Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Remarks on Public Figures in Europe

Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky

From what I read about Stalin’s life, it seems that it was he who saved Bolshevism (even when Lenin was there) and turned several catastrophes into successes either by military operations or tactics. If Lenin was the mind of the Bolshevist Revolution, Stalin was its vital — a very solid, steadfast and intuitive vital.

But where did you read that? It must be someone who since Stalin became powerful has exaggerated his share in the work. When Lenin lived he alone was all-powerful and dictated the whole policy changing it whenever that was needed. As for military operations, the man who saved Bolshevism in history was Trotsky who organised the Red Army, created it out of nothing and directed its operations. Stalin was not so much the vital as the physical mind working out details; after Lenin’s death he took charge and arranged everything by this faculty.

25 January 1937