Stalin

196. Dorofeev, “Mat.” One observer in the same issue reminisced that “whoever has met comrade Stalin even just once, will never forget his modesty, wisdom, and ability to size up events quickly and offer correct, clear directives, will never forget his sagacity, his ability to cultivate in a person a lifelong selfless dedication to the cause of the working class, implacability against all enemies of the revolution.” Here was a self-portrait in another’s words.

197. “Beseda s mater’iu tovarishcha Stalina,” Pravda, Oct. 27, 1935; Zaria vostoka (Oct. 28).

198. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 92, l.82.

199. DGFP, series C, IV: 482–3 (July 26, 1935), 493–6 (July 27), 507–10 (July 30), 596–8 (Aug. 29), 618–20 (Sept. 5), 825–9 (Nov. 18), 833–5 (Nov. 19), 835–7 (Nov. 19), 841–2 (Nov. 20), 847–9 (Nov. 22), 849–51 (Nov. 23), 859–62 (Nov. 27), 866–8 (Nov. 30), 872–4 (Dec. 8), 925–6 (Dec. 18). The French Assembly would ratify the pact with the USSR on Feb. 27, 1936 (353 votes to 164); the Congress of Soviets would do so on March 8, 1936.

200. DGFP, series C, IV: 778–9 (Oct. 28, 1935), 783–4 (Nov. 1), 811–3 (Nov. 11, 1935); Na prieme, 171; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I: 221–2. Schacht and Kandelaki haggled over how much of existing debts the Soviets needed to pay in gold and hard currency.

201. Functionaries had dug out the old tsarist emblems and made sketches for Soviet versions. Stalin also allowed the “staff” to become once again the “general staff.” Solov’ev, “Tetrady krasnogo professor, 1912–1941 gg.,” IV: 183; Erickson, Soviet High Command, 366–403, 445–6; Zaloga, “Soviet Tank Operations,” note 2.

202. The decree creating the marshal rank was issued on Sept. 22, 1935, and the rank was ceremoniously conferred on Nov. 20; Pravda’s account (the next day) sought to smother the whiff of tsarism: “Kliment Voroshilov is a proletarian to the marrow, a Bolshevik in every movement, a theoretician and practitioner of the military art, a cavalryman, a sharpshooter, one of the best orators in the party, a thoughtful and hardworking organizer of the immense defense machine.”

203. Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 51–4.

204. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 822n166.

205. By fall 1935, 16,000 people had received a USSR state medal, such as the Order of Lenin or Order of the Red Banner. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 81n6 (citing GARF, f. R-3316, op. 65, d. 144, l. 5). The regime would introduce a “director’s fund” in 1936 for payment of “bonuses.”

206. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 183 (Svanidze diary: Nov. 17, 1935).

207. Yevgeny was born Jan. 10, 1936. At some point Yakov acknowledged him and his last name was changed from Golyshev to Jughashvili. Golysheva received money from the Jughashvili household for the boy.

208. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 183–4 (Svanidze diary: Nov. 17, 1935).

209. Norm-busters appeared in automobiles (Alexander Busygin), machine tools (I. I. Gudov), textiles (Yevdokiya and Maria Vinogradov), and the Gulag, but it was Stakhanov’s name that got affixed to the “movement.” Siegelbaum, Stakhanovism; Benvenuti, “Stakhanovism and Stalinism”; Davies and Khlevniuk, “Stakhanovism”; Davies et al., Years of Progress, 164–9; Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 310–1 (RGASPI, f. 85, op. 29, d. 460, l. 2–3: Orjonikidze to Sarkisov, Sept. 6, 1935); Goriaeva, “Veilkaia kniga dnia,” 301 (RGAKFD, no. Sh-192, Vr. Zv. 02:00).

210. Soldatenkov, Politicheskie i nravstvennye posledstviia, 82–8 (citing TsGAIPD StP., f. 24, op. 2, d. 1190, l. 6: Zhdanov, April 5, 1936).

211. In 1937, the mine’s party organizer, Konstantin Petrov (b. 1908), would replace the mine boss, Iosif Zaplavsky, who ended up in Norilsk, a Gulag site.

212. Mikoyan advised that “if one is to study by the capitalists, then in the first instance it is necessary to study by the Americans.” Pervoe soveshchanie rabochikh; Mikoian, V polose velikogo pod”ema, 15.

213. Pravda, Nov. 22, 1935; Sochineniia, XIV: 79–102 (at 89–91).

214. Stakhanov made the cover of Time on Dec. 16, 1935. Stalin also pushed through a campaign against managers’ “sabotage” in late 1935, which, like Stakhanovism, he largely abandoned by spring 1936. See also Stakhanov, Rasskaz o moei zhizni.

215. Raskol’nikov, O vremeni i o sebe, 476–86. Raskolnikov’s acquaintances were phoning with congratulations, having somehow heard news of Stalin’s treatment of him. He and Molotov had once studied together at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic and worked together at Pravda before the revolution. Bulgaria was Raskolnikov’s fourth ambassadorship. In between, he had chaired the state repertory committee, which oversaw live theater, and himself tried his hand at writing plays.

216. Raskolnikov mentions that he encountered Mikhail Koltsov in the reception area; in fact, Koltsov was received by Stalin just before RaskolniIov. Raskol’nikov, O vremeni i o sebe, 486–8; Na prieme, 174–5.

