Stalin

30. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 517. Largo Caballero had tried to tamp down any tensions: “we are all satisfied with his [Rosenberg’s] behavior and activities with us. Here everyone loves him.” Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 173–4 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 17–19: Jan. 12, 1937).

31. The request to be received, relayed by Krestinsky to Stalin, was dated the same day as the audience was granted (Feb. 3). Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 189–90 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 80), 190 (l. 87); Na prieme, 201. On Feb. 4, Krestinsky had Gaikis summoned to Moscow: Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 190 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 80), 190 (l. 88).

32. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 64 (reconstruction from Pascua’s notes of the meeting: AHN-Madrid. Diversos. M. Pascua, leg. 2, exp. 6, 12), paragraph 99.

33. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 191 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 86: letter to Largo Caballero, Feb. 4, 1937).

34. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 191–5 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 81, 82, 85). Stalin seems to have discussed them in the Little Corner on Feb. 5, 1937: Na prieme, 201.

35. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 197 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 217, l.54).

36. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraphs 145, 789. Rosenberg’s replacement was Gaikis.

37. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 265–6 (citing file 17697, I: 28).

38. Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed, 456–8 (Gorev report, March 23, 1937, secret archive 15), 69 (Gorev, code-named Sancho, Oct. 16, 1936). On the unreliability of communications, see Rees, “The Highpoint of Comintern Influence? The Communist Party and the Civil War in Spain,” 150.

39. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 582, citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 961, l. 171.

40. Voroshilov sent telegrams white-hot with accusations about “not putting into practice” his directives and threatening “severe penalties for all of you.” Rybalkin, “Voennaia pomoshch,’” 108 (citing TsAMO, f. 132, op. 2642, d. 173, l. 23–24; d. 192, l. 1–3); Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 56 (citing TsAMO, f. 132, op. 2642, d. 192, l. 32), 56 (d. 182, l. 22–3: Dec. 4, 1936).

41. Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 82–83 (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1082, l. 206: A. Agaltsov). Dimitrov wrote to Stalin that “the foe has the advantage that he has many spies in the Government camp.” Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 293 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 221, l. 38–40, Dec. 14, 1936); Sharapov, Naum Eitingon, 53.

42. Khlevniuk, “Prichiny ‘bol’shogo terrora,’” 10.

43. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 83 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 983, l. 64). Two days later Blyukher and Deribas sent a telegram from Khabarovsk asking to be excused from having to travel to the plenum, a request Stalin approved. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 83 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 65, l. 25).

44. Khaustov, “Razvitie sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti”; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 71, d. 43, 44, 45, 46. Malenkov’s lists further specified that a mere 15.7 percent of provincial party bosses had any higher education, and that 70.4 percent had just elementary education. Similar percentages obtained for the next rungs down, county and city party bosses.

45. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 773, l. 115.

46. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 622, l. 13; Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 421. See also Conquest, Reassessment, 33; and Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 364–5, 393–7.

47. Only a draft resolution in Orjonikidze’s hand survives: RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 3350, l. 1; Kommunist, 1991, no. 13: 59–60.

48. Khlevniuk, Master of the House, 165.

49. Khlevniuk, In Stalin’s Shadow, 128–31 (citing RGASPI, f. 85, op. 29, d. 156, l. 12, 14); Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 221 (d. 156, l. 10–2). S. Z. Ginzburg, head of the construction industry, investigated the Ural Train Carriage Construction Factory in Nizhny Tagil, returned to Moscow February 18, 1936—the same day the Popular Front won its electoral victory in Spain—and Poskryobyshev called him that same day to relay that Stalin had requested a copy of his report. Ginzburg, O proshlom, 195.

50. Za industrializatsiiu, Feb. 21, 1937: 6 (A. P. Zaveniagin); Orjonikidze bumped into Bukharin’s wife, Anna, on Kremlin grounds returning to his apartment. Larina, Nezabyvaemoe, 333.

51. Dubinskii-Mukharadze, Ordzhonikidze, 6. Orjonikidze had lived in the so-called children’s section of the Grand Kremlin Palace (Krestinsky lived here, too, as did Sverdlov’s widow Klavdiya and her son Andrei, an NKVD operative), but when the palace was being reconstructed, Orjonikidze and others moved into the Amusement Palace, near the Trinity Gate, where Stalin had lived until the 1932 suicide of Nadya and where Bukharin lived.

52. Izvestiia, Nov. 22, 1963; Dubinskii-Mukhadze, Ordzhonikidze, 6. The evening before, Yezhov was received alone in the Little Corner. Na prieme, 202. Alternately, the apartment search may have occurred on Feb. 16, prompting Orjonikidze’s tête-à-tête with Stalin on the morning of Feb. 17.

53. Khlevniuk, In Stalin’s Shadow, 143–9; Medvedev, Let History Judge, 402–3. Around midnight, Orjonikidze had met with his deputy for the chemical industry to discuss Donbass coke plant sabotage. After leaving the commissariat, Orjonikidze might have spoken again with Stalin. Dubinskii-Mukhadze, Ordzhonikidze, 6.

54. Chubar, Mekhlis, Andreev, and Kalinin joined at that point. Levin was called back at 9:55 p.m. for another five minutes; he was among the four people who signed the official medical bulletin. (Levin would be tried and executed the next year.) Pravda, Feb. 19, 1937; Na prieme, 202–3.

55. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 154–96 (at 191). Amayak Nazaretyan wrote on the back of a photograph of his close friend Orjonikidze: “Every one of us who sees with his own eyes the enormous achievements of the Soviet regime in the field of socialist construction cannot and must not forget the people who gave their lives that we might build the world’s first socialist state, marching toward communism.” Pravda, Nov. 17, 1964: 4.

56. Pravda, Feb. 22, 1937. Molotov, later in life, would make Orjonikidze out to be the villain, harming Stalin with his suicide. Chuev, Sto sorok, 191–2. Khrushchev had blamed Pyatakov already: Pravda, Feb. 19, 1937.

57. Sotsialisticheskii vetsnik, 1937, no. 5: 16; Pil’niak, Rasplesnutoe vremia, 582 (quoting the Georgian poet Titian Tabidze); Conquest, Reassessment, 170.

58. Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 284–5.

59. Lenin, PSS, XLV: 361.

60. Tucker, Stalin in Power, 418.

61. Mikoian, Tak bylo, 327–33.

62. Mikoyan was in Stalin’s office on Nov. 2 and 14, 1937, both times with Yezhov. Mikoian, Tak bylo, 318–9; Na prieme, 224.

63. As one scholar explained, “Up to 1936, the leading group was held together by shared convictions in a shared project, but after 1937 the nature of the group changed.” Rees, “Stalin as Leader, 1937–1953,” 207. Mikoyan and Beria, assigned to comb through Orjonikidze’s personal archive, discovered two sealed folders (received back when he headed the Central Control Commission), which held compromising tsarist police materials on politburo members Kalinin and Rudzutaks. Orjonikidze had marked the folders “Do not open without me.” Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 9–10 (RGASPI, f. 85, d. 2, l. 1–30).

64. The Feb.–March 1937 plenum is one of the few in the 1930s whose materials have been published in detail. Another was June 1935: Plenum Tsentral’nogo Komiteta VKP (b) 5–7 iiunia 1935 g. (Moscow: Partizdat, 1935).

65. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,” (1995, no. 3): 8, 14; Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 470. This was an old theme of his. Back on Sept. 19, 1931, for example, expressing disapproval of then transport commissar Moisei Rukhimovich, Stalin had vented to Kaganovich, “New people who believe in our cause and who can successfully replace the bureaucracy can always be found in our party, if one searches seriously.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 109–10 (RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 99, l. 35–6). See also Fitzpatrick, Cultural Front, 180, and Khlevniuk, Master of the House, 172.

66. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,” (1992, nos. 4–5): 36.

67. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 710, l. 180–1.

68. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 143.

69. Rogovin, 1937, 221–2.

70. “Materialy marto-fevral’skogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (no. 2), 13, 17, 18, 20, 26, 27 (1994, no. 1), 12–3; Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 412–5.

71. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,” (1994, no. 1): 12–3. Stalin’s recommendation was fixed in a formal plenum resolution on March 3: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 577, l. 4 (l. 30–3 draft with corrections).

72. “O partiinosti lits, prokhodivshikh po delu tak nazyvaemogo ‘antisovetskogo pravotrotskitskogo bloka,’” 82–3; Stranitsy istorii (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1990), 18; Galumov, Neizvestnye “Izvestiia,” 185.

73. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,” (1992, no. 11–12), 10.

74. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,” (1993, no. 5: 3–5, 6, no. 7: 3, A. S. Kalygina).

75. Schlögel, Terror und Traum, 250–3.

76. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,” (1993, no. 8): 3–26 (Molotov), (no. 9): 3–32 (Kaganovich). Stalin marked up the draft of Molotov’s plenum speech. Where Molotov wrote that Trotsky had instructed his supporters inside the Soviet Union “to save their strength for a more important moment—for the beginning of the war—and at that moment strike decisively at the most sensitive areas of our economy”—Stalin underlined it. In the margin beside Molotov’s words about the party having been deserted by those who did not have the stomach to fight and “cast their lots with the bourgeoisie, and not with the working class,” Stalin wrote: “This is good. It would be worse if they had left during wartime.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 772, l. 14, 88.

77. Svanidze surmised that Stalin did not come to Svetlana’s party “on purpose.” Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh sem’i, 191–2. Svanidze would be arrested December 29, 1939, and sentenced to eight years for “concealing the anti-Soviet actions of her husband” (Alexander Svanidze, the brother of Stalin’s first wife). She would be executed in March 1942.

78. Yakov met Meltzer when she was married to Nikolai Bessarab, an aide to the head of the Moscow province NKVD, Stanisław Redens, Stalin’s brother-in-law. She gave her birth year as 1911, but was likely born in 1906. She and Yakov would legalize their marriage on Feb. 18, 1938 (the day before she would give birth to a daughter, whom they named Galina, the same as Yakov’s first child, who had died in infancy in 1929). The family lived in a four-room apartment on elite Granovsky Street while keeping the Zubalovo dacha. Meltzer had a child from her first marriage. Alliluev, Khronika odnoi sem’i, 118; Zen’kovich, Samye sekretnye rodsvtvenniki, 372–3.

79. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1994, no. 3), 4.

80. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 2), 7. Molchanov had been arrested Feb. 2–3, 1937.

81. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 2), 21 (Ivan Zhukov).

82. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 3), 13–4. The theory went back to Lenin: “O diktature proletariata,” PSS, XXXIX: 261–3.

83. Sochineniia, XIV: 207–8.

84. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 7), 11–3; Pravda, March 4, 1937.

85. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 11–12), 13, 14, 16. Stalin’s March 5 concluding speech was belatedly published in Pravda (April 1, 1937) and as a pamphlet (Moscow: OGIZ, 1938) with translations into foreign languages. See also Sochineniia, XIV: 225–47, and Zhukov, Inoi Stalin, 360–1. None of the references to Orjonikidze’s sheltering of enemies appeared in Pravda’s version of Stalin’s speech, but plenum attendees once back home could orally convey Stalin’s remarks.

86. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 56 (March 4, 1937: misdated, should be March 5).

87. “O Partiinosti lits, prokhodivshikh po delu tak nazyvaemogo ‘antisovetskogo pravotrotskistskogo bloka,’” 74. One operative stated that the oppositionists in prison were able to hold debates, read newspapers and books, meet with friends and relatives, and drink brandy, and that during their volleyball games in the yard, if the ball were knocked far, NKVD personnel would run and retrieve it. Vinogradov, Genrikh iagoda, 6–7.

88. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 11–12), 21; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 773, l. 115; Khlevniuk, Kohoziain, 309–10.

89. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 266–8. At a plenum of the Spanish Communist party, also on March 5, 1937, José Diaz asked, “Who are the enemies of the people? The enemies of the people are the fascists, Trotskyites and uncontrolled elements.” Diaz called Trotsky “a direct agent of the Gestapo.” Novikov, SSSR, Komintern, II: 95. At a Nov. 1937 plenum of the Spanish Communist party, Diaz said of “Trotskyites” in Spain: “You need to eliminate them with the same mercilessness with which we eliminate fascists.” Bolshevik, 1937, no. 23–24 (1937): 86–7.

90. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 639–40n18 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 4, d. 13, l. 54–67: Lev Mironov).

91. Afanas’ev, Oni ne molchali, 217; Starkov, “Narkon Ezhov”; Ivanova, Gulag, 152; Jansen and Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner, 61–2; Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 73–4; Conquest, Reassessment, 39–40. Krivitsky refers to a Yezhov speech on March 18 to the NKVD party active, and Pavliukov a Yezhov speech on March 19 to the NKVD higher-ups. Krivitsky, In Stalin’s Secret Service, 167; Pavliukov, Ezhov, 264–5 (citing TsA FSB stenogram of a Yezhov speech of March 19).

92. Il’inskii, Narkom Iagoda, 17–18. See also Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 39.

93. On March 31, 1937, Central Committee members were informed that “in view of the danger of leaving Yagoda at liberty for even a single day,” he had been arrested, a formulation by which Stalin could justify violating the regulation of having the Central Committee vote to expel him first. The 65 remaining full members of the Central Committee, down from 71, then “voted” in writing to expel Yagoda post-facto. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 614, l. 94–105; op. 3, d. 985, l. 34; Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 124–5 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 299, l. 188–9), 126; Pravda, April 4, 1937.

94. Agabekov, ChK za rabotoi, 134, 178.

95. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 17, 36.

96. Koenker et al., Revelations, 77 (Vlasik interviewed in 1965).

97. Kaganovich had written to Stalin that “some of the apparatus, even though it has quieted down, will not be loyal to him [Yezhov] . . . There is talk that Yagoda remains general commissar [of state security], while Yezhov, they say, will not be given that rank and so on.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 683 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 95, l. 132), 701–2 (Oct. 12, 1936).

98. Conquest, Inside Stalin’s Secret Police, 13.

99. In April 1937, Yezhov and the new chief of the NKVD Special Department monitoring the army, Israel Leplyovsky, pressured Balytsky (his former superior) in Ukraine to uncover a gigantic military conspiracy there; Balytsky evidently complained to military district chief Iona Yakir on the telephone about this directive, an implicit warning to Yakir about the gathering danger. Leplyovsky, who had been chased from Ukraine in 1933, was returned to Ukraine, now as republic NKVD chief, on June 14, 1937, and carried out a pogrom against the republic NKVD. Tumshis, VChK: voina klanov, 391. Leplyovsky would be arrested on April 26, 1938, and shot in July.

100. One NKVD operative acknowledged Yagoda as a gifted organizer, but vainglorious. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 17, 36. Another who had defected abroad judged Yagoda “an adventurist, murderer, and sadist.” Agabekov, ChK za rabotoi, 134, 178. “He was a pragmatic type, a do-er, lacking any foundation in ideas,” recalled Boris Gudz, an NKVD foreign intelligence station chief in Tokyo (who would survive the terror). “In his relations with subordinates, he sought the negative moments, in order to use these moments to pressure this or that subordinate.” http://www.fsb.ru/fsb/history/author/single.ht m!id%3D10318010@fsbPublication.html. Gudz was expelled from the party and kicked out of the secret police in April 1937, after the arrest of his sister. He got a job as a bus driver and worked his way up to director of the bus company. He would retire in 1962 and die in 2006, at age 104. His sister was married to Varlam Shalamov, who claimed that Gudz wrote the denunciation that got the writer arrested in Jan. 1937. http://shalamov.ru/library/27/#t10.

101. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 89–93 (TsA FSB, f. N-13614, t.2, l. 15–20).

