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Bolshevik leadership Correspondence. 1912-1927
Collection of documents 1996.
Compiled by: A.V.Kvashonkin, L.P.Kosheleva, L.A.Rogovaya, O.V.Khlevnyuk.No. 2
J. V. Stalin to G. E. Zinoviev
December 1913
In your letter dated 9/XI [you] write that you will send me my "debt" in small parts 1 . I would like you to send them as soon as possible, in whatever small parts. (If you have money, send it directly to me in Kostino). I say this because money is desperately needed 2 . Everything would be fine if it were not for the disease, but this damned disease that requires care (i.e. money) unbalances and patience. I'm waiting. As soon as I receive the German books, I will supplement the articles and send them in a revised form ...
Your Ios[if] 3
RTSKHIDNI. F. 558. On. 2. D. 89. L. 2. Autograph.
Notes:
1 . We are talking about royalties for Stalin's publications. In 1912-1913. Stalin worked on a series of articles on the national question. The largest of them, "Marxism and the National Question", was written in Vienna and first printed under the signature "K. Stalin" in No. 3-5 of the journal "Prosveshcheniye" under the title "The National Question and Social Democracy". This work, which included a number of smaller articles on the national question, was published in a separate pamphlet in 1914 by the Priboy publishing house (Petersburg). In a letter to Malinovsky (November 1913), Stalin noted: “Zinoviev writes to me that articles on the “national question” will be published as a separate pamphlet [...] I hope that you, in which case, will stand up for me and get a fee .. .” (Medvedev R.A. On Stalin and Stalinism. M., 1990. S. 25-26).
2. Stalin raised this problem in his letters from exile more than once. In the same (see note 1) letter to Malinovsky, he wrote: “Hello friend! It's embarrassing to write, but I have to. I don't think I've ever experienced such a terrible situation. All the money came out, some kind of suspicious cough began due to the intensified frosts (37 degrees of cold), the general condition is painful, there are no stocks of bread, sugar, meat, or kerosene (all the money was spent on regular expenses and clothes with shoes) . And without supplies, everything is expensive here: rye bread 4 1/2 k[op.] a pound, kerosene 15 kopecks, meat 18 kopecks, sugar 25 kop.] We need milk, we need firewood, but ... money, no money, friend. I don't know how I'll spend the winter in this state... I don't have rich relatives or acquaintances, I positively have no one to turn to, and I turn to you, Yes, not only to you - and to Petrovsky, and to Badaev. My request is that if the social-democratic faction still has a “fund of the repressive,” let it, the faction, or better, the faction’s bureau give me the only help of at least 60 rubles. Pass on my request to Chkhetsdze and tell him that I also ask him to take my request to heart, I ask him not only as a countryman, but mainly as the chairman of the faction. If there is no other such fund, then perhaps all of you together will come up with something suitable. I understand that all of you, and especially you - there is no time, there is no time, but, damn it, there is no one else to turn to, but I don’t want to die here without even writing one letter to you. This matter must be arranged today and the money sent by telegraph, because to wait further means to starve, and I’m already exhausted and sick, you know my address: Turukhansk region of the Yenisei province, the village of Kostino, Iosif Dzhugashvili [...] ) not that 20, not that 25 rubles. I inform you that I have not received them yet and probably will not receive them until spring. For all his stay in the Turukhansk exile, he received only 44 rubles. from abroad and 25 p. from Petrovsky. I didn’t get anything else” (ibid.). from abroad and 25 p. from Petrovsky. I didn’t get anything else” (ibid.). from abroad and 25 p. from Petrovsky. I didn’t get anything else” (ibid.).
3 . Postcard address: “Austria (Galicia) Krakau. Ulica Lubomirskiego No. 35. An Herm Radomilski. Osterreich. Mogils [ka] 10". A piece of a postcard with a date in the upper left corner has been torn out. On the copy in the upper left corner are two postscripts by Stalin: “1913 From the Turukhansk Territory” and “T. Orakhelashvili. Institute of Lenin. Return to IMEL this nonsense written in 1913 from Kostino (Turukh[an] Territory) by I[osif] St[alin].”