35. God krizisa, II: 34–5 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 313, d. 2154, l. 107–8); Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 453.
36. Moiseev, Ia vospominaiu, 45–7. Moiseev provides no date for the incident, except that it took place before the Pact (Aug. 1939). His troupe’s first appearance at a Kremlin reception was May 17, 1938 (banquet for schoolteachers); they appeared again on New Year’s Eve 1938–9, May 5 and 7, 1939, July 5 and 20, 1939. Shamina, “Igor Moiseev.” On Nov. 8, 1939, Moiseyev would write to Stalin, complaining of a lack of facility and resources; Stalin would turn the letter over to Shcherbakov, who gave them rehearsal space in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and apartments to some of the dancers. “My peremenili 16 mest raboty,” Izvestiia, 2002, no. 3: 11–2; Ponomarev, Aleksandr Shcherbakov, 60.
37. Strang, Home and Abroad, 68. “Halifax invited me over and started complaining bitterly: we were creating unnecessary difficulties, we were absolutely unyielding, we were reusing the German method of negotiating (announcing our price and demanding 100% acceptance),” Maisky confided in his diary (June 23). “He admitted that, despite the large quantity of telegrams from Seeds and Strang, he still could not grasp what the problem was.” Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 415–6; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 201.
38. Strang, Home and Abroad, 175.
39. Aster, 1939, 273 (citing letter to Hilda Chamberlain, Chamberlain Papers). Chamberlain, one British insider who hosted him in an intimate setting noted, “is not genuine in his desire for an agreement.” Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia, 300–1 (citing FO 371/23068/C8370/3356/18: Peake to Cadogan, June 9, 1939; Harvey Papers, ADD, MSS 5639).
40. Koliazin, “Vernite mne svobodu!,” 220–40.
41. Medvedeva, “‘Chornoye leto’ 1939 goda,” 318–66; Braun, “Vsevolod Meyerhold,” 145–62; Morrison, People’s Artist, 99–100 (citing RGALI f. 1929, op. 1, ed. khr. 655, l. 26ob.: Lina Prokofyeva); “Zagadka smerti Zinaidi Raikha,” Komsomol’skaia pravda, Nov. 14, 2005.
42. Beria evidently awarded the larger part of Meyerhold’s spacious, now vacant apartment in the heart of Moscow (just off Gorky St.) to one of his mistresses, Vardo Mataradze, officially a typist, whom he had brought from Georgia and, it is said, arranged to marry one of his NKVD drivers. The smaller half went to the driver, who found it too small and moved out. Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 103–4. See also Radzinsky, Stalin, 434.
43. DGFP, series D, VI: 1059–62, VII: 67–9; Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939, 161–2.
44. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 108–9 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22407, d. 2, l. 359–60); DGFP, series D, VI: 737–40, 750–1.
45. DGFP, series D, VI: 821–2.
46. Domarus, Hitler: Reden, III: 1216; Vauhnik, Memoiren eines Militärattachés, 29.
47. DGFP, series D, VI: 858–60.
48. Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 601–27.
49. On June 9, 1939, Beria provided a denunciation from the local special department (“A powerful fist to destroy the enemy has not been formed. Troops are being thrown into battle without coordination and mutual support, suffering heavy losses”). Daines, Zhukov, 95–6 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1181, l. 126–7).
50. Sevos’tianov, “Voennoe i diplomaticheskoe porazhenie iaponii,” 70–1.
51. Barnhart, “Japanese Intelligence,” 436–7. The Kwantung chief was Ueda Kenkichi.
52. Efimenko et al., Vooruzhennyi konflikt, 133–4 (RGVA, f. 37977, op. 1, d. 86, l. 10–3: June 27, 1939), 192–3 (op. 3, d. 1225, l. 155–6: July 14, 1939), 164–5 (op. 1, d. 83, l. 166–71), 195 (d. 54, l. 121), 196–7 (d. 55, l. 92–6: Kulik), 219 (f. 4, op. 11, d. 54, l. 276); Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 124 (RGVA, f. 33977, op. 1, d. 54, l. 121), 124–5 (l. 129); Krasnov, Neizvestnyi Zhukov, 118–21. On July 10, 1939, Beria sent Voroshilov a copy of an intercepted letter from the Germany embassy in Moscow to Berlin concerning events at the Halha River. Military attaché Köstring reported the rumors that the Soviets had staged the border incident either to push the Japanese army back or to re-confirm to the British and French that the Japanese were a threat in the Far East, but he deemed these possibilities “unlikely.” Instead, he adhered to the view in the Japanese press that the borders were not clear and that the Mongol nomads migrated with their horses. He discounted the possibility of a full-scale Soviet-Japanese war in this remote border region. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 121–2 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1181, l. 166–9).
