Stalin

64. Ethnic Russians, who constituted just 10 percent of Abkhazia’s population in the early 1930s, accounted for more than 40 percent of the local apparatus, versus around 9 percent ethnic Abkhaz. Lakoba also got the apparatus in Moscow to renew calls for indigenization of Abkhazia’s apparatus. But the ongoing party purges pushed in the opposite direction. Sagariia, Natsional’noe stroitel’stvo v Abkhazii, 132 (citing TsGAA f. 1, op. 2, d. 300, l. 3–4).

65. Beria denounced the Feb. 1931 Abkhaz “demonstration” to Stalin, suggesting that Lakoba had encouraged the peasants to rebel and that Lakoba’s mother had stood in the front, so the secret police troops could not shoot. Lakoba, “‘Ia Koba, a ty Lakoba,’” 58.

66. Beria’s mother, Marta Jakeli, and her second husband, Pavel Beria, had two other children: Lavrenti’s elder brother died at age two of smallpox; his sister Akesha, or Anna (b. 1905), was rendered a deaf mute by childhood measles. His father died when Lavrenti was school age and, like Stalin, Beria was raised by his mother, who, like Keke, had ambitions for her boy. (She would later marry a Georgian Jew, Levan Loladze.) At age sixteen, Beria left for the oil boomtown Baku and enrolled in its high school for mechanical-building studies, spending a summer working for Alfred Nobel’s concern. Reliable material on Beria’s biography is scant. See Danilov, “K biografii L. Beriia”; Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina” (1989, no. 5), 39n1 (citing Chekryzhev), (1990, no. 1), 70–2. See also Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina”(1990, no. 3): 81–2; (“Berievshchina” was reprinted in Nekrasov, Beria, 300–80); “O sud’be chlenov i kandidatov v chleny TsK VKP (b), izbrannogo XVII s”ezdom partii,” 82–113: 88. See also Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina,” no. 3 (1990): 81–2; RGASPI, f. 5, op. 15, d. 448, l. 246–8.

67. Beria’s arrests, releases, and rearrests remain murky. Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina,” no. 1 (1990): 77–8; Toptygin, Lavrentii Beriia, 11; Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, 307–9; Mlechin, KGB, 176; Sokolov, Beriia, 31–2.

68. RGASPI, f. 85, op. 29, d. 414, l. 3 (Beria letter to Orjonikidze); “Ochen’ vysoko tsenit t. Beria,” 163–5 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 788, l. 114–5ob; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 788, l. 114–16ob, Pavlunovsky to Stalin, June 25, 1937); Zaria vostoka, Nov. 15, 1931. Ruhulla Akhundov, a former Left SR and a Baku Communist party official, attended the late-1920 discussion of Beria’s Musavat past. “He has outstanding abilities, as demonstrated in various apparatuses of the state mechanism,” Akhundov wrote of Beria in 1923, calling the results-oriented functionary “so necessary at this moment of Soviet construction.” Zen’kovich, Marshaly i genseki, 161.

69. That same month, April 1921, Beria married the sixteen-year-old upper-class Georgian Nino Gegechkori, whose uncle had been a member of the tsarist State Duma and foreign minister in the overturned Georgian Menshevik government. The pair may have met in prison, when Nino and her mother came to visit her Bolshevik father, Alexander Gegechkori, who had been arrested and held along with Beria in the Kutaisi prison. Nino went on to graduate university in economics. Sokolov, Beriia, 40–2. See also Dumbadze, Na sluzhbe cheka i kominterna, 93 Beria’s patron Bagirov was expelled from the party for torture, oppressing national minorities (Armenians, Russians), and bribe-taking. He was sacked from the secret police in May 1927 for “exceeding his authority, intrigues, and using the organs against the party.” But Stalin, writing to Molotov in 1929, decided that “Bagirov (despite his past sins) will have to be confirmed as chairman of the Cheka in Azerbaijan: he is now the only person who can cope with the Musavatists and Ittikhadists who have reared their heads in the Azerbaijan countryside. This is serious business, and there should be no fooling around.” Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 168. See also “Iz otchetov komiteta partiinogo kontrolia pri TsK KPSS o partiinoi reabilitatsii kommunistov v 50-kh-nachale 60-kh gg.,” 47; and RGASPI, f. 613, op. 1, d. 90, l. 47. In 1930, Bagirov would be brought to Moscow to study Marxism-Leninism for twenty-four months. Zaria vostoka, Dec. 15, 1933; Knight, Beria, 39. In Oct. 1932, Bagirov was returned to Azerbaijan as chairman of the republic’s Council of People’s Commissars, and in Dec. 1933 he became party boss of Azerbaijan. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 396n2; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 935, l. 2, 32–4. Bagirov occupied the mansion of the former Baku agent of the Rothschilds.

70. Iusif-Zade, Chekisty Azerbaidzhana, 26, 31–57. Mikhail Kedrov, head of a traveling commission on secret police abuses, relayed a damning report on Beria to Dzierżyński, who in Dec. 1921 issued an arrest order. Beria desperately appealed to the local top man, Orjonikidze, arguing that Kedrov did not understand Baku’s rough conditions. Orjonikidze supposedly later told a secretary that upon learning of Beria’s service in Musavat counterintelligence, Dzierżyński had wanted to execute him, but that Orjonikidze interceded to save Beria’s life. In another version, the son of the arresting officer claimed Stalin telephoned Dzierżyński and vouched for Beria, citing the word of Mikoyan. Whatever the cause, Dzierżyński countermanded the warrant. Berezin, “Istoriia ordera na arrest Berii,” 195–6 (recollections of the son of Yan Berezin); Agabekov, G.P.U., 170; Leggett, Cheka, 270–1. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 134 (citing TsA FSB, ASD P-771, l. 5, testimony of Orjonikidze’s secretary). All the paperwork would later disappear from Dzierżyński’s files except a document indicating that there had been paperwork. Plekhanov, VChK-OGPU, 168–9. On June 27, 1922, Kirov, then party boss in Azerbaijan, directed him to cease police surveillance on Bolshevik officials. (Beria wrote back denying any involvement.) Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina” (1990, no. 1): 68. A denunciation of Beria in the later 1920s accused him of surrounding himself with dubious types. Plekhanov, VChK-OGPU, 236 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 9, l. 78–85).

