125. On Oct. 2, Soviet ambassador to London Ivan Maisky telegrammed Moscow reporting that, on Sept. 30, he had gone to see Tomáš Masaryk, the Czechoslovak representative in Britain, to express condolences. “They sold me into slavery to the Germans,” Masaryk was reported to have told Maisky through tears, “the way that once the Negroes were sold into slavery in America!” Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 29–31 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 278, d. 1931, l. 53–6: Oct. 2, 1938); God krizisa, I: 41–3. On Oct. 5, 1938, Beneš would resign under German pressure and, seventeen days later, go into exile in London.
126. Craigie, Behind the Japanese Mask, 67–8. Craigie served as Britain’s ambassador to Tokyo.
127. Von Hassel, Die Hasseltagebücher, 51; Genoud, Testament of Adolf Hitler, 84–5; Fest, Hitler, 742. Not for Hitler the ancient Sun Tzu’s wisdom: “the greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
128. Jackson, “End of Appeasement,” 237 (citing SHAT, 7N 2515 [Oct. 10–16, 1938] and 2605 [Oct. 11, 1938], 2602–1 [Nov. 9, 1938]). Hitler and his minions even felt that Munich had somehow reconfirmed the Western powers’ objections to Germany’s assumption of its rightful place, which justified Germany’s forcing through even greater expenditures on the military, railways, highways, and other infrastructure. Tooze, Wages of Destruction, 288.
129. The Times, Oct. 1, 1938. The Soviets were in difficult trade negotiations with Italy at this time. The Italians were demanding additional oil deliveries; Litvinov recommended offering grain. Sevost’ianov, Moskva-Rim, 454 (APRF, f. 3, op. 65, d. 246, l. 128: Litvinov to Stalin, Oct. 15, 1938), 455 (l. 127: Oct. 22, 1938, politburo decree).
130. DGFP, series D, IV: 602–4 (Tippelskirch, Oct. 3, 1938).
131. Sochineniia, XVI: 118.
132. Pravda, Sept. 18, 1938. See also Pravda, Nov. 4, 1938 (Zhdanov) and Izvestiia, Nov. 10, 1938 (Molotov).
133. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 235 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 5, d. 81, l. 140); Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 305. Surits, in Paris, wrote to the foreign affairs commissariat in Moscow that “any Frenchman” could see that for France the Munich Pact constituted “a most terrible defeat” equivalent to a “second Sedan” (when Germany crushed France in Bismarck’s wars of unification). Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 35–6 (“excerpted”: Oct. 12, 1938). Following the Munich Pact, the British agent in Salamanca, Robert Hodgson, told Eberhard von Stohrer, the German ambassador to Franco’s regime, that Britain intended to mediate the conflict in Spain. Franco, at dinner with Stohrer on Oct. 1, rhapsodized over Hitler’s triumph at Munich. DGFP, series D, III: 754–60; Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 555–6, 827–8.
134. Passov, appointed on March 28, 1938, had remained head of civilian intelligence with the formation of the NKGB in Sept. 1938, but would be arrested on Oct. 23 for anti-Soviet conspiracy. Sudoplatov served as acting chief of NKGB espionage until Dec. 2, 1938, when Vladimir Dekanozov would be appointed. Passov would be executed on Feb. 14, 1940. Abramov, Evrei v KGB, 260–1; Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 7; Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 252 (TsA FSB, f. H-15014, t. 2, l. 90); Kolpakidi and Prokhorov, Vneshniaia razvedka Rossii, 106–7.
135. Khlevniuk et al., Stenogrammy zasedanii politbiuro, III: 694–6; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 163, d. 1217, l. 51–2. Only after publication of the Short Course would Stalin relinquish formal control over ideology in the Central Committee secretariat, giving the portfolio to Zhdanov on Nov. 27, 1938. Khlevniuk et al., Stalinskoe politbiuro, 171.
136. Zelenov and Brandenberger, “Kratkii kurs,” I: 494–5. Stalin added: “Comrade Khrushchev thinks that to this day he remains a worker, when in fact he is an intelligent.”
137. Eugene Lyons would write that “only another war, and a catastrophically losing one, could effectively challenge Stalin’s ascendancy.” Lyons, Stalin, 290. See also Kuromiya, “Accounting for the Great Terror.”
138. Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War; Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 4. Yefim Dzigan’s feature film If War Comes Tomorrow, which had premiered earlier in the year, had made the Red Army seem invincible, mixing documentary footage of paratroopers during maneuvers with a catchy, reassuring song with words by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach: “If war comes tomorrow, if tomorrow it’s into battle, be prepared today!”
