Stalin

58. Conquest, Reassessment, 214–34; Gill, “Stalinism and Industrialization,” 131–2. Already by late Oct. 1937, of the 139 members and candidates of the Central Committee, more than half had been arrested and seven shot; another 23 were now scheduled to be executed. The next month Yezhov submitted to Stalin a list for execution of all 45 incarcerated Central Committee personnel who were still alive. Stalin crossed out half the names, perhaps because they had yet to “testify” fully, but many of them were executed some months later. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 339.

59. See the example in Dagestan in 1937: Pravda (Sept. 25, 1937): Dagestanskaia pravda, Oct. 23, 2013; Akhmedabiev, “I opiat’ o mifakh.”

60. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 101–2 (citing APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 6, l. 28: Feb. 13, 1937).

61. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 121; Khrushchev, Memoirs, I: 115.

62. Kaganovich telegrammed Stalin that “acquaintance with the situation shows that the right-Trotskyite wrecking here has taken broad dimensions—in industry, agriculture, supply, trade, medicine, education and political work.” XXII s”ezd Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo soiuza, III: 153.

63. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 68–70.

64. Hlevnjuk, “Les mécanismes de la ‘Grande Terreur’”; Thurston, Life and Terror, 62 (citing GARF, f. 8131, op. 27, d. 145, l. 49–57: Sept. 1939 report).

65. Gill, Origins of the Stalinist Political System, 273.

66. Scott, Behind the Urals, 195–6. Scott added: “Whereas most of the workers in the mills were fairly well trained by 1935, had acquired the knacks of electric welding, pipe-fitting, or what not, most of the administrators were far from having mastered their jobs” (175).

67. Khlevniuk, “Economic Officials in the Great Terror,” 39 (citing GARF, f. 5446, f. 1, d. 122a, 26–8).

68. More than 2,000 personnel in the various commissariats were arrested just between Oct. 1936 and March 1937, and that did not even include the NKVD, foreign affairs commissariat, and defense commissariat, which did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Council of People’s Commissars. Lukianov, “Massovye represii opravdany byt’ ne mogut,” 120 (data presented by a commission in 1962–3). Veitser was arrested on Oct. 17, 1937, and would be shot (May 7, 1938) at Kommunarka.

69. Kuromiya, “Stalinist Terror in the Donbas.”

70. Vasiliev, “Great Terror in the Ukraine,” 144–5 (citing TsGAOO Ukraini, f. 1, op. 20, d. 7115, l. 67, 86, 90, 167; d. 7177, l. 43–5, 47); Pravda, May 29, 1937; Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 219 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 574, l. 74; f. 589, op. 3, d. 2042); Likholobova, Totalitarnyi rezhym ta politychni represiï, 72n.

71. Likholobova, Stalins’kii totalitarnyi rezhym, 76–8.

72. Avdeenko, Nakazanie bez prestupleniia, 182–3.

73. Vasiliev, “Great Terror in the Ukraine,” 145; Shapoval, Lazar Kaganovich, 35.

74. Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 224n141 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 3215, l. 3).

75. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 361–62 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 953, l. 212–3, Manuilsky letter to Yezhov, Andreev, and Shkiryatov, May 21, 1937).

76. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 52 (Feb. 11, 1937); Latyshev, “Riadom so Stalinym,” 19.

77. Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 275–6; Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 69 (Nov. 11, 1937). On May 26, 1937, Dimitrov had cryptically recorded in his diary: “At Yezhov’s (1 o’clock in the morning). The major spies worked in the Comintern.” The next day: “Examination of the apparatus” of the Comintern Executive Committee. (61: May 26, 1937.)

78. Weber, “Weisse Flecken,” 19–20, 24. By some accounts, the Nazis killed six German politburo members. Overall, of the 1,400 leading German Communists, a total of 178 were killed in Stalin’s terror, nearly all of them residents of Hotel Lux. The Nazis killed 222 of them. Fritz Platten, the Swiss Communist who had organized Germany’s help for Lenin’s sealed-train return in 1917, and who lived at the Hotel Lux since 1924, was caught in the sweeps (he would die in Gulag).

79. The resolution was written in Nov. 1937, but it is not clear when the disbandment went into effect. The resolution was formally passed by the Comintern presidium on Aug. 16, 1938. Voprosii istorii KPSS, 1988, no. 12: 52; Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 287–9; Lazitch, “Stalin’s Massacre,” 139–74; McDermott, “Stalinist Terror.”

80. Naszkowski, Nespokoinye dni, 209–10.

81. Wladyslaw Stein, known as Anton Krajewski, a leading official in the Comintern cadres department, had presented a report on Oct. 25, 1934, accusing émigrés of acting as foreign agents. Yezhov, in a September 1935 speech to party secretaries, had voiced suspicion of political émigrés, especially from Germany and Poland, calling them foreign agents. “I’d like to discuss the question of verification measures of the Polish Communist party, which, as you know, in recent years has been the main supplier of spies and provocative elements in the USSR,” Manuilsky (an ethnic Ukrainian) had written ingratiatingly to Yezhov on Jan. 19, 1936, knowing this was Stalin’s view. Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 48 (citing RGASPI, f. 495, op. 21, d. 23, l. 6, 9, 23); 105–7 (op. 18, d. 1147a, l. 1–3); Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti,” 210 (APRF, f. 57, op. 1., d. 73, l. 3).

