231. Bobylev et al., Voennyi sovet pri narodnom komissare oborony SSSR, noiabr’ 1937 g., 73–4; Iakulov, “Stalin i Krasnaia Armiia,” 172. The gathering took place Nov. 21–27, 1937. Kuibyshev would be arrested on Feb. 2, 1938, and executed on August 1. The Soviet officer corps would total 179,000 in 1939.
232. Rapoport and Geller, Izmena rodine, 283–8.
233. Reese, Stalin’s Reluctant Soldiers.
234. DGFP, 1918–1945, series D, I: 29–39 (“Hossbach Memorandum”).
235. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 46–60; Fest, Hitler, 539–43. Whereas Kershaw renders the ascent of Hitler to the top of the military command as almost an accident, Fest makes it overly preplanned.
236. Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, V: 117 (Jan. 27, 1938). Read, The Disciples, 450. The bride was Eva Gruhn.
237. Hitler assembled all the generals to deliver the news in person on the afternoon of Feb. 5, 1938. No one objected. That evening he addressed the cabinet (it was the last formal cabinet meeting of the Reich) and sought to dispel rumors of rifts between the Nazi party and the Wehrmacht. The sensational news of the momentous changes in the Wehrmacht took up the press and radio airtime for days—both Blomberg and Fritsch were said to have retired “on health grounds”—spurring rumors of a plot on Hitler’s life. McDonogh, Hitler’s Gamble, 7–19.
238. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d, 994, l. 51.
239. Kostrychenko, Tainaia politika Stalina, 160, 207–8. Postyshev, acting party boss in Kuibyshev (since March 18, 1937), was specially reprimanded for excesses.
240. Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 159–67; Khlevniuk, “Party and NKVD,” 26–7; Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 140–3; Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 501. See also Rigby, Communist Party Membership, 214–8.
241. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 463 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 729, l. 94–5). Individual reprieves were often short-lived. On Sept. 25, 1937, following the arrest of his brother Aleksei Simochkin in the Western province, Vasily Simochkin, party boss of Ivan-Voznesensk province, wrote to Stalin to disown his brother. “You cannot answer for your brother,” Stalin answered. “Continue your work.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 57, l. 93. But Vasily Simochkin would be arrested on Nov. 26, 1938, and executed on March 10, 1939.
242. Starkov, “Kak Moskva chut’ ne stala Stalinodarom,” 126–7.
243. Pravda, Jan. 18, 1938; Pervaia sessia Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 135–41; Maksimenkov, Sumbur, 238–9; RGASPI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 672 (Zhdanov’s notes). On Jan. 4, 1938, Shumyatsky reported to Molotov on the need to install permanent filming and sound equipment in the Great Kremlin Palace hall used for party congresses; the equipment had already been purchased in the United States. That same day Malenkov signed an order for Kerzhentsev’s removal. Three days later, the politburo replaced Shumyatsky with Dukelsky (who would last two months). This spurred Gr. Zeldovich, an editor at Mosfilm, to denounce artists for drunken debaucheries at the Metropole and their “immense love for ‘the West’. Many dream about foreign trips . . . I heard that G[rigory] Alexandrov has often been inside certain foreign embassies.” Zeldovich had one uncle living in Poland and another in Riga, while relatives on his mother’s side lived in America, perhaps accounting for his going on the offensive. Maksimenkov, Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 455–6 (RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 958, l. 66), 455–6n1 (l. 67), 457 (f. 17, op. 3, d. 994, l. 46), 462–77 (op. 120, d. 349, l. 47–60), 477n3 (f. 82, op. 2, d. 958, l. 38). In 1938, Kerzhentsev was replaced (by Aleksei Nazarov) but would die a natural death (heart failure on June 2, 1940). Maksimenkov, Sumbur, 288–90. Nazarov would last until April 1, 1939, giving way to his deputy, the enduring Mikhail Khrapchenko (b. 1904).
244. Nevezhin, Zastol’nye rechi, 170–83. Stalin allowed Zhdanov to give the speech commemorating Lenin at the Bolshoi.
245. Jelagin, Taming of the Arts, 109, 287–8; Elagin, Ukroshchenie iskusstv, 322–3.
246. Milovidov, “Velikii grazhdanin,” 6; Dobrenko, Stalinist Cinema, 229–50.
