Russia at war 1941-1945

subsequent accounts of the war published in Russia.

Chapter IV THE THREE MONTHS' PEACE

The Mood after VE-Day

Although it was generally known that a large number of soldiers were being moved to the Far East during those summer months, very little thought was given to Japan by the

Russian people generally. As far as they were concerned, the war—the real war— was over with the collapse of Hitler's Germany. The thought that there might yet be another war to fight against Japan was hateful to most; Russia had lost quite enough men as it was.

It is not easy to describe the general mood in the country during that summer of 1945. It was composed of many different things. First of all, perhaps, a feeling of overwhelming relief that the war was over; but this went together with a feeling of immense national pride and a sense of enormous achievement—and every soldier, and nearly every civilian, too, felt that he had done his bit. This feeling of spontaneous joy, pride and relief found perhaps its fullest expression on that unforgettable VE-Day of May 9 in Moscow.

The Army was enormously popular—too popular, indeed, for Stalin's and the Party's

taste, though, for a short time after VE-Day, Stalin was determined to cash in on the Army's popularity and, in June, went so far as to assume the title of Generalissimo.

Shortly before, on May 24, he held a great reception at the Kremlin in honour of

numerous Soviet marshals, generals and other high-ranking officers, and it was then that he made that strange speech in which he singled out for special praise the Russian people,

"the most remarkable of all the nations of the Soviet Union"—"the leading nation, remarkable for its clear mind, its patience and its firm character." The Soviet Government, he said, had made many mistakes, but even in the desperate moments of

1941-2, the Russian people had not told its government to go, had not thought of making peace with Germany, had shown confidence in the Soviet Government and had decided

to fight on till final victory, whatever the cost.

A great deal could be read into that speech: a belated mea culpa for many things that had happened before the war and during the early days of the war; a tribute to the Russians for having fought on when the Ukraine and so many other parts of the country had been overrun by the Germans; all sorts of mental reservations not only about the "disloyal"

nationalities like the Crimean Tartars, the Caucasian mountaineers and probably also the Balts (who were being punished in varying degrees), but even about the Ukrainians

whose record, in Stalin's suspicious eyes, had been uneven. The Red Army was rich in Ukrainian generals and Ukrainian Heroes of the Soviet Union, and yet there were other Ukrainians whose loyalty to Moscow and the Soviet system had been questionable. In the Western Ukraine, at that time, Ukrainian nationalists were still conducting a guerrilla war against the Russians, and this was going to continue till 1947. Were the Russians, "the leading nation", to be the Number One citizens in the Soviet Union henceforth? There were some uneasy reactions in Moscow to this exaltation of Great-Russian nationalism, especially coming, as it did, from a Georgian who spoke Russian with a broad Caucasian accent. What strange mental kink was behind it?

Then, on June 24, came the great apotheosis of the Red Army, with "Generalissimo"

Stalin at its head—the famous Victory Parade in the Red Square. Marshal Zhukov, by

common consent the greatest of Russia's soldiers, reviewed the troops, and Marshal

Rokossovsky commanded the Parade, in the course of which hundreds of German

banners were flung down, in a torrential rainfall, on the steps of the Lenin Mausoleum, and at the feet of Victorious Stalin. Owing to the downpour—some old women in

Moscow saw in this an evil omen—the civilian parade that was to follow the military

parade was called off; but that night Stalin entertained 2,500 generals, officers and soldiers at the Kremlin. Here he made another strange speech, in which he paid tribute to the "small people", to "the little screws and bolts" of the gigantic machine without which the machine, with all its marshals and generals and industrial chiefs could not have worked. This speech also gave rise to some uneasy speculation: was there not here, apart from an extreme anti-egalitarian motif, a warning to the "military caste" that had emerged from the war? During the months that followed Moscow began to buzz with "anecdotes"

about marshals' and generals' wives, with their nouveau-riche ways and their endless malapropisms.

[For example, there was the general's wife who kept on talking at the Opera while the overture was being played: "Sh-sh, overture!" her neighbour said. " Overture yourself,"

she snapped back, thinking ouvertura to be some unfamiliar term of abuse. Or else there was the story of the Marshal's wife who had so many silver foxes that she decided to wear only one, but to pin to her chest the tails of the remaining nine, to show that she had ten altogether.]

There is good reason to suppose that this verbal propaganda, a fairly familiar device in Russia, had been put about on instructions from the Party hierarchy.

Nor was it very long before the official propaganda began to discourage boastfulness on the part of officers and soldiers; the war was declared to be a thing of the past, and the soldiers could not be allowed to rest on their laurels. Very soon after the end of the Japanese war there appeared a poem by one Nedogonov, called The Flag over the Village Soviet which was given wide publicity: Its main theme was summed up in the Unes:

"And if you won't work hard on the kolkhoz, we shall spit on all your medals and decorations."

This systematic debunking of the war hero came later, but the first signs of it could already be detected only a couple of months after the victory over Germany.

Economic Hardships Continue

All this was, in a way, ungracious and hurtful; and yet it was understandable. In 1945

Russia was in a serious economic situation; it was essential to demobilise as much of the Red Army as possible, and to get down to the hard realities of peace-time reconstruction.

Hundreds of towns, tens of thousands of villages had been partly or completely destroyed by the Germans; the industrial areas of Kharkov, Kiev, Stalingrad, Odessa, Rostov, the Donbas, Zaporozhie and Krivoi Rog, besides many others, had been laid waste; millions of Russians and Ukrainians had been deported to Germany and most of them had

returned in bad or indifferent health; altogether (though this figure was not to be

mentioned until much later) twenty million people had lost their lives—or one-tenth of the entire population, an appalling proportion equalled only by Poland and Yugoslavia.

There were also millions of war invalids.

The civilian population of the Soviet Union had not only been underfed, but also grossly overworked during the war years, and many had died under the strain. The whole of the country's agriculture had been run almost entirely by women, and it was the women too who had kept the country's industries going in wartime. In 1945, fifty-one percent of all industrial workers in the Soviet Union were women. Many of the other workers were adolescents.

Despite this intensive effort on the part of the Soviet people to keep the war-time

industries going—and without this mass-effort Russia could never have won the war—

the whole industrial situation was little short of disastrous by the end of the war. With the recovery of some of the industrial areas in 1943-4 and the intensification of production in the east and in central Russia, the production figures for the first half of 1945 showed a slight improvement, compared with the first half of 1944. But this was very little,

compared with the not overwhelmingly good pre-war figures:

During the first half of 1945, the Soviet Union produced only 77% of the coal

produced in the first half of 1941; 54% of the oil; 77% of the electric power; 46% of the pig-iron; 52% of the steel; 54% of the coke; 65% of the machine-tools.. .

[ IVOVSS, vol. V, pp. 376-84.]

Almost everything had had to go into the war industries which in the first half of 1945, had produced nearly 21,000 aircraft, 29,000 aircraft engines, over 9,000 tanks, over 6,000

mobile guns, 62,000 guns, 873,000 rifles and machine-guns, 82m. shells, bombs and

mines, over 3 billion cartridges, etc. The industrial might of the Soviet Union had been practically cut in half since 1941. In 1945 she was producing only one-eighth as much steel as the USA. She was faced with the gigantic problem of reconstruction,

reconversion and development. Agriculture had to be re-equipped with machinery almost from scratch, and supplied with chemical fertilisers. The production of agricultural machinery and of fertilisers was one of the first things to be stepped up immediately the war in Europe was over.

The number of livestock, very far from enormous in 1940 (when the after-effects of

collectivisation were still keenly felt), was much lower still in 1945. In 1945, there were only 47.4 m. head of cattle (which was 3.2 m. more than in 1944). By the end of 1945 the total number of cattle was only 87% of the 1940 figure; cows, 82%; sheep and goats,

70%; pigs, 38%; horses, 51%. In the liberated areas the percentages were lower still (cows, 76%; pigs, 34%; horses, 44%).

[IVOVSS, vol. V, p. 392. Some of the new cattle had been brought from Germany.]

There was also, in 1945, a shortage of high-quality forage; as a result of this and other factors, the state purchases of meat were 61.8 percent of what they had been in 1940, and those of dairy produce, 45 percent. Which, obviously, meant that the civilian population, particularly in the cities, had to continue on short rations— especially those holding clerical-workers', dependents' and children's ration cards. Diplomats and other privileged foreigners in Moscow at that time, who enjoyed higher rations and often attended

sumptuous official Soviet receptions, were scarcely aware of the miserable standard of living that continued among "ordinary" Russians. Special efforts were made to give reasonably ample food to industrial workers, and to provide extra meals of sorts for schoolchildren; but most Russians still lived very poorly, their diet consisting almost entirely of bread, potatoes and vegetables, with very little sugar, fats, meat or fish. In 1945, I knew many families with clerical workers' ration-cards who, without actually starving, were having a worse than thin time, and to whom a whole lump of sugar in their tea was almost a luxury. The stopping of Lend-Lease, which had supplied a substantial amount of food to the Army— i.e. to about ten million people—caused an appreciable

drop in the total amount of food consumed in Russia.

[A small proportion of Lend-Lease food also went to the civilian population.]

UNRRA was of some help in Belorussia and the Ukraine, though it could not be said to be over-generous; and there was no UNRRA relief at all in the rest of the Soviet Union.

[There might have been UNRRA help in the western parts of Russia proper, but,

apparently as a matter of prestige, the Soviet Government declined it.]

For a time, the great drought of 1946 was to make food conditions in very large parts of the Soviet Union even more difficult.

These hardships at the end of the war, which were, after all, only a continuation of the war-time hardships, cannot, however, be said to have undermined Russian morale as a

whole, except that a certain relaxation in war-time discipline was to be reflected, before long, in intensified black-market activities and in a considerable increase in crime—a familiar post-war phenomenon in most countries.

But in the summer of 1945 the feeling of elation continued, with the homecoming of

millions of soldiers. In many places, life was already beginning to rise from the ruins; the Donbas mines were being rapidly put back into operation; the Kharkov Tractor Plant was beginning to turn out tractors again; villages in western Russia and in Belorussia were being rapidly rebuilt—though usually by only the most rudimentary methods; hundreds

of thousands of people were returning to Leningrad. The reconstruction that had already begun in the liberated areas in 1944 was being speeded up.

Along with this, there were also millions of personal tragedies— of women who had now lost all hope of seeing their husbands or sons return from captivity, and ex-war-prisoners who had survived the war, but were now being put through the NKVD mill, and of whom

so many were to spend years in camps. There were purges in which not only real, but also alleged collaborators were to suffer. These purges were probably heaviest of all in the Baltic Republics and in the western Ukraine. But officially, very little was known about all this at the time, and the full story of the 1944-5 purge still remains to be written—if the real facts ever come to light.

(c) International Pleasantness and Unpleasantness

A somewhat uneasy international atmosphere marked those three months of peace "twixt Germany and Japan". It cannot be said that a uniform process of Gleichschaltung was yet being applied by the Russians to the whole of eastern Europe. Czechoslovakia was to

remain for some time a sort of show-window of East-West coexistence, with the powerful Communist Party under Gottwald apparently co-operating loyally with the "bourgeois"

parties. President Benes, though not really trusted by the Russians, was, nevertheless, treated with a great show of respect.

[It was at this time that the Czechoslovak premier, Fierlinger, came to Moscow to sign the agreement whereby Ruthenia (the eastern tip of pre-war Czechoslovakia) was

"returned" to the Soviet Ukraine.]

More curious were the friendly gestures made by the Russians to King Michael of

Rumania, despite all the unpleasantness of the previous February. Now, in the summer of 1945, it was prominently reported that Marshal Tolbukhin had solemnly conferred on the young King the Order of Victory, the highest Russian military decoration, for the

courageous stand he had taken in August 1944 when he broke with Germany. On another

occasion it was almost equally prominently reported that some of the most famous

Russian singers and musical performers had given a special concert in Bucharest in

honour of King Michael and the Dowager Queen Helen and that, after the concert, the

artistes, as well as many eminent Soviet scientists who were there, were presented to

"Their Majesties".

Among other friendly gestures during that summer was the conferring by Marshal

Zhukov of the Order of Victory on Eisenhower and Montgomery; the compliment was

returned when Montgomery conferred the G.C.B. on Zhukov, the K.C.B. on

Rokossovsky, the O.B.E. on Sokolovsky and Malinin, and so on.

On the other hand, there was a good deal of unpleasantness of one kind or another. The Soviet press showed much indignation over Field-Marshal Alexander's "insolent and insulting" behaviour to the Yugoslavs at Trieste.

[Tito had tried to annex Trieste and Istria, which met with sharp opposition from

Churchill and Truman. Although Alexander was at first friendly to the Yugoslavs, he

later sharply opposed them on Churchill's instructions, and on one occasion even

compared Tito to Hitler and Mussolini, much to Stalin's indignation. (See Churchill, op.

cit., vol. IV, pp. 480-8). Later, in 1948, at the time of the Stalin-Tito quarrel, the Russians made a complete about-turn and accused the Yugoslavs of having behaved provocatively and irresponsibly and of nearly having dragged the Soviet Union into an unwanted war with the Western Allies by trying to grab Trieste.]

There had also been, as already said, some angry recrimination on the part of the

Russians about Churchill's "suspect patronage" of the "Flensburg Government". There were, further, some angry protests over the temporary arrest, in northern Italy, of Nenni and Togliatti, and a good deal of recrimination about British policy in Greece. Much was made, of course, of the leading part played by the communists in both the Italian and the French Resistance, but, for all that, the Russian attitude to the French, Italian and other Western Communist parties remained somewhat vague. Downright revolutionary

activities on their part were not encouraged; instead, both while the war lasted and for two years after, they were urged to "co-operate" with the bourgeois parties—and in France, with de Gaulle in particular—and to make their influence felt both in parliament and in the administration.

[The most striking example of communist "appeasement" vis-à-vis the bourgeoisie was the formal approval that Thorez—just back from Russia—gave on January 21, 1945 to de Gaulle's dissolution of the gardes patriotiques, the para-military formations of the predominantly communist part of the Resistance. This approval was given in the name of

"national unity", and with the defeat of Germany as No. 1 objective. Thorez's move, obviously taken with

Stalin's approval, if not simply on his instructions, annoyed a great part of the communist rank-and-file, and also some leaders like Marty and Tillon (the latter had been highly prominent in the Resistance inside France), both of whom were later to be charged by the communist leadership with irresponsible revolutionary romanticism and blanquisme.

Similarly, Thorez declared that the Liberation Committees that had emanated from the Resistance must not try to "substitute themselves" for the Governments. (See the author's France 1940-1955, p. 244.)]

Only time would show how influential they could become.

(d) Poland again— Hopkins—Trial of the Polish Underground

Poland—always Poland!—continued to be the most acute problem between Russia and

the Western Allies in the early summer of 1945. Even before entering Poland proper, that is, in Western Belorussia and Lithuania, the Red Army had met with some armed

resistance and sabotage from the "London" Polish underground, the Armija Krajowa, and things had gone from bad to worse once the Russians were inside Poland. It was claimed on the Russian side that several hundred Russian soldiers and officers had been

assassinated by Poles; the Armija Krajowa was also held guilty of many terrorist acts against representatives of the Lublin Government and of sabotaging the recruitment of Poles into the Polish Army fighting side-by-side with the Red Army. The Russians were also impressed by the hostility of a large part of the Polish population, and by the intensive anti-Soviet propaganda conducted in Poland, both by the "London"

underground and by the Church.

In January 1945, on instructions from London, the Armija Krajowa officially dissolved itself, but was replaced by a secret organisation, called NIE (short for Niepodleglosc, i.e.

Independence), still with General Okulicki at its head. After the collapse of the Warsaw Rising, Okulicki had been appointed to replace General Bör-Komarowski as head of the Armija Krajowa. The new Underground, which had "inherited" the military and radio equipment of the Armija Krajowa, continued its activities after the Russians had overrun the whole of Poland. So in March the Soviet Government decided to decapitate this "anti-Russian resistance movement".

