Kotkin as a real source!
what's wrong about that?
@@waluigipiestudios369you need Getty, not kotkin
@@ajaysidhu471 ..well, why?
@@waluigipiestudios369 because kotkin doesn't know what he's talking about most of the time
Birds of a feather couldnt use a comb...oh my
And goofy socialists were adrift in a sea of adjectives...lo
W
He was never tanken to court
The background music made this a torture to go through. Very annoying
Pole
Swede
Dane
Bolshevik translates to majority
Menshevic translates to minority
But the bolsheviks were a minority and the Mensheviks comprised the majority and were far more popular before the civil war.
go read Lenin's One Step Forward Two Step Back. Even he explains it differently than you.
@@Smerpyderpdoesn't matter how people voted. Only matters how votes are counting.
J. Stalin
This is like if trump wins the election.
This is a terrible voice for a documentart!
Uh Oh time for another propaganda video
Do you leave a comment on every video this guy posts? Like bro, log off and talk with a blue color worker while you are at it.
@@mr.oliverlaw8863 i am blue collar. And I dont see what logging off has to do with his disinformative videos
@@parallax9084Which disinformation
@@parallax9084you want to give your arguments backed with academic sources like this video or am I supposed to take the angry internet Stalinist’s word?
@@mr.oliverlaw8863 These videos are anti-Leninist, they have nothing to do with Stalin or Stalinism which dosent exist.
Joseph Stalin got taken to the Peoples court! 😂