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104 ANDREA GRAZIOSILastly, Piatakov's life provides a window onto that European panoramaof which I have spoken, not only because of his Ukrainian experience, orbecause of the special relations he had with Germany, but also because hislife is in itself an interesting reflection of the "aberration" of European historyafter 1914, as well as of some of its roots in the previous period.Before beginning, it is necessary to mention some of the limitations andsome of the biases of this essay. These derive first of all from the fact thatthis is a work still in progress. I am, therefore, still submerged in its"details"; hence the roughness of many of the generalizations I propose.Then, though it is true that I have already worked on all of the periods ofPiatakov's life and on all the problems of a certain importance connected toit, it is also true that not all of the work is at the same point of completion.There is, therefore, a certain lack of balance between the various parts ofthis paper; as in the case of the generalizations proposed, I feel that this willnot entirely jeopardize its success.Obviously, the sources used to date also lead to biases. My work wasplanned and begun before the opening of the Soviet archives, and this isvisible in the end product. To fill this gap, in addition to resorting to theavailable archives (like those of Trotsky or the French ones for the periodof Piatakov's stay in Paris), I then decided to be as ecumenical as possiblein the collection of sources; I believe I have collected and looked at asignificant part of the available material, including Piatakov's edited writings(which number in the thousands, if we consider the prikazy he wrote).Eventually, I was able to begin working in the former Soviet archives,whose immense riches I have, however, only begun to exploit. 3A particular type of bias derives from the historical period upon which Ifocus. It is all the more important because using the figure of Piatakov to tryto discuss movements, and thus possible periodizations, of Soviet history isat the center of this essay. Therefore, it is necessary to be aware of what wesee and what we do not if we detach the period delimitated by Piatakov'slife from that history and treat it as though it were an isolated section. Togive an example: to end with 1937 means that our history ends with the triumphof despotism. If we had ended in the early 1930s—say in1932-1933—with a biography of Smilga or of Riutin, for example; or in3I was able to work in TsGANKh, TsGAOR, and the former Central Party Archives (TsPA;now RTsKhlDNI) and found plenty of material. However, while Piatakov's activities as chairmanof the TsPKP in the Donbass, of the TsUGProm VSNKh, of the Glavkontskom, and ofGosbank are extremely well documented, most of the ΝΚΓΡ papers were destroyed by fire in1941. Furthermore, I have not yet been able to see Piatakov's personal fond, if such a thingexists. See also fn. 14.