General Okulicki and fifteen others were invited—in two lots—to meet a number of

Russian officers, ostensibly with a view to discussing the Yalta decisions on Poland and a modus vivendi. The meetings were a trap, Okulicki and the others, among them three members of the "Polish Underground Government" (Jan Jankowski, Adam Ben and Stanislaw Jasiukowicz), and Puzak, socialist president of the "underground parliament", were arrested and taken to Moscow. On April 28 Churchill anxiously inquired, in a letter to Stalin, about the "fifteen Poles" who were rumoured to have been "deported". On May 4, Stalin replied that he had no intention of being silent about the sixteen—not fifteen—

Poles. All, or some of them, depending on the outcome of the investigations, would be put on trial.

[They are] charged with subversive activities behind the lines of the Red Army. This subversion has taken a toll of over a hundred Red Army soldiers and officers; they are also charged with keeping illegal radio transmitters behind our lines... The Red Army is forced to protect its units and rear-lines against saboteurs.

He described Okulicki as a person of "particular odiousness".

[ Churchill-Stalin Correspondence, p. 348]

The arrest of these Poles—and the whole Polish question—were right in the centre of the Stalin-Hopkins discussions between May 26 and June 6. These six meetings took place

during the "last mission" that Hopkins—a very sick man who was to die only a few months later—was to perform at the request of the new President, Harry Truman. At the very first meeting with Stalin, Hopkins recalled how, on his way back from Yalta,

Roosevelt had frequently spoken of "the respect and admiration he had for Marshal Stalin"; but the fact remained that "in the last six weeks deterioration of [American]

public opinion had been so serious as to affect adversely the relations between the two countries."

In a country like ours [Hopkins said] public opinion is affected by specific incidents, and the deterioration ... has been centred on our inability to carry into effect the Yalta Agreement on Poland.

Time and again he returned to this question, saying that, in the public view in the United States, "Poland had become a symbol of our ability to work out problems with the Soviet Union." He urged Stalin to speed up the formation of the "new" Polish Government and also, purely and simply, to release the leaders of the Polish Underground now under

arrest.

Stalin would not yield on this point; not only had this Underground committed grave

crimes against the Red Army, but these people represented that cordon sanitaire policy so dear to Churchill's heart; the British conservatives did not want the new Poland to be friendly to the Soviet Union. In reply to Hopkin's long plea in favour of allowing Poland all the necessary democratic freedoms, as America understood them, Stalin said that (a) in time of war these political freedoms could not be enjoyed to the full extent and (b) nor could they be granted without reservations to Fascist parties trying to overthrow the government. It was obvious that, in Stalin's mind, the word "Fascist" applied to the Armija Krajowa and all other Polish elements hostile to Russia.

However, a virtual agreement was reached about including Mikolajczyk and a few others in the Polish Government, and, after his fourth meeting with Stalin, Hopkins was able to report to Truman:

It looks as though Stalin is prepared to return to and implement the Crimea

decision and permit a representative group to come to Moscow to consult with the

[Molotov-Harriman-Clark Kerr] commission.

In the course of the six Hopkins-Stalin meetings several other important questions were, of course, discussed.

[ Sherwood, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 872-906.]

Hopkins urged Stalin to appoint without delay the Russian member of the Control

Council in Germany, since Eisenhower had already been appointed its American

member; Stalin said he would appoint Zhukov in the next few days. Stalin persisted in expressing the belief that Hitler was not dead and said he thought that Goebbels and Bormann had also escaped.

Stalin, without objecting to the termination of Lend-Lease, said it had been done in an

"unfortunate and brutal" way. "He added that the Russians had intended to make a suitable expression of gratitude to the United States for the Lend-Lease assistance during the war, but the way in which the programme had been halted made this impossible

now." Hopkins, while deploring certain "technical misunderstandings" which had created this situation, added that the termination of Lend-Lease was not intended as a "pressure weapon" against Russia, as Stalin had suggested. He said "he wished to add that we had never believed that our Lend-Lease help had been the chief factor in the Soviet defeat of Hitler... This had been done by the heroism and blood of the Russian Army."

Another important question discussed by Hopkins and Stalin related to Russia's entry into the war against Japan. Stalin declared that the Soviet Army would be properly deployed in its Manchurian positions by August 8. This part of the Hopkins-Stalin talks will be dealt with later.

The Moscow trial of the Polish Underground opened in the Pillared Hall in Moscow (the very hall where the great Purge Trials of the '30's had taken place) on June 18, and lasted for three days. The presiding judge was the notorious General Ulrich, also of the Purge Trials.

General Okulicki, the principal defendant, a dapper Polish officer, defended himself ably and with courage, pleading guilty to most of the charges (formation of an underground after the dissolution of the Armija Krajowa, ignoring the Red Army's orders to surrender arms and radio equipment, secret wireless communications with London, anti-Soviet

propaganda amongst the population, etc.) but declined responsibility for the killing of Russian officers and soldiers. Since he had taken command of the A.K., he had been in the part of Poland still under German occupation, and he had had no control over eastern Poland or Lithuania, where the Russians were murdered; when the Russians penetrated

into western Poland, nothing like that happened.

When he was asked by the Second Public Prosecutor, General Rudenko, why he had not

surrendered the A.K.'s armaments, radio transmitters, etc., to the Red Army, the following exchange took place:

Okulicki: I intended to keep them for the future.

Rudenko: For what purpose?

Okulicki: To fight for Poland should she be threatened.

Rudenko: Fight against whom?

Okulicki: Against anyone threatening Poland.

Rudenko: What country did you have in mind?

Okulicki: The Soviet Union.

Rudenko: So what you had in mind was a war against the Soviet Union, with this qualification: "if the Soviet Union threatens the independence of Poland". In such an eventuality what allies, what bloc were you thinking of?

Okulicki: A bloc against the Soviets.

Rudenko: That meant Poland, and who else? What other states?

Okulicki: All other states.

Rudenko: Will you enumerate the states mentioned in your letter to Colonel

"Slawbor"? [one of his subordinates].

Okulicki: I mentioned England.

Rudenko: And whom else?

Okulicki: The Germans.

Rudenko: So you were thinking of a bloc with the Germans, with Germany, the enemy of all freedom-loving countries, notorious for its cruelty and barbarity...

Okulicki: I meant a bloc, not with the Germans, but with Europe.

(Laughter.)

[Sudebnyi otchet po delu... polskogo podpoliya (Report of the Trial of the Polish Underground) (Moscow, 1945), pp. 141-2.]

On the last day of the trial, in his "last words" before the verdict, Okulicki admitted that he had been mistaken in distrusting the Soviet Union and in trusting the Polish

Government in London; this had not accepted the Yalta Agreement on Poland, and that

was a mistake, which he had recognised at once. Nevertheless, he had maintained the

Polish Underground, complete with arms stores and radio equipment, because he had

continued to distrust Russia. He remembered that Tsarist Russia had oppressed Poland for 123 years, and he had not been convinced that Poland's independence would be

respected by the victorious Russians; he did not know at the time what changes had taken place in Russia. He had fought the Germans, but said that there was nothing in his

directives to the AK to show that he had ordered acts of terrorism against the Russians, and if these took place without his knowledge (and they did take place) it was deeply regrettable. As for his ideas about an alliance with "Europe", including England and Germany, these related to the future and were purely "hypothetical".

That was as far as he would go. But the official Russians were fairly satisfied; in their eyes the trial had shown up the London Government and, indirectly, Churchill, with his cordon sanitaire.

As Stalin had already foretold to Hopkins, the sentences were relatively lenient. The Public Prosecutor, no doubt acting on instructions from above, did not demand the death sentence, not even for Okulicki. The latter was given ten years, the three members of the

"underground government" between five and eight years, the others much shorter sentences, and three were acquitted.

Even so, there was something distasteful about the whole thing, not only to Western

observers, but also to many Russians who remembered the Purge Trials in the late '30's.

Just before the trial there had also been a particularly nauseating article by Zaslavsky in Pravda calling all the accused murderers, bandits, etc., in the worst style of 1937. To many it also seemed a confession of weakness to have these men tried by a Russian, and not a Polish, court. Would there have been too much sympathy for them in Poland? After all, many of them had fought for years against the Germans, and the main charge that they were directly responsible for the deaths of many Russian officers and soldiers had not been proved.

Although, on the face of it, the trial looked fair enough, many Russians wondered, as they looked at this same court room and the same sinister Judge Ulrich, whether some

pressures had not been brought to bear on the defendants.

Soon afterwards in Poland I found that even pro-Soviet Government Poles were a little embarrassed about the whole thing, and many Poles wondered, of course, what would

actually happen to Okulicki and the three other principal prisoners.. .

[The evidence here is conflicting. According to the US Ambassador in Warsaw, Arthur

Bliss Lane (/ Saw Freedom Betrayed, London, 1947), Okulicki and the others still in Russian prisons were amnestied in 1946, though a few (not Okulicki) were later

prosecuted by the Polish authorities. Poles, both in Warsaw and in England, have assured me that Okulicki died in Russian captivity in 1947.]

As a result of Harry Hopkins's prodding, the Molotov-Harriman-Clark Kerr Committee at last managed to bring about the formation of a Polish "Government of National Unity".

Only a small number of "London Poles", though none of them members of Arciszewski's Polish Government there, entered this government. The most prominent among them was

Mikolajczyk, who had resigned from the London Government some months before, and

had, albeit reluctantly, accepted the Yalta Agreement on Poland. Despite the great

hostility shown him by the "Lublin Poles", Churchill had insisted that he join the new Polish Government. The final negotiations which ended in the formation of this

government took place in Moscow between June 17 and 24, thus coinciding, by a grim—

and perhaps intentional—irony, with the trial of Okulicki and the other Underground

leaders. Both before and after the trial Mikolajczyk had pleaded with the Russians that the Underground leaders be released; he argued with Molotov that such an act of

magnanimity on the Russians' part would have a wonderful psychological effect in

Poland; but it was of no avail. Bierut, whom Mikolajczyk begged to support his plea, refused to do so, saying it would merely annoy Stalin. "Besides, we don't need these people in Poland just now."

[Mikolajczyk. Le viol de la Pologne, p. 158.]

The Polish Government that was finally formed, and in whose honour Stalin gave a

sumptuous banquet at the Kremlin before its members left for Warsaw, was a somewhat

lop-sided affair, in which the key positions were held by pro-Soviet Poles; but it was the best the Western Powers could achieve in the circumstances, and they hastened to

recognise the new Polish Government. In his speech at the Kremlin that night, Stalin spoke of the harm Poland and Russia had done each other in the past, and admitted that Russia's guilt had been greater than Poland's; he even suggested that a new generation of Poles would have to grow up before all the bitterness disappeared. Germany, he said, would continue to be a threat to both Poland and Russia, and their alliance was essential, but it was not enough in itself, and both countries, therefore, needed the alliance of the United States, Britain and France.

[ Ibid., p. 157.]

(e) Close-Up: Civil War Undertones in Poland

This was for foreign consumption. Stalin and all other Russians knew that an acute

struggle was going on in Poland between "East" and "West". When I spent ten days in Poland soon after the formation of the new government, I found there something not

unlike a civil war atmosphere. The arrival in Poland of an unusually large group of

Western correspondents gave rise to some sharp anti-Russian demonstrations for their benefit. One of them was particularly grim: at Cracow, to show us that the "underground"

was active, two unfortunate Russian soldiers were shot outside the hotel where we were staying. Any meetings we had with the "intelligentsia"—whether with writers in Cracow, or with members of the Radio Committee at Katowice—were invariably marked by

violent denunciations of the Russians and of their "stooges"— "NKVD" Bierut, Osobka-Morawski, or Gomulka.

Faute de mieux, Mikolajczyk became a symbol of Polish patriotism of the right kind: soon after his arrival in Poland, many thousands staged a tremendous demonstration in his honour at Cracow, which had become like the capital of the old-time and pro-Western Poland, and the stronghold of the Peasant Party, the PSL, and also of all that was most clerical and "reactionary" in the country. The city, with its famous baroque churches, and Pilsudski's tomb—an "anti-Russian" shrine which thousands visited every day —had suffered less damage than most Polish cities. But although the Russians had saved

Cracow from destruction, the hostility to them was greater here than anywhere else. The Russian soldiers in Cracow, for their part, were particularly nervous, boorish and defiant, and among those who had come from Germany with all its lawlessness, discipline was far from good, and the Poles wallowed in stories of Russian robbery and rape.

The atmosphere in Warsaw was distinctly better. The city was, of course, a tragic sight.

Practically all governmental and other activity was centred in Praga, on the other side of the river, and the Vistula could be crossed only by a temporary wooden bridge. In

Warsaw proper, among the few "live" places were the Hotel Polonia and a few blocks of houses behind it; here the Germans had lived till the end, while the rest of Warsaw was burning. Around, for miles, was the desert of burned-out houses and mountains of rubble.

There were cigarette vendors outside the Polonia selling mostly UNRRA cigarettes, and the "fourteen flower stalls" of Warsaw were considered a pathetic small beginning of the restoration of life. A few pre-fabricated houses and a few buses and tramcars had been presented to Warsaw by the Soviet Union, and there was much talk that Russia was going to "rebuild half of Warsaw"; but, whether true or not, all this was still in the future.

Meantime, most of the workers of Warsaw were busy clearing rubble and patching up

houses that could still be made more or less habitable. What was striking in Warsaw, though, was the faith that the city would be rebuilt; the "Lublin" Poles had announced that this would be done, and this was psychologically, a great point in their favour. This reconstruction of Warsaw and the Oder-Neisse Line were the two points on which all

Poles were agreed.

One day when I was in Warsaw, about 20,000 workers, and some peasant delegations,

held a great demonstration in the Krakowskie Przedmescie—all of it in ruins, and from the balcony of the burned-out Opera-house overlooking the street, the members of the government, complete with Mikolajczyk, were there to greet them. There was a great deal of cheering from the demonstrators—but it was not necessarily meant for Mikolajczyk

only. Many of these workers, carrying red banners, were PPR and PPS, Communists and

Socialists.

[The pro-Russian Poles, as I noticed particularly at Katowice, the centre of the Silesian black country, were doing their utmost to build up, among the miners, a large trade-union organisation with a strong communist slant, which was expected to be one of the main pillars of the new régime.]

"Amazing, amazing," Mikolajczyk was saying, "such vitality among our people, living, as they do, among the ruins, and hungry, very, very hungry..." A girl, in national costume, representing the PSL, the Peasant Party, presented him with a bunch of flowers.

Mikolajczyk then recalled the "wonderful reception he had been given at Cracow—an ovation, a real ovation." (At this point somebody whispered that it wasn't really a pro-Mikolajczyk ovation, but an anti-Bierut ovation).

In 1945, Poland's "Western Territories" were still a desert. Nearly all the Germans had gone, and the villages were mostly empty. Polish and Russian troops were being used to bring in the harvest. Here and there new settlers were coming in in driblets, some from the Lwow areas, some from tiny "uneconomical" farms in central Poland. Some came without cattle, and although they had been given good German farmhouses—in which

they had already installed then-holy pictures—they were living on potatoes and little else.

Some, between the Oder and the Western Neisse, were saying: "Here we have been given more land than what we had at home, but we have nothing to work it with—we've no

horses—and this isn't our country, anyway." Two years later, both the general picture in these parts and the people's mentality had changed completely. By 1947 they looked

upon it very much as their country. Gomulka, the minister then in charge of the Western Territories, had played a leading part in this process.

A few Germans were still living here in 1945. I remember the local miller's son, a sturdy youngster with turned-up nose and freckles. He looked bewildered. "I don't know where they will send us. We have nowhere to go. I have lived here all my life." On a road we met a procession of several hundred Germans, men, women, children, carrying bundles, and the old folks sitting in horse-carts. Polish soldiers, who were escorting them,

bellowed at them when they started telling us some tale of woe. The Germans had had no pity for the Poles; now the Poles had none for the Germans.

