Stalin

323. Murin, Iosif Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 15–6 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1549, l. 40–40ob.: March 12, 1931).

324. Kun, Stalin, 204 (citing RGASPI, f. 668, op. 1, d. 15).

325. Khrushchev, Vremia, liudi, vlast’: vosponinaniia, 4 vols. (Moscow: Novosti, 1999), I: 291–3. The defector Alexander Barmine claimed he saw her on Red Square the day before her death: he recalled her as looking exhausted. But others said she looked in good spirits. Barmine, One Who Survived, 63; Vasil’eva, Kremlevskie zheny, 197.

326. Na prieme, 78; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 45, l. 23; Aldazhumanov et al., Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 193–4 (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 5235, l. 139–40). On Oct. 22, Stalin had sent commissions headed by Molotov to Ukraine and by Kaganovich to the North Caucasus for ten days, to break “the kulak sabotage.” Oskolkov, Golod 1932/1933, 26–8 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 904, l. 11); Sheboldaev, Doklad, 11; Na prieme, 77.

327. Vladimir Alliluyev recalled that Stalin and Nadya had gone to the Bolshoi together and fought there, but Stalin’s office logbook seems to preclude theater attendance that particular night before the banquet. Alliluev, Khronika odnoi sem’i, 25.

328. Radzinsky, Stalin, 287 (quoting an interview with Nadezhda Stalin, daughter of Vasily Stalin and Galina Burdonskaya).

329. Rybin, Stalin v Oktiabre, 20; Vasilieva, Kremlin Wives, 103–11. Druzhba narodov, 1997, no. 5: 83 (Lyola Treshtsalina, of the protocol department). Vlasik later told Khrushchev (who was not present at the banquet) that Stalin left for a tryst with Feodosiya Drabkina-Guseva, a woman of Jewish extraction and the wife of the commander Yakov Drabkin (known as Sergei Gusev).

330. Orange peel as the item: Alliluev, Khronika odnoi sem’i, 25 (based on the hearsay of his grandmother Olga Evgeneevna). A piece of bread as the item, according to Molotov: “Stalin made a tiny ball of bread and, in front of everyone, threw it at Yegorov’s wife.” That act, Molotov claims, triggered Nadya’s departure from the banquet. Chuev, Sto sorok, 250. Svetlana’s version largely adheres to Molotov’s, but also has Stalin proposing a toast to “the destruction of enemies of state,” and rudely reprimanding Nadya for not drinking. Polina observed that Nadya was “perfectly calm” at their parting back at her own apartment. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 108–10. Most scholars follow this account: Radzinskii, Stalin, 287–9; Montefiore, Court of the Red Tsar, 3–22; Service, Stalin, 292–3.

331. Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 173–4. Stalin supposedly said, “Let her go.” Shatunovskaia, Zhizn’ v Kremle, 196–7.

332. Svetlana’s account—that Til ran to fetch Bychkova and the two hoisted Nadya’s body onto the bed—is an obvious impossibility because Svetlana, and hence Bychkova, were at the Sokolovka dacha that night. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 109 (citing much later discussions with Bychkova). Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 117; Vaslieva, Kremlin Wives, 67.

333. Secret report of Dr. Kushner: “There is a five millimeter hole over the heart—an open hole. Conclusion: Death was immediate from an open wound to the heart.” GARF, f. 7523, op. 149, d. 2, l. 1–6. Montefiore, Court of the Red Tsar, 16.

334. At her seventh birthday, following her mother’s death, Svetlana was said to have asked what present her mother had sent from Germany. If so, this implies she had not seen the open coffin, as she later claimed. Sergeev and Glushik, Besedy o Staline, 37; “Priemysh vozhdia,” Moskovskii komsomolets, Aug. 3, 2004; Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 111–3. See also Sullivan, Stalin’s Daughter, 54 (citing Artyom Sergeyev in Kreml’-9 writers, Svetlana Stalina: Escape from the Family).

335. Sergeev and Glushik, Besedy o Staline, 39.

336. Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 173–4.

337. For eight days running, Pravda published obituaries attributed to Voroshilov’s wife, Molotov’s wife, Orjonikidze’s wife, Postyshev’s wife, as well as Mikoyan, Kagananovich, and others. The obituary published in Pravda (Nov. 10, 1932) was signed by Yekaterina Voroshilova, Polina Zhemchuzhina, Zinaida Orjonikidze, Dora Khazan, Maria Kaganovich, Tatyana Postysheva, and Aikhen Mikoyan. Izvestiya (Nov. 11) published Demyan Bedny’s poem “Death Has Its Severe Guile.” On Nov. 16, Pravda published a letter of grief from Krupskaya to Stalin.

338. No suicide note has turned up. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 112–3. See also Sullivan, Stalin’s Daughter, 50–1 (citing interview with Alexander Alliyuev). The funeral commission consisted of Yenukize (chairman), Pauker, Dora Khazan, Kaganovich, Peterson, and Ruben. GARF, f.7523c, op. 149a, d. 2, l. 10–1.

339. Pravda, Nov. 10, 1932; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 4, d. 666 (Alisa Radchenko). Radzinsky quotes Nadya’s medical file, without citation, from Aug. 1932: “acute pains in the abdominal region—return for further examination in 2–3 weeks’ time.” Another entry, the last: “August 31, 1932. Examination to consider operation in 3–4 weeks.” Radzinsky, Stalin, 292. The medical file is RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1551. Dr. Boris Zbarsky prepared the body for the lying in state (he had mummified Lenin in 1924) and, many years later, is said to have told a friend he covered over a temple wound (rather than a shot to the heart). Kanel, “Vstrecha na lubianke,” 495. Khrushchev recalled that Kaganovich summoned the Moscow party apparatchiks the day after the parade and informed them that Nadya had died suddenly, offering no explanation. Kaganovich summoned the same officials a day or two later, according to Khrushchev, and said, “Stalin has ordered me to tell you that Alliluyeva did not just die; she shot herself.” The implication: it was a traitorous act.Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 52–3.

