Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin

by Catherine Merridale

  117. On Gerasimov, see Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, p. 50.

  118. Kuchin, Iz istorii, p. 45.

  119. Abramov, Kremlevskoi steny, p. 45. See also Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, p. 87.

  120. There was also a request to open the reserve in Holy Week. See GARF R-130/2/161, 1.

  121. Kuchin, Iz istorii, pp. 353–4.

  122. GARF R-130/2/157, 3–4.

  123. N. A. Krivova, Vlast’ i tserkov’ v 1922–1925 gg. (Moscow, 1997), p. 15; Shchenkov, Pamiatniki … v Sovetskom Soiuze, p. 10.

  124. Shchapov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, p. 36, resolution of 17 March 1918.

  125. Shchapov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, p. 36.

  126. GARF R-130/2/160, 2; see also Shchapov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, pp. 40–41; on the cult of the saints in general, see S. A. Smith, ‘Bones of contention: Bolsheviks and the struggle against relics, 1918–1930’, Past and Present, 204 (August 2009), pp. 155–94.

  127. Kuchin, Iz istorii, pp. 37–45, citing SNK resolution of 17 July 1918.

  128. Kuchin, Iz istorii, pp. 45–6 and 164 ff. on the chaos in the artistic world.

  129. Istoriia Moskvy v shesti tomakh (Moscow, 1953) vol. 6, p. 186 describes the bas-relief on 1 May 1919, when it was also decorated with palm-fronds and pictures of Karl Marx.

  130. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki … v Sovetskom Soiuze, p. 8.

  131. Krivova, Vlast’ i tserkov’, p. 30.

  132. Krivova, Vlast’ i tserkov’, p. 30.

  133. Cited in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin (New Haven, Conn., 1996), pp. 152–5.

  134. Krivova, Vlast’ i tserkov’, p. 50.

  135. McMeekin, Greatest Heist, p. 83.

  136. McMeekin, Greatest Heist, p. 84.

  137. The figure was well over 1,000. See McMeekin, Greatest Heist, p. 83.

  138. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki … v Sovetskom Soiuze, p. 23.

  139. Mikhailov, Unichtozhennyi, p. 114.

  140. Grabar’s declaration of 26 July 1922 (Pis’ma, p. 65) refers to this.

  141. Grabar, Pis’ma, p. 179.

  142. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki … v Sovetskom Soiuze, p. 21.

  143. E. Kirichenko, Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve (Moscow, 1992), p. 228.

  144. The deliberations of the delightfully named Immortalization Commission can be followed in Y. M. Lopukhin, Bolezn’, smert’ i bal’zamirovanie V. I. Lenina (Moscow, 1997).

  10 RED FORTRESS

  1. Walter Benjamin, ‘Moscow’, in Reflections, Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, ed. Peter Demetz (New York, 1978), pp. 101 and 126.

  2. Istoriia Moskvy s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei v trekh tomakh, vol. 3 (Moscow, 2000), pp. 148 (on unemployment) and 151 (on the workers’ meetings).

  3. For a discussion and illustrations, see Catherine Cooke, Russian Avant-garde: Theories of Art, Architecture and the City (London, 1995).

  4. A point made by Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture and the West (New Haven, Conn. and London, 2007), p. 364.

  5. On Baranovsky’s labours, see Iu. A. Bychkov et al., eds., Petr Baranovskii: trudy, vospominaniia sovremennikov (Moscow, 1996).

  6. A. S. Shchenkov, ed., Pamiatniki arkhitektury v Sovetskom Soiuze (Moscow, 2004), p. 145.

  7. S. Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety (Berlin, 1932), p. 59.

  8. E. Kirichenko, Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve (Moscow, 1992), p. 221.

  9. Kirichenko, Khram, p. 221, citing Grabar’s article in Stroitel’stvo Moskvy, 7 (1925).

  10. V. Kozlov, ‘Pervye snosy’, Arkhitektura i stroitel’stvo Moskvy, 8 (August 1990), pp. 27–8.

  11. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, pp. 35–6.