Danzig—now Gdansk—was hideous in its destruction. The fighting here had been very

heavy, and there were dozens of Russian mass-graves along the coastal road between

Gdynia and Danzig. Outside Danzig we saw an experimental factory for making soap out of human corpses, which had been run by a German professor called Spanner. It was a

nightmarish sight, with its vats full of human heads and torsoes pickled in some Hquid, and its pails full of a flakey substance—human soap. A slow-witted Germanised young

Pole, who had worked here as a laboratory assistant, and who now looked very scared, said that the factory had not gone much beyond the experimental stage, though what soap had actually been made was good. It had smelt bad, until some chemical had been added which made it smell of almonds. His mother had liked it. He said that, Professor Spanner had told him that after the war, the Germans would set up a soap factory in each

concentration camp, so that the whole thing could be run on a sound industrial basis.

Now that the Jews had been wiped out, they could start on millions of Slavs.

Back in Warsaw. I talked to a Russian colonel who said: "There are a lot of AK and NSZ

[Polish Fascist] terrorists everywhere, especially in places like Cracow. The PPR [the Polish Communists] are having a very tough time; hundreds of their officials have been bumped off. One has to be very brave to be a Polish communist. In Czechoslovakia there is great enthusiasm for the Red Army, but not here in Poland. The Poles are difficult people; the only good thing is that they hate the Germans even more than they hate us; it may make things easier between us in the long run, especially with the Oder-Neisse

frontier, on which they are all very keen. Also, the Red Army is pulling out of Poland, except on the communication lines to Germany, and that may make them feel better and stop all their silly talk about the 'Russian occupation'."

Meanwhile, however, a little civil war was going on in Poland below the surface—and

not so very far below. It did not stop until 1947, and not without the help of the Army and a powerful police force, both built up with Russian advice and assistance. Mikolajczyk fled in 1948, Cyrankiewicz replaced Osöbka-Morawski, but, after several years of

"Stalinist" terror (though less violent in Poland than elsewhere) a different kind of Poland emerged, with Gomulka at its head—that very Gomulka whom Mikolajczyk regarded in

1945 as a criminal maniac. It was, however, wrong to assume that in 1945 there were no genuine socialists or communists in Poland, except those "sold" to the Russians, or that all Poles loved the West; just as there were very many Czechs, so there were also numerous Poles who remembered only too well that their country's alliance with the West had done them no good in 1939.

Not only among the working-class leaders, but also among a part of the intelligentsia there were many who were saying: "With our economy as devastated as it is, and with the Western Territories to settle and organise, only a centrally-controlled socialist economy can cope effectively with all these problems." But this was the "rational" approach and, emotionally, a large number of Poles, starting with the Church, were more or less hostile to Russia.

There were popular rhymes in 1945 on the early return of Lwow to Poland, in which

Lwowa (the genitive of Lwow) rhymed with bomba atomowa.

Chapter V POTSDAM

At the Potsdam Conference which met on July 17, the Soviet delegation was headed by

Stalin and Molotov, the American delegation by the new President, Harry Truman, and

the new Secretary of State, James Byrnes, and the British delegation, first by Churchill and Eden and from July 28, i.e. after the Labour victory in the General Election, by Attlee and Bevin, the new Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary.

At the end of the Conference, Pravda wrote in its editorial of August 3: "It points to a further strengthening of the co-operation between the Big Three, whose armed alliance brought about victory over the common enemy", and, during the days that followed, it angrily denounced as malicious slander any suggestion, for instance in the Swedish press, that "the seeds of the division of Germany and of Europe into two had been sown at Potsdam."

Yet, unfortunately, that is precisely what happened there, despite the long official communiqué which kept up the semblance of unity among the Big Three. But even this

document showed that no agreement had been reached on several questions, and that

many decisions had been postponed.

This twenty-page document was divided into the following fifteen sections: 1) Preamble; 2) Establishment of a Council of Foreign Ministers; 3) Germany; 4) German Reparations; 5) German Navy and Merchant Fleet; 6) Königsberg; 7) War Criminals; 8) Austria; 9)

Poland; 10) Peace Treaties and Admissions to UNO; 11) Territories under Trusteeship; 12) Revision of the Procedure of the Allied Control Commissions in Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary; 13) Transfer of German Populations; 14) Military Problems discussed by

the Heads of the General Staffs at the Conference; 15) List of Delegates.

It will be seen from this list alone how large a range of subjects was discussed during the thirteen plenary meetings of the Conference, besides the various committee and sub-committee meetings; and even this list is far from exhaustive: it makes no specific

mention of Japan, which held a very important place in both the political and military talks at Potsdam, or of such secondary subjects as Trieste and Yugoslavia, or Franco Spain. All three agreed that Spain was not to be admitted to UNO, but neither Britain nor the United States were prepared to break off diplomatic relations with her, as the

Russians had urged them to do. Nor was there any mention of Turkey in the

communiqué; the Russian demand for bases there was rejected.

One of the most important achievements of Potsdam was the setting up of the Council of Foreign Ministers, whose most urgent task was to draft the peace treaties with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland. The Council was also to deal, in due course, with a German peace treaty.

The long section on Germany was chiefly concerned with the numerous demilitarisation, denazification and démocratisation measures that would be applied to her. There was no mention of any partition of Germany, but the communiqué stated that, for the present, no central German government would be formed. There would, however, be certain central

German administrative departments, acting under the guidance of the Allied Control

Council.

The disposal of the German Navy and Merchant Fleet was referred to a committee of

experts. Britain and the United States agreed, in principle, to the transfer to the Soviet Union of Königsberg and the adjoining territory. Agreement was also reached on the

procedure which ultimately led to the constitution of the Nuremberg Tribunal for the trial of the major German war criminals and of other courts dealing with similar cases. The question of recognising the Renner Government set up by the Russians in Austria was

postponed until the entry of British and American troops into Vienna. The Russian

proposal that the Soviet Union be made a trustee of one of the former Italian colonies met with no favourable response from Britain and America, and the matter was referred to the Council of Foreign Ministers, who were to draft the Italian peace treaty. It was agreed that the transfer of Germans still in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary would

henceforth be carried out in an "orderly and humane" manner.

The official Russian line still was that all had gone well at Potsdam. In reality, the whole atmosphere at Potsdam was radically different from that at Teheran and Yalta. There was much angry recrimination on a wide range of subjects. Thus, the British and Americans treated the policy the Russians were pursuing, particularly in Bulgaria and Rumania, as a violation of the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe; the Russians counter-attacked by making similar charges about the British in Greece. Truman made great difficulties about recognising the Bulgarian, Hungarian and Rumanian Governments. There was also some

recrimination about British and American property—notably oil equipment—in Rumania

which had been confiscated by the Germans and had since been taken over by the

Russians. The Russians also charged that the Western Powers had set up an "Italian Fascist régime" in Trieste.

But all this, although indicative, was not yet fundamental. The two major differences were focused on Germany and Poland. It is true that all the demilitarisation,

denazification, etc., measures were, on the face of it, strictly in accord with previous decisions; on the face of it, too, Germany was placed under the joint control of the Four Powers. The unity of Germany as a political and economic entity was implicitly

recognised, and the Russians later claimed great credit for having firmly opposed, as early as March 1945, any Western proposals for the partition of Germany into a western part centred on the Ruhr and Rhineland, a southern part, including Austria, and with Vienna as its capital; and an eastern part, with Berlin as its capital. But while such a partition was not brought about, Potsdam undoubtedly laid the foundations for a different kind of partition. All Russian attempts to secure a foothold in the Ruhr were firmly rejected; but what made the "zonal" division of Germany even more obvious was the agreement that was finally reached on reparations—ostensibly in return for the Western Powers' acceptance of the fait accompli of the Oder-Neisse Line as the western boundary of the German territories "under Polish Administration", pending the final German peace settlement. These territories were not to be regarded as part of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany.

If, as Stettinius complained, Britain and the United States were not in a strong position at Yalta, Truman and Byrnes thought they were in a very strong position indeed at Potsdam.

The American atom test bomb had just been successfully exploded and Truman, in the

words of Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, was "immensely pleased" and "tremendously pepped by it". The President said "it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence" in talking to the Russians.

He [Truman] stood up to the Russians in the most emphatic and decisive manner,

telling them as to certain demands that they absolutely could not have and that the United States was entirely against them... He told the Russians just where they got off and generally bossed the whole meeting.

[Stimson, quoted by W. A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, New York, 1962, p. 249.]

Churchill was delighted with the new President, and fully supported his "tough" line with the Russians and what came to be known as his "Open Door" policy in Eastern Europe.

He also blew up at the Russians' "effrontery" in wanting to control one of the former Italian colonies on the Mediterranean.

The Russians were glad to see the last of Churchill, but when, after the British General Election, Churchill and Eden were replaced by Attlee and Bevin, they found that they had nothing to congratulate themselves on. According to Mr Byrnes, Bevin was very

"aggressive" indeed in his "forceful opposition" to the new Polish boundaries.

[James F. Byrnes, Frankly Speaking (London, 1948), p. 79.]

Soon after Potsdam, a member of the Russian delegation remarked to me that he had

found Mr Bevin an "ochen volevoi chelovek" —a "very strong-willed man", which was a polite way of saying that he had found the new Foreign Secretary extremely pigheaded.

The foundations for the real division of Germany, officially still to be under Four-Power control, were laid by the reparations agreement reached at Potsdam. Even before Potsdam the Russians had been helping themselves indiscriminately to reparations—still termed

"booty" at the time—from the Soviet Zone. But they continued to hope that the reparations questions would be put on an all-German basis at Potsdam. This was not to be. On July 23, Mr Byrnes declared Stalin's Yalta figure of twenty billion dollars (half of it for the Soviet Union) to be "unpractical", and refused to name any other. He also reiterated the United States Government's opposition to the Russians' meddling in the control of industry in the Ruhr and other parts of Western Germany. And there followed this conversation:

Mr Molotov: I understand that what you have in mind is that each country should take reparations from its own zone. If we fail to reach an agreement, the result will be the same.

Mr Byrnes: Yes.

Mr Molotov: Would not your suggestion mean that each country would have a free hand in its own zone and would act entirely independently of the others?

Mr Byrnes: That is true in substance.

[ Quoted by W. A. Williams, op. cit., p. 251.]

The Russians fought this proposal for over a week, but, in the end, accepted it, together with the following provisions: they would also have a free hand in collecting German assets throughout Eastern Europe; they would receive a small percentage of the

reparations available from Western Germany; and, finally, the Western Powers would

"provisionally" recognise the Oder-Neisse Line—rather to Churchill's disgust, as expressed in the final pages of The Second World War. What this meant in fact was that the all-German treatment of reparations, for which the Russians had fought so

desperately, was down the drain. Even the small face-saver for this "all-German"

treatment—the minor reparations deliveries to Russia from Western Germany—was

scrapped less than a year later, apparently on the personal responsibility of General Lucius Clay, the Military Governor of the American Zone.

This reparations settlement was crucial: it started the process whereby Russia was kept strictly outside Western Germany but, at the same time, strengthened her economic—and therefore also political—hold on Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe as a whole. This apparent ratification of a "spheres of influence" policy was, of course, in flat contradiction to Truman's Open Door policy, and American experts have continued to

argue on the real significance of this apparent contradiction.

There was a direct connection between the American atom bomb and the singular

reparations deal at Potsdam. This was, in fact, symptomatic of the temporary (as Truman thought) division of Germany and of Europe in two. Although appearances were kept up to some extent for the next two or three years, Potsdam marked in the reality the

beginning of the end of that "Big-Three Peace" of which the main pillar—as the Russians saw it—was the joint control of Germany.

Chapter VI THE SHORT RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR-

HIROSHIMA

There were two periods in the Soviet-German war when the Russians dreaded a Japanese attack on them. First, during the very first months of the war, and indeed, right up to Pearl Harbour; and again during the disastrous summer and autumn of 1942. As a

precaution against a Japanese attack, the Russians had to keep substantial forces in the Far East, about forty divisions according to the post-war History. Although in extreme emergencies—during the Battle of Moscow and, again, at the time of Stailingrad—the

Soviet Supreme Command had to draw on its Far-Eastern forces and bring some

particularly tough Siberian troops to the Soviet-German Front, the fact remains that, especially during the first eighteen months of the war, Japan rendered Hitler a great service by tying up with its one-million-strong Kwantung Army important Russian forces which would have been of the greatest value in Europe.

After Stalingrad, and with the war in the Pacific not going quite as well as the Japanese had expected, a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union was "postponed". As the History says:

Stalingrad struck an irreparable blow at the Japanese plans for an invasion of the Soviet Union. Having been bogged down in their war against China, the United

States and Britain, the Japanese now had every reason to doubt a successful

outcome of their aggressive plans against the Soviet Union... The Japanese

Ambassador in Berlin told Ribbentrop on March 6, 1943 that the Japanese

Government "considered it wrong to enter the war against the Soviet Union just now."

The subsequent developments of World War II did not change the situation in

Japan's favour: by 1943 the strategic initiative in the war in the Pacific passed into the hands of the United States forces... By the spring of 1944 the Japanese General Staff began to elaborate defensive plans in the event of a war with the Soviet Union.

[IVOVSS, vol. V, p. 526. Note the much greater credit given to the USA and Britain in this 1963 publication than in earlier Soviet histories of the war.]

There is good reason to suppose that even if the exact words uttered by the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin after Stalingrad were not known to the Russians at the time, they had an excellent idea of the real position: their espionage service in Japan was

exceptionally good. Up till 1942 they enjoyed the invaluable services of Richard Sorge, a German journalist, who had the confidence of Ambassador Ott himself!

The Russians had stored up by then quite a number of grievances against Japan: they had reason to suppose that during the earlier stages of the war the Japanese Embassy in

Moscow or Kuibishev had been transmitting much valuable information to the Germans

and, at least until Stalingrad, the Japanese had created great difficulties for Soviet shipping in the Pacific, especially for ships bringing supplies from the United States. 178

Soviet ships had been stopped and searched by the Japanese between the beginning of the war and the end of 1944 (mostly during the earlier period), and three Russian cargoes had been sunk by submarines which the Russians later claimed were Japanese.

[IVOVSS, vol. V, p. 529. It can, of course, be argued that Japan rendered Russia a great service in not attacking her (and many Russians were fully conscious of this at the time), but this was not a point to stress in 1945!]

For all that, in 1943 and 1944, diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Japan remained cool but correct, and the Japanese Ambassador continued to be invited to

official receptions. At Teheran and on many other occasions the British and Americans were told that there could be no question of the Soviet Union joining in the war against Japan until after the defeat of Germany. All the same, there were already some curious straws in the wind as early as the middle of 1944; one of them was the publication of a long novel by A. Stepanov called Port Arthur which, without actually justifying the Tsarist government's policy of imperialist expansion in the Far East, nevertheless

represented the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 as a "national" war, and as a humiliating national defeat which called for revenge. Anything less "Leninist" was hard to imagine.

It was not, however, till Yalta, in February 1945, that the Soviet leaders firmly committed themselves to entering the war against Japan; the Soviet Union was to receive Southern Sakhalin lost to the Japanese in 1905 and the Kurile Islands.

[Under a Russo-Japanese agreement of 1855 Sakhalin was to be administered jointly by the two countries, while the Kurile Islands were divided between them. In 1875 Japan abandoned her claims on Sakhalin, but received all the Kurile Islands. Under the 1905

peace treaty, Japan received the southern half of Sakhalin. The Russians now not only demanded the return of Southern Sakhalin, but all the Kurile Islands which they

considered as Japanese bases interfering with Russian shipping in the Pacific. Maybe they also suspected even then that the USA had an eye on the Kuriles as a potential air base.]

The clauses of the Yalta Protocol on the recognition of the status quo for Mongolia and on Russian privileges in China were subject to "concurrence" by the Chinese Government, i.e. by Chiang Kai Shek. It was agreed, however, at Yalta that in view of its top-secret nature, the Protocol on Japan could not be communicated to Chiang Kai Shek until after the defeat of Germany.