217. Roediger (deputy head of the German foreign ministry’s Eastern Department) told Bessonov that “except for the ideological hostility between Germany and the USSR there are no differences and we certainly welcome expansion of economic relations.” On Dec. 12, Hermann Göring told Bessonov that War Minister Blomberg and Schacht had “agreed a readiness to supply the USSR with any military equipment, including the most advanced,” under a new credit, which Bessonov continued to view as the key to unlocking political rapprochement, rather than as entirely separate, the way the Germans treated it. Abramov, “Osobaia missiia Davida Kandelaki,” 147 (citing AVP RF, f. 082, op. 18, pap. 81, d. 7, l. 360–5); DGFP, series C, IV: 870–2 (Dec. 4, 1935), 897–9 (Dec. 10), 931–3 (Dec. 21). See also Nekrich, 1941, 23; and Fischer, Russia’s Road, 240. Litvinov wrote to Surits (Dec. 19, 1935) that he was skeptical of any movement on the German side, while Krestinsky wrote to Surits (Jan. 11, 1936), “it seems to me we shall reach agreement with the Germans on this 500-million credit. As for the question of the Germans changing their political position in relation to us, there has been no indication of any changes in this direction neither in Berlin nor in Moscow nor any other points on the planet.” DVP SSSR, XVIII: 595–7, XIX: 25–6.

218. DGFP, series C, III: 306–9 (Aug. 10, 1934), 556–8 (Nov. 1); DBFP, 2nd series, VI: 883 (July 31). The British were still waiting for a German response to the Feb. 1935 Anglo-French proposals; Hitler claimed he had already responded. Orme Sargent and Wigram had written a long memorandum (Nov. 21, 1935) rejecting both inaction toward and encirclement of Germany, and concluding that “a policy of coming to terms with Germany in Western Europe might enable Britain and France to moderate the development of German aims in the Centre and East.” Medlicott, Britain and Germany, 19 (citing C7752/55/18 FO 371/18851).

219. The German notetaker has Hitler characterizing Phipps’s suggestion for engagement as analogous to “having plague germs shut up in a cupboard and then believing that one could make them less dangerous by opening the door and letting the germs loose on mankind.” DBFP, 2nd series, XV: 488–93 (Phipps to Hoare, Dec. 16, 1935). DGFP, series C, IV: 917–9 (Neurath account, Dec. 14). Hitler told a ministerial conference after meeting Phipps that he could not agree to arms limitations with Britain and France so long as the Soviet Union freely armed, or take part in any Western European treaty system in which the Soviet Union took part. DGFP, series C, IV: 913–4.

220. The renaming was official on Dec. 17, 1935. A writers’ union plenum dedicated to poetry had been planned for Dec. 1935 in Minsk but was postponed to February 1936, likely in connection with Stalin’s sudden elevation of Mayakovsky. Fleishman, Boris Pasternak, 293.

221. Stalin added: “I am ready if my help is needed.” Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 270–2 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 729). Back at the writers’ congress the previous year, Stetsky had said, “I also don’t know of any decisions of the party and government about the canonization of Mayakovsky.” Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei, 614.

222. V. A. Katanian would recall that Mekhlis, editor of Pravda, “did not evince any particular enthusiasm. On the literary page of Pravda, dedicated to Mayakovsky, which appeared a few days later (Dec. 5), two sentences from that resolution, which soon gained worldwide fame, were printed with a mistake. Instead of ‘the best and most talented’ it read ‘the best and talented.’” Pravda issued a correction, however (Dec. 17). Katanian, “Ne tol’ko vospominaniia,” 224–5.

223. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 275 (APRF, f. [4]5, op. 1, d. 788, l. 107–110ob.). An affirmation of Stalin’s praise was hastily arranged in the form of a letter, in the name of several Soviet poets then on a trip to Paris, and published in Moscow (it was written by Aragon, whose name was left off). “Sovetskie poety v Parizhe,” Literaturnaia gazeta, Dec. 9, 1935; Maksimenkov, Sumbur, 17–8 (RGASPI, f. 88, op. 1, d. 512, l. 1).

224. Seishirō Itagaki, who as Kwantung Army intelligence chief had helped stage the Mukden incident to seize Manchuria and was promoted to Kwantung vice chief of staff, “urged Japanese predominance in Inner Mongolia, to deny the USSR a platform (like it enjoyed in Xinjiang) and to serve as a springboard for conquest of Outer Mongolia, which would allow takeover of the Soviet Far East almost without fighting.” Haslam, Threat from the East, 48–9 (citing Hoover Institution Archives, International Military Tribunal, the Far East Documents, 7830–33: prosecution document no. 1466, exhibit no. 761–A). Stalin decided to support Sheng, and NKVD operatives brought the leader of the anti-Sheng Muslim rebellion, General Ma Zhingying, to the Soviet Union, both to deflate the rebellion and for insurance. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 216–8; Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 594–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 90, l. 119, Oct. 1, 1935). On further developments, see Milward, Eurasian Crossroads, 200ff; and Ledovskii, SSSR i Stalin v sud’ba Kitaia, 190–1.

225. Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 338–9. The Soviet Union continued to fudge the recognition question, so as not to anger Chiang Kai-shek’s government (which claimed “Outer” Mongolia as part of China), but Japan quietly hinted at recognizing Mongolia’s independence. In late Nov. 1935, the Mongols, following Soviet orders, had broken off a months-long Mongolia-Manchukuo conference to regulate their disputed border, citing Manchukuo’s demands for diplomatic recognition. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 649–50n172; Pravda, Nov. 21, 1935.

226. Chang and Halliday, Mao,139.

227. Haslam, Threat from the East, 61–5; DVP SSSR, XVIII: 587–8 (Dec. 9, 1935), 601–3 (Dec. 28). In Jan. 1936, the Soviet Union and Xinjiang signed an agreement on military and economic aid that excluded access to “third powers.” Hasiotis, Soviet Political, Economic, and Military Involvement, 100.

