Stalin

182. RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 102, l. 54–6 (Soviet intelligence translation of Lyushkov’s remarks); Pavliukov, Ezhov, 429–31; Iakovlev et al., Reabilitatsiia: politicheskie protsessy, 183.

183. Coox, “Lesser of Two Hells, Part 2,” 83.

184. Coox, “Lesser of Two Hells, Part 1,” 176.

185. Coox, “Lesser of Two Hells, Part 1,” 153.

186. Coox, “Lesser of Two Hells, Part 2,” 79–80, 86–8. According to Lyushkov, in March 1938, Stalin had even dispatched an envoy—known under the code name Major Yartsev—to investigate the possibility of repositioning the Pacific Fleet and bringing Sakhalin, where Japanese companies managed economic concessions, to a state of full military readiness, including the building of new air strips, which would be conspicuous. It seems that Japanese sea, air, and ground forces were to be lured to defending Southern Sakhalin. Yartsev was Boris Rybkin (see chap. 12, below).

187. Kahn, Codebreakers, 637; Goldman, “Spy Who Saved the Soviets.”

188. According to Coox, for strictly military matters the Japanese preferred the information of artillery officer Major Frontyarmar Frantsevich, of the 36th Motorized Infantry Division, who had defected to the Japanese by motor car from Outer Mongolia two weeks before Lyushkov, on May 29, 1938. Coox, “L’Affaire Lyushkov,” 418.

189. “I did not want to leave my country any more than a fish wants to leave water, but the delinquent activity of criminal people has cast me up like a fish on ice,” Orlov wrote in a letter for Yezhov and Stalin hand-delivered to the Soviet embassy in Paris after he was safely gone. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 308–12 (letter to Yezhov from NKVD file).

190. In 1938, a book in Spanish, Espionage in Spain (Barcelona: Ediciones Unidad), was published under the name Max Rieger, a member of Spain’s Socialist party, which brought together vast incriminating materials on the POUM; it was quietly translated into Russian with a different title: Spanish Trotskyites in Franco’s Service. The secret materials had not been assembled by the rank and file leftist, but under the direction of the NKVD’s Orlov, who had assigned a journalist to write the text. POUM members were said to have been discovered in Franco’s intelligence service after the capture of a top Franco agent. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 140–1, 144.

191. According to the official historical essays on Soviet intelligence, Orlov never divulged to the West the secrets he knew. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 146n1.

192. Merritt, “Great Purges,” 500 (citing “Statistika antiarmeiskogo terrora,” Voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv, 1997, no. 2: 105–12). Lyushkov told his interrogators that between July 1937 and May 1938, more than 4,000 Far Eastern Army personnel—1,200 officers and political commissars and 3,000 junior officers—were arrested, including almost all of Blyukher’s immediate subordinates. Stephan, Russian Far East, 220 (citing U.S. Army Department, “The Interrogation of Lyushkov,” frame 0982).

193. Stephan, Russian Far East, 234.

194. Kubeev, “Obrechennyi na kazn’,” 93–4; Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 133–4; Coox, “L’Affaire Lyushkov,” 412.

195. A large-scale operation at Lake Khasan appeared in the Japanese army’s plan for 1938. Savin, “O podgotovke Iaponii k napadeniiu na SSSR.”

196. Coox, Anatomy of a Small War, 3–9; Coox, Nomonhan, 124; Ikuhiko, “Japanese-Soviet Confrontation,” 140–57.

197. Solov’ev and Chugnuov, Pogranichnye voiska SSSR, doc. 623 (Colonel Fedotov).

198. This would be Lyushkov’s one and only intentional public appearance. He would publish an “open letter to Stalin” in the Japanese periodical Kaizo (April 1939). Kaizo, April 1939: 106–25, excerpted in Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 681–6. For a detailed Japanese report on the July 13 public appearance, see Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, VII/i: 148–51 (TsKhIDK, f. 1, op. 3,4 d. 4601, l. 210–6).

199. Solov’ev and Chugunov, Pogranichnye voiska SSSR, 591–3; “Prikaz narodnogo komissara oborony Soiuza SSR no. 0040 (4 sentiabria 1938).”

200. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 161–2. See also Svetlanin, Dal’nevostochnyi zagovor, 124–6.

201. Far Eastern Affairs, 1990, no. 3: 176–84 (Ivan Minka); Merritt, “Great Purges,” 513–5 (citing RGVA, f. 35083, op. 1, d. 3, l. 35, 67; f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1084, l. 37–8; RGASPI, f. 71, op. 25, d. 359, l. 1–2), 526 (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1136, 1. 10; f. 35083, op. 1, d. 28, 11. 113–4).

202. On July 20, 1938, the Japanese ambassador, Mamoru Shigemitsu, paid a call on Litvinov and the two clashed sharply over maps; Litvinov also complained of penetration of Soviet embassy territory in Tokyo by a person who then flung leaflets: Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, IV: 369–71 (July 22, 1938).

203. A published Soviet assessment noted Japanese strength in traditional infantry, a low level of mechanization, rendering them unable to mount breakthrough operations, and a domestic Japanese aircraft industry that, despite access to foreign prototypes, was relatively weak by top international standards. The Soviets had a high opinion of Japanese prowess on the sea. Japanese cruisers were state of the art in speed and firepower; they even carried more torpedo tubes than their American counterparts. New Japanese battleships, moreover, were coming off the stocks. Shvede, Voennyi flot Iaponii, 31–2. This assessment would be maintained in the next edition: Voenno-morskoi flot Iaponii (1939).

204. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 252 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 67, l. 28).

