STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR

BY

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

A NOTE ON SOURCES AND SPELLING

This book is based on my research in the RGASPI and GARF archives with their enlightening array of new letters and diaries, from notes between Stalin and his fellow leaders to the diary of Ekaterina Voroshilova, as well as new research in both RGVA and TsAMO RF. But I have also unapologetically used my own interviews, and the memoirs of both participants and their families. Clearly the latter materials are less reliable than the former but I believe they are still valuable: wherever possible I have checked these interviews against other witnesses. I have used them on matters on which they are likely to be well-informed. For example, Malenkov’s children are probably reliable about what stories their father read them at bedtime but worthless on his role in the Politburo. Sergo Beria’s memoirs certainly aim to redeem his father’s reputation but, to my surprise on checking his stories, I discovered they are fairly reliable about Stalin’s courtiers and table talk. Clearly the reminiscences of magnates such as Khrushchev, Molotov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Shepilov and those just published by Mgeladze are invaluable but often evasive or downright mendacious. I was fortunate to be able to use the mainly unpublished memoirs of Charkviani, Kavtaradze, Budyonny and the son of Dekanozov, but the same rules apply to them.

I have widely used conversation and dialogue which I hope gives a new immediacy to this chronicle, but I have applied rigourous standards to this material: the great majority of it comes from the archives themselves, specifically the minutes of Central Committee Plenums or Stalin’s meetings: the RGASPI references are in the Source Notes. I have also made liberal use of the Plenum minutes and other documents published in Arch Getty’s Road to Terror and these are referenced to the page in “Getty.” Finally, some dialogue comes from reliable diaries and memoirs and my own interviews.

I have used materials from NKVD confessions such as testimonies aimed at Yezhov in 1939 and quoted in Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov’s new biography of him; those aimed at Vlasik in 1952; and at Beria in 1953. In all three cases, the aim of the “Organs” was to de-humanize the defendants by smearing them with accusations of sexual misconduct. They come with this health warning but I agree with Petrov that they can still be used carefully. In all three cases, interviews confirm the broader truth of some of these accusations.

Finally, I must stress here my debt to the great works of Stalin history that I have used as my essential texts in this book. These include Robert Tucker’s two volumes, Stalin as Revolutionary and Stalin in Power; the many classic works by Richard Pipes; Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror; Arch Getty’s The Road to Terror; Robert Service’s A History of 20th Century Russia; John Erickson’s The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin; Richard Overy’s Russia’s War; Sheila Fitzpatrick’s Everyday Stalinism; Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov’s Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War; Gabriel Gorodetsky’s Grand Delusion; David Holloway’s Stalin and the Bomb; Amy Knight’s Beria and Who Killed Kirov?; Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov’s Ezhov; Harold Shukman’s Stalin’s Generals; Gennadi Kostyrchenko’s Out of the Red Shadows and Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov’s Stalin’s Last Crime: The Doctors’ Plot; William Taubman, Sergei Khrushchev and Abbott Gleason’s Nikita Khrushchev; Oleg Khlevniuk’s collections of the correspondence of Stalin with Molotov and Kaganovich and his works on the thirties and Ordzhonikidze.

On spelling, I have used the most accessible and recognizable versions, e.g. “Joseph” instead of “Iosif,” even when this leads to inconsistencies: for example, I use “Koniev” yet “Alliluyev.” For similar reasons, I have sometimes used Party names if they are more widely used than surnames: e.g., Ordzhonikidze was almost universally known as “Comrade Sergo” and I have usually used that moniker. However, in the case of Polina Zhemchuzhina, I call her Polina Molotova. For the same reasons, I have persisted in using the traditional Chinese spellings of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai.