Stalin

218. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 171–2 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 38, l. 56–7). See also Samuelson, Plans for Stalin’s War Machine, 108–12, 141–3; Ken, “‘Moia otsenka byla slishkom rezkoi’: I. V. Stalin rekonstrucktsiia RKKA,” 150–2 (RGASPI, f. 74, d. 38, 1.58, 56–7); and Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 79–80. Tukhachevsky was in Stalin’s office on April 7 and 14, 1932. In Aug. 1932, Stalin would even invite him over to his dacha in Sochi. Na prieme, 65–6; Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 198n90 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 105, l. 56–7: Tukhachevsky to Voroshilov, Aug. 27, 1932). During Voroshilov’s summary speech at the June 1–4, 1937, meeting of the Main Military Council, a revealing exchange would occur when he labeled Tukhachevsky’s Jan. 1930 proposals “idiocies.” Stalin interjected: “It would have been good to have such a force, but it was necessary to rebuff it at that time.” Voroshilov persisted: “This was a wrecking proposal.” Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 319n43 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 165, d. 61, l. 130: uncorrected transcript).

219. On May 8, Stalin approved a commission, headed by Kaganovich, to check the production and distribution of consumer goods. Rees, Iron Lazar, 107 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 883, l. 1).

220. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 365 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 43, l. 60).

221. A decree of May 20, 1932, that lowered taxes on the legalized collective-farmers’ trade urged local officials to disallow “the opening of shops and kiosks by private traders,” adding that “middlemen and speculators trying to live off the workers and peasants must be extirpated everywhere.” Ball, Russia’s Last Capitalists, 81, citing Resheniia partii i pravitel’stva po khoziaistvennym voprosam, 16 vols. (Moscow: Politicheskaia literatura, 1967–), II: 388–9.

222. Soviet officials had been discussing the market following the launch of “wholesale” collectivization, but the discussions could be deceiving. At the 17th party conference (Jan.–Feb. 1932), for example, the ideologue Alexei Stetsky had mentioned the imperative to “develop Soviet trade, the Soviet market,” but he meant state-controlled trade and markets. XVII konferentsiia VKP (b), 193. At the Jan. 1933 plenum, when Stalin would underscore the place of trade in a socialist economy, he would insist that “this is not a return to NEP.” Bordiugov and Kozlov, “Dialektika teorii i praktiki stsialisticheskogo stroitel’stva,” 14 (citing unspecified party archives).

223. Davies, Stalin-Kaganovich Correspondence, 11–2.

224. Sandag and Kendall, Poisoned Arrows, 72–3. On Mongolia’s collectivization, see Zelenin, Stalinskaia ‘revoliutsiia sverkhu,’ 11 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 9, l. 73).

225. Bawden, Modern History of Mongolia, 290–327. A list of Mongol rebellions against Soviet domination can be found in Misshima and Goto, Japanese View of Outer Mongolia, 16–24. A purge would reduce the Mongol People’s Party from around 40,000 to 11,000. Lkhamsuren, Ocherki istorii Mongol’skoi narodno-revoliutsionnoi partii, 147.

226. At the same time as ordering dispatch of the goods, on March 16, 1932, the regime established a standing politburo commission for Mongolia headed by Postyshev, with Voroshilov, Karakhan, and Eliava as members. Instructions for the Soviet proconsul Okhtin were approved on April 23. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 12, l. 18–20, 31, 92, 111–2; Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 282–325 (esp. 317).

227. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 12, l. 113; Terayama, “Soviet Policies toward Mongolia,” I: 37–66. Stalin emerges in the documents as trying to impose order amid conflicting reports, while venting his fury.

228. Kondrashin et al., Golod v SSSR, I/ii: 152–5 (GA Minskoi obl., f. 164p, op. 1, d. 132, l. 546–9).

229. Davies et al., “Stalin, Grain Stocks, and the Famine of 1932–33,” 650–1 (citing RGASPI, f. 79, op. 1, d. 375, l. 1–3; f. 17, op. 162, d. 12, 1. 153–4; GARF, f. 5446, op. 27, d. 33, 1. 127).

230. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 114–5 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 12, l. 153; f. 82, op. 2, d. 138, l. 150–3: Redens to Molotov, May 28 and 29, 1932).

231. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 115–6.

232. Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 243; Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 231 (before June 1932). During his summer 1932 holiday, Stalin received 91 registered documents, many lengthy. He did not answer all of them. A politburo commission (Kaganovich, Postyshev, Yenukidze) on fixing resorts recommended forming an all-Union agency; Stalin abstained from weighing in. The body was approved on June 23, 1932. Khlevniuk, et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 201 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 77, l. 114), 201n (f. 17, op. 3, d. 881, l. 12, 29–31; d. 889, l. 9, 29; d. 895, l. 15).

233. Stalin added that only if the situation was truly beyond internal rescue, which he doubted, could Soviet troops be dispatched, and then only ethnic Buryats. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 173–4 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 37, l. 46–8: June 6, 1932), 174n3 (f. 17, op. 162, d. 12, l. 133; f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 49–52), 174n5 (f. 17, op. 162, d. 12, l. 175); Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 136 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 49–52: June 4, 1932), 143, 156–7, 182 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 77, l. 76: June 19, 1932).

234. In a June 10 telegram, Stalin reiterated his opposition to overt military intervention in Mongolia to Molotov, Voroshilov, and Kaganovich. “A hurried and insufficiently prepared decision could provoke a conflict with Japan and give a basis for a united front of Japan, China, Mongolia against the USSR,” he warned. “We will be portrayed as occupiers . . . and the Japanese and Chinese as liberators . . .” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 157–8 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 77, l. 42–5).

235. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 779, l. 47. The policy shift (“New Turn”) was confirmed at a Mongolia People’s party extraordinary plenum June 29–30, 1932, with Soviet advisers present. Genden attacked the leftists and pronounced the noncapitalist path a failure in Mongol conditions. By Sept. 1, Stalin would add himself to the politburo’s Mongolian commission. (He had named Voroshilov to replace Karakhan as chairman.) On Nov. 10, the politburo would approve a telegram from Eliava to the Mongols (copy to Okhtin) instructing the Mongolian Central Committee to remove all “leftists,” amnesty rank and file rebels who turned in their weapons, and call out the leaders of the uprising as Chinese agents and Japanese imperialists seeking to end Mongolia’s independence. Soon the Soviets were asking about Mongolia’s mobilization possibilities in the event of war with Japan. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Roshchin, Politicheskaia istoriia Mongolii, 254–65.

236. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 175 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 38, l. 60). Without irony Stalin advised Kaganovich (June 7, 1932) that “the bureaucrats at Pravda have replaced letters from workers and collective farmers with letters from professional correspondents and ‘plenipotentiaries’. But the bureaucrats have to be reined in. Otherwise, Pravda risks falling utterly out of touch with live human beings at factories and collective farms.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 149 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 58–60). Kaganovich had the new rubric created, “Letters from workers and collective farmers” (164: f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 37–43; f. 17, op. 114, d. 302, l. 13. 166: f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 43–52).

237. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 180–1 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 152).

238. Pyrih et al., Holodomor, 33–6 (RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 139, l. 162–5). “Do you realize what is happening in the lands around Belaia Tserkov, Uman, and Kiev?” G. I. Tkachenko, a twenty-year-old Ukrainian student, wrote to Ukrainian party boss Kosior on June 18, 1932. “There are vast areas of land not sown . . . In collective farms in which there were 100–150 horses, there are now only 40–50, and these are dying off. The population is terribly hungry.” Rudich, Holod 1932–1933 rokiv, 183–5. In March 1932, Kosior had managed to procure a seed loan for Ukraine of 110,000 tons from storehouses in better-off regions outside Ukraine (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 12, l. 30). On April 29, 1932, the politburo advanced a further seed loan to collective farms in Ukraine (l. 115–6).

239. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 335.

240. The politburo (June 21) formally resolved to summon them, but in the meantime refused additional emergency aid to Ukraine. Khlevniuk, Stalin i Kaganaovich, 163–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 37–42: June 12, 1932), 169 (f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 62–3: June 15, 1932), 168–9n5. That day, a telegram in the names of Stalin and Molotov admonished the Ukrainian hierarchy that “no manner of deviation—regarding either amounts or deadlines set for grain deliveries—can be permitted from the plan established for your region for collecting grain from collective and private [family] farms or for delivering grain to state farms.” Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 242n3; Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 230n3; Rudich, Holod 1932–1933 rokiv, 190.

241. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 187 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 77, l. 83–5).

242. The politburo (in July 1932) would formally approve slight reductions. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 197–8 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 81–7), 198n3 (f. 17 op. 162, d. 13, l. 11, 30, 133). Stalin was showing a bit of uncharacteristic flexibility, writing to Kaganovich and Molotov (June 26, 1932) that Sheboldayev might be right in suggesting that rural consumer cooperatives be freed from enacting state grain procurements, while their role as distributors of industrial goods to the countryside should be enhanced and their taxes reduced. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 197–8 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 81–7). On June 25, 1932, the decree “On Revolutionary Legality” stipulated criminal prosecution of officials who violated the law in dealings with peasants and protected judges from dismissal. Enforcement of the decree was another matter. Solomon, Reforming Justice, 193.

243. The Soviet Union was by no means alone in its emphasis on heavy over light bombers at this time. Bailes, “Technology and Legitimacy,” 381–406.

244. They agreed on better supervision of air force missions and more quality control in industry. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 203–4 (RGASPI, f. 84, op. 2, d. 37, l. 49–50; d. 38, l. 69, 70; f. 558, op. 11, d. 77, l. 121; d. 78, l. 8). Aircraft losses were a long-standing problem. Sevost’ianov et al., “Sovershenno sekretno,” VIII/ii: 1225–6 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 16, l. 492–4: July 18, 1930). After perusing a copy of the German-language book by Major Helders (Robert Knauss), Air War 1936: The Destruction of Paris (Berlin, 1932), which imagined a future war between Britain and France decided by the “flying fortress,” Stalin wrote to Voroshilov (June 12, 1932) that the “wonderful book” should be published in Russian translation to teach and inspire aviators. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 175 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 38, l. 64–5). Robert Knauss, Luftkrieg 1936: die Zertrümmerung von Paris (Berlin: Wilhelm Rolf, 1932) was translated: Vozdushnaia voina 1936: razrushenie Parizha, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1934); RGASPI, f. 558, op. 3, d. 52.

245. “We made a lot of noise but did not blow up the bridge,” the OGPU’s Terenty Deribas would admit. The politburo (July 16, 1932) reprimanded the OGPU for “poor organization.” The captured Soviet agent confessed. Karakhan denied any involvement to the Japanese ambassador. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 208 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 147), 213n13 (f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 12, 33), 227 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 78, l. 43–4, l. 73, 72); DVP SSSR, XVI: 814n44 (July 26, 1932); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 315 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 33), 807n99. The operative transferred was Nikolai Zagvozdin (b. 1898), who would rise to head of the NKVD in Uzbekistan and then Tajikistan—until his arrest (Feb. 9, 1939) and execution (Jan. 19, 1940). In summer 1932, Heinz Neumann (b. 1902), the leader of the German Communist party’s paramilitary wing, which conducted assassinations, was evidently invited to Sochi. An elderly man of Caucasus extraction, according to the memoirs of Neumann’s lover, was among the many guests. “This is comrade X, my assassin,” Stalin supposedly remarked, before explaining, affably, that the old man’s plot to kill him had been foiled by the OGPU. Neumann’s lover recounted: “The assassin had been condemned to death. But he, Stalin, deemed it proper to pardon this old man, who had, after all, simply acted out of nationalist infatuation, and in order for him to feel like the hatchet had been buried once and for all, had invited him to Matsesta as his guest . . . During this lengthy exposition the old man stood before the gaggle of guests with a downcast gaze.” Such anecdotes about Stalin’s perverse sense of humor abound, usually with a single witness. Buber-Neumann, Von Potsdam nach Moskau, 274–5. Heinz Neumann would be executed in Moscow on Nov. 26, 1937.

246. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 179–80 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 69–72; f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 65–8); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 890, l. 8; Molotov, O pod´eme sel’skogo khoziaistva.

247. Stalin had used the word “famine” when characterizing what enemies predicted would happen as a result of Soviet policies, for example, in reference to bourgeois specialists in the original version of his “six conditions” speech in June 1931: RGASPI, f. 85, op. 28, d. 7, II: l. 189–91. In summer 1932, Molotov told the politburo upon return from Ukraine, “We are indeed faced with the spectre of famine, and in rich grain districts to boot.” Ivnitskii, Kollektivizatsiia i razkulachivanie, 203. See also Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 167.

248. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 90, 476.

249. He also reminded Kaganovich and Molotov that the conference was to have led to “obligatory 100 percent fulfillment of the grain procurements.” The next day Stalin instructed them to “concentrate the most serious attention on Ukraine,” and “take all the measures to break the current mood of officials, isolate the whiners and rotten diplomats (no matter who!) and ensure genuinely Bolshevik decisions.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganaovich, 205 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 77, l. 129–30), 210 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 45–7; f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 1), 210–3 (l. 2–9).

250. Kostiuk, Stalinist Rule in Ukraine, 19 (citing Visti, July 17, 1932). Kaganovich wrote to Stalin that Kosior held a firm line on fulfilling the plan at the conference, thereby protecting him.

251. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganaovich, 219 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 78, l. 16).

252. The politburo resolved “to accept the recommendation of comrade Stalin on a reduction of the planned grain procurement in Ukraine by 722,000 tons as an exception for those regions of Ukraine particularly suffering.” (That was from 5.8 million.) The politburo also resolved to summon Kosior to Moscow and to direct him, along with Kuibyshev and Kaganovich, to determine which regions in Ukraine to assign the reduced targets. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 183 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 75, 76: signed by Kaganovich, in Stalin’s absence); Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 241–2 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 78, l. 79–81: July 24, 1932). Stalin denied the Sept. 10, 1932, request from Ivan Kabakov, party boss in the Urals, for lower grain procurement targets. Then, on Sept. 22, he approved the distribution of 39,000 tons of grain to the Urals, instead of the previous 37,000. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 184 (APRF, f. 3, op. 40, d. 81, l. 148), 185 (l. 149), 186 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 131, 133, 134).

253. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 244–5 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 115–9); Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 182–3 (f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 76: Aug. 17, 1932; l. 85: Sept. 1, 1932).

254. Peasants could not distinguish between rust and other diseases, a Soviet agronomist reported. But as Tauger has demonstrated, local officials, too, did not understand plant disease and, at harvest time, when they would discover that the crop had been rotted out, would wrongly blame social causes. Tauger, “Natural Disaster,” 15 (citing Na zaschitu urozhaia, 1933, no. 10: 14–6: S. E. Grushevoi; and RGAE, f. 7486, op. 37, d. 237, l. 388), 40–5.

255. A major contributing factor to the famine was the extreme deterioration in party-village relations. Penner, “Stalin and the Ital’ianka.” Whereas in 1928 there had been 1 horespower for every 3.63 hectares of land sown to grain, in 1932 the number was 1 for every 6.02 hectares. A. A. Barsov, Balans stoimostnykh obmenov, 85.

256. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 176–80 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 37, l. 49–51), 180–1 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 38, l. 68–71), 181–5 (d. 37, l. 54–9); f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 6. According to Polish intelligence, between Oct. 1, 1932, and June 20, 1933, 20 Soviet soldiers sought asylum in Poland. Zdanovich, Organy, 507 (citing RGVA, f. 308, op. 3, d. 303, l. 2).

257. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 185–6 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 38, l. 76–7).

258. Zdanovich, Organy, 435–6 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 10, d. 94, l. 1, 3, 7: L. Ivanov). See also Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 162–3.

259. Rees, Decision-making in the Stalinist Command Economy, 43–4 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 894, l. 12; f. 79, op. 1, d. 376, l. 1–2: Kuibyshev’s memo; and RGASPI, f. 85, op. 29, d. 433, l. 1); Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politburo, 125–6.