102. On Yagoda’s relations with other NKVD personnel: http://tortuga.angarsk.su/fb2/abramv02/Evrei_v_KGB.fb2_4.html.

103. Il’inskii, Narkom Iagoda, 96.

104. Stefan Zweig’s German-language biography Joseph Fouché (1929) was translated into Russian in 1932 (Leningrad: Vremia). Vyshinsky would quote from the Zweig biography at Yagoda’s trial, equating the Soviet secret police chief with “the old, treacherous, double-dealing school of the political careerist and dishonest scoundrel . . . Joseph Fouché.” Protsess pravo-trotskistskogo bloka (Moscow: Iuridicheskoe izdatel’stvo, 1938), 610.

105. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 135–44 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 302, l. 125–44).

106. Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 139–40; Artizov et al., Reabilitatsiia: kak eto bylo, II: 674 (Ans Zalpeter); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 135–44 (at 136: APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 302, l. 125–44).

107. Yezhov even went so far as to attack the sacred founder of the Cheka (“Yes, comrades, everyone must grasp that Felix Edmundovich Dzierżyński vacillated in 1925–1926”). Afanas’ev, Oni ne Molchali, 217 (this speech appears to have taken place in April). Mark Gai (Stokland) was arrested on April 1, and Pauker on April 19. Between April 22 and 25, Georgy Prokofyev and Gai, under torture, linked Yagoda to Tukhachevsky in the plot for a military palace coup. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 522.

108. Jansen and Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner, 60 (citing TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 4, d, 147, l. 34).

109. Agranov would be arrested on July 20, 1937, a fact not publicized. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 232 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 313, l. 37); Pavliukov, Ezhov, 271–3.

110. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1994, no. 8), 25 (Molotov).

111. When Pravda (Jan. 8, 1936) had reported on an assembly of so-called leading workers of machine tractor stations and agricultural agencies, Stalin had added Voroshilov’s name to the conclusion of the text as an object, along with himself and Molotov, of the panegyrics. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1479, l. 34–5.

112. “‘Cherkni . . . desiatok slov,’” 406.

113. Orlov, Tainaia istoriia, 325 (according to NKVD functionary L. L. Nikolsky).

114. Montefiore, Court of the Red Tsar, 9–10.

115. Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 228 (Kutyakov diary entry for March 15, 1937; he was arrested May 15).

116. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 348 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 4, d. 87, l. 292); Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 106.

117. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,” (1994, no. 8): 15; Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 1: 164–5. In notes for his remarks made prior to the plenum, Voroshilov had written, “It is not excluded, on the contrary it is likely, that in the Red Army ranks there are not a few unrevealed, not unmasked Japanese-German, Trotskyite-Zinovievite spies, diversionaries, and terrorists”—a point he omitted at the plenum. Suvenirov, “Narkomat oborony,” at 28, citing TsGASA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1022, l. 267, 281. Voroshilov made only grammatical corrections to the plenum stenogram (film 2.2726, reel 78).

118. “Delo o tak nazyvaemoi ‘antisovetskoi trotskistskoi organizatsii’ v Krasnoi Armii,” 45; Suvenirov, “Narkomat oborony,” 28 (citing RGVA, f. 9, op. 36, d. 2376, l. 28). On March 29, 1937, Stalin had all party expellees in Red Army commanding ranks discharged and redirected to economic commissariats—where the grim reaper would come for them. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 189–227.

119. Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 57. On Tukhachevsky’s holiday, see Bourne and Watt, British Documents on Foreign Affairs, XIV: 52–4. (Chilston report Feb. 23, 1937, PRO, FO 371/21099, N 1082/250/3); DDF, 2e série, IV: 42 (Coulondre, Feb. 10, 1937).

120. Voroshilov’s formal report, stretching to eighty pages, stated: “I repeat, we have arrested [in the army] 15 or 20 so far, but that does not mean, comrades, that we have cleansed all the enemies. . . . We need to cleanse completely. We in the Worker Peasant Red Army have no right to tolerate even one enemy.” Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 58 (citing RGVA, f. 4, op. 14, d. 1820, l. 58). Voroshilov’s report to the party active in the Red Army, in mid-March, was far sharper about Trotskyite-fascist penetration and the need for a complete cleansing, indicating his succumbing to Stalin’s pressure. Budyonny and Gamarnik at the same gathering reinforced the pressure. Whitewood, Red Army, 226–7 (citing RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 117, l. 42, 47, 51, 51–3, 58, 95–7).

121. Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 85 (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 961, l. 123). Kulik appeared in the Little Corner, for the first time, on May 23, 1937, along with Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, and Yezhov, arriving after them, and departing before. Na prieme, 210. See also “Beria protiv Kulika,” in Bobrenev and Riazantsev, Palachi i zhertvy, 197–264 (esp. 203–4).

122. Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 56 (citing RGVA, f. 9., op. 39, d. 69, l. 13).

123. Khaustov, “Razvitie sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti,” 362 (citing TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 45, d. 29, l. 246). Peterson would be shot on Aug. 21, 1937.

124. Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, I/ii: 261 (citing TsGASA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 400, l. 137–9).

125. Eden, Foreign Affairs, 182–3 (Jan. 12, 1937).

126. Evidently, it was not until Feb. 16, 1937, that Largo Caballero would issue the first order to convert some gold ($51 million worth) to pay off the Spanish debt to the Soviets for the military supplies. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 539. Some of Spain’s gold reserves would be drawn upon in convertible currency via the Spanish Republic’s Eurobank account in Paris ($256 million of expenditures in 1937 alone) to pay for purchases of weapons and military supplies. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 137 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 234, l. 56).

127. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraphs 532–48; Howson, Arms for Spain, 151. On gold see also Viñas, “Financing the Spanish Civil War,” 266–83. In summer 1938, Stalin would receive a denunciation that some of the gold had been embezzled before shipment to the Soviet Union, and he had Beria investigate. Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 42–3. The total mobilization of Soviet war matériel was something on the order of 600,000 tons. Grechko et al., Istoriia vtoroi mirovoi voiny, II: 54, 137.

128. Payne, Fascism in Spain, 262–3; Bosworth, Mussolini, 319; Preston, Franco, 228.

129. Payne, Falange, 212.

130. Preston, Franco, 242.

131. By the time Franco would finally advance on the Catalan front, in spring 1938, the Republic’s defenders would melt away, rendering his move more a military parade than an offensive. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 852.

132. In Portugal and Greece, too, traditional authoritarian conservatism blunted indigenous fascist movements. Blinkhorn, Fascists and Conservatives.

133. Preston, Franco, 175–87; Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, chapter 5.

134. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 905–6.

135. The Carlists supported the claim to the throne of Alfonso Carlos I de Borbón y Austria, but after he died in late Sept. 1936 without an heir, they had splintered, with some supporting Alfonso Carlos’s appointed regent (Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma) and others supporting Alfonso XIII (in exile at Rome’s Grand Hotel).

136. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 907.

137. Bolloten, Spanish Revolution.

138. Before the putsch, on May 20, 1936, Dimitrov had informed Manuilsky that he had a discussion with Stalin about the Spanish question, and that Stalin had approved the Comintern line: support for the Spanish Republic government rather than the Spanish Communist party or revolution. Meshcheriakov, “SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii,” 88 (citing RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 208, l. 31; f. 17, op. 120, d. 439, l. 266). After the putsch, Stalin would still not support a Communist takeover or putsch, despite being urged to do so by Soviet military men who craved political unity in Spain. Sadly, some scholars continue to insist—against a wealth of evidence—that the “moderate” policies of the Comintern as well as the Spanish Communist party in the civil war were mere “temporary tactical adjustments.” Payne, Spanish Civil War, 293. Payne’s book is dedicated to Bolloten, his mentor, who called the Popular Front a “grand camouflage” for Communist penetration. Bolloten, Grand Camouflage. This is the same Bolloten mentioned in Soviet intelligence documents from the Spanish civil war as “our source.” Costello and Tsraev, Deadly Illusions, 237 (citing ASVRR, file 17679, I: 15 [or 161]; Volodarsky, Stalin’s Agent, 237.

139. The Soviet Union had interest groups—regional, institutional, personal—that formed over struggles for resources and influence, but they competed for Stalin’s favor, trying to anticipate his preferences and to destroy their rivals—jockeying that made them ultimately dependent on him.

140. Solomon Dridzo, known as Lozovsky, the general secretary of the Red Trade Union International, was just as incredulous: “And so, Hitler does not express the interests of finance capital in Germany?” Manuilsky felt compelled to interject: “Comrade Varga, it is clear to the [Comintern] secretariat that Germany is ruled by finance capital. Comrade Pieck is not denying that fact.” Komolova, Komintern protiv fashizma: dokumenty, 445–8 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 18, d. 1171, l. 24–9)

141. Fischer, Russia’s Road, 242 (Feb. 11, 1937); Abramov, “Osobaia missiia Davida Kandelaki,” 151–2 (citing AVP RF f. 05, op. 17, pap. 126, d. 1, l. 22; f. 059, op. 1, pap. 244, d. 1717, l. 15), 152 (pap. 244, d. 1715 (Surits to Litvinov, March 21, 1937).

142. Abramov, “Osobaia missiia Davida Kandelaki,” 152 (citing AVP RF, f. 05, op. 17, pap. 130, d. 42, l. 28, 29, 34; f. 059, op. 1, pap. 244, d. 1715, l. 28–9, 45: March 21, 1937).

143. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 56, l. 29.

144. Izvestiia, April 2, 1937. Rosenholz would be removed as foreign trade commissar on July 14, 1937, and replaced by Yevgeny Chvyalev.

145. Abramov, “Osobaia missiia Davida Kandelaki,” 152 (citing AVP RF, f. 5, op. 17, pap. 1304, d. 42, l. 77).

146. DVP SSSR, XX: 174–5.

147. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 299–300 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 58, d. 249, l. 158); Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 45–6 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 249, l. 142–3; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 21, l. 29), 286 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 254a, l. 82).

148. Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 55; Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 229–30.

149. Well described by Buber-Neumann, Under Two Dictators, 3–25. Her husband, Heinz, was arrested in April 1937; she was arrested the next year and sent to a camp in Karaganda as “the wife of an enemy of the people.”

150. Thurston, Life and Terror.

151. Medvedev, On Stalin, 102. See also Beck and Gordin, Russian Purge, 146 (“He’s not a party member and he’s not a Jew, so why has he been arrested?”).

152. Pravda, April 17 and Aug. 12, 1938. See also Vlast’ sovetov, 1938, no. 10: 52–3.

153. Pravda, April 29, May 11, June 24, Aug. 14 and 25, 1937.

154. Mandelstam, Hope against Hope, 336.

155. Muza, “Tragedy of a Russian Woman,” 495; “Iz stenogrammy repetitsii spektaklia ‘Anna Karenina,’” in V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, o tvorchestve aktera: khrestomatiia (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1984), 338. The play was featured at the Paris Exposition of 1937.

