304. When in fall 1937 the USSR had proposed opening two more consulates in Germany (Breslau and Munich), and to bring the total in each country to four by closing three of the seven German consulates, the Germans refused; Stalin ordered the number of German consulates brought down to two. In 1938, all consulates of both countries were shuttered. Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 355, 355n1, n2 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 22, l. 50, 56, 142); DGFP, series D, I: 903–4 (Schulenburg to foreign ministry, Jan. 13, 1938), 904–9 (Schulenburg to foreign ministry, Jan. 17). See also Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 155; Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 279.
305. Rittersporn, Anguish, 41–2 (citing Plotnikova, “Organy,” 70–1), 43 (citing PA AA, MOSKAU I 394: Gestapo to foreign ministry, July 27, 1939; I 393: 275, I 394: foreign ministry to Moscow embassy, May 14, 1939, R 101388: Rosette Eimeke to foreign ministry, March 27, 1940, Abwehr to chief of chancery, Aug. 29, 1940; I 419: Dec. 16, 1937 notes; I 421: July 2, 1938 note); Plotnikova, “Organy,” 25.
306. Rittersporn, Anguish, 51 (citing BA-MA, RW, 67, 48: 55).
307. Pepłoński, Wywiad Polski na ZSSR, 126–7. Stalin was aware that the Polish government sent spies posing as Communist refugees to the USSR, which served to further discredit Moscow-resident foreign Communists in his eyes. The Poles, in turn, were aware that the NKVD recruited Soviet agents among émigrés in Poland, and managed thereby to infiltrate Soviet espionage efforts.
308. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 48.
309. Kozlov, “Pokozatel’i po trudu” (a secret GPU-NKVD file from the Magadan archives). Back in 1936, Japan’s Kwantung Army had set up a school to train Koreans for political agitation and espionage assignments on the Soviet side of the border. Nair, Indian Freedom Fighter, 141–6.
310. Solov’ev and Chugnuov, Pogranichnye voiska SSSR, 8–36.
311. Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror, 283–4. See also the story of the Polish agent who crossed the frontier at Baranovichi, was caught by the NKVD, confessed to being a Polish agent, but was beaten to confess to fantastic accusations that were untrue: Cybulski, Accused, 455–9.
312. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 316 (TsA FSB, f. 8os, op. 1, d. 57–65); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 659–60n78 (d. 80).
313. “All foreign bourgeois specialists are or may be intelligence agents,” Stalin had written to Kaganovich (Aug. 7, 1932). The next year, he had exploded at Kaganovich when he learned that American journalists were traveling to the famine-stricken Kuban region, noting “there already are many spies in the USSR.” Davies et al., Stalin-Kaganovich Correspondence, 177; Khlevniuk et al., Stalin i Kaganovich, 307.
314. Rzheshevskii and Vehviläinen, Zimniaia voina, II: 207. For Stalin’s connect-the-dots theory, see also Broide, Vreditel’stvo.
315. A Soviet writer has speculated that Stalin simultaneously believed and disbelieved his inventions of plots. Sinyavsky, Soviet Civilization, 99, 94.
316. Volkogonov, Stalin: Politicheskii portret, I: 263 (on Stalin’s notes kept in the Presidential Archive). See also Tucker, Stalin in Power, 474 ff; and van Ree, Political Thought, 117–25. A fire at Kaganovich’s residence spurred Stalin to issue a resolution (April 1937) to the effect that the politburo “considers this fire not an accidental occurrence but one organized by enemies.” RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 21, l. 30.
317. “Fragmenty stenogrammy dekabrskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1936 goda,” 6.
318. The year 1937 did not begin on Dec. 1, 1934, contrary to Yevgeniya Ginzburg’s famous bon mot. Ginzburg, Into the Whirlwind, 11.
319. See the letter (Sept. 2, 1936) from Moiseyev (Yershisty), on which Molotov wrote: “To comrade Yezhov: Moiseyev-Yershisty could hardly be troublesome to anybody in Leningrad. I doubt he was justifiably expelled from the VKP (b).” Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 294–7 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 272, l. 54–5).
320. Chuev, Sto sorok, 463.
321. As Conquest wrote, “The nature of the whole purge depends in the last analysis on the personal and political drives of Stalin.” Conquest, Reassessment, 33.
322. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 291.
