Russia at war

by Alexander C Werth

  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 homoge
neous 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 Ge
rmany. 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