18. In 2004, after analyzing old medical records, a group of western neurologists concluded that most likely Lenin suffered and died of syphilis. V. Lerner, Y. Finkelstein, and E. Witztum, ‘The enigma of Lenin’s (1870-1924) malady,’ European Journal of Neurology 11, no. 6 (June 2004), 371–6; also, Helen Rappaport, Conspirator: Lenin in Exile (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 306, 355.
19. In 1948, imprisoned Trotskyists who were still alive were transferred to new camps, MVD Order No. 00219, dated February 28, 1948. Document No. 41 in GULAG (Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei), 135–7.
20. Detailed biography of V. P. Menzhinsky in Oleg Mozokhin and Teodor Gladkov, Menzhinskii—intelligent s Lubyanki (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2005) (in Russian).
21. Details in A. A. Zdanovich, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti i Krasnaya armiya (Moscow: Kuchkovo pole, 2008) (in Russian).
22. Short biography of G. G. Yagoda (1891–1938) in Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 159–60, and details in Mikhail Il’insky, Narkom Yagoda (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2005) (in Russian). Contrary to the historical facts, the author of this book, an FSB-affiliated historian, presents Yagoda as a real plotter.
23. Artuzov headed the KRO from 1922 to 1927, and from 1931 to 1935, he headed the INO. Biography of A. A. Artuzov (1891–1937) in Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 93–94.
24. In October 1923, Ulrikh was appointed deputy chairman of the Military Collegium. Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka, 34.
25. Biography of Y. K. Olsky (1891–1938) in Vadim Abramov, Kontrrazvedka. Shchit i mech protiv Abvera i TsRU (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2006), 85–101 (in Russian).
26. Stalin’s telegram to Menzhinsky dated June 23, 1927. Quoted in Aleksandr Yakovlev, ‘Glavnokomanduyyushchii predal armiyu,’ Nezavisimaya gazeta, No. 63, August 28, 2003 (in Russian), http://2003.novayagazeta.ru/nomer/2003/63n/n63n-s23.shtml, retrieved September, 2011.
27. L. P. Belyakov, ‘Shakhtinskoe delo,’ in Repressirovannye geologi, edited by L. P. Belikov and Ye. M. Zabolotsky, 395–8 (Moscow: Ministerctvo prirodnykh resursov, 1999) (in Russian). Recently the OGPU files of this case were declassified and the first volume of these materials was published: Shakhtinskii protsess 1928 g. Podgotovka, provedenie, itogi. Kniga 1, edited by S. A. Krasil’nikov et al. (Moscow: Rosspen, 2011) (in Russian).
28. On the career of Ye. G. Yevdokimov (1891–1940) and his role in the Shakhtinskoe delo see Stephen G. Wheatcroft, ‘Agency and Terror: Evdokimov and Mass Killing in Stalin’s Great Terror,’ Australian Journal of Politics and History 53, no. 1 (March 2007), 26–43.
29. V. Goncharov and V. Nekhotin, ‘Dela “Prompartii” i “Trudovoi krest’yanskoi partii (TKP)” (1930–1932)’ in Prosim osvobodit’ iz tyuremnogo zaklyucheniya, edited by V. Goncharov and V. Nekhotin (Moscow: Sovremennyi pisatel’, 1998), 173–7 (in Russian).
30. Krylenko’s speech on December 4, 1930. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn discusses Krylenko’s role in the promotion of confessions in political cases in Archipelago Gulag, Vol. 1.
31. A. Ya. Vyshinsky, Teoriya sudebnykh dokazatel’stv v sovetskom prave (Moscow: Yuridicheskoe izdatel’stvo, 1941), 180–1 (in Russian).
32. Details in Ya. Yu. Tinchenko, Golgofa russkogo ofitserstva v SSSR. 1930–1931 gody (Moscow: Moskovskii obshchestvennyi nauchnyi fond, 2000) (in Russian), N. Cherushev, ‘Nevinovnykh ne byvaet…’ Chekisty protiv voennykh, 1918–1953 (Moscow: Veche, 2004), 147–99 (in Russian), and a review in Degtyarev and Kolpakidi, SMERSH, 55–59; Zdanovich, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 376–93.