228. Haslam, Threat from the East, 50 (citing FRUS, 489–90: Henderson in Moscow to Hull in Washington, Dec. 14, 1935). The follow-up border incident took place on Dec. 19.

229. The Soviet foreign trade commissariat had sent Choibalsan 20 Gorky Factory (GAZ) automobiles, which the Moscow loyalist awarded as patronage to other Mongol ministers. Genden had felt constrained to send a lengthy report to Stalin, Molotov, and Voroshilov on implementation of Stalin’s recommendations, but also noted that 96.4 percent of Mongolia’s 731,686 people were illiterate, and expressed concern about Japanese war provocations. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 16, l. 1–33 (Oct. 14, 1935).

230. Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 344–6.

231. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 185–6 (Svanidze diary: Dec. 26, 1935), 189. Kun, Stalin, 227. The polar explorer Belyakov witnessed an evening of dancing at Stalin’s Black Sea dacha: “He played many records, mostly Georgian folk songs. He explained to us that Georgians sing on their way to the market.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 4, d. 668.

232. As of July 1935, the party had 1.66 million full members and 681,245 candidates. By the time the exchange process was all done, about a quarter million party cards would be confiscated. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 561, l. 127–64; Khlevniuk, 1937–i, 56–7. Yezhov’s report was published: Pravda, Dec. 26, 1935; Partiinoe stroitel’stvo, 1936, no. 2: 9–23. According to the NKVD date, as of Oct. 20, 1935, 255 “spies” had been expelled from the party, but the NKVD of Eastern Siberia and the Soviet Far East—the front line with Japan—together had found only one spy in the party ranks. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 822–3n169 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 3, l. 131–4), 724–31 (op. 3, d. 62, l. 129–44).

233. Beria followed him to the dais, boasted that the South Caucasus NKVD had arrested 1,020 enemies through this month, and congratulated himself. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 561, l. 143, 146, 162.

234. Damage of machinery while operating it as well as the production or supply of poor quality goods became crimes of sabotage too. Andreyev gave the main report, for which he had been copiously supplied with NKVD materials on “sabotage” of the Stakhanovite movement. Other speakers cited cases of anti-Stakhanovite “sabotage” in their regions. Davies et al., Years of Progress, 171–2 (citing RGASPI, f. 73, op. 1, d. 141, l. 205; f. 17, op. 2, d. 561, l. 32: Ryndin); Pravda, December 29, 1935.

235. Pravda, Dec. 27, 1935. Yagoda reported an expansion in Polish agents crossing Soviet borders in pursuit of information on weapons depots and other secrets. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 712–4 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 248, l. 80–4: Dec. 27, 1935).

236. Harrison and Davies, “Soviet Military-Economic Effort,” 370, citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 19, l. 16: Dec. 15, 1935; GARF, f. 5446, op. 57, d. 38: Dec. 16, 372; Cooper, “Defence Production,” 35.

237. The Mongols complained that it was very difficult to struggle against the lamas “when some officials believe in and pray to god.” RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 17, l. 1–5.

238. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 17, l. 6–8.

239. Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 347–8 (citing the eyewitness Luvsansharev, a secretary of the Mongolian Central Committee, speaking at the 2nd plenum [March 11–20, 1936], in connection with Genden’s removal). See also Dashpürev and Soni, Reign of Terror, 34. Another version has Genden chasing Stalin around the table, yanking his pipe out of his mouth, and dashing it to the floor. Sandag and Kendall, Poisoned Arrows, 77.

240. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 186 (Svanidze diary: Dec. 7, 1936: erroneous dating, more likely Jan. 7).

241. Molotov himself said it was “up to the German government to draw practical conclusions.” Izvestiia, Jan. 12, 1936.

242. DGFP, series C, IV: 967–72 (Jan. 6, 1936).

243. The foreign office forwarded the report to Chilston in Moscow for comment. The British in Moscow were skeptical. Hochman, Failure of Collective Security, 110 (citing DBFP/Russia Correspondence, F.P. 371/19460, 142–8: Dec. 7, 1935; F.P. 371/20346, 150–2: Jan. 29, 1936).

244. Bezymenskii, Gitler i Stalin, 98, 100–1; Brügel, Stalin und Hitler, 38. Hitler soon forbade new sales of military technology to the Soviets. DGFP, series C, IV: 1033 (Jan. 24, 1936). Schacht omitted any mention of Kandelaki or the negotiations in his memoir. Schacht, My First Seventy-Six Years.

245. It is not out of the question that the NKVD tasked the Swiss-born Olberg, who had been expelled from the German Communist party in 1932 for Trotskyism, with infiltrating Trotskyite circles in Europe, then decided he needed to serve another purpose. On Olberg, see Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 134 (citing RGASPI, f., 495, op. 175, d. 105, l. 9). Vyshinsky wrote to Stalin and Molotov (Jan. 8) of a separate case of a “Trotskyite group” just turned over to the courts with supposed plans for a “terrorist” act against the dictator Stalin on Red Square back during the Revolution Day parade, while Yagoda and Vyshinsky together wrote to him (Jan. 11, 1936) about the liquidation of a Zinovievite organization of thirty-four people, asking how should they be tried. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 715–6 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 230, l. 65–65ob.), 716–20 (l. 68–76), 723 (l. 64).

