wild theory or envious supposition. Why had he survived being a protégé of the traitor Tukhachevsky? Why had he survived those words, “It is a game of clever ingenuity that may end very badly”? Why had he survived being named an enemy of the people by the newspapers? Why had Zakrevsky disappeared between a Saturday and a Monday? Why had he been spared when so many around him had been arrested, exiled, murdered, or had disappeared into a fate which might become clear only decades later? One answer would fit all those questions: “Stalin says he is not to be touched.
