一代梟雄斯大林 關於權力的悖論

Readers plunging into Stephen Kotkin’s “Stalin: Paradoxes of Power” expecting a detailed dissection of the cobbler’s son and seminarian from Georgia who evolved into the monster called Stalin may be disconcerted to find that, as a boy called Iosif Dzhugashvili (Jughashvili in this book), he plays a relatively minor role in early chapters.

閱讀斯蒂芬·科特金(Stephen Kotkin)的《斯大林：權力的悖論》之時，讀者可能會期望本書詳盡剖析一位格魯吉亞鞋匠的兒子與神學院學生如何變成了名爲斯大林的魔鬼，但他們會不安地發現，兒時的約瑟夫·朱加什維利（Iosif Dzhugashvili，本書中稱他爲“Jughashvili”），也就是小斯大林，在本書前幾章中佔的分量並不重。

The narrative focuses largely on the disintegration of czarist Russia. What we do learn about the life of Soso, as Stalin’s family referred to him, is served up as a relatively acceptable childhood given the time and place, denouncing the popular Freudian analyses that spot early evidence of a psychopath stemming from his absentee father, physical defects, beatings, religious education or doting mother.

敘事主要集中在沙皇俄國解體時期。我們會看到，處在那個時代和地點，索索（Soso，家裏人這樣稱呼小斯大林）的童年時光相對來說是可以接受的，這本書沒有從他缺席的父親、身體缺陷、捱打、宗教教育背景或溺愛的母親等背景中尋找精神變態的早期證據，駁斥了流行的弗洛伊德式解析。

But “Stalin” is far more than the story of the man. “Paradoxes of Power,” even at almost 1,000 pages, is only the first of three volumes that, in Mr. Kotkin’s somewhat understated explanation, tell “the story of Russia’s power in the world and Stalin’s power in Russia.” Mr. Kotkin’s stunningly ambitious project is nothing less than to write an exhaustive history of Russia and the world around it, from the collapse of the czarist empire through the end of World War II. The first volume ends in 1928 on the eve of the savage collectivization of Russia’s peasant agriculture, with fascism rising to the west.

但是“斯大林”的故事並不是關於一個人的故事。《權力的悖論》大約一千頁，不過是三卷本的第一卷；在這一卷裏，科特金用略有些平淡的口吻，講述了“俄羅斯在世界上的權力與斯大林在俄羅斯的權力”。科特金的目標極具野心，相當於要寫出俄羅斯與俄羅斯周遭世界的詳盡歷史，從沙皇帝國的崩潰到“二戰”的結束。第一卷止於1928年，殘酷的俄羅斯農民經濟集體化即將拉開序幕，與此同時，法西斯主義正在西方崛起。

It becomes immediately clear that Mr. Kotkin, a professor of history at Princeton, has done prodigious research, not only among the troves of scholarly works about Stalin but also in the archives that have become accessible since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And while the often intimidating torrent of fact and detail will tax the general reader, there are enough juicy details, colorful personalities and anecdotes to keep the story moving at a lively pace. Ministers of the doomed czarist order, and Nicholas II himself, come to life here, as do peripheral figures like Kaiser Wilhelm II and Benito Mussolini, and, of course, the main figures: Lenin, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Trotsky and the other young Bolshevik zealots who somehow navigated through the rubble of czarism and war to create a revolutionary state, only to hand it in the end to Stalin.

科特金是普林斯頓的歷史學教授，顯然他進行了大量研究工作，不僅研究了關於斯大林豐富的學術資料，也研究了許多自蘇聯解體後公諸於世的檔案。雖然大量令人望而生畏的事實和細節可能會令普通讀者感到疲憊，但書中也充滿有趣的細節、豐富多彩的人物個性和趣聞軼事，令故事保持生動活潑。窮途末路的沙皇政府中的大臣們，以及尼古拉斯二世(Nicholas II)本人都被刻畫得栩栩如生，德皇威廉二世(Kaiser Wilhelm II)和貝尼託·墨索里尼這些邊緣人物也很生動；更不用說列寧(Lenin)、菲利克斯·捷爾任斯基(Felix Dzerzhinsky)、托洛茨基(Trotsky)這些主角，還有那些年輕的布爾什維克熱心分子們，他們在沙皇俄國與戰爭的廢墟中跋涉，締造出一個革命的國家，但最終卻落入斯大林之手。

Sometimes Mr. Kotkin’s efforts to entertain get a bit out of line, as when he discusses Stalin’s reputation as a ladies’ man with a crass reference to his sex organ. More important, he is not shy about assailing what he regards as false interpretations by other historians. His Stalin is not a disciple who deviates from Lenin; he is Lenin’s true disciple, in pitiless class warfare, in the inability to compromise, and, above all, in unshakable ideological conviction. Lenin’s “Testament,” which questioned Stalin’s ability to govern the Soviet Union, plays a major part in the maneuvering of his rivals to block his ascent, but Mr. Kotkin leans toward the theory that the document was a forgery, possibly by Lenin’s wife.

