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26. M. Beloff, ‘A Soviet History of Diplomacy’, Soviet Studies, 1/2 (October 1949). In a 1941 book on the history of Soviet foreign policy by A. A. Troyanovskii & B. E. Shtein, Stalin deleted a reference that attributed the direction of diplomacy to him and Lenin and substituted the party. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.390, p.6 of the book.

27. Ibid., Op.11, Dd.221–2. The Simon & Schuster letter may be found in D.221, doc.19. The letter was translated into Russian and its salient points marked by either Stalin or his staff. Stalin did not reply. The letter was brought to my attention by S. McMeekin, Stalin’s War, Allen Lane: London 2021 p.455. McMeekin mischaracterises the letter as a proposal that Stalin should write an autobiography.

28. Ibid., D.1280, Ll.4–9.

29. D. Brandenberger, ‘Stalin as Symboclass="underline" A Case Study of the Personality Cult and Its Construction’, in S. Davies & J. Harris (eds), Stalin: A New History, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2005 p.265.

30. I. Stalin, Sochineniya, vol.17, Severnaya Korona: Tver 2004 pp.630–3. The meeting took place during the evening of 23 December 1946 and lasted for an hour and a quarter.

31. Brandenberger, ‘Stalin as Symbol’.

32. Bol’shaya Tsenzura: Pisateli i Zhurnalisty v Strane Sovetov, 1917–1956, Demokratiya: Moscow 2005 doc.416.

33. My summary of Stalin’s editing of the Short Biography is based on S. Davies & J. Harris, Stalin’s World: Dictating the Soviet Order, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2014 pp.155–6; V. A. Belyanov, ‘I. V. Stalin Sam o Sebe: Redaktsionnaya Pravka Sobstvennoi Biografii’, Izvestiya TsK KPSS, 9 (1990); and RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, D.1280. The latter file contains one of the dummies of the Short Biography corrected by Stalin. There are other makety in Dd.1281–2, not seen by me.

34. During the war, Stalin was more modest about his contribution. Upon receipt of a 1943 General Staff history of the battle for Moscow, he deleted a reference to the ‘leadership of comrade Stalin’. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.300, p.4 of the book. This was one of a number of internal studies of the battles and campaigns of the Great Patriotic War that were not published until post-Soviet times.

35. Joseph Stalin: A Short Biography, Foreign Languages Publishing House: Moscow 1949 p.89.

36. RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, D.1284.

37. J. Degras (ed.), Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, vol.3 (1933–1941), Oxford University Press: London 1953 p.492.

38. ‘Captain H. H. Balfour Moscow Diary 1941’, Harriman Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, container 64.

39. W. S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol.1, Casselclass="underline" London 1948 p.344.

40. Istoriya Diplomatii, vol.3 pp.668–9, 672, 680, 682.

41. See F. Hirsch, Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II, Oxford University Press: New York 2020 passim.

42. RGASPI F.558, Op.11, Dd.239–42. Stalin did not mark the translation.

43. Ibid., D.243, doc.1, L.1. Reportedly, the historians group consisted of V. M. Khvostov (1905–1972), G. A. Deborin (1907–1987) and B. E. Shtein (1892–1961).

44. Fal’sifikatory Istorii (Istoricheskaya Spravka), Ogiz: Moscow 1948. In English: Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey), Foreign Languages Publishing House: Moscow 1948.

45. RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, D.243, docs.1, 5, 5a.

46. Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey), p.41.

47. Ibid., p.43.

48. Ibid., pp.47–8.

49. Ibid., p.51. Stalin was being a little unfair to Truman. In that same speech he said that on no account did he want Hitler to win. During the war he was a highly effective overseer of Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease aid to Britain and the Soviet Union.

50. Ibid., p.52.

51. See G. Roberts, Molotov: Stalin’s Cold Warrior, Potomac Books: Washington DC 2012 chap.2.

52. Falsifiers of History, p.59.

53. E. Pollock, Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars, Princeton University Press: Princeton 2006 p.169. In this section I follow in the footsteps of chap.7 of Pollock’s book: ‘“Everyone Is Waiting”: Stalin and the Economic Problems of Communism’. See also the memoirs of Dmitry Shepilov, who was heavily involved in the textbook discussion and production: The Kremlin’s Scholar, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2014.

54. An English translation of the record of Stalin’s January 1941 meeting with the economists may be found in Pollock, Conversations with Stalin.

55. English translation of Stalin’s February, April and May conversations with economists may be found in ibid.

56. They are published in Stalinskoe Ekonomicheskoe Nasledstvo: Plany i Diskussii, 1947–1955gg, Rosspen: Moscow 2017.

57. RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, Dd.1242–6.

58. J. Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Foreign Languages Publishing House: Moscow 1952. For a nit-picking scholastic critique, see N. Leites, ‘Stalin as Intellectual’, World Politics, 6/1 (October 1953).

59. See K. D. Roh, Stalin’s Economic Advisors: The Varga Institute and the Making of Soviet Foreign Policy, I. B. Tauris: London 2018.

60. Pollock, Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars, p.192.

61. Ibid., p.207.

62. An English translation of the textbook may be found here: https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm. Accessed 4 August 2021.

63. R. B. Day, Cold War Capitalism: The View from Moscow, 1945–1975, M. E. Sharpe: Armonk NY 1995 pp.83–4.

CONCLUSION: THE DICTATOR WHO LOVED BOOKS

1. F. Chuev, Tak Govoril Kaganovich: Ispoved’ Stalinskogo Apostola, Otechestvo: Moscow 1992 pp.154, 190. The conversation took place in 1991.

2. Litsedei: Russian for an actor. I owe this reference to S. Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London 2003 p.3, who, in turn, derived it from V. Zubok & C. Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev, Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA 1996 p.21.

3. C. Read, ‘The Many Lives of Joseph Stalin: Writing the Biography of a “Monster”’ in J. Ryan & S. Grant (eds), Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism: Complexities, Contradictions and Controversies, Bloomsbury Academic: London 2021.

4. R. G. Suny, Stalin: Passage to Revolution, Princeton University Press: Princeton 2020 pp.668–95.

5. I. Deutscher, ‘Writing a Biography of Stalin’, The Listener, https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1947/writing-stalin.htm (25 December 1947).

6. G. Roberts, ‘Working Towards the Vozhd’? Stalin and the Peace Movement’ in Grant & Ryan, Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism.