Stalin

32. “O zadachakh khoziaistvennikov,” Pravda, Feb. 5, 1931, reprinted, with changes, in Sochineniia, XIII: 38–9. “The country ought to know its heroes,” Pravda wrote (March 6, 1931). “The outstanding shock worker, the inventor, the rationalizer who has mastered production technology—this is the hero of the land of socialism under construction.”

33. Il’in, Bolshoi konveier, 143–50; 1933 god, 104–9.

34. In Sochineniia, XIII: 41. In Sept. 1929, culminating a year-long campaign, unified management (edinonachalie) had been formally introduced for industrial enterprises: the manager was supreme, not the party cell or the technical director, who was usually a “bourgeois” specialist. Kuromiya, “Edinonachalie and the Soviet Industrial Manager, 1928–1937”; Gregory, Restructuring the Soviet Economic Bureaucracy, 57–9. On Aug. 23, 1931, the regime would award sole decision- making powers for both military and political issues to the military commanders over the political commissars. “Letopis’ stroitel’stva sovetskikh vooruzhennykh sil 1931 god (mai-iiul’),” 122–3.

35. Directives from above tasked local communists and Communist Youth League organizers with drawing up lists, usually in a few frantic days, and the police placed special boxes in rural soviets, schools, or streets to solicit denunciations. Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule, 241.

36. Peasant letter writers called for establishing collective farms without haste on a voluntary basis, and respecting churches. Zelenin, Stalinskaia ‘revoliutsiia sverkhu,’ 17 (RGAE, f. 7486, op. 37, d. 194, l. 252); Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule, 252. Officials more often took notice of the village solidarity: “in many villages the kulaks were seen off by the whole population, in tears of sympathy,” the party boss of the Tatar autonomous province reported to Stalin. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 822, l. 43.

37. Although category I “kulaks”—those subject to exile to remote regions or execution—had been envisioned at around 60,000, the actual number turned out to be 283,717 for the period from Jan. 1 to Oct. 1, 1930, half of them following the tactical retreat of “Dizzy with Success.” Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, II: 704 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 329, l. 198–212: Nov. 17, 1930); Viola, “Role of the OGPU,” 21, 43n82. In the Urals, the typical dekulakized household had one cow, one horse, three sheep, a modest family residence and stable, a bath-house, a storehouse, and between six and eight acres of sown land. Bedel’ and Slavko, “Iz istorii raskulachennykh spetspereselentsev,” 12. See also Scott, Behind the Urals, 17–8.

38. Yagoda ordered this situation corrected, informing operatives that it was “not obligatory to seize by the quota.” But there was no state medal for trailing the overachievers. Berelowitch and Danilov, Sovetskaia derevnia glazami VChK-OGPU-NKVD, III/i: 107–9 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 41, l. 38–41).

39. Suslov, “‘Revolution from Above.’” Better-off peasants rushed to sell their implements, kill off their livestock, and flee, prompting the regime to issue strongly worded orders to prevent self-dekulakization.

40. Popov, “Gosudarstvennyi terror,” 28–9; Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 492; Davies et al., Economic Transformation, 68, Unknown Gulag, 2, 6, 29–32 (GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 89, l. 205; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 56, l. 59). Timing varied: Uzbekistan’s dekulakization took place mostly in Aug. and Sept. Pokrovskii, Politbiuro i krest’ianstvo, I: 439–41 (APRF, f. 3, op. 30, d. 195, l. 157–8: Oct. 10, 1931). The state “planned” losses of 5 percent of the special settlers, but mortality was far higher thanks to the state’s unpreparedness for its own policy. Danilov and Krasil’nikov, Spetspereselentsy v Zapadnoi Sibiri, III: 10.

41. Between 1928 and 1931, on the territory of the former Moscow gymnasium no. 3, behind Lubyanka, 2, a new Constructivist edifice was built for the OGPU (Lubyanka, 12), with a distinctive façade and round windows on the top (seventh) floor. It contained 65,000 square feet of office space, a three-story department store, 120 residential apartments, a club, cafeteria, and 1,500-seat cinema. Pogonii, Lubianka, 68. As of July 1934, the OGPU would count 200,125 border guards and internal troops, another 18,000 convoy troops, nearly 200,000 in the regular police or militia, 18,951 in Gulag administration, and 20,125 field couriers, and others, for a total of 514,838—not even including state security (GUGB). Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 477–8 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 32, d. 8, l. 346–7). “Comrades, leave us in peace and don’t interfere with our work,” one exasperated professor at Tomsk University pleaded. Another professor at a technical school in Kiev remarked, “I do not intend ever to drive across a bridge built by an engineer from the workers.” Sevost’ianov et al., “Sovershenno sekretno,” VIII/ii: 1136–75 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, por. 435, l. 169–241: late May 1930).

42. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 9, l. 138. On Feb. 25, 1931, the politburo resolved by telephone poll to recommend that during the course of six months the OGPU “prepare” kulak settlements for 200,000–300,000 families near Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 263 (APRF, f. 3, op. 30, d. 149, l. 51). For a time, urgent requests for cheap “kulak” laborers skyrocketed, but sites that had large numbers of the deported often begged not to be sent any more: the ones they had were just dying. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 26, l. 37 (Kuznetskstroi); Viola, Unknown Gulag, 4.

43. Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago, I: 56. See also Khlevniuk, History of the Gulag, 10–12, 16–7.