On April 5, 1945 the Russian people were left in little doubt that they would still have to fight Japan. On that day the Soviet Government denounced its Neutrality Pact with Japan; Molotov informed the Japanese Government that, since the conclusion of the Pact in

1941, the situation had "radically changed"; Germany had attacked the USSR and Japan had helped Germany. Moreover, Japan was fighting a war against Britain and the United States, which were Allies of the Soviet Union. "In virtue of Article 3 ... allowing the right to denounce the Pact one year before its expiry, the Soviet Union hereby does so, as from April 13, 1945."

[ Juridically, the Five-Year Neutrality Pact was valid till April 13, 1946, despite this repudiation, and Russia's attack on Japan in August 1945 was in fact a violation of the Pact.]

On May 15, 1945 the Japanese Government annulled its alliance with the now non-

existent German government and other Fascist governments. The Soviet Government

considered this as a preliminary to a new series of peace-feelers the Japanese were about to put out; but there is nothing to show that they intended to respond favourably to them.

While, at the end of May, Harry Hopkins found the Russians extremely sticky on

questions like Poland, he found them perfectly co-operative as regards Japan. He cabled to Washington on May 28 saying that, according to Stalin, the Soviet Army would be

"properly deployed in the Manchurian positions by August 8"; that Stalin repeated the Yalta statement that the Russian people "must have good reason for going to war", and that this depended on the willingness of the Chinese to agree to the Yalta proposals; he therefore asked that T. V. Soong come to Moscow "not later than July 1 ", and urged that the USA (as Roosevelt had promised) take up the matter with Chiang Kai-shek.

Stalin's views on China, as reported by Hopkins, are particularly interesting, in the light of what happened later:

He [Stalin] categorically stated that he would do everything to promote the

unification of China under Chiang Kai-shek. His leadership would continue after

the war, because no one else was strong enough. He specifically stated that no

communist leader was strong enough to unify China. In spite of his reservations

about Chiang Kai-shek, he proposed to back him.

[Sherwood, op. cit., p. 892. None of this is reported in the present-day Soviet History which treats the Chinese Communists as the only force in China at the time not defeatist in its attitude to Japan.]

In another message to Washington Hopkins stated that Stalin was all in favour of the Open Door for the USA in China, since she alone was capable of giving large financial aid to that country, Russia having her own reconstruction to take care of. Stalin also intimated that the Soviet Union wanted an occupation zone in Japan.

The full story of the events that led to the capitulation of Japan is one of the most intricate in the whole of World War II. It is clear that, at Yalta, both Roosevelt and Churchill were still extremely anxious that Russia should join in the war against Japan as quickly as possible. The position becomes much less clear after Truman became President. Judging from the Hopkins' mission to Moscow in May, Truman still wanted Russia in the war—

which was one of the chief reasons why the new President also wanted to meet Stalin at Potsdam. The Russians now argue, however, that even before he had the atom bomb,

Truman was desperately anxious to get Japan— or at least "the Japanese armed forces"—

to surrender unconditionally before Russia entered the war. They may have suspected this at the time, on the strength of the American broadcasts to that effect, which began as early as May 8 [Much is made of these in the Soviet History. (IVOVSS, vol. V, p. 536)], but consoled themselves with the thought that Japan could not be defeated—at least not within a short time—without the Russians smashing the Kwantung Army in Manchuria.

They had understood from Roosevelt at Yalta that, without Russian participation, the war against Japan would have to go on till 1947, and would cost the Americans and British at least another million men.

As early as February-March, the Japanese sought Russian mediation in their desire to end the war with the USA and Britain. The Soviet History enumerates several such peace-feelers:

First of all, two "private" persons approached the Russians on behalf of the Japanese Government—Mr Mijakawa, the Japanese Consul-General in Harbin and

Mr Tanakamaru, a fishing magnate.

On March 4, the same Tanakamaru called on Mr J. Malik, the Soviet Ambassador

in Tokyo, saying that neither Japan nor the United States could start speaking of peace. A "divine outside force" was necessary to bring about a peace settlement, and the Soviet Union could play that rôle.

After the formation of the Suzuki Government, these peace-feelers became even

more explicit. Foreign Minister Togo asked Mr Malik on April 20 to arrange for

him a meeting with Mr Molotov.

Still anxious to avoid unconditional surrender to the USA, Togo sent ex-premier

Hirotake Hirota to see Malik on June 3. He stressed Japan's desire to improve her relations with the USSR. A second meeting took place on the following day, and two further meetings on June 24.

[IVOVSS, vol. V, pp. 536-7.]

The History dismisses all these Hirota visits to Malik and his offers of large-scale Soviet-Japanese economic co-operation as "a piece of effrontery coming from a gang guilty of so many treacherous acts towards the Soviet Union"; but the fact remains that Malik consented to see Hirota four times.

Nevertheless, the Hirota mission failed, and the Japanese Government now tried to

establish direct contact with the Soviet Government in Moscow. The Emperor decided to send Prince Konoye to Moscow on July 12, and Mr Sato, the Japanese Ambassador in

Moscow was instructed to inform the Soviet Government of the Emperor's desire. But in vain. In the words of the History:

This Japanese proposal was left without an answer by the Soviet Government which

was, moreover, preparing to go to the Big-Three Conference at Potsdam. Here the

Soviet delegation fully informed its allies of these Japanese "peace" moves. Thus, the Japanese imperialists' attempts to split the Allies failed completely.

[IVOVSS, vol. V, p. 538.]

At Potsdam the American military wanted to know when exactly the Russians would

attack in the Far East. The Soviet Chief of Staff, General Antonov confirmed that all would be ready by August 8, but much depended on the outcome of the Soviet-Chinese

talks which had begun in Moscow shortly before the Potsdam Conference.

As we now know, the Americans were, in fact, no longer interested at the time of

Potsdam in Russian participation in the war against Japan. Churchill tells with

undisguised glee how he and Harry Truman fooled Stalin.

As Churchill tells the story:

On July 17 (at Potsdam) world-shaking news arrived... "It means", Stimson said,

"that the experiment in the Mexican desert has come off. The atomic bomb is a reality".

And almost the first thought that occurred to Churchill was that the Russians could be dispensed with in the war against Japan:

We should not need the Russians. The end of the Japanese war no longer depended

on the pouring in of their armies... We had no need to ask favours of them... I

minuted to Mr Eden: " It is quite clear that the United States do not at the present time desire Russian participation in the war against Japan."

There was no doubt, he wrote, that the bomb would be used.

A more intricate question was what to tell Stalin. The President and I no longer felt we needed his aid to conquer Japan... In our opinion they (the Soviet troops in the Far East) were not likely to be needed, and Stalin's bargaining power, which he had used with such effect upon the Americans at Yalta, was therefore gone.

And then came Churchill's singularly tortuous mental compromise:

Still, he had been a magnificent ally in the war against Hitler, and we both

(Churchill and Truman) felt that he must be informed of the great New Fact which

now dominated the scene, but not with any particulars.

[Churchill, op. cit., vol. VI, pp. 552-4.]

In the end the procedure chosen was this: Nothing was going to be put in writing. Instead, Truman said:

"I think I had best just tell him after one of our meetings that we have an entirely novel form of bomb, something quite out of the ordinary, which we think will have a decisive effect upon the Japanese will to continue the war."

Churchill agreed with this "procedure".

[Ibid., p. 554.]

And this is how it was done.

On July 24, after our plenary meeting had ended... I saw the President go up to

Stalin, and the two conversed alone, with only their interpreters. I was perhaps five yards away, and I watched with the closest attention their momentous talk. I knew what the President was going to do. What was vital to measure was its effect on

Stalin. I can see it all as if it were yesterday. He seemed to be delighted. A new bomb! Of extraordinary power!... What a bit of luck!... I was sure that he had no idea of the significance of what he was being told... If he had had the slightest idea...

his reactions would have been obvious... Nothing would have been easier than for

him to say:

"... May I send my experts to see your experts tomorrow morning?" But his face remained gay and genial...

"How did it go?" I asked (Truman). "He never asked a question," he replied.

[Churchill, op. cit., vol. VI, pp. 579-80. The suggestion that the Russians already knew all about the bomb from their own intelligence is not borne out by their behaviour after Potsdam.]

I must add here a very important historical point which dots the i's in Churchill's account to an extraordinary degree.

When, in 1946, I privately asked Molotov whether the Soviet Government had been

informed at Potsdam that an atom bomb would be dropped on Japan, he looked startled, thought for a moment, and then said: "It's a tricky subject, and the real answer to your question is both Yes and No. We were told of a 'superbomb', of a bomb 'the like of which had never been seen'; but the word atom was not used."

I often wondered afterwards whether Molotov's answer was strictly true, and I believe it was; had Truman really told Stalin that the new weapon was not just a "super-bomb", but an atom bomb, it is almost inconceivable that Stalin could have registered the news as calmly and cheerfully as Churchill said he did, and done nothing at all about it.

Certainly, there was nothing in the behaviour of either Stalin or any other Russians at Potsdam after they had been told about the new weapon to suggest that anything quite unusual had happened. Their plans about Japan were not changed one whit. The negotiations with the Chinese were resumed in Moscow after Stalin's and Molotov's

return from Potsdam. There was no suggestion of the Russians being more nervous than before.

If there was anything strange about these negotiations with the Chinese on something which had already been approved in advance by both Roosevelt and Churchill, it was the Chinese attempt to draw out the discussions. What was behind these delaying tactics has since been explained by Mr Byrnes: "If Stalin and Chiang were still negotiating, it might delay Soviet entrance and the Japanese might surrender.

[J. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (New York, 1958), pp. 291-9.]

And to drag out the Moscow discussions was precisely what on July 23 Chiang Kai-shek had been asked by Washington to do.

On the face of it, these Soviet-Chinese talks, which went on for a fortnight (from June 30

to July 14) before Potsdam, and for another week (August 7 to 14) after Potsdam, should have been little more than a formality. True, the Yalta Agreement said that "the agreement concerning Outer Mongolia and ports and railroads ... will require concurrence of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek"; but it also said:

The President [Roosevelt] will take measures to obtain this concurrence. .. The

Heads of the three Great Powers have agreed that these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated.

Yet the talks on the above questions and on the Friendship and Alliance Pact with China, also provided for in the Yalta Agreement, were not concluded—as they were expected to be—before the Soviet Union entered the war on August 8, i.e. two days after the

Hiroshima bomb.

It was the atom bomb that precipitated Russia's entry into the war. No doubt, after the bomb, Chiang Kai-shek would have liked to back out of the agreement with Russia, but it was scarcely possible in view of Roosevelt's and Churchill's firm commitments at Yalta

— and, above all, perhaps, because there was now an enormous Russian army

overrunning Manchuria.

What annoyed the Russians at Potsdam was not the vague news of some American

"super-bomb", but the "Potsdam Ultimatum" to Japan of July 26 demanding unconditional surrender. They claim that they had not been consulted about this Anglo-American-Chinese Ultimatum, and when they asked that its publication be postponed for two days, they were told that it had already been released. This may well have made them wonder whether the United States and Britain were not in a hurry to obtain a Japanese capitulation before the Soviet Union entered the war.

They may have wondered—and yet they did nothing about it, still assuming that the war could not be won in a short time without their participation. And they were certainly going to participate, since Stalin thought the spoils promised him at Yalta well worth a major military effort.

There is much conflicting evidence about the Japanese response to the Potsdam

Ultimatum. According to both the American official version and the Russian (repeated in the official History) the Japanese rejected it; according to certain Japanese sources, the Japanese Government "virtually" accepted it, though it asked for further clarifications.

[The German writer Anton Zischka, Krieg oder Frieden (War or Peace), Gütersloh, 1961, pp. 61-5 puts forward the view that the Japanese reply to the Ultimatum was either

accidentally or, more probably, deliberately mistranslated by certain American officials, Premier Suzuki's "no comment pending further information" being translated as "we are ignoring the ultimatum", the word mokusatsu meaning either "ignoring" or "no comment", according to the context.]

Be that as it may, it is certain that on August 2 Ambassador Sato paid an urgent visit to Molotov in connection with the Potsdam Ultimatum; he was anxious to obtain the

immediate cessation of hostilities and hoped that, with Russian mediation, the absolutely crucial question of the Emperor—not mentioned in the Potsdam Ultimatum—would be

settled in an acceptable manner. Molotov was totally unresponsive, obviously unwilling to see Japan capitulate before Russia had joined in the war. When, six days later, he asked Sato to call on him, it was only to inform him of the Soviet Union's declaration of war on Japan. That was two days after the Hiroshima bomb.

The wording of the Soviet declaration of war on Japan was odd. It said that, since the capitulation of Germany, Japan was the only Great Power wanting to continue the war; since Japan had rejected the Potsdam Ultimatum the Japanese Government's proposals

that the Soviet Government act as a mediator had "lost all basis". Since Japan had refused to capitulate, the Allies had asked the Soviet Union to join in the war, and so to shorten it.

The Soviet Government considers that such a policy is the only one that will bring about an early peace, rid peoples of further sacrifices and sufferings and enable the Japanese people to avert the dangers and destruction that Germany suffered after

her refusal to surrender unconditionally.

As from August 9, the Soviet Union would consider herself in a state of war with Japan.

On that night of August 8 Molotov received the press, simply to communicate to it the text of the Soviet declaration of war. He looked even more stony-faced than usual and, after answering only two or three quite innocuous questions, hastened to end this "press conference". Molotov did not mention the Hiroshima bomb; and nor did anyone else.

Yet the Bomb was the one thing everybody in Russia had talked about that whole day.

The bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima on the morning of the 6th, but it was not till the morning of the 8th that the Soviet press published, almost at the bottom of the foreign page, a short item—one-third of a column to be exact—which was part of the Truman

statement on Hiroshima. The bomb, this statement said, was equal in power to 20,000

tons of TNT.

Although the Russian press played down the Hiroshima bomb, and did not even mention

the Nagasaki bomb until much later, the significance of Hiroshima was not lost on the Russian people. The news had an acutely depressing effect on everybody. It was clearly realised that this was a New Fact in the world's power politics, that the bomb constituted a threat to Russia, and some Russian pessimists I talked to that day dismally remarked that Russia's desperately hard victory over Germany was now "as good as wasted".

The news, that same day, that Russia had declared war on Japan aroused no enthusiasm at all. The idea of fighting another war, so soon after all the losses suffered in the war against Germany, had never been popular. Knowing nothing about the Yalta Agreement,

most Russians now felt that the new war had been forced on Russia, or at any rate

precipitated, by the Hiroshima Bomb. It had, of course, been known for a long time that masses of Russian troops were being sent to the Far East, but everybody felt that there must be some connection between the news about Hiroshima in the morning, and

Russia's declaration of war on Japan a few hours later.

On August 7—the day after Hiroshima—Stalin summoned to the Kremlin five of the

leading Russian atomic scientists and ordered them to catch up with the United States in the minimum of time, regardless of cost. Beria was placed in charge of all the

laboratories and industries which were to produce the atom bomb. Contrary to American expectations, the first Soviet A-bomb was exploded in the Ust-Urt Desert, between the Caspian and the Aral Sea on July 10, 1949; two further A-bombs were exploded within

the next week. The Soviet H-bomb followed four years later.

But this was in the future, and the thought that the Americans had a monopoly of the atom bomb had a deeply depressing effect on Russian opinion. The Russian press

continued to be silent about it, and the issue of the English weekly Britansky Soyuznik which was the first paper inside Russia to give any details on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sold in the black market for sixty roubles, instead of the official two roubles, or the usual

"black-market" price of twenty roubles.

The feeling of resentment against those who had dropped the atom bomb was so acute

that any feeling of animosity against Japan was conspicuously absent. I remember that evening of August 8 only too well. There was feverish activity amongst the many

Japanese living at the Hotel Metropole in Moscow. They were packing their bags in order to take them to the Japanese Embassy before midnight. They looked morose but

dignified, and—partly perhaps because they always tipped well—the hotel staff were

very helpful. Nobody else showed any malice either. Shortly before midnight, as they were piling their last trunks on lorries, something of a crowd gathered around, but no hostility was shown and many people even lent a hand with the trunks. It was like a

subtle little demonstration of sympathy.

