Oleg V. Naumov - Böcker

"It is thus important to a) fundamentally purge the Finance and Gosbank bureaucracy, despite the wails of dubious Communists like Briukhanov-Piatakov; b) definitely shoot two or three dozen wreckers from these apparaty, including several dozen common cashiers."— J. Stalin, no earlier than 6 August 1930"Today I read the section on international affairs. It came out well. The confident, contemptuous tone with respect to the great powers, the belief in our own strength, the delicate but plain spitting in the pot of the swaggering great powers—very good. Let them eat it."—J. Stalin, January 1933 Between 1925 and 1936, a dramatic period of transformation within the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin wrote frequently to his trusted friend and political colleague Viacheslav Molotov, Politburo member, chairman of the USSR Council of Commissars, and minister of foreign affairs. In these letters, Stalin mused on political events, argued with fellow Politburo members, and issued orders. The more than 85 letters collected in this volume constitute a unique historical record of Stalin's thinking—both personal and political—and throw valuable light on the way he controlled the government, plotted the overthrow of his enemies, and imagined the future. This formerly top secret correspondence, once housed in Soviet archives, is now published for the first time.The letters reveal Stalin in many different and dramatic situations: fighting against party rivals like Trotsky and Bukharin, trying to maneuver in the rapids of the Chinese revolution, negotiating with the West, insisting on the completion of all-out collectivization, and ordering the execution of scapegoats for economic failures. And they provide important and fascinating information about the Soviet Union's party-state leadership, about party politics, and about Stalin himself—as an administrator, as a Bolshevik, and as an individual.The book includes much supplementary material that places the letters in context. Russian editor Oleg V. Naumov and his associates have annotated the letters, introduced each chronological section, and added other archival documents that help explain the correspondence. American editor Lars T. Lih has provided a lengthy introduction identifying what is new in the letters and using them to draw a portrait of Stalin as leader. Lih points out how the letters help us grasp Stalin's unique blend of cynicism and belief, manipulation and sincerity—a combination of qualities with catastrophic consequences for Soviet Russia and the world.

The definitive study of Nikolai Yezhov’s rise to become the chief of Stalin’s secret police—and the dictator’s “iron fist”—during the Great TerrorHead of the secret police from 1937 to 1938, N. I. Yezhov was a foremost Soviet leader during these years, second in power only to Stalin himself. Under Yezhov’s orders, millions of arrests, imprisonments, deportations, and executions were carried out. This book, based upon unprecedented access to Communist Party archives and Yezhov’s personal archives, looks into the life and career of the enigmatic man who administered Stalin’s Great Terror.J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov seek to answer a series of troubling questions. What kind of person calmly and efficiently sends thousands of innocent people to their deaths? What could prepare a man for such a role? How could a person whom acquaintances describe as friendly, pleasant, and even gallant carry out one of history’s most horrifying campaigns of terror? The authors uncover the full details of Yezhov’s rise to power and conclude that he was not merely Stalin’s tool but a skillful maneuverer in his own right. The historical documents provide a thorough portrait of Yezhov and reveal a man of fanatical dedication to his leader and his party—a man who became a willing murderer. Readers will find his story chilling, the more so in our own times, when the impulse to terror that engulfed Yezhov seems neither surprising nor unfamiliar.