44. Of the 2 million slated for exile within their own region, a large number of these also fled to the construction sites after their property was confiscated for the collective farms. Zemskov, “‘Kulaktskaia ssylka,’” 3; Danilov and Ivnitskii, Dokumenty svidetel’stvuiut, 46–7. Actual criminals flourished in the tumult, a public order challenge. Shearer, Policing Stalin’s Socialism, 289.

45. Zelenin, Stalinskaia ‘revoliutsiia sverkhu,’ 52–3 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, f. d. 26, l. 77–85: June 26, 1931). On Oct. 12, 1931, Yagoda would report to Stalin on the completion of kulak operations in regions of wholesale collectivization. As of Jan. 1, 1932, the OGPU reported that 1.3 million people were in special settlements. Berelowitch and Danilov, Sovetskaia derevnia glazami VChK-OGPU-NKVD, III/i: 774 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 10, d. 379, l. 93); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 267 (APRF, f. 3, op. 30, d. 195, l. 163); Pokrovskii, Politbiuro i krest’ianstvo, I: 442; Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 47 (GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 89, l. 206); Viola, Unknown Gulag, 6 (GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 89, l. 205; d. 949, l. 75–9).

46. A Central Committee circular of Jan. 20, 1931, had directed local party organizations to conduct mass agitation to prepare for the spring sowing campaign, expedite the flow of households into collective farms via creation of initiative groups, dispatch workers who could repair tools and equipment, and prevent distribution of the harvest according to the number of souls, as in the previous year, but instead according to the amount of work accomplished. Partiinoe stroitel’stvo, 1931, no. 2: 61–2; Kollektivizatsiia sel’skogo khoziaistva, 354–6.

47. Piatiletnyi plan, II/i: 328–9, 330–1; Kollektivizatsiia sel’skogo khoziaistva, 350. These harvest numbers reflected multiplication of planned sown area by planned yields, neither of which was based on actual data. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 65–6. Yields had been declining since the mid-1920s, a trend whose causes were not well understood. Nove, Economic History of the USSR (1992), 176.

48. Drought, in different ways, affected other world regions around this time. In the United States the “great southern drought” of 1930–31, which coincided with a price collapse and banking failures, inflicted hardship across twenty-three states from West Virginia to Texas; President Herbert Hoover sought to have the Red Cross, a private agency, be wholly responsible for relief, opposing federal drought relief (seeing it as opening the door to general federal relief). French West Africa suffered drought, locusts, and its worst famine ever; the French authorities did not relent on tax demands. Mortality in French West Africa was disproportionately higher (in an immensely smaller area and overall population) than in the Soviet Union. China in 1931–32 suffered the opposite problem: large snowmelt and tremendous rainfall that inundated an area equivalent in size to England and half of Scotland, flooding some 52 million people, and killing as many as 2 million from drowning and especially starvation. Tauger, “Natural Disaster,” 8, citing Woodruff, Rare as Rain; Report of the National Flood Relief Commission, 1931–32 (Shanghai, 1933); Fuglestad, “La grande famine.” See also Buck, 1931 Flood.

49. A secret OGPU report addressed to Stalin in early June 1931 complained that that machinery and buildings were unready for the harvest. On June 5, the politburo belatedly approved purchase of 2,500–3,000 additional trucks in the United States and Europe, beyond the 4,000 already ordered. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 68–9 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 883, l. 3: June 30, 1931; op. 162, d. 10, l. 66; RGAE, f. 7486, op. 37, d. 194, l. 273–253: June 10, 1931). On June 8, 1931, the regime felt constrained to redirect 30,000 tons of wheat and rye from export to consumption in Moscow and Leningrad. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 85–6 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 10, l. 80).

50. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 153 (RGASPI, f. 667, op. 1, d. 17, l. 28–9).

51. Wheatcroft and Davies, “Agriculture,” 125.

52. “Settlement is the liquidation of the bai semi-feudals, . . . the destruction of tribal attitudes,” intoned Isay Goloshchokin, known as Filipp, the Jewish-born party boss of the autonomous republic. Zveriakov, Ot kochev’ia k sotsializmu, 53; Iz istorii Kazakhskoi SSR, II: 255; Aldazhumanov et al., Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 28, 34–9 (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 2968, l. 141–8); Tursunbaev, “Torzhestvo kolkhoznogo stroia,” 259–308 (at 266, citing APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 2404, l. 23).

53. While the overall share of grain procurement from grain surplus regions declined between 1928 and 1932 from 67.5 to 50 percent, the share from grain-deficit regions grew from 9.4 to 16.9 percent. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 329 (citing RGAE, f. 4372, op. 30, d. 881, l. 82: Aug. 4, 1932).

