248. Bukharin and Radek, commission members, undertook analyses of the constitutions of Germany and of France; the commission also examined the Provisional Government’s 1917 electoral law. On holiday in fall 1935, Stalin, working on a draft, asked Kaganovich for a copy of Switzerland’s constitution (Kaganovich had it translated by Radek). RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 83, l. 92; d. 90, l. 121, 126; d. 53, l. 122; Pravda, July 8, 1935. An editorial subcommittee—Akulov, Krylenko, Vyshinsky, Stalin—drafted the text of the constitution.
249. Trotsky, “New Constitution.” Whether Trotsky’s article influenced Stalin is unknown. Before it was published (May 9), but not necessarily before Stalin read it (it was finished April 16), Yakov Yakovlev, Stetsky, and Tal were summoned to the Little Corner (April 17, 18, 19, and 22, 1936) to go over the draft text of the constitution with Stalin. On May 15, the draft was discussed and further revised at a meeting.
250. Siegelbaum and Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life, 158–206 (at 159–60).
251. Schapiro, Communist Party of the Soviet Union (2nd ed.), 410–1.
252. Translated in Field, Three French Writers, 29. See also Unger, Constitutional Development in the USSR.
253. For example: Petr Garvi, “Novaia Sovetskaia konstituttsiia,” Sotsialisticheskii vetsnik, July 10, 1936. See also Liebich, From the Other Shore, 249–51.
254. Kozlov, Neizvestnaia Rossiia, II: 272–80. “Everybody thanks Soviet rule for the fact that the government took all the enterprises away from the landowners, and everybody thanks it for saying that there should be no war,” stated a letter from Voronezh province to Peasant Newspaper. “But people on the collective farm are not happy and everybody is hungry and are quietly saying, but obviously afraid to say, that because the whole enterprise belongs to the state, the peasant does all this work and has to give a certain amount from each hectare to the state, so that there will be no war.” She added that farmers wanted to quit the collectives, but newspapers made no mention of this. Siegelbaum and Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life, 175 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 232, l. 83); 176 (l. 80–2).
255. In a few cases leaflets were printed and posted. Vasil’ev, “30-e gody na Ukraine.”
256. Many comments entailed demands to guarantee pensions, social insurance, and access to sanatoriums for collective farmers (the benefits accorded to workers). Siegelbaum and Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life, 158–206; Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, 184–202. See also intelligentsia speculation about Stalin not trusting the party and instead wanting to be a president or emperor: Davies, Popular Opinion, 172 (citing TsGAIPD SPb, f. 24, op. 2b, d. 185, l. 50-2).
257. Trotsky, Revolution Betrayed, chap. 10 (“The Soviet Union in the Mirror of the New Constitution”). See also Hoffmann, Stalinist Values.
258. Chuev, Sto sorok, 289. Stalin had once said that “the dictatorship of the proletariat is the sharpest form of class struggle.” Danilov and Khlevniuk, Kak lomali NEP, IV: 654 (politburo meeting, uncorrected transcript, April 22, 1929).
259. Pravda, Nov. 26, 1936.
260. Krasnaia zvezda, Nov. 28, 1936. The order to print Stalin’s speech in 20 million brochure copies also ordered 5 million phonographic records. Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, 178 (citing RGALI, f. 962, op. 3, d. 293, l. 35, SSSR na ekrane, 1936, no. 10), 181–2 (TsMAM, f. 528, op. 1, d. 409, l. 7; f. 150, op. 5, d. 26. L. 163; TsAODM, f. 63, op. 1, d. 716, l. 4), 184–5. For the film of the speech: RGAKFD, 1–3470. Between 1921 and 1935, Stalin’s publications amounted to 160 separate items, in 75 languages, and nearly 116 million copies.
261. International Military Tribunal, X: 239–41. The negotiations had been conducted with Lieutenant-Colonel Hiroshi Ōshima, the military attaché to Berlin. Tokushirō, “Anti-Comintern Pact.”
262. Wheeler-Bennett, Documents on International Affairs, 299–300; Shirer, Berlin Diary, 69–70; DVP SSSR, XIX: 779 (Surits in Berlin to Moscow, Nov. 27, 1936). See also Beloff, Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, I: 103.
263. Quoted in Chamberlain, Japan over Asia, 163–4. See also Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 115–6.