340. Kuusinen, Rings of Destiny, 91–3. The author, the wife of a Comintern official, worked in the organization from 1924 through 1933.

341. Kozlov, Neizvestnaia Rossiia, IV: 172 (Solovyov); Medvedev, “Smert’ Nadezhdy Alliluevoi”; Alliluyeva, Tol’ko odin god, 127. By some accounts, Stalin had his trusted minion Mekhlis “investigate” the circumstances of Nadya’s death to clear him of rumored responsibility for shooting her. Seleznev, Tainy rossiiskoi politiki XX veka.

342. Barmine, One Who Survived, 264. Kaganovich had a sister named Rachel; she died in 1926; he had a niece named Rosa (born 1919).

343. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, 184, 210; Larina, This I Cannot Forget, 141; Medvedev, Nikolai Bukharin, 39. “An almost indistinguishable door in the wall separated the dining room from Stalin’s bedroom,” one functionary noted. “A bed; two small armoires for underwear, coats, and a jacket; a sink.” Shepilov, Kremlin’s Scholar, 2. Stalin first moved to a two-story building (no. 6) closer to the Trinity Gate, the so-called cornered extension of the Amusement Palace, his fourth Kremlin apartment; he moved into the Imperial Senate after its refurbishment.

344. Sochineniia, XIII: 411 (“November 11, 1932, Stalin accompanied the casket with the body of N. S. Alliluyeva-Stalina to the Novodevichy cemetery”). According to Orlov, Stalin followed for only a few minutes, as far as the Manège (right outside the Kremlin), then got into a car with Pauker. Orlov, Secret History, 319–21. Rumors circulated that Stalin’s brother-in-law and fellow Georgian Alexander Svanidze, who was around his height and had a mustache, substituted for him. Kolsenik, Khronika zhizni sem’i Stalina, 21.

345. Pravda, Nov. 13, 1932. “Everyone knows that some beings are as tender and delicate as flowers—she was one of them,” Alexandra Kollontai, the daughter of a tsarist general and the erstwhile wife of another (before she left him), who served as Soviet envoy to Sweden, wrote ingratiatingly to Stalin of Nadya. “Those who knew her will treasure the beauties of her soul in their memories . . . Please remember that the Cause has need of you. Take care of yourself!” Kun, Stalin, 210 (citing RGASPI, f. 134, op. 3, d. 35).

346. Sergeev and Glushik, Besedy o Staline, 39.

347. Kaganovich would recall that Stalin “was terribly down.” Chuev, Kaganovich, Shepilov, 94. Svetlana recalled: “He said that he did not want to go on living. . . . [Stalin] was in such a state that they were afraid to leave him alone. He had sporadic fits of rage.” Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 112; Richardson, Long Shadow, 129–30. “The children forgot her in a few days, but me she crippled for life,” Stalin was later to have complained, according to Maria Svanidze, who blamed her. Murin, Iosif Stalin v ob”iatialkh, 177 (May 9, 1935).

348. One of his bodyguards recalled late in life that Stalin would sit for long periods at Nadya’s grave at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery. Svetlana asserted that her father never visited the grave. Stalin (film by Thames Television, London, 1990); Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 113. Some writers have asserted that a copy of Ryutin’s appeal denouncing her husband was found in Nadya’s room. Radzinsky, Stalin, 296 (quoting a Vlasik interview with N. Antipenko); Rayfield, Stalin and his Hangmen, 239–40.

349. Fridberg, “Gosudarstvennye zagotovki,” 350.

350. Ken, “‘Moia ostenka byla slishkom rezkoi’: I. V. Stalin i rekunstruktsiia RKKA,” 152n3 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 14, d. 754, l. 43–5: Jan. 1933).

351. Kuibyshev, back on Aug. 2, 1932, in a speech not covered by the press but published in 200,000 copies, had told Moscow party officials that peasants lacked incentives—so he knew the score. Kuibyshev, Uborka, khlebozagotovki, i ukrelplenie kolkhovov: rech’ na sobranii dokladchikov Moskovskoi partiinoi organziatsii (Moscow, 1932), reprinted in Kuibyshev, Stat’i i rechi, V: 294–322; Davies, Crisis and Progress, 242. Ivnitsky points out that Stalin had denied he was forcing collectivization to solve the procurement problem; rather, Stalin claimed he was building socialism in the countryside. Ivnitskii, Kollektivizatsiia i raskulachivanie, 205.

352. Rees, Iron Lazar, 110, citing O kolkhoznom stroitel’stve (Moscow, 1932), 218; Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 520–1 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 21, d. 3377, l. 83), 575–7 (op. 3, d. 2025, l. 42–42ob.: Dec. 14, 1932); Graziosi, Soviet Peasant War, 67–8. “If one were to sack them one would have to sack half,” Kaganovich wrote to Stalin (Nov. 5) about the state farm directors. “We will have to remove some, and work on others. . . . Judges passed sentences, but no one carried them out. Clearly, in such a situation, they are mocking us.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganaovich, 298–9 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 177–80). About 26,000 of the 120,000 rural Communists in the North Caucasus would be purged; another 30,000 would quit rather than submit to the procedure. Shimotomai, “Note on the Kuban Affair”; O kolkhoznom stroitel’stve (Rostov, 1932), 281–3, 286–90.

353. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 769, l. 108. In the wake of the North Caucasus purge, party organizations in Kazakhstan and Ukraine requested permission to purge their ranks. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 26, d. 54, l. 265; Tauger, “People’s Commisariat of Agriculture,” 298n99 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 907, l. 73/49–74/50).

354. Stalin also sent a secret telegram to OGPU plenipotentiaries to forward interrogation protocols on sabotage of grain procurement and embezzlement of collective farm property to “the Central Committee.” Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 201 (APRF, f. 3, op. 40, d. 84, l. 84: Nov. 29, 1932). Goloshchiokin replied immediately that severe repression was already under way, apologizing for not having informed Stalin earlier. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 197 (APRF, f. 3, op. 40, d. 83, l. 137), 198–9 (l. 138–138ob.).

355. Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants, 74 (citing Sotsialisticheskoe zemledelie, Nov. 12, 16, 28, and Dec. 17, 1932).

356. Maximilien Savelev wrote the letter to Stalin (Nov. 19), indicating he had heard of the meeting from someone else (I. V. Nikolsky), a colleague of Eismont’s. Savelev and Nikolsky co-signed a second letter to Stalin (Nov. 22) with new details. They quoted the drunk Eismont as stating, “What is to be done! Either comrade Stalin, or peasant uprisings.” According to the informant, “Smirnov said that one speech by Stalin at the congress of Agrarians Marxists in a few days brought to nothing the results of his [Smirnov’s] three-year work to restore the herds.” Kozlov, Neizvestnaia Rossiia, I: 56–128 (at 66); Vatlin, Stenogrammy zasedanii politburo, III: 551–676 (at 642: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1011).

357. Mikoyan as well as Kirov, among others, inserted more fervid condemnations into the transcript when offered a chance to edit their remarks. Wynn, “‘Right Opposition,’” 97–117. Stalin removed his heckling of Smirnov. The crisis atmosphere was well summarized by the émigré press: Sotsialisticheski vestnik, Nov. 26, 1932.

358. Serge, Portrait de Staline, 94–5. Serge gives no date for the rumored resignation, vaguely referring to a time after Nadya’s suicide and before the 17th Party Congress. Serge was in Moscow then. Deutscher has Stalin asking to resign in late 1932. Deutsher, Stalin, 333–4.

359. He underscored the many nonaggression pacts as evidence of his success, asserting that capitalists do not sign such pacts with the weak, and once again blamed food difficulties on kulak saboteurs, their silent middle-peasant supporters, and soft (or worse) rural party officials. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1116, l. 141–2. See also Davies and Harris, Stalin’s World, 52. Stalin’s gloss on the countryside was fed back to him in the secret police reports. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 446–52 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 43, l. 75–95), 472–6 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 10, d. 520, l. 699–708), and 488–9 (d. 514, l. 145–7).

360. Stalin demanded a “knockout blow” to any internal opposition. Vatlin, Stenogrammy zasedanii politburo, 581 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 163, d. 1010); Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 557–561 (d. 1011, l. 9ob.-15). See also Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 187–8.

361. A Central Committee plenum (Jan. 1933) rubber-stamped the expulsions, and the reprimands to Tomsky, Rykov, and V. V. Schmidt (a Rykov associate) for encouraging anti-party work. KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh (9th ed.), VI: 32–3.

362. Koenker et al., Revelations, 405–6 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 85, d. 379, l. 1, 1ob, 2); Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 202 (APRF, f. 3, op. 40, d. 84, l. 139). On Dec. 15, 1932, Stalin set up a separate agricultural department in the Central Committee apparatus and named Kaganovich responsible.

363. Haslam, Threat from the East, 8; Bridges, “Yoshizawa Kenkichi.” Alexander Troyanovsky (b. 1882) was the scion of lesser gentry, educated at the Mikhailov artillery school, and originally a Menshevik; during the NEP, he worked in trade before being appointed envoy to Japan in late 1927.

364. Izvestiia, Jan. 17, 1933; Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, III: 574–5.

365. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 910, l. 2. At this time the regime also tightened the screws by introducing political departments into the machine tractor stations and state farms. These would be announced at the Jan. plenum, when Stalin would blame failures of county party committees for forcing his hand. Zelenin, “Politotdely MTS,” 45; Shimotomai, “Springtime for the Polkitotdel,” 1034; Thorniley, Rise and Fall, 124–40.

366. Stalin received the OGPU’s Yagoda and Prokofyev that day. Na prieme, 83. Kirov at the OGPU jubilee stated, “It is necessary to say openly that the Cheka-GPU is an organ called to punish, and to simplify the matter, not just to punish but to punish in real fashion, so that population growth in the ‘other world’ will be duly noticed.” Pogonii, Lubianka, 200 (no citation).

367. Campbell, Russia, 13–8; Stalin, “Gospodin Kembell priviraet,” Bolshevik, 1932, no. 22: 1–16 (dated Dec. 23, 1932; published in the Nov. 30 issue). “He was very erect and alert, dressed in Russian costume, consisting of boots, breeches, and a white Russian shirt worn outside the trousers with a black belt,” Campbell wrote of Stalin, while recalling the presence of American-made typewriters and filing cabinets. Campbell claimed the audience with Stalin (Jan. 28, 1929) had taken place in the Kremlin but then wrote about ascending to the sixth floor (i.e., at Old Square). Campbell appears in Stalin’s office logbook as “Kellbell.” Na prieme, 30. In response to the condemnation, Campbell told a reporter, “I have a very high regard for Mr. Stalin,” adding, “I consider him a real leader and perhaps the only man who can bring that country out of its duress and turmoil.” Spokesman Review, Dec. 31, 1932. Trotsky seized upon the Campbell book: Biulleten’ oppozitsii, no. 32 (Dec. 1932).

368. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 339–40 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 175, l. 9: Nov. 25, 1932); Sobranie zakonov, 1932, no. 84: article 516; Hoffman, Peasant Metropolis Social Identities, 52; Kessler, “Passport System.” From Jan. through April 1933, the state issued 6.6 million passports while denying 265,000 applications. Violations were rampant; the passports had no photographs.

369. Collective farmers living within 60 miles (100 km) of Moscow and Leningrad would be given passports, as an exception.

370. Zelenin, “O nekotorykh ‘belykh piatnakh,’” 14 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 26, d. 68, l. 1–9, 32, 35).

371. Davies, Crisis and Progress, 270.

372. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 134–5 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 750, l. 52, 54–6; op. 3, d. 913, l. 9); KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh (9th ed.), VI: 18; Pravda, Jan. 13, 1933; VKP (b) v rezoliutsiiakh (1933), II: 762–83.

373. “Itogi pervoi piatiletki: doklad 7 ianvaria 1933 g.,” Sochineniia, XII: 161–215. See also Kontorovich, “Military Origins.” On class struggle, Stalin had remarked in July 1928 that “as we move forward, the resistance of capitalist elements will grow, the class struggle will become sharper, and Soviet power, whose forces will grow even more, will carry out . . . a policy of suppression of the exploiter’s resistance.” Sochineniia, XI: 170–1. Trotsky in April 1918 had observed, “The further and the more the revolutionary movement develops, here and abroad, the more tightly the bourgeoisie of all lands will close ranks.” Volkogonov, Trotsky, 121–2 (citing Sochineniia, XVII/i: 205).

374. He added: “They are for the procurements, but they insist on creating all sorts of unnecessary reserves for animal husbandry, insurance,” which enabled them to steal socialist property. Sochineniia, XIII: 216–33 (at 229–30, 207–8); Kaganovich, “Tseli i zadachi,” 17, citing Stalin; Materialy ob”edinennogo plenuma TsK i TsKK VKP (b), 144. Nikolai Krylenko reported to the plenum that 54,645 people in the RSFSR had been convicted under the law on theft of socialist property, leading to 2,100 executions. He complained of resistance to implementing the law: “One people’s judge straight-out said to me: ‘My hand will not rise to punish a person with ten years for stealing wisps of grain.’” Zelenin, Stalinskaia ‘revoliutsiia sverkhu,’ 73–4, 126–7 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 514, l. 15–21). A Jan. 30, 1933, decree would extend application of the law to accounting fraud as well as wrecking or sabotage. Volin, “Agrarian Collectivism,” 622. In a series of decrees, including on Jan. 19, 1933, the regime attempted to incentivize sowing and attain larger yields by shifting from confiscatory “grain procurement” to “compulsory delivery” in the form of a tax, which was to be levied not on harvest estimates but “from the land actually under cultivation.” All surpluses above the obligations were supposed to remain at the disposal of the collective farmers, but the legalized peasant markets were supposed to be shut down until state taxes had been met. Kollektivizatsiia sel’skogo khoziaistva, 441–5.

375. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 514, vyp. 1, l. 55. Stalin had had Trotsky stripped of his citizenship on Feb. 20, 1932.

376. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 91–4 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 511, l. 12–22: typescript with Rudzutaks’s corrections), 95–7 (l. 215–20: typescript with Bukharin’s corrections), 76–7 (l. 17–9: typescript with Smirnov’s corrections). The plenum confirmed Smirnov’s expulsion from the Central Committee, the expulsions from the party of Eismont and Tolmachev, and the reprimands for Tomsky and Rykov.

377. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 200 (RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8, d. 20, l. 25–25ob.); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 913, l. 15. The Ukrainian hierarchs, mimicking Stalin from the spring, decided the latest reduction had to be kept secret, lest grain procurement officials get demoralized.

378. Stalin had Levon Mirzoyan, an ethnic Armenian serving as second secretary of the Urals province, replace Goloshchyokin, who was sacked Jan. 21, 1933. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 914, l. 9. At the Jan. 1933 Central Committee plenum, Goloshchyokin had trumpeted Kazakhstan’s supposed successes in collectivization in the face of unmitigated catastrophe. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 625–31 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 514, vyp. I, l. 19ob.–21ob., 43ob.–44ob.); Aldazhumanov et al., Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 202–4; Ryskulov, Sobranie sochinenii, III: 316–8, (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 6403, l. 17).

379. One “Trotskyite,” during his arrest, was pointedly noted to have been on the phone with Radek. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 388–9 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 139, l. 173–6).

380. From Jan. 1933, even formal politburo meetings would decline. Detailed politburo protocols were still compiled, as if Stalin’s decisions and the ad hoc gatherings in his office constituted an official meeting. Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b): povestki dnia zasedanii, II: 386 ff.

381. Khromov, Po stranitsam, 23–4.

382. Special settlements in Kazakhstan and Western Siberia were ordered to prepare to receive up to 500,000 each: In the event, 133,000 were deported to Siberia during 1933, and a similar number to other remote destinations, for a total of 270,000 by year’s end. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChk, 418 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 14, l. 96: March 20, 1933); Ellman, “Role of Leadership Perceptions,” 831; Krasil’nikov, Serp i molokh, 95, 106, 110–26; Khlevniuk, History of the Gulag, 55–6, 63.