71. In Sept. 1929, after a torrent of complaints, Orjonikidze had sent in a Central Control Commission team. Beria once again begged to be relieved of his post and allowed to resume his studies. “Time passes, all around people are growing, developing, and those who yesterday were far behind me today moved ahead,” Beria noted. “My backwardness is painful and humiliating, the more so when one knows that the country now needs people with expertise . . . Dear Sergo, I implore you to take me from the Caucasus and, if I cannot be sent to study, then transfer me to different work in one of the regions of the USSR . . . After all, I cannot argue with everyone for my lifetime, it will ruin my nerves.” But Orjonikidze blocked the Georgian push for disciplinary action against Beria in spring 1930. Toptygin, Nezivestnyi Beriia, 27–8; Knight, Beria, 39–40 (citing RGASPI, f. 85, op. 27, d. 71, l. 1–6); Plekhanov, VChK-OGPU, 236 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 9, l. 78–85).

72. In 1925, a Junkers airplane en route to Sukhum had caught fire and crashed near the Tiflis aerodrome, killing the chairman of the South Caucasus Council of People’s Commissars and another high government official as well as Mogilevsky. Trudovaia Abkhazia, March 25, 1925; Biulleten’ oppozitsii (Jan. 1939): 2–15. Beria transformed an obituary for Mogilevsky into a self-tribute. Antonov-Ovseenko, Beriia, 31.

73. Popov and Popokov, “Berievshchina,” 1989, no. 5: 40. Orjonikidze had told Pavlunovsky that “he rated the work of Beria as a growing functionary very highly, and that Comrade Beria would develop into a big-time functionary.” “Ochen’ vysoko tsenit t. Beria,” 163–5 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 788, l. 114–5ob; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 788, l. 114–16ob, June 25, 1937).

74. Rubin, Lavrentii Beriia, 57–8.

75. Whether Beria set Redens up remains unknown (Redens had a well-known weakness for the bottle and women). Tumshis, VChK: voina klanov, 207–8; Knight, Beria, 43–4 (citing Merkulov: RGANI, f. 5, op. 30, d. 4, l. 86). “In the GPU apparat whole legends circulated about [Beria],” the operative Agabekov wrote at the time. Traveling with Beria for three days in a train in 1928, he found Beria “more interested in Tiflis street happenings than events of all-Union significance.” Agabekov, G.P.U., 169–70; Agabekov, OGPU, 155.

76. Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina,” 1990, no. 5: 86–7; Nekrasov, Beria, 354; Rubin, Lavrentii Beriia, 63–4. Beria or someone on his behalf spread rumors he was destined for promotion to a big job in Moscow. Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina” (1989, no. 7), 85; Tumshis, VChK: voina klanov, 204–5. See also Smyr, Islam v Abkhazii, 148–51.

77. Beria had been cultivating Lakoba for some time, sending him gifts, but at the same time, filth spread about Lakoba—his half-brother Mikhail received a horse (“bribe”) when he brokered peace between families after a murder; his mother got 7,000 bricks for a two-story house (“palace”)—which bore the mark of Beria’s minions. Hoover Archives, Lakoba papers, 1-392-35. Lakoba’s compound in Sukhum—a two-story brick villa, with two balconies, built by an Armenian magnate—took up a full city block in the finest neighborhood. Everyone had a room, including the governess, like prerevolutionary nobility.

78. “A few days ago members of the South Caucasus regional committee, secretaries of the Georgian central committee, and several Azerbaijani functionaries . . . visited me,” Stalin wrote to Kaganovich. “They are embroiled in unbelievable infighting, and it seems to me a long way from over.” He directed Kaganovich to schedule an orgburo meeting. On Sept. 10, Kaganovich acceded to the Caucasus comrades who wanted Samson Mamuliya removed as Georgian party boss and replaced by Kartvelishvili (who would last only until Nov. 14). On Oct. 31, the politburo, following an orgburo meeting, passed a resolution on the “unprincipled struggle of certain individuals for influence (elements of ‘ataman-ism’).” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 68–9 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 7–11: Aug. 26, 1931), 104–5n6; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 847, l. 4; Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 188n1 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 265, l. 75–137; op. 3, d. 857, l. 9. 12–19).

79. Lakoba wrote: “Koba: Will Beria do for South Caucasus? Me: The only person who works properly is Beria.” Hoover Archives, Lakoba papers, notes (1931) of a conversation with Stalin and Orjonikidze. Stalin rejected Polonsky as inappropriate to run the South Caucasus party because “he does not speak any of the local languages.” Khlevniuk, Stalin i Kaganovich, 276 (RGASPI, f. 82, op. 3, d. 99, l. 153–5).

