Russia at war 1941-1945

ALEXANDER WERTH

RUSSIA AT WAR 1941-1945

NEW YORK

E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC.

1964

ALSO BY ALEXANDER WERTH:

France in Ferment (1934)

The Destiny of France (1937)

France and Munich: Before and After the Surrender (1939)

The Last Days of Paris (1940)

The Twilight of France (1942)

Moscow '41 (1942)

Leningrad (1944)

The Year of Stalingrad (1946)

Musical Uproar in Moscow (1949)

France 1940-1955 (1956)

The Strange History of Pierre Mendès-France (1957)

America in Doubt (1959)

The de Gaulle Revolution (1960)

The Khrushchev Phase (1961)

Copyright, ©, 1964 by Alexander Werth. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast.

To the Memory of

MITYA KHLUDOV

aged 19

Killed in Action

in Belorussia

July 1944

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART ONE

PRELUDE TO WAR

I Russia's 1939 Dilemma

II The Soviet-German Pact

III The Partition of Poland

IV From the Finnish War to the German Invasion of France

V Russia and the Fall of France—Baltic States and Bessarabia

VI Russia and the Battle of Britain: a Psychological Turning-Point?

VII Display of Russian Military Might—Molotov's Tragi-comic Visit to Berlin

VIII " 1941—it will be a Happy New Year"

IX The Last Weeks of Peace

PART TWO

FROM THE INVASION TO THE BATTLE OF MOSCOW

I Soviet Unpreparedness in June 1941

II The Invasion

III Molotov and Stalin Speak

IV Smolensk: the First Check to the Blitzkrieg

V Close-Up One: Moscow at the Beginning of the War

VI Close-Up Two: Autumn Journey to the Smolensk Front

VII Advance on Leningrad

VIII Rout in the Ukraine: "Khrushchev versus Stalin"

IX The Evacuation of Industry

X Battle of Moscow Begins—The October 16 Panic

XI Battle of Moscow II. Stalin's Holy Russia Speech

XII The Moscow Counter-Offensive

XIII The Diplomatic Scene of the First Months of the Invasion

PART THREE

THE LENINGRAD STORY

I The Dead of Leningrad

II The Enemy Advances

III Three Million Trapped

IV The Ladoga Lifeline

V The Great Famine

VI The Ice Road

VII Leningrad Close-Up

VIII Why Leningrad "Took It"

IX A Note on Finland

PART FOUR

THE BLACK SUMMER OF 1942

I Close-up: Moscow in June 1942

II The Anglo-Soviet Alliance

III Three Russian Defeats: Kerch, Kharkov and Sebastopol

IV The Renewal of the German Advance

V Patrie-en-Danger and the Post-Rostov Reforms

VI Stalin Ropes in the Church

PART FIVE

STALINGRAD

I Stalingrad: the Chuikov Story

II The " Stalingrad" months in Moscow—the Churchill visit and after

III Russians encircle the Germans at Stalingrad

IV Stalingrad Close-Ups. I: The Stalingrad Lifeline

II: The Scene of the Manstein Rout

V Stalingrad: the Agony

VI Close-Up III: Stalingrad at the Time of the Capitulation

VII "Caucasus Round Trip"

PART SIX

1943: YEAR OF HARD VICTORIES— THE POLISH TANGLE

I The Birth of "Stalin's Military Genius"

II The Germans and the Ukraine

III Kharkov under the Germans

IV The Economic Effort of 1942-3—the Red Army's New Look—Lend-Lease

V Before the Spring Lull of 1943—Stalin's Warning

VI The Technique of Building a New Poland

VII The Dissolution of the Comintern and Other Curious Events in the Spring of 1943

VIII Kursk: Hitler Loses His Last Chance of Turning the Tide

IX Orel: Close-Up of a Purely Russian City under the Germans

X A Short Chapter on a Vast Subject: German Crimes hi the Soviet Union

XI The Partisans in the Soviet-German War

XII Paradoxes of Soviet Foreign Policy in 1943—The Fall of Mussolini—The "Free

German Committee"

XIII Stalin's Little Nationalist Orgy after Kursk

XIV The Spirit of Teheran

PART SEVEN

1944: RUSSIA ENTERS EASTERN EUROPE

I Some Characteristics of 1944

II Close-Up I: Ukrainian Microcosm

III Close-Up II: Odessa, Capital of Rumanian Transniestria

IV Close-Up III: Hitler's Crimean Catastrophe

V The Lull Before D-Day—Stalin's Flirtation with the Catholic Church—"Slav Unity"

VI The Russians and the Normandy Landing

VII German Rout in Belorussia: "Worse than Stalingrad"

VIII What Happened at Warsaw?

IX Close-Up: Lublin—the Maidanek Murder Camp

X Rumania, Finland and Bulgaria Pack Up

XI Churchill's Second Moscow Visit

XII Stalin's Horse-Trading with de Gaulle

XIII Alternative Policies and Ideologies towards the End of the War

PART EIGHT

VICTORY—AND THE SEEDS THE COLD WAR

I Into Germany

II Yalta and After

III June, 1945: Berlin Under the Russians Only

IV The Three Months'Peace

V Potsdam

VI The Short Russo-Japanese War—Hiroshima

Selected Bibliography

Chronological Table

Acknowledgements

MAPS

The Partition of Poland

The Soviet-Finnish War

The Battle of Kiev

The German Offensive against Moscow

Moscow: the Russian Counter-offensive

The Leningrad Blockade

The Leningrad Lifeline

The Black Summer of 1942

The Battle of Stalingrad

The Germans Trapped at Stalingrad

The Russian Winter Offensive 1942-3

The Kursk Battle

The Russian Spring 1944 Offensive in the South

The Russian Summer 1944 Offensive in Belorussia and Poland

The Liberation of Poland and Invasion of Germany

Towards Victory

Folding maps:

The German Offensive 1941-2

The Russian Counter-offensive 1942-5

Endpaper maps:

The USSR

MAPS DRAWN BY FREDERICK BROMAGE

INTRODUCTION

In his speech before the American University in Washington on June 10, 1963—a speech that foreshadowed the Moscow test-ban treaty two months later—the late President

Kennedy said:

Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries (the USA and the Soviet

Union) have in common, none is stronger than the mutual abhorrence of war.

Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with

each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the

Russians suffered in the course of the Second World War.

And he went on to say:

At least twenty million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation's [European] territory, including nearly

two-thirds of its industrial base, were turned into a waste-land.

Some six months later, in a less conciliatory-sounding speech at Kalinin, delivered in the presence of Fidel Castro, Khrushchev thundered against the "imperialists", urged them to clear out of Panama "before they got kicked out", swore that the Soviet Union could defend Cuba from rocket sites on Russian territory, and, with more than usual truculence, declared:

We are building communism in our country; but that does not mean that we are

building it only within the framework of the Soviet borders and of our own

economy. No, we are pointing the road to the rest of humanity. Communism is being built not only inside the Soviet borders, and we are doing everything to secure the victory of communism throughout the world.

But, having got that chinoiserie off his chest, he then declared, with a nod at Peking: Some comrades abroad claim that Khrushchev is making a mess of things, and is

afraid of war. Let me say once again that I should like to see the kind of bloody fool who is genuinely not afraid of war. Only a small child is afraid of nothing, because he doesn't understand; and only bloody fools.

He then recalled that his son, an airman, was killed in World War II, and that millions of other Russians had lost their sons, and brothers, and fathers, and mothers and sisters.

True, for Castro's benefit, he ended on an unusual note of bravado, saying that, although Russia did not want war, she would "smash the enemy" with her wonderful new rockets if war were to be inflicted on the Soviet people.

[ Izvestia, January 18, 1964.]

Which has, of course, to be read in the light of his usual line that it is no use trying to build socialism or communism "on the ruins of a thermo-nuclear war".

In all this there was much play-acting. Significantly, the passage in his speech which the Kalinin textile workers cheered more loudly and wholeheartedly than any other was that about the "bloody fools" who were not afraid of war. Kalinin, the ancient Russian city of Tver, only a short distance from Moscow, had been occupied by the Germans in 1941,

and its older people remembered only too well what it had been like.

Kennedy had spoken of the twenty million Russian dead of World War II. Officially, the Russians have been chary about mentioning this figure; when a speaker mentioned it at a meeting of the Supreme Soviet in October 1959, Pravda omitted it in reporting his speech the next day.

[See the author's The Khrushchev Phase (London, 1961), p. 161.]

But whether the exact number of casualties that Russia suffered in the last war was

twenty million, or a little more or a little less, these appalling losses have left a deep mark on the Russian character, and have, whether we like it or not, been at the root of Soviet foreign policy since the war, both before and after Stalin's death. The Russian distrust of Germany, and of anyone helping Germany to become a great military power again,

remains acute. There is scarcely a Russian family which the German invasion did not

affect directly, and usually in the most tragic way, and if Germany remains divided in two, and we still have trouble over Berlin, it is partly due to the memories of 1941-5.

These are still fresh in every older Russian mind, and the young generation of Russians are constantly reminded by books, films, broadcasts and television shows of what Russia suffered and of how she had to fight, first for her survival, and then for victory.

It would be idle to speculate on what would have happened to Russia, Britain and the United States in 1941-5, if they had not been united in their determination to crush Nazi Germany. It may well have been a "strange alliance" (as it was described by General John R. Deane, head of the American Military Mission in Moscow towards the end of the

war), and its breakdown after the job was done may have been inevitable, despite the formal twenty-year alliance that Russia and Britain had signed in 1942, and other good wartime resolutions. Whatever members of the John Birch Society and other politically certifiable people (to use rny friend Sir Denis Brogan's phrase) may say today about our having fought "on the wrong side", we must still say "Thank God for the Strange Alliance".

For a year, in 1940-1, Britain fought Hitler almost single-handed; and so, in a very large measure, did Russia between June 1941 and the end of 1942; and in both cases the danger of being destroyed by the Nazis was immense. Britain held out in 1940^1; Russia held out in 1941-2. But even several months after Stalingrad Stalin still declared that Nazi Germany could not be defeated except by the joint effort of the Big Three.

Perhaps the young generation in the West knows very little about those days. The French radio recently questioned some young people about World War II, and quite a number of them said: "Hitler? connais pas" When I taught at an American university a few years ago I found that many young students had only the haziest notion of Hitler, Stalin and even Winston Churchill. But do even most adults in the West have a clear idea of how victory over Nazi Germany was achieved? Not unnaturally, Britons have been interested chiefly in the British war effort, and Americans in the American war effort, and this interest has been kept up by the plethora of memoirs by British and American generals.

But these memoirs have, on the whole, tended to obscure the important fact that, in

Churchill's 1944 phrase, it was the Russians who "tore the guts out of the German Army".

It so happened, for historical and geographical reasons, that it was, indeed, the Russians who bore the main brunt of the fighting against Nazi Germany, and that it was thanks to this that millions of British and American lives were saved. Not that the Russians chose to save these lives, and to sacrifice millions of their own people. But that is how it happened and, during the war, both America and Britain were acutely conscious of it. "A wave of national gratitude is sweeping England", Sir Bernard Pares said in 1942; and, even on the more official level, similar sentiments were freely expressed. Thus Ernest Bevin said on June 21, 1942:

All the aid we have been able to give has been small compared with the tremendous efforts of the Soviet people. Our children's children will look back, through their history books, with admiration and thanks for the heroism of the great Russian

people.

I doubt whether the children of Ernest Bevin's contemporaries, let alone the children's children, have any such feelings today; and I hope that this "history book" will remind them of a few of the things Ernest Bevin had in mind.

It should, of course, be added that the Russians were acutely conscious, throughout the war, of the "unequal sacrifices" made by the Big Three. The "little Second Front" (the landings in North Africa) did not materialise until the end of 1942, and the "big Second Front" not till the summer of 1944. The strangely mixed feelings towards the Allies among the Russian people during the war years are one of the recurring themes of this book.

What kind of book is this? It is least of all a formal history of the war. The very scale of the Soviet-German war of 1941-5, directly involving tens of millions and, indirectly, hundreds of millions of people, was so vast that any attempt to write a "complete" history of it is out of the question in one volume written by one man. A number of military

histories of this war have been written by both Russians and Germans; but even the

longest of them, the vast six-volume Russian History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union running to over two million words, and trying to cover not only the military operations, but "everything", is singularly unsatisfactory in many ways. It contains an immense amount of valuable information which was not available under Stalin; but it is overburdened with names of persons, regiments and divisions and an endless variety of military and economic details. It is full of ever-recurring "heroic" clichés; and yet fails completely, in my view, to tell the story of that immense nation-wide drama in purely human terms. It has the failing common to much, though not all, Soviet writing on the war of making practically all Russians look exactly alike. Since this book is about the wair in Russia, it contains, of course, numerous chapters on the main military operations.

But, in dealing with these, I have, as far as possible, avoided entering into any minute technical details of the fighting, which only interest military specialists, and have tried to portray the dramatic sweep of military events, often concentrating on those details—such as the immense German air superiority in 1941-2, or the Russian superiority in artillery at Stalingrad, or the hundreds of thousands of American lorries in the Red Army after the middle of 1943— which had a direct bearing on the soldiers' morale on both sides.

Further, I have tried to treat all the main military events in Russia in their national and, often, international context: for both the morale in the country and inter-allied relations were very noticeably affected by the progress of the war itself. There is, for instance, nothing fortuitous in the intensified activity of Soviet foreign policy after Stalingrad, or in the fact that the Teheran Conference should have taken place not before, but after the Russian victory of Kursk— which was the real military turning-point of the war: more so than Stalingrad which, in the words of the German historian, Walter Goerlitz, was more in the nature of a "politico-psychological turning-point".

This book, therefore, is much less a military story of the war than its human story and, to a lesser extent, its political story. I think I may say that one of my chief qualifications for writing this story of the war years in Russia is that I was there. Except for the first few months of 1942, I was in Russia right through the war—and for three years after it—and what interested me most of all were the behaviour and the reactions of the Russian people in the face of both calamity and victory. In the fearful days of 1941-2 and in the next two-and-a-half years of hard and costly victories, I never lost the feeling that this was a genuine People's War; first, a war waged by a people fighting for their life against terrible odds, and later a war fought by a fundamentally unaggressive people, now roused to

anger and determined to demonstrate their own military superiority. The thought that this was their war was, in the main, as strong among the civilians as among the soldiers; although living conditions were very hard almost everywhere throughout the war, and

truly fearful during some periods—people went on working as they had never worked

before, sometimes to the point of collapse and death. No doubt there were moments of panic and demoralisation both in the Army and among civilians—and I deal with these, too, in the course of my narrative: nevertheless, the spirit of genuine patriotic devotion and self-sacrifice shown by the Russian people during those four years has few parallels in human history, and the story of the siege of Leningrad is altogether unique.

It may seem strange today to think that this immense People's War was successfully

fought under the barbarous Stalin régime. But the people fought, and fought, above all, for "themselves", that is, for Russia; and Stalin had the good sense to realise this almost at once. In the dark days of 1941 he not only explicitly proclaimed that the people were fighting this war for Russia and for "the Russian heritage", thus stimulating Russian national pride, and the national sense of injury to the utmost, but he succeeded in getting himself almost universally accepted as Russia's national leader. Even the Church was roped in. Later, he even deliberately singled out the Russians for special praise, rather at the expense of the other nationalities of the Soviet Union, for having shown the greatest power of endurance, and the greatest patience and for never having lost faith in the Soviet regime—arid, by implication, in Stalin himself. This was one way of saying that, in

fighting for Russia, the Russian people also fought for the Soviet system, which is at least partly true, especially if one considers that, practically throughout the war, the two became extraordinarily closely identified, not only in propaganda, but also in people's minds. Similarly, the Party did everything to identify itself with the Army—except on one occasion, in 1942, when an attempt was made to blame the insufficiently equipped Army for some grave military reverses.

This is not to say that the régime had no major share in the credit for Russia's ultimate victory: but for the vast industrialisation effort that had gone on since 1928, and the tremendous organisational feat of evacuating a large part of industry to the east at the height of the German invasion, Russia would have been destroyed. All the same, many

fearful mistakes had been made, both before the war and at the beginning of the war; and even Stalin admitted it.

In this book, I trace the varying attitudes of the Russian people to Russia, to the régime, and to Stalin himself. Marshal Zhukov, who did not like Stalin, nevertheless paid him this tribute: "You can say what you like, but that man has got nerves of iron." Among the rank-and-file Russian soldiers, Stalin was popular: as Ehrenburg recently put it, "they had absolute, confidence in him." A father-figure or, shall we say, a Churchill-figure was badly needed in wartime and, in spite of everything, Stalin provided it remarkably

successfully. All the same, as will be seen, his standing during the war had a great many ups and downs.

The popular reactions to the régime and to Stalin during the war are, of course, only one of the many aspects of Russian wartime mentality with which I deal in this book. I was also careful to watch people's reactions to the Germans and to the Western Allies. The attitude to the Germans was determined partly by direct experience, and partly by

propaganda lines—often seemingly contradictory lines—adopted by the Party and the

government at different stages of the war. In the course of my story I report on the mounting Russian anger against the Nazis, the near-racialist anti-German propaganda of Ehrenburg and others (a propaganda which was suddenly stopped in April 1945, with the Russians well inside Germany), and the effect of the German occupation on both the

local inhabitants and, later, the victorious Red Army. It is scarcely surprising that many of the Russian soldiers ran wild in Germany after all that the Germans had done in the Soviet Union. And yet the Russians' attitude to individual Germans at various stages of the war was often very far from following the "Ehrenburg" pattern.

Feelings about the Western Allies also varied considerably. The distrust of the West had been so great that the Russians heaved a real sigh of relief in 1941 when they found that Britain had not ganged up with Hitler. But, with things going from bad to worse on the Russian front, the clamour for the Second Front soon started— a clamour which became strident and abusive in the summer and autumn of 1942. Much of this anger was worked up by the Soviet press; but it would have been there, anyway; the Russians were suffering fearful reverses and the Allies "were doing nothing." By the middle of 1943, especially with considerable quantities of Lend-Lease deliveries arriving at the Russian Front, the attitude perceptibly changed, and in the Soviet air force in particular, the Western allies were distinctly popular. Russian airmen were, for instance, greatly impressed by the Anglo-American bombings of Germany. All the same, the "unequal sacrifices" were something of which the Russians were acutely conscious even at the best of times..

Close on twenty years have passed since the end of the war in Russia, and I am perhaps the only surviving Westerner to have lived in Russia right through the war years and to have kept an almost day-to-day record of everything I saw and heard there.

