Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  At the lunch after the seventh November parade, held as usual at Voroshilov’s flat and attended by the magnates, including Yezhov, Khrushchev, and Redens, Mikoyan played the toastmaster, proposing “witty toasts for everyone in turn.” Then “once more [a toast] to the great Stalin,” who then stood up to explain the Terror: anyone who dared to weaken the power of the Soviet State “in their thoughts, yes even their thoughts” would be considered an Enemy and “we will destroy them as a clan.” Then he actually toasted the massacre: “To the complete destruction of all Enemies, them and their kin!” at which the magnates gave “approving exclamations: To the great Stalin!” These might have been the words of a medieval Caucasian chieftain, “a brilliant politician of the Italian Renaissance”—or Ivan. He explained that he, no great orator and an unimpressive fellow, had succeeded the “eagle” Lenin because that was what the Party wanted. He and his men were driven by “holy fear” of not justifying the trust of the masses. Thus, Stalin went on to explain, this was truly a holy terror that stemmed from Bolshevism’s Messianic nature. No wonder Yezhov called the NKVD his “secret sect.”17

  The squalidity of this sacred thuggery beggars belief: the distance from the torture chambers of the Lubianka to Stalin’s Little Corner is about a mile, but it was much closer then.

  22

  Bloody Shirtsleeves: The Intimate Circle of Murder

  In the mornings, Blackberry visited the Politburo and attended meetings, coming straight from the torture chambers. Khrushchev one day noticed spots of clotted blood on the hem and cuffs of Yezhov’s peasant blouse. Khrushchev, who himself was no angel, asked Yezhov what the spots were. Yezhov replied, with a flash of his blue eyes, that one should take pride in such specks because they were the blood of the Enemies of the Revolution.

  Stalin often wrote instructions beside the names. In December 1937, he added the order “Beat, beat!” next to a name. “Isn’t it time to squeeze this gentleman and force him to report on his dirty little business,” Stalin wrote beside another. “Where is he—in a prison or a hotel?” The Politburo specified officially in 1937 that torture should be used. As Stalin later asserted, “The NKVD practice of the use of physical pressure . . . permitted by the Central Committee” was a “totally correct and expedient method.”

  Yezhov supervised his torturers who had their own jargon for their work: they called the process of destroying an innocent human “French wrestling”—“frantsuskaya borba.” When some of them were interrogated themselves years later, they revealed how they used the zhguti, the special club, and the dubinka, the truncheon, as well as the more traditional prevention of sleep and constant interrogation that they called the “conveyor belt.” The Cheka had long had a cult of torture: indeed Leonid Zakovsky, one of Yagoda’s men, had written a guide to torture.

  Frequently, the Politburo, such as Molotov and Mikoyan, would go over to interrogate their comrades in Yezhov’s grand office at the Lubianka: “Rudzutak had been badly beaten and tortured,” said Molotov about one such session. “It was necessary to act mercilessly.” Kaganovich thought “it was very difficult not to be cruel” but “one must take into consideration that they were experienced Old Bolsheviks; how could they give testimonies voluntarily?” This may make it sound as if “the Politburo was filled with gangsters,” in Molotov’s words. They may not have been Mafia hit men— few except Yezhov and later Beria personally tortured or killed their victims, and no Mafia hit man would be foolish enough to spend so much time on tedious cod-ideology—but it is sometimes hard to tell the difference.

  Stalin and his magnates often laughed about the NKVD’s ability to get people to confess. Stalin told this joke to someone who had actually been tortured: “They arrested a boy and accused him of writing Eugene Onegin,” Stalin joked. “The boy tried to deny it . . . A few days later, the NKVD interrogator bumped into the boy’s parents: ‘Congratulations!’ he said. ‘Your son wrote Eugene Onegin.’ ”119 Many of the prisoners were beaten so hard that their eyes were literally popped out of their heads. They were routinely beaten to death, which was registered as a heart attack.