The papers the next day did little more than paraphrase the Note declaring war on Japan, and recall all the evil that Japan had done to Russia and the Soviet Union in the past—

starting with the Russo-Japanese war, and going on to Japanese Intervention in 1919, to Lake Hassan and Halkin Gol, and to all the help Japan had given to Hitler. If, in the past, Marxist writers had said that Japan had stopped the spread of Russian imperialism in the Far East in 1904-5, the papers now spoke of her "perfidious attack on the Russian Navy at Port Arthur", and the "blot of shame" from which Russia had suffered for forty years.

In the next few days, the press reported mass meetings in many factories loudly

approving the declaration of war on the "Japanese militarists and imperialists." In reality, the Russians who felt passionately about Germany, had no feelings about Japan at all, and the new war against Japan was distinctly unpopular, except possibly among Russians in the Far East.

The only thing in its favour was that it did not last long. It was clear from the start that the three Russian army groups—the Baikal Front under Marshal Malinovsky, the First

Far-Eastern Front under Marshal Meretskov and the Second Far-Eastern Front under

General Purkayev, all of them under the general command of Marshal Vassilevsky—had

overwhelming superiority over the much-vaunted Kwantung Army. Within a few days

they had penetrated deep into Manchuria. The heavy and often fanatical Japanese

counter-attacks made little difference; the Russians had more men and incomparably

more guns, tanks and planes than the Japanese. On August 16 General Antonov, the

Soviet Chief-of-Staff, announced that the declaration of August 14 by the Emperor was

"only a general statement on Japan's capitulation", and that no cease-fire order had been given to the Japanese troops fighting the Russians. There had been no actual capitulation by the Japanese armed forces; therefore "the Soviet offensive in the Far East must continue." On August 17 Marshal Vassilevsky sent an ultimatum to the commander of the Kwantung Army, demanding surrender by noon, August 20. The surrender of this

Army was, indeed, announced by Stalin in an Order of the Day on August 22. The

Russians had used airborne troops extensively in Manchuria, particularly to occupy the ports of Dairen and Port Arthur where they feared an American landing. They also

hastened to penetrate into Northern Korea. The Russian Pacific Navy played an important part in the combined operations that resulted in the occupation of Southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands; here, in particular, the Russians met with stiff Japanese resistance—

even long after the official capitulation.

In Manchuria, too, even after the official capitulation of the Kwantung Army, numerous Japanese units continued to fight and it was not till September 12 that the final results of the war against Japan were published in a special Sovinformbureau statement. This said that, between August 9 and September 9 the Japanese losses were: 925 planes, 369 tanks, 1,226 guns, 4,836 machine-guns, 300,000 rifles. In relation to the number of prisoners, these figures suggested that the mighty Kwantung Army had been very poorly equipped.

594,000 Japanese prisoners had been taken, including 20,000 wounded. Among the

prisoners were 148 generals. The Japanese dead were put at 80,000. The Russian

casualties were stated to be extremely low in comparison: 8,000 dead and 22,000

wounded.

[The present-day History (IVOVSS, vol. V, p. 581) gives the same figures for the Japanese prisoners, but puts the equipment figures rather higher; it says that the Baikal and 1st Far-Eastern Front alone captured 1,565 guns, 2,169 mortars, 600 tanks, 861

planes, and 13,000 machine-guns. The History gives no figures for Russian casualties, which suggests that they were higher than the official 1945 figure.]

On September 2 the final capitulation of Japan was signed on board the US battleship Missouri. The Soviet signatory was a General Derevyanko, totally unknown to the general public in Russia.

Stalin's broadcast that day left people with a strangely unsatisfactory impression. He dwelt, to an extraordinary degree, on the victory over Japan being Russia's revenge for her defeat in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5. He recalled that, taking advantage of the weakness of the Tsarist Government, Japan had perfidiously attacked the Russian Navy at Port Arthur, in almost exactly the same way as she was to attack the US Navy at Pearl Harbour thirty-seven years later.

Russia was defeated in that war. As a result, Japan grabbed Southern Sakhalin and firmly established herself in the Kuriles, thus padlocking our exits to the Pacific...

This defeat of the Russian troops in 1904 left a bitter memory in the minds of our people. Our people waited and believed that this blot would some day be erased.

We, people of the older generation, waited for this day for forty years. Now this day has come.

In conclusion he said that peace had come at last, that the Soviet Union was no longer threatened by either Germany or Japan, and he paid a tribute to the armed forces of the Soviet Union, the United States, China and Great Britain who had won this victory over Japan.

There were fireworks that night to celebrate Victory over Japan; but in and around Red Square there was barely one-tenth of the crowd that had turned out to celebrate the defeat of Germany on May 9.

It was a hollow victory, and everybody was conscious of it. For many years afterwards the official Soviet line was (and still is, though rather less emphatically) that Japan capitulated because of the Soviet Union's entry into the war: if the mighty Kwantung Army had not been defeated, Japan's resistance to America and Britain would have

continued for years, and cost them a million lives or more. It was, in fact, precisely the same argument as that Truman, Churchill and others applied to the atom bombs which,

they said, had precipitated Japan's unconditional surrender and had so saved untold

American and British lives. In reality the best evidence shows that Japan was on the point of surrendering at the time of the Potsdam Ultimatum, and merely wanted assurances

concerning the status of the Emperor—the very question Ambassador Sato put to

Molotov on August 2, four days before the Hiroshima bomb, and six days before the

Soviet declaration of war.

[How unnecessary it was to drop the atom bomb is shown by Major-General J. F. C.

Fuller in The Second World War (London, 1948), p. 395: "On the 10th a broadcast from Tokyo announced the acceptance of the Potsdam Ultimatum 'with the understanding that

[it] does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of the Emperor as a sovereign ruler'. On the following day the Allies replied: 'From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor... shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers'. [In other words, there was no question of hanging the Emperor as a war

criminal.]

"Why was this not made clear in the Declaration of July 26? Had it been, would not

[Truman's] 'purpose of God' have been more Christianly followed?" Fuller comments. He also says that the requests made to Russia as early as May to intercede as a mediator must have made it clear to the Western Powers that Japan's position was catastrophic, and that she was completely ripe for surrender. The only obstacle was the question of the

Emperor.]

Even assuming that the Japanese would have continued to resist and that the saving of American lives was all that was at stake, then the dropping of the bomb could still have been held up until September, just before the invasion of Kyushu—which would have cost a lot of American lives. If the bomb was dropped in a desperate hurry on August 6, it must have been because Truman was determined to drop it before the Russians had

entered the war—which they were expected to do, in accordance with the Yalta

Agreement, not much later than the 8th.

[Asked in 1960 whether there was any urgency to end the war in the Pacific before the Russians became too deeply involved, Mr Byrnes replied: "There certainly was on my part. We wanted to get through with the Japanese phase of the war before the Russians came in." (U.S. News and World Report, August 15, 1960.)]

But that was not all: the bomb, as is so clearly suggested by Truman, Byrnes, Stimson and others, was dropped very largely in order to impress Russia with America's great might. Ending the war in Japan was incidental (the end of this war was clearly in sight, anyway), but stopping the Russians in Asia and checking them in Eastern Europe was

fundamental.

Whether the Russians intended to stick closely to the Yalta Agreement and enter the war on August 8 is not altogether certain; but once the bomb had been dropped, the Russians could not afford to delay; for what if Japan capitulated as a result of the bomb before Russia entered the war? It was essential to enter the war before such a Japanese

capitulation, if Russia was to receive her territorial "reward" and play any part in the occupation of Korea—and Japan.

The real irony of it all is that Japan was ready to capitulate both without the atom bomb and without Russian intervention. But this suited neither the USA, nor the Soviet Union, both of which had to strike the "decisive" blow.

It is interesting to note that the present-day History does not breathe a word about Stalin's

"revenge for 1904", but attributes Russia's entry into the war to three high-minded motives: 1) security against future Japanese aggression; 2) Russia's sacred duty to her Western Allies; and, 3) her moral duty to help, China, Korea and other Asian peoples in their struggle against the Japanese imperialists.

The "new look" of American policy after the dropping of the atom bomb soon became apparent. On August 16 Truman declared that, unlike Germany, Japan would not be

divided into occupation zones. Truman firmly rejected the Russian proposal that the

Japanese surrender to Russian troops in northern Hokkaido; nor were the Russians to take any part whatsoever in the occupation of Japan. Truman went even further: on August 18

he asked that the Russians let the Americans use one of the Kurile Islands as an air base, a proposal that Stalin rejected with a great show of indignation.

[ Correspondence between Stalin and the Presidents of the USA and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain.. . (Moscow 1957), vol. II, pp. 267-8.]

The uneasiness and anxiety created in Russia by the atom bomb were such that, soon

after the capitulation of Japan, Russian correspondents visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki and deliberately reported that the bombs had not been nearly as destructive as the

Americans had made out; if there were very heavy casualties, it was because of the

inflammable nature of Japanese houses, and any city with stone houses and adequate

shelters would not have suffered nearly as much. The correspondents said they had

interviewed several people who had escaped injury by simply lying down in an ordinary trench!

These stories about the relative innocuousness of the atom bomb were not only intended to reassure the Russian public, but also to support the theory that it was not the atom bomb, but the destruction of the Kwantung Army by the Russians, that had brought Japan to her knees.

They did not make much impression in Russia. Everybody there fully realised that the atom bomb had become an immense factor in the world's power politics, and believed

that, although the two bombs had killed or maimed a few hundred thousand Japanese,

their real purpose was, first and foremost, to intimidate Russia.

After causing a spell of anxiety and bewilderment, all the bombs did, in effect, was to create on the Russian side a feeling of anger and acute distrust vis à vis the West. Far from becoming more amenable, the Soviet Government became more stubborn.

[The only major exception was Iran, where Moscow yielded to American pressure by

evacuating Iranian Azerbaijan.]

Inside Russia, too, the régime became much harder after the war instead of becoming

softer, as so many had hoped it would be.

It was scarcely a coincidence that, ten days after Hiroshima, the Supreme Soviet should have instructed the Gosplan—the State Planning Commission—and the Council of

People's Commissars to get busy on a new Five-Year Plan. No breathing-space was to be allowed to the Russian people; the great industrial and economic reconstruction of the country was to start immediately. And, together with it, the making of the Russian atom bomb.

The end of the war was to be followed by years of disappointment and frustration for the Russian people. The wartime hopes of a Big Three Peace gave way to the reality of the Cold War and the "Iron Curtain". The happy illusions of 1944 that the Soviet régime would become more liberal, and life easier and freer after the war, soon went up in

smoke. For one thing the Soviet economy was largely in ruins, and to rebuild it a gigantic programme of austerity and hard work was called for. The policy of restoring heavy

industry as fast as possible meant that consumer goods remained scarce for a long time.

Housing conditions were bad and food was short. The NKVD, which had shown a certain

discretion during the war, came into its own again and a new terror developed which did not come to an end until 1953, after Stalin's death.

Yet despite the disappointments that followed it, the grim but heroic national war of 1941-5 remains both the most fearful and the proudest memory of the Russian people—a war which, for all her losses, turned Russia into the greatest Power oil the Old World.

Already it almost seems an historical epic of a bygone age—which can never be repeated.

To the Russian people the thought of another war is doubly horrifying; for it would be a war without its Sebastopol, Leningrad or Stalingrad; a war in which—everywhere—there would be only victims and no heroes.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

The most important single Soviet publication on the war years, not only in terms of sheer bulk, but also for the valuable information it contains is the monumental six-volume (five published to date) History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (Istoriya Velikoi Otechestven-noi Voiny Sov.Soyuza), referred to as IVOVSS. In the Introduction I refer to some of its numerous weaknesses —its stodgy writing, its ever-repeated clichés, its suppression of many awkward facts (for instance the "Moscow panic" of October 16, 1941), the virtual deletion of names of people now out of favour, even though they

played an important part during the war years; the magnification of Khruschev's role in the war; the tendentiousness in the treatment of some of the diplomatic episodes just before and during the war ; the pooh-poohing of Lend-Lease, and so on. This collective work by dozens of Soviet scholars and various kinds of experts, working under an

editorial committee composed of professional historians, leading Party ideologists and a number of generals, and the whole of it published by "The Department of History of the Great Patriotic

War of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism attached to the Central Committee of the

CPSU" is, of course, a book which has gone through the most careful process of "vetting"

at the highest Party level. And yet, despite all this, IVOVSS still contains an immense amount of information most of which was not available in the Stalin days. It contains, for example, a very thorough and, on the whole, convincing explanation of the numerous

reasons for the Red Army's disastrous reverses in 1941 ; it analyses very carefully the reasons, both military and economic, for the relative failure of the second phase of the Russian counter-offensive in the winter of 1941-2; it tells, with masses of new details, the story of the stupendous effort to keep the country's war economy going, with the main armaments production being concentrated in the East. The History is based almost entirely on archive material, and this includes such valuable sources as AVP SSR

(Foreign Policy Archives), AMO SSSR (Archives of the Ministry of Defence), the war

archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism (IML); the Central Party Archives of the same Institute (TsPA IML), the Komsomol and Trade Union Archives, the State Archives of the October Revolution (TsGA-OR), the War History Archives of the Central

Committees of the Communist Parties of the Ukrainian, Belo-russian and of other Federal Republics of the Soviet Union, and similar archives of the different ministries and of the various obkoms (regional party committees)—for instance, those of Smolensk, Briansk, etc. (chiefly on Partisan warfare) or of Sverdlovsk, Cheliabinsk, etc. (chiefly on the war industries). Although these quotations from the various archives are inevitably selective, they still contain much new information. On foreign policy too, the History also quotes some revealing documents, for instance some of the dispatches from Astakhov, the Soviet chargé d'affaires in Berlin, on his conversations with Weizsäcker and Ribbentrop during the summer of 1939— dispatches from which Stalin and Molotov could obviously draw

certain conclusions.

I have also, in writing this book, made use of not only a number of general Soviet

histories of the war (none of them very satisfactory) but also of a wide range of

monographs on various episodes of the war (some, particularly those on Leningrad, are excellent), and an even greater number of personal reminiscences by generals, partisan leaders, etc. Of these books, hundreds of which have appeared, especially since 1958. I give as detailed a list as possible. On the other hand, in listing Western books pertaining to the immediate pre-war period and the war years in Russia, I have confined myself to only some of the most important titles. The same applies to German books on the war in the Soviet Union.

DIPLOMATIC AND OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

Correspondence between the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (Stalin) and the Presidents of the United States (Roosevelt and Truman) and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain (Churchill and Attlee) during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. 2

vols. Moscow, 1957.

Documents of British Foreign Policy 1919-39. London, 1947 and after.

Documents of German Foreign Policy. Series D. 1937-45. 10 vols. Washington, 1957.

Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSR, vols. 1-4. Moscow, 1957, publication continuing.

Dokumenty i materialy kanuna vtoiroi mirovoi voiny. vol. II. Arkhiv Dircksena. Moscow, 1948.

Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers. The Conference of Berlin.

Washington, 1946.

Le Livre Jaune Français. Documents diplomatiques. Paris, 1939.

Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-41. Washington, 1948.

Sovetsko-Frantsuskie otnosheniya vo vremia Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny. Dokumenty i materialy. Moscow, 1959.

Sovetsko-Chekhoslovatskie otnosheniya vo vremia Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny.

Dokumenty i materialy. Moscow, 1960.

Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy (1917-41), selected and edited by J. Degras. 3 vols.

London, 1948-53.

Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskogo Soyuza v period Otechestvennoi Voiny. 3 vols. Moscow, 1946-7.

Vneshnyaya Politika Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1946 g. Moscow, 1947.

The Trial of German Major War Criminals; Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal sitting at Nuremberg, Germany. 23 vols. (HMSO, London, 1946-51), referred to as TGMWC.

