On the ‘arcane modern science of Kremlinology’ or the case of the vanishing birthdays

Abstract

This article focuses on Stalin’s 70th birthday celebration, 22 December 1949, in order to examine what Americans knew of the Soviet Union, how they knew it and what sense they made. I explore the plight of the American correspondent in late-Stalinist Moscow, the limits to Americans’ knowledge of the Soviet Union and the origins of Kremlinological practices. In the last five years of Josef Stalin’s reign, amid the last flurry of his palace purges, from 1948 until the Generalissimo’s death on 5 March 1953, the Soviet Union all-but closed to western observation. It was a factor vital to the erection of the Iron Curtain and beginning of the Cold War that has yet to become central to its scholarship

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my dissertation advisors Profs. Michael Sherry John Bushnell and Sarah Maza for their years of mentorship and care. I would also like to thank the archivists at Columbia University and the Library of Congress for their help reviewing their collections. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their endless love and care.

Notes

¹ “Stalin World Peace Prizes Set Up by Russia on His 70th Birthday,” New York Herald Tribune, December 21, 1949, 1, 40; “Vast Tribute Hoard Piled Up at Kremlin,” Daily Boston Globe, December 21, 1949, 17.

² “For Uncle Joe on Birthday: A Siberian Train,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 18, 1949, 1.

³ “Vast Tribute Hoard Piled Up at Kremlin,” Daily Boston Globe, December 21, 1949, 17.

⁴ “Stalin Attains 70 and Offers Peace Prizes,” Washington Post, December 21, 1949, 1.

⁵ “Stalin Gets Vast Hoard of Tribute for Birthday,” Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1949, 6; “Carloads of Gifts Pour In on Stalin, 70 Today,” Milwaukee Sentinel (AP), December 21, 1949, 1:6, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ilgaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CA0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7342%2C2902490(accessed June 12, 2013); “Stalin’s Birthday,” Daytona Beach Morning Journal (AP), 1, 5, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BOsiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=28cEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1603%2C5776863 (accessed June 12, 2013).

⁶ Merle Fainsod, “Censorship in the USSR – A Documented Record,” Problems of Communism (March-April 1956), 12, 19.

⁷ Harrison E. Salisbury, American in Russia (New York: Harper & Bros, 1955), 36; Whitman Bassow, The Moscow Correspondents (New York: Paragon House, 1989); Letter, Salisbury to Cy Sulzberger, October, 24, 1949, Box 187, File 8, Harrison Salisbury Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University (hereafter H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU).

⁸ Bassow, The Moscow Correspondents, 124–5.

⁹ Letter, Salisbury to William Lissner, November 30, 1949, Box 187, File 9, Harrison Salisbury Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; Letter, Salisbury to Arthur Sulzberger, January 13, 1952, Box 187, File 31, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

¹⁰ “Newsman Recalls Job, People in Soviet Union,” The Sentinel, September 3, 1973, Box 10, File 9, Henry Shapiro Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter H Shapiro Papers, LoC).

¹¹ Memo, Lissner to Emmanuel Freedman, May 2, 1949, Box 188, File 45, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

¹² Ray Erwin, “Soviets Soften Censorship Controls,” Editor & Publisher, February 9, 1957, Box 1, File 2, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

¹³ Stephen Kotkin. “The State – Is It Us? Memoirs, Archives, and Kremlinologists,” Russian Review 61, no. 1 (2002): 48–49; Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1–3, 19–26, 80–84.

¹⁴ Kotkin, “The State,” 49.

¹⁵ Robert Magidoff, In Anger and Pity: A Report on Russia (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1949), 67.

¹⁶ “UN Asks Soviets to Lift Ban on Foreigners’ Russian Wives,” New York Times, April 26, 1949, Box 23, File 18, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

¹⁷ Nicholas Daniloff, “Henry Shapiro,” The Independent, April 13, 1991, Box 1, File 2, Henry Shaprio Papers, Library of Congress.

¹⁸ John Steinbeck with pictures by Robert Capa, A Russian Journal (New York: Viking Press, 1948), 31.

¹⁹ Eddy Gilmore. Me and My Russian Wife (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1954), 9–10.

²⁰ Bassow, The Moscow Correspondents, 135–6.

²¹ Harrison E. Salisbury, A Journey of Our Times: A Memoir (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), 42.

²² Erwin, “Soviets Soften.”

