Stalin

330. Golikov’s warnings were more balanced than many critics have asserted. Naumov, 1941 god, II: 87–9 (April 16, 1941), II: 119–20 (April 25, 1941), II: 213–5 (May 15, 1941), II: 324–5 (June 5, 1941), II: 333 (June 7, 1941); “Nakanune voiny (1940–1941 gg.),” 219–20; Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 136–7 (May 5, 1941). But Golikov clashed over assessments of German troop concentrations with Novobranets, acting head of the information (analytical) bureau of military intelligence. Golikov was said to have used a derogatory name for the Ukrainian Novobranets (khokhol). Novobranets quotes a document from Beria, supposedly prepared on June 21, 1941: “Lt.-General F. I. Golikov, the head of military intelligence (where the Berzin band recently reigned), complains about his Colonel Novobranets, who also lies, claiming that Hitler has concentrated 170 divisions against us on our western border. But I and my people, Iosif Vissarionovich, firmly remember your wise forecast: Hitler will not attack us in 1941!” Novobranets, “Nakanune voiny,” 176–8, 165; Krasnaia zvezda, Feb. 2 1991; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 46–7 (TsAMO, op. 7237, d. 2, l. 84–6: April 4, 1941).

331. Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 88–9; Coox, “Japanese Foreknowledge,” 225; McNeal, Stalin, 237.

332. On May 20 Churchill told General Sikorski that a German attack on the USSR “does not seem to enter into consideration.” On May 23, a British Joint Intelligence Committee report, which the Soviets obtained, noted: “With her usual thoroughness Germany is making all preparations for an attack so as to make the threat convincing.” Antonov, “Anatolii Gorskii.”

333. On June 13, the British Joint Intelligence Committee concluded that Stalin would make the concessions necessary to escape war. That day, Eden summoned Maisky, telling him to come alone; Maisky had no choice but to bring his minder, Novikov, which irritated Eden. The British foreign secretary explained the intensity of the German buildup, indicating the information came from extremely reliable sources, and pledged British assistance if the USSR were attacked. Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 361; Haslam, Near and Distant Neighbors, 115 (citing JIC [41] 251 [Final]: FO 371/29484). By June 10, Enigma intercepts made clear that attack would not commence until after June 15. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, I: 472 (citing FO 371/29481, N 2498/78/38), 474 (citing CX/JQ/S11), 477, 479; Woodward, British Foreign Policy, 617, 619–20.

334. Barros and Gregor, Double Deception, 194–6 (citing PRO, PREM3/230/1).

335. Gorchakov, “Nakanune, ili tragediia Kassandry,” 21.

336. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 282–3, 305. Churchill wrote to his counterpart Smuts in South Africa (June 18), “According to all the information I have, Hitler is going to take what he wants from Russia, and the only question is whether Stalin will attempt a vain resistance.”

337. DGFP, series D, XII: 1030; Frölich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, IX: 373–76; Vishlev, Nakanune, 58; Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 328, 330, 334; Fel’shtinskii, Oglasheniiu podlezhit, 359.

338. Sorge added: “I saw a message to Germany that in the event a war arises between Germany and the Soviet Union, Japan will demand around six weeks before beginning an attack on the Soviet Far East, but the Germans think the Japanese will need more time, because that will be a war on land and sea . . .” Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 692 (TsAMO f. 23, op. 24127, d. 2, l. 454); Naumov, 1941 god, II: 380; Fesiun, Delo Rikhard Zorge, 120–1; Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 161 (photocopy of the original telegram). In a second message transmitted on June 17, Sorge clarified that his earlier message was indeed about nine full armies (150 divisions), not nine army corps. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 692 (TsAMO f. 23, op. 5840, d. 7, l. 88).

339. Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 349; Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 691. Military intelligence reported on June 15, that as of June 1 Germany had 286 to 296 total divisions, and had concentrated 120 to 122 of them on the Soviet frontier with Germany and Romania, and that this movement continued. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 686–90 (June 15, 1941).

340. On June 16, “Corsican” informed Korotkov (“Stepanov”) about Rosenberg’s speech. Peshcherskii, “Krasnaia kapella,” 145.

341. Sinitsyn, Rezident svidetel’stvuet, 132–3; “Vospominaniia nachal’nika razvedki P.M. Fitina,” 18, 20–1; Sharapov, “Za sto chasov do voiny”; Lota, Sekretnyi front, 35–6; Chudodeev, “Chelovek iz ‘gruppy Ya,’” 18–24. See also Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 122–3. Fitin does not appear in Stalin’s office logbook; neither does the GB personnel Sinitsyn, Sudoplatov, or Rybkin-Yartsev. Bondarenko, Fitin, 222–3. On June 17 Merkulov and his two deputies, Bogdan Kobulov and Mikhail Gribov, were summoned to Stalin’s office (Molotov was also present) for some forty minutes (8:20–9:00 p.m.). Kobulov was back on June 18 for five minutes, in the company of Molotov, Timoshenko, Zhukov, and Malenkov. Na prieme, 336–7.

