The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia (62 page)

1
Rene Fueloep-Miller,
The Mind and Face of Bolshevism
(London: Putnam, 1927), 270.

2
RTSKhiDNI, fond 629, op.1, d.150 ll.10-11, 17, 19, from Diane P. Koenker and Ronald D. Bachman (eds.),
Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation
(Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1997), 84.

3
Robert Conquest,
The Great Terror: A Reassessment
(London: Hutchinson, 1990), 38-40.

4
Irena Wiley,
Around the Globe in Twenty Years
(New York: McKay, 1962), 30.

5
Loy Henderson Papers, File “memoirs Vol. 7,” Ch. 10-13, 1934-38, Box 20, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C.

6
Wiley,
Around the Globe in Twenty Years,
31.

7
Moscow Daily News,
Dec. 31, 1936.

8
Vadim J. Birstein,
The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2001), 16.

9
Ivan Bunin,
Cursed Days: A Diary of Revolution,
trans. Thomas Gaiton Marullo (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), 57.

10
Ibid., 138-39, 217.

11
361.00/11, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

12
The NKVD HQ and local staff in 1939 numbered 365,839 people. From G. M. Ivanov,
GULAG v sisteme totalitarnogo gosudarstva
[
GULAG in the System of a Totalitarian State
] (Moscow: 1997), 161; Vladimir Petrov,
It Happens in Russia: Seven Years Forced Labour in the Siberian Goldfields
(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1951), 17; Roy Medvedev,
Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism,
trans. Colleen Taylor (London: Spokesman, 1976), 341; Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation,
trans. Thomas P. Whitney, vol. 1 (London: Fontana, 1976), 528.

13
Medvedev,
Let History Judge,
343, 351; Arnold Beichman, “Sorting Pieces of the Russian Past,”
Hoover Digest,
no. 1 (2003).

14
Medvedev,
Let History Judge,
344; Edvard Radzinsky,
Stalin: The First Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia’s Secret Archives,
trans. H. T. Willets (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1996), 390; Yuri Druzhnikov,
Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik Morozov
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1997), 11.

15
Druzhnikov,
Informer 001,
130; Kolya Voinov,
Outlaw: The Autobiography of a Soviet Waif
(London: Harvill Press, 1955), 108.

16
Elena Bonner,
Mothers and Daughters
(London: Hutchinson, 1992), 317; from Sheila Fitzpatrick,
Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times; Soviet Russia in the 1930s
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 211.

17
Joseph Berger,
Shipwreck of a Generation: The Memoirs of Joseph Berger
(London: Harvill, 1971), 14; Brian Moynahan,
The Russian Century: A Photographic History of Russia’s 100 Years
(New York: Random House, 1994), 174; Nikita Khrushchev,
Special Report to the 20th Congress of the CPSU,
Feb. 24-25, 1956; Dmitri Volkogonov,
Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy,
ed. and trans. Harold Shukman (London: Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1991), 200.

18
Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov,
Stalin’s Loyal Executioner: People’s Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940
(Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 2002), 100; Robert Robinson,
Black on Red: My forty-four Years Inside the Soviet Union
(Washington, D.C.: Acropolis, 1988), 116; Medvedev,
Let History Judge,
284.

19
Aleksandr Orlov,
The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes
(New York: Random House, 1953), 84, 226-28; Radzinsky,
Stalin,
337.

20
Dmitri Shepilov, from Jansen and Petrov,
Stalin’s Loyal Executioner,
195.

21
Jansen and Petrov,
Stalin’s Loyal Executioner,
207.

22
Nikita Khrushchev,
The “Secret” Speech: Delivered to the Closed Session of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(Nottingham: Spokesman, 1976), 44.

23
Medvedev,
Let History Judge, 296.
On the semantics of
genocide:
For all their similarities, the great historical crimes are also unique. There appears to have been a policy of eradication of segments of ethnic groups within the USSR that were seen as providing a source of opposition to the regime—the Ukrainians, Poles, Byelorussians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Germans, and so on—which was one part of the crimes of “Stalinism” that one could say was genocidal. Since the Americans were a tiny element of this antiforeigner assault, were the individual actions directed against them part of this overall genocide? I would argue that, yes, this was the case. The Gulag camps certainly had a utilitarian motive for their existence. But an essential part of their utility was also the eradication and execution of the various opponents of the regime. There was little expectation of survival in many of the worst camp centers. The prisoners’ extinction was therefore also an end in itself. And if that is the case, then what took place within the camps was genocidal, if we perceive the intent as the eradication of life. Although one must be careful with language and use the word
genocide
with care. When the count of the victims enters the millions, then it appears justified and necessary.

24
Conquest,
The Great Terror,
287.

25
Hans Schaferenk and Natalia Musienko, “The Fictitious ‘Hitler-Jugend’ Conspiracy of the Moscow NKVD,” from Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds.),
Stalin’s Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 213.