Paradoxically, as far as foreigners were concerned, the war years were by far the most

"liberal" of all the Stalin era. We ranked as Allies, and were treated accordingly—on the whole, very well. In the circumstances, and especially as I speak Russian as a native (I was born in old St Petersburg), I was able to speak freely and informally to thousands of soldiers and civilians. Moreover, as the correspondent of the Sunday Times and the writer of the "Russian Commentaries" for the BBC, read by Joseph McLeod, I was given some exceptional opportunities for travelling about the country and visiting the Front. Some of these trips were made by small groups of about five or six correspondents, but I also often went on solo trips; among the most memorable of these were my stay in blockaded Leningrad, and the ten days spent in the Ukraine at the height of the Konev offensive in March 1944 which swept the Red Army right into Rumania. On all these trips I took

every opportunity of talking to all and sundry; and Russian soldiers and officers, I soon found, were among the most candid and uninhibited talkers in the world. They were

human beings, each with marked individual traits of his own, and were quite unlike the uniform heroic robots that they are often made to look in some of the more official Soviet books on the war. During those trips I also had the opportunity of meeting many famous generals—among them General Sokolovsky at Viazma in the tragic autumn of 1941;

Chuikov and Malinovsky in the Stalingrad area; Rokossovsky in Poland; and, finally,

Marshal Zhukov in Berlin.

In Moscow I got to know personally some of the top Soviet political leaders, particularly Molotov, Vyshinsky and Shcherbakov, but I cannot say that I attempted any serious

Kremlinological studies during the war. At the time all seemed to be going reasonably smoothly inside the Kremlin, especially after Stalin had given the necessary weight and authority to the "new" generals in the autumn of 1941. What we know about Stalin and his immediate entourage during the war comes chiefly from what a few Russians, such as Marshal Yeremenko, and some distinguished foreign visitors, such as Churchill, Hopkins, Deane and Stettinius, have published since the war. There are also the entertaining

Russian minutes of the Stalin-de Gaulle and Bidault-Molotov talks in December 1944. A more sordid picture is provided by some (inevitably hostile) Poles like Anders and

Mikolajczyk. Though this evidence gives us a general idea of how the Russian leadership worked, a detailed account of the inner workings of the Kremlin during the war will not be possible until all the documents and records become available —if they ever do.

[The goings on among the Nazi hierarchy have become public property only because

Germany was defeated and countless documents were captured. This has had, I feel, one bad effect on books on Germany during the war: they have concentrated on the actions of the Nazi thugs, and have told us too little about the reactions of the German people.]

It is most unlikely that they will, because they would show how great was the part played by people whose names are now taboo. But while we do not usually know exactly how

certain far-reaching decisions were taken by the Kremlin, we do know what their effects were.

While I made no attempt to spy on high government spheres, I was, on the other hand, able to observe, day after day, everyday life among Russian workers and other civilians, and the changes of mood among them from the consternation of 1941-2 to the optimism

and elation of 1943 onward—despite countless personal losses and the great hardships that most, though not all, continued to suffer. (The inequality, especially in food

rationing, was one of the most unpleasant aspects of ordinary life in Russia during the war—and, indeed, long after.) I also saw a great deal of writers, artists and other

intellectuals—Pasternak, Prokofiev and Eisenstein among them—and also some very

queer political animals, such as the members of the "Union of Polish Patriots", that foetus which soon emerged from the womb of Mother Russia as the Lublin Committee.

All these contacts with both "important" and "unimportant" people gave me a good cross-section of Russian opinion, with its many nuances, during the various stages of the war—

whether in Moscow, or at the Front, or in the newly-liberated areas—and I do not think it necessary to apologise for having devoted a substantial part of this book to personal observations of the life and moods in the Soviet Union during the war years.

[In the earlier part of this book I have used some of the descriptive material from my earlier books on Russia, particularly The Year of Stalingrad, which are now out of print.]

I even venture to think that they will fill a substantial gap in so much of the more-or-less official Soviet writing on the war.

It would, however, have been quite insufficient to rely entirely on my own observations, however numerous, and on contemporary press accounts, in writing this account of the war years in Russia. During the first few months of the Invasion it was possible to guess a great many things, but it was virtually impossible to explain with any accuracy just why, within two months, the Germans reached the outskirts of Leningrad and, within three-and-a-half months, the outskirts of Moscow. During those months when, in Pasternak's phrase, autumn was advancing in steps of calamity, I shared the general bewilderment and consternation of the Russian people. Much else remained obscure during the war.

Many such obscure points have been clarified by the enormous amount of literature

published in Russia in recent years—since the XXth Congress of 1956 and, more

particularly, since 1959-60 of which I have made a careful study, and which has helped me greatly. Thus, the first volume of the official History of the War, already mentioned, contains, for all its shortcomings, some amazing facts to explain the many military, economic, political and psychological reasons for the unprepared-ness of the Red Army to meet the German onslaught. I have also drawn on some remarkable personal

reminiscences by Russian soldiers, such as Generals Boldin and Fedyuninsky, describing the first days of the war in the Invasion areas. The silence and discretion with which all this was treated in the Stalin days is now at an end. Whether in war histories, memoirs, novels, or even poetry, more perhaps has been written in recent years about those fearful first months of the war than about any other. A novel like Konstantin Simonov's The Living and the Dead [ Published in the United Slates by Doubleday in 1962.] is, in fact, the best, though belated, piece of reporting there is on these months between the Invasion and the Battle of Moscow. Recent Russian books, included in the bibliography at the end of this volume, throw light on many other 1941 disasters, such as the Kiev encirclement, in which the Germans claimed 660,000 prisoners, or the early stages of the Battle of Moscow, including the equally disastrous Viazma encirclement.

Or take Leningrad, that unique story of a city of three million people, of whom nearly one-third died of hunger, but would not surrender. In Leningrad, a book I published in 1944, I gave, in human terms, a full and accurate account of what had happened there during the famine. But I obviously could not, at the time, obtain statistical data, for instance, on the exact amount of food available in the city when the German ring closed round it, or on the exact quantities delivered at various periods across the ice of Lake Ladoga. Today the precise facts are to be found in such invaluable recent books as D. V.

Pavlov's and A. V. Karasev's on the Leningrad Blockade. These are first-class historical documents by any standard.

I have also used dozens of other books recently published on other important episodes of the war—the grim summer of 1942, the tragedy of Sebastopol, the Stalingrad story,

Partisan warfare during the different stages of the war, and so on.

I have also dealt in some detail with the diplomatic story of the war, some of the episodes on which I was able to observe closely. My many talks with Sir Stafford Cripps in 1941, and with Sir Archibald Clark Kerr later in the war, were of great value in throwing light on Anglo-Soviet relations. I also kept in close touch with the U.S. Embassy, and one of my most valuable contacts was the very shrewd M. Roger Garreau, General de Gaulle's

representative in Moscow.

Politically, one of the main strands in this book is the story of Soviet-Polish relations, which were in the very centre of Stalin's preoccupations, and which had important effects on his relations with his allies: first, the crisis culminating in the breach of diplomatic relations with the Polish Government in London in April 1943; then the formation of a Polish Army on Russian soil; the whole lurid Katyn business, then the setting up of the Lublin Committee and the tragedy of Warsaw in the autumn of 1944. It will be seen that, with a few important reservations, and after careful reflection, I tend to agree with the Russian version of Warsaw, but not at all with the Russian version of Katyn—at least pending further information, which is remarkably slow in appearing. Mr Khrushchev has done nothing to clear that matter up.

In short, I have made extensive use of recent Russian books on the war—most of which might be classified as "Khrushchevite", and ipso facto anti-Stalinite. There is, however, a danger in taking all these as gospel truth merely because they are anti-Stalinite. Stalinite history was notorious for its lack of "objectivity", and for its shameless suppression and distortion of historical facts. But the same, to a lesser extent, is often also true of Khrushchevite history. To give a small example. When I saw General Chuikov at

Stalingrad in February 1943, he declared that two members of the hierarchy had been on the Stalingrad Front almost all through the battle—Khrushchev and Malenkov. One

would look in vain in any recent book, even in Chuikov's own extremely candid story, for any mention of Malenkov. Khrushchev's role is greatly magnified in recent histories of the war and much is made of two particular instances (Kiev in 1941 and Kharkov in

1942) when disaster could, allegedly, have been averted if only Stalin had followed

Khrushchev's advice.

Khrushchevite history, like Stalinite history in the past, suffers from sins of omission. As Molotov, Malenkov and Beria were Stalin's closest associates on the State Defence

Committee (i.e. the War Cabinet, as it were), one would correctly assume that they

played a role of the utmost importance in the conduct of the war and the organisation of the war economy; but, except for a few rare references to Molotov as Foreign Commissar and to Beria's "treasonable activities", these names are not mentioned in recent accounts of the war. Similarly, the role of some generals, now in high favour, is magnified, and that of others, notably Zhukov, greatly minimised. In the official History, the fact that Zhukov had anything to do with the defence of Leningrad (which in reality he saved) is merely mentioned in a perfunctory one-line footnote. There are some other flaws in

Khrushchevite history: some crucial landmarks—such as the far-reaching reforms in the Red Army in the summer and autumn of 1942 after the fall of Rostov—are glossed over

completely, though General Malinovsky, whom I saw soon afterwards, attached the

greatest importance to them.

The various changes in the propaganda line, the attitude of the people to Stalin and the Party and the relations between the Party and the Red Army are other topics which

(perhaps not surprisingly) are rarely touched upon in Soviet writings on the war.

Much of the more or less official "Khrushchevite" writing also fails to render the real atmosphere of the war years. Thus, I find that not only my personal notes but also the Soviet press of the Black Summer of 1942, when the Germans were crashing ahead

towards Stalingrad and into the Caucasus, render much more accurately than any official history written today the intense anxiety and exasperation that swept the country. There were days when the tone of the press was frantic and almost hysterical with patrie-en-danger propaganda and, a little later, in its outcry against cowardice, disobedience and incompetence in the Army. (This, as we shall see, was at least partly designed to divert the dismay in the country from Stalin and the government to the Army.)

Despite these shortcomings, recent Soviet books on the war still contain an enormous amount of valuable factual material. I have used this extensively, but not uncritically, and not without a great deal of laborious cross-checking. In many cases I have had to

compare Russian statements and figures with their German counterparts.

Though my story is chiefly concerned with the war years in the Soviet Union, I thought it necessary to deal briefly, in an introductory part, with the 1939-41 period in Russia. After going through the Soviet press of the time and questioning scores of Russians on that period, I have tried to show in these chapters how the post-Munich developments—the

Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations in the spring and summer of 1939, the Soviet-German Pact, the partition of Poland, the war with Finland, the fall of France, the Battle of Britain and the rapid deterioration of Soviet-Nazi relations after Molotov's Berlin visit at the end of 1940 were presented to the Soviet people in their press, and also what a very large number of Soviet people privately felt about it all. I think readers will find some

interesting new facts in this story: the mixed feelings produced by the Soviet-German pact, the great anxiety caused in Russia by the rapid collapse of France, the sneaking sympathy and admiration for Britain (especially among Soviet intellectuals) during the blitz winter of 1940-1, and the great relief, reflected even in Pravda editorials and in Molotov's speeches, at the thought that, after the fall of France, Britain was, with American support, continuing the war and that a German victory was still very far from being a foregone conclusion! Regardless of all the official bluster about the invincibility of the Red Army, anxiety in the country grew very rapidly during the first half of 1941.

Despite all Stalin's and Molotov's absurd attempts after the fall of Yugoslavia and Greece to put off the evil hour by at least a few months or even weeks, they both knew that a showdown with Germany was now inevitable, as seems apparent from Stalin's "secret"

talk to the military academy graduates at the beginning of May 1941. His only hope now was to gain just a little more time. There also seems little doubt that some of the more clear-sighted Russian soldiers already had the possibility—and desirability—of an

Anglo-Soviet alliance at the back of their minds.

In conclusion I wish to express my deepest appreciation to the Louis M. Rabinowitz

Foundation of New York for their generous grant which has helped to meet so many of

the expenses connected with the writing of this book.

My warmest thanks also go to my friend Bobby Ullstein for her frequent good advice and her untiring work on the proofs—which is far more than one normally expects from one's publisher's wife! I also thank my friend John G. Pattisson for his great help in seeing the book through the press.

Finally, I wish to record my special gratitude to John Erickson of Manchester University, our leading authority on the Red Army and author of the admirable Soviet High

Command, for reading the greater part of the manuscript and for making many valuable and helpful criticisms and observations.

A.W.

PART ONE Prelude to War

Chapter I RUSSIA'S 1939 DILEMMA

On May 4, 1939 there appeared in Pravda and in all other Soviet papers a small paragraph entitled:

UKASE OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE SUPREME SOVIET ON THE

APPOINTMENT OF V. M. MOLOTOV AS PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR OF

FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE USSR.

It read:

The Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR

V. M. Molotov is appointed People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs. The two

functions are to be exercised concurrently.

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR:

M. Kalinin

Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR:

A. Gorkin

There was no mention of Maxim Litvinov, who had resigned on the previous day "at his own request" and whom Molotov had so abruptly replaced at the head of Soviet

diplomacy, or of any other post he had been given instead. The small news item caused a sensation throughout the world, where it was interpreted as the end of an epoch.

Hitler himself, at the famous military conference of August 22, 1939—the day before the signing of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact and barely ten days before the

invasion of Poland—declared to his generals: "Litvinov's dismissal was decisive. It came to me like a cannon shot, like a sign that the attitude of Moscow towards the Western Powers had changed."

This, like countless other statements to the effect that the dismissal of Litvinov and his replacement by Molotov meant a "decisive" change in Soviet foreign policy, is much too simple. The most that can be said is that the ukase of the Supreme Soviet of May 3

marked the official end of the "Litvinov epoch"; but this had, in fact, been petering out over a very long period, especially since Munich in September 1938, a settlement from which the Russians had been ostentatiously excluded.

The gravest doubts about the success of Litvinov's collective security and League of Nations policy existed in Russia for a long time. In fact, it is wrong to describe this policy as "Litvinov's" policy. He was pursuing a policy laid down and approved by the Soviet Government and the Party, and the personal factor mattered only in so far as he pursued this policy with great conviction, enthusiasm and determination. But, all along, he had found the results deeply disappointing and frustrating. For only a short period in 1934 did the French think in terms of a Grand Alliance against Nazi Germany, comprising France's allies (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Yugoslavia), Britain and the Soviet Union.

This was when Louis Barthou was Foreign Minister. Britain was, however, less than

lukewarm towards the Barthou plan, and so was Poland.

After Barthou's assassination in October 1934 he was replaced at the Quai d'Orsay by Pierre Laval, whose greatest ambition was an alliance with Mussolini's Italy and some kind of agreement with Nazi Germany. If, in 1935, he signed a mutual assistance pact with the Soviet Union, it was chiefly for tactical and domestic reasons, and the practical value of this pact was not rated highly either in France or in Russia. For one thing the French were reluctant to follow up the pact with a military convention.

In March 1936 came Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland; and France's failure to react clearly suggested to the Russians that France could scarcely be depended upon to abide by her alliances with Poland and the Little Entente countries. There was going to be a widening gulf between France's official foreign policy and her military possibilities once the Rhineland had been occupied and fortified by Hitler.

And who, during those years, had been the men in charge of British policy? Ramsay

MacDonald, Sir John Simon, who gave Mussolini a free hand in Abyssinia at the Stresa conference in 1935; then Baldwin and Simon who had discouraged any French action in

response to the Rhineland coup; then Samuel Hoare of the Hoare-Laval Plan; then Chamberlain and Halifax. Appeasement had, in varying degrees, become the official

policy of both Britain and France—appeasement over the Rhineland coup, appeasement over Spain, appeasement over Austria and Czechoslovakia. Munich had been the ultimate triumph of the appeasement policy. In Britain, the few sincere critics of this policy—

notably Anthony Eden—had been swept aside, and Churchill was little more than a voice crying in the wilderness. In France things were no better. At the end of 1937, the well-meaning but wholly ineffectual Yvon Delbos, who had been Foreign Minister since the

formation of Léon Blum's Popular Front Government in June 1936, went on a long tour

through Eastern Europe—he visited Warsaw, Belgrade, Bucharest and Prague—but only

to find that France's system of alliances had fallen to ruins since the Rhineland coup, with the Czechs alone still pathetically believing that France would come to their help if Germany attacked them. Significantly Delbos failed to include Moscow in his tour.

Before long the arch-appeaser Georges Bonnet became the head of French diplomacy.

When after Munich Bonnet welcomed Ribbentrop to Paris in December 1938, he did not

officially (as has sometimes erroneously been suggested) give Germany "a free hand in the East". Nevertheless the half-heartedness with which France's "special relations with third powers" were referred to, the extremely ambiguous statements Bonnet made a week later before the Foreign Affairs committee of the Chamber about France's commitments vis-à-vis Poland, Rumania or the Soviet Union, and above all, the press campaign launched with official blessing, in influential papers like Le Matin and Le Temps, in favour of lunatic schemes such as the formation of a "Greater Ukraine" under the rule of German stooges like Biskupsky and Skoropadsky, left very little doubt about the

overtones of the Bonnet-Ribbentrop "friendship talks".

[See the author's France and Munich: Before and After the Surrender (London, 1939), pp. 384-91.]

When, during the following summer, Bonnet proceeded to "warn" Germany, Ribbentrop did not fail to point out that in December 1938 Bonnet had shown no desire to interfere with either German designs on Danzig or with German interests in the East generally.

The idea of a "Greater Ukraine" had certainly not been a brainwave of the French or British "appeasers". Hitler had been playing with this idea for some weeks after Munich; soon, however, he realised that if his plans for a "Greater Ukraine" were to be pursued further at this stage it might result in a rapprochement between Russia, Poland and Rumania.

[Robert Coulondre, De Staline à Hitler (Paris, 1950), pp. 251-3.]

In January 1939 he told Beck that he had lost interest in the Ukraine. But the very fact that such a scheme had been considered and applauded by influential sections of the

French (and British) press, was, of course, not lost on Stalin, and his suspicions of some deal between London, Paris and Berlin inevitably grew during the winter of 1938-9.

Even at this stage, however, Stalin continued to distinguish carefully between the

"aggressive" powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) and the "non-aggressive" powers (France, Britain, USA), although he deplored the latters' weakness and gutlessness—as he was to make very clear in his Report to the 18th Congress of the Communist Party on March 10, that is, five days before the German march into Prague, which put an end to the

precarious "peace in our time" after barely six months.

That winter of 1938-9 was an uneasy winter in Russia. True, the Purges had been largely discontinued by the end of 1938, but thousands had been sent to exile or to labour camps; and many—no one could tell how many—had been shot. At the Lenin Commemorative

Ceremony at the Bolshoi Theatre on January 21, 1939, Yezhov, Stalin's No. 1

executioner, was still to be seen amongst the top Party and Army leaders—Stalin, Beria, Mikoyan, Kaganovich, Shcherbakov, Andreyev, Kalinin, Shkiriatov, Malenkov,

Molotov, Budienny, Mekhlis, Zhdanov, Voroshilov, and Badayev. It was to be Yezhov's

last public appearance.

