Stalin

237. The July 29, 1936, secret circular to the entire provincial party and state apparatus had omitted Molotov’s name on the list of the assassination targets of the Zinoviev-Trotskyite Center, and at the public trial that Aug., the defendants never mentioned him as a target, possibly a show of Stalin’s displeasure. But if so, Molotov’s purgatory had not lasted long: on Sept. 21, 1936, a two-year-old attempt on Molotov’s life had been included in the “testimony” taken in preparation for the second Moscow trial. And from the day of Stalin’s return to Moscow (Oct. 25), Molotov was regularly in the Little Corner again. “The thought alone that it was possible,” Pravda (Nov. 23, 1936) would intone of an assassination of Molotov, “is capable of making every citizen of the Soviet Union shudder.” Stalin’s decision to ratchet up the psychological pressure on Ordjonikidze might have been a factor in Molotov’s abrupt return to favor. See also Iakovlev et al., Reabilitatsiia: Politicheskie protsessy, 231–2; Orlov, Tainaia istoriia, 154–9; Conquest, Reassessment, 90–1; Pravda, Oct. 26, 1961; Watson, Molotov, 130. The incident in question had occurred on a visit to the Siberian coal town of Prokopevsk when Molotov’s local driver had veered off an inclined road and came to a stop in a ditch (called “a ravine”). At the time, the driver had received merely a party reprimand, which Molotov had interceded to get rescinded. But in 1936, the driver was retrospectively charged with terrorism, and confessed. Molotov and Chuev wrongly recalled the incident as having occurred in 1932. Chuev, Sto sorok, 302.

238. Biulleten’ oppozitsii, no. 50 (1936): 15, no. 52–53 (1936): 47, no. 58–59 (1936): 18–19; Chuev, Sto sorok, 302. For Lev Sedov’s response to the Novosibirsk trial, see Biulleten’ oppozitsii, no. 54–55 (1937): 4. Molotov was included as a target in the Jan. 1937 trial, alongside Stalin, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Orjonikidze, Yezhov, Zhdanov, and four provincial party bosses, one of whom was Beria.

239. Rudzutaks, a deputy chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars under Molotov, told the latter to his face that he had been tortured. “I think that he was not a conscious participant” in a conspiracy, Molotov admitted later in life. “A former [tsarist] prisoner, he had been at hard labor for four years . . . I formed the impression when he was my deputy, he had begun to self-indulge a bit . . . He enjoyed the life of a philistine—he would sit around, dine with friends, spend time with companions . . . It is difficult to say what brought about his downfall, but I think he shared the type of company where non-party elements were present, or god knows what other kinds.” Another close Molotov comrade, Alexander Arosyev, the hack writer and head of the all-Union Society for Cultural Ties Abroad, was also executed. “The most devoted person,” Molotov recalled. “It seems he was not discriminating in his acquaintances. It was impossible to mix him up in anti-Soviet affairs. But he had ties . . .” Chuev, Sto sorok, 410–1, 422–3. See also David-Fox, “Stalinist Westernizer?”

240. Chadaev in Kumanev, Riadom so Stalinym, 421–2. Molotov’s Poskryobyshev was I. I. Lapshov.

241. XVIII s”ezd VKP (b), 493.

242. Watson, “Politburo and Foreign Policy,” 141; Watson, Molotov, 147.

243. Dullin, Men of Influence, 233–6. Already by late 1937, fourteen of the foreign consulates in Leningrad had been forced to close—including those of Germany, Japan, Italy, and Poland. Magerovsky, “The People’s Commissariat,” II: 337–8.

244. Foreign policy had already been delegated to a permanent commission of the politburo back on April 14, 1937. Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 55, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 986 (protocol for April 16, 1937).

245. In 1938, Litvinov had not traveled for his annual rest at Karlsbad, and had to summon his children home from England. Litvinov’s talkative British wife, Ivy, had already been sent to the isolation of the Urals some years before. Carswell, Exile, 165–8.

246. Ulricks, “Impact of the Great Purges,” 188–92; Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 130. Personnel arrested in the second wave included deputy commissar Stomanyakov (who tried to commit suicide but failed), as well as Litvinov’s personal secretary (Nazarov) and others. After the March 1938 Bukharin trial, rumors had circulated in Moscow of a public trial of diplomatic personnel, but as in the case of the Comintern, no public process took place. Conquest, Reassessment, 423.

247. Kennan, Russia and the West, 231, 336; Watson, Molotov, 153–6; Gnedin, Katastrofa i vtoroe rozhdenie, 105–15; Meerovich, “V narkomindele 1922–1939”; Chuev, Sto sorok, 332–3.

248. Voroshilov’s annual May Day holiday declaration to the troops for 1939 observed that “the capitalist world has entered the plane of new powerful shocks. The economic crisis threatens to become prolonged and more difficult than previous crises. Fascist aggressors, reshaping the world’s map by force, have dragged humanity into a Second Imperialist War. . . . Unbridled fascist military aggression, intoxicated by easy victories, does not cease to threaten new attacks against weak and intimidated countries.” Krasnaia zvezda, May 1, 1939, reprinted in Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XIII (II/i): 100–2 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 15, d. 25, l. 227–29).

249. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 385–6; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 182–3.

250. Gnedin, Katastrofa i votoroe rozhdenie, 108–10.

251. DBFP, 3rd series, V: 400 (Seeds to Halifax, May 3), 410 (Seeds to Halifax, May 4), 542 (Seeds to Halifax, May 19); Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 213–4.

252. Litvinov evidently did refer to Molotov as “fool” (durak), including over the phone, which he knew was eavesdropped, according to Litvinov’s daughter Tatiana, cited in Phillips, Between the Revolution and the West, 166. Litvinov is listed for a mere thirty-five minutes in the Little Corner on May 3, 1939: Na prieme, 258.

