255. Yegorov had been removed as deputy defense commissar on Jan. 25, 1938. That same day, Pavel Dybenko was removed as commander of the Leningrad military district, soon transferred to the forestry commissariat, then, on Feb. 26, 1938, arrested. He was accused not only of the customary espionage but of using state funds for alcohol-fueled orgies, and, on July 29, 1938, was executed. By contrast, on March 2, 1938, at a confrontation with the arrested Belov, Graynov, Grinko, and Sedyakin, Yegorov was said to have performed well. Still, his wife was pronounced a Polish spy and he was expelled from the Central Committee although not arrested. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 465–6 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 330, l. 112–3), 456–7 (l. 113), 490 (d. 338, l. 4). Every officer acquired a damning dossier as a traitor, including Shaposhnikov, Timoshenko, Zhukov, and Vasilevsky, but they were not touched. Cherushev, “Nevinovnykh ne byvaet . . . ,” 382–3.
256. Inostrannaia literatura, 1988, no. 4: 172.
257. Ehrenburg, Memoirs, 429. Ehrenburg, in 1939, was listed as politically suspect, along with Babel and Pasternak. Babichenko, Literaturnyi front, 29–30 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 121, d. 1, l. 39–40: July 1939), 38 (l. 38: July 26, 1939). “Koltsov along with his boon companion Malraux made contact with the local Trotskyite organization POUM,” Marti (general commissar of the international brigades in Spain) wrote to Stalin. “If one takes into account Koltsov’s long-time sympathy for Trotsky, these contacts do not carry an accidental character.” Marti added that the “so-called civil wife of Koltsov Maria Osten . . . is, I personally have no doubt whatsoever, a secret agent of German intelligence.” Gromov, Stalin, 319. On Koltsov’s recall, see also Kudriashov, SSSR i grazhdanskaia voina v Ispanii, 215 (APRF, f. 3, op. 34, d. 127, l. 27), 312 (APRF, f. 3, op. 34, d. 127, l. 33–4: Mekhlis to Stalin Nov. 12, 1937); Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 486–7 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 754, l. 82: Nov. 6), 487n1 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 71, d. 46, l. 52); Efimov, Mikhail Kol’tsov, 114.
258. TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 262, l. 57–60. Stalin had had a sarcastic note about Bedny’s long antifascist poem, “Struggle or Die,” read to the poet in July 1937. Bedny kept trying, sending Mekhlis a poem for Pravda about the anniversary of the Kirov murder, which Mekhlis forwarded to Stalin and Molotov with a recommendation of rejection, and another about beating enemies, which Stalin called “weak.” Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 476–9 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 702, l. 112; d. 130, l. 100; d. 702, l. 133; l. 113–21), 481 (f. 82, op. 2, d. 984, l. 50: Oct. 20, 1937; 496–7: f. 558, op. 11, d. 702, l. 134–6: Jan. 26, 1938). Without a paid job, Bedny was forced to sell his spectacular private library, which he had been assembling since his university days; Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich found out and bought it for the State Literary Museum. Bonch-Bruevich, Vospominaniia, 184. In Aug. 1938, Bedny was expelled from the party and the Union of Soviet Writers. Gronsky claimed that Stalin confidentially “took an exercise book out of his safe. Written in it were some rather unflattering remarks about the denizens of the Kremlin. I said that the handwriting was not Demyan’s. Stalin replied that these were the sentiments of the slightly tipsy poet, taken down by a certain journalist.” Gronskii, Iz proshlogo, 155. See also Gromov, Stalin, 165–6. The “journalist” may have been Mikhail Prezent, who was arrested and had kept a diary, writing in it that the literati joked, “Trotsky decided to commit suicide, so Trotsky sent Stalin a letter challenging him to a socialist competition.” Stalin underlined the passage. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 69 (diary); excerpts in Sokolov, Narkomy strakha, 24–37. Prezent died in prison from a lack of insulin.
259. Tolstoy, Tolstoys.
260. Litvin, “‘Chto zhe nam delat’?,” I: 505–27 (at 509, 521–3).
261. Poretsky, Our Own People, 214–6.
262. Duff, Time for Spies; West and Tsarev, Crown Jewels, 103–26.
263. Lewin, “Grappling with Stalinism,” 308–9; Khlevniuk, “Stalinist ‘Party Generals,’” 60.
264. Bagirov remained party boss in Azerbaijan and Grigor Arutyunov in Armenia. Suny, Making of the Georgian Nation, 278; Knight, Beria, 89.
265. Glavnyi voennyi sovet RKKA, 135–41 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 46, l. 183–90).
266. Blyukher, “S. Vasiliem Konstantinovichem Bliukherom,” 82–3. The same “take a holiday in Sochi” approach had been ominously suggested to Nikolai Kuznetsov when he returned from Spain in Sept. 1937; Kuznetsov survived to get a new assignment.
