8. “From June 10 to 17,” Merkulov wrote (June 18), “thirty-four people left the German embassy to return to Germany; the upper ranks were sending home their families and belongings.” Naumov, 1941 god, II: 384–5 (TsA FSB, f. 3os, op. 8, d. 58, l. 1945–8). That same day, Augusto Rosso, the Italian ambassador, went to see Schulenburg at his residence (the NKGB eavesdropped the conversation). The German ambassador admitted to receiving his own instructions to evacuate embassy staff families and non-essential employees. Rosso telegrammed Rome asking for instructions in the event of war, especially about what to do with documents. Altogether, NKGB counterintelligence, in Moscow and Rome, secured three versions, independent of one another, of the Rosso-Schulenburg exchange, reporting that Rosso noted Schulenburg’s lack of information, but wrote “in strict confidence he [Schulenburg] added that in his personal opinion . . . a military conflict was unavoidable and that it could break out in two or three days, possibly on Sunday [June 22].” Pronin, “Nevol’nye informatory Stalina,” 1–2 (citing FSB archives); Naumov, 1941 god, II: 389 (TsA FS); Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 267–8. Sudoplatov commented on the June 19 report from the NKGB Rome station chief, “It appears we are being robustly disinformed.” In other words, a privileged conversation between allies—Germany and Italy—was intended to trick the Soviets into preparing for war and thereby provoke war. Under such reasoning, anything and everything the Germans did could be dismissed. The extraordinary achievement and exertions of total surveillance were in vain. Sharapov, “Za sto chasov do voiny.”
9. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 693–4 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 24119, d. 2, l. 83).
10. Molotov added: “I will have a talk with I.V. [Stalin]. If anything particular comes of it, I will give a call!” Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 165–6 (June 21, 1941); Naumov, 1941 god, II: 416. Molotov late in life, to a question about anticipated blackmail, replied, “And why not think so? Hitler was an extortionist, to be sure. He could have been extorting concessions. . . . Around each issue there could have been extortion and deception and duplicity and flattery and . . . it’s hard to say really.” Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 30.
11. “Iz perepiska N. V. Valentinova-Vol’skogo s B. I. Nikolaevskim,” in Valentinov, Nasledniki Lenina, 214.
12. Valedinskii, “Organizm Stalina vpolne zdorovyi.” See also, among other important sources, RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1289, l. 6, 6 ob., 22–3; d. 1482, l. 7 ob., 23.; Ilizarov, Tainaia zhizn’ Stalina, 113.
13. Tiulenev, Cherez tri voiny (2007), 224; Utesov, Spasibo, Serdtse!, 249–50.
14. Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia, 422–3 (quoting an interview with Isakov in 1962).
15. Bullock understood that Hitler and Stalin possessed dissimilar personalities, but he portrayed them as two similar lower-class malcontents, ambitious yet resentful of the political regimes and social orders they lived under. Still, in his telling, neither represented a mere expression of supposed impersonal forces. On the contrary, he portrays each as uniquely decisive in the creation of their respective regimes and policies. In Overy’s follow-up, the infrastructure of rule and systems of domination, rather than the persons, drive the respective systems, which emerged from the destruction of the Great War, sought to realize alternatives to the perceived failures of parliamentary order, and drew upon popular support. Overy understands that the two systems represented very different utopias. Still, he, too, overdoes the similarities. Bullock, Hitler and Stalin, 349, 977; Overy, Dictators.
16. Kumanev, Riadom so Stalinym, 409–10 (Chadayev); Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 355, 370.
17. Recollections of one of Poskryobyshev’s two daughters, Natalya: http://sloblib.narod.ru/slob/poskreb.htm. Poskrebyshev’s first wife, Jadwiga, a Pole, had died in 1929 of tuberculosis.
18. Tyulenev wrote that he saw Timoshenko and Zhukov that evening at the defense commissariat, evidently before their audience with Stalin, and that he departed the city for his dacha in Serebryannyi Bor, where his family was staying. Tiulenev, Cherez tri voiny (2007), 224, 226. This version of his memoirs—purportedly restoring censored parts—does not differ in essence from the earlier version regarding this episode: Tiulenev, Cherez tri voiny (1972), 123–4; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 200–3. Admiral Kuznetsov recalled that Tyulenev, when giving a lecture, reminisced that he had been phoned by Stalin at 2:00 p.m. Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 357, which also appears in the first edition (1966), 329.
