Russia at war

by Alexander C Werth

  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