Stalin as Police Spy

...I must take them up...

...it is a long way from receiving an appointment to assuming a new office in another city...

...As I see it, the central task is to undermine the faith of the millions within the Soviet Empire in the idealism of the Communist leaders...

...It is also the opinion of many former Tsarist officers that "Petersburg" was often employed in informal official correspondence...

...How is it, however, that Aronson failed to discover in Volume 5 (pp...

...I remarked: "Then there was an Okhrana section in Yeniseisk...

...It is a communication from the headquarters of the Gendarmerie Corps, dated June 21, 1913, notifying the Governor General of Finland that Colonel Yeremin had been appointed on June 11 to serve under him...

...Baikalov declared flatly: "In the city of Yeniseisk, there was never any kind of Okhrana...

...Stalin," the K. standing for Koba...

...I last saw him at the beginning of 1914...

...at the time of the Revolution in 1917, was charged with liquidating the Tsarist secret police there...

...Italics supplied...

...On April 25, Aronson's own paper, the Novoye Russkoye Slovo, published a letter from the aforementioned Mikhailovsky which stated: "In the city of Yeniseisk, there was an Okhrana section...

...Why did Aronson omit any mention of this...

...The point is that June 11 was merely the date of Yeremin's appointment...

...An original document preserved in the state archives in Finland (a facsimile is available for examination) settles the whole argument...

...Reply By Gregory Aronson In my review of Isaac Don Levine's book, by analyzing the document cited by the author to prove that Stalin was an agent of the Tsarist Okhrana or secret police...

...Perhaps Aronson can square this with Baikalov's sweeping Statement...

...Bertram D. Wolfe wrote to Life, flatly declaring it a forgery...

...True enough, but the document does carry on its face the handwritten notation "po S.-D...

...Similarly, Levine refers to a letter written by the late General Spiridovich in 1949, asserting that Yeremin, although he was appointed to his new duties on June 11, was detained in St...

...This was really the beginning of an exciting hunt for evidence of Stalin's long-rumored service in the Tsarist police...

...Vesselago, to whom Levine refers, wrote in the Novoye Russkoye Slovo that "Stalin unquestionably was a secret agent...

...My correspondent, known to various reputable persons, would submit his testimony in confidence to any impartial inquiry...

...The scholar's function, he apparently believes, is not to seek the truth and unearth hidden facts, but to weigh one's findings on the scale of political expediency before deciding to make them public...

...The Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party...

...Aronson is a veteran Russian Social Democrat...

...When they came to get him, they found him trying to burn the files in his office...

...When I told him I had learned that a gendarmerio Colonel Russyanov had brought the Yeremin letter from the files of the Siberian Okhrana to China, Nicolaevsky declared: "Why, I myself signed the order for the arrest of Colonel Russyanov in Yeniseisk at the request of the Mayor...

...He arrived in Yeniseisk a couple of days after the fall of the Tsarist regime and was immediately elected chairman of the Committee of Public Safety...

...On June 10 last, the Novoye Russkoye Slovo published a lengthy correspondence from a former official of the Russian Department of Police, Nicholas Vesselago, now living in Los Angeles, who expressed serious doubts as to the Yeremin letter...

...It administered the affairs of several counties in the Yenisei River basin...

...but one appearance of the signature in a Bolshevik newspaper could not have been enough to cause its use in official Tsarist police documents...

...Levine's argument is based largely on a letter to the Novoye Russkoye Slovo by N. Vesselago, staling from memory that 43 years ago—on July 12, 1913...

...But, even granting Aronson's premise, is he right in arguing that to prove Stalin a Tsarist stoolpigeon would divert attention from the central political task of our day: exposing the facts about the Stalinist terror...

...WRITERS and WRITING Stalin as Police Spy By Isaac Don Levine The discussion on these pages stems from Gregory Aronson's review in the August 20 New Leader of Isaac Don Levine's book, Stalin's Great Secret...

...while the signature "K...

...Now Boris I. Nicolaevsky, well known to New Leader readers, who also questions the authenticity of the Yeremin document, was an exile in Siberia in March 1917...

...But how can he explain his failure to quote Baikalov's statement in the very same article: "If Stalin was not a regular paid agent of the Okhrana, he undoubtedly served from time to time as an informer for that establishment...

...I was personally acquainted with him for several years...

...From his numerous written communications in my possession, I quote: "There was a Yeniseisk Okhrana section with two headquarters in charge of gendarmerie captains, in Yeniseisk as well as in Krasnoyarsk, where I was stationed in 1912 and 1913...

...8. The ace argument in Aronson's arsenal is his discovery in Volume 7 of The Fall of the Tsarist Regime that, as he puts it, "Yeremin had been chief of the Finnish Police Administration since June 11, 1913, a month before the alleged document was written...

