431. Rudich, Holod 1932–1933 rokiv na Ukraini, 409 (March 5, 1933), 433–7 (March 12), 480–1 (April 1); Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 420 (RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8, d. 25, l. 32–5: March 22, 1933). “Citizenness Gerasimenko ate the corpse of her dead sister,” noted a March 1933 report from the North Caucasus for the OGPU higher-ups. “Citizen Doroshenko, after the death of his father and mother, was left with infant sisters and brothers, ate the flesh of his brothers and sisters when they died of hunger.” OGPU operatives appended many names of hardworking farmers who had died of starvation. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 648–9 (TsA FSB, f. 4, op. 11, d. 42, l. 62–4: March 7, 1933), 662–5 (f. 2, op. 11, d. 42 l. 113–6: April 3, 1933).
432. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 363–64 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 11, d. 42, l. 149–50: North Caucasus, March 21, 1933), 422–4 (d. 551, l. 36–8: March 31, 1933).
433. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 527–8 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 10, d. 514, l. 234–6: Nov. 5, 1932), 661–2 (op. 11, d. 42, l. 101–3: April 1, 1933).
434. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 644–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 741, l. 3). That March of 1933, Trotsky, from Turkey, sought to reconcile himself with Stalin, pledging readiness to “enter into preliminary negotiations without any publicity.” Stalin might have played along, trying to lure him back to Moscow, but, whether from distraction or other causes, appears not to have tried. In summer 1933, Trotsky would accept an offer of asylum in France, although he would not be allowed to settle in Paris. Petrement, Simone Weil: A Life, 189–91.
435. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 206, 420 (RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8, d. 25, l. 32–5: March 22, 1933).
436. Antipova et al., Golod v SSSR, 330–1 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 918, l. 1, 18–19, 23–4).
437. This was part of a re-registration of weapons Union-wide. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChk, 419 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 14, l. 96–7).
438. Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 192–4 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 907, l. 58–60: Voroshilov to Gamarnik, from Sochi, Dec. 7, 1932), 196–7 (d. 38, l. 80: Dec. 17, 1932), 213 (d. 43, l. 60–3).
439. The year before, Kopelev had fallen in love with the daughter of a specialist accused of being a Polish spy in the Shakhty case (Iu. N. Matov), who was sentenced to death but received a reprieve. Kopelev, I sotvoril sebe kumira, 234.
440. Kopelev, “Last Grain Collections (1933),” 224–86. The official was Roman Terekhov. He would survive and, after Stalin’s death, recall the following rebuke in late 1932: “We’ve been told that you, Comrade Terekhov, are a good speaker. It seems that you are a good storyteller—you have made up quite a good fable about famine, thinking to frighten us, but it won’t work! Wouldn’t it be better for you to quit the post of provincial party secretary and the Ukrainian Central Committee and join the Writers’ Union? Then you can write your fables, and fools will read them.” Medvedev, Let History Judge, 241 (citing Pravda, May 26, 1964); Zelenin, “O nekotorykh ‘belykh piatnakh,’” 15–6.
441. Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain, 198–237.
442. One contemporary described Postyshev as “tall and thin as a lath, with a grating bass voice. No fool . . . but careless of others’ feelings.” Tokaev, Betrayal of an Ideal, 166. Conspicuously, Postyshev had told the Jan. 1933 Central Committee plenum that “it is not good hiding behind the back of the kulak, even more so when his back is not as wide as before,” warning “we will not change the situation like that” and urging plenum attendees to get better at administration of the large-scale, complex economy. Zelenin, “Politotdely MTS,” 53. In March 1933, two months after Postyshev’s arrival and one month after the appointment of Balytsky as NKVD plenipotentiary in Ukraine, Mykola Skrypnyk had been sacked as the republic’s education commissar. On July 7, 1933, vilified at the Ukrainian politburo by Postyshev for “counterrevolutionary nationalism,” Skrypnyk would go home to his apartment in Kharkov and take his own life rather than politically recant. Corbett, “Rehabilitation of Mykola Skrypnyk.”
443. Kopelev managed to transfer to Moscow University, where he did German studies. He would be expelled from the Communist Youth League for ties to Trotskyites.
