In Britain, Dr. John Callow, director of the Marx Memorial Library (www.marx-memorial-library.org) and the ruling expert on Lenin in London, helped me greatly on 1907 and Stalin’s Welsh tourism, as did Andy Brooks, General Secretary of the New Communist Party; Francis King of the Socialist History Society; Tony Atienza; Paul Barratt and Duncan Higgitt of the Western Mail.
In Britain and France, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild placed the Rothschild archives at my disposal, where Melanie Asprey investigated Stalin connections for me: thanks to both.
Thanks for help in small or large ways to Andrew Roberts; Ronald Harwood; John Witherow, editor of the Sunday Times; and to the Sunday Times picture editor, Ray Wells; Miklos Kun; Len Blavatnik; Clare and Raymond (Viscount) Asquith; John and Victoria Hyman; David King; Andrew Cook, for his inquiries into Special Branch; Rair and Tatiana Simonyan; Geoffrey Elliott; Dr. Dan Healey, expert on sex and crime in Tsarist/Stalinist Russia; Rosamond Richardson; Dr. Catherine Merridale, on Kamenev; Mark Franchetti; Sergei Degtiarev-Foster; Nata Galogre; Jon Halliday; Ingaborga Dapkunaite; Laurence Kelly; Lady Alexandra Gordon-Lennox; David Stewart-Hewitt; Lord Bruce Dundas; Hon. Olga Polizzi; Antony Beevor; Stephen Nash, HM’s first Ambassador to Georgia; Andrew Meier; Donald Maclaren, HM Ambassador to Georgia, and his wife, Maida; and my trainer Stewart Taylor of www.bodyarchitecture.co.uk, who keeps me sane. Thanks as ever to Charles and Patty Palmer-Tomkinson for their support and encouragement.
Special gratitude is due to my Russian teacher, Galina Oleksiuk.
I wish to thank my English editor, Ion Trewin of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, who has genially, wisely edited all my history books; editorial assistants Anna Hervé and Bea Hemming; Alan Samson, publishing director; the brilliant king of copy editors, Peter James; the index by Douglas Matthews and maps by David Hoxley. Thanks also to my paperback editor, Susan Lamb of Phoenix. In New York, I would like to thank my American editor, the peerless Sonny Mehta, and his senior colleague, Jonathan Segal, at Alfred A. Knopf.
My agent, Georgina Capel of Capel & Land, remains tirelessly exuberant and highly effective. I owe special thanks to Lord and Lady Weidenfeld, and to Anthony Cheetham, for their wisdom, support and friendship over many years.
I must as ever thank my parents, Dr. Stephen and April Sebag-Montefiore, first for their subtle medical and psychological analysis of Stalin; second for judicious (if ruthless) editing skills; lastly for being the most wonderful friends and tender parents anyone could wish for.
This book is dedicated to my son, Sasha, but I must mention the other shining light in my life, my daughter, Lily. Both, I am ashamed to say, were able to recognize Stalin’s portrait before that of Thomas the Tank Engine. My children’s delightful nanny, Jayne Roe, made working at home a pleasure.
Last but first, my darling wife, Santa, enjoyed the romantic ménage à quatre with those brilliant charmers Catherine the Great and Prince Potemkin but has found the blood-soaked presence of Stalin in our marriage a trial of endurance. As we finally enter our own period of de-Stalinization, I must thank Santa for her sunny encouragement, serene charm and golden bounty of creativity, laughter and love.
Source Notes
A NOTE ON SOURCES
This book is based overwhelmingly on archival research, mainly in the Stalin archives of the Communist Party’s Marxism-Leninism Institute, the archives of RGASPI in Moscow, Russia, and of GF IML in Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia, as well as the GARF State Archive in Moscow, the archive of the Stalin Museum in Gori, the archives in Batumi, the State Archive in Baku of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and the Nikolaevsky archives and those of the Paris Office of the Okhrana, both at Stanford University, California.
I have been hugely fortunate in finding new sources, often unpublished or partly unpublished and barely used previously by historians. Archival sources are more reliable than oral history, but of course they too have their dangers and must be analysed carefully. But the anti-Stalinist histories often turn out to be just as unreliable.
Many of the archives used in this book, for example, were recorded by official Party historians during the period of Stalin’s rise to power, cult of personality and Terror, from the 1920s to the 1950s. Those recorded in the 1930s were presumably collected in Georgia by apparatchiks working under Stalin’s terrifying Transcaucasian First Secretary Lavrenti Beria. Therefore one must be constantly aware that they are recorded under massive pressure to present Stalin in a good light. At all times, one has to be aware of the circumstances and try to penetrate the Bolshevik language to see what the witnesses are really trying to tell us.
