The Whisperers

by Orlando Figes

  64. Interviews with Elizaveta Chechik, Moscow, April 2005; Inna Shikheyeva (Gaister), Moscow, May 2005; Minora Novikova, Moscow, May 2005; SSEES, Pahl-Thompson Collection, E. V. Gavrilova, pp. 6–7; G. E. Mamlina, p. 12; MSP, f. 3, op. 16, d. 2, ll. 64–5.

  65. SSEES, Pahl-Thompson Collection, A. A. Dobriakova, pp. 5–8.

  66. Interview with Aleksei Iurasovsky, Moscow, March 2005. See also E. A. Skriabina, Stranitsy zhizni (Moscow, 1994), p. 84.

  67. Interviews with Inna Shikheyeva (Gaister), Moscow, May 2005; Elizaveta Chechik, Moscow, April 2005; Minora Novikova, Moscow, May 2005; Maia Rodak, Moscow, October 2004; Tatiana Vasileva, St Petersburg, May 2005; SSEES, Pahl-Thompson Collection, E. V. Gavrilova, p. 7; E. V. Mamlin, p. 12.

  68. Utekhin, Ocherki, pp. 94–5, 151, 153, 166; interview with Galina Markelova, St Petersburg, June 2004. See also MM, f. 12, op. 7, d. 2, ll. 12–15; TsGASP, f. 7384, op. 42, d. 343, ll. 421–4.

  69. N. Lebina, Povsednevnaia zhizn’ sovetskogo goroda: normy i anomalii, 1920–1930 gody (St Petersburg, 1999), p. 195; interview with Elizaveta Chechik, Moscow, April 2005.

  70. Interviews with Minora Novikova, Moscow, May 2005; Inna Shikheyeva (Gaister), Moscow, May 2005.

  71. K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 184, 219. See also A. Kelly, ‘In the Promised Land’, New York Review of Books, vol. 48, no. 19 (29 November 2001), from which I have drawn for this paragraph.

  72. N. Patolichev, Ispytaniia na zrelost’ (Moscow, 1977), p. 170.

  73. V. Petrov, Byt derevni v sochineniiakh shkol’nikov (Moscow, 1927); T. Egorov, Kem khotiat byt’ nashi deti? Sbornik detskikh pisem dlia ottsov (Moscow and Leningrad, 1929); G. Petelin, Dadim slovo shkol’niku (Moscow, 1931).

  74. MSP, f. 3, op. 47, d. 2, l. 7.

  75. R. Orlova, Vospominaniia o neproshedshem vremeni (Ann Arbor, 1983), p. 30.

  76. Izvestiia, 14 July 1935, p. 2; A. Tertz, On Socialist Realism (New York, 1960), p. 78; Soviet Writers’ Congress, 1934: The Debate of Socialist Realism and Modernism (London, 1977), p. 157; S. Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca, 1992), p. 217; W. Leonhard, Child of the Revolution (London, 1957), 2. p. 22.

  77. N. Kaminskaya, Final Judgment: My Life as a Soviet Defence Attorney (New York, 1982), pp. 18–21.

  78. The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910–1954 (New York, 1982), p. 154; N. Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope: A Memoir (London, 1989), p. 115.

  79. L. Kopelev, No Jail for Thought (London, 1975), pp. 11–13.

  80. Leonhard, Child of the Revolution, p. 81.

  81. D. Shearer, ‘Social Disorder, Mass Repression and the NKVD During the 1930s’, Cahiers du Monde Russe, vol. 42, nos. 2–4 (2001), pp. 505–34; P. Hagenloh, “‘Socially Harmful Elements” and the Great Terror’, in S. Fitzpatrick (ed.), Stalinism: New Directions (London, 2000), pp. 286–308.

  82. RGALI, f. 1604, op. 1, d. 21, l. 32; A. Avdeenko, ‘Otluchenie’, Znamiia, no. 3 (1989), p. 11.

  83. C. Ruder, Making History for Stalin: The Story of the Belomor Canal (Gainesville, Fl., 1998), p. 50; G. Smith, D. S. Mirsky: A Russian-English Life, 1890–1939 (Oxford, 2000), p. 209; Avdeenko, ‘Otluchenie’, p. 18; Belomorsko-baltiiskii kanal imeni Stalina: istoriia stroitel’stva 1931–1934 gg. (Moscow, 1934).

