Stalin

215. Kuznetsov worked with the Spanish navy, which had arrived at Cartagena around Oct. 18, to provide a secure escort. Possibly because of an enemy air raid, departure was delayed until the next night. Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 93 (APRF, f. 3, op. 74, d. 20, l. 104–5; RGVA f. 33987, op. 3, d. 912, l. 84); Bolloten, Spanish Civil War, 150; Kuznetsov, “S ispanskimi moriakami,” 241–4.

216. Rybalkin, Operatisia “X,” 31 (citing AVP RF, f. 010, op. 11, d. 53, pap. 71, l. 141: early Nov. 1936). See also Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 115; Pons, “Papers on Foreign and International Policy.” Litvinov wrote on a report by the Soviet delegate Stein from the League of Nations in Geneva that “France has given striking evidence of her weakness and indecision.” Dullin, Men of Influence, 127 (citing AVP RF, f. 5, op. 17, d. 128, pap. 15).

217. DVP SSSR, XIX: 463–4, 513–4.

218. DBFP, 2nd series, XVII: 475–6.

219. That Oct. 1936, a new French ambassador, Robert Coulondre, assumed his duties in Moscow and conveyed that French participation in any “preventive” war was unthinkable and instructed his hosts that Soviet interference in French domestic affairs was impermissible. Coulondre, De Staline a Hitler, 30–46.

220. DGFP, series C, V: 1066–8 (Oct. 12, 1936).

221. The memo by Schnurre called for trade to be “rendered completely non-political.” DGFP, series C, V: 1115–8; Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 284.

222. Surits wrote to Litvinov (Oct. 27, 1936) that “the initiative for revitalizing and strengthening economic relations in recent years has come from Göring and his entourage.” Abramov, “Osobaia missiia Davida Kandelaki,” 149 (citing AVP RF, f. 082, op. 19, pap. 83, d. 4, l. 110). In late Oct. 1936, Göring received Kandelaki (accompanied by Friedrichson), but would then push further contact into the hands of his cousin Herbert, who lacked the authority to make the decisions. Kandelaki would go back to Schacht, whose power had waned. Göring would pull together aluminum plants, oil refineries, ironworks, and manufacturing of synthetic oil and rubber (made from coal) and synthetic textiles (made from pulped wood). He also requisitioned foreign currency from the populace. Tooze, Wages of Destruction, 214 (citing BAI R2501 6446, 13–9), 219–24.

223. Khlevniuk, Stalin i Ordzhonikidze, 88–9; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 71, d. 43, l. 3, 26, 28–9, 31–2.

224. Izvestiia, Nov. 22, 1963.

225. Knight, Beria, 73–4; Vaksberg, Neraskrytye tainy, 123.

226. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 981, l. 384. His arrest was publicly announced on Nov. 14, 1936.

227. Ordzhonikidze, O Sergo Ordzhonikidze, 272 (Zinaida). Beria was preparing a volume of reminiscences on the occasion of Orjonikidze’s fiftieth birthday. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 336 (RGASPI, f. 85, op. 29, d. 418, l. 1).

228. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 173 (citation without specifics).

229. Leushin,” ‘Ia davno uzhe ostavil sei greshnyi mir’: pis’ma Stalina s togo sveta,” Istochnik, 2003, no. 2: 33–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11. d, 1160, l. 102–3, 98, 105, 107, 106). The AP bureau chief was Charles P. Nutter.

230. Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 94–5; Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 126 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 234, l. 34), 134–5 (l. 52–4). See also Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 124–5 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 234, l. 23–24), 126–7 (l. 36–7). Orlov received the Order of Lenin for the gold transfer, though his award was announced in Pravda under his former pseudonym (Nikolsky).

231. Karmen, No Pasarán!, 261; Volodarsky, Stalin’s Agent, 172 and photographic plates (crediting Adelina Abramson-Kondraytyeva, one of the attendees, LSE Cañada Blanch Centre).

232. Larina, This I Cannot Forget, 299; Cohen, Bukharin, 369; Volobuev and Kuleshov, Ochishchenie, 155. Rykov was evicted at this time from his Kremlin apartment and moved to the House on the Embankment.

233. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 108 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 252, l. 99); Whitewood, Red Army, 206–10 (citing RGVA, f. 9, op. 29, d. 285, l. 22, 232–42); Cherushev, 1937 god, 70, 97. Arrests in the Red Army for Jan.–March 1937 kept the same pace: 125, including 43 officers. Whitewood, Red Army, 209 (f. 33837, op. 21, d. 107, l. 14).

234. The longer-term goal was to turn Spain into an economic colony. Harper, German Economic Policy; Leitz, Economic Relations; Barbieri, Hitler’s Shadow Empire.

235. Ernest Hemingway, a war correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance living in Madrid’s Florida Hotel, would complete Fifth Column, his first and only play, the next year. Kale, “Fifth Column.”

236. Soviet personnel viewed foreign embassy compounds and residences as storehouses for weapons to be used by fifth columnists, justifying raids and sweeping roundups. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 152–3; Kol’tsov, Ispaniia v ogne, I/ii: 227.

237. Kol’tsov, Ispanskii dnevnik, 233–45.

238. Preston, Last Stalinist, 70–88.

239. Bollinger, “Fifth Column Marches On.”

240. V. A. Suiazin, “V boi vstupaiut istrebiteli,” in My internatsionalisty: vospominaniia sovetskikh dobrovol’tsev-uchatsnikov natsional’noirevoliutsionnoi voiny v Ispanii (Moscow: Politizdat, 1975), 52. Airplane losses from accidents were high: 147 for the Republic, versus a mere 13 for the putschists. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 677.

241. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 724.

242. Medvedev, Nikolai Bukharin, 130; Conquest, Reassessment, 143–4, citing Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Arkhipelago, I: 415.