205. Coox, Nomonhan, 123–4; Haslam, Threat from the East, 113–4.

206. Coox, Anatomy of a Small War, 57–70; Coox, Nomonhan, 134–5. Sorge would report that “this incident will not lead to a war between the Soviet Union and Japan.” Volkov, “Legendy i deistvitel’nost o Rikharde Zorge,” 100, referring to Toshito Obi, Zoruge jiken, 4 vols. (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō, 1962–71), I: no page number.

207. Grebennik, Khasanskii dnevnik, 54–7.

208. Coox, Anatomy of a Small War.

209. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, VII/i: 146–7 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22383, d. 3, l. 185–6).

210. Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, 87–9

211. Back on July 20, 1936, the then head of Soviet military intelligence (Uritsky) had written to Voroshilov about Sorge concerning a review of intelligence, which had indicated that German-Japanese negotiations for a military alliance were bogged down because of Germany’s desire not to force the issue. Stalin had written on it: “In my view, this is a disorientation emanating from German circles.” Uritsky explained to Voroshilov that the inside knowledge had come primarily from Sorge, who “usually produced good quality information and not infrequently genuine secret documentary material. For example, we have now received from this intelligence operative a report of the German military attaché in Tokyo (sent to you separately). We were able to verify the genuineness of this report, having received analogous documents directly from the German general staff.” On the basis of additional materials, including decoded telegraph traffic between Berlin and Tokyo, Uritsky concluded firmly that Sorge was correct. “In presenting these interpretations and materials to you, I request your instructions about their further forwarding to comrade Stalin.” Voroshilov’s response is unknown. (Uritsky, of course, was later executed as a foreign spy.) Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, VII/i: 141–2 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 3108, d. 3, l. 239–41).

212. Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/1: 273 (citing TsGASA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1140, l. 18–22); Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 327–8; Kortunova, “1938–I,” 175.

213. Shigemitsu made the suggestion to Litvinov in person on the evening of Aug. 4, 1938: Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, IV: 373–5. The next day Soviet intelligence reported to Moscow that Kung Hsianghsi of the Chinese secret service, a stogie-smoking seventy-fifth generation descendant of Confucius, had pledged China’s unconditional support to the USSR in the conflict with Japan. Ganin, who met Kung and wrote the report, inquired whether he should convey the information he had received to the Soviet foreign affairs commissariat. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennai, VII/i: 97–9 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1114, l. 324–8).

214. Sorge repeated that appraisal on Aug. 10: Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, 91–2; Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, VII/i: 147–8 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22383, d. 3, l. 198–9).

215. DVP SSSR, XXI: 433-4 (Aug. 11, 1938).

216. Coox, Nomonhan, 138 (quoting Inada), 140–1.

217. MacKinnon, “Tragedy of Wuhan”; MacKinnon, Wuhan.

218. DGFP, series C, VI: 337–8, 396–7; von Weizsäcker, Memoirs, 126–7; Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 126–7.

219. Cherepanov, Zapiski voenno sovetnika, 323–3; Kaliagin, Po neznakomym dorogam, 92n, 282.

220. “Problems of War Strategy” (Nov. 6, 1938), reprinted in Tse-tung, Selected Military Writings, 269–85 (at 269, 273).

221. Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939, 76–7.

222. Krivosheev, Soviet Casualties, 47–51; Coox, Nomonhan, 132.

223. Blyukher, “S Vasiliem Konstantinovichem Bliukherom,” 84–7. See also Erickson, Soviet High Command, 498–9.

224. Konev, when queried after World War II, would judge Blyukher a man of the past unsuited to modern warfare. “Besedy s marshalom Sovetskogo Soiuza I. S. Konevym,” in Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia, 304–5.

225. One example was Mikhail Viktorov (Novoselov), newly named as NKVD chief in Sverdlovsk, who turned up a shocking state of affairs, even by standards of the terror, in the work of his predecessor (Dmitriev). Viktorov freed a large number of prisoners and sent Lubyanka a long analysis of local falsifications of cases. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 444–5 (citing TsA FSB, sledstvennoe delo no. R-24334, t. 1, l. 67–8). Viktorov would be arrested on Jan. 22, 1939, and sentenced to fifteen years; he died in a camp in 1950.

226. RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1075, l. 57–63.

227. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 229.

228. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 86 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 364, l. 155). Chubar would be arrested on July 4, 1938, and executed on Feb. 26, 1939; Beria would get his dacha.

229. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 538–41.

230. According to the memoirs of D. N. Sukhanov (b. 1904), an aide to Malenkov, dated March 6, 1993, Stalin had asked Malenkov for files on people who could be appointed to replace Yezhov as commissar of state security. Sukhanov claims he looked through the nomenklatura lists and selected as the finalists Beria, Kruglov, Pegov, Kuznetsov, and Gusarov. Malenkov’s son said seven names were submitted to Stalin, who chose Beria. Hoover Archives, Volkogonov papers, container 13, excerpted Sukhanov memoirs (dated March 6, 1993); Malenkov, O moem otse, 34. Pavliukov has Malenkov asking his aide V. A. Donskoi to compile the list, not Sukhanov.

231. Another report (July 21, 1938) outlined the dubious leadership style and methods of Beria and Dekanozov. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 164–5, citing APRF, f. 57, op. 1, d. 264; f. 3, op. 24, d. 463, l. 236–7. Rumors circulated that Yezhov ordered Beria’s arrest in July 1938, and that Beria was tipped off and flew to Moscow to see Stalin. The rumors were bunk. Jansen and Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner, 149. See also Gol’dshtein, Tochka opory, II: 34–5 and Knight, Beria, 87–8.

232. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 355–9 (RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 265, l. 16–26ob.).

233. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 452, citing TsA FSB, sledstvennoe delo, N-15302, t. 7, l. 180.

234. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 451, citing TsA FSB, sledstvennoe delo, N-15302, t. 10, l. 163; Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 163, citing TsA FSB, f. 3–os, op. 6, d. 3, l. 316–7.

235. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 179–80. Beria might have told Khrushchev afterward; Khrushchev might have been invited to the meal afterward at the dacha and heard there.

236. According to Malenkov’s son, Stalin phoned Malenkov: “You wrote this yourself?” “Yes, I wrote it.” “This is what you think?” “Yes, I think this.” Malenkov, O moem otse, 33.

237. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 179–80.

238. RGANI, f. 5, op. 30, d. 4, l. 94–5; Knight, Beria, 88.

239. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 165, citing TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 92, l. 23.

240. Of course, by letting good slave laborers go, the camps would be left with the worst, rendering them unable to fulfill their assigned economic tasks. Vostryshev, Moskva stalinskaia, 376; the politburo decree would be issued on June 10, 1939 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 25, l. 54–5), and formalized by the Supreme Soviet presidium on June 15.

241. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 167 (no citation). Frinovsky’s advice was for Yezhov to stop moping and prevent Beria from implanting all his people in the NKVD. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 457–8, TsA FSB, sledstvennoe delo, no. N-15302, 1. 10, l. 59; RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 265, l. 24.

242. Frinovsky testified that on Aug. 27–28, 1938, Yevdokimov, Yezhov’s deputy in water transport, called and asked him to come to his apartment. “Verify whether Zakovsky has been shot and whether all the Yagoda people have been shot, because with Beria’s arrival the investigations of these cases could be resumed and these cases could be turned against us.” Zakovsky, Lev Mironov, and others had been shot on Aug. 26–27. 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:); Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 247 (TsA FSB, ASD p-4406). Yevdokimov would be arrested Nov. 9, 1938.

243. Rybin, Riadom so Stalinym, 73. See also Medvedev, Let History Judge, 587.

244. “People have completely stopped trusting each other,” Mikhail Prishvin, the writer, noted in his diary in Oct. 1937. “They go about their work and do not even whisper to one another. There is a huge mass of people raised up from poor social backgrounds who have nothing to whisper about: they just think ‘That’s how it should be.’ Others isolate themselves to whisper, or study the art of silence.” Prishvin, Dnevniki, IX: 762–3.

245. The incident took place in summer 1937. Zaporozhets, “Iz vospominaniia,” 532–8 (the old friend, Zaporozhets’ stepfather, was Pavel Dorofeyev).

246. Mandelstam, Hope against Hope, 108.

247. Pis’mennyi, “Ia iskrenne veril Stalinu . . . ,” 10.

248. Scott, Behind the Urals, 195. See also Rittersporn, “Omnipresent Conspiracy,” 112 (citing Smolensk party archives).

249. Davies, Popular Opinion, 124.

250. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 995, l. 17 (Feb. 3, 1938). “As a rule, not one operational meeting, which were called often in Rostov, took place without a grandiose drinking bout, a total debauch, lasting sometimes twenty-four hours or more,” complained one subordinate of the North Caucasus boss Yevdokimov. “There were cases when we found some operatives only on the third or fourth day somewhere in a tavern or with a prostitute.” In Kazakhstan, the predecessor of NKVD chief Vasily Karutsky had actually been removed for corruption; Karutsky, a heavy drinker, maintained a harem (his wife committed suicide). Balytsky in Ukraine cohabitated with the wives of subordinates, emulating tsarist-era lords of the manor who slept with the wives of house serfs and field hands. Tumshis, “Eshche raz o kadrakh chekistov,” 190–1 (I. Ia. Ilin); Shapoval and Zolotar’ov, Vsevolod, 268, 337; Iakovenko, Agnessa, 55. Prime objects for liaisons were the wives of those arrested who sought information about their husbands or other favors, and were given false promises.

251. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 22–4. Shreider claims he and his wife were frequent guests at Ostrovsky’s dacha.

252. Afinogenov, Dnevniki, 481. Afinogenov had been criticized for excessively complex characters lacking obvious heroism, and in April 1937 he was expelled from the writers’ union. Despite his reprieve in 1938, his plays were mothballed. Literaturnaia gazeta, May 1, 1937; Hellbeck, “Writing the Self in the Time of Terror,” 69–93.

253. Stalin never cared for the popular front, but long-standing popular-frontists such as Dimitrov, Manuilsky, and Kuusinen survived, while anti–Popular Frontists, such as Kun, Knorin, and Pyatnitsky, were destroyed. Stalin badmouthed Manuilsky (“strictly a lightweight”) to Dimitrov, while using him to maintain surveillance on Dimitrov. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 105 (April 26, 1939).

254. “Muzhestvo protiv bezzakoniia,” Problemy mira i sotsializma, 1989, no. 7: 89–91 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 73, d. 60, l. 1–5). Varga was Jewish (at a time when Jews were being targeted), not a youth (at a time when long-time functionaries were targeted), and had once associated with the “renegade” Kautsky. See also Duda, Jenő Varga; Mommen, Stalin’s Economist.

