248. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 30, 144. Stalin usually had his afternoon meal in his Kremlin apartment, around 7:00 p.m., often in company, and that was when he saw the children. The conversation was often just between the adults, but eventually he would get around to asking Svetlana and Vasily about school. “His time for seeing me and Vasily was during dinner at the apartment,” Svetlana recalled. “He’d ask me about my lessons, look at the [day]book my marks were entered in and sometimes ask me to show him my exercise books. He used to sign my books, as parents were supposed to do.” Vasily often left his daybooks at home, and refused to carry out his assignments, or did them in ways that violated school regulations, prompting his homeroom teacher to phone his governess. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 122–3, 133; Holmes, Stalin’s School, 71–2, 166–7. Stalin in 1937 ordered the keeping of a secret second daybook to track Vasily’s academic work. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiiakh, 56.
249. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 177 (Svanidze diary: May 9, 1935). Svetlana sometimes visited grandma Olga Alliluyeva and grandpa Sergei Alliluyev, who had a homey Kremlin apartment. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 43.
250. Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters, 145–6.
251. The first article, “Stalin the Terrible,” appeared April 8, but the note from Doletsky (TASS) in London was dated April 7, so the Soviets had a heads-up. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 313 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 1540, l. 33), 313–4 (l. 34–5), 315 (l. 36), 315–6 (l. 51), 316 (l. 37), 316–7 (l. 52: Astakhov in London), 317 (l. 53: Soviet ambassador), 317–8 (l. 54: German press). The newspaper was owned by Lord Beaverbrook.
252. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 318 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 49, l. 30, 31–31ob.).
253. Slavinskii, Sovetskii soiuz i kitai, 275–6.
254. Barmin, Sovetskii Soiuz i Sin´tszian, 146–7.
255. Chiang had been ready to send his own expeditionary force to back the Muslim rebels against the warlord. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims; Gritsenko, “Chto eto bylo?”; Pravda, June 22, 1934; Hedin, History of the Expedition in Asia, III: 84, 112–5; Goldman, Red Road through Asia, 132. On Dec. 15, 1934, the politburo resolved to have a commission look into whether some Uzbek and Kazakh school textbooks could be adapted for Xinjiang. Gatagova, Sovetskaia etnopolitika 1930–1940-e gody, 33–4 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 166, d. 533, l. 14). Molotov would publicly deny, at the 7th Congress of Soviets in Jan. 1935, “the slanderous rumors of the Sovietization of Xinjiang.” Not long thereafter, Soviet forces were fully withdrawn from Xinjiang. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 45; Barmin, Sovetskii Soiuz i Sintszian, 77–9 (citing AVP RF, f. 8/08, op. 14, pap. 130, d. 146, l. 12; d. 147, l. 17, 31; RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, d. 2798, l. 27), 107–8 (citing RGASPI, f. 495, op. 154, d. 457, l. 31–8, 9), 111–2 (AVP RF, f. 8/08, op. 15, pap. 162, d. 117, l. 3, 9), 116, 129–30 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 16, l. 32), 132 (l. 113).
256. Bullitt, For the President, 83.
257. Litvinov wrote to Maisky (April 19) that “the negotiations with America have for now ground to a halt. The Johnson Act has as good as halted our trade with America . . . We have firmly stated that we will not give in to pressure and that we can exist without American trade.” Haslam, Threat from the East, 40; DVP SSSR, XVII: 274–5.
258. Radek and Bukharin told Bullitt, in wishful thinking, “If war can be delayed for a few years a social upheaval in Japan may not be out of the question.” Haslam, Threat from the East, 41, citing FRUS, 109–10 (Bullitt to Hull, April 16, 1934).
259. Litvinov had proposed to German ambassador Nadolny a joint “guarantee” of the independence and territorial inviolability of the Baltic states. On April 14, Germany declined the proposal, observing that the Baltic states might view such a guarantee as tantamount to a German-Soviet protectorate over them. “This fascist concern for the national sentiment of our Baltic neighbors sounds truly touching on fascist lips,” Pravda (April 27, 1934). See also DGFP, series C, II: 686 (Nadolny report, March 29, 1934).
