60. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 113. Nadezhda Lukina, Bukharin’s first wife, had written to Stalin on Aug. 23, 1936, the day of the verdict against Kamenev and Zinoviev, claiming that during Kirov’s Red Square funeral Kamenev had smiled at Mdivani (“I simply could not keep myself from writing you”). RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 710, l. 135–6.
61. Zaria vostoka, May 27, 1937; Pravda, June 5, 1937.
62. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 53–5. On police-reported gossip in Georgia, see Junge and Bonwetsch, Bolshevistskii poriadok, II: 69–72 (Arkhiv MVD Gruzii, 2–I otdel, f. 14, op. 11, d. 244, l. 19–22).
63. Beria’s telegram to Stalin noted that Mezenin’s superior in Moscow, Alexander Nikitin, had sent a telegram tasking the correspondent with delivering sharply critical information, and that Nikitin had twice phoned Meznin to render his reportage still sharper. Nikitin (b. 1901) would be named editor of Komsomolskaya Pravda in Aug. 1937 and head of the Central Committee press department in Jan. 1938, arrested on Sept. 3, 1939 (under Beria), and executed in July 1941.
64. Avalishvili, “‘Great Terror.’” May 29, 1937, would be Ilya Chavchavadze’s 100th jubilee, and Beria telegrammed Stalin eight days prior to request permission to re-publish Stalin’s poetry from 1896 (some of which Chavchavadze’s journal had published). Stalin refused. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 46.
65. Nekrasov, Beria, 242–3. Mikoyan would recall that Beria’s role in Musavat was discussed at a Central Committee plenum in 1937. Naumov, Lavrentii Beriia, 1953, 165–6; Antonov-Ovseenko, Beriia, 19.
66. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 253–4. See also Kvashonkin, Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, 374 (RGASPI, f. 73, op. 2, d. 19, l. 49–50, Kaganovich to Stalin, Sept. 20, 1937).
67. Kaminskii, Grigorii Kaminsky; “Grigorii Naumovich Kaminskii.”
68. Pavliukhhov, Ezhov, 296–7. Kaminsky supposedly told his wife on the morning of June 25 that he might not return home from the plenum; he is said to have already removed all documents from his safe and desk at the commissariat, prompting his assistant to ask if he was being transferred. Zhavaronkov and Pariiskii, “Skazavshii budet uslyshan,” 200–3 (quoting the recollections of Karmanova, his deputy in the health commissariat, and the writer Aleksandra Bentsianova, neither of whom attended the plenum), 209 (quoting I. I. Mukhovoz).
69. Afanas’ev, Oni ne molchali, 204 (Svetlana Kaminskaya). Kaminsky had been perhaps the sole Soviet journalist on the ground in Germany in fall 1923 reporting objectively that the Comintern efforts to instigate a seizure of power were disastrous. Lozhechko, Grigorii Kaminskii.
70. Afanas’ev, Oni ne molchali, 210–1 (Kaminskaya).
71. The sentence was carried out Feb. 10, 1938, at Yagoda’s former dacha (Kommunarka).
72. “Ochen’ vysoko tsenit t. Beria,” 163–5 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 788, l. 114–5ob; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 788, l. 114–16ob, June 25, 1937). Tite Lordkipanidze, a former head of the South Caucasus secret police, was arrested on June 22, 1937, along with several subordinates, in the Crimea autonomous republic; he was sentenced to execution on Sept. 14, 1937, and shot fifteen days later.
73. Already back on Oct. 21, 1933, Stalin had written to Kaganovich: “Pavlunovsky destroyed the artillery. Orjonikidze must be given a scolding for having trusted two or three of his favorites. He was ready to give state benefits to these imbeciles.” Stalin to Kaganovich, RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 38–9. Pavlunovsky would be shot on Oct. 30, 1937.
74. Already during his 1920s police work rooting out Menshevik sympathies, Beria had begun collecting dossiers on literary figures, musicians, and university personnel. Rayfield, Stalin and His Hangmen, 299.
75. Pravda, Jan. 15, 1937; Literaturnaia gazeta, Jan. 5 and 10, 1937. The central regime awarded 3 million additional rubles for new apartments for artists of the Georgian National Opera and Ballet Theater, 700,000 for the theater’s refurbishment, 1 million to build a concert hall in the Tblisi conservatory, and half a million to refurbish its building. Gatagova et al., TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i natsional’nyi vopros, II: 212–3 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 983, l. 28: Jan. 14, 1937).
76. Akhmeteli was executed on June 27, 1937. Urushadze, Sandro Akhmeteli, 250–1, 266–70. On Akhmeteli’s theater, see also Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, 213–4.
77. Rayfield, “Death of Paolo Iashvili,” 635–6.