82. In April 1938, Pyatnitsky evidently named Mao among the “Bukharin group” in the Comintern as a spy for Japan. Boris Melnikov, a former Soviet agent in China who had been accused of having gone over to the Japanese, was accused of being involved in the Comintern “conspiracy” of Osip Pyatnitsky, and his “testimony” supposedly denounced Mao as “the leader of Trotskyism in the inmost depths of the CCP.” Piatnitskii, Zagovor protiv Stalina, 120–5 (citing a July 1987 interview with Mikhail Menndeleyev, a former cellmate of Melnikov); Vaksberg, Hôtel Lux, 218–21, 235. See also Chang and Halliday, Mao, 208–9. In 1935, Pyatnitsky had been moved out of the Comintern to the central party apparatus.

83. Starkov, “Ar’ergardnye boi staroi partiinoi gvardii,” 220–1. As of July 1938, a year after his arrest, Pyatnitsky was still not broken and Yezhov’s power was waning. (Béla Kun and Wilhelm Knorin, said to have been in league with Pyatnitsky, were broken.) Pyatnitsky was tried in camera and, on July 29, 1938, executed. Starkov, “The Trial that Was Not Held.” See also Dmitrievskii, Piatnitskii.ogists.

84. Murray, I Spied for Stalin, 83.

85. Stalin’s letters to Karakhan in the 1920s—an epoch ago—had burst with affection, but subsequent mentions were venomous. As late as April 14, 1937, he had asked Karakhan, then Soviet envoy to Turkey, if he would agree to a big promotion to ambassador to the United States. On May 3, he had Karakhan recalled to Moscow and arrested. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 56, l. 68 (ciphered telegram to Karakhan in Ankara). Yezhov, whether on Stalin’s direct order or to please him, had Karakhan implicated in the case against Tukhachevsky; Stalin wrote “important” on the first page of Karakhan’s June 2, 1937, interrogation protocols (which the dictator received on June 19). Karakhan was sentenced and executed on Sept. 20, 1937. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 222–5 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 309, l. 123–30).

86. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 180 (citing TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 4, d. 469, l. 167).

87. At the Feb.–March 1937 plenum, when Voroshilov asserted that Rykov had several times been trembling—a supposed admission of his guilt—Litvinov interjected, “When was this?” Deeper into the terror, Litvinov would complain to Andreyev that arresting journalists at the Soviet Journal de Moscou for having contacts with foreigners was tantamount to arresting them for doing their job. Dullin, Men of Influence, 217, citing AVP RF, f. 5, op. 17, pap. 126, d. 1, letter Oct. 26, 1937. The journal’s editor (Rayevsky) had been arrested in Oct. 1936; his successor, a bona fide proletarian, Viktor Kin (Surovikin), would be arrested in Jan. 1938. Journal de Moscou was soon shuttered. Babichenko, “‘Esli aresty budut prodolzhatsiia, to . . . ne ostanetsiia ni odnogo nemtsa-chlena partii,’” 119 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 292. d. 101, l. 13–8).

88. Uldricks, “Impact of the Great Purges” 192 (citing National Archives decimal file 861.00/11705: Henderson to secretary of state, June 10, 1937); Barmine, One Who Survived, 3.

89. The next greatest of executions would be 1942—23,000. Popov, “Gosudarstvennyi terror,” 20–31 (using the 1963–4 Shvernik commission report). See also Wheatcroft, “Victims of Stalinism”; and Khlevniuk, “Les mécanismes de la Grande Terreur.”

90. Beck and Godin, Russian Purge, 75; Avtorkhanov, Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party, 219–21; Junge and Binner, Kak terror stal “bol’shym”; Gregory, Terror by Quota.

91. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 85.

92. Shapoval and Zolotar’ov, Vsevolod, 337; Iakovenko, Agnessa, 65.

93. Tepliakov, Mashina terrora, 571.

94. Iakovenko, Agnessa, 86–92.

95. According to Otto Shmidt, Stalin, in the course of conversation at the Presidium table, mentioned the names of high officials who had been arrested. Shmidt, “Priemy v kremle,” 273–4; Shevelev, 86.

96. Nezavisimaia gazeta, July 6, 1991.

97. Tepliakov, Mashina terrora, 477–8, 538; Gos. arkhiv Novosibirskoi oblasti (GANO), f. 4, op. 34, d. 26, l. 2; Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 262, 332–3. Yezhov and Frinovsky may have been concerned about Western Siberian party boss Eihe getting out ahead of them in gaining credit for the reinstituting of troikas. On the establishment of a Western Siberian troika as supposedly an initiative of Eihe, see Zhukov, Inoi Stalin, 433–4; Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 469; Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1993, no. 6), 5; Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 134, 228). Mironov was made chairman of the troika. When his arrest quotas were immediately increased, he tried to have them returned to the originally agreed levels. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, V/i: 430 (telegram Aug. 9, 1937). See also Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 296 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 65, l. 58), 335 (d. 57, l. 68).

98. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 166, d. 575, l. 19–22. The typed version was first brought forth in “Rasstrel po raznariadke, ili kak eto delali bol’sheviki,” Trud, June 4, 1992. See also Danilov et al., Tragediia Sovetskoi derevni, V/i: 258 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 21, l. 89). The troikas instituted as a result of Mironov’s “request” would account for more than 90 percent of the mass sentences for execution in 1937 and 1938. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 470. One available factoid indicates that in the Mordovia autonomous republic (Russian Federation), 96 percent of those who passed through the sentencing troika refused to admit they were wreckers, but it remains unclear if this represented resistance or laziness (or incompetence) on the part of the local NKVD. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 286 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 43, l. 113).