有時候科特金娛樂讀者的努力有點出格了，他談起斯大林有“大衆情人”之稱的時候，粗魯地談起了斯大林的性器官。更重要的是，如果他認爲其他歷史學家的解讀是錯誤的，便會毫不遲疑地對之進行攻擊。他筆下的斯大林並不是列寧門下離經叛道的學徒，而是列寧的真正傳人，繼承了列寧無情的階級鬥爭與毫不妥協的態度，最重要的是，繼承了列寧毫不動搖的意識形態理念。列寧生前的一份“遺囑”質疑了斯大林統治蘇聯的能力，這成了斯大林的對手阻撓他上位的重要武器，但科特金傾向於認爲這份文件是僞造的，很可能是出自列寧的妻子之手。

There is little equivocation in Mr. Kotkin’s judgments. Scholars who argue collectivization was necessary to force Russian peasants into a modern state are “dead wrong.” The conclusion by the British historian E. H. Carr that Stalin was a product of circumstances, and not the other way around, is “utterly, eternally wrong.” On the contrary, it is one of Mr. Kotkin’s major theses that Stalin “reveals how, on extremely rare occasions, a single individual’s decisions can radically transform an entire country’s political and socioeconomic structures, with global repercussions.” Or, as he puts it in a more graphic passage: “The Bolshevik putsch could have been prevented by a pair of bullets” — one for Lenin and one for Stalin. (In fact, there was a would-be-assassin’s bullet lodged in Lenin’s shoulder, and poisoning by its lead was raised as a possible reason for his medical problems.)

科特金的判斷中絕少模棱兩可的成分。有些學者認爲，集體化是迫使俄羅斯農民進入現代化必不可少的手段，他說這些學者“徹底錯了”。英國曆史學家E·H·卡爾(E.H. Carr)認爲是時代環境造就了斯大林，而不是斯大林造就了時代環境，科特金說這個結論“完全、絕對大錯特錯”。相反，科特金的主要結論之一就是，斯大林“解釋了在極少的情況下，個人的決定可以劇烈地改變整個國家的政治與社會經濟結構，並帶來全球性後果”。或者如他在更生動的一段話中所寫的，“其實兩顆子彈就足以防止布爾什維克的暴動”——一顆給列寧，一顆給斯大林（事實上，列寧曾在一次暗殺中肩膀中彈，後來又因子彈患上鉛中毒，可能導致了他後來的一系列健康問題）。

Mr. Kotkin’s involvement in his subject is so intense that at times he leaps from his historian’s perch right into the fray. He dismisses as “gobbledygook” Trotsky’s explanation that he did not want a senior post because people would say the Soviet Union was being ruled by a Jew. Then, amid the endless backstabbing among top Bolsheviks, Mr. Kotkin exclaims, “What in the world was Bukharin doing spilling his guts out to Kamenev?”

科特金深深沉浸在自己的主題裏，以至於有時候跳出歷史學家的身份，捲入爭論之中。托洛茨基曾解釋自己不想謀求高位，因爲擔心人們會覺得蘇聯是在受猶太人統治，科特金斥之爲“官樣文章”。其後科特金更是無休止地痛斥布爾什維克的高層人物，說“布哈林(Bkharin)竟然會向卡曼年科告密，他到底在幹什麼？”

A work of this scope, ambition and intensity is bound to attract challenge, debate and criticism. I would have wished more attention to the role of culture and religion in the fall of the Russian empire and the rise of Soviet power, given their central places in Russian identity and sense of messianic destiny. Mr. Kotkin notes that Stalin wrote poetry and often attended the theater — Mikhail Bulgakov was his favorite playwright — but there is no discussion of what this meant to him, or of the role writers, poets, composers and artists played in those fateful years.

