Because there have been a lot of Country Email List studies on Stalin, but almost all of them are biographical. I did not intend to nullify that work, nor to say "No, it is the Politburo that runs everything, not Stalin." I was trying to see how the Politburo fit into the Stalinist system. Stalin Country Email List met with members of his Politburo (or sometimes an ad hoc body)which overlapped with the formal Politburo) practically every day for several hours. That means that the Politburo Country Email List had a function that Stalin considered important. Stalin was a hard-working man and it was impossible to think that he would spend time with them unless the Politburo had a definite goal and task.
That was my starting point: that the Country Email List Politburo had to have government functions and tasks because otherwise Stalin would not have spent time in daily dialogue with its members. And it was very clear that he was spending time there because his office Country Email List records were available. Every hour of his day in the office was recorded. That allowed me to develop my work, especially since those records were also published in Australia, and when I started Country Email List working on the subject,ussr . Let me ask you about your own history as a researcher.
What was it like working in the Soviet Country Email List archives? It was difficult. It was especially so in the 60s and 70s because they didn't deliver catalogs or guides. They did not say what material they had. They didn't publish it either. So you had to talk to an archives Country Email List clerk and say, "My subject is such-and-such, and I want such-and-such stuff." So, of course, they could understand you better or worse, and they could be more or less collaborative. It Country Email List was really difficult to get material that way, to the point that, in the process, I learned a lot about bureaucracy and archives.