"Many desire it. We are a slack people but deeply destructive. Should there be a revolution, only God knows where it will end. I think that a constitutional regime would mean the end of Russia. We need a despot!"

“I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence...I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then.”

“I am also pretty sure that the purge in the Red Army had a great deal to do with Stalin's belief in an imminent war with Germany. What did Tukhachevsky stand for? People of the French Deuxieme Buereau told me long ago that Tukhachevsky was pro-German. And the Chechs told me the extraordinary story of Tukhachevsky's visit to Prague, when towards the end of a banquet - he had got rather drunk - he blurted out that an agreement with Hitler was the only hope for both Czechoslovakia and Russia. And he then proceeded to abuse Stalin. The Czechs did not fail to report this to Kremlin, and that was the end of Tukhachevsky - and so many of his followers.”

“Sedov spoke a lot about the necessity of the maximum, the closest possible connections with Tukhachevsky, inasmuch as, in Trotsky's opinion, Tukhachevsky and the military group were to be the decisive force of the counter-revolutionary action. During the conversation it was also revealed that Trotsky entertained fears regarding Tukhachevsky 's Bonapartist tendencies. In the course of one conversation Sedov said that Trotsky in this respect even expressed the fear that if Tukhachevsky successfully accomplished a military coup, it was possible that he would not allow Trotsky into Moscow. . . . Trotsky therefore proposed that during the coup d'etat we should everywhere place our own people, people who would be faithful to Trotskyism and who could be relied upon as regards vigilance.”

“ll the non-Stalinist versions concur in the following: the generals did indeed plan a coup d'état... The main part of the coup was to be a palace revolt in the Kremlin, culminating in the assassination of Stalin. A decisive military operation outside the Kremlin, an assault on the headquarters of the G.P.U., was also prepared. Tukhachevsky was the moving spirit of the conspiracy... He was, indeed, the only man among all the military and civilian leaders of that time who showed in many respects a resemblance to the original Bonaparte and could have played the Russian First Consul. The chief political commissar of the army, Gamarnik, who later committed suicide, was initiated into the plot. General Yakir, the commander of Leningrad, was to secure the co-operation of his garrison. Generals Uberovich, commander of the western military district, Kork, commander of the Military Academy in Moscow, Primakow, Budienny's deputy in the command of the cavalry, and a few other generals were also in the plot.”

“Tukhachevsky hid Napoleon's baton in his rucksack.”

“There can be no doubt that if we had been victorious on the Vistula, the revolutionary fires would have reached the entire continent.”