253. Stalin’s telegram on Molotov’s replacement of Litvinov mentioned “the serious conflict between the chairman of the People’s Council of Commissars, Comrade Molotov, and the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Comrade Litvinov,” and blamed Litvinov’s “disloyalty.” APRF, f. 3, op. 63, d. 29, l. 71; DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 327 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 313, dl. 2154, l. 45); Sochineniia, XVIII: 174.

254. On Molotov’s influence on Stalin, see Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/i: 11–16. See also Gromyko, Memories, 30, 33, 404.

255. Watson, “Molotov’s Apprenticeship.”

256. Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 98–102. Sudoplatov was then deputy director of NKVD intelligence and in charge of the German desk.

257. Khrushchev, “Vospominaniia,” 18.

258. Zhukov added that “it was another matter later, when all the calculations turned out to be incorrect and collapsed; more than once in my presence Stalin berated Molotov for this.” Simonov, “Zametki k biografii G. K. Zhukova,” 49, reprinted in Mirkina and Iarovikov, Marshal Zhukov, II: 201–2.

259. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, 363. The dacha may have belonged to Stalin, who had awarded it to Litvinov.

260. Gnedin, Katastrofa i votoroe rozhdenie, 128–52. Gnedin would be the only one to survive to old age from the Soviet embassy or trade mission to Berlin.

261. “Sometimes he would stop for a few minutes and he would bring out his mouth organ and play arias from operas on it,” Korzhenko’s daughter Nora wrote of Nikolai, aged twenty-eight. “He was a brilliant player and if I closed my eyes I could imagine I was listening to an organ.” She added: “All the time we were living in the beautiful wooden house at Klyazma life was perilous and uncertain. Nearly every day men and women were being arrested, shot or sent into exile. You could never escape from the atmosphere of intrigue, misery and sudden death. It was a strange and sinister atmosphere for a young girl to live in, but somehow one just accepted these things as part of life.” Murray, I Spied for Stalin, 83–9, 112–3.126; Barmine, Memoirs of a Soviet Diplomat, 17. Nora, who had studied foreign languages and mingled with foreigners, would become an informant in that milieu for the organization that wrecked her family and the families of nearly everyone she knew—the NKVD.

262. Conquest, Reassessment, 423.

263. “Vospominaniia nachal’nika vneshnei razvedki P. M. Fitina,” in Primakov, Ocherki, IV: 19; Bondarenko, Fitin, 41–7. Of the six hundred or so students admitted to the NKVD Central School in Moscow (Bolshoi Kiselny Pereulok) in those years, just fifty were chosen for the separate spy school in Balashikha, just outside Moscow. Sinitsyn, Rezident svidetlet’stvuet, 5; Sergutov, “Organizatsionnye aspejty deiatel’nosti vneshnei razvedki,” III: 237. See also Pavlov, Tragediia Sovetskoi razvedki, 349.

264. Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 66–8.

265. Trotsky speculated that Stalin was titillated by Kollontai’s love life. Trotsky, Stalin, 243–4.

266. In late 1938, Litvnov had written several times to Boris Stein in Rome, forbidding him to return to Moscow because he was “needed” abroad. Sheinis, “Sud’ba diplomata,” 301. Stalin would dispatch Stein to Finland, after which, in Feb. 1939, he did return to Moscow. He would be spared, demoted to the editorial board of the periodical Trud, along with Troyanovsky, who had been ambassador to Tokyo and Washington.

267. DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 10–12 (AVP RF f. 06, op. 1, p. 2, d. 11, l. 4–7: Jan. 3, 1939).

268. Molotov claims he was specifically tasked with removing the preponderance of Jews. Chuev, Sto sorok, 274.

269. “‘Avtobiograficheskie zametki’ V. N. Pavlova—perevodchika I. V. Stalina.” Pavlov turned over this unpublished short memoir to the Foreign Ministry in 1987, and was interviewed in 1989 to clarify certain points.

270. Bohlen, Witness to History, 65.

271. Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 68–9.

272. Seabury, Wilhelmstrasse, 31, citing Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche, 106. By 1940, 71 of the 120 highest officials in the German foreign ministry would belong to the Nazi party. Davidson, Trial of the Germans, 152.

273. Serge, “Litvinov,” 419. Litvinov’s inner circle included young people, such as Eduard Hershelman (head of his secretariat from age thirty), who was nevertheless arrested.

274. Even before the massacre-induced vacancies, half of the 1,000 personnel in the Soviet diplomatic corps at home and abroad were recruited right out of school at the beginning of the 1930s. Still, some 85 percent of Soviet diplomatic personnel active from 1940 to 1946 had begun a diplomatic career after 1936. Magerovsky, “The People’s Commissariat,” II: 345. “It happened that one made an appointment with a colleague but could not find him on the fixed day—he had been arrested,” recalled one high-level official in the commissariat. “Exchange of opinions and conversations were reduced to a minimum.” Roshchin, “People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs,” 110–11. The commissariat’s private apartments at Blacksmith Bridge were sealed in wax after the arrest of their occupants, and the new residents often witnessed the unsealing by the NKVD. Dullin, Men of Influence, 238.

275. Kordt, Wahn und Wirklichkeit, 153.

276. Gafencu, Last Days of Europe, 83. On June 13, 1939, Nazi Party organizations would be forbidden to use “Third” when referring to the Reich—a repudiation of the Holy Roman empire (800–1806) as the first Reich (Bismarck’s having then been the second). Wilson, Heart of Europe.

277. Butler, Mason-Mac, 74–5. Mason-Macfarlane’s drawing-room window overlooked the Charlottenburg Chausee, which ran from the Siegesäule gilded column commemorating the 1870–71 war of reunification eastward to the Brandenburg Gate.

