Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

47. See Suny, Stalin: Passage to Revolution, chap.23. Roy Medvedev suggests that later in life Stalin had trouble writing in Georgian and that this explains the paucity and brevity of his letters to his mother in the 1920s and 1930s. See his essay on ‘Stalin’s Mother’ in R. & Z. Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin: His Life, Death and Legacy, Overlook Press: Woodstock NY 2004. At school and in the seminary Stalin studied ancient Greek but his command of that language is uncertain.

48. For a comprehensive collection of Stalin’s writings on the national question, see J. Stalin, Marxism and the National-Colonial Question, Proletarian Publishers: San Francisco 1975.

49. For the view that Stalin’s philosophical and political differences with Lenin were greater than suggested here see R. C. Williams, The Other Bolsheviks: Lenin and His Critics, 1904–1914, Indiana University Press: Bloomington 1986 pp.119–23.

50. Suny, Stalin: Passage to Revolution, pp.415–19.

51. For Onufrieva’s testimony and the police reports on Stalin’s library visits: RGASPI, F.558, Op.4, D.647, Ll.52–8. A copy of Stalin’s dedication on the front page of the Kogan book may be found here: RGASPI, Op.1, D.32. I was drawn to this source by Y. Gromov, Stalin: Iskusstvo i Vlast’, Eksmo: Moscow 2003 pp.36–8. See also Suny, Stalin: Passage to Revolution, pp.465–7.

52. RGASPI, F.558, Op.4, D.138, Ll.3–5.

53. Stalin’s letters may be found here: Bol’shevistskoe Rukovodstvo: Perepiska, 1912–1927, Rosspen: Moscow 1996. For many citations from these letters, see Suny, Stalin: Passage to Revolution, chap.24.

54. Stalin’s marked copy of the 1938 edition may be found here: RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.251.

55. Service, Stalin: A Biography, p.128.

56. J. Stalin, Works, vol.3, Foreign Languages Publishing House: Moscow 1953 pp.199–200.

57. Suny, Stalin: Passage to Revolution, p.652.

58. The quote may be found in Trotsky’s autobiography, My Life, https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch29.htm.

59. C. Read, Stalin: From the Caucasus to the Kremlin, Routledge: London 2017 p.40.

60. On the increasing authoritarianism of the Bolsheviks during their first year in power, see A. Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd, Indiana University Press: Bloomington 2007.

61. McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler, p.63.

62. Read, Stalin: From the Caucasus to the Kremlin, p.71.

63. J. Stalin, Works, vol.4, Foreign Languages Publishing House: Moscow 1953 pp.351–2.

64. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, p.60.

65. Service, Stalin: A Biography, p.177.

66. I. Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879–1921, Oxford University Press: London 1970 p.467.

67. Stalin, Sochineniya, vol.17, pp.122–3.

68. Ibid., p.133. Budenny’s memoirs of the civil war stopped short of this episode: S. Budyonny (sic), The Path of Valour, Progress Publishers: Moscow 1972.

69. W. J. Spahr, Stalin’s Lieutenants: A Study of Command under Duress, Presidio Press: Novato CA 1997 p.145.

70. A. Seaton, Stalin as Military Commander, Combined Publishing: Conshohocken PA 1998 pp.76–7.

71. Stalin, Works, vol.4, pp.358–62.

72. Stalin, Sochineniya, vol.17, pp.135–6.

73. Kotkin, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, pp.395–400.

74. The federation was dissolved into its constituent parts in 1936 as part of the reorganisation of the federal structure that accompanied the adoption of a new Soviet constitution.

75. Service, Stalin: A Biography, pp.186–90.

76. See L. Douds, Inside Lenin’s Government: Ideology, Power and Practice in the Early Soviet State, Bloomsbury Academic: London 2018.

77. Ibid., pp.165–8.