40. Voroshilov sent telegrams white-hot with accusations about “not putting into practice” his directives and threatening “severe penalties for all of you.” Rybalkin, “Voennaia pomoshch,’” 108 (citing TsAMO, f. 132, op. 2642, d. 173, l. 23–24; d. 192, l. 1–3); Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 56 (citing TsAMO, f. 132, op. 2642, d. 192, l. 32), 56 (d. 182, l. 22–3: Dec. 4, 1936).
41. Rybalkin, Operatsiia “X,” 82–83 (citing RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1082, l. 206: A. Agaltsov). Dimitrov wrote to Stalin that “the foe has the advantage that he has many spies in the Government camp.” Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 293 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 221, l. 38–40, Dec. 14, 1936); Sharapov, Naum Eitingon, 53.
42. Khlevniuk, “Prichiny ‘bol’shogo terrora,’” 10.
43. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 83 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 983, l. 64). Two days later Blyukher and Deribas sent a telegram from Khabarovsk asking to be excused from having to travel to the plenum, a request Stalin approved. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 83 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 65, l. 25).
44. Khaustov, “Razvitie sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti”; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 71, d. 43, 44, 45, 46. Malenkov’s lists further specified that a mere 15.7 percent of provincial party bosses had any higher education, and that 70.4 percent had just elementary education. Similar percentages obtained for the next rungs down, county and city party bosses.
45. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 773, l. 115.
46. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 622, l. 13; Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 421. See also Conquest, Reassessment, 33; and Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 364–5, 393–7.
47. Only a draft resolution in Orjonikidze’s hand survives: RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 3350, l. 1; Kommunist, 1991, no. 13: 59–60.
48. Khlevniuk, Master of the House, 165.
49. Khlevniuk, In Stalin’s Shadow, 128–31 (citing RGASPI, f. 85, op. 29, d. 156, l. 12, 14); Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 221 (d. 156, l. 10–2). S. Z. Ginzburg, head of the construction industry, investigated the Ural Train Carriage Construction Factory in Nizhny Tagil, returned to Moscow February 18, 1936—the same day the Popular Front won its electoral victory in Spain—and Poskryobyshev called him that same day to relay that Stalin had requested a copy of his report. Ginzburg, O proshlom, 195.
50. Za industrializatsiiu, Feb. 21, 1937: 6 (A. P. Zaveniagin); Orjonikidze bumped into Bukharin’s wife, Anna, on Kremlin grounds returning to his apartment. Larina, Nezabyvaemoe, 333.
51. Dubinskii-Mukharadze, Ordzhonikidze, 6. Orjonikidze had lived in the so-called children’s section of the Grand Kremlin Palace (Krestinsky lived here, too, as did Sverdlov’s widow Klavdiya and her son Andrei, an NKVD operative), but when the palace was being reconstructed, Orjonikidze and others moved into the Amusement Palace, near the Trinity Gate, where Stalin had lived until the 1932 suicide of Nadya and where Bukharin lived.
52. Izvestiia, Nov. 22, 1963; Dubinskii-Mukhadze, Ordzhonikidze, 6. The evening before, Yezhov was received alone in the Little Corner. Na prieme, 202. Alternately, the apartment search may have occurred on Feb. 16, prompting Orjonikidze’s tête-à-tête with Stalin on the morning of Feb. 17.
53. Khlevniuk, In Stalin’s Shadow, 143–9; Medvedev, Let History Judge, 402–3. Around midnight, Orjonikidze had met with his deputy for the chemical industry to discuss Donbass coke plant sabotage. After leaving the commissariat, Orjonikidze might have spoken again with Stalin. Dubinskii-Mukhadze, Ordzhonikidze, 6.
54. Chubar, Mekhlis, Andreev, and Kalinin joined at that point. Levin was called back at 9:55 p.m. for another five minutes; he was among the four people who signed the official medical bulletin. (Levin would be tried and executed the next year.) Pravda, Feb. 19, 1937; Na prieme, 202–3.
55. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 154–96 (at 191). Amayak Nazaretyan wrote on the back of a photograph of his close friend Orjonikidze: “Every one of us who sees with his own eyes the enormous achievements of the Soviet regime in the field of socialist construction cannot and must not forget the people who gave their lives that we might build the world’s first socialist state, marching toward communism.” Pravda, Nov. 17, 1964: 4.
56. Pravda, Feb. 22, 1937. Molotov, later in life, would make Orjonikidze out to be the villain, harming Stalin with his suicide. Chuev, Sto sorok, 191–2. Khrushchev had blamed Pyatakov already: Pravda, Feb. 19, 1937.