Yet those recorded before the Terror in 1937 are often astonishingly frank, tactless or derogatory about Stalin: a derogatory story about Stalin in an official memoir is almost certainly true. Many of the witnesses were so naïve or honest that their memoirs were unusable at the time, or only usable in small sections. Such memoirs were not destroyed but were simply preserved in the archives. Many were edited, then copied and sent to Stalin’s Moscow archive, so there are differences between versions. But the originals usually survived in the local archive.
Many witnesses were interviewed several times, so that we have sometimes three ver sions by the same witness with important differences. Almost always, the first version is the most revealing. Certain witnesses were tactful yet pointed in their criticisms: the Svanidze memoirs, which as far as I know remain mainly unpublished (except for the diaries of Maria Svanidze, Alyosha’s wife, but they cover the 1930s) are amazingly critical of Stalin even though he was already dictator and they themselves were in his inner circle.
A word on the killings of traitors and the bank robberies: Stalin was keen to suppress these details. He sued Yuli Martov in 1918 to stop their publication and continued to suppress them once he was in power. Yet throughout the memoirs, despite official discouragement, we find details of Stalin’s role that confirm the importance of this “black work” in his early life. When he finds a traitor, the memoirs usually state that the traitor was killed without specifying that anyone ordered the killing. But it is clear that the order involved Stalin. The same is true of cases of arson.
Many ordinary folk were unconsciously revealing, particularly Stalin’s girlfriends, who could not be open about their personal connections with the Leader even when they had borne his children.
Many of these tales of childhood, exile, revolutionary battle and bank robberies are, I hope, useful finds for historians. Keke’s memoir is especially telling. One senses that Stalin would have hated the memoir, which, again as far as I know, was not copied to Moscow and has not been published in Russian or English. I guess that Stalin was never informed that it had been set down. But there is also a wealth of other materials that tell us much about young Stalin.
In Georgia, I managed to unearth various unpublished memoirs from private family archives. Again all the usual rules must apply, particularly guarding against the vainglory of those who claim intimacy with the great and famous. But some were written secretly without direct intimidation. In the case of the Minadora Ordzhonikidze Toroshelidze memoirs, she and her husband were arrested in 1937—he was shot, she released—whereupon she cut sixteen pages out of the manuscript.
In Georgia and to a lesser extent Russia, one can still interview rare witnesses: in a Tbilisi old people’s home, I interviewed Mariam Svanidze, a relation of Stalin’s wife Kato, aged 109; I also spoke to other relations such as Ketevan Gelovani, who provided useful memories. Similarly, Stalin’s granddaughter, Galina “Gulia” Djugashvili, supplied helpful pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, as did the daughters of Ordzhonikidze and Litvinov, among others. The most valuable was Guram Ratishvili, the delightful grandson of General Sasha Egnatashvili, who was able at last to fill in the gaps that have appeared in their family story in every Stalin history book (including my own) up to now.
There are also many published memoirs, particularly from the 1920s, which Stalin could not yet control. Thus the memoirs of Kote Tsintsadze, for example, were highly embarras
sing. Though they are restrained and circumspect, they did reveal that Stalin ordered killings and bank robberies at a time when he was desperately trying to prove his heroic legitimacy, political and ideological, to succeed Lenin. When he assumed absolute power after 1929, Stalin, together with Beria, managed to pulp many copies of Tsintsadze’s memoirs. Another example is the memoirs of Stalin’s 1917 assistant Pestkovsky: the first rather irreverent version was published in 1922, but when they were republished in 1930 they had been cleansed. The same applies to Yenukidze, Makharadze, Shotman and many others.
But even the official cult literature has its uses. Lakoba’s Smirba book, the collections on the Batumi demonstration and Stalin’s schooldays, and Beria’s “history” book are all works of propaganda, full of lies and exaggerations, but the quotations from the memoirs are accurate though selectively edited. I have tried to cross-check between books and originals.
One has to be just as careful with the anti-Stalin literature of exiles such as Iremashvili, Nikolaevsky, Vulikh, Uratadze, Vereshchak, Arsenidze and many others. Trotsky and Sukhanov are the two that have dominated Western histories of Stalin. They were anti-Stalin, so they were presumed to be right. Now, on closer analysis, one finds often that they contain errors that we can expose and prejudiced guesses that we can discount—but still they remain very useful.
I have been very fortunate to find less well-known exiled sources too, such as Josef Davrichewy, Khariton Chavichvili and David Sagirashvili, all of whom knew Stalin quite well, each leaving prejudiced, sometimes unreliable, but invaluable sources. One senses that these three, though anti-Stalin, tried to be evenhanded. The Okhrana/Gendarme files, some published by the Bolsheviks, some unpublished in archives, and those of the Paris office resting at Stanford, are very valuable but, based as they are on their own dubious surveillance and intelligence, they are often completely wrong.
