"The Pact" by Polina Dashkova, summary

Polina Dashkova’s historical novel "The Pact" was published in 2012. It opens a dilogy about Ilya Krylov, continued by "The Balance of Power" in 2014. The narrative explores the hidden forces of Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism on the eve of World War II, drawing parallels between the mechanisms of fear in Moscow and Berlin.

The connection of fates in Moscow in the thirties

In January 1937, thirty-year-old Ilya Krylov, a special referent for the Special Sector of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), proposed to Masha Akimova, a young Bolshoi Theater ballerina, while ice skating at night. Returning to their home on Meshchanskaya Street, the lovers witness NKVD officers taking away their neighbor, engineer Vedernikov. Krylov strictly forbids Masha from asking questions about the reasons for his arrest or from sympathizing with the victims.

Ilya conceals his noble origins: his father, a doctor, died on the front lines in World War I, his mother died of typhus, and the boy was saved and adopted by the cook Nastasya. Thanks to his phenomenal empathy, Krylov unerringly reads others’ thoughts and disguises himself as the ideal Soviet functionary. He prepares secret analytical reports on Germany for Stalin, balancing on the brink of survival.

The Akimov family’s neighbor in the communal apartment turns out to be the elderly German psychiatrist Karl Richardovich Stern. The doctor is genuinely attached to Masha and approves of her affair with Krylov, believing marriage to the special advisor to be a reliable protection for the nineteen-year-old artist. At a Komsomol meeting at the theater, Masha’s friend Lida Rusakova, whose father has been arrested, is publicly attacked. Lida refuses to betray her father and is expelled from the Komsomol. The role of the Stork in the new ballet goes to Masha.

The Secrets of Dr. Stern and the Origins of Nazism

In the fall of 1918, military doctor Karl Stern served at the Pasewalk hospital in Pomerania, where he treated Corporal Adolf Hitler, who had been poisoned with mustard gas. The patient suffered from hysterical blindness and cancerophobia. Wanting to rouse the corporal from his stupor, Stern convinced him that he was destined to save defeated Germany. This suggestion restored Hitler’s sight and triggered a messianic psychosis.

In the Weimar Republic, Stern maintained a private practice, treated Hermann Göring for morphine addiction, and interacted with the anti-fascist intelligence officer Bruno Lunz. In 1931, the doctor was urgently summoned to Munich: Hitler suffered a nervous breakdown following the death of his niece, Geli Raubal. Stern became convinced that the Führer was masterfully feigning hysteria while remaining an emotionally cold and manipulative man.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the regime began to exterminate dissidents. In the summer of 1934, Stern attempted to smuggle his family to Switzerland on a plane flown by pilot Wirte. Göring, wanting to get rid of the talkative pilot, staged an act of sabotage. The doctor’s wife, Elsa, and sons, Otto and Max, died in the crash. After surviving a heart attack, Stern, with the help of Luntz and his contact, Giovanni Casolli, illegally entered the USSR, faking his own death.

Intelligence in Berlin and the dungeons of Moscow

In Berlin, Gabrielle Diels, a journalist for the fashion magazine "Silver Mirror," collaborates with Soviet intelligence under the pseudonym "Elf." Gabi is engaged to the wealthy homosexual Baron Frans von Bluff, which gives her access to the highest levels of Nazi circles. Through Luntz, she transmits valuable information about the rearmament of the Wehrmacht and Hitler’s military plans.

In Moscow, Krylov processed intelligence materials, observing how real data was being replaced by speculation about Leon Trotsky’s mythical alliance with the Nazis. Stalin was conducting show trials against the party elite. The special adviser found common ground with Stern, who became his secret adviser on the psychology of Nazi leaders.

Stern is recruited to work at the secret "Laboratory X" under the direction of poison chemist Grigory Mairanovsky and commandant Vasily Blokhin. In the ancient mansion, toxins and narcotic interrogation drugs are tested on death row inmates. The doctor secretly alleviates the subjects’ suffering by substituting harmless solutions for the poisons. Among his patients are the veteran Bolshevik Boris Lang and technologist Vladimir Nesterov. Lang dies of pulmonary edema, and Nesterov is killed by the guard Kuzma during an escape attempt.

Provocations and rescue of the spy network

Abram Slutsky, head of the NKVD Foreign Department, receives a report from Sokol, the liaison, about his meeting with Elf. The journalist warns that rumors of a plot by Marshal Tukhachevsky are disinformation spread by SD chief Reinhard Heydrich. Slutsky is afraid to report the truth to People’s Commissar Nikolai Yezhov. Soon, Bruno Luntz, saving his gravely ill daughter, defects to the British.

Having lost contact, Gabi visits a safe house in Zurich and the construction site of the Soviet pavilion in Paris under the name Josephine Genzi. Soviet security officers declare Josephine a dangerous German spy. Yezhov fabricates a case of seduction of military leaders by the treacherous foreigner. Stalin publicly accuses Genzi of being the organizer of the Tukhachevsky conspiracy.

Krylov convinces the leader that the assassination of Canaris’s mistress will cause an international scandal. When the new contact fails in a Berlin beer hall, the Gestapo prepares an ambush for Elf at the Café Florian. Through Casolli, Stern and Krylov manage to warn Gabi. Giovanni literally rescues the girl from the clutches of Nazi agents.

Masha’s mother, surgeon Vera Ignatyevna, is secretly taken to the Blizhnyaya Dacha to lance an abscess on Stalin’s fused toes. Soon, Krylov and Masha are married. Alexander Poskrebyshev brings the bride roses personally grown by the leader, and Stalin calls the ballerina to congratulate her.

On the eve of disaster

Gabi breaks off her engagement to von Bluff, whose mother was declared insane by the Nazis in order to confiscate their estate. The journalist marries military diplomat Maximilian von Horvák and transfers to the Foreign Ministry’s press office. Max becomes involved in a conspiracy among generals planning to overthrow Hitler if he orders an attack on Czechoslovakia.

In the autumn of 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier signed the Munich Agreement, ceding the Sudetenland to Germany. The betrayal of the Western democracies thwarted the plans of the German conspirators.

The repressions continue in Moscow. Yezhov is replaced by Lavrenty Beria, and Poskrebyshev’s wife, Bronislava, is arrested. Dr. Stern is transferred to teach German to cadets at the Special Purpose School in Balashikha. Stalin removes Maxim Litvinov, appoints Vyacheslav Molotov as head of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, and agrees to secret negotiations with Berlin.

A historic meeting in Moscow

On August 23, 1939, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop arrived in Moscow to sign the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact with a secret protocol dividing spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. Gabriele von Horwack arrived as part of the German delegation as an interpreter.

While solemn negotiations are underway in the Kremlin, Gabi leaves the embassy on Leontievsky Lane and heads toward Nikitsky Boulevard, remembering Axis’s long-standing advice. She sees an elderly man in a light summer hat on a bench. Dr. Stern addresses her in German and calls her by her operational codename, Elf. The spy and the doctor, whose invisible efforts saved several lives amidst the state’s madness, find each other a few days before the onset of global carnage.