Stalin Joseph

Stalin Signs Daughter's History Homework Re: Lenin, Also Signed by 3 Other Soviet Bigwigs


Even Soviet dictator's children have to complete their homework.


Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva (1926-2011), the youngest child and only daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (1878-1953), had to submit this civics assignment about Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. It was graded not by her teacher, but by her father and General Secretary of the Communist Party Josef Stalin, who signed his name as "J. Stalin" at lower left. He and a few of the others have entertained Svetlana actually signing twice adorning their signatures in two crayon colors, blue and Soviet red  Under the comment "Excellent," three of Stalin's leading party subordinates, Lazar Kaganovich, Andrei Zhdanov, and Mikhail Kalinin, also signed their names as "L. Kaganovich," "Zhadanov," and "M. Kalinin" respectively. The undated 1p piece of cream watermarked note paper is inscribed in pencil and red and blue crayon. Deckled edge at top. A tiny abrasion at center top mentioned only for accuracy. Else near fine. 5" x 7.875".


Translated in full:

"Question:

How did Lenin help workers to build a new life?

 

Answer:

V.I. Lenin organized underground meetings and then when he was in exile he wrote letters to workers using milk. In these letters he wrote about how to build a new life.   Svetlana, the boss.


                                                Excellent    L. Kaganovich

                                                                 Zhadanov

                                                                 M. Kalinin

                                                                 J. Stalin."


Svetlana's homework, complete with its belabored handwriting and careful cross-outs, further emphasizes her childish earnestness. In his World War II memoir The Hinge of Fate, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill describes his impressions of the teenaged Svetlana, whom he met in 1942. He described her as "a handsome red-haired girl, who kissed her father dutifully." (Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate: The Second World War. Book II: Africa Redeemed, "XXVIII: Moscow: A Relationship Established," p. 404.)


Svetlana's school lesson about Vladimir Lenin's writing in milk residue is substantiated in a late Soviet biography of the revolutionary, Maria Prilezhayeva's V.I. Lenin: The Story of His Life (Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1978). During Lenin's 3-year-long exile in Shushenskoye, Siberia, the disgruntled ideologue was prohibited reading or writing materials. But he developed an ingenious system of communication that evaded all detection.


"Now, with his back to the [prison] peephole, Vladimir Ilyich rolled a piece of bread into a hard, doughy lump. Then he made a hollow in it with his thumb. This was his inkwell. He filled it with milk and began writing between the lines of one of the books. As soon as the milk dried the words became invisible. He would return the book to his visitors today. Then Nadya or his sisters would hold the page over a lamp and the heat of the flame would make the writing appear, like a photograph being developed. Vladimir Ilyich was composing the text of a leaflet.


During the night of December 8th one hundred and sixty other members of the League of Struggle had been arrested. Still, the League carried on. The strikes and walkouts continued, led by League members. Vladimir Ilyich sent the strikers leaflets from his prison cell…"

--Chapter 18, Cell No. 193


Svetlana's education, then, included party-line indoctrination about Vladimir Lenin, the father of the Russian Revolution. The process of educating children about the Communist Party, its history, its ideology, and its leaders began at an early age.


Lazar Kaganovich (1893-1991) had been one of Stalin's righthand men since the latter's rise to political power in the early 1920s. He was known for his absolute personal devotion to Stalin. Kaganovich's career as a Stalinist henchman included his tight control over oil, railroads, and other industries, and his role in implementing collectivization programs in Ukraine. This last program led to such widespread famine that it has been called genocide by some historians.


Andrei Zhdanov (1896-1948) was Stalin's propagandist-in-chief. Before his unexpected death in 1948, Zhdanov was considered to be Stalin's first choice of a political successor. Zhdanov was involved in the coercive annexation of Baltic states, and personally authorized many Great Terror executions. His persecution and censorship of Soviet writers, musicians, and artists is well-documented. Zhdanov's son Yuri (1919-2006) was married to Svetlana between 1949-1950.


Mikhail Kalinin (1875-1946) met Stalin through Svetlana's mother's family, the Alliluyevs. Kalinin was a symbolic high-level functionary with very little real power.


Three of these four signatories--Stalin, Kaganovich, and Kalinin--personally authorized the Katyn massacre in 1940, which led to the execution of more than 25,000 Polish dissidents. Here, though, they congratulate the academic efforts of Stalin's school-aged daughter.


Svetlana was Stalin's daughter from his second marriage to Nadya Alliluyeva (1901-1932). Especially after her mother's suicide in 1932 (reported publicly as peritonitis), Svetlana maintained a close and loving relationship with her father. Svetlana was Stalin's "boss," "official secretary," and "little hostess," and he was her "little papa." The two remained on good terms until Svetlana's unsanctioned romance at age 17 with a Jewish independent filmmaker named Aleksei Kapler. Kapler wasn't run off the front porch with a shotgun like your average unwanted suitor. Rather, Stalin sentenced him to ten years at a prison camp for daring to proposition his daughter.


This incident, as well as others, led Svetlana Alliluyeva to gain a different perspective of the father she once adored. In her memoirs Twenty Letters to a Friend (1967) and Only One Year (1969), she grappled with her parentage. Svetlana defected to the United States in 1967 but returned to the Soviet Union in 1984, only to embrace British citizenship in 1992. 


Recent similar auction returns fetched the following prices:


-RR Auctions, December 2015: $11,800

-RR Auctions, February 2013: $8,500

-RR Auctions, December 2012: $10,000


Svetlana's correspondence was sold around the time of her death in 2011, as shown by auction listings included with this lot. These letters typically sell above $10,000, though one Austrian retailer has listed something similar to ours for $75,000!  While these prices are impressive, we feel that our piece is superior to any of the above. Among the reasons for this are: its superb Lenin content; its being signed by Stalin and 3 other Soviet leaders; and its excellent condition. 


Stalin and 3 other Soviets--who normally signed arrest warrants and execution lists--have here decorated a child's homework assignment in Soviet red and blue crayon!

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