Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

But he could also be effusive – ‘yes-yes’, ‘agreed’, ‘good’, ‘spot on’, ‘that’s right’ – and pensive, which he sometimes signalled by writing m-da in the margin, a difficult to translate expression which indicates a combination of puzzlement and pondering what is being said. A free translation would be a polite ‘really?’ or ‘are you sure?’ Like Lenin, his most frequent annotation was NB (in Latin script) or its Russian equivalent Vn (vnimanie – attention).

Stalin’s pometki varied according to his mood and purpose. They were usually informational and highly structured and disciplined. Typically, he used coloured pencils – blue, green, red – to make his marks. Occasionally, for no discernible reason, he would mark a book with two or three colours. Sometimes he used abbreviations but mostly he wrote out words in full, though not always legibly. Stalin’s style of annotation did not change much over the years, except that as he got older he became less wordy.

While Stalin read mainly to learn something new, he also reread many of his own writings. One example is his February 1946 election speech, delivered in the theatre of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. Stalin gave the speech not long after the great Soviet victory over Nazi Germany but his theme was that, contra Catherine the Great, victors should be judged and criticised.

In a pamphlet that reproduced the text of his speech, Stalin marked the opening paragraphs in which he had said the war was not an accident or a function of personalities, it had been the inevitable result of a fundamental crisis of the capitalist system. He also marked the paragraphs in which he stated that the war had demonstrated the superiority of the Soviet social system and the viability of its multinational character. He went on to highlight the role of the communist party in securing victory and how crucial it had been to industrialise the country before the war. The final paragraph that he marked was one at the very end of the speech in which he pointed out that the communists were contesting the elections to the Supreme Soviet as part of a bloc with non-party members.⁷

Stalin did not use speechwriters. He composed his own speeches and often edited those of his colleagues. But he had a habit of recycling elements of his speeches. His reports to the 17th and 18th party congresses in 1934 and 1939 look and feel so similar because he took a copy of his 1934 speech and used it as a template for the one he delivered in 1939.⁸ It may be that he reread his 1946 election speech thinking he could use parts of it at the forthcoming party congress, preparations for which were already under way by 1947–8.

The same reason might explain why he read and marked a pamphlet containing Andrei Zhdanov’s September 1947 speech ‘On the International Situation’. Delivered at the inaugural conference of the Cominform, it was, in effect, the Soviet declaration of the cold war. The postwar world, Zhdanov told delegates from European communist parties, had split into two polarised camps – a camp of imperialism, reaction and war, and a camp of socialism, democracy and peace. Stalin knew this speech very well, since Zhdanov had extensively consulted him about its contents. Yet he made quite a few marks in the pamphlet. One theme was past and present imperialist efforts to destroy or weaken the Soviet Union. Another was the growing power and influence of the United States as a result of the war. A key marked paragraph was that, since its abandonment of President Franklin Roosevelt’s policy of co-operation with the Soviet Union, the United States was heading towards a policy of military adventurism.⁹

In the event, the 19th party congress did not take place until October 1952 and Stalin chose not to deliver the main report. Instead, he edited – in great detail – the speech that was given by his deputy, Georgy Malenkov.¹⁰

In tracking Stalin’s pometki, it is tempting to be always on the lookout for deeper meanings and significant connections, both political and psychological. Yet, sometimes, Stalin just read for pleasure and interest, his markings signalling little more than his level of engagement with the text.

Librarian-archivist Yury Sharapov was one of the last people to view the bulk of Stalin’s book collection intact. It was his 1988 memoir that revealed the existence of the dictator’s library and Stalin’s habit of marking books. As he astutely observed, ‘notes made in the margins of books, periodicals or any text . . . form quite a dangerous genre. They betray the author completely – his emotional nature, his intellect, leanings and habits.’¹¹ As the foremost interpretor of Lenin’s pometki, he knew what he was talking about.