260. Lensen, Damned Inheritance, 365; DVP SSSR, XV: 465–8 (Spilvanek and Japanese journalist Fuse: Aug. 12, 1932), 479–81 (Troyanovsky-Karakhan, Aug. 19), 614–8, 798. Between Dec. 4 and 6, 1932, more than 4,000 Chinese, including 2,400 soldiers (11 generals among them), were taken into Soviet custody. After Japanese demands for their surrender, the Soviets decided to send them to Xinjiang, announcing that they were being sent out of USSR territory. Sladkovskii, Znakomomstvo s Kitaem i kitaitsami, 186 (citing Tsentral’nyi arkhiv porgrannichnykh voisk, f. 160, op. 2, d. 1, l. 7); Barmin, Sovetskii Soiuz i Sintszian, 124 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 15, l. 117); DVP SSSR, XV: 677; Izvestiia, Dec. 21, 1932.

261. From Jan. 1 through July 1, 1932, 1.37 million households quit collective farms in the RSFSR; 200,000 households quit in Ukraine. Zelenin, “By li ‘kolkhoznyi Neonep’?” 106 (citing RGAE, f. 7446, op. 14, d. 108, l. 34; op. 3, d. 364, l. 2; d. 378, l. 2; op. 2, d. 338, l. 57). The number collectivized by the end of 1932 (completion of the Five-Year Plan) was officially 14.9 million households, or 61.5 percent, rather than the target of 17.9 million.

262. Cairns added that “what surprised me most in Kiev was not what the people said (although conditions there seemed to be worse than in any place I visited in the next five weeks), but that they should all—young, middleaged and old alike—be unanimous and that none of them seemed to care what they said or who heard them, even the police and GPU.” Carynnyk et al., Foreign Office, 13, 51, 42, 105, 111. See also Cairns, Soviet Famine. “There’s no bread, no meat, no fats—nothing,” a senior OGPU official in Leningrad is said to have told the British ambassador. Haslam, “Political Opposition,” 396 (citing FO 371/16322: Strang to Simon in London, Aug. 14, 1932).

263. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 235–6 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 106–13: July 20, 1932), 240–1 (d. 100, l. 137–40: before July 24, 1932). The methods of theft could be ingenious. Kondrashin and Penner, Golod, 135–7. Stalin was keen to institutionalize the importance of socialist property in social consciousness. Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice, 119, 222–3. “State socialist property” was theorized as synonymous with “people’s patrimony.” Stuchka, Kurs Sovetskogo grazhdanskogo prava, III: 29.

264. RGAPSI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 895, l. 14 (politburo Aug. 2/8); Sobranie zakonov, 1932, article 360; Kollektivizatsiia sel’skogo khoziaistva, 423–4; Davies, Crisis and Progress, 242–56. See also Shearer, Policing Stalin’s Socialism, 21.

265. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 273–5 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 144–51). A second decree, “On the struggle with speculation,” stipulating sentences of five to ten years, followed on Aug. 22: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 896, l. 13; Sobranie zakonov, 1932, article 375. This, too, had come from Stalin’s instructions on holiday. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 243–4 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 104–11); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 316 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 52); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 896, l. 13.

266. Pravda, Aug. 9, 1932. See also Izvestiia TsIK SSSR i VTsIK, Aug. 8, 1932. Already, places of confinement were far over capacity.

267. Zelenin et al., Istoriia sovetskogo krest’iantsva, II: 428–9n137 (citing RGAE, f. 1562, op. 152, d. 29, l. 58, 29). In the RSFSR alone, more than 160,000 people were convicted under the law in the first year alone. Werth and Mironenko, Istoriia stalinskogo gulaga, I: 135–8.

268. The names are crossed out from the record of the meeting. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 256–8 (personal archive of Kaganovich); Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 418–9 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 106–13, 117, 121–3, 144–5, 151; d. 100, l. 1–7).

269. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 273–5 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 144–51).

270. Polish intelligence was still sending ethnic Ukrainian agents across the border on espionage missions, but almost all were being caught, as Stalin knew from intercepted Japanese correspondence out of Warsaw. Mikulicz, Prometeizm w polityce II Rzeczypospolitej, 110–5; Kuromiya, The Voices of the Dead, 220–1. Japan cooperated with Poland to support Ukrainian anti-Communist nationalists, but Soviet intelligence knew this, too, having penetrated Ukrainian groups abroad. Sotskov, Neizvestnyi separatizm, 75–81. On Soviet-Polish prisoner exchanges, including spies, see Pepłoński, Wywiad Polski na ZSSR, 122–3. See also Gronskii, Iz proshlogo, 147–8.

271. Stanisław Patek, the Polish envoy to the USSR, and Krestinsky had signed the pact in Moscow on July 25, 1932; it went into effect on Dec. 23, when ratifications were exchanged in Warsaw between Beck and Antononv-Ovseyenko. Ken and Rupasov, Politbiuro TsK VKP (b) i otnosheniia SSSR, 514–9; Ken, Moskva i pakt, 104.

272. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 283–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 153–60: Aug. 16). Balytsky would not arrive in Ukraine as a special plenipotentiary until Nov. 1932; he would be promoted to republic OGPU chief in Feb. 1933. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 340 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 907, l. 20: Nov. 25, 1932); Shapoval et al., ChK-GPU-NKVD, 47–8, 436. But Stalin directed Kaganovich to bring the Red Army into the harvest campaign in Ukraine. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 460 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 79, l. 21).

273. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 232 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 91–104), 285–6 (RGASPI, f. 85, op. 3, d. 99, l. 157–60). This overturned the recent politburo decision on sown area expansion that Stalin had mandated (f. 17, op. 3, d. 895, l. 14: Aug. 7, 1932). Total sown area for the 1933 harvest would be 4.7 million hectares fewer than for 1932. Still, crop rotation would not be restored even by 1935, when it was practiced on just 50 percent of the sown area. Davies, “Stalin as Economic Policy-Maker,” 133–4.

274. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 180–1 (APRF, f. 3, op. 40, d. 81, l. 107–10), 182 (l. 105).

275. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 728, l. 38 (Aug. 16, 1932).

276. Also present were Dmitry Maretsky, editor-in-chief of Leningrad Pravda; Pyotr Petrovsky, first deputy editor of Pravda and a former editor of Red Star; and Alexander Sleptsov, a founding editor of Communist Youth League Pravda. Petrovskii, “Poslednii rot front,” 179–98.

277. Merridale, “Reluctant Opposition,” at 392; Merridale, Moscow Politics, 231–3; Starkov, Martem’ian Ryutin, 15–6; Cohen, Bukharin, 234. Ryutin had been born in Eastern Siberia, joined the Menshevik wing of the Russian Social Democrats in 1914, and, after the seizure of power, managed to get elected a delegate to the 10th Party Congress, while participating in the regime crackdown against the Kronstadt sailors. He had once been admonished for alluding to Lenin’s Testament at a ward party bureau session (“We know that Comrade Stalin has his faults, about which Comrade Lenin spoke”). “O dele tak nazyvaemogo ‘Soiuza Marksistov-Lenintsev,’” 108; Zagoria, Power and the Soviet Elite, 11; Iakovlev et al., Reabilitatsiia: politicheskie protsessy, 92–104. Around the time of the 16th Party Congress (June 1930), Stalin evidently offered him an opportunity to remain in the Central Committee in exchange for publicly denouncing the right; Ryutin demurred. “M. N. Riutin,” 156. Stalin wrote to Molotov of Ryutin (Sept. 13), “This counterrevolutionary scum must be completely disarmed.” Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 215. Eight days later, as if on cue, a denunciation came forward from a former official in the Krasnaya Presnya ward party committee who claimed that in Aug. 1930 Ryutin had called Stalin “a trickster and political intriguer who will lead the country to ruin.” Radzinsky, Stalin, 273 (quoting A. Nemov, without a reference). Hauled before the Central Control Commission, Ryutin denied the accusations (“99 percent of it is the most vile lie”) but did admit that back in 1928 “Comrade Stalin defamed me needlessly and had me thrown out of party work with a clever maneuver. I consider that dishonesty toward me on his part.” On Oct. 5, 1930, Ryutin was expelled from the party for “double-dealing” and right opportunism. On Nov. 13, the OGPU imprisoned Ryutin at Butyrka for counterrevolutionary agitation, but interrogators were unable to break him; Mężyński wrote to Stalin that Ryutin “poses as an innocent wronged.” Stalin, for reasons that remain obscure, ordered Ryutin’s release, which took place on Jan. 17, 1931. “O tak nazyvaemom ‘vsesoiuzom trotskistskom tsentre,’” 110–1; Starkov, “Delo Riutina,” 166–7); Starkov, Martem’ian Ryutin, 22–25; Anfert’ev, “Osobennosti preodoleniia I. V. Stalinym krizisnoi situatsii,” 2 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 5282, l. 1). Radzinsky speculates that Ryutin was meant to be used to entrap other oppositionists. Radzinsky, Stalin, 273. See also Tel’man, “Riutin protiv Stalina” (purporting to quote additional instructions from Stalin to Mężyński). Ryutin got hired as an economist at an electrical production unit.

278. “Platforma ‘Soiuza Marksistov-Lenintsev’ (‘Gruppa Riutina’): ‘Stalin i krzis proletarskoi diktatury’” (1990, no. 8), 201–6, (no. 9), 172.

279. Ryutin had said back at the 12th Party Congress in 1923, when Trotsky attacked the leadership, that “a party cannot exist without its leaders. . . . A party that discredits its leaders is unavoidably weakened, disorganized. Parties are always led by leaders.” XII s”ezd RKP (b), 165. See also Getty and Naumov, Yezhov, 74; Starkov, “Trotsky and Ryutin,” 71. See also Joffe, Back in Time, 45; Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, 1928, no. 1; Poslednie novosti, Dec. 4, 1927; Starkov, Martem’ian Ryutin, 13; Pavlov [pseudonym], 1920-e: revoliutsiia i biurokratiia, 86–7: a manuscript in the Hoover Institution archives (“Pavlov file”); the identity of the author, a student at Moscow University in the 1920s, remains unclear.

280. Medvedev, Let History Judge, 296. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 53. Besides Ryutin, Ivanov, and the two Kayurovs, the attendees were Natalia Kayurova (wife of Vasilii Kayurov), Vasily Demidov, Professor Pavel Fyodorov, Pavel Galkin, Viktor Gorelov, Nikolai Kolokolov, Boris Ptashny, Grigory Rokhkin, Semyon V. Tokarev, Nikolai Vasileyev, Pyotr Zamyatin. The home was Pyotr Silchenko’s. He was absent.

281. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 54–8. In 1932, Stalin learned from Anna Ulyanova, Lenin’s sister, that their mother was the daughter of a baptized Jew, Alexander Blank, born Srul Moissevich Blank, who had become a landowner and physician. Ulyanova stressed how beneficial it would be to reveal Lenin’s one-quarter Jewish ancestry. Stalin made it a state secret. Volkogonov, Lenin, 9. Lenin had Russian, Qalmyk, German, and Swedish along with Jewish ancestry.