255. Yegorov had been removed as deputy defense commissar on Jan. 25, 1938. That same day, Pavel Dybenko was removed as commander of the Leningrad military district, soon transferred to the forestry commissariat, then, on Feb. 26, 1938, arrested. He was accused not only of the customary espionage but of using state funds for alcohol-fueled orgies, and, on July 29, 1938, was executed. By contrast, on March 2, 1938, at a confrontation with the arrested Belov, Graynov, Grinko, and Sedyakin, Yegorov was said to have performed well. Still, his wife was pronounced a Polish spy and he was expelled from the Central Committee although not arrested. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 465–6 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 330, l. 112–3), 456–7 (l. 113), 490 (d. 338, l. 4). Every officer acquired a damning dossier as a traitor, including Shaposhnikov, Timoshenko, Zhukov, and Vasilevsky, but they were not touched. Cherushev, “Nevinovnykh ne byvaet . . . ,” 382–3.

256. Inostrannaia literatura, 1988, no. 4: 172.

257. Ehrenburg, Memoirs, 429. Ehrenburg, in 1939, was listed as politically suspect, along with Babel and Pasternak. Babichenko, Literaturnyi front, 29–30 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 121, d. 1, l. 39–40: July 1939), 38 (l. 38: July 26, 1939). “Koltsov along with his boon companion Malraux made contact with the local Trotskyite organization POUM,” Marti (general commissar of the international brigades in Spain) wrote to Stalin. “If one takes into account Koltsov’s long-time sympathy for Trotsky, these contacts do not carry an accidental character.” Marti added that the “so-called civil wife of Koltsov Maria Osten . . . is, I personally have no doubt whatsoever, a secret agent of German intelligence.” Gromov, Stalin, 319. On Koltsov’s recall, see also Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 215 (APRF, f. 3, op. 34, d. 127, l. 27), 312 (APRF, f. 3, op. 34, d. 127, l. 33–4: Mekhlis to Stalin Nov. 12, 1937); Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 486–7 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 754, l. 82: Nov. 6), 487n1 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 71, d. 46, l. 52); Efimov, Mikhail Kol’tsov, 114.

258. TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 262, l. 57–60. Stalin had had a sarcastic note about Bedny’s long antifascist poem, “Struggle or Die,” read to the poet in July 1937. Bedny kept trying, sending Mekhlis a poem for Pravda about the anniversary of the Kirov murder, which Mekhlis forwarded to Stalin and Molotov with a recommendation of rejection, and another about beating enemies, which Stalin called “weak.” Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 476–9 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 702, l. 112; d. 130, l. 100; d. 702, l. 133; l. 113–21), 481 (f. 82, op. 2, d. 984, l. 50: Oct. 20, 1937; 496–7: f. 558, op. 11, d. 702, l. 134–6: Jan. 26, 1938). Without a paid job, Bedny was forced to sell his spectacular private library, which he had been assembling since his university days; Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich found out and bought it for the State Literary Museum. Bonch-Bruevich, Vospominaniia, 184. In Aug. 1938, Bedny was expelled from the party and the Union of Soviet Writers. Gronsky claimed that Stalin confidentially “took an exercise book out of his safe. Written in it were some rather unflattering remarks about the denizens of the Kremlin. I said that the handwriting was not Demyan’s. Stalin replied that these were the sentiments of the slightly tipsy poet, taken down by a certain journalist.” Gronskii, Iz proshlogo, 155. See also Gromov, Stalin, 165–6. The “journalist” may have been Mikhail Prezent, who was arrested and had kept a diary, writing in it that the literati joked, “Trotsky decided to commit suicide, so Trotsky sent Stalin a letter challenging him to a socialist competition.” Stalin underlined the passage. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 69 (diary); excerpts in Sokolov, Narkomy strakha, 24–37. Prezent died in prison from a lack of insulin.

259. Tolstoy, Tolstoys.

260. Litvin, “‘Chto zhe nam delat’?,” I: 505–27 (at 509, 521–3).

261. Poretsky, Our Own People, 214–6.

262. Duff, Time for Spies; West and Tsarev, Crown Jewels, 103–26.

263. Lewin, “Grappling with Stalinism,” 308–9; Khlevniuk, “Stalinist ‘Party Generals,’” 60.

264. Bagirov remained party boss in Azerbaijan and Grigor Arutyunov in Armenia. Suny, Making of the Georgian Nation, 278; Knight, Beria, 89.

265. Glavnyi voennyi sovet RKKA, 135–41 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 46, l. 183–90).

266. Blyukher, “S. Vasiliem Konstantinovichem Bliukherom,” 82–3. The same “take a holiday in Sochi” approach had been ominously suggested to Nikolai Kuznetsov when he returned from Spain in Sept. 1937; Kuznetsov survived to get a new assignment.

267. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, VII/i: 103–8 (TsAMO, f. 2, op. 795437, d. 1, l. 35–44). Gorbach, who replaced Lyushkov as NKVD chief for the Soviet Far East, wrote a report to Beria (dated Sept. 15, 1938), which was forwarded to Stalin and Voroshilov, that echoed the blame for Blyukher. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost organov,” 332 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 883, l. 100–3).

268. Na prieme, 239. Molotov and Zhdanov had left at midnight (Sept. 12) and were called back.

269. Goldbstab complained to Stalin: “I am ready to yield this high honor if the artist Gelovani captures this genius of humanity better than I,” adding the names of many people who “openly told me that I convey your image more truthfully, sincerely, and softly.” Markova, “Litso vraga,” 98 (citing RGALI, f. 2456, op. 1, d. 345, l. 88).

270. Bernshtein, Mikhail Gelovani, no pagination; Bernshtein, “V roli Stalina.” See also Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin, 208.

271. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 73, 181.

272. Petrov, “Rodos.”

273. Rodos, Ia syn palacha.

274. Mozokhin, Pravo na represii, 217.

275. Tepliakov, “Sibir’” (citing testimony of L. F. Bashtakov, Jan. 1954); Sanina, “R. I. Eikhe.” Eihe had been transferred from Western Siberia to USSR commissar of agriculture in Oct. 1937 (replacing the arrested Mikhail Chernov) and was arrested April 29, 1938.

