POLITBURO. Last topics discussed: renaming the “L.I. Brezhnev” icebreaker, and letters from Svetlana ALLILUYEVA about her return to USSR [R: 20 Mar 86, Pb]. 2 pp (excerpt).

=========================================

[page one of two]

Top Secret

Single copy (draft record)

[…]

---

[page two]

41.

[…]

GORBACHOV. There is one matter I have left until last. On my instructions it was included by Comrade Dolgikh. This is his note [reads aloud]. It concerns restoring the ice-breaker “L. Brezhnev”’s former name, “Arctic”. A new ice-breaker can be called “L. Brezhnev”.

ZAIKOV. It already bears the nameplate “L. Brezhnev “.

ALIEV. We can launch it as “L. Brezhnev” but make no announcement.

RYZHKOV. It should be done without television and in one day.

GORBACHOV. Let us instruct Comrades Ligachov and Zaikov to think over the matter and put forward suggestions.

*

And there is one other item.

[Reads letter from Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, out loud.]

Of course, there is no rush to decide whether she may come. My first inclination – let her visit the USSR. But perhaps we should not be in a hurry and talk it over first.

CHEBRIKOV. Her first letters were fine, they showed gratitude. Half of this one is about problems she never mentioned before. She was taken to hospital this evening with a heart attack.

GORBACHOV. We must find out what her daughter thinks and hold a high-level meeting. My view is that we need to assess Stalin, Stalingrad, and so on.

I’m from that kind of family myself. My uncle’s health was ruined. We were five children born to a mother from a very poor family. I received a medal for an essay “Stalin is our military glory, / the soaring inspiration of our youth!” [¹] Perhaps it would therefore be expedient to entrust this meeting to Comrade Solomentsev?

GROMYKO. Or to Comrade Ligachov, perhaps?…

GORBACHOV. Let us instruct Comrade Ligachov to meet her.

[signed] Lukyanov

=========================================

NOTES

See earlier recommendations by KGB head Andropov for discrediting Svetlana Alliluyeva and her forthcoming book: 5 November 1969*, 2792-A.

*

1. “Tempered in battle and labour / on the expanses of our wonderful Motherland /
   
   we wrote a joyful song / about our great Friend and Leader.” (1938 poem in praise of Stalin.)
   ↩︎

*

GENERAL

1. Notes and additions by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ];
2. Text added by hand is indicated in italic script;
3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been inserted in a previously typed document it is indicated by underlined italic script.

translation and annotation, JC

===================================