22. Timoshenko had asked twenty-eight generals to sketch their views on the future war, and he chose five to report at the meeting, including Zhukov, commander of Kiev military district, on offensive operations; Ivan Tyulenev, head of Moscow military district, on defense; and Dmitri Pavlov, commander of the Western military district, on mechanized warfare. See also Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvenaia, XII (I): 13–29 (Meretskov), 129–51 (Zhukov); Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 99 (citing RGASPI, f. 77, op. 116, d. 97, l. 12: Zhdanov, Nov. 20, 1940).
23. Cynthia Roberts notes that Isserson was not alone. Colonel A. I. Starunin published an article in early 1941 explaining that Germany’s victories had undone the theory that the initial period of war would see “armies of incursion” attempting to seize various objectives as the main forces completed mobilization in the rear. Starunin, however, blunted the force of his argument, proposing that the Red Army could attain air superiority and disrupt German rail lines to inhibit the enemy’s mobilization, after proving that no such mobilization would be necessary. Starunin, “Operativnaia vnezapnost’.”
24. Isserson’s text, dated June–July 1940, had not taken up the German campaign in France, but had concluded with an oblique reference: “Only six months later in the West, events transpired that further showed the development of the new military art to a higher level of large-scale modern European war.” Isserson, Novye formy bor’by, 28; Anfilov, Doroga k tragedii, 74; Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvenaia, XII (I): 15 (Meretskov), 152–4, 247–9 (Klyonov); Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/i: 56. See also Harrison, Architect of Victory, 228–34. Isserson (b. 1898) had been shown up by the Finnish War (during which he headed the staff of the Seventh Army). He would be arrested on June 7, 1941, and condemned to death, but reprieved to ten years in a camp in northern Kazakhstan.
25. As early as 1936, Soviet military analysts argued that a frontal assault-style war would not work in the East. Erickson, “Threat Identification,” 396–8 (citing Krasnaia zvezda, May and June 1936).
26. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, XII (I): 204–5 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 57, l. 70–3). Khryunkin had led a bomber squadron that had sunk a Japanese aircraft carrier, been given China’s highest military award, and went on to complete the General Staff Academy and lead an army in the Winter War. Timoshenko, in his concluding summary, which was published as a brochure for internal use, giving it the character of a general directive, acknowledged that the leaders of the air force disagreed on the best ways to employ air power and urged them to think more about achieving air supremacy. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, XII (I): 173–82 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 57, l. 1–24), 164–7 (d. 56, l. 85–92), 338–72 (op. 15, d. 27, l. 575–607).
27. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia Otechestvennaia, XII (I): 339–40.
28. Naumov, 1941 god, I: 498n2 (citing APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 437); Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 262. “I read your ‘In the steppes of Ukraine,’” the document-centric despot wrote to Korneychuk (Dec. 28, 1940). “It came out brilliantly—artistic and complete, cheery and joyous. . . . By the way: I also added some words on page 68. That was for greater clarity.” The words he inserted specified that, despite some changes, the collective farm tax would essentially stay the same. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 4674, l. 1–2; Gromov, Stalin, 223–4; Sochineniia, XVIII: 209. In the book Subversive Activity of Foreign Intelligence in the USSR, published in Dec. 1940, the author wrote that “as the main method of masking they chose hypocritical-sham ‘devotion’ to the cause of proletarian revolution and socialist construction.” Loyalty, in other words, was a sign of disloyalty. Minaev, Podryvnaia deiatel’nost’ inostrannykh razvedok v SSSR.
29. Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, 111. On Dec. 27, 1940, at a meeting of the high command, Raeder once again insisted on concentrating all forces against Britain, the main enemy, and “expressed the most serious doubts in the possibility of a war against Russia before England was destroyed.” Trial of the Major War Criminals, XXXIV: 714.