276. Gazarian, “Etno ne dolzhno povtorit’sia” (1989, no. 2), 63.

277. “I know him from 1923, when he was deputy chairman of the Cheka of Georgia,” Merkulov would write of Beria. “He was then all of twenty-four years old but that post already at that time did not satisfy him. He aimed higher. In general he considered all people beneath himself, especially those to whom he was subordinated.” Merkulov pointed out that Beria had studiously compiled a record of shortcomings everywhere in his domain, which he used to discredit officials who stood in his way around, and that he badmouthed other officials to his tight circle of subordinates, but when someone was powerful, Beria became obsequious. The second anyone fell under a cloud, however, Beria became rude. “‘Khochetsia prokliast’ den’ i chas moego znakomstva s Beriia,’” 101 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 465, l. 2–28); Merkulov to Khrushchev, re-sent to Malenkov, July 21, 1953), 96–104 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 465, l. 2–28: Merkulov to Malenkov, July 23).

278. Loginov, Teni Stalina, 31 (Georgii A. Egnatashvili).

279. Also on Oct. 22, 1938, the Far Eastern territory was subdivided into two provinces, and Stalin had Nikolai Pegov, a student at the Moscow Industrial Academy, sent as the new party boss of the chunk whose capital remained Khabarovsk. Pegov, whom Malenkov had placed on the shortlist of candidates to take over as first deputy USSR NKVD chief, was instructed to gather five hundred Communists from the Moscow party organization to bring with him; he barely managed to round up a few dozen, including his brother. “Our whole life then was illuminated by sunshine, joy, and happiness,” Pegov would recall. He became a member of the local troika responsible for the still ongoing conveyor-belt mass arrests. Pegov, Dalekoe-blizkoe, 7; Stephan, Russian Far East, 216.

280. Blyukher died on Nov. 9, 1938. He would be convicted and sentenced to death posthumously, on March 10, 1939. Dushen’kin, Ot soldata do marshala. His wife received eight years in the Karaganda camp complex.

281. At the Sverdlovsk transit prison, Galina Serebryakova, whose husband, Sokolnikov, had been executed in the 1936 Trotskyite trial, was looking out upon a gaggle of fellow prisoners arrested for being “a member of the family of a traitor to the motherland,” when a companion nudged her and asked if she knew the identity of a tall, thinning woman a short distance away sitting on a sack of her belongings. She did not. “What? That’s Yekaterina Ivanovna Kalinina[-Lorberg], the wife of Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin . . . Yes, she herself. Her husband is our president.” Although married to Kalinina-Lorberg since 1906, Kalinin, since 1924, had essentially been living with his nanny-housekeeper, Alexandra Gorchakova. Serebryakova approached and told Kalinina to remain firm, for Stalin had been duped but would figure things out and release them all. Serebriakova, “Smerch,” 335. Serebryakova, arrested while in exile, would be sentenced to eight years but serve eleven. In 1939 Kalinina would be sentenced to fifteen years; she would be released in 1945.

282. From Irkutsk, Shcherbakov had written to Zhadnov (June 18, 1937), his former superior, that “all leaders of the province soviet departments, the heads of provincial party departments and their deputies (with the exception of two so far), and the lower level province party officials, a number of party secretaries of the district party, the leaders of economic organizations, the directors of factories, [and so on] have been arrested. Thus, there are no functionaries in the party or the soviet apparatuses. It is difficult to imagine something like this. Now they have begun to dig into the NKVD.” Shcherbakov begged Zhdanov for cadres from Leningrad. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodsto, 363 (RGASPi, f. 88, op. 1, d. 1045, l. 1–5); Na prieme, 212.

283. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 78–80; Ponomarev, Aleksandr Shcherbakov, 47–50; Pravda, March 12, 1991 (Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Shcherbakov, the son); Na prieme, 212, 234 (April 4, 1938), 244 (Nov. 4, 1938). The Shcherbakov family lived in the same building—Granovsky, 3—as Stalin’s son Yakov; occasionally, Yakov and his wife, Yulia, paid visits to Shcherbakov and his wife, Vera. Ugarov had been the other person besides Shcherbakov whom Stalin had favored for the writers’ union secretary in 1934. Stavsky, at the Soviet Union of Writers, sent denunciation after denunciation of various writers; finally, Andreyev wrote to Stalin in 1938 that Stavsky had to be removed. The NKVD listened in on the phone conversations of Fadeyev, Pavel Yudin, and F. Panferov to assess their reactions to the move. Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 412–3 (RGASPI, f. 73, op. 2, d. 17, l. 105), 775–6n12 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op, 5, d. 262, l. 19–35).

284. Kennan wrote that Stalin was “a man of incredible criminality . . . without pity or mercy: a man in whose entourage no one was ever safe: a man who . . . was most dangerous of all to those who were his closest collaborators in crime, because he liked to be the sole custodian of his own secrets.” Conversely, Rigby argued that Stalin was not “a disloyal patron.” Of the ten voting members of the politburo as of 1934, one was assassinated (Kirov), one committed suicide (Orjonikidze), and one died of a heart attack (Kuibyshev), but only one was executed—Kosior. Three candidate members from 1934 through 1937 were executed (Chubar [promoted to full member in 1935], Eihe, and Yezhov), while Mikoyan and Petrovsky survived. Kennan, Russia and the West, 254–5; Rigby, “Was Stalin a Disloyal Patron?”