342. Primakov, Ocherki, IV: 17–25 (Fitin’s remembrances, evidently composed in 1970). Another version of Fitin’s recollections appeared in Pravda, May 8, 1989 (A. Baidakov, citing conversations with Fitin). This episode provoked the one systematization of NKGB intelligence: back at HQ, Fitin’s team would produce a “Calendar of Information Obtained through Corsican and Elder,” a chronological summary from the first report (Sept. 6, 1940) through the latest (June 16, 1941), running to eleven typed pages. “We were given all the material from every espionage station,” Rybkina recalled. “We got to work. Zhuravlyov and I did not leave the office. We looked at individual files, we looked at how much a source could be trusted, how their previously supplied information had been confirmed and so on. We did everything to make sure that the information was thoroughly tested and checked.” The Calendar conveyed that there would be a German invasion; only the details and timing were uncertain. Still, the compilers wondered whether Stalin’s skepticism could somehow be right, since he had not just their NKGB reports but also those of military intelligence, embassies, trade representatives, journalists, and who knew what else. Merkulov was in the Little Corner on the evening of June 20 for an hour, but, if the document was completed by then, he evidently shrank from presenting it to the despot. Nor did he sign it. Fitin was said to have returned it to Zhuravlyov with a notation: “You keep this. P[avel] F[itin]. June 22.” Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 286–96; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 400–7 (TsA FSB); Primakov, Ocherki, III: 431–2, 452, 493n33. Gorodetsky asserts (without citation) that the finalized document only got to Merkulov hours after the German attack, then made its way to the archives. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 297. In parallel to the Calendar [kalendar’] compiled by the NKGB, military intelligence put together a List [perechen’], which is undated. The list, which was not comprehensive, contained 56 reports of Germany’s war preparations, 54 of them received since Jan. 1941. Fully 20 came from one source—Kegel (“X”)—and 10 from another: Yeremin (“Yeshenko”). Thirty-seven offered a date for a German attack; some of the dates overlapped, but they varied and several were imprecise. Of the sixteen reports that indicated the principal thrust for a German attack, ten specified Ukraine. There is a high likelihood that the list was compiled after the invasion, in late June, perhaps in connection with Stalin’s summons of Golikov, Timoshenko, and Zhukov on June 28, 1941 or shortly thereafter. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 701–13; Lota, Sekretnyi front, 220–34 (citing TsAMO, op. 7272, d. 1, l. 87–98).

343. The report also said the Germans would target Svir-3 power station, which could be judged to have little military significance. Vinogradov et al., Sekrety Gitlera, 161–3 (TsA FSB, f. 3os, op. 8, d. 58, l. 1914–6); “Nakanune voiny (1940–1941 gg.),” 221; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 382–3 (APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 415, l. 50–2); Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 236–7 (TsA FSK), 237–8; Primakov, Ocherki, III: 487–8 (TsA FSB, f. 3 os, op. 8, d. 58, l. 1914–6). Gorodetsky speculates that Stalin was rattled. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 296–7.

344. The Germans assumed that any British-Soviet negotiations would be leaked, and there were no such leaks (the British press was besotted with predictions of Hitler’s blackmail of the USSR). Vishlev, “Pochemu zhe,” 76–7 (citing PA AA Bonn: Büro des Staatssekretär, Russland, Bd. 5 [R 29716], Bl. 087 [113491], 146 [113540]; Dienstelle Ribbentrop UdSSSR-RC 7/1 [R 27168], Bl. 26071).

345. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, I: 480–1 (CAB 65/22, WM [41] 60 CA, June 16).

346. “We argued for a long time, but Cripps clung to his views,” Maisky added. Cripps, for his part, noticed that Maisky “seemed much less confident that there would be not be a war” and “now seemed very depressed.” The editor of the Times (Geoffrey Dawson) also found Maisky suddenly persuaded that a German invasion was coming. Gorodetsky, Stafford Cripps in Moscow, 111–2; Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 305–6 (citing AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 352, d. 2402, l. 235–6: Maisky to Molotov; and f. 0171: Maisky’s diary, June 18; and FO 371 29466 N3099/3/38: Cripps memo, June 19); Times archives, Dawson to Halifax, June 22. After Eden had failed to persuade Maisky that Britain had definitive intelligence showing a coming German invasion, Churchill and the British cabinet had taken the remarkable decision to share the Enigma intelligence. Cadogan had summoned Maisky and on June 16 recited German war preparations, then showed him a map of German troop concentrations on the border, in minute detail. Maisky’s dispatch reporting the stages and numbers of Germany’s buildup arrived in Moscow amid the silence in Berlin over the TASS bulletin, but the reaction, if any, remains unclear. “Kanun voiny: preduprezhdeniia diplomatov,” 77–8; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 374; Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 303 (citing AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 352, d. 2402, l. 214–5: Maisky to Molotov, June 16); Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 361–3. The NKGB reported (June 17) on the movement of some German divisions, based on sources inside Britain, mentioning either “an undertaking of great scale, as the Germans maintain, or possibly . . . maximum pressure on the USSR.” Naumov, 1941 god, II: 381–2 (TsA SVR, d. 21616, t. 2, l. 411).

347. Nekrich, Pariahs, 229 (citing Bundesarchiw-Militärarchiw. RMII/34: 320: Köstring to Matzky).

348. Roberts, “Planning for War,” 1320–1. Even Gorodetsky, who writes of “Stalin’s failure to prepare for the German onslaught,” admits that “even with hindsight, it is hard to devise alternatives which Stalin could have safely pursued. If he had made a preemptive strike, the blow would at best have softened but definitely not averted.” Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 323.

