A secret speech was allegedly given by

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

, on 19 August 1939, to members of the

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...

, wherein he justified the Soviet strategy to promote military conflict in Europe, which would be beneficial for the future territorial expansion of the Communist system. The strategy included Soviet-Nazi collaboration and the suggestion of what has become the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

. The

historicity Historicity is the historical actuality of persons and events, meaning the quality of being part of history instead of being a historical myth, legend, or fiction. The historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status. Historicity deno ...

of the speech is still the subject of academic debate. Plausible textual evidence of this speech found in various reputable archives has been academically studied and published, however no formal first-hand evidence of a

''meeting'' held on 19 August 1939 or the delivery of the quoted speech has yet been proven.

Source material and timeline

The first version of this speech was published partially on 28 November 1939, in the

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newspaper ''Le Temps'' by the

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'' despatch from

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.Review: Soviet Foreign Policy in the West, 1936–1941: A Review Article Author(s): Michael Jabara Carley Reviewed work(s): Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936–1941 by Silvio Pons Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939–1941 by Albert L. Weeks Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 56, No. 7 (Nov. 2004), pp. 1081–1093) Since then several versions, varying in content, have been in circulation. In 1994, the Russian publicist Tatiana Bushuyeva () published the text of the speech in an article printed in the ''

Novy Mir ''Novy Mir'' (, ) is a Russian-language monthly literary magazine. History ''Novy Mir'' has been published in Moscow since January 1925. It was supposed to be modelled on the popular pre-Soviet literary magazine ''Mir Bozhy'' ("God's World"), w ...

'' magazineБушуева Т. "...проклиная - попробуйте понять...", Новый мир, 1994, no. 12, pp. 230-237.
text online
retrieved August 5, 2023) based on what she claimed was recent findings in the Special Archive of the USSR of a text,The archive files location: Centre for the Preservation of Collections of Historical Documents, formerly Special Archive of the USSR; fund 7, list 1, file 1223, in Russian: Центр хранения историко-документальных коллекций, бывший Особый архив СССР, ф. 7, оп. 1, д. 1223 which according to her was supposedly recorded by a

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

member present at the meeting (and she published the Russian translation thereof). Sergey Sluch questions its authenticity remarking that the document was in French and stored in the "Trophies Funds" of the Archive, and that the text mostly matches the one from Havas, but Bushueva skipped some dubious passages.

Historicity and debate

Whether this speech was ever given by Stalin is still the subject of dispute by historians. According to

Viktor Suvorov Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun (; ; born 20 April 1947), known by his pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov (), is a former Soviet GRU officer who is the author of non-fiction books about World War II, the GRU and the Soviet Army, as well as fictional books ...

's book ''

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'',

Soviet historians This list of Russian historians includes historians, as well as archaeologists, paleographers, genealogists and other representatives of auxiliary historical disciplines from the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire and other p ...

laid special emphasis on claiming that no

meeting took place on 19 August 1939, but the Russian military historian Dmitri Volkogonov has found the evidence that a meeting really took place on that day. However the only military issue in the agenda of the meeting, according to Volkogonov, was the deferment from

conscription Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...

of the construction workers of the Akmolinsk– Kartaly railway. The speech took place according to research book '' Stalin's Missed Chance'' by the military historian

Mikhail Meltyukhov Mikhail Ivanovich Meltyukhov (, ; born 14 March 1966) is a Russian military historian. Works Meltyukhov was born in Moscow. In 1995, he defended the dissertation “Contemporary Historiography on Pre-history of the German-Soviet War” on histo ...

, which covers the alleged offensive plans by Stalin. However, the third edition of the book, in 2008, omits any mention of 1939 speech. Historian of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

also reviewed the history of the subject.С.З.Случ, "РЕЧЬ СТАЛИНА, КОТОРОЙ НЕ БЫЛО"
''Отечественная история'' (now ''

Russian History The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' people, Rus' state in the north in the year 862, ruled by Varangians. In 882, Prin ...

''), no. 1, 2004 Случ С.З. Советско-германские отношения в сентябре-декабре 1939 года и вопрос о вступлении СССР во Вторую мировую войну

References

External links

pieced together by Carl O. Nordling,

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* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060520110715/http://www.carlonordling.se/ww2/stalin_speech_french.html Pourquoi l’U.R.S.S. aurait signé son accord avec le Reich Revue de Droit International, de Sciences Diplomatiques et Politiques (The International Law Review), 1939, Nr. 3, Juillet-Septembre. P. 247–248. (alleged text of Stalin's speech by Havas, with English translation by Nordling)
Tatjana Bushuyeva’s article in Novyy Mir

* ttp://www.grani.ru/opinion/m.136132.html Irina Pavlova about findings by Bushueva {{DEFAULTSORT:Stalin's Alleged Speech Of 19 August 1939 1939 in the Soviet Union Documents of the Soviet Union Foreign relations of the Soviet Union World War II speeches Forgery controversies Joseph Stalin Works by Joseph Stalin August 1939 in Europe 1939 speeches Speeches by politicians