Now, at the end of the Second Five-Year Plan, living—though not housing—conditions

in Russia, and particularly in Moscow, had greatly improved. Stalin's zhit' stalo legche, zhit' stalo veselei—"life has become easier, life has become more cheerful"—had become the country's official slogan. Trivial musical comedies, operettas and comic films were in vogue. Popular song writers like Pokras, Blanter and Dunaevsky were at the height of their fame; Blanter had just composed his famous Katyusha (which was, alas, to become one of the favourite soldiers' marching songs in 1941) and Dunaevsky his Shiroka strana moya rodnaya (Vast is my Country) with the more than incongruous line "I know of no other country where man breathes so freely". (This at the height of the Purges!) Alongside popular slapstick comic films like Volga-Volga starring Lubov Orlova, a sort of Soviet Gracie Fields, and illustrating how cheerful life had become in the Soviet Union under the "Sun of the Stalin Constitution", there were the patriotic films, among them Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky—showing what would happen to the descendants of the villainous Teutonic Knights if they ever dared invade Holy Russia. Another famous film, Doctor Mamlock, denounced Hitler's persecution of the Jews.

More or. less consciously everybody was aware of the Nazi danger. There was an uneasy feeling that everywhere in the world the "aggressors" were having it their own way—

except where they dared touch the Soviet Union and her Mongolian ally, as Japan had

done at Lake Hassan only a few months before. But Japan, Italy and Germany were

becoming increasingly arrogant, and throughout that winter the news from Spain was

more and more depressing despite the meaningless assurances in Pravda that "the Spanish people would not lay down their arms until final victory". At the beginning of January, Colonel Beck, Poland's strong man, was on his way to Berchtesgaden to see

Hitler. Had Russia any friends, a few wondered on the quiet—except, of course, gallant little Mongolia?

No wonder that in those days people looked to the Army for protection and that for

example some women ace-fliers like Valentina Grizodubova, Polina Osipenko and

Marina Raskova became popular idols. When in May 1939 one of them, Polina

Osipenko, and the ace-flier Serov were killed in an air-crash, it was like a day of national mourning; they were given a public funeral in Red Square, and the pall-bearers included Stalin, Molotov, Beria and other leaders.

Every opportunity was taken to glorify the Armed Forces of the Soviet homeland,

though, as some observers later recalled, all this was a little like whistling in the dark; below all the bluster about the invincibility of the Red Army there was a good deal of anxiety. On January 1, 1939, in its New Year's Day editorial, Pravda recalled a recent warning by Stalin himself: "We must be ready at any moment to repel an armed attack on our country, and to smash and finish off the enemy on his own territory."

Significantly, at the Lenin Commemorative Ceremony on January 21, 1939, a large part of the long address delivered by Shcherbakov was devoted to the Red Army:

The Socialist Revolution has triumphed in one country. The Socialist State is

encircled by the capitalist world, and this encirclement is only waiting for an

opportunity to attack our state. In such conditions there can, of course, be no

question of any withering-away of the State...In 1919 our Party programme

provided for the transformation of the Red Army into a People's Militia. But

conditions have changed, and we cannot build up a mighty army on a militia basis.

In these conditions our Party and our Government have built up a mighty Red

Army and Red Navy, and a mighty armaments industry, and have lined with steel

and concrete the frontiers of this land of triumphant socialism. The Soviet Union, which was weak and unprepared for defence, is now ready for all emergencies; it is capable, as Comrade Stalin said, of producing modern weapons of defence on a

mass scale, and of supplying our Army with them in the event of a foreign attack.

The Party and the Government are maintaining our people in a state of military

preparedness, and no enemy can catch us unawares.

Shcherbakov recalled how, only a few months before, "the Japanese Samurai had felt on their own skin the might of Soviet arms; there, at Lake Hassan, where the Japanese

militarists had tried to provoke us into war, our air force and artillery turned the Japanese guns into litter and their pillboxes into dust".

This clash with the Japanese had, in fact, been the Red Army's only real experience of war for many years past, and it was, a little rashly, being held up as a stern warning to all other aggressors. At the same time, there still seemed to be a certain muddleheadedness about modern warfare—an attitude curiously reminiscent of certain French military

theorists at the time, who pooh-poohed the concept of the blitzkrieg. Thus Pravda wrote on February 6, 1939, in connection with the twentieth birthday of the Frunze Military Academy:

In the land of triumphant socialism, the working class, under the leadership of the Party of Lenin and Stalin, is building up new military concepts. Following the

directives of the Party and Comrade Stalin, the Frunze Academy has discarded a

good number of old fetishes, cast aside quite a few mouldy traditions, and liquidated the enemies of the people who had tried to interfere with the training of Bolshevik military cadres devoted to the Party.

Was this intended as a nebulous reference to Tukhachevsky and the thousands of other purges of the Red Army? Anyway, Stalin and the present Red Army leadership knew

best:

Military thought in the capitalist world has got into a blind alley. The dashing

"theories" about a lightning war ( blitzkrieg), or about small select armies of technicians, or about the air war which can replace all other military operations—

all these theories arise from the bourgeoisie's deathly fear of the proletarian

revolution. In its mechanical way, the imperialist bourgeoisie overrates equipment and underrates man.

This debunking of the blitzkrieg and the primary reliance on "man" seems, looking back on it, about as incongruous as the alleged deadly fear of the "proletarian revolution" by which Hitler in particular was supposed to be obsessed.

*

It went on like this almost day after day during that winter of 1938-9. "The Red Army is Invincible," Pravda wrote on Red Army Day, February 23, 1939, and E. Shchadenko, Deputy Commissar for Defence, declared that, under the leadership of Comrade

Voroshilov, the Red Army was ready to "answer any attack by the militarists with a smashing blow of treble force". N. S. Khrushchev also joined in this chorus exalting the invincibility of the Red Army. Below a large picture of Khrushchev, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Pravda of March 4, 1939

published this message to Stalin from the Party Conference of the Kiev province:

The Kiev Party Organisation has spared no effort to turn the province of Kiev into an impregnable advance post of Soviet Ukraine. We are living here in a frontier

zone, on the border of two worlds... The Fascist warmongers have not ceased to

think of attacking Soviet Ukraine. We swear to you, dear Comrade Stalin, that we

shall always be in a state of military preparedness, and shall be fully capable, with all the strength of Soviet patriotism, of dealing with any enemies and of wiping them off the face of the earth... Under the guidance of your closest brother-in-arms, N. S.

Khrushchev, the Bolsheviks of the Kiev Zone will carry out with honour the tasks

with which they have been entrusted... Long live our wise leader and teacher, the genius of mankind, the best friend and father of the Soviet people, great Stalin!

Only a few days later a patriotic speech on the same lines was made by Khrushchev at the unveiling of the Kiev monument of Shevchenko, the Ukraine's national poet, ending with

"Long live he who is leading us from victory to victory, our dearly beloved friend and teacher, the great Stalin."

[ Pravda, March 7, 1939.]

The references to Kiev, both in the Kiev Party Organisation's address to Stalin and in Khrushchev's speech, as a "frontier zone" threatened by the "Fascists" are typical of the nervousness that existed in Russia at the time about Hitler's designs, despite all the bluster about "invincibility" and "impregnability". The press campaigns in the West (especially in France) about a "Greater Ukraine" which was to be detached from the Soviet Union and was to provide Germany with her much-needed Lebensraum, had clearly caused a profound impression in Russia. It was to be one of the principal themes in Stalin's survey of the international situation in his Report to the 18th Congress of the Communist Party which opened in Moscow on March 10.

The "personality cult", as we would now say, was at its height. On the opening day of the Congress, Pravda published a poem by Djambul, the veteran Kazakh bard, aged nearly a hundred:

Tenderly the sun is shining from above,

And who cannot but know that this sun is—you?

The lapping waves of the lake are singing the praises of Stalin,

The dazzling snowy peaks are singing the praises of Stalin,

The meadow's million flowers are thanking, thanking you;

The well-laden table is thanking, thanking you.

The humming swarm of bees is thanking, thanking you.

All fathers of young heroes, they thank you, Stalin, too;

Oh heir of Lenin, to us you are Lenin himself;

Beware, you Samurai, keep out of our Soviet heaven!

Perhaps the only excuse for publishing this rubbish was that it had a "folklorish" and

"exotic" flavour, and was the work of an illiterate old Asiatic. Even so, many members of the Congress must, on the quiet, have thought it frivolous and inappropriate to splash this kind of thing over the front page of Pravda on so solemn and serious an occasion. For Stalin's foreign policy statement was awaited with both eagerness and a touch of anxiety.

It should be remembered that Europe was already full of danger signals and that the

Congress opened, and that Stalin's report was delivered, five days before the German march into Prague.

Stalin divided the capitalist powers into "aggressive" powers and "non-aggressive"

powers, but suspected the latter of wanting "others to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them", suggesting that they might not be averse to seeing the Soviet Union involved in a war with the "aggressors". He dealt in some detail with the economic crisis in the capitalist world, a crisis which had begun in 1929, and which, since then, had only been partly overcome by the armaments race. Stalin said that the grabbing of Manchuria and Northern China by Japan and the Italian invasion of Abyssinia already pointed to the acute struggle among the Powers. With the new economic crisis (since 1937), this

imperialist conflict could not but grow in intensity. It was no longer a case of competition for markets, trade war or dumping. These weapons were no longer considered sufficient.

What Russia was now facing was a redistribution of the world, of spheres of influence and colonies by means of war.

The "have-nots" were now attacking the "haves". Japan now claimed to have been tied hand-and-foot by the Nine-Power Treaty; this had prevented her from enlarging her

territory at China's expense, while Britain and France possessed vast colonial territories; Italy had recalled that she also had been cheated of her share after the first imperialist war, whereas Germany was now demanding a return of her colonies and an extension of

her territory in Europe. In this way a bloc had been formed among the three aggressive powers, and now the question had arisen of a new share-out of the world by military

means.

The new imperialist war, Stalin said, had already begun. Since Italy's capture of

Abyssinia, both she and Germany had organised their military intervention in Spain. In 1937, after grabbing Manchuria, Japan had invaded Northern and Central China, and had driven its foreign competitors out of these new occupied zones; in 1938 Germany had

grabbed first Austria and then the Sudetenland, while Japan had occupied Canton, and, more recently still, Hainan.

After the first imperialist war, Stalin recalled, the victorious powers had created a new international régime of peace; this was based on the Nine-Power Treaty in the Far East and on the Treaty of Versailles and other agreements in Europe. The League of Nations was expected to regulate international relations on a basis of collective security... To give themselves a completely free hand, the three aggressor states had left the League. To cover up their treaty violations, the three aggressor states had proceeded to work on public opinion with the help of devices like the Anti-Comintern Pact. "It was a clumsy game, because it seems a bit absurd to look for Comintern breeding-grounds in the

deserts of Mongolia, the mountains of Abyssinia or in the wilds of Spanish Morocco."

All these conquests were made by the aggressor states, quite regardless of the interests of the non-aggressor states. "This new imperialist war has not yet become a general world war. It is being conducted by the aggressor states against the interest of the non-aggressor states, but these, believe it or not, are not only retreating, but to some extent conniving in this aggression."

It was not, Stalin said, that the non-aggressive, democratic countries were weak; both economically and militarily these countries, taken together, were stronger than the Fascist countries; why then were they behaving in this odd way? It might, of course, be argued that they were afraid of the revolution that would follow a new war; but this was by no means the chief reason for their behaviour:

The real reason is this: the majority of the non-aggressive states, and in the first place Britain and France, have given up the policy of collective security, and have changed over, instead, to a policy of non-intervention, to a position of "neutrality".

On the face of it, this non-intervention policy may be described as follows: "Let every country defend itself against aggressors any way it can or likes; it's got

nothing to do with us, and we shall go on trading with both the aggressors and their victims." But in actual practice non-intervention means connivance in aggression, and encouragement to the aggressors to turn their aggression into a world war...

There is a clear desire there to let the aggressors do their dirty and criminal work—

to let Japan become involved in war with China or, better still, with the Soviet

Union, or to let Germany get bogged down in European affairs, and to get involved in a war against the Soviet Union... And not until all the belligerents have

thoroughly exhausted each other will the non-aggressive powers come forward—of

course "in the interests of peace"—with their own proposals, and dictate their terms to the powers that have frittered away their strength in making war on each other.

A nice and cheap way of doing things!

Was there not a hint that if "they" could play at this game of the fresh-and-bright neutrals dictating their terms to the exhausted belligerents, then why should not "we" play it, too?

Britain and France, Stalin went on to say, had clearly encouraged Nazi Germany to attack the Soviet Union:

They abandoned Austria, despite the obligations to protect her independence; they abandoned the Sudentenland, and threw Czecho-Slovakia to the wolves; in doing so, they broke every conceivable obligation; but after that, their press started its noisy campaign of lies about "the weakness of the Russian Army", the "breakdown of the Russian Air Force", the "disorders" in the Soviet Union... They kept on urging the Germans to go farther and farther east: "You just start a war against the

Bolsheviks, and all will be well."

He then referred to "all the hullabaloo in the French, British and American press about a German invasion of Soviet Ukraine":

They screamed, till they were hoarse, that since Germany was now in control of the so-called Carpathian Ukraine [The eastern tip of Czechoslovakia, also known as Ruthenia.], with about 700,000 people, the Germans would, not later than the spring of 1939, annex to it the Soviet Ukraine with a population of over thirty millions. It really looks as if the purpose of all this highly suspect screaming was to incense the Soviet Union against Germany, to poison the atmosphere, and provoke a conflict

between us and Germany without any obvious reasons. There may, of course, be

some lunatics in Germany who are thinking of marrying off the elephant (I mean

Soviet Ukraine) to the gnat—the so-called Carpathian Ukraine. But let them have

no doubt about it: if there are such lunatics, there are quite enough strait-jackets waiting for them here (stormy applause). .. It is significant that some politicians and newspapermen in Europe and the USA should now be expressing their great

disappointment because the Germans, instead of moving farther east, have now

turned to the west, and are demanding colonies. One would think that parts of

Czechoslovakia were given to them as advance payment for starting a war against

the Soviet Union; and now the Germans are refusing to refund the money and are

telling them to go to hell... I can only say that this dangerous game started by the supporters of the non-intervention policy may end very badly for them.

In any case, Munich had brought no lasting peace. The world today was full of alarm and uncertainty; the post-war order had been blown sky-high; international law and treaties and agreements counted for very little. All disarmament plans had been buried.

Everybody now was arming feverishly, not least the non-intervention states. "Nobody believes any longer in those unctuous speeches about the concessions made to the

aggressors at Munich having started a new era of peace. Even the British and French

signatories of the Munich agreement don't believe a word of it. They are arming as much as the others are."

And Stalin added that, while doing her utmost to pursue a policy of peace, the Soviet Union could not look on impassively while 500 million people were already involved in war; and she had undertaken the task of greatly strengthening the military preparedness of the Red Army and the Red Navy.

Throughout, Stalin recalled, the Soviet Union had pursued a policy of peace. She had joined the League of Nations in 1934, hoping that, despite its weakness, the League could still act as a brake on aggression; in 1935 she had signed a mutual assistance pact with France, and another one with Czechoslovakia; a mutual assistance pact had also been

signed in 1937 with Mongolia, and in 1938 a non-aggression pact with China. The Soviet Union wanted peace; she wanted peace and business relations with all countries, so long as these did not impinge on her interests; she stood for peaceful, close and good-neighbourly relations with all her immediate neighbours, so long as these did not try, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the integrity of her borders; she stood for the support of nations which had become the victims of aggression and were struggling for their independence; she did not fear the aggressors' threats, and would strike with double strength any warmongers who might try to violate Soviet territory. (Long stormy

applause.)

The tasks of the Party in foreign policy were:

1) To pursue the policy of peace and of the consolidation of business relations with all countries;

2) To observe the greatest caution and not to allow our country to be drawn into conflicts by war provocateurs, who were in the habit of getting others to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them;

3) To strengthen in every way the military might of the Red Army and Navy;

4) To strengthen the international bonds of friendship with the workers of all

countries, workers in whose interest it was to maintain peace and friendship among peoples.

On the face of it, in view of what Stalin said of the complete breakdown of "international law" and international treaties, his speech suggested that, in this international jungle, the Soviet Union would be wise to remain in splendid isolation; but in his precise wording he evidently took some trouble not to slam the door in the face of the French and British statesmen. The possibility of a late deal with the West could perhaps still be read into the reference to the Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact. On the other hand he had dwelt far more on the perfidiousness of the "non-aggressor" nations than on that of the

"aggressors", and he had almost gone so far as to congratulate Germany on her wisdom in not having invaded the Ukraine, as "the West" had allegedly urged her to do!

Not without significance were also Stalin's references to Russia's "immediate

neighbours". Had not some suspect negotiations been going on between Germany and some of Russia's "immediate neighbours"? Had Nazi diplomacy not been active in the Baltic states? Had not Beck raised the "question" of the Ukraine with Hitler at Berchtesgaden on January 7, only to be told by the Führer that he no longer regarded the Ukraine as topical.

[ Le Livre jaune français (Paris, 1939), p. 72.]

And the Russians continued to suspect the Finns, who only a year before had celebrated the twentieth anniversary of their liberation from "the Bolshevik yoke" with the help of the Kaiser's army towards the end of the First World War.

Such was the trend of Soviet policy on the eve of the Nazi march into Prague. It was still a wait-and-see attitude; the menace of war was already acute, but it was still not entirely clear what Hitler's next move would be.

The Nazi entry into Prague on March 15 not only put a full stop to Chamberlain's Munich illusions, but put the Soviet Union in a position where a clear choice would have to be made before long. It was already evident from Stalin's speech of March 10 that he was anxious to keep out of it all— unless there was a possibility of stopping the aggressors through at least a partial restoration of "collective security"—which could only mean the conclusion of an anti-Hitler alliance by the "non-aggressive" powers.

*

The German invasion of Czechoslovakia came to Russia as a shock—though not perhaps

as a great surprise. When, on March 15, the blow fell, the Soviet reaction was fairly sharp. In reply to the official German notification that Bohemia and Moravia had been incorporated in the Reich as a "protectorate" and that the statute of Slovakia had been

"modified" (it had been turned into a German satellite under Mgr Tiso), Litvinov sent the German Government a strongly-worded note. In it he recalled the Czechs' right to self-determination and denied the validity of President Hacha's surrender to Berlin. And

Litvinov concluded: "The action of the German Government not only fails to lessen the dangers threatening world peace, but can, on the contrary, only intensify them, shake the political stability of Central Europe... and strike another severe blow at the peoples' sense of security."