CODA. LITTLE CORNER, SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1941

1. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 306 (citing UD:s Arkhiv 1920 ARS, HP/1557/LVIII, June 21, 1941). The citation contains a typo, indicating the Swedish ambassador in Berlin, but this was from Moscow.

2. Bismarck, Bismarck, The Man and the Statesman, II: 301.

3. Stalin might have taken a meal in his apartment in the company of the inner circle that afternoon; alternately, he could have done so later in the evening. Mikoyan would recall many years later that “we, politburo members, gathered in Stalin’s Kremlin apartment. . . . We left around 3:00 a.m.” The timing of Mikoyan’s account does not jibe with the Kremlin office logbook, in which, moreover, Mikoyan does not figure on June 21. Molotov late in life remembered that “on June 21, we stayed until 11 or 12 p.m. at Stalin’s dacha. Maybe we had even watched a movie. We used to do this often, watch a movie.” These times, too, are contradicted by the office logbook. Kumanev, Riadom so Stalinym, 24; Mikoian, Tak Bylo, 388; Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 36; Na prieme, 337.

4. Anna Alliluyeva, Stalin’s sister-in-law, is the main source for the theory that an infected childhood bruise on his left arm had resulted in a chronically stiff elbow. Alliluyeva, Vospominaniia, 167.

5. Dokuchaev, Moskva, Kreml, Okhrana, 113–6. Stalin hated the black ravens, who shat on the monuments, so the Kremlin commandant fought an all-out war against them, trapping at least 35,000 birds, which were given as feed to the zoo.

6. Molotov recalled: “The tension was palpable in 1939 and 1940. Tensions ran very high.” Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 25.

7. German embassy personnel in Moscow did not know the precise date of the invasion. “I am personally very pessimistic, and although I do not know anything concrete, I think Hitler will launch a war against the USSR,” Schulenburg said at Köstring’s mansion (June 16) in a conversation the NKGB eavesdropped. “At the end of April I saw [Hitler] personally and completely openly I said to him that his plans for a war against the USSR are utter folly, that now is not the time to talk about war with the USSR. Believe me, for my candor I fell out with him and I’m risking my career and, perhaps, soon I’ll be in a concentration camp.” Vinogradov et al., Sekrety Gitlera, 169–70 (TsA FSB, f. 3os, op. 8, d. 58, l. 1978–80: June 20, 1941).

8. “From June 10 to 17,” Merkulov wrote (June 18), “thirty-four people left the German embassy to return to Germany; the upper ranks were sending home their families and belongings.” Naumov, 1941 god, II: 384–5 (TsA FSB, f. 3os, op. 8, d. 58, l. 1945–8). That same day, Augusto Rosso, the Italian ambassador, went to see Schulenburg at his residence (the NKGB eavesdropped the conversation). The German ambassador admitted to receiving his own instructions to evacuate embassy staff families and non-essential employees. Rosso telegrammed Rome asking for instructions in the event of war, especially about what to do with documents. Altogether, NKGB counterintelligence, in Moscow and Rome, secured three versions, independent of one another, of the Rosso-Schulenburg exchange, reporting that Rosso noted Schulenburg’s lack of information, but wrote “in strict confidence he [Schulenburg] added that in his personal opinion . . . a military conflict was unavoidable and that it could break out in two or three days, possibly on Sunday [June 22].” Pronin, “Nevol’nye informatory Stalina,” 1–2 (citing FSB archives); Naumov, 1941 god, II: 389 (TsA FS); Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 267–8. Sudoplatov commented on the June 19 report from the NKGB Rome station chief, “It appears we are being robustly disinformed.” In other words, a privileged conversation between allies—Germany and Italy—was intended to trick the Soviets into preparing for war and thereby provoke war. Under such reasoning, anything and everything the Germans did could be dismissed. The extraordinary achievement and exertions of total surveillance were in vain. Sharapov, “Za sto chasov do voiny.”

9. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 693–4 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 24119, d. 2, l. 83).

10. Molotov added: “I will have a talk with I.V. [Stalin]. If anything particular comes of it, I will give a call!” Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 165–6 (June 21, 1941); Naumov, 1941 god, II: 416. Molotov late in life, to a question about anticipated blackmail, replied, “And why not think so? Hitler was an extortionist, to be sure. He could have been extorting concessions. . . . Around each issue there could have been extortion and deception and duplicity and flattery and . . . it’s hard to say really.” Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 30.

11. “Iz perepiska N. V. Valentinova-Vol’skogo s B. I. Nikolaevskim,” in Valentinov, Nasledniki Lenina, 214.

12. Valedinskii, “Organizm Stalina vpolne zdorovyi.” See also, among other important sources, RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1289, l. 6, 6 ob., 22–3; d. 1482, l. 7 ob., 23.; Ilizarov, Tainaia zhizn’ Stalina, 113.

13. Tiulenev, Cherez tri voiny (2007), 224; Utesov, Spasibo, Serdtse!, 249–50.

14. Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia, 422–3 (quoting an interview with Isakov in 1962).

15. Bullock understood that Hitler and Stalin possessed dissimilar personalities, but he portrayed them as two similar lower-class malcontents, ambitious yet resentful of the political regimes and social orders they lived under. Still, in his telling, neither represented a mere expression of supposed impersonal forces. On the contrary, he portrays each as uniquely decisive in the creation of their respective regimes and policies. In Overy’s follow-up, the infrastructure of rule and systems of domination, rather than the persons, drive the respective systems, which emerged from the destruction of the Great War, sought to realize alternatives to the perceived failures of parliamentary order, and drew upon popular support. Overy understands that the two systems represented very different utopias. Still, he, too, overdoes the similarities. Bullock, Hitler and Stalin, 349, 977; Overy, Dictators.

16. Kumanev, Riadom so Stalinym, 409–10 (Chadayev); Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 355, 370.

17. Recollections of one of Poskryobyshev’s two daughters, Natalya: http://sloblib.narod.ru/slob/poskreb.htm. Poskrebyshev’s first wife, Jadwiga, a Pole, had died in 1929 of tuberculosis.

18. Tyulenev wrote that he saw Timoshenko and Zhukov that evening at the defense commissariat, evidently before their audience with Stalin, and that he departed the city for his dacha in Serebryannyi Bor, where his family was staying. Tiulenev, Cherez tri voiny (2007), 224, 226. This version of his memoirs—purportedly restoring censored parts—does not differ in essence from the earlier version regarding this episode: Tiulenev, Cherez tri voiny (1972), 123–4; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 200–3. Admiral Kuznetsov recalled that Tyulenev, when giving a lecture, reminisced that he had been phoned by Stalin at 2:00 p.m. Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 357, which also appears in the first edition (1966), 329.

19. That day Cripps had visited Maisky on his own initiative, and sought to ensure cooperation following the German invasion that Cripps knew was coming. Maisky’s detailed summary of the conversation was received in Moscow on June 22 at 11:00 a.m. “Iz neopublikovannykh dokumentov (Beseda I. Maiskogos) S. Krippsom 21 iiunia 1941g.), 39. See also Vishlev, Nakanune, 51. Gorodetsky (personal communication) notes that Maisky had decided to spend the weekend at the country house of his old friend, Negrín, the last Spanish Republican prime minister, and that the envoy would be genuinely surprised when he heard the news of war. Beyond his fear of crossing Stalin, he could not get out of his head that all the warnings might just be a self-serving British provocation. Supposedly, Major General Susloparov (“Maro”), the military attaché and intelligence chief in Vichy, sent a message on June 21 that the invasion would begin the next morning, and Stalin wrote on it: “This information is an English provocation. Clarify who is the author of this provocation and punish him.” This document has not been published. Ivashutin, “Dokladyvala tochno,” 57; Krasnaia zvezda, Feb. 2, 1991 (Ivashutin interview). Susloparov had told his French interlocutors (June 18) that Germany would not attack the USSR, that the rumors, being spread out of Germany (not Britain, as he formerly believed), formed part of the “pressure which the German government is expected to exert on Moscow to increase considerably the delivery of grain, oil products, and other raw materials, indispensable for continuing the war.” Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 307–8 (citing Quai d’Orsay Archives, 835/Z312/2: 261–4). See also Trepper, Great Game, 127.

20. Later, Dekanozov would be accused of having edited reports to Moscow to downplay the attack warnings, at least through late May, but in June he began to try to reduce Soviet personnel (arrivals kept coming, however, including children and pregnant wives). On June 15, he summoned the courage to telegram Molotov: “The news is that now people do not speak about the concentration as Germany demonstration to compel concessions from the USSR. Now they affirm that this is for genuine preparation for war against the Soviet Union.” Berezhkov, History in the Making, 72; “Kanun voiny: preduprezhdeniia diplomatov,” Vestnik Ministerstva inostrannykh del SSSR, 76–7. Lehmann (“Breitenbach”), in Gestapo counterintelligence, a Soviet source since 1929, evidently told his handler (now the young, inexperienced Boris Zhuravlyov) at a meeting in the outskirts of Berlin on the evening of June 19 that his Gestapo unit had received an order that Germany would invade the USSR on June 22 at 3:00 a.m. But no such communication has been published. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 348; Kolpakidi and Prokhorov, Vneshniaia razvedka Rossii, 454; Damaskin, Stalin i razvedka, 263–4. Beria supposedly erupted at Dekanozov (his former minion who now reported to Molotov and who sent the Lehmann message), writing to Stalin: “I again insist on the recall and punishment of our ambassador in Berlin, Dekanozov, who keeps on bombarding me with deza about a supposed Hitler attack on the USSR. . . . He reported that the attack commences tomorrow.” But this document has not been published. Ivashutin, “Dokladyvala tochno,” 57; Krasnaia zvezda, Feb. 2, 1991: 5 (Ivashutin interview); Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 283–4; Lota, Sekretnyi front, 46. See also Krasnaia zvezda, June 16 and 21, 2001; and Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 2001, no. 22: 7.

21. Mikoian, Tak bylo, 377.

22. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 694 (TsAMO f. 23, op. 24127, d. 2, l. 463); Naumov, 1941 god, II: 398–9 (TsAMO, op. 24127, d. 2, l. 463); Fesiun, Delo Rikhard Zorge, 121.

23. On June 21, Berlings (“Peter”) reported to his German handlers that Filippov, the TASS journalist-intelligence operative, told him: “We are firmly convinced that Hitler has ventured a colossal bluff. We do not believe that the war could begin tomorrow . . . It is clear that the Germans intend to exert pressure on us in the hope of attaining advantages, which Hitler needs for continuation of the war.” Vishlev, Nakanune, 61 (PA SS Bonn: Dienstelle Ribbentrop. Vertarauliche Berichte über Russland [Peter], 2/3 [R 27113], Bl. 462604–62605), 164; Vishlev, “Pochemu zhe,” 96.

