A Soviet official “close to the Kremlin” told U.S. embassy personnel that any moves by Japan against Mongolia would be regarded as a threat to Soviet territorial integrity, but a week later Japanese-Manchukuo forces burned down a Mongolian frontier post, killing or kidnapping several Mongolian border guards, and this drew only a protest.228 In the meantime, on December 12, a Mongolian delegation arrived in Moscow, again led by Prime Minister Genden, who was dragging his feet over Stalin’s orders to extirpate lama influence and enlarge the penurious country’s military budget.229 Genden was quick-tempered, and known to indulge in wine, women, and indiscreet song. Before his departure from Ulan Bator, he had supposedly boasted, “I’ll deal with that Georgian with the knife-tipped nose. . . . I’ll enjoy a quarrel with him.”230
The Mongols in Moscow had to cool their heels. On Stalin’s official fifty-sixth birthday (December 21, 1935) at the Near Dacha, the Alliluyevs and Svanidzes discovered that they were now outnumbered by politburo officials. “Zhdanov played the accordion beautifully, but it broke down on him a few times,” Maria Svanidze recorded in her diary. “They sang graceful Abkhaz and Ukrainian songs, old student songs, and some plain silly ones. Postyshev was in high spirits. He was jokingly dancing the Russian national dance with Molotov, spoke to him in Kazakh, and this pair entertained I[osif] and all the guests. After supper, everyone went through to the study (the large room). I[osif] wound up the gramophone and people danced the Russian dance, Anastas Ivanovich [Mikoyan] danced the lezginka, wildly, and sometimes lost the rhythm. As usual, we danced the foxtrot. . . . We asked I[osif] to join in, but he said that since the death of Nadya he no longer danced.”231
The regime held a Central Committee plenum from December 21 to 25, and on the final day Yezhov reported on the ongoing party card verification campaign: of the 2.34 million members and candidate members, 1.915 million had gone through the process, and of those, 175,166 had been expelled. Two thirds of the expulsions were for “passivity,” that is, failing to attend meetings, pay dues, or study. Some 20 percent were dropped as White Guards or kulaks, 8.5 percent as swindlers and scoundrels, and some 1 percent as foreign spies. Around 3 percent, 5,500 party members, were expelled as “Trotskyites and Zinovievites.”232 About 15,000 of those expelled would also be arrested. The process, still not complete, was now to be followed by a physical exchange of party cards, old for new. Yezhov congratulated himself.233 On the plenum’s eve, resistance to Stakhanovism had been designated as terrorism.234 At a heavy industry conference the day after the plenum, Orjonikidze conspicuously mentioned nothing of sabotage.235
Stalin had decided to allow, for the first time, the genuine number for projected Soviet military spending for the coming year to be released—a staggering, meant-to-impress 14.8 billion rubles, 16 percent of the state budget.236
Late on December 30, he and his inner circle received the delegation from Mongolia in Molotov’s office, and took an aggressive posture. Molotov: “You, Genden, when drunk, all the time speak anti-Soviet provocations. We know that before your departure to come here, you said that we would recommend a long stay in the Kremlin hospital or holiday in Crimea, ‘in connection with your health.’” Stalin reprimanded Genden for spending only 25 percent of the state budget on the military, asserting that the USSR would spend 70–80 percent when necessary, and demanding that Mongolia spend 50–60 percent. “If you, Genden, are not concerned with the defense of your country, and you think that Mongolia suffers from its ties to the USSR, which you think cheats and takes advantage of Mongolia, and you want to get friendly with Japan, then go ahead!” Stalin declared disingenuously. “We do not compel you to have relations with us if you do not want to.” He added: “You do nothing about the lamas. . . . They can undermine a good army and the rear.”237
Molotov declared a break and invited them to “tea” (often code for spirits). Demid, the defense minister, understood that his country could not manage against possible Japanese aggression without Soviet assistance, while Genden preferred to rely on the country’s own army, with more Soviet weapons, even as he feared excessive debt to, and therefore dependence on, Moscow.238 Whether at this Kremlin session or a New Year’s reception at the Mongolian embassy, Genden, in a drunken state, did something no one else ever had or would—he snatched Stalin’s pipe and smashed it.239
“INTERESTING”
Stalin welcomed the year 1936 with a larger crowd than usual at the Near Dacha: the inner circle and nearly all the people’s commissars as well as his relatives.240 “The country has never lived so full-blooded a life as at present,” Pravda announced in an editorial (January 1, 1936). “Vivacity, confidence, and optimism are universally dominant. The people are, as it were, taking to wing. The country is in the process of becoming not only the richest but also the most cultured in the entire world. The advance of the working class to the level of professional engineers and technicians is on the agenda.” The editorial, “The Stakhanovite Year,” was accompanied by an oversized portrait of Stalin smiling and smoking a pipe.
Molotov boasted to the central executive committee, as reported by the Soviet press, that “representatives of the German government had raised the question of a new and larger credit facility covering a ten-year period.”241 In Berlin, Kandelaki presented a list of desiderata that included submarines, IG Farben chemical patents, and Zeiss optical technology.242 The British embassy in Berlin warned the foreign office about a grand deal in the offing.243 Schacht, who had originally deflected Kandelaki’s attempts to shift their conversations to political matters, now remarked to him, “If a meeting between Stalin and Hitler could take place, it would change many things.” Stalin wrote on his copy of the secret report: “Interesting.”244
“Trotskyites” had also seized attention. Valentin Olberg, a provincial teacher who happened to have just returned from Germany, was arrested by the NKVD (January 5, 1936), which extracted “testimony” from him that he had come back with a special task assigned to him by none other than Trotsky: a “terrorist act” against Stalin. Olberg named other “terrorists” he had “recruited”; arrests followed.245 By spring the NKVD would arrest 508 “Trotskyites,” one of whom was found in possession of Trotsky’s personal archive for 1927. Stalin ordered the NKVD to furnish Yezhov with copies of all documents pertaining to Trotskyites and freed him from overseeing party organs, a task passed to Yezhov’s deputy, Georgy Malenkov (b. 1902). Yezhov now oversaw the NKVD full time.246
In Ulan Bator on January 20, Choibalsan, minister of livestock and agriculture, made an impassioned speech in favor of accepting Soviet “proposals.” Many of the top Mongolian party officials present were reluctant to submit to Stalin’s diktat; some perhaps even favored negotiations with Japan, but they knew someone would immediately inform Moscow. They approved a formal invitation to the USSR for two army brigades, and resolved to increase their own army to 17,000 and their national guard to 2,500.247