These and other conjectures—which would echo in the subsequent scholarly literature—offer insight into Soviet mentalities of the time, but no explanation for the terror.282 In Mongolia, there was no old Bolshevism or faux transition to democracy. Mironov had gone back to Ulan Bator, where he would personally help force the arrest of at least 10,000 Mongols in the sparsely populated country, including 300 ministerial officials and 180 military leaders, by the time he returned to Moscow for good in April 1938.283 A onetime lowly ensign of the tsarist army and then a Soviet border guard, Mironov was promoted to deputy foreign affairs commissar responsible for the strategic Far East, moved into the House on the Embankment, obtaining a high-floor six-room apartment with a view to the Kremlin’s onion domes, and fantasized about becoming foreign affairs commissar. His days were numbered.284
Altogether, at least 20,000 Mongols would be executed over the course of 1937–38. Much of its officialdom—Choibalsan excepted—was obliterated.285 (In Spain, the Soviet terror was infinitesimal in comparison.) More than half of Mongolia’s state budget was now being spent on the military, but the Soviets were forcing annihilation of the small number of Mongolian officers. And even after the massive destruction and replacement, Soviet personnel did not trust the Mongolian army—then again, the executions and lies aroused strong anti-Russian feelings.286 The rampage seemed utterly senseless, insanity.
THE LOGIC OF A WARPED MIND
Back at the February–March 1937 plenum, Stalin had referred to “about 12,000 party members who sympathized with Trotsky to some extent or other [in 1927]. Here you see the total forces of the Trotskyite gentlemen.”287 Accurate or not, he presented this number in a way that was dismissive, not alarmist. Similarly, in his November 1936 opening of the 8th Congress of Soviets, apropos of allowing former kulaks to vote in the elections to the new Supreme Soviet, he had said, “Some say this is dangerous, because elements hostile to Soviet power could sneak into the highest offices, some of the former White Guardists, kulaks, priests, and so on. But really, what is there to fear? . . . For one thing, not all former kulaks, White Guardists, and priests are hostile to Soviet power.”288 Half a year later, he approved orders for mass executions of former kulaks because of the mortal danger they posed. “We have become convinced,” Malenkov had revealingly explained on a trip to annihilate the leadership of the autonomous republic of Tatarstan, inside the Russian republic, “that where the tasks of the party and government are not being fulfilled, we must seek enemies.”289
It sounded like complete cynicism: “seek” (or fabricate) enemies. But in Stalin’s world, which his minions came to share, every allegation derived from a kernel of truth, no matter how minuscule. Tukhachevsky