I gratefully acknowledge that the preparation of this paper—delivered in a different version at the Yale Summer Seminar on Contemporary Soviet Literature and Film 1987—was funded by a grant from the Social Science Research Council.

1. Stalinism has been attacked on three levels: the governmental, the scientific middle, and the journalistic and literary, including documentaries and memoirs. The third has been the most forthcoming and critical, with the others following. (For more detail, see Christian Schmidt-Hauer and Maria Huber, Russlands zweite Revolution [Munich: Serie Piper, 1987]; 97-112).

The most outspoken scientific supporter of a rewriting of history has been the director of the Moscow Historical and Archival Institute, Iurii Afanasiev. Western sources have discussed these trends: New York Times, 24 and 25 March 1987; Stephen Cohen, “Sovieticus,” Nation, 31 January 1987, 104; Michael McGuire, “Glasnost’ spooked by Stalin,” San Francisco Chronicle, 1 March 1987, A-14; Jutta Scherrer, “Das ist unsere Revolution,” Die Zeit, 13 March 1987, 15; Philip Taubman, “Dismantling the Stalin Myth: New Effort under Gorbachev,” New York Times, 15 March 1987; and Dev Murarka's excellent two-part article “Recovering the Buried Stalin Years,” The Nation, 24 October 1987, 447 ff. and 31 October 1987, 486 ff.; and David Singer's “On Recapturing the Soviet Past,” The Nation, 12 December 1987, 716-718. Bill Keller, “For Stalin Purges Yet More Criticism,” New York Times, 6 January 1989.

Many articles about the need to explore the blank spots of history have appeared in the Soviet press: Stanislav V. Tiutiukin (Izvestiia, 3 May 1987), Current Digest of the Soviet Press 39 no. 7 (18 March 1987): 6, and no. 18 (3 June 1987): 4; M. Alekseev, “Nel'zia popravliat’ istoriiu,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 14 January 1987; Aleksandr Bovin, “Memory: A Factor to Be Set in Motion,” New Times, 9 February 1987, 9-10; Boris Mozhaev, “No chto my govorim o glasnosti!” Literaturnaia gazeta, 11 February 1987, 6; V. Svirskii, Izvestiia, 21 July 1987, 3; L. Kurin, Pravda, 23 July 1987, 3; see also the articles in Moscow News no. 24 (1988): 12-13 (“Stalin and Stalinism—Two Viewpoints“), no. 28, 2 (“Was Dictatorship Inevitable?“), no. 30, 2 (“Under Stalin's Spell“), no. 31, 10 (“People of the Resistance“), no. 34, 7 (“Stalin as Seen by an Outside Observer“), no. 37, 11 (“The World without Unnecessary Things“).

Gorbachev's statements, have been progressively more critical of Stalin. He pledged that there should be no more blank spots in Soviet history. Those purged under Stalin have been rehabilitated. A new commission is to investigate the archives of the purged, and the history of the party and history textbooks are being rewritten. A monument to the victims of Stalin is planned, and mass graves previously attributed to Adolf Hitler's forces are conceded to be the responsibility of Stalin. Cf. Mikhail Gorbachev's “How Society Tackles Renewal” in Moscow News, no. 44 (8-15 November 1987): 8-9 and his speech “October and Perestroika: The Revolution Continues,” Moscow News, no. 45 (15-22 November 1987): esp. 3-5. Cf. also Roy Medvedev, “Die sowjetische Kultur im Jubilaumsjahr 1987,” Osteuropa, no. 9 (1988): 797-814.

In the last two years novels, plays, and films have appeared that reexamine the Stalin era. They take up topics taboo since the mid-1960s: Stalin's forced collectivization, the crimes of the purges, Stalin's dubious leadership in World War II, and the repression in the sciences after the war. Dudintsev's Belye Odezhdy in Neva, no. 1-2 (1987), and Daniil Granin's Zubr in Novyi mir, no. 1 (1987), deal with the persecution of scientists; Anatolii Pristavkin's Nochevala tuchka zolotaia in Znamia, nos. 3-4 (1987), with the deportation of nationalities. Various aspects of the purges and Stalin's terror are analyzed in Aleksandr Bek's Novoe naznachenie in Znamia, no. 10-11 (1986), Iurii Trifonov's “Ischeznovenie” in Druzhba narodov, no. 1 (1987), Aleksandr Tvardovskii's Po pravu pamiati in Znamia, no. 2 (1987), Anna Akhmatova's “Rekviem” in Oktiabr', no. 3 (1987), parts of Chingis Aitmatov's Plakha in Novyi mir, nos. 6, 8-9 (1986), and in such films as Pokaianie, Chuchelo, and Moi drug Ivan Lapshin, first shown in 1986, and the play Diktatura sovesti., Teatr, no. 6 (1986). The effect of collectivization is the special focus of Sergei Zalygin's Posle buri (Sovetskii PisateV, 1982 and 1984), Sergei Antonov's Vas'ka, (Iunost', nos. 3-4 [1987]), Boris Mozhaev's “Muzhiki i baby” (Don, nos. 1-3 [1987]), and the plays Govori by A. Buravskii (1986), Serebriannaia ansvad'ba by A. Misharin (1985), Stat'ia by Roman Solntsev (1986) Trinadtsatyi predsedatel’ by Azat Abdullin (1986), and plays based on Fedor Abramov's Priaslin-novel. Since then, further works, have appeared, such as Platonov's, or some of those written twenty years ago and only published abroad, like Iurii Dombrovskii's Fakultet nenuzhnykh veshchei, first appeared in Novyi mir 8-11 (1988) or Lydiia Chukovskaia's Sofia Andreevna (here known as Zapustelyi dom) or Georgii Vladimov's Vernyi Ruslan, Znamia, no. 2 (1989), or such new Soviet works as Iampol'skii's Moskovskaia ulitsa, Znamia, nos. 2-3 (1988), and Mikhail Kuraev's Nochnoi dozor, Novyi mir, no. 12 (1988).