  84. A. Starkov, Mikhail Zoshchenko: sud’ba khudozhnika (Moscow, 1990), p. 139.

  85. S. and B. Webb, Soviet Communism: A New Civilization?, 2 vols. (London, 1935), vol. 2, p. 591; Ivan Chukhin, Kanalo-armeitsy: istoriia stroitel’stva Belomorkanala v dokumentakh, tsifrakh, faktakh, fotografiiakh, svidetel’stvakh ychastnikov i ochevidtsev (Petrozavodsk, 1990), p. 37.

  86. Ruder, Making History for Stalin, pp. 56–9.

  87. Avdeenko, ‘Otluchenie’, p. 8; RGALI, f. 1814, op. 1, d. 944, ll. 6, 14.

  88. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 10, d. 339; d. 360, ll. 33, 35–6. On Simonov and Pudovkin: K. Simonov, ‘O Vsevolode Illarionoviche Pudovkine’, in Pudovkin v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov (Moscow, 1989), pp. 274–81.

  89. K. Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia (Moscow, 1990), pp. 39–41.

  90. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 10, d. 360, l. 34; Simonov, Glazami, pp. 39, 41, 45.

  91. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 1, d. 1, ll. 13–14, 60; d. 848, l. 5; op. 10, d. 360, ll. 34–5.

  92. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 10, d. 339, l. 4.

  93. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 10, d. 360, l. 36.

  94. RGALI, f. 632, op. 1, d. 1; d. 16, ll. 5, 12.

  95. N. Tipot (Sokolova), ‘Dnevnik’, private archive.

  96. RGALI, f. 632, op. 1, d. 15, ll. 23–7; d. 16, ll. 7–8; f. 1814, op. 9, d. 2606, l. 6; op. 10, d. 339, l. 11; interview with Lazar Lazarev, Moscow, November 2003.

  97. L. Lazarev, Konstantin Simonov. Ocherk zhizni i tvorchestva (Moscow, 1985), pp. 18, 35; A. Karaganov, Konstantin Simonov vblizi i na rasstoianii (Moscow, 1987), pp. 9, 10; RGALI, f. 1814, op. 1, d. 71.

  98. Simonov, Glazami, pp. 42–5; RGALI, f. 1814, op. 9, d. 25, l. 13; d. 1010, ll. 16–19, 25.

  99. Simonov, Glazami, pp. 46–7.

  100. Ibid., pp. 48–9.

  101. Ibid., p. 47.

  102. TsGAIPD, f. 1278, op. 1, d. 439869, l. 4.

  103. SFA, I. Slavina, ‘Tonen’kii nerv istorii’, ms., pp. 16–17, 30; interview with Ida Slavina, Cologne, September 2003.

  104. I. Slavin, Vreditel’stvo na fronte sovetskogo ugolovnogo prava (Moscow, 1931), p. 76; SFA, I. Slavina, ‘Put’ na plakhu’, ms., p. 29.

  105. I. Slavin, ‘K voprosu o prinuditel’nykh rabotakh bez soderzhaniia pod strazhei’, Ezhenedel’nik sovetskoi iustitsii, 1922, no. 36; ‘Proizvodstvennye tovarishcheskie sudi i revoliutsiia’, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, 1931, no. 7; ‘Nekotorye voprosy praktiki proizvodstvenno-tovarishcheskikh sudov’, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, 1932, nos. 5–6.

  106. SPbF ARAN, f. 229, op. 1, d. 100, ll. 44–5.

  107. TsGAIPD, f. 1816, op. 2, d. 5095, l. 66.

  108. SPbF ARAN, f. 229, op. 1, d. 93, ll. 4, 6; d. 100, l. 67; d. 120, ll. 7–12; d. 122, ll. 6–10; SFA, ‘Put’ na plakhu’, pp. 79–81; interviews with Ida Slavina, Cologne, June, October, 2003; TsGAIPD, f. 563, op. 1, d. 1467, l. 117.

  109. S. Wheatcroft, ‘The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45’, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 48, no. 8 (1996), pp. 1338–40.

  110. Interview with Yevgeniia Vittenburg, St Petersburg, August 2003; E. Vittenburg, Vremia poliarnykh stran (St Petersburg, 2002), pp. 106–12.

  111. I. Flige, ‘Osoblag Vaigach’, Vestnik Memoriala, no. 6 (St Petersburg, 2001), pp. 12–19.

  112. VFA, letter from Zinaida to Veronika and Valentina Vittenburg, 26 August 1933.

  113. Interview with Yevgeniia Vittenburg, St Petersburg, August 2003.

  114. Interview with Yevgeniia Vittenburg, St Petersburg, September 2004.

  115. VFA, ‘Sotsdogovor ambulatornogo vracha sanotdela vaigachskoi ekspeditsii NKVD Vittenburg Z.I. ot 2 marta 1933’; letter from Zinaida to Veronika and Valentina Vittenburg, undated [1935]; interview with Yevgeniia Vittenburg, St Petersburg, September 2004.