...Even if that document should prove, for reasons other than those suggested by Aronson, to be of dubious origin, the accumulating body of historical evidence, which I shall publish in due course, will leave not a shadow of doubt that Stalin was a Tsarist agent...

...Yeremin not yet having left for Finland...

...The keystone of Stalin's biography and of the cult built around his revolutionary career is Beria's famous chronology in his book On the History of the Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia, listing his hero's six arrests, six banishments and five escapes...

...Yet...

...If the Levine document requires further checking, the Orlov article carries complete conviction...

...But this is only the beginning of the tale...

...Aronson's last authority is A. Baikalov, who rushed into print from London in the Paris Russkaya Mysl before he had even seen the Life articles, solely on the basis of a distorted second-hand correspondence from New York which quoted Aronson...

...My reason for doing so was simple: These were mere assertions, unsupported by any sort of proof...

...This is one of the most serious points against the document, which is dated July 12, 1913...

...If I helped to precipitate that debate with the publication in Life, alongside the important revelations by Alexander Orlov, of an advance chapter of my book Stalin's Great Secret, I can only welcome the appearance in the August 20 New Leader of Gregory Aronson's review...

...re Social Democrats...

...Petersburg for various reasons...

...When Aronson argues that exposing Stalin as an Okhrana agent is damaging to the cause of anti-Communism, he reveals an approach to historiography which is truly shocking...

...Numerous fresh sources of information have come to light since the publication of the original Life expose...

...94-97) of the same work a memorandum on agent provocateur Yekaterina Shornikova stating that she "called last on Deputy Director Yeremin on June 20" when he "gave her 50 roubles...

...In a report of August 20, 1913 from the Department of Police to the Governor General of Finland, dealing with the prevention of arms smuggling (the document is available for examination), the following appears: "In connection with locating and trailing the contraband, there were assigned to the command of the officer in question 20 secret agents...

...If it were established that Stalin was a Tsarist spy and a traitor to the Revolution, this blow would rock the Soviet dictatorship to its foundation...

...In trying to prove that there was an Okhrana section in the city of Yeniseisk...

...He chides me for ignoring letters to the Novoye Russkoye Slovo contending that such a section existed...

...I served in the Department of Police, and I can say frankly that this letter arouses serious doubt in me...

...Souvarine's Paris publication Est el Quest rushed into print on May 1 with the statement: "This pseudo-document was presented four years ago to Mr...

...191217 (Moscow, 1947), in which pages 149 to 160 are devoted to the various administrative and police organs in Yeniseisk at the time of Stalin's last exile...

...Allow me to indicate briefly the main thread of Stalin's Great Secret...

...Most of the points Levine now raises are of a highly technical nature...

...Petersburg got around to informing the Governor General on June 21 that on June 11 Yeremin had been appointed chief of his Okhrana, obviously Yeremin could not have assumed his new office on June 11...

...4. "Stalin is mentioned not only by his real name, Djugashvili, but also by his pen name, Stalin, although he had just recently adopted the latter and it was not generally known," writes Aronson...

...He also cites a number of Finnish documents from that time...

...Levine's reply is that off to one side of the document, in longhand rather than typescript, somebody wrote in the words "re Social Democrats...

...appears in the Social Democrat of May 25, 1910...

...Levine tells us that Djugashvili first signed that name to an article in Pravda on December 1, 1912...

...Baikalov lived in that city and...

...Levine, who has written biographies of Lenin and Stalin, edited the revelations of Jan Valtin, Victor Kravchenko and General Walter B. Krivitsky...

...Such statements of opinion, even when made by highly authoritative persons, are irrevelant...

...2. "Boris Souvarine, biographer of Stalin, subjected the document to careful analysis," declares Aronson...

...This methodology will become apparent as I take up point by point his analysis of the crucial Yeremin document describing Stalin as a police agent: 1. "When the document was first published," Aronson says...

...Since they are largely directed at me, however...

...However, I do object to the methodology Aronson employs...

...A former high officer of the Okhrana, V. C, who served during 1912-13 in Yeniseisk Province, is now living in Canada...

...But he goes on to state categorically of the Yeremin document: "ft is simply impossible even to conceive of [Yeremin] sending such a letter...

...Levine cites a great deal of material which has nothing to do with the case...

...6. "Stalin is described as a member of the Central Committee of the party, without specifying which party," observes Aronson...

...The Novoye Russkoye Slovo of April 30 published a letter from V. I. Maximovich declaring: "To carry out the distribution and surveillance of the exile elements, there existed in the city of Yeniseisk an Okhrana section headed by Captain Zhelezniakov [to whom the Yeremin letter is addressed—I.D.L...

...on October 19, 24 and 25, 1912...

...This is hardly convincing...

...Levine concludes by admitting that the Yeremin document, the whole basis of his book, is merely of "secondary importance...

