Stalin полностью

94. Ocherki istorii Kommunisticheskoi partii Armenii, 387; Artizov et al., Reabilitatsiia: kak eto bylo, II: 586. On Aug. 19, 1937, Sahak Ter-Gabrielyan, former head of the Armenian Council of People’s Commissars, died, apparently throwing himself out the fourth floor window of the Lubyanka. For another version, see Matossian, Impact of Soviet Policies, 158.

95. Agrba would be executed April 21, 1938. Zakhar Suleimanovich Agrba, the director of the Abkhaz theater, was also arrested and executed.

96. Mikoian, Tak bylo, 583.

97. Ocherki istorii Kommunisticheskoi partii Armenii, 387; Tucker, Stalin in Power, 488–9.

98. Blauvelt, “March of the Chekists.” Beria wrote to Stalin to request authorization to strengthen defenses on the border with Turkey, reacting quickly after a central decree had ordered such strengthening in Central Asia on the borders with Iran and Afghanistan. Beria understood not to push too far: in one draft telegram to Stalin, he changed the phrase “the Georgia Central Committee proposes” to “requests” when seeking to escape a new decree by the railroad commissariat. Beria also reported to Stalin that Artyomi Geurkov, the former party boss of Ajaria, had shot himself in his apartment, leaving a letter to Beria (which he forwarded) admitting his guilt, perhaps to try to protect family members (“I should be punished, I am doing this myself, perhaps in excess”). Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 78–9 (Sept. 26, 1937), 80–1 (Sept. 1937), 82–4 (Oct. 1, 1937).

99. Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, 270; Rayfield, “Death of Paolo Iashvili,” 663. Back on Oct. 30, 1937, Beria had written to Stalin that of the 12,000-plus people arrested, only 7,374 had had their cases decided, leaving some 5,000 in overcrowded prisons, because the traveling military collegium from Moscow was busy going around to various locations; Beria requested permission for a special collegium of the Georgian court to determine sentences. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 415–6 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 212, l. 137–9); Junge and Bonwetsch, Bol’shevistskii poriadok, II: 23–4 (Arkhiv MVD Gruzii, 2–I otdel, f. 14, op. 11, d. 152, l. 171–3). Beria staged what would turn out to be his final show trial in Tbilisi, which resulted in executions for “wreckers” at the Georgian Animal Husbandry Institute. Zaria vostoka, Jan. 25, 1938.

100. Beria had sought Stalin’s permission to hold a plenum of the Soviet writers’ union in Tbilisi in honor of the Rustaveli celebrations: Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 56–7 (Beria to Stalin, May 31, 1937). Vsevolod Vishnevsky did a radio broadcast from Gori on Dec. 26, 1937, briefly narrating its thirteen centuries of history and describing a visit to Stalin’s birth hovel. Goriaeva, “Veilkaia kniga dnia,” 317–21 (RGALI, f. 1038, op. 1, d. 1181, l. 8–15).

101. In absolute terms, this was third highest, after the Russian and Ukrainian republics. Avalishvili, “‘Great Terror’”; http://stalin.memo. ru/images/note1957.htm.

102. Georgia’s list for the proposed mass operations (NKVD 00447), sent to Yezhov and Frinovsky in Moscow on July 8, 1937, contained 1,419 names in first category (execution) and 1,562 in second (Gulag). An additional 2,000 people were said to be members of former political parties in the republic. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 166, d. 588, l. 36. The NKVD quotas for Georgia were set at 2,000 (first) and 3,000 (second). APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 212, l. 55–78. The Georgia troika would assemble in Goglidze’s office, usually around midnight until 4:00 a.m., and work through 100 to 150 “cases” in a session, spending two minutes or so on each. Junge and Bonwetsch, Bolshevistskii poriadok, II: 411–28 (Arkhiv MVD Gruzii, 1–i otdel, f. vosstanovlennykh del G. Mamuliya: I . Takahadze, Jan. 8, 1957).

103. Junge and Bonwetsch, Bolshevistskii poriadok, I: 68, 71, 75, 81, 95, 200.

104. Esaiashvili, Ocherki istorii Kommunisticheskoi partii Gruzii, II: 160 (partarkhiv GF IML, f. 14, op. 40, d. 35, l. 13–4), 163.

105. “Beria as a literary critic,” quipped Rayfield, “had been successful beyond the dreams of most critics: every writer he had disapproved of had ceased to write.” Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, 262–3.

106. Already by this date, Beria reported to Stalin that more than 12,000 people had been arrested, of which 7,374 had been convicted, 5,236 extrajudicially (by troika). Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 95–7 (Oct. 30–31, 1937).