54. Pianciola, “Famine in the Steppe.” In the Kazakh autonomous republic, significant numbers of deaths from starvation began in spring and summer 1930. That year an estimated 35,000 Kazakh households, more than 150,000 people with 900,000 head of livestock, fled for China, Iran, and Afghanistan. The USSR land commissariat resolved that even southern Kazakhstan—an area of nomads and semi-nomads—should see “reinforced state farm and collective farm construction,” partly in order to “narrow the basis for nomadic and semi-nomadic land utilization.” Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 3–4 (RGAE, f. 7486, op. 19, d. 130, l. 6–7: on Feb. 1, 1931); Kondrashin et al., Golod v SSSR, I/i: 207–8 (GA Kustanaiskoi obl. Respubliki Kazakhstan, f. 54–p, op. 1, d. 784, l. 14), 220–7 (TsA FSB, f. 2m, op. 8, d. 744, l. 570–6), 227–8 (l. 612); Aldazhumanov et al., Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 72–3 (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 3336, l. 97). Turar Ryskulov reported to Stalin that between Feb. 1931 and Feb. 1932, private Kazakh herds had shrunk by more than 4 million head, but only 1.5 million livestock had been delivered to the state. Ryskulov blamed “excesses in collectivization,” “alongside the evil murder of livestock by kulak-herders [bai].” Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 503–9 (RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 670, l. 11–14ob.); Partiinaia zhizn’ Kazakhstana, 1990, no. 10: 76–84; Ryskulov, Sobranie sochinenii, III: 304–16 (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 6403, l. 13–6).

55. Aldazhumanov, “Krest’ianskoe dvizhenie soprotivleniia,” 66–93. One district of Dagestan reported 10,000 people on the verge of starvation already in Dec. 1930: Kondrashin et al., Golod v SSSR, I/1: 321 (RGAE, f. 8043, op. 1, d. 20, l. 128). A Central Committee plenum (June 11–15, 1931) discussed the completed sowing campaign and upcoming harvest, but was largely preoccupied with Moscow city reconstruction and Union-wide rail transport bottlenecks, which Stalin addressed in his usual way: forcing personnel changes, including an influx of OGPU personnel into the railroad commissariat. Pravda, June 17, 1931; VKP (b) v rezoliutsiiakh (1933), II: 693–720; Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 109–10 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 35–6: Sept. 19, 1931), 123–4 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 85–85ob.: Oct. 1), 127–8 (l. 88ob.: Oct. 5); Rees, Stalinism and Soviet Rail Transport, 51–2; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 854, l. 7.

56. Discussion ensued of some heretical ideas, such as allowing state companies independence and disposal of their own profits, to create incentives, but the transcript was not published. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d, 11, l. 119 (July 15, 1931).

57. RGASPI, f. 85, op. 28, d. 7, I: 176–82. This text, as delivered, differs from the text published two weeks later and reprinted in Sochineniia, XIII: 51–80.

58. When hostile governments fed the Soviets information aimed at compromising Red Army officers, much of it had actually originated with the OGPU’s schemes. The defector Bazhanov colorfully told French intelligence that “I often heard politburo members and major OGPU functionaries say that émigré organizations were so saturated with agents that at times it was difficult to make out where émigré activities began and prevocational work ended.” Gutinov, “‘Unichtozhit’ vragov, predvaritel’no ikh obmanuv,” 38. See also Dzanovich, Organy, 92 (citing TsA FSB, f. PF, d. 6159, t. 1, l. 228ob.).

59. “At the beginning of Soviet power I was neither sympathetic nor certain it would endure,” Colonel Nikolai Svechin testified, according to his interrogation protocols. “Although I participated in the civil war, it was not in my heart. I fought eagerly when the war took on the character of an external war (the Caucasus front). I fought for the territorial integrity and preservation of Russia, although it was called the RSFSR” (i.e., Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic). Tynchenko, Golgofa, 146 (citing GA SBU, fp., d. 67093, t. 189 [251], delo Afanas’eva A. V.: 56). See also Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 46–47 (citing AVKVS RF, op. 55, d. 8651, l. 52; RGVA, f. 9, op. 29, d. 10, l. 214: Gamarnik report, May 1931; AVKVS RF, op. 66, d. 2552, l. 1–13).

60. Snesarev had voiced the latter fear after his arrest in late 1930. Zdanovich, Organy, 376 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 4, d. 774, l. 4).

61. Voroshilov had boasted to a Central Committee plenum in April 1928 that “the commanders we received from the tsarist army at the present time have become completely reliable, ours, if not 100 percent, then 99 percent, we assimilated them and melded them in with the young red cadres.” Danilov and Khlevniuk, Kak lomali NEP, I: 280. The defense commissar kept a vigilant eye on rivals, and had once denounced Budyonny to Stalin as “too much a peasant, excessively popular and very cunning,” adding that “in the imagination of our enemies, Budyonny will play the role of some sort of savior [a peasant Leader], heading a ‘people’s’ movement.” “‘Cherkni . . . desiatoic slov,” 408 (Feb. 1, 1923). Voroshilov also complained about negative reports generated by the Red Army’s political administration. Khlevniuk, Politburo, 37; Zdanovich, Organy, 158 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 1, d. 5, l. 21ob.–22), 114 (op. 5, d. 478, l. 168). Voroshilov’s aide-de-camp was Rafail Khmelnitsky (b. 1898).

62. According to the Lesser Soviet Encyclopedia (1931): “Officers constituted a closed caste, access to which was open predominantly to those of the ruling class . . . they were a true bulwark of the autocracy in the struggle against the revolutionary movement.” Malaia Sovetskaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1931), VI: 208. Much the same would be stated, even more colorfully, eight years later: Bol’shaia Sovetskaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1939), XLIII: 674. See also Denikin, Ocherki russkoi smuti, III: 144–5.