...Pravda carried three successive pieces signed "K...

...he promises to base his future revelations on new, hitherto unknown sources...

...The book does not once mention the existence of a Yeniseisk Okhrana section...

...Souvarine, who instantly and categorically declared it false...

...Now the same Beria, in an anthology on Stalin published on the occasion of his 60th birthday on December 21, 1939, once listed eight arrests, seven banishments and six escapes...

...And why did he also avoid any reference to my answer in the Novoye Russkoye Slovo after he had first exploited his discovery in that paper on May 20...

...I knew personally all the officers of the Yeniseisk Province gendarmerie in the years 1912-13 and maintained constant relations with them...

...The stamp of the Governor General's chancellery records the official receipt of this notice only on July 7. Since St...

...Levine also takes up the strange circumstance, which I noted, that the document described Stalin as a "member of the Central Committee" without specifying which party...

...He first made that point in the Russianlanguage Novoye Russkoye Slovo, whereupon an exceptionally well-informed correspondent, A. Mikhailovsky, replied in the issue of May 6 that "some persons did not observe this formality in letters of minor importance...

...His further fate is unknown to me...

...Here is what Wolfe actually wrote Life, May 14: "You have performed an important service by publishing the article by Orlov and the document commented on by Levine dealing with Stalin's past, so that they can be subjected to further verification...

...Levine criticizes me for citing Baikalov when he denies the existence of a Yeniseisk Okhrana section but ignoring his assertion that Stalin "undoubtedly served from time to time as an informer" for the police...

...Petersburg...

...I concluded that the document was a forgery...

...Had Aronson reviewed my book, instead of confining himself to the supporting Yeremin document, he might have contributed light to a dark field...

...There is every reason to believe, however, that the Okhrana had no Yeniseisk Section...

...We came to the conclusion that the charge was plausible but difficult to prove...

...Levine returns to the question which first cast doubt on the document's authenticity—the question of why, in a letter from the Tsarist Department of Police dated July 12, 1913, Joseph Djugashvili is also referred to as Stalin, a pseudonym which became widely known much later...

...5. The Okhrana denoted its informers, according to Aronson, as "secret collaborators" and not as "agents," the term used in the Yeremin letter...

...Actually, the name Stalin first appeared in print in Pravda on December 1, 1912 under an article signed "K...

...And why...

...Levine challenges my statement that since General Yeremin, the signer of the controversial document, had been appointed chief of the Finnish Police Administration on June 11, a month before the date of the document, his signature as well as the document itself must be a forgery...

...this fact is connected with a personal affair of mine, and therefore my memory cannot fail me on that point...

...A question immediately suggests itself: If...

...In 1952, I was consulted by an official of the State Department, expert on Russia, concerning a document which seems to be the one you now published...

...Petersburg in the Yeremin letter is declared by Aronson to be "a usage unknown in 1913...

...To which Nicolaevsky replied: "There was some kind of an Okhrana post, but I don't believe it was called a section...

...My Stalin's Great Secret is but an opening chapter in the search for the solution to the great mystery in Stalin's life...

...does Levine speak scornfully of A. Baikalov, who wrote recently in the Paris newspaper Russkaya Mysl that there was never a section in Yeniseisk...

...However, it is remarkable that Levine quotes neither Spiridovich's letter nor other documentation...

...What are the facts...

...At the same time, Souvarine denounced Orlov's article as "a tissue of absurdities...

...In the light of all the evidence, the Yeremin document is of but secondary importance...

...3. The dropping of the "St...

...7. The document, declares Aronson, "was allegedly sent to the Yeniseisk Section of the Okhrana...

...Vesselago added, however: "Colonel Yeremin was promoted to the rank of major-general and made chief of the Finnish Gendarmerie Administration, but on Friday, July 12, 1913 he was still in the Osoby Otdyel [Special Bureau] of the Police Department...

...to be exact—he had seen General Yeremin in St...

...I, in my turn, wonder why Levine ignored M. Moskalev's book...

...as Levine says, his book Stalin's Great Secret is merely the "opening chapter," mightn't the author have done better to amass his proof first and then write the book, instead of the other way around...

...A public debate on the question of Stalin's connection with the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, has long been overdue in the mounting polemical literature about him...

...In my communication, I referred to a private letter from the former Tsarist police official General Spiridovich to an old friend of his (dated July 14, 1949) in which he explained that Yeremin had probably remained at his post for weeks after his appointment, especially since the summer of 1913 was the 300th-anniversary jubilee of the Romanoff dynasty and most of the gendarmerie officers were traveling with the Tsar's family...

...Finally, we come to the paramount question: Was Stalin a Tsarist agent...

...from the name of St...

...Here is how careful Souvarine's analysis was: The Life article was published in the issue of April 23...

...Besides, Stalin's own name and known party affiliation would serve to identify the Central Committee...