With Sangursky went the Deputy Chief of Staff, the Chief of Combat Training, and the Chief of Intelligence. In the autumn of 1937, Ingaunis, commanding the Far Eastern Air Force, was also in the Butyrka, having been severely tortured in the Lefortovo and confessing to espionage. The NKVD noncommissioned officer who tore off his insignia and Orders in the Lubyanka remarked, “Well, they certainly handed out medals to all sorts of counter-revolutionary swine!”60 The Head of the Army’s Political Administration was arrested, too. At the same time, most of the political leadership in the eastern provinces were seized.
Even so, as far as the Army is concerned, this phase only lasted about five weeks, and was not so intense or on such a mass scale as in the other military districts. It ended with Blyukher’s return to his post.
For meanwhile, an even more important consideration had arisen: on 30 June, some patrol fighting had broken out between Soviet and Japanese troops on the Amur, and on 6 July the Japanese had seized Bolshoi Island in that stream. In spite of protests, the Russians made no attempt to dislodge them. There is no doubt that this was a probing action by Japanese military elements, who took the view that the local Soviet capacity to fight had been largely paralyzed by the Purge.
Blyukher at once started to repair as far as possible the disorganization that had already set in. Tukhachevsky’s execution, followed by the arrests in the Far Eastern Army, had left him deeply depressed.61 But in the face of the military threat, Stalin made no further move against him for the time being.
During the winter, various arrests were carried out. Corps Commander Rokossovsky had been beaten senseless and dragged off to prison, together with a number of other officers of his unit. When Rokossovsky came before a “court,” its president said that it had the evidence of one of his fellow conspirators, Adolf Kazimirovich Yushkevich, who had confessed that he and Rokossovsky had belonged to a counter-revolutionary center and had had certain instructions and tasks.
“Can the dead give evidence?” Rokossovsky asked, when he was allowed to comment.
“What do you mean, the dead?”
“Well, Adolf Kazimirovich Yushkevich was killed in 1920 at Perekop. I mentioned to the investigator that Yushkevich served in the Cavalry Group, but I accidentally forgot to mention his loss.”62
Rokossovsky was merely imprisoned, and was one of those lucky enough to be released when the pressure had died down.
Meanwhile, things were to get worse.
Corps Commander Khakanian, Head of the Political Administration of the Far Eastern Army, was arrested on 1 February 1938. And at the end of June 1938, when every other part of the Army, and of the country, had been dealt with, Mekhlis arrived in Khabarovsk with a group of new political commissars. At the same time, the sinister Frinovsky steamed in, in a special train, with a large NKVD staff. The great purge of the Far Eastern Army, of which they had been cheated in 1937, was now at hand.63
Mekhlis and Frinovsky first destroyed their own representatives. Mekhlis replaced the officers of the political administration; the “Gamarnik–Bulin gang” was later said to have been particularly active in the Far East.64 Frinovsky arrested and shot the sixteen leading NKVD officials of the area. He was balked of one major figure. The Far Eastern NKVD Chief was G. Lyushkov, who had been Deputy Head of the Secret Political Department under Molchanov in the days of the Zinoviev Trial. One of the few of such a rank still left over from the Yagoda regime, he had been so far spared because of his friendly relations with Yezhov. He had now decided it was time to push his luck no further, and on 13 June he had slipped across the Manchurian border with a vast amount of intelligence information for the Japanese.65
Having prepared the police and political striking forces, Stalin’s emissaries turned on the Army proper. Blyukher’s new staff and commanders were arrested wholesale. His Deputy Commander, his new Chief of Staff, his new Air Commander, Pumpur—who had served in Spain—and his leading Army Commander, Levandovsky, recently transferred from the Caucasus, all disappeared. (Pumpur was later released, but was rearrested and shot in 1942.) But now it was not only a matter of a few seniors. Forty percent of the commanders up to regimental level, 70 percent of divisional and corps staffs, and over 80 percent of the front staff were seized, as NKVD lorries raided the officers’ quarters night after night. Blyukher was soon “standing amidst the shambles of what had been his command.”66
Once again he was reprieved, and for the same reason as before. The Japanese had seen their chance. On 6 July 1938 they launched a probing attack with limited objectives on Lake Hassan.
Fortunately, there were still a few competent officers who had survived or been transferred to the area—in particular, Corps Commander Shtern, who had recently been Chief Military Adviser in Spain and was now given command of one of the armies into which Blyukher’s front had been reorganized. He was to have time to fight his battle and report on it to the next Party Congress and even to be elected to the new Central Committee before he, too, disappeared.
After five weeks of intermittent fighting, the Far Eastern troops first contained the Japanese and then pressed them back. By 11 August, the battle was over. A week later, on 18 August, Blyukher was recalled to Moscow.67
The “Stalin air route,” pioneered with such panache at the time of the Zinoviev Trial, was being put to typical use by the General Secretary. A special pilot, Alexander Golovanov, later to rise to be Chief Marshal of the Soviet Air Force until his removal after Stalin’s death in 1953, had been allotted by the NKVD for urgent travel by members of the Central Committee and Government. In 1935 and 1936, he had served in the labor-camp administration in Siberia. Now he was provided with a special multi-engined aircraft, and in 1937 and 1938 this was used to transport arrested officials from the Far East and elsewhere.68 He had lately carried most of Blyukher’s subordinates and their NKVD escorts back to Moscow.
But the Marshal himself went by train. He was not yet, however, under arrest. At the end of August, he made a report to the Military Soviet of the People’s Commissariat of Defense. “Criticism was sharp and one-sided.” Voroshilov attacked him, while Stalin, who had always defended him previously, remained silent. Later Voroshilov told him that he was not to return to the Far East, but to remain at the disposal of the Military Revolutionary Soviet “until a post suitable for a Marshal” could be found. Meanwhile, he should go on leave to Sochi, the resort in the Caucasus.69
Blyukher telegraphed his wife to return, adding that his health was poor. He put some money aside for her, in case he was arrested. For the chances of this now seemed high. She and the family joined him soon afterwards, together with his brother, Pavel, commander of an Air Force unit in the Far East. By this time, he had learned of the arrest of Army Commander Fedko, Assistant Commissar of Defense, which seems in some way to have been associated with his own. Fedko put up armed resistance and ordered his guard to hold the NKVD men at gunpoint while he telephoned Voroshilov, who told him to yield “temporarily.”70
On 22 October, on Stalin’s personal orders,71 four men in black civilian suits entered Blyukher’s place and arrested all the family. Blyukher and his wife were taken to the Lefortovo, where Beria personally conducted the first examinations. He was then continuously interrogated by other NKVD officers working in shifts. The charge was of having been a Japanese spy since 1921, and of having planned to escape to Japan with the help of his Air Force brother, Pavel (this second charge at least was not totally implausible; after all, Lyushkov had just done precisely that). The Marshal was now told that in addition to the rest of the family, his first wife, Galina, had been arrested in Leningrad. (He had taken the pseudonym Galen from her name.)72 Apart from using all these hostages, the NKVD also offered him an inducement: if he confessed, he would get off with a ten-year sentence. However, he refused to sign the protoco1.73