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The Road from Il'ich to Il'ich: The Life and Times of Anastas Ivanovich Mikoian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Michael Ellman
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Abstract

An overview of the life and work of the Soviet politician Anastas Mikoian (1895-1978) based on his recently published memoirs, this essay draws attention to the additional knowledge about Soviet politics that can be found in these memoirs. This includes the name of Vladimir Lenin's candidate to succeed Iosif Stalin as general secretary (Ian Rudzutak), the workings of the Politburo from 1937 to 1953, and details concerning the planned evacuation of Moscow in October 1941. In addition, there is information about the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Pospelov committee in 1955, the failure of the CPSU in 1956 to rehabilitate the victims of the open trials of Old Bolsheviks in 1936-1938, and the attempt by Aleksandr Shelepin to replace Leonid Brezhnev in 1967. Memoirs are an imperfect source, and their assertions must be checked against other sources. Overall Ellman concludes that the verdict on Mikoian's life “can only be a shade of grey.“

Type
Review Essay
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , Spring 2001 , pp. 139 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2001

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References

1. For example, chapter 2 of Medvedev, Roy, All Stalin's Men, trans. Shukman, Harold (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar is entitled “A. I. Mikoyan: From Ilyich to Ilyich.“

2. Mikoian was not the longest serving full member of the Politburo/Presidium. Both Iosif Stalin and KlimentVoroshilov served longer as full members, and Viacheslav Molotov served approximately the same length of time as a full member.

3. For tributes to the effectiveness of his work in the food industry, see A. I. Mikoian k 100-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia (Moscow, 1996), 60–63 and 73–77.Google Scholar

4. Roy Medvedev has argued that Mikoian's “political longevity was not due solely to good luck or cunning, to his flexibility or his capacity to give way to force or make compromises, to his phenomenal diplomatic talents. It was, rather, the consequence of his exceptional efficiency. Even Stalin knew the value of that, for after all many a revolution had occurred because of poor supplies—and not only in Russia.” Medvedev, All Stalin's Men, 60. Sergo Mikoian has argued that his father's political longevity was a result of three factors— his lack of careerism and personal ambition, his avoidance of sharp conflicts with Stalin, and his efficiency as an administrator. A. I. Mikoian k 100-letiiu, 90.

5. Mikoian, A. I., Dorogoibor'by (Moscow, 1971)Google Scholar; and Mikoian, A. I., V nachale dvadtsatykh (Moscow, 1975)Google Scholar. The first of these books was translated into English and published as Memoirs of Anastas Mikoyan (Madison, Conn., 1988).

6. For a record of Lenin's remarks at this meeting, see document 276 in V. I. Lenin: Neizvestnyedokumenty, 1891–1922 (Moscow, 1999), 419–21Google Scholar. For an English translation, setdocument 66 in Pipes, Richard, ed., The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (New Haven, 1996), 123–24.Google Scholar

7. Khlevniuk, O. V., Kvashonkin, A. V., Kosheleva, L. P., and Rogovaia, L. A., comps., Stahnskoepolitbiuro v 30-e gpdy (Moscow, 1995), 55 Google Scholar. A discussion of the role of the permanent committee/inner Politburo in 1937-39, based on archival documents, can be found in Khlevniuk, O. V., Politbiuro: Mekhanizmy politicheskoi vlasti v 1930-egody (Moscow, 1996), 237–39Google Scholar. A de facto inner Politburo comprising Stalin, Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Ordzhonikidze, and Mikoian seems to have existed already in 1930. See Khlevniuk, Kvashonkin, Kosheleva, and Rogovaia, comps., Slalinskoe politbiuro, 97, 99.

8. Khrushchev, N. S., Doklad na zakrytom zasedanii XX s˶ezda KPSS (Moscow, 1959), 57–58 Google Scholar; Khrushchev, N. S., “O kul'te lichnosti i ego posledstviiakh,” Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1989, no. 3:163 Google Scholar; Wolfe, Bertram D., Khrushchev and Stalin's Ghost (London, 1957), 240–42Google Scholar. Khrushchev, who became a candidate member of the Politburo in 1938, and a full member in 1939, seems to have been excluded from the inner Politburo for many years.

