61. Voroshilov had boasted to a Central Committee plenum in April 1928 that “the commanders we received from the tsarist army at the present time have become completely reliable, ours, if not 100 percent, then 99 percent, we assimilated them and melded them in with the young red cadres.” Danilov and Khlevniuk, Kak lomali NEP, I: 280. The defense commissar kept a vigilant eye on rivals, and had once denounced Budyonny to Stalin as “too much a peasant, excessively popular and very cunning,” adding that “in the imagination of our enemies, Budyonny will play the role of some sort of savior [a peasant Leader], heading a ‘people’s’ movement.” “‘Cherkni . . . desiatoic slov,” 408 (Feb. 1, 1923). Voroshilov also complained about negative reports generated by the Red Army’s political administration. Khlevniuk, Politburo, 37; Zdanovich, Organy, 158 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 1, d. 5, l. 21ob.–22), 114 (op. 5, d. 478, l. 168). Voroshilov’s aide-de-camp was Rafail Khmelnitsky (b. 1898).
62. According to the Lesser Soviet Encyclopedia (1931): “Officers constituted a closed caste, access to which was open predominantly to those of the ruling class . . . they were a true bulwark of the autocracy in the struggle against the revolutionary movement.” Malaia Sovetskaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1931), VI: 208. Much the same would be stated, even more colorfully, eight years later: Bol’shaia Sovetskaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1939), XLIII: 674. See also Denikin, Ocherki russkoi smuti, III: 144–5.
63. “According to OGPU data,” Mężyński reported to Stalin, “all counterrevolutionary organizations and groups are striving to penetrate the Red Army . . . Recently we have uncovered numerous such rebel groups tied to the Red Army, about which we will offer a special report. I consider it necessary to convey to you a communication about one such organization discovered by the Ukraine GPU that presents the greatest interest.” Stalin had received Mężyński on Oct. 14 and 26, 1930. Ukraine GPU chief Balytsky was summoned to Moscow. Zdanovich, Organy, 388–9 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 247, l. 292; d. 15, l. 451–2).
64. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 122; Zdanovich, Organy, 390 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 237, l. 144, 136). Evidently, when the central OGPU in Moscow sent a brigade to the Ukrainian capital of Kharkov, it found anti-Soviet moods among former tsarist officers but no organization. Zdanovich, Organy, 391–2 (citing TsA FSB, delo R-4807, t. 1, l. 39, 44: May 8, 1938), 433. A Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) had been founded in Belgrade in 1924 by General Wrangel, Lieutenant General Alexander Kutepov, and the Romanov pretender, Grand Duke Nikolai Niloaevich, and was run out of Paris by Kutepov. His deputy, Major General Nikolai Skoblin, was an OGPU agent. The general staffs of Poland and Finland allowed their diplomatic pouches to carry ROVS materials to and from Moscow. Kutepov had concluded that only terrorist acts could shake the entrenched Soviet regime (or as Kutepov is said to have remarked, “detonate” the country), precisely the reasoning of the underground leftist terrorists during the tsarist days. On Jan. 26, 1930, Kutepov was kidnapped by an OGPU team coordinated by Yakov Serebryansky (the “Yasha team” for special tasks). Voitsekhovskii, Trest, 10–11; Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 58; Barmine, One Who Survived, 186; Pipes, Struve, 379–87; Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 23; Krasnaia zvezda, Sept. 22, 1965.
65. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 262 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 171, l. 4–5); Zdanovich, Organy, 390 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 63, l. 50: Feb. 16, 1931). The Moscow “center” was said to consist of Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich, Alexander Verkhovsky, Sergei Kamenev, Alexander Svechin, Kakurin, and Snesarev—several with ties to Tukhachevsky.
66. Artizov et al., Reabilitatsiia: kak eto bylo, II: 671–788; Z arkhiviv VUChK, GPU, NKVD, KGB, no. 1, issue 18 (2002): 209; Khaustov, Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 212–3 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 7, l. 188, 192); Zdanovich, Organy, 423–31. The main scholarly authority, who provides a list of names while admitting the impossibility of establishing exact figures, writes that as many as 10,000 officers might have been arrested and sentenced. Tynchenko, Golgofa, 242, 248–311. See also Berkhin, Voennaia reforma, 261.
