185. In Moscow Choibalsan also met with Voroshilov and Beria, who “helped” the Mongol leader reinforce his personal security detail, which increased Soviet surveillance. Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 366–78 (citing sources with Mongol archives). After victory at the Halha River over the Japanese, Choibalsan had traveled again to the Soviet capital, arriving in Dec. 1939. He had last been there from Sept. 1938 through Jan. 1939, when Kremlin doctors diagnosed him with “physical and intellectual fatigue” and prescribed treatment at the Matsesta baths, after which, upon returning to Mongolia, he had Prime Minister Amar publicly tried and extradited to the NKVD in Siberia for execution.
186. Iakovlev, Tsel’ zhizni (6th ed.), 157–61. Yakovlev indicates he met Stalin twice, in late Dec. 1939 and on Jan. 9, but the logbooks give dates of late Oct. 1939 and Jan. 8, 1940. Na prieme, 277, 288. Yakovlev’s father had worked for Alfred Nobel’s oil concern. Mikhail Kaganovich was removed on Jan. 10, and demoted to the directorship of a military aviation factory (no. 124) in Kazan. In Feb. 1941, after being told by his brother Lazar that Stalin had criticized him, Mikhail would shoot himself.
187. Emel’ianov, Na poroge voiny, 154–8; “Vospominaia Velikuiu Otechestvennuiu,” 56; Malyshev, “Dnevnik narkoma,” 109. Yemelyanov recalls the meeting as taking place sometime in Dec. 1939, but the office logbooks indicate the Jan. date. Na prieme, 289.
188. Khristoforov et al., Zimniaia voina, 431–2 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 7, d. 189, l. 69–71: Beria, Jan. 13, 1940).
189. Finnish intelligence passed to the British a Soviet codebook that “bore the marks of a bullet.” Jeffrey, MI6, 371–2 (no citation).
190. Rentola, “Intelligence and Stalin’s Two Crucial Decisions,” 1098 (citing Brig Ling notes on Interview with Mannerheim on Jan. 8, 1940; Mannerheim to Ironside, Jan. 9: TNA War Office 208/3966; and Memo by Gen. Ironside, “Operations in Scandinavia,” Jan. 12: TNA, WO 208/3966).
191. Khristoforov et al., Zimniaia voina, 431–2 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 7, d. 189, l. 69–71: Jan. 13, 1940), 409 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 6: Jan. 1940); DVP SSSR, XXIII/i: 53–6 (Maisky to Molotov, Jan. 26, 1940); Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War, 195. Maisky feared British-Soviet diplomatic relations again would be severed and he himself deported. In the event, he remained in London but as a pariah. The British intended to publish a book of documents on the failed negotiations with Moscow, exculpating themselves, which would have exposed Maisky’s initiatives beyond his instructions. Maisky procured a microfilm of the never-published text, which would turn up in a search of his possessions and figure in his trial in 1955.
192. Rentola, “Intelligence and Stalin’s Two Crucial Decisions,” 1098–9.
193. Stalin had learned back on Oct. 13, 1939, that Paasonen, the Finnish military intelligence officer, had told Major Vrang, the Swedish military attaché, that, just as during the historic battle in 1808 against the invading Imperial Russian Army, the Finns would slowly withdraw toward the north and Sweden. Stalin had had the Soviet battle plan adjusted to include the goal of cutting Finland in two at Oulu (Oleaborg) on the Finnish far coast, to interdict Helsinki’s land contact with Sweden. The thought had sunk in so deeply that Stalin had reiterated the need to pay attention to the 1808 battle in a directive as late as Dec. 29, 1939. But by Jan. 8 the Finns had won what became known as the Battle of Suomussalmi, which protected the axis toward Oulu. The objective of slicing Finland in half appeared plausible on a map, but the territory was mostly forested marshland with only logging trails for roads. Nor had the Finns withdrawn the way Soviet intelligence had reported they would. The Soviets lost huge stores of war material and men. (It was in the drive toward the Oulu where Mekhlis had almost been killed.) Volkogonov Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, box 1 (Leningrad military district cipher telegram to the general staff, Nov. 29, 1939; order, Voroshilov to Shaposhnikov, Dec. 2).
194. Hastings, Inferno, 36–7 (no citation).
195. Pospelov, Istoriia Velikoi otechestvennoi voiny, I: 275; Richardson, “French Plans.”
196. RGVA, f. 33988, op. 4, d. 35, l. 35ss, in Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 227.
197. Rentola, “Intelligence and Stalin’s Two Crucial Decisions,” 1100 (Jan. 20, 1940).
198. APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 177, l. 116–36.
199. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 124–5, 144–5. In a lecture on June 26, 1940, at the Frunze Military Academy concerning the lessons of the Finnish war, Meretskov would claim that the Finns had built 150 airfields to receive foreign aircraft. Van Dyke, Soviet Invasion, 31n55 (citing RGVA, f. 34980, op. 14, d. 6, l. 1).
200. Na prieme, 290.
201. Khristoforov et al., Zimniaia voina, 481 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 6, d. 12, l. 59). See also Tanner, Winter War, 125–63.
202. West and Tsarev, Crown Jewels, 144 (citing an inaccessible secret History of the London Rezidentura, in Russian, file no. 89113, I: 434).
203. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1509, l. 82–4. Stalin was responding to E. Gorodetsky’s article in Pravda (Feb. 4, 1940), which was a summary of M. Moskalev’s article in Istorik-Marksist (Jan. 1940). Later, on April 27, 1940, when Yaroslavsky sought to rebut Stalin by citing many sources, Stalin again exploded (“sycophancy is incompatible with scientific history”). RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 842, l. 35–44.
204. Zhukovskii, Lubianskaia imperiia NKVD, 214–5.
205. http://alya-aleksej.narod.ru/index/0-181; Voronov, “Palach v kozhanom fartuke”; Nikita Petrov, “Chelovek v kozhanom fartuke lichno rasstrelial bolee desiati tysiach chelovek” http://discussiya.com/2010/08/26/blokhin-executioner. Stalin signed the list, containing 457 names, including Yezhov’s, on Jan. 17, 1940: APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 177, l. 116–36. Another principal executioner was the Latvian Pēteris Mago, Russified as Pyotr Maggo (1879–1941), who would soon die of cirrhosis of the liver.
206. Ushakov and Stukalov, Front voennykh prokurorov, 75 (USSR deputy military procurator Nikolai Afanasev, who was present). Among the many rumors that would circulate inside the NKVD about Yezhov’s execution, one had Beria ordering that Yezhov undress and be beaten before being shot, just as Yezhov had done to humiliate his predecessor Yagoda. Kamov, “Smert’ Nikolai Ezhova.”
207. “Poslednee slovo Nikolai Ezhova,” Moskovskie novosti, Jan. 30–Feb. 6, 1994; Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 536 (citing TsA FSB, sledstvennoe delo No. N-15302, t. 1, l. 184–6); Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 560–2.
208. Iakovlev, Tsel’ zhizni (6th ed.), 212.
209. Voronov, Na sluzhbe voennoi, 153; Solovev, My Nine Lives, 119; Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 13; Baryshnikov et al., Istoriia ordena Lenina, 137.
210. Valedinskii, “Vospominaniia,” 124. Vyborg fell roughly three weeks later. On Stalin’s illness and treatment in mid-February 1940, see also Chigirin, Stalin, 115–20 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 1482, l. 101–5ob.).