14. “A large portrait of Marx hung in the office, and in a glass case there was a bust of Lenin,” recalled Mgeladze. “The simplicity and modesty caught one’s eye, and, looking around, we could not help but think that the offices of some commissars in the republic had more lavish appointments.” Stalin stood next to the long felt-covered table smoking a cigarette, which surprised Mgeladze (all the portraits had him with a pipe). In front of Stalin sat a glass of tea and a lemon, which during the discussion he squeezed into his tea. Mgeladze recalled the meeting as taking place in Jan. He also remembered the presence of Molotov, Beria, and Voznesensky, all of whom appear in the logbook for the one day that Mgeladze appears (Dec. 23, 1940). Mgeladze, Stalin, kaki a ego znal, 25–9; Na prieme, 321.
15. Shakhurin, Krylia pobedy, 186–7; Na prieme, 321. See also Patolichev, Vospominaniia, 105–7.
16. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence, 46–52.
17. The 1939 field service regulations had stated: “The Red Army will be the most offensive-minded of all the attacking armies that ever existed.” Stalin had told a Central Committee plenum on Jan. 19, 1925: “Our banner remains the banner of peace. But if war breaks out, we will not be able to sit with folded arms—we will have to take action, but we will be the last to do so. And we will do so in order to throw the decisive weight into the scales.” Meltiukhov, almost alone, correctly has the arrows moving west on maps illustrating Soviet war plans. Mel’tiukov, Upushchennyi shans, 256–7.
18. One Soviet agent reported that France had expected a number of tactical engagements with Germany, not a surprise knockout blow with massed German forces, and that France compounded this error by forward deployment at the Belgian-German border, rendering those units unable to respond quickly to German flanking maneuvers. Roberts, “Planning for War” (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1302, l. 180, 185–6); RGVA, f. 33988. op. 4, d. 35, 1. 287–292: June 3, 1940; Simonov, “Zametki k biografii G. K Zhukova,” 53; Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 324. A book published in early 1940 argued that the German experience in Poland had reconfirmed that the only way to defend against a surprise attack by secretly massed, highly mobile mechanized forces was to preempt the enemy by achieving one’s strategic deployment first. Krasil’nikov, “Nastupatel’naia armeiskaia operatsiya,” 487–96.
19. On May 14, 1938, Yezhov sent Stalin a report laying out an analysis by the incarcerated Vasily Lavrov, who noted that in early 1937, during war games, Tukhachevsky, playing the southern attack variant of the blues (Germany, Poland, Finland, and Balts) on the Lvov-Donetsk axis, had proven that the Germans could deliver a deadly strike against Soviet military industry. The precondition for this outcome was a German occupation of Czechoslovakia (with its military industry) as well as of Romania (with its oil and food). Lavrov put together charts and maps showing the extent of the possible catastrophe. On July 29, 1938, he was executed. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 205 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 343, l. 28–48); Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 378. In Dec. 1937, when Stalin received “testimony” from Lavrov implicating Lieutenant General Yakov Smushkevich, the aide for aviation to the chief of the general staff, the despot wrote on it, “He lies, the swine,” a rare instance in which he appears to have rejected an interrogation protocol. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 208 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 329, l. 59). See also the call by General Jan Strumis, known as Zhigur, in a denunciation of Alexander Yegorov (July 20, 1937), for reexamination of all war plans to take account of recent war games. He was arrested in Dec. and executed on July 22, 1938. RGVA, f. 33987, f. 3, op. 10, d. 1046, l. 209–29; Samuelson, Plans for Stalin’s War Machine, 188; Zakharov, General’nyi shtab, 125–33.
20. Verkhovskii, Ogon’, manevr, i maskirovka, 131.
21. Tukhachevskii, “O strategicheskikh vzglyadakh Prof. Svechina,” 3–16.
22. Timoshenko had asked twenty-eight generals to sketch their views on the future war, and he chose five to report at the meeting, including Zhukov, commander of Kiev military district, on offensive operations; Ivan Tyulenev, head of Moscow military district, on defense; and Dmitri Pavlov, commander of the Western military district, on mechanized warfare. See also Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvenaia, XII (I): 13–29 (Meretskov), 129–51 (Zhukov); Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 99 (citing RGASPI, f. 77, op. 116, d. 97, l. 12: Zhdanov, Nov. 20, 1940).
23. Cynthia Roberts notes that Isserson was not alone. Colonel A. I. Starunin published an article in early 1941 explaining that Germany’s victories had undone the theory that the initial period of war would see “armies of incursion” attempting to seize various objectives as the main forces completed mobilization in the rear. Starunin, however, blunted the force of his argument, proposing that the Red Army could attain air superiority and disrupt German rail lines to inhibit the enemy’s mobilization, after proving that no such mobilization would be necessary. Starunin, “Operativnaia vnezapnost’.”
24. Isserson’s text, dated June–July 1940, had not taken up the German campaign in France, but had concluded with an oblique reference: “Only six months later in the West, events transpired that further showed the development of the new military art to a higher level of large-scale modern European war.” Isserson, Novye formy bor’by, 28; Anfilov, Doroga k tragedii, 74; Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvenaia, XII (I): 15 (Meretskov), 152–4, 247–9 (Klyonov); Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/i: 56. See also Harrison, Architect of Victory, 228–34. Isserson (b. 1898) had been shown up by the Finnish War (during which he headed the staff of the Seventh Army). He would be arrested on June 7, 1941, and condemned to death, but reprieved to ten years in a camp in northern Kazakhstan.
25. As early as 1936, Soviet military analysts argued that a frontal assault-style war would not work in the East. Erickson, “Threat Identification,” 396–8 (citing Krasnaia zvezda, May and June 1936).
26. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, XII (I): 204–5 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 57, l. 70–3). Khryunkin had led a bomber squadron that had sunk a Japanese aircraft carrier, been given China’s highest military award, and went on to complete the General Staff Academy and lead an army in the Winter War. Timoshenko, in his concluding summary, which was published as a brochure for internal use, giving it the character of a general directive, acknowledged that the leaders of the air force disagreed on the best ways to employ air power and urged them to think more about achieving air supremacy. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, XII (I): 173–82 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 57, l. 1–24), 164–7 (d. 56, l. 85–92), 338–72 (op. 15, d. 27, l. 575–607).
27. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, XII (I): 339–40.
28. Naumov, 1941 god, I: 498n2 (citing APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 437); Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 262. “I read your ‘In the steppes of Ukraine,’” the document-centric despot wrote to Korneychuk (Dec. 28, 1940). “It came out brilliantly—artistic and complete, cheery and joyous. . . . By the way: I also added some words on page 68. That was for greater clarity.” The words he inserted specified that, despite some changes, the collective farm tax would essentially stay the same. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 4674, l. 1–2; Gromov, Stalin, 223–4; Sochineniia, XVIII: 209. In the book Subversive Activity of Foreign Intelligence in the USSR, published in Dec. 1940, the author wrote that “as the main method of masking they chose hypocritical-sham ‘devotion’ to the cause of proletarian revolution and socialist construction.” Loyalty, in other words, was a sign of disloyalty. Minaev, Podryvnaia deiatel’nost’ inostrannykh razvedok v SSSR.