63. “According to OGPU data,” Mężyński reported to Stalin, “all counterrevolutionary organizations and groups are striving to penetrate the Red Army . . . Recently we have uncovered numerous such rebel groups tied to the Red Army, about which we will offer a special report. I consider it necessary to convey to you a communication about one such organization discovered by the Ukraine GPU that presents the greatest interest.” Stalin had received Mężyński on Oct. 14 and 26, 1930. Ukraine GPU chief Balytsky was summoned to Moscow. Zdanovich, Organy, 388–9 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 247, l. 292; d. 15, l. 451–2).

64. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 122; Zdanovich, Organy, 390 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 237, l. 144, 136). Evidently, when the central OGPU in Moscow sent a brigade to the Ukrainian capital of Kharkov, it found anti-Soviet moods among former tsarist officers but no organization. Zdanovich, Organy, 391–2 (citing TsA FSB, delo R-4807, t. 1, l. 39, 44: May 8, 1938), 433. A Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) had been founded in Belgrade in 1924 by General Wrangel, Lieutenant General Alexander Kutepov, and the Romanov pretender, Grand Duke Nikolai Niloaevich, and was run out of Paris by Kutepov. His deputy, Major General Nikolai Skoblin, was an OGPU agent. The general staffs of Poland and Finland allowed their diplomatic pouches to carry ROVS materials to and from Moscow. Kutepov had concluded that only terrorist acts could shake the entrenched Soviet regime (or as Kutepov is said to have remarked, “detonate” the country), precisely the reasoning of the underground leftist terrorists during the tsarist days. On Jan. 26, 1930, Kutepov was kidnapped by an OGPU team coordinated by Yakov Serebryansky (the “Yasha team” for special tasks). Voitsekhovskii, Trest, 10–11; Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 58; Barmine, One Who Survived, 186; Pipes, Struve, 379–87; Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 23; Krasnaia zvezda, Sept. 22, 1965.

65. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 262 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 171, l. 4–5); Zdanovich, Organy, 390 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 63, l. 50: Feb. 16, 1931). The Moscow “center” was said to consist of Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich, Alexander Verkhovsky, Sergei Kamenev, Alexander Svechin, Kakurin, and Snesarev—several with ties to Tukhachevsky.

66. Artizov et al., Reabilitatsiia: kak eto bylo, II: 671–788; Z arkhiviv VUChK, GPU, NKVD, KGB, no. 1, issue 18 (2002): 209; Khaustov, Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 212–3 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 7, l. 188, 192); Zdanovich, Organy, 423–31. The main scholarly authority, who provides a list of names while admitting the impossibility of establishing exact figures, writes that as many as 10,000 officers might have been arrested and sentenced. Tynchenko, Golgofa, 242, 248–311. See also Berkhin, Voennaia reforma, 261.

67. “Letopis’ stroitel’stva sovetskikh vooruzhennykh sil 1931 goda (ianvar’-aprel’),” 114–5 (March 13, 1931). The accuser, Sergei Bezhanov (Sakvorelidze), would be executed (Balytysky had recommended a ten-year sentence, based upon his cooperation). Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 106; Tynchenko, Golgofa, 209–12 (GA SBU, fp., d. 67093, t. 21, delo Bzhanova S. G.: 102–3; t. 23: 578; t. 2, protokoly troika NKVD USSR: 89). Shaposhnikov had been placed at the head of non-party senior military men who approved industrialization and condemned the right deviation at the 16th Party Congress in 1930, when Stalin had allowed him to join the party expeditiously. In June 1931, Alexander Yegorov, whom Stalin knew from the civil war, was named chief of the staff.

68. Tynchenko, Golgofa, 124 (citing TsA FSB, f. R-40164, d. 4–b, delo Snesareva A. E.: 250); Snesarev, Filosofiia voiny, 33 (no citation). Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich, a former chief of staff, was arrested (Feb. 1931) but then released (May); Sergei Kamenev, the former supreme commander of the Red Army, was untouched despite compromising material gathered on him. Alexander Svechin was re-arrested in Feb. 1931 and got five years but would be released early in Feb. 1932; Verkhovsky was also arrested in Feb. 1931 and, in July, sentenced to execution, but this was commuted to ten years; Kakurin was sentenced in Feb. 1932 extrajudicially to execution, which was commuted immediately to ten years of solitary confinement (he would die in prison in summer 1936). Snesarev ended up at Solovki. In Sept. 1934 he would be granted early release because of ill health; he would die in a Moscow hospital on Dec. 4, 1937, and be buried at the Vaganskoye cemetery. Dudnik and Smirnov, “Vsia zhizn’-nauke,” (no. 2), (no. 8); Bol’shaia Sovetskaia entsiklopediia (1976), XXIII: 635; Medvedev, Let History Judge, 287; Khrushchev, Memoirs, II: 141–3, 143n2.

69. Rölling and Rüter, Tokyo Judgment, I: chap. 6; Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 73, 86–9; Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, 178–80.

70. Tukhachevsky took part in the May 13, 24, and 25, 1931, sessions of the Revolutionary Military Council in Moscow. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 816, 818, 824, d. 829, l. 4 (June 10, 1931); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 9, l. 162; d. 10, l. 2, 7, 33; Nikulin, Tukhachevskii, 169. Orjonikidze might have played a role in Tukhachevsky’s promotion. Dubinskii-Mukhadze, Ordzhonikidze, 277. Tukhachevsky had been working hard to demonstrate his loyalty to Voroshilov, sending an especially sycophantic fiftieth birthday greeting (Feb. 4, 1931). Voroshilov, Stat’i i materialy k 50-letiiu, 250–1.

71. Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 100–13. The same key informant, Olga Zajonczkowska-Popova, continued her work.

72. Next up was the R-5, and Stalin was told it had a transmitter and receiver, which he could test. “And you are not deceiving us? Show me the radio station . . .” Turzhanskii, “Vo glave Sovetskoi aviatsii,” 183–9. Turzhansky would be arrested on July 23, 1938, accused of taking part in a military-fascist plot against the USSR and tortured; he would refuse to confess and be deported to the Kolyma camps; he would be released on Feb. 29, 1940, and, on June 4, named a major general of the air force.

73. Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 213 (citing ORAF UFSB po Stavorpol’skomy kraiu, arkhivnoe sledstvennoe delo no. 13144 on Kaul A. I. t. 2).

74. Kokurin and Petrov, “OGPU, 1929–1934 gg.,” 104; Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 226–9 (APRF, f. 3, op. 20, d. 193, l. 129–31: March 7, 1930); Zdanovich, Organy, 415 (Sept. 1930); Whitewood, Red Army, 130 (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 293, l. 220). Yevdokimov had used his authority to send commissions to Sverdlovsk and Alma-Ata to gather compromising material on forced confessions and other abuses to use against Yagoda. Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 213, (citing ORAF UFSB po Stavorpol’skomy kraiu, arkhivnoe sledstvennoe delo no. 13144 on Kaul A. I. t. 2: 37).

75. He had taken a long holiday in 1930, and spent the entire winter 1930–31 at his dacha outside Moscow, but his health worsened again in Feb.–March 1931. Meditsinskaia gazeta, June 29, 1988.

76. See Seyed-Gohrab, Great Umar Khayyam.

77. He would suffer severe flu in Sept. and Oct. 1931.

78. Akulov had a storied past as the organizer before the 1917 revolution of a 60,000-strong worker demonstration in St. Petersburg, and had assisted Stalin’s machinations in the removal of Rykov as head of the government several months before. Blinov, Ivan Akulov.

79. Belsky was kicked over to the lowly supply commissariat, Messing to the foreign trade commissariat, and Olsky to the trust overseeing Moscow cafeterias. Stalin took the opportunity to insert Lavrenti Beria into the OGPU collegium as well. Artuzov, after a phone conversation with Mężyński, wrote him a letter (Dec. 3, 1931), upset that his loyalty had come under question, professed never to have collected material against Yagoda, and asked to be assigned different work. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 354–8 (TsA FSB, d. R-4489, t. 3, l. 12–4). See also Kokurin and Petrov, “OGPU, 1929–1934 gg.,” 104; Gladkov, Nagrada, 375–7.

80. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 275 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 10, l. 127), 276 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 840, l. 1, 2), 805–6n87 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 842, l. 5, 14); Il’inskii, Narkom Iagoda, 172. In the 1960s, Medved’s brother-in-law (D. B. Sorokin) would claim that Kirov had blocked Medved’s transfer out of Leningrad. RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 67, l. 7–14 (Sorokin to Khrushchev, March 5, 1962). There is a garbled version in Orlov, Secret History, 14–15.

81. Yevdokimov would take with a venegeance to his new assignment to bring rebels, known as “Basmachi,” to heel in the Tajikistan mountains bordering Afghanistan and the Turkmenistan desert bordering Iran. Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 221 (citing TsA FSB, arkhivnoe sledvestvennoe delo no. 14963 on Papashenko I. P., l. 120, quoting Iu. K. Ivanov-Borodin).

82. Naumov, Bor’ba v rukovodstve NKVD, 31–2. Balytsky, for example, brought a substantial number of Chekists to Moscow from Ukraine, while also leaving many loyalists behind to watch over Ukraine for him. Sever, Volkodav Stalina, 69–70. Molchanov, of Ivanovo province, would be moved to Moscow as head of the secret-political department on Nov. 20, 1931: Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 287 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 861, l. 9).

83. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement, 16 (citing Bodleian Library, Simon MS70, fols 86, 132). “France—at the head of our enemies,” was the title of a section of a 1931 Soviet pamphlet. Mezhdunarodnoe polozhenie, 12. On July 18, 1931, for the first time since the war, a German chancellor, Brüning, went to Paris. Soon, Brüning, backed by Britain, would announce that Germany would seek the cancellation of all reparations.

84. The incident, involving Artashes Khalatyants, known as Artyom Khalatov, a Baku-born (1894) ethnic Armenian and the director of the state publishing house (since 1927), is related by Ivan Gronsky, then the editor of Izvestiya. Gronskii, Iz proshlogo, 153. Stalin wrote a note to Khalatov, along with Kaganovich and Kalinin, on Sept. 12, 1931, indicating he had not been excommunicated, but he would be sacked from the state publishing house on April 15, 1932; the disgraced Tomsky was named in his stead. Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b): povestki dnia zasedanii, II: 201, 205, 296 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 840, 842, 880); Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 100 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 61), 110 (l. 73), 112 (l. 73–73ob.). Khalatov would be arrested on Sept. 26, 1937, and executed in Oct. 1938.

85. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 275–6 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 10, l. 127; op. 3, d. 840, l. 1–2), 280 (d. 841, l. 5, 9: Aug. 10 circular), 280 (d. 841, l. 5, 9: Aug. 6, 1931); Na prieme, 48. After Stalin had departed the capital, Kaganovich asked who ought to announce the personnel changes to the OGPU itself; Stalin insisted it had to be a party secretary, so that “the report is not assessed as revenge by one part of the OGPU against another.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 48 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 9–9ob.: Aug. 15, 1931), 48n1 (f. 17, op. 162, d. 10, l. 127), 49 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 10–10ob.: Aug. 15). On July 10, the politburo had decreed that “no Communists, working in the organs of the GPU or outside the organs, either in the center or in locales, should be arrested without the consent of the Central Committee,” and that “no specialists (engineering technical personnel, military, agronomists, physicians, and so on) should be arrested without the consent of the corresponding people’s commissar.” Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 107; Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 60 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 840, l. 9). Later, this need to obtain a higher-up’s permission for arrests of subordinates would have the effect of making complicit people’s commissars and others in the annihilation of loyal cadres.

86. Shreider has a version of the internal OGPU struggle: Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 10, 13, 14–15.

87. Yagoda concluded: “There is not a single blot on the glorious banner of the OGPU. Ahead are still many years of struggle and glorious victories. We shall close Chekist ranks still more tightly!” Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 277–9 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 171, l. 6–9); Istoriia sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Moscow: Vysshaia krasnoznamennaia shkola KGB, 1977), 234–5. Slyly, Yagoda gave the Yevdokimov protégé Yakov Weinstok the assignment of evicting Yevdokimov’s family from their Moscow apartment, ensuring everlasting bad blood between patron and protégé. Zhukovskii, Lubianskaia imperiia NKVD, 211.

88. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 161 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 38, l. 46: Sept. 24, 1931).

89. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 728, l. 29. See also Valedinskii, “Organizm Stalina vpolne zdorovyi,” 69. Stalin wrote a similar letter (undated) to Molotov. Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 255; Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 239. Stalin was traveling through Mingrelia and Abkhazia in mid-Aug. 1931, on his way to Sochi.

90. Khromov, Po stranitsam, 12–5.

91. Davies, “Stalin as Economic Policy-Maker,” 126–9.

92. The letters to Stalin brought to his attention were enumerated in lists in late 1930 and for Jan.–July 1931; no other such lists survive until 1945. Khlevniuk, “Letters to Stalin,” citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 849-82.

93. Functionaries left Stalin to decide whether the people really knew him, or whether the proposed inventions should be considered. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 861, l. 100.

94. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 856, l. 138. Stalin occasionally replied to letters in the press, when he perceived an issue of general interest. Stalin, “Reply to Comrade Kolkhozniks,” Pravda (April 3, 1930), reprinted in Sochineniia, XII: 202.

95. Khlevniuk, “Letters to Stalin,” 331 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 850, l. 34–55).

96. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 50–1 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 101–2).

97. Two days later he told Kaganovich to circulate to politburo members a telegram accusing Mikoyan of lying about the silos there for tea and tobacco, based on other reports the dictator received (“Who is right and who is deceiving the Central Committee?”). Mikoyan replied that he had reported the truth, not conflated grain silos with other kinds; Stalin went back at him, prompting an irate Mikoyan to tender his resignation (“Dear Stalin!”). Stalin resolved the incident by denigrating supply personnel for their red tape, and instructing Kaganovich to have the workers’ and peasants’ inspectorate, as well as Caucasus OGPU boss Beria, oversee the silos in western Georgia. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 51–2 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 14–8); Khromov, Po stranitsam, 35–6 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 8–8ob,14–5); Pavlov, Anastas Mikoian, 83–4 (citing RGASPI, f. 84, op. 1, d. 134, l. 2, 5: Sept. 12, 1931); RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 72–3.

98. Andrei F. Andreyev, a Red Army veteran in Zdorovets village of the Central Black Earth province, somehow got a letter through to Stalin on Feb. 2, 1931, in which he claimed that he had fought the Whites in the civil war and been wounded, returned to his poor family in his native village, and become a rural correspondent, continuing the struggle, but had been hindered by local officials, who evicted him from the collective farm. “Now all these criminals, whose work I exposed in the press, have managed to have me arrested without even presenting a cause for my arrest,” he wrote of fruitless petitions to the county procurator and OGPU. “I led companies, regiments, and battalions into battle against the Whites not in order that I would now sit under arrest by these same White Guards.” Stalin wrote on the letter: “To comrade Yagoda. Request: immediately assign one of your people (someone completely reliable) to sort this out in Bolshevik fashion—honestly, quickly, and impartially and ‘no matter who.’” Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 351–3 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 9, d. 11, l. 138–40); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 260–1 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 171, l. 2–3). Andreyev (b. 1894) was vindicated and readmitted to a collective farm. (He would be arrested in 1942 and sentenced to ten years in a labor camp.)

99. See the case of the head of the Artyom Coal Trust in the Donbass, Konstantin Rumyantsev, in which Stalin expressed distrust of the motives of his brother-in-law Redens (Ukraine OGPU boss): RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 42, l. 104. Rumyantsev (b. 1891), who won an Order of Lenin in 1931, died in a plane crash the next year.

100. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 284 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 70: Sept. 19, 1931).

101. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 84 (citing RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 101). Besides Orjonikidze, Stalin was concerned about Kuibyshev, who, he knew, was an alcoholic and clashed with Molotov as well.

