Stalin, Volume 1

by Stephen Kotkin

  52. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 119, l. 1–2.

  53. Soviet measurements were in poods (units equal to about 36 pounds). Stalin called for 60 million poods, out of 82 million, for the center.

  54. On January 9, 1928, A. N. Zlobin, the third member of the Siberian grain procurement troika, had reported to Dogadov that the Siberian harvest was average. According to M. Basovich of the Siberian party organization, per capita harvest data came to 6.9 poods in Siberia, 7.5 in the Urals, 12 in the Middle Volga, 13.3 in the Lower Volga, 13.9 in Ukraine, and 14 in the North Caucasus. Pavlova, “Poezdka Stalina v Sibir’,” 134 (no citation). There had been almost no exports of Siberian grain from 1913 to 1925; it went to the Moscow and Leningrad industrial regions as well as the Russian Far East. In 1926–27, 345,000 tons of Siberian wheat were exported, but in 1927–28 just 5,700 tons would be exported. Gushchin, Siberiskaia dervenia, 108; Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR, 94, 110.

  55. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 5: 196–9; Danilov, Tragediia sovetskoi derveni, I: 152–4 (GANO, f. 2, op. 4. d. 24, l. 26–28ob); Viola, War Against the Peasantry, 69–71; Za chetkuiu klassovuiu liniiu, 76 (Syrtsov report at March 1928 Siberian party plenum); Gushchin and Il’inykh, Klassovaia bor’ba, 172–3.

  56. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 121, l. 6–7, 47–9.

  57. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 121, l. 2. Konstantin Sergeyev (b. 1893), the traveling aide who made the record of Stalin’s trip (including his remarks), listed the following brochures: Rodinskii raion Slavgorodskogo okruga: materialy obsledovaniia sibiriskoi derevni (Novosibirsk, 1927); Men’shikovskii raion Barabinskogo okruga: materialy obsledovaniia sibiriskoi derevni (Novosibirsk, 1927); Abakinskii raion Minusinskogo okruga: materialy obsledovaniia sibirskoi derevni (Novosibirsk, 1927). Sergeyev, originally from Tula, served as an aide to Stalin from January 1925 through June 1928.

  58. Sevost’ianov, “Sovershenno sekretno,” VI: 58–60 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 6, d. 575, l. 1–58).

  59. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 121, l. 4–4o, 9.

  60. “At our own risk we issued a directive about repressions against kulaks in every grain procurement region,” Syrtsov later bragged. “We issued the directive of the Regional Committee thinking we could not delay it although we already knew that comrade Stalin was en route.” Demidov, “Khlebozagotovitel’naia akampaniia 1927/28 g. v sibirskoi derevne,” at 126. In a telegram to Syrtsov in early January 1928, Stalin had belittled “as a road to panic” party officials’ calls for bartering grain for manufacturing goods in Siberia. Za chetkuiu klassovuiu liniiu, 75–6.

  61. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 5: 201–2; Viola, War Against the Peasantry, 74–5. In the same January 19 (morning) telegram, Stalin also ordered that Molotov be sent to the Central Black Earth Region. Later that same day (5:35 p.m.), Stalin sent another telegram, this time to Molotov as well as Kosior, indicating the challenges were perhaps even greater, but reiterating that he anticipated success. It should be noted that Siberia’s procurement campaigns usually only began in September (the harvest took place a little later in Siberia, from August through early September). Also, in 1928, only four undersized grain elevators were in operation in all Siberia, thanks to underinvestment dating back to before the revolution, but belatedly several new ones were under construction. Lebedev, “Sostoianie i perspektivy razvitiia elevatornogo khoziaistva,” 34.

  62. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 121, l. 11.

  63. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 5: 193–204 (199–201); Danilov, Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 154–6; Viola, War Against the Peasantry, 71–4. In 1930, Zagumyonny (b. 1897) would be deemed an invalid and granted a pension, but he would be elected a collective farm chairman and continue working, eventually becoming head of a state farm in his native Saratov province, where, on August 5, 1937, he would be arrested. He would stand trial publicly in May 1938 and be executed on November 28, 1938. Gusakova, “Veril v luchshuiu zhizn’ naroda.”

  64. “Iz istorii kollektivizatsii 1928 god,” no. 6: at 212. See also Sochineniia, XI: 3. From January through March 1928, 3,424 people were convicted in the North Caucasus, including more than 2,000 middle and poor peasants (by the regime’s statistics). Osklokov, Pobeda kolkhoznogo stroia, 134.

  65. The decision was taken at a meeting of the “grain troika” on January 26, 1928, in which Stalin participated. Papkov, Obyknovenyi terror, 33 (citing GANO, f. P-20, op. 2, d. 176, l. 92–3); Sovetskaia sibir’, January 29, 1928; Sochineniia, XI: 4.