STUDIES AND MEMOIRS CONCERNING DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH

THE SOVIET UNION

[Including some general works partly dealing with these.]

Beloff, M., The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1929-41. 2 vols. London, 1947.

Bonnet, G., Fin d'une Europe. Geneva, 1946.

Byrnes, J. F., Speaking Frankly. London, 1947.

Byrnes, J. F., All in One Lifetime. New York, 1958.

Carr, E. H., German-Soviet Relations between the Two Wars. Baltimore, 1951.

Churchill, W. S., The Second World War. 6 vols. London, 1948-54.

Ciano's Diaries. London, 1948.

Coates, W. P. and Z., A History of Anglo-Soviet Relations. 2 vols. London, 1945 and 1958.

Coulondre, R., De Staline à Hitler. Mémoires de deux ambassades. Paris, 1950.

Dalton, H., The Fateful Years 1931-45. London, 1947.

Davies, J., Mission to Moscow. London, 1942.

Deane, J. F., The Strange Alliance. London, 1947.

Eisenhower, D. D., Crusade in Europe. London, 1948.

Feiling, K., The Life of Neville Chamberlain. London, 1946.

Gafencu, G., The Last Days of Europe. London, 1946.

Gafencu, G., Préliminaires de la guerre à l'Est. Paris, 1944.

Gaulle, C. de, Mémoires. 3 vols. Paris, 1954-8.

The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. London, 1948.

Ickes, H. L., The Secret Diary. New York, 1954.

Izraelyan, V. L., Diplomaticheskaya istoriya Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny 1941-45.

Moscow, 1958.

Kennan, G., Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-1941. New York, 1960.

Kennan, G., Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin. New York, 1961.

Leahy, W. D., I Was There. London, 1950.

Maisky, I., Who Helped Hitler? London, 1964.

Namier, L. B., Diplomatic Prelude, 1938-39. London, 1948.

Noel, L., L'aggression allemande contre la Pologne. Paris, 1946.

Potemkin, V. P. (ed.), Istoriya diplomatii, vol. III (1919-39). Moscow, 1945.

Reynaud, P., Au coeur de la mêlée. Paris, 1951.

Reynaud, P., La France a avésu l'Europe. 2 vols. 1947.

Schuman, F. L., Russia since 1917. New York, 1957.

Scherer, A., Le problème des "mains libres à l'Est" (Rev. d'Histoire de la 2e Guerre Mondiale, October 1958), Paris, 1958.

Sherwood, R. E., The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins. 2 vols. London, 1949.

Shirer, W. L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. London, 1960.

Stettinius, E. R., Lend-Lease, Weapon of Victory. New York, 1944.

Stettinius, E. R., Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference. London, 1950.

Taylor, A. J. P., The Origins of the Second World War. London, 1961.

Truman, H.S Memoirs of Harry Truman, vol. I. New York, 1955.

Williams, W. A., The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. New York, 1962.

SOVIET OFFICIAL SPEECHES, ETC.

CPSU Congress reports: 18-yi, 19-yi, 20-yi, 21-yi, 22-oi s'yezd KPSS (Moscow, 1939,

1952, 1956, 1959 and 1961 respectively).

Kalinin, M. I., Vsyo dlya fronta, vsyo dlya pobedy. (Articles and speeches.) Moscow, 1942.

Khrushchev, N. A., The Dethronement of Stalin. (Secret speech at 20th Congress.) Manchester Guardian reprint, Manchester, 1956.

See also February 1946 election speeches by Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Mikoyan,

Andreyev, Zhdanov, Khrushchev, Kaganovich, Beria, Malenkov, Vosnesensky and

others, all published in pamphlet form (Moscow, 1946).

The Red Army To-day. (Speeches delivered at the 18th Congress of the CPS U(B).) (In English.) Moscow, 1939.

Stalin, I. V., O Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine Sovetskogo Soyuza. 5th ed. Moscow, 1945.

Stalin, I.V., Voprosy Leninizma. 11th ed. Moscow, 1940 (contains text of March 10, 1939

speech).

See also Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskogo Soyuza v gody Otechestvennoi Voiny for several speeches and statements by V. M. Molotov and others. 3 vols. Moscow, 1946-7.

Zasedaniye Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 1-aya sessiya. 12-19 marta 1946g.

Stenograficheskyi otchet. 2 vols. Moscow, 1946 and subsequent Supreme

Soviet sessions.

GENERAL SOVIET HISTORIES OF THE WAR

Istoriya Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny Sovetskogo Soyuza. 5 vols. Moscow, 1960-3. (See introduction to Bibliography.)

Platonov, Lieut.-Gen. S. P. (and others), Vtoraya mirovaya voina, 1939-45. Moscow, 1958.

Telpukhovsky, B. S., Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voina Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1941-45.

Moscow, 1959. See also German translation of same book with critical German

introduction and footnotes :

Telpuchowski, B. S., Die sowjetische Geschichte des Grossen Vaterländischen Krieges.

Kritisch erläutert von Andreas Hillgruber und Hans-Adolf Jakobsen. Frankfurt a/M., 1961.

Vorobyov F. D. i Rravtsov, V. M., Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voina Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1941-45. Moscow, 1961.

Vorobyov, V. F. (and others), Boyevoipuf sovetskikh vooruzhennykh Sil. Moscow, 1960.

(This is a popular history of the Red Army since 1918.)

SPECIAL STUDIES, REMINISCENCES AND DOCUMENTS ON THE WAR IN

RUSSIA, INCLUDING SOME GENERAL WORKS PARTLY DEVOTED TO

THE WAR YEARS

Abbreviations:

PR = Partisan and Resistance activity

Mil. = Military

Ec. = Economic and industrial

(a) soviet union

Ampilov, V. i Smirnov, V., Vmalen'kom gorode Lide. Moscow, 1962. (PR)

Armstrong, J. A., Ukrainian Nationalism 1939-45. New York, 1955.

Armstrong, J. A. (ed.). Soviet Partisans in World War II. Madison, Wis.,1964.

Azarov, Vice-Adm. I.I., Osazhdebbaya Odessa. Moscow, 1962. (1941 defence of Odessa.)

Belov, Gen. I. B., Za nanti Moskva. Moscow, 1962. (Battle of Moscow.)

Biryuzov, Marshal S. S., Kogda gremeli pushki. Moscow, 1961. (Mil.)

Bitva za Tulu. Sbornik materialov i dokumentov. Tula, 1957. (1941 defence of Tula.) Bitva za Volgu: vospominaniya uchastnikov Stalingradskogo srazheniya. Stalingrad, 1958. (Stalingrad battle.)

Boiko, F. F., TsitadeV Chernomoriya. Moscow, 1963. (Defence of Odessa, 1941.) Boldin, Gen. I. V., Stranitsy zhizni. Moscow, 1961. (Mil., chiefly on 1941.) Borisov, B., Podvig Sevastopolya. Moscow, 1957.

Borisov, B., Sevastopoltsy ne sdayutsya. Simferopol, 1961. (Both books on 1941-2 siege of Sevastopol.)

Brinsky, A., Po tu storonu fronta. 2 vols. Moscow, 1961. (PR)

Cassidy, H., Moscow Dateline. London, 1943.

Chernov, Yu., Oni oboroniali Moonzund. Moscow, 1959. (1941 battles on Estonian islands.)

Chuikov, Marshal V. I,, Nachalo puti. First edition, Moscow, 1959. Second (revised) edition, Moscow, 1962. (Mil., Defence of Stalingrad.) (English translation of second edition, The Beginning of the Road. London, 1963.)

Dallin, A., German Rule in Russia, 1941-45. London, 1957.

Deborin, A., O Kharaktere Vtoroi Mirovoi Voiny. Moscow, 1960.

Deutscher, I., Stalin: a Political Biography. London, 1949.

Deviatsot dnei. Sbornik. Leningrad, 1957. (Leningrad blockade symposium.)

Direktivy KPSS i sovetskogo pravitel'stva po khozyaistvennym voprosam. Sbornik

dokumentov. Vol. 2, 1929-45. Moscow, 1957. (Ec.)

Djilas, M., Conversations with Stalin. London, 1962.

Dorogoi bor'by i slavy. Moscow, 1961. (Symposium including contribution by Marshal K. K. Rokossovsky.)

Dostizheniya sovetskoi vlasti za 40 let v tsifrakh. Moscow, 1957. (Statistical survey for 1917-57.)

Ehrenburg, I., Voina. 2 vols. Moscow, 1942-3. (Reprinted articles.)

Ehrenburg, I., Lyudi, gody, zhizn. (Series on the war years.) Novyi Mir, Moscow, 1962-3.

Erickson, J., The Soviet High Command. .. 1918-1945. London, 1962.

Fedorov, A. F., Podpolnyi obkom deistvuyet. Moscow, 1958. (PR)

Fedyuninsky, Gen. 1.1., Podnyatuie po trevoge. Moscow, 1961. (Mil., memoirs on 1941

and later.)

Fischer, G., Soviet Opposition to Stalin. Cambridge, Mass., 1951.

Fuller, J. F. C, The Second World War. London, 1948.

Garthoff, R. L., How Russia Makes War: Soviet Military Doctrine. London, 1954.

Glukhov, V. G., Narodnyie mstiteli. Kaluga, 1960. (PR in Kaluga and Briansk areas.) Goure, L., The Siege of Leningrad. London, 1962.

Govorov, Marshal L. A., V boyakh za gorod Lenina. Leningrad, 1945. (Mil., battles in Leningrad area.)

Golovko, Adm. A. G., Vmeste sflotom. Moscow, 1960. (Naval warfare.)

Grossman, V., Gody voiny. Moscow, 1945. (Reprinted war reporting.)

Gvardiya tyla. Moscow, 1960. (Symposium on labour in war-time industry.)

Hindus, M., Mother Russia. London, 1943.

Hindus, M., The Cossacks, the Story of a Warrior People. London, 1946.

History of the CPSU (in English). Moscow, 1960. (The official Khrashchevite history translated by Andrew Rothstein.)

Inber, V. Pochti tri goda. Moscow, 1946. (Leningrad blockade.)

Istoriya VKP(b). Kratkii kurs. Moscow, 1945. (Although this was first published before the war, it continued, throughout the war, to be the standard work on the Party, and was even (wrongly) attributed to Stalin.)

Istoriya Latviiskoi SSR. 3 vols. Riga, 1961. (History of Latvian SSR.)

Iz istorii partizanskogo dvizheniya v Belorussii, 1941-44. Minsk, 1961. (Important symposium on PR in Belorussia.)

Kaftanov, S., Sovetskaya intelligentsiya v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine. Moscow, 1945.

Kalinin, Gen. S. A., Razmyshleniya o minuvshem. Moscow, 1963. (Mil.reminiscenses.) Kamenetsky, I., Hitler's Occupation of the Ukraine. Marquette Univ. Press, 1957.

Karasev, A. V., Leningradtsy v gody blokady. Moscow, 1959. (Leningrad blockade.) Karov, D., Partizanskoye dvidzeniye v SSSR. Munich, 1954. (An anti-Soviet account of the Partisan movement.)

Katayev, V., Katakomby. Moscow, 1945. (PR in Odessa.)

Klimov, I. D., Geroicheskaya oborona Tuly. Moscow, 1961. (1941 defence of Tula.) Kolarz, W., Religion in the Soviet Union. London, 1959.

Kovalev, I. V., Sovetskyi zheleznodorozhnyi transport 1917-47. Moscow, 1947. (Ec, railways.)

Kovpak, A., Ot Putivlya do Karpat. Moscow, 1949. (PR in Ukraine).

Kozlov, I., V Krymskom podpolii. Moscow, 1954. (PR in Crimea.)

Kozlov, V. I., Lyudi osobogo sklada. Moscow, 1959. (PR)

KPSS o Vooruzhennykh Silakh Sovetskogo Soyuza. Sbornik dokumentov 1917-1958.

Moscow, 1958.

Krasovsky, S. A., Zhizn v aviatsii. Moscow, 1960. (Airforce reminiscences.) Kurskaya Bitva. Iz vospominanii uchastnikov. Kursk, 1958. (Kursk Battle symposium.) Kuznetsov, Gen. P. G., Dni boyevyie. Moscow, 1959. (Mil. reminiscences.)

Leonhard, W., Child of the Revolution. London, 1957.

Leningrad v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov. Leningrad, 1944.

Liddell Hart, B. H. (ed.), The Red Army. New York, 1958.

Liddell Hart, B. H., The Other Side of the Hill. London, 1948.

Lin'kov, G. M., Voina v tylu vraga. Moscow, 1939. (PR)

Lipalo, P. O., KPB— organizator i rukovoditeV partizanskogo dvizheniya v Belorussii.

Minsk, 1959. (PR in Belorussia.)

Lipatov, N. P., Chernaya metallurgiya Urala v gody... voiny. Moscow, 1960. (Ec, Urals industry.)

Luknitsky, P., Na beregakh Nevy. Moscow, 1961. (Defence of Leningrad.)

Lyashchenko, V., Karayushchii gorod. Moscow, 1961. (Mogilev PR)

Magidoff, R., The Kremlin and the People. New York, 1953.

Makarov, P. M., Partizany Tavrii. Moscow, 1960. (PR in Crimea and north of it.) Maksimov, S. N., Oborona Sevastopolya 1941-42. Moscow, 1959. (1941-2 defence of Sebastopol.)

Medvedev, D. N., Sil'nyie dukhom. Moscow, 1957. (PR in West Ukraine.)

Medvedev, D. N., Eto bylo pod Rovno. Moscow, 1958. (PR in West Ukraine.)

Mikhailovsky, N. Tallinskii dnevnik. Moscow, 1956. (1941 war in Estonia.)

Mirovaya Voina 1939-45. Sbornik statei. Moscow, 1957. (Symposium on Second World War.)

Monastyrskii, Captain F. V., Zemlya omytaya kroviyu. Moscow, 1962. (Mil., fighting on Black Sea coast.)

Morozov, V. P., Zapadneye Voronezha, yanvar-fevraV 1943 g. Moscow, 1956. (Mil., Spring, 1943.)

Mushnikov, A. N, Baltiitsy v boyakh za Leningrad, 1941-44. Moscow, 1955. (Role of Navy in Battles of Leningrad.)

Narodnoye opolcheniye Moskvy. Moscow, 1961. (Moscow "home guard" in Battle of Moscow: symposium.)

Na rzhevskoi zemle. Kalinin, 1963, (PR and German occupation policy in Rzhev area.) Neustroyev, Lieut.-Col., Put' k Reichstagu. Moscow, 1961. (Battle of Berlin.) Odessa v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine Sov. Soyuza. Sbornik. 3 vols. Odessa, 1951.

(Symposium on Odessa during the war.)

Orlovskaya Oblast' v gody... voiny, 1941-45. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov. Orel, 1961. (Documents, etc., on Orel Province during the war.)

Partizanskie byli. Moscow, 1958. (PR)

Pavlov, D. V., Leningrad v blokade. Moscow, 1959.

Pavlovsky, Major N. A., Na ostrovakh. Moscow, 1963. (1941 war on Estonian islands.) Popel', Gen. N. K., Vtyazhkuyu poru. Moscow, 1959. (Mil., on 1941-2.)

Popel', Gen. N. K., Tanki povernuli na zapad. Moscow, 1960. (Kursk and after.) Pravda o religii v Rossii. (Published by Moscow Patriarchate), Moscow, 1942.

Promyshlennosf SSSR. Statisticheskii sbornik. Moscow, 1957. (Book of industrial statistics also relevant to war years.)

Rotmistrov, Gen. P. A., Tankovoye srazheniye pod Prokhorovkoi. Moscow, 1960. (Mil., Kursk battle.)

Rozanov, G. L., Krushenie fashistskoi Germanii. Moscow, 1953. (Battle of Berlin and end of Nazi Germany.)

Schapiro, L., The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. London, 1960.

Shamko, E., Partizanskoye dvizheniye v Krymu 1941-44. Simferopol, 1959. (PR in Crimea.)