282. “Platforma ‘Soiuza Marksistov-Lenintsev’ (‘Gruppa Riutina’): ‘Stalin i krzis proletarskoi diktatury’,” (1990, no. 12), 198–9.

283. “Platforma ‘Soiuza marksistov-lenintsev’ (‘Gruppa Riutina’): ‘Stalin i krzis proletarskoi diktatury’,” (1990, no. 11), 162–3, (no. 12), 190, (no. 8), 201.

284. “Platforma ‘Soiuza Marksistov-Lenintsev’ (‘Gruppa Riutina’): ‘Stalin i krzis proletarskoi diktatury’” (1990, no. 12), 193; Starkov, Martem’ian Riutin, 237–8.

285. Ryutin proposed no alternative leader (he had in mind a collective leadership). Starkov, “Trotsky and Ryutin,” 73. On Oct. 15, 1932, OGPU raided Silchenko’s home, where they found the original 167-page handwritten “Stalin and the Crisis of Proletarian Dictatorship,” which they then typed up, the only extant copy.

286. Notwithstanding Ryutin’s bravery, the only way out was not to seize the party but to dissolve it, deliberately or accidentally, by introducing democracy—competitive elections, secret ballot, alternative parties, private property, market relations. There was no salvation from tyranny in Bolshevism.

287. “O dele tak nazyvaemogo ‘Soiuza Marksistov-Lenintsev,’” 106 (N. K. Kuz’min and N. A. Storozhenko, who claimed to have received the appeal from Alexander Kayurov).

288. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 54. According to a Molotov speech that was published, Zinoviev in testimony had stated “as far as I can judge, recently a fairly significant section of party members have been seized by the idea of a retreat, that it is necessary to retreat somewhere. This conception comes from my impressions, what I read and hear.” Pravda, Jan. 12, 1933.

289. Biulleten’ oppozitsii, 29–30 (Sept. 1932): 1–5. Davies, Crisis and Progress, 298–9.

290. Biulleten’ oppozitsii, 31 (Nov. 1932): 18–20. Trotsky’s prescriptions, dated Oct. 22, 1932, presaged Soviet policy in 1933: lowering capital investment and concentrating resources on bringing existing construction to completion. Davies, Crisis and Progress, 298–9.

291. Trotsky received the letter on Oct. 4, 1932: Trotsky archive, Harvard, T 4782; Davies, Crisis and Progress, 246–7, citing conversations with Pierre Broué, editor of Trotsky’s notebooks in French. In late Sept. 1932, the well-informed Menshevik émigré paper Socialist Herald carried word from Moscow of a “letter of the eighteen Bolsheviks” who united “former right and left oppositionists” around the imperative “to remove Stalin.” Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, Sept. 26, 1932 (report dated Sept. 7). In the Bulletin, Trotsky elaborated: “If the bureaucratic equilibrium in the USSR were to be upset at present, this would almost certainly benefit the forces of counterrevolution.” Deutscher, Prophet Outcast, 175.

292. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 167–8 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 900, l. 33–4; op. 162, d. 13, l. 99–100); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 319 (APRF, f. 3, op. 57, d. 60, l. 10), 321–4 (l. 13–9). See also Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice, 463. Stalin’s first meeting back in Moscow was on Aug. 27, 1932. Na prieme, 70. Insider theft would remain an obsession for Stalin. On Nov. 15, 1932, he sent politburo members the interrogation record of a collective farm bookkeeper, with a cover letter deeming it “one of many documents demonstrating the organized embezzlement of collective farm property.” Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 336–7 (APRF, f. 3, op. 57, d. 60, l. 29–34).

293. Tauger, who stresses the natural causes of the famine, carefully showed that the annual reports from the collective farms for 1932 implied an extremely low harvest, and that not only the official figure for the 1932 harvest but revised figures given by Davies and Wheatcroft were likely too high. Ultimately, the size of the 1932 harvest remains uncertain, but the annual report data from 40 percent of the collective farms—which are the only actual harvest data so far discovered—imply a harvest on the order of 50 million tons. Tauger, “1932 Harvest.” Davies and Wheatcroft estimate the 1932 harvest at 58–60 million, but that is based on pre-harvest forecasts. It should be noted, however, that Wheatcroft, who has rejected Tauger’s views, often stridently, subsequently allowed 50 million as the lower band of the estimate without then citing Tauger. Davies, Economic Transformation, 286 (56 million tons plus or minus 10 percent). The Five-Year Plan had originally envisioned a harvest by 1932 of 100–106 million tons; as late as July 1932, the harvest had been estimated at 76–78 million tons, better than in 1931, but in Sept. 1932 the estimates were reduced to 67–71 million. Revised estimates conducted in early 1933 would put the figure between 60 and 65 million; the final official figure, from politburo decision in Sept. 1933, was 69.87 million. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 443–6; Piatliletnyi plan, II/i: 298; Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 248–9 (Sept. 12, 1933); Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 234–5.

294. Tauger, “Natural Disaster,” 40–5.

295. Molot, Jan. 23, 1934; VIII Vsekazakhstanskaia kraevaia konferentsiia VKP (b), 159. “The Ukrainian village was leading a nomad life,” in one official’s description of starving refugees, while the Kazakh steppe nomads were being forced into a sedentary life—which also spurred mass flight. Swianiewicz, Forced Labor, 121 (citing a statement to the author in 1933 from an unnamed Central European Communist who had just escaped the USSR). In Aug. 1932, the head of the Kazakhstan Council of People’s Commissars wrote that “the administrative transformation of semi-desert livestock districts into ‘agricultural’ districts has had a ruinous effect on livestock farming.” Aldazhumanov et al., Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 155.