102. Khlevniuk, Master of the House, 73–4 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 779, l. 21–3: Sept. 11, 1931; l. 32–33: Oct. 4, 1931). “Sergo did not love Molotov very much,” Mikoyan recalled. But disputes were generally not over first principles but bureaucratic interests. Mikoian, Tak bylo, 324, 520; Rees, Decision-making in the Stalinist Command Economy, 262–74.

103. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 35 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1550, l. 52), 35–6 (l. 53–8), 37 (l. 59), 44 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1552, l. 1), 37 (l. 60), 39 (l. 65–6: Sept. 26). The openly pro-fascist Dmitrievsky expressed a positive view of Stalin, imagining him to represent “the national-socialist imperialism that aspires to destroy the West in its strongholds.” Stalin (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1931), in Swedish and in Russian (Stockholm: Strela, 1931). See also the review by Kuskova: Sovremennye zapiski, 1931, no. 47: 518. See also the gossip about Stalin and Alliluyeva that circulated in the secret police: Orlov, Secret History, 318–9.

104. The tracks would be fully repaired before 6:00 a.m. the next morning. Yoshihashi, Conspiracy at Mukden; Ogata, Defiance in Manchuria; Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy; Istoriia voiny na Tikhom okeane, I: 187. See also Iriye, After Imperialism.

105. Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy, 114–21.

106. Patrikeef, Russian Politics, 101–3. The early 1920s Soviet thrust into Manchuria, as in the case of Mongolia, had been defensive, to secure Siberia’s flanks against anti-Soviet White armies abroad, but then Manchuria became a largely commercial venture, subject to material cost-benefit rather than revolutionary calculations.

107. The League, founded in 1920 following the Versailles treaty negotiations with forty-two members, was the first international organization dedicated to world peace, aiming to prevent wars with what it called “collective security,” disarmament, and arbitration. Headquartered in Geneva it had a general assembly of all members and a secretariat, but lacked its own military and depended on the great powers comprising its executive council to enforce its resolutions. Japan was one of five permanent members of the League’s executive council (along with Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, which had been added later). The United States, one of the originators, had failed to join. American economic power could be converted into military power—such as in the decision to build a two-ocean navy in 1916—but American geopolitical power remained constrained by limits set by Congress and public opinion. The Soviet Union was not a member of the League either. Kennedy, “Move to Institutions.” Membership would peak at fifty-eight in late 1934 and early 1935.

108. Lensen, Japanese Recognition; Lensen, Damned Inheritance, 223–6; Dallin, Rise of Russia in Asia, 244–8; Beloff, Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, I: 76–7.

109. Under Nicholas II, the Pacific had come to seem the theater of gravest threat, but in Soviet military thinking the Vistula commanded center stage. Contradictions stemming from strategic anxiety and pessimism were endemic to imperial Russian strategy. Fuller, Strategy and Power, 430.

110. Menning, “Soviet Strategy,” I: 215–6; Daines, “Voennaia strategiia,” 247–8.

111. Between 1932 and 1936, the Soviet Far Eastern Army would increase from six to fourteen divisions. Coox, Nomonhan, 76–8.

112. The USSR’s sparsely populated, exposed Far Eastern territory was not even administered by the local party machine, but by the army (Vasily Blyukher) and secret police (Terenty Deribas), in vicious rivalry. Rumors of Blyukher’s pending arrest, in connection with Operation “Springtime,” had circulated in late 1930 and resurfaced in May and June 1931, although on Aug. 6, the second anniversary of the Far Eastern Army, Voroshilov, on an extended inspection tour, locally announced Blyukher’s award of the Order of Lenin. Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 72 (citing Times, Nov. 20, 22, 25, 1930); Izvestiia, Aug. 18, 1931; Dushen’kin, Proletarskii marshal, 111.

113. Toshihio, “Extension of Hostilities,” 241–33; Slavinskii, Sovetskii Soiuz i Kitai, 219–20 (citing AVP RF, fond Litvinova, op. 12, pap. 85, d. 45, 8–9); Coox, Nomonhan, 23; Stephan, Russian Far East, 183–5; Steiner, Lights that Failed, 719–20. On Oct. 28, 1931, the Japanese ambassador conveyed an ultimatum warning against a military response; TASS published it and the Soviet reply (a policy of “strict noninterference”) two days later. The Japanese suspected the Soviets were supplying the Chinese resistance. DVP SSSR, XIV: 820.

114. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 116–7 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 76–76ob.). Stalin called for toning down the boasts in the press about ongoing Red Army military maneuvers in the Western military district. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 121–2 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 81: Sept. 27, 1931).

115. Davies, Crisis and Progress, 113 (citing RGAE, f. 4372, op. 91, d. 871, l. 98–9), 115 (GARF, f. 4372, op. 57, d. 16, l. 30: art. 212ss).

116. Kondrashin and Penner, Golod, 114. Later, Kondrashin republished this book excising Penner’s co-authorship (Moscow: Rosspen, 2008).

117. The official 1931 harvest estimate had been lowered several times, to 69.5 million tons, which still ended up to be a massive overestimate. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 76, 446; Davies et al., Economic Transformation, 286–8 (table 19).

118. Khlevniuk et al., Stenogrammy zasedanii politbiuro, 14–5 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 732, l. 18; d. 484, l. 42, 48). For different figures (38 million as of early 1932), see Carr and Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, I: 700–4; Davies, Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 289–300; Davies, Crisis and Progress, 177. A newly established grain reserve fund had stood at 2 million tons, but it soon vanished through export and a massive increase in internal consumption.