243. Preston, Franco, 205–6.

244. “Our great friend and parent,” Kaganovich wrote to Orjonikidze, “does not want to facilitate the nasty work of smothering the Spanish Republic, on the contrary he wants to help the Spanish Republic smother the fascists.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 151 (RGASPI, f. 85, op. 29, d. 435, l. 1–12; Oct. 12, 1936). Stalin told Spain’s ambassador in Jan. 1937 that “in opposing the triumph of Italy and Germany, they are trying to prevent any weakening in France’s power or military situation.” Smyth, “Soviet Policy,” 99.

245. DBFP, 2nd series, XVII: 30.

246. Pravda, Nov. 26, 1936; Chukovskii, Dnevnik, 149.

247. At the 7th Congress of Soviets, Pravda had announced a possible constitutional revision, including the prospect of direct, secret elections. Pravda, Feb. 7 and 8, 1935.

248. Bukharin and Radek, commission members, undertook analyses of the constitutions of Germany and of France; the commission also examined the Provisional Government’s 1917 electoral law. On holiday in fall 1935, Stalin, working on a draft, asked Kaganovich for a copy of Switzerland’s constitution (Kaganovich had it translated by Radek). RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 83, l. 92; d. 90, l. 121, 126; d. 53, l. 122; Pravda, July 8, 1935. An editorial subcommittee—Akulov, Krylenko, Vyshinsky, Stalin—drafted the text of the constitution.

249. Trotsky, “New Constitution.” Whether Trotsky’s article influenced Stalin is unknown. Before it was published (May 9), but not necessarily before Stalin read it (it was finished April 16), Yakov Yakovlev, Stetsky, and Tal were summoned to the Little Corner (April 17, 18, 19, and 22, 1936) to go over the draft text of the constitution with Stalin. On May 15, the draft was discussed and further revised at a meeting.

250. Siegelbaum and Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life, 158–206 (at 159–60).

251. Schapiro, Communist Party of the Soviet Union (2nd ed.), 410–1.

252. Translated in Field, Three French Writers, 29. See also Unger, Constitutional Development in the USSR.

253. For example: Petr Garvi, “Novaia Sovetskaia konstituttsiia,” Sotsialisticheskii vetsnik, July 10, 1936. See also Liebich, From the Other Shore, 249–51.

254. Kozlov, Neizvestnaia Rossiia, II: 272–80. “Everybody thanks Soviet rule for the fact that the government took all the enterprises away from the landowners, and everybody thanks it for saying that there should be no war,” stated a letter from Voronezh province to Peasant Newspaper. “But people on the collective farm are not happy and everybody is hungry and are quietly saying, but obviously afraid to say, that because the whole enterprise belongs to the state, the peasant does all this work and has to give a certain amount from each hectare to the state, so that there will be no war.” She added that farmers wanted to quit the collectives, but newspapers made no mention of this. Siegelbaum and Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life, 175 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 232, l. 83); 176 (l. 80–2).

255. In a few cases leaflets were printed and posted. Vasil’ev, “30-e gody na Ukraine.”

256. Many comments entailed demands to guarantee pensions, social insurance, and access to sanatoriums for collective farmers (the benefits accorded to workers). Siegelbaum and Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life, 158–206; Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, 184–202. See also intelligentsia speculation about Stalin not trusting the party and instead wanting to be a president or emperor: Davies, Popular Opinion, 172 (citing TsGAIPD SPb, f. 24, op. 2b, d. 185, l. 50-2).

257. Trotsky, Revolution Betrayed, chap. 10 (“The Soviet Union in the Mirror of the New Constitution”). See also Hoffmann, Stalinist Values.

258. Chuev, Sto sorok, 289. Stalin had once said that “the dictatorship of the proletariat is the sharpest form of class struggle.” Danilov and Khlevniuk, Kak lomali NEP, IV: 654 (politburo meeting, uncorrected transcript, April 22, 1929).

259. Pravda, Nov. 26, 1936.

260. Krasnaia zvezda, Nov. 28, 1936. The order to print Stalin’s speech in 20 million brochure copies also ordered 5 million phonographic records. Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, 178 (citing RGALI, f. 962, op. 3, d. 293, l. 35, SSSR na ekrane, 1936, no. 10), 181–2 (TsMAM, f. 528, op. 1, d. 409, l. 7; f. 150, op. 5, d. 26. L. 163; TsAODM, f. 63, op. 1, d. 716, l. 4), 184–5. For the film of the speech: RGAKFD, 1–3470. Between 1921 and 1935, Stalin’s publications amounted to 160 separate items, in 75 languages, and nearly 116 million copies.

261. International Military Tribunal, X: 239–41. The negotiations had been conducted with Lieutenant-Colonel Hiroshi Ōshima, the military attaché to Berlin. Tokushirō, “Anti-Comintern Pact.”

262. Wheeler-Bennett, Documents on International Affairs, 299–300; Shirer, Berlin Diary, 69–70; DVP SSSR, XIX: 779 (Surits in Berlin to Moscow, Nov. 27, 1936). See also Beloff, Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, I: 103.

263. Quoted in Chamberlain, Japan over Asia, 163–4. See also Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 115–6.

264. Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 190, citing International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Documents Presented in Evidence, exhibits 487, 3508; Jones, Japan’s New Order, 99n2.

265. Muggeridge, Ciano’s Diplomatic Papers, 58 (October 24, 1936). Alfred Rosenberg, the ideologue, had stated at a Nuremberg rally, “We acknowledge the destiny of the Yellow race and wish it in its own Lebensraum the development of its culture which originated from its racial soul.” Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 90; Baynes, Speeches of Adolf Hitler, II: 1258–9; Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 384–5n3; Rosenberg, Blut und Ehre, 347.