24. Hitler had shifted the date of attack (something that could have been expected). There were many contradictions among the reports. Vinogradov et al., Sekrety Gitlera, 11–2, 17; “Predislovie,” in Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 6. Molotov complained that as 1941 progressed, he “spent half a day every day reading intelligence reports. What was not in them! What dates did they not name!” He added: “I think you cannot rely on intelligence officers. You have to listen to them, but you have to check up on them. Intelligence operatives can push you into such a dangerous position that you do not know where you are.” Chuev, Sto sorok, 31–2; Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 22. Hitler, according to an interview with Halder on June 19, 1958, had told him in Aug. 1938, “You will never learn what I am thinking. And those who boast most loudly that they know my thoughts, to such people I lie even more.” Deutsch, Conspiracy Against Hitler, 32.

25. Zhukov stated in 1965, “I well remember the words of Stalin, when we reported the suspicious actions of German forces: ‘Hitler and his generals are not such fools that they would fight simultaneously on two fronts, which broke their necks in World War I. . . . Hitler does not have the strength to fight on two fronts, and Hitler would not embark on a crazy escapade.’” Zhukov continued: “Who at that time could doubt Stalin, his political prognoses? . . . We all were accustomed to viewing Stalin as a farseeing and cautious state leader, the wise Supreme Leader of the party and Soviet people.” Anfilov, “‘Razgovor zakonchilsia ugrozoi Stalina’,” 39–46; Lota, Sekretnyi front, 15 (citing RGVA, f. 41107, op. 1, d. 48, l. 1–58).

26. Hilger got it right: “Everything indicated that he [Stalin] thought that Hitler was preparing for a game of extortion in which threatening military moves would be followed by sudden demands for an economic or even territorial concessions. He seems to have believed that he would be able to negotiate with Hitler over such demands when they were presented.” Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 330.

27. It is a half-truth that Soviet intelligence performed its function and warned of the attack. No document has come forward analyzing the likelihood, let alone the contents, of Germany’s systemic campaign of deception while it was taking place.

28. Dahlerus, Last Attempt.

29. Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 266–7; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 383; Primakov, Ocherki, III: 366; Grechko et al., Istoriia vtoroi mirovoi voiny, III: 254, 335–8.

30. NKVD transport had reported on German movements from summer 1940 and, in May and June 1941, produced memos of more than twenty numbered paragraphs. Naumov, 1941 god, I: 135–6, 157, 174–6, 268–9, 324–6, 426–7, 462–5, 541–2, 545–9, 656–8, 681–3, 800–3, II: 279–82, 306–7; Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/i: 299, I/ii: 19–21, 56–60, 62–4, 79–80, 82–5, 85–7, 96–7, 108–10.

31. On May 17, 1941, Merkulov had reported to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria on mass arrests and deportations of anti-Soviet elements in the Baltic republics (some 40,000). On June 21, Merkulov reported 24,000 arrests and deportations in western Belarus. GARF, f. 9475, op. 1, d. 87, l. 121, in Volkogonov papers, Hoover Institution Archives, container 21. See also container 15.

32. Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 297.

33. Gefter, Iz etikh i tekh let, 262–3.

34. Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 179.

35. The notion of Stalin’s willful blindness to coming war retains the stature of folklore. The accusation, engagingly delivered in Nekrich, 1941, 22 iuinia, gained weight when Nekrich was persecuted and his book removed from Soviet libraries. But already by 1939, the Soviets counted more than 10,000 aircraft (versus less than 1,000 in 1931), and nearly 3,000 armored vehicles (from a mere 740 in 1931). From the signing of the Pact through mid-1941, another 18,000 fighter planes and 7,000 armored vehicles and tanks had come off assembly lines. In 1941, the defense share of the state budget was set to exceed 40 percent. Davies et al., Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 299; Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/i: 65–80.

36. Anfilov, Doroga k tragedii, 104.

37. To evaluate Soviet strength, the Nazi regime relied partly on Germans who had been born in the Soviet Union or lived there but were then expelled, and, “like émigrés everywhere, they underestimated the strengths of their former place of residence and overestimated the animosity of the people against their own government.” Herwarth, Against Two Evils, 187.

38. “Stalin was not a cowardly person,” wrote Zhukov, “but he well understood that the country’s leadership, which he headed, had been manifestly tardy with the fundamental preparations for the country’s defense in such a big war against such a powerful and experienced enemy as Germany.” Admiral Kuznetsov noted—in a passage excised from the book version of his memoirs—that Stalin’s “mistake was in miscalculating the date of the conflict. Stalin directed war preparations—extensive and many-sided preparations—on the basis of very distant dates. Hitler disrupted his calculations.” Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 368; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 198 (Kuznetsov). See also Pospelov, Istoriia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, I: 479. “We of course cannot manage to avoid war before 1943,” Stalin was said to have told Meretskov in Jan. 1941. “We are being dragged in against our will. But it is not out of the question that we can stay out of the war until 1942.” Meretskov, Na sluzhbe narodu (1984), 197–8.

39. The Red Army had perhaps 13,000 tanks in western border regions, of which 469 were KV-1s and 832 were T-34s (they had begun to arrive in May–June). The Red Army had a large edge in combat aircraft. Morukov, Velikaia Otechestvennaia, I: 6; Pospelov, Istoriia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, I: 415, 475–6.