26
Jansen and Petrov,
Stalin’s Loyal Executioner,
92.

27
Barry McLoughlin, “Mass Operations of the NKVD, 1937-38: A Survey,” from Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds.),
Stalin’s Terror,
129-30; Jansen and Petrov,
Stalin’s Loyal Executioner,
84-85.

28
Iu. M. Zolotov (ed.),
Kniga pamiati zhertv politcheskikh repressi
(Ul’ianovsk, Russia: 1996), 797-98; quoted in Barry McLoughin, “Mass Operations of the NKVD, 1937-38: A Survey,” from McLoughlin and McDermott (eds.),
Stalin’s Terror,
129.

29
Jansen and Petrov,
Stalin’s Loyal Executioner,
86.

30
Barry McLoughlin, “Mass Operations of the NKVD, 1937-38,” 134.

31
Conquest,
The Great Terror,
287.

32
The Challenge: Bulletin of the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Soviet Labor Camps
1, no. 3 (Jan. 1951).

33
Conquest,
The Great Terror,
287.

34
Hedrick Smith,
The New Russians
(London: Hutchinson, 1990), 130.

35
Margarete Buber,
Under Two Dictators,
trans. E. Fitzgerald (London: Gollanz, 1949), 10.

36
Laszlo Bekesi,
KGB and Soviet Security Uniforms and Militaria, 1917-1991
(Marlborough: Crowood Press, 2002), 16; Edmund Stevens,
This Is Russia Uncensored
(New York: Didier, 1950), 98.

37
Louis Fischer,
Men and Politics: An Autobiography
(London: Cape, 1941), 409.

38
Veronique Garros, Natalia Korenevskaya, and Thomas Lahusen (eds.),
Intimacy and Terror: Soviet Diaries of the 1930s,
trans. Carol A. Flath (New York: New Press, 1995), 352.

39
Fischer,
Men and Politics,
411.

40
Nanci Adler,
Victims of Soviet Terror: The Story of the Memorial Movement
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993), 21; John McCannon,
Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932-1939
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 112; Conquest,
The Great Terror,
297; Freda Utley,
Lost Illusion: The Story of the Author’s Life in Russia
(London: George Allen, 1949), 163.

41
David Remnick, “The Triumphant Merriment of Isaac Babel,”
Moscow Times,
April 26, 1997; Garros, Korenevskaya, and Lahusen,
Intimacy and Terror,
358; Robert A. D. Ford,
Our Man in Moscow: A Diplomat’s Reflections on the Soviet Union
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 12; Slavoj Zizek, “When the Party Commits Suicide,” The Human Rights Project, 1999; Elizabeth Wilson,
Shostakovich: A Life Remembered
(London: Faber, 1994), 124-25.

42
Vladimir Zazubrin, “The Chip: A Story About a Chip and About Her,” trans. Graham Roberts, from Oleg Chukhontsev (ed.),
Dissonant Voices: The New Russian Fiction
(London: Harvill, 1991), 55; Aleksandr Orlov,
The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes
(New York: Random House, 1953), 215-16.

43
A. Ia. Razumov (ed.),
Leningradskii martirolog. tom 4, 1937 god
(St. Petersburg: 1999), 675-81; quoted in Barry McLoughlin, “Mass Operations of the NKVD, 1937-38,” 136; Conquest,
The Great Terror,
241, 271; Radzinsky,
Stalin,
379.

44
J. Stalin, “Defects in Party Work and Measures for Liquidating Trotskyite and Other Double-Dealers,” Report and Speech in Reply to Debate at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, March 3-5, 1937, 361.00/11, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

45
Jansen and Petrov,
Stalin’s Loyal Executioner,
93.

46
Ibid., 98-99.

47
Louis Fischer,
Men and Politics: An Autobiography
(London: Cape, 1941), 418, 471; Harry and Rebecca Timbres,
We Didn’t Ask Utopia: A Quaker Family in Soviet Russia
(New York: Prentice-Hall, 1939), 220.

1
Anna Akhmatova,
The Complete Poems,
Vol. 2, trans. Judith Hemschemeyer (Somerville, Mass.: Zephyr Press, 1990), 106-7.

2
Walter Duranty, “Lindberghs View Russian Air Fete,”
New York Times,
Aug. 19, 1938, 17.

3
Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov,
Stalin’s Loyal Executioner: People’s Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940
(Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 2002), x, 108-10.

4
Stalin quoted in diary of Georgii Dmitrov, from Fridrikh I. Firsov, “Dmitrov: The Comintern and Stalinist Repression,” in Barry McLoughlin and Kevin McDermott (eds.),
Stalin’s Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 67.

5
Ronald Grigor Suny, “Beyond Psychohistory: The Young Stalin in Georgia,”
Slavic Review
50, no. 1 (Spring 1991).

6
Vadim Z. Rogovin,
1937: Stalin’s Year of Terror,
trans. Frederick S. Choate (Oak Park, Mich.: Mehring, 1998), xv.

7
Czeslaw Milosz,
The Captive Mind,
trans. Jane Zielonko (London: Secker and Warburg, 1953), 214, quoted in Stephen Kotkin,
Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 556.