278. Moorehouse, Killing Hitler, 190–1, citing DBFP, 3rd series, IV, appendix V, Mason-Macfarlane Memorandum, 626; Imperial War Museum Archive, Mason-Macfarlane papers, ref. MM40.

279. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 183–5.

280. McKee, Tomorrow the World, 27.

281. Domarus, Hitler: Reden, III: 1148–79; Domarus, Hitler: Speeches, III: 1561–96; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, 161–2; Muggeridge, Ciano’s Diary, 78; Shirer, Berlin Diary, 133.

282. Haffner, Meaning of Hitler, 32–4.

283. DGFP, series D, VI: 460 (Braun von Stumm, May 9, 1939). The order (“Immediately cease polemics against the Soviet Union and Bolshevism”) was issued on May 5, 1939. Sluch, “Germano-sovetskie otnosheniia,” 110 (citing Politisches Archiv des Auswärtiges Amt, Bonn, Zsg. 101/13: 5).

284. Stehlin, Témoignage pour l’histoire, 147–53; and French Yellow Book, 132–6 (Coulondre to Bonnet, May 7, 1939); Andrew, Secret Service, 423–4. On June 16, Bodenschatz would tell Coulondre that “Germany was making great efforts for an agreement with Russia.”

285. Borev, Staliniada, 182–3. Dunayevsky, the songwriter, would get the Order of Lenin after Volga-Volga. Turovskaia, “Volga-Volga i ego vremia.” On May 7, the annual Kremlin banquet for military academy graduates was held, after a two-year hiatus.

286. Nekrich, Pariahs, 154 (citing RGAE, f. 413, op. 13, d, 2856, l. 5–6).

287. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 3.

288. DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 339–41 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1, pap. 7 d. 66, l. 21–4: Astakhov to Molotov, May 6, 1939); God krizisa, I: 457–8 (AVP RF, f. 082, op. 22, pap. 93, d. 7, l. 214–5: Astakhov to Potyomkin, May 12, 1939).

289. On the Germany embassy’s favorable report concerning Litvinov’s dismissal, see DGFP, series D, VI: 419–20 (Tippelskirch, May 4).

290. Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, 45; Sipols, Tainy, 323–40.

291. Watt, “Initiation of the Negotiations,” 164–5. Alfred Rosenberg, following a conversation with Göring in spring 1939, had noted a willingness to go along with a temporary deal with Moscow out of expediency. United States Holocaust Museum, Alfred Rosenberg’s Diary, 269.

292. Medvedev, Let History Judge, 308–9; Fischer, Life and Death of Stalin, 56. Ehrenburg, along with everyone else, puzzled over why Litvinov had not been arrested. Ehrenburg, Post-War Years, 276–8.

293. Lev Helfand, the Soviet ambassador to Rome, who would defect in July 1940, surmised that Stalin was willing to reach agreement with the British at least through June 1939. Haslam, Russia’s Cold War, 8 (citing a report of Helfand’s Sept. 12, 1940, interview with Neville Butler, Washington, D.C.: FO 371/24845).

294. Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 375–6 (May 5, 1939). See also Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 153–4 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22407, d. 2, l. 183: April 14, 1939, l. 192, 210: April 17 and 26, 1939); and Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, 98–9.

295. Muggeridge, Ciano’s Diplomatic Papers, 283, 286; Gibson, Ciano Diaries, 78–9, 82, 84–5 (May 7, 14, and 21, 1939).

296. DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 342 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 303, d. 2093, l. 60–1: Molotov to Surits, May 8, 1939), XXII: 546n113 (pap. 294, d. 2036, l. 75: Molotov to Maisky, May 8), XXII/i: 356 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 300, d. 2076, l. 189–90: Maisky to Molotov, May 10); Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 380–2 (May 8, 1939), 383–4 (May 8), 386–8 (May 10, 1939), 687n113; Falin, Soviet Peace Efforts, II: 25–6, 28, 311n113; DBFP, 3rd series, V: 487 (May 8).

297. Sluch, “Germano-sovetskie otnosheniia,” 110 (citing Politisches Archiv des Auswärtiges Amt, Bonn, Schnurre, “Aus einem bewegten Leben,” ms., 74–5). Hilger’s family’s property had been expropriated by the October revolution, yet he had taken part in the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Germany and the Soviet Union and had joined the German embassy staff in 1923. Herwarth, Against Two Evils, 76–7.

298. Teske, General Ernst Köstring, 133–6.

299. DGFP, series D, VI: 494–6 (Ribbentrop to Tokyo, May 15, 1939).

300. Cienciala, “Foreign Policy of Józef Piłsudski”; Meysztowicz, Czas przeszły dokonany, 216; Beck, Final Report, 183–9; Mackiewicz, Colonel Beck and His Policy, 135; Overy, Road to War, 1–23; Von Riekhoff, German-Polish Relations, 329.

301. Potyomkin concluded his report by maintaining that he had summarized the conversation before departing and Beck had confirmed his statement. DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 352 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 296, d. 2047, l. 92: May 10, 1939), 352–4 (d. 2046, l. 122–5: May 10); Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 389.

302. God krizisa, I: 448–9 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1a, pap. 26, d. 18, l. 110: May 11, 1939); DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 356–7; Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 393–4.

303. Still, Romania, like Turkey, viewed a Western-Soviet agreement as effectively inevitable. Watt, How War Came, 284–5.

304. Gorodetsky, Maisky’s Diaries, 202 (no citation).

305. Bulgakova, Dnevnik, 256–9. Mikhail Bulgakov’s play Batum (1939), which depicted a young Stalin, in the revolutionary underground, as a decisive personality—incisive, flexible, cunning, even deceitful, above all able to do whatever it took to lead people through difficult challenges, while lusting for power—had been banned before rehearsals. Bulgakov, Sobranie sochinenii, V (Master and Margarita), VII: 305–76 (Batum).