266. The Soviets undercut their own accusations that the pact was directed at the USSR by their long-standing pretense that the Comintern was an independent organization not controlled from Moscow.

267. “Well informed people refuse to believe that for the drawing up of the two scantly published articles of the German-Japanese agreement it was necessary to conduct negotiations for fifteen months, and that on the Japanese side it was necessary to entrust these negotiations to an Army general, and on the German side to an important diplomat,” Litvinov huffed to the Congress of Soviets (Nov. 28, 1936). Wheeler-Bennett, Documents on International Affairs, 1936, 302. The Soviet Union suspended the agreed but not yet signed bilateral fisheries convention with Japan. Grew, Ten Years in Japan, 196; Iklé, German-Japanese Relations, 41–2 (citing U.S. Govt., Dept. of State, Files 762.94/108: U.S. embassy in France to secretary of state).

268. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 240; Volkov, “Legendy i desitvitel’nost’ o Rikharde Zorge,” 100; Korol’kov, Chelovek, dlia kotorogo ne bylo tain, 108; DGFP, series C, VI: 208 (Dirksen in Tokyo to Berlin, Dec. 23, 1936).

269. Peace and War—United States Foreign Policy, 340–2; Documents on International Affairs, I: 4–5. A Soviet diplomat in Tokyo would even inform his German counterparts that they had read the actual text. FRUS, Japan, 1931–1941, II, 153.

270. Chrezvychainyi VIII Vsesoiuznyi s”ezd Sovetov.

271. Waddington, Hitler’s Crusade, 110 (citing BK, ZSg. 101/14, Presseanweisung, Nov. 28, 1931). Following a discussion with Hitler, Goebbels had recently written in his diary: “The showdown with Bolshevism is coming . . . The army is completely won over by us. Führer untouchable . . . Dominance in Europe is as good as certain.” Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, III/ii: 251–2 (Nov. 15, 1936). In fact, German planning was directed at a war in the West, an aim for which the Hitler regime anticipated subordinating Poland and Hungary. Weinberg, Hitler’s Foreign Policy, 13–4.

272. Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, II: 272–3 (Dec. 2, 1936).

273. Moradiellos, “British Government and General Franco,” 44 (citing PRO FO371/20470, W15925, minute by Gladwyn Jebb: Nov. 25, 1936).

274. Dullin, Men of Influence, 124–5 (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1027, l. 148: Potyomkin to Krestinsky, Nov. 12, 1936; AVP RF, f. 010, op. 11, d. 77, l. 113: Litvinov to Potyomkin, Nov. 19).

275. Litvinov had made the same point. Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War, 60, 68. See also Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 122, citing Pravda, Nov. 29, 1936 (Litvinov speech to the Congress of Soviets).

276. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 254–89 (at 269, citing TsA FSB, f. 3–os, op. 4, d. 6, l. 1–61).

277. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 304–8 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 575, l. 11–9, 40–5, 49–53, 57–60, 66–7); “Fragmenty stenogrammy dekabr’skogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1936 goda,” 6; APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 256, l. 12.

278. Kaganovich differentiated party guilt from juridical guilt. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 309–12 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 575, l. 69–74, 82–6).

279. Mikoyan chimed in with other names (Skrypnyk, Khanjyan). RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1119, l. 63.

280. How many attendees (besides the stool pigeon Khrushchev) understood this targeting of Kaganovich remains unclear. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 156–8; Khrushchev, Memoirs, I: 150–3; http://www.gorlovka360.dn.ua/sport-i-zdorovie/stadion-shahter-virtualnyiy-tur; http://www.memo.ru/history/1937/dec_1936/VI9501.htm; Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 312 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 576, l. 67–70); Rogovin, Stalin’s Terror, 143. Shortly thereafter, Andreyev condemned Furer at a party meeting in Rostov. Khlevniuk, In Stalin’s Shadow, 161.

281. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 132, l. 132; Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 277.

282. Jansen and Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner, 58 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 575, l. 6–68); “Fragmenty stenogrammy dekabr’skogo plenuma TsK KPSS (b) 1936 goda,” 4 (APRF, op. 76, d. 20, l. 129 -133); Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 303–22 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 575, l. 69–74, 82–6, 94–7, 100–4, 122–6, 134–7, 1159–62, 165–7, 169–72; d. 576, 67–70); “O partiinosti lits, prokhodivshikh po delu tak nazyvaemogo ‘antisovetskogo pravotrotskistskogo bloka,’” 75–6; Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 38–9. No transcript appears to exist of Stalin’s full speech to the plenum, just excerpts.

283. Rogovin, 1937, 179–80. Bukharin ceased to be listed as editor from Jan. 16, 1937.

284. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 40 (Dec. 9, 1936). See also the entry for Nov. 26, 1936 (37).

285. Dmitri Bogomolov, the Soviet consul in China, told Dimitrov in Moscow (Dec. 9) that “Chiang Kai-shek will decide on an agreement with the Communists only on the brink of war with Japan and in connection with an agreement with the Soviet Union.” Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 40.

286. Wai Chor, “Making of the Guomindang’s Japan Policy.”

287. Bertram, Crisis in China, 108.

288. Titarenko, VKP (b), komintern i kitai: dokumenty, IV/ii: 1068 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 275, l. 5–9).

289. Taylor, Generalissimo, 122, 124–5 (Zhang Xueliang, Columbia Interviews, XXXVII: 25–189).

290. Taylor, Generalissimo, 124 (Chiang Diaries, Hoover Institution Archives, box 39, folder 4: Nov. 24, 1936).

291. Zhang may have divulged to Mao’s secret liaison in Xi’an that he intended to “stage a coup d’état.” Guotao, Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, II: 478–9; Chang and Halliday, Mao, 181–2.

