65. “The capitalists succeeded for a time in playing on the national distrust of Latvian, Estonian, and Finnish peasants, as well as shopkeepers, toward the Great Russians,” Schcherbakov would admit after the annexations to the Supreme Soviet (Aug. 1, 1940), in connection with the failures in 1918–20 to reconquer these lands. When the transcript was getting ready for publication, he crossed out “national distrust” and inserted a passage about “bourgeois politicians” in cahoots with the “imperialist bourgeoisie,” “deceiving” these peoples. Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 86 (citing RGASPI, f. 88, op. 1, d. 1015, l. 5).
66. Kul’turnaia zhizn’ v SSSR, 1928–1941, 734.
67. The Taras Shevchenko Theater of Ballet and Opera performed Natalka-Poltavka, The Zaporozhets beyond the Danube, and other folk favorites. Literaturnaia gazeta, March 27, 1936; Sovetskaia kul’tura v rekonstruktivnyi period, 517. Pravda, March 24, 1936; Nevezhin, Zastol’ia, 115 (citing RGALI, f. 962, op. 21, d. 1, l. 10); Cherushev, Komendanty Kremlia, 477–8. A Kazakh Ten-Day followed (May 17–26), with 350 participants, including the Kazakh Musical Theater, which performed the first Kazakh opera, a form that was a Soviet implant but, in this case, with a story based on the sixteenth-century oral epic Kyz Zhibek. The sensation proved to be the traditional improviser-troubadours (akyns), who sang tales accompanied by a dombra. Literaturnaia gazeta, May 10 and 15, 1936; Nevezhin, Zastol’ia, 115–6 (citing RGALI, f. 962, op. 21, d. 1, l. 10). See also Ubiria, Soviet Nation-Building, 169–70. Maya Plisteskaya, the ballerina, condescendingly observed that “Soviet Leaders positively loved these showy-imitation Ten-Days,” then admitted that “these parades mobilized creative people to an extreme. Everyone worked to the limits (otherwise, you look up, and you don’t get the little medal, and they don’t summon you to the final banquet). So you forget all the negatives. . . . These Ten-Days gathered the best forces.” Plisetskaia, Chitaia zhizn’ svoiu, 93.
68. Uzbekistan’s Ten-Day had taken place May 21–30, 1937, with some 600 participants; they performed Farkhad and Shirin by V. A. Uspensky and Giulsara by R. M. Glier and T. D. Jalilov, with a Kremlin reception on May 31, 1937. Literaturnaia gazeta, May 30, 1937; Nevezhin, Zastol’ia, 116–7 (citing RGALI, f. 962, op. 21, d. 1, l. 11). Azerbaijan’s took place on April 5–15, 1938, with more than 600 participants and a banquet on April 17 in the St. George’s Hall and the Palace of Facets. Fadeev, Vstrechi s tovarishem Stalinym, 168. Armenia’s would take place Oct. 20–29, 1939, with 550 participants. The Spendiarov Opera and Ballet Theater performed Spendiarov’s opera Almast, A. T. Tigranyan’s opera Anush, and Khachaturyan’s ballet Happiness. Nevezhin, Zastol’ia, 119–20 (citing RGALI, f. 962, op. 21, d. 20, l. 70; d. 1, l. 11); Chegodaeva, Dva lika vremeni, 301.
69. The committee had sent the conductor Vasily Tselikovsky (b. 1900) of the Bolshoi to Frunze, the Kyrgyz capital, already in 1936 for the Ten-Day in Moscow (planned for 1938). Ballet master L. I. Lukin, also sent to Frunze, would be imprisoned there as an enemy of the people, but released five days before the much-delayed Ten-Day opened in Moscow on May 25, 1939, with more than 500 participants. Bakhtarov, Zapiski aktera, 85–86. A Kyrgyz ensemble performed Altyn Kys as well as Aichurek (Moon Beauty), the first Kyrgyz opera, co-written by Vladimir Vlasov and Vladimir Feré from Moscow. Ivanov, Dnevniki, 28. Nevezhin, Zastol’ia, 113–4. Bakhtarov, Zapiski aktera, 82. Brusilovsky wrote the Kazakh operas, Bogatryev, the Tajik ones. “The resourceful officials of the Committee on Artistic Matters,” Jelagin wrote, “even managed to conjure up a Buryat-Mongol opera.” Elagin, Ukroshchenie iskusstv, 262, 263.
