Stalin

346. In 1935, the average monthly salary in industry was 194 rubles; in state administration, 212; in management of the economy, 293; but 750 for the Literary Fund director; 500 for his deputy; and 300 for a secretary of the directorate. In time, when bona fide writers were unable to work, the Literary Fund awarded them significant monthly sums (200 to 600 rubles, to a total of 3,000 to 6,000 per year). The USSR also established an administration for the protection of authors’ rights, for writers and composers, covering the live stage, cinema, clubs, traveling and restaurant performances. But these were done at the republic level, and sometimes the author of a work in the RSFSR found that work re-used without compensation in a different Union republic. Tolstoi and Vishnevskii, “Ob avtorskom prave,” 3.

347. Babichenko, Literaturnyi front, 16–20 at 18: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 257, l. 14–9: Aug. 29, 1936), 23–5 (at 24: d. 304, l. 171–5). The Literary Fund lobbied to build at least eighty dachas at state expense, and got permission for thirty. Writers watched over the construction, often a full-time job because of insider theft of scarce construction materials, not to mention shoddy workmanship. Sartakova, “Nash pisatel’skii les,” 24.

348. Wells was under the spell of Roosevelt’s New Deal and now envisioned a collectivist world-state, with the United States and the USSR converging—if only Stalin would give up Marx. Stalin dismissed Wells’s technocratic enthusiasms, insisting that only classes could make history and that the technical intelligentsia was a mere stratum. For Stalin, any New Deal–Five-Year Plan convergence was a non-starter, and so was the concept of general humanity (“I do not believe in the goodness of the bourgeoisie”). But Stalin also denied capitalism was in its death throes. “It seems to me that I am more to the Left than you, Mr. Stalin,” Wells, twelve years Stalin’s senior, interjected. New Statesman and Nation, Oct. 27, 1934. Wells received a copy of the transcript Stalin had already edited. Wells, as president of the PEN club, added a delicate reference as to whether freedom of thought was possible in the USSR, to which Stalin replied it already existed: Bolshevik “self-criticism.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 3151, l. 1–23; Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 495 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 742, l. 99–104 Sept. 24, 1934), 496n5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 3151, l. 2–3). Stalin had the edited interview published in the party journal, but not in a mass circulation newspaper. Bol’shevik, 1934, no. 17: 8–18. In the United Kingdom, two prominent public figures jumped on Wells for the interview, George Bernard Shaw (not enough praise of Stalin) and John Maynard Keynes (too much praise of a demagogue): Stalin-Wells Talk: Verbatim Record and Discussion (London: The New Statesman and Nation, 1934). See also Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, 683–702; Cowley, “Interview with Stalin”; Taunton, “Russia and the British Intellectuals,” 209–24; and Lel’chuk, “Beseda I. V. Stalina s angliiskim pisatelem G. Uellsom,” 326–52. Wells correctly recalled his interpreter as Konstantin Umansky; Stalin’s logbook has N. M. Goloded (a government official in Soviet Belorussia). Na prieme, 138.

349. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 792, l. 121–46 (at 121: Nov. 9, 1934).

350. “I accompanied Stalin on his trips to the south, I spent a lot of time with him, we always ate meals together, and practically all his free time he spent with us,” Vlasik would recall. “I mean myself and his secretary Poskryobyshev. In Moscow I saw him far less. I accompanied him on his trips around the city, to the theater, the cinema.” Loginov, Teni Stalina, 106.

351. “O nekotorych voprosakh istorii bol’shevizma,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, 1931, no. 6: 3–21 (Oct. 26, 1931); Pikhoia, I. V. Stalin, 128–37 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 2983, l. 1–15). Sochineniia, XII: 84–102. See also Slutskii, “Bol’sheviki o germanskoi sotsial-demokratii”; Dunaevskii, “Bol’sheviki i germanskie levye na mezhdunarodnoi arene,” 504–6 (citing a letter from Slutsky, June 9, 1964); Barber, “Stalin’s Letter to the Editors of Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya,” 39–41; and Tucker, “The Rise of Stalin’s Personality Cult,” 355–8.

352. Enteen, “Marxist Historians During the Cultural Revolution”; Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 189–91 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 255, l. 179–82). Popov, Ocherk istorii.

353. “History at long last has been restored” to schools, Andrei Bubnov, the enlightenment commissar, had remarked at the Communist Academy (March 13, 1934). “Peter was Peter, Catherine was Catherine . . . We must give an impression of the epoch, about the events that took place at that time, who ruled, what sort of government there was, what sort of policies were carried out, and how events transpired.” Brandenberger and Dubrovsky, “‘The People Need a Tsar,’” 874 (citing Arkhiv RAN, f. 350, op. 1, d. 905, l. 1–3ob.); Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, 32–3. See also Pikhoia, I. V. Stalin, 186 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 163, d. 1013, l. 4: March 3, 1934). History education was reintroduced as a separate subject in schools, and meant to displace the study of Engels’s Anti-Dühring or Dialectics of Nature. Scott, Behind the Urals, 45.

354. The meeting took place March 20, 1934. Litvin, Bez pravo na mysl’, 55–7 (quoting the unpublished diary of Sergei A. Piontkovsky). D. Osipov in Pravda (April 5, 1934), lambasted schemata without facts as “skeletons in the schools.” See also Pravda and Izvestiya, May 16, 1934: 1; Spravochnik partiinogo rabotnika, IX: 137; Suny, Structure of Soviet History, 229.

355. For example: Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 12–5 (April 7, 1934).

356. Farnsworth, “Conversing with Stalin,” 961 (Kollontai diary, summer 1934: RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 749, l. 105).