The alarm in Moscow was even greater than appeared on the surface. True, the papers

were already full of stories from Prague about "German vandalism in Czechoslovakia"

and about the "Gestapo terror" there—for instance, about a Karl Benes, secretary of the Nieburg Communist Party organisation, having been beaten and tortured to death by the Gestapo (Pravda, April 1, 1939). But there was clearly nothing that the Soviet Union could have done about it at this stage. So attention suddenly shifted to London, Warsaw

—and Lithuania, which had just had Memel "shamelessly extorted" from her by the Germans, as the Soviet press put it.

The Germans in Memel, the Hungarians in Ruthenia, the growing threats against Poland

—all this was getting very near home.

Although the invasion of Czechoslovakia deeply shocked British public opinion,

Chamberlain's own first reaction was mild, judging by his statement in the House of

Commons on March 15. However, the outcry in the country compelled him to strike a

different note in his Birmingham speech on March 17. This time he spoke of his

"disappointment and indignation", and less than a fortnight later, on March 31, he announced the British Government's guarantee to Poland.

This extraordinary decision is perhaps best explained by a particularly well-qualified observer, Robert Coulondre, who was French Ambassador in Berlin at the time: "Without any kind of transition, and with a rashness pointing to his genuine anger, Chamberlain turned a complete somersault. He went from one extreme to the other, and diplomacy,

which is the daughter of wisdom and caution, does not like such extravagant behaviour.

Having been bamboozled by Hitler, Chamberlain was now going to be bamboozled by

Colonel Beck, and was going to ruin a game the outcome of which was of the most vital importance to the cause of peace."

[ R. Coulondre, op. cit., p. 263. (Emphasis added.)]

Immediately after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia the British Government had

turned to the Soviet Union. On March 18 Halifax asked Maisky, the Soviet Ambassador, to call on him, and inquired what the Soviet attitude would be if Rumania became the object of an unprovoked aggression. The Soviet Government promptly replied by

proposing a meeting at Bucharest of the six Powers most directly involved. The British Government rejected this and proposed, instead, on March 21, the publication of a joint Anglo-Franco-Soviet-Polish declaration saying that they would enter into immediate

consultations about any joint action to be taken should the political independence of any European state be threatened. The Soviet Government, though disappointed by the

rejection of its own proposal, agreed to such a declaration, provided Poland was one of the signatories. But on April 1 Chamberlain informed Maisky that he had dropped the

idea.

On March 23, 1939, the Germans had occupied Memel. On that same day, Colonel Beck

replied to the British proposal for a Four-Power Declaration, and argued against it. These multilateral negotiations would be very complicated and take time, and there was no time to lose; he therefore suggested the conclusion of a bilateral Polish-British agreement, without prejudice, of course, to any wider subsequent negotiations. What game was Beck playing? Certainly he was becoming distrustful of Hitler, and wished to strengthen his position by securing a British guarantee. At the same time he had no desire to enter into any sort of "defensive front" with the Russians, as this, he argued, might incense the Germans.

In discussing the matter with Gafencu, the Rumanian Foreign Minister, he put forward the view that Hitler would not attack Poland, so long as the latter had not become

involved with Russia; only a Polish-Russian alliance would produce a German invasion of Poland. "Despite the terrible threat hanging over his country, and despite the lesson of Czechoslovakia, Beck persisted in his more than dubious game of backing both horses."

[G. Gafencu, The Last Days of Europe (London, 1945), pp. 203-4.]

In the House of Commons on March 31 Chamberlain made his famous statement on

Poland. A fortnight later he announced that the guarantee to Poland had been extended to Rumania and Greece. As Coulondre says: "The British Government was now crashing ahead so fast that it even rushed past the station at which it should have stopped. It was enough to look at the map of Europe to see what a serious diplomatic situation it had created. Rumania and Poland practically form a continuous front from the Black Sea to the Baltic, a front separating Germany from the USSR. Germany cannot attack Russia

without going through Poland or Rumania, i.e. without bringing into play the Western guarantee, and without going to war against Britain and France. Thus, without having to commit himself, Stalin secured a Western guarantee in the East which he had sought in vain for ten years... It must now have been clear to Hitler that only by coming to an agreement with the USSR could he dodge that double front the day he decided to attack Poland."

[R. Coulondre, op. cit., pp. 263-4.]

"Would it not have been much wiser"—Coulondre asks—"to stick to the Four-Power Declaration, as proposed on March 21, and, if Beck still refused to sign, to go right ahead with that Anglo-French-Soviet alliance which Churchill was demanding with prophetic

foresight, and which the Russians were then prepared to sign? "

On April 1 the Soviet press prominently displayed Chamberlain's guarantee to Poland, but accompanied the story with an account of the House of Commons debate, in which

Arthur Greenwood asked whether the Soviet Union had been brought into it, to which

Chamberlain replied that discussions were in progress with numerous countries,

including the Soviet Union. Three days later, in connection with Beck's visit to London, the Soviet press reported further House of Commons discussions. It reported

Chamberlain as saying that the guarantee to Poland had marked a sharp change in British foreign policy. But already it focused all its attention on what was being said about the Soviet Union and the "trap" the Poles had laid:

Sir Archibald Sinclair said that the Soviet Union held the key to peace in Eastern Europe. British-Soviet cooperation was therefore of the utmost importance.

Mr Lloyd George asked why the British Government had not got Soviet support before entering into these colossal obligations. Britain should tell Poland that she could be helped only on certain conditions. In talking about the Soviet Union,

Chamberlain, Lloyd George said, was merely trying to appease the Opposition. If

Britain did not secure Soviet aid, her help to Poland would merely be a trap.

Mr Hugh Dalton hoped he would soon see some action about the Soviet Union, and not just vapid assurances.

The press reported that, according to a public opinion poll in Britain, eighty-four percent of the people now wanted close cooperation with the Soviet Union; but, it added, there was nothing to show that the Government was following suit. If the Labour and Liberal press were now saying that no resistance to German aggression could be effective

without the Soviet Union, The Times and the Daily Telegraph were still beating about the bush, assuring Germany that no "encirclement" was contemplated, and trying to draw fine distinctions between Polish independence and Polish territorial integrity. " The Times", Pravda wrote on April 10, "is trying to suggest that this is a return to collective security; but it is not, if only because the Poles are still talking about 'holding the balance'."

All the same, something seemed at last to be stirring in Britain, and there was already much talk of conscription—which was, indeed, to be introduced at the end of April. But for a fortnight after the announcement of the guarantee to Poland, no new proposals came to Moscow from the West—or vice versa. It was not till April 15 that the British Foreign Office came forward with a proposal to the Russians that they give Poland, Rumania and other European states a unilateral guarantee against German aggression—in case these countries desired such help. It was for these countries to decide what kind of help would be convenient to them. This was unacceptable to Moscow.

More constructive, from the Soviet point of view, was a simultaneous French proposal for a joint Soviet-French declaration based on mutual assistance to each other, as well as to Rumania and Poland. The Soviet Government apparently sensed Daladier's dislike of the guarantee to Poland which Chamberlain had forced on him and which made him

prefer the Russian alliance. So, "in order to coordinate the various British, French and Soviet proposals", the Soviet Government now came forward with the proposal for a straight Anglo-Franco-Soviet alliance, to be signed for a period of five or ten years. This alliance would provide that they undertake to render each other every help, including military help, in the event of an aggression in Europe on any of the three signatories, and also to render similar help to all East-European countries bordering on the Soviet Union between the Baltic and the Black Sea.

"This offer", Coulondre wrote, "was almost undreamed of at the time." He thought this was a tremendous step in the right direction, and attributed it to the fact that Litvinov, the

"collective security man", with his obvious predeliction for the West, was still in charge of Soviet foreign policy. In actual fact such a proposal could not have been made simply on Litvinov's initiative. But the Chamberlain Government turned down the Soviet

proposal which—Coulondre argued—could have still saved the day had it been seized

with both hands.

Instead of accepting the Soviet proposal, the British Government started producing—in Coulondre's phrase—more and more sophisticated formulae, the purpose of which was to provide Soviet guarantees to countries that did not even want them. The British

Government made it indeed clear, in a Note addressed to the French Government, that the various objections raised by Poland made any agreement with the Soviet Union very

difficult.

[R. Coulondre, op. cit., p. 263.]

The "undreamed of offer" had been made by Russia—and had been rejected. A new approach was needed. It had now become necessary to give Soviet foreign policy not

only a more flexible and opportunist character, but also to give it the maximum authority.

And Molotov's position in the Party was second only to Stalin's. Just as in May 1941, with a German invasion threatening, Stalin was to take over the Premiership, so in May 1939, with Europe on the brink of war, Molotov took over the Foreign Commissariat.

Litvinov was temperamentally a "Westerner"—but he had received poor thanks from the West. As a Jew, he had been fiercely abused by the Germans for years. He was ill-suited for any new departures that might now become necessary for Soviet foreign policy. In the eyes of the Party he no longer carried sufficient authority, especially after the rejection by London of the Soviet Plan of April 17.

There was no perceptible change in the tone of the Soviet press or in official utterances after Molotov had become Foreign Commissar. The press continued to report the great

success in England and elsewhere of Russian anti-Nazi films like Professor Mamlock and Alexander Nevsky; patriotic speeches continued to be made about the might of the Red Army which would "smash any aggressor on his own territory if he ever dared attack the Soviet Union"

[ Thus, at the graduation ceremony of the Red Army academies on May 7—a ceremony

attended by Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Zhdanov and others,

Kalinin declared: "Our people are convinced that, with an Army like ours, they can peacefully go on building and developing the Soviet state, a classless socialist society and communism. The international situation demands from you a state of constant

preparedness. I hope you will fully justify the confidence our people have placed in you."

And Colonel Rodimtsev, Hero of the Soviet Union (and a future hero of Stalingrad), said at the same meeting: "We swear to carry out the order of Comrade Voroshilov to smash any aggressor on his own territory..."] and the press continued to publish ominous little items like this one in Pravda (May 16):

HITLER'S VISIT OF INSPECTION.

Berlin, May 15 (TASS). Hitler today left for the Western frontier to inspect the so-called Siegfried Line. He was accompanied by staff officers and by Himmler, the

head of the Gestapo.

Was this meant to suggest that Hitler might, indeed, turn on the West and that the Soviet Union and not the West had better hurry and join forces? At any rate, even a month after Molotov's appointment Nazi Germany was still treated as No. 1 Danger.

When the Supreme Soviet met at the end of May, A. G. Zverev, the Commissar for

Finance, declared amid loud cheers that the expenditure on defence would be increased from twenty-three milliard roubles in 1938 to forty-one milliard roubles in 1939. "The stronger we are," he said, "the better will be the chances that peace will not be disturbed, and that the Fascist aggressors will not dare attack our country." This could only mean Nazi Germany.

In its comments on this vast increase in military expenditure, Pravda (May 27) was full of the usual bluster:

This figure of 40,885 million roubles means new guns, fast new planes, powerful new tanks... With such a mighty Red Army we can calmly look into the future, knowing

that no provocation by our foreign enemies can catch us unawares. We can calmly

go ahead with our third Five-Year-Plan... Provided with the most perfect equipment in the world, our Red Army will smash any enemy or any enemies, no matter where

they come from.

This was clearly intended as a warning to both Japan and Germany.

One of the most important landmarks during that grim summer was Molotov's survey of

the international situation before the Supreme Soviet on May 31.

He was highly critical of Britain and France, but the speech was, above all, an attack on Germany. After recalling the disasters that the Munich policy had already brought on Europe, Molotov said:

The aggressive powers today are becoming more and more arrogant. On the other

hand, the representatives of the democratic countries, having turned their backs on collective security, and having adopted a policy of non-resistance to aggression, are now trying to minimise the grave deterioration of the international situation.

Until very recently, Molotov continued, the responsible leaders of France and Britain were happily contemplating the success of the ill-fated Munich settlement.

But what was the result? Germany wasn't satisfied with getting the Sudeten

country, and simply proceeded to liquidate one of the Slav countries,

Czechoslovakia... This just shows what non-interference produces... And, after that, the aggressor nations continued as before; in April, Germany grabbed Memel from

Lithuania, and Italy finished off Albania. Things went from bad to worse: in April, too, the head of the German State destroyed the Anglo-German naval agreement

and the Polish-German non-aggression pact... Such was Germany's answer to the

proposal of President Roosevelt, a proposal imbued with the spirit of peace.

He then referred to the new political and military treaty between Germany and Italy

which, he said, was "aggressive by its very nature".

In the past, these two countries pretended to be concerned with their joint battle against communism. Hence all the fuss about the Anti-Comintern Pact. Now the

camouflage has been dropped... Both the leaders and the press of the two countries openly talk about the new treaty being directed against the main European

democracies...

Although there were now some signs that the non-aggressive countries were at last

beginning to favour a front against aggression, it still remained to be seen how serious this change of heart really was. "It may well be that these countries may like to stop aggression in some areas, but will not interfere with aggression in other areas." And Molotov brought in that Stalin quote about the "chestnuts" and about the need to beware of provocateurs who might try to drag the Soviet Union into war.

He, clearly, continued to be very hostile to Germany, but was also extremely distrustful of Britain and France; but even so, he said, "There are some signs that the democratic countries have become aware of the utter collapse of their non-intervention policy, and of the need of creating a single front of the peaceful powers against aggression. The British-Polish Pact is a new element in Europe, all the more so as Germany has torn up her pact with Poland... And there is also a tendency among the non-aggressive European powers to seek the collaboration of the USSR in organising resistance to aggression." That was why, he said, the Soviet Government had accepted the proposal of Britain and France to open negotiations for the purpose of strengthening the relations between these three countries, and for organising a peace front against any further development of aggression.

"We entered into these negotiations with France and Britain in mid-April. These talks have not yet been concluded. But from the outset we realised that if there is really a desire to create an effective front of peace-loving countries against aggression, then the minimum conditions to be fulfilled are these:

1) There must be a purely defensive, but effective mutual assistance pact between Britain, France and the Soviet Union;

2) There must be guarantees by all three Powers to the countries bordering on the Soviet Union, and to other countries in Central and Eastern Europe;

3) There must be concrete agreements between the three about the immediate and

effective aid to be rendered in the event of aggression against either of them or against the countries guaranteed by them."

Having elaborated at some length on the perplexities of pact-making for the protection of the many frontiers so precariously maintained between the Baltic and the Black Sea and between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, Molotov introduced another motif into his discourse which was like an echo of Stalin's speech of March 10.

Such are our talks with Britain and France. That does not mean that we intend to

break off business relations with countries like Germany and Italy. At the beginning of 1938 Germany offered us a new credit of 200 million marks; but since no

agreement followed, the question of this credit was dropped. However, at the end of 1938 the German Government again raised the question of economic talks, and of

the 200 million marks credit. The Germans were ready to make certain concessions, and their Foreign Trade Ministry said that Herr Schnurre would come to Moscow.

But instead it. was decided that Ambassador Schulenburg would conduct the talks.

Since there were some disagreements, the talks broke down. But now there are signs that the talks may be resumed. We also signed recently a profitable trade agreement with Italy...

In conclusion, Molotov said that relations with Poland had "improved"; that relations with Turkey were "good", and that he had recently warned the Japanese Ambassador that the Soviet Union would defend both her own frontiers and those of the Mongolian

People's Republic against any Japanese-Manchurian aggression.

The Soviet Union is not what it was, say in 1921, though even some of our

neighbours seem to have forgotten it. Nor is the Soviet Union what it was ten, or even five years ago; its strength is far greater. In spite of delays and hesitations, some democracies are becoming conscious of this simple truth; yet in any front of the peaceful powers resisting aggression the Soviet Union cannot but hold a place in the front rank.

What Molotov had said about trade talks with Germany did not, on the face of it, amount to much; it might have been meant as a mild warning to the West, where some of

Chamberlain's close associates still considered "trade talks" with Germany to be their best hope of resuming an appeasement policy. Molotov was, of course, aware of the long-standing tug-of-war going on in Britain, below and above the surface, inside and outside the Tory Party, between the advocates and the opponents of a pact with the Soviet Union.

Until further notice the Soviet press maintained a fairly consistent anti-Nazi line, playing the "Western" card. On June 9 Tass reported from London Chamberlain's statement in the House of Commons on the Franco-British-Soviet talks; there was, Chamberlain had said, a common point of view about the main features of the intended agreement, and to speed up the talks H.M. Government had decided to send to Moscow a representative of the

Foreign Office. This was the beginning of the "Strang Mission". Special prominence was given to influential utterances in Britain in favour of a pact with the Soviet Union, notably to Churchill's article in the Daily Telegraph on June 9. Churchill even went so far as to advocate a joint guarantee to the Baltic States and Finland, and declared that such a pact was as much in the interests of the Soviet Union as it was in the interests of France and Britain. But, said Churchill, there was no time to lose.

At the same time, the Soviet papers continued to carry numerous stories about "German looting in Czechoslovakia" (Hubert Ripka in the Spectator quoted by Pravda on June 9),

"Austria under the heel of the Nazi invaders" ( Pravda June 16), "Executions in Spain"

{Pravda June 15), and so on. Alongside with this went accounts about growing German pressure on Poland, and reports of some of the more violent speeches by Nazi leaders—

such as Goebbels's attack on England in his Danzig speech at the end of June, with its

"hands off Eastern Europe! " slogan. Altogether the growing violence over Danzig was being fully reported, and in a tone very far from friendly to the Germans. These, the Soviet press kept on suggesting, were out for trouble:

Danzig is teeming with German military trucks that have come from Königsberg...

Danzig is being invaded by hordes of "tourists" and other highly suspect elements...

The German papers are continuing to carry screaming headlines about Poland's

"aggressiveness". The Völkischer Beobachter is screaming that the Poles want to invade East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia and other German territories.

[ Pravda, July 2, 1939.]

Although, whenever there was any vitally important business to discuss with Hitler, the British Government would send him Eden, Simon, Halifax—or Chamberlain in person,

the British Prime Minister seemed to think that an experienced Foreign Office official, like Mr Strang, was more than good enough for Moscow. This choice had, indeed, been

severely criticised by the Opposition press and Opposition speakers, who had argued that at least somebody of Halifax's or Eden's stature should be sent there. But, in

Chamberlain's view Halifax had other things to do, while Eden was much too friendly to the Russians—he had already gone to Moscow in 1935— and Mr Strang would be better

suited to what Chamberlain wanted to be no more than an exploratory mission—or

merely a sop to the Opposition. He was determined to turn a deaf ear to all the warnings, coming from Churchill and others, that the time factor was of the utmost importance. It was indeed not surprising that the Strang appointment should have aroused little

enthusiasm in Moscow.

