4. Yezhov’s report was followed by four days of discussion. No transcript was made of the plenum through June 26 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 614, l. 1), and no complete text of Yezhov’s speech has been adduced. We do, however, have his outline: Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 293–312 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 4, d. 20, l. 117–22, 163–83); Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 130–2; Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, V/i: 306–8 (d. 29, l. 200–7). On June 27–29, the plenum discussed the Supreme Soviet election laws, grain seeds, crop rotation, and machine tractor stations, which is what the Pravda post-plenum summary (June 30) mentioned, leaving out Yezhov’s report.
5. Stalin had Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan, and Zhdanov affix their assent. L. B., “‘Tain Kremlia’ bol’she ne budet?,” 37.
6. The creative intelligentsia might have suffered fewer arrests per capita than other groups. Getty and Manning, Stalinist Terror, 243.
7. Koestler, Darkness at Noon, 15–6.
8. Payne, Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, 350; Conquest, Breaker of Nations, 317. Bullock asserted that both Hitler and Stalin “owed a great deal of their success as politicians to their ability to disguise from allies as well as opponents, their thoughts and their intentions.” Bullock, Hitler and Stalin, 367.
9. Enteen, “Intellektual’nye predposylki.”
10. Conquest, Reassessment, 14 (no citation).
11. Tichanova, Rasstrel’nye spiski, 202, 211; Moskovskie novosti, 1994, no. 5.
12. The “politburo” ordered Yezhov to go on holiday on Dec. 7, 1937, outside Moscow, and directed Stalin to make sure Yezhov did not appear at work. RGASPI, f. 17 op. 3, d. 993, l. 74.
13. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 399–405. Savoleinen, the accused mercury poisoner, was executed in Aug. 1937.
14. Orlov, Secret History, 221–2. Yezhov’s office as of Oct. 1936 was on the fourth floor (410). Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 67, citing GARF, f. 9401, op. 1a, d. 15, l. 242.
15. Those who had long minimized Stalin’s role now admit that his “name is all over the horrible documents authorizing the terror.” (Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 451.) And if it were not? If Stalin had kept his name off the documents, while making others sign them, would we be wondering if he were an instrument in their hands, or a neutral figure caught between factions, or an opponent of terror who went along with it? If all the documents on the terror had been destroyed during a wartime bombing or a botched evacuation, or by a fire, or on his command, would it still be unclear that the mass arrests and executions did not somehow begin and wind down of their own accord, but were carried out on Stalin’s orders?
16. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 348–51 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 254, l. 165–72). Many examples have been gathered in Kurliandskii, Stalin, vlast’, religiia, 41–3.
17. Mlechin, KGB, 176.
18. Yezhov was instructed to “spend nine-tenths of his time on NKVD business”: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 981, l. 50.
19. Fadeev, “Nikolai Ivanovich Ezhov,” cited in Pavliukov, Ezhov, 335–6, RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 270, l. 69–86 (at 80–1); excerpts are also in Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 13. This was part of a commissioned biography of Yezhov, whose arrest took place before the biography could be published.
20. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 207; Pavliukov, Ezhov, 536.
21. Kosheleva et al., “Materialy fevral’-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda” (1995, no. 1), 10.
22. In this case, by Poluvedko et al., Mech i tryzub, 122. See also Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 12–29.
23. TsA FSB, p-23634, t. 1, l. 195. Spiegelglass handled multiple key double agents, controlled Zborowski’s virtuoso work with Sedov, and would oversee several more priority assassinations abroad—until his own regime executed him.
24. Rees has argued that the Great Terror “was the central and decisive event” in the history of Stalin’s regime, a view I do not share, but I do share his contention that “in the experience of modern states [the terror] is without precedent.” Rees, “Stalin as Leader, 1937–1953,” 200–39.
25. Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 299–300. As of Nov. 30, 1937, Stalin started receiving not the lengthy raw interrogation protocols but summaries, and only of the most important cases. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 319–20.
26. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 322 (TsA FSB, f. 3os, op. 6, d. 11, l. 384).
27. Conquest, Great Terror: Reassessment, 268–9; Krivitsky, In Stalin’s Secret Service, 143–4.
