Book Review
Dimitrov and Stalin 1934-1943.
Letters from the Soviet Archives
Alexander Dallin and F. I. Firsov, eds,
Dimitrov and Stalin 1934-1943. Letters from the Soviet Archives . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. 278 pp. $35.00.
The letters collected in this volume together with remarkably balanced
commentary by the editors provide important information about the
Communist International (Comintern). The collection adds to what we
have learned from basic sources such as the diary of Georgi Dimitrov,
which was recently published in Bulgaria under the title
Dnevnik 9 mart 1933-6 februari 1949
(Sofia: Universitetsko izdatelstvo "Sv. Kliment Okhridski," 1997). The
letters shed useful light on the Soviet Union's approach to international
affairs both before and during the Second World War.
The limitations of this collection reflect the spotty access to important
documentary material in the Russian archives. Unfortunately, except for
some brief--albeit at times quite intriguing--marginal notes, the book
provides almost no direct evidence of Josif Stalin's thought. Moreover,
in some cases, Dimitrov's letters are simply notes accompanying Comintern
documents, which in most cases are already known to specialists. The
cover notes themselves add little to our knowledge. Nonetheless, many
of Dimitrov's letters to Stalin afford deeper insights into such matters
as the Comintern's embrace of popular fronts in 1934, the Spanish Civil
War, the policy of the Chinese Communist Party, the aftermath of the
Nazi-Soviet pact, and the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943.
The documents highlight the often arduous development of Comintern
policy and the tensions and conflicts between the Comintern and some of
the national Communist parties. The book confirms that decision making
was centralized and tightly controlled by Stalin and that the Comintern
was of secondary importance in the policy-making process. A telling
illustration of this is found in a letter regarding the French Communist
Party sent by Dimitrov and Dmitrii Manuilsky to Stalin on 20 April 1939
(doc. 7, pp. 40 ff.). The Comintern leaders asked whether the French
Communists should support "collective security" and the Franco-Soviet
pact. Only three days earlier, at Stalin's behest, Maksim Litvinov had
formally proposed an alliance among the USSR, Great Britain, and France,
foreshadowing an end to the divisions created by the Munich Conference of
1938. (Shortly thereafter, on 3 May, Litvinov was removed from office,
and Soviet foreign policy took a different course). Stalin's laconic
response to Dimitrov's and Manuilsky's questions--"decide these matters
by yourselves" (p. 39)--is typical of his low regard for the role of the
national Communist parties. In other cases Stalin relied on his closest
aides, such as Vyacheslav Molotov and Andrei Zhdanov, to convey his
views to Dimitrov. Stalin used this approach, among other occasions,
when French Communist propaganda became anti-German after France fell
in June 1940 (doc. 31, pp. 170 ff.).
On some crucial issues, however, Stalin did play a direct role. This
was especially true for the Spanish Civil War. On at least three
occasions--in March 1937, September 1937, and February 1938--Stalin
held talks with Dimitrov and other Comintern
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leaders. As is often the case, the evidence here raises more questions
than it answers. The available documents do not reveal what the
Soviet strategy in Spain was, or even whether there was such a
strategy. Some of the policy directives issued by Moscow--such as
the order to the Spanish Communists to abandon the government in 1938
(pp. 71-73)--contradicted the views of Palmiro Togliatti, the Italian
Communist leader, who was the special Comintern emissary in Spain from
1937 to 1939. The editors attribute this to Stalin's scant understanding
of the Spanish situation despite the abundance of information he had
been receiving, including reports sent by Togliatti himself (p. 61).
The relationship between Moscow and the Chinese Communists appears even
more discordant. From 1936 to 1941 the Comintern frequently called for
an alliance with Chiang Kai-shek and denounced the insubordination of
Mao Zedong. Stalin's role in these directives can be documented very
clearly (see pp. 106 ff.).
Stalin's interventions were of decisive importance in two other key
events: when he compelled all of the Communist parties to endorse
the Soviet alliance with Nazi Germany after August 1939, and when he
dissolved the Comintern in May 1943 to mollify the Western powers with
which the Soviet Union was allied. In the first case Stalin himself
forced Dimitrov to abandon the anti-Fascist line and to replace it
entirely with "anti-imperialist" propaganda--a turn of events that for
two months caused confusion and bewilderment among the Communist parties
(docs. 28 and 29, pp. 153 ff.). In the second case Stalin began as
early as April 1941 to plan for the dissolution of the Comintern. Two
years later he formally dissolved the organization, arguing that it was
necessary to facilitate the "national" development of the individual
Communist parties (pp. 226 ff.).
The documents in this volume yield ambiguous conclusions. Although the
letters generally confirm that the Comintern was completely subordinated
to Stalin's will, they also reveal that the decision-making process in
Moscow was often turbulent and inconducive to coherent policies. The
editors are justified in arguing that Soviet strategy was characterized
mainly "by dilemmas and ambiguities in decision making" (p. xx).
Reviewed by Silvio Pons
Rome University II (Italy)