246. Jansen and Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner, 46–8.

247. Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 346–7. On the evening of Jan. 7, 1936, Stalin had received the Mongols again, in Molotov’s office, and repeated his demands. Stomonyakov summarized the discussion about the lamas to the Soviet envoy in Mongolia (Tairov), noting, “comrade Stalin said that in a difficult moment one does not liberate criminals but punishes them or holds them under lock and key, like a hostage.” RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 18, l. 1–9; d. 19, l. 1–8: Jan. 10. On Jan. 29, a Manchukuo border company killed its Japanese officers and successfully defected to the Soviet Union. The next day, two Japanese companies crossed the Soviet border in belated pursuit, killing three Soviet border guards and suffering dozens of casualties in a gun battle. They retreated. Shishov, Rossiia i Iaponiia, 424–68; Erickson, Soviet High Command, 414. In Jan. and Feb. 1936, the politburo authorized the building of new roads, petrol stations, aircraft and artillery repair installations, shipbuilding plants, oil storage facilities, and a refinery capable of making airplane fuel in the Soviet Far East. Davies et al., Years of Progress, 278 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 19, l. 27–9: Jan. 11, 1936, 73–5, 93–7: Feb. 18, 81–2).

248. Dawson, “Convenient Medical Death,” 1445; Rose, King George V.

249. Castellan, “Reichswehr et Armée Rouge,” 244. Göring would tell the Poles in February that “Marshal Tukhachevsky, when on his way through Germany, had not been received, although he had clearly wanted to get in touch with military circles.” DGFP, series C, IV: 1201–2 (Feb. 26, 1936).

250. In late Jan., Uborevičius traveled via Warsaw to Paris, ostensibly to link up with Tukhachevsky, and met an aide to the German military attaché in Poland, from whom he requested a meeting on his return from Paris with an authoritative German military official such as War Minister Blomberg. McMurry, Deutschland und die Sowjetunion, 320–1.

251. Tukhachevsky had never accepted German officers’ professions of friendship at face value. “I spoke especially long with Tukhachevsky,” Ambassador Dirksen had written to a friend (Oct. 17, 1931). “He is far from the direct and sympathetic person who speaks openly in support of a German orientation, as does Uborevičius.” In 1933, Tukhachevsky did profess profound friendship, to rescue the relationship. D’iakov and Bushueva, Fashistskii mech kovalsia v SSSR, 121; Bushueva and D’iakov, “Reikhsver i sovety, tainyi soiuz,” 183 (no citation).

252. Castellan, “Reichswehr et armée rouge,” 217–8 (citing Köstring); Gamelin, Servir, II: 196; Erickson, Soviet High Command, 412. The strongly anti-German French journalist Geneviève Tabouis, who was present at a farewell banquet at the Soviet embassy, would later allege that Tukhachevsky, while entertaining Édouard Herriot, the French foreign minister Joseph Paul-Boncour, and the Romanian foreign minister Nicolae Titulescu, among others, had rhapsodized about Nazi Germany (“They are already invincible, Madame Tabouis!”). Ambassador Potyomkin was present but appears to have reported nothing of the kind to Litvinov. Neither did French diplomatic sources. Tabouis, They Called Me Cassandra, 257; Erickson, Soviet High Command, 413. Tukhachevsky, seeking rubber-stamp approval for the military budget at the Central Executive Committee (Jan. 15, 1936), had stressed that Germany could attack the USSR even without a common border, as it had attacked France—smashing through Belgium—in 1914. Tukhachevskii, Zadachi oborony SSSR, 6, 14–5.

253. Sipols, “SSSR i problema mira,” 50–1 (citing PRO 418/81: 55, 78–79: Jan. 11, 1936). Maisky did not desist: DVP SSSR, XIX: 62–4 (Feb. 5, 1936), 206–11 (April 2).

254. Buryat-Mongol households individually held between twenty and seventy cattle. “The collective farmers’ relation to labor has changed fundamentally,” the leaders’ report boasted, praising the expansion of skilled personnel, schools, and theaters. Gatagova et al., TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i natsional’nyi vopros, II: 164–6 (RGASPI, f. 78, op. 1, d. 585, l. 25–8: D. Dorzhiev, Council of People’s Commissars, M. Yerbanov, party secretary).

255. The Mongol-Buryat pageant had been preceded by collective farmers of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kara-Kalpak, when Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich were photographed in the national costumes, including head covering, for the first time. At a Dec. 4, 1935, Kremlin reception for forty-three Tajik and thirty-three Turkmen collective farmers in national dress, honored for the cotton harvest, a ten-year-old girl, Mamlakat Nakhangova, presented Stalin with the Tajik translation of his Questions of Leninism, and a photograph was taken of her in her head shawl, her arm around a seated Stalin’s shoulder. Pravda, Dec. 6, 1935; Kun, Stalin, 220–1. See also Levushin, “Dokumenty VKP (b) kak istochnik po istorii istoricheskoi nauki,” 386–9; Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 247–72; and RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 4314, l. 2–4. Whereas in Pravda’s coverage of the First All-Union Congress of Collective Farm Shock Workers, one-third of the photographs were of non-Russians, by the second gathering two years later in 1935, the ratio was reversed: Central Asians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians accounted for two-thirds of the photographs and illustrations. Brooks, “Thank You, Comrade Stalin!” 75.

256. “Comrades, there is one thing more valuable than cotton—that is the friendship of the peoples of our country,” Stalin was quoted as remarking during the Tajik-Turkmen reception. The tsarist legacy, “a savage, wolf-like policy,” had been overcome. “While this friendship lives and flourishes, we are afraid of no one, neither internal nor external enemies. You can have no doubt about this, comrades. (Stormy applause, all present stand and shout, ‘Stalin, Hurrah’).” “Rech’ tovarishcha Stalina na soveshchanii peredovykh kolkhoznikov i kolkhoznits Tadzhikistana i Turkmenistana,” Pravda, Dec. 5, 1935; Sochineniia (Hoover), XIV: 113–5. Molotov’s speeches at the many Kremlin national receptions were published as a pamphlet: Velikaia druzhba narodov SSSR (Moscow: Partizdat, 1936).

