182. Radek’s encomium was reissued as a pamphlet in 225,000 copies (and multiple languages): Zodchii sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva (Moscow: Partizdat, 1934); The Architect of a Socialist Society (Moscow-Leningrad: Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U.S.S.R., 1934); Der Baumeister der sozialistischen Gesellschaft (Moscow-Leningrad: Verlagsgenossenschaft ausländischer arbeiter in der UdSSR, 1934). See also Petrov and Petrov, Empire of Fear, 69; and Tucker, Stalin in Power, 244–6.
183. The congress amended the statutes to stipulate a gathering every three years. XVII s”ezd, 525–66. Even half the collective farms now contained at least one Communist. Party members of peasant social origin had risen to 28.5 percent, from 20.4 percent in 1930, but the still ongoing purge would wipe out these gains.
184. Kamenev had published an essay in Pravda (May 25, 1933) enjoining the opposition to desist (they were in prison or exile). The politburo had approved the reinstatement of Zinoviev and Kamenev on Dec. 12, 1933 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 936, l. 5). After the Congress, Kamenev would be installed as head of Academia, the country’s highest prestige press for scholarship, which in 1934 would publish the first volume of a Russian translation of Machiavelli’s collected works containing The Prince, whose publication had already been scheduled, but now Kamenev was able to write the preface, and he offered Soviet readers a Machiavelli who was an unmasker of despots, and repeatedly called him “secretary” of the Florentine republic—Stalin’s title. Kamenev characterized the Florentine “secretary” as having “no gift for profound philosophical inquiry” and his society as “an oppressive class of masters struggling among themselves for power over the laboring masses.” Kamenev, “Predislovie,” I: 7–15.
185. XVII s”ezd, 124–9 (Bukharin), 209–12 (Rykov), 492–7 (Zinoviev), 516–21 (Kamenev). Stalin allowed Zinoviev to be named an editor of Bolshevik, the party journal. At a politburo session on Feb. 20, 1934, on Stalin’s initiative, Bukharin was named editor of Izvestiya (replacing Gronsky, who was moved to the editorship of the journal Novy Mir). RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 939, l. 2. Even the die-hard Trotsky supporter Rakovski would publicly recant and be allowed back from internal exile, though not into the party. Pravda, April 18, 1934; Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 326–34 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 139, l. 35–52: Oct. 11, 1932); Bukharin’s appointment had implications for Kalinin, since Izvestiya was the organ of his own Soviet central executive committee. Brontman, Dnevniki. Brontman (b. 1905), who published under the name Ognev, wrote many of Pravda’s unsigned editorials.
186. Chernobaev, Vvikhre veka, 178 (Alexander Arosyev diary, Jan. 26, 1934).
187. Sochineniia, XIII: 282–379 (at 366–70).
188. Sochineniia, XIII: 371.
189. Sochineniia, XIII: 294.
190. XVII s”ezd, 8–36; Sochineniia, XIII: 283. Stalin would repeat the idea that imperialist war could generate new revolutions at the next congress in 1939. Sochineniia, XIV: 338; van Ree, Political Thought, 212. See also Rieber, “Stalin as Foreign Policy Maker,” 142–3. There were close parallels between Varga’s New Phenomena in the World Economic Crisis (1934) and Stalin’s report to the 17th Party Congress. Varga, “Vskryt’ cherez 25 let,” 155–6; Duda, Jenő Varga, 89, 109–10, 115. One émigré who claimed to have worked in Varga’s Institute claimed that its staff had no reason to fear reprisals for what in their mind were realistic portrayals of the capitalist world. Rosenfeldt, Stalin’s Special Departments, 71–3 (citing unpublished manuscript “Organizatisia i funktsiia Osobogo sektora TsK VKP (b)” held at the Library of Congress). On German fears of a Soviet policy shift dating to 1933, Von Riekhoff, German-Polish Relations, 385. See also Sluch, “Germano-sovetskie otnosheniia,” 103 (citing AVP RF, f. 082, op. 14, pap. 62, d. 2, l. 365).