99. That day, Stalin had received twelve people in the Little Corner, a mere two of whom were politburo members (Voroshilov and Molotov); the draft decree is in Kaganovich’s handwriting, but he was not recorded in the Little Corner that day. Eight politburo members eventually signed the resolution. Junge et al., Vertikal bol’shogo terrora, 114–6; Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKB (b): povestki dnia zasedanii, II: 876, 887. There would be no politburo meetings from June 19, 1937, to Feb. 23, 1938. Only two additional gatherings were held in 1938 (April 25 and Oct. 10–12), and only two more in 1939 (Jan. 29 and Dec. 17). “Politburo” decisions were taken in the Little Corner by Stalin alone or in limited company, written up by Poskryobyshev and “approved” by telephone vote or with signatures affixed the next time the cronies were summoned to appear. Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 248–9. Stalin occasionally dropped all pretense and merely sent directives as his personal instructions: Khaustov et al., Lub’ianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 329; Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 340.

100. Junge and Binner, Kak terror stal “bol’shim,” 79.

101. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 238–9 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 174, l. 107). See also Ilič, “Forgotten Five Percent,” 116–39.

102. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 21, l. 95–9; Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 265; Tepliakov, Mashina terrora, 348.

103. To ensure everyone got the message, on July 16 Yezhov convened the regional NKVD chiefs from the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Belorussia in Moscow. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 98–101; Leningradskii martirolog, I: 39; Junge et al., Vertikal’ Bol’shogo terrora, 32–3. See also Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 41–3. A separate NKVD conference took place with the NKD chiefs of the Central Asian republics, eastern Siberia, and the Soviet Far East.

104. Iakovenko, Agnessa, 59; Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti,” 142–3 (TsA FSB, N-15301, t. 15, l. 387). The chief in Chelyabinsk was Yos-Gersh Blat; in Tataria, Pyotr Rud.

105. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 249 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 989, l. 57, 60). “The greatest revolutionary vigilance and iron will, a sharp Bolshevik eye and organizing talent, an exceptional mind and the subtlest proletarian sense—these are the qualities shown by comrade Yezhov,” Pravda wrote, adding that he was assisted by “millions of eyes, millions of hands of workers . . . Such a force is invincible.” Pravda, July 18, 1937. On July 18, Alexander Barmine, a Soviet diplomat in Greece, defected, obtaining asylum in France. Rogovin, Partiia rasstreliannykh, 353–5.

106. Tepliakov, Mashina terrora, 528–32.

107. “I can testify that my father’s apartment did not resemble in the least the shop of a poor junk-dealer described in the document,” wrote Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko of his arrested father, Vladimir. The NKVD inventory of his family residence, the son claimed, had omitted “original engravings by famous artists, a typewriter, a radio phonograph player with eight albums of records, his wife’s jewelry, her squirrel coat, expensive French perfume . . . and much, much more.” Antonov-Ovseenko, Portet Tirana, 187. V. Antonov-Ovseyenko had been arrested Oct. 12, 1937 (he would be executed on Feb. 10, 1938), and had lived at the famed Finance Commissariat House (Novinsky Boulevard, 25), built in 1930 by Moisei Ginzburg.

108. Uimanov and Petrukhin, Bol’ liudskaia, V: 102–11; Junge and Binner, Kak terror stal “bol’shim,” 81–3; Tepliakov, “Personal i povsednevnost’ Novosibirskogo UNKVD,” 254.

109. The jazzmen’s rendition prompted the aviators to rise, applauding, and shout for an encore. Chkalov, Nash transpoliarnyi reis, 59; Vodop’ianov, Letchik Valerii Chkalov, 195; Skorokhodov, V poiskakh utrachennogo, 21–3. Utyosov claimed, in his recollections, that he was never invited back to a Kremlin reception, but the program for May 2, 1938, contradicts him. Nevezhin (Zastol’ia, 298–9) misdates the reception to Aug. 13, 1936, after a nonstop flight to the Soviet Far East, but Utyosov dates the performance to “summer 1937”—that would be July 26, 1937—when Baiduk, Chkalov, and Belyakov flew nonstop from Moscow to Vancouver; Chkalov also makes clear that the evening took place after their return from the United States.

110. Trud, June 4, 1992; Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 273–81 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 212, l. 59–78), 281–2 (l. 52–4); Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, V/i: 328–37; Werth and Mironenko, Istoriia Stalinskogo gulaga, I: 277–80; Junge and Binner, Kak terror stal “bol’shim,” 84–93, 94–6. This was followed by further related directives: Werth and Mironenko, Istoriia Stalinskogo gulaga, I: 363–5. Frinovsky had three audiences with Stalin in July 1937: July 7 (fifteen minutes), July 26 (five minutes), July 29 (fifty-five minutes). Na prieme, 216.

111. Korneev and Kopylova, “Arkhivy na sluzhbe totalitarnogo gosudarstva.” The order specified that the mass operations were to last four months (instead they would last fifteen): on Jan. 31, 1938, the regime would extend the deadline and nearly double the country-wide quota to 500,000. Even the “final” quotas would be exceeded: in Georgia and Uzbekistan by 50 percent, in the USSR as a whole by 100 percent, in Western Siberia by 200 percent. The mass operations ended in different places at different times. Junge and Binner, Kak terror stal “bol’shim,” 83–103.

