Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

The Short Biography, like Staline, recounts Stalin’s early family life and schooling, followed by a description of life in his native region and the rising importance of Marxism. Both texts elaborate on Stalin’s affection for Lenin’s work and writing, his work as a propagandist, his pre-1917 revolutionary activities, and his heroic work in the revolutionary and civil war eras. Just as in Barbusse’s text, Stalin is described in the Short Biography as ‘the worthy continuer of the cause of Lenin . . . Stalin is the Lenin of today’. References to Stalin’s alleged omnipotence and omniscience are also found in both books. . . . Both books end with pages on Stalin that praise him in absurdly grandiose terms.³⁰

The problem with Barbusse’s book was that it was hostage to the fortunes of the people who populated its pages, some of whom would soon became ‘unpersons’ in the USSR after falling victim to Stalin’s purges. Within a couple of years of its publication, the Russian edition had been withdrawn from circulation and a block put on further editions or translations.

The English edition of the book contained a photograph of Stalin and Marshal Alexander Yegorov, with whom he had served during the Russian Civil War. However, Yegorov was arrested in 1938 for participating in an anti-Soviet conspiracy, and shot in 1939. Tantalisingly, the English edition also carries a photo of some bookcases said to be ‘Stalin’s Secret Library, Now in Tiflis Museum’, a secret stash, one assumes, from his underground days.

In general, Stalin remained resistant to biographies or hagiographies of himself, because he didn’t want to give too much encouragement to his personality cult. In 1933 he opposed a proposal from the Society of Old Bolsheviks to stage an exhibition based on his biography, commenting that ‘such undertakings lead to the strengthening of the “cult of personality”, which is harmful and incompatible with the spirit of our party’. He also prohibited publication of a Ukrainian party brochure about his life to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the foundation of the Komsomol (Young Communist League). When, in 1935, a journal wanted to publish a military-related article about ‘Stalin in the Sal’sk Steppe’, he objected that his role was exaggerated and there was little about other people. Stalin was particularly averse to the publication of accounts of his childhood.³¹ Most dramatic was his intervention to stop publication in 1938 of a children’s book by V. Smirnova called Tales of Stalin’s Childhood:

The little book is filled with a mass of factual errors, distortions, exaggerations and undeserved praise. The author has been misled by fairy tale enthusiasts, liars (perhaps ‘honest’ liars) and sycophants. A pity for the author, but facts are facts. . . . Most important is that the book has a tendency to inculcate in the consciousness of Soviet children (and people in general) a cult of personalities, great leaders and infallible heroes. That is dangerous and harmful. . . . I advise you to burn the book.³²

He was similarly outraged by an article on ‘J. V. Stalin at the Head of Baku Bolsheviks and Workers, 1907–1908’. Mikhail Moskalev (1902–1965) was its author and it was published in a historical journal in January 1940 and then summarised by a feature article in Pravda. Stalin read the Pravda piece and marked it with some angry-looking red-penned underlining and question marks. He also read the original article and marked it in a similar fashion. Stalin then wrote to the editor of the journal, who, as it happens, was Yaroslavsky. The letter was marked ‘not for publication’, but Stalin forwarded copies to the Politburo and to the editor of Pravda as well as to the author. Stalin complained to Yaroslavsky that the article distorted historical truth and contained factual errors. He criticised Moskalev’s use of dubious memoir sources and concluded that ‘the history of Bolshevism must not be distorted – that’s intolerable, it contradicts the profession and dignity of Bolshevik historians’.³³

Yaroslavsky wanted to meet Stalin to discuss the matter but ended up writing him a detailed letter setting out the sources on which Moskalev’s article had been based. Stalin replied two days later, on 29 April, repeating and detailing his point that the sources were unreliable. ‘An historian has no right’, wrote Stalin, ‘to just take on trust memoirs and articles based on them. They have a duty to examine them critically and to verify them on the basis of objective information.’ The party’s history, Stalin stated, had to be a scientific history, one based on the whole truth: ‘Toadyism is incompatible with scientific history.’