357. “Iurii Zhdanov, vtoroi muzh docheri ‘otsa narodov’: ia znal Stalina s 15 let,” Komsmol’skaia pravda, Jan. 10, 2007.

358. Rybin, Stalin v oktiabre, 9. Kirov had been in Stalin’s office July 25, 26, and 27: Na prieme, 138.

359. Similarly, Kirov complained in a letter to a minion in Leningrad, “By the whim of fate I’ve ended up in Sochi, and I’m unhappy about it. The heat here is not tropical but hellish.” Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 141 (citing Kirov Museum, f. III-414), 324–8 (TsPA, f. 80, op. 26, d. 68, l. 1, 4–4, ob. 7).

360. Andreev, Vospominaniia, pis’ma, 294.

361. Stalin also noted that foreign currency had to be conserved. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 462 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 84, l. 20–20ob.).

362. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 455 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 61–6), 465 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 84, l. 23–23ob.), 473–6 (d. 742, l. 75–84). Stalin demanded additional grain levies from the harvest, in the form of purchases (zakupki) at low prices, beyond the obligatory quotas. But grain exports in 1934 were a mere 800,000 tons, less than half the much reduced 1933 amount. Baykov, Soviet Foreign Trade, appendix, table IV. The NKVD was ordered to take charge of grain elevators and grain collection points as of July 27, 1934.

363. RGASPI, f. 558 op. 1, d. 3155; Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 245–9 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 419, l. 55–7: Goloshchokin, Aug. 4, 1933); Kirilina, Neizvestny Kirov, 328 (LPA, f. 24, op. 2–v, d. 936, l. 94: Sveshnikov to Agranov, Dec. 16, 1934), 331–2 (RGASPI, f. 80, op. 18, d, 67, l. 67–9; d. 137, l. 1–2). Kirov was in Kazkahstan Sept. 6–29. Pazi, Nash Mironych, 449.

364. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 479 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 85, l. 44–5: Sept. 12, 1934), 479–80 (f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 76–82: to Kaganovich, Zhdanov, Molotov, Kuibyshev—but not Kirov, Sept. 13).

365. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei, 687–96. See also Struve, “Pan-Soviet Literary Congress.” Garrard, Inside the Soviet Writers’ Union.

366. Antipina, Povsednevnaia zhizn’, 27.

367. Maksimenkov, “Ocherki nomenklaturnoi istorii sovetskoi literatury,” 247 (Pavel Yudin, Aug. 15, 1934).

368. “K 40-letiiu Pervogo vsesoiuznogo s”ezda,” Voprosy literatury, 1974, no. 8: at 14 (Valery Kirpotin).

369. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei, 1, 5–18. One bitter witness would recall that Gorky just stopped reading his own text partway through. Kochin, Spelye kolos’ia, 299. See also Baranov, “‘Nado prekoslovit!’”

370. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei, 20–38, 291–318, 416–20.

371. Kuz’min, Dnevnik 1934 g., 95 (Aug. 30, 1934).

372. Zhdanov thought that party-member writers spoke less brightly than the non-party, and noted to Stalin that Gorky thought the party-member writers had no authority whatsoever in the writers’ milieu. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 230–1 (RGASPI, f. 77, op. 3, d. 112, l. 2–8).

373. Babel added: “Since everything is done artificially, under the stick, the congress is proceeding deathlike, like a tsar’s parade, and no one abroad will believe in this tsar’s parade.” Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 232–4 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 1, d. 56, l. 185–89). The non-party loyalist Ilya Ehrenburg would later deem the gathering “a great and marvelous festival.” Ehrenburg, Men, Years—Life, IV: 40. Rozhkov, who was not a delegate to the congress, published an essay collection on the value of romanticism right at this time: Nuzhna li nam romantika? (Moscow: Sovetskaia literatura, 1934). Stalin evidently took an interest in Rozhkov’s ideas. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 412–3 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 793, l. 95: Radek to Poskryobyshev, April 10, 1936).

374. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei, 74–103; Zhgenti, “S”ezd velikogo edineniia,” 53; Fleishman, Pasternak v tridtsatye gody, 201–2. Toroshelidze’s report was published in the press the next day with a front-page photograph of the Georgian delegation accompanied by Pasternak (known for his translations from Georgian). Literaturnaia gazeta, Aug. 21, 1934. One scholar has asserted that, as a minority, “Ukrainian writers lost more than their Russian colleagues.” Luckyj, Literary Politics, 203.

375. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei, 286–7 (as translated by Olyesha).

376. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 232–4 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 1, d. 56, l. 185–89). Kirilenko served as the secretary to Petrovsky, head of the central executive committee in Soviet Ukraine.

377. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 223–6 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 1, d. 56, l. 125–32), 226 (l. 150), 227–8 (l. 160–3), 229 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 950, l. 40).

378. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 447 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 83, l. 122–122ob.). Attendees’ national composition was registered as follows: 201 Russians, 113 Jews, 28 Georgians, 25 Ukrainians, 19 Armenians, 19 Tatars, 17 Belorussians, and 12 Uzbeks (43 other nationalities were represented by fewer than 10 and in some cases just one person). The politburo strongly criticized the party organizations in Bashkiria, Buryat-Mongolia, Yakutia, and the German region in the Volga for sending ill-chosen delegates and not overseeing the speeches. Gatagova et al., TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i natsional’nyi vopros, II: 75 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 951, l. 8: Aug. 28, 1934).

379. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 83, l. 156–7.

