88. Tanner, Winter War, 75–6.
89. Na prieme, 279.
90. Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 221 (citing RGALI, f. 1038, op. 1, d. 2076, l. 31ob.), 225–6 (l. 68). The very same day, the all-Union Society of Cultural Ties Abroad demonstratively assembled novelists, film directors, composers, painters, journalists, and more to affirm friendship with Nazi Germany, according to the head of the import agency International Book (A. Solovyev). The next day, Vishnevsky told a meeting of screenwriters that “the question of the British empire, the destruction of this gigantic colonial empire, has been sharply posed, and here, paradoxically, . . . Germany is doing a progressive thing.” Solov’ev, “Tretrady krasnogo professor, 1912–1941 gg.,” IV: 205; Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 221–2, citing RGALI, f. 2456, op. 1, d. 445, l. 23).
91. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, II/i: 55–8; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 238. Isolationist sentiment in Britain had not receded despite the guarantees to Poland. “What concerns me is the fate of the British empire!” Lord Beaverbrook, the conservative press baron, told Maisky in London on Nov. 15, 1939. “I want the empire to remain intact, but I don’t understand why for the sake of this we must wage a three-year war to crush ‘Hitlerism.’ To hell with that man Hitler! If the Germans want him, I happily concede them this treasure and make my bow. Poland? Czechoslovakia? What are they to us?” Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, II/i: 60–1; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 239.
92. Upton, Finland, 25–50; Tanner, Winter War, 80–1; Spring, “Soviet Decision for War.”
93. A Soviet protocol official improbably reported that he found the departing Finns in high spirits. Baryshnikov, Ot prokhaldnogo mira, 259 (citing AVPRF, f. 06, op. 1, p. 1, d. 7, l. 64 [B. Pontikov]).
94. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh sem’i, 63 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1552, l.15–6).
95. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 66, l. 13.
96. DGFP, series D, VIII: 427–8. Molotov would blame the “Social Democrat” Tanner, rather than the prime minister and foreign minister back in Helsinki. See also Kollontai, “‘Seven Shots’”; and Kollontai, Diplomaticheskie dnevniki, II: 466–7. Paasikivi would make telling criticisms of Tanner in his memoirs.
97. Domarus, Hitler: Reden, III: 1422–4; Domarus, Hitler: Speeches, III: 1882–91; DGFP, series D, VIII: 439–46.
98. Khristoforov et al., Zimniaia voina, 171 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 6, d. 31, l. 282–4). Tanner recorded a different version of Stalin’s flippancy (“You are sure to get 99 percent support”). Tanner, Winter War, 30.
99. Paasikivi later recalled, “The proposals Stalin made to us in the fall of 1939 were completely different from those to the Baltic countries . . . Stalin from the very beginning backed off discussing with us a mutual assistance pact.” Baryshnikov, Ot prokhladnogo mira, 238.
100. Tuominen, Bells of the Kremlin, 154–5.
101. Upton, Finland, 30–2.
102. Rentola, “Intelligence and Stalin’s Two Crucial Decisions,” 1094, citing V. Vladimirov, Kohti talvisotaa (Helsinki, 1995), 163–4; Rentola, “Finnish Communists and the Winter War,” 598n27; Kolpakidi, Entsiklopediia sekretnykh sluzhb Rossii, 711–2. Unexpectedly, a report by the general staff for the Leningrad military district (Nov. 10, 1939) praised Finnish military training and judged “the morale of the Finnish army, despite the class difference between the officers and soldiers,” as “sufficiently steadfast.” Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 205–7 (RGVA, f. 25888, op. 11, d. 17, l. 194–200). Stalin finally posted a new military intelligence officer to Helsinki, Colonel Ivan Smirnov, who replaced the man executed in the terror. Sinitsyn, in his posthumously published memoir, would claim he had conveyed the opposite of what he had actually reported.
103. They took along Nikolai Voronov, the artillery specialist. Voronov, Na sluzhbe voennoi, 134; Na prieme, 279–80. The Main Military Council in Moscow, with Stalin in attendance (Nov. 21), approved a plan for an expansion to a peacetime army of 2.3 million. Glavnyi voennyi sovet RKKA, 269–86 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 18, d. 49, l. 1–26), 440–53 (RGVA, f. 40442, op. 2, d. 128, l. 120–39: Smorodinov and Gusev).
104. Jakobson, Diplomacy of the Winter War, 140.
105. Rentola, “Intelligence and Stalin’s Two Crucial Decisions,” 1090.
106. Meretskov reported to Stalin that the deadly attack had originated from the Finnish side. Meretskov, Na sluzhbe, 182; Dvoynikh and Eliseeva, Konflikt, doc. 8 (RGVA. F. 33987, op. 3, d. 1240, l. 115).
107. Manninen, “Vystreli byli” (citing the recollections of a Soviet officer who took part). See also Zhdanov’s cryptic but suggestive notes: Baryshnikov and Manninen, “V kanun zimnei voiny,” I: 137 (RGASPI, f. 77, op. 3, d. 163, l. 3120). Khrushchev recalled that “Kuusinen and I . . . found out when we were at Stalin’s apartment that the first shots had been fired from our side. There’s no getting around that fact.” Khrushchev, Memoirs, I: 254.
108. Na prieme, 282; Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 200–3.
109. Balashov, Prinimai nas, 23; Pravda, Nov. 29, 1939.
110. Rentola, “Intelligence and Stalin’s Two Crucial Decisions,” 1096 (citing KrA, FST/Und E II: 15); Dongarov, “Voina, kotoryi moglo ne byt’,” 37 (citing AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1, pap. 18, d. 188, l. 22–3, 26).
111. Dvoynikh and Eliseeva, Konflikt, doc. 16 (RGVA, f. 34980, op. 1, d. 794, l. 1). See also Azarov, Osazhdennaia Odessa, 5.
112. Vehviläinen, “Trudnaia doroga k miru,” I: 228. See also Jakobson, Diplomacy of the Winter War, 142.
113. For a top-secret Finnish intelligence assessment (Nov. 25, 1939) translated into Russian, see Khristoforov et al., Zimniaia voina, 195–200.
114. Upton, Finland, 50 (citing J. K. Paasikivi, Toimintani Moskovassa ja Suomessa 1939–1941 [Porvoo: Werner Söderström, 1959], I: 116); Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations, 72–3; Baryshnikov and Manninen, “V kanun zimnei voiny,” 135 (citing Finnish officials).
115. Pikhoia and Gieysztor, Katyn’: plenniki, 227–9 (GARF, f. 9401, op. 1, d. 528, l. 228–30: Dec. 1, 1939).
116. Na prieme, 279. On Stalin’ s corrections of Kuusinen dating back to Aug. 1928, see Adibekov et al., Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Komintern, 545–6 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 755, l. 116–7); RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 755, l. 164.
117. Tuominen judged Stalin’s humor offbeat (mostly from stories he heard from Kuusinen, with whom he had shared a flat in the House on the Embankment). Tuominen, Bells of the Kremlin, 158, 166, 173.
118. A few days after Tuominen’s initial summons by Kuusinen, the Soviet embassy in Stockholm followed up; again he refused. On Nov. 21, he claimed, he received a third order, this one delivered by a courier; Tuominen still refused. He also claimed that he decided not to inform the Finnish regime in Helsinki of the sensational news of a pending Soviet attack. Tuominen, Bells of the Kremlin, 315–8; Jakobson, Diplomacy of the Winter War, 147. After seeing the Finnish resistance, Tuominen would issue feelers to Finland’s Social Democrats and publicly break with Moscow in spring 1940.