383. “Information has reached the Central Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars about a mass exodus of peasants from the Kuban and Ukraine ‘for grain’ into the Central Black-Earth province, Volga, Moscow province, the Western province, Belorussia,” the decree stated. “The Central Committee and Council of People’s Commissars do not doubt that this peasant exodus, just as in the previous year from Ukraine, is organized by the enemies of Soviet power, the SRs and agents of Poland, with the aim of agitating ‘through the peasants’ in the northern regions of the USSR against collective farms and generally against Soviet power.” The decree was composed in Stalin’s hand; Molotov’s signature on the original was absent. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 634–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 45, l. 109–109ob.), 635–6 (f. 17, op. 42, d. 80, l. 9–11), 636–8 (d. 72, l. 109–11), 638 (l. 113); Oskolkov, Golod 1932/1933, 19 (citing PARO, f. 79, d. 74, l. 40). Yevdokimov, in his report on implementation, tied peasant flight to rebellion, and noted how the heavy secret police pressure was curbing the exodus. Stalin underlined these passages. By contrast, Balytsky, who gave exact numbers (31,963 people), observed that “in the majority of cases exodus is motivated by a search for earnings,” that “only part of those leaving villages are bringing their families,” and that “the exodus of collective farmers is of significantly less scope than that of individual farmers.” Stalin did not underline any of these revealing passages. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 392–4 (APRF, f. 3, op. 30, d. 189, l. 3–10). On Feb. 16, 1933, a politburo decree ordered the OGPU to apply the Jan. 22 interdiction decree to the Lower Volga. Ivnitskii, Golod 1932–1933 godov, 269–70 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 45, l. 109).

384. The regime proved better able to block emigration to Poland and Romania than into China, Iran, and Afghanistan. Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow, 237, 246–47. On March 1, the politburo granted extrajudicial troikas in Belorussia powers of execution in “cases of counterrevolutionary organizations and groupings consisting of kulaks and White Guard elements.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 63 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 212, l. 1–2).

385. On Feb. 17, Yagoda reported the interdiction of 150,391 people across eight republics or regions, of whom 114,579 had been returned. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChk, 397–8 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 914, l. 1; op. 162, d. 14, l. 48, 51), 398–9 (APRF, f. 3, op. 30, d. 189, l. 26–7), 399–406 (d. 196, l. 127–38), 406–7 (d. 189, l. 36–6).

386. Pravda, Jan. 24, 1933.

387. Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 245; Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 232.

388. In July 1932, the Nazi party had received 13.7 million votes, 37 percent, and won 230 seats, vs. 133 seats for the Social Democrats. (The July 1932 turnout was Weimar’s largest, 84.1 percent.) In Nov. 1932, the Nazis dropped to 196 seats.

389. Orlow, History of the Nazi Party, II: 18–9. Nazi party membership, 25,000 in 1925 and around 2 million in 1933 when Hitler was made chancellor, would grow to 4.4 million by 1936, when membership requirements would be tightened. Over time, the Nazi party would become more proletarian; the Soviet party, less so. At the same time, Nazism enjoyed far stronger appeal in rural locales than the Soviet Community party did.

390. Jones, “Establishment of the Third Reich”; Jones, “Hindenburg and the Conservative Dilemma.” See also Turner, Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power, 83–4.

391. Winkler, Weimar, 509. “I solemnly prophesy to you that this damnable man will plunge our Reich into the abyss and bring inconceivable misery down upon our nation,” General Ludendorff wrote to Hindenburg. “Coming generations will curse you on your grave because of this action.” Fest, Hitler, 411. Ludendorff had collaborated with Hitler in the lunatic Beer Hall putsch of 1923.

392. Turner, Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power. The cabinet led by Hitler lacked a majority in the Reichstag, a fact von Papen concealed from Hindenburg. This was the third “presidential” cabinet in a row. See also Bracher, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik, 443–80; and Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936, 374–5, 413–25.

393. Beckles, “Hitler, the Clown.”

394. Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, II/iii: 120–1 (Jan. 31, 1933).

395. Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend, 69; DBFP, 2nd series, IV: 402; Francois-Poncet, Souvenirs, 70.

396. Fritzsche, Germans into Nazis.

397. Bessel, Political Violence, 76–7; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, 44.

398. The Center Party and the Bavarian People’s Party had entertained the possibility of coalition government with the Nazis, whereas the Social Democrats, the only consistently unequivocal defenders of Weimar democracy, remained fixated on the letter of the law even though they had been victims of extra-constitutional maneuvers. The SPD opposed as demagogy popular job-creation measures such as public works, which the Nazis strongly supported. Gates, “German Socialism.”

399. Geyer, “Etudes in Political History,” 101–23; Deist, Wehrmacht and German Rearmament.

400. Winkler, Der Weg, 444–5, 754. Even after the Nazis had come to power and decimated the German labor movement, the Comintern executive committee would continue to single out Social Democrats as “the main prop of the bourgeoisie also in the countries of open dictatorship.” McDermott and Agnew, Comintern, 112. See also Fischer, Stalin and German Communism; and Bahne, Die K.P.D.

