Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

Winston Churchill famously said in relation to Stalin’s foreign policy: ‘I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.’ Less often quoted is what he said next: ‘But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.’⁷

This was in October 1939 and Churchill was explaining to the listeners of his BBC radio broadcast why, on the eve of the Second World War, Stalin had concluded a non-aggression pact with Hitler and then joined in the German attack on Poland. Churchill’s hope was that Soviet national interest and the Nazi threat would eventually lead Stalin to break with Hitler. In the event, the relationship was broken by Hitler when he launched his invasion of the USSR in June 1941.

The enigma of Stalin’s pre-revolutionary years is that while quite a lot is known about his political views and activities, a great deal of uncertainty surrounds the details of his family life, education, personal relations and youthful character traits. Gaps in the evidence have typically been filled in by speculation, stereotyping and cherry-picking of partisan memoirs to suit the grinding of many different personal and political axes. ‘When it comes to Stalin,’ writes the foremost biographer of his early life, Ronald Suny, ‘gossip is reported as fact; legend provides meaning; and scholarship gives way to sensationalist popular literature with tangential reference to reliable sources.’⁸

STALIN’S BIOGRAPHY: THE SEARCH BEGINS

In December 1920 Stalin handwrote his answers to a biographical questionnaire, sent to him by the Swedish branch of ROSTA, the forerunner of the TASS news agency:

1. Name: Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Dzhugashvili)

2. Year and Place of Birth: 1878, Gori (Tbilisi Province)

3. Origins: Georgian. Father was a worker (shoemaker), died in 1909, Mother, a seamstress, is still alive

4. Education: Excluded from the sixth (final) class of the Tbilisi Orthodox Seminary in 1899

5. How long have you been involved in the revolutionary movement? Since 1897

6. How long have you been in the RSDLP [Russian Social Democratic Labour Party] and in the Bolshevik faction? Joined the RSDLP in 1898 and the Bolshevik faction in 1903 (when it was formed), 1898 – member of the Tbilisi committee of the party, 1903 – member of the Caucasus regional committee of the party, 1912 – member of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party

7. Were you ever a member of any other revolutionary party? No. Before 1898 I was an RSDLP sympathiser

8. Penalties that you suffered under Tsarism – imprisonment, exile, emigration: Arrested seven times, exiled six times (Irkutsk, Narym, Turukhansk etc.), escaped exile five times, served seven years in prison, lived illegally in Russia until 1917 (was in St Petersburg, not in emigration but did visit London, Berlin, Stockholm and Cracow on party business)

9. What official posts have you occupied in Soviet Russia? People’s Commissar of the Workers and Peasants Inspectorate and People’s Commissar for Nationalities, member of the Council of Labour and Defence and of the Revolutionary-Military Council of the Republic, member of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee