184. Dimitrov, “Zashchishchat’ podlykh terroristov” (no. 14), 3–6, (no. 15), 17–8. In the same issue, Palmiro Togliatti presented Stalin’s retrospective criminalization of long-ago factional activity as “an act to defend democracy, peace, socialism, and the revolution.” Ercoli, “Uroki protsessa,” 37, 43. “The Moscow trial has had a catastrophic effect and has dreadfully compromised the policy of the Popular Front,” the Austrian Marxist Rudolf Hilferding had lamented in Aug. 1936. McDermott and Agnew, Comintern, 156.
185. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 209 (citing author’s archive); Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 53 (citing APRF, f. 57, op. 1, d. 27, l. 1–26; f. 045, op. 1, d. 729, l. 86–9).
186. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 66–7; Jansen and Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner, 54.
187. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 147.
188. Orjonikidze was also summoned to Sochi from Kislovodsk, a distance of 200 miles over the mountains. Khlevniuk, In Stalin’s Shadow, 104 (citing Kaganovich to Orjonikidze, Sept. 30, 1936: RGASPI, f. 85, op. 1/s. d. 136, l. 46).
189. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 682–3 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 94, l. 124–7).
190. Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 241–2.
191. RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 852, l. 138–41; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 981, l. 50. Agranov was retained as deputy NKVD commissar under Yezhov.
192. Starkov, “Narkom Ezhov,” 27.
193. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 683n1 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 94, l. 131); Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 437–8 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 9, l. 239–40: Vlasik).
194. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 66.
195. Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 148; RGASPI, f. 85, op. 27, d. 93, l. 12–23.
196. Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 35. Shreider recalled a conversation in which a colleague “began to extol [Yezhov’s] democratism and simplicity, explaining that he visited the offices of all the investigators, personally acquainting himself how the work was going” (37). Those visits often entailed Yezhov’s demonstrations of how to extract testimony by beating the accused to a pulp.
197. “O tak nazyvaemom ‘parallel’nom antisovetskom trotskistom tsentre,’” 39; APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 241, l. 213. Also on Sept. 29, 1936, the politburo formally approved Operation X, which was well under way. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 75–7 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 221, 178–82), 78 (l. 173–7); Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 28–9 (citing APRF, f. 3, op. 74, d. 20, l. 87); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 20, l. 87.
198. Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 42; Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 472 (citing RGAVMF, f. 1529, op. 1, d. 147, l. 56).
199. Grechko et al., Istoriia vtoroi mirovoi voiny, I: 54. Cf. Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraphs 491–2.
200. Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 37 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 853, l. 45); Howson, Arms for Spain, 125–6.
201. DVP SSSR, XIX: 463–4; Degras, Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, III: 211–2. On Oct. 6, 1936, Litvinov sent a telegram to Stalin (from Geneva) indicating that Blum had asked him to inform Stalin that Schacht had asked Blum to speak with British P.M. Baldwin about a pan-European settlement with Germany. When Blum had inquired whether the USSR could be included, Schacht answered that Hitler was unlikely to go for any direct agreement between Germany and the USSR, but that such an agreement might be reached indirectly. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 95, l. 23.
202. Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 700 (RGASPi, f. 558, op. 11, d. 95, l. 97), 700 n2 (l. 96). Kaganovich told Stalin that the Spanish ambassador, Pascua, feared the fall of Madrid and was “not a genuine revolutionary-Bolshevik, but a Menshevik” (701–2: d. 743, op. 64–71: Oct. 11, 1936).
203. Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 42 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 870, l. 341–3).
204. Gorev appended an eyewitness account: “the greatest impression, sometimes impossible to convey, was made by the tanks.” Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 105 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 222, l. 66–7: Oct. 16, 1936).
205. Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 36–7, 43–5 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 870, l. 278–9); Grechko, Istoriia votori mirovoi voiny, I: 53; Howson, Arms for Spain, 138–42; Kowalsky, Stalin, paragraph 502.