285. The Zhdanov-Malenkov rivalry would perform a similar function of each holding the other in check. Harris, “Origins of the Conflict.”

286. Beria’s son Sergo recalled that his father noticed he was being spied upon by subordinates, who, he said, reported directly to Zhdanov in Moscow. Beriia, Moi otets, 56. In Moscow who was watching Beria for Stalin remains unclear—those sources remain classified, if they survived.

287. Nabokov, for the English translation, later explicitly called his fictional dictator a composite. Nabokov, Tyrants Destroyed, 2.

288. Davies and Harris, Stalin’s World, 4.

289. Graziosi, “New Soviet Archival Sources,” 34. See also Priestland, Politics of Mobilization. Some scholars see this as calculated manipulation of war scares and threats. Rieber, Struggle for Supremacy, 92, 98–9. Others assert that Stalin could not help himself. Davies and Harris, Stalin’s World.

290. Without explaining where Stalin acquired the wherewithal to destroy the political machines with ease, Getty continues to insist not on a hypercentralized but a decentralized Soviet system whereby the central apparatus detested its supposed dependence on the backward clan dynamics of local party machines. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror. See also Rittersporn, Stalinist Simplifications, which holds up 1938 as evidence of Stalin’s defeat.

291. Cherushev, Udar po svoim, 109–10.

292. Overall, between May 1935 and May 1941, Stalin would convoke twelve Central Committee plenums, a single party congress, and one party conference, but more than forty major state banquets. That compares, in the ten-year period from 1924–34, with four party congresses, five party conferences, and forty-three plenums. Nevezhin, Zastol’ia, 382, 429–32. See also Nevezhin, Zastol’nye, 201–11.

293. “Vospominaia Velikuiu otechestvennuiu,” 54; Emel’ianov, Na poroge voiny, 85; Nevezhin, Zastol’ia Iosifa Stalina, 424–5 (Brontman diary); Pravda, Oct. 28, 1938. On other occasions of use of the Facets, see Pravda, April 18 and Oct. 28, 1938, and June 5 and Nov. 5, 1939.

294. Gromov, Stalin, 147; SSSR na stroike, 1938, no. 9.

295. Rees, “Stalin as Leader, 1937–1953,” 209. In Feb. 1938, when Detizdat wanted to publish Smirnova’s Tales of Stalin’s Childhood, he told them to burn it and not indulge a “cult of the personality, vozhdi, infallible heroes,” which he condemned once again as an “SR theory.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1121, l. 24.

296. Stalin’s best biographers and analysts have well understood that he combined Marxism-Leninism with imperial Russian traditions. Tucker characterized Stalin’s approach as “imperial-communist”; Erik van Ree, as “revolutionary patriotism”; Arfon Rees, as “revolutionary Machiavellism.” Tucker, “Stalin and Stalinism,” 1–16; van Ree, Political Thought; Rees, Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin.

297. For Shakespeare on the medieval Scottish tyrant Macbeth, see Frye, “Hitler, Stalin, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth.”

298. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 499 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 339, l. 199: March 13, 1938).

299. “I cannot not inform you about the abuses and nightmares in the activities of the NKVD organs in Abkhazia that I personally saw and, in truth, in writing about them, I risk my life, but I write in honor of justice and love of humanity,” Mikhail Saliya (b. 1908) wrote to Stalin (Aug. 3, 1938). “A citizen is arrested following a denunciation, supposedly as a counterrevolutionary and is charged as such, and when he begins to protest his innocence, then he is subjected to ‘repression.’ First, he is stripped naked and placed on the floor, ‘fighters’ arrive with knouts in hand, about four of them, and begin to beat him, the combat lasts until the victim loses consciousness, he gets a breather of about forty-five minutes, for the ‘fighters’ too get tired from the combat, he is given ammonia under the nose, to revive him, then his whole body is soaked in water, and the four people begin to beat him again with all their might, the person gives off inhuman sounds, begs, that he is not guilty, but they are immovable. The person loses consciousness again, collapsed without memory, ‘the fighters’ among themselves say, ‘oh, the scoundrel, he is simulating.’ They tie paper or a rag in his mouth and continue beating him until he confesses that he is a counterrevolutionary.” The rest of the description details rotting flesh ripped off by the blows and covered with flies. Saliya noted that this was not personal (none of his relatives had been arrested), and gave his address. His letter would serve as the pretext for an investigation, after Beria had been transferred to Moscow, which would reveal that a livestock pen water storage bin had been converted into a solitary confinement cell in early 1938 in the Sukhum internal prison and kept filled several inches high with water for interrogations. Stalin notified Georgian party officials (Nov. 14, 1938) of a Central Committee decision to investigate all top NKVD operatives in Georgia during the next three months, and demanded to be informed of all results and actions. Pauchiliya was arrested in Oct. 1938, fired from the NKVD in May 1939, and returned to the Dynamo sports club. Junge and Bonwetsch, Bolshevistskii poriadok, II: 355–58 (Arkhiv MVD Gruzii, 1–i otdel, f. 6, d.5520, tom 1, l. 28–30), 361–73 (Arkhiv MVD Gruzii, 1–i otdel, f. 6, d.5520, tom 1, l. 15–24: Oct. 10, 1938), 375–8 (2–i otdel, f. 14, op. 12, d. 256, l. 142–5), 378 (d. 363, l. 146: Nov. 15), 403–9 (1–i otdel, f. 6, d. 5520, tom 3, l. 73–6); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe, 604–6 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 6, l. 80–3: Nov. 14, 1938).

300. Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 339.

PART III. THREE-CARD MONTE

1. “Prime Minister on the Issues,” The Times, Sept. 28, 1938: 10. See also Chamberlain, Struggle for Peace.

