Stalin полностью

38. Ellman rightly noted that “having destroyed independent social organizations, established total media censorship, and created a socioeconomic system in which organizations at all levels had an incentive to understate their possibilities and overstate their needs, getting accurate information became very difficult.” Ellman, “Political Economy of Stalinism,” 116.

39. Davies et al., “The Politburo and Economic Decision Making,” 126–7.

40. Markevich, “Monitoring and Interventions,” 1466.

41. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 288–91.

42. Stalin was the decisive actor, although “not immune to pressure and persuasion from politburo members, or from society at large.” Davies, “Making Economic Policy,” 69. See also Gregory, Political Economy, 68. A few functionaries cultivated clients across agencies. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 262–3.

43. Chuev, Sto sorok, 258–9, 263.

44. Rosenfeldt, “Special” World, I: 55–8.

45. “The essence of party leadership,” Stalin had remarked in July 1924, “lies precisely in the implementation of resolutions and directives.” “O kompartii Pol’shi” [July 3, 1924], Bol’shevik, Sept. 20, 1924, reprinted in Sochineniia, VI: 264–72 (at 269–70). How this was to come about was another matter entirely. “To raise the quality of the party official with a wave of the hand is not so simple,” Stalin had told Sverdlov university students. “It is still common for officials to apply the old habits of hasty administrative-izing . . . so-called party leadership sometimes degenerates into a sorry amalgam of useless directives, into empty and glib ‘leadership’ that accomplishes nothing.” Sochineniia, V: 197–222, VII: 171–2, VII: 349–50; Davies and Harris, Stalin’s World, 24.

46. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 19.

47. Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 217–9 (Sept. 22, 1930).

48. Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 210–1.

49. Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 88–93 (Sept. 16, 1926); Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 126–9. See also Markevich, “Monitoring and Enforcement.” One scholar has argued that Stalin’s own policies made the country nearly impossible to govern, which infuriated and haunted him. Harris, “Was Stalin a Weak Dictator?,” 377, echoing Lewin, Making of the Soviet System (1985).

50. For the rubbish about Stalin’s terror as a reaction to regional party bosses’ failure to obey central authority, see Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 12–14, 16, 22. For the refutation that Stalin was not motivated by fear of elite resistance, see Tucker, Stalin in Power, 264–8; and Khlevniuk, “Stalinist ‘Party Generals,’” 195–6.

51. Soviet functionaries experienced inordinate mobility compared with their tsarist predecessors. In the tsarist state, those who started careers in the provinces remained there, destined never to reach the heights and perquisites of the capital. Pinter, “Social Characteristics.”

52. This statement occurred during forced collectivization and dekulakization, and Gorky helpfully pointed out that “if the enemy does not surrender, he is to be exterminated.” Hosking, First Socialist Society, 163.

53. Rigby, Communist Party Membership, 212–3.

54. The rise of the politburo had undercut the Central Committee’s authority, but, in turn, Stalin’s informal caucusing undermined the politburo; it met just fifteen times in 1935 and nine times in 1936. Daniels, “Office Holding and Elite Status,” 77–95; Gill, Origins, 65.

55. Hearsay recollections by people not at the plenum have claimed Osip Pyatnitsky stood up to Stalin and Yezhov. Afanas’ev, Oni ne molchali, 219–20; Vilenskii, Dodnes’ tiagoteet, 265–6. For a debunking, see Pavliukov, Ezhov, 300–5.

56. These totals do not include other functionaries who attended but were not members: for example, Nazaretyan, Stalin’s first top aide, was arrested on his way to the Kremlin to attend the plenum. (He would be executed Nov. 30, 1937.) Pravda, Nov. 17, 1964. “During the breaks in the sessions,” one person later poetically claimed, “Deputy NKVD Head Frinovsky walked through the corridors smoking, and used his cigarette to point, take this one, take that one.” Afanas’ev, Oni ne molchali, 209 (Afanasy Krymov).

57. Syrtsov was serving as director of a factory in Moscow province when the NKVD came for him on April, 19, 1937. He would be executed on Sept. 10, 1937, and cremated at the Donskoe crematorium.