  116. Interviews with Yevgeniia Vittenburg, St Petersburg, August 2003, September 2004; VFA, letter from Zinaida to Yevgeniia Vittenburg, 3 November 1935; ‘Dnevnik v pis’makh P. V. Vittenburga docheri Evgenii’, p. 54; Vittenburg, Vremia poliarnykh stran, p. 134.

  117. VFA, letter from Pavel to Yevgeniia Vittenburg, 13 September 1936; ‘Dnevnik v pis’makh P. V. Vittenburga docheri Evgenii’, ms., p. 7.

  118. MM, f. 1, op. 4, Trudovaia kniga; f. 12, op. 9, d. 2.

  119. MM, f. 12, op. 2, d. 2, l. 13; d. 3, l. 43.

  120. S. Rosefield, ‘Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labour and Economic Growth in the 1930s’, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 48, no. 6 (1996), p. 969.

  121. MSP, f. 3, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 1–14; d. 5, ll. 1–5, 12–15; Pravda, 3 November 1929, p. 5;

  122. P. Broué, Trotsky (Paris, 1988), p. 638
.

  123. MSP, f. 3, op. 1, d. 5, ll. 10, 19.

  124. MSP, f. 3, op. 1, d. 4 (citations from the letters can be found by their date).

  125. MSP, f. 3, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 21, 59.

  126. MSP, f. 3, op. 1, d. 2, l. 58.

  127. MSP, f. 3, op. 1, d. 2, l. 50.

  128. MSP, f. 3, op. 1, d. 2, l. 52.

  129. MSP, f. 3, op. 1, d. 5, ll. 7, 8, 21, 25–6.

  130. Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, edited by L. Lih, O. Naumov and O. Khlevniuk, translated by C. Fitzpatrick (New Haven, 1995), p. 200.

  131. RGAE, f. 769, op. 1, d. 23–35.

  132. RGAE, f. 769, op. 1, d. 25, l. 10.

  133. RGAE, f. 769, op. 1, d. 31, l. 9.

  134. RGAE, f. 769, op. 1, d. 13.

  135. RGAE, f. 769, op. 1, d. 29, l. 44.

  4: The Great Fear (1937–8)

  1. Pravda, 31 January 1932; Golgofa. Po materialam arkhivno-sledstvennogo dela no. 603 na Sokolovu-Piatnitskuiu Iu. I., ed. V. I. Piatnitskii (St Petersburg, 1993), p. 42.

  2. Ibid., pp. 8–9.

  3. V. Piatnitskii, Zagovor protiv Stalina (Moscow, 1998), p. 198.

  4. Golgofa, p. 9.

  5. J. Haslam, ‘Political Opposition to Stalin and the Origins of the Terror, 1932–1936’, Historical Journal, vol. 29, no. 2 (June 1986), p. 412. See also same author, ‘The Soviet Union, the Comintern and the Demise of the Popular Front, 1936–39’, in H. Graham and O. Preston (eds.), The Popular Front in Europe (London, 1987), pp. 152–60; K. McDermott, ‘Stalinist Terror in the Comintern: New Perspectives’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 30, no. 1 (January 1995), pp. 111–30.

  6. The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933–1949 (New Haven, 2003), p. 110; McDermott, ‘Stalinist Terror’, p. 118.

  7. B. Starkov, ‘The Trial That Was Not Held’, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 46, no. 8 (1994), p. 1303.

  8. Golgofa, pp. 20, 21, 24; interviews with Vladimir Piatnitsky, St Petersburg, September 2005.

  9. Golgofa, pp. 62–3.

  10. Ibid., pp. 25, 39–40.

  11. Ibid., pp. 26, 34; interviews with Vladimir Piatnitsky, St Petersburg, September 2005.

  12. M. Ellman, ‘Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments’, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 54, no. 7 (November 2002); H. Kuromiya, ‘Accounting for the Great Terror’, Jahbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 53 (2005), p. 88; A. Applebaum, Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps (London, 2003), pp. 516, 519. The figures for 1929–32 are from V. Popov, ‘Gosudarstvennyi terror v sovetskoi Rossii. 1923–1953 gg.’, Otechestvennyi arkhiv, 1992, no. 2, p. 28.

