The Whisperers

by Orlando Figes

  78. Conquest, The Great Terror, p. 222; V. Kozlov, ‘Denunciation and Its Functions in Soviet Governance: A Study of Denunciations and Their Bureaucratic Handling from Soviet Police Archives, 1944–1953’, Journal of Modern History, vol. 68, no. 4 (December 1996), p. 875. On apartments see V. Buchli, An Archaeology of Socialism (Oxford, 1999), pp. 113–17.

  79. MSP, f. 3, op. 36, d. 2, ll. 3, 13–14; d. 3, ll. 4–6.

  80. Simonov, Glazami, pp. 55, 62.

  81. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 9, d. 5, ll. 65–7; interview with Lazar Lazarev, Moscow, November 2003.

  82. RGALI, f. 632, op. 1, d. 12, ll. 28–9; d. 13, l. 10; interview with Semyon Vorovsky, Moscow, June 2005.

  83. RGALI, f. 631, op. 15, d. 242, ll. 6–8; f. 618, op. 3, d. 27, ll. 5–14.

  84. RGALI, f. 653, op. 1, d. 1087, l. 4.

  85. RGALI, f. 631, op. 15, d. 226, l. 72.

  86. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 1, d. 437, ll. 1–7.

  87. RGALI, f. 632, op. 1, d. 15, l. 23.

  88. RGALI, f. 632, op. 1, d. 12, l. 13.

  89. E. Dolmatovskii, Bylo: zapiski poeta (Moscow, 1982); interview with Lazar Lazarev, Moscow, November 2003.

  90. RGALI, f. 1812, op. 1, d. 96, l. 7.

  91. RGALI, f. 631, op. 15, d. 265, l. 34.

  92. A. Granovsky, All Pity Choked: The Memoirs of a Soviet Secret Agent (London, 1952), p. 101.

  93. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind, pp. 90–92.

  94. A. Gorbatov, Years off My Life (London, 1964), pp. 103–4.

  95. Conquest, The Great Terror, pp. 203–4. It may be that part of Iakir’s motives may have been to save his family (who were all later shot or sent to camps).

  96. F. Beck and W. Godin, Russian Purge and the Extraction of Confession (London, 1951), p. 86.

  97. S. Vilenskii (ed.), Till My Tale is Told (London, 1999), pp. 124–6.

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

  99. Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom, p. 206. See further: S. Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934–1941 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 131–5; Thurston, Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, pp. 143–6.

  100. Interview with Ida Slavina, Cologne, June 2003.

  101. MM, f. 12, op. 21, d. 2, ll. 28–9; op. 32, d. 2, l. 17.

  102. MP, f. 4, op. 18, d. 2, ll. 32–5, 49–50.

  103. VFA, letter from Pavel to Yevgeniia Vittenburg, [February] 1937.

  104. TsMAMLS, f. 68, op. 1, d. 76, l. 77; d. 124, l. 19; d. 141, l. 88.

  105. N. Kaminskaya, Final Judgment: My Life as a Soviet Defence Attorney (New York, 1982), p. 19.

  106. MM, f. 12, op. 23, d. 2, ll. 37–8.

  107. Simonov, Glazami, pp. 54–5.

  108. Adamova-Sliuzberg, Put’, p. 11.

  109. DetiGULAGa 1918–1956, Rossiia XX vek. Dokumenty (Moscow, 2002), pp. 272–3.

  110. O. Khlevniuk, ‘The Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937–1938’, in D. Hoffman (ed.), Stalinism (London, 2003), p. 98; Jansen and Petrov, Stalin’s Loyal Executioner, pp. 187–8, 192.

  111. SLFA, Mark Laskin, ‘Vospominaniia’, ms., p. 41.

  112. Simonov, Glazami, p. 59.

  113. V. Shentalinsky, The KGB’s Literary Archive (London, 1993), pp. 186–7.

  114. RGALI, f. 1712, op. 1, d. 21, l. 4, op. 4, d. 8, l. 37.

  115. RGALI, f. 1712, op. 3, d. 13, l. 1.

  116. GARF, f. 5446, op. 82, d. 66, ll. 287–8. See also L. Siegelbaum and A. Sokolov (eds.), Stalinism as a Way of Life: A Narrative in Documents (Yale, 2000), pp. 237–41.