8
Arthur Talent’s NKVD interrogation from the Adam Hochschild Collection, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif.; Alan Cullinson, “A Secret Revealed: Stalin’s Police Killed American’s,” Associated Press, Nov. 23, 1997.

9
Paul Robeson interviewed by Ben Davis, Jr.,
Sunday Worker,
May 10, 1936, from Paul Robeson,
Paul Robeson Speaks,
ed. Philip S. Foner (London: Quartet, 1978), 107.

10
Paul Robeson, Jr.,
The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist’s Journey, 1898-1939
(New York: John Wiley, 2001), 281, 306.

11
Paul Robeson, “To You Beloved Comrade,”
New World Review,
April 1953, 11-13, from, Robeson,
Paul Robeson Speaks,
347.

12
Peggy Dennis,
The Autobiography of an American Communist: A Personal View of a Political Life, 1925- 1975
(Berkeley, Calif.: Creative Arts, 1977), 119-20.

13
Robeson, Jr.,
The Undiscovered Paul Robeson,
289-90.

14
Yelena Khanga, with Susan Jacoby,
Soul to Soul: A Black Russian-American Family, 1865-1992
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), 90.

15
Robeson, Jr.,
The Undiscovered Paul Robeson,
294, 305-6.

16
Khanga, with Jacoby,
Soul to Soul,
90-91.

17
Robert Robinson,
Black on Red: My forty-four Years Inside the Soviet Union
(Washington, D.C.: Acropolis, 1988), 361.

18
Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Kyrill M. Anderson,
The Soviet World of American Communism
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998), 224-26; Alan Cullinson, “The Lost Victims,” Associated Press, Nov. 9, 1997.

19
361.1163/7, Box 1594, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

20
Interview with Marcella Hecker by Lyuba Vinagradova, Moscow, June 25, 2005.

21
Cullinson, “The Lost Victims.”

22
Aleksandr Vatlin and Natalia Musienko, “Stalinist Terror in the Moscow District of Kuntsevo, 1937- 38,” from McLoughlin and McDermott (eds.),
Stalin’s Terror,
203.

23
Victor Herman,
Coming Out of the Ice: An Unexpected Life
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), 94-95.

24
Ibid., 99.

25
May 6, 1935, 320, Grondon, Joseph, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

26
861.60/305, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

27
Interview with Sergei Dyakanov from
Yanks for Stalin
documentary film, Abamedia, Moscow.

28
Herman,
Coming Out of the Ice,
109.

29
James E. Abbe,
I Photograph Russia
(London: Harrap, 1935), 302.

30
Alan Cullinson, “A Secret Revealed,” Associated Press, Nov. 23, 1997.

31
Victor Tyskewicz-Voskov NKVD file from Adam Hochschild Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Calif.

32
Barry McGloughin, Documenting the Death Toll: Research into the Mass Murder of Foreigners in Moscow, 1937-38,
Perspectives
(American Historical Association Newsletter) 37 (1999): 29-33.

33
The full title is “The Rehabilitation Group of the Moscow Administration of the Ministry of Security (MB),” Barry McGloughin, “Documenting the Death Toll,” 29-33.

34
Brian Moynahan,
The Russian Century: A Photographic History of Russia’s 100 Years
(New York: Random House, 1994), 182; McGloughin, “Documenting the Death Toll,” 29-33.

35
Vladimir Zazubrin, “The Chip: A Story About a Chip and About Her,” trans. Graham Roberts, from Oleg Chukhontsev (ed.),
Dissonant Voices: The New Russian Fiction
(London: Harvill, 1991), 11.

36
Lev Razgon,
True Stories,
trans. John Crowfoot (London: Souvenir Press, 1998), 30.

37
Vitaly Shentalinsky,
The KGB’s Literary Archive: The Discovery and Ultimate Fate of Russia’s Suppressed Writers,
trans. John Crowfoot (London: Harvill Press, 1995), 220; McLoughlin, “Documenting the Death Toll,” 29-33.

38
Thomas Sgovio,
Dear America
(Kenmore, N.Y.: Partners’ Press, 1979), 124; Paula Garb,
They Came to Stay: North Americans in the USSR
(Moscow: Progress, 1987), 72-73; Memo, Jan. 7, 1938; 800, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland; Daria Merkusheva, “Even Stalin Couldn’t Scare Off This Expat,”
Moscow Times,
Aug. 27, 2001.

39
Cullinson, “A Secret Revealed.”

40
Ibid.

41
Thomas Sgovio NKVD file, Adam Hochschild Collection, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California; Thomas Sgovio interview with George Kovacs, tapes courtesy of David Elkind, LiveWire Media, San Francisco.

42
Memo regarding Henry Maiwin, April 1, 1937, American embassy, Moscow, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

43
Feb. 16, 1935, 361.1121, Maiwin, Henry, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

44
George Kennan letter from Berlin to consul-general, Feb. 16, 1931, RG 59, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

45
Cullinson, “A Secret Revealed.”