311. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 78 (citing FSB archives). See also Sibley, “Soviet Industrial Espionage.”
312. Le Temps, March 19, 1936; Izvestiia (March 24, 1936), reprinted in Molotov, Stat’ i rechi, 231–3, and DVP SSSR, XIX: 166–72. See also Watson, Molotov, 133–4. Also in 1936, Eliava, deputy commissar for foreign trade, let on to the Soviet embassy staff in Berlin that in Moscow, “at the top,” they evaluate Hitlerism “differently.” Gnedin, Iz istoriia otnoshenii, 37; Nekrich, 1941, 23. See also Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 267–8.
313. Molotov reverted to Georgian at the end: “Gaumardzhos saakartvelos mshromel khakhs!” “Long live the toilers of Georgia!” Pravda, March 21, 1936; Molotov, Velikaia druzhba, 55–60.
314. Paustovsky, Story of a Life, 133–4.
315. Chukovsky, who spoke at the congress, had spotted Pasternak, whom he fetched to take an open seat next to him. Chukovskii, Dnevnik, 141 (April 16 and April 22, 1936). See also Baruzdin, “O Kornee Chukovskom,” 111–21; Bode, “Humor in the Lyrical Stories”; Luk’ianova, Kornei Chukovskii, 624–6. Also in April 1936, Stalin allowed the imprisoned Victor Serge to leave the USSR for the West, despite understanding that Serge would campaign against the Stalinist line, with the credibility of a firsthand observer. His release testified to the importance Stalin attached to the fellow-travelers, especially Rolland. So improbable did Serge’s release seem that Krivitsky, the Soviet spy in the Hague, suspected Serge of being an NKVD plant sent to infiltrate the Trotskyites. But Stalin did not need to pay the cost of international defamation by Serge to infiltrate the Trotskyists; he had already done so. Krivitsky, MI5 Debriefing, 40–9 (letter to Boris Nicolaveksy, Paris, Oct. 25, 1938). Like Trotsky, Serge would die in a Mexican villa (in Serge’s case, in 1947, of a heart attack, just short of fifty-seven years old).
316. Pravda’s account omitted Voroshilov’s improvisational references to Bolshevik vigilance in the context of filling glasses. Stalin altered the wording for the newspaper of his toast for Voroshilov, eliminating “to the Supreme Leader [vozhd’] of the Red Army.” There was only one Supreme Leader of the army as well as the country. Nevezhin, “Bol’shie Kremlevskie priemy Stalina” (no. 3), 134–6 (citing RGASPI, f. 74, op. 1, d. 164, l. 206–13); Pravda, May 4, 1936; Krasnaia zvezda, May 4, 1936.
317. Voennye arkhivy Rossii, 62; Isserson, “Zapiski sovremennika o M. N. Tukhachevskom,” 73–5; Vinogradov, “1937: pokazaniia marshala Tukhachevskogo,” (no. 9), 63. “The neutrality of the Baltic states plays a very dangerous role for us,” Tukhachevsky would explain at length in prison in 1937, and underscore the need for a proper base far better than Kronstadt on the Baltic. He would add that “war against Finland presents a completely independent problem, difficult to a sufficient degree for us.” Vinogradov, “1937: pokazaniia marshala Tukhachevskogo” (no. 8) 48 (no. 9), 62.
318. Tukhachevsky replaced Alexander Sedyakin, who had been the subject of relentless criticism, not least from Tukhachevsky himself. Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 350. More broadly, see Gareev, “Ob opyte boevoi podgotovki voisk.”
319. Vinogradov, “1937: pokazaniia marshala Tukhachevskogo,” (no. 8), 48 (between May 26 and June 10, 1937). If, in 1914, the tsarist army foresaw 360 train cars per day for its mobilization goals in the West (the number would reach 560 per day by 1917), the USSR in the mid-1930s in the western theater could perhaps count on 436 per day. Menning, “Sovetskie zheleznye dorogi,” 363.
320. Simonov, Voenno-promyshlennyi kompleks SSSR, 91–2; Reese, Stalin’s Reluctant Soldiers; Mawdsley, review of Roger Reese, War in History, 7/3 (2000): 375–7. Despite the vast buildup, some exhibited a startling lack of confidence. “Of course, the USSR is not prepared to fight a war, neither politically nor economically, we need to gain at least three to five years,” Ivan Kutyakov, deputy commander of the Volga military district, had written in his diary (Jan. 9, 1936). Viktorov, Bez grifa “sekretno,” 258–9.