112. Mironov worked alongside another member of the local troika, Western Siberian party boss Eihe, and Mironov complained to Yezhov that the latter “interferes in the affairs of the NKVD,” showing up to participate in interrogations and arrests of party members. Yezhov advised Mironov not to conflict with Eihe. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 107 (citing TsA FSB ASD Frinovskogo, N-15301, t. 7: 36–7). Provincial practice varied. According to the NKVD operative Mikhail Shreider, Ivanovo province NKVD chief Israel Radzivilovsky rendered the “troika” decisions himself, just sending the paperwork to the two other troika members, the local party boss and the procurator, to sign. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 76.

113. Khlevniuk, History of the Gulag, 157–61 (GARF, f. 8131, op. 37, d. 145, l. 49–84); Leibovich, “Vkliuchen v operatsiiu,” 302–3.

114. Artizov et al., Reabilitatsiia: kak eto bylo, I: 320; Kuz’micheva, “Resheniia osobykh troek privodit’ v ispolneniie nemedlenno,” 85.

115. Leibovich et al. “Vkliuchen v operatsiiu,” 314–7 (based on former KGB archives in Perm). Some former kulaks, after their terms of exile ended, managed to return to their former places of habitation and sometimes even to reclaim their lands, which the regime deemed “sabotage.” Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants, 238–54. Recidivism was also a focus. “The main contingent committing disruptive offenses (robbery, brigandage, murder, aggravated theft) are people who have been convicted before, in most cases recently released from camps or places of detention,” Yezhov wrote in a memorandum to Stalin, a passage the despot marked in pencil. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 96 (citing APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 166, l. 151–4); Rittersporn, “‘Vrednye element,’” 103; Hagenloh, “‘Socially Harmful Elements,’” 300.

116. Ellman, “Regional Influences.”

117. Frinovsky sent out a ciphered directive that “anti-Soviet elements” whom local officials assigned to category 1 (“especially socially dangerous”) were not even to be presented with charges, just executed in cold blood. Stepanov, Rasstrel po limitu, 30 (Aug. 8, 1937); Junge and Binner, Kak terror stal “bol’shim,” 99. See also Rabishchev, “Gnilaia i opasnaia teoriia,” esp. 55.

118. National operations would claim approximately 350,000 victims, 247,157 of whom would be shot.

119. In April 1936, the regime had decided to deport the ethnic Poles and Germans in Ukraine near the western border (more than 10,000 families) to Kazakhstan; then it deported Soviet Finns from the border areas with Finland as well as Iranians near the border with Afghanistan (some 2,000 families). Stalin authorized a request to arrest all Afghan nationals in Merva, Turkmenistan (where there was an Afghan consulate). RGANI, f. 89, op. 48, d. 8, l. 1–2 (ciphered telegram from Anna Mukhamedov, acting party boss of Turkmenistan, to Stalin, July 23, 1937, with Stalin’s handwriting). Mukhamedov was arrested Oct. 5, 1937.

120. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 22, l. 16; d. 21, l. 157; Gelb, “Early Soviet Ethnic Deportation”; Bugai, “Vysylenie sovetskikh koreitsev,” 144; Pohl, Ethnic Cleansing, 9–20; Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 352 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 139, l. 23). The Soviet Pacific Fleet had been put on alert to prevent the Koreans from fleeing by sea, but several hundred boats from Korea showed up, just off Soviet waters, to rescue these people; Soviet border guards detained many of the boats. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 301. See also Polian, Against Their Will, 99–101. About 25,000 ethnic Koreans not near the border were not deported, at least not immediately. Belaia kniga, 68, 82. Khaustov and Samuelson claim around 180,000 Koreans were deported altogether: Stalin, NKVD, 300 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 14). The population of ethnic Koreans in the Soviet Far East had tripled, to 170,000, between 1917 and 1926; a secret plan had been adopted (Dec. 6, 1926) but not implemented to relocate 88,000 of them from frontier zones. In 1928, 1930, and 1933, a few thousand Koreans had been shifted to the interior. Khisamutdinov, 119–21; Boldyrev, “Iaponiia i Sovetskii Dal’nyi Vostok,” 187–94, 193–4; Stephan, Russian Far East, 212; Petrov, Ukrepim sovety DVK, 97. Sibirskaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, II: 95.

121. Petrov and Roginskii, “‘Pol’skaia operatsiia’ NKVD,” 22–43.

122. About 70 percent of Soviet ethnic Poles were in Ukraine, and until 1937 Poland maintained consulates in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Kiev, Minsk, and Tiflis, where they ran intelligence operations. But Stalin’s clampdown led the Polish embassies and consulates to desist from recruiting agents among Soviet ethnic Poles. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 48; Pepłoński, Wywiad Polski na ZSSR, 126–7. Conversely, when a Polish citizen showed up at the Lubyanka front door to betray his masters, he was tortured and forced to confess to having been sent to penetrate the NKVD for Poland. Stalin also demanded to know what border point he had crossed. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 229–30 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 254, l. 92-3, 203).

123. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 352–9 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 254, l. 173–88: September 14, 1937); Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 291; Sudoplatov, Tainaia zhizn’, I: 366–93; Gur’ianov, Repressii protiv poliakov, 16–20. Stalin’s vindictiveness against “foreigners” was not unique. “Stop playing internationalism, all these Poles, Koreans, Latvians, Germans, etc. should be beaten, these are all mercenary nations, subject to termination,” one provincial party boss stated at a local NKVD conference. “All nationals should be caught, forced to their knees, and exterminated like mad dogs.” Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 114 (quoting Sergei Sobolev, Krasnoyarsk). On Sept. 15, 1938, the regime ended the “album procedure” and allowed troikas for the national operation; two months later, it ended the troikas.