2. L. Anninskii, “Ottsy i syny,” Oktiabr', no. 10 (1987): 185. See also Vasil Bykov who lauds it as a “grandioznoe proizvedenie” a “uglublennyi razrez obshchestva ot TSK Partii ‘do samykh do okrain', pokazali mnogie storony zhizni togo vremeni pochti ne otrazhennye v literature“; Evgenii Evtushenko who sees it as a “gigantskoe kaleidoskopicheskoe proizvedenie,” “masshtabnoe istoriko-sotsial'noe polotno i napisannoe netoroplivoi realisticheskoi kist'iu khudozhnika, postavivshego pered soboi trudnuiu … zadachu issledovaniia ‘belykh piatei’ na karte istorii,” a “mnogo sloinost’ romana, gallereinost’ obrazov.” Bulat Okudzhava calls it “tochnaia, ne predvziataia, ne zlobstvuiushchaia, a spravedlivaia i gu mannaia letopis'” and playwright Mikhail Shatrov tells Rybakov: “Vy pervyi iz izvestnykh mne pisatelei predpriniali ser'eznuiu popytku proniknut’ v sut’ etogo cheloveka (Stalina) i iavleniia, vyiavit’ ego korni, rodoslovnuiu togo, chto rastsvelo pyshnym tsvetom posle 1929 goda” (Ogonek, 1987 no. 27, 4-4 and 26).

3. In 1988, Lenin's role in the creation of Stalinism became an open issue. In April, the historian Nikolai P. Povov in Sovetskaia kul'tura, in June, Vasilii Seliunin in Novyi Mir, in June, Otto Latsis in Znamia, and in October former political prisoner Oleg Volkov in a public discussion all accused Lenin of preparing for Stalin's totalitarian state, including the forced labor camps. See also Bill Keller, “Lenin is Assailed on Terror, and Soviet Taboo is Broken,” New York Times, 8 June 1988; “Russians Painfully Pry,” New York Times, 11 June 1988; “Court Vindicates Two Stalin Victims Who Were Close Allies of Lenin's,” New York Times, 14 June 1988; “For Stalin Purges Yet More Criticism,” New York Times, 6 January 1989; Paul Quinn-Judge, “Soviets Inch toward Breaking Ultimate Taboo: Reassessing Lenin's Role,” Christian Science Monitor, 31 October 1988, 9, 13; articles by Shafarevich and Medvedev, Moscow News no. 24 (19-26 June 1988): 12-13.

4. Deti Arbata, Druzhba narodov, 1987, nos. 4-6. References to it will appear in the text of this article in parentheses after quotations with Roman numerals referring to the issues of the journal (IV-VI) and Arabic numerals to the pages. All translations are my own. Sovetskii pisatel’ brought out the 1987 book.

5. Rybakov was born in the Ukraine in 1911, graduated in 1934 from the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineering, and fought as a soldier in World War II. His full-time writing career began only at age 37. Since then he has become an established and popular author of childrens’ literature, novels, and film and television scripts, for which he received many prizes, including the Stalin Prize for the novel Voditeli, 1951. His best known work in the west is Tiazhelyi Pesok, the story of the courageous life and resistance of a Jewish family in the Ukraine during the Nazi occupation.

6. Ogonek, no. 21, p. 4. 1935 i drugie gody, Ogonek, 11 March 1986; Druzhba narodov, 1988, no. 9, 5-110, and no. 10, 7-115. It is artistically inferior to Deti Arbata but expands substantially on Stalin's biography.

7. See the discussion of Stalinism in the Russian Review 45 (October 1986): 357-413, and 46 (October 1987): 379-431.

8. In a conversation, Herman Ermolaev called my attention to this quotation. Rybakov, asked for its source, supposedly explained to an inquiring journalist that Lenin had in mind a European dictatorship, not an Asiatic one like Stalin's.