There is a remarkable passage in Maisky's reminiscences about the visit he paid Halifax on June 12, the day of Strang's departure for Moscow:

To get the three-power pact concluded with the utmost speed—for that was our

basic object—and to discover our British partners' real intentions, the Soviet

Government decided to invite Lord Halifax to Moscow... On June 12 I was

instructed to call on Halifax in a personal capacity, and to urge him in a friendly but pressing way to go to Moscow without delay to complete the negotiations and to sign the pact.

[I. Maisky, Kto pomogal Hitlern? (Who Helped Hitler?), Moscow, 1962. English translation, London, 1964.]

After pointing out to Halifax the extreme urgency of the problem, Maisky said, "'If you can go to Moscow right away, Lord Halifax, I shall ask my Government to send you an

official invitation.' A hard and mysterious look came over Halifax's face. He looked at the ceiling, then rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then solemnly declared: 'I shall bear it in mind.' I realised of course that he could not decide on this visit to Moscow without referring the matter to the Cabinet... After a week, there was still no reply."

[In conclusion, Maisky writes that he had an important postscript to make to this account of his meeting with Halifax on June 12. In the Documents of British Foreign Policy

published later by the British Government, there was Halifax's own account of this

meeting. According to this, Maisky had suggested that Halifax should go to Moscow

"when things had calmed down", to which Halifax had replied that nothing would please him better, but that at the present moment it would be impossible for him to leave

London.

Maisky then proceeds to demonstrate that, in Halifax's account of the same meeting, the Foreign Secretary had told "two untruths", both showing that, like Chamberlain, he was less than lukewarm about coming to a quick agreement with Moscow. This lack of

enthusiasm, on both Halifax's and Chamberlain's part, is, of course, fully borne out by Churchill in what he said at the time and wrote later.

"It was decided to send a special envoy to Moscow. Mr Eden, who had made useful contacts with Stalin (in 1935) volunteered to go. This generous offer was declined by the Prime Minister. Instead, on June 12, Mr Strang, an able official, but without any standing outside the Foreign Office, was entrusted with this momentous mission.

This was another mistake. The sending of so subordinate a figure gave actual offence."

(Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, p. 346.)

It should, of course, be remembered throughout that Maisky, a "Litvinov man" at heart, was more enthusiastic about the Tripartite Alliance as "the only way of stopping Hitler"

than were either Stalin or Molotov.]

Strang arrived in Moscow in the middle of June and had, together with the British

Ambassador, Sir William Seeds, and the French Ambassador, M. Naggiar, a number of

meetings with Mr Molotov. The first meeting on June 16, lasted an hour; another meeting on July 1 lasted an hour and a half; and still another, on July 8, two hours.

Let us remember that these discussions arose from the diplomatic exchanges that had

gone on since April. After rejecting the "Litvinov Plan" on April 17, the British Government had asked the Soviet Union to enter into a number of unilateral

commitments; in its Note of May 14—this was already after Molotov had taken over—

the Soviet Government declared that the latest British proposals did not contain the principle of reciprocity, and put the Soviet Union in a position of inequality; the absence of these guarantees to the Soviet Union in case of aggression on the one hand, and the

"unprotected position" of its North-Western frontiers, on the other, might well act as an incentive for the aggressors to attack Russia. It therefore proposed a more detailed version of the "Litvinov Plan" of April 17:

An effective Anglo-Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact, complete with (1) a three-power guarantee to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe exposed to

aggression, these countries to include Latvia, Estonia and Finland, and with (2) a

"concrete agreement" among the three powers as to the nature and the volume of the help they would render each other and to the guaranteed states. "Without such an agreement", the Note concluded, "the mutual assistance pacts may well remain suspended in mid-air, as we know from the experience of Czechoslovakia".

[AVP SSR (Soviet Foreign Policy Archives) Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks, vol. III, f. 39, quoted in Istoriya velikoi otechestvennoi voiny Sovietskogo Soyuza (History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union), vol. I (Moscow, 1960). Referred to in future as

IVOVSS.]

The joint Anglo-French proposals of May 27, in reply to this Note, were a marked

improvement on earlier efforts; they provided for direct Anglo-French aid to the Soviet Union in the event of a "direct attack", but left the question of the Baltic States still unresolved. Molotov's new Note of June 2 now stressed the need for "all-round, effective and immediate" mutual aid, and proposed to cover Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Rumania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Finland in the joint guarantees. It even provided that the mutual assistance would apply in cases when one of the signatories had become involved in war by helping a neutral European country that had applied for such help.

[AVP SSR, vol. III, ff. 46-47.]

What Molotov was in fact suggesting was a mutual assistance pact covering practically the whole of Europe.

The talks were becoming increasingly complicated. The Russians raised the question of

"indirect aggression". This meant in the first place, the use by Germany of the Baltic States as a base for aggression "with the connivance" of the governments of those countries. The possibility of Russian preventive action here could, in the British view, not be ruled out. The Russians also wanted to know if their troops could have access to

Polish territory in case of need. They wanted a concrete agreement on the precise military contribution the Soviet Union, Britain and France would make to the "common effort".

Looking back on these crucial days Grigore Gafencu, the Rumanian Foreign Minister,

wrote: "The Western Powers were seeking for a psychological effect (they did not hide this fact). They wished to create a solidarity between the West and the East which would prevent Hitler from starting his war. This plan was perfectly justified ... and any delay in its realisation seemed intolerable. The Soviet view was equally tenable: Moscow did not want to engage itself lightly. If despite agreement in principle, war broke out, the greatest German effort might be made against the USSR."

[The trouble is that, as Stalin was to say to Churchill in 1942, he (Stalin) knew perfectly well that such a "psychological effect" was totally insufficient to restrain Hitler.]

Anyway, the Strang-Molotov talks were leading nowhere, and, on July 23 Molotov

finally proposed that France and Britain send a military mission to Moscow.

The manner and motions of this mission were to show before long how "intolerable" Mr Chamberlain thought "any delay". What he still wanted "without delay" was a

"psychological effect"; on the other hand a military convention—to the Russians "the only real test of Western sincerity"—was precisely what he was not in a hurry to sign.

But were the Russians wholehearted about an alliance with Britain and France? On June 29 Zhdanov published in Pravda a sharply critical article on the Western Powers, almost suggesting that an alliance with the "Munichites" would be a doubtful asset. References to the Siegfried Line also appeared in the Soviet press from time to time, suggesting that France's striking power against Germany might be insufficient. And among the Soviet

hierarchy there might well have been the lingering thought that, so soon after the Army Purges, the Red Army had better not take on a powerful enemy like Nazi Germany,

unless some definite military convention could be reached with Biritain and France. Short of this, it might (as Stalin had already suggested on March 10) be preferable to remain

"neutral". But how?

Nor did it escape the Russians' notice that since Munich, and indeed to the very moment the war broke out, there were important people in power or near the levers of power in Britain and elsewhere who in their frantic efforts to appease Hitler, were prepared to go to almost any lengths.

[The list of appeasers—Mr Hudson, Sir Horace Wilson, Lord Kemsley, etc.—which

emerges from the Dirksen archives, that is the papers of the German Ambassador in

London until the outbreak of the war, captured by the Russians and published

subsequently, Dokumenty i materialy kanuna vtoroi mirovoi voiny. T.II Arkhiv Dirksena (1938-39), (Moscow, 1948), even allowing for a good deal of selective editing, certainly bears out what every experienced and sober observer of the political scene must have known or strongly suspected at the time.]

In all circumstances the Russians had to prepare themselves for an imminent Nazi thrust eastwards against Poland and the not unlikely event that such an offensive might

encompass the Baltic States and possibly Rumania, that is, a front extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Even if the German offensive stopped in the face of the Russian winter, the Russians must have feared a German invasion in the spring of 1940 with the West taking a ringside seat behind the Maginot Line, unless of course definite guarantees of co-ordinated military action were mutually provided.

On August 4, Pravda reported from London that Britain and France had agreed to send a military mission to Moscow. This report was accompanied by an account of the House of Commons debate, in the course of which Eden welcomed the decision. He thought that

this would "resolve distrust", and hoped that these talks would soon lead to an agreement.

He proposed, however, that, in addition to admirals and generals, the British Government should send "a representative political leader" to Moscow, "so that all the talks could be concluded within a week". There was no time to lose, Eden said, since Poland was now being threatened, as Czechoslovakia had been, and it was essential to create a peace front with the utmost speed, so as to discourage aggression. To these warnings Chamberlain turned a deaf ear.

But for several days after that very little more was said in the Soviet press about this military mission. For over a week a carefree holiday mood seems to have reigned in

Moscow. On August 1, indeed, a monumental Agricultural Exhibition opened in the

capital, with Molotov presiding over the opening ceremony. Stalin was represented by a colossal statue at the entrance of the Exhibition. Although, only a fortnight before, the Soviet press had reported a highly critical speech by Khrushchev on the state of stock-breeding in the Ukraine—a speech in which he castigated the half-heartedness of so

many kolkhozniki who wholly lacked the proper collectivist spirit, and were, in fact, enemies of the collective sector of the kolkhozes—the opening of the Agricultural Exhibition gave rise to rapturous eulogies on the state of Soviet Agriculture.

With this exhibition [Pravda wrote on August 1] we are celebrating a glorious victory of socialism. This is the tenth birthday of the kolkhoz system, and a report on its achievements. It was in the autumn of 1929 that the peasants started entering the

kolkhozes by whole villages and districts. It was the year of the Great Change. The incantations of the Trotskyite and Bukharinite agents of Fascism about the

inevitable clash between the workers and the peasants, and about the impossibility of building socialism in one country have been thrown into the dustbin of history.

New machinery has taken the place of the individual peasant's plough, wooden

harrow, sickle and scythe.

These raptures continued for several days, and 20,000 to 30,000 people a day visited the exhibition, with its ornate domes, Stalin-Gothic spires and its orgy of fountains, colossal statues of Lenin and Stalin, and with Vera Mukhina's giant silver statue of the worker with the hammer and the kolkhoznitsa with the sickle sweeping into a glorious future above the main entrance. The opulent and luscious exhibits in all the various palaces and pavilions were there to show that agriculture under the kolkhoz system had become a magnificently going concern, whereas, according to Pravda, the peasantry in Nazi Germany was "undergoing a process of continuous pauperisation".

Moscow was in a festive mood, and the blessings of peace seemed wonderful under the

wise leadership of Comrade Stalin. No doubt, not all was well—least of all in a great number of kolkhozes—but conditions had certainly become easier in the last five years.

The Exhibition teemed with lemonade and ice-cream stalls and eating places, and, in their light summer clothes, people looked cheerful, contented and even superficially

prosperous. War seemed a long way away, whatever the papers said about "more Nazi provocations in Danzig".

At last, on August 12, Pravda announced the arrival in Moscow of the British and French Military Missions:

The Missions, headed by Admiral Drax and General Doumenc, were met yesterday

morning at the Leningrad Station by a number of Soviet personalities... Later in the day, Comrade V. M. Molotov received the leaders of the Missions. Present at the

meeting were also Sir William Seeds, M. Naggiar, and the Deputy Foreign

Commissar V. P. Potemkin... Later they were received by Defence Commissar

Voroshilov and the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Army Commander

of the 1st rank, B. M. Shaposhnikov.

In the evening a banquet was given in honour of the British and French Military

Missions, and all the Soviet top brass were there— Voroshilov, Shaposhnikov, Budienny, Timoshenko, heads of the Kiev and Belorussian Military Districts and leaders of the

Navy and Air Force. "Friendly toasts were exchanged between Comrade Voroshilov and the heads of the British and French Military Missions."

[ Pravda, August 12, 1939.]

That was as much as the Soviet public were allowed to learn at that stage about the

Anglo-French visit. What did it really amount to? The visit had been announced more

than three weeks before; but the British and French had obviously been in no great hurry to come, having travelled by slow boat to Leningrad. Needless to say, nobody had ever heard of Admiral Drax or General Doumenc. Why had nobody of note come to Moscow

—Halifax or Daladier?—not Chamberlain, of course, for who would want to see him! All the same, there was obviously "something in it" if all the top army and navy and air-force leaders were attending the banquet... These were the kind of confused impressions people had in Moscow at the time. Certainly nothing had been done in London or Paris to fire the Soviet public's imagination.

Present-day Soviet historians treat this Anglo-French Military Mission with the utmost severity. "Here were generals and admirals who had either reached the retiring age, or were holding only secondary posts... The British Government's attitude to the Mission was so frivolous that it had not even given them any powers. Only towards the end of the talks, after a lot of insisting by the Soviet side, did Drax produce some sort of credentials, but even these did not allow him to sign any kind of agreement with the USSR. The

credentials of the French general were no better. All they had been empowered to do was to conduct negotiations with us." The History recalls that after the Soviet Government had proposed that Britain and France send military missions to Moscow, these people

"had taken eleven days to prepare for their departure, and had then taken six more days to travel by slow cargo-passenger boat to Leningrad, and thence to Moscow".

[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 168. In Maisky's Memoirs Admiral Drax is made to look like

someone straight out of P. G. Wodehouse]

The principle underlying the Soviet proposals was not only reciprocity, but also equality in the war effort to be put into this mutual assistance by the two sides. But even before Shaposhnikov outlined his proposals in detail, he had already been taken aback by the British reaction to his first mention of the "respective contributions":

When B. M. Shaposhnikov said that the Soviet Union was ready to make available

against the aggressor 120 infantry divisions, sixteen cavalry divisions, 5,000 medium and heavy guns, 9,000 to 10,000 tanks, and 5,000 to 5,500 bomber and fighter

planes, General Heywood, a member of the British Mission, talked about five

infantry and one mechanised divisions. This in itself was enough to suggest a

frivolous British attitude to the talks with the Soviet Union.

[IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 169, quoting from AVP SSSR (Foreign Policy Archives), Anglo-

French-Soviet Negotiations in 1939, v. Ill, f. 138.]

The History does not, however, mention the suggestions of the French, who had a numerically far larger army than the British.

The military convention the Russians proposed was to be based on three eventualities: 1) IF THE BLOC OF AGGRESSORS ATTACK FRANCE AND BRITAIN. In this

case the Soviet Union will make available seventy per cent of the armed forces that France and Britain will direct against the "main aggressor", i.e. Germany. Thus, if they use ninety divisions, the Soviet Union will use sixty-three infantry divisions and six cavalry divisions, with the appropriate number of guns, tanks and planes—

altogether about two million men.

In this case Poland must participate with all her armed forces, in view of her

agreements with Britain and France. Poland must concentrate forty to forty-five

divisions on her Western borders and against East Prussia. The British and French Governments must obtain Poland's undertaking to let the Soviet armed forces pass

through the Vilno Bulge and, if possible, through Lithuania to the borders of East Prussia, and also, if necessary, through Galicia.

2) IF THE AGGRESSION IS DIRECTED AGAINST POLAND AND RUMANIA.

In this case, Poland and Rumania must make

use of all their armed forces, and the Soviet Union will participate by as much as 100 per cent of the forces employed against Germany by Britain and France... In

this case, an indispensable condition of the Soviet Union's participation is that Britain and France should immediately declare war on the aggressor. Moreover, the Soviet Union can take part in such a war only if the British and French

Governments come to a clear understanding with Poland and Rumania (and, if

possible, with Lithuania) about the free passage of the Soviet armed forces through the Vilno Bulge, Galicia and Rumania.

3) IF THE AGGRESSOR ATTACKS THE SOVIET UNION BY MAKING USE

OF THE TERRITORIES OF FINLAND, ESTONIA OR LATVIA. In this case

France and Britain must not

only declare war on the aggressor (or the bloc of aggressors) "but must also start active and immediate military operations against the main aggressor", putting into operation seventy per cent of the forces employed by the Soviet Union (the Soviet Union would put into operation 136 divisions). "Since Poland is bound by her agreements with Britain and France, she must intervene against Germany, and

must also, by agreement between herself on the one hand and Britain and France on the other, give free passage to our troops through the Vilno Bulge and Galicia...

Should Rumania be drawn into the war, a similar agreement should be made

between Rumania, France and Britain concerning the free passage of Soviet troops

across Rumanian territory."

[ IVOVSS, vol. I, pp. 169-70, quoting AVP SSSR (Soviet Foreign Policy Archives).]

According to the Soviet version Admiral Drax thanked General Shaposhnikov for

outlining his plan, but it was not accepted by the British and French, and there were no serious British or French counter-proposals. Instead, both the French and the British made the most of the "Polish obstacle". The British had, indeed, no intention of bringing pressure to bear on the Polish Government.

The attitude of General Doumenc, head of the French Mission, was rather different:

"Twice he cabled the French War Ministry saying he intended to send General Valin, a member of the Mission, to Warsaw, in order to obtain the Polish Government's consent.

But the result was only a telegram from the French War Ministry to the French Military Attaché in Moscow proposing to postpone Valin's visit to Warsaw."

[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 170 quoting a French document originally captured by the Germans, and found in the German Foreign Office archives by the Russians. This episode is

confirmed by Paul Reynaud in La France a sauvé l'Europe (Paris, 1947), vol. I, p. 580.]

All that the French and British found to propose, according to the Soviet History, was that the Soviet Union should declare war on Germany in the event of a German attack on Poland, but should take no military action before the German troops reached the Soviet borders. "All this shows that they were much less interested in helping Poland than in getting the Soviet Union involved in a war against Germany."

[Ibid., p. 170. ]

Already in June 1939 the governments of Latvia and Estonia, frightened of both Germany and Russia, had, under German pressure, concluded "friendship pacts" with Germany.

But Poland's position presented by far the most urgent problem since by August 15 the Germans were poised to invade her at any moment. Even in these conditions no progress was made in the Anglo-Franco-Soviet military talks in Moscow. On August 17, says the Soviet History, the talks were postponed until August 21, so that the British and French Missions could be given time to discover the real attitude of their respective governments to the passage of Soviet troops through Poland. The Admiral was still not in a hurry, whereas General Doumenc held that nothing was lost yet, but that there was no time to lose. He considered that, on that day, the Russians were still in dead earnest about the military convention. In his dispatch to Paris on August 17 he wired "There is a definite will on the part of the Russians not to stay outside as spectators, and a clear desire to commit themselves right up to the hilt. There is no doubt that the USSR wants a military pact; but she does not want from us a meaningless scrap of paper; Marshal Voroshilov assured me that all questions of mutual help, communications, etc., would be discussed without any difficulty, once what the Russians call 'the cardinal question'—the Russian access to Polish territory—has been satisfactorily solved."