  117. Adamova-Sliuzberg, Put’, pp. 77–8.

  118. P. Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin (Cambridge, 1996), p. 234.

  119. M. Shreider, NKVD iznutri: zapiski chekista (Moscow, 1995), p. 42.

  120. Ibid., p. 91.

  121. Ibid., pp. 104–5.

  122. Ibid., p. 120.

  123. Bonner, Mothers and Daughters, p. 304.

  124. A. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, 3 vols. (London, 1974–8), vol. 2, p. 637.

  125. Adamova-Sliuzberg, Put’, pp. 11–12.

  126. MSP, f. 3, op. 37, d. 2, l. 93.

  127. MSP, f. 3, op. 12, d. 2, ll. 42–3.

  128. MP, f. 4, op. 6, d. 2, ll. 6–10, 39–41, 45–9; d. 3, ll. 1–6.

  129. Golgofa, pp. 30, 32, 35; interview with Vladimir Piatnitsky, St Petersburg, August 2005.

  130. MSP, f. 3, op. 18, d. 1, l. 1; d. 2, ll. 2–3, 7–10.

  131. MP, f. 4, op. 25, d. 2, ll. 7–8, 13–16, 18, 19, 21–2, 26–30.

  132. See e.g. MSP, f. 3, op. 4, d. 2; MP, f. 4, op. 4, d. 2; V. Shapovalov (ed.), Remembering the Darkness: Women in Soviet Prisons (Lanham, 2001), pp. 228–9; N. Ulanovskaia and M. Ulanovskaia, Istoriia odnoi sem’i (New York, 1982), p. 135.

  133. MM, f. 12, op. 2, d. 2, ll. 16–20.

  134. O. Liubchenko, ‘Arbat 30, kvartira 58’, Istochnik, 1993, nos. 5–6, pp. 26–9.

  135. SFA, I. Slavina, ‘Tonen’kii nerv istorii’, ms., p. 31; interview with Ida Slavina, Cologne, June 2003.

  136. Bonner, Mothers and Daughters, pp. 254–5 (where Bonner mistakenly names the school director as Klavdia Vasileevna); interview with Elena Bonner, Boston, November 2006.

  137. Interview with Ida Slavina, Cologne, September 2004.

  138. MSP, f. 3, op. 46, d. 2, ll. 17–18, 42–3.

  139. MP, f. 4, op. 18, d. 2, l. 53.

  140. MSP, f. 3, op. 37, d. 2, ll. 23–5, 37.

  141. MM, f. 1, op. 1, d. 169 (Sofia to Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, 16 October 1937).

  142. GARF, f. 7523, op. 123, d. 202, ll. 16–19.

  143. GARF, f. 5446, op. 26, d. 105, ll. 35–6.

  144. Adamova-Sliuzberg, Put’, pp. 60–63.

  145. MP, f. 4, op. 6, d. 2, ll. 37–8.

  146. MSP, f. 3, op. 4, d. 2, l. 24.

  147. The Diary of Nina Kosterina (London, 1972), pp. 35, 44, 53, 85, 163, 165.

  148. M. Baitalsky, Notebooks for the Grandchildren: Recollections of a Trotskyist Who Survived the Stalin Terror (New Jersey, 1995), pp. 334–5.

  149. MSP, f. 3, op. 10, d. 1, l. 1; d. 3, ll. 7, 10–11.

  150. Golgofa, pp. 41, 46, 53–4; interview with Vladimir Piatnitsky, St Petersburg, September 2005.

  151. Golgofa, pp. 33, 42.

  152. Ibid., pp. 41–2.

  153. Interview with Vladimir Piatnitsky, St Petersburg, September 2005. She was receiving psychiatric help from May 1938 (see Golgofa, p. 88).

