In Russia, neither of my books on Stalin would have been possible without the generosity, help, encouragement and knowledge of Oleg Khlevniuk, the doyen of Stalin historians, senior researcher at the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), and Alexander Kamenskii, professor of Early and Early-Modern Russian History at Moscow’s Rus sian State University for Humanities. The chief Russian source for both my Stalin books is the Presidential Archive of the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI): so my gratitude to the director Dr. Kirill M. Anderson, the deputy director Dr. Oleg V. Naumov and the head of section and expert on Stalin’s papers/handwriting, Larisa A. Rogovaya, is limitless. But I owe the biggest thanks to Dr. Galina Babkova, a distinguished lecturer on eighteenth-century history at Moscow University, who has helped me as much on this book as she did on its predecessors.
The following helped me in Russia: Vladimir Grigoriev, publisher and politician, Anatoly Cherekmasov and Zoia Belyakova in St. Petersburg, Dmitri Yakushkin, Eduard Radzinsky, Roy and Zhores Medvedev, Boris Ilizarov, Arkady Vaksberg, Larissa Vasilieva, Masha Slonim, Dmitri Khankin, Anastasia Webster, Tom Wilson, David Campbell, Marc and Rachel Polonsky and Dr. Luba Vinogradova. I am grateful to the director of the Smolny Institute Museum and Svetlana Osipova of the Alliluyev Museum in Petersburg. In Achinsk, I thank the director of the Achinsk Regional Museum; in Vologda, thanks to the director of VOANPI (Archive of Modern History of the Vologda Region) and to the director of GAVO (State Archive of the Vologda Region).
In America, thanks to Professor J. Arch Getty of UCLA for his generous sharing of Yezhov’s dossier; to Professor Ron Suny; to Dr. Charles King of Georgetown; and to Roman Brackman, for kindly sharing some of his original sources with me. I am also very grateful to Prince David Chavchavadze and Princess Marusya Chavchavadze, to Redjeb Jordania and Nicole Jordania, to Musa Train Klebnikov, and her husband, the late, unique, much missed Paul Klebnikov, who encouraged me so much; and to Prince and Princess Constantine and Ann Sidamon-Eristoff.
In Stanford, California, thanks to Carol A. Leadenham and Irina Zaytseva, for their help with the Okhrana and Boris Nikolaevsky archives; to Alex Doran and Dr. Boris Orlov in Israel; and in Paris, thanks to Dr. George Mamoulia.
Perhaps the most exciting witness interviewed was Mariam Svanidze, aged 109, a relative of Stalin’s wife who still remembers her death in 1907. For their interviews, memoirs, and family anecdotes, thanks to Sandra Roelofs Saakashvili (whose book tells the story of how her husband’s family sheltered Stalin), Eteri Ordzhonikidze (daughter of Sergo), General Artem Sergeev (Stalin’s adopted son), Galina Djugashvili (Stalin’s grand daughter), Stalin’s nephews and niece Leonid Redens, Kira Alliluyev and Vladimir Alliluyev (Redens), General Stepan Mikoyan (son of Anastas) and his daughter Ashken Mikoyan, Stalin’s son-in-law Yuri Zhdanov (son of Andrei), Izolda Mdivani (widow of Budu’s son), Susanna Toroshelidze (daughter of Malakia and Minadora), Zakro Megrilishvili (stepson of Shalva Nutsubidze), Martha Peshkova (daughter-in-law of Beria, granddaughter of Gorky), Vyacheslav Nikonov (grandson and biographer of Molotov), the late Maya Kavtaradze (daughter of Sergei Kavtaradze), the late Oleg Troyanovsky (son of Alexander), Katevan Gelovani (cousin of the Svanidzes), Memed Jikhashvili (nephew of Nestor Lakoba), Redjeb Jordania (son of Noe), Tanya Litvinova (daughter of Maxim), Guram Ratishvili (grandson of Sasha Egnatashvili), Gia Tarkhan-Mouravi, Tina Egnatashvili, Vajha Okujava, Shalva Gachechi-ladze (grandson of Father Ksiane), Serge Chaverdian (Shaverdian), Thamaz Naskidachvili, Irakli de Davrichewy, Alexandre de Davrichewy and Annick Davrichachvili (two grandsons and wife of another grandson of Josef “Soso” Davrichewy) and Julian Z. Starosteck.
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.