Stalin, Volume 1

by Stephen Kotkin

  201. Lubianka: Stalin i VChK-OGPU-NKVD, 135 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 71, l. 29). As if on cue, Stalin received a secret report on the smashing of a British spy ring in Leningrad, with agents in Finland, which supposedly aimed to ascertain the combat level of the Red Army and fleet, including chemical weapons capabilities; some two dozen people were arrested. Plekhanov, VChK-OGPU, 1921–1928, 285 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 5, d. 136, l. 26–9).

  202. Pravda, July 10, 1927.

  203. Tepliakov, “Nepronizaemye nedra,” 194.

  204. Zdanovich, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 299 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 5, d. 269, l. 9).

  205. Velikanova, Popular Perceptions, 74–5. See also Simonov, “Krepit’ oboronu stranam sovetov,” 157; and Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice, 66–7.

  206. Sevost’ianov, “Sovershenno sekretno,” V: 362–78, 401–8, 411–83, 484–584, 855–906 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 5, d. 385, l. 256–361, 422–81; op. 4, d. 386, l. 45–84; op. 5, d. 394, l. 99–108; op. 6, d. 394, l. 109–12). Werth, “Rumeurs defaitistes et apocalyptiques”; Viola, “The Peasant Nightmare.”

  207. Fischer spent several days with Chicherin in Wiesbaden, Germany, in August 1929. Fischer, Russia’s Road from Peace to War, 172; on the war scare episode as a whole, see 165–79. Chicherin’s deputy Litvinov felt out of his depth against the politburo. Sheinis, Maxim Litvinov, 194. “They say that we, the opposition, are exploiting the threat of war,” Trotsky remarked at the Central Committee in June 1927. “It is you who are exploiting the threat of war to persecute the opposition and to prepare to destroy it.” Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, III: 96.

  208. Velikanova, Popular Perceptions, 47, 76–7; M. M. Kudiukhina, “Krasnaia armiia i ‘voennye trevogi’ vtoroi poloviny 1920-kh godov,” and A. V. Baranov, “‘Voennaia trevoga’ 1927 g. kak factor politischeskikh nastroenii v neposvskom obshchvestve (po material iuga Rossii),” Rossiia i mir glazami druga druga: iz istorii vzaimovospriiatiia (Moscow: IRI RAN, 2007), 153–74, 175–93.

  209. Danilov, Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, I: 25.

  210. Lih, Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 135. On June 24, Stalin had Trotsky before the central control commission presidium (Aaron Solts); they debated the French Revolution!

  211. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, III: 126–7.

  212. Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 388–9.

  213. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 767, l. 35–9, 45–8, 56–60; Gorlizki and Khlevniuk, “Stalin and his Circle,” III: 243–67; Pravda, June 26, 1927.

  214. Trotsky archives, T 965 (June 28, 1927).

  215. Sochineniia, IX: 315–21. Pokrovsky (b. 1905) would be arrested on January 16, 1934, for counterrevolutionary agitation. He would be sentenced to three years’ exile to Ufa. He would survive the Great Terror.

  216. Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 339.

  217. Lih, Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 136–7.

  218. Khlevniuk, Master of the House, 3–4. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 4, d. 767, l. 56–60.

  219. Rigby, Communist Party Membership, 113.

  220. Lih, Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 138, 139, 141–2, 143.

  221. Samuelson, Plans for Stalin’s War Machine, 40–1 (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 250, l. 60). Voroshilov, in top secret memoranda, was positive about the achievements of the military reforms and the condition of the army in 1927, but not when it came to the defense industry. Kudriashov, Krasnaia armiia, 161–71 (APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 257, l. 98–119).

  222. Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 21.

  223. Velikanova, Popular Perceptions, 93.

  224. Dyck, “German-Soviet Relations,” 80 (citing Archives of the German Foreign Ministry, L337/L100554–60: memorandum by von Brockdorff-Rantzau, July 24, 1927).

  225. Dyck, Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia, 96–7; Dyck, “German-Soviet Relations,” 67 (citing Dirksen memorandum, September 19, 1927), 83. See also Dyck, Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia, 66–107; and Erickson, Soviet High Command [1962], 144–63, 247–82.

  226. The OGPU reported to him that the Mensheviks in exile believed the Communist party would fall because of him. In fact, the Mensheviks in exile correctly surmised that Trotsky and the opposition would be crushed. Volkogonov, Trotsky, 293–4 (Arkhiv INO OGPU, d. 672, tom 1, l. 196); Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, August 1, 1927.