33. Ibid., 370–2.
34. Biography of I. M. Leplevsky (1896–1938) in Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 270–1.
35. Politburo decision P55/26/3, dated August 10, 1931. Document No. 274 in Lubyanka. Stalin i VChK–GPU–OGPU–NKVD. Yanvar’ 1922–dekabr’ 1936, edited by V. N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov, and N. S. Plotnikova, 280 (Moscow: Materik, 2004) (in Russian).
36. Zdanovich, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 507.
37. S. A. Kropachev, ‘Politicheskie repressii v SSSR 1937–1938 godov: prichiny, masshtaby, posledstviya’ (2007) (in Russian), http://www.kubanmemo.ru/library/Kropachev01/repress37_38.php, retrieved September 4, 2011. On the Tukhachevsky case, see N. Cherushev, 1937 god: elita Krasnoi Armii na Golgofe (Moscow: Veche, 2003) and Yuliya Kantor, Voina i mir Mikhaila Tukhachevskogo (Moscow: Vremya, 2005) (both in Russian)..
38. In 1937–38, Stalin personally ordered beatings, signing an order on January 10, 1939 to apply ‘physical treatment’ (torture) to the arrested ‘enemies of people.’ Document No. 8 in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD–NKGB–GUKR ‘Smersh.’ 1939–mart 1946, edited by V. N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov, and N. S. Plotnikova, 14–15 (Moscow: Materik, 2006) (in Russian).
39. A short biography of G. G. Yagoda (1897–1938) in N. V. Petrov and K. V. Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 1934–1941. Spravochnik (Moscow: Zven’ya 1999), 459–60 (in Russian). Details in Mikhail Il’insky, Narkom Yagoda (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2005) (in Russian). Contrary to the facts, the author, an FSB-affiliated historian, presents Yagoda as a real plotter.
40. Data from O. F. Suvenirov, Tragediya RKKA. 1937-1938 (Moscow: Terra, 1998), 317 (in Russian). Additional information on the mechanism of repressionsions in the Red Army and Navy in Vladimir Khaustovand Lennart Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD i repressii 1936-1938 gg. (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2009), 189–227 (in Russian).
41. Data from Table 2 in Michael Parrish, Sacrifice of the Generals: Soviet Senior Officer Losses, 1939–1945 (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press. Inc., 2004), xvii.
42. Perepiska Borisa Pasternaka, edited by Yelena V. Pasternak and Yevgenii B. Pasternak (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1990), 160 (in Russian).
43. On Stalin’s presumed paranoia, see, for instance, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere, The Mind of Stalin. A Psychoanalytic Study (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1988). In his last biography of Stalin, Robert Service cautiously characterized Stalin in the 1930s as a person with ‘a deeply disordered personality’ (Stalin: A Biography [Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 2005], 344).
44. Oleg Khlevnyuk, Khozyain. Stalin i utverzhdenie stalinskoi diktatury (Moscow: Rosspen, 2010), 302 (in Russian).
45. Photo of this document with Stalin’s editorial notes in SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki i arkhivnye materialy, edited by V. S. Khristoforov, V. K. Vinogradov, O. K. Matveev, et al. (Moscow: Glavarkhiv Moskvy, 2003), 67 (in Russian).
46. GKO (State Defense Committee) Order No. 3222ss/ov on the creation of GUKR ‘SMERSH,’ dated April 21, 1943. Document No. 151, in Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka, 623–6.
47. Daniil Fibikh, ‘Frontovye dnevniki 1942–1943 gg.,’ Novyi Mir, no. 5 (2010) (in Russian), http://magazines.russ.ru/novyi_mi/2010/5/fi2.html, retrieved September 4, 2011.