306. Shentalinsky, KGB’s Literary Archive, 42, 47. See also Povarov, Prichina smerti rasstrel; Pirozhkova, At His Side, 115.

307. Shentalinskii, “Proshu menia vyslushat’,” 430–43.

308. Shentalinsky, KGB’s Literary Archive, 44.

309. Mandelstam, Hope against Hope, 321. Mandelstam records Babel’s brazenness in associating with foreigners as well.

310. Stalin could reveal limits to his hyper-suspiciousness. From Dec. 1938—when Valery Chkalov died in a crash during the maiden flight of an experimental fighter plane—through May 15, 1939, the country suffered thirty-four aviation crashes in which seventy people were killed. On May 16, at a meeting of the Main Military Council, Stalin raised the possibility of sabotage (“technicians can do this deliberately, and the aviators trust the aircraft”) but added of Chkalov and four other heroes of the Soviet Union, “The aviator does not want to recognize the laws of physics and meteorology.” Glavnyi voennyi sovet RKKA, 237. Nearly two hundred defects had been found on the rushed airplane earlier in the month that Chkalov flew it; the temperature was 25 below zero Celsius the day of the test flight. Maslov, Rokovoi istrebitel’ Chkalova; Ivanov, Neizvestnyi Polikarpov; Bergman, “Valerii Chkalov.”

311. Gorbunov, “Voennaia razvedka v 1934–1939 godakh” (no. 3), 60–1.

312. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 233.

313. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 81–4 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 9157, d. 2, l. 173–9). The source might have been Kurt Welkisch (“ABC”), a German journalist and diplomat in Warsaw (1935–39). Soviet intelligence had reported that Kleist, following the destruction of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, had privately averred that “war against the Soviet Union remains the last and decisive task of German policy.” Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 60–4 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 9197, d. 2, l. 245–54).

314. “Soobshchenie I. I. Proskurova I. V. Stalinu,” 216–9; Na prieme, 259.

315. APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 455, l. 33–5 (June 1956 note from KGB chief Serov to the Central Committee); d. 448, l. 184, 189 (testimony by operatives Fedotov and Matusov). See also Petrov and Petrov, Empire of Fear, 69.

316. Ribbentrop inserted suggestions, in the German foreign ministry transcripts of the talks with the Soviets, to make it look as if Stalin was beseeching the great Hitler. Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą, 84–91.

317. Dullin, Men of Influence, 30. “If one can speak of a pro-German in the Kremlin,” Krivitsky asserted, “Stalin has been that figure all along.” Krivitsky, In Stalin’s Secret Service, 3, 10.

318. Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War.

319. Savushkin, “K voprosu o zarozhdenii teorii,” 78–82.

320. Maiskii, Denevnik diplomata, I: 398–400; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 192.

321. French Yellow Book, 147–9. “Russia is a good card, it is perhaps not necessary to play it,” Beneš had told the French envoy in Prague back in April 1937, “but it is necessary not to abandon it from fear that Germany pick it up.” Dreifort, “French Popular Front,” 229 (citing DDF, 2e série, V: 513–4: April 21, 1937).

322. Pravda, May 28, 1939; KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh (8th ed.), V: 398–404 (May 27, 1939). Stalin also complained about labor shortages and called for extracting additional labor power from collective farms, claiming that much of it was idle. Zelenin, Stalinskaia “revoliutsiia sverkhu,” 246–7, 285; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1123, l. 1–30: uncorrected transcript; Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, v/ii: 416–24. The transcript of the plenum, which met May 21–24 and 27, was never printed or distributed to regional party committees. There would not be another plenum until March 26–28, 1940.

323. Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 395 (May 14, 1939), 417–21 (May 27, 1939); Falin, Soviet Peace Efforts, II: 39–40, 61–4; DBFP, 3rd series, V: 679–80.

324. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, V: 453 (Völkischer Beobachter, May 23, 1939); Toscano, Origins of the Pact of Steel.

325. DGFP, series D, VI: 586 (Weizsäcker, May 25, 1939). That same day, Japanese ambassador Shigenori Tōgō told Molotov that, according to the 1924 Soviet-Chinese Agreement, the USSR recognized Chinese suzerainty over Outer Mongolia, and therefore the Japanese government did not recognize the Soviet-Mongolian Pact. Tōgō also remonstrated that not Manchukuo but Outer Mongolia had violated the border. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): VII/i: 115–6 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1233, l. 165–6).

326. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 8–9; DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 386–7 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1, p. 1, d. 2, l. 24–26: May 20, 1939), also in God krizisa, I: 482–3; Stronski, “Soviet Russia’s Common Cause.” Schulenburg was evidently not allowed to bring an interpreter and had to speak French for the Russian interpreter.

327. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, 163–4; Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher, XXXVII: 546–56; DGFP, series D, VI: 574–80; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 576, 579–83; Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 191–3.

328. Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 221–2; Sommer, Deutschland und Japan, 238–42, 248–56; Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, 105–11.

329. Iklé, German-Japanese Relations, 101 (April 28, 1939, citing International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Documents Presented in Evidence, exhibit 497: Ōshima’s interrogation).

330. On May 27, 1939, the German ambassador in Tokyo, Eugen Ott, reported to Berlin that “I hear from another source that the Emperor, during a report by [chief of the general staff] Prince Kanin, who put forward the Army’s demands on the alliance, made his consent dependent on the Army and Navy coming to an agreement. In view of the stubborn resistance by opponents of the alliance, rumors have cropped up about terrorist plans by radical groups.” DGFP, series D, VI: 594–5.

