Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation. by Diane P.
Koenker; Ronald D. Bachman
Review by: Stephen Kotkin
Slavic Review, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 455-456
Published by: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2501884 .
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Book Reviews
455
hope thatthose who question the interpretationsof thisskilled and thoughtfulyoung
historianwill do so in a serious and scholarlymanner.
REGINALI1)
E.
Z}'lNIK
University
ofCalifornia,
Berkeley
Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation. Ed. Diane P.
Koenker and Ronald D. Bachman. Washington,D.C.: Libraryof Congress, 1997.
xxv,808 pages. Bibliography.Glossary.Index. Photographs.$59.00, hard bound..
This weightyvolume containsdeclassifiedSoviet documentsthatwere exhibitedat the
Libraryof Congress fromJune toJuly1992, an event thatJamesBillington,Librarian
of Congress,calls "one of the most importantexhibitsin the [Library's]history"(ix).
Billingtonand other Americans who assisted in the selection of materialswere approached by representativesof the Russian republic, officialswhom the volume's editorscall "a group of democratsled by Rudolf Pikhoia," then head of Russian State
Archives(xv). The editorsneglect to mention thatthe exhibit,also facilitatedby DmitriiVolkogonov,was connectedwithBoris Yeltsin'sfirststatevisitto theUnited States.
Some documentswere hand-carriedto Washingtonin the original.
Part 1 focuseson Soviet domestic issues. The opening section,entitled"The Apparatus of Repression and Terror," contains almost one-thirdof the 343 documents
published.Among the itemsare inconclusivedepositions relatingto the assassination
of Sergei Kirov,the prostrationsof the various party"oppositions," the early establishmentof forcedlabor camps, the Katynmassacre,censorship,and the deportation
of nationalities.The editors note that there are no "smoking guns" on Kirov or the
onset of theGreatTerror.The second section,"Intellectualsand the State,"continues
manyof thesesame themes,fromwhich the textmoves on to more of the same under
the rubrics"The CommunistPartyApparatus" and "Economic Development" (meaning, instead,the horrorsof dekulakizationand collectivization,plus the questionable
characterof industrialsuccesses). Brief sections on "Religion," "Chernobyl,""Perestroikaand Glasnost" round out an unremittingly
grim,not to say familiar,story.
Part2 is devoted to American and Soviet relations,beginningwiththevastfamine
reliefof the AmericanRelief Administration(the U.S. militaryinterventionis passed
over) and culminatingwith the debacle of Afghanistan."The documents released
here," writethe editors,"shed littlelighton the inner workingsof the Soviet foreign
policyprocess" (731). By contrast,Soviet internalacknowledgmentsof the magnitude
of Lend-Lease are revealed. We are also served the menu of an apparentlysumptuous
Kremlindinner in 1943 hosted by losif Stalin forJosephDavies, PresidentRoosevelt's
personal representative,as well as the full text of a fawningletterDavies wrote to
Stalin (withthe preamble, calling Stalin a "Great of the Earth," that was leftout of
the versionpublished in the already universallycondemned MissiontoMoscow[1941]).
To introduce the documents,Diane Koenker has supplied abundant and evenhanded explanatorynotes, but her diligence is overshadowed by the structureof the
exhibition,which parrotsa certain notorious interpretationof the USSR and correspondingAmericanmission thateventsafter1989 ostensiblyratified(particularlythe
obsequious behaviorin 1990-92 of Russian republic officials).Occasionally the exhibit
and resultingbook happen upon a world of incomparable sufferingmade poignant
by unshakable hopes for social justice and advancement.But these momentsare lost
in the book's grindtowardAmerica's extractionof unconditional surrender.So much
for Lev Trotskii's 1922 lament that "we still do not know what the Great Republic
across the ocean wantsfromus" (555).
Handsomely assembled in coffee-tableformatwith rare Gulag and other photographs,thiscollection speaks to American identityand the oversized place thereinof
Soviet communism.In that sense Billington'sassessmentof the exhibit's importance
cannot be dismissed as self-promotion."Revelations" from the Soviet archives con-
456
SlavicReview
tinue to divulge at least as much about American preoccupations as supposed Soviet
secrets.
STEPHI-N KOTKIN
Princeton University
The Unknown
Lenin:FromtheSecretArchive.Ed. Richard Pipes, with the assistance of
David Brandenberger.Trans. Catherine A. Fitzpatrick.Annals of Communism.
New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1996. xx, 204 pp. Index. Photograplhs.$27.50,
hard bound.
This volume contains 122 documentsfromthe formerSoviet archives,the overwhelming majorityof whichwere authored byVladimirLenin. Because theywere considered
sensitive,these documentswere not included in the voluminous collectionsof Lenin's
workspublished in the Soviet era. In general their"sensitivity"consisted in the fact
thatthe documents mightthreatenLenin's reputation(or that of the regime),but in
some cases concern over diplomatic secrets or even, for example, referencesto the
use of codes seem to have resulted in documents findingthemselvesin the secret
Lenin file.
Though some of these documents are very interesting,many others are mere
snippets of informationthat will baffleanyone uninitiated in the details of their
specificcontext.In many cases too, it is difficultto see what is so verysensitiveor
frightfulabout Lenin's comments.It is, of course, necessary to remember that the
audience fromwhich these documents were being hidden was not so much western
historiansas the Soviet public to whom the regime considered it essential thatLenin
be portrayedin saint-liketerms.This made some sense given Russian traditionalpolitical culture,the relativenewness of the Soviet regime,the huge sufferinginflicted
on its subjects in the regime's firstdecades, and the fact that de-Stalinizationhad
ruined manyof Soviet communism'spotential legitimizingmyths.
Thus, for instance,a document establishingLenin's noble origins finds itselfin
the archive, as do his comments on the Roman Malinovskii case (Doc. 17). In my
opinion Lenin was quite rightto argue thatpolice agent or not, Malinovskiidid great
harm to the tsaristregime,especially fromthe Duma podium. Lenin was also rightto
insistthatin 1917-18 Bolshevik and German intereststemporarilycoincided and "we
would be idiots not to take advantage of this" (Doc. 27), however much hysteriathis
mightcause among certain of the partyfaithful.No doubt the authoritiesfelt that
such Realpolitik mightbe too much for the narodto swallow,particularlyin an era
when the old internationalistclass-consciousnesshad long since been buried by Soviet
patriotismand memoriesof the second anti-Germanwar.
In 1987 I spent a number of days driving around London alone with Dmitrii
Volkogonov.Of the manydocumentshe had mined fromthe archives,it was the ones
revealingLenin's ruthlessseveritytoward the peasantry(such as Doc. 24 in Pipes's
collection) which most appalled him. On closer acquaintance, the friend,father,and
protectorof the people seemed to embody opinions and methods veryreminiscent
of losif Stalin. Given Volkogonov's own origins and biography(a typicalone for the
postwarSoviet elite), and given the sentimentallypopulist nationalism at the core of
the Soviet patriotic worldview,it is not difficultto see why he was so shaken or,
therefore,whythe Kremlin took care to keep records such as document 24 out of the
public eye. Westernhistoriansshould not be surprisedby such materials.Ample evidence has long existed in the west about Bolshevik perspectivesand policies vis-a-vis
the peasantryin 1918-21.
Among the longest and most interestingdocuments in this collection are a September 1920 speech by Lenin on the war with Poland and the prospects of world
revolution(Doc. 59) and a March 1922 (Doc. 94) demand thatthe faminebe exploited
as an opportunityto smash the Orthodox Church. The latter is accompanied by a
typicallyLeninist call to shoot as many priestsand bourgeois as possible in order to