The unrest surrounding the 1905 revolution frightened the ruling classes and awakened the tsarist government to the need for concessions. Russia became a freer country. Serious agrarian reform was introduced that had fundamental significance for a country in which the peasantry represented an overwhelming—and explosive—majority. Historians still argue over where these reforms might ultimately have led. One thing is clear: Russia was not allowed to follow the course of reform long enough to yield results. Furthermore, alongside the reforms and concessions, the authorities began to “restore order” and more decisively and brutally combat the revolutionary underground. One victim of this post-revolutionary crackdown was Jughashvili. In March 1908 he was arrested. As before, he denied any wrongdoing, claiming that he did not belong to any revolutionary party and had spent a long time abroad.
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These ploys did not work. After seven months in prison, he was sent into exile in Vologda Province, where he spent four months before fleeing. In the summer of 1909, he returned to Baku.
By this time, the Social Democratic organization in Baku had been infiltrated by undercover police. Failed operations and arrests aroused mutual suspicion and rising tempers among the revolutionaries. Jughashvili again came under scrutiny: new rumors emerged that he was working for the police. This idea has continued to be promoted, although most historians have never given credence to theories that he was a double agent. The opening of the archives has confirmed their skepticism. A key document used to bolster these accusations against Stalin has been definitively exposed as a forgery, produced within émigré circles after the revolution.
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Jughashvili spent more time in prison and exile than one would expect for a double agent. In the spring of 1910 he was again arrested and this time threatened with serious punishment. The police demanded that he be sent for five years to “the most remote reaches of Siberia.” He resorted to a tried-and-true method: pleas for leniency, citing his poor health and the absence of serious evidence. In an attempt to demonstrate good intentions, he requested that he be allowed to marry a woman he had met while in exile and with whom he was living.
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It is hard to assess what effect these “humble pleas” had, but in October 1910, instead of the five-year sentence in Siberia initially sought, Jughashvili was returned to Vologda Province to complete his previous sentence. This was a mild punishment. His term concluded in July 1911.
The year-and-a-half between his release from this term of exile and his final arrest, in February 1913, was the peak of his career in the underground. He advanced into the ranks of the Bolshevik leadership, becoming a member of the Leninist party’s Central Committee in 1912. This elevation had at least two consequences. First, he now zigzagged across Russia and often spent extended periods in the two capitals, St. Petersburg and Moscow, rather than working full time in Transcaucasia. Second, he was the target of much more intense police surveillance. He engaged in underground work in Russia, assisted in the publication of Bolshevik newspapers, wrote articles, and strategized with Bolshevik representatives in the State Duma. He also became one of Lenin’s closest associates. The Bolshevik leader was still in hiding outside the country and needed loyal helpers in Russia. Several times, Jughashvili traveled to meet with Lenin abroad. Detained by circumstances in Vienna for several weeks in 1913, he began work on an article addressing the party’s approach to ethnic minorities. This work was of particular interest to Lenin. In lockstep with Lenin’s views, Jughashvili advocated a unified Russian Social Democratic Party and argued against the fragmentation of revolutionary forces based on ethnicity.
Jughashvili exemplified this sort of inter-ethnic cooperation. He considered himself an actor on the Russian imperial—not just the Georgian—stage. Putting his youthful nationalism and Transcaucasian Social Democratic past behind him, he consciously transformed himself into Stalin. He began to use this Russian-sounding pseudonym, which symbolized his affinity with the revolutionary movement, around the time he moved into the Bolshevik party leadership.
Stalin undoubtedly deserved his standing and reputation as a prominent Bolshevik. His organizational and writing abilities, daring, decisiveness, cool head, simple tastes, adaptability, and devotion to Lenin all contributed to his elevation to the top ranks. He stuck with the party even during the crisis in the Social Democratic movement that followed the crushing of the first revolution, a crisis characterized by mass arrests of underground operators, infiltration of the organization by police agents, and a severe shortage of funds. In March 1913, an agent who had penetrated the Baku Social Democratic organization reported that “The committee is currently not undertaking any activities.”
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Meanwhile, in February, in far-off Petersburg, Stalin was arrested. He had been betrayed by fellow Bolshevik leader and Lenin favorite Roman Malinovsky, who had been working for the police for several years.
