fn2 Hoover’s motives are not entirely clear. Intensely hostile to the Soviet regime, he may indeed have sought to use the famine relief as a means of diplomatic leverage and political influence in Russia. But this does not negate a genuine humanitarian concern on Hoover’s part. Nor does it merit the Bolshevik charge. See Weissman, Herbert, ch. 2.
fn3 The opposition of the other republics was more circumspect: the Ukrainians refused to give their opinion on Stalin’s proposals, while the Belorussians said that they would be guided by the Ukraine’s decision.
fn4 It was not published until 1989.
fn5 The contents of the Testament were made known to the delegates of the Thirteenth Party Congress in 1924. Stalin offered to resign but his offer was rejected on the suggestion of Zinoviev to ‘let bygones be bygones’. The conflict with Lenin was put down to a personal clash, with the implication that Lenin had been sick and not altogether sound in mind. None of these last writings was fully published in Russia during Stalin’s lifetime, although fragments appeared in the party press during the 1920s. Trotsky and his followers made their contents well known in the West, however (Volkogonov, Stalin, ch. 11).