156. The coronation was scheduled for May 12, 1937. Between April 1 and June 10, 1937, 4,370 people would be discharged from the Red Army for political reasons, compared with 577 during the first three months of that year. Suvenirov, “Narkomat oborony,” 29 (citing, RGVA, f. 9, op. 29, d. 340).
157. Izvestiia, April 23, 1937; Pravda, April 23, 1937.
158. Sovetskoe foto, 1973, no. 9; Ogonek, 1937, no. 16–7; Lopatin, Volga idet v Moskvu; Shein, Kanal Moskva-Volga; Fedenko, Kanal Moskva-Volga. Stalin had visited sections of the canal on June 4, 1934, June 14, 1936, and April 22, 1937: http://moskva-volga.ru/trete-prishestvie-stalina.
159. Davies et al., Economic Transformation, 127.
160. Osokina, “Economic Disobedience,” 180.
161. Ellman, Socialist Planning, 107; Harrison, “National Income,” 52–3.
162. “What is there to say about the success of Soviet power,” one worker complained. “It is lies. The newspapers cover up the real state of things. I am a worker, wear torn clothes, my four children go to school half-starving, in rags. I, an honest worker, am a visible example of what Soviet power has given the workers in the last twenty years.” Davies, Popular Opinion, 135 (citing TsGAIPD, f. 24, op. 2v, d. 2282, l. 109).
163. Thurston, Life and Terror, 166–8.
164. Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, V/i: docs. 71, 76, 81, 93, 94, 98, 106, 125, 127; Berelowitch and Danilov, Sovetskaia derevnia glazami VChK-OGPU-NKVD, IV: 273–450.
165. Khlevniuk, Stalin: Zhizn’, 221 (citing RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 887, l. 17, 32, 41–2: March 2, 1937, and April 14 and 21, 1937).
166. Semyon Firin-Pupko later alleged that in 1937 Stalin raised the question of a canal from Moscow to Vladivostok, cutting a west-east waterway across the entire continent to link the northern flowing Siberian rivers, a gargantuan task unprecedented in recorded history. Sokolov, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 163–4.
167. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1994, no. 8), 18; Davies, “Soviet Economy,” 26–7.
168. Khlevniuk, “Economic Officials in the Great Terror,” 58. Semyon Lobov (b. 1888), a former steelworker and forestry industry commissar until Oct. 1936 (when he was shifted to the food industry), had stated, “is it really normal that if I, the commissar, need to obtain a pair of traincars with sheet steel or equipment for papermaking, I need to get the authorization of the Central Committee.” Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 144 (TsA FSB, ASD P-4879, t. 2, s. 109). Lobov would be arrested June 21, 1937, and executed Oct. 30 of that year.
169. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 128 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 405, l. 64–5).
170. Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed, 146–8 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1010, l. 295–300). Krivoshein appears to have returned from Spain at this time.
171. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 43 (Dec. 16, 1936), 58 (March 14, 1937).
172. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 212 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 223, l. 141–2), 213 (l. 146). “We are well aware of the scale of Soviet assistance, the steamships with Russian weapons all the while are passing by our shores,” Leonardo Vitetti, director of European Affairs in the Italian foreign ministry, told the Soviet embassy in Rome in April 1937. “We have not touched them, not wanting to complicate the already extremely sharp and awful Italo-Soviet relations.” Meshcheriakov, “SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii,” 86 (citing AVP RF, f. 048 z, op. 14–16, pap. 4, d. 8, l. 195); and Tournier, Les archives secretes de la Wilhelmstrasse III, 88, 91–2. On March 24, 1937, Mekhlis wrote to Stalin that “according to the information we have, comrade M. E. Koltsov is severely exhausted and completely physically worn down,” and was requesting permission to recall him to Moscow, a request Stalin approved. On Nov. 22, 1937, Mekhlis would write to Stalin that “Koltsov is in a bad mood now and, it seems, he has lost his bearings and could commit mistakes. He has been away from Moscow and party influence for a long time.” Mekhlis would again propose his recall, which Stalin would approve. Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 215 (APRF [transferred to RGANI), f. 3, op. 34, d. 127, l. 27), 312 (l. 33–4). Mekhlis appears to have been angry that Koltsov wrote to him complaining he had been left out of the candidates approved for the Dec. 12, 1937, elections to the Supreme Soviet.
