Russia at war

by Alexander C Werth

  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 w
as 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 w
ar 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.