[lbo-talk] Beria question/Litvinov

Paul paul_ at igc.org
Sun Feb 20 18:33:04 PST 2005


As an aside, FWIW, I never heard anyone who served with the ex-Soviet Foreign Ministry speak well of Molotov either (naturally, I mean once people could speak). Apparently, Molotov could be quite nasty too. However many of the more interesting Ministry 'old hands' spoke extremely well of Maxim Litvinov (Molotov's predecessor as Foreign Minister). In the West we know him for the "United Front" policies and strong support to the League of Nations. But they claim there was more than just that, albeit futile and very, very much behind the scenes.

No one clearly explained to me, if this was so, how Litvinov survived (he was an "Old Bolshevik"; they mentioned some links with Alexandra Kollentai and, I gather those were the only 2 "Old Bolsheviks" to have lived). I haven't been in a position to confirm any of the Litvinov stories but I suspect it might prove to be an profitable line of archival research.

Paul

At 05:48 PM 2/20/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 07:24:57 -0800 (PST), Chris Doss
><lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I'm reading of bio of Beria, and the author makes a
> > lot of ado about "Beria's perestroika," as Lavrentii
> > Pavlovich's economic and political reforms after the
> > death of Stalin are known in Russia. Does anybody
> > (Justin?) know of any good sources on that period?
> >
> > BTW anybody read Beria Jr's book on his dad?
>
>"Sto sorok besed s Molotovym" goes over this period, from Molotov's
>perspective. I read a version of it edited and translated to English
>by a conservative publisher called "Molotov Remembers". I have a
>feeling there was a heavy hand in editing and chosen word
>translations, but Molotov's perspective still comes through somewhat
>(although some passages in this English translation I'm suspicious of
>- Chuev asks him what happened to Lenin's "All Power to the Soviets"
>promise and Molotov supposedly responds "it's best for power to rest
>in one pair of hands").
>
> >From what I recall, Molotov talks about the circumstances of Stalin's
>death, talks about how Beria started kissing up to members of the
>Politburo and tried to ingratiate himself with them. Then Molotov
>went to Khrushchev and said he thought Beria should be executed, and
>Khrushchev agreed, so Zhukov arrested him and that was that.
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