124. Okhotin and Roginskii, “Iz istorii ‘nemetskoi operatisii’ NKVD,” 66. Mass operations were also ordered against the returning Harbin émigrés (Sept. 20, 1937), among others. Zaitsev, Sbornik zakonodatel’nykh i normativnykh aktov, 430–7.

125. “All Germans working on our military, semimilitary and chemical factories, on electric stations and building sites, in all regions are all to be arrested,” Stalin instructed (July 20, 1937). Yezhov, five days later, issued this as an operational order (no. 00439). Perhaps 4,000 German citizens were resident in the Soviet Union; around 800 were arrested and deported to Germany. APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 254a, l. 82; Okhotin and Roginskii, “Iz istorii ‘nemetskoi operatisii’ NKVD,” 35–7; Khlevniuk, History of the Gulag, 144–5.

126. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 251 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 253, l. 141). The author of the report, Alexander Minayev, was arrested on Nov. 6, 1938, and executed on February 25, 1939. Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 298–9.

127. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 662 n86; Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 156 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 987, l. 79). Rudzutaks, even under severe torture, refused to admit any guilt. Chuev, Sto sorok, 410–2. According to Irina Gogua, the arrested Kremlin librarian, Rudzutaks kept the issue of the Menshevik Socialist Herald with Martov’s obituary behind books on his home bookshelf.

128. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 333–4 (citing GARf, f. 8131, op. 37, d. 86, l. 138–48). Nasedkin is listed in the Little Corner on Nov. 23, 1937. Na prieme, 225. Often, NKVD interrogators began by asking why the prisoner had been arrested, as if it were up to the prisoner to establish his or her own guilt.

129. Alliluyeva, Only One Year, 388.

130. Chuev, Sto sorok, 409.

131. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 65 (no citation). The attaché’s country is not identified.

132. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 60 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 983, l. 46: Jan. 9, 1937), 66; Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 509n2 (f. 17, op. 163, d. 1143, l. 73).

133. The sole German-speaking operative in the Soviet intelligence station in Paris was recalled to Moscow in 1937. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 66 (no citation). The person is not identified.

134. Yezhov informed Stalin that a housekeeper reported that Berzin had been close to Trotsky, who had promised him a future post. The housekeeper also supposedly said that Berzin had a great deal of White Guard literature in his personal library, in Russian and foreign languages, including works by Trotsky. (Berzin was head of military intelligence.) Stalin tasked Yezhov with going after military intelligence in the military districts as well, especially Ukraine, Belorussia, and Leningrad (“Did they not link the Trotskyites with Poland, like our Far Eastern intelligence linked the Trotskyites to Japan?”). Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 221 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 316, l. 86). Berzin was removed Aug. 1, 1937, and soon arrested for Trotskyism; he would be executed on July 29, 1938, at Kommunarka. In the meantime, on Sept. 8, 1937, Yezhov implanted a counterintelligence NKVD man as acting military intelligence chief, Semyon G. Gendin, telling his staff that he himself would run military intelligence.

135. Instead, the regime examined trunks, which had been lying around for some time, and found writings of Trotsky, Zinoviev, and other such former politburo officials. Kochik, “Sovetskaia voennaia razvedka” (no. 9–12), 101–2.

136. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 21, l. 133 (Semyon Gendin).

137. Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbaraossy,” 56 (no citation). Several dozen more were sacked but not arrested.

138. Polyakova added that “these comrades became my first pupils and later some became my bosses.” Kochik, “Sovetskaia voennaia razvedka” (no. 9–12), 98.

139. In an earlier part of the discussion, a mid-level commander stated his uncertainty about whether he could speak about enemies of the people “in full voice.” Stalin: “To the whole world?” The commander: “No, internally.” Stalin: “You are obliged to do so.” Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 93 (citing RGVA, f. 9, op. 29, d. 318, l. 173, 174, 64).

140. Solov’ev and Chugnuov, Pogranichnye voiska SSSR, 538–58, 574–7.

141. Beloff, Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, II: 179–80; Ikuhiko, “Japanese-Soviet Confrontation,” 137–40.

142. Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939, 28–34 (quote on 31).

143. Coox, Nomonhan, 102–19 (quote at 116).

144. Taylor, Generalissimo (citing Chiang’s Diaries, Hoover Institution Archives, box 39, folder 13: July 12, 1937).

145. Jansen, Japan and China, 394–5.

146. The month before (June 1937), the Japanese completed the multiyear standardization of the railway gauge in northern China, converting from the wide gauge that the Russians had originally installed—just in time to move around their troops. Paine, Wars for Asia, 28.

147. Barnhart, “Japanese Intelligence,” 435.

148. Izvestiia, Aug. 30, 1937; DVP SSSR, XX: 466–8; Kurdiukov et al., Sovetsko-Kitaiskie otnosheniia, 161–2; Ledovskii et al., Russko-kitaiskie otnosheniia v XX veke, IV/i: 88–9 (APRF, f. 3–a, op. 1, d. 52, l. 1–3); Slavinskii, Sovetskii soiuz i kitai, 314–20. Dmitri Bogomolov, the Soviet envoy to China (since 1933), who signed the nonaggression pact, had been predicting there would be no full-scale Japanese attack on China. In July 1937, Litvinov rebuked him for supposedly implying to the Chinese that the Soviet Union might agree to a full alliance (a mutual assistance pact). In Sept., Stalin had Bogomolov recalled; he returned to Moscow on Oct. 7 and vanished. DVP SSSR, XX: 737–8 (July 19 and July 22, 1937); Ledovskii, “Zapiski diplomata,” 114; Sokolov, “Zabytyi diplomat”; Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 149.

149. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 21, l. 157; Bugai, “Vyselenie sovetskikh koreetsev,” 144.

150. FRUS, 1937, III: 636 (Bullitt to Washington, Oct. 23, 1937).

151. Chang and Halliday, Mao, 200–3.

152. The Soviets would extend $250 million in 1938–39; by mid-1939 there would be 3,665 Soviet advisers in China. Ageenko, Voennaia pomoshch’ SSSR, 49.

153. Whiting and Shih-ts’aicai, Sinkiang, 51 (citing memoirs of the general who ruled Xinjiang with Soviet backing).

154. Garver, “Chiang Kai-shek’s Quest.” Bogomolov called Chiang Kai-shek’s hopes for a direct Soviet-Japanese war his “idée fixe.” DVP SSSR, XX: 389. Chiang did not submit the nonaggression pact for formal ratification until April 26, 1938, indicating he wanted either a formal alliance or was waiting on the Western powers to change their minds.

155. Ledovskii et al., Russko-kitaiskie otnosheniia v XX veke, IV/i: 105–8 (APRF, f. 3, op. 1, d. 321, l. 10–15).

156. Stalin’s views on China in 1937 after the Japanese attack were recorded by Dimitrov: Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 67–9 (Nov. 11, 1937). Far more Soviet advisers and pilots would serve in China—3,665—than had served in Spain.

157. Barmin, Sovetskii Soiuz i Sin´tszian, 157–8.

158. Kolt’sov, Ispanskii dnevnik, 519–20 (July 7, 1937).

159. The other wife was Elizaveta Koltsova, who had been sacked in Madrid from her job. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 268 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 217, l. 68).

160. Codovilla was replaced in Spain by Togliatti. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 283–8 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 225, l. 2–10). See also Payne, Spanish Civil War, 32. In 1938, Stalin would twice come to the conclusion that the Communists should quit the Popular Front government and form a new government of just Communists and Socialists; both times, Dimitrov—of all people—appears to have talked Stalin out of it. Meshcheriakov, “SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii,” 93 (citing RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 216, l. 2; TsPA VS BSP, f. 146, op. 2, d. 42, l. 1). In February–March 1938, Pascua tried to impress upon Potyomkin the dire military and economic situation of the Spanish Republic; the upshot was a Soviet $70 million loan to Spain, which had spent down its gold reserves. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 325–37 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 226, l. 28–31, 33–5, 37–8, 39; d. 232, l. 46, d. 234, l. 165–6, d. 226, l. 57–8, 42–4, 45, 46–460b., 59–60). By April 1938, Pascua had been transferred to Paris. He wrote yet another artful letter to Stalin, offering his gratitude on behalf of Spain. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 338 (citing APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 226, l. 64–64ob.). In Aug. 1938 Pascua came to Moscow from Paris, with a letter to Stalin from Negrín. But by Aug. 29, 1938, Dimitrov and Manuilsky were writing to Stalin about the evacuation of the international brigades from Spain. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 344 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 226, l. 83), 346–7 (l. 85), 354–5 (l. 109), 358 (l. 119–20).

161. Roshchin, Politicheskaia istoriia Mongolii.

162. They reconvened the next day, too. Na prieme, 218.

163. Iakovenko, Agnessa, 95. The Soviet envoy, Vladimir Tairov (Teryan), an Armenian, arrested on Aug. 5, 1937, was evidently being convoyed in the other direction (to Moscow) along the same route.

164. Papkov, Stalinskii terror v Sibiri, 269; Iakovenko, Agnessa, 97–8.

165. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 382–7; Pravda, Aug. 29, 1937; Kolarz, Peoples of the Soviet Far East, 138–9. The secret autopsy cited death “as a result of . . . external poison.” Luzianin, “Rossiia-Mongoliia-Kitai,” 323.

166. Dashpürev and Soni, Reign of Terror in Mongolia, 33–5. Captain Bimba, who defected to the Japanese, told them about a pro-Japanese conspiracy among the Mongol elite to which Demid supposedly belonged. But Bimba’s account is highly inconsistent and often blatantly wrong about dates and verifiable facts. Coox, Nomonhan, 161–3 (who largely accepts the testimony of defector Captain Bimba); Dashpürev and Soni, Reign of Terror in Mongolia, 2–3 (who point out that the testimony is unreliable).

167. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 26, l. 1.

168. Choibalsan had denounced Demid to Voroshilov in Oct. 1936. Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 355–6, 360.

169. When Frinovsky returned from Mongolia, his possible transfer to the defense commissariat, as deputy commissar, was evidently bruited. Protocol of Frinovsky interrogation, sent by Beria to Stalin April 11, 1939: http://www.hrono.ru/dokum/193_dok/19390413beria.php (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 373, l. 3–44: protocol of Frinovsky interrogation, Beria to Stalin, April 11, 1939).

170. Dashpürev and Soni, Reign of Terror in Mongolia; Sandag and Kendall, Poisoned Arrows.

171. Genden was never repatriated and was executed in Moscow in Nov. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 388; Kaplonski, “Prelude to Violence”; Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 361–2.

172. Khlevniuk, “Economic Officials in the Great Terror,” 61 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 997, l. 79–82; op. 120, d. 339, l. 42; op. 3, d. 992, l. 28: Feb. 1938; op. 120, d. 339, l. 57).

