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A thread began on Malinovsky, the Czarist agent who became a Bolshevik representative to the Duma, under my article on Joe Hansen. I thought comrades would find this comment by Charlie Trew interesting:
Although his trial was conducted in secret several people in attendance have discussed some of what went on. Malinovsky did indeed know that he was likely to be executed when he returned. According to Vladimir Burtsev: "When the Revolution triumphed in Germany and Russia and the possibility of participating prominently in political activities was lost to him forever, he decided to go back and die, rather than to flee into the obscurity of an Argentina or a similar place of refuge. Of course, he could have committed suicide, but he preferred to die in the view of everybody, and had no fear of death."
At his trial Malinovsky admitted he had been a spy being paid over 6,000 rubles by the Okhrana. He argued: "If I refused to accept the money the Okhrana would have suspected me of playing a double game. I had to show that I was faithful." The judge replied: "But you had already proved that by delivering our best comrades to the police." Malinovsky also told the court he had made a full confession to Lenin in 1914. Malinovsky spent an incredible six hours attempting to defend himself before the court and concluded with: "I am not asking for mercy! I know what is in store for me. I deserve it."
David Shub, the author of Lenin (1948): "Lenin sat facing Malinovsky, his head bent over a desk while he wrote on a pad. It was obvious, according to Olga Anikst, a Bolshevik witness; that Lenin was undergoing an emotional conflict. He remained in the same position for hours. When the defence counsel said that if Malinovsky had had friends to guide him he would never have become a spy, Lenin stirred, looked up at Malinovsky, and nodded his head many times. When the verdict of death by shooting was read, Malinovsky began to tremble and his face was distorted by fear. He had obviously expected Lenin's intercession. It is possible that before appearing he had been promised clemency. Lenin himself was undecided. A delegation of Petrograd Bolshevik workers attending the trial demanded to be allowed to witness the execution, apparently fearing that Lenin might commute the sentence of the agent provocateur who once enjoyed his full confidence."
Talk of Stalin being an informer/snitch dogged him his entire career, from the seminary, to his time in jail where he played people off of each other, all through his revolutionary career and even after he gained power. There is no "smoking gun" but there is a ton of circumstantial evidence. And to this day it remains a "hot topic" in Russia although, sadly, not for Western scholars (more on that in a minute). As George Kennan noted, nobody can deny that eliminating rivals via the police would be fully within his character. He made a career of eliminating anyone he thought was even a potential rival. There are some works on Stalin as an agent. One is "The Secret File of Joseph Stalin" by Roman Brackman. There are some problems and mistakes with this book but it is still very interesting. London-based, Israeli-born socialist Eric Lee also has an unpublished manuscript I have been trying to get him to finish and publish for the last two years. He had been working on this book: https://www.zedbooks.net/shop/book/the-experiment/ (on Georgian socialism in the years 1918-1921) and now that he is done I hope he will pick things up again. His preliminary title is "Mole: Stalin & the Okhrana." A key source is Leiba Feldbin aka Alexander Orlov. Orlov was an early Chekist and rose to Lt. General in the NKVD. His last job was directing Soviet operations in Spain during the Spanish civil war. Although a loyal Communist and Leninist, once he realized he was on the hit list of Yezhov's mobile groups he fled with his wife and daughter to the U.S. He sent Stalin a letter telling him he would keep his mouth shut as long as Stalin lived as long as Stalin left him and his family in the U.S. and Soviet Union alone. Apparently both men kept their end of the deal. Orlov kept a very low profile while in the U.S. and, incredibly, nobody with the U.S. government talked to him for years. When they finally did, he still never revealed all his secrets and took many to his grave. After Stalin died he wrote a book called "The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes" which did not mention Stalin as an agent. However, soon after Khrushchev's secret speech he wrote an expose for Life magazine (April 23, 1956) in which he discussed the evidence he had. Apparently he was disappointed that Nikita Sergeyevich did not mention the Okhrana connection in his speech. Edvard Radzinsky, who got access to the Russian archives in the 1990's wrote in his biography of Stalin that Khrushchev considered talking about the connection but decided it was "just impossible" to mention it. Just too damning and outrageous to admit that the decades long leader of the Soviet Union had worked for the tsarist police.
Unfortunately, recent Western books on Stalin have all but ignored the issue. Robert Service and Stephen Kotkin just gave it a passing mention and dismissed it out of hand. Montefiore discussed it briefly and dismissed the idea but he did not discuss much of the evidence, either (he did not even mention Orlov), and cited a Russian author Alexander Ostrovsky and his book "Who Was Behind Stalin" as the definitive word on the issue, calling the work "magisterial". It's not. I have it and I've read it. It's good but not definitive on the issue in any way. Unfortunately this book is only in Russian, by the way. At any rate, it's one of those issues that will never be likely proven one way or another. Like Hitler, Stalin was good at covering his tracks and eliminating potential threats before they became real threats. I would remind everyone that to this day there is no "smoking gun" regarding Hitler and the Final Solution. He made sure his name never got directly connected to it. Books that claim to prove a connection just cite passages from "Mein Kampf." Yet nobody seriously doubts he was involved from start to finish. I think this is the case with Stalin and the Okhrana.
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