80. Makarova, “Stalin i ‘blizhnyi krug,’” 302. “Dear Comrade Nestor!” Beria wrote (Sept. 27, 1931). “I send my greetings and best wishes. Thank you for the letter. I’d very much like to meet with Koba before he leaves. It’d be good if you could remind him about this if the opportunity arises . . . Regards. Your Lavrenti Beria.” Lakoba, “‘Ia Koba, a ty Lakoba,’” 60. Some believe Stalin first met Beria on Nov. 6, 1920, when Stalin addressed a crowd at the Baku Soviet and Beria, fresh out of a Georgian Menshevik prison, worked as business-manager of the Azerbaijan Central Committee. Some say it took place in summer 1923, in Moscow at Stalin’s Zubalovo dacha, or in fall 1923 at a resort in Abkhazia. Whenever the pair first met, Beria got to know Stalin up close thanks to Lakoba. Iskenderov, Iz istorii bor’by kommunisticheskoi partii Azerbaidzhana, 527–8; Knight, Beria, 33 (citing interview with Devi Sturua, son of Georgi Sturua).

81. Zaria vostoka, Nov. 15, 1931; Esaiashvili, Ocherki istorii Kommunisticheskoi partii Gruzii, II: 115–6. “I will not work with that charlatan,” Kartvelishvili supposedly objected when Stalin had told him he was going to get Beria as his deputy (second secretary of South Caucasus regional party committee). Medvedev, Let History Judge, 462–3 (citing A. V. Snegov, former member of the South Caucasus party committee bureau); Khrushchev, “O kul’te lichnosti,” 155–6; Deviatyi v sesoiuznysi s”ezd professional’nyk soiuzov SSSR, 205, 253. Using the Russified name Lavrentyev, Kartvelishvili would serve as party boss of the Soviet Far East territory from 1933 through Dec. 1936.

82. Beria wrote to Kaganovich (July 13, 1932) in a familiar tone, outlining his work so far and requesting a reduction in grain delivery quotas—a touchy subject with Stalin. Beria mentioned grave difficulties arising from massive livestock destruction—under his predecessor—an absence of cash, different options for locating a coke-chemical plant, the critical need to improve rail transport, overseen by Papuliya Orjonikidze (Sergo Orjonikidze’s elder brother). Beria added pointedly: “I was twice at Koba’s and had the chance to inform him in detail about our affairs. The materials concerning the matters addressed in this letter were also conveyed to comrade Koba.” Sokolov, Beriia, 83–4; RGAPSI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 75, l. 15.

83. On June 21, 1932, Orakhelashvili was disciplined for “groupism [gruppovshchina],” and his wife, Maria, was removed for supposedly inciting the Georgian Communist party against the South Caucasus regional party committee with “false rumors,” particularly against “comrade Beria.” Blauvelt, “Abkhazia Patronage” (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 82, l. 88). Stalin wrote to Kaganovich: “My opinion: for all the angularity of Beria’s ‘actions,’ it is Orakhelashvili who’s wrong in this. . . . Everyone says that the positive work is going very well in Georgia [under Beria], and the mood of the peasants has improved.” Kaganovich wrote to Stalin (June 23) supporting Beria. When Orakhelashvili asked for the grain quota to be lowered, Stalin lost all patience (July 24). Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 185, 189.

84. Orakhelashvili wrote to Orjonikidze of Beria (Aug. 1, 1932): “Our relations are worse and worse and unbearable. Comrade Beria does not come to see me, and we don’t even have telephone conversations . . . He behaves like some kind of League of Nations commissar appointed to a mandate country.” Orhakhelashvili added that he had written to Stalin a month ago asking to be relieved of his duties as first secretary of the South Caucasus, but had received no response. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 186–9 (RGASPI, f. 85, op. 92, d. 472, l. 1–2). See also Mlechin, KGB, 195; and Gazarian, “O Berii i sude nad Berievtsami v Gruzii,” 113–4.

85. Stalin added: “Sergo insisted on the candidacy of Mamuliya for secretary of the Georgian party, but now it is obvious that Mamuliya is not worth even Beria’s left foot.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 276 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 153–5), 283–5 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 740, l. 153–60).

86. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 276n3 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 903, l. 8); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 75, l. 15: Oct. 9, 1932); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 903, l. 8. Konstantin “Tite” Lordkipanidze, not a close associate of Beria, was given the Georgian OGPU.

87. Thereafter, Beria would be recorded in Stalin’s office in 1933 (twice), 1935 (twice), 1936 (twice), 1937 (twice), and several times in 1938. Na prieme, 569.

88. In Dec. 1932, Lakoba wrote to Beria, with copies to Stalin and Kaganovich, protesting the reprimand given to himself and Ladariya for approaching the USSR Council of People’s Commissars without the authorization of the Georgian Central Committee on the question of again lowering the Abkhaz tobacco procurement target. Hoover Archives, Lakoba papers, 1–42. Bagirov, who had been in Moscow, had returned and told Beria that Lakoba had gossiped to Orjonikidze that Beria had been slandering Orjonikidze, supposedly saying that, back when the Menshevik uprising was crushed, “Sergo would have shot all Georgians if it hadn’t been for me.” Enraged, Beria wrote to Orjonikidze (Dec. 18, 1932), “I know there are many big-mouths among those who left the South Caucasus, and it is impossible to prohibit big-mouths from gossiping idiocies, I know that many rumors circulate about me and our work in the South Caucasus, but I cannot for the life of me understand what led comrade Lakoba, what goals he followed, when he informed you about false matters . . . Dear Sergo, you know me more than ten years. You know all my shortcomings, you know what I am capable of. . . . I admire you too much and value your relations too much. I ask you only one thing—don’t believe anyone.” Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 197–8 (RGASPI, f. 85, op. 29, d. 413, 1–3). See also Knight, Beria, 50–1. In a March 2, 1933, letter to Orjonikidze, Beria complained that according to Lakoba, Levan Gogoberidze, on holiday in Sukhum, was spreading disinformation about Beria’s involvement in Musavat counterintelligence. Beria reviewed how the matter had been adjudicated in his favor in 1920 in the presence of Orjonikidze and others, and how Beria sent Orjonikidze an official decision of the Azerbaijan Central Committee in 1925. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 202–4 (RGASPI, f. 85, op. 29, d. 414, 1–4). See also Mlechin, KGB, 193–4.

