125. Taranova, Golos Stalina, 69–70. Levitan had been designated to break the news of Kirov’s assassination for the Soviet public, but he had been out sick. His voice (“Moscow speaking!”) was now heard across the USSR multiple times a day, in a broadcast known as “The Latest News,” from a studio at the Central Telegraph Station. (Natalya Tolstova was the second-most-heard voice.) Legend also has it that Stalin, in his office working on Jan. 25, 1934, on his speech for the 17th Party Congress, had turned up the dial on the radio and heard Levitan, who after a three-year training period, had finally gotten a chance to be assigned to read the next morning’s edition of Pravda over the radio; Stalin called the head of Soviet radio, Konstantin Maltsev, and directed that his congress report the next day—a five-hour performance—be read over the radio in its entirety by the same announcer. Taranova, Golos Stalina, 55–6. See also Tolstova, Vnimanie, vkliuchaiu mikrofon!; Liachenko, “Tak proletelo sorok let . . . ,” 47–51; and Goriaeva, “Veilkaia kniga dnia,” 77 (GARF, f. R-6903, op. 1 l/s, d. 25, l. 24).
126. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiaikh, 168 (Svanidze diary: Dec. 5, 1934).
127. Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 281–3 (TsA FSB, u.a.d., N-Sh44, t. 12, l. 95–6: Nikolayev interrogation, Dec. 4). Agranov reported to Stalin and Yagoda (Dec. 5) over the phone that, according to Draule’s interrogation, “until August she participated in the compilation of her husband’s diary. She confirmed that she read several of his entries that carried a counterrevolutionary character.” He added that Draule’s relatives, in Latvia, were “traders” (i.e., class enemies) and that her brother in Leningrad had been sentenced to a three-year term in a labor colony for embezzlement. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 393 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 60, l. 1–6).
128. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 391–6 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 60, l. 1–6); Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 285–7 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 71, l. 23–6). Nikolayev, in an interrogation protocol (Dec. 13) delivered to Stalin, “confessed” that he belonged to a “group” of former oppositionists (Shatsky and Kotolynov), which adhered to Trotskyite-Zinovievite views and “considered it necessary to change the existing party leadership by all possible means.” This passage was underlined in pencil. The protocol further stated that they had directed Nikolayev to make it appear he acted alone “to hide the participation of the Zinovievite group.” This passage was also highlighted with pencil. Agranov called the threesome “best friends.” He tried to get Nikolayev to confess that his visits to the German and Latvian consulates in summer and fall 1934 constituted attempts by his “group” to contact Trotsky abroad. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 578–9 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 198, l. 2); Zhukov, “Sledstvie.”
129. Khlevniuk, Stalin: zhizn’, 187 (no citation).
130. Na prieme, 144; Mikoian, Tak bylo, 316. Agranov was relieved of his post as acting director of the Leningrad NKVD to focus on the investigation; Zakovsky was appointed in his place (Dec. 10).
131. Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 304 (RGANI, f. 6, op. 13, d. 138, l. 4–9; RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 271, l. 542); Kotolynov had been expelled in 1927 and reinstated in 1928. Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 411.
132. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 49–50 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 130, l. 161), 51 (d. 131, l. 34). From Dec. 1934, Polish-language instruction at schools and institutes was curtailed or eliminated. Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 208 (citing TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 16, spr. 12, ark. 278, 304, 313).
133. Murin, Stalin v ob’iatiakh, 167; Na prieme, 144.
134. Zhukov, “Sledstvie,” 42.
135. Kotolynov claimed he heard the following from Zinoviev: “It would be better if he [Stalin] did not exist.” Kirilina, Neizvestnyi Kirov, 416.
136. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 577–8 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 198, l. 8, 9).
137. When they came for Zinoviev at night, he hastily composed a note to Stalin: “In no way, no way, am I guilty before the party, before the Central Committee or before you personally. I swear to you all by everything that is holy to a Bolshevik, I swear to you by Lenin’s memory. I cannot even imagine who could have raised suspicion against me. I beg you to believe this, my word of honor. I am shaken to the depth of my soul.” Stalin did not answer. He had Zinoviev, along with Kamenev, expelled from the party again on Dec. 20. The first draft of the indictment (Jan. 13) would note that Zinoviev and Kamenev pleaded innocent; the indictment soon changed. “O dele tak nazyvaeomom ‘Moskovskom tsentre.’”