  227. “Zametki na sovremennye tenmy,” Pravda, July 28, 1929, in Sochineniia, IX: 322–61 (at 322, 327–30).

  228. Nazarov, Stalin i bor’ba za liderstvo, 162 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 317, vyp. 1, l. 76, 50, 81).

  229. Nazarov, Stalin i bor’ba za liderstvo, 163 (no citation).

  230. Pravda, July 25, 1927.

  231. Sochineniia, X: 3–59 (at 51).

  232. Boersner, The Bolsheviks, 244–6.

  233. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 5, l. 74–9, 86–8 (August 17, 1927). The Comintern agent Borodin had told a foreigner upon leaving China that “When the next Chinese general comes to Moscow and shouts, ‘Hail to the revolution,’ better send at once for the GPU. All that any of them want is rifles.” Strong, China’s Millions, 242. Borodin also told the Society of Old Bolsheviks that he had regretted his irresoluteness regarding Chiang Kai-shek: “a fateful error. The moment to liquidate Chiang Kai-shek after the capture of Nanjing was missed by our fault.” VKP (b), Komintern i natsional’no-revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie v Kitae, II/ii: 926.

  234. Plekhanov, VChK-OGPU, 90.

  235. Vatlin, Stenogrammy zasedanii Politbiuro, I: 579–80.

  236. Vatlin, Stenogrammy zasedanii Politbiuro, II: 566, 573–4, 582. On September 12, Trotsky asked his supporter Yeltsin to look into Yenukidze’s party affiliation during the period April–October 1917: Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 176–7

  237. Vatlin, Stenogrammy zasedanii Politbiuro, II: 586.

  238. Vatlin, Stenogrammy zasedanii Politburo, II: 593–6.

  239. Vatlin, Stenogrammy zasedanii Politbiuro, II: 597 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 705).

  240. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 650, l. 1–2.

  241. Vatlin, Stenogrammy zasedanii Politbiuro, I: 579–80, 595.

  242. When they were done, Stalin put his own questions: why did only 3.5 million of America’s 18–19 million industrial workers belong to trade unions, and why did the AFL-CIO not support recognition of the USSR? “The working class of America,” one replied, “is not interested in international affairs.” Pravda, September 15, 1927; Sochineniia, X: 92–148; Na prieme, 25.

  243. Serge and Trotsky, Life and Death, 148; Pravda, September 29 and October 1, 1927; Carr and Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, II: 35–6. Mrachkovsky, chairman of the State Sewing Machine Trust, along with Preobrazhensky and Leonid Serebryakov, who collectively took responsibility, were immediately expelled from the party.

  244. Zdanovich, Organy gosudasrtvennoi bezopasnosti, 289–93, 382–3.

  245. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 189; Zdanovich, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 320 (citing TsA FSB, delo R-8209, l. 69; f. 2, op. 5, d. 98, l. 43, 98). Trotsky had admitted at the joint Central Committee–Central Control Commission plenum back in August 1927 that “some military workers, under the influence of the possible war threat, exchanged opinions recently on the situation in our armed forces . . . among those comrades I would name comrade Muralov (inspector of land-naval forces), comrades Putna and Primakov (commanders of corps), removed for opposition views, comrades Mrachkovsky and Bakayev.” They produced a document on necessary measures for the country’s defense, to raise the revolutionary and fighting mood in the army; Trotsky had intended to convey the document to Rykov, head of the government, for discussion at the politburo. This was a basis for accusations that Trotsky was preparing a military coup—an accusation Trotsky predicted. Fel’
shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 44.

  246. Mezynski spoke to the October 1927 plenum; he told them that the OGPU had arrested five participants in the military coup preparations in late September: two were middle-range commanders, the others had been recently demobilized. He claimed they had been discovered in the course of the underground printing press operation. In fact, they had been first discovered before the printing press, but attention turned to them only after the printing press idea came to light. Central Control Commission member Yaroslavsky, a Stalin surrogate, instructed Mezynski not to interrogate all those in detention; the military coup idea was enough, no need for details or complications. Zdanovich, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 321 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 5, d. 54, l. 88, 93–4).

  247. Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 357–8; Sochineniia, X: 187.

  248. Volkogonov, Trotsky, 291–3 (citing RGASPI, f. 505, op. 1, d. 65, l. 1–35). The motion to expel Trotsky from the Comintern was made by John Murphy, who soon quit the party himself: Murphy, New Horizons, 274–7.