  12. Cited in Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, p. 42.

  13. On the uses of the Kazan Cathedral, see Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, p. 166.

  14. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, p. 36; see also Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), p. 277; Cooke, Russian Avant-garde, p. 202.

  15. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, p. 83.

  16. Cited in Kirichenko, Khram, pp. 224–5.

  17. V. Kozlov, ‘Tragediia monastyrei: god 1929-i’, Moskovskii zhurnal, 1 (1991), p. 34; see also Kirichenko, Khram, p. 225.

  18. Kirichenko, Khram, p. 225. The plan was to use the same themes for exhibitions in the Kremlin’s Armoury Museum. See I. Ia. Kachalova, ‘Istoriia otdela pamiatnikov kremlia,’ Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XIV, p. 184.

  19. Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams (Oxford, 1991), pp. 109–12.

  20. Kirichenko, Khram, p. 246.

  21. V. A. Kozlov, ed., Neizvestnaia Rossiia, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1992), pp. 337–48, and Kirichenko, Khram, p. 251.

  22. Cooke, Russian Avant-garde, pp. 202–6.

  23. There are numerous histories of this. For a summary, see Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, pp. 35–6.

  24. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, p. 43.

  25. Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture, p. 369; for an illustration from the 1940s, see Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, p. 210.

  26. S. V. Mironenko, ed., Moskovskii kreml’: tsitadel’ Rossii (Moscow, 2008), p. 239.

  27. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, pp. 294–5.

  28. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 295.

  29. Kachalova, ‘Istoriia’, p. 183.

  30. Kozlov, ‘Tragediia monastyrei’, p. 38.

  31. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 296.

  32. Kachalova, ‘Istoriia’, p. 183.

  33. Kozlov, ‘Tragediia monastyrei’, p. 39.

  34. See T. D. Panova, Kremlevskie usypal’nitsy (Moscow, 2003), pp. 198–202.

  35. Some of the stones feature in the diorama that was opened in 2009 in the Ivan the Great bell tower, for instance, although the tale of how they got there is not part of the commentary.

  36. Kozlov, ‘Tragediia monastyrei’, p. 39.

  37. Pravoslavnye sviatyni Moskovskogo Kremlia v istorii i kul’ture Rossii (Moscow, 2006), p. 308; Rerberg had earlier designed the Kievskii railway station.

  38. A point protesters did make at the time. See Pravoslavnye sviatyni, p. 308.

  39. The respondent was interviewed in Moscow in September 2007.

  40. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 297.

  41. RGASPI 671/1/103, 163.

  42. Kachalova, ‘Istoriia’, p. 184.

  43. Colton, Moscow, p. 268.

  44. On the decision, see Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 300. The proposer was Abel Enukidze. For this specific use of fireworks, see Stolitsa, 3 (1991), pp. 38–9.

  45. A. Voyce, The Moscow Kremlin: Its History, Architecture, and Art Treasures (London, 1955), p. 67.

  46. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 300.

  47. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 302.

  48. T. V. Tolstaia, ‘Muzei “Uspenskii sobor” Moskovskogo kremlia. Stranitsy istorii’, Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XIV, p. 209.

  49. Kachalova, ‘Istoriia’, p. 186, citing the Kremlin archive.

  50. Lidiya Shatunovskaya, Zhizn’ v Kremle (New York, 1982), p. 25.

  51. See Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XIV, pp. 105–10.

  52. T. A. Tutova, ‘Direktor oruzheinoi palaty D. D. Ivanov i bor’ba za sokhranenie muzeinikh tsennostei v 1922–1929 godakh’, Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XIV, pp. 106–9.

  53. The practice was called vydvizhenie, ‘promotion’, and it makes today’s affirmative action look anaemic.

  54. M. K. Pavlovich, ‘Oruzheinaia palata Moskovskogo Kremlia v 1930-e gody’, Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XIV, pp. 113–15.