  13. J. Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938 (Cambridge, 1985).

  14. P. Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice Under Stalin (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), chap. 5; O. Khlevniuk, ‘The Politburo, Penal Policy and “Legal Reforms” in the 1930s’, in P. Solomon (ed.), Reforming Justice in Russia, 1864–1996: Power, Culture, and the Limits of Legal Order (Armonk, 1997), pp. 190–206.

  15. J. Getty, ‘“Excesses Are Not Permitted”: Mass Terror and Stalinist Governance in the Late 1930s’, Russian Review, 61 (2002), no. 1, pp. 113–38.

  16. S. Fitzpatrick, ‘Varieties of Terror’, in same author (ed.), Stalinism: New Directions (London, 2000), p. 258. For a similar view: B. McLoughlin and K. McDermott, ‘Rethinking Stalinist Terror’, in same authors (eds.), Stalin’s Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union (New York, 2003), pp. 1–18.

  17. O. Khlevniuk, ‘The Reasons for the “Great Terror”: The Foreign Political Aspect’, Annali della Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, vol. 34 (1998), pp. 163 ff.; same author, ‘The Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937–38’, in J. Cooper, M. Perrie and E. Rees (eds.), Soviet History, 1917–1953: Essays in Honour of R. W. Davies (London, 1995), pp. 158–76. See also H. Kuromiya, ‘Accounting for the Great Terror’, upon which I have drawn for the following paragraphs.

  18. Kuromiya, ‘Accounting for the Great Terror’, p. 94; S. Payne, The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and Communism (New Haven, 2004), p. 309.

  19. S. Allilueva, Twenty Letters to a Friend (London, 1967), pp. 88–9; J. Getty and O. Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939 (New Haven, 1999), pp. 157, 256–7.

  20. V. Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom (London, 1947), p. 213.

  21. V. Rogovin, Partiia rasstreliannykh (Moscow, 1997), pp. 487–9; Reabilitatsia. Kak eto bylo, 3 vols. (Moscow, 2000–2004), vol. 1, p. 30; O. Suvenirov, Tragediia RKKA, 1938–1938 (Moscow, 1998), p. 315.

  22. Istochnik, 1994, no. 3, p. 80; N. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London, 1971), p. 283; M. Jansen and N. Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner: People’s Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895–1940 (Stanford, 2002), pp. 89, 201.

  23. F. Chuev, Sto sorok besed s Molotovym (Moscow, 1991), pp. 390, 413; Piatnitskii, Zagovor protiv Stalina, p. 65; Kuromiya, ‘Accounting for the Great Terror’, p. 96.

  24. Tragediia sovetskoi derevni: kollektivizatsiia i raskulachivanie. Dokumenty i materialy, 5 vols. (Moscow, 1999–2004), vol. 5: 1937–1939, Part 1, 1937, pp. 32, 33, 46, 54, 387; Kuromiya, ‘Accounting for the Great Terror’, pp. 92–3.

  25. N. Petrov and A. Roginskii, ‘“Pol’skaia operatsiia” NKVD 1937–1938 gg.’, inL. Eremina (ed.) Repressii protiv poliakov i pol’skikh grazhdan (Moscow, 1996), pp. 40–43. On the ‘national operations’ as a form of ‘ethnic cleansing’ see T. Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca, 2001), pp. 328–43.

  26. V. Garros, N. Korenevskaya and T. Lahusen (eds.), Intimacy and Terror (New York, 1995), p. 357.

  27. Interview with Vladimir Piatnitsky, St Petersburg, September 2005.

  28. R. Thurston, Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia (New Haven, 1996), pp. 72–7.

  29. V. Frid, 58½: zapiski lagernogo pridurka (Moscow, 1996), p. 91.

  30. Interview with Viacheslav Kolobkov, St Petersburg, May 2004.

  31. E. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind (New York, 1967), pp. 21–2.

  32. E. Bonner, Mothers and Daughters (London, 1992), p. 263.

  33. MP, f. 4, op. 4, d. 2, ll. 2, 25; op. 5, d. 5, ll. 3–4; L.Il’ina, Moi otets protiv NKVD (St Petersburg, 1998), pp. 16–21.

  34. MSP, f. 3, op. 12, d. 2, ll. 35–40, 116–17.

  35. SFA, I. Slavina, ‘Tonen’kii nerv istorii’, ms., pp. 9–13.

  36. R. Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (London, 1992), pp. 75, 87, 89, 127.

  37. V. Bronshtein, ‘Stalin and Trotsky’s Relatives in Russia’, in T. Brotherstone and P. Dukes (eds.), The Trotsky Reappraisal (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 8–15.