173. At the Feb.–March 1937 plenum, Stalin had referred to the top 3,000–4,000 officials as the “general staff of the party.” Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 3), 14. In one ward of Smolensk city for which we have data, forty-one people born in the nineteenth century were promoted in 1937–38—not exactly new people. Thurston, Life and Terror, 133 (citing the Smolensk archive).

174. The budget for 1938 envisioned 160,400; the actual number would be 180,500. Khlevniuk, “Economic Officials in the Great Terror,” 60 (citing GARF, f. 5446, op. 22, d. 1065, l. 19–20; d. 1060, l. 89).

175. Without CC approval young specialists were forbidden from beginning work. Khlevniuk, “Economic Officials in the Great Terror,” 60 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 992, l. 97). In 1938, after the name of Arseny Zverev (b. 1900) was presented on a list of party members who had completed the Moscow Institute of Finance and Economics, he was named finance commissar. Chuev, Sto sorok, 291.

176. “Machiavellian duplicity” is the interpretation offered by Robert Tucker, Stalin in Power, 320. Cf. Fitzpatrick, “Making of a New Elite.”

177. Pravda, Oct. 31, 1937; Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 117–33; RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 96, l. 148; Bardin, “Ispolin-mudrets,” 54–5. See also Khlevniuk, 1937–i, 104–5.

178. Svetlana Alliluyeva, quoted in Richardson, Long Shadow, 211.

179. Farcically, Getty and Naumov have asserted that “it is not an exaggeration to say that the Riutin Platform began the process that would lead to terror, precisely by terrifying the ruling nomenklatura.” Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 54.

180. Stalin might have wanted to clear a path for the rising new generation, but what kind of path? Confessions to crimes people did not commit and mass executions? Khlevniuk, “The Stalinist ‘Party Generals,’” esp. 59–60. See also Rees, “The Great Purges and the XVIII Party Congress of 1939,” 191–211.

181. Artizov, “V ugodu vzgliadam vozhdia,” (on the 1936 competition); Dubrovskii, “A. A. Zhdanov v rabote nad shkol’nym uchebnikom istorii,” 128–43. Mikhail Pokrovsky, before his death in 1932, had entrenched a Marxist orthodoxy based upon Engels deeming tsarist Russia the most reactionary power, the “gendarme of Europe.” Stalin countered that in the nineteenth century all the great powers were gendarmes. Even though almost all members of Pokrovsky’s School would be physically annihilated, the summons to incorporate imperial Russian legacies in a patriotic history of the Soviet Union proved no easy task. The Pokrovsky School had destroyed the careers of most other historians, leaving a wasteland. Shestakov was one of the few Pokrovsky students to endure.

182. Dubrovskii, Istorik i vlast’, 274–5.

183. Kutskii, “A. V. Shestakov.” Shestakov would be elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in 1939. For commentary on Shestakov as of 1929, see Iurganov, Russkoe natsional’noe gosudarstvo, 26n3.

184. Shestakov, Kratkii kurs istorii SSSR; Shestakov, Short History of the USSR, 8.

185. Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, 260. Another 5.7 million copies would be printed in 1938 and 3 million in 1939.

186. Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, 67 (citing GARF, f. 2306, op. 69, d. 2640, l. 1).

187. The book mentioned Stanisław Kosior and others who were soon arrested as enemies, but rather than recall and pulp the long-awaited, highly sought textbook, the censors dispatched directives to paste over the offending names and illustrations. Mekhlis would cross out a photograph of Marshal Blyukher in his own copy: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 373, l. 99–99ob., 103ob., 108.

188. A. K., “Kratkii kurs istorii SSSR,” 85–6. The journal of the historical profession called the book “a great victory on the historical front.” “Bol’shaia pobeda na istoricheskom fronte,” Istoricheskii zhurnal, 1937, no. 8: 6. “He who understands history,” a Communist Youth League mass pamphlet of fall 1938 written by Shestakov would advise, “will better understand contemporary life and struggle more effectively with the enemies of our country and strengthen socialism.” Shestakov, “Ob izuchenii istorii SSSR,” 39 (quoting his own Short Course History of the USSR).

189. Brandenberger and Dubrovsky, “‘The People Need a Tsar’” 879 (citing RGASPI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 847, l. 3–4). Zatonsky was arrested in a cinema (where he was with his family) on Nov. 3, 1937. He would be executed July 29, 1938.

190. Harold Denny, the Moscow correspondent for the New York Times, caught the trend with the observation that “there is a legend in Moscow—and the writer does not know whether or not it is true—that Stalin questioned his own son on English history and found that while his son could talk glibly about economic periods he had never heard of Cromwell.” Denny, “No ‘Formalism.’” Denny served in Moscow 1934–39, having replaced Walter Duranty, and he proved no less mendacious regarding Stalin’s crimes. Heilbrunn, “New York Times and the Moscow Show Trials.”

191. Shestakov, Short History of the USSR, 76.

192. Shestakov, Short History of the USSR, 49–50. See also Tucker, Stalin in Power, 282.

193. The film, applauded Izvestiya (Sept. 2), “answers like nothing else the cultural demands of our country’s populace. The masses are showing an unheard of interest in history . . . They want to see the paths that have brought them to glory.”

194. Tolstoi, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, XIII: 355. See also Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, 159 (citing RGALI, f. 962, op. 3, d. 287, l. 34); and Tucker, Stalin in Power, 114–8.