  55. M. Dokuchaev, Moskva. Kreml’. Okhrana. (Moscow, 1995), p. 49.

  56. The so-called Kremlin affair. See below, pp. 321–5.

  57. Pavlovich, ‘Oruzheinaia palata’, p. 116.

  58. Pavlovich, ‘Oruzheinaia palata’, p. 117.

  59. Kachalova, ‘Istoriia’, p. 186.

  60. I. I. Shits, cited in I. V. Pavlova, Stalinizm: Stanovlenie mekhanizma vlasti (Novosibirsk, 1993), p. 77.

  61. Stalin’s date of birth was only on
e of many secrets that he kept by promoting a lie. See Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (London, 2004), pp. 13–14.

  62. For a thorough exposition, see Pavlova, Stalinizm, esp. pp. 90–138.

  63. Pavlova, Stalinizm, p. 87.

  64. Pavlova, Stalinizm, p. 90.

  65. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 248; for later telephone systems, see Kolesnichenko’s article on the subject in Argumenty i fakty, 16 February 2011.

  66. For Molotov’s own comment on the bugging, see A. Resis, ed., Molotov Remembers: Conversations with Felix Chuev (Chicago, 1993), p. 224. For the Kremlin systems more generally, see also Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, esp. pp. 232–48, Tamara Kondratieva, Gouverner et nourrir: du pouvoir en Russie, XVIe–XXe siècles (Paris, 2002), p. 173 (citing Presidential library staff), and Dokuchaev, Moskva., p. 64.

  67. See Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, pp. 159–63, for a menu of police techniques.

  68. Boris Bazhanov, cited in Colton, Moscow, p. 162.

  69. B. S. Ilizarov, Tainaia zhizn’ Stalina (Moscow, 2002), pp. 152–3, testimony of aviator Yakovlev from 1939.

  70. Ibid., p. 152.

  71. Details from Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, pp. 378–82; see also Pavel Sudoplatov (who called on Stalin in sinister circumstances), Spetsoperatsii: Lubianka i kreml’ 1930–1950 gody (Moscow, 1997), p. 102. On Poskrebyshev and Stalin’s inner ‘kitchen’, see also Pavlova, Stalinizm, p. 137.

  72. The argument is elaborated at far greater length in Kondratieva, Gouverner et nourrir.

  73. Pavlova, Stalinizm, p. 74.

  74. On the facilities more generally, see, for example, Shatunovskaya, Zhizn’ v Kremle, pp. 42–4 and Pavlova, Stalinizm, pp. 51–2.

  75. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 210. On the later relocation of the Kremlin shop to GUM, see idem, p. 239.

  76. Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, pp. 23–4.

  77. Shatunovskaya, Zhizn’ v Kremle, p. 41; Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, pp. 27–8. On conversation, see Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, pp. 24–5.

  78. Concrete examples appear in Enukidze’s files. See RGASPI 667/1/ 1–59. See also Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, p. 30.

  79. Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, pp. 24 and 73.

  80. Testimony of Mikoyan. On children more generally, see L. Vasileva, Deti kremlia (Moscow, 1996).

  81. Resis, Molotov Remembers, p. 210; R. Richardson, The Long Shadow. Inside Stalin’s Family (London, 1994), p. 119.

  82. Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, p. 25.

  83. Cited in Kondratieva, Gouverner et nourrir, p. 183.

  84. Klemenko, cited in Kondratieva, Gouverner et nourrir, p. 173.

  85. Shatunovskaya, Zhizn’ v Kremle, p. 42.

  86. Kondratieva, Gouverner et nourrir, p. 183.

  87. The evidence is littered across memoirs of the time. See, for instance, Resis, Molotov Remembers, pp. 222–5.

  88. For the use of women in this way, see Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, p. 163.

  89. Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, pp. 39–40.

  90. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 248.

  91. On Bedny, for instance, see RGASPI 667/1/18.

  92. On the room, see Richardson, Long Shadow, p. 122. On the suicide, see, for instance, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (London, 2004), pp. 1–21.