2. DDF, 2e série, XI: 685 (Delmas to Daladier, Sept. 28, 1938).

3. Corvaja, Hitler and Mussolini. The duce would pass his own anti-Semitic laws and boast to his mistress (Aug. 5, 1938), “I’ve been a racist since ’21. I don’t know why people think I am imitating Hitler, he wasn’t even born. It makes me laugh.” Incensed at reports of the illegal miscegenation in Italy’s Africa colonies, he added, “I need to teach these Italians about race, so that they don’t create half castes and don’t ruin what is beautiful in us.” Petacci, Mussolini segreto, 391: 2.

4. Corvaja, Hitler and Mussolini, 27–41. Stalin had an undercover agent report via Poland on the Hitler-Mussolini meeting, and underlined passages related to their reported joint plans for an aggression against the USSR. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 533–41 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 187, l. 28–44).

5. The duce had once told the British ambassador in Rome that Hitler was “a dreamer” and suffered “from an inferiority complex and a bitter sense of injustice.” Robertson, Mussolini as Empire Builder, 57 (citing DBFP, 2nd series, V: 674–5: R. Graham to V. Wellesley, Oct. 11, 1933). Back in July 1934, British foreign secretary Simon wrote to the PM (MacDonald), “We must keep out of trouble in central Europe at all costs . . . There are circumstances in which Italy might move troops into Austria. There are no circumstances in which we would ever dream of doing so.” Aldcroft, “Versailles Legacy.”

6. Mallett, “Fascist Foreign Policy.”

7. Low, Years of Wrath, no pagination.

8. Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher, 199.

9. “That politics is an art there is no doubt,” Mussolini had observed in a speech in 1926 at an art exhibit. “‘Political,’ like artistic, creation is a slow elaboration and a sudden divination. At a certain moment the artist creates with inspiration, the politician with decision.” Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle, 15, citing Mussolini, Scritti e discorsi, V: 279.

10. Dilks makes the further point that the full depravity of Hitler and his regime was neither understood nor evident in 1938. Dilks, “‘We Must Hope for the Best,’” 318, 347.

11. Honig, “Totalitarianism and Realism.”

12. Litvinov, too, rejected a Soviet solo defense of the Versailles order. Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 153–4.

13. By March 18, 1938, Churchill was writing, in an article entitled “The Austrian Eye-Opener,” that “the scales of illusion have fallen from many eyes.” “Friendship with Germany” (Sept. 17, 1937), reprinted in Churchill, Step by Step, 141–4 (at 143–4), 192–5.

14. Weinberg, Hitler’s Foreign Policy, 13.

15. “Three bluffers united are much more powerful than three bluffers playing each for his own hand,” wrote Freda Utley. “Germany, Japan, and Italy stand together, possessing neither the necessary economic strength nor political stability for a real war, yet able to blackmail the democratic powers which possess such strength.” Utley, “Germany and Japan.” Stalin, on Stomonyakov’s recommendation, decided to notify Italy that the Anti-Comintern Pact was not an act of friendship toward the USSR. Sevost’ianov, Moskva-Rim, 436–8 (APRF, f. 3, op. 64, d. 692, l. 78, 80), 438 (l. 37). See also DVP SSSR, XVI: 494–6.

16. Eberhardt, Ethnic Groups and Population Changes, 111–36; Glassheim, Noble Nationalists; Heimann, Czechoslovakia.

17. RGVA, f. 33 987, op. 3, d. 1144, l. 39–41. Prague was sharing intelligence with Moscow; Stalin had his own spy in the Czechoslovak general staff. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 277 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 1, d. 210, l. 257; op. 5, d. 63, l. 123; APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 32, l. 139).

18. Brook-Shepherd, Anschluss; Gehl, Austria, Germany, and the Anschluss; von Schuschnigg, Brutal Takeover; Low, Anschluss Movement.

19. Hitler privately judged Halifax “a clever politician who fully supported Germany’s claims.” After Eden resigned in a huff in Feb. 1938, Halifax became foreign secretary. Roberts, Holy Fox, 71 (citing A4 410 33); Eberle and Uhl, Hitler Book, 24–5. On Hitler and Britain, see also von Schuschnigg, Austrian Requiem, 20–32.

20. “His Majesty’s Government,” stated the torturous wording for Henderson to convey to the German government, “could not guarantee that they would not be forced by circumstance to become involved also.” DBFP, 3rd series, I: 331–2 (Halifax to Henderson, May 21, 1938, also referencing a Chamberlain warning in Parliament in March); DDF, 2e série, VIII: 772–4 (March 15); Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 174.

21. Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, 565–6.

22. Taylor, Sword and Swastika, 182. See also Waldenegg, “Hitler, Göring, Mussolini.”

23. Price, Year of Reckoning, 91–117; von Schuschnigg, Austrian Requiem, 20–32; Gehl, Austria, Germany, and the Anschluss; Churchill, Second World War, I: 270.

24. Lassner, “Invasion of Austria,” 447–86. See also French Yellow Book, 2–3 (François-Poncet to Paris, March 12, 1938). The French military had its eyes on Spain. “The defeat of Franco would open the door to communism in Spain,” French military intelligence had noted on March 10, 1938. “Will [the communists] be able to retain power? No. But it would take only a few months for such a regime to precipitate a general European war.” Jackson, “French Strategy,” 68 (citing SHAT, 7N 2762–2, “L’influence soviétique en Espagne”).