  249. Pravda, September 23 and October 25, 1927.

  250. V. Ia. Bliukher v Kitae.

  251. Pantsov, Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 156.

  252. By 1914, Russia had accounted for 11 percent of global cross-border borrowing, second only to the United States in absolute terms. Because the United States engaged in significant lending as well, Russia was the single largest net borrower globally. Cameron and Bovykin, International Banking, 13.

  253. Dallin, Soviet Espionage, 32–41 (quote at 36, citing New York Times, April 11, 1927).

  254. Rakovskii, Kniaz’ Metternikh. Rakovski published a succinct survey of Soviet foreign policy practice for the U.S. audience: “The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia,” Foreign Affairs, 4/4 (July 1926): 574–84.

  255. Izvestiia, August 11, 1927. Kamenev, ambassador to Italy, also signed the manifesto, but Mussolini and the Italian government paid it no mind.

  256. Jacobson, When the Soviet Union Entered, 273–80.

  257. Le Matin, September 13, 1927.

  258. Pravda, September 16, 1927 (Litvinov); Izvestiia, September 16, 1927; “Novaia ugroza franko-sovetskomu soglasheniiu,” Kommunisticheskii internatsional, October 7, 1927: 7–8; Senn, “The Rakovski Affair”; Carley, “Episodes from the Early Cold War.” The failure occurred despite the fact that the Soviets had added sweeteners and reduced the size of the loan requested. Degras, Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, II: 248–54.

  259. Conte, Christian Rakovski, 196–204.

  260. Naville, Trotsky Vivant.

  261. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 219–24.

  262. Nazarov, Stalin i bor’ba za liderstvo, 164–5 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 321, l. 4–5).

  263. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 223, 230–1; Miliukov, Vospominaniia, II: 19–20.

  264. “Trotskistskaia oppozitsiia prezhde i teper’,” Pravda, November 2, 1927, in Sochineniia, X: 172–205 (at 172–6).

  265. Pravda, November 2, 1927, in “Trotskistskaia oppozitsiia prezhde i teper’,” Sochineniia, X: 172–205; Stalin, Ob oppozitsii, 723. Stalin’s later Collected Works leave out the direct quotation from the Testament. Carr, Interregnum, 267.

  266. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 230–1; Kun, Bukharin, 208–9 (no citation).

  267. KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh [1984], IV: 210–49.

  268. Voprosy torgovli, 1927, no. 1: 63.

  269. Carr and Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, II: 41.

  270. Stalin, Beseda s inostrannymi rabochimi delegatsiaiami, 44–8; Pravda, November 13 and November 15, 1927, reprinted in Sochineniia, X: 206–38 (at 237). The meeting was not recorded in Stalin’s office logbooks, evidently because the group was too large to be received in his office.

  271. Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution, 314 (citing Inprecor, November 3, 1927).

  272. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 254–6 (Trotsky letter to politburo and CC, November 9, 1927); Carr and Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, II: 42–3.

  273. “Big cloud, little rain,” noted a dismissive pro-regime foreign correspondent, using the peasant proverb. Reswick, I Dreamt Revolution, 205. Reswick understood that the quixotic actions gave Stalin a pretext for intensified crackdown (207–8). In the cleverest of opposition actions, Smilga, Preobrazhensky, and others were able to call out to marchers heading to Red Square from a balcony at the well-placed former Grand Hotel Paris, where, in the three-story structure on the corner of Hunter’s Row and Tver St. across from the Kremlin, Smilga had an apartment. Smilga had led the Baltic fleet into the Neva River to support the October coup in 1917, and he and his helpmates unfurled portraits of Lenin, Trotsky, and Zinoviev, as well as a slogan, “Fulfill Lenin’s Testament.” Evidently, some marchers cheered. But the party boss for the Krasnaya Presnya ward drove up in his car along with Red squads, who began to shout “Beat the Jew-opposition,” while hurling bricks up toward the balcony. In parallel, from the six-story National Hotel across the way, pro-regime personnel began throwing potatoes and blocks of ice at Smilga’s balcony. Soon, fifteen to twenty military academy and police academy cadets broke down the door, removed the banner, and smashed the place up. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 250–2 (note by Muralov, Smilga, and Kamenev, November 7, 1927), 258–60 (Smilga letter, November 10, 1927). The National was returned to its function as a hotel in the late 1920s; the Paris was torn down in 1935 when Tver St. was widened, and near its old site a new Council of People’s Commissars building arose. One historian has opposition figures speaking from the balcony of a building on the corner of Vozdvizhenka and Mokhovaya, which could have been Comintern headquarters or former party headquarters that housed offices of the central executive committee of the Soviet. Medvedev, Let History Judge, 173.