195. Garros et al., Intimacy and Terror, 209 (Galina Shtange). The depiction of Peter was so over-the-top positive that the American worker John Scott, who saw the film in Magnitogorsk, guessed that Peter the First had been imported. Scott, Behind the Urals, 236. See also Siegelbaum and Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life, 211 (I. K. Karniush to Krest’ianskaia Gazeta, Oct. 30, 1938).

196. Back in April 1926, Stalin had ridiculed comrades who imagined Ivan the Terrible or even Peter as Russia’s industrializers (“not all industrial development constitutes industrialization. The heart of industrialization, its basis, consists in the development of heavy industry, . . . the production of the means of production, in the development of its own machine-building”). At a Central Committee plenum in Nov. 1928, Stalin had said, “when Peter the Great, having dealings with the more developed countries of the West, feverishly built factories for the supply of the army and strengthening the country’s defenses, this was the original attempt to leap out from the limits of backwardness. It is fully understood, however, that not one of the old classes, neither the feudal aristocracy nor the bourgeoisie, could resolve the task of liquidating our country’s backwardness.” In 1931, speaking to Emil Ludwig, Stalin had again brushed off the parallel with Peter, because Soviet modernization efforts were not on behalf of the landowners or merchants but the working class. Sochineniia, VIII: 120–1, XI: 248–9, XIII: 104–5.

197. There is an anecdote that has Stalin rebuking Vasily when he caught his son attempting to trade on his name: “You’re not Stalin and I’m not Stalin. Stalin is Soviet power. Stalin is what he is in the newspapers and the portraits, not you, no, not even me!” Montefiore, Court of the Red Tsar, 6 (citing only “Artyom Sergeev”).

198. As Giuseppe Boffa observed, “no matter how numerous its ties with Russia’s past (and certainly it does have many), Stalinism is still a modern phenomenon, well rooted in our century.” Boffa, Stalin Phenomenon, 58. See also Rees, “Stalin and Russian Nationalism,” 77–106 (esp. 93–5).

199. Koliazin and Goncharov, “Vernite mne svobodu!,” 78–95 (Pyotr Tyurkin). Union and autonomous republics lobbied against too much time devoted to teaching Russian (time devoted to native languages would increase in 1938–39). Many locales lacked trained instructors to teach the Russian language. Russian was taught in fewer than half of Turkmenistan’s 728 schools, one-third of Kyrgyzstan’s 667, and one-seventh of Kazakhstan’s 330, and even when taught the quality of instruction was low. Blitstein, “Nation-Building or Russification?,” 256 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 840, l. 76–7).

200. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 628, l. 121–2. The decree rendering Russian obligatory in schools would not be issued until March 13, 1938 (evidently delayed by the terror and bureaucratic complexities). Never published, it stipulated that “in the conditions of a multinational state such as the USSR, knowledge of the Russian language should be a powerful means for communication and contact among the peoples of the USSR, enabling further economic and cultural growth.” RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 997, l. 103. Local versions of the decree were published. Kul’turnaia zhizn’ v SSSR, 1928–1941, 606n6. In the meantime, on Oct. 30, 1937, Mekhlis complained to Stalin and the other Central Committee secretaries, as well as Yezhov, about the absence of Russian-language newspapers in Ukraine. Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan all had republic-level Russian newspapers, while of the eleven republic and provincial newspapers published in Kiev, all the main ones were in Ukrainian. Of Ukraine’s twelve regions, only the Donbas had even a province-level Russian newspaper. Even Odessa lacked a local Russian-language newspaper. Kiev had German, Polish, Yiddish, and Bulgarian papers, but none in Russian. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 481–2 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 829, l. 135–6). Other changes included beginning instruction with seven-year-olds (one year earlier than previously), replacing Latin with Cyrillic for many languages of Soviet peoples, and abolishing all remaining national units in the Red Army. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 997, l. 95–6 (March 7, 1938).

201. During the viewing, the film snapped fifteen times. Schlögel, Moscow, 1937, 372–3; Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, 163–4; Literaturnaia gazeta, Dec. 12, 1937.

202. Massing, This Deception, 248–9.

203. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 65; van Ree, “Stalin as Marxist,” 175. Stalin had rendered still more severe the draft directives for spouses (including those divorced), children, siblings, brothers and sisters-in-law. And when relatives of the arrested wrote to him begging for help because of their indigence, he often ordered their arrests. Kurliandskii, Stalin, vlast’, religiia, 44–5.

204. Khrushchev, in his ever-ingratiating way, sought to reconcile the moment: “What we have is a felicitous combination—both the great leader and the middle cadres!” Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 65–7 (Nov. 7, 1937). Tucker imagined that in the speech in Voroshilov’s apartment, Stalin self-consciously emulated Ivan the Terrible. Tucker, Stalin in Power, 482–6.

205. Such was Dimitrov’s account; a longer version was recorded by Voroshilov’s adjutant: “Trotsky was known, he was not a Bolshevik, he joined the Bolsheviks with his program of permanent revolution. Many said that the Republic was Lenin and Trotsky, he was an orator. Major figures joined together: Trotsky, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Zinoviev, Pyatakov (God only knows what kind of a figure); add to that Nadezhda Konstantinova [Krupskaya], who always supported these ‘leftist’ Communists. Me, Stalin, I was known, but not like Trotsky. Be brave and don’t invent what was not the case.”

206. Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 158 (citing RGAPSI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1122, l. 158–65, 167–74: Khmelnitsky notes).

207. Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 62–4, RGAPSI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1122, l. 158–65, 167–74).

208. No figure acquired more place-names than the deceased Kirov. Murray, Politics and Place Names, 51.