Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

14. RGASPI F.558, Op.3, D.350. As Svetlana Lokhova points out, Stalin doodled Uchitel’ on a number of books. S. Lokhova, ‘Stalin’s Library’ in L. F. Gearon (ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Universities, Security and Intelligence Studies, Routledge: London 2020 p.428.

15. For example: E. Radzinsky, Stalin, Hodder & Stoughton: London 1997 p.454. See further the negative comments of Boris Ilizarov on Radzinsky’s hypothesis in his Stalin, Ivan Groznyi i Drugie, Veche: Moscow 2019 p.28.

16. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.11. p.33 of the book for the marking.

17. O. Volobuev & S. Kuleshov, Ochishchenie: Istoriya i Perestroika, Novosti: Moscow 1989 p.146.

18. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.167. The first person to cite the quoted text seems to have been B. Slavin, ‘Chelovek Absolyutnoi Vlasti: O Maloizvestnykh i Neizvestnykh Vystupleniyakh I. V. Stalina i Ego Zametkakh na Polyakh Knig’, Pravda (21 December 1994).

19. D. Rayfield, Stalin and His Hangmen, Viking: London 2004 p.22. On the facing page is a photograph of the cited text.

20. R. Service, Stalin: A Biography, Macmillan: London 2004 p.342.

21. S. Žižek, Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, Verso Books: London 2013. Žižek quotes this text in a number of his publications.

22. J. Stalin, Works, vol.6, Foreign Languages Publishing House: Moscow 1953 pp.54–66.

23. See J. F. Matlock, An Index to the Collected Works of J. V. Stalin, Johnson Reprint Corporation: New York 1971 pp.145–6.

24. For example: Put’ k Leninu: Sobranie Vyderzhek iz Sochinenii V. I. Lenina, vols 1–2, Voenizdat: Moscow 1924. RGASPI, F.558 Op.3, Dd.295–6.

25. Leninskii Sbornik, vols 2, 4, 13, Lenin Institute: Moscow-Leningrad 1924, 1925, 1930. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, Dd.183–5.

26. I. Baz’, Pochemu My Pobedili v Grazhdanskoi Voine, Moscow 1930. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.10.

27. E. van Ree, The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin: A Study in Twentieth-Century Patriotism, Routledge: London 2002 p.258; Ree, ‘Stalin and Marxism: A Research Note’.

28. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/05/17.htm. I owe this reference to E. Dobrenko, Late Stalinism: The Aesthetics of Politics, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2020 pp.362–3.

29. Ibid., p.267. Stalin lifted the quote from his copy of The New Course, which he read and marked in detail. The booklet was stamped as item 884 in his library. RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, D.1577. An English translation may be found here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1923/newcourse/index.htm. Accessed 4 August 2021.

30. On the socialism in one country debate see E. van Ree, Boundaries of Utopia: Imagining Communism from Plato to Stalin, Routledge: London 2015 chaps 14–15.

31. Cited by van Ree, Political Thought, n.64 pp.321–2.

32. An English translation may be found here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lessons/1924-les.pdf.

33. J. Stalin, Works, vol.6, Foreign Languages Publishing House: Moscow 1953 pp.338–73.

34. https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1918/hrr/index.htm. Accessed 4 August 2021.

35. RGASPI, F558, Op.3, D.362.

36. Ibid., D.318. Dmitry Volkogonov’s perception of Stalin’s marking of Smolensky’s book is completely different to mine: ‘underlined in those places which criticise his arch-enemy: “Trotsky is prickly and impatient”, he has “an imperious nature which loves to dominate”, “he loves political power”, “Trotsky is a political adventurist of genius”.’ (D. Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, Phoenix Press: London 2000 pp.226–7).

37. RGASPI, Op.3, D364. The book has Stalin’s library stamp and is numbered 898. The English translations of Trotsky’s text in what follows derive from https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/index.htm.

38. Stalin wrote the word without hyphenation.

39. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.91.

40. Cited by Ree, The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin p.306, n.57.

41. Ibid., p.315 n.5.