  Yezhov himself devised the system of execution. Instead of using the cellars of the Lubianka or the other prisons, as his predecessors had done, he created a special abattoir. Slightly behind and to the left of Lubianka, he used another NKVD building on Varsonofyevsky Lane. The prisoners were driven in Black Crows across the road from the Lubianka (there was no tunnel) and into the courtyard where a low squarish building had been specially constructed with a concrete floor sloping towards a far wall built of logs, to absorb the bullets, and hosing facilities to wash away the fluids. After a shot to the back of the head, the victims were placed in metal boxes and driven to one of the crematoria in Moscow. The ashes were usually dumped into a mass grave such as the one at the Donskoi Cemetery.1

  The road that ended in the Donskoi often began in a note on Stalin’s desk. Stalin received not only pleas for life but denunciations demanding death. Once the Terror was unleashed, denunciations worked like kerosene on a fire, keeping it flaring up. These denunciations were already a vital part of the Stalinist system: everyone was expected to denounce everyone else. In the Bolshevik universe, there were only two ways for mistakes to come to the notice of the leaders: accidents—and denunciations. Denunciations poured into Stalin’s office: some were valid. “If we lived in a capitalist state, they’d be talking about us in the Parliament and newspapers,” said Voroshilov.

  Some denunciations were the Stalinist equivalent of awkward Parliamentary questions or the work of investigative reporters: “You probably find it unpleasant that such letters are written, but I’m glad,” Stalin explained. “It would be a bad thing if no one complained. Don’t be afraid of quarrelling...This is better than friendship at the government’s expense.” But usually these poison letters were the result of witch-hunting mania, cannibalistic malice and amoral ambition.

  Stalin relished the decision on how to treat the denunciations. If he did not like the person, the letters went to the NKVD with a note “Check!” and death probably followed. If he wished to “preserve” the person, he would file it and he might reactivate it years later. Hence his papers overflow with denunciations, some from ordinary people, others from top officials: a typical one, from a Comintern official, denounced Enemies in the Foreign Commissariat.2 One can only guess at the atmosphere of fear and intrigue within the Kremlin: Ordzhonikidze’s ex-secretary, surely trying to save his skin, wrote to Stalin to denounce Sergo’s widow, Zinaida, who had “said several times she can’t live without Sergo and I’m worried she’ll do something silly . . . She’s often telephoned by the wives of traitors to our Party. These wives turn to her with requests (to give to Comrade Yezhov). It’s not right and she must be told not to do it . . . I ask for your instructions. Every order will be fulfilled to the last drop of blood. Devoted to you, Semyushkin.”3 Sometimes farce turned swiftly to tragedy, like the story of how Stalin’s voice120 was sabotaged by wreckers.4

  A typical denunciation which Stalin read and marked came from a certain Krylov in distant Saratov, who told his leader that “Enemies have friends inside the NKVD and the Procuracy and are hiding Enemies.” 5 The military were as avid as anyone else: “I ask you to dismiss Commander . . . Osipov,” wrote an officer from Tiflis, “who is a very suspicious person.” Stalin underlined “suspicious” with his blue pen.6

  The lightning of this Muscovite Zeus struck the regions in different ways: in July 1937, Liushkov, a ruthless Chekist who had already ravaged Rostov, was summoned to the Kremlin and ordered to the Far East. Stalin talked about the lives of men as if they were old clothes—some we keep, some we throw away: the Far Eastern First Secretary Vareikis was “not completely reliable,” having his own clique, but “it was necessary to keep” Marshal Blyukher. Liushkov obediently arrested Vareikis.

  A less reliable way was to harness a local tool such as Polia Nikolaenko, the “heroic denunciatrix of Kiev,” championed by Stalin. The
speciality of this terrifying crone, responsible for the deaths of as many as 8,000 people, was to stand up at meetings and shriek accusations: Khrushchev saw how she “pointed her finger and said, ‘I don’t know that man over there but I can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s an Enemy of the People.’ ” This talk of the “look in the eyes” was another sign of the Terror’s religious frenzy. The only way to rebut this was to answer quickly: “I don’t know this woman who’s just denounced me but I can tell from the look in her eyes, she’s a prostitute.” Now Polia Nikolaenko appealed to Stalin. Her cover note catches her simplicity: “To the anteroom of Comrade Stalin. I ask you to give this declaration personally to Comrade Stalin. Comrade Stalin talked about me at the February Plenum.”

