Simon Montefiore - Stalin

Those who lived the extraordinary, terrible and privileged life as a child of Stalin’s grandees remain linked together and it is no surprise that their attitudes defy time—and the fate of their own families. The passionately optimistic ideals of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism and the imperial triumphs of the Generalissimo’s armies remain as potent and persuasive as the presence of Stalin himself, of whom they are never free. Old Molotov was asked if he dreamed about Stalin: “Not often but sometimes. The circumstances are very unusual. I’m in some sort of destroyed city and I can’t find a way out. Afterwards, I meet HIM…” 1

This book is based on my research in the RGASPI and GARF archives with their enlightening array of new letters and diaries, from notes between Stalin and his fellow leaders to the diary of Ekaterina Voroshilova, as well as new research in both RGVA and TsAMO RF. But I have also unapologetically used my own interviews, and the memoirs of both participants and their families. Clearly the latter materials are less reliable than the former but I believe they are still valuable: wherever possible I have checked these interviews against other witnesses. I have used them on matters on which they are likely to be well-informed. For example, Malenkov’s children are probably reliable about what stories their father read them at bedtime but worthless on his role in the Politburo. Sergo Beria’s memoirs certainly aim to redeem his father’s reputation but, to my surprise on checking his stories, I discovered they are fairly reliable about Stalin’s courtiers and table talk. Clearly the reminiscences of magnates such as Khrushchev, Molotov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Shepilov and those just published by Mgeladze are invaluable but often evasive or downright mendacious. I was fortunate to be able to use the mainly unpublished memoirs of Charkviani, Kavtaradze, Budyonny and the son of Dekanozov, but the same rules apply to them.

I have widely used conversation and dialogue which I hope gives a new immediacy to this chronicle, but I have applied rigourous standards to this material: the great majority of it comes from the archives themselves, specifically the minutes of Central Committee Plenums or Stalin’s meetings: the RGASPI references are in the Source Notes. I have also made liberal use of the Plenum minutes and other documents published in Arch Getty’s Road to Terror and these are referenced to the page in “Getty.” Finally, some dialogue comes from reliable diaries and memoirs and my own interviews.

I have used materials from NKVD confessions such as testimonies aimed at Yezhov in 1939 and quoted in Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov’s new biography of him; those aimed at Vlasik in 1952; and at Beria in 1953. In all three cases, the aim of the “Organs” was to de-humanize the defendants by smearing them with accusations of sexual misconduct. They come with this health warning but I agree with Petrov that they can still be used carefully. In all three cases, interviews confirm the broader truth of some of these accusations.

Finally, I must stress here my debt to the great works of Stalin history that I have used as my essential texts in this book. These include Robert Tucker’s two volumes, Stalin as Revolutionary and Stalin in Power; the many classic works by Richard Pipes; Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror; Arch Getty’s The Road to Terror; Robert Service’s A History of 20th Century Russia; John Erickson’s The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin; Richard Overy’s Russia’s War; Sheila Fitzpatrick’s Everyday Stalinism ; Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov’s Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War; Gabriel Gorodetsky’s Grand Delusion; David Holloway’s Stalin and the Bomb ; Amy Knight’s Beria and Who Killed Kirov? ; Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov’s Ezhov ; Harold Shukman’s Stalin’s Generals ; Gennadi Kostyrchenko’s Out of the Red Shadows and Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov’s Stalin’s Last Crime: The Doctors’ Plot; William Taubman, Sergei Khrushchev and Abbott Gleason’s Nikita Khrushchev ; Oleg Khlevniuk’s collections of the correspondence of Stalin with Molotov and Kaganovich and his works on the thirties and Ordzhonikidze.

On spelling, I have used the most accessible and recognizable versions, e.g. “Joseph” instead of “Iosif,” even when this leads to inconsistencies: for example, I use “Koniev” yet “Alliluyev.” For similar reasons, I have sometimes used Party names if they are more widely used than surnames: e.g., Ordzhonikidze was almost universally known as “Comrade Sergo” and I have usually used that moniker. However, in the case of Polina Zhemchuzhina, I call her Polina Molotova. For the same reasons, I have persisted in using the traditional Chinese spellings of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai.

RGASPI Russian State Archive of Social and Political History

GARF State Archive of Russian Federation

RGVA Russian State War Archive

TsAMO Central Archives of Ministry of Defence of Russian Federation

FSB RF Central Archives of Security Service of Russian Federation

RGAE Russian State Economical Archives

RGALI Russian State Archives of History and Literature

APRF Archive of Administration of the President of the Russian Federation

Izvestiya TsK KPSS Izvestiya of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

This account of 8 November 1932 is based on the memoirs of Molotov and Svetlana Alliluyeva, interviews with the surviving members of the Stalin family and children of the Soviet leaders along with Nadezhda’s health records, letters to and from Stalin, and official reports in the RGASPI and GARF archives, and also published accounts such as Edvard Radzinsky’s Stalin. Nadezhda’s looks: Svetlana Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters to a Friend, pp. 90–111. Boris Bazhanov, Bazhanov and the Damnation of Stalin, p. 110. Testimony of Nadezhda Stalin quoted in Radzinsky, Stalin, pp. 278–9. Women: F. Chuev (ed.), Molotov Remembers (henceforth MR ), pp. 164, 174. Stalin’s diary 8 Nov. Postyshev was also in the meeting, Istorichesky Arkhiv (henceforth IA) 1994 no. 1 to 1997 no. 1 and Index. 1998 no. 4, Posetiteli Kremlevskogo Kabineta IV Stalina 1924–1953. Yagoda: A. L. Litvin et al. (eds.), Genrikh Yagoda Narkom vnytrennikh del SSSR, Generalnyi kommissar gosudarstvennoy bezopastnosti (henceforth Yagoda ), pp. 1–20. Yagoda’s Hitlerian moustache: interview Martha Peshkova. Stalin’s looks: honey eyes, interview Maya Kavtaradze. Arm not so bad, old greatcoat: interview Artyom Sergeev. Smell of tobacco; interviews Leonid Redens with author and Svetlana Alliluyeva with Rosamund Richardson (henceforth Svetlana RR). Actors copy gait: Galina Vishnevskaya, Galina: A Russian Story, pp. 95–7. Layout of Kremlin and homes of leaders: interview Stepan Mikoyan. Wonderful time: RGASPI 74.1.429.65–6, diary of E. D. Voroshilova, 21 June 1954.

Security: RGASPI 17.162.9.54, quoted in Oleg Khlevniuk, Le Circle du Kremlin, Staline et le bureau politique dans les années 30 . Les jeux du pouvoir , p. 51. On Lenin: Robert Service, Lenin , pp. 400–1. Visits to Bedny: see Pavel Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, p. 52. Beggar: MR, pp. 14, 213. N.S. Vlasik, “Moya Biografiya,” Shpion, vol. 8–9, pp. 25–7: until 1927, Stalin had one bodyguard, Yusis, a Lithuanian who was then joined by Vlasik. Hitchhikers: interviews Yury A. Zhdanov, Artyom Sergeev. Sudoplatov, p. 52. Decree on Stalin’s walking: RGASPI 17.162.9.54, quoted in Khlevniuk, Circle , p. 51. F. Chuev (ed.), Tak govoril Kaganovich (henceforth Kaganovich ), p. 191. See also MR for the story of how Stalin and Molotov met a tramp walking through Moscow. Kremlin children running into Stalin: interview Natalya Andreyeva.