89. Artamonov, Spetsob”ekty Stalina, 137–8. A stone stairway of 870 steps to the beach below would be built.

90. Gosudarstvennaia okhrana Rossii, 47–9 (no citation). The regime had laid a road to Pitsunda in 1930. See also Sergei Deviatov et al., Garazh osobogo naznacheniia: 90 let na sluzhbe Otechestvu, 1921–2011 (Moscow: MediaPress), 157; and Rosenfeldt, “Special” World, 168–70.

91. Zhukov, “Tak, byl li ‘zagovor’ Tukhachevskogo?” (Gagra and Sochi incidents). After Stalin’s death, Chechulin would testify (Oct. 14, 1953): “In order to avoid being shot at again, this time from closer range, I leapt from the glass cabin and told the drivers that the launch should take only a straight course, to the open sea. . . . Comrade Stalin initially attributed the shooting at the launch, after a three-hour stay on the shore in the Pitsunda area, to Abkhaz customs, saying that among the Abkhaz it was customary to greet guests by firing shots. But when the rifle shots rang out so severely, comrade Stalin, it seems, changed his mind about such firing, so that by the time we returned to Cold Spring in order to ascertain the cause of the shots, that very night, as soon as we disembarked, he sent Bogdanov to Pitsunda. . . . Five days after the shooting of the launch, a letter came to Cold Spring from one of the border guards, whose name I do not recall. In that letter he asked comrade Stalin to forgive him for firing at the launch, and explained that he had taken the launch to be not ours (foreign). That launch did in fact appear in the Pitsunda area for the first time. . . . I reported the content of this letter to comrade Stalin. He heard me out and took the letter.”

92. Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina” (1991, no. 1), 47.

93. The fired OGPU chief was A. N. Mikeladze. In 1937, the incident was reclassified as a terrorist act; Lavrov as well as Mikeladze would be shot. Lakoba, “‘Ia Koba, a ty Lakoba,’” 61–3.

94. Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina” (1991, no. 1), 46–7; Zen’kovich, Marshaly i genseki, 196–8. Vlasik late in life erroneously dated the incident to 1935, and perceived an interconnected conspiracy: this attempt on Stalin’s life, the Kirov murder, the death of Kuibyshev, etc., all the work of a “fifth column.” Loginov, Teni Stalina, 98–9.

95. Dimitrov’s words and a broad counternarrative to Nazi propaganda were propagated in the global press by the Comintern and its media wizard Willi Münzenberg, who had created the Münzenberg Trust (encompassing newspapers, magazines, and film production companies), the fourth-largest media organization in the Weimar Republic. When Nazi newspaper accounts tied Münzenberg to the Reichstag fire, he fled into exile. Gross, Willi Münzenberg.

96. Kaganovich had opposed Koltsov’s request to travel to Paris for the reportage, but Stalin had approved it. The trial would end on Dec. 23, 1933, and the Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe would be guillotined in Jan. 1934. Litvinov wrote to Stalin, regarding Soviet personnel in Berlin, “In the opinion of the foreign affairs commissariat, given the current political situation in Germany, it would be inconvenient to have a single-race composition of the upper stratum of the embassy.” In 1934, Khinchuk would be replaced by Jacob Surits, who, however, was also Jewish (he had a law degree from the University of Berlin and had been a member of the Jewish Bund). Sluch, “Germano-sovetskie otnosheniia,” 106 (AVP RF, f. 05, op. 13, pap. 94, d. 78, l. 46).

97. DGFP, series C, I: 848–51 (Thomsen, Sept. 26, 1933), 851–3 (Bernhard von Bülow, Sept. 26). German government actions against Soviet citizens and property effectively provoked the Soviet cancellation. Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I: 81; Niclauss, Die Sowjetunion, 134–41. Going back to the nineteenth century, “the German and Russian economies were basically complementary so that there existed a broad basis for economic cooperation . . . in the absence of offsetting political factors.” For the Germans, the goal has always been to increase foreign trade, while for the Russians, it was to advance domestic industrialization. Shoemaker, “Russo-German Economic Relations,” 336.

98. In 1931, Hitler had proposed an Anglo-German partnership to British journalists invited to the Brown House in Munich, offering a free hand at sea in exchange for a free hand on the continent in the East. This was the beginning of a long bilateral courtship. Hildebrand, Foreign Policy, 25. See also Wagener, Memoirs of a Confidant, 173–4. (Wagener worked closely with Hitler 1929–32 and wrote these recollections in 1946 in British captivity.) Hitler turned to Joachim von Ribbentrop, who visited London in Nov. 1933 as a special envoy to forge an entente against the Bolshevik menace. Hoover Institution Archives, Louis P. Lorchner Collection, Ribbentrop to Hitler original files, 1933–38: Nov. 20 and 26, 1933; Bloch, Ribbentrop, 41–4; Waddington, Hitler’s Crusade, 69 (citing House of Lords, Davidson papers, memo Nov. 20, 1933); Winterbotham, Nazi Connection, 53–4; Ernest William Dalrymple Tennant, True Account (London: M. Parish, 1957), 164–9; Davidson, Memoirs of a Conservative, 399–401; von Ribbentrop, Memoirs, 36–7.