[Paul Reynaud, op. cit., vol. I, p. 587.]

That day, in desperation Doumenc even sent one of his aides, Captain Beauffre, to

Warsaw to see Marshal Rydz-Smigly, but to no avail; his reply was a repetition of his remark to the French Ambassador: "With the Germans we may lose our freedom, with the Russians we shall lose our soul."

[ Paul Reynaud, op. cit., vol. I, p. 587.]

Finally, on August 21 Admiral Drax said that he had received no further information

from London, and proposed that the next meeting take place in three or four days.

[IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 172, quoting AVP SSSR, Anglo-Franco-Soviet

Negotiations, f. 204.]

At this point the Russians asked for a clear answer as to how the British and French visualised Soviet participation in mutual assistance in view of the Polish attitude; no reply was received.

In his conversation with the French Military Attaché on August 23—the day of

Ribbentrop's arrival in Moscow—Voroshilov said: "We could not wait for the Germans to smash the Polish Army, after which they would have attacked us... Meantime, you

would be stationed at your frontier, tying up perhaps ten German divisions. We needed a springboard from which to attack the Germans; without it, we could not help you."

[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 172, quoting Archives of Ministry of Defence of the USSR.]

It was with a touch of melancholy that Voroshilov said about the same time to General Doumenc, who had informed him of Daladier's latest telegram ordering him—without

anything having been settled about Poland—to sign "the best possible military

convention, with the Ambassador's consent, and subject to the French Government's

subsequent approval": "We have wasted eleven days for nothing. We raised the question of military collaboration with France many years ago [an allusion to the abortive offer already made in 1935 by Soviet Ambassador Potemkin to M. Jean Fabry, then French

Minister of War]. Last year, when Czechoslovakia was on the edge of the abyss, we

waited for a signal from France; our Red Army was ready to strike. But the signal never came. Our government, and the whole of the Soviet people wanted to rush to the help of Czechoslovakia and to fulfil the obligations arising from the treaties. Now the British and French governments have dragged out these political and military talks far too long.

Therefore other political events are not to be ruled out. It was necessary to have a definite reply from Poland and Rumania about our troops' right of passage. If the Poles had given an affirmative answer, they would have asked to be represented at these talks."

[ Paul Reynaud, op. cit., vol. I, p. 588.]

Although, in the Russian view, France was at least as much to blame for Munich as

Britain, the breakdown of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet military talks in 1939 is attributed much more to Britain than to France. At the root of the trouble there was, among other things, that inept "guarantee" to Poland, which had only encouraged the Poles in their suicidal anti-Soviet policy—a guarantee the dangers of which the French Government

had seen at once. In Russian eyes, the inconclusive talks with Admiral Drax

demonstrated Chamberlain's continued resistance to a firm military alliance with the Soviet Union, as well as his determination not to overcome the Polish Government's

objections to direct Russian aid. On the other hand, it seems obvious that Stalin and Molotov had been extremely distrustful of Britain and France throughout and had never been really enthusiastic about the alliance. Even if concluded, it might still have produced a "phoney war" in the west, and have helped Russia no more than the British "guarantee"

helped Poland when it came to the test. Without the strongest military commitments by France, Britain and Poland, the alliance offered no attraction to them. Short of such commitments, a last-minute deal with Hitler was almost certainly at the back of Stalin's mind from April or May onwards.

Chapter II THE SOVIET-GERMAN PACT

It is customary to look for turning points in history. Much has, of course, been read into Stalin's speech of March 10 with its phrase about the "chestnuts", suggesting a "curse on both your houses" and a desire to keep out of any military entanglements. Even more has been made of Hitler's speech of April 28, 1939, in which both the Polish-German non-aggression pact and the Anglo-German naval agreement were denounced, and in which

the Führer refrained from his habitual attack on the Bolshevik menace. A shrewd

observer like Robert Coulondre, the French Ambassador in Berlin, had at once

considered this omission as very significant, and, in his dispatches to the Quai d'Orsay, had quoted authoritative German sources in support of his assessment. Gafencu also

looked upon this Hitler speech of April 28 as a starting point: "Facing the failure of his Western policy, the Führer already contemplated an about-turn in his Eastern policy.

Such a change ... would obviously find support among the German General Staff... as

well as in German economic circles."

[ G. Gafencu, op. cit., p. 175.]

This was written in 1945 and since then there have been a variety of data to show that the matter was not as simple as that. We know, for instance, that it took Hitler a very long time to get used to the idea of a pact with Moscow, and that Ribbentrop, in particular, became enthusiastic about it some time before the Führer did. But none the less, it is probable that, already in April, after the British guarantee to Poland, he kept the

possibility of an agreement with Moscow up his sleeve.

Although there is evidence to show that there were earlier contacts, the Soviet History now claims that it was the Germans who made the first tentative approach to Russia on May 30, 1939, while the Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks "were already in full swing".

[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 174.]

On that day Weizsäcker, the permanent head of the German Foreign Office, told G. A.

Astakhov, the Soviet chargé d'affaires in Berlin, that "there was a possibility of improving Soviet-German relations". He pointed out that, in renouncing the Carpathian Ukraine—which had been handed over to Hungary in the partition of Czechoslovakia—

Germany had eliminated a casus belli with the Soviet Union. And he went on to say: "If the Soviet Government wishes to discuss an improvement in Soviet-German relations,

then it should know that such a possibility now exists. If, however, the Soviet Union wants to persist, together with Britain and France, in its policy of encircling Germany, then Germany is ready to meet the challenge."

The Soviet History reports that, at this stage, the Russians merely replied that the future of Soviet-German relations depended primarily on the Germans themselves, in itself a curious way of "rejecting" their advances. And then, on August 3, according to the Soviet History:

Ribbentrop told G. A. Astakhov that there were no insoluble problems between the

USSR and Germany "in the whole area between the Baltic and the Black Sea. All questions could be solved if the Soviet Government accepted these premises."

Ribbentrop made no secret of the fact that Germany had been conducting secret

negotiations with Britain and France, but declared that "it would be easier for the Germans to talk to the Russians, despite all ideological differences, than with the British and the French". Having said that, Ribbentrop then resorted to threats.

"If," he said, "you have other solutions in mind, if you think, for instance, that the best way of settling your problems with us is to invite an Anglo-French military

mission to Moscow, then that's your business. For our own part, we don't mind all the screaming against us in the so-called West-European democracies. We are

sufficiently strong to treat all this kind of thing with ridicule and contempt. There isn't a war which we couldn't win."

[IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 174, quoting Archives of the Ministry of Defence of the USSR

(Arkhiv MO SSSR).]

Ribbentrop then proposed that Germany and the Soviet Union sign a secret protocol

dividing into spheres of interest the whole area between the Black Sea and the Baltic.

"Unwilling to enter into such an agreement with Germany, and still hoping for a successful conclusion of the military talks with Britain and France, the Soviet

Government informed Berlin on August 7 that it considered the German proposal

unsuitable, and rejected the idea of the secret protocol."

[ Ibid., quoting Soviet Foreign Policy Archives (AVP SSSR).]

In his dispatch of August 8, Astakhov expressed the view that the Germans would

not observe seriously, or for any length of time, any obligations they might enter into under such an arrangement. "But I believe that, on a short-term basis, they would like to come to some kind of agreement with us along the lines suggested, and so to neutralise us... What would happen next would be determined not by any

obligations entered into by the Germans, but by the new international situation that would be created."

[IVOVSS, vol. I, pp. 174-5, quoting Soviet Foreign Policy Archives (AVP SSSR).]

We need not here deal in detail with the familiar story of how the Nazi leaders,

determined to strike at Poland, were growing more and more impatient at Moscow's

reluctance to commit itself, and with the frantic "very urgent" telegrams that were being exchanged between Ribbentrop and the German Embassy in Moscow, or with how, in the

end, in reply to Hitler's telegram, Stalin gave his assent to the pressing proposal that Ribbentrop arrive in Moscow "on August 22 or, at the very latest, on August 23 ". What is new is the way in which this whole episode is now handled by the Russians:

By the middle of August, the German leaders had become acutely worried. The German

Embassy in Moscow was getting frantic wires asking what was happening about the

Military Missions. Before these talks had started, Schulenburg [the German Ambassador]

asked the Italian Ambassador, Rossi, to find out from Grzybowski, the Polish

Ambassador, whether Poland would accept Soviet military aid. Schulenburg then

promptly informed Berlin of the Polish Ambassador's reply: On no account would Poland allow Soviet troops to enter or even to cross Polish territory, or let the Russians use Polish airfields. At the same time Schulenburg was instructed by Weizsäcker to tell the Soviet Government that if it preferred an alliance with England, Russia would be left face-to-face with Germany. By choosing instead an understanding with Germany, the

Soviet Union would have her security guaranteed.

[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 175, quoting DGFP, series D, vol. VII, p. 13.]

Similar tempting promises were made to Astakhov, who reported:

The Germans are obviously worried by our negotiations with the British and

French military. They have become unsparing in their arguments and promises to

avert an agreement. I consider that they are today ready to make the kind of

declarations and gestures which would have been inconceivable six months ago.

[Ibid., quoting AVP SSSR (Soviet Foreign Policy Archives).]

On August 15, Schulenburg told Molotov:

At present they [the British and French] are again trying to push the Soviet Union into a war against Germany. This policy had very bad consequences for Russia in

1914. It is in the interests of both Germany and Russia to avoid a mutual massacre for the benefit of the Western democracies.

[ IVOVSS, ibid., quoting Soviet Ministry of Defence Archives.]

Schulenburg then proposed to Russia a non-aggression pact, complete with a protocol on the respective spheres of interest. Again the Soviet Government " declined ", and Schulenburg, much discouraged, reported to Berlin that the Soviet Government took

treaty obligations very seriously and expected the same attitude from its co-signatories.

[This does not tally with the German version, which says that Molotov first mentioned a non-aggression pact on August 15. The date is important. It was four days after the

arrival of the Drax Mission about whose "seriousness" the Russians were now very doubtful. See W. R. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (London, 1960), p. 521.]

By now the Anglo-Franco-Soviet military talks had, indeed, reached a deadlock, both on

"numerical reciprocity" and, more immediately, on the Polish issue; and when, on August 20, Hitler sent his famous telegram to Stalin asking him to receive Ribbentrop "on Tuesday, August 22 or, at the latest, on Wednesday, August 23 ", and saying that Ribbentrop would arrive with full powers for signing the non-aggression pact, "as well as the protocol", Stalin agreed.

It should, however, be remembered that, apart from the political soundings undertaken by the Germans in both Berlin and Moscow, there were also the trade negotiations which ran parallel with the political soundings, and had, of course, some bearing on them. Indeed, it was by announcing the Trade Agreement with Germany on August 21 that the Soviet

Government prepared the ground for the much more spectacular and, to many, almost

unbelievable announcement that was to come three days later. But the wording of the

Pravda editorial of August 21 accompanying the announcement of the Trade Agreement was significant enough to anyone who could read between the lines—and, in this case, it did not even require outstanding political acumen to do so.

Shirer is probably quite right in saying that it was on August 19 that Stalin made his choice, unless it was on the 20th, after the receipt of Hitler's personal telegram.

The best conclusion this writer can come to is that, as of August 14, when

Voroshilov demanded "an unequivocal answer" on the question of allowing Soviet troops to meet the Germans in Poland, the Kremlin still had an open mind as to

which side to join... At any rate, Stalin does not seem to have made his final decision until the afternoon of August 19.

[ Shirer, op. cit., p. 535.]

On the 19th, the Soviet press was, on the face of it, still violently anti-Nazi. It made it quite apparent that a German attack on Poland was now almost certainly a matter of days.

Thus, Pravda of August 19 still published a TASS message from Warsaw under the heading: "GERMAN PROVOCATIONS IN DANZIG", and a TASS message from

Berlin, under the heading: "ANTI-POLISH CAMPAIGN IN GERMANY":

The Völkischer Beobachter today prominently displayed comments in the Italian press to the effect that the tension between Germany and Poland "can no longer be settled by a mere settlement of the Danzig question". All German papers are trying to present Poland as an "aggressor", and as the creator of "an intolerable situation". Britain and France are being attacked with special violence. In its editorial, the Völkischer Beobachter says: "The problem of Danzig and the Corridor are ripe for a German solution." The papers are openly threatening war. "Every day that's wasted." says the Völkischer Beobachter, "increases the danger of war."

By the 21st, the emphasis in the TASS reports from Berlin had slightly shifted, but only slightly; the main suggestion was still that a German attack on Poland was imminent; but now it was also suggested that Poland would be crushed within a very short time:

Berlin, August 20. The threats against Poland today are even more violent. All the papers are screaming about the "Polish terror against Germans", and about "the crowding of Polish prisons by Germans". At the same time the German newspapers are writing about

"the military weakness of Poland" and her incapacity to withstand a German blow.

It was not, however, this seemingly routine story which attracted the reader's attention that day, but the front-page editorial on the Soviet-German Trade and Credit Agreement.

It started from afar, as it were:

Even only a few years ago, Germany held first place in the Soviet Union's trade

turnover. In 1931 Soviet-German trade amounted to 1,100 million marks. In view of the strained political relations, there was a marked decline in this trade. Until 1935, Germany was still first in the Soviet Union's foreign trade, but by 1938 she was

down to fifth place, after Britain, the USA, Belgium and Holland. This loss of the Soviet market must have worried both German business circles and the German

Government. That is why, since the beginning of last year, negotiations were

conducted between the two countries, with certain intervals, on trade and credit

questions with a view to enlarging Soviet-German trade. Despite difficulties that arose in these negotiations in view of the tense political atmosphere, there was a marked improvement in recent months. Thanks to the desire of both sides to

improve commercial relations between the two countries, all matters of dispute have now been settled...

The editorial went on to say that a trade and credit agreement had been signed in Berlin on August 19 by Comrade Babarin, of the Soviet Trade Delegation, and Herr Schnurre. It was a satisfactory agreement: under it, Germany granted the USSR a credit of 200

million marks for purchases to be made in Germany during the next two years—mostly

machine tools and other industrial equipment. The Soviet Union would supply, during the same period, "various commodities" for 180 million marks. The great advantage of the German credit was that it was in the nature of a financial loan, and the Soviet Union could pay German firms in cash. The annual interest rate on this loan was five percent, which was cheaper than the interest on previous loans. Also, the loan would not be

repayable for seven and a half years.

This suggestion of peaceful German-Soviet trade relations for over seven years to come was sufficiently startling at a moment when the Germans were about to invade Poland.

But the conclusion of the article was even more startling: "This agreement should greatly stimulate trade between the USSR and Germany, and should become a turning point in the economic relations between the two countries. The new trade and credit agreement between the USSR and Germany, though born in an atmosphere of strained political

relations, is designed to clear this atmosphere. It can become an important step towards a further improvement in not only the economic relations but also the political relations between the USSR and Germany."

[Emphasis added.]

Clearly, the die was about to be cast. What also contributed to Stalin's decision to sign up with Germany was the situation in the Far East. In August 1939 the fierce battle of

Halkin Gol was being fought against the Japanese, and the Russians were afraid of

becoming involved in a two-front war—against Germany in Europe and against Japan in

Asia. A pact with Germany would almost automatically end the war with Japan, Hitler's ally.

Ribbentrop's visit to Moscow and the signing of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact of August 23 came almost as a complete surprise to the Russian public, and if nobody openly declared himself deeply shocked and scandalised, it was simply because it was

"not done"—especially after the Purge years—to be openly shocked or scandalised by anything with which Comrade Stalin and Comrade Molotov were directly associated. It

is, nevertheless, obvious that, at heart, millions of Russians were deeply perplexed by what had happened, after their country had been in the vanguard of the "anti-Fascist struggle" ever since the Nazis had come to power.

[This is also confirmed by the recollections of so competent an observer as Wolfgang Leonhard, whose account is based on firsthand experience at the time within the

Comintern establishment: Child of the Revolution (London, 1957). At the same time, according to Jean Champenois, a leading French correspondent in Moscow, mere was

also widespread chuckling among many Russians about the punishment meted out to

England and France "after all their dirty tricks".]

The mental alibis to which many Russians—whether workers or intellectuals—resorted,

at least during the early stages of the Pact, were that Stalin and Molotov no doubt knew what they were doing; that they had, after all, kept the Soviet Union out of war (here was something corresponding roughly to the "cowardly relief and shame" reaction in the West at the time of Munich); and that the Pact, though distasteful, had been rendered inevitable by the attitude of France, Britain and Poland. Nor was it doubted that Stalin and Molotov must have had a great many reservations about the whole thing.

The reactions to the "deal" with Hitler were to undergo numerous changes during the twenty-two months the Pact was in force; but it seems clear that Stalin and Molotov were fully conscious of the mixed feelings with which the Pact was received in the country.

Throughout the Pact period, the Soviet press, for example, maintained a marked

aloofness vis-à-vis Nazi Germany. There were no favourable comments on any aspects of the Nazi régime at any time, and there was, strictly speaking, no reporting whatsoever on the German scene in the Soviet newspapers, beyond the reproduction of war

communiqués and some official utterances by Hitler, especially when these concerned

Soviet-German relations. Important news items, such as Stalin's toast during Ribbentrop's visit—"Since the German people love their Führer so much, let us drink the Führer's health"—were carefully kept out of the Russian press.

During the week preceding Ribbentrop's visit, Aviation Day had been celebrated on

August 18, and half the front page of Pravda that day was occupied by a drawing showing Stalin and Voroshilov surveying a boundless airfield with thousands of planes on it. "Great and touching is our airmen's love for Comrade Stalin", the editorial wrote, while, on page 2, a famous airman commented rapturously on "Comrade Stalin's

profound knowledge in aviation matters", and recalled some of the outstanding feats of Soviet aviation in recent years and their heroes—Chkalov, Gromov, Grizodubova,

Raskova and Osipenko. The same paper reported, on its foreign news page, "Jewish pogroms in Czechoslovakia" (TASS, Prague), and "Persecution of Poles in Germany"

(TASS, Warsaw).

On August 19, Pravda reported the Aviation Day meeting at Tushino Airfield, attended by a million people: here also was a picture of the Party and Army leaders present at the air display— Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Zhdanov, Mikoyan, Beria,

Shvernik, Malenkov, Bulganin, Shcherbakov, Shkiriatov, Budienny, Loktionov and

Mikhailov. On August 20 the place of honour was given to a "Letter from Prague", entitled: "The Czech People are Not Defeated." And then, on August 21, there appeared, as we have seen, the famous editorial on the Soviet-German Trade and Credit Agreement, with its significant concluding paragraph, foreshadowing a political rapprochement between the two countries.

