444. Kopelev, Education of a True Believer, 11–2. See also Crossman, God That Failed, 43, 53 (Koestler). Kopelev’s father, an agronomist, raged at him, the “editor-philosopher,” who had seized starving peasants’ grain. Their argument dissolved in drunken tears. Kopelev regarded his father as “a conscientious specialist, but a limited, vacillating philistine, weighed down with old Socialist Revolutionary prejudices.”
445. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 423 (citing TsDAGOU, f. 1, op. 20, d. 6275, l. 225: Kharkov, May 30, 1933).
446. Sholokhov largely blamed regional officialdom, but he also called what he saw “not individual instances of excesses,” but “the ‘method’ of carrying out grain procurements.” On July 4, 1933, the politburo would hear Shkiryatov’s report on “excesses” in Veshensk county, after which the second secretary, the plenipotentiary for grain collections, and others were transferred elsewhere, but not arrested. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 717 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 2035, l. 4), 717–20 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 827, l. 1–22), 720–1 (f. 17, op. 3, d. 2040, l. 5–6); “Sholokhov i Stalin: perepiska nachala 30-x godov”; Pravda, March 10, 1964; Murin, Pisatel’ i vozhd’, 28–58, 68, 145–7.
447. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 429–35 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 171, l. 91–101). Whereas in 1932, 3,889 “socially alien elements” were removed from the ranks, the number jumped to 22,308 in 1933. There would be more than 20,000 arrests in 1933 in the army of spies and wreckers. Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 49–51. Stalin had told the Central Committee (May 2, 1933) that “the Russian nation is the most talented nation in the world,” a long-standing theme of his, but also that “the peasant [muzhik]” had to be taught “not to oppose his interests to the state,” not to live in the past, for “the old must die out.” Stalin’s approach to the village rested largely on his view of the Russian peasant (muzhik), rather than the Ukrainian peasant or Kazakh nomad. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1117, l. 10, 11, 14, 23.
448. On April 24, 1933, the Japanese ambassador to Moscow (Ota) inquired of Karakhan about purchasing the Chinese Eastern Railway, and on May 2 the Soviets agreed to negotiations quickly, but the Kwantung Army had no intention of buying what they could seize, the NKVD reported to Stalin. DVP SSSR, XVI: 831–2 n114; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 83, l. 39. Litvinov favored a sale, to take the wind out of the sails of the pro-war party in Tokyo, while Karakhan viewed such an act as an invitation to Japanese aggressors to increase their demands; Stalin backed Litvinov. Izvestiya, May 1 and 12, 1933; DVP SSSR, XIII: 736–42, XIV: 320 (May 7, 1931), 786–9n76, 533–5, 544–8; XV: 790–1n229, 794n245; XVI: 831–2n114, 115.
449. Japanese Interior Minister Goto Shinpei had characterized the United States as “a great hypocritical monster clothed in justice and humanity.” Tooze, Deluge, 143. Japan formally quit the League on March 27, 1933. Burkman, Japan and the League of Nations. Eight days before Japan withdrew, Mussolini announced a desire to create a “four-power pact” between Britain, France, Italy, and Germany to arbitrate European and world affairs in place of the League. It was classic nineteenth-century balance of power, imagining Italy as one of the powers. A diluted version amounting to nothing was signed in Rome on July 15, 1933. Jaurusch, Four Power Pact.
450. International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo: 1946–48), exhibit 193; Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy, 185.
451. Harris, “Encircled by Enemies,” 534 (citing RGVA, f. 9, op. 39/5c, l. 2–21, 76–82, 109–116).
452. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 185, l. 97–102.
453. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 791, l. 33–8; Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 235–6 (RGASPI, f. 667, op. 1, d. 17, l. 38–9: Karakhan to Yenukidze, June 4, 1933); DVP SSSR, XVI: 837–8.
454. Kuznetskii [pseudonym], “Kakov smysl tokiiskikh peregovorov o prodazhe KVZhD,” Bol’shevik, 1933, no. 14: 65–71.