Sirota, F. I., Leningrad, gorod-geroi. Moscow, 1960. (Defence of Leningrad.) Sobolev, L., Dorogami pobed. Moscow, 1945. (Russian advance into Rumania, etc.) Soobschcheniya Sovetskogo Informburo. 4 vols. Moscow, 1942-4. (Selection of official wartime communications.)

Sovetskie partizany. Moscow, 1960. (PR symposium.)

(anon.) I. V. Stalin: Kratkaya biografiya. Moscow, 1942. (Short biography.) Sokolovsky, Marshal V. D. (ed.), Military Strategy. Soviet Doctrine and Concepts.

Introduction by R. L. Garthoff. London, 1963.

Sidorov, Col. V. I., Razgrom nemtsev na Severe. Moscow, 1945. (Defeat of Germans in N. Finland and N. Norway in 1944.)

Stalingradtsy: rasskazy zhitelei o geroicheskoi oborone. Moscow, 1950. (Defence of Stalingrad symposium.)

Suprunenko, N. I., Ukraina v Velikoi Otech. Voine Sov. Soyuza, 1941-45. Kiev, 1956.

Sheverdalkin, P. R., Geroicheskaya bor'ba leningradskikh partizan. Leningrad, 1959.

(PR in Leningrad province.)

Sputnik Partizana. Moscow, 1942. (Partisan handbook.)

Timokhovich, I. V., Sovetskaya aviatsiya v bitve pod Kurskom. Moscow, 1959. (Airforce in Battle of Kursk.)

Treadgold, D. W., Twentieth-century Russia. Chicago, 1959.

Tsessarskii, A., Zapiski partizanskogo vracha. Moscow, 1956. (Reminiscences of a partisan doctor.)

Tyulenev, Gen. I. V., Cherez tri voiny. Moscow, 1960. (Of special interest are his chapters on the Caucasus fighting.)

V boyakh za Orel: Sbornik. Moscow, 1944. (Orel battle 1943.)

Vershigora, P., Reid na San i Vislu. Moscow, 1960. (PR in W. Ukraine and Poland.) Vershigora, P., Lyudi s chistoi sovestyu. Moscow, 1948. (PR in Ukraine.)

VLKSM v tsifrakh i faktakh. Moscow, 1949. (Survey of Komsomol activity, particularly during the war.)

Vodolagin, M. A., Stalingrad v Velokoi Otech. Voine, 1941-43. Stalingrad, 1949.

Vognennom koltse. Vospominaniya uchastnikov oborony Leningrada. Moscow, 1962.

(Symposium on defence of Leningrad.)

Voznenko, V. V. i Utkin, G. M., Osvobozhdeniye Kieva, osen' 1943 g. Moscow, 1953.

(Liberation of Kiev.)

Voznesensky, N. A., Voyennaya ekonomika SSSR v period Otech. Voiny. Mos- cow, 1948. (Ec, survey of war years.)

Vyshnevsky, V., Vboyakh 2a Tallin. Kronstadt, 1944.

V trude kak v boyu: iz istorii komsomolskikh molodezhnykh brigad v gody

Velikoi Otech. Voiny. Moscow, 1961. (Komsomol during the war.)

V'yunenko, N. M., Chernomorski Flot v Velikoi Otech. Voine. Moscow, 1957. (Black Sea Navy in the war.)

Werth, A., Leningrad. London, 1944.

Werth, A., The Year of Stalingrad. London, 1946.

Yarkhumov, V. M., Cherez Nevu {67-ya armiya v boyakh po proryvu blokady

Leningrada). Moscow, 1960. (The 1943 breaking of the Leningrad blockade.)

Yeremenko, Marshal, A. I., NaZapadrwm Napravlenii. Moscow, 1963. (1941 fighting.) Yeremenko, Marshal A. I., Stalingrad. Moscow, 1961.

Yudenkov, A. F., V ognennom koltse. Moscow, 1962. (PR in Smolensk province.) Zamyatin, Col. N. M. (and others), Bitva pod Kurskom. Moscow, 1945. (Mil., analysis of Kursk battle.)

Zamyatin, Col. N. M. (and others), Stalingradskaya bitva. Moscow, 1943. (Mil., analysis of Stalingrad battle.)

(b) Poland

Anders, Gen. W., Katyn. Paris, 1949.

Bliss Lane, A., I Saw Freedom Betrayed. London, 1949.

Bör-Komarowski, Gen. T., The Secret Army. London, 1951.

Gomulka, W., Statyi i rechi. (Russian translation.) Moscow, 1959.

Istoriya Pol'shi, vol. III. Moscow, 1958.

Mikolajczyk, S., The Rape of Poland. London, 1948.

Sudebnyi otchetpo dein ob organizatorakh ... polskogo podpoVya v tylu Krasnoi Armii. . .

rassmotrennomu Voennoi Kollegiei Verkhovnogo Suda Soyuza SSR.

(Record of Moscow trial of Polish Underground—General Okulicki and others—June 18

to 21, 1945.) Moscow, 1945.

(c) FINLAND

Kuusaari, N. and Nitemaa, V., Finlands Krig 1941-45 (in Swedish). Helsinki, 1949.

Lundin, L., Finland in the Second World War. Indiana U.P., 1957.

Mannerheim, Maréchal, Mémoires. Paris, 1952.

Paasikivi, J. K., Statyi i rechi, 1944-56. (Russian translation of articles and speeches.) Moscow, 1958.

Tanner, V., The Winter War. New York, 1955.

Wuorinen, J. (ed.), Finland and World War II. New York, 1948.

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

On ideological, economic and organisational problems during the War much more

information is to be found in newspapers and periodicals than in books.

PRINCIPAL NEWSPAPERS

Pravda, Izvestiya, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vechernyaya Moskva: the Army paper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) and Navy paper Krasnyi Flot Red Navy), besides Leningradskaya Pravda, Radyanska Ukraina (Kiev) and others published outside Moscow.

More specialized papers include Trud (trade unions), Gudok (railwaymen), Uchitelskaya Gazeta (teachers), Literaturnaya Gazeta (part-literary, part-political), Sotsialisticheskoye Zemledeliye (agriculture), Pionerskaya Pravda (children), and the official weekly of the Supreme Soviet, Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR. Some of these more specialised papers appeared once, twice or three times a week. Another bi-weekly was Moscow News (in English). During the war the Russians published a paper in London, Soviet News, and the British a paper in Moscow, Britansky Soyuznik (The British Ally). There were also countless army papers printed locally.

PRINCIPAL PERIODICALS

Bolshevik (renamed Kommunist after the war) the principal ideological journal of the Party; Propagandist (ceased publication in 1946); Bloknot Agitatora; Bezbozhnik (the anti-God paper, ceased publication in July 1941); Kommunisticheskii Internatsional (Comintern journal, ceased publication in 1943); Voyennaya Mysl; Partiinoye

StroiteVstvo; Mirovoye Khoziaistvo i Mirovaya Politika; Voprosy Filosofii; Voprosy Istorii; Planovoye Khoziaistvo; Partiinaya Zhizn; Voina i Rabochii Klass, since 1943, renamed after the war Noyoye Vremya {War and the Working Class and New Times respectively), also published in English and other languages; Literatura i Iskusstvo, etc.

Ogonyok was the principal illustrated journal, and Krokodil the principal satirical journal.

The principal literary monthlies (though published very irregularly during the war) were Novyi Mir, Znamya, Oktyabr, Zvezda (Leningrad); on the theatre: Teatr; on the cinema: Sovetskoye Kino; on music: Sovetskaya Muzyka.

Besides all these, there were, of course, scores of specialized scientific, technical, medical and other journals.

SELECTION OF GERMAN BOOKS ON THE WAR IN RUSSIA

Assmann, K., Deutsche Schicksalsjahre. Wiesbaden, 1951.

Conrad, R., Kampf um den Kaukasus. Munich, 1955.

Dörr, H., Pokhodna Stalingrad (Russian translation). Moscow, 1957.

Einsiedel, H. v., I Joined the Russians. Yale U.P., 1953.

Entscheidungsschlachten des zweiten Weltkrieges (Collected articles). Frankfurt a/M., 1960.

Erfurth, N., Der Finnische Krieg. 1941-44. Wiesbaden, 1950.

Friessner, Gen. H., Verratene Schlachten: die Tragödie der Deutschen Wehrmacht in Rumänien und Ungarn. Hamburg, 1956.

Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries. London, 1948.

Goerlitz, W., Der Zweite Weltkrieg. 2 vols. Stuttgart, 1951.

Goerlitz, W'., Paulus and Stalingrad. London, 1963.

Greiner, H., Die Oberste Wehrmachtführung, 1939-43. Wiesbaden, 1951.

Guderian, il., Panzer Leader. London, 1952.

Halder, F., Hitler als Feldherr. Munich, 1949.

Halder, F., Kriegstagebuch. 3 vols. Stuttgart, 1963.

Heidkamper, O., Witebsk. Kampfund Untergang der 3. Panzerarmee. Heidelberg, 1954.

Hillgruber, A., Die Räumung der Krim. Berlin, 1959.

Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-44. New York, 1953.

Hoth, H, Panzer Operationen. Heidelberg, 1956.

Koller, K., Der Letzte Monat (Luftwaffe). Mannheim, 1949.

Kriegstagebuch des OKW. 4 vols. Frankfurt a/M., 1961.

Lasch, O., So fiel Königsberg. Munich, 1959.

Lüdde-Neurath, W., Regierung Dönitz.. . Göttingen, 1953.

Manstein, E. v., Verlorene Siege. Bonn, 1955. {Lost Victories) Chicago, 1958.

Mellenthin, F. v., Tankovyie srazheniya 1939-45 gg. (Russian translation.) Moscow, 1957.

Philippi, A. und Heim, F., Der Feldzug gegen Sowjetrussland. Stuttgart, 1962.

Pickert, W., Vom Kuban Brückenkopf bis Sewastopol. Heidelberg, 1955.

Redelis, V., Partisanenkrieg. Heidelberg, 1958.

Rohden, H. v., Die Luftwaffe ringt um Stalingrad. Wiesbaden, 1950.

Schröter, H., Stalingrad "bis zur letzten Patrone". Lengerich, 1955.

Schultz, J., Die letzten 30 Tage. Stuttgart, 1951.

Tippeiskirch, K. v., Geschichte des zweiten Weltkrieges. Bonn, 1951.

Vormann, N. v., Tscherkassy. Heidelberg, 1954.

Waasen, H. M., Was geschah in Stalingrad? Wo sind die Schuldigen? Salzburg, 1950.

Weinert, E., Das Nationalkomitee "Freies Deutschland", 1943-45. East Berlin, 1957.

SOME IMPORTANT RUSSIAN LITERARY WORKS WRITTEN DURING OR

SOON AFTER THE WAR

PROSE

Bek, A., Volokolamskoye shosse. Moscow, 1944.

Fadeyev, A., Molodaya Gvardiya. Moscow, 1946.

Gorbatov, B., Nepokoryonnyie. Moscow, 1943.

Grossman, V., Narod bessmerten. Moscow, 1942.

Kazekevich, E., Zvezda. Moscow, 1945.

Kazekevich, E., Vesna na Odere. Moscow, 1948.

Korneichuk, A., Front (play). Moscow, 1942.

Leonov, L., Vnashi gody. Publitzystika 1941-48. Moscow, 1949.

Leonov, L., Pyesy. Moscow, 1945. (Plays, including Nashestviye (The Invasion).) Nekrasov, V., V Okopakh Stalingrada. Moscow, 1946.

Polevoi, B., Povest o nastoyashchem cheloveke. Moscow, 1947.

Simonov, K., Russkie lyudi (play). Moscow, 1942.

Simonov, K., Dniinochi. Moscow, 1944.

Sholohkov, M, Nauka nenavisti. Moscow, 1942.

Sholokhov, M., Oni srazhalis' za rodinu. 1959 (reprint).

Tolstoi, A. N., Polnoye sobraniye sochinenii, vol. 14. Moscow, 1950.

Tolstoi, A. N., Ivan Groznyï, Dramaticheskaya povest'. Moscow, 1945.

Vasilevakaya, V., Raduga. Moscow, 1942.

More recent novels on the war years are too numerous to list, but the most important from a documentary standpoint are K. Simonov's Zhivyie i mertvyie (Moscow, 1958) and Soldatami ne rozhdayutsya (published in Znamya, 1963-4), novels and stories by Yu.

Bondarev, Yu. Nagibin, L. Volynsky, V. Grossman, V. Nekrasov, Yu. German, O.

Bergholz (Dnevnyie zvezdy), B. Polevoi, etc.

WARTIME POETRY

Akhmatova, A., Izbrannoye. Tashkent, 1943.

Aliger, M., Zoya. Moscow, 1942. (Also in form of a play, Moscow, 1943.)

Bergholz, O., Stikhi. Moscow, 1962. (Includes most of her war poems.)

Ehrenburg, I., Svoboda. Moscow, 1943.

Inber, V., O Leningrade, poemy i stikhi. Leningrad, 1943.

Pasternak, B., Zemnoi prostor. Moscow, 1945.

Selvinsky, I., Krym, Kavkaz, Kuban. Moscow, 1947.

Simonov, K., Stikhi. Moscow, 1942.

Surkov, A., Stikhi. Moscow, 1943.

Tikhonov, N., Kirov s nami. Moscow, 1942.

Tvardovsky, A., Vasili Terkin. Moscow, 1942.

Most of the less conventional poetry on the war was not published until after Stalin's death; see, in particular, Literaturnaya Moskva annual, 1955 and 1956, and the Den'

Poezii annual since 1955, particularly that of 1962. These contain much poetry by

"soldier poets" like S. Gudzenko and also many poems, "unpublishable" under Stalin, by older writers like S. Kirsanov, N. Tikhonov, A. Tvardovsky, etc., some of them written during the war.

MUSIC

Music holds an important place in wartime art and propaganda. Of the innumerable

symphonies, oratorios, cantatas, etc., directly inspired by the war the most striking are D.

Shostakovich's celebrated 7th Symphony and the even more poignant (though grossly underrated) 8th Symphony, besides his chamber music, especially his Piano Trio of 1944.

Important are also a number of war-time compositions by N. Myaskovsky, e.g. his

cantata, Kirov s nami. Of S. Prokofiev's principal works written during the war, only his opera War and Peace has an obvious and direct connection with the War.

There was an enormous output of wartime songs, many included in selections like

Krasnoarmeisky pesennik (Moscow, 1942), Pesni by M. Blanter (Moscow, 1942), Pesni by D. and D. Pokrass (Moscow, 1942) and many other later collections.

CINEMA

More important than the feature films produced during the war (mostly historical,

including Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible) are the outstanding documentaries on The German Rout outside Moscow, on Leningrad, Sebastopol and Stalingrad and One Day of War, all produced in 1942. These are not to be confused with the absurd "war films"

produced towards the end of the war or soon after (such as The Third Blow—reconquest of the Crimea—or The Fall of Berlin) the main purpose of which is to demonstrate the military genius of Stalin always coming to the rescue of the flummoxed generals.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

1939

March 10 Stalin's survey of international situation since Munich.

March 15 Germans invade "post-Munich" Czechoslovakia.

March 31 British guarantee to Poland.

April 17 "Litvinov Plan", soon rejected by Chamberlain.

April 27 Hitler denounces Anglo-German naval agreement and non-aggression pact with Poland. No attacks on Russia in his speech.

May 4 Molotov replaces Litvinov as Foreign Commissar.

June 12 Strang goes to Moscow.

July 9 Churchill again urges immediate military alliance with Russia.

August 12 Anglo-French Military Mission arrives in Moscow.

August 20 Hitler's telegram to Stalin.

August 23 Soviet-German non-aggression pact signed.

August 25 Anglo-Polish mutual assistance pact signed.

September 1 Germany invades Poland.

September 3 Britain and France declare war on Germany. Germans sink SS Athenia off Ireland.

September 1 to 9 Germans overrun western Poland.