²³ “Man in Moscow,” Times Talk, June 1950, File 51, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

²⁴ Harrison E. Salisbury, Diary Entry June 21, 1949, Moscow Journal: The End of Stalin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 40; “Man from Moscow,” Times Talk, June 1950, File 51, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

²⁵ Salisbury, Diary Entry May 13, 1949, Moscow Journal; Salisbury, A Journey, 448.

²⁶ Salisbury, A Journey, 448.

²⁷ Irving R. Levine, Main Street, USSR (New York: Doubleday, 1959), 197.

²⁸ Letter, Salisbury to Chief, International Communications, Central Telegraph Office, July 23,1953, Box 187, File HES Letters July 1953, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

²⁹ Salisbury, A Journey, 425.

³⁰ Salisbury, “Letter to Emanuel Freedman, September 3, 1949”, Moscow Journal, 59.

³¹ Bassow, The Moscow Correspondents, 135–6.

³² Salisbury, “Dispatch to the New York Times, December 2, 1949,” Moscow Journal, 89.

³³ Bracket and bracketed material from original article: Salisbury, Moscow Journal, 89.

³⁴ Magidoff, In Anger and Pity, 62.

³⁵ Article Draft, Shapiro, “Moscow Correspondent, being a,” nd, Box 134, File 2, H Shapiro Papers, LoC; Salisbury, A Journey, 436.

³⁶ Levine, Main Street, USSR, 197; Bassow, The Moscow Correspondents, 124; Letter, Salisbury to Chief, International Communications, Central Telegraph Office, July 23,1953, Box 187, File HES Letters July 1953, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

³⁷ Levine, Main Street, 197.

³⁸ Article Draft, Shapiro, “Moscow Correspondent, being a.”

³⁹ Bassow, The Moscow Correspondent, 123.

⁴⁰ Article Draft, Shapiro, “Moscow Correspondent, being a.”

⁴¹ Bassow, The Moscow Correspondents, 123; Magidoff, In Anger and Pity, 62–4.

⁴² Salisbury, A Journey, 426

⁴³ “Newsman Recalls Job, People in Soviet Union,” The Sentinal, September 3, 1973, Box 10, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁴⁴ Letter, Salisbury to Chief, International Communications, Central Telegraph Office, March 12, 1953, Box 187, File 39, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

⁴⁵ Bassow, The Moscow Correspondents, 136; Salisbury, A Journey, 425–6.

⁴⁶ Whit Bassow, “Henry Shapiro Trained Dozens of UPI Moscow Correspondents,” Overseas Press Club of America Bulletin, July 1991, Box 1, File 2, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁴⁷ J.Y. Smith, “Henry Shapiro Dies; UPI Moscow Reporter,” Washington Post, April 6, 1991, Box 1, File 2, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁴⁸ Daniloff, “Henry Shapiro.”

⁴⁹ Letter, Salisbury to Chief, International Communications, Central Telegraph Office, July 23, 1953, Box 187, File HES Letter July 1953, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

⁵⁰ Salisbury, “Dispatch to New York Times, December 2, 1949,” Moscow Journal, 89.

⁵¹ “Special Correspondent,” “Jewish ‘Cosmopolitans’ in Russia,” newspaper title illegible, July 25, 1950, Box 16, File 13, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁵² Memo, Lissner to Freedman, April 5, 1949, Box 188, File 45, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

⁵³ Letter, Salisbury to Freedman, March 17, 1949, Box 188, File 49, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

⁵⁴ Shapiro, “Jewish Cosmopolitans.”

⁵⁵ Quoted from an interview with Shapiro in Alfred Erich Senn’s Foreign Correspondent: Henry Shapiro in Moscow, 1933–1973 (2006), 103, http://www.mediatransformations.eu/balticmedia/files/MediaTransformations_2006:2.pdf (accessed July, 2015).

⁵⁶ Shapiro, “Jewish Cosmopolitans.”

⁵⁷ Heptisax, “Soviet Attitudes Toward the Jews,” no newspaper title, 1948, Box 16, File 13, H Shapiro papers, LoC.

⁵⁸ Shapiro, “Jewish Cosmopolitans.”

⁵⁹ Senn, Foreign Correspondent, 103.

⁶⁰ Gilmore, Me and My Russian Wife, 9–10.

⁶¹ Wireless Report “21182,” Shapiro to UPI New York, nd, Box 42, File 3, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁶² “U.P.’s Shapiro Says,” Editor & Publisher, April 24, 1954, Box 10, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁶³ Wireless Report “30131,” Shapiro to UPI New York, nd, Box 42, File 3, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁶⁴ Salisbury, “Diary Entry May 24, 1949,” Moscow Journal, 32.

