286. The sprawling twelve-floor structure had some 550 rental apartments, which were centrally allocated and equipped with oak wood floors, gas stoves, constructivist furniture, telephones, radio receivers, gramophones, and frescoes on the ceilings. The complex had schools and nurseries, shops, a laundry, a medical facility, a savings bank branch, a post office, a performance space, and the “Shock Worker” cinema (the country’s first sound-equipped cinema), with 1,500 seats. Prepared food could be delivered to one’s door. Each family had access to a maid, and there were elevator operators and building staff who kept the keys. It was assumed that early service personnel worked for or reported to the OGPU.
287. After nearly an hour, Molotov and others joined. Na prieme, 126. The central Comintern apparatus numbered about 500 staff (more than 800 with inclusion of technical personnel).
288. Jackson, Popular Front, 17–51.
289. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 11 (April 3, 1934), 12–5 (April 7, 1934). Hundreds of Austrian socialist “Schutzbundists” escaped the crackdown, fleeing to Czechoslovakia, whence they were invited to the USSR. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 19n16; Fischer, Le grande rêve socialiste, 280–1.”
290. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 19 (May 2, 1934).
291. Dobry, “February 1934,” 129–50; Jenkins and Millington, France and Fascism.
292. Chase, Enemies within the Gates?, 15 (citing Community party archives, Sofia, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 317, l. 11); Leibzon and Shirina, Povorot v politike Kominterna, 93 (citing Tsentralen partien arkhiv pri TsK na VKP [Sofia], f. 146, op. 2, d. 317, l. 11). See also Carr, Twilight of the Comintern, 127, 191. In Austria, in Feb. 1934, street thugs, police, and army forces loyal to Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss (who had suspended parliamentary rule) assaulted banned yet still powerful socialist organizations—and Social Democrat-led workers fought back.
293. Artuzov was in the Little Corner on April 19, May 16 and 25, 1934. Na prieme, 127, 562–3. In May 1934, Stalin also cut off the ability of Radek’s bureau to request secret information from Soviet intelligence or diplomatic agencies. Ken, “‘Rabota po istorii,’” 108–16.
294. The exposures occurred in Vienna, Riga, Hamburg, Helsinki, and Paris between 1931 and 1933, and led to the loss of dozens of agents. A politburo injunction against recruitment of agents among foreign Communists (Dec. 8, 1926) came up against the fact that individuals who were ready to serve the Soviet cause, held foreign passports, and spoke accentless foreign languages were in very short supply outside foreign Communist circles. Kolpakidi and Prokhorov, Imperiia GRU, I: 196; Lurie and Kochik, GRU, 477; Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 185–6; Gorbunov, Stalin i GRU, 248–9; Damaskin, Stalin i razvedka, 164. One key figure in the Soviet spy network in Paris, Léopold Trepper (b. 1904), the son of a failed Jewish shopkeeper in Habsburg Galicia, escaped via Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union; he would eventually be posted to Brussels.
295. Gorbunov, “Voennaia razvedka v 1934–1939 godakh” (no. 2), 99 (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 599); Kolpakidi and Prokhorov, Imperiia GRU, I: 201; Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 311 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 16, l. 25). TASS denied the Soviets in France had been engaged in espionage. Pravda, March 30, 1934. See also Primakov, Ocherki, III: 62.
296. On May 25, 1934, Stalin received Artuzov without Berzin. Na prieme, 127, 130. The politburo decree insisted on better cooperation between military and civilian intelligence, better compartmentalization in operations, paying attention in hiring not only to social origins but nationality, and quickly establishing a school to train large numbers of new spies in small groups. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 522–3 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 16, l. 64–6).
297. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 208–9. Artuzov was supposed to spend two-thirds of his time in military intelligence. At civilian intelligence, his deputies, Abram Slutsky and Boris Berman, were to bear the load.
298. In June 1934, the civil war–era Revolutionary Military Council was abolished, and a more modest advisory Main Military Council was created. Erickson, Soviet High Command, 371–2.