  154. Golgofa, pp. 42–3, 58.

  155. Ibid., pp. 57, 100.

  156. Ibid., pp. 52, 61; interview with Vladimir Piatnitsky, St Petersburg, September 2005.

  157. L. Razgon, True Stories (London, 1997), p. 131.

  158. Starkov, ‘The Trial’, p. 1307.

  159. Lubianka. Stalin iglavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD, 1937–1938 (Moscow, 2004), p. 544.

  160. Golgofa, p. 80.

  161. Ibid., pp. 83–4.

  162. Ibid., p. 99.

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

  164. Golgofa, pp. 114–16.

  5: Remnants of Terror (1938–41)

  1. MP, f. 4, op. 2, d. 2, ll. 7–10.

  2. MP, f. 4, op. 2, d. 2, l. 5. See similarly MM, f. 4, op. 11, d. 2, ll. 40–41.

  3. MP, f. 4, op. 2, d. 2, l. 10.

  4. MSP, f. 3, op. 41, d. 2, l. 10.

  5. MSP, f. 3, op. 41, d. 2, ll. 6, 11, 31–2, 54, 59, 62–3, 65.

  6. MSP, f. 3, op. 6, d. 2, ll. 6, 10, 25–6.

  7. For the first-born children assuming adult roles in single-parent families see MP, f. 4, op. 24, d. 2, ll. 39–40; op. 13, d. 2, ll. 42–4.

  8. MSP, f. 3, op. 37, d. 2, ll. 11–12, 40; I. Shikheeva-Gaister, Semeinaia khronika vremen kul’ta lichnosti: 1925–1953 (Moscow, 1998), pp. 36–8, 41–7, 50, 53–4, 187.

  9. MP, f. 4, op. 22, d. 2, ll. 3–4, 24–6, 34–5.

  10. See S. Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia: Te
rror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934–1941 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 131–2.