一本擁有如此眼界、抱負與強度的書必然會引發質疑、爭議和批評。我原本期待本書更關注俄羅斯帝國覆滅與蘇聯勢力崛起期間，俄羅斯文化與信仰所扮演的角色，因爲文化與信仰是俄羅斯人的身份認同，以及他們那種彌賽亞式宿命感的核心。科特金提到，斯大林也寫詩，經常去劇院——他最喜歡的劇作家是米哈伊爾·布爾加科夫(Mikhail Bulgakov)——但他並沒有探討這對斯大林來說意味着什麼，也沒有提到作家、詩人、作曲家與藝術家們在那些決定命運的年代裏所扮演的角色。

What was striking throughout the book were the many troubling echoes with Russia today. Mr. Kotkin argues convincingly that Stalin was that rare individual whose decisions radically changed history, and his next volume, on collectivization, promises to further develop the thesis. But it is hard when looking at the path Russia is plotting today not to wonder how much of that terrible era was Stalin’s implacable will, and how much was a Russia that seems forever dreaming of a special destiny and forever meekly surrendering all power to autocrats.

書中從始至終引人矚目的那些東西至今仍令人憂慮地迴盪在俄羅斯。科特金令人信服地指出，斯大林的決定劇烈地改變了歷史，像他這樣的人是極爲罕有的。第二卷將會講述集體化問題，也承諾進一步深入這個主題。但審視如今俄羅斯的道路，人們很難不去思考，那個恐怖的時代究竟有多少是由於斯大林毫不動搖的意志，又有多少要歸咎於永遠夢想着特別的命運，卻又永遠對獨裁者權力逆來順受的俄羅斯呢？

“The Russian Revolution — against the tyranny, corruption, and, not least, incompetence of czarism — sparked soaring hopes for a new world of abundance, social justice and peace,” Mr. Kotkin writes. “But all that was precluded by the Bolsheviks, who unwittingly yet relentlessly reproduced the pathologies and predations of the old regime state in new forms.” Is that not what is happening today, after the soaring hopes raised by the collapse of the Bolshevik state?

“俄羅斯革命反對暴政和腐敗，特別是無能的沙皇制度，令人們燃起希望，憧憬一個富裕、公正與和平的新世界，”科特金寫道，“但這一切都被布爾什維克們阻礙了，他們不自覺地、然而又是不屈不撓地以新的形式複製舊政權的種種癥結與掠奪行爲。”這種情況是不是如今仍在發生呢？當布爾什維克的國家崩潰後，人們再度燃起了希望，但之後呢？

Of course, President Vladimir V. Putin is not even a pale shadow of Stalin, and today’s Russia is a far cry from Stalin’s totalitarian state, but then the young Dzhugashvili gave no sign that he would become Stalin, just as Mr. Putin, as a low-ranking K.G.B. officer, showed no early evidence of what he would evolve into. Yet much of what Mr. Putin has shaped — the restoration of strong central authority around one man, the intolerance of opposition, the cultivation of self-pity and victimhood, the “hand of Washington” behind every problem (for Stalin it was the hand of England) and the creation of a state of siege in Russia — all have precedents in “Stalin.”

當然，弗拉迪米爾·V·普京總統(President Vladimir V. Putin)絕非斯大林的影子，如今的俄羅斯也同斯大林治下的集權國家相去甚遠，但是並沒有任何跡象表明年輕的朱加什維利在未來會成爲斯大林；正如克格勃低級官員普京並沒有顯示出任何日後飛黃騰達的跡象一樣。然而普京所塑造的東西——恢復以統治者爲中心的強大中央集權制度、對異見的不寬容、培養自憐和犧牲者心態，在任何問題之後都要揪出“華盛頓的黑手”（對於斯大林來說是“英格蘭的黑手”），乃至在俄羅斯創造一種戒嚴的狀態——這一切在《斯大林》中都可以找到先例。

This reader, for one, still hopes for more evidence that Stalin was indeed singular, a historical malignancy, and not a product of circumstances of the kind that might already be shaping the next chapter of Russian history. And that only whets the appetite for the next installment, in which Stalin decides to starve Russia almost to death to bring peasants under state control. That, Mr. Kotkin has already declared, was an assault on the peasantry for which there was no political or social logic, and that only Stalin could have done. It is a testament to Mr. Kotkin’s skill that even after almost a thousand pages, one wants more.

因爲這個原因，讀者仍然希望作者能夠提出更多證據，證明斯大林確實是特例，是一種歷史的惡意，而不是環境作用下的產物，而這種環境或許已經開始塑造俄羅斯歷史的下一章。這個懸念只能刺激起人們對本書下一卷的興趣——在下一卷裏，科特金將會描寫斯大林決定讓俄羅斯忍飢挨餓，到了極度危險的地步，以便把農民置於國家控制之下。科特金認定，這種對農民階層的攻擊毫無政治或社會邏輯可言，只有斯大林才幹得出來。這足以證明科特金的才華——已經讀了一千頁，人們還想繼續讀下去。