Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
: Иван Павлович Товстуха) (February 10, 1889 – August 9, 1935) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
leader,
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
functionary, and personal secretary of
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
and the author of the first official biography of Stalin.
Early life
Ivan Tovstukha was born in the family of a clerk, on 10 (22) February, 1889, in
Berezna
Berezna ( uk, Березна, russian: Бере́зна) is an urban-type settlement in Chernihiv Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Berezna settlement hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population:
Berezna is ...
1905 Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
, as a student at a
secondary school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...
, he joined subversive 'literary evenings' organised by the Ukrainian writer
Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky
Mykhailo Mykhailovych Kotsiubynsky ( uk, Михайло Михайлович Коцюбинський), (September 17, 1864 – April 25, 1913) was a Ukrainian author whose writings described typical Ukrainian life at the start of the 20th centur ...
. In 1909 he started working at the Chernigov Social-Democratic organization.
In July 1909 Chernigov police searched Tovstukha's room and found about 240 prohibited books, including works of
Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 p ...
August Bebel
Ferdinand August Bebel (22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 mer ...
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
. The illegal library belonged to the Social-Democratic groups of pupils of the local
seminary
A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...
. Tovstukha, now aged 20, was arrested and sentenced to exile in Siberia. His exile started in 1911 in
Irkutsk province
Irkutsk Oblast (russian: Ирку́тская о́бласть, Irkutskaya oblast; bua, Эрхүү можо, Erkhüü mojo) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara, Lena, and Nizh ...
, where Tovstukha carried revolutionary propaganda among locals and exiles, and was involved in raising money for the publication of the newspaper ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the co ...
''.
In January 1912, he fled abroad, and in 1913 joined the French Socialist Party, and the Paris section of the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
wing of the
RSDLP
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
, led by
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
. In exile, he worked as a digger, assistant fireman, worked in the kitchen, and as a driver.
Post-revolutionary career
Tovstukha returned to Russia in 1917, after the
February Revolution
The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
, and from November 1917 to March 1918, worked with the Central Staff of the
Red Guards
Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...
.
His association with Stalin dated from April 1918, when he was appointed secretary of the People's Commissariat for Nationalities, where Stalin was People's Commissar. When Stalin was appointed General Secretary of the
Central Committee
Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...
, Tovstukha was transferred to the Central Committee as Stalin's secretary, the first to hold that position.
In 1924, Tovstukha was replaced as Stalin's chief secretary by
Lev Mekhlis
Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis (russian: Лев Заха́рович Ме́хлис; January 13, 1889 – February 13, 1953) was a Soviet politician and a prominent officer in the Red Army from 1937 to 1940. As a senior political commissar, he became ...
, and appointed was assistant director of the
Lenin Institute
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
.
In 1926–30, he again ran Stalin's private office as head of the Secret Department.
In 1927, Tovstukha wrote the biographical entry on Stalin in a special edition of the Granat Encyclopedia, to mark the tenth anniversary of the revolution. This entry, which was the first biography of Stalin published in the Soviet Union, was also published as a separate pamphlet, with a print run of 50,000.
Stalin's aide
In 1930,
Boris Bazhanov
Boris Georgiyevich Bazhanov (russian: Бори́с Гео́ргиевич Бажа́нов; 9 August 1900 – 30 December 1982) was a Soviet secretary of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who defected from the Soviet Un ...
, who had defected to the west after working in Stalin's personal secretariat, published a memoir in which he implied Tovstukha was a more significant figure than his job titles suggest. This is borne by subsequent research. Long after Stalin's death, the playwright
Edvard Radzinsky
Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky (russian: Э́двард Станисла́вович Радзи́нский) (born September 23, 1936) is a Russian playwright, television personality, screenwriter, and the author of more than forty popular history ...
was researching Tovstukha's archive for a biography of Stalin when he was approached by an elderly man who had worked with Tovstukha, who said:
According to Bazhanov, Tovstukha also studied the returns from elections to the Central Committee, to identify those who had not voted for Stalin. Delegates to party congresses were give a list of preferred candidates, but could cross out individual names and write in others, in a supposedly secret ballot. Tovstukha allegedly enlisted a graphologist to help him identify the handwriting of delegates who had made alterations. Bazhanov described Tovstukha as "a gloomy subject", who had a persistent cough and "only half a lung" (because of his tuberculosis) but in whom Stalin had "complete confidence".
At the beginning of the power struggle that followed Lenin death in 1924, Tovstukha's appointment to the Lenin Institute gave him access to every available document about Lenin, including those that detailed his sharp differences pre-1917 with
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
. Tovstukha's appointment "gave Stalin control over the Lenin Archive, providing him with an ideological and polemic tool of the first importance. Tovstukha learnt to know his way about the archive better than anyone. He was able to supply Stalin with material about Trotsky or any other enemy." Tovstukha was rumoured to be the author of an anonymous leaflet circulated in 1924 entitled ''Small Biography of a Great Man'', which suggested that though Trotsky like to think of himself as an Old Bolshevik and a great man, he really should be called an Old
Menshevik
The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.
The factions eme ...
.
It was Tovstukha who falsified Stalin's date of birth, for reasons unknown. Throughout the Stalin years, and long afterwards, it was consistently written that he was born on 21 December 1979, when his birth certificate gives the actual date as 18 December (6 December in the
Old Style
Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, this is the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 158 ...
) 1978.
An indication of the importance Stalin attached to Tovstukha's work is that he secretly wrote to the publishers, instructing that Tovstukha was to receive royalties, warning that if Tovstukha were to say he did not need to be paid "he's lying: he's desperately short of money." But he eventually clashed with Stalin, who sacked or transferred members of Tovstukha's department without consulting him while he was away. Tovstukha submitted a written protest, on which Stalin scribbled: "Ha, ha, ha. Here's a real bantam." In 1930, he was replaced as Stalin's chief aide by
Alexander Poskrebyshev
Alexander Nikolaevich Poskrebyshev (russian: Александр Николаевич Поскрёбышев; 7 August 1891 – 3 January 1965) was a Soviet politician and a state and Communist Party functionary. A member of the Communist Party ...
.
In 1930–31, Tovstukha was deputy director of the Lenin Institute, a member of editorial board of the journal "''
Proletarian Revolution
A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists ...
''". From 1931, he was deputy director, then Head of Archives of the
Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute
The Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute, established in Moscow in 1919 as the Marx–Engels Institute (russian: Институт К. Маркса и Ф. Энгельса), was a Soviet library and archive attached to the Communist Academy. The instit ...
. In February 1934, he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee. He worked on assembling and editing the collected works of Lenin
Death
Tovstukha died of tuberculosis on August 9, 1935, in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
. His
ossuary
An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...
was buried in the
Kremlin wall
The Moscow Kremlin Wall is a defensive wall that surrounds the Moscow Kremlin, recognisable by the characteristic notches and its Kremlin towers. The original walls were likely a simple wooden fence with guard towers built in 1156.
The Kremlin w ...