331. DGFP, series D, VI: 597–8 (received at Moscow embassy on June 2).

332. DGFP, series D, VI: 599–600, 603–4 (unsigned, May 29, 1939).

333. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 88–99 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 9157, d. 2, l. 101–17, 120–4), 740n40; God krizisa, I: 379–87, 405.

334. Mehringer, Die NSDAP, 5; Overy, Dictators, 639–40.

CHAPTER 11. PACT

1. Cadogan also wrote that he himself was “in favor of it [a Soviet alliance]. So, I think, is H. [Halifax].” Dilks, Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 182.

2. Michalka, Ribbentrop und die deutsche Weltpolitik; Bloch, Ribbentrop. “I honestly hated him,” the long-serving state secretary in Ribbentrop’s foreign ministry Baron von Weizsäcker would later claim. No one had a good word for him. Ribbentrop “was a man who occupied a responsible position for which he had neither talent, knowledge, nor experience, and he himself knew or sensed this very well,” surmised the Moscow embassy official Gustav Hilger. “He sought to hide his feelings of inferiority by an arrogance that often seemed unbearable.” Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 293. The old-line conservative Franz von Papen—who had midwifed the invitation to Hitler to assume the Chancellorship at Ribbentrop’s villa—deemed Ribbentrop “a husk with no kernel.”

3. Schmidt, Statist, 312, 317. On the aspects of Schmidt’s memoirs requiring scholarly caution, see Namier, In the Nazi Era, 104–8. The best account of Ribbentrop in London is Spitzy, So haben wir das Reich verspielt, 92–122. Ribbentrop actually spent limited time in London: Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik, 706.

4. Rees, Nazis, 93–5 (citing Spitzy); Snyder, Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, 295. Prince Otto von Bismarck, grandson of the Iron Chancellor and Counselor at the German embassy in Rome, told Ciano of Ribbentrop “he is such an imbecile, he is a freak of nature.” Ciano, Ciano’s Hidden Diary, 151.

5. Ribbentrop had ended up in London almost by accident. On April 18, 1936, the German ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Leopold von Hoesch, died; initially, no one was appointed to take his place. Then, when von Bülow died on June 21, Ribbentrop expected to get his position as state secretary (number two) under Neurath, but the latter objected, and Ribbentrop was posted to London as consolation. Ribbentrop spent most of 1936 and 1937 not in the United Kingdom, but negotiating with Japan and Italy for an alliance against the UK. On Dec. 28, 1937, he wrote to Hitler that Britain was Germany’s “most dangerous enemy.” Heineman, Hitler’s First Foreign Minister, 140–44; Seabury, Wilhelmstrasse, 54–6; Weinberg, “Hitler and England,” 87–8; Waddington, “Ribbentrop and the Soviet Union”; Ciano’s Diary 1937–1938, 24.

6. Almost alone, von Ribbentrop had interpreted the Munich Pact as a blow against Britain, commenting that Chamberlain “has signed a death sentence for the British empire and invited us to fix the date of implementation of this sentence.” Dalton, Fateful Years, 195.

7. Ribbentrop later wrote that he constantly reminded Hitler of Bismarck’s Russia policy. Ribbentrop, Memoirs, 151. Wilhelmstrasse, 76, was a two-story former private home constructed in the eighteenth century; Bismarck had had his medium-sized office as well as family quarters on the upper floor. Pflanze, Bismarck, II: 35.

8. Molotov, Stati’i i rechi, 1935–1936, 12, 20–1 (Jan. 28, 1935); Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 46. On a document sent to him by Molotov, Zhdanov wrote that “entering into agreement with England and France against Germany, even concluding a military alliance with them, we should not forget for one minute that in this alliance, England and France will conduct a policy of insincerity, provocation, and betrayal with respect to us.” Nekrich, Pariahs, 105 (undated reference, letter by V. P. Zolotov).

9. Recall Stalin’s statement to Eden that the world situation was worse than it had been on the eve of the Great War, “because in 1913 there was only one source of the threat of war—Germany—and presently there are two such sources, Germany and Japan” (both of which bordered the Soviet Union). DVP SSSR, XVIII: 246–251 (at 249–50: March 29, 1935); RGVA, f. 33 987, op. 3, d. 1144, l. 325.

10. Efimenko et al., Vooruzhennyi konflikt, 32–6 (RGVA, f. 32113, op. 1, d. 203, l. 6–11: May 16, 1939), 36–40 (d. 202, l. 6–10: May 16), 41–3 (f. 33797, op. 1, d. 37, l. 17–21), 43–4 (op. 3, d. 1225, l. 5–6), 44–5 (op. 1, d. 38, l. 6), 45–6 (d. 36, l. 39–40, 48), 46–8 (l. 51), 48–50 (d. 35, l. 26–35), 51–2 (op. 3, d. 1225, l. 12–4), 52–3 (f. 32113, op. 1, d. 204, l. 33), 53–4 (f. 7977, op. 1, d. 37, l. 55); Coox, “Introduction,” 122.

11. Coox, Nomonhan, 186–9 (April 25, 1939); Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939, 1 (citing U.S. Department of the Army, Forces in the Far East, Japanese Special Studies on Manchuria, 13 vols. [Tokyo, 1954–6], XI/1: 99–102), 83–8.

12. Coox, Nomonhan, 188–95.

13. Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 406; Efimenko et al., Vooruzhennyi konflikt, 54–6: RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 1386, l. 8–12; AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1, pap. 1, d. 2, l. 22–3.

14. Krasnov, Neizvestnyi Zhukov, 90–9; Zhukov, Vospominaniia, II: 249–87(at 250–3). Zhukov’s memoir dates the meeting with Voroshilov to June 2, but a letter to his wife and other documents indicate May 24. See also Roberts, Stalin’s General, 48–9.

