213. Shigemitsu made the suggestion to Litvinov in person on the evening of Aug. 4, 1938: Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, IV: 373–5. The next day Soviet intelligence reported to Moscow that Kung Hsianghsi of the Chinese secret service, a stogie-smoking seventy-fifth generation descendant of Confucius, had pledged China’s unconditional support to the USSR in the conflict with Japan. Ganin, who met Kung and wrote the report, inquired whether he should convey the information he had received to the Soviet foreign affairs commissariat. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennai, VII/i: 97–9 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1114, l. 324–8).
214. Sorge repeated that appraisal on Aug. 10: Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, 91–2; Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, VII/i: 147–8 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22383, d. 3, l. 198–9).
215. DVP SSSR, XXI: 433-4 (Aug. 11, 1938).
216. Coox, Nomonhan, 138 (quoting Inada), 140–1.
217. MacKinnon, “Tragedy of Wuhan”; MacKinnon, Wuhan.
218. DGFP, series C, VI: 337–8, 396–7; von Weizsäcker, Memoirs, 126–7; Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 126–7.
219. Cherepanov, Zapiski voenno sovetnika, 323–3; Kaliagin, Po neznakomym dorogam, 92n, 282.
220. “Problems of War Strategy” (Nov. 6, 1938), reprinted in Tse-tung, Selected Military Writings, 269–85 (at 269, 273).
221. Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939, 76–7.
222. Krivosheev, Soviet Casualties, 47–51; Coox, Nomonhan, 132.
223. Blyukher, “S Vasiliem Konstantinovichem Bliukherom,” 84–7. See also Erickson, Soviet High Command, 498–9.
224. Konev, when queried after World War II, would judge Blyukher a man of the past unsuited to modern warfare. “Besedy s marshalom Sovetskogo Soiuza I. S. Konevym,” in Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia, 304–5.
225. One example was Mikhail Viktorov (Novoselov), newly named as NKVD chief in Sverdlovsk, who turned up a shocking state of affairs, even by standards of the terror, in the work of his predecessor (Dmitriev). Viktorov freed a large number of prisoners and sent Lubyanka a long analysis of local falsifications of cases. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 444–5 (citing TsA FSB, sledstvennoe delo no. R-24334, t. 1, l. 67–8). Viktorov would be arrested on Jan. 22, 1939, and sentenced to fifteen years; he died in a camp in 1950.
226. RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1075, l. 57–63.
227. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 229.
228. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 86 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 364, l. 155). Chubar would be arrested on July 4, 1938, and executed on Feb. 26, 1939; Beria would get his dacha.
229. Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 538–41.
230. According to the memoirs of D. N. Sukhanov (b. 1904), an aide to Malenkov, dated March 6, 1993, Stalin had asked Malenkov for files on people who could be appointed to replace Yezhov as commissar of state security. Sukhanov claims he looked through the nomenklatura lists and selected as the finalists Beria, Kruglov, Pegov, Kuznetsov, and Gusarov. Malenkov’s son said seven names were submitted to Stalin, who chose Beria. Hoover Archives, Volkogonov papers, container 13, excerpted Sukhanov memoirs (dated March 6, 1993); Malenkov, O moem otse, 34. Pavliukov has Malenkov asking his aide V. A. Donskoi to compile the list, not Sukhanov.
231. Another report (July 21, 1938) outlined the dubious leadership style and methods of Beria and Dekanozov. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 164–5, citing APRF, f. 57, op. 1, d. 264; f. 3, op. 24, d. 463, l. 236–7. Rumors circulated that Yezhov ordered Beria’s arrest in July 1938, and that Beria was tipped off and flew to Moscow to see Stalin. The rumors were bunk. Jansen and Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner, 149. See also Gol’dshtein, Tochka opory, II: 34–5 and Knight, Beria, 87–8.
232. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 355–9 (RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 265, l. 16–26ob.).
233. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 452, citing TsA FSB, sledstvennoe delo, N-15302, t. 7, l. 180.
234. Pavliukov, Ezhov, 451, citing TsA FSB, sledstvennoe delo, N-15302, t. 10, l. 163; Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 163, citing TsA FSB, f. 3–os, op. 6, d. 3, l. 316–7.
235. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 179–80. Beria might have told Khrushchev afterward; Khrushchev might have been invited to the meal afterward at the dacha and heard there.
236. According to Malenkov’s son, Stalin phoned Malenkov: “You wrote this yourself?” “Yes, I wrote it.” “This is what you think?” “Yes, I think this.” Malenkov, O moem otse, 33.
237. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 179–80.
