Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

41. Vlast’ i Khudozhestvennaya Intelligentsiya, docs 14, 22 pp.565, 598.

42. Clark et al., Soviet Culture and Power, doc.162.

43. N. Mitchison, ‘AWPA Writers Visit to the USSR’, Authors World Peace Appeal, Bulletin no.7 (1952) p.9. The AWPA was a 1950s non-aligned peace movement.

44. M. Djilas, Conversations with Stalin, Penguin: London 2014 p.111.

45. Ibid., pp.77–8.

46. S. Alliluyeva, Only One Year, Penguin: London 1971 p.336.

47. D. Shepilov, The Kremlin’s Scholar, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2014 p.92. Only two volumes of Dostoevsky’s collected writing and his diary for 1873–6 survived the dispersal of Stalin’s library. These books may be found in the SSPL’s collection of Stalin’s books. According to Boris Ilizarov, Stalin marked parts of Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov. However, upon inspection of the book in the library it is practically certain that these are not Stalin’s markings.

48. R. L. Strong, ‘The Soviet Interpretation of Gogol’, American Slavic and East European Review, 14/4 (December 1955) pp.528–9, 533.

49. O. Johnson, ‘The Stalin Prize and the Soviet Artist: Status Symbol or Stigma?’, Slavic Review, 70/4 (Winter 2011) p.826. See further: P. Akhmanaev, Stalinskie Premii, Russkie Vityazi: Moscow 2016. Details of all the awards made, together with other documentation, may be found in V. F. Svin’in & K. A. Oseev (eds), Stalinskie Premii, Svin’in i Synov’ya: Novosibirsk 2007.

50. Shepilov, The Kremlin’s Scholar, pp.104–9.

51. Davies & Harris, Stalin’s World, pp.270–1.

52. Ibid., p.271.

53. K. Simonov, Glazami Cheloveka Moego Pokoleniya: Razmyshleniya o I. V. Staline, Novosti: Moscow 1989 p.233.

54. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.233, pp.41–101 for Stalin’s editing of the play.

55. Vlast’ i Khudozhestvennaya Intelligentsiya, doc.104 pp.675–81. The author of the report was Vladimir Kruzhkov, the former head of IMEL.

56. M. Zorin, ‘Obsuzhdenie Romana V. Latisa “K Novomu Beregu”, Literaturnaya Gazeta (15 December 1952).

57. Vlast’ i Khudozhestvennaya Intelligentsiya, doc.101. The handwritten draft and typescript of the letter may be found in RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, D.205, Ll.1929–136. These documents were brought to my attention by Davies & Harris, Stalin’s World, p.263. It seems that Stalin’s original intention was to publish the letter as coming from a group of high-ranking party officials, including himself.

58. P. Neruda, Memoirs, Penguin: London 1977 p.317.

59. https://redcaucasus.wordpress.com/2018/09/18/ode-to-stalin-by-pablo-neruda. Accessed 4 August 2021.

60. I. Ehrenburg, Post-War Years, 1945–1954, MacGibbon & Kee: London 1966 p.46. The story about Stalin and his novel was told to him by Alexander Fadeev, the head of the Soviet Writers’ Union, who worked closely with Ehrenburg in the international peace movement.

61. N. Krementsov, The Cure: A Story of Cancer and Politics from the Annals of the Cold War, University of Chicago Press: Chicago 2004 pp.136–43.

CHAPTER 7: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE USSR

1. A point made by Holly Case’s thought-provoking piece ‘The Tyrant as Editor’, Chronicle of Higher Education (7 October 2013).

2. Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial’no-Politicheskoi Istorii (hereafter RGASPI), F.558, Op.4, D.333, L.1.

3. E. Pollock, Conversations with Stalin on Questions of Political Economy, Cold War International History Project Working Paper No.33 (July 2001) p.9.

4. On the writer’s relationship with Stalin, see L. Spiridonova, ‘Gorky and Stalin (According to New Materials from A. M. Gorky’s Archive)’, Russian Review, 54/3 (July 1995).

5. Mints’s memoir is summarised by R. C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941, Norton: New York 1992 pp.531–2.

6. Stalin’s editing of this first volume may be found in RGASPI, F.558, Op.1, D.3165. It bears out Mints’s recollection.

7. D. Brandenberger, Propaganda State in Crisis: Soviet Ideology, Indoctrination and Terror under Stalin, 1927–1941, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2011 p.80.

8. E. MacKinnon, ‘Writing History for Stalin: Isaak Izrailevich Mints and the Istoriia grazhdanskoi voiny’, Kritika, 6/1 (2005) p.22.