Some memoirs and biographies have more value than one might expect. John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World is very sympathetic to the Bolshevik legend and knows little of what was happening within the Party, yet it is a superb piece of reportage. So are David Sagirashvili’s diaries. The earliest Stalin biographies are often surprisingly well informed: Boris Souvarine knew many of the players and had access to those witnesses in exile. More surprising is Stalin: Career of a Fanatic by Essad Bey, the first real Stalin biography, used with obvious reservations.
The memoirs of Khrushchev, Molotov, Mikoyan, Yuri Zhdanov (just published) and others are useful—but with reservations.
I have unapologetically used many published works widely and in detail and have tried to be punctilious in attributing the source. But some books are so outstanding that I would like to list them as my basic sources used throughout the book: Alexander Ostrovsky’s Kto stoyal za spinoi Stalina? is the best scholarly work on Stalin’s connections with the Okhrana and big business: it is unlikely to be bettered; Stephen Jones’s Socialism in Georgian Colors is superb, essential reading; Professor Ronald Suny’s masterly essays Journeyman for the Revolution and Beyond Psychohistory; Miklos Kun’s Stalin: An Unknown Portrait overlaps with both my books on Stalin and is an amazing feat of research and understanding; Robert Conquest’s Great Terror and his Stalin: Breaker of Nations are seminal works that still define Stalin today; Boris Ilizarov’s Tainaya zhizn Stalina is full of the author’s remarkable archival discoveries; on Stalin’s poetry, I depend totally on Donald Rayfield’s authoritative criticism and translation; on the secret police, I have used the excellent Jonathan W. Daly’s Autocracy under Siege: Security Police and Opposition in Russia, 1866–1905 and The Watchful State: Security Police and Opposition in Russia, 1906–17; Anna Geifman’s brilliant introduction, Russia under the Last Tsar: Opposition and Subversion, 1894–1917, explains the different psychologies of the revolutionary, while her outstanding Thou Shalt Kill: Revolutionary Terrorism in Russia, 1894–1917 was my basic source on terrorism; Robert Service’s recent biographies on Lenin and Stalin are magisterial yet readable; on Baku, Jorg Baberowski’s groundbreaking, important Der Feind ist überall: Stalinismus im Kaukasus is the only work that explains the culture of Caucasian violence. On the Revolutions, I used: Abraham Ascher’s admirable 1905; Orlando Figes’s magnificent A People’s Tragedy; Richard Pipes’s many outstanding works including The Russian Revolution, The Degaev Affair and The Unknown Lenin; and Alexander Rabinowitch’s excellent The Bolsheviks Come to Power.
ARCHIVES AND MUSEUMS
RGASPI Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsialno Politicheskoi Istorii, Moscow, Russia
GARF Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow, Russia
GF IML Georgian State Filial of Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Tbilisi, Georgia
ABM Achinsky Oblastnoi Muzei, Achinsk, Russia
MSIR Musei Sovremennoi Istorii Rossii, Moscow, Russia
VOANPI Vologdsky Oblastnoi Arkhiv Noveishei Politicheskoi Istorii, Vologda, Russia
GAVO Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Vologodskoi Oblasti, Vologda, Russia
GIAG Georgian State Historical Archive, Tbilisi, Georgia (Sakartvelos Sakhelmtsipo Saistorio Arkivi)
Archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford, California
GDMS Gosudarstvennyi Dom-Muzei I. V. Stalina, Gori, Georgia
Gosudarstvennyi Istoriko-Memorialny St-Peterburgsky Muzei “Smolny,” St. Petersburg, Russia
Muzei Alliluyeva, St. Petersburg, Russia
GTsMSIR Gosudarstvennyi Tsentralnyi Muzei Sovremennoi Istorii Rossii, Kseshinskaya Mansion, St. Petersburg, Russia
GMIKA Khariton Akhvlediani State Museum, Batumi, Georgia
TsGAA Central State Archive of Adjaria, Batumi, Georgia
DMS Stalin House-Museum (former house of Watchmaker Simhovich), Batumi, Georgia
GK Guram Kahidze’s private museum, Batumi, Georgia
KTA private archive of Konstantin Ter-Akopova, Batumi, Georgia
GIAA Gosudardvennyi Istoricheskiy Arkhiv Azerbaijana, Baku, Azerbaijan
Stockholm City Archives, Sweden
Office of the Governor of Stockholm, Sweden
PRO Public Records Office, London
Lenin Museum, Tampere, Finland
VIDEO
Baku, City of Dreams, produced, written and directed by Fuad Akhundov
INTRODUCTION
1. Historians will find out: A. Mgeladze, Stalin kakim ya ego znal (henceforth Mgeladze), pp. 240–41. RGASPI 558.11.787.2 Stalin to Zhdanov and Pospelov, 24 Sept. 1940—ban this book. All children alike: E. Radzinsky, Stalin, p. 11. All childhoods are the same, burn this: D. Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, p. 241. Boris Ilizarov, Tainaya zhizn Stalina (henceforth Ilizarov), p. 99.
