159. On July 17, 1937, Balytsky wrote a confession to Yezhov of his involvement in a conspiracy, which Frinovsky forwarded to Stalin on July 21; Stalin underlined several passages and wrote: “discuss with Yezhov.” Balytsky had refused to confess only three days earlier. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 257–8 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 316, l. 8–12).
160. Na prieme, 216. Lyushkov was received in the company of Yezhov, Molotov, and Voroshilov. It was Lyushkov’s one recorded visit to the Little Corner.
161. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 234–5 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 321, l. 11; op. 58, d. 405, l. 175).
162. Pravda, Dec. 20, 1937; Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 368–73 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 254, l. 203–15).
163. Tumshis and Papchinskii, 1937, bol’shaia chistka, 79.
164. Ethnic Chinese had comprised 13 percent of the Russian Far East population in 1911, but would fall to under 1 percent as of 1939. Stephan, Russian Far East, 213; Coox, “L’Affaire Lyushkov,” 416. In 1938, the NKVD took inventory of all Chinese in the Soviet Far East with the idea of forcing anyone remaining to emigrate to Xinjiang or resettle in Kazakhstan. But on June 10, 1938, only those who wanted to relocate had to do so, and many Chinese under arrest were released and allowed to go to China. Yezhov informed the NKVD in the Soviet Far East that the USSR was following “friendly relations with China.” Pobol’ and Polian, Stalinskie deportatsii, 103–4.
165. Merritt, “Great Purges,” 456–7.
166. Not including Yagoda, who was general commissar (equivalent to marshal), there were three levels of commissar of state security: first rank, second rank, third rank. Frinovsky held a military rank [komkor]. Two of these state security commissars would survive to 1941. Naumov, Stalin i NKVD (2010), 74–5; Pavliukov, Ezhov, 426.
167. Yezhov supposedly directed Frinovsky to instruct Lyushkov to commit suicide if he were to be recalled to Moscow. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 160 (citing TsA FSB, ASD Frinovskogo, N-15301, t. 2: 173).
168. The second Order of Lenin came on Feb. 23, 1938, Red Army Day. Conquest, Inside Stalin’s Secret Police, 90.
169. Svetlanin, Dal’nevostochnyi zagovor, 92 (referring to a conversation with Blyukher’s political adjutant Semyon Kladko, whom the author ran into in Moscow in mid-Aug. 1938). On July 10, 1937, Stalin received a letter from Blyukher addressed to Voroshilov, in which the Far Eastern marshal rebuked those who had organized his meeting in July 1936 with visiting communications commissar Rykov, blaming the arrested former Far Eastern party boss Kartvelishvili-Lavrentyev. But Blyukher also attacked Vareikis for passing on different information to the Center. Stalin kept Blyukher’s self-justification in his personal archive. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 205–6 (APRF, d. 313, l. 146–8).
170. Blyukher, “S. Vasiliem Konstantinovichem Bliukherom,” 80.
171. Coox, “Lesser of Two Hells, Part 1,” 158.
172. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 422–4 (citing TsA FSB, seldstvennoe delo N-15302, t. 10, l. 169, 175), 428.
173. Haslam, Threat from the East, 94 (citing DDF, 2e série, IX: 613–5, May 3, 1938).
174. The despot elaborated “that it was the ultimate objective of the Japanese to capture the whole of Siberia as far as Lake Baikal,” yet he made clear that “the Soviet Union would not, however, intervene in the war.” U.S. ambassador William Bullitt, relating a conversation with Sun Fo (the envoy who spoke to Stalin): FRUS, 1938, III: 165.
175. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 58, l. 21–4, 33–4 (May 14, 1938).
176. Soviet Naval Commissar Pyotr Smirnov, who co-signed the warning, was sent to the Soviet Far East at this time. Coox, “Lesser of Two Hells, Part 2,” 87.
177. Svetlanin, Dal’nevostochnyi zagovor, 105. Between May 28 and June 8, 1938, the Main Military Council in Moscow, with Stalin in attendance, resolved, among multiple agenda items in connection with the Far Eastern Army, “to purge the command-political cadres of enemies of the people, doubtful and morally debased elements.” All ethnic Germans, Poles, Latvians, Estonians, Koreans, Lithuanians, Romanians, Turks, Hungarians, and Bulgarians in the Far Eastern Army’s ranks were to be immediately discharged. Glavnyi voennyi sovet RKKA, 84–5.
178. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 427 (according to the then head of bodyguards, Dagin).
179. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 160–1 (citing TsA FSB, ASD Frinovskogo, N-15301, t. 2: 179).