  66. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 118, l. 1–74 (stenogramma zasedaniia Sibkraikoma ot 20 ianvaria 1928 g.).

  67. In 1928 all Siberia counted perhaps 700 agronomists, most of whom lacked higher education. Sibir’skaia Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, I: 17-8.

  68. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 6: 203–5; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 118, l. 23–6.

  69. Sochineniia, VII: 122–29 (April 1926), 286–7 (November 1926).

  70. XVI partiinaia konferentsiia VKP (b), aprel’ 1929 g., 293. Bukharin had told the 14th party conference in April 1925, “The collective farm is a powerful thing, but not the royal road to socialism.” XIV konferetnisia RKP (b), 188.

  71. “Partiia i oppozitsiia,” Pravda, November 24, 1927, reprinted in Sochineniia, X: 252–68 (at 259).

  72. XVI Moskovskaia gubernskaia konferentsiia VKP (b), bulletin no. 10: 88. Stenografischeskii otchet, 492–520, 544–7. Stalin moved Bauman into the party secretariat in April 1928. He would be promoted to first secretary in Moscow in 1929, taking over for Molotov, then yield to Kaganovich in 1930. Bauman would get the Central Asian bureau from 1931 to 1934.

  73. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 5: 194–6.

  74. Danilov, Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, I: 172–92 (RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 137, l. 1–55).

  75. Word of the general secretary’s presence spread, of course. One party secretary in Krasnoyarsk wrote to Stalin to convey a workers’ request that he speak at their factory, to which Stalin answered that he “has arrived unofficially for the instruction of comrades on an internal basis. To speak at a mass open meeting would be to exceed my mandate and deceive the Central Committee of the party.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 119, l. 1045.

  76. Donald Treadgold, Great Siberian Migration, 155–83.

  77. Ascher, P. A. Stolypin, 323.

  78. After Stolypin returned from Siberia, he wrote privately to Nicholas II (September 26, 1910) that “my general impression is more than comforting,” but warned that “we are establishing the commune in a land that was accustomed to private property, in the form of squatter’s rights. . . . All this and much else are urgent and immediate questions. Otherwise, in an unconscious and formless manner will be created an enormous, rudely democratic country, which will soon throttle European Russia.” “Iz perepiski P. A. Stolypina s Nikolaem Romanovym,” Krasnyi arkhiv, 1928, no. 5: 82–3. See also Syromatnikov, “Reminiscences of Stolypin,” 86; and Pokrovsky, Brief History of Russia, II: 291. In Siberia, “free” land tenure developed whereby peasants just showed up and plowed and planted, but as arable land in any one place began to be fully occupied, a transition to “equalized” land tenure, with assignment and redistribution—that is, the appearance of the commune—began to be observed. Such a transition was usually not sudden or in a single leap. And it occurred only in the thickly settled areas (mostly in Tobolsk province, closer to European Russia), but this was an ominous sign for Stolypin, who was thinking about the long-term, when still more settlement would occur. Soldatov, “Izmeneniia form obshchinnogo zemlepol’zovaniiia,” 36; Kocharovsky, “Aleksandr Arkadievich Kaufman,” VIII: 550. Stolypin traveled to Siberia accompanied by minister of land and settlement Krivoshein, and sought to counter assertions that all arable land had already been settled. A 1910 crop failure did induce large numbers of settlers to retreat back to European Russia. Robinson, Rural Russia, 250–1; Pavlovsky, Agricultural Russia, 177-8; Treadgold, Great Siberian Migration, 34.<
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  79. Ascher, P. A. Stolypin, 325; Treadgold, Great Siberian Migration, 182–3.

  80. Poezdka v Sibir’ i povol’zhe, 114, 117; Antsiferov, Russian Agriculture, 340–3; “Zemel’nye poriadki za uralom,” I: 537. In Siberia, land was owned by the state, the imperial household, or the Cossacks, but peasants viewed the land they had registered under right of usufruct (zemlepol’zovanie) as equivalent to property. Peasants already felt the land was theirs, de facto, but they needed to have it surveyed and registered in order to legalize the right of resale, especially where original migrants had made large claims but the plots were too big for them to farm and they were trying to rent them to later migrants. Treadgold, Great Siberian Migration, 182–3; Poezdka v Sibir’ i povol’zhe, 55–6, 64–5. In 1917 the Provisional Government transferred the Cabinet Lands (owned by the royal household) to the treasury; local officials issued land grants from them. Brike, “Ekonomicheskie protsessy,” 13–4; Zhidkov, “Krest’iane Altaia ot fevralia k Oktiabriu,” vyp. 2: 92–110.

