Note: The text below is an excerpt. Download the entire document as a 30+ page PDF file via this link.
Additionally, the article below includes a reference to W.B. Bland’s review of Molotov’s memoir, which we have reproduced in its entirety via this link.
Book Review: “Molotov’s Letter to The Central Committee of CPSU – On the Personality Cult and the Programme of CPSU”; Ed. Svitlana M, Erdogan A; np; 2022 – Hereafter “Letter”; 372 pages
Hari Kumar: June 5, 2022
As pdf found on web at:
https://neodemocracy.blogspot.com/2022/05/letter-from-v-m-molotov-to-central.html
To avert any dismantling of any of our future socialist constructions, we must understand how it was dismembered in the Soviet Union. Several questions about how this happened are only partially answered to now. Yet we certainly know that Nikita Khrushchev was the main culprit, although some details remain unclear. The many puzzling questions that remain include:
“How were the specific socialist measures under the leadership of J.V. Stalin destroyed?
How did Stalin die and was his personal security compromised?
What debates and resistance to Khrushchevism were led by honest cadre, inside the highest echelons of the CPSU CC and in the rank-and-file?
Which other persons were allied to Khrushchev?
What happened to restrain Stalin’s erst-while comrades in the Politburo? Who ultimately defended Stalin and who did not?
What was the role of Molotov?” et cetera, et cetera.
In this review I will cover three aims:
1) To describe the provenance of the long “Letter” published in this book, apparently written by Molotov to the Central Committee of the CPSU;
2) To review the high and low points of his Molotov’s Bolshevik career; and finally –
3) To consider selected aspects of Molotov’s long “Letter”.
1) The ‘Letter to the Central Committee’
The long letter concerns the above puzzle-questions in an English translation. Although it does not answer them in any way fully, details are added, making it of interest. Apparently written by Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov it is entitled “On the problem of the cult of personality of I.V. Stalin and about the program of the CPSU.” Unpublished until later found in the Russian archives, it was first published in Russian.[1] It is referred to hereafter as ‘The Letter’, and has been referenced in Russian texts. [2]
Before delving into the content of ‘The Letter’, some caveats are warranted. Although there is no signature, the presumption that it was written by Molotov seems reasonably safe. This is based on its’ recovery from Molotov’s files in the archives and the content dealing with the so-called ‘anti-Party’ grouping (see below p.12). We do not know exactly when it was written, although likely it was in 1957-1958:
“A little over a year has passed (since the XX Party Congress, where an open denunciation of the so-called ‘Cult of Personality’ was made public – HK) and the June Plenum of the Central Committee in 1957.”
Molotov emphasises that:
“This letter is the result of many years of work, the result of hard thoughts and doubts. Before writing it, I tried to the best of my ability and ability to carefully study and analyze all the material available to me on a particular issue.“ [3]
Molotov also says in “The Letter” that he reviewed “extensive” materials to write it:
“The material is extensive. And for me, when working on a letter, the greatest difficulty was precisely the process of selecting the most important and valuable, of course, from my point of view, that can be found in this material on the issues that interested me.” [3]
Perhaps this explains Molotov’s poor phrasing, sparse punctuation, and disjointed form or style in English (at least to my eye). Long sentences at times obscure the content, and the referencing is sketchy. Undoubtedly, translating it must have posed a challenge. The editors took the decision to present it ‘raw’ from the archives, without attempting to finesse or smooth it. The editors argue that:
“Academic background and expertise is related to the bourgeois methods of “influencing”, “manipulating” the reader with “Titles’, “Headlines”, Out of context “reviews”, “End Notes” etc. We are very familiar with those. That is why we choose to minimize it if not totally eliminate especially in archival, primary source materials.“ (personal communication June 2022).
Despite the resulting difficulty to the reader, this letter shows Molotov’s thoughts. The occasional interjection by Gregori Malenkov is marked in the text as ‘GM’. The text interests Marxist-Leninists, as it is explicitly about – says Molotov – the “so-called cult of personality”:
“The whole letter is devoted, in fact, to one problem, one question – the problem of the so-called personality cult of I.V. Stalin, the question of why, a few years after Stalin’s death, it was necessary to stir up the past and why, and why it was done in such a harsh and unsightly form.” 3
The Editors of this volume are to be thanked for placing this translation before the movement.
Molotov was an extremely capable, but contradictory figure. Therefore I believe that it is necessary to weigh this “Long Letter” alongside other materials. To illustrate this, just recall Molotov’s stance at the XX Party Congress (14–25 February 1956). There a vicious, public assault was first begun by Khrushchev upon Stalin. Bland reviewed Albert Resis’ edited volume containing Felix Chuev’s interviews with Molotov over years, and commented:
“Bland: Although he defends Stalin in many respects, Molotov admits that he kept silent during Khrushchev’s savage attack on Stalin at the 20th Congress in 1956: “Molotov: “Some people holding pretty much the same view blame me. ‘Why did you keep silent at the 20th Congress? . . . To keep silent, they say, is tantamount to consent. That’s how it turned out. I kept silent and thus consented”. [4]
I will return to the matter of Molotov’s own culpability later. How consistent Molotov is in this ‘Letter’ with what he stated in his interviews with Chuev, is a form of a ‘validity’ test. I will return to this in the final section of this review. I think it helps to briefly review Molotov’s career – highlighting World War Two, and Stalin’s post-war break with him.
Download the entire document as a 30+ page PDF file via this link.
[1] “Issues of History”, Nos. 1-6, 8-11, 2011, Nos. 1.3-2012; RGASPI F.82, Op.2, D. 198a L.1-357
[2] https://www.litres.ru/vyacheslav-molotov/v-zaschitu-stalina-pismo-v-ck/chitat-onlayn/
[3] “Letter” p. 3
[4] Albert Resis (Ed.): ‘Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics’; Chicago; 1993; p. 351; In: Bland W.B. ‘Compass’; Communist League, October 1993, No. 108; “Book Review, Molotov’s Memoirs”;