Letters to Molotov: 1925-1936

Annals of Communism

by Lars T. Lih, Oleg V. Naumov (Editor), Oleg V. Khlevniuk (Editor)

"It is thus important to a) fundamentally purge the Finance and Gosbank bureaucracy, despite the wails of dubious Communists like Briukhanov-Piatakov; b) definitely shoot two or three dozen wreckers from these apparaty, including several dozen common cashiers."— J. Stalin, no earlier than 6 August 1930

"Today I read the section on international affairs. It came out well. The confident, contemptuous tone with respect to the great powers, the belief in our own strength, the delicate but plain spitting in the pot of the swaggering great powers—very good. Let them eat it."—J. Stalin, January 1933

Between 1925 and 1936, a dramatic period of transformation within the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin wrote frequently to his trusted friend and political colleague Viacheslav Molotov, Politburo member, chairman of the USSR Council of Commissars, and minister of foreign affairs. In these letters, Stalin mused on political events, argued with fellow Politburo members, and issued orders. The more than 85 letters collected in this volume constitute a unique historical record of Stalin's thinking—both personal and political—and throw valuable light on the way he controlled the government, plotted the overthrow of his enemies, and imagined the future. This formerly top secret correspondence, once housed in Soviet archives, is now published for the first time.

The letters reveal Stalin in many different and dramatic situations: fighting against party rivals like Trotsky and Bukharin, trying to maneuver in the rapids of the Chinese revolution, negotiating with the West, insisting on the completion of all-out collectivization, and ordering the execution of scapegoats for economic failures. And they provide important and fascinating information about the Soviet Union's party-state leadership, about party politics, and about Stalin himself—as an administrator, as a Bolshevik, and as an individual.

The book includes much supplementary material that places the letters in context. Russian editor Oleg V. Naumov and his associates have annotated the letters, introduced each chronological section, and added other archival documents that help explain the correspondence. American editor Lars T. Lih has provided a lengthy introduction identifying what is new in the letters and using them to draw a portrait of Stalin as leader. Lih points out how the letters help us grasp Stalin's unique blend of cynicism and belief, manipulation and sincerity—a combination of qualities with catastrophic consequences for Soviet Russia and the world.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Soviet History, Soviet Union, Russian History

276 pages, Paperback

First published May 14, 2014

Reviews

[celestine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and good as an archive of documentary evidence (that is, reading Stalin’s letters themselves), bad as an objective collection of material (that is, the Russian editors can’t help but interject with anticommunist or otherwise anti-Stalin observations in the notes and introductory comments of each chapter). Neutral to good is Lars Lih’s introduction, who seems to have a much more rational and reasonable response to the letters in that his reaction is that all they actually reveal is that Stalin was not as singularly all-powerful, vindictive, evil, etc., as anticommunist historians of the USSR have depicted, and that all they do is provide more context for rational historians to reassess further the popular understandings of the Soviet Union and what went down during Stalin’s tenure as man in charge.

To wit, one thing that absolutely cannot be denied after reading this collection, and Lih says as much, is that Stalin was still concerned with supporting communist revolution outside of the USSR. The popular conception, at least from some so-called Marxists, is that Stalin turned wholly towards “socialism in one country” as a repudiation of world revolution and from thereon concerned himself only with the defense of Russia from a chauvinist position. Or else, from an even more “popular” understanding, this was all part of his ultimate plan to become the Russian Empire’s modern tsar. These letters prove that that was simply not the case, and Stalin continued to be deeply concerned over the fate of the Workers’ Revolution. He, of course, was also deeply concerned with the defense of the one place that had thus far succeeded in that task, and this is proved out in the letters as well. Whether or not he was correct in his strategy, and what mistakes he contributed towards making, can continue to be debated, certainly, but his desire of the workers’ revolution cannot.

Another popular conception of Stalin is that he viciously sacrificed the Chinese Communists to the Kuomintang in 1927, again for a chauvinist defense of Russia; this also can be found to simply be false in reviewing this collection. Much as it relates to his concern for the continuance of the Revolution, he discusses the strategy of the CPC and the RCP(b)’s assistance of this strategy as the leaders of the first socialist nation and as members of the Comintern frankly, admits his mistakes when he believes he’s made them, and treats the KMT with scorn for their betrayal of the CPC thereon.

I was actually looking forward to seeing more from the second half of the dated decade of this book, but unfortunately, the great majority of the letters (75%+) come from the years 1925-29.

A great wealth of secret or confidential documents from the USSR have been published since its fall. Some of the documents manage to help keep up the narrative that the USSR was guilty of this or that (some do the opposite but have been ignored in popular propaganda)— and a great wealth of material has continued to be kept top secret. If the goal is to sully the history of the USSR and reveal its evil and incorrectness, what is in the documents that people aren’t allowed to see? Could it be proof of the opposite?