  81. Voshchinin, Na sibirskom prostore, 47–8.

  82. As of January 1927 in the RSFSR, 95 percent of arable land, some 630 million acres (233 million desiatinas), was held communally; 3.4 percent was held as individual private property. Carr, Socialism in One Country, I: 214; Thorniley, Rise and Fall of the Soviet Rural Communist Party [Basingstoke], 10. By contrast, the Belorussian SSSR had a high percentage of consolidated farms persisting from before 1917. Pershin, Uchastkovoe zemlepol’zovanie Rossii, 46–7.

  83. Danilov, Rural Russia, 160; Atkinson, End of the Russian Land Commune, 246.

  84. Danilov, Rural Russia, 169.

  85. The notion that Stalin may have visited a village derives from the line, in the amalgamated and edited stenogram of his Siberia speeches, that “I traveled around the districts of your territory” (Sochineniia, XI: 2). But this does not demonstrate he visited any villages. Avtorkhanov, relying on hearsay (Sorokin), has Stalin conversing with peasants. Avtorkhanov, Stalin and the Communist Party, 12.

  86. For example, Moshe Lewin asserted that Stalin searched for a solution to crises he had brought about, and did not impose a premeditated, ideological plan to collectivize: Lewin, Russian Peasants, 107–16, 296–302. Similarly, Carr and Davies wrote that “The pronouncements of Stalin and Molotov at this time were the utterances, not of men who had made a calculated move to the Left, and still less of men who believed that mass collectivization of the peasantry was a practicable policy for the near future, but of men hesitant and bewildered in the face of an intractable problem, and still hoping somehow to muddle through.” Carr and Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, I/i: 85. Lewin, Carr, and Davies were working under restricted access to many key documents; it is unclear whether the additional documentation would have induced them to alter their argument, and if so, in what direction.

  87. Pavliuchenkov, Krest’ianskii Brest, 158 (citing RGASPI, f. 325, op. 1, d. 67, l. 5: March 1920).

  88. Danilov, Sovetskoe krest’ianstvo, 233.

  89. Fewer than one peasant household in 140 could claim a party member. Izvestiia Tsk RKP (b), 1928, no. 23 (255): at 9; Rigby, Communist Party Membership, 418. As one scholar wrote, “Whether the party sought to control or to woo, its manpower and points of contact were hopelessly inadequate for the task.” Carr and Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, II: 188. On the rural party numbers, see also Thorniley, Rise and Fall of the Soviet Rural Communist Party [New York], 11–7, 200–4.

  90. Izvestiia Sibkraikoma VKP (b), 1928, no. 7–8: 1–2.

  91. Pethybridge, One Step Backwards, 306–7.

  92. Carr, for example, wrongly called Stalin’s Marxism merely “skin deep.” Carr, Russian Revolution, 163.

  93. Pravda marked the occasion (January 15) by publishing letters that the OGPU had intercepted, under the rubric “Trotskyite subversion against the Comintern.”

  94. Fel’shtinskii, Razgovory s Bukharinym, 14 (citing a letter of Natalya Sedova, February 29, 1960: Institute of International History, Amsterdam, papers of Sara Jacobs-Weber).

  95. Scheffer, Sieben Jahre Sowjetunion, 158–61.

  96. Serge, Le tournant obscur, 155. Also present were the widow of Adolf Joffe and a sister (Bertha) of Abram Belenky. On Belenky, see the note from Beria to Stalin, September 6, 1940: http://stalin.memo.ru/spravki/13-038.HTM.

  97. Trotsky, My Life, 539–50; Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 391–4.

  98. Trotsky, My Life, 539–42; Serge and Trotsky, Life and Death, 155–7; Patenaude, Stalin’s Nemesis, 88–9; Volkogonov, Trotsky, II: 92–5.

  99. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 5: 201, n2.

  100. The politburo had discussed Trotsky’s exile on numerous occasions, with Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov opposed, Stalin and Voroshilov as the most vocal in favor, and the rest acceding. Volkogonov, Trotsky, 308 (citing APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 19, 20).

  101. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 5: 201. When Ivars Smilga, who was being sent to work in the planning department of the Far East in Khabarovsk, arrived at the Yaroslavl Station on June 9, 1927, his farewell turned into something of an opposition public demonstration; Trotsky and Zinoviev delivered speeches. Stalin moved quickly to have their actions condemned as a violation of their October 16, 1926, promise to desist from factionalism. Trotsky, My Life, 530–1.

  102. Reswick, I Dreamt Revolution, 226–9. Reswick was afforded a Soviet-arranged exclusive on Trotsky’s deportation; his was the only journalist eyewitness account and won the AP’s award for outstanding story of the year.

  103. Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 394.

