11. Pravda, July 1, 1925; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 506, l. 4, 31–7: June 18, 125; Kemp-Welch, Stalin and the Literary Intelligentsia, 21–67 (esp. 34); Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vol. 74 (Moscow: Nauka, 1965): 29–37; Ermakov, 376–7.
12. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 633, l. 3–4: May 5, 1927; Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 84 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 697, l. 10). Non-party though it might have been, the weekly Literaturnaya gazeta was going to be overseen by the apparatus.
13. See also Fitzpatrick, Cultural Front, 145.
14. One scholar observed that “writers embroiled in controversy sought to use Stalin against their adversaries and were therefore themselves to some extent responsible for establishing the pattern of authoritarian control.” Brown, “Year of Acquiescence,” 57.
15. Krivenko, “Solovetskii ITL OGPU.” In April 1930, the OGPU system was organized under a “Main Administration of Camps”—in Russian “Gulag,” a bureaucratic moniker that soon changed but would stick in popular reference. Carr and Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, II: 359–60, 373; Wheatcroft, “Assessing the Size,” at 287; Ivanova, Gulag; Upadyshev, “Ot Solovkov k GULAGu,” 93; Kokurin and Petrov, “OGPU, 1929–1934 gg.,” 100. The Main Administration of the Construction of the Far North, centered in Magadan, lasted from 1931 to 1957; and the Karaganda Camp Complex, which at its height would reach 80 camps, lasted from 1931 to 1959. Kokurin and Petrov, Gulag; Krivenko, “Karagandinskii ITL”; Sigachev, “Glavnoe upravlenie stroitel’stva Dal’nego Severa”; Krivenko, “Belomoro-Baltiiskii ITL.”
16. Solzhenitsyn would dub Dalstroi “the greatest and most famous island, the pole of ferocity of that amazing country of Gulag.” Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago, I: ix. See also Kokurin and Petrov, Gulag, 72 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 11, l. 57, 63).
17. That year 9,928 of the approximately 16,000 prisoners reached Magadan alive; in 1933, 27,390 would survive the journey. Subsequently, 32,304 would survive the journey in 1934; 44,601 in 1935; and 62,703 in 1936—a labor force. About 20 percent of the workers were not prisoners. Stephan, Russian Far East, 225–32. Reported gold extraction rose from 511 kilograms of pure gold in 1932 to 5,515 kilograms in 1934; 14,458 kg in 1935; and 33,360 kg in 1936. Total gold mining across the entire Soviet Union had been 13,215 kg in 1928. Nordlander, “Economic History of Dalstroi,” 105–25.
18. Aizenberg, Valiutnaia sistema SSSR, 64; Davies, Crisis and Progress, 162–3 (citing GARF, f. 5446, op. 57, d. 18, l. 85–95: art. 234/45s, 138–9: art. 372/79ss). Roy Medvedev wrote that “there existed a system of examinations which allowed ten-year sentences to be reduced to two or three years, excellent food and clothing, a workday of four to six hours in winter and ten in summer, and good pay, which enabled prisoners to help their families and to return home with funds.” Medvedev, Let History Judge, 508. See also Shalamov, Kolyma Tales, 368–9.
19. Swianiewicz, Forced Labor. There were instances when Gulag labor was more productive than “free” labor.
20. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 363–4 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 11, d. 4, l. 58: Yagoda to Mężyński, June 27, 1933). See also Izvestiia, June 26, 1933; Pravda, June 29, 1933; and Leningradskaia pravda, June 23, 27, and 29, 1933. Stalin had rescued the canal from Rykov’s cost-cutting. Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 212. The Suez Canal, 117 miles long, was built in 15 years, without locks; the Panama Canal, 48 miles long, was built in 33 years, with locks.
21. Pazi, Nash Mironych, 447. Kirov first took a test drive to Moscow, with a single guard, to see if the route was safe, then did the trip again, to pick up the passengers. Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 406 (citing RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 73, l. 96–132: Sveshnikov, 1966).
22. Stalin and Kirov likely first met in Oct. 1917, at the 2nd Congress of Soviets that had proclaimed a seizure of power (Kirov was a delegate of the Vladikavkaz-Kabardinya soviet). Their relationship is documented from May 29, 1918, when Stalin recommended Kirov as worthy of “complete trust.” Plimak and Antonov, “1 dekabria 1934–go,” 35.
23. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 149, l. 70 (March 6, 1929).
24. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 4554; Sochineniia, VI: 422.