99. Le Matin (Nov. 23, 1933).

100. Stalin’s fixation on Polish spies in Ukraine revealed his and the wider regime’s fears about Soviet vulnerabilities. See the tortured case of the head of the Polish section of the Chernigov province party committee, Bołesław Skarbek, executed for leading a fictive clandestine “Polish military organization” on Soviet soil. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 460 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 240, l. 105–6), 467–8 (d. 243, l. 86–8), 525–6 (d. 245, l. 59–60), 530 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 16, l. 86); Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War, 116–7; Rubl’ov and Reprtinstev, “Repressii protiv poliakiv,” 121; Mitzner, “Widmo POW,” 22.

101. Negotiations had opened on June 26, 1933. Stalin, in the fall, instructed Kaganovich and Molotov to conduct a campaign against Japan in Pravda and to a lesser extent Izvestiya and to republish an internal-use anti-Japanese brochure for wide circulation. Lensen, Damned Inheritance, 237–334; Haslam, Threat from the East, 22–24; DVP SSSR, XVI: 573–5 (Sokolnikov to Yurenev in Tokyo: Oct. 17, 1933); Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 396–7 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 131–4: Oct. 21, 1933), 401 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 741, l. 112–5: Oct. 24); Na prieme, 111–2. Roosevelt had promised Litvinov “100 percent moral and diplomatic support” against Japan, and even ordered Bullitt to study the possibility of a nonaggression pact. The U.S. State Department had no interest. Stalin, meanwhile, had used Sokolnikov to undercut Karakhan, a hawk on Japan: on May 25, 1933, the politburo had named Sokolnikov deputy foreign affairs commissar for Far Eastern Affairs (Japan, China, Mongolia); Karakhan was reduced to oversight of just the Near East. Genis, “Upriamyi narkom s il’inki,” 238. Ken and Rusapov, Zapadnoe zagranich’e, 596–7 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 923, l. 18). Sokolnikov was also placed on the politburo’s Mongolia commission (soon becoming deputy to Voroshilov on that body).

102. Niclauss, Die Sowjetunion, 134–6. Yenukidze, who oversaw many sensitive government affairs, had gone on holiday to Germany in summer 1933; back in the Soviet Union, he invited German ambassador Dirksen and his aide Twardowski to his dacha in Aug. 1933; Krestinsky and Karakhan, deputy commissars, the former a former Soviet envoy to Berlin, also attended. Yenukidze, described by Dirksen as “a fair-haired, blue-eyed, kindly Georgian with definite pro-German leanings,” ventured that the statists would triumph over the agitators in National Socialism; Dirksen and Twardowski agreed that a modus vivendi could be found with Moscow.

103. When Twardowski explained to Litvinov the reasons for German abandonment of the League, “Mr. Litvinov demonstrated such understanding of our position that I expressed regrets that such a stance of the leader of Soviet foreign policy did not find expression in the Soviet press.” DGFP, series C, II: 14–9 (Oct. 17, 1933). See also Bennett, German Rearmament. On Nov. 12, 1933, 93 percent of German voters had approved the German government’s decision to withdraw from the League and 92 percent voted for Nazi candidates (the only party allowed to stand).

104. Bloch, Ribbentrop, 40–1.

105. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 81, l. 141–144–144ob.

106. Krestinsky returned via Vienna. DGFP, series C, I: 862–4 (Bülow, Sept. 27), 901–4 (Twardowski with Stern, Oct. 10). Stalin opened a back channel through his foreign-policy fixer Radek, who helped arrange a meeting between Dirksen and Molotov. Dirksen, due to depart the Moscow posting (to be replaced by Rudolf Nadolny), returned to Moscow from Berlin on Oct. 28 and was afforded a lavish farewell dinner and gifts. Von Dirksen, Moscow, Tokyo, London, 116–8; Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 260–1; Gnedin, Iz istorii otnoshenii, 13, 22–3; Tucker, Stalin in Power, 235–6.

107. Back in Sept. 1930, Stalin, accompanied by Nadya, Svetlana, and Orjonikidze, had stayed for the first time at the Sinop villa in Sukhum’s outskirts, where Trotsky used to stay. (In late 1931 Sinop was transferred from Abkhazia’s agriculture commissariat to the USSR central executive committee.) Lakoba, Stalin’s host in 1930, whisked the group the next day to reconnoiter Myussera, where Lakoba suggested creating a new dacha for Stalin. Stalin tweaked proposed secret passages between the buildings, three from his bedroom, including one directly to the hillside. Stalin asked for 50 mandarin trees; Lakoba had 100 planted of the Satsuma variety. Already in 1932, the main structure was pronounced usable, though far from finished, and in Sept. 1932 Stalin arrived to go hunting with Lakoba, Goglidze, Pauker, and Vlasik. Stalin demanded changes and Myussera, like Cold Spring, underwent much further construction. Lakoba Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, 2–28. Myussera ended up being used more by Molotov and Mikoyan (Stalin would stay a mere eight times through the end of his life).

108. The magnate was Stepan Lianosyan, known as Lianozov (whom John Reed had labeled “the Russian Rockefeller”). One more dacha was being built at Abkhazia’s stunning Lake Ritsa. By one account, in summer 1932, while visiting Cold Spring, in Abkhazia, with Nadya, Stalin was persuaded by Lakoba to travel by horseback up to Lake Ritsa, which formed part of the Bzyb River basin, and lay in a deep mountain hollow reached by a steep trail of sheer cliffs and landslides. The lake was cool in summers and warm in winters. Here, at the point where the Yupshara River flowed out of Ritsa, Lakoba oversaw construction on another dacha for Stalin. No mean feat: one of the trucks carrying construction materials collapsed a bridge and plunged. Dzhikhashvili, “Kavkaskie safari Stalina”; XX let Sovetskoi Abkhazii, 110. There were dachas for Stalin’s use on the Black Sea seashore in the area of Green Cape, about five miles north of Batum in Ajaria, at Borjomi (the former retreat of Georgian kings), in Crimea (Mukhalatka) and Valdai (between Moscow and Leningrad). The number would grow to eighteen total, including five in Abkhazia.

109. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 385–6 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 81, l. 134, 138), 386 (l. 134), 391–3 (d. 82, l. 6–7, 8, 9, 10; f. 17, op. 162, d. 15, l. 112, 124), 393 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 82, l. 5), 393–4 (l. 21–2), 394–5 (d. 741, l. 108–11); Cherniavskii, “Fenomenon Litvinova.”

110. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 408 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 741, l. 117–8); Na prieme, 112.

111. According to Molchanov, the “organization” aimed to overturn Soviet power and restore monarchism, and was led by Anna Abrikosova (b. 1882), the daughter of a former Moscow factory owner, and Anna Brilliantova (b. 1906), daughter of a former Menshevik, and financed with Catholic church money. They would be sentenced on Feb. 19, 1934, to either eight or ten years in Gulag. Abrikosova would die in the camp in 1936; the other would be rearrested while in confinement and executed in Oct. 1937. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 369–71 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 11, d. 1271, l. 1–3: Nov. 20, 1933).

112. In 1934, there would be at least four more. Hoffmann, Hitler’s Personal Security, 24.

113. Bilateral talks had been spurred by U.S. efforts to stabilize world wheat prices in summer 1933. Bowers, “American Diplomacy.” Recognition became official on Nov. 16, 1933. FRUS, 1933, II: 778–840; DVP SSSR, XVI: 609–10 (Litvinov telegrams, Nov. 8, 1933), 621–2 (Nov. 10), 639 (Nov. 15), 640 (joint communique, Nov. 15), 641–55 (exchange of notes and letters, Nov. 16), 655–8 (Litvinov press conference, Nov. 17), 658–60 (Litvinov telegram, Nov. 19), 662–3 (Litvinov telegram, Nov. 18), 655–6 (Kalinin radio address to America, Nov. 20), 666–7 (Litvinov telegrams, Nov. 20), 675 (Litvinov to Roosevelt, Nov. 22), 675–6 (Litvinov telegram, Nov. 22); Izvestiia, Nov. 20 and 23, 1933; http://nsar chive.gwu.edu/coldwar/documents/epi sode-1/fdr-ml.htm; http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14563; http://www.fdrli brary.marist.edu/daybyday/daylog/novem ber-17th-1933. See also Bishop, Roosevelt-Litvinov Agreements; Maddux, Years of Estrangement, 1–26; and Browder, Origins of Soviet-American Diplomacy, 37, 45, 72, 85–6, 95, 99–152.

114. “This success for Soviet diplomacy,” Molotov stated at the central executive committee on Dec. 28, 1933, of the various Soviet bilateral agreements, “is inseparably linked with the name of Comrade Litvinov, whose services are widely recognized, but here we should especially underscore them.” Litvinov was given the floor the next day. DVP SSSR, XVI: 778–81 (at 779), 781–97. Litvinov would take to complaining about his “security” detail. “‘Ne chuvstvovat’ za soboiu topota,’” 123–4 (APRF f. 57, op 1, d. 18, 1. 99–100; Litvinov to Yezhov, Sept. 9, 1935).

115. Lensen, Damned Inheritance, 361–445.

116. Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy, 190–6.

117. Stalin received considerable intelligence pointing to a Japanese desire for war against the USSR. In late Nov. 1933, after Hirota became Japan’s foreign minister, Stalin received an intercepted letter from the U.S. ambassador in Japan to Washington indicating Hirota’s promotion heralded a more aggressive Japanese posture. That same month, the OGPU sent Stalin intelligence obtained in Paris in the circles of the former prime minister Kokovtsov, who had a document from Japan concerning “the manifest threat to the main Japanese islands over which Soviet squadrons could appear in a few hours . . .” Stalin underscored this passage and wrote, “for Klim.” On Jan. 14, 1934, Artuzov and Agranov sent Stalin a Russian translation of an article published back in April 1933 in a closed journal of the Japanese general staff bruiting war with the Soviet Union. On Feb. 26, Yagoda sent Stalin materials from the Japanese military attaché (Kawabe) assessing the technical level of the Red Army, and stating, “in defense industry the USSR has freed itself of foreign dependence.” Stalin underlined the passage. On March 11, Yagoda sent Stalin materials dispatched by the Japanese military attaché in Turkey to Tokyo (dated Feb. 15) on mobilizing Muslim peoples against the USSR through propaganda, and asking for finances to set it up. The document asserted that “the interests of England and the USSR [are] in irreconcilable contradiction”—a passage Stalin underlined. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 185, l. 126–32; d. 186, l. 1, 37–53, 91–5, 118–26; Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy, 206; Haslam, Threat from the East, 38–9. Germany learned that Litvinov had expressed fears of a Japanese attack as well as a German-Polish reconciliation, and thus of a triple alliance against the USSR, on a visit to Rome: DGFP, series C, II: 183 (Hassell, Dec. 7, 1933).

118. Moscow Daily News, Dec. 30, 1933. Marx spent eight weeks on tour. Litvinov did the knives routine himself, to Harpo’s surprise, at the final performance. Harpo evidently served as a secret courier, smuggling letters for Ambassador Bullitt by taping sealed envelopes to his leg under his pants. Marx, Harpo Speaks!, 299–337; Fromkin, In the Time of the Americans; Harlow, “Secrets in His Socks.”