70. Jelagin, Taming of the Arts, 232–3.
71. Latyshev, “I eshche odin tost ‘vozhdia narodov,’” 141–2; Sovetskaia kul’tura v rekonstruktivnyi period, 517–20. Gromov, Stalin, 330.
72. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 120. See also Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 98–102.
73. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 163 (Ribbentrop to Fabricius, June 27, 1940); Halder, Halder Diaries, I: 483–4 (June 25, 1940); Halder, Kriegstagebuch, I: 371–3; Gafencu, Last Days of Europe, 387–91. Gafencu resigned as foreign minister; Read and Fisher, Deadly Embrace, 489 (no citation).
74. Novikov, Vospominaniia diplomata, 41; Read and Fisher, Deadly Embrace, 488–9 (no citation). The secret protocol (clause 3) of the Pact was ambiguous: “With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinterestedness in these areas.” Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 78n34.
75. Izvestiya (June 29, 1940) trumpeted “the new victory of the USSR’s politics of peace,” and called the northern part of Bukovina “a typically Ukrainian province.”
76. Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, VIII: 196–7 (June 28, 1940). Stalin had even obtained approval for this action from Mussolini, Hitler’s ostensible ally, in exchange for recognition of Italian primacy in the Mediterranean. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 29 (citing AVP RF, f. 06, op. 2, pap. 20, d. 229, l. 1–6: Molotov-Rosso, June 20, 1940; f. 059, op. 1, pap. 330, d. 2269, l. 84–5: Molotov to Gorelkin, June 27, 1940); Schramm-von Thadden, Griechenland, 27. See also Dima, Bessarabia and Bukovina, 26.
77. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 158–9 (Ribbentrop to Schulenburg, June 25, 1940), 159–60 (Schulenburg to Ribbentrop, June 25, 1940), 161–2 (Schulenburg to Ribbentrop, June 26, 1940), 163; Rossi, Deux ans, 153 n2 (Schulenburg to Ribbentrop, July 17, 1940). Romanian oil production had begun to decline after 1936. Pearton, Oil and the Romanian State, 201–3. On July 4, 1940, Moscow asked Tokyo, which had long agreed not to recognize Romania’s annexation of Bessarabia, to recognize the Soviet annexation. Elleman, “Secret Soviet-Japanese Agreement,” 294 (citing Gaimushō, B100–JR/1).
78. Gafencu, Last Days of Europe, 390–2.
79. German occupation authorities in Belgium sought to shutter the Soviet trade mission. Mikoyan urged Stalin and Molotov not to allow that to happen, for “we have unfulfilled orders from Belgium and the Belgian Congo totaling 8,578,000 rubles.” Pavlov, Anastas Mikoian, 125 (citing RGASPI, f. 84, op. 2, d. 62, l. 39: July 20, 1940).
80. Soviet counterintelligence personnel did not trust even the Communists installed in power there by Moscow, especially in Estonia. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 306–7 (TsA FSB, f. 8os, op. 1, d. 81, l. 2; f. 14os, op. 1, d. 15, l. 201–2). On July 27, 1940, Stalin’s “big fleet” program was reined in: ten instead of fifteen battleships, eight instead of sixteen battle cruisers, even as two small aircraft carriers for the Pacific Fleet were added. Hauner, “Stalin’s Big-Fleet Program”; Rohwer and Monakov, Stalin’s Ocean-Going Fleet, 113.