139. Dokumenty i materialy po istorii sovetsko-pol’skikh otnoshenii, VI: 366 (Grzibowski telegram to Warsaw, Oct. 9, 1938). Following a secret gathering of German military brass on Aug. 19, 1938, at the special SS complex in Yuteborg, Soviet intelligence reported on Nazi Germany’s aggressive designs on the Soviet Union, noting that a major general on Göring’s chief of staff had said that “the main goal of the Führer is a struggle with our real enemies, the Soviets, who have paralyzed Japan in the East and could defend Ukraine only with weak forces. The Führer’s goal is to avoid conflicts with England and France and attain a European pact of the four. Germany needs colonies, not in Africa, but in Eastern Europe, she needs a breadbasket—Ukraine.” A Soviet military intelligence analysis of Germany in Jan. 1939 would conclude that, whereas “Czechoslovakia had served as a barrier to German expansion toward the southeast, now, on the contrary, it serves as a trampoline.” But the report would also quote the Manchester Guardian to the effect that “a shortage of oil might turn out to be the fateful weakness of the German war machine.” Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 21–2 (RGVA, f. 25888, op. 11, d. 86, l. 15), 25–6.
140. On Oct. 31, Litvinov told the Polish ambassador their nonaggression pact remained in force. This would be confirmed bilaterally on Nov. 26, 1938, and announced by TASS the next day.
141. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 253, 309–10 (TsA FSB, f. 3 os, op. 6, d. 8, l. 13).
142. “Vospominaniia Nikity Sergeevicha Khrushcheva,” 87; Pavliukov, Ezhov, 470; Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 179–80; Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 344. It seems that at Stalin’s direction, Yezhov had called Uspensky and summoned him to Moscow—Uspensky drew his own obvious conclusions.
143. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 24, l. 62.
144. Kostrychenko and Khazanov, “Konets Kar’ ery Ezhova,” 125–8 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1003, l. 85–86); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 607–11 (APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 6, l. 85–7); Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 532–7. On Yezhov’s anger at being accused of lawlessness, when he was following Stalin’s instructions, with which Vyshinsky had colluded, see Ushakov and Stukalov, Front voennykh prokurorov, 70–2.
145. “The fear of war had spawned mass terror,” wrote Ulam. “But terror in its turn increased Stalin’s fear of war.” This appears to be exactly backward: Stalin’s fear of war seems to have ended the mass terror. Ulam, Stalin, 491–2. On Oct. 16, 1938, the politburo resolved to demobilize and return the forces called to the western borders: 330,000 troops, 27,500 horses, and 5,000 vehicles. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 24, l. 17.
146. Kissinger, Diplomacy, 333. E. H. Carr also portrayed Stalin as the embodiment of Russian realpolitik in his forced industrialization and foreign policy. The Carr student Gabriel Gorodetsky has asserted that “Machiavelli rather than Lenin was Stalin’s idol,” a dubious claim that does not diminish the value of the treasure trove of evidence that Gorodetsky brought to the fore. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 317; Haslam, “Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia,” 134. See also, on Carr, D’Agostino, “Stalin Old and New.”
CHAPTER 10. HAMMER
1. Chuev, Sto sorok, 414–5. Stalin, in the name of the politburo, had removed A. M. Mogilny, head of Molotov’s secretariat, on Aug. 17, 1937; he removed M. Khlusser, another top Molotov aide, eleven days later. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 990, l. 54, 72.
2. Shpanov, Pervyi udar; Shpanov, “Pervyi udar.” The fantasy novella had been completed back in 1937, under the title Twelve Hours of War, and slated for publication by the Union of Soviet Writers publishing house, but the main censor had blocked it on the grounds that it was aesthetically “hopeless.” “Dokladnaia zapiska agitpropa TsK M. A. Suslovu po povodu izdaniia knigi ‘podzhigateli’ N. N, Shapnova” (April 20, 1949): http://alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/is sues-doc/69631. It would be republished with other stories in summer 1939 by Sovetskii pisatel’. See also Ulam, Stalin, 492.
3. Vishnevskii, “Kniga o budushchei voine.”
4. Yezhov had tried to take Litvinov down. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 184–5. On Jan. 1, 1939, in verification of 22,000 people with access to classified materials in people’s commissariats and central agencies of USSR and RSFSR, more than 3,000 were fired. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 361–2.
5. DVP SSSR, XX: 579 (Litvinov to Maisky, Oct. 29, 1937).
