104. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 86 (RGVA, f. 40442, op. 2, d. 170, l. 112).
105. A. M. Vasilevskii, “Nakanune voiny,” 5–8 (citing TsAMO, f. 16, op. 2951, d. 239, l. 1–37, l. 197–244: Sept. 18, 1940), (d. 242, l. 84–90: Oct. 5), d. 239, l. 245–77 (not later than Dec.).
106. Pavlov, Anastas Mikoian, 125 (citing RGASPI, f. 84, op. 1, d. 15, l. 82).
107. Ogonek, Sept. 1940, Jan. 1941.
108. Woodward, British Foreign Policy, I: 487–500. See also Weinberg, World at Arms, 164. “Cripps argues that we must give everything—recognition, gold, ships and trust to the Russians,” Cadogan wrote in his diary (Aug. 17, 1940): “This is simply silly . . . Extraordinary how we go on kidding ourselves. Russian policy will change exactly when and if they think it will suit them. And if they do think that, it won’t matter whether we’ve kicked Maisky in the stomach. Contrariwise, we could give Maisky the Garter and it wouldn’t make a penn’orth of difference.” Dilks, Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 321.
109. On July 9, 1940, Pavel Fitin, head of NKVD intelligence, reported that “the former King Edward together with his wife, Simpson, are currently in Madrid, whence they maintain contacts with Hitler. Edward is conducting negotiations with Hitler on the question of forming a new English government and the conclusion of a peace with Germany on the condition of a military alliance against the USSR.” This could well have been disinformation from MI6 to push Moscow into talks with London. Shirokorad, Velikii antrakt, 99. See also Varga, “Mezhdunarodnoe polozhenie,” 15–6.
110. “Vansittart spoke eloquently and at length about the misunderstanding and underestimation of the English character abroad,” Maisky would record in his diary (Dec. 12, 1940). “It has been so ever since time immemorial. Napoleon, Bismarck, the Kaiser, and now Hitler, Ribbentrop and Mussolini—they were all grossly mistaken in fancying the English to be a ‘nation of shopkeepers,’ ‘degenerate gentlemen,’ ‘depraved plutocrats,’ etc., who cannot and will not fight whatever the circumstances. A profound mistake.” Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, II/I: 305–6; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 324. On British arms exports, see Edgerton, Britain’s War Machine.
111. Golubev, “Esli mir obrushitsia na nashu Respubliku,” 174–5. All propaganda outlets, from TASS on down, continued to trumpet the Soviet pursuit of “peace.” Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 76 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 57, l. 59–74).
112. Zhukov later stated that “the only one in Stalin’s inner circle, in my memory and in my presence, who voiced another point of view about the possibility of a German attack was Zhdanov. He consistently spoke very sharply about the Germans and insisted that Hitler could not be trusted in anything.” But Zhdanov distrusted the British no less. Simonov, “Zametki,” 49. A table of Stalin’s inner circle visitors appears in Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 290. Zhdanov had observed to the Leningrad party in spring 1940 that for the USSR, “it is more pleasant, useful, and valuable to have alongside us not anti-Soviet Anglo-French allies, who harbor the intention of attacking either Germany or Leningrad . . . [but] a country that is in friendly relations with us”—i.e., Germany. Nevezhin, “Sovetskaia politika,” 26.
113. “‘He’s a thoroughly likeable person,’ I remember thinking as we sat there, and thinking it in astonishment,” Lyons had recalled of the conversation in 1930. “‘Are you a dictator?’ Stalin smiled, implying that the question was on the preposterous side. ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘I am no dictator.’” Lyons, Stalin, 196, 200, 203; Lyons, Assignment in Utopia, 387. Waldemar Gurian rightly noted of Lyons’s book that “the most valuable parts are based upon Souvarine’s monumental study of Stalin.” Review of Politics 2/4 (1940): 506–8. Sourvarine’s work had been translated into English the year before.
114. Lyons, Stalin, 278, 291–2.
115. Gregory and Harrison, “Allocation under Dictatorship.”
116. Osokina, Za fasadom, 206–18; Khanin, Ekonomicheskaia istoriia Rossii, I: 29. Harvests had stabilized (at overreported levels), and state procurements were high, but grain exports and their revenues had declined. In 1940 the Soviet state procured 33.8 million tons of grain and exported 1.2 million, earning the hard currency equivalent of 51.2 million rubles, compared with 26 million tons and exports of 2.1 million, earning 48.8 million gold rubles, in 1937. Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR, 1918–1966, 20–1.
117. Pykhov, Ekononomika, 12. Annual per capita consumption of absolute alcohol was estimated at 0.6 gallon (2.24 liters) in 1940, and that was excluding brandy, champagne, fruit and berry wines, and imports. Prot’ko, V bor’be za trezvost’, 129.
118. The police labeled them “black commodity exchanges” and noted their shadowy existence in nineteen cities, but also that some instituted an arbitration panel to resolve disputes, and bribed investigative officials to avert their eyes. Those involved often legally worked as plenipotentiaries tasked with pushing along fulfillment of the official orders for state companies. Rittersporn, Anguish, 225 (citing GARF, f. 9415, op. 5, d. 87, l. 8–14, 18, 20ob.).
119. Rittersporn, Anguish, 220 (citing GARF f. 8131, op. 37, d. 242, l. 103–4).
120. Siegelbaum, Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity, 280; Filtzer, Soviet Workers.
121. Pravda, June 26, 1940; Filtzer, Soviet Workers, 233–53. Back at a meeting on June 19, 1940, Stalin had explained that workers in capitalist countries worked ten to twelve hours, and that the Bolsheviks had “understood the economy poorly” when introducing the seven-hour workday in 1927. The new labor law restored the eight-hour workday (without additional pay). He partly blamed indiscipline and turnover on Soviet trade unions (“not a school of communism, but a school of self-seekers”). Malyshev, “Dnevnik narkoma,” 112 (June 19, 1940); Khlevniuk, “26 iiunia 1940 goda,” 89.
122. “Vot gde Pravda, Nikita Sergeevich!,”17.
123. Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice, 300–1, 327; Rittersporn, Anguish, 233 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 88, d. 550, l. 922–3, 101–3; GARF, f. 8131, op. 37, d. 137, l. 53–4; f. 9415, op. 5, d. 205, l. 5).
124. Filtzer, Soviet Workers, 239. Some managers were demoted or demonstratively arrested for failing to apply the draconian law, but job turnover and absenteeism persisted. “O kontrole nad provedeniem v zhizn’ ukaza presidiuma verkhovnogo soveta SSSR ot 26 iiunia 1940,” RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 676, I: 41–42ob.
125. Khlevniuk, “26 iiunia 1940 goda.” See also Markevich and Sokolov, “Magnitka bliz Sadovogo kol’tsa.” “We cannot be indifferent to who is joining the working class,” Stalin would lament later. “If this goes on in spontaneous fashion, the composition of the working class may be ruined. And correspondingly, the regime as a dictatorship of the working class may be ruined. But at present they latch on to anyone who turns up for a job.” Malyshev, “Dnevnik narkoma,” 113 (Sept. 26, 1940).
126. Davies and Harris, Stalin’s World, 225 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1124, l. 46–7).
127. Das deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, II: 368–74.