131. Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 169–71; Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 183–4.
132. Pravda, Dec. 11, 1929. See also Davies, Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 131, citing Kuibyshev, Brigady sotsializma: doklad na I Vsesoiuznom s”ezde udarnykh brigad (1930), 13–4, 17; Rezoliutsii i postanovlenii; and Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd udarnykh brigad.
133. Sutton, Western Technology, I: 347–8; Davies, Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 192, citing Na agrarnom fronte, 1930, no. 1: 62–3, and RGAE, f. 7620, op. 1, d. 22, l. 65–1.
134. There would be 124 technical assistance contracts by 1931, compared with 17 contracts in 1927–28. Payments to foreign specialists perhaps consumed one-quarter of Soviet grain export revenues. By 1933, in an effort to save on scarce foreign currency, and with experience and (illegally) replicable blueprints now in hand, just 46 such contracts remained in force. Lewis, “Foreign Economic Relations,” 209–10. Foreign technical assistance was codified as the strategy for military industry on Dec. 5, 1929. Simonov, Voenno-promyshelnnyi kompleks SSSR, 78.
135. Tsarist gold reserves had been lost in war and revolution, and though the OGPU confiscated precious metals and foreign banknotes in private hands, this amounted to only 10 million rubles in a year. But the gold extraction industry would be revived, using prison labor. Aizenberg, Valiutnaia Sistema SSSR, 8, 63; Budnitskii, Den’gi russkoi emigratsii; Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 260 (APRF, f. 4,5 op. 1, d. 170, l. 62: Yagoda, Jan. 7, 1931).
136. Kennan, Russia and the West, 195.
137. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 85, d. 531–5; Stalin: Sbornik statei; Heizer, “Cult of Stalin,” 61, 80.
138. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 768, l. 131.
139. Stalin: sbornik statei; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 85, d. 531–5 (assembled congratulations). Stalin: sbornik statei, 2nd ed. (1930), 10, 44.
140. At this time the censor (Glavlit) laid down strict guidelines for the publication of Stalin photographs. Blium, Za kulisami, 128 (RGALI St. Petersburg, f. 31, op. 2, d. 40, l. 3).
141. Stalin, “Vsem organizatsiiam i tovarishcham, prislavshim privetstviia,” Pravda, Dec. 22, 1929. Sochineniia, XII: 140. See also Davies, Socialist Offensive, 118–9, 174–5.
142. RGAKFD, ed. khr. 6633, 6 parts. Some of the footage is raw (multiple takes being shot).
143. Volkogonov, Trotsky, 125 (citing arkhiv INO OGPU, f. 17548, d. 0292, t. 1, l. 106–7). The letter was among those later stolen with Trotsky’s archives by the NKVD. Following not one but two fires, Trotsky would return to his original rented villa on Prinkipo only in Oct. 1932. Cherniavskii, Lev Trotsky, 488–9.
144. Voroshilov, “Stalin i krasnaia armiia,” Izvestiia, Dec. 21, 1929, reprinted in Stalin: sbornik statei, and in Voroshilov, Lenin, Stalin, i krasnaia armiia, 41–61. Stalin himself crossed out the words that had offended him with red pencil: Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 77 (Voroshilov’s adjutant Khmelnitsky). Stalin had not been prominent in the press materials on the 9th anniversary of the Red Army’s founding (Feb. 23, 1927), but in the three-volume Civil War of 1918–1921, published in 1928–30, A. S. Bubnov wrote a forty-page introduction without mentioning Trotsky’s name while celebrating Stalin. Bubnov et al., Grazhdanskaia voina 1918–1921, III: 10. Avel Yenukidze, in a private birthday letter to Stalin (Dec. 30, 1929), shrewdly captured Stalin’s self-image while managing to quote Pushkin: Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 108–10 (RGASPI, f. 667, op. 1, d. 16, l. 4–6).
145. Émigré sources produced a blunter version. “Stalin is the only man we must obey, for fear of getting worse,” Pyatakov was said to have remarked privately. “Bukharin and Rykov deceive themselves in thinking that they would govern in Stalin’s place; Kaganovich and such would succeed him, and I cannot and will not obey Kaganovich.” Whether Pyatkaov actually said that, or Trotsky’s supporters reported it so, to please their master, the statement reflected a widespread sense that Stalin stood far above the members of his faction. Souvarine, Staline, 450 (no citation); Souvarine, Stalin, 489.