296. Uraz Isaev (b. 1899), an ethnic Kazakh and chair of the autonomous republic’s Council of People’s Commissars, estimated 10,000 to 15,000 human deaths in spring 1932. Ăbdīraĭymūly et al., Golod v kazakhskoi stepi, 140–51 (APRK, f. 141, op. 17, d. 607, l. 1–14); Aldazhumanov et al., Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 153–162; Partiinaia zhizn’ Kazakhstana, 1990, no. 6: 83–9.

297. Kuramysov, Na putiakh sotsialisticheskogo pereustroitastva kazakskogo aula, 3–4; Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 324 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 113–7). Turar Ryskulov, a vice chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR, to protest courageously but vainly to Stalin (Sept. 29) that the settlement mania exhibited “ignorance of the interests of livestock in districts that were mainly livestock districts.” Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 503–9 (RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 670, l. 11–14ob.); Partiinaia zhizn’ Kazakhstana, no. 10 (1990): 76–84; Ryskulov, Sobranie sochinenii, III: 304–16 (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 6403, l. 13–6). Kazakh nomads were driven into farming partly by impoverishment, not solely by the regime’s organized sedentarization. Of course, coercive collective farming was not the only farming option those people would have wanted.

298. Pianciola, “Famine in the Steppe,” 184 (citing GARF, f. 6985, op. 1, d. 9, l. 2). Livestock allowances would be increased on Dec. 19, 1934. Pianciola, “Collectivization Famine,” at 244 (citing Kazakhstanskaia pravda, Dec. 20, 1934; GARF, f. 6985, op. 1, d. 9, l. 133); Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 183–4 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 113–7, 118).

299. Khatayevich wrote on Sept. 22, 1932; he had been in Stalin’s office on Sept. 1, 2, and 14. Na prieme, 70–1. On Oct. 23, Kosior wrote to Stalin that Khatayevich “acted incorrectly, doing all this without an agreement with me” (again, the letter is underlined through and through in red pencil), and assured the dictator that the grain still might be procured, and that “the weather right now in the south of Ukraine, even in the Right Bank, is exceptionally fine,” and “the mood of the mass of collective farms is also not bad.” Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 187–91 (APRF, f. 3, op. 40, d. 82, l. 136–40), 192–5 (l. 132–5). Khatayevich wrote to Stalin again, at length (Dec. 27, 1932), declaring how hard he was working for the cause, and requesting new party personnel for localities in Ukraine immediately. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 224 (APRF, f. 3, op. 40, d. 85, l. 88–94).

300. In normal times, Ukraine and the North Caucasus produced perhaps one-third of the country’s harvest and half its marketable grain. Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow, 221 (no citation).

301. Davies et al., Economic Transformation, 316 (table 48). See also Lewin, Making of the Soviet System (1985), 166–7. The 1932 grain procurement plan had been based upon an assumed harvest of 90 million tons, with planned collection of 29.5 million tons—5 million more than the previous year—and export of 6.235 million.

302. VKP (b) v rezoliutsiiakh (1933), II: 747–61; VKP (b) v rezoliutsiiakh (1936), II: 669. Pravda (Oct. 11, 1932) published the expulsion resolution and a list of the Ryutin group. Twenty Communists were expelled without recourse, and four others for a year, after which they could appeal for reinstatement.

303. Anfert’ev, “‘Delo M. N. Riutina’ v sud’be G. E. Zinovieva i L. B. Kameneva, oktiabr’ 1932 g.,” Istoricheskii arkhiv, 2006, no. 1: 73, 80; “O dele tak nazyvaemogo ‘Soiuza Marksistov-Lenintsev,’” 107. All during the summer of 1932, the politburo had been mulling over proposals by the light industry commissar (I. E. Lyubimov) to allow state industrial enterprises to sell their above-plan output on the open market, but now, after Stalin’s return to the capital from holiday, the idea was turned aside. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 188–90 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 76–81), 190n6 (f. 17, op. 3, d. 887, l. 7; d. 891, l. 4; d. 895, l. 3; d. 903, l. 15: Oct. 16, 1932). Stalin did not seek Ryutin’s execution. Rees, “Stalin as Leader, 1924–1937,” 45. On Dec. 14, 1933, both Zinoviev and Kamenev would be reinstated in the party.

304. Serge, Portrait de Staline, 95; Basseches, Stalin, 188. See also Letter of an Old Bolshevik; Krivitsky, I Was Stalin’s Agent, 203; and Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 259.

305. Pravda, Oct. 14, 1932. “Ryutin in prison!” recalled Ante Ciliga (b. 1898), a Yugoslav-born inmate and fervent Trotsky supporter. “The prison received Ryutin coldly but calmly.” (Ryutin was soon transferred.) Ciliga noted that it had been arduous trying to follow political events in the Soviet Union while at liberty, “but to be among two hundred prisoners representing . . . all the shades of opinion that are to be found in the immense country that is Russia—that was a precious privilege which allowed me to acquire a full knowledge of Russian political life in all its aspects.” He called the prison groupings “truly an illegal parliament.” Ciliga, Russian Enigma, 228, 209–10. Ciliga would become an ardent supporter of the Croatian Ustaše fascist regime, criticizing Ante Pavlević as too soft.

306. Radzinsky, Stalin, 274 (no citation). See also Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 361–3 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 11, d. 1264, l. 1–3).

307. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 223.

308. “My dear child Ioseb, first of all I greet you with great love and wish you a long life and good health together with your family. Child, I ask nature to give you complete victory and annihilation of the enemy. . . . Be victorious!” Rayfield, Stalin and His Hangmen, 7 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 721, l. 68). This letter is absent from Murin.

309. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiiakh, 1–19 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1549, l. 1–2, 13–4, 15–6, 19–20, 21–2, 23–4, 36–7, 38–9, 41–2, 43–4, 45–6, 51–2, 53–4, 55–6, 59–60, 72–3, 61–3, 64–5).

310. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh sem’i, 16 (Dec. 22, 1931).

311. Alliluyeva, Dvadtsat’ pisem, 71; MacNeal, “Stalin’s Family.” Nadya might have visited her sister Anna in Kharkov, in famine-stricken Ukraine, that fall.

312. Sergeev and Glushik, Besedy o Staline, 41. Zubalovo consisted of different buildings, the largest was divided between Mikoyan’s large family and others; Stalin got the smaller (still ample) dacha. Also there were two servants’ buildings (Sergei Alliluyev built a machine shop in the servants’ block).

313. “Kirov and Molotov danced a Russian handkerchief dance with their partners,” Yekaterina Voroshilova would later recall. “Mikoyan hovered around Nadezhda Sergeyevna [Alliluyeva] and asked her to dance the lezginka with him. Mikoyan danced very quickly and with great energy . . . Nadezhda Sergeyevna was timid and shy, just as she always was. She covered her face with her hand.” Voroshilova’s husband danced the Ukrainian hopak and then a polka (“he was particularly good at it”). Kun, Stalin, 226 (citing RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 42: diary written 1950s).

314. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 786, l. 123–4 (July 10, 1932). At the same time, Galina Serebryakova (the third and final wife of Sokolnikov) saw Nadya in 1932 waiting at a bus stop jammed with people at the corner of Vozdvizhenka and Mokhovaya. Serebriakova, “Smerch,” 253–4. According to Kamenev’s daughter-in-law Galina Kravchenko, Nadya went to church; no other source confirms this. Vasil’eva, Kremlevskie zheny, 156.

315. Deviatov et al., Blizhniaia, 48 (citing family archive of A. N. Shefov).

316. One fellow student recalled her as full of life and sparkle that Nov. 1932; his account portrays her marriage to Stalin as widely known. Tokaev, Betrayal of an Ideal, 160–1. Tokaev, an Ossetian born (1909) Gokhi Tokati, studied at a Moscow military academy and would seize a chance to defect on a trip to Germany in 1947.

317. “In Moscow I determinedly try not to have anything to do with anyone,” she had written to Maria Svanidze (“Auntie Marusya”), back in 1926. “Sometimes it is strange: so many years not to have acquaintances, close friends. But that obviously depends on character.” Nadya added that she felt closer to the non-party people. “The many new prejudices are terrible. If you don’t work, you’re a ‘hussy’ [‘baba’].” She insisted: “It’s absolutely necessary to have a profession, so that you don’t have to be a gopher for anybody, as normally happens in secretarial work.” RGASPI, f. 44, op. 1, d. 1, l. 417; Montefiore, Court of the Red Tsar, 7; Radzinskii, Stalin, 297–8. Maria Svanidze (née Korona) had been born in Tiflis in 1899 of Jewish extraction, divorced in 1918, and three years later married Nadya’s brother Alexander “Alyosha” Svanidze. She studied at the conservatory in Georgia and in the 1920s sang in the Tiflis opera. See also RGASPI, f. 558, op. 4, d. 666.

318. Cherviakova, “Pesochnye chasy,” no. 5: 83. “In Iosif’s presence,” Gogua would later claim, “Nadya resembled the pitiful type [fakir] who in the circus walks barefoot on broken glass smiling at the public. . . . She never knew what would happen next, the next explosion. He was an utter boor. The only creature that softened him was Svetlana . . . Vaska always annoyed him.” Gogua, “Semeinye istorii.” “Nadya repeatedly told me with a sigh,” wrote the defector Boris Bazhanov, who knew her in the 1920s. “‘He’s been silent for three days now. He speaks to no one, he does not respond when someone addressed him. He is a particularly difficult person.’” Bazhanov, Vospominaniia, 154.

319. Svetlana claimed she had received only one letter from her mother, and it was a scolding. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 96. See also Sullivan, Stalin’s Daughter, 21 (citing interview with Chrese Evans, formerly Olga Peters), 27 (interview with Svetlana, London, 1994, Meryle Secrest Collection, audio recording, group 2, tape 28, HIA).

320. Kun, Stalin, 201 (citing interviews from the 1960s–70s with László Pollacsek). See also the hearsay in the secret police: Orlov, Secret History, 315, 318; Orlov, Tainaia istoriia, 303–4.

321. Vladimir Alliluyev (son of Anna Alliluyeva and Redens) wrote that she suffered “ossification of the cranial sutures. The disease began to progress, accompanied by bouts of depression and headaches . . . She traveled to Germany for consultations with the leading German neuropathologists . . . Nadezhda threatened to commit suicide more than once.” Alliluev, Khronika odnoi sem’i, 30. Svetlana thought it was schizophrenia. There is hearsay that Nadya had an abortion at one point, causing gynecological complications. Montefiore, Court of the Red Tsar, 12.

322. Alliluev, Khronika odnoi sem’i, 33. See also Shatunovskaia, Zhizn’ v Kremle, 188.