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PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY 133kidze, an exponent of the group that had helped him seize power, Stalinwas, if not a primus inter pares, an authoritative "older brother" to respectand admire, but with whom it was also possible to quarrel (in a 1933 letterto Ordzhonikidze, whom he was trying to appease over the reduction of theNKTP resources, Kaganovich, while calling him "drug," reserved for Stalinthe term "nash glavnyi drug"). For Piatakov, Stalin was already the masterto whom one had to pay absolute obedience as a personal vassal who knewhe had a past to be forgiven.Among the older Stalinists, too, there were important differences.Despite all the ideological mutations, at least some of them—perhapsKirov, Mikoian, and Ordzhonikidze himself— still thought they were buildingsomething "socialist." For Molotov, Kaganovich, Poskrebyshev, andothers like them, the situation was different. For these, the word khoziaintook on yet another meaning.The Stalinist group that launched the assault of 1928-1929 was thusheld together by common ideological traits and by certain shared characteristicsof behavior and temperament, and was united by the figure of Stalin,in whom each in his own way recognized his own master. But, like allstratified groups, it was also fractured by fault lines, which Piatakov's evolutionand personal ties help us to see more clearly. And the "despotism" ofthe early 1930s, though an undeniable reality, was a still immaturephenomenon.The terrible trials of those years changed everything. At the end of 1932,in a climate in which even proposals of tyrannicide circulated among thecountry's top leaders, the above-mentioned fault lines emerged moreclearly. They also became more and more complex, with those gouged outby the events in progress superimposed on those resulting from thevariegated nature of the stratification of the Stalinist group.The fault lines brought about by events were deeply influenced by thedivision of tasks during the "assault," in its turn determined by chance, bythe dictator's calculations, by the "preferences" of his followers, etc. Thefundamental distinction, substantially respected despite the many cases ofoverlapping, was between those who took over industry and the cities andthose who had the real "dirty job"—the breaking of the peasants and thenationalities.The victories of the end of 1933 did not heal these fractures, and, as weknow, at the Congress of the "Victors," agreement was not complete. Forsome, the victory had been achieved despite Stalin (even if, at the end of1932, perhaps for fear of falling with him, they had not the courage toremove him). For others, victory could and would be translated into alessening of the hold: they hoped for a return of the "reasonable" Stalin.