September 17 Germans reach Brest-Litovsk. Russians invade Eastern Poland.

September 28 Warsaw surrenders.

October 14 HMS Royal Oak sunk at Scapa Flow.

November 30 Russians invade Finland.

December 13 Battle of River Plate; scuttling of Graf Spee (17th) 1940.

1940

February 11 Russians launch decisive attack on Mannerheim Line.

March 12 Soviet-Finnish peace treaty signed.

April 9 Germans invade Denmark and Norway. British troops land in Norway.

May 2 Allies evacuate Namsos.

May 10 Germans invade Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg. Chamberlain resigns.

Churchill becomes Prime Minister.

May 14 Dutch army surrenders.

May 14 German sweep into France begins.

May 21 Germans capture Amiens, Arras and Boulogne.

May 29 to June 3rd Dunkirk evacuation.

June 10 Italy declares war on Britain and France.

June 14 Germans enter Paris.

June 17 Petain seeks Franco-German armistice, signed 22nd.

June 17-23 Russians occupy Baltic States.

June 27-30 Russians occupy Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

Jul 15-21 Ninety German bombers shot down over Britain.

August 11-18 Peak of Battle of Britain.

September 7 First great blitz over London.

September 13-16 Italians cross Egyptian frontier and take Sidi Barrani.

October 7 Germans seize Rumanian oilfields.

November 11 Attack on Taranto cripples Italian navy.

November 12-14 Molotov's visit to Berlin.

December 9 Eighth Army opens offensive in North Africa.

December 18 Hitler finally decides on invasion of Soviet Union (Plan Barbarossa).

1941

January 3 Italians surrender Bardia.

January 30 Eighth Army takes Derna and advances towards Benghazi. Tobruk captured.

February 6 Benghazi captured.

March 11 Lend-Lease Bill signed.

March 28 Battle of Cape Matapan.

March 31 German counter-offensive in North Africa begins.

April 5 Soviet-Yugoslav non-aggression pact signed.

April 6 Germans invade Greece and Yugoslavia; Britain sends 60,000 men to Greece.

April 7 British evacuate Benghazi.

April 13 Germans surround Tobruk and recapture Bardia. Soviet-Japanese non-

aggression pact signed.

April 22 British evacuation of Greece begins.

May 6 Stalin becomes head of Soviet Government. Molotov remains Foreign Commissar.

May 10 Rudolf Hess lands in Scotland.

May 20 German invasion of Crete.

May 28 to June 2. British evacuate Crete.

June 14 Tass communique ambiguously denies danger of German invasion.

June 22 Germany invades Soviet Union.

June 28 Germans capture Minsk, capital of Belorussia and large parts of Lithuania,

Latvia and Western Ukraine.

July 3 Stalin's broadcast to the Russian people.

July 12 Anglo-Soviet mutual assistance agreement signed.

July 14 Germans reach Luga river on way to Leningrad.

July 16 Germans reach Smolensk on way to Moscow.

July 25 Germans capture Tallinn.

July 30 Harry Hopkins in Moscow.

August — Germans overrun large parts of Ukraine, capturing Dniepropetrovsk on 17th.

August 30 Germans capture Mga, Leningrad's last railway link.

September 8 Germans capture Schiilsselburg, thus completing Leningrad's land blockade.

September 17 End of "Battle of Kiev" resulting in encirclement of large Russian forces.

September 29 German penetration of Donbas begins. Beaverbrook and Harriman arrive

in Moscow.

September 30 German offensive against Moscow begins.

October 2 Germans capture Orel.

October 6 to 12 Battle of Viazma, ending in encirlement of large Russian forces west of Moscow.

October 12 Germans capture Kaluga.

October 13 Germans capture Kalinin.

October 14-16 Further German advances towards Moscow.

October 16 Height of "Moscow panic". Germans and Rumanians capture Odessa.

October 20 State of siege declared in Moscow.

October 24 Germans capture Kharkov.

October 25 Failure of first German offensive against Moscow.

October 30 Nine-month siege of Sebastopol begins.

November 3 Germans capture Kursk.

November 9 Germans take Tikhvin, thus almost completely isolating Leningrad.

November 12 HMS Ark Royal sunk.

November 6 and 7 Stalins two "Holy Russia" speeches.

November 16 Second German offensive against Moscow begins.

November 18 British offensive in Western Desert begins.

November 19 Germans take Rostov.

November 20 to Dec 25 All-time low in Leningrad rationing.

November 22 Germans break into Klin and Istra.

November 29 Russians recapture Rostov.

December 5 Eden arrives in Moscow.

December 6 Russian Moscow counter-offensive begins.

December 7 Japanese bomb Pearl Harbour, and raid British Malaya.

December 8 Britain and USA declare war on Japan. Japanese air-raids on Guam,

Midway, Philippines and Hong Kong.

December 9 Japanese land on Luzon. Russians recapture Tikhvin, thus saving

Leningrad.

December 11 Hitler declares war on USA.

December 10 HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse sunk by Japanese.

December 15 Russians recapture Klin, Istra and relieve Tula.

December 19 Penang evacuated.

December 24 British recapture Benghazi.

December 25 Hong Kong surrenders.

December 25-30 Russians establish bridgehead in East Crimea.

December 30 Russians recapture Kaluga.

January-March Russian offensive west of Moscow continues.

January 10 Japanese invade Dutch East Indies.

January 11 Japanese take Kuala Lumpur.

January 21 German counter-offensive in Western Desert begins.

January 28 Germans retake Benghazi.

1942

February 1 British forces in Malaya withdraw to Singapore.

February 15 Singapore surrenders.

February 24 US task force raids Wake Island.

February 28 Japanese land in Java.

March 10 Rangoon falls to Japanese.

March 28 Commando raid on St. Nazaire

April 9 Surrender of Bataan.

May 1 Japanese take Mandalay.

May 6 Corregidor surrenders.

May 8 Germans attack in Eastern Crimea.

May 12 Russian offensive opens in Kharkov area.

May 17 German counter-offensive begins; Russian defeat in Kharkov area.

May 20 Germans take Kerch peninsula.

May 26 Molotov signs Anglo-Soviet twenty-year Alliance in London, then visits

Washington. Rommel resumes offensive in Western Desert.

May 30 Thousand-bomber raid on Cologne.

June 3 Battle of Midway Island begins.

June 7 Germans and Rumanians launch final attack on Sebastopol.

June 11 Publication of the "Second-Front" communique.

June 19 British withdraw to Egyptian frontier.

June 21 Rommel takes Tobruk.

June 28 Eighth Army retreats to El Alamein. Beginning of great German offensive in the South.

July 3 Fall of Sebastopol.

July 19 Germans take Voroshilovgrad.

July 28 Germans retake Rostov.

July 30 Stalin's "Not another step back" order to the Army.

August 3 Germans reach Kotelnikovo.

August 7 Americans land in Guadalcanal.

August 11 Fall of Maikop and Krasnodar.

August 12-15 Churchill, Harriman and Stalin confer in Moscow.

August 19 Dieppe raid.

August 23 Germans break through to Volga, north of Stalingrad. 40,000 killed in air-raid on Stalingrad.

August 25 Germans held at Mozdok on way to Grozny and Baku.

August 31 Battle of Alam Haifa begins.

September 3 German breakthrough to Volga south of Stalingrad.

September 13 German all-out attack on Stalingrad begins.

September 24 Most of central Stalingrad in German hands.

October 14-15 Failure of most concentrated German attack on northern Stalingrad

October 23 Battle of El Alamein begins.

November 4 Rommel in full retreat.

November 8 Allied landings in French North Africa.

November 13 Sea battle of Guadalcanal.

November 19 Russian counter-offensive at Stalingrad begins.

November 22 Over 300,000 Germans surrounded at Stalingrad.

December 12-23 Manstein's abortive attempt to relieve Stalingrad.

December 16-20 Rout of Italians on Don.

December 21 Eighth Army reaches Benghazi.

1943

January 2 German withdrawal from Caucasus begins.

January 23 Eighth Army reaches Tripoli.

January 26 Russians liberate Voronezh.

January 31 Paulus surrenders at Stalingrad.

February 2 Final German surrender at Stalingrad.

February 8 Russians take Kursk.

February 14 Russians take Rostov.

February 16 Russians take Kharkov.

March 3-12 Russians liberate Gzhatsk-Viazma-Rzhev triangle.

March 15 Germans recapture Kharkov.

March 29 Eighth Army takes Mareth Line.

April 14 Eighth Army reaches Enfidaville.

April 20 Massacre in Warsaw Ghetto.

April 26 USSR breaks off relations with London Polish Government following Katyn

"bombshell".

May 7 Allies take Tunis and Bizerta.

May 11 US troops land on Attu, Aleutian Islands.

May 12 German Army in Tunisia surrenders.

May 22 Comintern dissolved.

June 29 US forces land in New Guinea.

July 5 Battle of Kursk begins.

July 10 Allies land in Sicily.

July 12-15 Russian counter-offensive against Orel salient begins.

July 26 Mussolini falls from power.

August 5 Russians take Orel and Belgorod.

August 16 Americans enter Messina.

August 23 Russians retake Kharkov.

August 27 Japanese evacuate New Georgia Island.

August 30 Taganrog recaptured.

August 31 Glukhov recaptured.

September 3 Allies invade Italy.

September 8 Russians liberate Donbas.

September 10 Mariupol taken.

September 16 Novorossisk taken.

September 25 Smolensk taken.

September 30 Fifth Army takes Naples.

October 7 Russians clear the Taman Peninsula; Dnieper forced.

October 13 Italy declares war on Germany.

October 14 Zaporozhie recaptured.

October 18 Foreign Ministers' conference opens in Moscow.

October 19 Germans in Italy retire from Volturno river.

October 25 Dnepropetrovsk recaptured.

November 1 Americans land on Bouganville in Solomons.

November 4 Eighth Army takes Isernia.

November 6 Russians recapture Kiev.

November 12 Bridgehead established across the Sangro. Russians take Zhitomir.

November 19 German counter-offensive retakes Zhitomir.

November 20 Americans land on Tarawa and Makin Islands.

November 28 Teheran conference begins.

December 7 Fifth Army take Monte Camino.

December 26 Scharnhorst sunk.

1944

January 4 Fifth Army launches attack east of Cassino.

January 27 Leningrad completely relieved.

January 15 Americans complete reconquest of Solomon Islands.

February 17 German rout in Korsun salient in central Ukraine.

February 22 Krivoi Rog taken.

March 4 Russian spring offensive opens in Ukraine.

March 12 Uman recaptured.

March 19 Russians force the Dniester.

April 2 Russians enter Rumania.

April 11 Liberation of Crimea begins.

April 15 Tarnopol liberated.

April 22 Allies land at Hollandia, New Guinea.

May 9 Sebastopol taken.

May 12 Allies in Italy assault the Gustav Line.

May 13 Crimea cleared of Germans.

May 18 Cassino taken.

May 23 Anzio break-out.

June 4 Fifth Army enters Rome.

June 6 Allies invade Normandy.

June 10 Russians begin offensive against Finland.

June 13 First V1 bomb on London.

June 15 First Super-Fortress raid on Japan.

June 19 Americans take Saipan.

June 20 Viborg taken by Russians.

June 23 Russians begin offensive in Belorussia.

June 23-28 Germans encircled at Vitebsk and Bobruisk.

June 27 Cherbourg captured.

July 3 Russians take Minsk. About 100,000 Germans captured.

July 6 Russians take Kovel.

July 9 Caen captured.

July 13 Vilno captured.

July 18 Rokossovsky's troops enter Poland. Pskov liberated.

July 20 Attempt to assasinate Hitler.

July 23 Lublin taken.

July 25 Americans break through at St. Lo.

July 28 Brest Litovsk taken.

July 31 Russians reach outskirts of Praga, opposite Warsaw. Avranches entered.

August 1 Beginning of Warsaw Rising.

August 11 Eighth Army reaches Florence.

August 15 Allies land in south of France.

August 16 Americans near Chartres and Dreux.

August 20 Russians begin offensive in Bessarabia and Rumania.

August 23 King Michael of Rumania interns Antonescu and forms new "peace

Government.

August 25 Paris liberated.

August 26 Eighth Army opens attack in Adriatic sector.

August 30 Russians enter Bucharest and Ploesti.

September 3 British reach Brussels. Americans reach Mons.

September 4 Antwerp liberated. Cease-fire on Finnish Front.

September 5 Russians declare war on Bulgaria.

September 8 First V2 lands in Britain.

September 9 Russians invade Bulgaria.

September 10 Russians capture Praga.

September 11 Americans cross German frontier near Trier.

September 12 Rumanian armistice signed.

September 17 Arnhem battle begins.

September 19 Finnish armistice signed.

September 28 Calais liberated.

September 29 Russians enter Yugoslavia.

October 2 Surrender of underground forces in Warsaw.

October 9 Churchill arrives in Moscow.

October 19 Americans land in Philippines.

October 20 Russians and Yugoslavs enter Belgrade.

November 1 British land on Walcheren Island.

November 12 Tirpitz sunk.

November 24 Strasbourg captured.

December 2 De Gaulle arrives in Moscow.

December 5 Allies take Ravenna

December 16 German offensive in the Ardennes begins.

December 18 North Burma cleared of Japanese.

December 27 Russians surround Budapest.

1945

January 3 Americans counter-attack Ardennes salient.

January 12 Great Russian offensive begins in Poland.

January 17 Russians take Warsaw.

January 19 Cracow captured.

January 20 Tilsit captured. Hungarian "Debrecen" Government signs armistice, January 23 Russians reach the Oder.

January 29 Russians encircle Poznan.

February 3 Allies capture Colmar.

February 4 Yalta conference opens.

February 5 Americans enter Manila. British and Canadians open offensive to reach the Rhine.

February 9 Königsberg almost surrounded.

February 10 Elbing captured.

February 13 Budapest falls.

February 19 Americans land on Iwojima.

February 23 Poznan taken.

March 7 Cologne captured.

March 13 Allies command west bank of Rhine.

March 23 Rhine crossed.

March 29 Russians cross Austrian frontier.

March 30 Danzig captured.

April 1 Americans invade Okinawa.

April 5 Osnabrück captured.

April 9 Königsberg surrenders.

April 9 Allies begin final offensive in Italy.

April 10 Hanover captured.

April 12 Death of President Roosevelt. Eighth Army cross the Santorno.

April 13 Russians take Vienna.

April 16 Final Russian Berlin offensive starts.

April 19 Americans take Leipzig.

April 21 Allies take Bologna.

April 23 Russians reach Berlin. Allies reach the Po.

April 27 Genoa and Verona taken. American and Russian forces meet at Torgau.

April 30 Hitler's suicide.

May 1 Surrender of German Army on Italian front.

May 2 Berlin surrenders to Russians.

May 4 Allies reach Trieste. Rangoon taken.

May 7 Jodl signs unconditional surrender at Eisenhower's H.Q. at Reims.

May 8 "V.E." Day. Keitel signs surrender at Zhakov's H.Q. near Berlin.

May 9 Russians take Prague. Victory Day in Soviet Union.

May 21 Organised resistance ends in Okinawa.

July 17 Potsdam conference begins.

August 6 Atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

August 8 Soviet Union declares war on Japan.

August 9 Atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Russian invasion of Manchuria begins.

August 14 Japanese agree to surrender.

September 2 Japan signs capitulation on board USS Missouri.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks are due to the following publishers for permission to quote from copyright

works :

Jonathan Cape Ltd., and Doubleday & Co. Inc., for Roosevelt and the Russians by E. R.

Stettinius, copyright 1949 by the Stettinius Fund Inc.

Cassell & Co. Ltd., and Houghton Mifflin Co. Inc., for The Second World War by Sir Winston Churchill,

Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd., and Harper & Row, for The White House Papers of Harry L.

Hopkins, edited by R. E. Sherwood.

Michael Joseph Ltd., and E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., for Panzer Leader by General H.

Guderian.

Macmillan & Co. Ltd., and The St. Martin's Press Inc., for German Rule in Russia by Alexander Dallin.