Stalin

228. Peterson (b. 1897), an ethnic Latvian who had commanded Trotsky’s civil war train in 1919, since 1920 served as a punctilious Kremlin commandant, earning high praise and two Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin. Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 158 (citing AVKVS RF, op. 64, d. 776, l. 1–4); Zhukov, Inoi Stalin, 141–3.

229. “We were sitting together, Avdeyeva, Zhalybina-Bykova, and I on the first floor of the government building in a small room drinking tea,” one woman, E. S. Mishakova, testified. “Avdeyeva started to talk about how we lived badly, how our bosses drank, ate well, and we eat poorly. And I said to her that I live better now than before.” Then Avdeyeva supposedly started to say that Stalin was not a Russian, divorced his first wife [sic], and the second had shot herself. “I said that this is not true, we do not know. On this note the conversation ended and we returned to work.” For her part, A. E. Avdeyeva, a twenty-two-year-old cleaning lady in the central executive committee school, claimed “all that was said by [M. S.] Zhalybina.” Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 599–600 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 231, l. 1, 14).

230. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 84–5 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 8, l. 3). This was not Stalin’s first such appearance at a secret police meeting, sessions that were followed by generous tables of food and drink. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 22, 27.

231. “O tak-nazyvaemom dele ‘Moskovskogo tsentra,’” 70; Iakovlev et al., Reabilitatsiia: politicheskie protsessy, 155; Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 465.

232. Vasily Doroshin, a forty-year-old aide to the Kremlin commandant, was said to have testified that “the commandant of the Grand Kremlin Palace Lukyanov Ivan Petrovich told me on the second day after the death of N. A. Alliluyeva that the Kremlin commandant Peterson had gathered a group of comrades and announced that Alliluyeva had died an unnatural death.” Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 602–3 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 231, l. 22–6).

233. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 606–10 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 230, l. 67–75: E. K. Mukhanova testimony, Feb. 10). Another librarian, P. I. Gordeyeva, daughter of workers and herself a Communist Youth League member, testified (March 1) that after the official news about Kirov’s death, Kremlin library employees discussed how “the murder of Kirov was not political, but a result of personal revenge” (618–9: d. 232, l. 31–4).

234. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 610–2 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 231, l. 54–9: Feb. 10, 1935). See also Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 253.

235. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 604–6 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 231, l. 32–6: Feb. 7), 230 (d. 230, l. 67–75: Feb. 10).

236. Gosudarstvennaia okhrana Rossii, 49 (no citation).

237. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 617 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 231, l. 88).

238. “O tak nazyvaemon ‘Kremlevskom dele,’” 90–1.

239. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 961, l. 58 (March 31, 1935). See also Hoover Institution Archives, Nicoalevsky Collection, box 233, folder 9 (“Iz zapisonoi knizhki Boris Ivanovicha Nikolaevskogo [rasskazy A. F. Almazova]), 1–2.

240. Ivanov, “Operatsiia ‘Byvshie liudi,’” 118–9, 121, 129; Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 465–6.

241. Of the 11,095 he listed, 5,044 were said to be former “big” merchants and rentiers, 2,360 aristocrats, and nearly 1,000 family members of executed terrorists, spies, and saboteurs. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 613–6 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 174, l. 42–9: Feb. 16, 1935), 617 (l. 41).

242. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 613–6 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 174, l. 42–49: Zakovsky to Yagoda, Feb. 16, 1935), 617 (l. 41: Yagoda to Stalin, Feb. 26, 1935).

243. Various officials in Karelia, too, were arrested as “spies,” and at least 5,000 “kulak” families within a fifteen-mile radius of the Finnish border were evicted, and their livestock and possessions confiscated. Dmitriev, Pominal’nye spiski Karelii, 17. In Oct. 1935, Zakovsky opened an NKVD training school in Leningrad desperately seeking more personnel. Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 51.

244. Dubinskaia-Dzhalilova and Chernev, “Zhmu vashu ruku, dorogoi tovarishch,’” 188–9. Turbins had been approved for staging in Leningrad in 1933. In 1936, it would be permitted in Kiev. Milne, Mikhail Bulgakov, 168.

245. On Stalin’s fifteen visits, see V. Lakshin, preface to Bulgakov, Izbrannaia proza, 30. See also Jelagin, Taming of the Arts, 102–3; Shapoval, “‘Oni chuvstvuiut sebia, kak gosti . . . ,’” 107–8, 122; Smeliansky, Is Comrade Bulgakov Dead? 170–3; Shentalinskii, Raby svobody, 120. Between 1926 and 1941, the Moscow Art Theater would stage Turbins 987 times. Bulgakov, Dramy i komedii, 583.

246. Sergeev and Glushik, Besedy o Staline, 15.

247. Bulgakowa, Eisenstein, 168–72. Sixty-five films were submitted and twenty-six accepted. Kino, Feb. 2 and Feb. 21, 1935; Pravda, Feb. 22, 1935: 4. On Feb. 22, the state medals for cinema that had been announced in Jan. were presented by Kalinin in the Kremlin, with Stalin in attendance.

248. Pravda, Nov. 29, 1935.

249. Iasenskii, “O dvukh neudachnykh popytkakh.”

250. Mekhlis summoned the editors to Old Square (March 11), reading them the riot act; the next day’s editorial in Pravda was unsigned. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 996–7 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 829, l. 9–10: March 11, 1935); Fomin and Deriabin, Letopis’ Rossiiskogo kino, II: 325; Pravda, March 12, 1935.