15. Sokolov, Neizvestnyi Zhukov, 115–8. In June 1938, when Zhukov had been promoted to deputy commander of the Belorussian military district, he denied in writing any ties to enemies of the people. Daines, Zhukov, 81.

16. Krasnov, Neizvestnyi Zhukov, 100–1 (Zhukov to Voroshilov, May 30, 1939).

17. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 116–8 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 1, d. 38, l. 102–6). See also Efimenko et al., Vooruzhennyi konflikt, 77–8 (RGVA, f. 37977, op. 1, d. 38, l. 110–2: Shaposhnikov, May 28, 1939).

18. Coox, Nomonhan, 200–65; Efimenko et al., Vooruzhennyi konflikt, 82–4 (RGVA, f. 37977, op. 1, d. 37, l. 109–15), 88 (RGVA, f. 37977, op. 1, d. 82, l. 74: May 31, 1939).

19. Tret’ia sessiia Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 25–31 maia 1939 g., 467–76 (at 476); God Krizisa, I: 523–30.

20. God krizisa, I: 520–2 (AVP RF, f. 011, op. 4, pap. 27, d. 59, l. 105–10). Astakhov informed Moscow of Germany’s evident wish to throw a wrench into Soviet-British talks. Weizsäcker sensed Soviet suspicions of German motives. DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 406; Hill, Weizsäcker Papiere, 154. Ribbentrop had informed Weizsäcker and Friedrich Gaus (director of the foreign ministry legal department) on May 25 that Hitler for some time had been thinking about improving relations with the USSR; the two officials drafted instructions for the embassy in Moscow, to convey to Molotov, but then these instructions were not sent, either because Ribbentrop was still hopeful of a formal military alliance with Japan, which a deal with Moscow would scuttle, or Hitler found them excessive. DGFP, series D, VI: 589–93 (Ribbentrop instructions, May [26], 1939); Fleischhauer, Der Pakt, 202–7.

21. DGFP, series D, VI: 614–5.

22. The freedom to choose the moment implied Japan might not even carry out military actions. Iklé, German-Japanese Relations, 117–8 (citing International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Documents Presented in Evidence, exhibit 614: Ott telegram to foreign ministry, June 5, 1939); Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 212–3 (citing exhibit 614); Tokushirō, “The Anti-Comintern Pact,” 103–5.

23. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 99–105 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 9157, d. 2, l. 350–60); DVP SSSR, XXII/ii: 583 n169.

24. Iklé, German-Japanese Relations, 87–118; Nolte, Der europäische Bürgerkrieg, 308.

25. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 18–20 (Schulenburg to Berlin, June 5, 1939), 21–2 (Tippelskirch, June 18, on Mikoyan’s distrust). The Germans had gotten Stalin’s point: in May 1939, the anti-Nazi Herwarth of the German embassy secretly conveyed it to U.S. ambassador Bohlen. Bohlen, Witness to History, 69–82 (at 71).

26. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 20–1 (Woermann foreign ministry memo, June 15, 1939).

27. Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 603. The German foreign ministry expert Nadolny was of the opinion that the Treaty of Berlin was still valid. DGFP, series D, VI: 686–7 (June 9, 1939), 687 (June 9, 1939), 741–2 (June 17, 1939), 843–5 (July 4, 1939).

28. On June 17, Schulenburg, in Berlin, requested a meeting with Astakhov, and told him the German foreign ministry awaited a response to Weizsäcker’s prompt of May 30, underscoring its sincerity and seriousness. God krizisa, II: 40 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 294, d. 2036, l. 115–6), 65–7 (f. 06, op. 1a, pap. 26, d. 1, l. 4–6: Molotov and Schulenburg, June 28).

29. Schulenburg brought up this incident to Molotov as a way of broaching touchy issues. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 53–6 (at 54: Schulenburg to the foreign ministry, Aug. 16, 1939).

30. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 25–6 (Hewel, June 29, 1939), 27–8 (Weizsäcker to Schulenburg, June 30). See also DGFP, series D, VI: 820–1 (Schnurre, June 30).

31. God krizisa, II: 105–6 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 302, d. 2090, l. 171–2: Surits, July 19, 1939); Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 496–7.

32. Duhanovs et al., 1939, 46–85.

33. Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, DK266.A3 S2 1971; Gromyko et al. (eds.), Soviet Peace Efforts on the Eve of World War II (Moscow: Progress, 1973), 363. Lithuania further feared that Poland would immediately announce its own acceptance of a Soviet guarantee if Lithuania did so and that Hitler would blame Poland’s action on Lithuania and take revenge. DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 545–6 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1, pap. 12, d. 126, l. 1–2: Pozdnyakov report to Molotov, July 19, 1939).

34. DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 449 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 301, d. 2079, l. 186–7); Pravda, June 13, 1939.

35. God krizisa, II: 34–5 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 313, d. 2154, l. 107–8); Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 453.

36. Moiseev, Ia vospominaiu, 45–7. Moiseev provides no date for the incident, except that it took place before the Pact (Aug. 1939). His troupe’s first appearance at a Kremlin reception was May 17, 1938 (banquet for schoolteachers); they appeared again on New Year’s Eve 1938–9, May 5 and 7, 1939, July 5 and 20, 1939. Shamina, “Igor Moiseev.” On Nov. 8, 1939, Moiseyev would write to Stalin, complaining of a lack of facility and resources; Stalin would turn the letter over to Shcherbakov, who gave them rehearsal space in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and apartments to some of the dancers. “My peremenili 16 mest raboty,” Izvestiia, 2002, no. 3: 11–2; Ponomarev, Aleksandr Shcherbakov, 60.