9. According to Rybakov's daughter-in-law, the critic Natal'ia Ivanova, Roy Medvedev's Let History Judge (New York: Vintage, 1973) and Aleksandr Bek's Novoe naznachenie were known to Rybakov in manuscript. According to Medvedev, Rybakov's portrait is “historically and psychologically accurate” (Roy Medvedev, “Die sowjetische Kultur in Jubilaumsjahr 1987,” Osteuropa, no. 9 [1988] 799). Meanwhile Medvedev's “O Staline i Stalinizme. Ocherki” Znamia, no. 12 (1988), was a summary of Let History Judge with new materials. Both Medvedev and Rybakov, like many others, were inspired to write about this topic by the Twentieth and Twenty-Second party congresses, and they drew mostly on published materials and eyewitness testimonials. They did not work in archives. Rybakov supposedly learned the story of Stalin's dentist from the dentist himself and the Kirov story from one of the investigators appointed after the Twentieth Party Congress. It is likely that Solzhenitsyn's Arkhipelag Gulag, V kruge pervom (also combining fictionalized autobiographical experience with the recreation of historical characters), Rakovyi korpus, and western analyses of Stalinism also influenced Rybakov.

Meanwhile Colonel General D. A. Volkogonov produced a political portrait of Stalin in Triumf i tragediia, Oktiabr', 1988. According to Medvedev (“Die sowjetische Kultur,” 803-804, Volkogonov had access to party and government archives not open to Soviet historians. His portrait, according to Medvedev, attempts to “minimize the extent and cunning of Stalin's crimes” and to underline the achievements of the Soviet people, while introducing new facts (for example that Stalin ordered the liquidation of 20,000 “honest” members of the NKVD in the 1930s, among them Iagoda and Ezhov). Medvedev disagrees with Volkogonov's assumption that Stalin suffered from a severe, undiagnosed psychological illness.

10. Batkin, Leonid, “Stalin's Logic,” Moscow News, 1989, no. 3, 12 Google Scholar.

11. Geoffrey Hosking (“At Last an Exorcism,” Times Literary Supplement, 9-15 October 1987, 1111-1112) believes that Riazanov is a fictional portrait of Zaveniagin. Stephen Kotkin, University of California, Berkeley, graduate student, who did research on urbanization in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1939 and met with Rybakov, suggests that Rozengol'ts, commisar for foreign trade, is the prototype for Budiagin. Aleksandr Bek's novel Novoe nainachenie is entirely devoted to the analysis and fate of an industrial magnate like Riazanov: Onissimov (Znamia, 1986, nos. 10-11).

Aron Sol'ts is a historical figure mentioned both in Medvedev, Let History Judge, 218-219) as well as Trifonov's Otblesk kostra. His tragic fate at first in an insane asylum, then in exile during World War II is movingly described in Trifonov's Ischeznovenie where he has the fictional name David Shvarts.

12. Aleksandr Latsis, (“S tochki zreniia sovremennika,” Izvestiia, 17 August 1987, 4 and Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 39 [16 September 1987]: 6) is wrong when he cites Kirov's statement to fault Rybakov. He confuses the implied author's meaning with the statement of a character. His point that Rybakov focused on a secondary issue—the influence of character on politics—is well taken. Latsis argues that the real issue is that of means versus ends. Of course, this issue is raised by Rybakov but is eclipsed by the dominance of Stalin's personality. Latsis also points to four inconsistencies in the portrayal of events surrounding Kirov, a valuable contribution to the factual accuracy of the historical background. In a novel that intends to capture a major personality and the Zeitgeist such errors do not seem crucial. It is more significant that such a long-time observer of Soviet history as Herman Ermolaev considers Rybakov's Kirov idealized (personal conversation).

13. Clark, Katerina, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981)Google Scholar, focused on a secondary issue—the influence of character on politics—is well taken. Latsis argues that the real issue is that of means versus ends. Of course, this issue is raised by Rybakov but is eclipsed by the dominance of Stalin's personality. Latsis also points to four inconsistencies in the portrayal of events surrounding Kirov, a valuable contribution to the factual accuracy of the historical background. In a novel that intends to capture a major personality and the Zeitgeist such errors do not seem crucial. It is more significant that such a long-time observer of Soviet history as Herman Ermolaev considers Rybakov's Kirov idealized (personal conversation).

14. Hosking, “At Last an Exorcism,” 1112.

15. Rybakov's conception of Lenin seems to coincide with the portrayals of playwright Mikhail Shatrov, the major proponent of a return to Lenin and what he considers Lenin's beliefs and methods. He has devoted a series of plays to him, some of them unpublished since the 1960s: Bolsheviki, Tak pobedim, Brestskii mir, and Diktatura sovesti. His most recent play, Dal she … dal'she … dal'she, published in Znamia, January 1988, looks at the Revolution of 1917 through the eyes of participants but at different times of their life. The most recent perspective is that of today, during the Soviet Union's new revolution (see Washington Post, 14 December 1987, and Moscow News, 1987, no. 2, 12).

16. Bailey, John, “The Shock of the Old,” New Republic, 23 May 1988, 40–42 Google Scholar.

17. Two Soviet critics refer to Rybakov's Stalin as a Shakespearean character: L. Anninskii, Ogonek, no. 27 (July 1987): 6, and Iurii Idashkin, Literaturnaia Rossiia 30 (31 July 1987): 9.