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ALS in Russian, signed “J. Stalin,” two pages, 5.25 x 8.25, March 27, 1930. Handwritten letter to Comrade Duriman, identified in the supplied background as a worker involved in the construction of New York skyscrapers during the 1930s who became a respected citizen of the city. In full (translated): “1. Could you write me about your American impressions? On whatever you like, with no limitations. 2. Are you happy with your trip? Do the Americans give you the chance to learn, to get practical experience. Are there many Russians with you? Are they learning with or without success? 3. Is it true that Amtorg [the Soviet trade organization] is preventing you from attending university? Do you need my mediation? Write if you think it is possible. Write without qualms, without regard to rank. Here in the USSR things are not going badly at all. We are slowly moving ahead. Recently I read in an American newspaper about ‘brutal atrocities’ of the Bolsheviks, ‘brutal anti-American’ propaganda. In a word ‘the latest sound of the latest fashion’ of the gutter press. Funny people these American newspaper publishers. It’s just downright comical. Although they are in their way ‘practical,’ it also appears that they make money with this notion of ‘atrocities.’ One must understand that there are such people in America, too, who willingly believe the sensationalism of atrocities. What a culture." In very good to fine condition, with professionally repaired horizontal folds and toning. Accompanied by a custom cloth-bound presentation case.
Soviet political leader Joseph Stalin consolidated his power after Lenin’s death in 1924, establishing a dictatorship that would govern the Soviet Union through World War II and its defeat of the Nazi invasion. This letter dates to the forced collectivization and rapid industrialization that transformed Soviet society. Beginning in 1928, Stalin abandoned Lenin’s New Economic Policy, which had permitted limited private enterprise, in favor of state-directed development under successive five-year plans. His ‘revolution from above’ extended far beyond the political changes of 1917, bringing sweeping economic upheaval, repression, and loss of life.
The burden fell especially heavily on the peasantry. A countryside comprising approximately 25 million peasant households became the target of a campaign to replace individual farming with collective and state farms. Peasants, traditionally known as muzhiks, resisted the loss of their land and livestock; those branded kulaks or opponents of collectivization faced armed repression, mass arrests, execution, exile, and imprisonment in Stalin’s expanding forced-labor camp system, where starvation, overwork, and harsh conditions killed many. Collectivization and grain requisitions contributed to the catastrophic famine of 1932–1933, particularly in Ukraine, while the government continued exporting grain rather than directing all available supplies toward famine relief. Estimates of the human toll vary, with some placing deaths associated with collectivization, repression, and famine during these years at approximately 10 million.
Crash industrialization produced fewer deaths than the agricultural catastrophe but brought its own failures and coercion. Industrial managers and engineers were prosecuted in successive show trials, pressured into confessing fabricated crimes, and made scapegoats for breakdowns arising from unrealistic targets and government policies. Despite these failures and the enormous human cost, Stalin’s programs rapidly expanded the industrial capacity of a predominantly agrarian country.
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