160. Volkogonov, Trotsky, 454–69.
161. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 182–4. Stalin further inserted into the Pravda report of Trotsky’s demise a hint of the biblical Cain and a reference to the old saw of Trotsky as Judas, making him not just a supposed murderer (à la Cain) but a traitor. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 521–4 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1124, l. 63–6). Stalin had also edited the Pravda editorial about the Soviet-Finnish Friendship Agreement (Dec. 4, 1939) and the Izvestiya editorial (Oct. 9, 1939) about a Reichstag speech by Hitler. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 516–21 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1123, l. 41–51), 513– (d. 1124, l. 32–7).
162. Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 254–9.
163. Biulleten’ oppozitsii, no. 81 (1940): 5; Volkogonov, Trotsky, 342–4. “Whatever the circumstances of my death,” Trotsky had written in his will, “I will die with unshakeable faith in a Communist future.” Trotskii, Dnevniki i pis’ma, 167–8. On July 17, 1940, just weeks before his murder, Trotsky’s personal archive was shipped to the United States by train, arriving at Harvard University. Trotsky, Stalin, rev. ed., 863.
164. Deutscher, Prophet Outcast, 419–21.
165. Langer, Undeclared War, 129–46.
166. Degras, Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, III: 470–4 (Sept. 21, 1940); McMurry, Deutschland und die Sowjetunion, 214.
167. Watts, Romanian Cassandra, 217.
168. Deletant, Hitler’s Forgotten Ally, 48–55.
169. Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 198 (citing RGALI, f. 1038, op. 1, d. 2077, l. 56: May 7, 1940). Other coveted dachas also changed hands, sometimes in unorthodox fashion. Sartakova, “Nash pisatel’skii les,” 25; Antipina, Povsednevnaia zhizn’, 156–7 (citing RGALI, f. 631, op. 15, d. 457, l. 19).
170. Babichenko, Pisateli i tsenzory, 41. Many writers worked at factory clubs or publishing houses and were paid bureaucratic salaries, which in some cases exceeded their honoraria (royalties). Not many could count on reissues of their works, which paid 60 percent of the normal honorarium. Alexei Tolstoy, who had become chairman of the administration for protection of authors’ rights, got the latter organization’s staff to award him an advance of 83,000 rubles—an act that precipitated a special meeting in Sept. 1940. “His receipt of such an advance cannot in any way be justified,” stated Lev Nikulin, a member of the writers’ union apparatus. “This is when his average monthly earnings are 9,745 rubles.” Tolstoy answered that he had no savings, and that the theatrical season had ended. “I think there is nothing to be surprised about here,” he asserted. “Every month I pay 6,000 rubles to my first family.” The writers’ union decided to sack the functionary who had signed off on the advance. Antipina, Povsednevnaia zhizn’, 72–3 (RGALI, f. 631, op. 15, d. 451, l. 80, 85, 99, 4).
171. Antipina, Povsednevnaia zhizn’, 20 (citing RGALI, f. 631, op. 15, d. 501, l. 61: July 3, 1940).
172. Pravda, Aug. 15, 1940 (unsigned); RGASPI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 907, l. 1–5; Miller, Soviet Cinema, 67. The film was based upon a screenplay by Avdeyenko, who was subjected to withering criticism at the meeting. He was expelled from the writers’ union and the party, but not arrested.
173. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 573–604 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1124, l. 134–45; f. 77, op. 1, d. 907, l. 12–82); Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 450–5.
174. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 587–9, 597.
175. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 599–600 (RGASPI, f. 71, op. 10, d. 127, l. 391, 396).
176. Na prieme, 311.
177. Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, 123–6, 134–6.
178. Kershaw, Fateful Choices, 69; Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, 143. At the time, the journalist William Shirer remarked upon Hitler’s dependency on Stalin: Berlin Diary, 173–4.
179. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 459–62 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 9181, d. 7, l. 17–23). See also Weinberg, Germany and the Soviet Union, 107–8, 119; Trial of the Major War Criminals, VII: 263 (Brauchitsch); Deitrich, The Hitler I Knew, 124–5; and Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 306–7. Altogether, between 1937 and 1940, five military intelligence chiefs had been arrested: Uritsky, Berzin, Nikonov, Gendin, and Alexander G. Orlov; Proskurov would be arrested in 1941. Golikov (b. 1900), a former member of the flying “Red Eagles” of the civil war, had been a commander in the 1939 Polish campaign and Finnish Winter War; in summer 1940 he commanded the Sixth Army, based in Lvov. He had never worked in military intelligence before; no one had spoken with him prior to the announcement of his appointment on July 11, 1940. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 718 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 19, d. 71, l. 278–9), 719 (op. 15a, d. 496, l. 7: July 26, 1940). Military intelligence—officially the fifth department of the Red Army—was formally transferred to the army general staff, but Stalin had Golikov report directly to him. In 1939–1940, 326 new people were hired, the majority of whom did not know foreign languages and had little or no experience of the outside world. Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 57.
180. DVP SSSR, XXIII/i: 546–7 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 2, pap. 15, d. 156, l. 96–8), 552–3 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 316, d. 2176, l. 180), 553–4 (l. 185–7).
181. Izvestiia, Sept. 3, 1940.
182. Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, 109 (Aug. 17, 1940); Lota, Sekretnyi front, 155–6. See also Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 443–5 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 9171, d. 4, l. 61–9: July 20, 1940).
183. Naumov, 1941 god, I: 216–7; Schramm, Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommando, I: 973.
184. Fuehrer Conferences, 1940, II: 17–21, 22–23.
185. Cherkasov, IMEMO, 31–3 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 716, l. 26: facsimile of Stalin’s letter). Stalin was encouraging designs for bombers with payloads weighing a ton that could travel 2,000 miles, even 3,000, while the distance from Minsk to Berlin was all of 600 miles, and Vladivostok to Tokyo, 750. These weapons made sense only in terms of attacking far-off British colonies, and possibly the United States.
186. Bismarck, Mysli i vospominaniia. Mikhail Gefter, a professional historian who came upon Stalin’s pencil edits, deemed them “reasonable editing, pointing to quite a good taste and an understanding of history.” Gefter, Iz etikh i tekh let, 261–2. The Central Committee propaganda department was raised at this time to a directorate.