  93. Richardson, Long Shadow, p. 123.

  94. Sokolova’s original deposition against Mukhanova is in RGASPI 671/1/103, 3–19.

  95. RGASPI 671/1/103, 24.

  96. On the Kirov murder, see S. Deviatov et al., ‘Gibel’ Kirova. Fakty i versii’, Rodina, 3 (2005), pp. 57–63. This summarizes the findings of the joint Russian Federal Security and Ministry of Defence enquiry into the murder, carried out in 2004.

  97. RGASPI 671/1/107, 85–6.

  98. Istoricheskii arkhiv, 3 (1995), pp. 156–7 shows Ezhov making his first visits.

  99. For an example, see RGASPI 671/1/106, 107.

  100. Such details were collected by some guards, for instance. See RGASPI 671/1/103, 76.

  101. All these rumours appear in the Kremlin affair files. For examples, see RGASPI 671/1/107, 74–86.

  102. RGASPI 671/1/106, 85.

  103. For Peterson’s statement, see RGASPI 671/1/103, 163.

  104. RGASPI 671/1/103, 157.

  105. RGASPI 671/1/105, 105–6.

  106. Ilizarov, Tainaia zhizn’, p. 118; Sudoplatov, Spetsoperatsii, pp. 440–41.

  107. RGASPI 671/1/23, 1.

  108. RGASPI 671/1/23, 7.

  109. Ilizarov, Tainaia zhizn’, p. 92.

  110. On 1935, see R. Medvedev and Zh. Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin (London, 2003), p. 271. On the parties, see Stalin’s engagements in RGASPI 558/11/1479.

  111. Svetlana Allilueva, Twenty Letters to a Friend (London, 1967), p. 10.

  112. Dokuchaev, Moskva, p. 115.

  113. Allilueva, Twenty Letters, p. 87.

  114. Allilueva, Twenty Letters, p. 135; see also Dokuchaev, Moskva, p. 49.

  115. Edward Crankshaw, ed., Khrushchev Remembers (London, 1971), p. 297.

  116. More on the cinema appears in G. Mar’iamov, Kremlevskii tsenzor: Stalin smotrit kino (Moscow, 1992).

  117. For more detail, see Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 243.

  118. Crankshaw, Khrushchev Remembers, pp. 298–9.

  119. Colton, Moscow, p. 323.

  120. The respondent was interviewed in Moscow in September 2010.

  121. For the search, see Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, p. 59, and Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 98.

  122. Dmitrievsky, Sovetskie portrety, p. 60.

  123. For the digging and the discoveries elsewhere, see Po trasse pervoi ocheredi Moskovskogo metropolitena imeni L. M. Kaganovicha (Leningrad, 1936).

  124. Stelletskii’s obsessive notes and diary are printed in I. Ia. Stelletskii, Poiski biblioteka Ivana Groznogo (Moscow, 1999), pp. 272–316; on Shchusev, see Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, pp. 48–50.

  125. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 116.

  126. A film of this discovery was shown as part of the Kremlin-9 television series in 2004.

  127. See Colton, Moscow, p. 324.

  128. V. Shevchenko, Povsednevnaia zhizn’ pri prezidentakh (Moscow, 2004), pp. 194–5.

  129. Ibid., p. 195.

  130. On the Kremlin gathering, see Medvedev and Medvedev, Unknown Stalin, p. 218.

  131. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 306; E. I. Smirnova, ‘Oruzheinaia palata v 1941–1945 godakh’, Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XIV, p. 127.

  132. Smirnova, ‘Oruzheinaia palata’, p. 124.

  133. Interview in Moscow, September 2010.

  134. Dokuchaev, Moskva, pp. 105–6; Smirnova, ‘Oruzheinaia palata’, pp. 124–6.

  135. Istoricheskii arkhiv, 5–6 (1995); Istoricheskii arkhiv, 2, 3 and 4 (1996).

  136. Istoricheskii arkhiv, 4 (1996), p. 33.

  137. Smirnova, ‘Oruzheinaia palata’, p. 127.

  138. Iu. Korolev, Kremlevskii sovetnik: XX vek glazami ochevidtsev (Moscow, 1995), p. 12.

  139. I. Shmelev, cited in Moskovskii zhurnal, 9 (1992), pp. 2–3.

  140. Istoriia Moskvy s drevneishikh vremen, vol. 3, p. 256.

  141. Mironenko, Moskovskii kreml’, p. 356.

  142. L. A. Petrov, ‘Restavratsionnye raboty v Moskovskom kremle’, Arkhitektura i stroitel’stvo Moskvy, 10 (1995).

  143. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, p. 403.