  Her letter did reach Stalin, with devastating consequences for her enemies: “Dear Leader, Comrade Stalin,” she wrote on 17 September 1937, cunningly exposing how the local bosses were ignoring Stalin’s orders. “I ask for your intervention in Kiev matters . . . Enemies here again gather unbeatable power . . . sitting in their apparat doing bad deeds. Starting from the Plenum when you spoke about Kiev and my case as a ‘little person,’ they have actively organized my discrediting to destroy me politically.” Senior officials treated her as an “Enemy” and once again used the language of witchcraft against the witch herself: “One connected to Enemies of the People cried, ‘It’s in her eyes, she’s two-faced!’ ” Kosior, the Ukrainian leader, and others ridiculed her “amid noisy laughter.” “I was, am and will be devoted to the Party and the Great Leader. You helped me to find Truth. STALIN’S TRUTH IS STRONG! This time I again ask you to do all you can to the Kiev organization . . .”

  Ten days later, Stalin swooped to her aid, telling the Ukrainian bosses: “Pay attention to Comrade Nikolaenko (look at her letter). Can you protect her from this audience of hooligans? According to my information, Glaz and Timofeev really are not especially trustworthy. Stalin.” Those two men were presumably arrested while Kosior survived for the moment. 7

  The regions were soon killing too many, too quickly: Khrushchev,121 Moscow leader, effectively ordered the shooting of 55,741 officials which more than fulfilled the original Politburo quota of 50,000. On 10 July 1937, Khrushchev wrote to Stalin to request shooting 2,000 ex-kulaks to fulfill the quota. The NKVD archives show him initialling many documents proposing arrests. By spring 1938, he had overseen the arrest of thirty-five of the thirty-eight provincial and city Secretaries, which gives some idea of this fever. Since he was based in Moscow, he brought death lists directly to Stalin and Molotov.

  “There can’t be so many!” exclaimed Stalin.

  “There are in fact more,” replied Khrushchev, according to Molotov. “You can’t imagine how many there are.” The city of Stalinabad (Askabad) was given a quota of 6,277 to shoot but actually executed 13,259.8

  But mostly, they were killing the wrong people. The regional bosses selected the victims, finding it irresistible to liquidate their opponents and preserve their friends. Yet it was precisely these “princes” with their entourages that Stalin wished to destroy. Thus the First Secretaries’ initial blood-letting not only did not save them: it provided an excuse for their own eradication. It was only a matter of time before the centre unleashed a second wave of terror to eradicate the “princes” themselves.

  Only Stalin’s personal viceroys, Zhdanov in Leningrad and Beria in Transcaucasia, did not require this “help.” Zhdanov was another enthusiastic believer that Trotskyites had infiltrated Leningrad, though he sometimes mused on cases: “You know I never thought Viktorov would turn out to be an Enemy of the People,” said Zhdanov to Admiral Kuznetsov, who “heard no doubt in his voice, only surprise . . . We spoke . . . as of men who had passed beyond the grave.” He oversaw the arrest of 68,000 in Leningrad. As for Beria, this professional Chekist oversaw his initial quota of 268,950 arrests and 75,950 executions. The quota was later raised. Ten percent of the Georgian Party, which was particularly well known to Stalin, were killed. Beria distinguished himself by personally performing the torture of Lakoba’s family, driving his widow mad by placing a snake in her cell and beating his teenage children to death.9

  The solution was the despatch of Stalin’s favourites to destroy the “princes”; also a useful test of a magnate’s loyalty. There was no better blooding than a trip to the regions. Like the warlords of the Civil War they set off riding shotgun in armoured trains packed with NKVD thugs. Mikoyan, Foreign Trade and Food Supply Commissar, enjoys the reputation of one of the more decent leaders: he certainly helped the victims later and worked hard to undo Stalin’s rule after the Leader’s death. In 1936, however, Mikoyan praised the executions of Zinoviev and Kamenev— “how just the verdict!” he enthused to Kaganovich—and in 1937, he too signed death lists and proposed the arrest of hundreds of his officials. Throughout Stalin’s reign, Mikoyan was shrewd enough to avoid intrigues, eschew ambition for the highest offices, and with his sharp intelligence and prodigious capacity for work, concentrate on his responsibilities: he knew how to play the game and do just enough.

  The magnates saved friends but they mainly saved them in 1939 in a different environment. Andreyev’s anteroom, his daughter claimed, “was full of those he helped” but Kaganovich honestly admitted that “it was impossible to save friends and relatives” because of “the public mood.” They had to kill a lot to save a few. Mikoyan probably did more than most, appealing to Stalin about his friend Andreasian who had been accused of being a French agent by the moronic investigators because his first name was “Napoleon.”

