Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 полностью

20. Bliskovskii, M. I. Ul’ianova, 199–200.

21. Ostrovskii, Kto stoial, 191–2 (citing GIAG, f. 153, op. 1, d. 3432, l. 116); Ilizarov, Taina zhizn’ Stalina, 102; D. Volkogonov, Stalin, I/i: 65.

22. Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side, 201; Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 232.

23. Schmitt, Die Diktatur. Lenin had given dictatorship a favorable cast (“bourgeois democracy or proletarian dictatorship!”).

24. Maksimovskii, “Ideia diktatury u Makiavelli,” 55–94. See also Rees, Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin, chapter 8. Maksimovsky had signed the 1923 Trotskyite “Platform of the 46,” became a dean at the Agricultural Academy, and would be arrested on July 27, 1937. He is said to have died in internal exile in Nov. 1941.

25. What emerges from the childhood memoirs, such as they are, is evidence not of warmth but of will. Some evidence indicates that he ridiculed weaker classmates, none of which would be noteworthy except for his role as dictator. For example: “Arriving at the first-year students of Section One at the sound of a loud scream, I saw Lakerov, who in a state of intense agitation was screaming at Iremashvili and Jughashvili,” the seminary deputy inspector recorded in his notebook in 1895. “It turned out that the latter two had been systematically laughing at Lakerov, mercilessly teasing him and ridiculing him, bringing him to distress. They engage in this often, according to the testimony of Lakerov.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 4, d. 13, l. 91.

26. Not long after the scrotum joke, Stalin had Bryukhanov sacked as finance commissar (Oct. 1930), scapegoating him, along with state bank head Pyatakov, for inflation. Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 193–6. See also Kuromiya, Stalin’s Industrial Revolution, 267.

27. The rest of the quote: “Great men are almost always bad men.” Lord Acton, letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887, in Figgis and Laurence, Historical Essays and Studies, 504.

28. “We cannot give a characterization of socialism,” Lenin had admitted (March 8, 1918) in reply to Bukharin’s demand for a sketch of the future. “What socialism will be like when it reaches its completed form we do not know, we cannot say.” PSS, XXXVI: 65–6 (8th Party Congress, March 8, 1918). See also Striedter, “Journeys through Utopia,” at 36.

29. Already in 1926, Stalin stated, “It would be wrong to think that it is possible to build socialism in white gloves, without getting dirty.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1107, l. 15. See also Von Laue, “Stalin in Focus,” and Marwick, “Problems and Consequences of Organizing Society for Total War,” 1–22.

30. “Only . . . a revolutionary regime, because it accepts the permanent use of violence, seems capable of attaining perfection,” Raymond Aron would write, adding that “violence itself attracts more than it repels.” Aron, Opium of the Intellectuals, 65.

31. Kołakowski, “Communism as a Cultural Formation.”

32. Kenez, Birth of the Propaganda State, 186.

33. Zhiromskaia, Naselenie Rossii v XX veke, 11–3, 15; Poliakov, Sovetskaia strana posle okonchaniia grazhdanskoi voiny, 237. At the first all-Union congress of “shock workers,” more than 30 percent of the participants were below the age of twenty-two. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd udarnykh brigad, 179.

34. Stalin had written to Mikhail Frunze about a document that labeled Trotsky “the Leader [vozhd’] of the Red Army,” advising, “I think that it would be better if we spoke about a vozhd only in terms of the party.” Kvashonkin, Bol’shevistskoe rukovodstvo, 298–9 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 5254, l. 1: Dec. 10, 1924).

35. Stalin, during a discussion of the coal industry in 1931, criticized the effusive declarations “for the Leaders,” “for the Central Committee,” “for the general line” as “nonsense, playing games.” Similarly, when delegates to an assembly of state farm bosses offered the customary applause, Stalin thundered, “why are you applauding—you should be ashamed.” Davies and Harris, Stalin’s World, 162–3 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1115, l. 9; d. 1116, l. 34–42); RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1116, l. 42 (Oct. 1932); RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1118, l. 1–2 (June 1934). See also Davies, “Stalin and the Making of the Leader Cult in the 1930s,” 29–46 (at 35). Tucker called Stalin the “master builder” of the cult, but this is too simple. Tucker, “The Rise of Stalin’s Personality Cult.” Photographs of Stalin in Pravda were not frequent into 1933, and usually showed him in the company of other party leaders.