ough oppression of their own people during the Civil War. Tukhachevsky, Yakir and Blucher received their Red Banner orders for suppressing the Kronshtadt and Tambov Rebellions. Even the right-winged Bukharin talked about mass shooting as means of achieving Communism. According to Khrushchev, Stalin had created an enormous beurocratic apparatus in the country, which was against Lenin’s principles and the Communist ideals in general. He says that Lenin was preached for the “indissoluble unity [of the Party] with the masses (Revolutions, 76). It was during Stalin’s times that the party nomenklatura started having its own shops, resorts, personnel, dachas, and plains. He “forgets” that Trotsky one of the “outstanding leaders” had his own train and enormous personnel over 250 people in it: the Latvian Red Guards, machinegun unit, cooks, secretaries, chauffeurs, and many others (Volkogonov, 269). The tendency started during the Civil War when the party bosses received everything separately from the people and there is no evidence that Lenin did anything to stop it (I do not want to mention any of the official propaganda). When Stalin achieved absolute power, this tendency continued with a major development. The nomenklatura had to pay a high price for all the luxury. This price was a constant fear. Stalin kept them all under control; something Lenin never achieved. He made sure that virtually everything they owned belonged to the state. Everything could be taken away in an instant. In fact everything was taken away from those arrested in 1937-38. Families of those arrested were left with nothing.Nevertheless, it should be credited to Stalin that despite the terror, he had created a sort of leaders that could stand up for their views and were not afraid to oppose Stalin himself. Ezhov, Zinoviev, Yakir, all of them did not have any principles and did not have pride even when their fate wa...