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FOUR YEARS IN SIBERIA
In June 1913, Ioseb Jughashvili was sentenced to a four-year term of exile in Siberia’s Turukhansky Krai. From the start, this last period of exile was marked by particular hardship. Turukhansky Krai was an extremely inhospitable region. Stalin’s letters during the first months were filled with pleas for help and complaints that he lacked funds and was in poor health:
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It seems that I have never been in such a terrible situation. My money is gone, the intensifying cold (37 below) has brought on a suspicious cough, and I’m in a general state of ill health, have no supply of bread, sugar, meat, or kerosene (all my money has gone toward day-to-day expenses, clothing, and footwear).… I understand that none of you, you in particular, have time for this, but, damn it, I don’t have anyone else to turn to. And I don’t want … to croak here. This has to be taken care of today and money sent by telegraph because waiting any longer means starving, and I’m already malnourished and sick.
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My hardship grows by the hour, I’m in a desperate situation, and on top of it all I’ve fallen ill and some suspicious cough has set in. I need milk, but … money, I have no money. My dear, if you get some money, send it to me immediately via telegram. I can’t stand it any longer.
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At first there was a lingering hope of freedom. The party leadership adopted a resolution to arrange an escape for Stalin and his comrade in exile, Yakov Sverdlov. An escape would require money, but there were delays in sending it. Furthermore, the traitor Malinovsky informed the police of the escape plans. In March 1914, on orders from St. Petersburg, Stalin and Sverdlov were sent to the even more remote village of Kureika, not far from the Arctic Circle, and placed under the charge of personal wardens. Escape was almost impossible.
Stalin took this transfer as a severe blow. In late March 1914 he sent an angry letter to St. Petersburg rebuking his party comrades for their long silence and demanding to know: would there be money for an escape or not?
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Several weeks later he changed his plans. In April he wrote to Malinovsky: “The new governor has relocated me to the far north and confiscated the money sent to me (60 r. total). We’re still living, brother.… Someone, it turns out, has been spreading rumors that I’m not going to remain in exile for the rest of my term. Nonsense! I’m telling you and swear on the life of my dog that I will serve out my term (until 1917). At one point I thought of leaving, but now I’ve abandoned that idea, abandoned it for good.”
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This letter raises questions. Was Stalin’s firm assertion that he did not plan to escape intended for the eyes of the police? Or was he expressing his dissatisfaction with party comrades who had failed to help him? Perhaps he recognized the fruitlessness of any hope of escape and had made a genuine decision to remain in exile. Given that the subject of escape did not arise again, it appears that he really did reconcile himself to his fate.
Stalin’s life in Kureika was shaped by events that occurred during his first months there. First, he had a falling out with Sverdlov. Upon arriving in Kureika, the two set up house together, but this arrangement did not last long. In his letters, Sverdlov only hinted at conflict with his roommate: “I’m living with the Georgian Jughashvili.… He’s a fine fellow but too much of an individualist in practical matters. I am an adherent of some minimal order. This is a source of agitation for me at times.”
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The picture is filled in by other sources. According to the reminiscences of Anna Allilueva, the sister of Stalin’s second wife, Stalin later admitted that he found various pretexts for shirking his household duties—cleaning, keeping the stove going, etc. Sverdlov wound up stuck with all the chores.
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Khrushchev offered further information:
Stalin told the following story: “We would make dinner for ourselves.… The main thing we did in the way of earning a livelihood was to fish for white salmon. That didn’t take any great skill. We also went hunting. I had a dog and called him Yashka. Of course for Sverdlov that wasn’t pleasant; he was Yashka and the dog was Yashka, and so then Sverdlov used to wash the dishes and spoons after dinner, but I never did. I would eat and put the dishes on the dirt floor and the dog would lick everything clean. But that fellow had a passion for cleanliness.”
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These differences over hygiene were bound to provoke discord, but there may have been other sources of conflict. The animosity that developed between Sverdlov and Stalin was so strong that they not only moved into separate houses, but also broke off contact altogether. Sverdlov wrote to his wife some time later: “After all, you know, dear one, what abominable conditions I endured in Kureika. On a personal level, the comrade I lived with there turned out to be the sort that we did not talk to one another or get together.”
