The Lost Politburo Transcripts; From Collective Rule to Stalin's Dictatorship

by Edited by Paul R. Gregory and Norman Naimark

• ISBN13: 9780300134247
• ISBN10: 030013424X
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2008-11-18
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In this groundbreaking book, prominent Western and Russian scholars examine the "lost" transcripts of the Soviet Politburo, a set of verbatim accounts of meetings that took place from the 1920s to 1938 but remained hidden in secret archives until the late 1990s. Never intended for publication or wide distribution, these records (known as stenograms in Russia) reveal the actual process of decision making at the highest levels of the Soviet communist party. The transcripts also provide new, first-hand records of the rise of Stalin's dictatorship. The contributors to the volume explore the power struggles among the Politburo members, their methods of discourse and propaganda, and their economic policies. Taken as a whole, the essays shed light on early Soviet history and on the individuals who supported or opposed Stalin's consolidation of power.

Author Biography

Paul Gregory is Cullen Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of Houston. As a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, he directs the Soviet Archives Working Group. He lives in Bellaire, TX. Norman Naimark is Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies, Stanford University. He lives in Stanford, CA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction
Findings and Perspectives	p. 3
The Politburo's Role as Revealed by the Lost Transcripts	p. 16
The Power Struggle
Stalin in the Light of the Politburo Transcripts	p. 41
"Class Brothers Unite!" The British General Strike and the Formation of the "United Opposition"	p. 57
Stalin, Syrtsov, Lominadze: Preparations for the "Second Great Breakthrough"	p. 78
The "Right Opposition" and the "Smirnov-Eismont-Tolmachev Affair"	p. 97
Discourse, Ideology, and Propaganda
The Way They Talked Then: The Discourse of Politics in the Soviet Party Politburo in the Late 1920s	p. 121
Making the Unthinkable Thinkable: Language Microhistory of Politburo Meetings	p. 135
The Short Course of the History of the All-Union Communist Party: The Distorted Mirror of Party Propaganda	p. 165
Economic Policy
Grain, Class, and Politics During NEP: The Politburo Meeting of December 10, 1925	p. 181
The Politburo on Gold, Industrialization, and the International Economy, 1925-1926	p. 199
Prices in the Politburo, 1927: Market Equilibrium versus the Use of Force	p. 224
Bibliography	p. 247
List of Contributors	p. 259
Index	p. 261
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