  11. MM, f. 1, op. 3, d. 905 (25 January 1939).

  12. See in particular MM, f. 1, op. 1, d. 5401; op. 3, d. 5923; f. 12, op. 25, d. 2; op. 31, d. 2.

  13. MM, f. 1, op. 3, d. 905 (25 August 1940); f. 12, op. 3, d. 2, l. 31.

  14. L. Siegelbaum and A. Sokolov (eds.), Stalinism as a Way of Life: A Narrative in Documents (Yale, 2000), p. 401.

  15. GMPIR, f. 2, nos. 51291–1345; VS 11026; f. 6, VS 1937, VS 1937 VS 1938.

  16. MM, f. 12, op. 22, d. 1, l. 1; d. 2, ll. 5–6, 14.

  17. MSP, f. 3, op. 40, d. 2, ll. 10, 22; d. 5 (20 May 1940).

  18. MSP, f. 3, op. 40, d. 2, ll. 7, 18, 24, 34–5.

  19. MSP, f. 3, op. 16, d. 2, ll. 71–2.

  20. MSP, f. 3, op. 16, d. 1; d. 2, ll. 25–7.

  21. GARF, f. 5207, op. 3, d. 49, l. 190; d. 56, l. 18.

  22. A. Applebaum, Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps (London, 2003), p. 300.

  23. MSP, f. 3, op. 29, d. 2, ll. 1, 3, 14, 20–21.

  24. MM, f. 12, op. 27, d. 2, ll. 4, 72.

  25. MSP, f. 3, op. 13, d. 2, ll. 4–6, 21–4.

  26. MSP, f. 3, op. 24, d. 2, ll. 10, 41; d. 4, l. 25.

  27. MSP, f. 3, op. 24, d. 2, ll. 37–8.

  28. MSP, f. 3, op. 24, d. 2, ll. 20, 39–40.

  29. M. Nikolaev, Detdom (New York, 1985), pp. 48–9, 89.

  30. Ibid., pp. 42, 65, 101.

  31. Ibid., pp. 77–9, 126; interview with Viktoriia Shweitser (Mikhail Nikolaev’s widow), Moscow, July 2004.

  32. MSP, f. 3, op. 24, d. 2, l. 16; d. 4, l. 21.

  33. MSP, f. 3, op. 12, d. 2, l. 68.

  34. MSP, f. 3, op. 12, d. 2, ll. 127–30.

  35. E. P. Evangulova, Krestnyi put’ (St Petersburg, 2000), pp. 59, 69, 75, 77, 81.

  36. SFA, I. Slavina, ‘Na vesakh nadezhdy i otchaianiia’, ms., p. 1.

  37. MSP, f. 3, op. 42, d. 2, l. 23; d. 3, ll. 1–2.

  38. MP, f. 4, op. 12, d. 2, ll. 10, 14, 32, 63–4.

  39. MSP, f. 3, op. 11, d. 2, ll. 39, 61, 62, 63–4, 72.

  40. Lynne Viola, ‘Tear the Evil From the Root: The Children of Spetspereselentsy of the North’, in Natalia Baschmakoff and Paul Fryer (eds.), Modernization of the Russian Provinces, special issue of Studia Slavica Finlandensia, 17 (April 2000), pp. 60–61.

  41. MP, f. 4, op. 18, d. 2, ll. 11, 16, 50, 52, 65, 76; d. 5, ll. 22–3.

  42. MP, f. 4, op. 2, d. 2, l. 14.

  43. Interviews with Oksana Kozmina (Moscow, 1988), Klavdiia Goncharova (Moscow, 1986), Inna Ilina (Moscow, 1988), Lydia Violina (Moscow, 1988), Klavdiia Babaeva (Moscow, 1988); GFA, interviews with Sergei Barinov (Akmolinsk, 1988); Leninskaia smena, 2 June 1988, p. 2; M. Shreider, NKVD iznutri: zapiski chekista (Moscow, 1995), p. 117. See further A. Kukushkina, Akmolinskii lager’ zhen ‘izmennikov rodiny’. Istoriia i sud’by (Karaganda, 2002).

  44. MP, f. 4, op. 2, d. 2, ll. 4, 45, 51.

  45. A. Applebaum, Gulag, p. 234; I. Shikheeva-Gaister, Semeinaia khronika vremen kul’ta lichnosti: 1925–1953 (Moscow, 1998), pp. 47–8.

  46. SFA, I. Slavina, ‘Na vesakh nadezhdy i otchaianiia’, ms., pp. 6–7.

  47. Interview with Oksana Kozmina, Moscow, 1988.

  48. The most detailed discussion of the trusties is in A. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, 3 vols. (London, 1974–8), vol. 2, pp. 251–91.

  49. MM, f. 12, op. 29, d. 2, ll. 1, 18.

  50. H. Volovich, ‘My Past’, in S. Vilenskii (ed.), Till My Tale is Told: Women’s Memoirs of the GULAG (Bloomington, 1999), pp. 260–64.

  51. Applebaum, Gulag, p. 293.

  52. Interviews with Oksana Kozmina (Moscow, 1988), Klavdiia Goncharova (Moscow, 1986), Inna Ilina (Moscow, 1988), Lydia Violina (Moscow, 1988), Klavdiia Babaeva (Moscow, 1988), Mikhail Iusipenko (Akmolinsk, 1988).

  53. On this see Solzhenitsyn, Gulag, vol. 2, pp. 229–34; Applebaum, Gulag, pp. 285–91.

  54. MIFA, Tina Mikheladze, ‘Vospominaniia’, ms., pp. 1–8; interview with Vakhtang Mikheladze, Moscow, April 2003.

  55. MSP, f. 3, op. 41, d. 2, ll. 10–12, 40–41, 83–91.

  56. GFA, Oksana Golovnia, ‘Vospominaniia’, ms., pp. 5–7.

  57. GFA, letter from Anatoly to Liuba Golovnia, 22 June 1940; letters from Polina Eisner to Liuba Golovnia, 11 December 1940, 22 March 1941.

  58. GFA, Oksana Golovnia, ‘Predislovie k pis’mam’, ms., p. 42; Polina Eisner (Ivanova), ‘Avtobiografiia’ (February 1942); interview with Oksana Kozmina, Moscow, 1988; letters from Anatoly to Liuba Golovnia, 23 July 1939; 1 March, 27 March, 3 April 1940.