257. Pravda, Dec. 21 and 31, 1935; Jan. 24 and 30, 1936.

258. This was not his first photograph with children, a shift first visible in schoolbooks for children, which had rendered Stalin overtly fatherly. Rasskazy o Staline. Unlike the fatherly tsars, Stalin was called otets, not batushka.

259. Pravda, Aug. 3, 1935 (credited to Vlasik). Stalin visited a children’s home in Moscow as well. Heizer, “Cult of Stalin,” 169; Plamper, Stalin Cult, 44; Plamper, “Georgian Koba or Soviet ‘Father of Peoples,’” 131. Maria Osten wrote to Stalin requesting permission to republish the photograph in her book Hubert in Wonderland, about adopting a son in the Saarland under the Nazis and bringing him to the USSR. “This would be such a pleasure for all little grown-up readers of my book in the USSR and the entire world!” she wrote. Stalin acceded (“I agree”). RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 781, l. 126.

260. Kun, Stalin, 316.

261. During the first Five-Year Plan images of modernity in the borderlands—railroads, factories, workers—had predominated, but in the 1920s, even the most modern architects, who generally eschewed any hint of ornamentation, when outside Russia proper had chosen to incorporate folkloric “national” flourishes in public buildings, such as Moisei Ginzburg’s administrative center in Alma-Ata or others in Baku. Bliznakov, “International Modernism,” 112–30. Ginzburg had lived in Crimea and studied Tatar art there. On females and backwardness, as well as nurturing, see Stites, Russian Popular Culture, 83–4; and Iğmen, Speaking Soviet, 66.

262. The RSFSR was the only union republic without its own Communist party, and although it had state institutions, they often overlapped with those of the USSR (Kalinin was the head of both the RSFSR and the USSR central executive committees of the Soviet). Although there had been some institutions for ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Belorussians in the RSFSR, these were abolished or allowed to lapse, which seems to have further spurred some ethnic Ukrainians and Belorussians in the RSFSR to identify as ethnic Russians. Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, 403–6.

263. Back on Dec. 15, 1925, at a central Committee plenum, Stalin had lauded the Russians as “the most industrial, the most active, and the most Soviet of all nations in our country,” a statement partly in response to unexpected resistance to the alteration of the party’s name from all-Russian to all-Union, but also reflecting deep conviction. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 205, l. 5. In his furious letter (Dec. 12, 1930) to Bedny over the latter’s mocking Russians warming themselves on stoves, Stalin had called the Russian working class “the advanced guard of Soviet workers, its acknowledged leaders, having conducted a more revolutionary policy and activist politics than any other proletariat of the world could dream of.” On July 6, 1933, at one of his Moscow dachas, in the presence of the portraitists Yevgeny Katsman and Isaak Brodsky, Stalin had toasted Russians as “the boldest Soviet nation, which achieved the socialist revolution before others.” Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 42 (RGALI, f. 2368, op. 2, d. 36, l. 16). For the impressions of one of the artists (“What a colossal man! To me he seems as immense and beautiful as nature”), see Plamper, Stalin Cult, 92 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 1, d. 292, l. 92–92ob.: July 15, 1933).

264. Ryutin had derided Stalin’s regime as “national Bolshevism,” a designation originated in a positive sense by the anti-Marxist nationalist émigré Nikolai Ustryalov (b. 1890). “Platforma ‘Soiuza marksistov-lenintsev’ (‘Gruppa Riutina’),” (1990, no. 9), 76.

265. The demolition had taken place on Dec. 5, 1931. Conceived in the wake of the defeat of Napoleon by Alexander I, it had been consecrated in 1883 on the day Alexander III had been crowned. Its valuable gold (half a ton from the cupola alone) was removed before demolition, whereas its marble went into the Moscow metro construction. Once the rubble was cleared, the crater was supposed to see erection of a grandiose Palace of Soviets designed by Boris Yofan, who sketched a neoclassical stepped colossus of porphyry, marble, and jasper, which aimed to be taller than the Eiffel Tower, at more than 1,300 feet, topped by a 260-foot statue of Lenin, making it resemble a pedestal. Construction of even the foundation was delayed by the grandiosity, and would finally commence in 1937, with the foundation completed in 1939, but nothing else after that. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 827, l. 9 (May 25, 1931); d. 828, l. 17 (June 5); Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 158 (RGASPI, f. 667, op. 1, d. 17, l. 95–7: Molotov to Yenukidze, Aug. 24, 1931); Lebedeva, “O snose khrama Khrista Spasitelia,” 14; Iofan, “Dvorets s”ezdov SSSR.” See also Tarkhanov and Kavtaradze, Architecture of the Stalin Era; Paperny, Architecture in the Age of Stalin. Before the revolution, Moscow counted 460 Orthodox churches; already by Jan. 1, 1933, this stood at perhaps 100.

266. Arfon Rees correctly noted that “the significant aspect of Stalinist ideology was not the extent to which it adjusted to a nationalist perspective . . . but the extent to which . . . a Marxist-Leninist perspective, modified over time, remained the dominant ideology.” Rees, “Stalin and Russian Nationalism,” 102–3. Carr wrongly called Russian nationalism “the only political creed which moved [Stalin] at all deeply.” Carr, Russian Revolution, 170.

