166. Stalin had also supposedly sat for the painter Dmitry Sharapov in the 1930s, but did not like the result; in any case, Sharapov was arrested. Medvedev, “O Staline i stalinzme.”
167. Chegodaeva, Dva lika vremeni, 152–8. Perhaps the most striking image of all appeared in USSR in Construction, a Stalin profile portrait formed from a vast abundance of tiny multihued flecks of millet, alfalfa, and poppy. USSR in Construction, 1939, no. 11–2; Margolin, “Stalin and Wheat.”
168. Pravda, Dec. 20 and 21, 1939; Heizer, “Cult of Stalin.” The thousands of congratulations in Pravda ran until Feb. 2, 1940.
169. Komsol’skaia pravda, Dec. 22, 1939.
170. For example: RGAKFD, ed. khr. 1–3553 (year 1939). A model of the hovel was on display in the Georgia pavilion at the all-Union Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow.
171. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1499, l. 39–54. Yaroslavsky incorporated many “reminiscences” in his book, O tovarishche Staline (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1939), in English, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1940), printed in some 200,000 copies, which, unusually, included a chapter on Stalin’s childhood. The work was based on a long speech on Stalin’s life that Yaroslavsky had delivered at a conference of agitprop cadres on Sept. 17, 1939, which had been published in two parts in the agitprop journal: “Vazhneishie vekhi zhizni i deiatel’nosti tovarishcha Stalina,” V pomoshch’ marksistsko-leninsokomu obrazovaniiu, 1939, no. 10: 33–61, no. 13–4: 22–92. Also, some of the “reminiscences” Beria’s minions had gathered and published in Tbilisi about Stalin’s youth were republished in the mass-circulation youth periodical Molodaya Gvardiya (1939, no. 12). In Sept. 1940, Stalin forbade publication in Russian of the Georgian-language book Childhood of the Leader, by the famed children’s writer Konstantin Gamsakhurdia, issued the previous year in connection with Stalin’s sixtieth birthday. Galleys had been readied. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 524–5 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 730, l. 190); d. 787, l. 1–2. See also Davies and Harris, Stalin’s World, 159.
172. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 3226, l. 1; d. 1281; Koniuskaia, “Iz vosponinanii,” 3; RGASPI, f. 629, op. 11, d. 55, l. 52.
173. K shestidesiatiletiiu, 177. See also Barmine, One Who Survived, 258. The regime published recommended readings for Stalin’s jubilee: Markovich, O Staline. See also O Staline: ukazatel’ literatury. Yaroslavky described the three earliest meetings between Stalin and Lenin: Dec. 1905 in Tampere, Finland at the 3rd Party Congress; April 1906 in Stockholm, at the 4th Party Congress; and in May 1907 in London, at the 5th Party Congress (the numbers were disputed by non-Bolshevik members of the Russian Social Democrat Workers Party). Iaroslavskii, “Tri vstrechi.”
174. Pravda, Dec. 23 and 25, 1939, reprinted in Iu. Fel’shtinskii, Oglasheniiu podlezhit, 170–1. Stalin’s name, one author wrote in a biographical note, “glows like a torch of freedom, like a battle flag of the toilers of the whole world.” Badaev, “O Staline.”
175. Time, Jan. 1, 1940.
176. Mydans, More than Meets the Eye, 119.
177. Van Dyke, Soviet Invasion, 77 (citing an unpublished essay by G. A. Kumanev).
178. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 332, 357.
179. Volkogonov, Hoover Institution Archive, box 1 (Voroshilov, Stalin, and Shaposhnikov order to frontline commanders); van Dyke, Soviet Invasion, 103, citing N. F. Kuz’min, Na strazhe mirovogo truda, 1921–1941 gg. (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1959), 238.
180. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 210–2 (RGVA, f. 33988, op. 4, d. 13, l. 197ss–200ss), 212–4 (l. 247ss–249ss), 215–16 (l. 244ss–246ss), 216–8 (239ss–243ss).
181. Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 203. She sent the message on Dec. 8, 1939. When and in what form Stalin received this information remains unclear. On German troop positioning in the West, see Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 257–63 (Jan. 1940).
182. Semiriaga, Tainy stalinskoi diplomatii, 163–4; Meretskov, Na sluzhbe, 185–7; Na prieme, 288.
183. Stalin also permitted selection of quality troops from various military districts for Finland. Van Dyke, Soviet Invasion, 104 (citing RGASPI, f. 71, op. 25, d. 59).