251. Izvestiia, March 3, 1935; Kino, March 5, 1935; “K itogam pervogo sovetskogo kinofestivalia,” Sovetskoe kino, no. 3 (1935): 3–5. By now, Chapayev was being shown in New York on Broadway. “Sovetskie fil’my v N’iu-Iorke,” Pravda, March 2, 1935.

252. The Soviets produced almost no expressly antifascist movies, beyond Pyryev’s Assembly Line of Death (Nov. 7, 1933), set in an unspecified European country, which portrayed fascism as a movement aiming to restore capitalism in the Soviet Union.

253. Friedberg, Literary Translation in Russia, 115. See also Baer, “Literary Translation.” “The Style of Soviet Culture,” a Pravda article by a literary critic, put forth Balzac, Goethe, Shakespeare, and Lev Tolstoy for emulation. Pravda, April 29, 1935 (Dinamov, pen name of Sergei Ogladkov). (“Mayakovsky shot himself while I translate,” Pasternak supposedly remarked of his means of livelihood.)

254. “Bol’she’ shekspirovat’!” Literaturnaia gazeta, April 23, 1933. Translations included Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel (1929), Virgil’s Aeneid (1933), Homer’s Iliad (1935), and Homer’s Odyssey (1935).

255. Litovskii, “Korol’ Lir”; Harshav, Moscow Yiddish Theater, 90; Clark, Moscow, 189 (citing GARF, f. 5283, op. 8, d. 242). See also Fowler, “Yiddish Theater in Soviet Ukraine.”

256. Mikhoels, “Moia rabota nad ‘Korolem Lirom,’” 94–123. A Shakespeare conference (Nov. 25–27, 1935) sparked controversy about how best to translate and interpret the playwright. Pravda, Nov. 29, 1935; O. Litovskii, “Zhivoi Shekspir,” 7–8; Clark, Moscow, 184–5.

257. Lang, Modern History of Soviet Georgia, 253.

258. Lakoba, Ot VI k VII s”ezdu sovetov ASSR Abkhazia; Lakoba, “Sel’skoe khoziaistvo Abkhazii—baza Sovetskoi pishchevoi promyshlennosti,” Hoover Archives, Lakoba papers, 2–32. See also Kolt’sov and Lezhava, Sovetskie subtropiki.

259. Lakoba, “‘Ia Koba, a ty Lakoba,’” 58 (March 15, 1935).

260. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 610–2 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 231, l. 54–9: Feb. 10).

261. It seems that in 1932, Kamenev had stopped by Yenukidze’s Kremlin office after being sentenced to exile in Minusinsk, asking that he be allowed to keep his Moscow apartment and that Yenukidze later passed on to Stalin a letter Kamenev intended to write from exile asking to be allowed to return to Moscow. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 508–17 (TsA FSB, f. 13614, tom 2, l. 308–10, 314–22: May 30, 1937).

262. “Irina Gogua: semeinye istorii,” Ogonek, April 1997: http://kommersant.ru/doc/2284891; Cherviakova, “Pesochnye chasy.” Maria Svanidze took a more sinister view, writing in her diary about Yenukidze’s deceit, abuse of the perquisites of his office, and involvement with girls as young as nine to eleven, corrupting them morally if not physically.” Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 182 (Svanidze diary: June 28, 1935).

263. Zaria vostoka, March 5, 1935. Peterson was dismissed in April 1935 but not arrested (Yakir brought him to the Kiev military district as an aide in June).

264. Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 287–8 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 33, l. 49–50: Ulrich to Stalin, March 11, 1934).

265. Kokurin and Petrov, Lubianka, 548–52; RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 271, l. 565–65ob.: Yezhov notes for presentation to Stalin, Dec. 1934 or Jan. 1935.

266. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 628–31 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 232, l. 168–76: March 11, 1935). A June 17, 1935, joint Central Committee and Council of People’s Commissars decree, “On the procedure for conducting arrests,” superseded the May 8, 1933, instruction, and stipulated that the NKVD could make arrests only with the sanction of the procuracy; arrests of personnel who reported to commissariats could be made only with the sanction of that particular commissar, including in the defense commissariat. Arrests of members and candidates of the Central Committee only with CC approval. A further directive would be issued Dec. 1, 1938, to take into account institutional changes, but arrests still required the authorization of the governing institution’s leadership. Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 63 (citing RGVA, f. 9, op. 36, d. 1339, l. 191–2ob.).

267. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 648–50 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 234, l. 1–6: March 21, 1935). Zakovsky would report from Leningrad that more than 11,000 “former people” had already been sentenced and 22,000 inhabitants of border zones deported. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 64; Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 465–76 (March 31, 1935); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 654–7. Yezhov presented Stalin a list (April 4, 1935) of the recipients of the various dachas that Yenukidze had doled out. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 371n4 (RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 52, l. 32: Yezhov to Stalin, April 4, 1935). The politburo ordered the purchase—rather than the confiscation—of some valuable literary archives by people being deported from Leningrad in the wake of the Kirov murder. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 255 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 962, l. 48: April 23, 1935), 763n92 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 174, l. 78–9).

268. The document was worked out by Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Yezhov, but not Voroshilov or Orjonikidze, and would be dated April 3, 1935. Stalin was in his office with those three only on March 15, 1935. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 658–60 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 234, l. 47–53); Na prieme, 156–7.

269. “‘Zamenit’ Vas nekem’: pis’ma M. Gor’kogo I. V. Stalinu,” 116–7 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 284, l. 127–127ob, 124).

270. Izvestiia, March 24, 1935; DVP SSSR, XVIII: 204–13; Lensen, Damned Inheritance, 457–9; Slavinskii, Vneshniaia politika, 53. See also RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 83, l. 73–83, 104–6.