9. According to Mikoian, during the war there was not a single Politburo meeting. The so-called Politburo minutes for the war period are in fact records of the decisions of the inner Politburo written up by Malenkov as if they were minutes of Politburo meetings. See Kumanev, G. A., “A. I. Mikoian,” in Kumanev, G. A., Riadom s Stalinym: Otkrovennye svidetel'stva (Moscow, 1999), 35.Google Scholar

10. Osokina, Elena A., Zafasadom “Stalinskogo izobiliia “: Raspredelenie i rynok v snabzhenii naseleniia vgody industrializatsii, 1927-1941 (Moscow, 1998), 206–18Google Scholar. There is an English translation of this book, Osokina, Elena A., Our Daily Bread: Socialist Distribution and the Art of Survival in Stalin's Russia, 1927–1941 (Armonk, N.Y., 2000).Google Scholar

11. A State Defense Committee decree dated 15 October 1941 and signed by Stalin, ordering the evacuation from Moscow “today” of foreign diplomatic missions and of the government, is printed in Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1990, no. 12:217. According to this document, “com. Stalin will be evacuated tomorrow [i.e., the 16th] or later, depending on the circumstances.” In Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 1:216 — 17, there is a report to Aleksandr Shcherbakov (then secretary of the Moscow party committee) about the destruction of their party cards on 16-17 October 1941 by “more than a thousand” (candidate) members of the party. For a detailed discussion of the crisis, see Barber, J., “The Moscow Crisis of October 1941,” in Cooper, J. et al., eds., Soviet History, 1917–53 (Basingstoke, Eng., 1995), 201–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Ellman, M., “The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines,“ Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2000, no. 5:608.Google Scholar

13. Volkogonov, D. A., Sem' vothdei (Moscow, 1995), 1:382 Google Scholar; Ellman “1947 Soviet Famine,“ 608.

14. Medvedev, Zhores, “Sekretnyi naslednik Stalina,” Voprosy istorii, 1999, no. 7:94.Google Scholar

15. Efremov, Leonid, Dorogami bor'by i truda (Saratov, 1998), 12–17 Google Scholar; Mukhitdinov, Nuriddin, Cody provedennye v kremle (Tashkent, 1994), 81–83.Google Scholar

16. For the role of the Pospelov committee, see Pikhoia, R. G., Sovetskii Soiuz: I star Ha vlasti, 1945–1991 (Moscow, 1998), 139–46.Google Scholar

17. This agitation seems in particular to have resulted from a request at the beginning of February 1953 that he sign, along with numerous other prominent Jews, an “anti- Zionist” letter to be published in Pravda. For the text of the draft letter see Fslochnik, 1997, no. 1:143–46.

18. For further information on the Shelepin-Brezhnev rivalry, see Aleksandrov-Agentov, A. M., Ot KoUontai do Gorbacheva (Moscow, 1994), 253–57Google Scholar, and Burlatskii, Fedor, Russkie gosudari epokha reformatsii (Moscow, 1996), 142–48.Google Scholar

19. Shepilov, D., “Vospominaniia,” Voprosy istorii, 1998, no. 7:30.Google Scholar

20. This is confirmed by archival research. See Pikhoia, Sovetskii Soiuz, 157–64.

21. Iakovlev, A. N., Krestosev (Moscow, 2000).Google Scholar

22. For a photocopy of the report by Beriia proposing shooting the prisoners, with the approving signatures of Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, and Mikoian, see Pikhoia, R. G. et al., eds., Katyn': Plenniki neob˶iavlennoi voiny (Moscow, 1999), 385.Google Scholar

23. “Massovye repressii opravdany byt’ ne mogut,” Istochnik, 1995, no. 1:124. No numbers are given.

24. Istochnik, 1995, no. 1:123–30. For the Central Committee decree adopted on the basis of this report, see “O dopolnitel'nykh merakh po vosstanovleniiu spravedlivosti v otnoshenii zhertv repressii, imevshikh mesto v period 30-40-kh i nachala 50-kh godov,“ Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1989, no. 2:22–23.

25. According to his son Sergo, the decision on who was to deliver this speech was made by the Politburo, and the text was written by the NKVD itself. See A. I. Mikoian k 100-letiiu, 88–89.