3 pages, 301 x 206mm. (Some minor marginal chips, filing punch-holes in left margin.) Slipcase. Provenance: Ron Hoskins Collection.

 

SIGNED BY KHRUSHCHEV as Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Countersigned by Lazar Kaganovich, as Secretary of the Central Committee of the KPU (Communist Party of Ukraine).

 

Khrushchev, then in his role as Chairman of the Board of Ministers of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, signed as "N. Khrushchev" in green ink at lower left. Kaganovich, serving as Secretary of the Central Committee of the KPU (Communist Party of Ukraine) has signed in purple ink as "L. Kaganovich" at lower right. The typed sheets show scattered pencil and pen notations, apparently clerical. 

 

The untranslated document appears to discuss companies and commodities in Voroshilovgrad, now Luhansk in modern day eastern Ukraine. The city of Voroshilovgrad was known as such between 1935-1958 and 1970-1990. The first of these time periods coincides with the date "8.10.47" (October 8, 1947) docketed on the bottom of the third page. The year "1947" also appears within the body of the text on the second page.

 

In early 1947, Khrushchev lobbied Stalin in person for food aid for Ukraine and eventually received it, at a cost; Stalin was so irritated by Khrushchev's "mischief-making" that the premier temporarily removed Khrushchev from the secretaryship and replaced him with Lazar Kaganovich, the cosigner of this document. Yet Khrushchev was sufficiently restored in Stalin's graces to be restored to his office by December 1947. This political rehabilitation was no small feat when one considers the toxic political environment. Khrushchev himself had participated in Stalin's purges (arrests, exile, and executions) while managing Ukraine.

 

Lazar Kaganovich was Khrushchev's old mentor from the earliest days of the Russian Revolution. The two had met as early as 1917, and Khrushchev had served as Kaganovich's second-in-command in Ukraine in the 1920s. An interesting document signed by two of the most important Soviet leaders, the future premier of the Soviet Union and Kaganovich (1893-1991), one of Josef Stalin's closest advisers.