8. Some scholars have asserted that Stalin followed all events in Spain closely and read every single document on the country. Mereshcheriakov, “SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii,” 87 (no citation); Novikov, SSSR, Komintern, II: 7; Sarin and Dvoretsky, Alien Wars, 3. In fact, as the Russian analyst Rybalkin noted, “Stalin’s position in relation to the Spanish Republic was unpredictable and changed depending on his mood and the situation on the fronts of the Iberian Peninsula and in the international arena.” He continued: “Gradually Stalin’s interest in country X [Spain] fell—on the contrary, hostility arose. From mid-1937 at politburo meetings it became more frequent to discuss aid not to Spain but to Mongolia and China (country Z), as well as the struggle against anti-state elements inside the country.” Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 45. Another scholar refers to “improvisations and adaptations.” Roberts, “Soviet Foreign Policy and the Spanish Civil War.” Yet another noted that “a historian looking back over events encounters the danger of reading into facts future motives of which the participants were not yet aware.” Cattell, Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War, 120.
9. Stalin had many decisions on Spain approved by the politburo, but almost always via “telephone poll,” so it is not clear whether any discussions took place. (No transcripts were made of politburo meetings between the end of 1932 and late 1938.) Many of the decisions regarding Spain—“Operation X”—were left out of the politburo protocols entirely, not even with oblique reference. These were recorded as OOP, which could have connoted “separate special file” [otdelnaia osobaia papka], and are found in the Presidential Archive. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 23. Compare Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa.
10. No politburo member, and no other people’s commissar except for Litvinov, had traveled across the ocean. In Jan. 1936, Mikoyan had been awarded the Order of Lenin for the food industry commissariat’s overfulfillment of the 1935 plan and introduction of machinery. Pavlov, Anastas Mikoian, 75–6 (citing RGASPI, f. 84, op. 3, d. 164, l. 603), 76–7 (l. 590). See also Mikoian, Pishchevaia promyshlennost Sovertskogo Soiuza, 9–10. In the United States during the course of two months, he visited more than 100 enterprises: bread and biscuits, canned meats, non-alcoholic drinks, refrigerators, as well as slaughterhouses. He saw the mass production of hamburger patties at Macy’s and bought machines for manufacturing meat cutlets. “We traveled across America from east to west and back, and nowhere did the police create any difficulties for us,” Mikoyan would later remember. Pavlov, “Iz zapisok narkoma,” 107. See also Medvedev, Blizhnyi krug Stalina, 173.
11. Orjonikidze found out about the Soviet military intervention in Spain either by voting (via polling) for the politburo resolution on Sept. 29, 1936, or from Kaganovich’s letter to him the next day. Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 149 (Sept. 30, 1936). See also Maisky, Spanish Notebooks, 20–1.
12. “Stalin’s position” in Spain, Daniel Kowalsky summarized, “was never one of strength, but rather one of weakness, incompetence, inexperience, and indecisiveness.” Kowalsky largely omits the Soviet domination of the Spanish Communist party. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraphs 792–5.
13. Firsov, “Stalin i Komintern,” 8 (no citation); Volkogonov, Trotskii, II: 295–7. See also Preston, We Saw Spain Die, 3.
14. Preston, Franco, 16; Fusi, Franco, 18. The statement dates to Dec. 31, 1938.
15. In 1934, when leftists in Spain had seized power in the mining province of Asturias—thanks to solidarity among normally uncooperative Socialists, Communists, and anarchists—it had been Franco who was summoned to suppress the strikers; more than 1,000 people died. Ferran and Amago, Unearthing Franco’s Legacy, 61.
16. Preston, Franco, 114.
17. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 243. See also Jackson, Spanish Republic; Preston, Concise History; Brouè, Civil War in Spain; Carr, Spanish Tragedy; Payne, Spanish Civil War; and Linz and Stepan, Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, 142–215.
18. Preston, Franco, 129–30, 134.
19. De Madariaga, “Intervention of Moroccan Troops,” 77.
20. “We have to create the impression of mastery, eliminating without scruples or hesitation those who do not think as we do,” General Mola boasted. Preston, Spanish Holocaust, 179.
21. Malefakis, “La revolución social,” 319–54.