But on the following two days—August 22 and 23—there was still nothing of any

importance, except the usual seemingly anti-German news items like these: "Many Poles preparing to flee from Danzig", or "Mass Arrests in Memel. Gestapo arresting not only Poles, but also Lithuanians, Polish Press says."

On August 24 came the bombshell. Big front-page pictures in Pravda showing Molotov, Stalin, Ribbentrop, Gaus, Deputy Secretary of State at the German Foreign Office and its legal adviser, and an interpreter. The editorial on the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact argued along the following lines:

The Pact was consistent with the Soviet Union's policy. "We stand for peace and the consolidation of business relations with all countries." Recalling Rapallo and the Soviet-German Neutrality Agreement of 1926, it said: "Yesterday's agreement

follows in the footsteps of the 1926 agreement, except that it goes still further, since Art. 1 precludes any aggressive actions against the co-signatory either alone or with other Powers, while Art. 2 provides for neutrality in the event of an attack on either signatory by a third power." Art. 3 called for consultation on matters of common interest. Art. 4 was particularly important since it obliged the signatories not to take part in any grouping of Powers which might, directly, or indirectly, be aimed at the other signatory.

The editorial also highly commended Art. 5 providing for the peaceful and friendly

settlement of any disputes and for the creation of commissions in the event of more

serious conflicts, as well as Art. 6 which specified that the Pact was valid for ten years and was automatically renewable for five more years; here was a clear promise of a

lasting peace. The last paragraph concerned ratification "as quickly as possible".

Below the picture of the Kremlin meeting there was this announcement:

At 3.30 p.m. on August 23 a first conversation took place between... V. M. Molotov and the Foreign Minister of Germany, Herr von Ribbentrop. The conversation took

place in the presence of Comrade Stalin and the German Ambassador Count von

der Schulenburg. It lasted about three hours. After an interval the conversation was resumed at 10 p.m. and ended with the signing of the Non-Aggression Agreement of

which the text follows.

Another communiqué concerned the arrival in Moscow, at 1.30 p.m. on August 23, of

"the Foreign Minister of Germany, Herr Joachim von Ribbentrop" and the persons accompanying him, among them Herr Gaus, Baron von Dörnberg, Herr P. Schmidt, Prof.

G. Hoffmann, Herr K. Schnurre, etc. It also gave a long list of the personalities who had gone to the airfield to meet them, among them Deputy Foreign Commissar V. P.

Potemkin; Deputy Commissar for Foreign Trade, M. S. Stepanov; Deputy Commissar of

the Interior, V. N. Merkulov; the Chairman of the Moscow City Soviet, etc. Present were also members of the German Embassy, with Ambassador von der Schulenburg at their

head, as well as the Italian Ambassador and Military Attaché. On the following day

Pravda briefly reported Ribbentrop's departure "at 1.25 p.m. on August 24". The same people who had come to meet him had also gone to see him off.

The editorial that day, however, dealt with nothing more exciting than the State purchases of vegetables.

For the next few days nothing more was said about the Soviet-German Pact and,

surprisingly, there were no reports of any "spontaneous" and "enthusiastic" mass meetings anywhere in Russia approving it. The foreign press reactions, as reported in the Soviet Press, seemed remarkably inconclusive, except for the London Star which was reported to have blamed Chamberlain for what had happened. On August 29, Pravda

quoted H. N. Brailsford, the veteran Labour journalist, as saying something similar.

Equally inconclusive were the various news items printed—about military preparations in Poland, Britain, and so on.

Yet there was a great deal of uneasiness in the country; this may be gauged from the publication, on August 27, of an interview with Voroshilov in which he explained why the talks with Britain and France had broken down.

The talks, he said, had stopped because of serious disagreements. The Soviet

Military Mission took the view that since the Soviet Union had no common frontier with the aggressor (sic), she could help Great Britain, France and Poland only if her troops could cross Polish territory in order to make contact with the aggressor

forces. The Poles said that they neither needed nor wanted Soviet help. Asked if

there was any truth in the Daily Herald report that, in case of war, the Soviet Union would occupy parts of Poland and also help the Poles with planes, munitions, etc., Voroshilov said No, adding: "We did not break off the talks with Britain and France because we had signed a non-aggression pact with Germany; on the

contrary, we signed this pact because, apart from anything else, the military talks with Britain and France had reached a complete deadlock."

The whole suggestion was that the Soviet Union was prepared to go to war with Nazi

Germany, but that she could not do so in view of the attitude of Britain, France and especially Poland.

During the next few days the news continued to be highly confusing—more about Polish

"defence measures", British "military preparations", about an appeal by the Slovak Premier, Mgr Tiso, asking Germany, on behalf of the Slovak population, to send troops to Slovakia, about German ships leaving American ports, and so on. On August 30 there

were only short news items about "General Mobilisation in Poland", and about Ambassador Nevile Henderson's meeting with Hitler and Ribbentrop.

It was not till August 31—i.e. one day before the German invasion of Poland—that

Molotov made a statement on the Soviet-German Pact before the Supreme Soviet. If,

only four days before, Voroshilov spoke of the breakdown of the talks with Britain and France more in sorrow than in anger, Molotov started that day on his series of anti-French and anti-British speeches, with lasting co-existence with Nazi Germany as their keynote.

Since the 3rd Session of the Supreme Soviet, he said, the international situation had shown no turn for the better, either in Europe or in the Far East. The talks with Britain and France had gone on since April, i.e. for four months, and they had led to nothing.

Poland had made any agreement impossible, and, in her negative attitude, Poland had been supported by Britain. He then ridiculed the British and French military missions who had come to Moscow without any powers or credentials; the whole thing "wasn't serious". Then came his monumental defence of the Soviet-German Pact:

We all know that since the Nazis came to power, relations between the Soviet Union and Germany have been strained. But we need not dwell on these differences; they

are sufficiently familiar to you anyway, Comrades Deputies.

But, as Comrade Stalin said on March 10, "we are in favour of business relations with all nations"; and it seems that, in Germany, they understood Comrade Stalin's statement correctly, and drew the right conclusions.

August 23 must be regarded as a date of great historic importance. It is a turning point in the history of Europe, and not only Europe.

Only recently the German Nazis conducted a foreign policy which was essentially

hostile to the Soviet Union. Yes, until recently, in the realm of foreign policy, the Soviet Union and Germany were enemies. The situation has now changed, and we

have stopped being enemies. The political art in foreign affairs is... to reduce the number of enemies of one's country, and to turn yesterday's enemies into good

neighbours.

History has shown that enmity and war between Russia and Germany have never

led to any good. These two countries suffered more from the last World War than

any other.

Molotov obviously expected a new war in Europe to break out at any moment; but this

did not seem to worry him unduly: "Even if a military collision cannot be avoided in Europe, the scale of such a war will be limited. Only the partisans of a general war in Europe can be dissatisfied with this."

The Soviet-German agreement has been violently attacked in the Anglo-French and

American press, and especially in some "socialist" papers... Particularly violent in their denunciations of the agreement are some of the French and British socialist leaders... These people are determined that the Soviet Union should fight against Germany on the side of Britain and France. One may well wonder whether these

warmongers haven't gone off their heads. [Laughter.]

Under the Soviet-German Agreement, the Soviet Union is not obliged to fight either on the British or the German side. The USSR is pursuing her own policy, which is

determined by the interests of the peoples of the USSR, and by nobody else. [Loud

cheers.]

If these gentlemen have such an irresistible desire to go to war, well then—let them go to war by themselves, without the Soviet Union. [Laughter and cheers.] We'll see what kind of warriors they will make. [Loud laughter and cheers.]

Molotov had set the tone of the "debate".

Soon afterwards Shcherbakov rose to speak: "Two great nations," he said, "have solemnly declared their good-neighbourly relations... And now the Western socialists are furious. For they would like the Soviet Union and Germany to attack one another."

What Molotov had said about the British and French, Shcherbakov continued, showed

that, in their negotiations with the Soviet Union their attitude, especially that of the British, was insincere. There was no real desire to form a mutual assistance front. He then proposed that, in view of the "perfect clarity" of Molotov's statement, there should be no debate, that the policy of the Soviet government be approved and the Soviet-German

agreement ratified.

Needless to say, neither Molotov nor Shcherbakov had any grounds for fearing a debate; but there is no reason to suppose that it would have been marked by any high degree of enthusiasm.

A few hours later the Germans invaded Poland. Nothing was said in Moscow at that stage of the role that the Soviet Union was going to play in the destruction of that country, except for a slightly mysterious TASS statement on August 30 denying that Soviet troops were being transferred to the Far East:

On the contrary, TASS is authorised to state that, owing to the strained situation in the West, the garrisons on the Western frontier of the USSR are being reinforced.

Needless to say, Molotov's and Ribbentrop's Secret Protocol was not published. This, as we know, provided that "in the event of territorial and political transformations" the northern frontier of Lithuania would be the frontier of the Soviet-German "spheres of interest" in the Baltic States, and, roughly, the Narew-Vistula-San line the provisional demarcation line. The Soviet Union and Germany would subsequently decide whether to

maintain an independent Polish state, and if so, within what frontiers.

Before long, as we shall see, the occupation by the Red Army of Eastern Poland was to be represented as "the liberation of Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine" and as a means of saving these areas from the Nazis.

The present-day Soviet assessment of the Soviet-German Pact is that it was a measure that had been forced on Russia which simply had no alternative.

[For example ex-Ambassador Maisky's criticism of British foreign policy in 1939 in his memoirs.]

It is one of the very few points on which Khrushchev has never attacked or criticised Stalin, but has, on the contrary, fully justified his action.

Chapter III THE PARTITION OF POLAND

The coverage in the Soviet press of the German invasion of Poland was almost

unbelievably thin. It looked as though there were a desire to make people think and talk about it as little as possible. An attempt was made to give the impression that this was a small local war, of no particular consequence to the Soviet Union, where life, thanks to the wisdom of Comrade Stalin, was going on normally and peacefully.

Much space was given in the press to a great popular fête at the Dynamo Stadium in

Moscow on the eve of the German invasion of Poland, to another fête at Sokolniki a few days later, and to the International Youth Days which were celebrated in Moscow,

Leningrad and Kiev at the end of the first week of the war (though the question which nations were represented at these Youth Days was left remarkably vague—and no

wonder!).

In reporting the war itself, the Soviet press tried at first to sound as neutral and objective as possible. Both the German and the Polish communiqués were published; but

controversial matters like the "Operation Himmler" at Gleiwitz—where Germans, dressed in Polish uniform, attacked a German wireless station—were carefully avoided.

[In the Soviet post-war History of the war, on the other hand, the greatest prominence is given to this far-reaching Nazi provocation against Poland.]

Hitler's Reichstag speech announcing the invasion of Poland was given under a three-

column heading in Pravda on September 2. The speech was important since, in the course of it, Hitler said: "I can endorse every word that Foreign Commissar Molotov uttered in his Supreme Soviet speech," and proposed the ratification of the Soviet-German Pact. The news that Britain had declared war on Germany was given only a two-

column heading.

Relations with Nazi Germany were what seemed to interest the Soviet Government most.

On September 6, Pravda prominently reported that, in the presence of Ribbentrop, Hitler had received the new Soviet Ambassador, Comrade Shkvartsev and the Soviet Military

Attaché, Comrade Purkayev. "After presenting his credentials, the Soviet Ambassador had a lengthy talk with Hitler."

Events in Britain and France were only very thinly reported, but, significantly perhaps, considerable interest was shown in the American attitude to the war in Europe.

But that "objectivity" in reporting the war in Poland did not last long. Ten days after the German invasion Pravda published its first "survey" of the Polish-German war which, it said, was marked by an extraordinarily rapid advance of the German troops; the absence of any proper fortifications in Western Poland and great German air superiority, as a result of which practically all Polish airfields, most of the Polish air force and most communication centres had been destroyed. The "survey" stressed the great superiority of the German land forces, with their large numbers of tanks and heavy guns, and also

commented on the total lack of "any effective help" from Britain and France. Although, it concluded, a large part of the Polish Army had succeeded in crossing the Vistula, the Polish command was unlikely to continue strong resistance, since it had lost practically its entire military and economic base.

Better still was to come. Three days later, on September 14, a Pravda editorial argued that the Polish Army had practically not fought at all.

Why is this Polish Army not offering the Germans any resistance to speak of? It is because Poland is not a homogeneous country. Only sixty percent of the population are Poles, the rest are Ukrainians, Belorussians and Jews... The eleven million

Ukrainians and Belorussians are living in a state of national oppression... The

administration is Polish, and no other language is recognised. There are practically no non-Polish schools or other cultural establishments. The Polish Constitution does not give non-Poles the right to be taught in their own language. Instead, the Polish Government has been pursuing a policy of forced Polonisation...

The more heroic episodes of the Polish soldiers' resistance to superior German forces—

whether at Hel or Westerplatte or in Warsaw—were not mentioned at all; instead, on

September 14, Pravda reported that "after a tour of inspection of the Front, Hitler had arrived at Lodz at 3 p.m." Reports of German air attacks on railway trains and of "the flight of the Polish Government" were intended to convey the impression that by the middle of September Poland was in a complete state of chaos.

The full significance of the article on the Ukrainians and Belorussians soon became

apparent. On September 17 Molotov made a broadcast in which he declared that two

weeks of war had demonstrated the "internal incapacity" of the Polish State. All industrial centres had been lost; nor could Warsaw be considered any more the capital of the Polish State. No one knew where the Polish Government was. The situation in Poland therefore called for the greatest vigilance on the part of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Government had informed the Polish Ambassador, Mr Grzybowski, that the Red Army had been

ordered to take under its protection the populations of Western Belorussia and the

Western Ukraine.

Grzybowski had, indeed, been informed that day that although it had been neutral "up till now", the Soviet Government could no longer be neutral in the face of reigning chaos in Poland or the fact that "our blood-brothers, the Ukrainians and Belorussians, are being abandoned to their fate..."

And then came the guerre fraîche et joyeuse. In a few days the Red Army occupied vast stretches of country which had constituted the eastern half of Poland. The war

communiqué of September 17 announced that the Red Army had crossed the Polish

frontier all the way from Latvia to Rumania; that, in the north, Molodechno and

Baranovichi had been occupied, and, in the south, Rovno and Dubno. Seven Polish

fighters had been brought down, three Polish bombers had been forced to land, and their crews had been taken prisoner. By September 20 the Red Army had occupied Kovel,

Lwow, Vilno and Grodno. Three Polish divisions had been disarmed, and 68,000 officers and men taken prisoner.

On September 19 a joint Soviet-German communiqué was published saying that the task

of the Soviet and German troops was to "restore peace and order which had been

disturbed by the disintegration [raspad] of the Polish State, and to help the population of Poland to reorganise the conditions of its political existence".

If, during the German invasion of Poland, the Soviet press was extremely reticent in its accounts of what was happening, and carefully refrained from any "straight" reporting, it now embarked on an orgy of rapturous articles and descriptive reports on the enthusiasm with which the Red Army was being welcomed by the people of the Western Ukraine and

Western Belorussia—

Happy Days in the Liberated Villages (report from the Rovno area).

Jubilant Crowds Heartily Welcome N. S. Khrushchev.

Population to Red Army: "You have Saved our Lives!"

Such were some of the headlines. On September 20 Pravda reported "great animation in Lwow" and the great enthusiasm with which the people there had gone to see the film

"Lenin in 1918".

Another report from the Rovno area read: "An old peasant, named Murash, went up to our soldiers. 'I am seventy,' he said, 'and I know that there is in Moscow a man who is the father of all the oppressed, a man who thinks of us and cares for us. And I know that his name is Joseph Stalin.'"

All the same, the Soviet hierarchy must have known that there was at least some slight uneasiness in the country over what was in effect a partition of Poland in the company of Hitler. Hence, for instance, the publication in Pravda on September 18 of a poem by Nikolai Aseyev called "Hold Your Heads Up"—

The landlords' (panski) flag has been trampled underfoot,

But you, Polish people, have not been humiliated...

You toilers of Poland, do not believe the tale

That we have stepped forward

Just to add to your sorrows.

If we have crossed the frontier,

It is not to make you afraid;

We do not want you to cringe to us;

Proudly you can hold up your heads.

In fact, the great majority of "real" Poles were to remain under German occupation, as most of the people in the areas taken over by the Russians were Ukrainians or

Belorussians. As we now know, the NKVD soon got busy in the liberated territories of the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. The deportation to the east of "hostile" and

"disloyal" Poles was to run into hundreds of thousands. They were to constitute a major political problem in 1941-2. The Polish soldiers captured by the Russians were

demobilised before long, but most of the captured Polish officers were to remain in

Russian captivity—with dire consequences, as we shall see.

The land reform in the liberated areas—a reform described in the Soviet press as early as September 27 as "the distribution of landlord estates"—began almost at once.

On September 27 Pravda published a map of Poland showing the provisional

demarcation line between the Russian and German armed forces. This ran from the southeast corner of East Prussia down to Warsaw and then further south along the river San.

On the following day Ribbentrop came on his second visit to Moscow. On September 29

Pravda published a large front-page photoigraph showing Molotov signing the German-Soviet Agreement of Friendship and on the Frontier between the USSR and Germany;

standing behind him were Ribbentrop, Stalin, Pavlov (the interpreter), and Gaus. The paper also spoke of the dinner given by Molotov in Ribbentrop's honour. Among those

present were Forster, Gaus, Schnurre, and Kordt of the Ribbentrop party, Schulenburg and Tippelskirch of the German Embassy, as well as Stalin, Voro-shilov, Kaganovich,

Mikoyan, Beria, Bulganin and Voznesensky.

"Comrade Molotov and Herr von Ribbentrop exchanged speeches of welcome. The

dinner took place in a friendly atmosphere." That day the following Soviet-German Statement was published:

Having signed today an agreement which finally settled the problems that had

arisen from the disintegration of the Polish State, and having thus laid the solid foundations for a lasting peace in Eastern Europe, the Soviet and German

Governments declare that the liquidation of the war between Germany on the one

hand and Great Britain and France on the other would be in the interests of all

nations.

If, however, the endeavours of both governments remain fruitless, this will only

show that Great Britain and France will bear the responsibility for continuing the war. If this war is to continue, the Governments of Germany and the Soviet Union

will consult each other on the necessary measures to be taken.

(Signed) Molotov. Ribbentrop.

Later, during the war, I had occasion to discuss with a number of Soviet intellectuals the effect this statement had in Russia at the time. It appeared that the "recovery" of Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine had indeed caused much satisfaction, partly because it had pushed the Soviet frontier further west—and nobody had ever trusted Hitler.

Secondly the one thing many people dreaded was that Britain and France might make

peace with Germany. They knew that Russia had become thoroughly disreputable in

French and British eyes over the "partition" of Poland, and feared that there might be a Western deal with Hitler at Russia's expense.

