300. Wu, Sian Incident, 101. Otto Braun, a Comintern official, recalled that word of the arrest “produced a genuine rapture, for Chiang Kai-shek was the most hated man in the CCP and the Chinese Red Army.” At an open air meeting, Mao declared it time to settle accounts with the traitor and “bring him before a people’s court.” Those assembled adopted a resolution for a “mass trial” of Chiang Kai-shek. Braun, Comintern Agent in China, 183; Snow, Random Notes, 1; Short, Mao, 347; Guotao, Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, II: 481. Another account has Mao urging Zhou Enlai to make haste to Xi’an, several days away by horseback, to persuade Zhang “to carry out the final measure.” Chang and Halliday, Mao, 184, citing Central Archive, 1997, 213, and Zhang Xueliang nianpo (Beijing, 1996), 1124.
301. Guotao, Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, II: 479–82; Taylor, Generalissimo, 128–9, citing Zhongguo gongchandang guanyu Xi’an shibian dangan shiliao xuanbian (Peking: Zhunguo dangan chubanshe, 1997), 213.
302. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov and Stalin, 106 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 294, l. 6); Titarenko, VKP (b), komintern i kitai: dokumenty, IV/ii: 1084–5.
303. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 42; RGASPI, f. 146, op. 2, d. 3, l. 30.
304. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 41–2; RGASPI, f. 146, op. 2, d. 3, l. 29–30.
305. Na prieme, 195.
306. Titarenko, VKP (b), komintern i kitai: dokumenty, IV/ii: 1085–7 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 281, l. 11); Titarenko, Kommunisticheskii internatsional, 270 (abridged).
307. Shai, Zhang Xueliang, 77.
308. Gibson, “Chiang Kai-shek’s Central Army,” 333–4. See also van Slyke, Enemies and Friends, chapter 4; Wu, Sian Incident; Braun, Comintern Agent in China, 182–90; Sheng and Garver, “New Light on the Second United Front”; Garver, “Soviet Union and the Xi’an Incident.”
309. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 42–3.
310. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 44 (Dec. 18, 1936); Radzinsky, Stalin, 352 (citing D. Karavkina, employee of VOKS, Dec. 19, 1936).
311. Snow, Random Notes, 1–3. Mao supposedly kept the telegram secret from Zhou, who was en route to persuade Zhang to execute Chiang; in any case Zhang had not moved to eliminate Chiang.
312. Pantsov and Levine, Mao, 302, citing Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan (1893–1949) (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 2003), 431–2.
313. Zhang had sent his personal Boeing for Zhou. Leonard, I Flew for China, 99. On Dec. 20, Zhang greeted T. V. Soong at the Xi’an airport and took him to Chiang; upon seeing his brother, a surprised Chiang wept. Chiang’s wife, Mayling, arrived in Xi’an, too. Taylor, Generalissimo, 132 (T. V. Soong papers, box 60, folder 3), 133 (citing interview in 1995 with Wang Chi, who cited a conversation with Zhang; and T. V. Soong Papers, box 60, folder 3, pp. 6–7); Kai-shek, “Fortnight,” 97; Mayling, Sian, 54–5.
314. Taylor, Generalissimo, 130 (citing Zhang Xueliang Interviews, Columbia University, XXIX: 25–1928); Suyin, Eldest Son, 153–4; Guotao, Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, II: 479–87.
315. Germany had its own naval technology (which the Soviets also sought). Maiolo, “Anglo-Soviet Naval Armaments Diplomacy.” See also Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 336 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 19, l. 185: May 27, 1936), 337 (l. 202: June 27); DVP SSSR, XIX: 272, 376. In London on July 17, 1937, Anglo-Soviet and Anglo-German naval treaties were signed, but Stalin’s large fleet construction appetites had only grown by then.
316. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 38–40; Volodarsky, Stalin’s Agent, 209 (citing PRO HW 17/27, mask traffic Moscow-Madrid-Moscow); Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 116; Communist International 142 (Feb. 1937): 136–8.
317. Kol’tsov, “Podlye manevry ispanskikh trotskistov,” 5; “Gnusnye manevry trotskistov v Katalonii,” Pravda, Dec. 17, 1936.
318. Also on December 17, an article appeared in the émigré press based on an interview with Noe Jordania, the exiled elder statesman of Georgian Marxism. “For him unacceptable methods do not exist . . . He is vindictive, ruthless, relentless. He is capable of any actions for the sake of power. The spirit of despotism of old times lives in him.” Vakar, “Stalin,” 2.
