244. Mannerheim, Memoirs, 367. See also Liddell-Hart, Expanding War, 72. One Soviet political commissar observed, “Regiments and divisions were sometimes given to incompetent, inexperienced, and poorly trained people who failed at the slightest difficulty in battle.” Rzheshevskii et al., Zimniaia voina, II: 21–2. The inadequacy of the Soviet officer corps was a long-standing point of critique. Zaitsev, “Krasnaia armiia,” 12.
245. This testimony is second-hand, from Vasilevsky, Shaposhnikov’s top subordinate at the general staff. Vasilievskii, Delo vsei zhizni, I: 102; Bialer, Stalin and his Generals, 132.
246. Vasilevsky, Lifelong Cause, 108–9. Vasilesvsky was in the Little Corner between March 2 and 17, 1940, on all the days Stalin received visitors except one—thirteen visits total. Na prieme, 293–5.
247. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh sem’i, 64–5 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1553, l. 38–9).
248. They would marry on New Year’s Eve 1940–1, just before Vasily would be scheduled to return to his officers’ study courses in Lipetsk, where they would live together in the dormitory. In May 1941, they would return to Moscow; Stalin would order that they move into his Kremlin apartment, which would be subdivided for them. Mamaeva, “Vasily Stalin.”
249. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, 367–8; Haslam, “Soviet Foreign Policy,” 116–7; Watson, Molotov, 180.
250. Voroshilov, “Uroki voiny s Finliandiei.” Much of the lively discussion of operations and strategy, prominent through 1936, had been killed off by the terror, but the disastrous Finnish war experience forced its revival. Naumov, 1941 god, II: 500–7.
251. Supposedly, Stalin privately fumed of Voroshilov, “He boasted, assured us, reassured us, that any strike would be answered by a triple strike, that everything is good, everything is in order, everything is ready, Comrade Stalin.” Simonov, “Zametki k biogfraii G. K. Zhukova,” 50. This conversation evidently transpired when Timoshenko was sent to Finland and after Zhukov was put in charge of the Kiev military district.
252. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 128 (March 28, 1940); Rubtsov, Alter ego Stalina, 135 (quoting, without citation, recollections of General Khrulev); Voroshilov, “Uroki voiny s Finliandiei” (APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 261, l. 114–58); Volkovskii, Tainy i uroki, 426–49 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 121, l. 1–35: Voroshilov report).
253. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 128. See also Gorodetsky, Grand Illusion, 117–8.
254. Malyshev, “Dnevnik narkoma,” 110.
255. Stalin, Schulenburg added, could at most be expected to meet Hitler in a border town. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 134–6.
256. Pravda, March 30, 1940.
257. Duraczyński and Sakharov, Sovetsko-Pol’skie otnosheniia, 153–4 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1305, l. 210–1). Tevosyan’s sister (Yuliya) was married to Levon Mirzoyan, the Armenian party official, who fell afoul of Beria. She was arrested. “Stal’noi narkom” (Jan. 15–31, 2011): http://noev-kovcheg.ru/mag/2011-02/2363.html.
258. The first issue of the KFSSR newspaper Pravda in Finnish came out on April 10, 1940. Bol’shevistskaia pechat’, 1940, no. 8: 71.
259. For the complete proceedings, see Rzheshevskii et al., Zimniaia voina, II (excerpts in Volkovskii, Tainy i uroki, 450–516, and Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 235–48); Chubarian and Shukman, Stalin and the Soviet-Finnish War.
260. Volkovskii, Tainy i uroki, 450–5, 464–5. See also Meretskov, Na sluzhbe, 182. Later, Khrushchev, citing a conversation with Timoshenko, said that “every pillbox the Finns had built on the whole Mannerheim line—all that was well known and even mapped out.” Khrushchev, Memoirs, I: 253.
261. Baryshnikov and Manninen, “V kanun zimnei voiny,” I: 133 (RGVA, f. 37977, op. 1, d. 722, l. 410–1); Elliston, Finland Fights, 142 (citing German military attaché in Finland, General Arniké).
262. Baryshnikov, Ot prokhladnogo mira, 264 (citing RGVA, f. 37977, op. 1, d. 722, l. 411). Meretskov claimed he asked but could not get the necessary information on what to expect in the war. Meretskov, “Ukreplenie severo-zapadnykh granits SSSR,” 123.
263. Akhmedov, In and Out of Stalin’s GRU, 109.
264. Novobranets, “Nakanune voiny,” 170.
265. Proskurov added that “If on the paper it is written ‘secret,’ then people will read it, but if it is just a simple publication, they’ll say it’s rubbish. (Laughter). I am convinced that big bosses treat materials thusly.” Volkovskii, Tainy i uroki, 464–5, 492–504.