271. Davies et al., Years of Progress, 91n5 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 17, l. 157–8). Stalin would inspect the first ZIS-101 luxury limousine on April 29, 1936.

272. Paine, Wars for Asia, 92.

273. Crowley, Japan’s Quest for National Autonomy, 214–7; Safronov, SSSR, SShA, i iaponskaia, 145.

274. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 626 (Spil’vanek in Nanking to Moscow, Jan. 28, 1935).

275. Khlevniuk, Stalin: zhizn’, 195.

276. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 173–6 (Svanidze diary: April 29, 1935), 178 (May 9); Na prieme, 161. See also Medvedev, K sudu istorii, 628; Brandenberger and Dubrovsky, “‘The People Need a Tsar,’” 873, 884n4. When a common person, Petrushenko, was asked in a study circle that same year who Stalin was and answered, “someone like the tsar used to be,” the secret police reported the remark. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 176, l. 45; Davies, Popular Opinion, 168–9. The metro opened with two lines: from Sokolniki to the Park of Culture through Hunters Row station; and from the latter to Smolensk Square. Medvedev, All Stalin’s Men, 124–5.

277. Tucker, Stalin in Power, 223–37. Ulam observed that “it is unlikely that Stalin would have wanted to establish the precedent of a successful assassination attempt against a high Soviet official.” Ulam, Stalin, 385. “One thing is certain,” wrote the émigré Nicolaevsky, “the only man who profited by the Kirov assassination was Stalin.” Nicolaevsky, “Kirov Assassination.”

278. Medved evidently discussed with other NKVD officials and his closest relatives his suspicion that Stalin and Yagoda were responsible for Kirov’s death. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 26–9. In 1935, Yefim Yevdokimov evidently asked Frinovsky if he had any information about the hand of Yagoda in the murder of Kirov (insinuating Stalin’s involvement). Protocol of Frinovsky interrogation, Beria to Stalin, April 11, 1939 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 373, l. 3–44), http://www.hrono.ru/do kum/193_dok/19390413beria.php.

279. All six 1956–57 commissions formed under Khrushchev concluded that no underground Zinoviev-Trotskyite terrorist group existed; the thirteen people executed with Nikolayev would be rehabilitated in 1989.

280. Lenoe rightly assesses the evidence provided by Genrikh Lyushkov, who worked alongside Agranov and interrogated Draule, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and others, as the most important. Lysuhkov would write in 1939: “I can confirm that Kirov’s murder was the individual deed of Nikolayev. Nikolayev was a psychologically unbalanced person who suffered many anxieties and was unhappy with life. He believed that he had the abilities to accomplish anything and he imagined himself as a man of intrigue. In reality, he was a constant complainer who could not get along with people. Confronted at every turn by the horrifying inertia of the state apparatus, he nonetheless fought to maintain the right and battle corruption. Society’s indifference aroused in him hatred and an intense desire for revenge . . . And so Nikolayev’s disenchantment with the party apparatus drove him to make plans for the assassination of one of the party leaders.” Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 681–6 (Kaizo, April 1939).

281. Rimmel, “Another Kind of Fear,” 484, citing TsGAIPD, f. 25, op. 5, d. 47, 1. 2, 492, citing TsGAIPD, f. 25, op. 5, d. 46, 1. 3ob.

282. A group of workers from the Kirov plant in a letter to new Leningrad party boss Zhdanov condemned “deceivers,” “scoundrels,” and the regime’s “soap-bubble comedy,” and called the end of rationing “Molotov’s vile deception,” given how workers continued to live in squalor. Davies, Popular Opinion, 137 (citing TsGAIPD, f. 24, op. 2v, d. 1518, l. 184–8). By contrast, Tokayev, a young military engineer, noted that “the public . . . felt a cloud lifted . . . There was a new sense of freedom in domestic life; not that food became more plentiful, but it was not hard to draw the conclusion that, if the Government could take this step, ‘things could not be so bad after all.’” Tokaev, Betrayal of an Ideal, 278–9.

283. Davies, Popular Opinion, 115–6 (citing TsGAIPD St.P f. 25, op. 5, d. 35, l. 7, 90; d. 54, l. 99; f. 24, op. 5, d. 240, l. 22; TsKhDMO, f. 1, op. 23, d. 1102, l. 167); Rimmel, “Another Kind of Fear,” 484. See also Kedrov, Lapti Stalinizma, 152 (citing GAAO, otdel DSPI, f. 290, op. 2, d. 312, l. 107–10; d. 462, l. 56–60); Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule, 422; and Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 210 (citing DAHO, f. 326p, op. 1, spr. 304, ark. 34).

284. As we shall see, all of Orjonikidze’s relatives would suffer from the dictator’s falling out with his former intimate, while none of Kirov’s relatives suffered.

285. “Comrade Stalin, as I now recall, summoned me and Kosaryov and said: ‘Look for the murderers among the Zinovievites,’” Yezhov would state three years later. “I must say the Chekists did not believe in that and as insurance for themselves they were developing a second scenario, involving foreigners, on the off chance something would leap out.” Yezhov was discrediting Yagoda and added that in Yezhov’s presence, Stalin phoned Yagoda and said, “Look, we’ll smash your face.” L. P. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,” (1995, no. 2): 16–7; Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 482–3.

286. The bodyguard detail lacked even written operational instructions. Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 494.

287. Shubin, Vozhdi i zagovorshchiki, 273.

288. A wealth of documents demonstrates this, which Yezhov would stress at the Feb.–March 1937 plenum: “Materialy marto-fevral’skogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 2), 17.