40. Stepanov, “O masshtabakh repressii.”

41. Only one in fourteen had higher military education. All these percentages were lower than they had been in 1937 for the far smaller officer corps. Another 1 million officers were in the reserves, perhaps a third of whom had some training. The officer corps had grown by more 2.5 times from 1937 to 1940, through the purges. Reese, Stalin’s Reluctant Soldiers; Cherushev, “Nevinovnykh ne byvaet . . . ”; Kalashnikov et al., Krasnaia Armiia, 10–1.

42. Kuznetsov added of Stalin: “He brushed facts and arguments aside more and more abruptly.” Kuznetsov, however, has been disingenuous. In his telling, on June 21 he met Rear Admiral Mikhail Vorontsov, the Soviet naval attaché in Berlin, whom he had recalled to report in person and who had managed to travel by train from Berlin to Moscow. Vorontsov was full of details about the deployed German war machine, and Kuznetsov claimed he reportedly this immediately to Stalin. In fact, the naval commissar conveyed it as an example of a likely provocation. Kuznetsov writes in his memoirs that the last time he saw Stalin before the war was “June 13 or 14,” but he is in the logbook for June 21. Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 348–9, 355; Shustov, “No Other Ambassador,” 167; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 579n5 (citing Der Spiegel, March 20, 1967: 135).

43. Khrushchev, Memoirs, I: 269, 273–4, 287–91. Soviet military journals in 1940–1 presented a frightening picture of German capabilities. Glantz, Stumbling Colossus, 258–9; Konenenko, “Germano-pol’skaia voina 1939 g.”; Konenenko, “Boi v Finlandii”; Konenenko, “Kratkii obzor voennykh desitvii na zapade”; Khorseev, “VVS v germane-pol’skoi voine”; Desiatov, “Operatsii v Norvegii”; Ratner, “Pororyv na Maase”; Belianovskii, “Desitviia tnkovykh.” Zhukov would later state: “When I asked him [Stalin] to allow bringing the troops of the western frontier districts to full combat readiness . . . he brought me to the map and, pointing to the Near East, said ‘that’s where they [the Germans] will go.’” This could have been perhaps Stalin’s way of blunting Zhukov’s pressure without discussing with him the anticipated ultimatum. In any case, the despot had long abandoned any credence to an attack on British positions in the Near East. Anfilov, Doroga k tragedii, 195.

44. Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 357 (citing a conversation with Pronin) and in the first edition (1966), 329. See also Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 108. The Moscow province party committee was holding a plenum (June 20–1). Pravda, June 22, 1941. Yakov Chadayev, the government notary, was quoted as stating that Stalin “summoned them.” Neither Shcherbakov nor Pronin appear in the office logbook; they could have been received in the apartment, which seems unlikely given their low stature. The prohibition on use of electric lighting applied to residences as well. As of 1941, only 68 families, 239 people, still resided in the Kremlin, most of them widows and pensioners (such as the widows of Sverdlov and Orjonikidze); this was down from 374 people in 1935 (not including service personnel and guards) and 2,100 in 1925.

45. Voronov, Na sluzhbe voennoi, 175; Tiulenev, Cherez tri voiny (1960), 138. As Zhukov wrote, “The Soviet Government did everything possible so as not to give any justification for Germany to start a war. This determined everything.” Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 340.

46. As of June 1, 1941, Golikov estimated German divisions arrayed near the joint frontier at 120–2, along with 122–6 arrayed against Britain in the West, Norway, Italy, Crete, and Africa, plus 44–48 of reserves. He noted that in “transferring significant forces from Yugoslavia, Greece, and Bulgaria to Romania, the Germans are to a great degree strengthening their right flank”—in the direction of Ukraine. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 520, 646–7 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 7237, d. 2, l. 114–6).

47. These Soviet divisions, to reach full strength, needed more than 1 million reservists to join them. Zolotarev et al., Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XIII (II/i): 7–8, 11, 77, 581; Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 359. Another source gives a figure of 3,900 German aircraft, 60 percent of their air force, plus 1,000 planes of Romania and Finland. Pospelov, Istoriia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, II: 9.

48. The totalitarian Soviet state, with its vast armed forces, was the only one not fully mobilized, “an absolutely impossible, improbable situation,” as one analyst noted. Mark Solonin, “Tri plana tovarishcha Stalina,” 71. On June 18, the Soviet Union observed the fifth anniversary of Gorky’s death. Pravda, June 18, 1941; Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’ i khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia, 474 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1041, l. 8). At the defense commissariat on June 19, Major General Mikhail Kazakov, commander of the staff of the Central Asian military district, who had been summoned to Moscow, and others were shown a German film of the Wehrmacht being greeted warmly in the Balkans by Slavic females bearing wine and flowers. Kazakov would recall that Vasilevsky told him, “We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t begin in the next fifteen to twenty days.” Kazakov, Nad kartoi bylykh srazhenii, 69–70; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 188–9.

49. The work was supposed to be completed by July 15, 1941. Zolotarev et al., Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XIII (II/i): 280–2 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 11, d. 62, l. 201–3, 204–5).

