Stalinism as a Way of Life: A Narrative in Documents (Annals of Communism Series)

495 Pages·2000·22.94 MB·English

by  Mr. Lewis Siegelbaum

ANNALS OF COMMUNISM
Each volume in the series Annals of Communism will publish selected and pre-
viously inaccessible documents from former Soviet state and party archives in
a narrative that develops a particular topic in the history of Soviet and inter-
national communism. Separate English and Russian editions will be prepared.
Russian and American scholars work together to prepare the documents for
each volume. Documents are chosen not for their support of any single inter-
pretation but for their particular historical importance or their general value
in deepening understanding and facilitating discussion. The volumes are de-
signed to be useful to students, scholars, and interested general readers.
EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF THE ANNALS OF COMMUNISM SERIES
Jonathan Brent, Yale University Press
AMERICAN EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Ivo Banac, Yale University Robert L. Jackson, Yale University
Jeffrey Burds, Northeastern University, Czeslaw Milosz, University of California,
Boston Berkeley
William Chase, University of Pittsburgh Norman Naimark, Stanford University
Victor Erlich, Yale University Gen. William Odom, Hudson Institute
F. I. Firsov, former head of the Comintern and Yale University
research group at RGASPI Daniel Orlovsky, Southern Methodist
Sheila Fitzpatrick, University of Chicago University
Gregory Freeze, Brandeis University Mark Steinberg, University of Illinois,
John L. Gaddis, Yale University Urbana-Champaign
J. Arch Getty, University of California, Mark Von Hagen, Columbia University
Los Angeles Piotr Wandycz, Yale University
Jonathan Haslam, Cambridge University
RUSSIAN EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
K. M. Anderson, director, Russian State V. P. Kozlov, director, Rosarkhiv
Archive of Social and Political History N. S. Lebedeva, Russian Academy of
(RGASPI) Sciences
N. N. Bolkhovitinov, Russian Academy S. V. Mironenko, director, State Archives
of Sciences of the Russian Federation (GARF)
A. 0. Chubaryan, Russian Academy of 0. V. Naumov, assistant director,
Sciences RGASPI
V. P. Danilov, Russian Academy of E. 0. Pivovar, Moscow State University
Sciences V. V. Shelokhaev, president, Association
A. A. Fursenko, secretary, Department of ROSSPEN
History, Russian Academy of Sciences Ye. A. Tyurina, director, Russian State
(head of the Russian Editorial Archive of the Economy (RGAE)
Committee)
SERIES COORDINATOR, MOSCOW
N. P. Yakovlev
Stalinism as a Way of Life
A Narrative in Documents
Lewis Siegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov
Documents Compiled by Ludmila Kosheleva, Larisa Rogovaia,
Lewis Siegelbaum, Andrei Sokolov, Vladimir Telpukhovsky,
and Sergei Zhuravlev
Text Preparation and Commentary by Lewis Siegelbaum,
Andrei Sokolov, and Sergei Zhuravlev
Translated from the Russian by Thomas Hoisington and Steven Shabad
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
This volume has been prepared with the cooperation of the Russian
State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) of the State
Archival Service of Russia in the framework of an agreement concluded
between RGASPI and Yale University Press.
Copyright @ 2000 by Yale University.
All rights reserved.
Documents held by the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI),t he Cen-
tral Repository of Recent Documentation (TsKhSD), and the State Archive of the Russian Feder-
ation (GARF) are used with the permission of these archives.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond
that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by review-
ers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
Designed by James J. Johnson and set in Sabon and Melior types by The Composing Room
of Michigan, Inc., Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America by Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, New York.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stalinism as a way of life : a narrative in documents / Lewis Siegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov ;
. . .
documents compiled by Ludmila Kosheleva [et al.] ; text preparation and commentary by
Lewis Siegelbaum, Andrei Sokolov, and Sergei Zhuravlev ; translated from the Russian by
Thomas Hoisington and Steven Shabad.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-300-08480-3 (cloth : alk.paper)
I. Soviet Union-History-1925-195 3-Sources. I. Siegelbaum, Lewis H. 11. Sokolov,
A. K. 111. Kosheleva, L. IV. Zhuravlev, Sergei.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Yale University Press gratefully acknowledges the financial sup-
port given for this publication by the Lynde and Harry Bradley
Foundation, Inc., Joseph W. Donner, Austin H. Furse 111, the
David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation, Jeremiah Milbank,
Roger Milliken, the National Endowment for the Humanities,
the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc., the Open Society Fund (New
York), Karen Pritzker, Robert Pritzker, Lloyd H. Smith, and Keith
Young.

Contents
Illustrations follow page 206.
Acknowledgments ix
Notes on Transliteration and Terminology xi
A Note on the Documents xii
Glossary and Abbreviations xiv
Introduction
Lewis Siegelbaum
c HA P T E R o N E The Socialist Offensive
c HAP T E R TWO "Cadres Decide Everything! "
c HAPT E R T H REE Stalin's Constitution
CHAPTER FOUR Loveandplenty
c HAPT E R F I v E Bolshevik Order on the Kolkhoz
c HAPT E R s I x Happy Childhoods
...
V ~ I Contents
Conclusion
Notes
Index of Documents
General Index
Acknowledgments
In working on this project, my greatest debt of gratitude is, of course, to An-
drei Sokolov. His perspicacity, scholarly rigor, hospitality, and sense of humor
triumphed over the extremely difficult circumstances in which he, like other
Russian scholars, is compelled to work and live. I also would like to express
my thanks to Sergei Zhuravlev for his outstanding contributions to this vol-
ume and to the directors and staffs of the Russian State Archive of Social and
Political History, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Russian
State Archive of the Economy, and the other archives cited in this volume.
At Yale University Press, Jonathan Brent obtained the necessary funding and
provided vital encouragement for the project. I greatly appreciate his support,
as well as that of his project assistants, Timothy Sergay and Vadim Staklo, and
other members of his staff. Dan Heaton performed the task of editing the man-
uscript with both professional vigor and humor. I also wish to thank the
anonymous readers of the first version of the manuscript for refusing to toler-
ate its weaknesses.
This project was blessed with the services of two outstanding translators,
Thomas Hoisington and Steven Shabad. Their rendering into English of
Sokolov's prose and the documents-many of which were written in substan-
dard Russian-showed the greatest sensitivity and imagination. Their profes-
sionalism was infectious, and their tracking down of the most obscure geo-
graphical and lexicographical references went far beyond the call of duty.