  144. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, p. 401; I. A. Rodimtseva, Ocherki istorii Moskovskogo Kremlia (Moscow, 1997), p. 122.

  145. Shchenkov, Pamiatniki, p. 403.

  146. Istoriia Moskvy s drevneishikh vremen, vol. 3, p. 256.

  147. Istoriia Moskvy s drevneishikh vremen, vol. 3, p. 256.

  148. Moskovskii Kreml’ (Moscow, 1947).

  149. Kreml’ i Krasnaia ploshchad’. Al’bom (Moscow, 1947).

  150. P. V. Sytin, Istoriia planirovki i zastroiki Moskvy, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1950), p. 7.

  11 KREMLINOLOGY


  1. John Steinbeck, A Russian Journal (London, 1949; repr. 1994), pp. 212–13.

  2. Steinbeck, Journal, p. 212.

  3. A. Adzhubei, Te desiat’ let (Moscow, 1989), p. 118.

  4. The story appears in Svetlana Allilueva, Twenty Letters to a Friend (London, 1967), pp. 16–18.

  5. M. K. Pavlovich, ‘Oruzheinaia palata v seredine 1940-x – nachale 1980-x godov (k istorii ekspozitsii)’, Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XIV, pp. 132–3; see also Istoriia Moskvy s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei v trekh tomakh, vol. 3 (Moscow, 2000), p. 270, which describes the other tree in the Tainitskie gardens.

  6. On Mrs Khrushchev, see Larissa Vasileva, Kremlin Wives, trans. Cathy Porter (New York, 1994), pp. 200–202; on the rest, see Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), p. 364.

  7. V. Shevchenko, Povsednevnaia zhizn’ pri prezidentakh (Moscow, 2004), p. 43, citing Ehrenburg.

  8. Pavlovich, ‘Oruzheinaia palata’, p. 132.

  9. A. S. Shchenkov, ed., Pamiatniki arkhitetury v Sovetskom Soiuze (Moscow, 2004), p. 218.

  10. Frederick C. Barghoorn, ‘The partial reopening of Russia’, Slavic Review, 16, 2 (April 1957), pp. 146 and 158.

  11. Istoriia Moskvy s drevneishikh vremen, vol. 3, p. 274.

  12. L. I. Donetskaia and L. I. Kondrashova, ‘Iz istorii prosvetitel’skoi deiatel’nosti v Moskovskom kremle’, Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XIV, p. 304.

  13. Kreml’ Moskvy (Moscow, 1957), p. 30.

  14. The full text is available online. See www.marxists.org/archive/khrushchev/1956/02/24.htm.

  15. For an account see Dmitry Volkogonov, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire: Political Leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev, trans. Harold Shukman (London, 1998), pp. 141 and 201–7.

  16. Kreml’ Moskvy, p. 5.

  17. Shevchenko, Povsednevnaia, p. 31; interview with Iu. V. Firsov, Moscow, September 2009.

  18. Kreml’ Moskvy, p. 4.

  19. Donetskaia and Kondrashova, ‘Iz istorii prosvetitel’skoi’, p. 304.

  20. Interview with Firsov, Moscow, 2009.

  21. Mezhdunarodnyi Sovet Muzeev: Konferentsiia komiteta muzeev arkheologii i istorii, 9–18 sentiabr’ 1970 (Leningrad and Moscow, 1970), p. 12.

  22. Mezhdunarodnyi Sovet Muzeev, guide for tour-leaders, p. 13.

  23. I base these observations on the testimonies of friends and colleagues in Moscow who either earned the privilege described or sniggered (later) at the few who had. As to questions of demeanour, I can draw on my own repeated experience.