PROLOGUE · THE BANK ROBBERY
1. This account of the Tiflis expropriation is based on the many sources listed in this note. On her role and that of others: GF IML 8.2.2.64, Alexandra Darakhvelidze-Margvelashvili, recorded 21 Feb. 1959. On his role, on cowardly comrades, who did what: GF IML 8.2.1.624.1–26, Bachua Kupriashvili. Kote Tsintsadze, Rogor vibrd-zolot proletariatis diktaturistvis:chemimogonebani (henceforth Tsintsadze), pp. 40–49. GF IML 8.5.384.3–10, Autobiographical notes by Kamo; GF IML 8.5.380.5–6, Personal File and Questionnaire, filled in by Kamo on day of his death. GF IML 8.2.1.50.239–55, D. A. Khutulashvili (sister of Kamo). The gang; Eliso hides; Stalin head of that organization: Archives of the Hoover Institution of War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford (henceforth Stanford), Boris Nikolaevsky Collection (henceforth Nikolaevsky), box 207, folder 207–10, letter from Tatiana Vulikh; folder 207–11. Tiflis Committee approves robbery: Razhden Arsenidze, interviews nos. 1–3, 103–4, Nikolaevsky box 667, series 279, folder 4–5, Inter-University Project on History of Menshevik Movement.
On Okhrana investigation/suspicions of coming robbery in Caucasus; 14 and 18 Jan. 1908: Stanford, Paris Okhrana archives, box 209, folder XXB.2, letter on suspects, 13 Feb. 1907. Arrest of Kamo and full biography, 31 Oct./13 Nov. and 27/14 Nov. 1908; and 14 Nov./21 Oct. 1907: Suspect in Tiflis
expropriation—Josef/Soso Davrichewy: Stanford, Okhrana box 209, folder XXB.1.
Letter, R. Arsenidze to Boris Nikolaevsky, 8 Jan. 1957, on investigation by Silvester Jibladze and fights with Menshevik about Kvirili expropriation money: Nikolaevsky box 472, folder 2.
Grigory Uratadze, Vospominaniya (henceforth Uratadze), pp. 163–66—Stalin, the main financier of the Bolshevik centre, did not participate personally; pp. 71–72 on giving expro money to Shaumian.
On Kamo’s role: I. M. Dubinsky-Mukhadze, Kamo, pp. 71–84; David Shub, “Kamo.” Obeying Stalin from Gendarme report, R. Imnaishvili, Kamo, section 1, pp. 52–55; the expropriation, p. 59; betrayal of Kamo by Arsen Karsidze, p. 34. Account of expropriation as told by Kamo to his wife: S. F. Medvedeva-Ter-Petrossian, “Tovarish Kamo.” Jacques Baynac, Kamo, pp. 90–100. Anna Geifman, Thou Shalt Kill, pp. 112–16,212 and 299, including Kamo killing for Stalin. On psychology of Kamo and terrorists: “Introduction” in Anna Geifman (ed.), Russia under the Last Tsar, pp. 1–14. Jonathan Daly, The Watchful State, p. 67. Radzinsky, Stalin, p. 61. Robert C. Williams, The Other Bolsheviks (henceforth Williams), pp. 113–15.
Pretty girls, Stalin’s iron discipline: Khariton Chavichvili, Patrie, prison, exil, p. 145. Lenin under attack from Mensheviks: Khariton Chavichvili, Révolutionnaires russes à Genève en 1908, pp. 80–83. Stalin and Shaumian in London, permission for expropriation, morning meeting, division of spoils: G. S. Akopian, Stepan Shaumian, pp. 44, 64. Vahtang Guruli, Svodnaya Gruzia no. 152 (225), 24 Sept. 1994, p. 4:SR theory and also Kamo accompanied by daughter of deputy police chief of Shora-pani. On Okhrana informer reports that SRs conducted Tiflis expropriation and money stolen by Kamo, Tiflis Okhrana agents “N” and “Bolshaya” on 2 July and 15 July 1907: Vahtang Guruli, Josef Stalin Materials for the Biography, pp. 9–11, in Central Georgian State Historical Archive 95.1.82.15, 21, 23.