Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

84. O. Tanin & E. Iogan, Voenno-Fashistskoe Dvizhenie v Yaponii, Khabarovsk 1933; Voenno-Morskie Sily Yaponii, RKKA: Moscow 1933. The latter was a secret publication of Red Army Intelligence that was sent to Stalin in September 1933 (RGASPI, F.558. Op.1, D.5754, L.217). Stalin’s copies of these books: ibid., Op.3, Dd.48–9.

85. Ibid., Op.11, D.206. I am grateful to Malcolm Spencer for pointing out the TASS bulletins, which he makes illuminating use of in his Stalinism and the Soviet-Finnish War, 1939–40, Palgrave: London 2018.

86. RGASPI, F.71, Op.10, Dd.327–8.

87. Volkogonov, Stalin, chap.23.

88. According to Boris Ilizarov, who sourced a copy in the archive of the Mikhail Kalinin, the Russian translation of Mein Kampf was quite good.

89. RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, Dd.301–2.

90. Ibid., D.207, doc.35.

91. Service, Stalin, pp.569–70.

92. Rayfield, Stalin and His Hangmen, p.20.

93. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, pp.93–8.

94. Kotkin, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, p.10.

95. N. Simonov, ‘Razmyshleniya o Pometkakh Stalina na Polyakh Marksistskoi Literatury’, Kommunist, 18 (December 1990).

96. J. Stalin, Leninism, Allen & Unwin: London 1940 pp.656–63.

97. B. Slavin, ‘Chelovek Absolyutnoi Vlasti: O Maloizvestnykh i Neizvestnykh Vystupleniyakh I. V. Stalina i Ego Zametkakh na Polyakh Knig’, Pravda (21 December 1994). I am very grateful to Vladimir Nevezhin for obtaining a copy of this article for me.

98. Ree, Political Thought, esp. pp.14–17.

99. Ilizarov, Stalin, Ivan Groznyi, p.72.

100. In addition to the Ilizarov books already cited, there is Pochetnyi Akademik Stalin i Akademik Marr, Veche: Moscow 2012.

101. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.53, L.123; Gromov, Stalin: Iskusstvo i Vlast’, pp.10–13. The translation of Gorky is taken from http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/gorkymother.pdf p.399. Accessed 4 August 2021.

102. R. Medvedev, Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism, Macmillan: London 1972 p.3.

103. Ibid., p.512.

104. Ibid., p.224.

105. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.348.

106. Medvedev & Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin, p.8. The book was originally published in Russian in 2001.

107. I. R. Makaryk, ‘Stalin and Shakespeare’ in N. Khomenko (ed.), The Shakespeare International Yearbook, vol. 18, Special Section on Soviet Shakespeare, Routledge: London July 2020 p.45.

108. W. Benjamin, ‘Unpacking My Library: A Talk About Book Collecting’ in his Illuminations, Random House: New York 2002.

CHAPTER 5: BAH HUMBUG! STALIN’S POMETKI

1. E. van Ree, ‘Stalin and Marxism: A Research Note’, Studies in East European Thought, 49/1 (1996) p.25.

2. H. J. Jackson, Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2001 p.28.

3. Ibid., p.48.

4. M. J. Adler, ‘How to Mark a Book’, Saturday Review of Literature (6 July 1941).

5. While these bookmarks are real, they may have been placed there by archivists as a way of identifying the location of Stalin’s pometki. However, not all the books have these strips of paper and those that do miss some of Stalin’s markings. For many examples of Lenin’s pometki, see the catalogue of the c.9,000 books in his personal library: Biblioteka V. I. Lenina v Kremle, Moscow 1961.

6. The absence of sex in the works of a Victorian novelist is not so surprising but it was brought to my attention by David Lodge’s ‘Dickens Our Contemporary’ in his Consciousness and the Novel, Vintage: London 2018 p.128.

7. Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial’no-Politicheskoi Istorii (hereafter RGASPI), F.558, Op.3, D.346.

8. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.342. Mikhail Vaiskopf notes the similarities between Stalin’s speeches at the 16th and 17th party congresses (Pisatel’ Stalin, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie: Moscow 2001 pp.36–7).

9. Ibid., D.62, pp.5, 7, 9–13, 16–20, 23–4, 30–3, 36–40 of the pamphlet for the markings.

10. Ibid., F.592, Op.1, Dd.6–9.

11. Y. Sharapov, ‘Stalin’s Personal Library’, Moscow News, 38 (1988).

12. The relevant pages were on display at an exhibition on the history of Stalin’s personal archive in Moscow in October 2018 and the handwriting was identified by the archivists as being Svetlana’s.

13. Y. Gromov, Stalin: Iskusstvo i Vlast’, Eksmo: Moscow 2003 p.47.