Stalin полностью

280. Lenoe rightly assesses the evidence provided by Genrikh Lyushkov, who worked alongside Agranov and interrogated Draule, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and others, as the most important. Lysuhkov would write in 1939: “I can confirm that Kirov’s murder was the individual deed of Nikolayev. Nikolayev was a psychologically unbalanced person who suffered many anxieties and was unhappy with life. He believed that he had the abilities to accomplish anything and he imagined himself as a man of intrigue. In reality, he was a constant complainer who could not get along with people. Confronted at every turn by the horrifying inertia of the state apparatus, he nonetheless fought to maintain the right and battle corruption. Society’s indifference aroused in him hatred and an intense desire for revenge . . . And so Nikolayev’s disenchantment with the party apparatus drove him to make plans for the assassination of one of the party leaders.” Lenoe, Kirov Murder, 681–6 (Kaizo, April 1939).

281. Rimmel, “Another Kind of Fear,” 484, citing TsGAIPD, f. 25, op. 5, d. 47, 1. 2, 492, citing TsGAIPD, f. 25, op. 5, d. 46, 1. 3ob.

282. A group of workers from the Kirov plant in a letter to new Leningrad party boss Zhdanov condemned “deceivers,” “scoundrels,” and the regime’s “soap-bubble comedy,” and called the end of rationing “Molotov’s vile deception,” given how workers continued to live in squalor. Davies, Popular Opinion, 137 (citing TsGAIPD, f. 24, op. 2v, d. 1518, l. 184–8). By contrast, Tokayev, a young military engineer, noted that “the public . . . felt a cloud lifted . . . There was a new sense of freedom in domestic life; not that food became more plentiful, but it was not hard to draw the conclusion that, if the Government could take this step, ‘things could not be so bad after all.’” Tokaev, Betrayal of an Ideal, 278–9.

283. Davies, Popular Opinion, 115–6 (citing TsGAIPD St.P f. 25, op. 5, d. 35, l. 7, 90; d. 54, l. 99; f. 24, op. 5, d. 240, l. 22; TsKhDMO, f. 1, op. 23, d. 1102, l. 167); Rimmel, “Another Kind of Fear,” 484. See also Kedrov, Lapti Stalinizma, 152 (citing GAAO, otdel DSPI, f. 290, op. 2, d. 312, l. 107–10; d. 462, l. 56–60); Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule, 422; and Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 210 (citing DAHO, f. 326p, op. 1, spr. 304, ark. 34).

284. As we shall see, all of Orjonikidze’s relatives would suffer from the dictator’s falling out with his former intimate, while none of Kirov’s relatives suffered.

285. “Comrade Stalin, as I now recall, summoned me and Kosaryov and said: ‘Look for the murderers among the Zinovievites,’” Yezhov would state three years later. “I must say the Chekists did not believe in that and as insurance for themselves they were developing a second scenario, involving foreigners, on the off chance something would leap out.” Yezhov was discrediting Yagoda and added that in Yezhov’s presence, Stalin phoned Yagoda and said, “Look, we’ll smash your face.” L. P. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda,” (1995, no. 2): 16–7; Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 482–3.

286. The bodyguard detail lacked even written operational instructions. Sedov et al., “Spravka,” 494.

287. Shubin, Vozhdi i zagovorshchiki, 273.

288. A wealth of documents demonstrates this, which Yezhov would stress at the Feb.–March 1937 plenum: “Materialy marto-fevral’skogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 2), 17.

289. See the incisive memorandum by the American diplomat George Kennan (March 1935) about how “all the resources of the Soviet state have been applied to the construction of a vast military machine . . . A generation has been reared whose patriotic arrogance and whose ignorance of the outside world rival the formidable traditions which the history of Tsardom can offer in this respect.” Kennan noted further that the Soviet willingness to sign pacts and enter the League of Nations derived from a belief that the next war would be fought by others, so that the Kremlin was interested not in collective security but in continuing to throw wrenches in efforts to achieve any sort of peaceful settlement among the Western powers. George Kennan, “The War Problem of the Soviet Union,” in George F. Kennan Papers, Box 1, Mudd Library, Princeton University, reprinted in Hochman, Failure of Collective Security, 176–83 (at 178).

CHAPTER 5. A GREAT POWER

1. The correspondent added that pure Communist types had been set on edge by French Foreign Minister Laval’s pending arrival. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, May 25, 1935: 24.