289. See the incisive memorandum by the American diplomat George Kennan (March 1935) about how “all the resources of the Soviet state have been applied to the construction of a vast military machine . . . A generation has been reared whose patriotic arrogance and whose ignorance of the outside world rival the formidable traditions which the history of Tsardom can offer in this respect.” Kennan noted further that the Soviet willingness to sign pacts and enter the League of Nations derived from a belief that the next war would be fought by others, so that the Kremlin was interested not in collective security but in continuing to throw wrenches in efforts to achieve any sort of peaceful settlement among the Western powers. George Kennan, “The War Problem of the Soviet Union,” in George F. Kennan Papers, Box 1, Mudd Library, Princeton University, reprinted in Hochman, Failure of Collective Security, 176–83 (at 178).

CHAPTER 5. A GREAT POWER

1. The correspondent added that pure Communist types had been set on edge by French Foreign Minister Laval’s pending arrival. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, May 25, 1935: 24.

2. About a quarter million copies of Mein Kampf, first published in 1925–26, had sold before he became chancellor, when sales really took off. In 1933, he earned more than 1 million marks in royalties, when schoolteachers averaged under 5,000 marks in annual salary. See also Lukacs, Hitler of History, 3.

3. Hitler, My Struggle (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1933); Hitler, Mon combat (Paris: Nouvelles éditions latines, 1934). Horace Rumbold, British ambassador in Berlin, had written a 5,000 word report (April 23, 1933) about Mein Kampf (“blood and thunder book”) and Hitler’s vow to restore German power “by force of arms.” The memo was read by the cabinet and prime minister, and internally called “our Bible” on Germany. DBFP, 2nd series, V: 47–55 (Rumbold to Simon, April 26, 1933); Medlicott, Britain and Germany, 6n1; Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, 22–3; Durocelle, La décadence, 61. But see also Vansittart, Mist Procession, 305, 500; Glibert, Roots of Appeasement, 132.

4. Gitler, Moia bor’ba (Shanghai: Gong, 1935).

5. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 553. Radek would pointedly tell a German official in Moscow that there had been no changes to chapter 14 (treating of expansion to the east) in the recent reissue of Hitler’s book—evidently the argument being used against Radek by foreign affairs commissariat personnel. DGFP, series C, II: 296–8 (unsigned memorandum, likely Twardowski, Jan. 1, 1934).

6. Pipes, Russian Revolution, 586; Ludendorff, Kriegsführung und Politik, 51.

7. Krasnaia zvezda, 1935, no. 57; see also no. 10, no. 31, no. 40, and no. 59.

8. Harris, “Encircled by Enemies,” 513–4 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 188, l. 31–51).

9. Wandycz, “Polish Foreign Policy: an Overview,” 65–73.

10. Na prieme, 152 (Feb. 28, 1935), 154–5 (March 8).

11. Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 280 (citing AVP RF, f. 82, op. 18, pap. 80, d. 3, l. 35: Stern to Bessonov, March 17, 1935).

12. In Feb. 1935, Tukhachevsky and Jeronimas Uborevičius, commander of the Belorussian military district, had separately submitted secret memoranda arguing for war plan revisions. For Tukhachevsky, defeat of Poland remained a primary objective, but he foresaw Germany as “the chief agent of anti-Soviet intervention.” Uborevičius also named Germany and Poland as the main enemies, and deemed this new coalition more formidable because it could quickly get assistance from Finland and the Baltic states, and perhaps Britain, while still, as before, drawing in Japan in a two-front war. He argued that a quick defeat of Poland would prevent Germany from being able to mobilize fully. Aptekar’ and Uspenskii, Marshal M.N. Tukhachevskii, 2–11; Samuelson, Soviet Defence Industry Planning, 193–4; Samuelson, “Wartime Perspectives,” 187–214, at 207 (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 400, l. 226–36: Tukhachevsky, Feb. 5, 1935; and d. 279, l. 124–49: Uborevičius, Feb. 19, 1935); Roberts, “Planning for War,” 1304–5; Dullin, Men of Influence, 97–8; Bruce Menning, personal communication.

13. Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 300 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 15, l. 5–6).

14. Hochman, Failure of Collective Security, 50–1.

15. Seraphim, Das politische Tagebuch Rosenbergs, 74–5.

16. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936, 549–53; Shirer, Berlin Diary, 34; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I: 204; Pravda, March 17 and 18, 1935.

17. New York Times, March 17 and 18, 1935; Washington Post, March 18, 1935.

18. Bullock, Hitler, 333; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I: 203–6.

19. He added: “The only unusual thing about him was the length at which he spoke.” Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter, 17–26. This was Schmidt’s first encounter with Hitler.

20. DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 703–46; DGFP, series C, III: 1043–80 (Schmidt). A few days later, Hitler told Luftwaffe officers: “I don’t know how many aeroplanes Göring really has got, but that seemed about what there ought to be.” Kershaw, Making Friends with Hitler, 99–102 (citing PRO FO 800/290, fol. 200: April 2, 1935). See also Simon, Retrospect, 200–3; Strang, At Home and Abroad, 66–7; and Dodd and Dodd, Ambassador Dodd’s Diary, 228 (April 4, 1935).

21. Andrew and Elkner, “Stalin and Foreign Intelligence,” 76–7; West and Tsarev, Crown Jewels, 81–2.

22. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 461–7.

23. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 651–3 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 188, l. 74–8: Slutsky); Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 234 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 188, l. 74–6).

24. DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 793–5 (Sargent: April 1, 1935), 795 (Simon to G. Clerk in Paris, April 1). “Laval,” one shrewd observer noted, “was very intelligent but he was also more cunning than competent. He wasn’t a man of clear-cut decisions but rather ‘everybody’s friend.’” Duroselle, France and the Nazi Threat, 87. In general, the French got caught up in “pactomania,” then sought loopholes in them.

25. A joint intelligence committee would be established in July 1936, but only at deputy director level; it would remain peripheral until summer 1939. In the 1930s, major militaries switched from medium to high frequencies for wireless, which, paradoxically, allowed more signals to be intercepted, but these still had to be decrypted. (Britain, after the end of the Great War, had not even tried to intercept German traffic again until 1934.) By 1935, Britain’s specialists had broken Japan’s main army and naval ciphers and some of Italy’s, but German, as well as Soviet, ciphers remained inaccessible. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, I: 36–43, 52–3, 57, 61, 199–200; Wark, Ultimate Enemy, 158–60; West, MI6, 45, 48–9; Strong, Intelligence at the Top, 24.

26. Benjamin Disraeli, at the time Britain’s Tory party opposition leader, had admonished his fellow conservatives in 1872 that the choice was “whether you will be content to be a comfortable England, modelled and molded upon continental principles and meeting in due course an inevitable fate, or whether you will be a great country—an imperial country—a country where your sons, when they rise, rise to paramount positions, and obtain not merely the esteem of their countrymen, but command the respect of the world.” Kebbel, Selected Speeches, 529–34 (at 534).

27. Holman, “Air Panic of 1935”; Levy, Appeasement and Rearmament; Neville, “Prophet Scorned?” British intelligence knew the claim of air parity to be false. Wark, Ultimate Enemy, 44 (citing CP 100[35], May 13, 1935, Cab 24/255; and AA Berlin to Director, AI, April 3, 1935, Air 2/1356); Vansittart, Mist Procession, 499; Winterbotham, Nazi Connection, 127–33.

28. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 228–39 (at 232–3, 235–6); DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 771–84 (Chilston to Simon, April 1).

29. Eden rose to answer that his mission aimed for an exchange of views in the quest for peace and toasted Litvinov’s health. The festivities ended at 1:30 a.m. Pravda, March 29, 1935; DVP SSSR, XVIII: 226–8; Eden, Facing the Dictators, 144–63.

30. Eden, Facing the Dictators, 164.

31. When Eden and Chilston broached the issue of expanding bilateral trade, Litvinov, according to the British notetaker, replied positively (“why not?”), but, according to the Soviet notetaker, stated that no negotiations were possible because of the British position on tsarist debts. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 240–5 (at 242–3); DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 784–91.

32. Eden found the exchange enigmatic. Eden, Facing the Dictators, 156.

33. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 246–251; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 521; Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 98–101.

34. On the evening of March 29, Eden was taken to Swan Lake at the Bolshoi, where the orchestra played “God Save the King,” the British anthem. He was also afforded a ride on the new Moscow metro and a visit to the aircraft factory at Fili, just outside Moscow, which produced the TB-3 heavy bomber. Eden, Facing the Dictators, 155–60. The British omitted their full record of the Eden-Stalin conversation from the published document collection. See also DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 803–10 (Eden and Beck in Warsaw, April 2–3, 1935), 812–7 (Eden and Beneš in Czechoslovakia, April 4). By early 1936, after Eden would become foreign secretary, he would no longer doubt German aggressiveness, according to Maisky. DVP SSSR, XIX: 77 (conversation Feb. 11, 1936).

35. The idea had grown out of the secret cooperation with Germany, but “deep operations” offered a more comprehensive vision. Triandafillov, Kharakter operatsii sovremennykh armii; Isserson, Evolution of Operational Art, 43–76; Savushkin, Razvitie sovetskikh vooruzhennykh sil, 59–62; Iakov, V. K. Triandafillov; Harrison, Russian Way of War, 194–217; Habeck, Storm of Steel, 206–28.

36. Of three main Red Army groups, a Northwestern (Leningrad military district), Western (Belorussian military district), and Southwestern (Kiev military district), the first was primarily to deter aggression from enemy use of Finland and the Baltic states, while the second and third would launch operations on enemy territory (north and south of the swampy Pripet Marshes) by means of mobile ground and air forces prepositioned and concealed in fortified frontier regions. Menning, “Soviet Strategy,” I: 218–9; Gorkov, “Gotovil li,” 30–1.

37. Reprinted (abridged) in Tukhachevskii, Izbrannye proizvedeniia, II: 233–9.

38. “Nakanune voiny (Dokumenty 1935–1940 gg.),” 168–9 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 400, l. 238ff.). Tukhachevsky’s argument resembled what Svechin had suggested back in 1926–27. Svechin, Strategiia, 184. Tukhachevsky had savaged Svechin as “a conduit for the influence of bourgeois ideology” in the introduction to the Russian edition of Hans Delbrück’s History of the Military Art, “Predislovie k knige G. Del’briuka,” in Tukhachevskii, Izbrannye proizvedeniia, II: 144. See also Kokoshin, “A. A. Svechin,” 134. Soviet war planning envisioned only enemies, no allies: Budushchaia voina, 35–6; Plekhanov, VChK-OGPU, 102; Stoecker, Forging Stalin’s Army, 148–9; Samuelson, Soviet Defence Industry Planning, 46–52.

39. DGFP, series C, IV: 1–2 (Schulenburg, April 1, 1935), 7 (state secretary, April 2); DVP SSSR, XVIII: 262 (April 4); “Nakanune voiny (Dokumenty 1935–1940 gg.),” 171–2 (Gekker for Berzin, April 4).

40. DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 766–7 (Chilston to Simon quoting Eden, sent March 30, 1935), 768–9 (March 31).

41. Eden deemed Stalin “the quietest dictator I have ever known, with the exception of [Portugal’s] Dr. Salazar.” Eden, Facing the Dictators, 153.

42. An “economic agreement” had been signed March 20, 1935, but the more critical loan terms were signed on April 9. DGFP, series C, III: 1028–31, IV: 28–38, 38–43; DVP SSSR, XVIII: 270–4. Schacht (now acting economics minister), who had sought to sabotage the credit negotiations, emerged as the lead proponent. Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, 17–9; DGFP, series C, III: 367–9 (Aug. 29, 1934), 682–5 (Nov. 27, 1934), 930–3 (Feb. 14, 1935), 935–6 (Feb. 15), 960–1 (Feb. 25), 1002. See also Doering, Deutsche Aussenwirtschaftspolitk, 169–75; von Strandmann, “Grossindustrie und Rapallopolitik,” at 337.

43. Abramov, “Osobaia missiia Davida Kandelaki,” 147 (citing AVP RF, f. 082, op. 18, pap. 81, d. 7, l. 150–1: April 12, 1935). Kandelaki returned from Berlin and Stalin received him on April 13, May 4 and 5, July 5 and 7, 1935. Kandelaki appears to have imagined that opposition to Hitler existed and could be galvanized via improved relations, a view dismissed by Litvinov and Surits. Na prieme, 160, 162, 169; Roberts, “Soviet Bid for Coexistence.”

44. Laval had been stalling Moscow over the deadlocked negotiations with Germany for a multilateral Eastern Pact, but on March 30, 1935, fearful that events would outrun him, he had handed Potyomkin a text for a bilateral pact solely between France and the Soviet Union, and possibly one also with Czechoslovakia, and with Italy, all within the framework of the League. DDF, 1e série, X: 75–83; DVP SSSR, XVIII: 253–4. The politburo instructions for Litvinov specified that the Soviet government preferred a Franco-Soviet pact that included Germany, or if not, then Poland, or if not, then France, Czechoslovakia, and the Baltic states. The French stuck to two bilateral pacts, France-USSR, Czechoslovakia-USSR. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 158–60 (Litvinov to Potyomkin: March 4, 1935), 174 (Potyomkin, April 9, 1935), 174 (April 10); Borisov, Sovetsko-fratsuzskie otnosheniia, 248–9; Herriot, Jadis, II: 530. It seems that both Edvard Beneš (Czechoslovak foreign minister) and Nicolae Titulescu (Romanian foreign minister) were at the French foreign ministry and helped draft the public announcement of France’s decision. Hochman, Failure of Collective Security, 51 (citing AMZV Prague, incoming 1935, Osuský from Paris, April 9). During three meetings in the Little Corner (April 22, 23, 28, 1935), Litvinov pressed for France’s much-reduced incarnation (no Germany, Poland, or even Baltic states); Stalin agreed. DVP SSSR, XVII: 280–6 (at 281: April 21, 1935), 292–3 (April 18, 1935), 295, 296; Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 322–3 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 18, l. 2), 323–4 (l. 5: April 19, 1935); DDF, 1e série, X: 322–5, 334–5; Na prieme, 160–1.

45. Pravda, May 4, 1935. Stalin was seen to leave early, but it is unclear why. Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 293 (N. Charles to John Simon, May 7, 1935: PRO FP 371/19450/N2376).

46. Voroshilov had initiated these celebratory “breakfasts” (as well as a separate annual May graduation ceremony for the military academies). At the May 2, 1933, reception, during the famine, 1,800 pounds of meat, poultry, fish, and sausage were served. Nevezhin, Zastol’ia, 66; Osokina, Ierarkhia potrebleniia, 79n21; Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 41–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1117, l. 9–10); Borev, Staliniada, 90.

47. The immense interior encompassed more than seven hundred rooms. Deviatov and Zhuravleva, Dvortsy Kremlia; V. Bogomolova et al., Moskovskii kreml’; Chuev, Molotov, 96; Kabanov, Stal’nye peregony, 53. Two ancient monasteries (the Chudov and Voznesensky) were demolished. So was Moscow’s onion-domed Savior in the Wood, originally consecrated in the thirteenth century, to make way for a five-story service facility, while the magnificent Red Porch leading to the Palace of Facets was destroyed for a two-story canteen. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 435–6 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 3, d. 883, l. 1–2, June 2, 1936).

48. “Stalin slowly gets up from his chair” amid deafening applause, noted a record of the 1933 banquet. “The hall quiets. ‘I am not inclined to speak, but I am being obliged. The first toast is for Lenin, the second for technology.’” Warming to the room, Stalin continued: “Lenin did not die, he lives together with the party he created, together with the Soviet power he created. Who are we, Soviet power and the party of Bolsheviks? We are considered great people. No, we are little people in comparison with Lenin. Lenin organized the party and the proletarian revolution on one-sixth of the earth, which astounded the whole world . . . To the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the great teacher Lenin!” Stalin then toasted “the Russian nation—the most talented nation in the world,” and raised a glass to “our military technology! To our air industry personnel! To our aviators! To our tank drivers! . . . To the leaders and vozhds of the Red Army! To the best student of Lenin, Klim Voroshilov! Hurrah!’ (stormy applause).” Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 43–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1117, l. 9–10). See also Pravda, May 2 and May 4, 1934; Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 46–55 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 1, d. 164, l. 165–8, 162–4; d. 160, l. 23–5). The Soviet brand of champagne had been developed on the basis of tsarist foundations in Crimea and blossomed after 1934, when a former aristocrat and chemist, Anton Mikhailovich Frolov-Bagreev, perfected a process of fermenting sparkling wine in large reservoirs, rather than in bottles, facilitating mass production.

