Stalin полностью

58. Hilger, a German embassy counsellor, reported goodwill toward Germany in Ukraine in late spring 1935. “Germany was only trying to liberate itself from the oppressive fetters of the Versailles Treaty,” the chairman of the provincial soviet told him at a consul reception in Kiev. “But instead of aiding her to do so, the Soviet government was making a pact with Germany’s oppressors.” The Ukrainians blamed Litvinov. Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 269.

59. Pravda and Izvestiia, May 16, 1935; Humanité, May 17, 1935.

60. Some Polish officials understood better than others. In Nov. 1934, the Polish envoy to Germany, Lipski, had told his American counterpart that “Germany intends to re-annex part of our country, the maps posted all over Germany show this clearly.” Lipski predicted Hitler would also annex Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, too. Dodd and Dodd, Ambassador Dodd’s Diary, 192 (Nov. 17, 1934).

61. Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 71–5 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 1, d. 160, l. 42–9). A German periodical would observe in late 1935, in a comment reprinted in the Red Army newspaper, that “alongside his great organizational talent, the people’s commissar Voroshilov possesses a surpassing gift for speaking, thanks to which he takes listeners prisoners of war.” Krasnaia zvezda, Jan. 5, 1936.

62. Stalin was said to have directed the bygones quote at Bukharin and to have proposed a toast to him, which elicited applause, but if so, this was not recorded in the raw transcript. Larina, Nezabyvaemoe, 33.

63. Back on Dec. 27, 1934, at a Kremlin reception for the metal industry, Stalin, speaking about the first Five-Year Plan slogan, “Technology Decides Everything,” had stated that the people operating the technology were more important, and “must be carefully and attentively cultivated the way a gardener tends a beloved fruit tree.” “Metallurgi u tovarishcha Stalina, Molotova, i Ordzhonikidze,” Pravda, Dec. 29, 1934: 1, reprinted in Sochineniia, XIV: 49–50.

64. Stalin loved gardening metaphors. Jochen Hellbeck, “Laboratories of the Soviet Self: Diaries of the Stalin Era,” PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1998, 64–6. One scholar noted a shift in novels in the 1930s from machine to gardening metaphors. Clark, Soviet Novel, 99, 105.

65. Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 76–84 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1077, l. 43–9).

66. See also Arsenidze, “Iz vospominaniia o Staline,” 235. One scholar has argued that “consumption . . . was one of the most frequent items on the politburo’s agenda” and, in Stalin’s words, one of “the most contested issues.” Gregory, Political Economy of Stalinism, 94.

67. The original had been: “Now we have reached the stage of development when cadres decide everything, not mares and machines.” Pravda, May 6, 1935. See also Rees, Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin, 227. The newspaper account contained an insertion after Stalin’s mention that he had had a hand in smashing some people along the way: “stormy applause.” Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 69, 84–91 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1077, l. 31–42); Pravda, May 6, 1935, reprinted in Sochineniia, XIV: 56–64 (at 61–4). See also Oleinikov, “Chetvertoe maia.” In his speech on May 4, 1934, for Soviet military academy graduates, Stalin had also struck a note of populism. “I do not deny that leaders [vozhdi] have significance, they organize and lead the masses,” he allowed. “But leaders without the mass are nothing. Such people as Hannibal, Napoleon, perished as soon as they lost the masses.” Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 55 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 1, d. 160, l. 23–5).

68. Svanidze noted of Stalin’s May 4, 1935, speech: “Iosif said that he had forgotten to add ‘our leaders came to power as landless peasants and have remained that way to the end, that they are driven by ideas, not acquisitiveness,’ as we can observe in capitalist countries. Over there, being in power means getting rich. I don’t remember exactly, but something to that effect.” A mixed message: soulless functionaries yet selfless leader(s). Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 177–8 (Svanidze diary: May 9, 1935).

69. DDF, 1e série, X: 575–7, 630–1. The Soviets did not publish the record of the conversation, only a speech by Litvinov at the May 13 banquet for Laval: DVP SSSR, XVIII: 328–30. See also DVP SSSR, XVIII: 337 (TASS); Pravda, May 14, 1935.

70. Harrison and Davies, “Soviet Military-Economic Effort,” 391 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 18, l. 123: Aug. 28, 1935).