119. “There are few Englishmen who do not rejoice at the breaking of our golden fetters,” John Maynard Keynes wrote. Eichengreen, Golden Fetters, 21.

120. France by itself was too weak to stabilize the global monetary system, and the United States, which had its own economic and financial challenges, refused to do so. Steiner, Lights that Failed, 698–9; more broadly, see Tooze, Deluge.

121. “The End of an Epoch,” Economist, Sept. 26, 1931: 547; Steiner, Lights that Failed, 663–8; Eichengreen, Golden Fetters, 298–9.

122. Eichengreen, Golden Fetters. Politicians, with the post–Great War widening of the suffrage and the spread of trade unions and leftist parties, proved skittish about imposing economic adjustment on their electorates for the sake of the stability of financial markets, a lack of credible commitment that undid global finance and trade. Simmons, Who Adjusts? Of course, “international cooperation” might not have been an issue at all if the United States had undertaken expansionary policies, generating the capital outflow that could have supplied much-needed liquidity and therefore the security sought by the governments in Europe that lacked confidence. (Given that the consumers’ expenditure average value index dropped close to 30 percent between 1929 and 1933, moderately expansionary policies would not have threatened inflation.) Britain would launch monetary expansion in 1932, and endure a relatively milder crisis; Japan would emulate the British and enjoy a robust recovery. Franklin Roosevelt would rescue the banks with public money, in 1933. Many people at the time, and subsequently, viewed his actions as opening a path to recovery. But that recovery would be halting, at best, and full of policy mistakes. Kindleberger, World in Depression; Friedman and Schwartz, Monetary History; Eichengreen, Golden Fetters.

123. Steiner, Lights that Failed, 668–70.

124. Soviet foreign trade, despite the dislocation in the capitalist world from 1929, had initially expanded more rapidly than envisioned in the Five-Year Plan, but even though the USSR had exported more than twice as much grain in 1930 as in 1927–28, it had earned only about the same revenues because of lower prices. Revenues in 1931 were worse. Catastrophic livestock losses, moreover, destroyed the animal-products export plan, and even mechanization of agriculture brought costs (tractors consumed fuel, reducing petroleum-product exports). Sel’skoe khoziaistvo SSSR, 222; Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR za 20 let, 1918–1937 gg., 35. Grain exports officially rose to about 4.8 million tons in 1930 and 5.06 million tons in 1931, accounting for just under one-fifth of total exports (others included timber, oil, flax, animal products, even medicinal herbs). Dohan, “Economic Origins of Soviet Autarky,” 612–3. One gold ruble in foreign trade equaled $0.52 until early 1933.

125. Dmytro Manuilsky, at a Comintern enlarged plenum in March 1931, stated: “Can the perspective of the people’s revolution in Germany be viewed outside of the whole complicated international tangle and especially outside the question of the USSR?” A German revolution might provoke British and French intervention, forcing the Soviet Union to send in the Red Army, or allow “the imperialists” to annihilate the German Communists. Manuilsky, Communist Parties, 99; Carr, Twilight of the Comintern, 32–3, 37. The German trade delegation was in Moscow from Feb. 26 to March 11, 1931. Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 239–42; von Dirksen, Moscow, Tokyo, London, 89–96. Stalin had received an analysis of the credit disposition toward the USSR of German banks on Nov. 19, 1930. The OGPU worried about the opposition inside the newly created Bank of International Settlements (1930) in Basel to German bank cooperation with the USSR. Khaustov et al., Glazami razvedki, 322–3 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 9, d. 861, l. 14–5), 328–9 (l. 7–8: May 7, 1931).

126. The agreement had been signed on April 14, 1931. Dyck, Weimar Germany, 223–4; Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 55; Izvestiia, March 10, April 21 and 24, 1931; DVP SSSR, XIV: 116–9 (Krestinsky to Khinchuk in Berlin: March 10, 1931), 172 (Tass communiqué, March 10), 246–8 (Russian text of the agreement). On June 24, the two sides agreed on a protocol extending the April 1926 Treaty of Berlin, a treaty of neutrality and nonaggression, with a two-year moratorium for either side to denounce it, but the German side did not ratify it. It had been set to expire on June 29. DVP SSSR, XIV: 395–6. Dyck, Weimar Germany, 229–36.

127. By 1932, Germany would account for nearly half of Soviet imports. Dyck, Weimer Germany, 216; Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, 14. The USSR had already gone from eleventh to fourth place in German exports between 1930 and 1931. DVP SSSR, XIV: 118, 247, 749–50.

128. The pound was devalued by some 30 percent after Britain withdrew from the gold standard, and because much of Soviet debt was payable in sterling Moscow might have gotten debt relief, but just about all Soviet gold payments in the years 1931–34 went to Germany, and the Soviets had to purchase marks (with gold) at the official parity rate of the reichsmark (the German government refused to devalue the mark). The Soviets covered their debt to Britain with commodity exports, whose prices were falling, so that the Soviets failed to achieve the full windfall in paying off debt that was denominated in devalued sterling. In 1933, when the United States would leave the gold standard and the dollar would be devalued, the Soviets would reap about 300 million gold rubles’ worth of debt relief. Dohan, “Soviet Foreign Trade,” 607–10. The exchange rate for sterling, which had been 9.46 rubles to £1, fell to 6.58–6.42 rubles by late 1931. Aizenberg, Valiutnaia Sistema SSSR, 104.