119. FRUS, The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, 53–4 (Bullitt, Dec. 24, 1933), 60–1 (Jan. 4).

120. Costiliogla, Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances, 268.

121. Bullitt returned the kiss. Bullitt, For the President, 68–9 (Jan. 1, 1934); FRUS, The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, 59–61 (Bullitt to Phillips, Jan. 4, 1934); Farnsworth, Bullitt and the Soviet Union, 109–14; and Tucker, Stalin in Power, 224. Soviet counterintelligence used the ballerina Irena Charnodskaya, who made the rounds of Bullitt and his bachelor aides, Chip Bohlen and Charles Thayer. “We simply cannot keep our hands off her,” Thayer wrote. “She has become an acquisition of the Embassy and . . . sleep[s] in some vacant room which the three of us carefully lock together and then fight violently as to who will keep the key . . . What an embassy!” The exuberance would end quickly for all. Costiliogla, Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances, 263–70 (citing Thayer diary, April 14–May 20, 1934, box 6, Thayer papers; Bohlen to Mother, April 15–May 15, 1934, box 36, Bohlen papers); George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1950–1963, 126; “Fair Day, Adieu!,” p. 18, box 240, Kennan papers; Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–1950, 190; Kennan, “Flashbacks,” in At a Century’s Ending, 31.

122. The text also noted that the situation in the United States “is most favorable for the establishment of socialism.” Eudin and Slusser, Soviet Foreign Policy, II: 577–85; Theses and Decisions, 20–47.

123. “Stalin to Duranty,” Time, Jan. 8, 1934: 26. See also Sochineniia, XIII: 276–81, and the slightly longer Soviet transcript: RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 374, l. 1–6; Na prieme, 118. Duranty had been allowed to accompany Litvinov to Washington in Nov., and returned to Moscow with Bullitt in Dec. See also Duranty, I Write as I Please, 166–7; and Taylor, Stalin’s Apologist, 190–2. Thayer, the U.S. embassy official, wrote of Duranty, “Always witty, always ready to take any side in an argument, he usually kept every party he was at in an uproar of argument and vituperation.” Thayer, Bears in the Caviar, 60.

124. DVP SSSR, XVI: 772–4 (Dovgalevsky, Dec. 29, 1933), 876–7n321. The politburo had resolved (Dec. 19, 1933) to join the League and enter a regional pact in the framework of the League, in the face of Nazi aggression, under certain conditions. Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 305–6 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 15, l. 154–5: Dec. 19, 1933). A possible new “collective security” policy was also discussed by the Central Committee (Dec. 29, 1933), among the last prewar instances when the Central Committee was tasked with discussing Soviet foreign policy. On Dovgalevsky (who had become ambassador to France in Jan. 1928), see Barmine, One Who Survived, 178.

125. At a Dec. 9, 1933, Kremlin meeting Stalin gave the go-ahead for formal negotiations with France. “We have adopted a firm course of closer relations with France,” Litvinov overly enthused in a telegram to Dovgalevsky. Soviet proposals did go far beyond the original French idea, insisting that holdout League members had to extend diplomatic recognition to the USSR, colonial mandates had to be revised (a major plank of Soviet propaganda), and a regional pact had to include not only Poland but also the Baltic states, Finland, and Czechoslovakia, as well as security assistance if Japan attacked the USSR in Asia. Borisov, Sovetsko-frantsuzskie otnosheniia, 202 (AVP RF, f. 0136, op. 17, pap. 159, d. 778, l. 79), 204; DVP SSSR, XVI: 576–8 (Oct. 20, 1933), 773, 735–6 (Dec. 11, 1933); 876–7 n321; DDF, 1e série, IV: 160–1, 165; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 15; Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres, I: 363–4; Dullin, “La rôle de l’Allemagne,” 245–62. Litvinov also urged the signing of a trade pact, however modest. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 752. Even if the Soviet Union represented an important market, the two countries could not get beyond the Soviets’ repudiation of tsarist-era debt. French elite circles also remained embittered at the confiscation without compensation of some 13 billion gold rubles in investments from tsarist times. Some private French arms dealers refused to sell to the Communists for fear of reverse engineering or because the orders were too small for the bother. Dullin, Men of Influence, 100.

126. The visit took place Aug. 26–Sept. 9, 1933. Pravda underscored that Herriot “categorically contradicted the lies of the bourgeoisie press in connection with a famine in the USSR.” Pravda, Sept. 13, 1934; Werth et al., Black Book of Communism, 159–60; Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 311 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 80, l. 24), 317 (l. 41). Laval’s fellow Radical Party member Pierre Cot, air minister in the government, followed Herriot, arriving in Moscow with an air squadron on Sept. 15, and becoming the first foreign delegation afforded Soviet military honors. Izvestiia, Sept. 15, 24, and 25, 1933. Cot was allowed to observe aviation maneuvers and the secret bomber factory in Fili outside Moscow—the Germans had just evacuated their secret air training station at Lipetsk three days before—and became the object of intense attention by Soviet intelligence. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 598–9 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 203, l. 19–21). Cot, based on the WWII intercepts, would later be tagged as a Soviet “agent.” Romerstein and Breindel, Venona Secrets, 56–7. Draitser, Stalin’s Romeo Spy, 191. See also Baker, Rezident; and Stavinskii, Zarubiny.

127. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 198–9 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 45, l. 70–70ob.).

