79. Belsky was kicked over to the lowly supply commissariat, Messing to the foreign trade commissariat, and Olsky to the trust overseeing Moscow cafeterias. Stalin took the opportunity to insert Lavrenti Beria into the OGPU collegium as well. Artuzov, after a phone conversation with Mężyński, wrote him a letter (Dec. 3, 1931), upset that his loyalty had come under question, professed never to have collected material against Yagoda, and asked to be assigned different work. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 354–8 (TsA FSB, d. R-4489, t. 3, l. 12–4). See also Kokurin and Petrov, “OGPU, 1929–1934 gg.,” 104; Gladkov, Nagrada, 375–7.
80. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 275 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 10, l. 127), 276 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 840, l. 1, 2), 805–6n87 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 842, l. 5, 14); Il’inskii, Narkom Iagoda, 172. In the 1960s, Medved’s brother-in-law (D. B. Sorokin) would claim that Kirov had blocked Medved’s transfer out of Leningrad. RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 67, l. 7–14 (Sorokin to Khrushchev, March 5, 1962). There is a garbled version in Orlov, Secret History, 14–15.
81. Yevdokimov would take with a venegeance to his new assignment to bring rebels, known as “Basmachi,” to heel in the Tajikistan mountains bordering Afghanistan and the Turkmenistan desert bordering Iran. Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 221 (citing TsA FSB, arkhivnoe sledvestvennoe delo no. 14963 on Papashenko I. P., l. 120, quoting Iu. K. Ivanov-Borodin).
82. Naumov, Bor’ba v rukovodstve NKVD, 31–2. Balytsky, for example, brought a substantial number of Chekists to Moscow from Ukraine, while also leaving many loyalists behind to watch over Ukraine for him. Sever, Volkodav Stalina, 69–70. Molchanov, of Ivanovo province, would be moved to Moscow as head of the secret-political department on Nov. 20, 1931: Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 287 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 861, l. 9).
83. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement, 16 (citing Bodleian Library, Simon MS70, fols 86, 132). “France—at the head of our enemies,” was the title of a section of a 1931 Soviet pamphlet. Mezhdunarodnoe polozhenie, 12. On July 18, 1931, for the first time since the war, a German chancellor, Brüning, went to Paris. Soon, Brüning, backed by Britain, would announce that Germany would seek the cancellation of all reparations.
84. The incident, involving Artashes Khalatyants, known as Artyom Khalatov, a Baku-born (1894) ethnic Armenian and the director of the state publishing house (since 1927), is related by Ivan Gronsky, then the editor of Izvestiya. Gronskii, Iz proshlogo, 153. Stalin wrote a note to Khalatov, along with Kaganovich and Kalinin, on Sept. 12, 1931, indicating he had not been excommunicated, but he would be sacked from the state publishing house on April 15, 1932; the disgraced Tomsky was named in his stead. Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b): povestki dnia zasedanii, II: 201, 205, 296 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 840, 842, 880); Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 100 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 61), 110 (l. 73), 112 (l. 73–73ob.). Khalatov would be arrested on Sept. 26, 1937, and executed in Oct. 1938.
85. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 275–6 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 10, l. 127; op. 3, d. 840, l. 1–2), 280 (d. 841, l. 5, 9: Aug. 10 circular), 280 (d. 841, l. 5, 9: Aug. 6, 1931); Na prieme, 48. After Stalin had departed the capital, Kaganovich asked who ought to announce the personnel changes to the OGPU itself; Stalin insisted it had to be a party secretary, so that “the report is not assessed as revenge by one part of the OGPU against another.” Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 48 (f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 9–9ob.: Aug. 15, 1931), 48n1 (f. 17, op. 162, d. 10, l. 127), 49 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 10–10ob.: Aug. 15). On July 10, the politburo had decreed that “no Communists, working in the organs of the GPU or outside the organs, either in the center or in locales, should be arrested without the consent of the Central Committee,” and that “no specialists (engineering technical personnel, military, agronomists, physicians, and so on) should be arrested without the consent of the corresponding people’s commissar.” Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 107; Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 60 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 840, l. 9). Later, this need to obtain a higher-up’s permission for arrests of subordinates would have the effect of making complicit people’s commissars and others in the annihilation of loyal cadres.