401. Thälmann wrote to the Comintern (Jan. 27, 1933) that the Nov. 1932 election showed a crisis had overtaken the Nazi party, and some “petit-bourgeoisie” were moving to the antifascist camp, joining the working masses. (Not long thereafter, Thälmann, who had consistently called Nazism and Social Democracy “twins,” was arrested by the Nazis. He would spend eleven years in solitary confinement before being executed at Buchenwald.) Shirinia, Komintern v 1933 godu, 119 (citing RGASPI, f. 495, op. 19, d. 248, l. 17–8). By contrast, the Comintern’s Georgi Dimitrov was urging unification of Communists with Social Democrats in “antifascist actions.” Sobolev, Georgii Dimitrov, 102–3; Leibzon and Shirinia, Povorot v politike kominterna, 50–7. See also von Rauch, “Stalin und die Machtergreifung Hitlers,” 117–40.

402. This is the surmise of Tucker, Stalin in Power, 232.

403. A Nov. 1933 document, advanced at the next Comintern enlarged plenum, which could not be put forward without Stalin’s approval, defined “fascism as the open terrorist dictatorship of the more reactionary, more chauvinistic and more imperialist elements of finance capital.” Shirinia, Komintern v 1933 godu, 469–70 (citing RGASPI, f. 495, op. 171, d. 38, l. 212; d. 299, l. 103; d. 301, l. 4; op. 19, d. 248, l. 222); Ferarra and Ferarra, Conversando con Togliatti.

404. DGFP, series C, I: 464; G. Castellan, “Reichswehr et Armée Rouge,” in La Relation Germano-Soviétiques de 1933 a 1939, 248; F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics, 360; A. E. Ioffe, Vneshniaia politika Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1928–1932, 267.

405. Sluch, “Germano-sovetskie otnosheniia,” 105 (citing AVP RF, f. 05, op. 13, pap. 91, d. 28, l. 189). On Jan. 23, 1933, days before Hitler’s formal ascension, in his speech on foreign affairs, Molotov declared that “of all the countries that have diplomatic relations with us, with Germany we have had and have the strongest economic relations.” The many Jewish diplomats in Soviet service distinguished between the fascist Mussolini—with whom the Soviets enjoyed amicable relations—and Nazism. DVP SSSR, XVI: 50–6; III sessiia TsIK SSSR 6–ogo sozyva: stenograficheskii otchet, 23–3o inavaria 1933 g., biulleten’ no.1, 37–43; Dullin, Men of Influence, 93 (citing internal Soviet diplomatic correspondence referring to Mein Kampf).

406. Sluch, “Germano-sovetskie otnosheniia,” 105 (citing AVP RF, f. 05, op. 13, pap. 91, d. 28, l. 90–1). Foreign Minister Neurath was not a Nazi. Neither was Germany’s ambassador to Moscow, Dirksen, who assured the foreign affairs commissariat that Hitler’s and Rosenberg’s public statements “contain no real political significance” and that “real state policy will quickly compel the Nazis to forget about their previous plans.” Sluch, “Germano-sovetskie otnosheniia,” 105 (citing AVP RF, f. 05, op. 13, pap. 91, d. 28, l. 206).

407. Goebbels convinced Hitler to make May 1, 1933, a paid holiday (“Germany honors labor”). As workers marched from factories through the capital to the parade grounds at Tempelhof, airplanes flew in formation overhead, and radio loudspeakers broadcast songs about miners, farmers, and soldiers. In the evening, Hitler addressed workers as patriots responsible for Germany’s industrial might. “The biggest demonstration of all times,” noted the Berliner Morgenpost, a leftist newspaper. The grandiose Nazi initiative had elicited the support of the socialist Free Trade Unions, but on May 2 Nazi storm troopers assaulted them. Fritzsche, Life and Death, 46–7. A decade later Goebbels would reminisce that “only then was the National Socialist state on stable foundations.” Fröhlich, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, teil II, VIII: 197 (May 2, 1943).

408. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 207–9.

409. Pravda, Feb. 18, 1933; Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 21. Rees, Iron Lazar, 113. At the gathering land commissar Yakovlev painted a more truthful, grim picture of collective farm operation from observations in Odessa province. Pravda, Feb. 19, 1933. Kaganovich had returned to the North Caucasus in late Jan. 1933, and reported cases of cannibalism but also of feigned starvation and “vicious terror” against the regime. He would go to his grave without acknowledging the tragedy. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 639 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 215, l. 74); “Dve besedy s L. M. Kaganovichem.”

410. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd kolkhoznikov-udarnikov, 66–7.

411. Pravda, Feb. 23, 1933, Sochineniia, XIII: 236–56 (at 251–2).

412. Sochineniia, XIII: 246–7. Oja, “From Krestianka to Udarnitsa.” Officially, only 15.25 million households were collectivized as late as mid-1933. Kolkhozy vo vtoroi, 1.

413. The arsonist confessed and claimed to have acted alone. German Communists alleged the Nazis had set him to the task to justify a premeditated anti-Communist repression. In fact, Nazi higher-ups appear to have been panicked the night of the fire. Mommsen, “Reichstag Fire,” 129–222; Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936, 456–8, 731–2. There is one eyewitness account, by a journalist of the London Daily Express: Delmer, “Reichstag Fire.”

414. Kershaw, “Hitler Myth,” 52–3. The Communists, despite the terror, still won 12.3 percent, but Hitler now banned the party by decree. The Social Democrats won 18.3 percent. Turnout was a record 88.8 percent.

415. Germany’s constitutional court accepted the validity of the Enabling Act. Bracher, German Dictatorship, 224. See also Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, 117.

416. Mommsen, “Der Reichstagbrand.” See also Kershaw, “Hitler Myth,” 54–6.

417. The consul had just seen the body of a man flayed alive. Larson, In the Garden of Beasts, 5 (citing the Messersmith Papers).