380. Antipina, Pvsednevnaia zhizn’, 43–4; Osokina, Za fasadom, 113.

381. “Many members of our government attended,” recalled Valentina Khodasevich, principal designer of the storied Leningrad (formerly Mariinsky) Theater of Opera and Ballet. “Supper, served in the dining room, was very lively and interesting. People made speeches. Aleksei Maximovich asked that I sit next to Malraux, since I speak French, to entertain him and translate . . . [Louis] Aragon, Elsa Triolet, the Spanish writer Mara-Teresa Léon and many others spoke very well.” Khodasevich, Portrety slovami, 280–1.

382. Pravda, June 19, 1934; Katsman, “Cheliuskin”; Groza and Dubenskii, Slavnym zavoevateliam Artiki.

383. Radio was still mostly live at this time, and arrests followed “accidental” announcements (e.g., mentioning that there had been a famine in 1933), but sometimes the utterances were deliberate: the announcer of the ceremony on Red Square for the Chelyuskin rescuers signed off, “The comedy is over.” (He turned out to have noble descent and a relative arrested by the OGPU.) Goriaeva, Radio Rossii, 158. See also Bollinger, Stalin’s Slave Ships, 65–71; McCannon, Red Arctic, 61–8; The Cheliuskin Odyssey (1934).

384. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei, 4–5. Pavel Yudin and Alexander Fadeyev authored “On Socialist Realism,” which had been approved by the Central Committee and published in Pravda (May 8), on what was thought to be the eve of the congress. See also Kemp-Welch, Stalin and the Literary Intelligentsia, 177. The literary section of the institute of philosophy, at the Communist Academy, would mount what ended up to be a debate about socialist realism on Dec. 20 and 28, 1934, and Jan. 3, 1935, prompted by a draft encyclopedia article on the novel by a Hungarian-born Germanophone intellectual, György Lukács (b. 1885), a Hegel devotee who had once been expelled from the Hungarian Communist party for the heresy of advocating alliances with non-proletariat forces in democratic settings, and lived in Moscow, for a time editing Marx’s German-language notebooks and manuscripts at the Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin. Lukács cast the novel as both pure avatar of bourgeois culture and capitalist modernity and as temporary displacement of the grand epic tradition, but the proletariat’s rise forced the creation of a “positive hero,” the “conscious worker,” who overcame the “degradation of man” and forced the novel back into the arms of the epic. Socialist realism—thanks to this class analysis contortion—became an instrument for a supposedly genuine world literature. “Problemy teorii romana: doklad G. Lukacha,” Literaturnyi kritik, 1935, no. 2: 214–49, and “Pravlennaia stenogramma diskusii po dokladu G. Lukacha,” Literaturnyi kritik, 1935, no. 3: 231–54; Clark, Moscow, 163–5; Tikhanov, Master and the Slave, 112–28; Lukach, “Roman kak burzhuaznaia eopopeia,” IX: 795–832; Szikalai, After the Revolution; Gurvich, “Vtoroe rozhdenie,” 347–8.

385. Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei, 464–6 (Aug. 28). Zarkhi (b. 1900) died July 17, 1935.

386. Katerina Clark presents “Soviet socialist realism as a canonical doctrine defined by its patristic texts,” and offers an “official short list of model novels.” For Boris Groys, socialist realism just signifies “the art of the Stalin period.” Evgeny Dobrenko calls socialist realism “the USSR’s most successful industry . . . a machine for distilling Soviet reality into socialism.” Clark, Soviet Novel, 3, appendix B; Groys, Total Art of Stalinism, 72; Dobrenko, Political Economy of Socialist Realism, 5–6.

387. Jelagin, Taming of the Arts, 42–3. Jelagin was himself class enemy, like his stand-partner, “Count” Sheremetyev. See also Smrž, Symphonic Stalinism.

388. Matthew Cullerne Bown, Socialist Realist Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 87, 109. As Bown notes, there is scant information on Stalin’s views on painting (184). Bown rehabilitates socialist realist visual art by arguing that avant-garde artists changed their style voluntarily in order to make their work widely accessible, a goal they passionately wanted to achieve. Margarita Tupitsyn’s work on photography—which the authorities did not consider an art form, and therefore for which no union was established—also argues that the Soviet version of the avant-garde aesthetic project was about mass media, such as the photograph in a mass-produced journal, and mass culture. Christina Kiaer, in her work on Alexaander Deneika, attempts to show how socialist realism was avant-garde. These works follow from Boris Groys’s provocation. Tupitsyn, Soviet Photograph; Kiaer, “Was Socialist Realism Forced Labor?,” 45; Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions. See also Susan Reid, “Socialist Realism in the Stalinist Terror”; Reid, “In the Name of the People,” 716; and Johnson, “Alternative Histories of Soviet Visual Culture.” Stalin had become the subject of oil paintings in 1928, 1931, and 1932 by the Leningrad-based artist Isaac Brodsky (b. 1883), who depicted him in exaggerated size, with an iconic copy of Pravda on the desk. In 1934, Brodsky became the first painter to receive the Order of Lenin. That same year Alexander Gerasimov (b. 1881), a traditional realist before the revolution (when he opposed the avant-garde) and a Red Army veteran of the civil war, completed his Stalin Gives His Report to the 17th Party Congress. Gersaimov, too, favored a larger-than-life heroic realism. Pravda, April 10, 1934, and Feb. 6, 1935. Mikhail Avilov painted The Arrival of Comrade Stalin at the First Cavalry in 1919 for the 1933 exhibition “15 Years of the Red Army.” Pravda, Aug. 13, 1933. Yevgeny Katsman recorded Stalin’s reaction to the exhibition: “Next to Nikonov’s picture, Stalin said, when looking at Kolchak with a revolver in his hand, ‘he wants to shoot himself.’ . . . When we got to Avilov, Stalin saw himself painted, laughed and immediately turned his eyes to other works. Then back to Avilov, and he examined himself longer.” Plamper, Stalin Cult, 136–7 (citing RGALI, f. 2368, op. 2, d. 36, l. 12–3).

