Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 полностью

99. See the case of the head of the Artyom Coal Trust in the Donbass, Konstantin Rumyantsev, in which Stalin expressed distrust of the motives of his brother-in-law Redens (Ukraine OGPU boss): RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 42, l. 104. Rumyantsev (b. 1891), who won an Order of Lenin in 1931, died in a plane crash the next year.

100. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 284 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 76, l. 70: Sept. 19, 1931).

101. Khlevniuk, Politbiuro, 84 (citing RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, l. 101). Besides Orjonikidze, Stalin was concerned about Kuibyshev, who, he knew, was an alcoholic and clashed with Molotov as well.

102. Khlevniuk, Master of the House, 73–4 (citing RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 779, l. 21–3: Sept. 11, 1931; l. 32–33: Oct. 4, 1931). “Sergo did not love Molotov very much,” Mikoyan recalled. But disputes were generally not over first principles but bureaucratic interests. Mikoian, Tak bylo, 324, 520; Rees, Decision-making in the Stalinist Command Economy, 262–74.

103. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh, 35 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1550, l. 52), 35–6 (l. 53–8), 37 (l. 59), 44 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1552, l. 1), 37 (l. 60), 39 (l. 65–6: Sept. 26). The openly pro-fascist Dmitrievsky expressed a positive view of Stalin, imagining him to represent “the national-socialist imperialism that aspires to destroy the West in its strongholds.” Stalin (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1931), in Swedish and in Russian (Stockholm: Strela, 1931). See also the review by Kuskova: Sovremennye zapiski, 1931, no. 47: 518. See also the gossip about Stalin and Alliluyeva that circulated in the secret police: Orlov, Secret History, 318–9.

104. The tracks would be fully repaired before 6:00 a.m. the next morning. Yoshihashi, Conspiracy at Mukden; Ogata, Defiance in Manchuria; Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy; Istoriia voiny na Tikhom okeane, I: 187. See also Iriye, After Imperialism.

105. Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy, 114–21.

106. Patrikeef, Russian Politics, 101–3. The early 1920s Soviet thrust into Manchuria, as in the case of Mongolia, had been defensive, to secure Siberia’s flanks against anti-Soviet White armies abroad, but then Manchuria became a largely commercial venture, subject to material cost-benefit rather than revolutionary calculations.

107. The League, founded in 1920 following the Versailles treaty negotiations with forty-two members, was the first international organization dedicated to world peace, aiming to prevent wars with what it called “collective security,” disarmament, and arbitration. Headquartered in Geneva it had a general assembly of all members and a secretariat, but lacked its own military and depended on the great powers comprising its executive council to enforce its resolutions. Japan was one of five permanent members of the League’s executive council (along with Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, which had been added later). The United States, one of the originators, had failed to join. American economic power could be converted into military power—such as in the decision to build a two-ocean navy in 1916—but American geopolitical power remained constrained by limits set by Congress and public opinion. The Soviet Union was not a member of the League either. Kennedy, “Move to Institutions.” Membership would peak at fifty-eight in late 1934 and early 1935.

108. Lensen, Japanese Recognition; Lensen, Damned Inheritance, 223–6; Dallin, Rise of Russia in Asia, 244–8; Beloff, Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, I: 76–7.

109. Under Nicholas II, the Pacific had come to seem the theater of gravest threat, but in Soviet military thinking the Vistula commanded center stage. Contradictions stemming from strategic anxiety and pessimism were endemic to imperial Russian strategy. Fuller, Strategy and Power, 430.

110. Menning, “Soviet Strategy,” I: 215–6; Daines, “Voennaia strategiia,” 247–8.

111. Between 1932 and 1936, the Soviet Far Eastern Army would increase from six to fourteen divisions. Coox, Nomonhan, 76–8.