⁶⁵ Salisbury, “Moscow Schools Stress Patriotism,” New York Times, December 6, 1949.

⁶⁶ Letter, Salisbury to Cy Sulzberger, May 23, 1949, Box 187, File 3, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

⁶⁷ Salisbury, “Soviet Plans Fete on Stalin Birthday: Group of 75 Members Named to Set Celebration When Premier Reaches 70,” New York Times, December 4, 1949, 35.

⁶⁸ Salisbury spelled the actress’ first name Alla correctly in the New York Times, but Gilmore’s syndicated AP article misidentified Tarasov as Anna. It is unclear whether the mistake was a misspelling or due to a confusion with her most famous stage role, Anna Karenina.

⁶⁹ Gilmore, “Stalin Birthday Tribute Planned,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1949, 40; “Giant Celebration Planned For Stalin’s 70th Birthday,” Washington Post, December 4, 1949, M3; “Moscow Prepares For Stalin Birthdays,” New York Herald Tribune (AP), December 4, 1949, 41.

⁷⁰ Salisbury, “Special Output Set as Honor to Stalin,” New York Times, December 5, 1949, 1.

⁷¹ Ibid., 1, 4.

⁷² Polyzoides. “Stalin’s Birthday Not Without Clouds,” Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1949, 16; Stevens, “Russia Un-Censored,” 9; “Fight on Tito Ordered,” New York Times, December 11, 1949, 23.

⁷³ “Czechs to Name Peak for Stalin,” New York Herald Tribune (AP), December 10, 1949, 11.

⁷⁴ “Special Romanian Train To Carry Stalin Gifts,” The Sun (AP), December 11, 7; “Stalin to See Himself When He Tunes in Radio,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 11, 1949, 38.

⁷⁵ “Stalin Is World’s Most Widely Read Author, Soviet Announces in Advance of Birthday,” New York Times, December 12, 1949, 17.

⁷⁶ Wireless Report “15161,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 10, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁷⁷ “For Uncle Joe on Birthday: A Siberian Train,” Chicago Daily Tribune (Reuters), December 18, 1949, 1.

⁷⁸ Wireless Report “20113,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁷⁹ Salisbury, “Dispatch Killed by Censor,” December 18, 1949, Moscow Journal, 91.

⁸⁰ “Birthday in Moscow,” Life, January 16, 1950, 32–3.

⁸¹ “New Worlds to Conquer,” Chicago Tribune, December 1, 1949, 24.

⁸² “Stalin’s Birthday,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (AP), December 21, 1949, 12, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=r9ZaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=R2oDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1569%2C1981295 (accessed June 12, 2013).

⁸³ “Stalin World Peace Prizes Set Up by Russia on His 70th Birthday,” New York Herald Tribune (UP), December 21, 1949, 1, 40; “Annual Stalin Peace Prize Set Up As Birthday Honor,” The Baltimore Sun (AP), December 21, 1949, 14.

⁸⁴ “Passed by Censor,” Time, June 19, 1950, Box 187, File 14, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

⁸⁵ Letter, Salisbury to James, March 28, 1949, Box 187, File 1, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

⁸⁶ Memo, James to Arthur Sulzberger, April 21, 1949, Box 188, File 48, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

⁸⁷ “Passed by Censor,” Time, June 19, 1950, Box 187, File 14, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

⁸⁸ Salisbury, A Journey, 322.

⁸⁹ Edwin D. Gritz, “‘Friendship’ Spread Thick By Russians,” Washington Post, December 18, 1949, B2.

⁹⁰ Genêt [Janet Flanner], “Letter From Paris,” The New Yorker, December 17, 1949, 80–3.

⁹¹ “Fight on Tito Ordered,” New York Times, December 11, 1949, 23.

⁹² Genêt, “Letter,” 80–83.

⁹³ “Fight on Tito Ordered,” New York Times, December 11, 1949, 23.

⁹⁴ Steinbeck, A Russian Journal, 170.

⁹⁵ “Moscow Party Ends Stalin’s Birthday Fete,” Chicago Tribune, December 22, 1949, 17.

⁹⁶ “Puppet Leaders Acclaim Stalin,” Charleston Daily Mail, December 22, 1949, 32, http://newspaperarchive.com/charleston-daily-mail/1949-12-22/page-32 (accessed June 18, 2013).

⁹⁷ Wireless Report “21094,” Henry Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 10, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

⁹⁸ “News of Adam-zad,” Time 55, no. 1 (January 2, 1950): 19.

