59. Gorelov, Nikolai Bukharin, 100–45. Angelo Tasca, after getting out of Moscow in early 1929, had ripped into Stalin in a letter to the Italian Community party, concluding, “The Russian party and all of us will pay dearly for ignoring Lenin’s instructions about him.” Firsov, “Stalin i Komintern,” 5 (citing Annali Feltrinelli, VIII, 1968, 670). Before the year was out, Tasca was expelled on Stalin’s orders from the Italian Community party, which he had helped establish after having quit the Italian Socialist Party. In exile in France, he would rejoin the Italian Socialists. De Grand, In Stalin’s Shadow. See also Carr and Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, III: 554.
60. Bahne et al., Les Partis communistes, 165 (March 1929); McDermott and Agnew, Comintern, 86. After Hitler would come to power and ban the German Community party, Zetkin would seek asylum in Moscow, where she would die in June 1933.
61. McDermott and Agnew, Comintern, 102, citing K. Gottwald, Spisy (Prague, 1951), I: 322 (Dec. 1929).
62. Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 148–50 (RGASPI, f. 85, op. 1/s., d. 110, l. 1–2ob.). Stalin proposed naming Bukharin commissar of enlightenment, perhaps to tie him down in enervating ideological battles. “Bukharin begged everyone not to name him enlightenment commissar, but proposed, and then insisted on, the Scientific-Technical Administration” of the Supreme Council of the Economy, Voroshilov wrote to Orjonikidze (June 8, 1929). “I supported him in that, a few other comrades supported him and as a majority in one voice (against Koba) we got him so named.” Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 123; Khlevniuk, Khoziain, 30.
63. Vague resolutions to strengthen the military at the 15th Party Congress (Dec. 1927) and the 16th party conference (April 1929) had produced nothing concrete. Voronetskaia, Industrializatsiia SSSR, 42; XVI konferentsiia VKP (b), aprel’ 1929 goda, 240–7, 625. See also Erickson, Soviet High Command, 295, 301–7, 322.
64. Kudriashov, Krasnaia armiia, 234–40 (APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 259, l. 168–80). One of the two classified July 15, 1929, decrees was finally revealed in KPSS o vooruzhennykh silakh Sovetskogo Soiuza, 318–21. Contrary to some speculation, the decrees were not related to the launching of military action on the Chinese Eastern Railway. Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 72–3 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 7, l. 12).
65. Stone, Hammer and Rifle, 124–9 (citing GARF, f. 5446, op. 55, d. 1966, l. 20–32, 35–43; and RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 15, l. 190: Revvoensovet).
66. Ken, Mobilizatsionnoe planirovanie, 74 (RGVA, f. 74, op. 2, d. 101, 105ob.: Litunovsky, July 30, 1929).
67. Gorlov, Sovershennko sekretno, Moskva-Berlin; Müller, Das Tor zur Weltmacht; Zeidler, Reichswehr und Rote Armee (2nd ed.); Erickson, Soviet High Command, 247–82.
68. Stalin had received Uborevičius on Nov. 4, 1927. Na prieme, 770.
69. In a comprehensive report in 1929, Uborevičius had judged the 4,000-strong German officer corps to be “to the right, far to the right of the Social Democrats. The bulk of them stand for a firm bourgeois dictatorship, for fascism.” D’iakov and Bushueva, Fashistskii mech kovalsia v SSSR, 255 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 295, l. 141–83).
70. Zdanovich, Organy, 423–4 (citing TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 7, d. 61, l. 6). See also Stone, Hammer and Rifle, 131 (citing RGVA, f. 33991, op. 1, d. 20, l. 80–92; RGASPI, f. 85, op. 27, d. 93, l. 1; f. 17, op. 162, d. 8, l. 40); and Z., “Sovremennaia artilleriia i modernizatsiia.” Stalin had written to Voroshilov (Dec. 31, 1928), who was then livid over budget cuts, that “the point now is our artillery is insufficient, scandalously insufficient.” Stone, Hammer and Rifle, 102 (RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 39, l. 19).
71. Tinchenko, Golgofa, 106–7; Tichanova, Rasstrel’nye spiski, no. 2, 99–101; Smirnov, Krovavyi marshal, 337 (I. P. Grave). Grigory Kulik, a Stalin civil-war crony dating to 1918 Tsaritsyn days and the head of the artillery directorate, escaped.
72. Mężyński also appended his name to the explanation as the top responsible official. Vinogradov, Genrikh Iagoda, 336–7 (TsA FSB, f.2, op. 2, d. 9, l. 249: Feb. 9, 1929). See the speculations regarding Boris Nicolaevsky’s role in Fel’shtinskii, VChK-GPU, 271.
