On Stalin's Team

The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics

Sheila Fitzpatrick

• Publisher: Melbourne University Press Digital
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780522868913
• eBook ISBN: 9780522868920
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

Joseph Stalin was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for so long that most historians have dismissed the officials surrounding him as mere yes-men. On Stalin's Team overturns this view, revealing that behind Stalin were a dozen or so loyal and competent men who formed a remarkably effective team from the late 1920s until his death in 1953, when they accomplished a brilliant transition as a reforming 'collective leadership'.
Drawing on extensive original research, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides the first in-depth account of Stalin's dedicated comrades-in-arms, who not only worked closely with their leader, but constituted his social circle. Key team members were Stalin's number-two man, Molotov; the military leader Voroshilov, the charismatic and entrepreneurial Ordzhonikidze; the wily security chief Beria; and the deceptively simple Khrushchev, who finally disbanded the team in 1957 to become sole leader of the Soviet Union.

Sergei Kirov and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, 1920. ITAR-TASS.

Kaganovich (centre) with Ukrainian party secretary A.V.Medvedev (left) and Postyshev (right), 1927. RGAKFD.

Stalin, his wife Nadya, Voroshilov and his wife, and Enukidze in Sochi, 1932. RIA Novosti.

Stalin and colleague (This is the archival title: the “colleague” is probably Bukharin, and the time, late 1920s). RGASPI.

Sketch of Stalin by Bukharin, 20 February 1928. RGASPI.

Sketch of Rudzutak by Valery Mezhlauk, no date (late 1920s?). Inscription by the artist: Caption: “Missing person! Reward offered.” RGASPI.

Leaders on the Mausoleum, 1933-34. Front row from left: Valery Mezhlauk (Gosplan), Molotov, Kaganovich, Stalin, Voroshilov, Kalinin, Andreev and Chubar. RGAKFD.

Leaders at the XVII Party Congress, 1934. Back row from left: Enukidze, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Kuibyshev; front row, Ordzhonikidze, Stalin, Molotov and Kirov. RGAKFD.

Stalin’s fifty-fifth birthday at Kuntsevo, 1934 (photo taken by Stalin’s bodyguard, General Vlasik). Back row from left: Anna Alliluyeva Redens, Dora Khazan and Zinaida Ordzhonikidze; (middle row) Maria Svanidze, Maria Kaganovich, Sashiko Svanidze, Stalin and Polina Zhemchuzhina (Molotova); (front row) unidentified woman, Zhenya Alliluyeva, Bronislava Poskrebysheva and an unidentified man. RGASPI.

Group photo, 1934: Kirov, Stalin, Kuibyshev, Ordzhonikidze in front row, with Kaganovich, Kalinin and Mikoyan (obscured) behind. RGASPI.

Stalin and Voroshilov at a Kremlin reception, 1936. RGASPI.

Team meeting with Comintern leader Georgy Dimitrov, hero of the Reichstag fire, 1934. Ordzhonikidze in front at left, Dimitrov and Stalin seated on sofa, Molotov and Kuibyshev perched on sofa at left, and Voroshilov at right. RGASPI.

Stalin, Voroshilov, Mikoyan and Molotov on the Mausoleum on the day of the eighteenth anniversary of the revolution, 7 November 1935. RIA Novosti.

Beria with Svetlana Stalina, mid-1930s. RIA Novosti.

Mikoyan family, mid-1930s. Back row: Stepan and Vladimir; middle row, Alexei, Anastas Mikoyan and Ashkhen; front row, Ivan and Sergo. RGASPI.

Stalin in Eastern robes (probably a present from Central Asian delegates), at a meeting with peasants, 1935. RGASPI.

Molotov, Khrushchev and Stalin in summer suits, watching an athletic parade from the Mausoleum in 1936. Sovfoto.

Voroshilov, Molotov, Stalin and Ezhov on the Moscow–Volga canal, 1937. RGAKFD.

Stalin with children Vasily (left), Svetlana (standing) and Yakov (right), with Zhdanov next to Vasily, 1 July 1938. RGASPI.

Party leaders at People’s Meeting of Wester...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Explanatory Note
• Glossary
• Introduction
• One The Team Emerges
• Two The Great Break
• Three In Power
• Four The Team on View
• Five The Great Purges
• Six Into War
• Seven Postwar Hopes
• Eight Aging Leader
• Nine Without Stalin
• Ten End of the Road
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Biographies
• Bibliography of Works Cited
• Index
• Section 1
• Section 2