16. ‘Chuzhoi v Sem’e Stalina’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta (12 June 2002). Morozov, who had a distinguished career as an academic specialising in international law, died in 2001.
17. A. H. Birse, Memoirs of an Interpreter, Michael Joseph: London 1967 p.103. Birse was with Churchill, and Stalin’s bedroom was en route to a bathroom where the PM washed his hands.
18. D. Shepilov, The Kremlin’s Scholar, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2014 p.105.
19. S. Beria, Beria, My Father, Duckworth: London 2001 pp.142–3. This book, which is based on interviews Beria gave to the French historian Françoise Thom, is completely different to one with the same title that he published in Russian: S. Beria, Moi Otets – Lavrentii Beriya, Sovremennik: Moscow 1994.
20. A few of Stalin’s books that he supposedly marked have no discernible markings. Could it be they had tags which have subsequently disintegrated or dropped out or were inadvertently removed by researchers?
21. Zh. & R. Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Stalin, 4th edn, Vremya: Moscow 2011 p.80. In English: R. & Z. Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin, Overlook Press: Woodstock NY 2004 p.97. The English translation states that the books were ordered from the ‘Kremlin Library Service’. These words do not appear in any of the Russian editions of the book.
22. S. Lovell, The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras, Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke 2000 p.27.
23. P. Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1985 pp.239–47.
24. M. Viltsan, ‘K Voprosu ob Intellekte Stalina’, Pravda-5 (Ezhenedel’naya Gazeta) (27 September–4 October 1996).
25. W. J. Spahr, Stalin’s Lieutenants: A Study of Command under Duress, Presidio Press: Novato CA 1997 pp.154–5. Spahr’s reference is to a novel by the Soviet military journalist and writer Ivan Stadniuk, Voina (War), published in 1981. While the story rings true, there are no known copies of Shaposhnikov’s book in Stalin’s personal archive. Shaposhnikov’s book was published in three volumes between 1927 and 1929 so the volume that we know Stalin received, presumably towards the end of 1926, must have been a pre-publication advance copy. Shaposhnikov met Stalin about what seems to have been a personal matter in June 1927 (RGASPI, F.558, Op.4, D.5853t, L.11). This out-of-sequence file may be found at the very end of Opis’ 4.
26. N. Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope: A Memoir, Harvill Press: London 1999 p.26.
27. A. V. Ostrovskii, Kto Stoyal za Spinoi Stalina?, Olma-Press: St Petersburg 2002 p.155.
28. The archive document listing the seventy-two books was on display at an exhibition on the history of Stalin’s lichnyi fond in the foyer of RGASPI in October 2018.
29. S. Alliluyeva, 20 Letters to a Friend, Penguin: Harmondsworth 1968 pp.37–8.
30. R. Sullivan, Stalin’s Daughter, Fourth Estate: London 2015 p.22.
31. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, p.252.
32. Their letters may be found in Yu. G. Murin (ed.), Iosif Stalin v Ob”yatiyakh Sem’i, Rodina: Moscow 1993 docs. 30–59.
33. On Polina: K. Schlögel, The Scent of Empires: Chanel No.5 and Red Moscow, Polity: London 2021 pp.96–125.
34. R. Lyuksemburg, Vseobshchaya Zabastovka i Nemetskaya Sotsial-Demokratiya, Kiev 1906. Stalin’s copy: RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.196. Another book in Stalin’s library, one that he marked in a few places, was this anti-Luxemburg tract: I. Narvskii, K Istorii Bor’by Bol’shevizma s Luksemburgianstvom, Partizdat: Moscow 1932 (D.227).
35. On gender relations at the top level of the party, see M. Delaloi (Delaloye), Usy i Yubki: Gendernye Otnosheniya vnutri Kremlevskogo Kruga v Stalinskuyu Epokhu (1928–1953), Rosspen: Moscow 2018. A French variant of this book is the same author’s Une Histoire érotique du Kremlin, Payot: Paris 2016. On Soviet policy on women: W. Z. Goldman, Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1993.
36. L. T. Lih et al. (eds), Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, Yale University Press: New Haven & London 1995 p.232.
37. Cited by L. Vasilieva, Kremlin Wives, Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London 1994 p.68.
38. Cited by S. Kotkin, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1928–1941, Penguin: London 2017 p.112.
39. S. Fitzpatrick, On Stalin’s Team, Princeton University Press: Princeton 2015 p.80.
40. The material on the dacha is based on S. Devyatov, A. Shefov & Yu. Yur’ev, Blizhnyaya Dacha Stalina, Kremlin Multimedia: Moscow 2011. The book contains a chapter on the dacha’s library room and a treatment of Stalin’s library. The authors state (p.192) that Shushanika Manuchar’yants was Stalin’s librarian in the 1930s but they cite no source.
41. F. Chuev, Sto Sorok Besed s Molotovym, Terra: Moscow 1991 p.296.
42. M. Djilas, Conversations with Stalin, Penguin: London 2014 pp.54, 105.
43. RGASPI, F558, Op.11 D.504–692. The maps have yet to be declassified but the type of map is described in Op.11 – which is the document that lists the contents of this subset of Stalin’s lichnyi fond.
44. A. J. Rieber, ‘Stalin: Man of the Borderlands’, American Historical Review (December 2001).
45. A. J. Rieber, Stalin and the Struggle for Supremacy in Eurasia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
46. A. Resis (ed.), Molotov Remembers, Ivan R. Dee: Chicago 1993 p.8. The anecdote is Felix Chuev’s, the Soviet journalist whose conversations with Molotov are the subject of this book. Chuev’s sources are Molotov and Akaki Mgeladze, who was leader of the Abkhazian communist party from 1943 to 1951 and the Georgian communist party from 1952 to 1953.
47. See M. Folly, G. Roberts & O. Rzheshevsky, Churchill and Stalin: Comrades-in-Arms during the Second World War, Pen & Sword Books: Barnsley 2019.
48. Stalin’s extensive record collection disappeared after his death. According to Roy and Zhores Medvedev, Stalin was sent a copy of virtually every record produced in the USSR. After listening to records he would write on the sleeve ‘good’, ‘so-so’, ‘bad’ or ‘rubbish’. The collection is known to have included recordings of opera, ballet and folk songs. Medvedev & Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin, p.100. Reports about dancing at the dacha may be found in various memoirs.
49. I. Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography, Penguin: Harmondsworth 1966 pp.456, 457.
50. G. Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2006.
51. On Stalin’s death, see J. Rubenstein, The Last Days of Stalin, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2016. Medical evidence relating to Stalin’s death may be found in I. I. Chigirin, Stalin: Bolezni i Smert’: Dokumenty, Dostoinstvo: Moscow 2016.
52. Medvedev & Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin, p.90.
53. Alliluyeva, 20 Letters to a Friend, pp.13, 28–9.
54. Bol’shaya Tsenzura: Pisateli i Zhurnalisty v Strane Sovetov, 1917–1956, Demokratiya: Moscow 2005 doc.469.
55. Ibid., doc.467.