37. Strang, Home and Abroad, 68. “Halifax invited me over and started complaining bitterly: we were creating unnecessary difficulties, we were absolutely unyielding, we were reusing the German method of negotiating (announcing our price and demanding 100% acceptance),” Maisky confided in his diary (June 23). “He admitted that, despite the large quantity of telegrams from Seeds and Strang, he still could not grasp what the problem was.” Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 415–6; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 201.

38. Strang, Home and Abroad, 175.

39. Aster, 1939, 273 (citing letter to Hilda Chamberlain, Chamberlain Papers). Chamberlain, one British insider who hosted him in an intimate setting noted, “is not genuine in his desire for an agreement.” Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia, 300–1 (citing FO 371/23068/C8370/3356/18: Peake to Cadogan, June 9, 1939; Harvey Papers, ADD, MSS 5639).

40. Koliazin, “Vernite mne svobodu!,” 220–40.

41. Medvedeva, “‘Chornoye leto’ 1939 goda,” 318–66; Braun, “Vsevolod Meyerhold,” 145–62; Morrison, People’s Artist, 99–100 (citing RGALI f. 1929, op. 1, ed. khr. 655, l. 26ob.: Lina Prokofyeva); “Zagadka smerti Zinaidi Raikha,” Komsomol’skaia pravda, Nov. 14, 2005.

42. Beria evidently awarded the larger part of Meyerhold’s spacious, now vacant apartment in the heart of Moscow (just off Gorky St.) to one of his mistresses, Vardo Mataradze, officially a typist, whom he had brought from Georgia and, it is said, arranged to marry one of his NKVD drivers. The smaller half went to the driver, who found it too small and moved out. Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 103–4. See also Radzinsky, Stalin, 434.

43. DGFP, series D, VI: 1059–62, VII: 67–9; Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939, 161–2.

44. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 108–9 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22407, d. 2, l. 359–60); DGFP, series D, VI: 737–40, 750–1.

45. DGFP, series D, VI: 821–2.

46. Domarus, Hitler: Reden, III: 1216; Vauhnik, Memoiren eines Militärattachés, 29.

47. DGFP, series D, VI: 858–60.

48. Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 601–27.

49. On June 9, 1939, Beria provided a denunciation from the local special department (“A powerful fist to destroy the enemy has not been formed. Troops are being thrown into battle without coordination and mutual support, suffering heavy losses”). Daines, Zhukov, 95–6 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1181, l. 126–7).

50. Sevos’tianov, “Voennoe i diplomaticheskoe porazhenie iaponii,” 70–1.

51. Barnhart, “Japanese Intelligence,” 436–7. The Kwantung chief was Ueda Kenkichi.

52. Efimenko et al., Vooruzhennyi konflikt, 133–4 (RGVA, f. 37977, op. 1, d. 86, l. 10–3: June 27, 1939), 192–3 (op. 3, d. 1225, l. 155–6: July 14, 1939), 164–5 (op. 1, d. 83, l. 166–71), 195 (d. 54, l. 121), 196–7 (d. 55, l. 92–6: Kulik), 219 (f. 4, op. 11, d. 54, l. 276); Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 124 (RGVA, f. 33977, op. 1, d. 54, l. 121), 124–5 (l. 129); Krasnov, Neizvestnyi Zhukov, 118–21. On July 10, 1939, Beria sent Voroshilov a copy of an intercepted letter from the Germany embassy in Moscow to Berlin concerning events at the Halha River. Military attaché Köstring reported the rumors that the Soviets had staged the border incident either to push the Japanese army back or to re-confirm to the British and French that the Japanese were a threat in the Far East, but he deemed these possibilities “unlikely.” Instead, he adhered to the view in the Japanese press that the borders were not clear and that the Mongol nomads migrated with their horses. He discounted the possibility of a full-scale Soviet-Japanese war in this remote border region. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 121–2 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1181, l. 166–9).

53. Hill, Weizsäcker Papiere, 157, 181.

54. DGFP, series D, VI: 870–1 (July 7), 889 (July 10).

55. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 112–5 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 9157, d. 2, l. 418–31).

56. DBFP, 3rd series, VI: 389–91 (Wilson and Wohltat, July 19, 1939). See Metzmacher, “Deutsch-englische Ausgleichbemühengen.”

57. Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 499–502 (July 21, 1939); Schorske, “Two German Diplomats,” 505–6.

58. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 426–7; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 208; DVP SSSR, XXII/ii: 574n158.

59. Aster, 1939, 243–51. On the parade: Pravda, July 21, 1939.

60. Dirksen, Moscow, Tokyo, London, 242; Read and Fisher, Deadly Embrace, 113.

61. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, I: 67–9; Gladwyn, Memoirs, 86–7. Pravda happened to announce on July 22, 1939, the resumption of Soviet-German trade and credit negotiations in Berlin. That same day, the German foreign ministry instructed the embassy in Moscow to try to restart political talks as well. DGFP, series D, VI: 955–6.

62. Overy, “Strategic Intelligence,” 465–6 (citing PRO WO 190/745: “Note on Germany’s Present Position and Future Aims,” Jan. 17, 1939). See also MacDonald, “Economic Appeasement.” On May 23, 1939, Hitler had told his upper military that “it is not Danzig that is at stake. For us it is a matter of expanding our living space in the East and making food supplies secure and also solving the problem of the Baltic States. . . . No other openings can be seen in Europe.” DGFP, series D, VI: 574–80.

63. Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia, 316 (citing Chamberlain Papers, NC 18/1/1108).

64. DBFP, 3rd series, IX: 323 (Halifax to Sir Robert Craigie in Tokyo, July 24, 1939); Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia, 301–10 (citing Halifax Papers, FO 800/315: Henderson to Halifax, June 17, 1939; FO 371/23527/F7395/6457/10: Halifax interview with Maisky, July 25, 1939); Shai, “Was There a Far Eastern Munich?”; Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement, 246–71; Watt, How War Came, 356–9.