  59. Interview with Aleksei Simonov, Moscow, November 2003.

  60. RGALI, f. 632, op. 1, d. 14, ll. 26–7.

  61. RGALI, f. 631, op. 2, d. 453, l. 21; f. 2897, op. 1, d. 114; A. Simonov, Chastnaia kollektsiia (Nizhny Novgorod, 1999), pp. 35–6, 49; interviews with Aleksei Simonov, Moscow, November 2003; SLFA, Yevgeniia Laskina to Aleksandra Ivanisheva, 8 September 1939; Konstantin Simonov to Yevgeniia Laskina, August 1939.

  62. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 1, d. 93, l. 20.

  63. J. Colvin, Nomonhan (London, 1999), pp. 169–75.

  64. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 1, d. 480, l. 106; op. 6, d. 170, l. 46; op. 10, d. 339, l. 11; K. Simonov, 100 sutok voiny (Moscow, 1999), p. 295.

  65. G. Roberts, ‘The Soviet Decision for a Pact with Nazi Germany’, Soviet Studies, vol. 44, no. 1 (1992), pp. 57–78; R. Overy, The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia (London, 2004), p. 486.

  66. C. Merridale, Ivan’s War: The Red Army 1939–45 (London, 2005), p. 44.

  67. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 6, d. 170, ll. 44–6; K. Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia (Moscow, 1990), p. 67; Simonov, 100 sutok voiny, pp. 292–3.

  68. Simonov, 100 sutok voiny, pp. 297–8.

  69. Konstantin Simonov v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov (Moscow, 1984), pp. 18–20.

  70. N. Pushnova, Valentina Serova (Moscow, 2003), pp. 10, 298–9; interview with Maria Simonova, Moscow, March 2004.

  71. Pushnova, Valentina Serova, pp. 48–9.

  72. Ibid., p. 96.

  73. Interview with Fania Laskina, Moscow, July 2004.

  74. Pushnova, Valentina Serova, p. 115; M. Simonova, ‘Ia pomniu’, Ogonek, 1993, no. 6, pp. 22–3; interview with Fania Laskina, Moscow, November 2003.

  6: ‘Wait For Me’ (1941–5)

  1. MFA, L. Makhnach, ‘Oskolki bylogo s vysoty nastoiashchego’, ms., pp. 1–14; Vladimir to Maria Makhnach, November 1941; TsAODM, f. 3, op. 52, d. 27, l. 21.

  2. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 10, d. 339, l. 6; K. Simonov, 100 sutok voiny (Moscow, 1999), pp. 6–17.

  3. Simonov, 100 sutok voiny, pp. 51–2; SLFA, M. Laskin, ‘Vospominaniia’, ms., p. 55.

  4. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 4, d. 5, ll. 7, 58. For more on the development of Simonov’s ideas about the Terror during the wars years: A. Karaganov, Konstantin Simonov vblizi i na rasstoianii (Moscow, 1987), pp. 88–9. On the legacy of the Terror in the Soviet armed forces: E. Seniavskaia, ‘Dukhovnyi oblik frontovogo pokoleniia: istoriko-psikhologicheskii ocherk’, Vestnik MGU: Istoriia, 1992, no. 4, pp. 39–51; M. von Hagen, ‘Soviet Soldiers and Officers on the Eve of the German Invasion: Toward a Description of Social Psychology and Political Attitudes’, in R. Thurston and B. Bonwetsch (eds.), The People’s War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union (Urbana, 2000), pp. 193 ff.

  5. Simonov, 100 sutok voiny, pp, 17–21, 53, 121, 409–11.

  6. Moskva voennaia 1941–1945: memuary i arkhivnye dokumenty (Moscow, 1995), p. 475; C. Merridale, Ivan’s War: The Red Army 1939–1945 (London, 2005), p. 84; Simonov, 100 sutok voiny, p. 50.