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Soon after his falling out with Sverdlov, Stalin moved into the home of the Pereprygin family—five brothers and two sisters, all orphans. Stalin, who was thirty-five, entered into an intimate relationship with the fourteen-year-old Lidiia Pereprygina. This apparently provoked an argument between Stalin and the man in charge of guarding him, which escalated into a fistfight. The local police took Stalin’s side. One circumstance that may have worked in Stalin’s favor was that the police chief in Turukhansky Krai was I. I. Kibirov, an ethnic Ossetian who, like Stalin, was from Georgia. It is possible that Stalin and Kibirov came to an agreement that he would be given a degree of liberty in exchange for a promise that he would not attempt to flee. Stalin not only was not charged for his transgression with a minor, but he was also given a new guard, M. A. Merzliakov, who treated him exceptionally well.
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In 1930, when he was persecuted under the Soviet regime for having served in the tsarist police, Merzliakov turned to Stalin for help. “I am asking Com. Stalin,” he wrote, “to inform our village soviet that I truly did have a friendly relationship with you while serving in Turukhansky and did not act against you.” Stalin responded with a glowing recommendation: “Mikh. Merzliakov had a formal attitude toward his police duties, without the usual police zeal; he did not spy on me, did not badger me, did not pick on me, and turned a blind eye to my frequent absences.”
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Taking advantage of this obliging attitude, Stalin managed to arrange a relatively pleasant life for himself, to the extent such a thing is possible in the Arctic. He continued to live with Lidiia Pereprygina. There were rumors—though muddled and contradictory—that the two had a child together.
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Stalin devoted his copious free time to fishing, hunting, visiting fellow exiles in neighboring settlements, receiving guests, and taking part in local merrymaking. His financial situation stabilized enough to support his modest lifestyle. Most important is that his health improved. “I’m living as before. I feel fine. I’m completely healthy—I must have gotten used to the nature around here. And nature here is harsh: three weeks ago the temperature went to 45 below,” he cheerfully reported in a letter written in late 1915.
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This unusual period in Stalin’s life reveals some interesting aspects of his character. He was completely unfazed by the absence of creature comforts in this harsh environment. In Kureika, with a total of eight houses and sixty-seven residents, he seems to have suffered an utter absence of suitable conversation partners. Yet he endured this lack of intellectual stimulation with equanimity. Apparently he was perfectly capable of living without the revolution and felt no need to exercise his intellect. His opponents have long accused him of wasting the time spent in Turukhansky Krai. Trotsky, for example, wrote that “Any attempt to find traces of his spiritual life during this period of solitude and leisure would be in vain.”
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Indeed, Stalin’s collected works feature not a single article written between early 1913 and early 1917.
Stalin’s correspondence from this period, however, paints a more complicated picture. During the first year of exile, either because he still hoped to escape or simply out of habit, he did try to work. He wrote a new article on nationalities problems and sent them to a journal. He asked his comrades to send him books, journals, and newspapers. In subsequent years as well, his correspondence from exile contained references to work on articles and his need for new books.
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But his enthusiasm was waning. In 1914, Malinovsky was exposed as a double agent. This was a crushing blow to the entire Bolshevik party, but for Stalin, who was friendly with Malinovsky and had turned to him for help, the revelation was especially painful. And there were other discouraging developments. An article that Stalin submitted to a journal was not published, his comrades failed to send him new journal issues, and he lacked the money for subscriptions. In November 1915, after two years in Turukhansky Krai, he explained his situation in a rare letter to Lenin: “My life is not great. I’m hardly doing anything. And what is there to do when you have no or almost no serious books? … I have lots of questions and topics in my head, but as for material—nothing. I’m itching to do something, but there’s nothing to do.”
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Stalin’s communication with the party leadership in emigration gradually dropped off, and he occasionally complained in letters that they had forgotten him. Indeed, Lenin’s requests in 1915 to be reminded of Stalin’s last name became well known: “Do you remember Koba’s last name?”; “I have a big favor: find out … ‘Koba’s’ last name (Iosef J…?? We’ve forgotten).”
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