70. V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 54, p. 330.
71. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, no. 9 (1990): 151; emphasis by Kamenev.
72. Ibid., no. 12 (1989): 193.
73. Ibid., no. 9 (1990): 151–152.
74. V. A. Sakharov, Politicheskoe zaveshchanie Lenina: Real’nosti istorii i mify politiki (Moscow, 2003). See also a critical discussion of this book in Otechestvennaia istoriia, no. 2 (2005): 162–174.
75. Moshe Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle (New York, 1968).
76. Cited in V. P. Vilkova, comp., RKP(b). Vnutripartiinaia bor’ba v dvadtsatye gody. Dokumenty i materialy. 1923 (Moscow, 2004), p. 129; emphasis by Zinoviev.
77. Ibid., pp. 135–136; emphasis by Stalin.
78. Transcript of a discussion of the international situation at the 21 August 1923 Politburo meeting. Istochnik, no. 5 (1995): 118, 124.
79. Ibid., p. 126.
80. Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov (1881–1938) was a well-known Bolshevik who served as the Soviet premier after Lenin’s death. An economic moderate, he joined forces with Stalin in opposing Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev. Together with Bukharin, Rykov was accused of “right deviation” and removed from the leadership. He was arrested in 1937 and put to death in 1938.
81. Ibid.
82. Vilkova, RKP(b). Vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, pp. 147–151.
83. Trinadtsatyi s"ezd PKP(b). Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1963), pp. xxi–xxii.
84. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 126, l. 68.
85. V. Nadtocheev, “‘Triumvirat’ ili ‘semerka’?” in Trudnye voprosy istorii, ed. V. V. Zhuravlev (Moscow, 1991), pp. 68–70.
86. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, no. 8 (1991): 182.
87. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 777, ll. 27–28.
88. Letters from Kirov to Ordzhonikidze dated 10 and 16 January 1926. Kvashonkin et al., Bol’shevistskoe rukovodstvo, pp. 315, 318.
89. Lih, Naumov, and Khlevniuk, Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, pp. 115–116.
90. A. G. Egorov, ed., KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s"ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK, vol. 4 (Moscow, 1984), pp. 49–50.
91. See, for example, Stalin’s letter to Rykov, Voroshilov, and Molotov dated 20 September 1927; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 797, ll. 84–85.
92. Valerian Valerianovich Osinsky (1887–1938) was an Old Bolshevik who took part in various opposition movements and was a follower of Trotsky at one point. Soon after the departure mentioned in the letter to Stalin, Osinsky was removed as head of the Central Statistical Directorate. Nevertheless, in later years he held various senior economic posts. He was shot during the Terror.
93. Vladimir Mikhailovich Smirnov (1887–1937) was a long-standing party member and an active participant in the revolution and Civil War who became involved in the opposition in the 1920s. In 1928 he was exiled to the Ural region for three years, a term ultimately extended to 1935, at which point he was again arrested. He was shot in 1937.
94. Timofei Vladimirovich Sapronov (1887–1937) was a long-standing party member and a Moscow Bolshevik leader. After the revolution he held senior government posts. In the 1920s he joined the opposition. In 1928 he was exiled to the Arkhangelsk region for three years. The term of his exile was extended to 1935, as was Smirnov’s. In 1935 he was again arrested, and in 1937 he was shot.
95. Yuly Osipovich Martov (1873–1923) was a leader of the Social Democratic movement in Russia. He collaborated with Lenin during the early stages of his revolutionary career, but in 1903 the two men broke off relations, and later Martov headed the Menshevik party. He participated in the revolutionary movement in Russia but condemned the 1917 Bolshevik overthrow of the Provisional Government. He later tried to work with the Bolsheviks and democratize the Bolshevik dictatorship. In 1920 he was sent abroad and later died of tuberculosis.
96. Osinsky’s letter and Stalin’s following response are in RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 780, ll. 12–14; Istochnik, no. 6 (1994): 88.
97. Grigory Yakovlevich Sokolnikov (1888–1939), a long-standing party member, escaped abroad after being exiled to Siberia. After the revolution he became a member of the top leadership. His greatest success was the monetary reforms he introduced during the 1920s, which provided Soviet Russia with a stable currency. Sokolnikov was subjected to persecution due to his involvement with the opposition. In 1927 he announced his break with the opposition and for some time held various senior government posts. He was shot during the Stalinist Terror.
98. During his speech to the Fifteenth Party Congress in December 1927, Stalin again spoke of an intervention being prepared against the USSR and drew an analogy with the shooting in Sarajevo (I. V. Stalin, Works, vol. 10 [Moscow, 1949], pp. 281, 288).
99. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 71, ll. 2–4ob.
100. Yan Ernestovich Rudzutak (1887–1938) was a long-standing Bolshevik who spent years in tsarist prisons. After the revolution he held senior party and government posts before being shot during the Stalinist Terror.
101. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 767, ll. 35–39, 45–48, 56–60.
102. Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (1875–1946) was a long-standing Bolshevik who shortly after the revolution was appointed chairman of the Soviet parliament and held the largely figurehead post of president of the USSR until his death. One of the more moderate members of the Bolshevik leadership, he nevertheless submitted to power. After some wavering, he threw his support behind Stalin. Kalinin’s wife was arrested in the 1930s and released shortly before her husband’s death.
103. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 767, ll. 35–39, 45–48; d. 71. ll. 11, 13–14.
104. Molotov uses this term since not only Politburo members took part in voting, but also the chairman of the Party Control Commission, Ordzhonikidze, whose post excluded him from Politburo membership.
105. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 767, ll. 56–60.
106. Cited in Lih, Naumov, and Khlevniuk, Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, p. 139.
107. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1110, l. 181.
A World of Reading and Contemplation
1. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 105, ll. 20–126; d. 117, ll. 1–173.
2. Ibid., op. 11, d. 70, ll. 85–114.
3. B. S. Ilizarov, Tainaia zhizn’ Stalina (Moscow, 2002), p. 143.
4. M. Ia. Vaiskopf, Pisatel’ Stalin (Moscow, 2000), pp. 17–22.
5. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 3, dd. 1–392. There exists a legal document (akt) instructing that all of Stalin’s books with notations be placed in his archive. Books from Stalin’s Kremlin and dacha libraries that did not contain any handwritten markings were placed in the library of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism or other research libraries. Whether or not the libraries Stalin left behind at the time of his death were properly catalogued and preserved is an open question. Some books, including those with notations, have disappeared. However, the books that were preserved in the Stalin archival collection appear to be a representative sample.
6. Former Soviet transport commissar I. V. Kovalev, in an interview with G. A. Kumanev. Cited in Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, no. 3 (2005): 165.
7. Cited in R. W. Davies et al., eds., The Stalin-Kaganovich Correspondence, 1931–1936 (New Haven and London, 2003), p. 381.
8. Cited in A. Artizov and O. Naumov, comps., Vlast’ i khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia (Moscow, 1999), pp. 499, 583, 613. Memorandum from Stalin concerning the script of the film Ivan the Terrible, 13 September 1943; speech by Stalin at a meeting of the Orgburo, 9 August 1946; conversation between Stalin and the creators of the film Ivan the Terrible, 26 February 1947: see Maureen Perrie, The Cult of Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia (Basingstoke and New York, 2001).