292. On Dec. 9, 1936, as a light snow fell, students marked the one-year anniversary of a nationwide anti-Japanese protest and headed out to confront Chiang; upon reaching Lintong they were fired upon; there were casualties. Taylor, Generalissimo, 126–7 (Zhang Xueliang, Columbia Interviews, XXXVII: 25–1901).

293. Li-fu, Storm Clouds, 119–20; Kai-shek, Soviet Russia in China, 73. Chinese Communists had repeatedly tried to solicit the help of the Young Marshal and, despite Moscow’s warnings about his unreliability, preferred Zhang to the Nationalists. Many Chinese Communists were champing at the bit to eliminate Chiang by any means. See also Snow, Random Notes, 1–3.

294. Pantsov and Levine, Mao, 299, citing Ye Zilong, Ye Zilong huiyilu (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chbanshe, 2000), 38–9; Chang and Halliday, Mao, 183. See also Guotao, Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, II: 480.

295. Kai-shek, “A Fortnight,” 58–63.

296. Peter H. L. and Edith Chang Papers, 1930s–2001, Columbia University, box 7.

297. Selle, Donald of China, 324. William Henry Donald, a journalist and assistant to Chiang, arrived in Xi’an on Dec. 14, sent by the wife, Soong Mayling, and brother T. V. Soong. Donald, once an adviser to Zhang (until 1933), was allowed to see Chiang, and pleaded with him to compromise on a united front and turn against the Japanese. Mayling, Sian.

298. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 41 (Dec. 13, 1936); RGASPI, f. 146, op. 2, d. 3, l. 29.

299. Krymov, Istoriko-memuarnye zapiski, 288–90.

300. Wu, Sian Incident, 101. Otto Braun, a Comintern official, recalled that word of the arrest “produced a genuine rapture, for Chiang Kai-shek was the most hated man in the CCP and the Chinese Red Army.” At an open air meeting, Mao declared it time to settle accounts with the traitor and “bring him before a people’s court.” Those assembled adopted a resolution for a “mass trial” of Chiang Kai-shek. Braun, Comintern Agent in China, 183; Snow, Random Notes, 1; Short, Mao, 347; Guotao, Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, II: 481. Another account has Mao urging Zhou Enlai to make haste to Xi’an, several days away by horseback, to persuade Zhang “to carry out the final measure.” Chang and Halliday, Mao, 184, citing Central Archive, 1997, 213, and Zhang Xueliang nianpo (Beijing, 1996), 1124.

301. Guotao, Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, II: 479–82; Taylor, Generalissimo, 128–9, citing Zhongguo gongchandang guanyu Xi’an shibian dangan shiliao xuanbian (Peking: Zhunguo dangan chubanshe, 1997), 213.

302. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov and Stalin, 106 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 294, l. 6); Titarenko, VKP (b), komintern i kitai: dokumenty, IV/ii: 1084–5.

303. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 42; RGASPI, f. 146, op. 2, d. 3, l. 30.

304. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 41–2; RGASPI, f. 146, op. 2, d. 3, l. 29–30.

305. Na prieme, 195.

306. Titarenko, VKP (b), komintern i kitai: dokumenty, IV/ii: 1085–7 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 281, l. 11); Titarenko, Kommunisticheskii internatsional, 270 (abridged).

307. Shai, Zhang Xueliang, 77.

308. Gibson, “Chiang Kai-shek’s Central Army,” 333–4. See also van Slyke, Enemies and Friends, chapter 4; Wu, Sian Incident; Braun, Comintern Agent in China, 182–90; Sheng and Garver, “New Light on the Second United Front”; Garver, “Soviet Union and the Xi’an Incident.”

309. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 42–3.

310. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 44 (Dec. 18, 1936); Radzinsky, Stalin, 352 (citing D. Karavkina, employee of VOKS, Dec. 19, 1936).

311. Snow, Random Notes, 1–3. Mao supposedly kept the telegram secret from Zhou, who was en route to persuade Zhang to execute Chiang; in any case Zhang had not moved to eliminate Chiang.

312. Pantsov and Levine, Mao, 302, citing Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1893–1949) (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 2003), 431–2.

313. Zhang had sent his personal Boeing for Zhou. Leonard, I Flew for China, 99. On Dec. 20, Zhang greeted T. V. Soong at the Xi’an airport and took him to Chiang; upon seeing his brother, a surprised Chiang wept. Chiang’s wife, Mayling, arrived in Xi’an, too. Taylor, Generalissimo, 132 (T. V. Soong papers, box 60, folder 3), 133 (citing interview in 1995 with Wang Chi, who cited a conversation with Zhang; and T. V. Soong Papers, box 60, folder 3, pp. 6–7); Kai-shek, “Fortnight,” 97; Mayling, Sian, 54–5.

314. Taylor, Generalissimo, 130 (citing Zhang Xueliang Interviews, Columbia University, XXIX: 25–1928); Suyin, Eldest Son, 153–4; Guotao, Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, II: 479–87.

315. Germany had its own naval technology (which the Soviets also sought). Maiolo, “Anglo-Soviet Naval Armaments Diplomacy.” See also Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 336 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 19, l. 185: May 27, 1936), 337 (l. 202: June 27); DVP SSSR, XIX: 272, 376. In London on July 17, 1937, Anglo-Soviet and Anglo-German naval treaties were signed, but Stalin’s large fleet construction appetites had only grown by then.

316. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 38–40; Volodarsky, Stalin’s Agent, 209 (citing PRO HW 17/27, mask traffic Moscow-Madrid-Moscow); Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 116; Communist International 142 (Feb. 1937): 136–8.

317. Kol’tsov, “Podlye manevry ispanskikh trotskistov,” 5; “Gnusnye manevry trotskistov v Katalonii,” Pravda, Dec. 17, 1936.

