107. Coates and Coates, History of Anglo-Soviet Relations, II: 332; Izvestiia, Nov. 6, 1929; DBFP, 2nd series, VII: doc. 24; DVP SSSR, XII: 537–8, 541; Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Evropa, 182–201 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 7, l. 55, 51, 87, 94, 123, 136, 143, 158–9, 160–3, 178); Izvestiia, July 5, 1929. In the May 30, 1929, general election, Labour had won 287 seats, not enough for a majority (308), while the Tories won 260; Labour was dependent on the votes of Lloyd George’s Liberal Party (59 seats) to pass legislation. Three Tories voted for restoration of diplomatic relations with the USSR. Redvaldsen, “‘Today Is the Dawn.’”
108. Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 21–2. Stalin approved the appointment of Grigory Sokolnikov, the former NEP-era finance commissar and party oppositionist and current skillful head of the state oil trust, as Soviet envoy. Sir Esmond Ovey became British ambassador in Moscow. Lammers, “Second Labour Government.” Ovey would claim that at a banquet given by the foreign affairs commissariat in 1931, the silverware bore the British coat of arms and the motto of the British chivalric Order of the Garter (Honi soit qui mal y pense—“May he be shamed who thinks badly of it”). Evidently, the silver had been stolen from the British embassy either during the 1917 revolution or after 1927, when relations had been severed. Time, May 11, 1931.
109. Blyumkin had served as Trotsky’s adjutant, then was invited to rejoin the secret police, rising to pro-consul in the Soviet satellite of Mongolia and then to undercover OGPU station chief in Istanbul. Yakov Agranov recorded Blyumkin’s revealing deposition (Oct. 20, 1929), which Yagoda forwarded to Stalin, and Stalin forwarded to Central Committee members. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 192–212 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 24, d. 126, l. 94–124), 213 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 8, l. 2). See also Savchenko, Avantiuristy grazhdanskoi voiny, 305–36; Mandelstam, Hope against Hope, 101ff; Gusterin, Sovetskaia razvedka; Agabekov, G.P.U., 221–6; Agabekov, OGPU, 214–23; Agabekov, ChK za rabotoi, 293–9. Agabekov (Aryutunov), an Armenian OGPU operative sent to Turkey to replace Blyumkin, became the first senior secret police official to defect to the West (1930); he betrayed the Soviet spy network in the Near East. OGPU agents went around whispering that Radek had betrayed Blyumkin, a story that, as intended, reached Trotsky, damaging relations between him and Radek, conveniently for Stalin. Radek would not deny he had informed on Blyumkin. Trotsky is said to have received a letter detailing Radek’s betrayal. “Kak i za chto Stalin rasstrelial Bliumkina” Biulleten’ oppozitsi, no. 9 (Feb.–March 1930): 9–11; Deutscher, Prophet Outcast, 85–8; Medvedev, Let History Judge, 292–3; Volkogonov, Trotsky, 329–30; Orlov, Secret History, 194.
110. Sel’sko-khoziaistvennaia gazeta, Oct. 15, 1929 (Sergei Syrtsov); Pravda, Nov. 10 and Dec. 8, 1929. The slogan became widespread beginning in Feb. 1930: Davies, Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 191. A patent-equivalent for a tractor had been issued in tsarist Russia and a tractor prototype had been produced, but it never came into production. Artobolevskii and Blagonravov, Ocherki, 215.
111. Pravda, Nov. 7, 1929, reprinted with alterations in Sochineniia, XII: 118–35; Davies, Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 329–45. One of Stalin’s post-facto editorial changes was shrinking the anticipated size of Soviet farms to 40,000–50,000 hectares. Sochineniia, XII: 129; Davies, “Stalin as Economic Policy-Maker,” 123. State farms were being modeled after industry, and, Molotov exhorted the plenum, collective farms should model themselves after state farms. Bol’shevik, 1929, no. 22: 20. Pravda (Sep. 5, 1929) had declared that all “technically more developed capitalist countries” were organizing agriculture like industry. Davies, Soviet Collective Farm, 3.
112. Mikoyan told the plenum (Nov. 11) that in the next year “we will have a significant export of grain,” even though key ports lacked large mechanized elevators and the United States, Argentina, and Canada had displaced Russia in European grain markets. Danilov and Khlevniuk, Kak lomali NEP, V: 83 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 441, l. 19–20ob.).
113. Sdvigi v sel’skom khoziaistve SSSR, 22–3. See also Ivnitskii, Kollektivizatsiia i raskulachivanie, 15; and Davies, Socialist Offensive, 116–37, 442.
