Stalin

Nadya had already returned to Moscow in August. “How was your travel?” Stalin had written with tenderness (September 2, 1930). “Write about everything, my Tatochka. I’m getting a little better. Your Iosif.” Writing again, he asked her to send his textbook for English.²⁷⁸ On September 8, he had written her about his difficult dental work. He sent peaches and lemons from his Sochi orchard. But something was amiss. “The Molotovs scolded me for leaving you alone,” she answered him (September 19). “I explained my departure by reference to my studies, but that of course was not the real reason. This summer I did not feel that you would like me if I prolonged my stay; quite the contrary. Last summer I felt very much that you would, but this time I did not. Of course, there was no point in staying in such a mood. Write, if my letter does not make you cross, but as you like. All the best. A Kiss. Nadya.” Stalin (September 24) denied that her presence had been undesirable (“Tell the Molotovs from me that they are wrong”) and assured her that, despite having had eight teeth filed down in a single day, “I am healthy and feel better than ever.” On September 30, she wrote that she had required an operation on her throat and had been bedridden for days. On October 6, she complained that “for some reason I am not hearing anything from you. . . . Probably you are distracted by your quail-hunting trips. . . . I heard from a young, interesting lady that you are looking fantastic—she saw you at lunch at Kalinin’s. She said that you were exceptionally jolly and gave no rest to everyone taken aback by your personage. I am glad to hear it.”²⁷⁹

On October 7, Molotov, Voroshilov, Orjonikidze, Kuibyshev, Mikoyan, and Kaganovich—but not Kirov (in Leningrad), Kosior (in Ukraine), Rudzutaks, or Kalinin (both away on holiday and outside the innermost circle)—met without Stalin to discuss his proposal that Molotov replace Rykov.²⁸⁰ The next day, Voroshilov wrote to Sochi that “Mikoyan, Molotov, Kaganovich, in part Kuibyshev, and I think that the best resolution would be unification of the leadership.” He left out Orjonikidze. Voroshilov added that “as never before, the Council of People’s Commissars needs someone with the strategist’s gift.” Stalin’s episodic interventions in day-to-day government operations had a disruptive quality, and regularizing them could be beneficial.²⁸¹ It is also possible that they reasoned that having Stalin shoulder responsibility for the details of government could diminish his dictatorial behavior, for someone else would have to run the controlling party apparatus. Voroshilov admitted in his letter that “the most important, the most, from my point of view, acute question in the combination under discussion would be the party leadership.”²⁸²

Mikoyan, in a separate letter, affirmed his support for “a consolidated leadership,” “like what we had when Ilich was alive.” Kaganovich wrote to Stalin (October 9) leaving it to him to decide, noting that “the most important strategic maneuvers in the economy and politics were determined, and would be determined, by you, wherever you might be. But will things get better if there is a change? I doubt it.” He concluded that this argued for Molotov’s appointment. Molotov wrote that same day, listing the reasons he was unsuitable and encouraging Stalin to take the post, but acknowledging that party work and the Comintern would suffer. Unsurprisingly, Stalin decided to hold on to the party apparatus, which afforded him the final word on policy and personnel without the day-to-day burdens of the government. Orjonikidze had ascertained from private conversations that Stalin felt it was “inexpedient at the current time to have a complete (including externally, in front of the whole world) merger . . . of the party and Soviet leadership.” Orjonikidze, perhaps the other obvious choice to replace Rykov, agreed with Stalin that Molotov should be the one. “He [Molotov] expressed doubts about how much authority he would hold for the likes of us,” Orjonikidze wrote to Stalin, “but of course all that is nonsense.”²⁸³

FICTION