«Ленинградское дело» и наследие сталинизма
‘“Leningrad Affair” and the Stalinist Inheritance

Summary/Abstract: A.V. Sushkov is one of the most prolific historians to work on the “Leningrad Affair” in the 75 years since the start of the purge. Much of his work has focused on allegations of corruption and abuse of power that were leveled against A.A. Kuznetsov, P.S. Popkov, Ia.F. Kapustin and their entourage, as well as the central role that thesecharges played in triggering the “Leningrad Affair” itself. This review of Sushkov’s major publications surveys his treatment of the Leningrad group’s lavish lifestyle and the political and economic machinations that were required to support it, both during and after the Great Patriotic War. It gives high marks to Sushkov’s exhaustive use of declassified archival sources and supports his contention that elements of the “Leningrad Affair” can only be understood by comparing the policies and practices of the Leningrad party organization to those of other regional party organizations. This review criticizes Sushkov for breaking with his comparativist methodology to contend without empirical proof that Kuznetsov, Popkov and their Leningrad group were unusually corrupt within the context of the Stalin-era party nomenklatura. This Leningrad “exceptionalism” is exacerbated by Sushkov’s uncritical reading of party and state investigative reports assembled after the start of the purge that were neither objective nor dispassionate in their documentation of the Leningraders’ supposed crimes. This review likewise questions Sushkov’s use of uncorroborated testimony taken from the interrogation protocols of key defendants of the “Leningrad Affair,” insofar as many of the main figures of the purge are known to have been mercilessly tortured after their arrest.

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