162. Voroshilov forwarded the Zhukov telegram to Stalin, with a note: “As one could have anticipated, no divisions turned out to be surrounded, the enemy having either managed to remove the main forces in time or, more likely, no major forces were in this region for a long time, instead there was a specially prepared garrison, which now is completely destroyed.” A concentration camp for two thousand Japanese POWs had been prepared in Verkhne-Udinsk, but only around one hundred soldiers had been captured and they were sent to the Chita prison. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestevennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 127 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1225, l. 162), 139 (TsKhIK, f. 1t/p, op. 1, d. 5, l. 93–4). See also Krasnov, Neizvestnyi Zhukov, 137.
163. Coox, Nomonhan, 914; Rossiia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka, 177, 179; Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939, 101–53. For other numbers, see Krivosheev, Grif sekretnosti sniat’, 77–85. Mongolia suffered 556 casualties.
164. “Muzhestvo i geroizm,” Krasnaia zvezda, Aug. 30, 1939; Sokolov, Georgii Zhukov, 143.
165. Simonov, “Zmetki k biografii G. K. Zhukova,” 54.
166. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 163–4 (RGVA, f. 37977, op. 1, d. 91, l. 32–3: Sept. 1, 1939). Zhou En-Lai brought some of the captured Japanese army codes to Moscow in Sept. to Dimitrov, who passed them to Beria. Lebedeva and Narinskii, Komintern i Vtoraia mirovaia voina, 99 (RGASPi, f. 495, op. 74, d. 316, l. 12: note by Stern, Aug. 15); Sergutov, “Organizatsionnye aspekty deiatel’nosti vneshnei razvedki,” III: 241. “For the Japanese army, Nomonhan was the graveyard of reputations.” Coox, Nomonhan, 952; Ikuhiko, “Japanese-Soviet Confrontation,” 157–78.
167. Coox, Nomonhan, 1002 (Oct. 4, 1939); Coox, “The Lesser of Two Hells, Part 2,” 108.
168. Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, 100–3; Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 123 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22407, d. 2, l. 417).
169. Weizsäcker, Memoirs, 210; Craigie, Behind the Japanese Mask, 71; DBFP, 3rd series, IX: 495–7; Iklé, German-Japanese Relations, 135 (citing International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Documents Presented in Evidence, exhibit 486: Ott to Weizsäcker, Aug. 25, 1939); Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 218 (citing exhibit 2735–A, 225, exhibit 3587); DGFP, series D, VII: 259–60 (Ott to foreign ministry, Aug. 24, 1939). The Soviet military attaché’s aide in Tokyo sent a quick report to Moscow on Aug. 26: Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia oteechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 159 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22410, d. 2, l. 131–2).
170. Robinson, Black on Red, 137. “It left us all stunned, bewildered, and groggy with disbelief,” recalled one loyal party member (who later defected). “Hatred of Nazism had been drummed into our minds year after year.” Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom, 332–5. Kravchenko, thirty-four years old in 1939, directed a factory in the industrial district of western Siberia.
171. Ehrenburg, Liudi, gody, zhizn’, II; 202. Vsevolod Vishnevsky, then in the Soviet Far East, also heard about the Pact over the radio and was similarly shocked. The Far East received central newspapers with delay, and after the Aug. 23 treaty he received the August 15–17 newspapers, which had continued to rage about “cannibals” (Nazis). “What about the general ideational-philosophical and political evaluation of fascism, the bloc of aggressors?” he wrote in his diary. Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 200 (citing RGALI, f. 1038, op. 1, d. 2077, l. 39ob., 41).
172. Biulleten’ oppozitsii, no. 74 (1939): 4 (Trotsky, “Stalin’s Capitulation,” March 11, 1939), reprinted in Trotskii, Portrety revoliutsionerov, 147–9. Trotsky also asserted that Stalin was afraid. “The main source of the policy of Stalin himself is now fear in the face of the fear that he himself has begotten,” he wrote, apropos of Afinogenov’s old play Fear. “Stalin never trusted the masses; now he fears them.” Trotskii, “Iosif Stalin: opyt kharakteristiki (Sept. 22, 1939),” in Portrety revoliutsionerov, 46–60 (at 58).