318. Also on December 17, an article appeared in the émigré press based on an interview with Noe Jordania, the exiled elder statesman of Georgian Marxism. “For him unacceptable methods do not exist . . . He is vindictive, ruthless, relentless. He is capable of any actions for the sake of power. The spirit of despotism of old times lives in him.” Vakar, “Stalin,” 2.

319. Kol’tsov, “Agentura trotskistov v Ispanii.” See also “Ispanskii dnevnik,” Novyi mir, no. 4 (1938): 5 (Jan. 21, 1937).

320. Valedinskii, “Organizm Stalina vpolne zdorovyi.”

321. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 190–1. “Stalin’s children not there,” observed Dimitrov. “Till 5:30 in the morning!” Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 47 (Dec. 21, 1936).

322. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 156–7 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 222, l. 172–5); Pertsov, Voina i revoliutsiia v Ispanii, I: 419–21; Carr, Comintern and the Spanish Civil War, 86–8. See also VII kongress Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala, 452 (Dec. 27, 1936, Comintern decree). Stalin would reiterate to Pascua in person on Feb. 3, 1937, that there would be no Soviet model for Spain, which was called “a democratic republic of a new type.”

323. Ercoli, “Ob osobennostiakh ispanskoi revoliutsii.” “Kautsky” was also the code name used for Diaz, the leader of the Spanish Communist party.

324. Göring had extended the invitation on Dec. 6; Litvinov had telegrammed permission to accept. Abramov, “Osobaia missiia Davida Kandelaki,” 150 (citing AVP RF, f. 05, op. 16, pap. 118, d. 46, l. 157–9; op. 17, pap. 130, d. 42, l. 7: Surits to Krestinsky: Jan. 27, 1937); Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 346–7n1 (RGASPI, f. 71, op. 25, d. 3646).

325. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 22, l. 1–5 (Stomonyakov, Nov. 10, 1936); RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 23, l. 1–9 (Dec. 24). Stalin and entourage received the Mongols again on Jan. 4, 1937, this time with trade and economics officials. The meeting ended with supper and toasts. Stalin told the story of his escape from Buryat Novaya Uda in 1903. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 24, l. 1–12.

326. Taylor, Generalissimo, 134–6.

327. Zhang was kept in indefinite house arrest. Taylor, Generalissimo, 135 (citing T. V. Soong Papers, box 60, folder 3, p. 15); Gibson, “Chiang Kai-shek’s Central Army,” 336.

328. “Chiang had left for Xian a popular leader,” his biographer writes, “but returned a national hero.” Taylor, Generalissimo, 135–6.

329. “The terrific personal shock Chiang had suffered might have embittered and unbalanced a man less gifted with foresight and hastened him into precipitate actions of revenge—which, in fact, Chiang’s angry followers in Nanking demanded,” wrote Edgar Snow. Snow, Red Star over China, 465.

330. Chiang Ching-kuo would return via Vladivostok to China on April 19, 1937.

331. In Dec. 1936, Wang Jingwei had an audience with Hitler, discussing China’s entry into the Pact and Germany’s reciprocation with greatly expanded aid. (The German foreign ministry dismissed reports of the meeting as “hearsay.”) Taylor, Generalissimo, 622n142. See also Wai Chor, “Making of the Guomindang’s Japan Policy,” 244. In late 1938, Wang would depart Chongqing for Hanoi, French Indochina, and announce his support for a negotiated settlement with the Japanese; he would fly to Shanghai and enter into negotiations with Japan, defecting to the Japanese side.

332. Larina, This I Cannot Forget, 324, 304.

333. Valedinskii, “Organizm Stalina vpolne zdorovyi.”

334. Kommunisticheskii Internatsional, 1937, no. 1: 8–9.

335. AVP RF, f. 05, op. 17, d. 49, p. 131, l. 59–60 (La Batalla, Jan. 21, 1937). Orlov seems to have pushed in Jan. 1937 for approval for an armed uprising in the Nationalist rear, in Spanish Morocco, but the Spanish Republican government did not support the idea, wary of overly antagonizing France given the proximity to French Morocco. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 274, 467n21 (citing ASVRR file 17679, I: 54). Orlov finally became official NKVD station chief in Spain in late Feb. 1937.

336. It seems that in Nov. 1936, one POUM activist who traveled to Mexico as head of a sports delegation transmitted a request from the POUM leadership to the Mexican president to grant Trotsky political asylum there. The next year, this same man, Bartolome Costa-Amik, met three times with Trotsky. The two men argued over the desirability and feasibility of POUM carrying out a socialist revolution in Spain, as in Russia. Rogovin, 1937, 355 (citing Trud, Feb. 22, 1994).

337. L. Trotskii, “V Meksike,” Hoover Institution Archives, Nicolaevsky Collection, box 354, folder 37, pp. 124–5. Trotsky was under surveillance by the Mexican police, the Mexican Communist party (on behalf of Moscow), the NKVD, and the U.S. Government. Hoover Institution Archives, Joseph Hansen Papers, box 70, folder 8, pp. 1–15.

338. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1120, l. 1–20. On Jan. 6, 1937, the USSR conducted a population census (it had been delayed twice), the first since 1926. The enumeration encompassed Gulag camps, too, but it returned only 162 million people, versus an expectation of more than 170 million. The census further showed that 57 percent of inhabitants above the age of sixteen identified themselves as religious. That was more than 55 million people. The census results were suppressed. Zhiromskaia et al., Polveka pod grifom “sekretno,” 98, 100. See also Merridale, “1937 Census.”

339. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1120, l. 7–8, 11–12.

340. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1120, l. 8–10. Stalin had supposedly said much the same, more colorfully, to the Soviet writer Mikhail Sholokhov (“What can you do? People need a little god”). Gromov, Stalin, 160, citing M. M. Sholokhov, “Razgovor o otsom,” Literaturnaia gazeta, May 23, 1990. See also Feuchtwanger, Moskva 1937 goda, 65. Kolakowski asserted that “Stalin as a despot was much more the party’s creation than its creator,” but he got right that Stalin “was the personification of a system which irresistibly sought to be personified.” Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, III: 2, 5. See also Ennker, “‘Struggling for Stalin’s Soul.’”

341. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1120, l. 14–7. What Stalin did not divulge was that while the number of people arrested for terrorist acts and statements had dropped in 1936, to 3,388 people (from 8,988 in 1935 and 6,504 in 1934), the number of those rounded up for belonging to an opposition had jumped to 23,279 (from 3,447 in 1935 and 631 in 1934). Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 93 (citing TsA FSB, f. 8os., op. 1, d. 79).

342. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1120, l. 7–8, 11–12.

343. Stalin could be ingratiating in these circumstances, but this statement about fascism was not at all what the antifascist crusader Feuchtwanger wanted to hear. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1120, l. 18–9.

344. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 983, l.14–15, 110–1. On Jan. 16, 1937, Postyshev was removed as Kiev province party secretary for having allowed “an extraordinarily great level of contamination by Trotskyites.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 5023, l. 1–17 (Jan. 13, 1937); Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 353–7; Na prieme, 198–9; Khlevniuk, 1937–i, 90–114.

345. Larina, This I Cannot Forget, 312.

346. Titarenko, VKP (b), komintern i kitai: dokumenty, IV/ii: 1090–1 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 281, l. 17–18); Titarenko, Kommunisticheskii internatsional, 271–2.

347. Titarenko, VKP (b), komintern i kitai: dokumenty, IV/ii: 1098 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 281, l. 28: March 2, 1937).

348. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlneie, 9–19 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 269, l. 38–58, 80).

349. Khlevniuk, Stalin i Ordzhonkidze, 88–97.

350. Report of Court Proceedings, 54; “O tak nazyvaemom ‘parallel’nom antisovetskom trotskistom tsentre’”: 30–50.

351. Yagoda belatedly lost this rank. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 60 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 983, l. 50); Kokurin and Petrov, Lubianka, 1917–1960, 14. In 1937, chief of the Gorky [Nizhny Novgorod] NKVD Lavrushin wrote a note to Moscow about Yagoda’s supposed past as an okhranka agent, with testimony from a witness about the removal on July 15, 1935, by former local NKVD boss Matvei Pogrebinsky of Yagoda’s tsarist police file from the local archives. Il’inskii, Narkom Iagoda, 51–2; Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 83–4 (testimony of Alexander Yevstifeyev, 1937). See also Orlov, Tainaia istoriia, 209–10. Yagoda’s supposed okhranka past would not be used against him at trial, perhaps because it was too evocative of whispers about Stalin. Pogrebinsky would commit suicide on April 4, 1937.

352. Lyons, Assignment in Utopia, 585. Some years earlier a German count had likened Radek to “something between Puck and Wolf, a bit of a street Arab, a cheeky, amusing, and terrifying Mephisto physiognomy.” Kessler, Tagebücher, 354 (1922).

353. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 51 (Feb. 2, 1937). The émigré Miliukov fantasized that Russia was being reborn, on the analogy of the French Revolution’s counterrevolution. Poslednie novosti, Jan. 23, 1937: 1. See also Nielsen, Miliukov i Stalin.

354. Broué, “Trotsky”; Broué, “Party Opposition to Stalin,” 166; Rogovin, 1937, 60–6.

355. In public, Smirnov alone retracted his confession. Rogovin, 1937, 23.

356. Trotskii, “Otkrytoe pis’ma.”

357. Ingratiatingly, the NKVD agent Zborowski managed to report that, on Jan. 22, Trotsky’s son Lev Sedov had told him apropos of the accusations, “now there is no longer vacillation, Stalin should be killed.” Volkogonov, Trotskii, II: 197 (citing Arkhiv INO OGPU-NKVD, f. 31660, d. 9067, t. 1, l. 98). Although, in an article (Oct. 1933), Trotsky had written that “the only way to compel the bureaucracy to hand over power to the proletariat is by force,” in a subsequent article on the Kirov murder he wrote that assassinating Stalin would accomplish nothing, because he would just be replaced by “one of those Kaganoviches.” “Klassovaia priroda sovetskogo gosudarstva (problemy chetvertogo internatsionala),” Biulleten’ oppozitsii, no. 36–7 (October 1933): 1–12 (at 9–10); Trotskii, “Stalinskaia biurokratiia i ubiistvo Kirova”; Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/i: 270.

358. Maksimenkov, Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 366 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1082, l. 1–2), 1051–3 (d. 829, l. 107–8).

359. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 350–1 (RGASPI, f. 71, op. 10, d. 127, l. 188–9; f. 558, op. 1, d. 5324, l. 33). Arrests at Lenfilm continued throughout the film’s shooting. Mar’iamov, Kremlevskii tsenzor, 35. See also Latyshev, “Stalin i kino,” 495–6.

360. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 350–1 (RGASPI, f. 71, op. 10, d. 127, l. 188–9); Latyshev, “Stalin i kino,” 494–6; Milovidov, “Velikii grazhdanin,” 6.

361. Titarenko, VKP (b), komintern i kitai: dokumenty, IV/ii: 1094–6 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 281, l. 22–3).

362. Yezhov’s pretrial instructions to Ulrich specified execution for all defendants, so Stalin had changed his mind and rewarded Radek. “‘Vse, chto govorit Radek—eto’ absoliutno zlostnaia kleveta . . .’”