389. The sales were carried out by the foreign trade commissariat, which had no expertise in art treasures and formed a state company, Antiquariat. Some of the paintings that were sold, along with icons, furniture, jewelry, and antiquarian books, came from museum collections, but many were looted from the public or churches. The first paintings sold were bartered for oil (in 1930). Andrew Mellon, the U.S. secretary of the treasury, purchased twenty-one of the paintings in 1931, for $6.65 million; one painting alone sold for $1.166 million, then the largest amount ever paid. “‘Nuzhen li nam ermitazh’,” 106–10 (APRF, f. 3, op. 42, d. 141, I ll.89–90, 94–95ob.); Stetsky to Kaganovich; 94–95ob.: Lergan to Stalina); Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 179 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 12, l. 183); Odom and Salmond, Treasures into Tractors. Mellon would donate the art in 1937 to the U.S. government in Washington, where they would form the basis of the National Gallery. The Metropolitan Museum of Art bought some. Stetsky wrote to Kaganovich (Oct. 23, 1933) that the secretive process had resulted in rumors of a firesale, lowering prices, and that the Hermitage Museum had sunk from third-ranked in the world to perhaps seventeenth. The politburo resolved to terminate the sales on Nov. 15, 1933. Ilin and Semenova, Prodannye Sokrovisha Rossii. Hermitage deputy director Iosif Orbeli soon replaced his boss (Legran), who had complied with the sales as mandated by the regime. Megrelidze, Iosif Orbeli; Iubashian, Akademik Iosif Orbeli.

390. Bown, Socialist Realist Painting, 87, 109.

391. Mindlin, Neobyknovennye sobesedniki, 429.

392. Conformism was rampant but with a culture this vast, various tendencies inevitably vied with each other. Schlögel, Terror und Traum, 30–1.

393. Stalin commented that he had liked Radek’s speech but not Gorky’s. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 461–2 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 84, l. 53; d. 50, l. 49), 465–6 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 84, l. 42–42ob.), 466n3 (f. 17, op. 3, d. 951, l. 28: Sept. 1, 1934).

394. Ponomarev, Aleksandr Shcherbakov, 18.

395. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 329–32 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1494, l. 13ob.–18ob.).

396. Chukovskii, Dnevnik, 140 (April 10, 1936).

397. Jelagin, Taming of the Arts, 114.

398. Mirskii, Istoriia russkoi literatury, 794.

399. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 340–1 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 730, l. 18–20, 17: Sept. 6, 1934). An abridged version of Bukharin’s speech to the congress was published in Pravda (Aug. 30, 1934); his closing speech was also published (Sept. 3). Gorky’s closing speech was likewise published in Pravda (Sept. 2). Zhdanov had written another report to Stalin on the Writers Congress, Sept. 3, 1934. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 332–8 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 730, l. 2–16).

400. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 236–8 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 951, l. 28–30).

401. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 238–50 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 1, d. 56, l. 70–93).

402. Ivanov-Razumnik, Neizdannyi Shchedrin; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 3, d. 231, s. 301–2; Gromov, Stalin, 161–2.

403. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 170–1 (APRF, f. 3, op. 34, d. 186, l. 213–5: March 1932).

404. Jelagin, Taming of the Arts, 73.

405. Bykov, Boris Pasternak, 491.

406. For an analysis of the reader under the Stalin dictatorship, see Dobrenko, Formovka Sovetskogo chitatelia.

407. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 338–40 (RGASPI, f. 58, op. 11, d. 729, l. 52–65: Sept. 5, 1934). The Sukharyov Tower in Moscow had also been demolished, despite vehement opposition from scholars. “We cannot deal with a single decrepit little church without a protest being delivered,” Kaganovich complained. “K istorii snosa Sukharevskoi bashni,” 109–16.

CHAPTER 4. TERRORISM

1. The other task: “The mood of the masses regarding the revolutionary movement in Spain.” Kozlova, Sovetskie liudi, 232 (citing the Memorial archive, TsDNA, f. 30, d. 12, l. 64–5: Stepan Polubny, b. 1914).

2. Zolotarev et al., Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina 1941–1945 gg., I: 9; Grechko et al., Istoriia Vtoroi mirovoi voiny, I: 214; Kirshner and Novikov, Kanun i nachalo voiny, 29; Mel’tiukhov, Upushchennyi shans Stalina, 358.

3. Włodarkiewicz, Przed 17 wrzśenia 1939 roku, 132; Habeck, Storm of Steel, 214–5 (citing RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 51: “Stenograficheskii otchet zasedanie Voennogo Soveta pri NKO Soiuza SSR 10–12 dekabria 1934 g.: ob itogakh boevoi podgotovki 1934 i zadachakh na 1935 g.”).

4. E.g.: Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 477 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 72–5: Sept. 6), 479 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 85, l. 44–5: Sept. 12), 479–80 (f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 76–82: Sept. 13), 483–4 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 742, l. 85–9: Sept. 16).

5. By late July 1934, Stalin had shaved the list of Soviet conditions for joining the League of Nations down to a mere seat on its Council. Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 313 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 16, l. 119); DVP SSSR, XVII: 479 (Litvinov to Rosenberg, July 14, 1934); DDF, 1e série, VII: 5 (Barthou to Payart, July 27, 1934).

6. Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 59.

7. Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 315–6 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 17, l. 49); RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 85, l. 26, 31–32ob.