No sooner was the war in Poland over, than the Russians inflicted on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania "mutual aid and trade agreements" under which the Soviet Union was given military, air and naval bases in all three countries. In that matter, too, the consummation of the secret protocol drawn up by Ribbentrop and Molotov, when the Soviet Nazi treaty was concluded, made steady progress. Vilno, however, which had been part of Poland,

was handed back to Lithuania by the Russians after they had secured the required military hold on that small country, as they had on the two other Baltic States.

Meanwhile Molotov and Ribbentrop continued to go through all the usual motions of

friendship. On September 29, before leaving Moscow, Ribbentrop declared in a statement to Tass:

Again this visit to Moscow was too short, and I hope my next visit will last longer.

All the same, we made good use of these two days.

1) German-Soviet friendship is now finally established;

2) Neither country will allow any interference from third parties in East-European affairs;

3) Both countries wish a restoration of peace, and they want Britain and France to stop their absolutely senseless and hopeless war against Germany;

4) If, however, in these countries, the warmongers gain the upper hand, then

Germany and the USSR will know how to react to this.

He then referred to "the great programme of economic cooperation which had been agreed upon and which would be valuable to both countries", and, he concluded: "The talks took place in a particularly friendly and splendid atmosphere. I should like, above all, to stress the extraordinarily cordial reception given me by the Soviet Government and particularly by Herr Staun and Herr Molotov."

[ Pravda, September 30, 1939.]

Looking back on this statement, a number of Russians later told me that it had created a

"rather reassuring impression". Among many Russians there was the hope—or the illusion—that Ribbentrop perhaps belonged to that Ostpolitik faction in Germany who were decidedly against conflict with Russia. That was the impression that Stalin and Molotov also had; they were, moreover, convinced that Ambassador Count Schulenburg

belonged to the old Bismarckian, no-war-with-Russia school of thought. In this they were right. The big question mark was Hitler himself.

On October 8, a week after the Ribbentrop visit to Moscow, Hitler made another peace offer to Britain and France, but it was rejected, again, one suspects, to the Russians'

relief.

The Soviet Press during the weeks following the destruction of Poland makes pretty

nauseating reading. Thus, Pravda of October 17 published an article by David Zaslavsky, an old hack, ironically a Jew, whom Lenin had once described as "the most corrupt pen in Russia":

In all seriousness, though scarcely able to suppress a smile, the French press has informed the world of a sensational piece of news. In Paris in such-and-such a street a new Polish Government has been formed, with General Sikorski at its head. The

territory of this government consists, it appears, of six rooms, a bathroom and a w.c.

Compared with this territory, Monaco is a boundless empire.

In the Great Paris Synagogue, Sikorski addressed the Jewish bankers of Paris. The Synagogue was adorned with a flag with a white eagle, which the Chief Rabbi must

have turned into kosher meat, since this is a bird that orthodox Jews do not, as a rule, use as food.

In former Poland, the Jews used to be frightened to death of the Polish nobility and of pogroms, but the Jewish bankers in Paris had, obviously, nothing to fear from

General Sikorski...

And more witticisms of the same kind; but not a word about the Nazis and Mr

Zaslavsky's own fellow-Jews in "former" Poland. The cartoons in the press were becoming increasingly anti-British and anti-French. Thus Kukryniksy published one

showing a "Capitalist" and a "Social-Democrat" locking a door marked "Democracy" and a "French Communist" peeping through the barred window. The Social-Democrat carried a shield marked "War for Democracy".

It was not till October 31 that Molotov made another speech before the Supreme Soviet—

this was the famous speech in which he welcomed the disappearance of Poland, "that monster child of the Treaty of Versailles" [A phrase for which, in retrospect, he was to be taken to task in vol. I of the official History of the War, published in 1960.], and declared that not Germany, but Britain and France were now the "aggressor" nations.

It was this speech which marked, as it were, the zenith of Soviet-German "friendship"

and "solidarity"; first it dealt with Poland: "The rulers of Poland used to make a great fuss over the 'soundness' of their State and the 'might' of their Army. A short blow at Poland from the German Army, followed by one from the Red Army was enough to reduce to

nothing this monster child of the Treaty of Versailles."

He then dealt with the British and French guarantees to Poland, and remarked "amidst general laughter" that "no one knew to this day what kind of guarantees these were". He noted that the war in the West had not yet developed.

"But the whole concept of 'aggression' has changed. Today we cannot use the word in the same sense as three or four months ago. Now Germany stands for peace, while Britain and France are in favour of continuing the war. As you see, the roles have been

reversed."

[Emphasis added.]

He even improved on this performance by going on:

Now Britain and France, no longer able to fight for a restoration of Poland, are

posing as "fighters for democratic rights against Hitler-ism". The British Government now claims that its aim is, no more, or no less, if you please, "the destruction of Hitlerism". So it's an ideological war, a kind of medieval religious war.

One may like or dislike Hitlerism, but every sane person will understand that

ideology cannot be destroyed by force. It is therefore not only nonsensical but also criminal to pursue a war "for the destruction of Hitlerism" under the bogus banner of a struggle for "democracy". And what kind of democracy is it, anyway, with the French Communist Party in jail?

It was only when dealing with the liberation of the Western Ukraine and Western

Belorussia that Molotov did drop something like a hint that Germany, after all, still constituted a potential danger to the Soviet Union: "Our relations with Germany have radically improved. We are neutral. But we could not remain neutral in respect of Eastern Poland, since this involved acute problems of our country's security. [Emphasis added.]

Moreover, the populations of Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine had been left to their fate, and this we could not allow."

Since the incorporation of these territories in the Soviet Union, Molotov said, the

population of the country had grown by some thirteen million people, over seven million Ukrainians, three million Belorussians, one million Poles and one million Jews. The war against Poland had cost the Soviet Union 734 dead and 1,862 wounded; and the Red

Army had captured from the Poles 900 guns, 10,000 machine-guns, 300 planes, one

million shells, etc.

He then spoke of the mutual assistance pacts with the Baltic States and, indeed,

contended that these did not, in any way, constitute interference in their internal affairs.

This, however, did not end his diplomatic survey. Next on the list was Finland.

Leningrad, Molotov said, was only twenty miles from the Finnish frontier, and could thus be shelled from Finnish territory. Lately there had been all kinds of absurd rumours. The Soviet Union was supposed to have demanded from Finland the transfer of Viborg and of the north side of Lake Ladoga. This was a lie.

[Precisely the territory the Russians were eventually to annex.]

"Our demands are minimal. In our talks with Tanner and Paasi-kivi we proposed a mutual assistance pact on the lines of those signed with the other Baltic States. The Finns said they were neutral; so we did not insist. What we are asking for is only a small area of a few dozen kilometres north-west of Leningrad, in return for which we are willing to give them an area twice that size. We are also asking for a naval base at the western end of the Gulf of Finland. We have now a naval base at Baltiski in Estonia on the south side of the gulf; we want a similar base on the north side." Molotov argued that these demands were eminently reasonable, and regretted that the Finns were being difficult.

[From the Finnish point of view these Russian demands did not look as trivial as Molotov tried to suggest, and events were soon to show that the Finns had good grounds for

mistrusting Russia's intentions.]

He then briefly dealt with Japan, saying that between May and mid-September there had been heavy fighting in the Far East. Japan had wanted to annex a part of Mongolia; but if England's guarantee to Poland was a scrap of paper, the Soviet Union's guarantee to the Mongolian People's Republic was not. On September 15 peace had been restored

between Japan and the Soviet Union.

In conclusion he remarked that the United States Government had lifted its embargo on arms to belligerent nations, and this, he said, "aroused legitimate doubts". This complaint fitted, of course, the official line that not Germany, but Britain and France were now the

"aggressors". This argument was illustrated a few days later by another Kukryniksy cartoon in Pravda showing British and French generals and capitalists in top hats queuing up for armaments in front of "Uncle Sam's Bargain Basement".

Molotov's speech of October 31, 1939 marks the end of the first phase of the Soviet-

German "honeymoon". The recovery by the Soviet Union of Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine— including some areas, such as Lwow, which had never been part of

the old Russian Empire—suggested to many Russians that, from a national point of view, the rapprochement with Nazi Germany could have some distinct advantages. It is true that all these annexations were mixed up with "acute problems of our country's security"

as Molotov had said, and this could primarily refer only to a potential danger from Nazi Germany. Nevertheless there was a widespread feeling in the country that "neutrality"

paid; that as a result of the Soviet-German Pact the Soviet Union had become bigger and, as yet without too much bloodshed, more secure.

Following the partition of Poland, the western frontier of the Soviet Union had been moved several hundred miles further west; the Baltic States had been "neutralised"

through the establishment of Soviet military bases there. There was, of course, that threat to Leningrad left which had now to be dealt with.

The "liberation" of Eastern Poland, with its 700 Russian dead, had been one of the cheapest wars ever fought and gave the pleasant illusion of the Red Army's invincibility.

The Finnish war, with its enormous casualties (48,000 Russian dead alone) was to raise some highly awkward questions about the Red Army's overwhelming power and

efficiency. Politically, the Finnish war could not, as we shall see, have been handled—at least in its initial stages—more ineptly than it was.

Chapter IV FROM THE FINNISH WAR TO THE GERMAN

INVASION OF FRANCE

The Russians considered the Finnish frontier, running only twenty miles north-west of Leningrad, a potential threat to Russia's second largest city. The Russians, as Molotov said in his speech of October 31, were "only" asking that the frontier be pushed back "a few dozen kilometres", while a much larger area was to be given to Finland further north in return for this concession. Moreover, the Russians, anxious to control the Gulf of Finland and so to protect Leningrad and its sea route, had asked for a naval base, i.e. for the port of Hangö on the north side of the Gulf.

[ In 1945, Paasikivi and Kekkonen, both future presidents of Finland, who had favoured accommodation with the Russians, told me that they had considered the Russian

proposals moderate and understandable, and maintained that the war could have been

avoided had their policy prevailed.]

The negotiations continued for two months, until at the end of November there was a

frontier incident, real or imaginary. Despite Finnish denials the Russians claimed that the Finns had shelled the Soviet border killing several Russian soldiers. The Russians

demanded that the Finnish Army withdraw twenty or twenty-five kilometres from the

frontier. The Finnish Government denied that the incident had occurred and refused to comply. On November 29 Molotov sent a note to Irje Koskinen, the Finnish Minister in Moscow, in which he declared:

Having refused to withdraw their troops from the Soviet border by even twenty or

twenty-five kilometres after the wicked shelling of Soviet troops by Finnish troops, the Government of Finland has shown that it continues to maintain a hostile attitude to the Soviet Union. Since it has violated the non-aggression pact... we now also consider ourselves free of the obligations arising from this pact.

On the same day Molotov made a radio announcement in which he said, in effect, that

war had been declared on Finland since the two months' negotiations had only led to the shelling by the Finns of Soviet troops in the Leningrad area. He announced that the

Soviet political and economic representatives in Finland had been recalled. At the same time Molotov also went out of his way to state that the Soviet Union "regarded Finland, no matter what its régime was, as an independent and sovereign State". This statement was all the more curious since, three days later, the Russians set up the "Finnish People's Government" of Terijoki under Otto Kuusinen.

"Spontaneous" mass demonstrations of anger were reported from all over the Soviet Union in Pravda of November 30, alongside the text of the Molotov broadcast. Here are a few headlines:

"Let us Strike Mercilessly at the Enemy!" (Mass meeting at the Bolshevik Plant in Leningrad).

Moscow: "We Shall Answer Fire with Fire!"

Kronstadt: "Our Patience is at an End!"

The People's Wrath: "Wipe the Finnish Adventurers off the Face of the Earth."

Kiev: "The Fate of Beck and Moscicki Awaits Them!"

On the following day, the Soviet press briefly reported "clashes between Soviet and Finnish troops".

More startling, however, was the "monitoring report, translated from the Finnish" of an alleged "Address by the Central Committee of the Finnish Communist Party to the Labouring People of Finland". And then on December 2, the Soviet press published this TASS report from Leningrad:

FORMATION OF A PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT OF FINLAND

By agreement with the representatives of a number of Left-wing parties and with

Finnish soldiers who had rebelled, a new government of Finland—the People's

Government of the Finnish Democratic Republic—was formed at Terijoki today.

[Terijoki is on the Gulf of Finland only a few miles across the Finnish border. It used to be a favourite seaside resort with Petro-graders before the Revolution.]

The premier and foreign minister of this government was Otto Kuusinen, one of the most active members of the Comintern for many years past, and he had six ministers—

somebody called Mauri Rosenberg, the Minister of Finance, Axel Anttila, Minister of

Defence, Taure Lechin, Minister of the Interior and three others. No one knew who

exactly, with the exception of Kuusinen, these people were. On the same day it was

announced that diplomatic relations had been established between the Soviet Union and the Finnish Democratic Government.

The news of the formation of the new Finnish Government was not only received "with jubilant enthusiasm by the people of Leningrad" but—already on the very day of its formation—"The kolkhoz-niks of Tataria 'heartily welcomed' the People's Government of Finland ".

[Pravda, December 2,1939. ]

Kuusinen was going from strength to strength. On the following day (December 3)

Pravda published a front-page picture showing Molotov signing the Mutual Assistance and Friendship Pact between the USSR and the Finnish Democratic Republic. Standing

behind him were Zhdanov, Voroshilov, Stalin and Kuusinen. It was not quite clear what had happened to the other members of the new Finnish Government. The Pact provided

that the "ratification papers" would be "exchanged by the two governments at Helsinki".

The same issue of Pravda published a map showing the new Soviet-Finnish frontier agreed upon between Molotov and Kuusinen: apart from a lease by Russia of Hangö,

only a small area of Finnish territory north-west of Leningrad—less than half-way

towards Viborg [Viipuri in Finnish (see map).]—was to be ceded to the Soviet Union. In return, Finland received large stretches of Karelia, including the whole Olonetz area, east of Lake Ladoga.

It is more than doubtful whether these terms did indeed impress the Finns by their show of "generosity". Be that as it may, the clause stipulating that the ratification papers were to be "exchanged" at Helsinki between the Russians and Kuusinen was quite another matter. It suggested that the "liberation" of Finland by the Red Army, accompanied by the Terijoki Government, would only be a matter of a few days, at most of weeks.

Both militarily and politically, Stalin's and Molotov's miscalculations could not have been worse. The "Terijoki Government" was set up two or three days after Molotov had explicitly declared his continued recognition of the Finnish Government at Helsinki, and, except for the capture of Petsamo in the far north in the middle of December, the Red Army's advance on either the Karelian Isthmus or in Central Finland was extremely slow and arduous. The "Mannerheim Line" was much stronger than the Russian command had anticipated, and Finnish resistance was extremely tough. Indeed, casualties were rapidly mounting. Anyone who lived in Leningrad knew that the hospitals had difficulties in

coping with the thousands of wounded pouring in day after day. Meanwhile, the

communiqués were brief and unilluminating, except for showing that most of the heavy fighting was taking place on the Karelian Isthmus. The disconcerted Soviet public soon guessed that the Finnish war was nothing like the walkover in Eastern Poland. Still, the myth of the "Terijoki Government" had to be kept up for quite a while, as well as the myth that the "White-Finnish Clique at Helsinki" was "unrepresentative" of the Finnish people.

Pravda even resorted to quoting from some article in a Rumanian paper which was supposed to have said: "The present 'ruling circles' of Finland consist chiefly of ex-Tsarist functionaries. .. Foreign Minister Erkko recently recalled the happy times when Finland was a Russian Grand-Duchy. General Mannerheim is particularly attached to the good old Tsarist days, when he was a personal A.D.C. to Nicholas II. It was Mannerheim who, in 1918, strangled Finland's democratic freedoms with the help of foreign (sic) troops." Pravda did not specify that the foreign troops in question were German troops.

*

December 21, 1939 was Stalin's 60th birthday which, needless to say, was marked by an orgy of laudatory articles ("Stalin Continues the Work of Lenin" by Molotov, "Stalin and the Build-Up of the Red Army" by Voroshilov, "Stalin, the Great Engine-Driver of History", by Kaganovich, "Stalin is Lenin To-Day", by Mikoyan, etc.), poems and musical compositions, among them Prokofiev's, musically admirable, Ode to Stalin.

Two days later the press began to publish the birthday greetings Stalin had received from abroad. The place of honour was given to the telegram from Hitler, followed by that from Ribbentrop.

In his birthday greeting to Stalin on December 21, Hitler said:

... Please accept my most sincere congratulations. I send at the same time my very best wishes for your personal good health and for a happy future for the peoples of a friendly Soviet Union.

Adolf Hitler.

Ribbentrop was even more gushing:

Remembering the historic hours at the Kremlin which marked the beginning of a

decisive change in the relations of our countries and which thus laid the foundations for long years of friendship between our two peoples, please accept my most cordial congratulations on your 60th birthday.

Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Stalin sent Hitler a rather conventional telegram of thanks, but in his telegram to

Ribbentrop he said: "The friendship between the peoples of the Soviet Union and Germany, cemented by blood, has every reason to be solid and lasting."

The impression persisted among the Soviet hierarchy that Ribbentrop was more

wholehearted about the Soviet-German Pact than Hitler was. No doubt they would have

preferred it the other way round.

Third on the list was the telegram from Kuusinen, followed by birthday greetings from Chiang Kai-Shek, Mgr Tiso, the President of Slovakia, Mr Sarajoglu of Turkey, and the particularly obsequious messages from the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

There were no birthday greetings from any Western leaders, who were busy at the time expelling the Soviet Union from the League of Nations.

Kuusinen wired: "In the name of the toiling people of Finland, fighting hand-in-hand with the heroic Red Army for the liberation of their country from the yoke of the White Guards, hirelings of foreign imperialists, the People's Government of Finland sends its warmest good wishes to you, Comrade Stalin, the great (veliki) friend of the Finnish People."

A few days later Stalin replied: "To the Head of the People's Government of Finland, Otto Kuusinen, Terijoki. Thank you for your good wishes... I wish the Finnish people and the People's Government of Finland a speedy and complete victory over the oppressors of the Finnish people, the Mannerheim-Tanner gang."

Shortly before the Finnish war had begun, there was, at Munich, an abortive attempt on Hitler's life. He had already left when the explosion occurred, in which six persons were killed and sixty wounded. Promptly Ambassador Shkvartsev called on Ribbentrop to

present him the condolences of the Soviet Government "in connection with the terrorist act in Munich, which had caused serious loss of life". Pravda also reported that, according to Himmler, the plot had originated abroad and that a reward of 800,000 marks would be paid in any currency to anyone whose information would lead to the discovery of the criminals. Hitler's Munich speech, delivered before the explosion, was reported in Pravda under a three-column heading.