363. Pravda, Jan. 31, 1937.

364. Dullin, Men of Influence, 138, citing AVP RF, f. 5, op. 17, pap. 126, d. 1 (Jan. 8, 1937, draft). Soviet-German efforts at contact were convoluted. Abramov, “Osobaia missiia Davida Kandelaki,” 150 (citing AVP RF, f. 05, op. 17, pap. 126, d. 1, l. 17), 150–1 (citing AVP RF, f. 17, pap. 130, d. 41, l. 3), 151 (citing AVP RF, f. 011, op. 1а, pap. 1, d. 2, l. 5; f. 059, op. 1, pap. 244, d. 1717, l. 10), 151 (citing AVP RF, f. 05, op. 17, pap. 130, d. 42, l. 6, 17); Fischer, Russia’s Road, 241.

365. Krivitsky, In Stalin’s Secret Service. Maisky (in London), writing to Litvinov, surmised that “Hitler is not yet ready for a large-scale war and it is unlikely that Mussolini ever will be.” DVP SSSR, XIX: 673 (Dec. 17, 1936).

366. Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed. Stalin’s refusal to permit a Spanish Communist takeover was manifest well before access to Soviet archives. Cattell, Communism and the Spanish Civil War. See also Schauff, Der verspielte Sieg.

367. Kowalsky, Stalin.

368. On Soviet motivations as given in the contemporary Soviet press, see Allen, “Soviet Union and the Spanish Civil War.”

369. DBFP, 2nd series, XVII: 754–6 (Jan. 2, 1937); “The Anglo-American Agreement,” Bulletin of International News 15/8 (1938): 11–3.

370. Izvestiia, Jan. 5, 1937. Hitler sent Göring to Italy to shore up relations; Mussolini received him on January 15. When Göring brought up Germany’s desire to annex Austria, a development he insisted Italy had no choice but to accept, Mussolini became visibly displeased. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 68.

371. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 235 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 188 l. 100).

372. Andrew and Elkner, “Stalin and Foreign Intelligence,” 85.

373. “The Communists have got into the habit of denouncing as a Trotskyist everybody who disagrees with them about anything,” the Austrian Borkenau would note. “For in Communist mentality, every disagreement in political matters is a major crime, and every political criminal is a Trotskyist.” Borkenau, Spanish Cockpit, 240.

CHAPTER 7. ENEMIES HUNTING ENEMIES

1. Boris Yefimov, in Beliaev, Mikhail Koltsov, 71 (1989 ed.), 103.

2. Arrests in the NKVD included incarcerations of border guards and regular police (the militia), who accounted for the overwhelming majority of NKVD personnel (around 400,000), as well as of Gulag camp guards and administrators and fire brigades, who were not directly involved in the mass arrests. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 258; Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 150 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 996, l. 187–9); Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 501. Different figures are given in Luk’ianov, “Massovye repressii opravdany byt’ ne mogut,” 121.

3. Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 7–20, 255; Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 111; Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 188–9.

4. Mlechin, KGB, 162–3.

5. Radek at his public trial on Jan. 24, 1937, had mentioned Tukhachevsky’s name as a co-conspirator. Radek then tried to retract, but the deed had been done. Report of Court Proceedings, 105, 146. After the first Moscow trial, Werner von Tippelskirch, a German military attaché in Moscow, had reported to Berlin (Sept. 28, 1936) the speculation about a pending trial of Red Army commanders. Erickson, Soviet High Command, 427 (citing Serial 6487/E486016–120: Report A/2037).

6. Wollenberg, Red Army, 224; Erickson, Soviet High Command, 465; Conquest, Great Terror: Reassessment, 201–35; Ulam, Stalin, 457–8; Tucker, Stalin in Power; Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. Assertions of a real plot go back to the time and have persisted: Duranty, USSR, 222; Davies, Mission to Moscow, I: 111. The claptrap persists: Prudnikova and Kolpakidi, Dvoinoi zagovor.

7. Whitewood, Red Army. This is a variant on Harris, “Encircled by Enemies.”

8. Khrushchev had blamed German intelligence for inciting Stalin’s suspicious personality. For the fables, see Höttl, Secret Front, 77–85 (Höttl was an Austrian intelligence officer swept into the German S.D. in 1938); Reitlinger, SS, 93–6. See also Krivitsky, In Stalin’s Secret Service, 213–43, and Erickson, Soviet High Command, 433–6. No such Tukhachevsky dossier obtained from abroad was ever mentioned by Stalin in the many discussions he held that have been transcribed; no reference to such a dossier appears in Tukhachevsky’s secret case files.

9. Spalcke, “Der Fall Tuchatschewski”; Sluch, “‘Delo Tukhachevskogo.’” The archive fire took place on the night of March 1–2, 1937. Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, I/ii: 258 (quoting a Yezhov report to Stalin, no citation). The Gestapo had long been trying to set up the talented Red Marshal Tukhachevsky, echoing the Russian emigration’s fantasies about a Russian Bonaparte. RGVA, f. 33 987, op. 3, d. 864, l. 60–7, Volkogonov papers, Hoover, container 17; Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 186 (citing GARF, f. 5853, op. 1, d. 8, l. 126; d. 9, l. 125; d. 14, l. 85); Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 99; Il’in, “Zapiski.”

10. Pravda’s Berlin correspondent wrote home that Wehrmacht circles were abuzz about their secret links to the Red Army, especially to Tukhachevsky. Mekhlis excerpted the letter for Stalin (Jan. 16, 1937). Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 15.

11. Uritsky discounted the possibility of such clandestine collaboration, but reported the rumors anyway. Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, I/ii: 255, citing TsGASA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1036, l. 270–4 (April 9, 1937).

12. Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 20–2 (Daladier warning, Potyomkin to Moscow, March 16, 1937); Artizov et al., Reabilitatsiia: kak eto bylo, II: 601. Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš supposedly was informed of secret negotiations between Berlin and Moscow for a rapprochement, as well as of a military coup to topple the Soviet regime, and passed word or documents to the Soviet regime, but there is no such information in records of conversations by Alexandrovsky in Prague. No documents from Heydrich via Beneš have ever been found in Soviet or German archives, either. Nor were the alleged documents ever mentioned in the innumerable internal interrogation protocols or at the trial. Stalin had no need for such documents: if they had existed and he had used them, the Gestapo could have crowed about its handiwork, fooling Stalin into executing one of his best military men. Polišenská and Kvaček, “Archivní dokumenty hovoří,” 29; TsRGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1028, l. 107–14; Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 5–6, 23–9; Lukes, Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler, 91–112. See also Watt, “Who Plotted against Whom?,” 49 (citing PRO, FO 371/21104, N 3287/461/38, Newton, June 21, 1937); Les Événements Survenues en France de 1933 à 1945, I: 129. There is a grievous mistake in the annotations to Stalin’s office logbooks connected to the myth of the Beneš role in passing on a Nazi file implicating Tukhachevsky: on May 21, Stalin received Mikhail K. Alexandrovsky, not the Soviet representative to Czechoslovakia (Sergei S. Alexandrovsky). Gorbunov, “Voennaia razvedka v 1934–1939 godakh” (no. 8), 93; Plimak and Antonov, “Nakanune strashnoi daty,” 151; Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 120–1 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 175, l. 82); Na prieme, 208; Naumov, Stalin i NKVD, 344.

13. Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 10–1 (citing the interrogation of I. M. Kedrov, May 25, 1939).

14. Reese, Stalin’s Reluctant Soldiers, 134–46. From 1937 to 1938, 34,501 Red Army officers, air force officers, and military political personnel were discharged, either because of expulsion from the party or arrest; 11,596 would be reinstated by 1940. As Voroshilov noted, some 47,000 officers had been discharged in the years following the civil war, almost half of them (22,000) in the years 1934–36; around 10,000 of these discharged were arrested. Few were higher-ups, however. Confusingly, sometimes the totals include the Red Air Force, and sometimes not. “Nakanune voiny (dokumenty 1935–1940 gg.),” 188; Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 137. In 1939, when Stalin turned off the pandemonium, 73 Red Army personnel would be arrested.

15. Alliluyeva, Tol’ko odin god, 334.

16. Pravda, Feb. 11, 1937: 3 (N. Tikhonov). See also the satire by Mikhail Zoshchenko, “V pushkinskie dni,” originally in Krokodil, 1937, nos. 3 and 5, reprinted in Zoshchenko, Sobranie sochinenii, II: 416–21. In the restored apartment at Moika, 12, in Leningrad, busts of Pushkin and Stalin appeared side by side. Mastenitsa, “Iz istroii muzeinoi pushkiniany,” 116; Tkhorzhevskii, “Cherez sto let,” 9–10. See also Sandler, Commemorating Pushkin, 107–16; and Molok, Pushkin v 1937 g.

17. Snow, Red Star over China, 474.

18. Taylor, Generalissimo, 143 (citing Chiang Diaries, Hoover Institution Archives, box 39, folder 8: Feb. 18, 1937). An analysis by Varga (April 20, 1937) began with the premise that “recent years in China, undoubtedly, are characterized by the process of the transition to a bourgeois social system,” but he called the conditions of transition unique (a combination of pre-capitalist agrarian relations, partial colonialism, and strong revolutionary forces). And although he noted an imperative to transcend feudalism, for the creation of a bourgeois economic and military superstructure on the feudally exploited peasantry would only worsen their exploitation, he cautioned that if a Japanese aggression was coming soon against China and/or the USSR, the Soviet Union would have to work to delay China’s agrarian revolution. Titarenko, VKP (b), komintern i kitai: dokumenty, IV/ii: 1105–13 (RGASPI, f. 514, op. 1, d. 868, l. 20–32).

19. Adzhubei, Te desiat’ let, 194–5. Similarly, Nikolai Leonov, the future chief analyst of the KGB, nine years old in 1937, would later choose to study the Spanish language under the lingering influence of the Spanish civil war. Leonov, Likholet’e, 7–13, 18–21. “Moscow lived Spain,” wrote Louis Fischer. Fischer, Men and Politics, 403. For typical Soviet press accounts, see International Solidarity with the Spanish Republic. But see also Davies, Popular Opinion, 96.

20. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 224; Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, 171. Helen Grant, a British woman traveling in Catalonia in 1937, noted that at a film screening, there were “great cheers from the gallery when Stalin’s photo appeared on the screen, but only from the gallery [her emphasis].” Among the higher-paying middle class part of the audience (where she sat) “people kept quiet.” Jackson, British Women, 117.

21. Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed, 129–33 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 960, l. 251–77: Nikonov, Feb. 20, 1937).

22. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 591.

23. He added that Soviet advisers “often led Spanish brigades in combat, especially in their first combat operations to show the officers how to command their units.” Meretskov, Serving the People, 147–8.

24. Altogether, 204 interpreters, mostly women, served in Spain. On the White Guard émigrés in Spain, see Yezhov’s note to Stalin (Jan. 19, 1937): Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 179–81 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 33–39).

25. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 263, l. 32; Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 163–4 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 3–4: Gaikis, Dec. 31, 1936), 165 (l. 2: Litvinov to Stalin, Jan. 2, 1937), 166 (l. 1: politburo decision).

26. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 742, citing a memorandum of Colonel Sverchevskii, undated [1938], in RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1149, l. 237, 233.

27. Fischer, Men and Politics, 361.

28. Broué, Staline et la révolution, 102–3 (citing Luis Araquistain); Bolloten, Spanish Civil War, 319. Writing to Voroshilov in mid-October 1936, the military attaché Gorev reported that the Soviet ambassador possessed an “unhealthy self-esteem. He is terribly afraid for his authority.” Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed, 94 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 832, l. 239).

29. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 157–8 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 222, l. 164–64ob.: Dec. 21, 1936).