32. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 355–9, at 357 (from APRF, f. 57, op. 1, d. 265, l. 16–26ob.).
33. Kostrychenko and Khazanov, “Konets Kar’ery Ezhova,” 131 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1003, l. 34–5); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 611 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1003, l. 34–5).
34. Petrov and Jansen, Stalinski pitomets, 354–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 58, l. 61–2); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 611–2; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1003, l. 35 (appointment of Beria). The last of the infamous execution lists for 1938 was dated Sept. 29: APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 409–19: http://stalin.memo.ru/images/intro.htm. But Volkgonov, citing military archives, claimed that Stalin, having received some 383 extended lists of names for execution in 1937–38, received yet another on Dec. 12, 1938, containing 3,167 names, albeit without even the charges or the results of any “investigation.” Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, I/ii: 301 (citing TsAMO, f. 32, op. 701323, d. 38, l. 14–6).
35. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 255–6. Of the 14,500 new NKVD employees in 1939, around 11,000 came from the party apparatus or Communist Youth League. Of the 3,460 newcomers in the central NKVD, 3,242 were party apparatchiks and Komsomol. Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 491–502. There was no hint of societal rebellion. In early 1939, the police discovered a self-styled “fascist organization” in Moscow. Evidently, its handful of youthful members had fashioned a flag and put up seventy posters on the eve of Red Army Day, drew some graffiti, and wrote poems. They also seem to have discussed Nazism, anti-Semitism, and Russian nationalism. Four arrests were made; three of them turned out to have been nineteen years old when they joined the group, and the organizer was seventeen. The NKVD produced five volumes on the case. Rittersporn, Anguish, 174 (citing GARF, f. 5446, op. 81a, d. 335, l. 109–14).
36. Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 332 (citing RGVA, f. 9, op. 39, d. 54, l. 114, 119, 154).
37. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 146 (TsA FSB, f. 3os, op. 6, d. 11, l. 185). Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 629–30 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1004, l. 22). See also Knight, Beria, 91. Another 1,960 operatives in the NKVD would be arrested in 1939, including border guards and Gulag. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 151; Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 259. Some 7,372 NKVD personnel were let go in 1939, not all of whom were arrested. Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 501; all told, some 60 percent of NKVD personnel would turn over between Oct. 1936 and the end of 1939, while 21,088 new people were promoted to operative positions in 1939. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 259.
38. Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 495.
39. As of Oct. 1, 1936, of the 110 most senior operatives in state security, 43 had been Jews (declared), and 42 had been eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians), along with 9 Latvians, 5 Poles, and 2 ethnic Germans; by Sept. 1938, of the 150 most senior ranks, 98 were ethnic Russians and 32 Jews, with no Latvians and 1 Pole. By 1939, there would be 122 Russians, 6 Jews, and 12 Georgians. Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 492–500.
40. Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia, 58 (dated Feb. 27, 1979).
41. The Georgia NKVD was given to Avksenti Rapava, Beria’s minion who had helped pulverize Abkhazia. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 89 (Beria to Stalin, Oct. 21, 1937).
42. The transfer took place in Aug. 1938, with Beria’s promotion. Merkulov: RGANI, f. 5, op. 30, d. 4, l. 76–7: letter, to Malenkov, July 23, 1953; “‘Khochetsia prokliast’ den’ i chas moego znakomstva s Beriia,’” 101 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 465, l. 2–28); Tumshis, VChK, 211.
43. Kuromiya and Pepłoński, “Stalin und die Spionage,” 29. Amid Stalin’s self-inflicted chaos, NKVD operatives placed one foreign ambassador’s perlustrated letter into the envelope of another. Plotnikova, “Organy,” 77, 79.
44. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 162–3 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 7, d. 4, l. 14).
45. Kochik, “Sovetskaia voennaia razvedka,” (Dec. 13, 1938). Khaustov writes that “by the results of the special reports that came to Stalin during the second half of the 1930s, one can judge that we did not succeed in recruiting valuable sources of information in European representative offices.” Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 292.
46. Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik; Maser, Hitlers Mein Kampf; Hildebrand, “Hitlers Mein Kampf, Propaganda oder Programm?”