49. Izvestiia, May 2, 1935. See also Nevezhin, “Bol’shie Kremlevskie priemy Stalina” (no. 3), 56–70, (no. 4), 123–39. Stalin would approve replacement of the tsarist double-headed eagles atop the Kremlin’s main gates—the Savior (Spassky), Nikolsky, Trinity, and Pinewood (Borovitsky)—with metal red stars in 1935 (two years later, the metal would give way to glass).

50. Nevezhin, Zastol’ia, 280.

51. Shmidt, “Priemy v Kremle,” at 274; Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 192.

52. Izvestiia, May 4, 1935. The account in Pravda (May 4, 1935) by Mekhlis was less exuberant. In Feb. 1935, Bukharin had written to Stalin begging for approval, “in order that I could say, ‘all the same. comrade Stalin thinks that the newspaper is not such a bad one.’” Adibekov and Anderson, “‘U menia odna nadezhda na tebia,’” 50. Security at the banquets would tighten considerably. Moiseev, Ia vospominaiu, 47.

53. Krenkel’, RAEM, 492–3. One scholar has asserted (without presenting the evidence) that Soviet military academies began teaching ballroom dancing and manners in the 1930s. Tumkina-Perfil’eva, Russkii etiket, 148.

54. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 4, d. 657, l. 236.

55. Back on May 2, 1932, at the close of the evening’s concert, Stalin had remarked that the artists “were dressed not the way artists of a great country should be” (part apology for Soviet material life, part directive). Barsova, “Nash veilikii drug,” 59.

56. Pravda, May 4, 1935; Le Temps, May 5, 1935.

57. Beloff, Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, I: 152–4; Scott, Alliance against Hitler, 247. “One must remember that there was never an alliance between the tsarist government and France,” Maisky wrote to Litvinov on May 3, 1935, of the 1892 military convention that was activated by the Great War, “only an exchange of notes and an agreement between the two high commands.” Dullin, Men of Influence, 112, citing AVP RF, f. 10, op. 10, pap. 48, d. 7.

58. Hilger, a German embassy counsellor, reported goodwill toward Germany in Ukraine in late spring 1935. “Germany was only trying to liberate itself from the oppressive fetters of the Versailles Treaty,” the chairman of the provincial soviet told him at a consul reception in Kiev. “But instead of aiding her to do so, the Soviet government was making a pact with Germany’s oppressors.” The Ukrainians blamed Litvinov. Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 269.

59. Pravda and Izvestiia, May 16, 1935; Humanité, May 17, 1935.

60. Some Polish officials understood better than others. In Nov. 1934, the Polish envoy to Germany, Lipski, had told his American counterpart that “Germany intends to re-annex part of our country, the maps posted all over Germany show this clearly.” Lipski predicted Hitler would also annex Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, too. Dodd and Dodd, Ambassador Dodd’s Diary, 192 (Nov. 17, 1934).

61. Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 71–5 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 1, d. 160, l. 42–9). A German periodical would observe in late 1935, in a comment reprinted in the Red Army newspaper, that “alongside his great organizational talent, the people’s commissar Voroshilov possesses a surpassing gift for speaking, thanks to which he takes listeners prisoners of war.” Krasnaia zvezda, Jan. 5, 1936.

62. Stalin was said to have directed the bygones quote at Bukharin and to have proposed a toast to him, which elicited applause, but if so, this was not recorded in the raw transcript. Larina, Nezabyvaemoe, 33.

63. Back on Dec. 27, 1934, at a Kremlin reception for the metal industry, Stalin, speaking about the first Five-Year Plan slogan, “Technology Decides Everything,” had stated that the people operating the technology were more important, and “must be carefully and attentively cultivated the way a gardener tends a beloved fruit tree.” “Metallurgi u tovarishcha Stalina, Molotova, i Ordzhonikidze,” Pravda, Dec. 29, 1934: 1, reprinted in Sochineniia, XIV: 49–50.

64. Stalin loved gardening metaphors. Jochen Hellbeck, “Laboratories of the Soviet Self: Diaries of the Stalin Era,” PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1998, 64–6. One scholar noted a shift in novels in the 1930s from machine to gardening metaphors. Clark, Soviet Novel, 99, 105.

65. Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 76–84 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1077, l. 43–9).

66. See also Arsenidze, “Iz vospominaniia o Staline,” 235. One scholar has argued that “consumption . . . was one of the most frequent items on the politburo’s agenda” and, in Stalin’s words, one of “the most contested issues.” Gregory, Political Economy of Stalinism, 94.

67. The original had been: “Now we have reached the stage of development when cadres decide everything, not mares and machines.” Pravda, May 6, 1935. See also Rees, Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin, 227. The newspaper account contained an insertion after Stalin’s mention that he had had a hand in smashing some people along the way: “stormy applause.” Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 69, 84–91 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1077, l. 31–42); Pravda, May 6, 1935, reprinted in Sochineniia, XIV: 56–64 (at 61–4). See also Oleinikov, “Chetvertoe maia.” In his speech on May 4, 1934, for Soviet military academy graduates, Stalin had also struck a note of populism. “I do not deny that leaders [vozhdi] have significance, they organize and lead the masses,” he allowed. “But leaders without the mass are nothing. Such people as Hannibal, Napoleon, perished as soon as they lost the masses.” Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 55 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 1, d. 160, l. 23–5).