50. On the many local measures undertaken to bring Soviet forces to combat readiness, especially the initiatives in the Baltic region, and their countermanding under threat, see Sbornik boevykh dokumentov Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, XXXIV: 7–11 (f. 344, op. 2459ss, d. 11, l. 30–6), 21–4 (f. 221, op. 7833ss, d. 3, l. 17–21); Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 199–200 (Colonel General Kuznetsov); Kuznetsov, “Voenno-Morskoi flot nakanune Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny,” 72–3; Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 343–4; Voronov, Na sluzhbe voennoi, 175–8; Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 386–7; Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 82–3; Anfilov, “‘Razgovor zakonchilsia ugrozoi Stalina’,” 42. Zhdanov conspicuously departed Leningrad for holiday in Sochi on June 19; this had to be approved by the politburo.

51. Sudoplatov was not to allow “German provocateurs to stage actions like those against Poland in 1939.” He recalled that, at the office on the night of June 21, “I sensed the danger of military provocation or conflict but not the magnitude of the full-scale invasion that followed.” Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 123–5. See also Possony, “Hitlers Unternehmen ‘Barbarossa.’” Soviet intelligence was reporting that Ukrainian schools in German-occupied Poland were teaching the geography of a forthcoming independent Ukraine and that many Ukrainian nationalists, and even some Poles with eyes on Ukraine’s territory, were keen to stage provocations to provoke a German attack on the Soviet Union. Naumov, 1941 god, I: 135–6, 157, 174–6, 268–9, 324–6, 426–7, 462–5, 545–8, 656–8, 681–3; Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 172–87 (May 31, 1941).

52. Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 266–7; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 383; Primakov, Ocherki, III: 366; Grechko et al., Istoriia vtoroi mirovoi voiny, III: 254, 335–8.

53. Kumanev, Riadom so Stalinym, 23–4 (Mikoyan); Na prieme, 337 (Mikoyan is listed as arriving at 8:15 p.m. and leaving four hours later). The Soviet navy reported that German engineers and specialists working in Leningrad on a battleship acquired from Germany had left, but in response, Molotov told Admiral Kuznetsov, “Only a fool would attack us!” Zhdanov similarly assured Kuznetsov that the Germans were concentrating forces as a means of exerting psychological pressure and would never open a two-front war. Kuznetsov, “Voenno-Morskoi flot nakanune Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny,” 73; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 190–1 (Kuznetsov); Watson, Molotov, 187. Beria is not listed in the logbook for Stalin’s Kremlin office between appearances on June 10 and June 20.

54. They would be confiscated as war booty. Panteleev, Morskoi front, 36. By June 1941, Nazi Germany was heavily in debt to the Soviet Union.

55. This was the second time that day that Kegel had risked an in-person meeting with his handler. In June 1941 alone, he met his military intelligence handler Leontyev nine times in person. Separately, Beria was reporting to Stalin from his agents that the smoke from burning documents in German embassy inner courtyard could be seen from great distance; some thought it was a fire. Krasnaia zvezda, June 16 and 21, 2001; Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 2001, no. 22: 7. Leontyev (b. 1911) had not thought to arrange for contacts with Kegel after the predicted war broke out. Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 443 (V. V. Bochkarev).

56. How Stalin reacted to Kegel’s information remains unknown. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 711–3; Lota, Sekretnyi front, 58–60; Kegel, V buriakh nashego veka (the German original was published in 1983). Kegel had spoken directly with Walter Schellenberg, the head of political intelligence for the SS, who had evidently visited the USSR under the cover of a chemical industry representative. Kiknadze, “Gerkhard Kegel,” 124; Vasil’evich and Sgibnev, “Podvig v teni eshafota,” 106.

57. “The Master in an agitated state just talked to Timoshenko . . . Apparently something is expected . . . you yourself could guess . . . the German attack,” Poskryobyshev supposedly said to Chadayev. “A German attack is possible.” Kumanev, Riadom so Stalinym, 410. In a draft decree, written in pencil by Malenkov with many crossouts, dated, in someone else’s hand, June 21, and not entered into the approved protocols, Tyulenev was to be appointed commander of the “southern front” with two armies. Meretskov was to be named commander of the northwestern front; Zhukov, of the southwestern front, where the main German attack was expected. Zaporozhets was to become his deputy, and in the latter’s place Mekhlis would be restored to head of the Red Army political directorate. “Nakanune voiny: iz postanovlenii vysshikh partiinykh i gosudarstvennykh organov (Mai 1940 g.–21 iiunia 1941 g.),” 209–10 (with facsimile); APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 125, l. 75–6.

58. Zhukov does not name the defector, and more than one crossed that night into Soviet territory (perhaps as many as four). Zhukov, Vospominania, I: 386–9. See also Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 105–6; and Khrushchev, Vospominania, I: 299–301. See also Fediuninskii, Podniatye po trevoge, 10–2; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 241–2 (Fediunsky). Sevastianov, Neman-Volga-Dunai, 5; and Naumov, 1941 god, II: 279–82 (TsA SVR RF, d. 21616, t. 2, l. 389–97: May 30, 1941).

59. Na prieme, 337. Budyonny had not been in Stalin’s office for two months, according to the logbook.

60. On the evening of June 21, Meretskov would later recall, Timoshenko told him, “Gain whatever time we can! A month, a month and a half, another week. It is possible the war will start tomorrow.” Meretskov, Na sluzhbe narodu (1984), 205; Meretskov, Na sluzhbe narodu, 209–10.