25. Tooze, Wages of Destruction, 246.

26. Pravda, March 13 and 14, 1938.

27. Bukharin’s doctored final statement appeared in the press (Izvestiia and Pravda, March 13, 1938), and in the 700–page court record, which went to the printer on March 28. Murin, “Kak fal’sifitsirovalos’ ‘delo Bukharina,’” 69: APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 401, l. 03; “‘Moe poslednee slovo na sude, veroiatno, budet moim poslednim solovom voobshche’: kto i kak pravil rech’ N. I. Bukahrina.” From March 1938, whether by coincidence or instruction, the NKVD political mood summaries mentioned “wrecking” less in reports on the actual problems of Soviet defense industry. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 173–6 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 42, l. 29–33; d. 40, l. 128, 347; d. 41, l. 51–70; APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 338, l. 59). Litvinov finally expressed an official Soviet reaction to the “aggression” at a press conference on March 17, 1938, proposing an international conference, but the Soviets followed with no concrete measures. Izvestiia, March 18, 1938; Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, IV: 342–4; DVP SSSR, XXI: 138; Dullin, Men of Influence, 253.

28. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 309–12 (pact with France), 333–6 (pact with Czechoslovakia); Dokumenty i materialy po istorii sovetsko-chekhoslovatskikh otnoshenii, III: 106–7 (Beneš and Alexandrovsky, May 2–3, 1935), 111 (Benešto Czechoslovak missions abroad, May 9), 112 (Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, May 11). Hochman argues that the condition of Soviet obligations (obliged to act only if France did so) had been insisted upon by Moscow. Hochman, Failure of Collective Security, 52–3. Cf. Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 51.

29. DVP SSSR, XXI: 125–6 (Potyomkin, March 15, 1938).

30. DVP SSSR, XXI: 142–7 (Alexandrovsky with Krofta, March 21); Spáčil and Mal’tsev, Dokumenty po istorii miunhkenskogo sgovora, 49–52 (Shaprov, March 15); Dokumenty po istorii sovetsko-chekhoslovatskikh otnoshenii, III: 382 (Fierlinger from Moscow, March 15).

31. Sluch, “Pol’sha v politike Sovetskogo Soiuza,” 160 (citing AVPRF, f. 0138, op. 19, pap. 128, d. 1, l. 19); Na prieme, 233.

32. RGVA, f. 33 987, op. 3, d. 1144, l. 86–7 (Kashuba from Prague, April 9, 1938), Volkogonov papers, Hoover, container 16.

33. Pravda, March 29, 1938.

34. Young, “French Intelligence,” 274, 278: April 6, 1938.

35. Na prieme, 235–6; Dokumenty i materialy po istorii sovetsko-chekhoslovatskikh otnoshenii, III: 402 (Fierlinger to Krofta, April 23, 1938). “We come to the aid of Czechoslovakia in the event France comes to its aid and, conversely, Czechoslovakia comes to our aid in the event that France comes to our aid,” Kalinin explained to a gathering of propagandists on April 26. He added that the Soviet-Czechoslovak pact “does not prohibit either party rendering assistance to the other without waiting for France”—a statement not reproduced in the press account. Zemskov, Novye dokumenty iz istorii Miunkhena, 27–8; Dokumenty i materialy po istorii sovetsko-chekhoslovatskikh otnoshenii, III: 402–3 (April 26). On May 8, Kalinin informed a visiting Czechoslovak delegation that the Soviet Union would honor its treaty obligations “to the last letter.” Lukes, Czechoslovakia between Hitler and Stalin, 143.

36. Bandinelli, Hitler e Mussolini; Baxa, “Capturing the Fascist Moment”; Corvaja, Hitler and Mussolini, 59–74.

37. DVP SSSR, XXI: 276 (Alexandrovsky, May 18, 1938).

38. Henke, England in Hitlers politischem Kalkül, 150–62. Sir Horace Wilson, at a luncheon on May 10, 1938, told Soviet ambassador Maisky that “Germany’s expansionary ambitions to create a Mitteleuropa would undermine it by its conglomerate of nationalities, state organizations, and economic regions, producing internal frictions and struggles.” Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 114.

39. Lukes, “Czechoslovak Partial Mobilization.” František Moravec, then head of Czechoslovak military intelligence, later insisted that the German attack plans (intercepted and decoded) were real, and that the Czechoslovaks had no choice except to mobilize in response. Moravec, Master of Spies, 110–1.

40. Weinberg, Hitler’s Foreign Policy, II: 691–4; DGFP, series D, II: 473–7 (June 18, 1938); Grechko et al., Istoriia vtoroi mirovoi voiny, I: 104; Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 176. The British government tried to restrain the domestic press from crowing about Hitler’s apparent climbdown. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement, 149.

41. Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 335, 465–6.

42. RGVA, f. 33 987, op. 3, d. 1144, l. 325.

43. Glavnyi voennyi sovet RKKA, 135–42 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 46, l. 183–90). On Lake Khasan, see also Voennyi sovet pri narodnom kosmmissare oborony SSSR, 206–18 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 14, d. 2030, l. 108–23; op. 18, d. 47, l. 92–5: Nov. 26, 1938). On Aug. 4, 1938, in the middle of the Lake Khasan border war, the Soviet envoy to Czechoslovakia would assure Beneš that the Soviet Union would live up to its European military obligations regardless of the situation in the Far East.

44. Sakwa, “Polish Ultimatum”; DGFP, series D, V: 434, 442–3; DVP SSSR, XXI: 153–5 (Potyomkin, March 26, 1938). On March 24, Shaposhnikov, chief of the general staff, sent a draft war plan to Voroshilov stating that “the most likely enemies in the West were Germany and Poland.” Naumov, 1941 god, II: 557–60.