128. Eldev-Ochir, a leftist and scourge of the lamas, had been Mongolian People’s Party leader for a year in 1929–30, during the catastrophe that had compelled the new course correction. In July 1932, he served a second term (for one month), giving way to Lhumbe (b. 1902). On Oct. 8, 1933, the politburo Mongolia commission discussed “the matter of a spy organization,” and Eliava received instructions to root out pro-Japanese elements and prepare for possible war and evacuation. Between July 1933 and June 1934, there would be perhaps 2,000 arrests in a campaign against “left deviationists” and a so-called Lhumbe group accused of spying for the Japanese. At least fifty-six Mongols would be executed, including Lhumbe. On May 23, 1934, the politburo directed Artuzov to “make a complete list of Mongolians who had come to the Soviet Union at various times.” RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 15, l. 100, 125–7; d. 16, l. 63. M. Chibisov, a Soviet proconsul who helped fabricate the Lhumbe Affair, would remark upon departure from Mongolia for Moscow in July 1934: “Stalin has already said that all lamas are counterrevolutionaries. They must be convicted as traitors before the people.” Sandag and Kendall, Poisoned Arrows, 76. See also Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 327–33. Karakhan would tell American ambassador Bullitt about the discovery of a Japanese plot to replace the Mongolian government with a pro-Japanese government, and, in a further fabrication, how the Mongols had again asked to be admitted into the USSR as a Union republic but the Soviets declined, demonstrating they were not imperialists. FRUS, 1934, III: 232–3.

129. Stalin suggested cutting by half the 4,000 Soviet personnel in country. He asked the Mongols (in terms of language), “Can you understand Buryats (yes), Qalmyks (somewhat), Tuvins (no)?” The conversation between Dobchin (b. 1896), a deputy prime minister, and Eldev-Ochir (b. 1905), a Central Committee secretary and presidium member, and Sokolnikov/Voroshilov was written down from memory. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 10, l. 1–7.

130. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 11, l. 1: Jan. 16, 1935. The politburo had allocated 100,000 rubles for Genden’s delegation: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 953, l. 58 (Oct. 19, 1934).

131. “‘Zhmu vashemu ruku, dorogoi tovarishch’: perepiska Maksima Gorkogo i Iosifa Stalina” Novy Mir, 1997, no. 9: 169; Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 124–5 (IMLI, arkhiv Gor’kogo: Jan. 8, 1930); Sochineniia, XII: 177. “I am not an expert in literature and, of course, not a critic,” Stalin wrote, also in 1930, while intervening to support a leftist playwright and poet, Alexander Bezymenskii (Stalin did fault Bezymenskii for “some holdovers of Communist Youth League avant-gardism”). Sochineniia, XII: 200–1; Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 180–1. Back in 1925, Stalin had responded to an inquiry from enlightenment commissar Lunacharsky about the Bolshoi Theater’s centenary, “I am not strong in artistic matters, as you yourself know, and I do not dare say anything decisive in this area.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 760, 146–8.

132. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 157–9 (RGALI, f. 2750, op. 1, d. 140, 141: Oct. 29 and Nov. 9, 1931); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 858, l. 6. Initially permitted as an experiment, the play was terminated during rehearsals in spring 1932.

133. At a deeper level, the novel took up mythmaking, salvation through a woman, eternity versus the cut and thrust of the moment, an atheist turned into a believer, the urban environment as a character, and estrangement of the physical world—all hallmarks of Bulgakov’s work. Proffer, Bulgakov, 146. “I love this novel more than all my other writings,” Bulgakov observed in Oct. 1924 of White Guard. Brainina and Dmitrieva, Sovetskie pisateli, III: 86.

134. Rossiia, 1926, no. 4 and 5. A pirated Russian edition of the full novel appeared in Riga in 1927. A complete Russian version, corrected by Bulgakov, was published in Paris under the revised title: Dni Turbinykh (Belaia gvardiia), 2 vols. (Paris: Concorde, 1927). Proffer, Bulgakov, 137–9; Agursky, Third Rome, 305–17; Bulgakov, Early Plays, 86–8. The publisher of the journal Russia, Isai Altshuler, known as Lezhnev, emigrated to Estonia in 1926 and soon declared himself the official representative to sell the rights abroad of Bulgakov’s works, prompting the writer to issue a denial through TASS of any such right. Lyandres, “Russkii pisatel” (Jan. 9, 1928); “Teatral’nyi roman,” in Bulgakov, Izbrannaia proza, 518–41; Chudakova, “Arkhiv Bulgakova.”

135. Boris Vershilov, head of the Moscow Art Theater’s second studio, had sent Bulgakov a penciled note after reading White Guard asking him to render it into a play, which the writer did in four months. Curtis, Manuscripts Don’t Burn, 62. It had premiered on Oct. 5, 1926. Gorchakov, Istoriia Sovetskogo teatra, 132–5; Gorchakov, Theater in Soviet Russia. How the play had gotten approved stumped Moscow cultural circles. Lunacharsky was ordered to open it in a private phone call from Stalin, a fact kept secret. Lunacharsky Moskovskie novosti, April 25, 1993; APRF, f. 3, op. 34, d. 240, l. 2; d. 239, l. 23; Sarnov, Stalin i pisateli, II: 421–2; Krylov, Puti razvitiia teatra, 232;” Lunacharskii, “Pervye novinki sezona,” Izvestiia, Oct. 1926, reprinted in Lunacharskii, Sobranie sochinenii, III: 325–31; Gorchakov, Istoriia Sovetskogo teatra, 133. Gorchakov, Theater in Soviet Russia, 185–7.

136. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 68, 82, 86–8, 742n2. See also Pravda, Feb. 9, 1930 (Kerzhentsev).

137. “‘Polozhenie ego deistvitel’no bezyskhodnoe’: 110–4 (APRF, f. 3, op. 1, d. 241, l. 69–80: Kerzhentsev, Jan. 6, 1929), 114 (l. 83: Voroshilov to Stalin, Jan. 29), 115 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 724, l. 5: Jan. 30); Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 91–6, 99, 100; Proffer, Bulgakov, 275–87.