8. The invitation was portrayed as coming from France, just as the Soviets had insisted. Poland demanded that Moscow declare that all bilateral agreements with Warsaw remained inviolable. Dokumenty i materialy po istorii sovetsko-pol’skikh otnoshenii, VI: 220–1, 225; DDF, 1e série, VII: 406–7; Beck, Final Report, 65; Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 483 (RGASPI, f. 558, p. 11, d. 85, l. 48, 61: Sept. 16). Thirty-nine member countries voted yes, three voted no (Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland), and seven abstained.

9. Haslam, “Soviet-German Relations,” 789, citing Sotsialistichekii vestnik, Jan. 25, 1934, and Kommunisticheskaia revoliutsiia, 1934, no. 8: 43–4.

10. Back on Nov. 5, 1927, Stalin had told a delegation of foreign workers that “the Soviet Union is not prepared to become a part of that camouflage for imperialist machinations represented by the League of Nations. The League is a ‘house of assignations’ for the imperialists who arrange their business there behind the scenes.” Sochineniia, X: 206–7 Carr, Twilight of the Comintern, 104–16; Izvestiia, Jan. 4, 1934.

11. Pravda, Sept. 17 and 20, 1934; DVP SSSR, XVII: 589; DDF, 1e série, VI: 683–4. Left unsaid was that Geneva would be a gold mine of information: more than 600 people worked at the League, of varied nationalities, and many were willing to talk to the builders of a new socialist world. Zhukovskaia, “SSSR i liga natsii.”

12. DVP SSSR, XVII: 606 (Litvinov on Beck, Sept. 22, 1934), 608 (Litvinov on Bartou, Sept. 25); Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 318 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 17, l. 17: Sept. 23), 318–9 (l. 75–6: Nov. 2, 1934); DDF, 1e série, VII: 254–5.

13. Milićević, King Dies in Marseilles; Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres, II: 21–7. On the supposed involvement of Nazi Germany, see Thorndike et al., Unternehmen Teutonenschwert, 21–43; Volkov, Operatsiia “Tevtonskii mech”; and Volkov, Germano-iugoslavskie otnosheniia, 64.

14. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 86, l. 89, 26. Voroshilov received a secret intelligence brief (Oct. 23, 1934) remarking on the increasing closeness of Japan, Poland, Finland, and Latvia to Nazi Germany. “War,” the analysts wrote, “might not happen for several years and at the same time it could break out quickly and unexpectedly.” P. N. Bobylev et al., Voennyi sovet pri narodnom komissare oborony SSSR, dekabr’ 1934 g., 5 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 14, d. 1136, l. 90–5).

15. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov and Stalin, 18–22 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 73, d. 1, l. 4–7; f. 558, op. 1, d. 3162, l. 1–2: Oct. 25, 1934); Leibzon and Shirina, Povorot v politike Kominterna, 97 (TsPA pri TsK na VKP [Sofia], f. 146, op. 4, d. 639, l. 7–8).

16. Multiday discussions took place (Dec. 9–19, 1934) in the Comintern. Carr, Twilight of the Comintern, 144–5, citing Thorez, Fils du peuple (Paris: Éditions sociales, 1960), 102.

17. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 566 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 246, l. 1: Sept. 2, 1934); Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 70; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 17, l. 31; Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 19, 58–66.

18. Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 229–30 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 17, l. 74, 80, 82, 86; GARF, f. R-5446, op. 27, d. 73, l. 3); Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 511 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 86, l. 41: Oct. 9, 1934; l. 23: Oct. 9), 512 (l. 55: Oct. 10).

19. Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 226–8 (citing APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 72, l. 180–7, 253–4; RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 80, l. 4, 33–40, 91; f. 17, op. 162, d. 17, l. 2–3, 42, 57, op. 163, d. 1046, l. 21–3; GARF, f. R-5446, op. 27, d. 81, l. 428–9); Viktorov, Bez grifa “sekretno,” 139–40; Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 130–4. With the kulak crushed, Kaganovich had explained to the Moscow party organization (Sept. 21, 1934), it was necessary “to conduct our measures, repressions, the struggle with enemies within the law . . . educating our population within the frame of socialist legal consciousness.” Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 222 (RGASPI, f. 87, op. 3, d. 164, l. 39).

20. “Reconciliation inside the party could not have appealed to him,” Tucker surmised of Stalin at this time. Tucker, Stalin in Power, 243.

21. Whereas the OGPU had made 505,000 arrests in 1933, including 283,000 for counterrevolution, in 1934 the OGPU-NKVD would make 205,000, including 90,000 for counterrevolution. Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 229 (GARF, f. R-9401, op. 1, d. 4157, l. 202); Werth and Mironenko, Istoriia stalinskogo gulaga, I: 609; Khlevniuk, Master of the House, 123.

22. As an overstated U.S. headline, which was translated for the internally circulated regime summaries of the foreign press, had it, “Red Russia was becoming pink.” Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 106 (Baltimore Sun). Utyosov (who had been born Lazar Weisbein) discovered jazz on a trip to Paris.

23. Stalin’s first post-holiday meeting is recorded as Oct. 31. Na prieme, 139.

24. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 288–9.

25. Dullin, Men of Influence, 97 (citing AVP RF, f. 05, op. 14, d. 103, l. 117); Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 318–9 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 17, l. 75–6). In Nov. 1934, the regime belatedly created a training institute inside the foreign affairs commissariat.

26. Medvedev, Let History Judge, 587.

27. On Nov. 3, 1934, Stalin repaired to his Kremlin apartment after meetings in his office until 8:30 p.m. On Nov. 4, he had late supper at his Kremlin apartment with Kaganovich and Zhdanov. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 158–9 (Svanidze diary: Nov. 4, 1934); Na prieme, 139–40. Rybin, Stalin v oktiabre, 9; See also Barmine, One Who Survived, 268.