267. “‘Neizmennyi drug’—eto obiazyvaet . . . : pis’ma O. I. Sobalevoi-Mikhal’tsevoi,” 113 (APRF, f. 345, op. 34 1, d. 2731118, l. 7149: Dec. 10, 1935); Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 279–80. The writers’ union was a trade union and its members wrote to management seeking all manner of material help. Even some of the published writers said they could not make a living and requested additional employment (as editors or reviewers). Osip Mandelstam wrote from internal exile in 1936 to the poet and union management official Nikolai Tikhonov, “I am seriously ill, abandoned by everyone and destitute . . . I cannot translate either, because I have become very weak, and even the worry about my verse, which I cannot lay aside, is costing me palpitations.” Antipina, Povsednevnaia zhizn’, 12–3 (citing RGALI, f. 631, op. 15, d. 637, l. 136), 13–21.

268. Golubev, “Esli mir obrushitsia na nashu Respubliku,” 64 (citing TsAODM, f. 3, op. 50, d. 75, l. 38).

269. The censor organ was organized into four sectors: political-economic, artistic, agricultural, and regional (or provincial). In late 1935, according to a party commission probe, the political-economic sector did not have even a single economist, and the artistic sector lacked anyone with specialized arts training. “And if the situation with the censor in the center is blatantly unsatisfactory,” the commission report concluded, “in locales, and especially in the counties, it is utterly catastrophic.” Zhuravlev, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 114–6. Locally, almost every member of the censor staff had to work other jobs concurrently.

270. Shcherbakov composed a long analysis of the situation in literature (Jan. 2, 1936), professing optimism about recent and forthcoming literary works, but complaining that his deputy Stavsky was going behind his back (something Stalin encouraged). Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 284–8 (RGASPI, f. 88, op. 1, d. 474, l. 1–8). Shcherbakov had sent two memoranda to Stalin, Kaganovich, and Yezhov about a struggle to the death of “two camps” inside the underperforming Moscow Art Theater, “‘Priniat’ srochnnye mery k ozdorovleniiu’: 122–3 (APRF, f. 3, op. 35, d. 24, l. 10–1: Aug. 3, 1935), 125–6 (l. 18–21: Sept. 17), 131–2 (l. 33–4); Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 265–6, 267–9, 288–9, 327–31 (APRF, f. 3, op. 35, d. 24, l. 45–51: Oct. 11, 1936).

271. The committee was approved on Dec. 16, 1935, and Kerzhentsev named on Jan. 17, 1936. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 281 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 973, l. 3); Pravda, Jan. 18, 1936. See also Maksimenkov, Sumbur, 69 (RGASPI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 557, l. 1). Kerzhentsev must have been glad to escape radio, where the NKVD had turned up “anti-Soviet class alien elements, climbers, and hacks.” Goriaeva, Radio Rossii, 158–9 (APRF, f. 3, op. 35, d. 14, l. 44–60, 70–1: May 9, 1935); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 588, l. 9–10. In 1937, Stalin would subordinate the Bolshoi, Maly, Moscow Art Theater, Vakhtangov State Theater, Kirov ballet, and others to the committee. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 588, l. 12.

272. Maksimenkov, Sumbur, 77–9 (RGALI, f. 962, op. 10, d. 13, l. 12–3). Gorky had reached his wit’s end with Shcherbakov (“Literature for him is alien, a secondary matter”) and the bureaucratic machinations in the writers’ union. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 276–8 (RGASPI, f. 73, op. 2, d. 44, l. 17–20: Dec. 8, 1935); Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 413–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 720, l. 101–6). In Sept. 1936, Shcherbakov would be sent back to Leningrad as second secretary. He was replaced at the writers’ union by Stavsky.

273. Maksimenkov, Sumbur, 88–112. Samosud’s production of Shostakovich’s Lady MacBeth had premiered in Moscow at the Bolshoi affiliate on Dec. 26, 1935, but Stalin had not attended. Soviet press accounts had been ecstatic. A third festival production, Bright Stream, also elicited superlatives; Stalin did not see that one either before it had closed. On Jan. 16, 1936—the same day as the government decree appointing Kerzhentsev to the new committee—Stalin, in the company of Kerzhentsev, Molotov, and others, returned for the final performance of Quiet Flows the Don. Again he showed himself applauding in the imperial box. Stravinsky would deem the opera Lady MacBeth “lamentably provincial.” Pravda criticized its sympathetic portrait of the murderess. Taruskin, “Opera and the Dictator,” 34–40.

274. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 307–8 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 976, l. 56). Of the Bolshoi dancers, only Igor Moiseyev (then 30 years old) remained, but the Leningraders commenced intrigues against him. Kerzhentsev enabled him to establish what would become a celebrated folk dance ensemble.Moiseev, Ia vospominaiu, 292–4.

275. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 829, l. 69–72. Pravda (Feb. 29, 1936) celebrated the achievements of Soviet film music.

276. RGALI, f. 962, op. 6, d. 42, l. 6. The NKVD’s Molchanov reported that most cultural figures properly understood the Pravda article, but named and quoted a number who had reacted with “anti-Soviet” remarks. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 290–5 (TsA FSB, f. 3 op. 3, d. 121, l. 31–8: Feb. 11, 1936). Gorky wrote to Stalin (March 1936) complaining of the vicious campaign against Shostakovich. Gorky also complained that the theater of “the genius Meyerhold” semed to exist solely for his lover, the actress Raikh, while the theater of “the genius Tairov” seemed to exist solely for the actress Koonen. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 300–2; Literaturnaia gazeta, March 10, 1993.

277. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 289–90 (APRF, f. 3, op. 35, d. 32, l. 42). See also Maksimenkov, Sumbur, 110–2. The day before Shostakovich was received, another attack had appeared in Pravda (Feb. 6, 1936) titled “Balletic Falsity” (about Bright Stream). See also Glikman, Pis’ma k drugu, 317.

278. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 308–9 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 163, d. 1108, l. 125–6: May 19, 1936); Maksimenkov, Sumbur, 227–8.

