The only defector from Stalin's Secretariat, chronicler of Politburo secrets
At the Central Committee meeting of 26 October 1923, Lenin offered Trotsky the role of his heir, and Trotsky refused because he was Jewish. The man taking notes was Politburo secretary Boris Bazhanov.
A technical secretary of the Bolshevik party, he served as Stalin's personal assistant and Secretary of the Politburo from 1923 to 1925, taking notes at every Politburo meeting. He witnessed firsthand the inner workings of the party leadership during the power struggle following Lenin's death, and after defecting from the USSR in 1928, published his memoirs in Paris — the first detailed Western exposé of the Stalin regime's decision-making structure and consolidation of power. The only member of Stalin's Secretariat ever to defect, his memoirs remain a vital primary source on the inner life of the early Soviet leadership.
Career Timeline
- 1919Joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
- 1920–1922Studied chemistry at Moscow Higher Technical School (did not graduate)
- 1922Worked in the CC Organizational-Instructional Department, assisting Kaganovich
- 1923Secretary of the CC Orgburo
- 1923–1925Stalin's personal assistant and Politburo secretary — recorded all Politburo sessions
- 1926–1927Editor of the Financial Gazette; served at People's Commissariat of Finance and Supreme Sports Council
- 19281 Jan: defected from the USSR, crossing into Iran and reaching France via India
- 1930–1980Published Memoirs of a Former Secretary of Stalin; expanded editions through 1980
Related historical events
Memoirs: Recollections of a Former Secretary of Stalin
Shortly after his 1928 defection, Bazhanov began writing the inside account of the power struggle he had witnessed firsthand at Politburo meetings. His memoirs were first published in Paris in 1930 under the French title Avec Staline dans le Kremlin (With Stalin in the Kremlin), and quickly became a bestseller in the West, translated into German, English, Spanish, and other languages. Bazhanov claimed that Stalin himself obtained a copy by plane and read it.
The book's core value lies in Bazhanov's unique position: from 1923 to 1925, he was the only technical secretary present at every Politburo session, recording the agenda, debates, votes, and even the informal exchanges that official protocols never captured. The memoirs vividly depict the Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenev triumvirate isolating Trotsky after Lenin's death, the personalities and habits of individual Politburo members, and the specific techniques (wiretapping opponents, rigging votes, building a patronage network) through which Stalin consolidated power. Bazhanov portrayed Stalin as "extraordinarily cautious and indecisive, but adept at reading the debate and, when the majority had tilted toward a position, taking the floor at the last moment to present the consensus as his own."
A substantially expanded second edition appeared in Paris in 1977, followed by a Russian-language edition in 1980. In the first edition, Bazhanov had depicted himself as an anti-communist before arriving in Moscow; in the second edition's preface, he retracted this, explaining he had done so deliberately to protect dissident friends still inside the USSR. In reality, he wrote, his disillusionment with communism developed during 1923–1924 while working at the Central Committee. The second edition added analysis of events after his escape: the Great Terror, Trotsky's assassination, World War II, and the 20th Party Congress.
The memoirs' reliability as a historical source remains debated. Translator David W. Doyle assessed Bazhanov as "a usually reliable source" but warned "he should be read with caution where he displays bias or discusses his own motive." Historian Robert Conquest considered the account "very useful, though not always authenticable." On the other hand, Russian historian Yuri Yemelyanov identified factual errors (notably Bazhanov's claim to have single-handedly drafted the 1922 Party Charter, when the decision had already been taken at the XI Congress) and criticized the memoirs' tendency to exaggerate the author's own role. Nonetheless, the memoirs remain a nearly unique primary source: an insider's record of how supreme Soviet power actually operated behind closed doors in the early 1920s. They were first published in the USSR only in 1990, during Perestroika.