  104. After continuously protesting, the Trotsky family was soon moved to a four-room residence.

  105. On the phrase, see Baumont, La faillite de la paix, I: 370.

  106. Lerner, Karl Radek, 150. Radek was soon relocated to Tomsk.

  107. Volkogonov, Trotsky, 280 (citing RGASPI, f. 326, op. 1, d, 113, l. 72: February 27, 1928). Radek, despairing over life in long-term exile, soon began to write criticisms of Trotsky in his letters, a way of ingratiating himself with Stalin, and a step toward his begging for rehabilitation.

  108. Pravda, January 31, 1928; Koniukhov, KPSS v bor’be, 146–7.

  109. Bezrukov, “Za chem Stalin priezhal na Altai?”; Bezrukov, Priezd I. V. Stalina na Altai; Dmitrieva, Barnaul v vospominaniiakh starozhilov, 97 (P. I. Zakharov). The sled driver was Ivan Sergovantsev.

  110. “Iz istorii kollektivizatsii 1928 god,” no. 6: 212–4; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 118, l. 78–84.

  111. Kavraiskii and Nusinov, Klassy i klassovaia bor’ba, 78 (citing PAAK, f. 4, op. 2, d. 27, l. 48).

  112. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 119, l. 35.

  113. “Stalin v Rubtsovske,” Khleborod Altaia, December 28, 1991 (recollections of L. A. Nechunaev); Popov, Rubtsovsk 1892–2000, 107–8.

  114. Bol’shevik, 1927, no. 15–16: 90–9, 100–16. The author, Georgy Safarov [Voldin], had returned to Russia in 1917 with Lenin on the sealed train and become a leader in the Communist Youth League. Hughes, Stalin, Siberia, 88–96.

  115. Sosnovskii, “Chetyre pis’ma iz ssylki,” 27. Sosnovsky wrote three letters that year to Trotsky in Kazakhstan. (A fourth, dated May 30, 1928, was addressed to Vardin.) Subsequently, Sosnovsky was arrested and imprisoned in the Chelyabinsk isolator.

  116. Hughes, Stalin, Siberia, 58.

  117. See the Left opposition analysis for their defeat by Christian Rakovski, in Trotskii, Predannaia revoliutsiia segodnia [1990], 61 (letter from Astrakhan to Trotsky in Alma-Ata, August 6, 1928).

  118. Isaev and Ugrovatov, Pravokhanitel’nye organy Sibiri, 150–1; Tepliakov, “Nepronitsaemye nedra,” 262–4 (citing GANO, f. 1204, op. 1, d. 4, l. 57–8); Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 7–78 (at 23–4).

  119. Sochineniia, XI: 3–4.

  120.
Sochineniia, XI: 4. See also Pravda, July 3, 1928, reprinted in Sochineniia, XI: at 105. Later that year he denounced such officials as people who “do not understand the basis of our class policy and who are striving to conduct affairs in such a way that no one in the countryside is offended.” Sochineniia, XI: 235 (speech to the Moscow party committee and Control Commission, October 19, 1928).

  121. Za chetkuiu klassovuiu liniiu, 56 (Syrtsov speech to the party active on February 17, 1928). “Stalin is right in saying that the party is ready for the slogan of dekulakization,” O. Barabashev, a leftist and former Zinovievite exiled to Siberia, concluded in the local newspaper. “Pressure on the kulaks implants in the power party ranks a mood for dekulakization in the old way.” Sovetskaia Sibir’, January 28, 1928.

  122. Sovetskaia Sibir’, January 25, 1928. On January 22, the Siberia procurator general (I. D. Kunov) published an article in the local press, twisting himself into knots trying to explain the legal justification for how article 107 could be applied not just to private traders dealing in manufactures but also to peasants who refused to sell grain. Sovetskaia Sibir’, January 22, 1928.

  123. Stepnoi pakhar’, February 8, 1928; Kavraiskii and Nusinov, Klassy i klassovaia bor’ba, 82; Koniukhov, KPSS v bor’be, 101.

  124. Soverskaia Sibir’, January 27 and January 29, 1928 (report of a trial of fourteen kulaks in Biysk county accused of buying up grain in neighboring provinces for resale).

  125. The authorities also seized 78 flour mills and 68 barns, and shuttered 1,500 leather workshops. Pravda, February 14 and February 29, 1928 (Syrtsov); Za chetkuiu klassovuiu liniiu, 251; Gushchin, Sibirskaia derevnia, 186, 190. The number of those arrested reached 1,748 by the end of May, of whom 92 percent were convicted. Many “middle” peasants and poor peasants were also convicted under article 107 in Siberia. Egorova, “Khlebozagotovitel’naia kampaniia 1927–1928,” 269 (citing PANO, f. 2, op. 2, d. 217, l. 744). By May 1928, around 8,000 households in Siberia had been “dekulakized.” Istochnik, 2001, no. 1: 64.