279. On Feb. 18, Bulgakov met with the new Moscow Art Theater director Mikhail Arkadyev, who asked about his next project. Bulgakov, according to his wife, “answered that the sole subject that interested him at the moment was Stalin.” This referred to a planned play, Batum, likely inspired by recent publications about Stalin’s days in the underground. Losev and Ivanovskaia, Dnevnik Eleny Bulgakovoi, 112, 114. The critic Osaf Litovsky had mercilessly attacked previews of Molière in the journal Sovetskoe iskusstvo (Feb. 11, 1936). Other vicious denunciations followed in lesser periodicals by Bulgakov rivals (Alexander Afinogenov, Yuri Olyesha, Vsevolod Ivanov).

280. “‘Polozhenie ego deistvitel’noe bezyskhodnoe,’” 117–9 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 163, d. 1099, l. 96–8: Feb. 29, 1936); Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 298–300 (otdel rukopisi GPB, f. 562, k. 19, d. 33). See also Sakharov, Mikhail Bulgakov, 439. In 1933, Bulgakov had authored a life of Molière in the series Lives of Remarkable People, a popular prerevolutionary staple which Gorky and Koltsov had revived, but the manuscript was rejected.

281. Pravda, March 9, 1936. (Yelena wrote in her diary: “When we read it, M. A. said, ‘the end of Molière is the end of Ivan Vasilevich.’”) Literaturnai gazeta followed suit (March 10). Kerzhentsev summoned Bulgakov on March 16, an encounter that lasted ninety minutes inside the just opened grandiose new Council of People’s Commissars building, on Hunters Row. Elena deemed it a “senseless meeting.” Losev and Ivanovskaia, Dnvenik Eleny Bulgakovy, 116, 118.

282. Losev and Ivanovskaia, Dnevnik Eleny Bulgakovoi, 72, 120–1. Whether the Bulgakovs knew that Kerzhentsev had been the author of the anonymous article against Bulgakov and the ban on his works is unclear. Maksimenkov, Sumbur, 184, 187–90. In Sept. 1936, Bulgakov would resign from the Moscow Art Theater and take a nominal position at the Bolshoi as a consultant-librettist, rewriting the illiterate works submitted by Soviet librettists who retained the credit for them.

283. Stalin inserted “in connection with the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution.” Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 295–6 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 163, d. 1101, l. 65–6).

284. Miller, Soviet Cinema, 26–9.

285. Pravda, July 3, Aug. 20, 21, and 25, 1935; Doklad komissii B. Z. Shumiatskogo, 150; Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 1026–7 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 828, l. 55–56ob.). After Shumyatsky had returned, he wrote to the Council of People’s Commissars, on Sept. 29, 1935, requesting hard currency to purchase copies of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. Molotov indicated it was for the politburo to decide. (Kaganovich wrote on the document: “I do not object, though we should know its content.”) It turned out to be a smash hit in the USSR. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 286–7 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 163, d. 1082, l. 114–5; op. 3, d. 972, l. 14: Oct. 7, 1935); Pravda, Dec. 2, 1935.

286. Stalin, with Svetlana and Vasily present, watched Girlfriends, written and directed by Leningrad’s Lev Arnstham, with music by Shostakovich. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 1031–3 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 829, l. 64–6).

287. Shumyatsky explained the enormous efficiencies of having producers for each film and centralized studios—a single Hollywood studio was outproducing all Soviet cinema—and argued that a single location would enable economies of scale and eliminate the costly trips around the USSR in search of sites for each film. Just 45 Soviet films had been completed in 1935, against a plan of 130, and 46 would be made in 1936, against a plan for 165. For its Hollywood, the government settled on the Lapsi valley near Foros in Crimea, with an initial budget of 400 million rubles. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 312–14 (APRF, f. 3, op. 35, d. 63, l. 23–6: Shumyatsky to Stalin, March 26, 1936), 327 (RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 958, l. 15, 16: Shumyatsky to Molotov, July 15, 1936); Taylor, “Ideology as Mass Entertainment,” 215–6; Kino, July 4, 1936: 4.

288. In their letter to Stalin, which he forwarded to Shumyatsky and the politburo, the satirists pointed out that in Hollywood directors did not use natural light anyway, shooting their works on indoor sets. Stalin dismissed their letter as blowing hot air. But Shumyatsky found himself on the receiving end of Kerzhentsev’s denunciations for insubordination. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 302–5 (APRF, f. 3, op. 35, d. 63, l. 23–7: Ilf and Petrov to Stalin, Feb. 26, 1936), 1050–1 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 829, l. 94–6); Deriabin, Letopis’ rossiiskogo kino, 1930–1945, 399, 408, 419. Hearsay has Beria learning of the proposed construction in Sukhum of a cinema city, and instigating the Ilf and Petrov opposition letter. On Dec. 26, 1935, Chiaureli had screened The Last Masquerade for Stalin, Beria, Svetlana, and Vasily. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 1033–4 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 828, l. 67–8); Fomin and Deriabin, Letopis’ rossiiskogo kino, II: 391–2; Minchënok, Isaak Dunaevskii, 302–19 (no citations).

289. Ilf and Petrov were in the United States Sept. 19, 1935, to Jan. 22, 1936, and accredited as correspondents of Pravda. Ilf, with his Leica, took a wealth of photographs, which he and Petrov published along with eleven light, satirical installments about their travels in the illustrated mass magazine Ogonyok. They found ordinary America provincial and ignorant of the outside world. Ilf and Petrov, Odnoetazhnaia Amerika; Wolf, Ilf and Petrov’s Road Trip, 136 (quotation); Ilf and Petrov, “Amerikanskie fotografii”; Rodchenko, “Amerikanskie fotograiia Il’ia Il’fa.”; Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 1050–1 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 829, l. 94–6).

