46. For a judicious overview of Trotsky’s factional activities in the 1920s, see I. D. Thatcher, Trotsky, Routledge: London 2003 chaps 5–6.
47. See J. Harris, ‘Discipline versus Democracy: The 1923 Party Controversy’ in L. Douds, J. Harris & P. Whitewood (eds), The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution: Illiberal Liberation, 1917–41, Bloomsbury Academic: London 2020. Many of the relevant documents may be found in V. Vilkova, The Struggle for Power: Russia in 1923, from the Secret Archives of the Former Soviet Union, Prometheus Books: Amherst NY 1996.
48. See S. F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888–1938, Oxford University Press: Oxford 1971.
49. I. Halfin, Intimate Enemies: Demonizing the Bolshevik Opposition, 1918–1928, University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh 2007.
50. Ibid., p.250.
51. M. David-Fox, Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks, 1918–1929, Cornell University Press: Ithaca NY and London 1997 p.117. Stalin’s copy of the text may be found among the collection of his library books in the State Socio-Political Library. Ironically, Kanatchikov himself became a member of the United Opposition. He recanted and then held several responsible party posts but was arrested and executed in 1937.
52. Volkogonov, Stalin, p.260.
53. S. Kotkin, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1928–1941, Penguin: London 2017 p.787.
54. Many relevant documents may be found in Politburo i Lev Trotsky, 1922–1940gg: Sbornik Dokumentov, IstLit: Moscow 2017.
55. J. Stalin, Works, vol.12, Foreign Languages Publishing House: Moscow 1955 p.358.
56. Ibid., vol.13 p.101.
57. Ibid., p.113.
58. Ibid., p.354.
59. J. Arch Getty & O. V. Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 1999 pp.140–1.
60. See J. Arch Getty, ‘The Politics of Repression Revisited’ in J. Arch Getty and R. T. Manning (eds), Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1993. Also: M. E. Lenoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2010.
61. Thatcher, Trotsky, pp.190–1.
62. Cited by Y. Slezkine, The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution, Princeton University Press: Princeton 2019 p.716.
63. Getty & Naumov, The Road to Terror, doc.37.
64. M. Lenoe, ‘Fear, Loathing, Conspiracy: The Kirov Murder as Impetus for Terror’ in J. Harris (ed.), The Anatomy of Terror, Oxford University Press: Oxford 2013 p.208. Some of the interrogation documents may be found here: Lubyanka: Stalin i VChK-GPU-OGPU-NKVD (Yanvar’ 1922–Dekabr’ 1936), Materik: Moscow 2003 docs.494, 505, 506–9, 511–14. English translations of these documents may be found in D. R. Shearer & V. Khaustov (eds), Stalin and the Lubianka: A Documentary History of the Political Police and Security Organs in the Soviet Union, 1922–1953, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2015.
65. I have merged and separated by the ellipsis two quotations from Stalin’s conversion with Rolland: from the archive document (RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, D.795, doc.1 Ll.10–11.) and from H. Kuromiya, Stalin, Pearson Longman: Harlow 2005 p.116. I am grateful to Michael David-Fox for the archival reference.
66. Ibid., L.12. Rolland wanted to publish the transcript of the interview but Stalin didn’t respond to his requests. An English translation of the French version of the transcript may be found here: https://mltoday.com/from-the-archives-1935-interview-of-stalin-by-romain-rolland.
67. W. Z. Goldman, Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin: The Social Dynamics of Repression, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2007 p.72.
68. D. M. Crowe, ‘Late Imperial and Soviet “Show” Trials, 1878–1938’ in D. M. Crowe (ed.), Stalin’s Soviet Justice: ‘Show’ Trials, War Crimes Trials and Nuremberg, Bloomsbury Academic: London 2019, and W. Chase, ‘Stalin as Producer: The Moscow Show Trials and the Construction of Mortal Threats’ in S. Davies & J. Harris (eds), Stalin: A New History, Cambridge: Cambridge 2005.
69. Ibid., pp.105–8.
70. Getty & Naumov, The Road to Terror, pp.565–6.
71. The full text (in Russian) of Stalin’s speech to the plenum may be found in Lubyanka: Stalin i Glavnoe Upravlenie Gosbezopastnosti NKVD, 1937–1938, Demokratiya: Moscow 2004 doc.31. For a translated extract see https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1937/03/03.htm. Accessed 4 August 2021.
72. P. Whitewood, ‘Stalin’s Purge of the Red Army and the Misperception of Security Threats’ in J. Ryan & S. Grant (eds), Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism: Complexities, Contradictions and Controversies, Bloomsbury Academic: London 2020 p.49. See also the same author’s The Red Army and the Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Soviet Military, University Press of Kansas: Lawrence 2015.
73. Lubyanka: Stalin i Glavnoe Upravlenie, doc.92.
74. Shearer & Khaustov, Stalin and the Lubianka, doc.104.
75. Ibid., doc.109 and J. Harris, The Great Fear: Stalin’s Terror of the 1930s, Oxford University Press: Oxford 2016 pp.176–7. For an analysis of what prompted these Politburo decisions, see also J. Arch Getty, ‘Pre-Election Fever: The Origins of the 1937 Mass Operations’ in Harris, The Anatomy of Terror. According to other figures, the plan was to repress 268,950 kulaks, including 75,950 executions. In the event, 767,397 people were repressed, of which 386,798 were executed.
76. On Stalin and Spain see O. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2015 pp.153–6. Also: D. Kowalsky, ‘Stalin and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939: The New Historiography’ in Ryan & Grant (eds), Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism.
77. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, p.155.
78. I. Banac (ed.), The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933–1949, Yale University Press: London & New Haven 2003 p.67.
79. Bol’shaya Tsenzura: Pisateli i Zhurnalisty v Strane Sovetov, 1917–1956, doc.373. Stalin’s handwritten corrections to the draft of the article may be viewed here: RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, D.1124, doc.6. The article was published in Pravda on 24 August, though not precisely in the form prescribed by Stalin.
80. See the documents in Getty & Naumov, The Road to Terror, chap.12.
81. Stalin’s report to the 18th party congress in J. Stalin, Leninism, Allen & Unwin: London 1940, esp. pp.656–62.
82. The original of the document was on display at an exhibition in Moscow in 2016.
83. M. Folly, G. Roberts & O. Rzheshevsky, Churchill and Stalin: Comrades-in-Arms during the Second World War, Pen & Sword Books: Barnsley 2019 doc.38 p.145.
84. RGASPI, F558, Op.3, D.26 p.198 of the book for Stalin’s underlining.
85. Ch. Rossel’, Razvedka i Kontr-Razvedka, Moscow: Voenizdat 1937; RGASPI, F.558, Op.11, D.743.
86. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, p.155.