Young Stalin

Acknowledgements

I have been helped in my work on Stalin by many people in many countries and cities including my publishers all over the world, but especially in places visited by my subject. All have been extraordinarily generous to me in terms of time and knowledge. Needless to say, all the mistakes in this book are mine alone.

I must first thank my godfathers in the writing of Russian history, who have checked my work, improved on it and hopefully taught me how to write better: Isabel de Madariaga was and remains my first historical patroness and my books still, I pray, show the benefits of her strict but benign supervision of my first book on Catherine the Great and Prince Potemkin.

In this book, I have been hugely fortunate that two titans of Soviet history, Robert Conquest and Professor Robert Service, have kindly read the text for errors. I owe much to the professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Mt. Holyoke College, Stephen Jones, the chief authority on Georgian socialism, who shared his work with me, answered my questions and diligently corrected the text. Dr. David Anderson, senior lecturer in Arctic Anthropology, University of Aberdeen, corrected my Siberian sections with great generosity and patience. Dr. Piers Vitebsky, head of Anthropology and Russian Northern Studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, advised me on Siberian anthropology and allowed me to use one of his photographs. I must also thank Professor Donald Rayfield, who has generously shared with me his wide knowledge of Russian literature, Georgian culture and Bolshevik political history, as well as his contacts in Georgia, and has allowed me to quote his superb translations of Stalin’s poetry in full.

I am very grateful to Professor George Hewitt for his kind help with the languages of the Caucasus and his contacts in Abkhazia, which have been invaluable. I cannot sufficiently thank Dr. Claire Mouradian, based in Paris, who, even though we have never met, placed at my disposal her encyclopaedic knowledge of Caucasian history and her wide contacts with the Georgian/Armenian émigré families, interviewed old witnesses and guided me to new sources.

The bulk of the new material in this work comes from the Caucasus. In Georgia, I must first thank the President and First Lady, Mikheil and Sandra Saakashvili. Tragically the archives of the Georgian Filial Institute of Marxism-Leninism (GF IML) have fallen into disrepair and only the personal decree of the President allowed me access to the sources that form the heart of this book. Natalia Kancheli, a senior aide to the President, and a great supporter, helped make this possible and I am eternally grateful. Gela Charkviani, an old friend and veteran of modern Georgian politics as well as the son of one of Stalin’s confidants, started helping me when I was a war correspondent in early 1990s Caucasia but also gave me access to the manuscript of his father’s memoirs, and found me all my helpers in Georgia. His niece Nestan Charkviani, herself a distinguished historian of Stalinism, helped me enormously in the archives, which she knows well, and in finding new sources and memoirs and interviewing new witnesses; she also read and corrected the text. I owe much to Nino Kereselidze, a fine historian, an industrious researcher and an impressive translator from Georgian. Thanks also to the GF IML’s chief archivist, Vazha Ebanoidze.

Many others helped me in Georgia: Peter Mamradze, another old friend from the turbulence of recent politics, found me new witnesses and shared his knowledge of the Stalin folklore in Georgia. My friend Professor Zakro Megrilishvili again helped me access the unpublished Kavtaradze manuscript, his stepfather’s memoirs, and work out the Tiflis bank robbery. Thanks too to Professor Nugzar Surgoladze. I am deeply grateful to another friend, George Tarkhan-Mouravi, who helped me out of pure friendship and a spirit of curiosity and offered me his contacts, his vast knowledge of sources and his family anecdotes. Professor Vahtang Guruli shared his unique archival research with me. Gia Sulkanishvili helped in small and big matters, and as ever I owe him much. Nick Tabatadze, the head of Rustavi-2, the Georgian television station, gave encouragement and help; his station’s TV report helped me find more witnesses and sources. Thanks to Tamara Megrilishvili, who let me advertise for sources/witnesses in her bookshop, Prospero’s Books, the best between Moscow and Jerusalem; to Leka Basilieia; in Gori, to the director of the Stalin Museum, Gaioz Makhniashvili.

In the archives of Batumi, Adjaria, Memed Jikhashvili, an excellent historian of Transcaucasia but also a piece of history himself, as the nephew of Nestor Lakoba, Stalin’s Abkhazian viceroy, helped me find new sources and pictures that were immensely important for the book.

In Abkhazia, I must thank Slava Lakoba, outstanding historian of Bolshevism, Abkhazia and Caucasia, who was extremely generous in sharing his work and above all his sources. George Hewitt and Donald Rayfield both helped me in this quest, as did Dr. Rachel Clogg.

In Baku, Azerbaijan, thanks to Fuad Akhundov, another old friend and expert on the oil boom and millionaires; to Fikret Aliev and Zimma Babaeva, director and deputy director of the Azeri State Archive (GIA AR and GA AR); and to Memed Jikhashvili too.

In Berlin and Baku, I owe much to Professor Jorg Baberowski, the chief expert on Baku and the violent culture of the Caucasus, who was very generous to me with his knowledge; and to Alexander Freese, for translating from German.

In Vienna, thanks to HSH Prince Karel Schwarzenberg, Peter and Lila Morgan, and Georg Hamann. Lisa Train visited the flat where Stalin stayed and took fine photographs. In Finland, thanks to my editor for his help with Tampere research, Aleksi Siltala; to Vuokko Tarpila; to the writer Aarno Laitinen; and to the Finnish expert on Lenin, Stalin and Finland Antti Kujola. In Sweden, thanks to Per Faustino and all my editors at Norstedts/Prisma, to Martin Stugart of Dagens Nyheter, to researcher Jenny Lankjaer, to Karen Altenberg, to Per Mogren. In Holland, thanks to two distinguished Dutch Stalin scholars, Erik van Ree and Marc Jansen, for their sharing of research. In Cracow, Poland, thanks to the London filmmaker Wanda Koscia and her friend Marta Szostkiewicz for her help.

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.