  274. Volkogonov, Trotsky, 300–1. See also Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 256–7 (Nikolayev letter to the CC and Central Control Commission, November 10, 1927). A similar scene unfolded in Leningrad near the Winter Palace, where Zinoviev gave a brief speech from a window opposite and other members of the Leningrad opposition tried to disrupt the flow of official marchers on Palace Square. Mounted soldiers and sailors arrived and dispersed the counter-demonstrators. Lashevich, the former second in command of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and Bakayev, the former head of the Leningrad GPU, wearing their soldiers’ greatcoats shorn of insignia, shouted that policemen should be ashamed of themselves.At least eighty-one arrests were made. There were further disorders and arrests the next day. Velikanova, Popular Perceptions, 183 (citing TsGAIPD SPb, f. 16, op. 1, d. 8485, l. 258–9); Trotskii, Moia zhizn’, II: 280; Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 226–7. Marches by unemployed workers were to be blocked from joining up with the opposition marches by making sure all columns were pre-approved and supervised. Velikanova, Popular Perceptions, 181–2 (citing TsGAIPD SPb, f. 24, op. 5, d. 75, l. 69). Rykov had been sent to Leningrad for the anniversary celebrations, and in the old Tauride Palace, he delivered a speech at a jubilee session of the central executive committee of the Soviet, unfurling a colossal chart showing a V-shaped economic recovery, with the nadir in 1921 and 1927 well surpassing 1913 levels. Izvestiia, October 19, 1927; Rykov, Ten Years of Soviet Rule. The Institute of School Work Methods carried out a large-scale sociological study of 120,000 people and collected 1.5 million statements in connection with the tenth anniversary of the revolution. Kozlov and Semenova, “Sotsiaologiiia detstva,” 47–8.

  275. Chertok, Stop-Kadr, 54. At a tenth anniversary exhibition of the Council of People’s Commissars, portraits of oppositionists were discovered and quickly removed. Matvei Shkiryatov, of the party Control Commission, managed to get the portraits removed, but he was still figh
ting to remove a sculpture of Lenin’s casket being carried not by Stalin and the comrades but by symbolic figures, so he wrote to Stalin apologetically asking for his intervention (the matter was placed on the politburo agenda). Voprosy istorii, 2004, no. 11: 16–7 (RGASPI, op. 11, d. 826, l. 1–2), reprinted in Pikhoia and Zelenov, I. V. Stalin: istoricheskaia ideologiia, I: 44–7.

  276. Pravda, November 16, 1927.

  277. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, IV: 264.

  278. In the summer of 1925, all residents of the Kremlin not related to state functions had had to relocate within a week; tourism had been reduced. More broadly, on Bolshevik colonization of the Kremlin, see Rolf, Sovetskie massovy prazdniki, 149.

  279. “Mariia Ioffe, Nachalo,” Vremia i my, 1977, no. 20: 163–92 (at 178–82). Joffe, One Long Night. See also Joffe, Back in Time.

  280. Trotskii, Portety revoliutsionerov, 396–8; Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 381–2; Volkogonov, Trotsky, 303.

  281. Medvedev, Let History Judge, 174 (Mikhail Yakubovich, who spent twenty-four years in prisons and camps, and lived out his life in a home for invalids in Karaganda, Kazakhstan). Medvedev’s source, Yakubovich, claims to have seen Stalin’s wife, Nadya Alliluyeva, walking inconspicuously behind the coffin in the crowd, but this is not corroborated. Medvedev, Let History Judge, 174 (citing unpublished recollections of Mikhail Yakubovich). Yagoda and Yenukidze were on the scene. Of the 143 oppositionists who were expelled from the Moscow party organization in 1927, 82 were students and 41 were white-collar employees; 16 were workers. Merridale, Moscow Politics, 44. “The opposition consists mostly of intellectuals, who in their intellectual level stand above the rest of the mass of party members and that causes a certain distrust toward them,” noted I. Girs, head of a Czechoslovak diplomatic mission. “The strength of the Stalinist position consists in the fact that they represent the numerically dominant part of the party, that is, the intellectually middling people.” Shishkin, Vlast’, politika, ekonomika, 149.