  7. Moskva voennaia, p. 478; R. Bidlack, ‘The Political Mood in Leningrad During the First Year of the Soviet–German War’, Russian Review, vol. 59, no. 1 (January 2000), pp. 101–11; G. Bordiugov, ‘The Popular Mood in the Unoccupied Soviet Union: Continuity and Change during the War’, in The People’s War, pp. 59–60; M. Gorinov, ‘Muscovites’ Moods,
22 June 1941 to May 1942’, in The People’s War, pp. 119–20.

  8. V. Shapovalov (ed.), Remembering the Darkness: Women in Soviet Prisons (Lanham, Maryland, 2001), pp. 150–51; MSP, f. 3, op. 35, d. 1, l. 1; d. 2, l. 34.

  9. R. Overy, Russia’s War (London, 1997), p. 94.

  10. E. Maksimova, Deti voennoi pory (Moscow, 1988), pp. 235–308; Merridale, Ivan’s War, p. 216.

  11. Interviews with Iurii Streletsky, St Petersburg, May 2003, February 2004.

  12. J. Dunstan, Soviet Schooling in the Second World War (Basingstoke, 1997), p. 82; J. Barber and M. Harrison, The Soviet Home Front, 1941–1945: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II (London, 1991), p. 128.

  13. MSP, f. 3, op. 3, d. 2, ll. 14–15, 34–42; d. 3, l. 28.

  14. MSP, f. 3, op. 45, d. 2, ll. 9, 53, 88, 165.

  15. MSP, f. 3, op. 45, d. 2, ll. 11, 46.

  16. Moskva voennaia, pp. 478, 481.

  17. Ibid., pp. 149, 152.

  18. K. Simonov, Sobranie sochinenii, 12 vols. (Moscow, 1979–87), vol. 1, p. 171. I have borrowed from the translation by Mike Munford (www.simonov.co.uk).

  19. Interview with Fania Laskina, Moscow, February 2003; interview with Aleksei Simonov, Moscow, September 2003; SLFA, Sonia Laskina’s papers; RGALI, f. 1814, op. 10, d. 339, l. 41.

  20. N. Pushnova, Valentina Serova: krug otchuzhdeniia (Moscow, 2003), pp. 150–52, 161–5; interview with Aleksei Simonov, Moscow, November 2003; RGALI, f. 1814, op. 9, d. 2788, l. 1.

  21. A. Todd and M. Hayward (eds.), Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry (London, 1993), pp. 623–4 (translated by L. Yakovleva).

  22. L. Lazarev, Konstantin Simonov. Ocherk zhizni i tvorchestva (Moscow, 1985), pp. 66–7, 71, 78–9; L. Pushkarev, Po dorogam voiny: vospominaniia fol’kloristafrontovika (Moscow, 1995), pp. 56–7; B. Pankin, Chetyre Ia Konstantina Simonova (Moscow 1999), p. 80; Poslednie pis’ma s fronta. Sbornik, 5 vols. (Moscow, 1992), vol. 3 (1943), p. 257.

  23. RGALI. f. 1814, op. 1, d. 765, l. 9.

  24. Pushkarev, Po dorogam voiny, pp. 31, 57–8.

  25. On this see Merridale, Ivan’s War, pp. 93, 208, 272–4.

  26. RGALI, f. 1814, op. 8, d. 93, ll. 61–2.

  27. Simonov, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1, pp. 129–32.

  28. Lazarev, Konstantin Simonov, pp. 38–9, 70–72; same author, Pamiat’ trudnoi godiny. Velikaia otechestvennaia voina v russkoi literature (Moscow, 2000, pp. 47–9; Autobiographical Statements in Twentieth-Century Russian Literature (Princeton, 1990), p. 13; R. Stites, ‘Soviet Russian Wartime Culture: Freedom and Control, Spontaneity and Consciousness’, in The People’s War, p. 175; V. Dunham, In Stalin’s Time: Middle-Class Values in Soviet Fiction (Durham, 1990), pp. 70–71; RGALI, f. 1814, op. 1, d. 772, l. 362.