  38. Getty and Naumov, The Road to Terror, pp. 486–7; Chuev, Sto sorok besed, p. 415.

  39. Golgofa, p. 29.

  40. See also MSP, f. 3, op. 34, d. 2; MP, f. 4, op. 16, dd. 2, 3.

  41. Golgofa, pp. 31, 34, 35–6, 43, 45; interview with Vladimir Piatnitsky, St Petersburg, August 2005.

  42. Golgofa, p. 37.

  43. M. Prishvin, ‘Dnevnik 1937 goda’, Oktiabr’, 1995, no. 9, p. 168.

  44. Conquest, The Great Terror, p. 256; M. Prishvin and V. Prishvin, My s toboi. Dnevnik liubvi (Moscow, 1996), p. 13.

  45. MP, f. 4, op. 25, d. 2, ll. 9–10.

  46. MSP, f. 3, op. 8, d. 2, l. 9.

  47. MP, f. 4, op. 6, d. 2, ll. 18, 37.

  48. E. Gerstein, Moscow Memoirs (London, 2004), p. 79.

  49. MM, f. 12, op. 14, d. 2, ll. 15–16.

  50. MM, f. 12, op. 7, d. 2, l. 23.

  51. Gerstein, Moscow Memoirs, p. 214.

  52. MP, f. 4, op. 8 .d. 2, l. 22.

  53. MM, f. 12, op. 28, d. 2, ll. 12, 35–6.

  54. GFA, O. Golovnia, ‘Dom na Vasil’evskoi’, ms., pp. 2–3.

  55. Prishvin, ‘Dnevnik 1937 goda’, Oktiabr’, 1995, no. 9, p. 158.

  56. A. Man’kov, Dnevniki tridtsatykh godov (St Petersburg, 2001), p. 144.

  57. Prishvin, ‘Dnevnik 1937 goda’, Oktiabr’, 1995, no. 9, p. 165.

&
nbsp; 58. For a different view of the role of diary-writing see the works of Jochen Hellbeck cited in the Introduction.

  59. ‘ “Zhizn’ stala veselei…” Iz dnevnika 1936 goda’, Oktiabr’, 1993, no. 10, p. 4;. M. Prishvin, ‘Dnevnik 1937 goda’, Oktiabr’, 1994, no. 11, p. 144; same author, Sobranie sochinenii, 8 vols. (Moscow, 1986), vol. 8, p. 473.

  60. J. Hellbeck, Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary Under Stalin (Cambridge, Mass., 2006), pp. 304–5, 306, 308–9, 311–22; RGALI, f. 2172, op. 3, d. 5, l. 249.

  61. E. Evangulova, Krestnyi put’ (St Petersburg, 2000), pp. 68, 81, 83.

  62. Man’kov, Dnevniki, p. 59.

  63. Prishvin and Prishvin, My s toboi, pp. 22–3, 35, 37.

  64. MM, f. 12, op. 25, d. 2, l. 136; Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom, p. 448; Thurston, Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, p. 71. A lower figure of 10,000 informers for Moscow in 1930 is given by an OGPU official cited in G. Agabekov, GPU: zapiski chekista (Moscow, 1931). See also V. Semystiaha, ‘The Role and Place of Secret Collaborators in the Informational Activity of the GPU-NKVD in the 1920s and 1930s (on the Basis of Materials of the Donbass Region)’, Cahiers du Monde Russe, vol. 42, nos. 2–4 (2001), pp. 231–44.

  65. On these low-level networks of informers see C. Hooper, ‘Terror from Within: Participation and Coercion in Soviet Power, 1924–64’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2003), pp. 154–64.

  66. K. Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia (Moscow, 1990), p. 50.

  67. W. Leonhard, Child of the Revolution (London, 1957), pp. 100–102.

  68. Frid, 58½, pp. 160–61.

  69. MP, f. 4, op. 9, d. 2, ll. 25–7; d. 5, ll. 8–9.

  70. O. Adamova-Sliuzberg, Put’ (Moscow, 2002), p. 172.

  71. TsAODM, f. 369, op. 1, d. 161, ll. 1–2.

  72. Interviewed in The Hand of Stalin (Part 2), October Films, 1990.

  73. Adamova-Sliuzberg, Put’, pp. 19–20.

  74. Cited in Thurston, Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, p. 154.

  75. MSP, f. 3, op. 16, d. 2, ll. 3–4, 63–5.

  76. Interview with Lev Molotkov, St Petersburg, May 2003.

  77. N. Adler, Beyond the Soviet System: The Gulag Survivor (New Brunswick, 2002), p. 216; I. Shikheeva-Gaister, Semeinaia khronika vremen kul’ta lichnosti: 1925–1953 (Moscow, 1998), p. 32.