8. Ulrikh’s letter to Stalin, dated April 2, 1938, quoted in Kudryavtsev and Trusov, Politicheskaya yustitsiya, 282.
9. Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 231, 424. This novel was banned in the Soviet Union until 1968.
10. Yefimov, Desyat’ desyatiletii o tom, chto videl, 315–7.
11. On January 17, 1940 the Politburo approved the death sentence for Koltsov as a German and French spy, and on February 2, 1940 he was executed. Koltsov’s former wife, Maria Osten-Gressgener, also described by Hemingway, was executed on September 16, 1942.
12. The NKVD formed Special Departments (OOs) within the Republican Army and organized killing squads that committed numerous atrocities. Additionally, NKVD agents participated in the transfer of the Spanish gold reserve to the Soviet Union. Stéphane Courtois and Jean-Louis Panné, ‘17. The Shadow of the NKVD in Spain,’ in Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repressions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 333–52.
13. Beria’s report to Stalin, a photo in Nikita Petrov and Marc Jansen, ‘On khvastalsya rasstrelami,’ Novaya gazeta. ‘Pravda GULAGa,’ no. 11, December 4, 2008 (in Russian), http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/gulag11/01.html, retrieved September 4, 2011.
14. Yakov Aizenshtat, Zapiski sekretarya voennogo tribunala (London: Overseas Publishing Interchange Ltd., 1991), 19–20 (in Russian).
15. Petrov and Jansen, ‘On khvastalsya rasstrelami.’
16. Obukhov, Pravovye osnovy organizatsii, 79–81.
17. Ibid., 36, 41-43.
18. N. F. Chistyakov, Po zakonu i sovesti (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1979) (in Russian), http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/chistyakov_nf/04.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.
19. Aizenshtat, Zapiski sekretarya, 15–19. During the war, the Military Collegium included V. V. Ulrikh (chairman), V. V. Bukanov, A. A. Cheptsov, I. V. Detistov, L. D. Dmitriev, B. I. Ievlev, D. Ya. Kandybin, F. A. Klimin, I. O. Matulevich, A. M. Orlov, M. G. Romanychev, A. G. Souslin, V. V. Syuldin, V. A. Uspensky, and I. M. Zaryanov.
20. In these cases, the verdict usually stated: ‘The sentence is final and not open to appeal. According to the TsIK decision dated December 1, 1934, it should be carried out immediately.’ This decision included the following orders: terrorist acts must be investigated within 10 days; there will be no prosecution and defense representatives at the trial; convicted parties are prohibited from making appeals; and death sentences must be carried out immediately after the trial. See http://stalin.memo.ru/images/1934.htm, retrieved September 4, 2011.
21. GKO decision No. 634e-ss, dated September 6, 1941. Document No. 198 in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD–NKGB–GUKR ‘SMERSH.’ 1939–1946, edited by V. N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov, and N. S. Plotnikova, 314 (Moscow: Materik, 2006) (in Russian).
22. Page 496 in A. B. Roginsky, ‘Posleslovie,’ in Rasstrel’nye spiski. Moskva, 1937–1941.’Kommunarka,’ Butovo. Kniga pamyati zhertv politicheskikh repressii, edited by L. S. Yeremina and A. B. Roginsky, 485–501 (Moscow: Zven’ya, 2000) (in Russian).
23. Figures from Charyev, ‘Deyatel’nost’ voennykh tribunalov.’
24. For instance, documents in ‘Kto utverdil smertnye prigovory N. I. Vavilovu i G. D. Karpechenko,’ in Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov i stranitsy sovetskoi genetiki, edited by I. A. Zakharov, 124–5 (Moscow: IOGEN RAN, 2000) (in Russian).
25. Quoted in Vladimir Pyatnitsky, ‘Khronika poslednego puti,’ Novaya gazeta ‘Pravda GULAGa,’ no. 3, April 3, 2008 (in Russian), http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/gulag03/05.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.
26. Olga Bobrova, ‘Nado znat’ vysshuyu meru,’ Novaya gazeta. ‘Pravda GULAGa,’ no. 6, July 7, 2008 (in Russian), http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/gulag06/02.html, retrieved September 4, 2011.
27. Yan Rachinsky, ‘Byvshii dom Voennoi kollegii Verkhovnogo suda’ (in Russian), http://www.memo.ru/2011/05/17/rachinsky.htm, retrieved September 4, 2011.
28. A. B. Roginsky, ‘Posleslovie,’ in Rasstrel’nye spiski. Moskva, 1937–1941, 485–501.
29. Nikita Petrov and Marc Jansen, ‘Stalinskii pitomets’—Nikolai Yezhov (Moscow: Rosspen, 2008), 208–10 (in Russian).
30. Joint orders of the Justice Commissar and chief USSR Prosecutor, dated March 20 and May 9, 1940. A. I. Muranov and V. Ye. Zvyagintsev, Dos’e na marshala (Moscow: Andreevskii flag, 1996), 266 (in Russian).
31. S. Yu. Ushakov and A. A. Stukalov, Front voennykh prokurorov (ot repressii do rasstrelov) (Moscow: Synov’ya, 2000), 88–9 (in Russian).
32. On the OSO in 1934, see O. B. Mozokhin, Pravo na repressii. Vnesudebnye polnomochiya organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (1918–1953) (Moscow: Kuchkovo pole, 2006), 138–40 (in Russian).
33. Beria’s report to Stalin, dated November 15, 1941. Document No. 203, in Lubyanka: Stalin i NKVD, 318–20.
34. GKO Order No. 903-ss, dated November 17, 1941, in Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka (2003), 77.
35. NKVD Order No. 001613 from November 21, 1941, in ibid.
36. Nikolai Mesyatsev, Gorizonty i labirinty moei zhizni (Moscow: Vagrius, 2005), 146–7 (in Russian).
37. On Isai Oggins, see Vadim Birstein, The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), 132–9. Andrew Meier, the author of a detailed biography of Oggins The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin’s Secret Service (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2008), gives a fictional scene of Oggins’s court trial (pp. 129–32). In fact, defendants were not present at the OSO sessions.
38. The Comintern had its own international intelligence network. See Iosif Linder and Sergei Churkin, Krasnaya pautina. Tainy razvedki Kominterna 1919–1943 (Moscow: Ripol-Klassik, 2005) (in Russian).
39. Document No. 13, in Reabilitatsiya: Kak eto bylo. Dokumenty Prezidiuma TsK KPSS i drugie materialy. Mart 1953–fevral’ 1956, edited by A. Artizov et al., 72-74 (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2000) (in Russian).
40. Data from Zvyagintsev, Voina na vesakh Femidy, 736–7.
41. Page 127 in Aleksandr Kokurin and Nikita Petrov, ‘NKVD–NKGB–SMERSH: struktura, funktsii, kadry. Stat’ya tret’ya (1941–1943),’ Svobodnaya mysl’, no. 8 (1997), 118–28 (in Russian).
42. Nikita Petrov, Istoriya imperii ‘Gulag.’ Glava 12 (in Russian), http://www.pseudology.org/GULAG/Glava12.htm, retrieved September 4, 2011.
43. Ibid.
44. A. S. Kuznetsov’s report to Beria, dated Sepember 18, 1942, and signed by Beria on September 29, 1945. Document No. 40 in GULAG (Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei), 1917–1960, edited by A. I. Kokurin and N. V. Petrov, 133–4 (Moscow: Materik, 2000) (in Russian). From 1955 until 1963, all dates, places of and causes of death of the executed were falsified; see Document No. 46 in ibid., 163–4. Real information about the executions started to be released only after 1990.