Stalin's speech of 19 August 1939

The historicity of the speech is still the subject of academic debate. Plausible textual evidence of this speech found in various reputable archives has been academically studied and published, however no formal first-hand evidence of a Politburo meeting held on 19 August 1939 or the delivery of the quoted speech has yet been proven.

Source material and timeline

The first version of this speech was published partially on 28 November 1939, in the Paris newspaper Le Temps by the news agency Havas despatch from Geneva. Since then several versions, varying in content, have been in circulation.

In 1994, the Russian publicist Tatiana Bushuyeva (Russian: Татьяна Семеновна Бушуева) published the text of the speech in an article printed in the Novy Mir magazine based on what she claimed was recent findings in the Special Archive of the USSR of a text, which according to her was supposedly recorded by a Comintern member present at the meeting (and she published the Russian translation thereof). Sergey Sluch questions its authenticity remarking that the document was in French and stored in the "Trophies Funds" of the Archive, and that the text mostly matches the one from Havas, but Bushueva skipped some dubious passages.