28. Sergeev and Glushik, Besedy o Staline, 108.

29. Stalin would also be rumored to be having Kremlin rendezvous with the Bolshoi soprano Valeria Barsova [Vladimirova] and the mezzo-soprano Vera Davidova, who many years later would assert that Stalin had wanted her to be his “housekeeper.” Kun, Stalin, 222.

30. Gromov, Stalin, 63.

31. Shumyatsky had replaced the Stalin critic Ryutin, who had been shunted over to the then backwater film industry for a time. Kepley Jr., “The First Perestroika.” Shumyatsky compiled notes of his notes on his film showings at the Kremlin from May 1934 through Jan. 26, 1937. In summer 1935, in Shumyatsky’s absence, Ia. Chuzin, his deputy, made notes. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 919–1053. The first Soviet sound film, Putevka v zhzin’, by N. V. Ekka, had premiered in June 1931. Shumiatskii, Kinematografiia millionov, 121; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 892, l. 93; Christie, “Making Sense of Early Soviet Sound,” 176–92; Kul’turnaia zhizn’ v SSSR, 1928–1941, 184, 199, 255.

32. Mar’iamov, Kremlevskii tsenzor, 9.

33. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 144–5.

34. Late into the 1930s, all Soviet sound films were released in silent versions, too, for many movie projectors still lacked audio equipment. Bulgakova, Sovetskii slukhoglaz, 98.

35. Stalin first saw Chapayev on Nov. 4, 1934; an anxious Shumyatsky had asked Stalin’s permission to summon the directors, the brothers Sergei and Georgy Vasilyev, to help answer questions. Stalin would watch Chapayev again and again that month (the viewing on Nov. 8–9 lasted until 3:51 a.m.). Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 949–51 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 828, l. 56). On the arguments between the Vasilyev brothers and the actor who played Chapayev, Boris Babochkin (b. 1904) of the Leningrad Drama Theater, see Babochkin, Litso Sovetskogo kinoaktera.

36. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 959–61 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 828, l. 63–63ob.). Stalin invited Budu Mdvinai, with whom he had clashed in the 1920s over Georgian affairs, to the screening that evening.

37. Pravda, Nov. 3, 1934 (S. S. Dinamov); Izvestiia, Nov. 10 (Kh. N. Khersonsky). Stalin directed Shumyatsky to work more closely with Mekhlis; on Nov. 20, the dictator again phoned Mekhlis directly from a screening, which resulted in “The Whole Country Is Watching Chapayev” (Pravda, Nov. 21, 1934). Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 969–70 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 828, l. 69–69ob.: Nov. 20, 1934). See also Brooks, “Thank You, Comrade Stalin!,” 59–60.

38. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 961–7 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 828, l. 64–6).

39. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 160–2 (Nov. 14 and 26). See also Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 138.

40. Bullard and Bullard, Inside Stalin’s Russia, 243; Rosliakov, Ubiistvo, 68–70.

41. Rosliakov, Ubiistvo, 70–1; Kokurin and Petrov, Lubianka, 49. Medved had served as OGPU boss in the Soviet Far East (1926–1929) before his transfer to Leningrad in Jan. 1930. Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 295.

42. Viktorov, Bez grifa “Sekretnosti,” 140 (Stalin to Kuibyshev and Zhdanov). At the May 2, 1934, Kremlin reception, when Voroshilov observed “from the Chekists no one has come. Neither Yagoda nor anyone else,” Stalin responded, “Yesterday I somewhat offended them. They arrested people for nothing.” Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 18 (May 2, 1934).

43. In Medved’s case, Yagoda singled out lapses in reconnoitering the Finnish frontier (permitting spies and saboteurs to cross), grain procurements, and the struggle against factory sabotage. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 372–4 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 9, l. 243–5); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 569–71.

44. Rosliakov, Ubiistvo, 68. On Aug. 16, 1934, Stalin had Zinoviev sacked from the journal Bolshevik, as a scapegoat for controversy related to writings of Engels. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 716–7 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 950, l. 87–9), 419 (f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 43–6), 428–9 (f. 558, op. 1, d. 742, l. 15–20), 439–40 (f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 154–60); Tucker, “The Emergence of Stalin’s Foreign Policy,” 564–5. Zinoviev’s sacking spurred an NKVD move to arrest fourteen ex-Zinovievites in Leningrad, but Kirov, according to Medved, overruled the operation as counter to Stalin’s recent stress on “socialist legality.” Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 473; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 146 (citing RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 62, l. 62–76: Fomin deposition, 1956). On Kirov’s continuing confidence in Medved in 1934, see Rosliakov, Ubiistvo, 71. Sveshnikov, interviewed in 1960 and 1964, recalled tensions in 1934 between Kirov and Medved. Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 146–7 (citing RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 73, l. 102); V. K. Zavalishin, “Vokrug ubiistva Kirova,” Boris I. Nicolaevsky Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, series 236, box 411, file I: 1–55.

45. Markus had taken charge of a clinic (Bolshaya Podyacheskaya, no. 30) for patients with syphilis, mostly prostitutes, whom she strove to reeducate by forcing them to attend political meetings and read about exemplary Bolsheviks. She took the tram to work, dressed simply, and wore no makeup, but two students she had recruited pimped the prostitutes at a nearby bar, causing a scandal. The difficult hospital environment was thought to have exacerbated her health problems and she resigned. Chudov arranged for one of Markus’s sisters, a doctor, to come stay with her in Tolmachevo. Lebina, Povsedevnaia zhizn’, 95–6; Lebina and Shkarovskii, Prostitutsiia v Peterburge, 148–9; Kirilina, Neizvestny Kirov, 324, 405–6 (recollections of Danil Shamko, Feb. 11, 1965). Markus was officially listed as born 1885—Kirov was born in 1886—but she seems to have been at least three to four years older than him. Zen’kovich, Samye sekretnye rodsvtvenniki, 184–5.

46. Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 37–8.

47. Kirov’s office had been on the long part of the L-shaped corridor, closer to the main stairway, but was moved to the short part. Deviatov et al., “Gibel’ Kirova,” 59; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 125–6, 403–9 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 80, l. 137–9: Gubin to Mironov, Jan. 7, 1935; d. 13, l. 1–18: Pelshe report). Lenoe gives a figure of fifteen guards, citing Pelshe; Deviatov gives a figure of twelve (through Feb. 1934). While in Leningrad, Stalin chose not to stay at Kirov’s place—a building with some 250 apartments—but in a detached house, which prompted Medved to have subordinates scope out a possible detached house as a more secure residence for Kirov. Kirov resisted any move. Rosliakov, Ubiistvo, 37; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 407–8 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 13, l. 279–81, 288–95ob.).

48. Sept. 28–Oct. 8, 1934, the Mongol party had held its first congress since the New Course. Batbayar, “Stalin’s Strategy in Mongolia.”

49. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 13, l. 1–24. Stalin noted that when property was collective, enrichment signified raising the general well-being; under private property, enrichment meant exploitation by some of others. But Mongolia was a “bourgeois-democratic republic,” even if “of a new type,” so there would be exploitation. “Allowing exploitation, you do not sympathize with it and support it but circumscribe it by means of taxes.” He advised that the better-off should be kept out of the party. Stalin edited the transcript of the conversation. See also “Sovety I. Stalina mongol’skomu premer’u,” Azia i Afrika segodnia, no. 6 (1991): 63–5.

50. Choibalsan belonged to the arrested Lhumbe’s circle, and was evidently incarcerated with the “Japanese spy group,” but soon he himself was torturing the other arrested Mongols on Moscow’s behalf. Okhtin, Moscow’s former envoy to Mongolia, wrote to Choibalsan absolving him of the Lhumbe association yet emphasizing that a lesson had been imparted. Roshchin, Politicheskaia istoriia Mongolii, 285–6, citing L. Bat-Ochir, Choibalsan: namtryn n’ balarkhaig todruulakhui (Ulan Bator: [n.p.], 1996), 105–7. Choibalsan studied for long periods in the USSR (April–Sept. 1933; Feb.–autumn 1934).

51. Khaustov, Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 594–7 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 188, l. 1–7: Jan. 5, 1935). On April 17, 1935, Stalin received a secret report via an agent in New York about a possible U.S.-Japan pact of nonaggression (661–2: l. 71–3).

52. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 14, l. 1–8. The Mongols were in the Soviet Union Oct. 21–Dec. 2, 1934. On Nov. 24, 1934, Molotov hosted a diplomatic luncheon for them: Stalin, Voroshilov, and, Mikoyan attended. Gol’man and Slesarchuk ; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 351, l. 66.

53. Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 342–3.

54. A letter from the Mongol leadership in Ulan Bator (Dec. 20, 1934) to Stalin reported unanimous formal approval of the negotiations with the USSR (RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 15, l. 1–4).

55. Stalin had decided unilaterally to abolish rationing for bread in the new year while in Sochi in Oct. 1934. On Dec. 8 the regime finally published the much-rumored forthcoming decree. Malenkov wrote to Kaganovich (Dec. 21) about large numbers of workers at factories condemning the move, amid anger over wage arrears as well. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 513 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 83–7); Davies and Khlevniuk, “Otmena kartochnoi sistemy v SSSR”; Khlevniuk and Davies, “The End of Rationing in the Soviet Union, 1934–1935”; Kvashonkin, Sovetstskoe rukovodstvo, 302–3 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 255, l. 1).

56. Stalin added: “Money will circulate, money will become fashionable, which has not been the case here for a long time, and the money economy will strengthen.” RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 530, l. 79–98.

57. On Nov. 6, at dinner with Bagirov, Orjonikidze fell ill with high fever and chills. He returned to Tiflis to take part in the Revolution Day parade, but that night, at Beria’s apartment, he suffered stomach pains and intestinal bleeding. Four days later, he had heart palpitations. Several photos of Orjonikidze with Beria were published in the newspaper Beria controlled: Zaria Vostoka, Nov. 4, 18, and 27, 1934.

58. Rybin, Riadom so Stalinym, 10.

59. Kirilina, Rikochet, 38–9.

60. They lived at Bateinin St. 9/39, Vyborg Side. According to her party autobiography (June 1933), Draule was born in St. Petersburg gubernia of peasant parents; her supposedly landless father had moved there from the ethnic Latvian province, and Milda supposedly began tending the gentry family’s pigs and cows at age nine. Secret police files indicate her father managed an estate in Luga province and was well-off, making her a class enemy. Deviatov et al., “Gibel’ Kirova,” 60–1 (TsGA IPD St.P, f. 1051, op. 2, d. 6, l. 93; f. 1728, d. 698355, l. 10–12ob.: Olga Draule); Sukharnikova, “My nagnli takoi.”

61. Deviatov et al., “Gibel’, Kirova” 62.

62. Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 465; Kirilina, “Vstrely v Smol’nom,” 72; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 200–5 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 25, l. 39–43).

63. Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 247; Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 464; RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 112, l. 5; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 215–6 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 1, l. 10–53). Also in Aug. 1934, borrowing money, Milda had rented a dacha on the Gulf of Finland at Sestroretsk with the two children. Deviatov et al. have Kirov on holiday there at the same time, but Kirov was in Sochi with Stalin for all of Aug. Deviatov et al., “Gibel’ Kirova,” 62 (TsGA IPD ST.P, f. 1957, op. 2, d. 3754, l. 161).

64. Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 257; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 220–2 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 1, l. 65–74).

65. Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 398–9 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 13, l. 7–45: Klimov report on Nikolayev detentions, 1961). See also Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 43; and Barmine, One Who Survived, 252.

66. Deviatov et al., “Gibel’ Kirova” 57–8; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 183, 185, 191, 647, 664, 685. Nikolayev purchased bullets and practiced shooting at the city’s Dynamo sport society, run by the NKVD (perhaps the only place to get ammunition legally).

67. According to Draule’s testimony: Zhukov, “Sledstvie,” 40 (citing Yezhov archive materials).

68. Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 209, 227 (TsA FSB, a.u.d. N-Sh44, t. 12, l. 401–10: May 13, 1934); Zhukov, “Sledstvie,” 40; Kirilina, Neizvestny Kirov, 253.

69. Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost’, 1991, no. 2: 70–1; Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 466–7; Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 262; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 229–35 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 24, l. 24–32; d. 1, l. 65–74). “Dear Wife and School Brothers!” he wrote again, probably in late Oct. “I am dying for political convictions, on the basis of historical reality, without even a dollop of fear, or an iota of consolation . . . I must die since there is no freedom of agitation, the press, or voting, in life.” Zhukov, “Sledstvie,” 38; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 228 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 24, l. 24–32).

70. Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 258–9, 397; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 237–8, 242–3 (TsA FSB, a.u.d. N-Sh44, t. 12, l. 401–10).

71. Petukhov and Khomchik, “Delo o ‘Leningradskom tsentre,’” 17–8; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 245–6 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 1, l. 85). Leonid’s half-brother Pyotr had deserted from the Red Army and would be captured in a gunfight. Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 217–8, 247–8.

72. Deviatov et al., “Gibel’ Kirova,” 59 (citing TsGA IPD, f. 24, op. 2a, d. 30, l. 16–7: report by Alekhin, head of the NKVD operative department, to Zakovsky on Dec. 12, 1934). Smolny had had no pass system whatsoever through 1932; in 1933, its security was taken over by the secret police.

73. Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 408–9 (Nikolayev interrogation, Dec. 3, 1934).

74. Kirilina, Neizvestny Kirov, 211–4; Rosliakov, Ubiistvo Kirova, 40; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 150–1 (citing RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 73, l. 114–5: Sveshnikov interview). On rationing anxiety: Rimmel, “Another Kind of Fear”; Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 125–6.

75. Deviatov et al., “Gibel’ Kirova,” 60; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 162 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 80, l. 137–9: Gubin testimony, Jan. 7, 1935), 408–9 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 13, l. 252–62, 263–74, 279–81, 289–95pb.: Baskakov and Mikhalchenko, 1960–1); Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 494. Deviatov et al. have Borisov as head of Kirov’s bodyguards from Feb. 1, 1934.

76. Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 494. Borisov initially testified that he was twenty steps behind, but later that it was twenty to thirty. RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 113, l. 22 (Dec. 1, 1934); Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 209. Deviatov et al. write that Kirov’s traveling detail did not go inside the building, in violation of regulations. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 390–1 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 60, l. 47); Deviatov et al., “Gibel’ Kirova.”

77. Lebina, Povsednevnaia zhizn’, 216–8.

78. Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 408; RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 114, l. 81, 7.

79. Bravy, the commandant duty officer, on the basis of having heard the shot, placed two calls to NKVD headquarters. According to A. L. Molochnikov, chief of economic security in the Leningrad NKVD, who was at Liteiny, the first call was merely a summons of Medved; the second, seconds later, mentioned Kirov being shot. He judged that Fomin had also received a call, evidently placed by Mikhalchenko, Bravy’s superior as deputy commander of the Smolny guard. Zhukov, “Sledstvie,” 36; Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 159–60 (RGANI, f. 6. Op. 13, d. 71, l. 15–7: Molochnikov, Dec. 9), 164–6 (TsA FSB, a.u.d. N-Sh44, t. 24, l. 99–104: Mikalchenko, Dec.), 762–3n28 (RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 113, l. 72–3: Bravy).

80. Reabilitatsiia, kak eto bylo 490.

81. Bogen, chief of the Leningrad health department, who was on the third floor, arrived early to the scene, and found Kirov without a pulse. Dr. Maria Galperina, of the Smolny clinic, found Kirov already dead when she arrived (nonetheless she applied artificial respiration). Professors began arriving around 5:00 p.m.; Professor of Surgery Yustin Janelidze arrived last at 5:40 p.m., not long after which Kirov was finally pronounced dead. Rosliakov, Ubiistvo, 41–2; Kirilina, Neizvestny Kirov, 221–8; Koenker et al., Revelations, 74–5 (Sept. 9, 1965); Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 168–9.

82. Zhukov, “Sledstvie,” 36; Deviatov et al., “Gibel’ Kirova,” 58. Deviatov has the Draule interrogation taking place at Smolny; Zhukov, at NKVD HQ. The location is not specified on the protocol, which lists 16:45 as the start and 19:10 as the conclusion. The otherwise scrupulous Lenoe surmises that the interrogation commenced at 18:45, and a mix-up of 6 and 8 occurred in the record. He bases this unnecessary speculation on the brevity of the protocol, arguing that its length corresponds to a twenty-five-minute conversation. Of course, the NKVD interrogators included in “protocols” what they deemed important. A short text could have resulted from a conversation lasting 2 hours and 25 minutes. Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 176 (RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 114, l. 1–2).