112. The USSR’s sparsely populated, exposed Far Eastern territory was not even administered by the local party machine, but by the army (Vasily Blyukher) and secret police (Terenty Deribas), in vicious rivalry. Rumors of Blyukher’s pending arrest, in connection with Operation “Springtime,” had circulated in late 1930 and resurfaced in May and June 1931, although on Aug. 6, the second anniversary of the Far Eastern Army, Voroshilov, on an extended inspection tour, locally announced Blyukher’s award of the Order of Lenin. Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 72 (citing Times, Nov. 20, 22, 25, 1930); Izvestiia, Aug. 18, 1931; Dushen’kin, Proletarskii marshal, 111.
113. Toshihio, “Extension of Hostilities,” 241–33; Slavinskii, Sovetskii Soiuz i Kitai, 219–20 (citing AVP RF, fond Litvinova, op. 12, pap. 85, d. 45, 8–9); Coox, Nomonhan, 23; Stephan, Russian Far East, 183–5; Steiner, Lights that Failed, 719–20. On Oct. 28, 1931, the Japanese ambassador conveyed an ultimatum warning against a military response; TASS published it and the Soviet reply (a policy of “strict noninterference”) two days later. The Japanese suspected the Soviets were supplying the Chinese resistance. DVP SSSR, XIV: 820.
114. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 116–7 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 76–76ob.). Stalin called for toning down the boasts in the press about ongoing Red Army military maneuvers in the Western military district. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 121–2 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 81: Sept. 27, 1931).
115. Davies, Crisis and Progress, 113 (citing RGAE, f. 4372, op. 91, d. 871, l. 98–9), 115 (GARF, f. 4372, op. 57, d. 16, l. 30: art. 212ss).
116. Kondrashin and Penner, Golod, 114. Later, Kondrashin republished this book excising Penner’s co-authorship (Moscow: Rosspen, 2008).
117. The official 1931 harvest estimate had been lowered several times, to 69.5 million tons, which still ended up to be a massive overestimate. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 76, 446; Davies et al., Economic Transformation, 286–8 (table 19).
118. Khlevniuk et al., Stenogrammy zasedanii politbiuro, 14–5 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 732, l. 18; d. 484, l. 42, 48). For different figures (38 million as of early 1932), see Carr and Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, I: 700–4; Davies, Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 289–300; Davies, Crisis and Progress, 177. A newly established grain reserve fund had stood at 2 million tons, but it soon vanished through export and a massive increase in internal consumption.
119. “There are few Englishmen who do not rejoice at the breaking of our golden fetters,” John Maynard Keynes wrote. Eichengreen, Golden Fetters, 21.
120. France by itself was too weak to stabilize the global monetary system, and the United States, which had its own economic and financial challenges, refused to do so. Steiner, Lights that Failed, 698–9; more broadly, see Tooze, Deluge.
121. “The End of an Epoch,” Economist, Sept. 26, 1931: 547; Steiner, Lights that Failed, 663–8; Eichengreen, Golden Fetters, 298–9.
122. Eichengreen, Golden Fetters. Politicians, with the post–Great War widening of the suffrage and the spread of trade unions and leftist parties, proved skittish about imposing economic adjustment on their electorates for the sake of the stability of financial markets, a lack of credible commitment that undid global finance and trade. Simmons, Who Adjusts? Of course, “international cooperation” might not have been an issue at all if the United States had undertaken expansionary policies, generating the capital outflow that could have supplied much-needed liquidity and therefore the security sought by the governments in Europe that lacked confidence. (Given that the consumers’ expenditure average value index dropped close to 30 percent between 1929 and 1933, moderately expansionary policies would not have threatened inflation.) Britain would launch monetary expansion in 1932, and endure a relatively milder crisis; Japan would emulate the British and enjoy a robust recovery. Franklin Roosevelt would rescue the banks with public money, in 1933. Many people at the time, and subsequently, viewed his actions as opening a path to recovery. But that recovery would be halting, at best, and full of policy mistakes. Kindleberger, World in Depression; Friedman and Schwartz, Monetary History; Eichengreen, Golden Fetters.
123. Steiner, Lights that Failed, 668–70.