156. The coronation was scheduled for May 12, 1937. Between April 1 and June 10, 1937, 4,370 people would be discharged from the Red Army for political reasons, compared with 577 during the first three months of that year. Suvenirov, “Narkomat oborony,” 29 (citing, RGVA, f. 9, op. 29, d. 340).

157. Izvestiia, April 23, 1937; Pravda, April 23, 1937.

158. Sovetskoe foto, 1973, no. 9; Ogonek, 1937, no. 16–7; Lopatin, Volga idet v Moskvu; Shein, Kanal Moskva-Volga; Fedenko, Kanal Moskva-Volga. Stalin had visited sections of the canal on June 4, 1934, June 14, 1936, and April 22, 1937: http://moskva-volga.ru/trete-prishestvie-stalina.

159. Davies et al., Economic Transformation, 127.

160. Osokina, “Economic Disobedience,” 180.

161. Ellman, Socialist Planning, 107; Harrison, “National Income,” 52–3.

162. “What is there to say about the success of Soviet power,” one worker complained. “It is lies. The newspapers cover up the real state of things. I am a worker, wear torn clothes, my four children go to school half-starving, in rags. I, an honest worker, am a visible example of what Soviet power has given the workers in the last twenty years.” Davies, Popular Opinion, 135 (citing TsGAIPD, f. 24, op. 2v, d. 2282, l. 109).

163. Thurston, Life and Terror, 166–8.

164. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, V/i: docs. 71, 76, 81, 93, 94, 98, 106, 125, 127; Berelowitch and Danilov, Sovetskaia derevnia glazami VChK-OGPU-NKVD, IV: 273–450.

165. Khlevniuk, Stalin: Zhizn’, 221 (citing RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 887, l. 17, 32, 41–2: March 2, 1937, and April 14 and 21, 1937).

166. Semyon Firin-Pupko later alleged that in 1937 Stalin raised the question of a canal from Moscow to Vladivostok, cutting a west-east waterway across the entire continent to link the northern flowing Siberian rivers, a gargantuan task unprecedented in recorded history. Sokolov, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 163–4.

167. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1994, no. 8), 18; Davies, “Soviet Economy,” 26–7.

168. Khlevniuk, “Economic Officials in the Great Terror,” 58. Semyon Lobov (b. 1888), a former steelworker and forestry industry commissar until Oct. 1936 (when he was shifted to the food industry), had stated, “is it really normal that if I, the commissar, need to obtain a pair of traincars with sheet steel or equipment for papermaking, I need to get the authorization of the Central Committee.” Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 144 (TsA FSB, ASD P-4879, t. 2, s. 109). Lobov would be arrested June 21, 1937, and executed Oct. 30 of that year.

169. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 128 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 405, l. 64–5).

170. Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed, 146–8 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1010, l. 295–300). Krivoshein appears to have returned from Spain at this time.

171. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 43 (Dec. 16, 1936), 58 (March 14, 1937).

172. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 212 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 141–2), 213 (l. 146). “We are well aware of the scale of Soviet assistance, the steamships with Russian weapons all the while are passing by our shores,” Leonardo Vitetti, director of European Affairs in the Italian foreign ministry, told the Soviet embassy in Rome in April 1937. “We have not touched them, not wanting to complicate the already extremely sharp and awful Italo-Soviet relations.” Meshcheriakov, “SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii,” 86 (citing AVP RF, f. 048 z, op. 14–16, pap. 4, d. 8, l. 195); and Tournier, Les archives secretes de la Wilhelmstrasse III, 88, 91–2. On March 24, 1937, Mekhlis wrote to Stalin that “according to the information we have, comrade M. E. Koltsov is severely exhausted and completely physically worn down,” and was requesting permission to recall him to Moscow, a request Stalin approved. On Nov. 22, 1937, Mekhlis would write to Stalin that “Koltsov is in a bad mood now and, it seems, he has lost his bearings and could commit mistakes. He has been away from Moscow and party influence for a long time.” Mekhlis would again propose his recall, which Stalin would approve. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 215 (APRF [transferred to RGANI), f. 3, op. 34, d. 127, l. 27), 312 (l. 33–4). Mekhlis appears to have been angry that Koltsov wrote to him complaining he had been left out of the candidates approved for the Dec. 12, 1937, elections to the Supreme Soviet.

173. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 59 (March 16, 1937). Four days later, in the presence of Dimitrov, Stalin told the Spanish writers Rafael Alberti and María-Teresa Léonon that “the people and the whole world must be told the truth—the Spanish people are in no condition now to bring about a proletarian revolution—the internal and especially the international situation do not favor it.” Stalin added that “victory in Spain will loosen fascism’s hold in Italy and Germany. Communist and socialist forces must join forces—they now share the same basic aims—a democratic republic.” Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 60–1 (March 20, 1937). Dimitrov did not relent: On March 23, he provided Stalin with a report by a Bulgarian Comintern official who had spent two months in Spain. “The ability of the government to govern is very limited . . . Everyone, the broad popular masses, feels the need for a strong government, a government capable of ruling . . . The fundamental source of weakness of the government is that it lacks . . . a state apparatus.” Stalin may well have agreed with this assessment, but he still refrained from having the Communists in Spain seize power. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov and Stalin, 51–8.