290. These data were for Jan. 1, 1937. Zemskov, “GULAG,” 11 (GARF, f. 9401, op. 1, d. 4157, l. 201–5), reproduced in Davies et al., Years of Progress, 432. Mikoyan had pushed for the construction of large meat factories in Moscow, Leningrad, Orsk, and Semipalatinsk, on the model of Chicago slaughterhouses, and Stalin backed him. The machinery was to be imported from Germany, the labor to come from the Gulag. Pavlov, Anastas Mikoian, 73 (citing RGASPI, f. 84, op. 1, d. 135, l. 1–2).

291. Yagoda sent a directive (April 2, 1936) to all camp commandants demanding they combat insect infestation, wash barrack floors and clothes, reduce the interminable queues and food poisonings at mess halls, and ensure that forced laborers, especially skilled ones, were employed properly. Kokurin and Petrov, “Gulag,” 113–7. The regime was cutting costs and mortality statistics with mass releases of invalids and the chronically ill, and incentivizing productivity with early release of inmates who earned the designation “shock worker.”

292. From inception in 1932 through 1941, Dalstroi would produce 430 tons of pure gold. Shirokov, Dal’stro, 141 (citing GAMO, f. R-23ss, op. 1, d. 5, l. 14–5); Khlusov, Ekonomika Gulaga, 74–7 (GARF, f. 5446, op. 20a, d. 9496, l. 2–3, 6, 58: Oct. 30, 1937). The steep rise in gold production enabled the USSR to export 411 gold rubles’ worth of precious metals between 1932 and 1936. Dohan, “Economic Origins of Soviet Autarky,” 610.

293. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 67 (TsA FSB, f. 8os, op. 1, d. 80, l. 39, 51). Yagoda also noted that the ranks of the regular police in 1935 were still only half the total in 1913 (albeit for a somewhat smaller country: no Poland, Baltic states, or Bessarabia). Shearer, “Social Disorder, Mass Repression,” 518 (citing GARF, f. 5446, op. 18a, d. 904, l. 2–14).

294. Paris Midi, Feb. 28, 1936. This was only Hitler’s second interview for the French press, and the first since fall 1933. For a detailed chronology of Nazi foreign policy through 1938, see Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik, 765–841.

295. DBFP, 2nd series, XVI: 73–7 (Feb. 28, 1936); Toynbee, Acquaintances, 279–82; Medlicott, Britain and Germany, 24 (C1814/4/18 FO 371/19891). Toynbee was director of studies at Chatham House, at Balliol College, Oxford University, from 1924. McNeill, Arnold J. Toynbee. Surits, the Soviet envoy, desperately scoured the German press for any lessening of hostility and wrote to Moscow (late Feb. 1936) that it was widely believed in the diplomatic corps “that German military circles continue to follow a special line in German policy toward the Soviet Union.” Abramov, “Osobaia missiia Davida Kandelaki,” 149, (citing AVP RF, f. 082, op. 19, pap. 83, d. 4, l. 36).

296. Ambassador von Moltke reported that Göring’s “declaration was received with obvious satisfaction.” DGFP, series C, IV: 1201–2 (Feb. 26, 1936).

297. Shillony, Revolt in Japan; Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy, 244–300.

298. Trotsky would seize upon the Roy Howard interview (“the export of revolution is nonsense”) to reassert his “gravedigger” portrait of Stalin. Revolution Betrayed, 186.

299. New York World Telegram, March 4, 1936; Pravda, March 5, 1936, reprinted in Sochineniia, XIV: 116–31. In mid-March 1936, returning from a trip through Western Europe, Uborevičius told a gathering of the Communist Youth League in the Western province that he expected war in the Far East “at any moment” and that “in this year or the next, or in two to three years, it’s unavoidable that we will have an encounter with German fascism. . . . The fascists cannot not unleash war. Without war they cannot long exist.” “Dva ochaga opasnosti: vystupeniie komanduiushchego Belorusskim voennym okrugom komandarma 1 ranga I. P. Uborevicha na soveshchanii v Zapadnom obkome VLKSM v 1936 g.” See also Erickson, Soviet High Command, 397–400.

300. War minister Blomberg and the German brass were apprehensive and instituted extensive air-raid precautions, spreading the anxiety. Hossbach, Zwischen Weltkrieg und Hitler, 97–8; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I: 262.

301. Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, III/ii: 30 (March 2, 1936).

302. Medlicott, Britain and Germany, 24–5 (citing CP73[36], CAB24, 261, extract in FO 371/19889); DBFP, 2nd series, XV: 713–36.

303. The German ambassador reported that the war minister, Duff Cooper, had told him “that though the British people were prepared to fight for France in the event of a German incursion into French territory, they would not resort to arms on account of the recent occupation of the German Rhineland.” DGFP, series C, V: 57–8 (Hoesch, March 9, 1936); The Times, March 13, 1936. “With two lunatics like Mussolini and Hitler you can never be sure of anything,” Prime Minister Baldwin would observe. “But I am determined to keep the country out of war.” Jones, Diary with Letters, 191 (April 30, 1936).

304. DBFP, 2nd series, XVI: 45–226; Braubach, Der Einmarch deutscher Truppen, 26–8; Emmerson, Rhineland Crisis, 97–8; Gunsburg, Divided and Conquered, 301–1; Bell, France and Britain, 205–6; Adamthwaite, France, 37–9; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 325. “The need, and yet the difficulty, for Britain and France to work in tandem was the dominant feature of Anglo-French relations,” one scholar aptly noted of the interwar period. Davis, Anglo-French Relations, 189.

305. Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936, 581–9. The United States did not bother to register a protest.