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

About what you'd expect ... minute coverage of now narrow issues in Soviet history. The controversies with China / Chiang, Trotsky/Zinoviev/Kamenev and finally Bukharin. This thread of this story is very nicely spun out in letters, notes on deviations, etc... a slow unspooling. One wonders if it could have wound up differently as the letters seem to show a slow (and reversible) movement against these "opposition" leaders. Part of the Yale / Soviet archive series.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent resource for understanding both Stalin and the Stalinist phenomenon. As with anything associated with Lars Lih there is quite a lot of myth busting involved, and his lengthy introduction does not disappoint on this score. For example, it’s clear from the letters Stalin was very much interested in international revolution and saw it as one and the same as strengthening the USSR.

For me, these documents (and Lih's introduction by extension) are of central importance in explaining Stalin's psyche and "justification" for his massacre of the Old Bolsheviks down the line. Dzhugashvili's viewpoints were most certainly influenced by the very real internal threats the revolution faced during the Civil War period (instances of bourgeois specialist saboteurs, dubious former imperial military officers in Red Army service, the treachery of the Left-SRs, the "worker’s opposition”, the anarchist uprisings, bureaucratic incompetence and so on). This led to a heavily subjectivist tendency in Stalin’s viewpiont: there was no objective obstacles to building socialism in the USSR whatsoever, so-long as the "correct" line (ie, Stalin's line) was followed. Therefore any obstacles encountered in Stalin's plans were not because of objective failures and difficulties, but wavering, defeatist leaders and bourgeois infected “wreckers". It is truly terrifying that Stalin, per this collection, *genuinely believed* that all those he would have murdered were guilty (e.g., Stalin thought that the forced "confessions"produced from torture were completely legitimate!). It did not follow, as Trotskyist historiography has it, that Stalin schemed to destroy his enemies and then created trumped up charges after the fact, but rather Stalin became convinced of their guilt as supposed class-enemies (be it through disagreement with the his line or objective circumstances that caused issues in plan's implementations) then schemed to liquidate them. Just as the broader great purge cannot be placed solely at Stalin's boots, this cannot solely be blamed on Stalin's delusions. This sort of framework developed out of the crisis of the revolution, it was also clearly coming from a position of weakness, cognitive insecurity, and inability to control affairs in the country effectively, as opposed to the "totalitarian" school mythology of the Cold-Warriors.

I think this is an essential read and reference for any serious student of the USSR.

[Rozzer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Talk about Masters of the Universe. These two men probably had more personal say in human fate than any other 20th Century individuals, except for perhaps Himmler and Mao. Remember, the great bulk of their office correspondence consisted of long, long lists of candidates for murder that they reviewed and initialed. From time to time, Stalin would piously pretend concern. Molotov, knowing on which side his bread was buttered, aimed to please Stalin, the universal genius. So one really would read these letters for some insight, however tiny, about how and why these guys did what they did, i.e., kill millions of people. Not with their own hands, but by proxy. The clean way of murder.

And these letters simply do not come across. Whatever one's ideas and insights about who and what these men were, these letters are solely and only testaments to their absolute mediocrity. Yes, Virginia, it's true: really powerful and evil people can be really boring jerks. Their crimes do not somehow elevate them above and beyond normal humanity. Either of them could be manager of a Wal-Mart. A short order cook. The guy who tends the till at your favorite gas station. I mean, if you don't believe it, read this book! But do get it from the library. No one in the world should waste their own money on this particular volume. God knows I've read every single biography of Stalin that's come out in the past fifty years, going all the way back to Isaac Deutscher!!! And read (and enjoyed) Molotov's memoirs.

But for possibly interesting (myself, I don't know) reasons, this particular assembly of exchanged letters does not at all provide any insight into what was really going on in their individual minds at the time. It may well be that the restricted date range of this exchange (1925-36) doesn't get into the perhaps more interesting exchanges of 1937-1941. I don't know. But you won't find any smoking guns in this book. No explanations. No "a-HA's!" You will be seriously bored. The only reality that this letter collection pierces, exposes, makes one understand, is the reality that had anyone (or two or three) assassinated these assholes no one in the U.S.S.R. or anywhere else would have lost a milligram of anything of value. These were expendable people. They made it their task to designate and eliminate other expendable people, but in so doing they only showed, over and over and over, how very expendable they themselves were. The universal genius. Pfaa!!!

[Jayden gonzalez]

the best bits are in the goodreads description.

[Leonardo]

Citado en Sobre la Violencia Pág.249