65. Iklé, German-Japanese Relations, 182; Tokushirō, “The Anti-Comintern Pact,” 107–11. On June 24, 1939, Sorge reported by telegram that he had learned from Ott that the Japanese had allowed that “in the event of a war between Germany and the USSR, Japan will automatically enter into a war against the USSR.” Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 463 (June 24, 1939); See also Tokushirō, “The Anti-Comintern Pact,” 9–111.

66. Barnhart, “Japanese Intelligence,” 436–7.

67. Coulondre reported hearsay out of Berlin to Bonnet on July 11, 1939, that Ribbentrop had fallen out of favor with Hitler for failing to anticipate the strong British resistance to Germany’s plans to reclaim Danzig. French Yellow Book, 186–8.

68. Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 294.

69. Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, 54. On Aug. 10, 1939, Hitler had summoned Carl Burckhardt, the conservative Swiss high commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig, who had been working to avert a British-German war and generally blamed Polish intransigence. “Everything I undertake is aimed at Russia,” Hitler told him at the Berghof the next day, according to Burckhardt. “If the West is too stupid and too blind to see this, I shall be forced to come to an understanding with the Russians, defeat the West, and then marshal my forces against the Soviet Union. I need the Ukraine so that they cannot starve us out, as they did in the last war.” Hitler aimed to neutralize the British and sow distrust between London and Warsaw. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission, 347–8; Levine, “Mediator.” On Sept. 1, 1939, the Nazi Gauleiter in Danzig, Forster, would order Burckhardt out of the “former” free city.

70. As Gaus testified at Nuremberg, “in the early Summer of 1939 . . . von Ribbentrop asked . . . von Weizsäcker and myself to come to his estate, Sonnenburg, near Freienwalde-an-der-Oder, and informed us that Adolf Hitler had for some time been considering an attempt to establish better relations between Germany and the Soviet Union.” This was Ribbentrop talking, not Hitler. Lasky, “Hitler-Stalin Pact,” 9, 15. Ribbentrop would seize upon any reports that Jews were being purged by Stalin to inform Hitler that the Soviet system appeared to be evolving toward a Russian fascism.

71. DGFP, series D, VI: 755–6, 1006–9, 1015–6, 1047–8; Hill, Weizsäcker Papiere, 157 (July 30, 1939); Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 604–5; Sipols, Tainy, 79–80.

72. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 33–7.

73. Henderson, Failure of a Mission, 252–3. Henderson had written to Horace Wilson in May 1939: “The responsibility of my small job in Berlin is greater than my capacity and I cannot feel otherwise than profoundly pessimistic.” Overy, 1939: Countdown, 57 (citing NA, PREM 1/331a).

74. Henderson, Failure of a Mission, 234. See also Cienciala, “German Propaganda.”

75. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 38; DGFP, series D, VI: 1006–9 (July 27, 1939), 1059–62 (Aug. 4); DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 566–9 (AVP RF, f. 0745, op. 14, pap. 32, d. 3, l. 27–30: Aug. 2, 1939); AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1a, p. 26, d. 1, l. 7–12; f. 059, op. 1, pap. 294, d. 2036, l. 162–5, in Volkogonov papers, Hoover Institution Archives, container 1. In Aug. 1939, Astakhov was recalled to Moscow; the Germans asked for him to be named ambassador to Berlin. Instead, Astakhov was demoted to a position in the Museum of the Peoples of the USSR. He seems to have died of muscular dystrophy in 1941.

76. DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 585–7 (AVP RF, f. 011, op. 4, pap. 27, d. 61, 126–9: Astakhov to Molotov, Aug. 8, 1939); God krizisa, II: 179–80.

77. DGFP, series D, VI: 1059–62 (Schulenburg to Berlin, Aug. 3–4, just after midnight); Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 41.

78. Halder, who looked with trepidation on any pact between Britain and the Soviet Union, was said to have called the prospect “the only thing that could stop Hitler now” in a private conversation. Kordt, Nicht aus Akten, 313–19; Mosley, On Borrowed Time, 252.

79. Voroshilov appeared on nineteen of the twenty-seven days in August for which audiences were recorded in Stalin’s office logbook. For the instructions to Voroshilov (Aug. 4, 1939), see Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/i: 20 (citing AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1b, p. 27, d. 5, l. 22–32). Voroshilov would report to Stalin immediately after the conclusion of a session, and Kuznestov writes that on occasion, he and Shaposhnikov attended, too. Kuznetsov appears in the office logbook only on Aug. 20 (without Voroshilov or Shaposhnikov); Shaposhnikov appears on Aug. 13, 14, and 25. There could also have been meetings at the dacha. Na prieme, 268–71; Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 249.

80. Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/i: 19 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1235, l. 66–72). Beria continued to keep Voroshilov well informed of French, German, Italian, British, and other actors through eavesdropped conversations and agent reports, in the European capitals and in Moscow. RGVA, f. 33 987, op. 3, d. 1235, l. 9/cc (Sept. 23, 1939: Volkogonov papers, Hoover Institution Archives, container 16).

81. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 434–5 (Aug. 5, 1939); Pankrashova and Sipols, “Soviet-British-French Talks”; Roberts, Unholy Alliance, 140–1.

82. Primakov, Ocherki, IV: 261–2.

83. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 55.

84. Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia, 310–1.

85. Hill, Weizsäcker Papiere, 157–8. Molotov (July 28) praised Astakhov’s detailed reporting of Schnurre’s proposals and non-response. God krizisa, II: 145 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 295, d. 2038, l. 93); Fleischhauer, Der Pakt, 273–4.

86. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 290.