⁹⁹ “Russia Hails 70th Birthday of Joe Stalin,” Eugene Register-Guard (UP), December 21, 1949, 1, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cidQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=twsEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4709%2C2894966 (accessed June 6, 2013); “Annual Stalin Peace Prize Set Up As Birthday Honor,” Baltimore Sun (AP), December 21, 1949, 14.

¹⁰⁰ “Soviet Announces World Peace Prized in Stalin’s Honor,” Daily Boston Globe, December 21, 1949, 1; “Stalin Appears in Person for Red Tributes,” Daily Capital News, December 22, 1949, http://newspaperarchive.com/daily-capital-news/1949-12-22 (accessed July 2015).

¹⁰¹ Wireless Report “21191,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC; Wireless Report “21190,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC; Wireless Report “22101,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

¹⁰² Wireless Report “22102,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

¹⁰³ Wireless Report “21191,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

¹⁰⁴ Wireless Report “22103,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

¹⁰⁵ Wireless Report “21180,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

¹⁰⁶ Wireless Report “22103,” Shapiro to UPI New York, Box 45, File 9, H Shapiro Papers, LoC.

¹⁰⁷ “Adam-zad,” 19.

¹⁰⁸ Otto Zausmer. “Mystery Surrounds Stalin’s Birthday,” Boston Globe, December 21, 1949, 1.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid.

¹¹⁰ William Taubman, Stalin’s American Policy: From Entente to Détente to Cold War (New York: WW Norton & Co, 1982), 108; W. Averill Harriman, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin: 1941–1946 (New York: Random House, 1975), 461–74; HST Memorandum dated June 2, 1954 from Off-the-Record: The Private Papers of Harry S Truman, ed. Robert H. Ferrell (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 305; HST Diary Entry dated July 17, 1945 from Off-the-Record, 53; Harry S. Truman, Memoirs. Vol. 1: Year of Decisions (New York: Doubleday, 1955), 84.

¹¹¹ Their guess: 12. Memo, Lissner to Freedman, May 3, 1949, Box 188, File 45, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

¹¹² Letter, Salisbury to Cy Sulzberger, May 6, 1949, Box 187, File 3, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

¹¹³ Letter, Salisbury to Cy Sulzberger, May 6, 1949, Box 187, File 3, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

¹¹⁴ Salisbury, “Dispatch to New York Times, December 18, 1949,” Moscow Journal, 91.

¹¹⁵ See e.g., “The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Kirk) to the Secretary of State,” February 1, 1950, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Volume IV, Central and Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union, 1950, eds. S. Everett Gleason et al. (Washington: Government Printing Office: 1980, Document 596, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v04/d596 (accessed January 2015).

¹¹⁶ Edmund Stevens, This Is Russia, Uncensored (New York: Didier, 1950), 8–9.

¹¹⁷ For the first use of ‘Kremlinologist’ in a major American newspaper, see “More Kremlin Headaches,” Baltimore Sun, December 9, 1956, 18. For the first use of ‘Kremlinology’ in a major American newspaper, see Joseph Alsop, “Soviet Portents Hint Khrushchev Decline,” New York Herald Tribune, August 9, 1958, 1, 7. Note Alsop’s need to define the relatively new term for his readers and his immediate condescension in this early use: ‘The Kremlinologists – the practitioners of the strange art of reading the signs in the Kremlin – are currently excited by two signs that seem to indicate some sort of trouble for Nikita Khrushchev … All the foregoing is typical Kremlinology, of course, and there is nothing solid in it anywhere except the two signs – the reappearance of Molotov, and the censor’s permission to [Roy] Essayan to pass a story that must surely have considerable significance.’

¹¹⁸ Russell Baker, “Observer: Moscow Guessing Game,” New York Times, July 23, 1962, 20. Italics added.

¹¹⁹ Letter, Salisbury to Edwin Leland James, October 24, 1949, Box 187, File 8, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.

¹²⁰ As of 1 December 1949, the British newswire Reuters downsized their bureau to a lone, part-time stringer, Andrew Steiger. Salisbury also mentioned an office for the Agence France Presse, Czech correspondents and a news agency sent by Mao Tse-Tung’s China. But in his writings, both published and archival, he related no interaction with these other news agencies: Bassow, “Moscow Correspondents,” 124; Letter, Salisbury to James, November 24, 1949, Box 187, File 8, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU; Letter, Salisbury to Cyrus Sulzberger, October 24, 1949, Box 187, File 8, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU; “Man from Moscow,” Times Talk, June 1950, Box 189, File 51, H Salisbury Papers, RBML, CU.