  “He’s as French as you!” joked Mikoyan. Stalin burst out laughing.122 Voroshilov, who was responsible for so many deaths, passed on the appeal of a friend’s arrested daughter to Stalin himself who wrote on it as usual: “To Comrade Yezhov, check this out!” Her father was released and called to thank Voroshilov, who asked: “Was it terrible?”

  “Yes, very terrible.” The two friends never discussed it again.

  Stalin was so besieged with requests that he passed a Politburo decree banning appeals. If a leader intervened to save a friend, the vital thing was to avoid him falling into the hands of another bloodthirsty grandee. Mikoyan managed to save one comrade and begged him to leave Moscow immediately but the Old Bolshevik, with all the punctiliousness of a knight who must have his sword returned, insisted on getting his Party card back. He called Andreyev who had him rearrested.

  Perhaps Mikoyan’s kindnesses reached Stalin’s ears for he suddenly cooled towards him. In late 1937, he tested Mikoyan’s commitment by despatching him to Armenia with a list of three hundred victims to be arrested. Mikoyan signed it but he crossed off one friend. The man was arrested anyway. Just as he was speaking to the Yerevan Party meeting, Beria arrived in the room, to watch him as much as to terrorize the locals. A thousand people were arrested, including seven out of nine Armenian Politburo members. When Mikoyan returned to Moscow, Stalin warmed to him again.10

  All the magnates set off on bloody tours of the country. Zhdanov purged the Urals and Middle Volga. Ukraine was unfortunate enough to welcome Kaganovich, Molotov and Yezhov. Kaganovich visited Kazakhstan, Cheliabinsk, Ivanovo and other places, spreading terror: “First study . . . shows the Obkom Secretary Epanchikev must be arrested at once . . .” began his first telegram from Ivanovo in August 1937, which continued: “Right-Trotskyite wrecking has assumed broad dimensions here, in industry, agriculture, supply, healthcare, trade, education and political work . . . exceptionally infested.” 11 But this was nothing compared to the killing frenzy of the two most prolific monsters on tour.

  Andrei Andreyev, now forty-two, small, moustachioed and hangdog of countenance, had failed to rise to the challenge of the Soviet railways but he came into his own running the CC Secretariat with Yezhov. One of the rare proletarians among the leadership, this quiet Tchaikovsky addict, mountaineer and nature photographer, married to Dora Khazan, to whom he wrote loving postcards about their children, became the unchallengeable master of these
murderous road shows.

  On 20 July, he arrived in Saratov to ravage the Volga German Republic: 123 “All means are necessary to purge Saratov,” he told Stalin in the first of a stream of excited, fanatical telegrams. “The Saratov organization meets all decisions of CC with great pleasure.” This was hard to believe. Everywhere he discovered how the local bosses “did not want to discover the terrorist group” and had “pardoned exposed Enemies.” By the next day, Andreyev was frantically arresting suspects: “we had to arrest the Second Secretary . . . On Freshier, we have evidence he was a member of a Rightist-Trotskyite organization. We ask permission to arrest.” One group consisted of “twenty, very obstructively working in the Machine Tractor Station. We decided to arrest and prosecute two of the directors” who turned out to be part of a “Right-kulak organization” that had “wrecked tractors” or rather they had worked slowly since “only 14 out of 74 were ready.” At 11:38 that night, Stalin replied in his blue pencil: “Central Committee agrees with your proposals about prosecution and shooting of former MTS workers.” Twenty were shot. Three days later, Andreyev boasted to Stalin that he had found “a Fascist organization—we plan to arrest at once the first group of 50–60 people . . . We had to arrest the Premier of the Republic, Luf, for proven membership of Right-Trotskyites.” He proceeded to Kuibyshev and then to Central Asia where he removed all the leaderships since Stalin had told him: “Generally, you can act as you consider.” The result was that in Stalinabad, “I have arrested 7 Narkoms, 55 CC chiefs, 3 CC Secretaries” and returning to Voronezh, he declared cheerfully: “There is no Buro here. All arrested as Enemies. Off to Rostov now!”12