71. “‘Osnovnaia tsel’ ego priezda’,” 139. On May 14, 1935, a grand ceremony was held in the Columned Hall of the House of Trade Unions for the Moscow metro. Lazar Brontman and another Pravda colleague were assigned to the event. Kaganovich opened the proceedings for his beloved project (“his most memorable, temperamental speech,” Brontman decided). But Stalin walked in during the speech, with Voroshilov and others in tow, provoking an ovation. The dictator took the podium, to delirium. In the din, Brontman and a colleague had a difficult time transcribing the speech (the journalists stopped to applaud as well). They rushed to Pravda’s offices, typed it up and had the text run over to Poskryobyshev for approval—Brontman crowed in his diary that only Pravda had the speech the next day. Pravda, May 15. This was Brontman’s second encounter with Stalin: “The first time it happened during the 5th Congress of Soviets at the Bolshoi . . . Stalin looked at my astonished face, laughed and continued to his box.” Brontman, Dnevniki (Aug. 10, 1936): http://mathscinet.ru/files/Dnevniki_1932_1947.pdf.
72. “I listened without comment,” Schulenburg reported. DGFP, series C, IV: 138 (May 8, 1935). On the immediate public distancing from the pact in France, see Borisov, Sovetsko-frantsuzskie otnosheniia, 230–95; and Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 83–5.
73. Laval, according to Litvinov, was shocked at Stalin’s bluntness. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 110–1 (June 19, 1935); Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 51–2. On June 7, 1935, Laval took the reins of the French government for the second time.
74. Scott, Alliance against Hitler, 253–4. Trotsky, then living in Grenoble, noted: “Even though I am sufficiently familiar with the political cynicism of Stalin, his contempt for principles . . . , I still could not believe my eyes when I read those lines.” Trotsky’s Diary in Exile, 1935, 120 (May 17, 1935).
75. M. Mourin, Les Relations Franco-Sovietiques (1917—1967) (Paris, 1967), 208; Scott, Alliance against Hitler, 254–5, 266; Les evénéments survenues en France de 1933 à 1945, I: 142–3 (Laval to Flandin, May 16, 1935).
76. “The obligations of mutual assistance will take effect only under the condition, as stipulated in this agreement, of assistance being extended on the part of France to the side that is the victim of aggression.” DVP SSSR, XVIII: 336–7; DDF, 1e série, X: 575–7, 630–1; Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 326–7 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 18, l. 49: June 1, 1935). The Soviets would undertake no efforts to establish a transit right for the Red Army through Poland or Romania to defend Czechoslovakia in the event of a German attack. Both bilateral pacts, as per French insistence, were limited to Europe. Still, Czechoslovakia pledged not to supply Japan with arms. Hochman, Failure of Collective Security, 53, citing Zahraniční politika (Prague, 1935), 324–6. For a time, the Soviets took credit for the clause that provided for taking action only if France did so. Potemkin, Istoriia diplomatii, III: 387–9.
77. Potocki, Master of Lancut, 207; Szemberg, Journal, 85.
78. Roos, Polen und Europa, 218–9; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I: 209. Göring was in Poland May 17–24, 1935: DGFP, series C, IV: 184–5 (May 21), 223–5 (May 28).
79. Domarus, Hitler: Reden, I: 505–14; Kershaw, “Hitler Myth,” 125–6.
80. Stalin had Berzin, after eleven years heading military intelligence, reassigned to the Soviet Far Eastern Army. Moisei Uritsky, the nephew of the celebrated Chekist who had been assassinated in 1918, brought over his own deputy, Alexander Nikonov, who was appointed alongside Artuzov. Primakov, Ocherki, III: 11; Kolpakidi and Prokhorov, Imperiia GRU, I: 121–2, 196, 219–20; Gorbunov, “Voennaia razvedka v 1934–1939 godakh” (no. 2); Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barabrossy,” 51; Na prieme, 161–2. The Danes shared their findings with other European intelligence services, which produced still more revelations on Soviet agents. See G. Solonitsyn, “Nachal’nik sovetskoi razvedki.”