174. Kaganovich to Orjonikidze, Sept. 30, 1936: Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politburo, 149.

175. Spain’s Communist party is alleged to have grown to 400,000 at its peak. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 506–7.

176. Communist agents could not fail to learn of these probes. Payne, Spanish Revolution, 271–2. On April 15, 1937, a Comintern representative in the Republican camp wrote to Stalin urging him to break completely with Largo Caballero. Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed, 184–95.

177. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 58 (March 14, 1937).

178. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 221 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 151), versus Berzin’s report: 219 (l. 152). Berzin blamed the weak artillery support and weak offensive capabilities of the blue infantry, and the recent strengthening of the whites as well as the advantageous geography seized by them.

179. Southworth, Guernica, Guernica. Preston, Franco, 243–7. The article was by George Steer, South African born, who had written authoritatively about the Italian atrocities in the Abyssinian War. Steer would be killed in Burma in 1945. A Pablo Picasso canvas, an 11 x 25 foot mural commissioned by the Republican government for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition, was completed already by mid-June and exhibited in July; it depicts the intense suffering of people, animals, and buildings subjected to violence.

180. Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 30–3. Stalin could have had the “information” delivered into the hands of the Japanese in Warsaw, in order to have it “leaked” back through foreign channels, perhaps to persuade Voroshilov.

181. Maclean, Escape to Adventure, 15; Krivitsky, In Stalin’s Secret Service, 227–8; Conquest, Reassessment, 214. Unusually, on April 28, 1937, Izvestiya issued a correction to a photo caption published the previous day: “Comrade Stalin the organizer of the strike of Tiflis railroad workers in 1902.” The newspaper had to admit that at the time Stalin was imprisoned in Batum. It seems Stalin himself, or his aide, conveyed to the newspaper editor that the caption was “an utter misunderstanding from the point of view of historical truth.” Izvestiia, April 27 and April 28, 1937.

182. Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 178; “Delo on tak nazyvaemoi ‘antisovetskoi trotskistskoi organizatsii’ v Krasno armii,” 46–7 (S. P. Uritsky); Cristiani and Mikhaleva, Le repressioni, 254, 256 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1047, l. 70). Stalin canceled the annual reception at the Kremlin Grand Palace for graduates of military academies.

183. Sharapov, Naum Eitingon, 57.

184. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 628–45.

185. Tatiana Tess, in Efimov, Mikhail Koltsov, 325.

186. S. Prokofeva and N. Godon, in Efimov, Mikhail Kol’tsov, 285, 384. The Embankment was officially known as Bersenevskaya. Koltsov previously lived on Bolshaya Dmitrovka. Of the fifty-six or so Central Committee members and candidates who had apartments in the House on the Embankment, forty-five would be arrested. Many residents, like Koltsov, were not Central Committee members.

187. Efimov, Mikhail Koltsov, 26–135 (at 103, 94–5). Koltsov had been in the Little Corner on Dec. 9, 1935, for twenty minutes, one-on-one. Na prieme, 174.

188. The Kremlin audience took place on April 15, after which Koltsov received a coveted invitation to the 1937 May Day reception at the St. George’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Place, where he was toasted by Voroshilov. On May 14, Stalin again received Koltsov in the Little Corner for one hour, alone. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 215 (APRF, f. 3, op. 34, d. 127, l. 27); Na prieme, 207, 209. Koltsov’s Spanish Diary picks up again on May 23, on a train from Italy to Bilbao.

189. Orlov, the Soviet station chief in Spain, who was close to Koltsov, would comment, “The NKVD is like a gigantic mailbox, into which any irresponsible person may drop an irresponsible invention.” Orlov, Tainaia istoriia, 187–8; Orlov, Secret History, 187–8.

190. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 233 (APRF, f. 3, op. 53, d. 471, l. 73–4), 241 (op. 65, d. 224, l. 32), 242 (l. 30), 268, 276 (l. 115, 117–9), 249–52 (op. 53, d. 471, l. 3–4, 5, 75), 298–9 (d. 472, l. 3–4).

191. Volodarsky, Stalin’s Agent, 205.

192. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 165–8, 454n73, 454n75 (citing ASVRR, file 5581, I: 38, 45). See also Philby’s obfuscatory memoir: Silent War, 17.

193. Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, 114. (Later Grigulevich would be one of many tapped to assassinate Trotsky in Mexico.) Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 193; “V Madride ia rukovodil gruppoi” (Grigulevich interview); Primakov, Ocherki, III: 148–54.

194. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 153. With Orlov, Girgulevich participated in the kidnapping and murder of Nin.

195. Kol’tsov, “Fashistsko-shpionskaia rabota ispanskikh trotskistov.” On the forgery: Izvestiia, Nov. 26, 1992.

196. Sharapov, Naum Eitingon, 53. See also Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 291–2.

197. “It was a successful piece of disinformation reported directly to Stalin by Yezhov.” Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 44–5.

198. A Soviet military intelligence report had concluded that the “Trotskyite” and anarchist strongholds in Spain had to be broken. Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed, 129–33 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 960, l. 251–77: Nikonov, Feb. 20, 1937).

199. Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 9. Orwell would complete his Homage to Catalonia in Jan. 1938, but his publisher, Victor Gollancz, who controlled the Left Book Club, would reject it—unseen. (The Left Book Club instead published pro-Soviet material on Spain.) But Frederic Warburg published Homage to Catalonia in a print run of 1,500, and managed to sell 800. Warburg also published Souvarine’s Stalin and Gide’s Back from the USSR. Arthur Koestler, who went to Spain in 1936 as a correspondent for Münzenberg media, recalls how the latter shouted at him concerning his manuscript about Spain, “Too weak. Too objective. Hit them! Tell the world how they run over their prisoners with tanks, how they pour petrol over them and burn them alive. Make the world gasp with horror. Hammer it into their heads. Make them wake up.” Koestler wrote in the published book: “If those who have at their command printing machines and printer’s ink for the expression of their opinions, remain neutral and objective in the face of such bestiality, then Europe is lost.” Koestler, Spanish Testament, 177; Koestler, Invisible Writing, 333.

200. Herbert, Paris 1937. Both Speer and Yofan won gold medals; Kaplan, Red City, Blue Period, 179–87.

201. Petrov, Stroitel’stvo politorganov, 224, 237–8; Petrov, Partiinoe stroitel’stvo, 298; Erickson, Soviet High Command (3rd ed.), 460.

202. “Delo o tak nazyvaemoi ‘antisovetskoi trotskistskoi organizatsii’ v Krasnoi armii,” 47–8; Artizov et al., Reabilitatsiia: kak eto bylo, II: 678 (Aleksandr Avseevich, 1962); Pravda, April 29, 1988 (B. Viktorov). Primakov (a Bolshevik since 1914) had served as military attaché in Afghanistan (1927–29) and then Japan (1930); in 1928 he had been forced to declare a break with the Trotskyites. Zdanovich, Organy, 320 (citing TsA FSB, delo R-9000, t. 4, l. 53).

203. “Delo o tak nazyvaemoi ‘antisovetskoi trotskistskoi organizatsii’ v Krasnoi armii,” 46; Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, XIII (2–1): 12. Also on May 10, 1937, the office of political commissar was reinstated (it had been abolished in 1934).

204. Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 41; Lebedev, “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistskii zagovor,’” 182; Na prieme, 209; Viktor A. Aleksandrov, Delo Tukhachevskogo.

205. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 115–6 (TsA FSB, ASD P-4615, l. 258–61; ASD N. 15301, tom 2: 37–8); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChk, 170–6.

206. Tukhachevsky managed to clash not only with the partisan-war types of the civil war (Voroshilov, Budyonny, Kulik), but also old-line professionals, such as Shaposhnikov, whom Tukhachevsky derided as “cautious” and “an office Napoleon.” Koritskii et al., Tukhachevskii, 17. That said, Shaposhnikov’s earlier appointment to the general staff might have been on Tukhachevsky’s recommendation. Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 198–9 (RGASPI, f. 134, op. 3, d. 17, l. 65: Kollontai diary); Nord, “Marshal Tukhachevskii,” 114.

207. Zdanovich, Organy, 282–4 (citing TsA FSB, delo R-9000, t. 24, l. 1, l. 210, l. 48ob, l. 72.).

208. Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 89–90.

209. German intelligence purportedly sought to exploit these appetites, too, sending the blond, blue-eyed singer Josephine Heinze Tukhachevsky’s way. Leskov, Stalin i zagovor Tukhachevskogo, 222–47.

210. Kantor, Zakliataia drzuhba, 295. German general Blomberg had described Tukhachevsky as “youthfully fresh, sociable, sympatisch . . . He withheld himself from conversations about any political themes, but was a talkative and purposeful conversationalist when touching upon the operational and tactical areas. A very winning persona.” Kantor, Voina i mir, 296–7, 300 (citing Blomberg’s private archive, “Reise des Chefs des Truppenamts nach Russland,” Aug.–Sept. 1928, 2–3, 14–16, 46).

211. Not long after Stalin had absolved Tukhachevsky, back in fall 1930, of plotting a seizure of power with the rightists, Voroshilov had forwarded two letters incriminating him, commenting that one “gave a brilliant and damning characterization.” The letters to Voroshilov were from Verkhovsky and Bergavinov, and forwarded to Stalin in Jan. 1931. Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 132. For hearsay about Tukhachevsky’s criticisms of Voroshilov for incompetence, including in front of others, see Nord, Marshal Tukhachevsky, 102; and Simonov, Glazami chloveka moeogo pokoleniia, 383 (Zhukov).

212. Uborevičius, known for his tactical and operational insight, mentored an extraordinary group of officers, including Semyon Timoshenko (b. 1895), Alexander Vasilevsky (b. 1895), Georgy Zhukov (b. 1896), Kirill Meretskov (b. 1897), Dmitry Pavlov (b. 1897), Ivan Konev (b, 1897), and Matvei Zakharov (b. 1898).

213. Svetlanin, Dal’nevostochnyi zagovor, 101 (the deputy was I. F. Fedko). In Sept. and Dec. 1936, the NKVD had received information that Blyukher was planning a military putsch. “M. N. Tukhachevskii i ‘voenno-fashistkii zagovor,’” 10.

214. This went far down the chain of command. “I feel that my every step is under observation,” remarked K. I. Sokolov-Strakhov, editor of the Military-Historical Bulletin, in comments that helped provoke his arrest. “It is hard and even frightening now to work on the literary-historical front.” (Sokolov-Strakhov was married to the niece of a former chief of the gendarmes.) Suvenirov, “Narkomat oborny,” 33, 56 (citing RGVA, f. 9, op. 39, d. 29, l. 5).