418. “Germany,” he had warned in Mein Kampf, in his typical inversion, “is the next great objective of Bolshevism.” Hitler, Mein Kampf, 750–1. See also Thies, Architekt der Weltherrschaft.

419. Hitler had not tried to block a special bridge credit of 140 million reichsmarks by Dresdner and Deutsche banks (Feb. 23, 1933). The refinancing alleviated pressure on the Soviets, who owed Germany 1.2 billion marks, of which 700 million was due. (By Dec. 1934, the debt would amount to 250 million.) Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 283–7. Hitler also submitted the 1931 protocol extending the 1926 Berlin Treaty to the Reichstag for ratification on May 5, 1933. DGFP, series C, I: 91–3n7, 355–8 (April 28), 385–9 (May 5); von Dirksen, Moscow, Tokyo, London, 122; Niclauss, Die Sowjetunion, 87–8.

420. Between April 30 and May 4, 1933, the editor of the semiofficial Gazeta Połska, Bogusław Miedziński, visited Moscow as a back channel contact; Radek reciprocated to Warsaw, July 6–22, under the pretext of visiting his mother. Radek’s report: “Polish-Soviet Rapprochement” (July 26, 1933): AVP RF, f. 010, op. 7, d. 12, l. 71–81. The Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg traveled to Britain in May 1933 to gin up support against the Communist menace, Kommunisticheskii Internatsional, 1933, no. 12: 14–20.

421. Shirinia, Komintern v 1933 godu, 141–2 (citing RGASPI, f. 495, op. 25, d. 237, l. 69, 79–80; d. 233, l. 69–80). German Communist party turnover was high: Up to three-quarters of the members were unemployed and therefore unconnected to factories. Bahne, “Die Kommunistitche Partei Deutschlands,” 662; Grebing, Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 310.

422. Firsov, “Stalin i Komintern,” 10; Shirinia, Komintern v 1933 godu, 169–77 (citing RGASPI, f. 495, op. 18, d. 963, l. 134–5, 182). By late 1933, the number of legal Communist parties would dwindle to sixteen, from a peak of seventy-two; another seven were semilegal.

423. Robert Tucker held Stalin “chiefly responsible” for the failure of the German Communists and Social Democrats to work together in a united front of the left against Hitler, but did not explain how the two leftist parties would have reconciled in Stalin’s absence. Winkler argued that “the gulf between the two workers’ parties became so deep . . . that a common unified front was no longer imaginable.” Tucker, Stalin in Power, 225–32; Winkler, Der Weg, 864.

424. Ivnitskii, “Golod 1932–1933 gg.: kto vinovat?,” 36. Davies and Wheatcroft estimate perhaps as many as 70 million lived in regions affected by famine, even excluding the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 411.

425. Khlevniuk, Master of the House, 47.

426. Ivnitskii, “Golod 1932–1933 godov: kto vinovat?,” 61 (citing the politburo archive without details). Peasants from “surplus” population regions were being forcibly resettled to ghost villages of the North Caucasus and elsewhere as well. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 428 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 929, l. 133, op. 162 d. 15, l. 100–1; GARF, f. 5446, op. 1, d. 470, l. 179–80). On March 17, 1933, the regime sought to restrict seasonal labor migration, requiring collective farm permission for exit and threatening food denial to “flitters who leave before the sowing and return for the harvest.” Pravda, March 20, 1933.

427. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 254–65 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 11, d. 960, l. 1–12).

428. Maksudov, “Geografiia goloda 1933 goda”; Maksudov, “Ukraine’s Demographic Losses,” 27–43.

429. On March 15, Kosior sent a long report to Stalin from Ukraine begging for more tractors and food aid of not less than 36,000 tons. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 304–17 (APRF, f. 3, op. 61, d. 794, l. 73–86). Ryskulov noted, correctly, that “the situation that has taken shape right now in Kazakhstan . . . cannot be found in any other territory or republic.” He even wrote that because of the previous local party leadership group, “it was forbidden officially to say (even in Alma-Ata, where Kazakh corpses were collected from the streets), that there was famine and deaths therefrom. More than that, local functionaries were not bold enough to admit that livestock had declined.” Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 204–25 (GARF, f. R-5446, op. 27, d. 23, l. 245–53); Ryskulov, Sobranie sochinenii, III: 320–48 (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 6403, l. 138–46). See also Aldazhumanov et al., Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 220–3 (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 5287, l. 33–8); Ăbdīraĭymūly et al., Golod v kazakhskoi stepi, 166–7 (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 6403, l. 37), 196–200; Werth, “La famine au Kazakhstan”; and Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 687–91 (RGASPI, f. 112, op. 47, d. 7, l. 26, 269–83: Dec. 23, 1933).

430. Stragglers were congregating near factories, according to Molchanov, and knocking on the doors of workers begging (“‘Help me, I was fired without cause.’ ‘Help me, I am a starving unemployed’”). Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 298–303 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 11, d. 56, l. 11–6). Khatayevich, in Dnepropetrovsk, reported (March 15, 1933) that “in reality there are no bazaars,” meaning no way to supplement rations. Golod 1932–33 rokiv na Ukraini, 465–7.

431. Rudich, Holod 1932–1933 rokiv na Ukraini, 409 (March 5, 1933), 433–7 (March 12), 480–1 (April 1); Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 420 (RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8, d. 25, l. 32–5: March 22, 1933). “Citizenness Gerasimenko ate the corpse of her dead sister,” noted a March 1933 report from the North Caucasus for the OGPU higher-ups. “Citizen Doroshenko, after the death of his father and mother, was left with infant sisters and brothers, ate the flesh of his brothers and sisters when they died of hunger.” OGPU operatives appended many names of hardworking farmers who had died of starvation. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 648–9 (TsA FSB, f. 4, op. 11, d. 42, l. 62–4: March 7, 1933), 662–5 (f. 2, op. 11, d. 42 l. 113–6: April 3, 1933).

432. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 363–64 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 11, d. 42, l. 149–50: North Caucasus, March 21, 1933), 422–4 (d. 551, l. 36–8: March 31, 1933).

433. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 527–8 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 10, d. 514, l. 234–6: Nov. 5, 1932), 661–2 (op. 11, d. 42, l. 101–3: April 1, 1933).

434. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 644–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 741, l. 3). That March of 1933, Trotsky, from Turkey, sought to reconcile himself with Stalin, pledging readiness to “enter into preliminary negotiations without any publicity.” Stalin might have played along, trying to lure him back to Moscow, but, whether from distraction or other causes, appears not to have tried. In summer 1933, Trotsky would accept an offer of asylum in France, although he would not be allowed to settle in Paris. Petrement, Simone Weil: A Life, 189–91.

435. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 206, 420 (RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8, d. 25, l. 32–5: March 22, 1933).

436. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 330–1 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 918, l. 1, 18–19, 23–4).

437. This was part of a re-registration of weapons Union-wide. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChk, 419 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 14, l. 96–7).

438. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 192–4 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 907, l. 58–60: Voroshilov to Gamarnik, from Sochi, Dec. 7, 1932), 196–7 (d. 38, l. 80: Dec. 17, 1932), 213 (d. 43, l. 60–3).

439. The year before, Kopelev had fallen in love with the daughter of a specialist accused of being a Polish spy in the Shakhty case (Iu. N. Matov), who was sentenced to death but received a reprieve. Kopelev, I sotvoril sebe kumira, 234.

440. Kopelev, “Last Grain Collections (1933),” 224–86. The official was Roman Terekhov. He would survive and, after Stalin’s death, recall the following rebuke in late 1932: “We’ve been told that you, Comrade Terekhov, are a good speaker. It seems that you are a good storyteller—you have made up quite a good fable about famine, thinking to frighten us, but it won’t work! Wouldn’t it be better for you to quit the post of provincial party secretary and the Ukrainian Central Committee and join the Writers’ Union? Then you can write your fables, and fools will read them.” Medvedev, Let History Judge, 241 (citing Pravda, May 26, 1964); Zelenin, “O nekotorykh ‘belykh piatnakh,’” 15–6.

441. Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain, 198–237.

442. One contemporary described Postyshev as “tall and thin as a lath, with a grating bass voice. No fool . . . but careless of others’ feelings.” Tokaev, Betrayal of an Ideal, 166. Conspicuously, Postyshev had told the Jan. 1933 Central Committee plenum that “it is not good hiding behind the back of the kulak, even more so when his back is not as wide as before,” warning “we will not change the situation like that” and urging plenum attendees to get better at administration of the large-scale, complex economy. Zelenin, “Politotdely MTS,” 53. In March 1933, two months after Postyshev’s arrival and one month after the appointment of Balytsky as NKVD plenipotentiary in Ukraine, Mykola Skrypnyk had been sacked as the republic’s education commissar. On July 7, 1933, vilified at the Ukrainian politburo by Postyshev for “counterrevolutionary nationalism,” Skrypnyk would go home to his apartment in Kharkov and take his own life rather than politically recant. Corbett, “Rehabilitation of Mykola Skrypnyk.”

443. Kopelev managed to transfer to Moscow University, where he did German studies. He would be expelled from the Communist Youth League for ties to Trotskyites.

444. Kopelev, Education of a True Believer, 11–2. See also Crossman, God That Failed, 43, 53 (Koestler). Kopelev’s father, an agronomist, raged at him, the “editor-philosopher,” who had seized starving peasants’ grain. Their argument dissolved in drunken tears. Kopelev regarded his father as “a conscientious specialist, but a limited, vacillating philistine, weighed down with old Socialist Revolutionary prejudices.”

445. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 423 (citing TsDAGOU, f. 1, op. 20, d. 6275, l. 225: Kharkov, May 30, 1933).

446. Sholokhov largely blamed regional officialdom, but he also called what he saw “not individual instances of excesses,” but “the ‘method’ of carrying out grain procurements.” On July 4, 1933, the politburo would hear Shkiryatov’s report on “excesses” in Veshensk county, after which the second secretary, the plenipotentiary for grain collections, and others were transferred elsewhere, but not arrested. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 717 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 2035, l. 4), 717–20 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 827, l. 1–22), 720–1 (f. 17, op. 3, d. 2040, l. 5–6); “Sholokhov i Stalin: perepiska nachala 30-x godov”; Pravda, March 10, 1964; Murin, Pisatel’ i vozhd’, 28–58, 68, 145–7.

447. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 429–35 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 171, l. 91–101). Whereas in 1932, 3,889 “socially alien elements” were removed from the ranks, the number jumped to 22,308 in 1933. There would be more than 20,000 arrests in 1933 in the army of spies and wreckers. Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 49–51. Stalin had told the Central Committee (May 2, 1933) that “the Russian nation is the most talented nation in the world,” a long-standing theme of his, but also that “the peasant [muzhik]” had to be taught “not to oppose his interests to the state,” not to live in the past, for “the old must die out.” Stalin’s approach to the village rested largely on his view of the Russian peasant (muzhik), rather than the Ukrainian peasant or Kazakh nomad. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1117, l. 10, 11, 14, 23.