61. Simonov, “K biografii G. K. Zhukova,” 106.

62. Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 387. Zhukov recalls that his deputy Vatutin accompanied them. Vatutin does not appear in Stalin’s logbook. Timoshenko and Zhukov were in Stalin’s office at least nineteen times in the last three months, including six in June, but the despot did not receive them between June 11 and 18. In that interval only Vatutin was in the Little Corner, on June 17 for half an hour (Molotov and Kagnovich were there); on June 18 Stalin received the military men for four hours and thirty-five minutes. Na prieme, 336–7.

63. Goebbels continued: “Should have been made six months ago.” (In fact, seven months ago Molotov had been in Berlin.) Goebbels added: “I read a comprehensive report on Russian-Bolshevik radio propaganda. It will give us some real problems, because it is not so stupid as the English material. Probably written by Jews.” Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, 1, IX: 391–93 (June 21); Taylor, Goebbels Diaries, 420. A request for Molotov to meet Hitler on June 18 was also recorded by Halder, Kriegstagebuch, II: 458–9 (June 20); Halder, Halder Diaries, II: 960.

64. Dekanozov appeared at 6:00 p.m. on June 18, but despite an audience of fifty minutes, managed only to complain about German delays in issuing exit visas for a Soviet consular official in Königsberg, ships at Baltic ports, and the costs of building a bomb shelter. Naumov, 1941 god, II: 386–7 (AVP RF, f. 082, op. 24, pap. 106, d. 7, l. 94–7).

65. Hill, Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, 260 (June 18); DGFP, series D, XII: 1050; Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 317.

66. The protest listed 260 flight violations between March 27 and June 19. On June 20, the NKVD border guard had reported that just since June 10, there had been 86 more unauthorized reconnaissance flights from Greater Germany, Finland, Hungary, and Romania. Solov’ev and Chugunova, Pogranichnye voiska SSSR, 755–6.

67. The play was a production of the Franko Ukrainian Academic Theater on tour in Moscow. Pravda, June 22, 1941. See also Dallin, Soviet Russia’s Foreign Policy, 375. Whether Stalin might have been ready to offer far-reaching concessions remains a matter of speculation. Mastny, Russia’s Road to the Cold War, 34.

68. Vishlev, Nakanune, 64–72 (citing Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts Bonn: Büro des Staatssekretär, Russland, BD. 5 [R 29716], Bl. 049 [113453]–053 [113457], 100 [113504], 103 [113507]–105 [113509], 112 [113516], 125 [113529]–126 [113530], 130 [113653]; Dienstelle Ribbentrop, Vertrauliche Berichte, 2/2 Teil 2 [R 27097], Bl. 30853; Dienstelle Ribbentrop, UdSSR-RC, 7/1 [R 27168], Bl. 26051, 26097–8; Dienstelle Ribbentrop, Vertrauliche Berichte über Russland [Peter], 2/3 [R 27113], Bl. 462607). Some of the information being spread was true: that the Soviet Union was making plans for population, industrial, and government evacuations eastward; that the USSR had refrained from forced collectivization in the Baltic states; that the regime was undertaking measures to stimulate Soviet patriotism. These whisperings about Stalin being Nazi Germany’s best hope, and under internal threat for that reason, were advanced “in strictest confidence” by Amayak Kobulov and Ivan Filippov to their German interlocutors in Berlin, by a Soviet intelligence operative in Stockholm, and others elsewhere.

69. Simonov, “Zametki,” 53. According to Zhukov, Stalin was aware of and to a degree accepted the argument of German propaganda that Wehrmacht forces were stationed on the border partly because Soviet forces were there and Germany had no ultimate guarantee that Stalin would not attack preemptively.

70. Zhukov later wrote that Stalin said: “Germany is up to its neck in war in the West, I believe Hitler would never risk creating a second front for himself by attacking the Soviet Union. Hitler is not such a fool that he fails to understand the Soviet Union is not Poland, not France and that it is not even England and all these taken together.” Timoshenko supposedly asked, “What if it does happen?” and requested bringing the frontier troops to a war footing and sending more westward, but Stalin refused, designating their proposal tantamount to “launching a war.” Zhukov, Vospominaniia (1995), I: 383–4; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 500 (RGVA, f. 41107, op. 1, d. 48, l. 1–58).

71. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 353–4; DGFP, series D, XII: 1059; Taylor, Goebbels Diaries, 423; Berezhkov, S diplomaticheskoi missiei, 78–106; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 215–6 (Berezhkov).

72. Schulenburg was said to have observed of the Pact: “I gave my all in order to work toward good relations between Germany and the Soviet Union, and in some ways I have achieved my aim. But you know yourself that in reality I have achieved nothing. This treaty will lead us into the second world war and bring ruin upon Germany . . . This war will last for a long, long time, just as did the First World War.” Wegner-Korfes, “Ambassador Count Schulenburg,” 187–204; Fleischhauer, Der Pakt, 400.

73. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 307 (citing UD:s Arkhiv 1920 ARS, HP/1557/LVII, Swedish ambassador in Moscow, June 16). According to the unpublished memoir of his daughter, American ambassador Steinhardt observed at the Moscow airport how von Walther, in tears, had had to part with his beloved boxer, which was being shipped back to Berlin. Lukes, On the Edge of the Cold War, 75–6 (citing Steinhardt Sherlock, “R.S.V.P.,” 65; interview with Laurene Sherlock and Peter Rosenblatt, Oct. 27, 2007).

74. Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatische Bühne, 214.