126. Pravda, July 29 to August 5, 1935. Pravda then praised it in a separate editorial (Aug. 10, 1935). See also RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 704–5; op. 4, d. 662, l. 428.
127. Beria, K voprosu ob istorii bol’shevistskikh organizatsii na Zakavkaz’e (Moscow: Partizdat, 1935); Maslov, “‘Kratkii kurs istorii VKP (b),’” 53n15.
128. Zaria vostoka, Sept. 2, 1935. The Soviet envoy to Hungary, Alexander Bekzadyan, an ethnic Armenian, while giving a mandatory report about the Central Committee plenum to embassy party members, was said to have remarked, “They took down Yenukidze wrongly, he’s a big-time revolutionary of the Caucasus, and they swallowed him on the basis of settling personal scores.” He said in reference to Beria, “I know him.” APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 324, l. 84–8 (a denunciation by I. D. Ovsiannikov later sent by Yezhov to Stalin: http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/61210).
129. Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 94–100 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1077, l. 62–5), 100–7 (l. 67–73), 108–10; Pravda, Aug. 2, 1935.
130. Menning has noted that in Dec. 1935, “a special group of the party Control Commission would report to Stalin that an investigation had revealed that railroads along the Baltic, western, and southwestern strategic directions ‘were unprepared in a full sense for a mobilization period.’” Voroshilov pointed out that on the right bank of the Dnieper, Poland’s throughput capacity exceeded the Soviet Union’s, 195 trains against 156, and he requested massive construction, and special appropriation of 387 million rubles. Bruce W. Menning, “Soviet Railroads and War Planning,” unpublished ms., 19–20 (citing RGUA, f. 4, op. 14, d. 1452, l. 27, 30–33, 2–3).
131. Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 94–100 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1077, l. 62–5), 100–7 (67–73—a second variant). Stalin removed from the transcript Kaganovich’s phrase “for the victory of the world revolution.” It became just “toward victory.”
132. Leibzon and Shirina, Povorot v istorii Kominterna, 93–102.
133. Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power, 181. On Sept. 29, 1935, the Central Committee decreed the founding of the Central Museum of Lenin in Moscow. All documents and other materials were ordered sent to Moscow (local museums were supposed to make do with photo duplications, even if the original had been generated in their locale). RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 971, l. 72; Shul’gina, “Teoretiko-metodoligicheskie osnovy deiatel’nosti museev.” In 1936, the Lenin Museum would be given the building of the old Moscow city Duma.
134. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 5089, l. 1; Brandenberger, “Stalin as Symbol,” at 257–8. Tovstukha, rebuffing Yarosvalsky’s request for assistance, had rudely stated: “It will not turn out as a biography of Stalin—it will just be another history of the party and Stalin’s role therein.” Sukharev, “Litsedeistvo,” 105–7, 110–1, 116; RGASPI, f. 89, op. 8, d. 1001, l. 7, 23–4; f. 155, op. 1, d. 88, l. 1; d. 90, l. 1–1ob. On Aug. 19, on the dictator’s instructions from Sochi, the politburo forbade Beria to republish Stalin’s writings from 1905–10 without his express authorization. Beria responded that there had never been a plan to republish without authorization. The politburo also resolved to publish Stalin’s collected works, projected at eight volumes. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 526 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 88, l. 21–2, 23; f. 17, op. 3, d. 970, l. 50); Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 394 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 905, l. 6, 10; d. 1164, l. 113); Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 745n17. Ilizarov, Tainaia zhizn’ Stalina, 138; Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 405–6 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 905, l. 11–3: Nov. 13, 1935). The second edition of Lenin’s Collected Works was being completed in thirty volumes: Sochineniia, 30 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1926–35).
135. Despite the secrecy and lies of the regime surrounding Stalin’s life, Souvarine managed thorough, judicious research in published sources. He wrote a classic political history of the regime rather than a biography per se, but attained an insight into Stalin’s character. Souvarine, Stalin, with a new chapter added to the 1937 French re-edition. See also Lyons, “Stalin, Autocrat of all the Russias.” In France, Gallimard had rejected the manuscript. Panné, Souvarine, 222–6. Adam Ulam, and many others, would largely follow Souvarine’s template. Ulam, Stalin.