68. Svanidze noted of Stalin’s May 4, 1935, speech: “Iosif said that he had forgotten to add ‘our leaders came to power as landless peasants and have remained that way to the end, that they are driven by ideas, not acquisitiveness,’ as we can observe in capitalist countries. Over there, being in power means getting rich. I don’t remember exactly, but something to that effect.” A mixed message: soulless functionaries yet selfless leader(s). Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 177–8 (Svanidze diary: May 9, 1935).

69. DDF, 1e série, X: 575–7, 630–1. The Soviets did not publish the record of the conversation, only a speech by Litvinov at the May 13 banquet for Laval: DVP SSSR, XVIII: 328–30. See also DVP SSSR, XVIII: 337 (TASS); Pravda, May 14, 1935.

70. Harrison and Davies, “Soviet Military-Economic Effort,” 391 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 18, l. 123: Aug. 28, 1935).

71. “‘Osnovnaia tsel’ ego priezda’,” 139. On May 14, 1935, a grand ceremony was held in the Columned Hall of the House of Trade Unions for the Moscow metro. Lazar Brontman and another Pravda colleague were assigned to the event. Kaganovich opened the proceedings for his beloved project (“his most memorable, temperamental speech,” Brontman decided). But Stalin walked in during the speech, with Voroshilov and others in tow, provoking an ovation. The dictator took the podium, to delirium. In the din, Brontman and a colleague had a difficult time transcribing the speech (the journalists stopped to applaud as well). They rushed to Pravda’s offices, typed it up and had the text run over to Poskryobyshev for approval—Brontman crowed in his diary that only Pravda had the speech the next day. Pravda, May 15. This was Brontman’s second encounter with Stalin: “The first time it happened during the 5th Congress of Soviets at the Bolshoi . . . Stalin looked at my astonished face, laughed and continued to his box.” Brontman, Dnevniki (Aug. 10, 1936): http://mathscinet.ru/files/Dnevniki_1932_1947.pdf.

72. “I listened without comment,” Schulenburg reported. DGFP, series C, IV: 138 (May 8, 1935). On the immediate public distancing from the pact in France, see Borisov, Sovetsko-frantsuzskie otnosheniia, 230–95; and Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 83–5.

73. Laval, according to Litvinov, was shocked at Stalin’s bluntness. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 110–1 (June 19, 1935); Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 51–2. On June 7, 1935, Laval took the reins of the French government for the second time.

74. Scott, Alliance against Hitler, 253–4. Trotsky, then living in Grenoble, noted: “Even though I am sufficiently familiar with the political cynicism of Stalin, his contempt for principles . . . , I still could not believe my eyes when I read those lines.” Trotsky’s Diary in Exile, 1935, 120 (May 17, 1935).

75. M. Mourin, Les Relations Franco-Sovietiques (1917—1967) (Paris, 1967), 208; Scott, Alliance against Hitler, 254–5, 266; Les evénéments survenues en France de 1933 à 1945, I: 142–3 (Laval to Flandin, May 16, 1935).

76. “The obligations of mutual assistance will take effect only under the condition, as stipulated in this agreement, of assistance being extended on the part of France to the side that is the victim of aggression.” DVP SSSR, XVIII: 336–7; DDF, 1e série, X: 575–7, 630–1; Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 326–7 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 18, l. 49: June 1, 1935). The Soviets would undertake no efforts to establish a transit right for the Red Army through Poland or Romania to defend Czechoslovakia in the event of a German attack. Both bilateral pacts, as per French insistence, were limited to Europe. Still, Czechoslovakia pledged not to supply Japan with arms. Hochman, Failure of Collective Security, 53, citing Zahraniční politika (Prague, 1935), 324–6. For a time, the Soviets took credit for the clause that provided for taking action only if France did so. Potemkin, Istoriia diplomatii, III: 387–9.

77. Potocki, Master of Lancut, 207; Szemberg, Journal, 85.

78. Roos, Polen und Europa, 218–9; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I: 209. Göring was in Poland May 17–24, 1935: DGFP, series C, IV: 184–5 (May 21), 223–5 (May 28).

79. Domarus, Hitler: Reden, I: 505–14; Kershaw, “Hitler Myth,” 125–6.

80. Stalin had Berzin, after eleven years heading military intelligence, reassigned to the Soviet Far Eastern Army. Moisei Uritsky, the nephew of the celebrated Chekist who had been assassinated in 1918, brought over his own deputy, Alexander Nikonov, who was appointed alongside Artuzov. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 11; Kolpakidi and Prokhorov, Imperiia GRU, I: 121–2, 196, 219–20; Gorbunov, “Voennaia razvedka v 1934–1939 godakh” (no. 2); Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barabrossy,” 51; Na prieme, 161–2. The Danes shared their findings with other European intelligence services, which produced still more revelations on Soviet agents. See G. Solonitsyn, “Nachal’nik sovetskoi razvedki.”

81. Yagoda had reported to Stalin (May 2, 1935) that the NKVD had completed interrogations of the librarian Nina Rozenfeld, establishing that the Mukhanova “terrorist group” in the library, to which Rozenfeld was said to belong, had “links” to the Kremlin commandant office and a group of Trotskyite youth and White Guards. “Lev Kamenev,” Yagoda wrote of Nina’s brother, “is not only the inspiration, but the organizer of the terror.” Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 427–8 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 9, l. 241–42). See also Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 380 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 900, l. 137). As of summer 1935, the Kremlin housed just 374 inhabitants (102 households), not including bodyguards, soldiers, and service personnel.