Russia at war
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No "pressure" on Germany is intended and the military measures taken have only one aim: which is to safeguard the mutual aid between the Soviet Union and these countries.
As for Soviet-German relations, the TASS statement went out of its way to say that the occupation of the Baltic States—or Germany's victory in the West, for that matter—could not in any way affect them, though it was careful not to say whether, or not, the Baltic States had been occupied with German consent. "There is a deliberate attempt" (the TASS statement went on) "to cast a shadow on Soviet-German relations. In all this there is nothing but wishful thinking on the part of certain British, American, Swedish and Japanese gentlemen... They seem to be incapable of grasping the obvious fact that the good-neighbourly relations between the Soviet Union and Germany cannot be disturbed
by rumours and cheap propaganda, since these relations are based not on temporary
motives of an ad hoc {konyunkturnyi) character, but on the fundamental State interests of the USSR and Germany."
So far so good; but six days later it was announced that "the Soviet-Rumanian conflict over Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina" had been "satisfactorily settled". Whereupon the Soviet press proceeded to report the "jubilant" reception given by the population of these two areas to the Red Army.
[According to the Russian post-war History, the Russians had become increasingly worried, especially since May 1940, by Rumania's "growing subservience" to Germany; both Tatarescu and King Carol, who had, for a time, tried to sit on the fence, were now beginning to lean heavily over to the German side. It was on June 26 that the Soviet Government presented what was in effect an ultimatum to the Rumanian Government
demanding an "immediate solution" of the question concerning the return of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. It also demanded the transfer to the Soviet Union of Northern
Bukovina which was ethnically Ukrainian. An additional argument concerning Northern
Bukovina was that "in November 1918 the People's Assembly (veche) of Bukovina had, reflecting the will of the people, decided in favour of joining Soviet Ukraine".
Davidescu, the Rumanian Ambassador in Moscow, declared, on the following day, his
government's "readiness" to enter into negotiations with the Soviet Government; but the latter demanded a "Clear and precise" answer. This came almost immediately, and on June 28 the Red Army began to move into the two areas.
On June 23 Germany had been informed of the Soviet demands on Rumania, "but had to declare that she was not interested in the question of Bessarabia". As the History says:
"While the Battle of France was going on, it was particularly undesirable for the Germans to complicate their relations with the Soviet Union. Moreover, the Germans feared that, in the event of a Soviet-Rumanian conflict, Rumania might lose her oilwells, while
Germany was extremely anxious that these should remain intact".
For hard-boiled "realism" the Russian conduct in this case was hard to beat. The History adds that, "with the best will in the world", Britain was unable at the time to "interfere in Soviet-Rumanian relations", since she was wholly tied up by the war in the West.
(IVOVSS, I, p. 281). Rumania joined the Axis in November 1940.]
*
During the few days separating the occupation of the Baltic States and of Bessarabia-Bukovina, a number of other significant things happened. On June 25 it was announced that diplomatic relations had been established between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
Milan Gabrilovic was appointed Ambassador to Moscow and V. A. Plotnikov
Ambassador to Belgrade.
But that was not all. On the following day came a real bombshell of another kind—the ukase of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet placing Soviet industry virtually on a war footing. The eight-hour working-day was now introduced, and the full six-day working-week; more important still, workers and employees were now tied to their particular
enterprise or office, and there could no longer be any migration of labour. The ukase also provided for the most rigid disciplinary measures against absenteeism and similar
offences.
Needless to say, countless "spontaneous" meetings of workers were reported from all over the country, all approving the ukase, the purpose of which, according to all the speakers at these meetings, was to increase the military might of the Soviet Union. The fall of France was having its immediate repercussions inside Russia.
Speaking at a plenary session of the Soviet Trade Union Federation on June 25, N. M.
Shveraik said: "We are living in a capitalist encirclement and the war is raging over great areas. It is our good fortune not to be in the war, but we must be prepared for all
emergencies. We must do all we can to be many times stronger than we are; we must in every way and at any moment be ready to face every possible ordeal."
After the fall of France, it was only too clear to everybody that there was only one country from which these "ordeals" could now come. It was certainly not England, and not even Japan. And Shvernik went on: "Comrades, as Comrade Stalin has taught us, the most dangerous thing in the world is to be caught unawares. To be caught unawares
means falling a victim to the unexpected. Today the international situation demands from us that we strengthen the defence of our country and the might of our armed forces day after day."
During that historic week, the coverage of events in the West showed a slight, if only very slight, pro-British bias. Churchill's speeches saying Britain would fight till final victory, were duly reported, and, as early as June 21, there was a first mention in the Russian press of de Gaulle and his refusal to surrender to the Germans. On the other hand, Pétain was reported as calling for the termination of the war between Germany and Britain; and the Soviet press also published the Franco-German armistice terms, and the report of the German High Command on the French campaign: 27,000 Germans killed,
18,000 missing, 111,000 wounded. Prisoners taken: 1,900,000, including five army
commanders.
The fact that German losses were only about half of what had been the Russian losses in the "little" Finnish War cannot have passed unobserved. The secret hope that Germany would have found herself greatly weakened by her war in the West had been dashed to
the ground. Now, for the first time, the Russians heard names bandied about which,
before long, were to acquire so ominous a ring: Rundstedt, Kleist, Guderian.
For all that, the pretence that relations with Germany were good had still to be kept up.
Alongside reports of the "election campaigns" in the Baltic States, the Soviet Press published extracts from a German White Paper disclosing "Anglo-French intrigues against the Soviet Union" at the time of the Finnish War, their plans to bomb Baku, and similar matters. And then came Molotov's Supreme Soviet speech of August 1, 1940 in
which he commented in his own peculiar way on all the spectacular and tragic events of the last few months. In a devious and subtly ambiguous manner he intimated that he was not displeased and perhaps relieved—as he most certainly was—that Britain had not
given up the struggle.
Germany has achieved a great success against the [Western] Allies. But she has not solved her fundamental problem, which is to stop the war on conditions desirable to her. On July 19 the Reichskanzler offered peace negotiations to Great Britain, but the British Government rejected his offer, interpreting it as a demand for
capitulation. It replied that it would go on till final victory. The British Government has even broken off diplomatic relations with France. All this means that Great
Britain does not wish to give up her colonies and wants to go on fighting for world domination, even though this will be much more difficult for her since the defeat of France and since Italy's entry into the war.
Having delivered this side-kick at "British imperialism", Molotov then proceeded: "The end of the war is not in sight. We are likely to be faced with a new stage of the war�
�a struggle between Germany and Italy, on the one hand, and Britain, supported by the United States, on the other." The reference to the United States was clearly intended to suggest that Germany's chances of winning the war were not necessarily good.
It is highly significant that even when things looked blackest for Britain, the Russians took a reasonably optimistic view of her chances; thus, the chief ideological journal of the Communist Party, Bolshevik of July 15, 1940 concluded its survey by saying that Britain was "far from finished", while a similar line had already been taken by the well-known economist, Prof. E. Varga in Mirovoye Khoziaistvo i Mirovaya Politika (World Economy and World Politics) early in June, when the collapse of France was already
imminent.
As for the future of Soviet-German relations, Molotov merely repeated, almost word for word, the TASS communiqué of June 23: "There has recently been in the British and pro-British press much speculation on the possibility of discord between the Soviet Union and Germany. Attempts have been made to frighten us with the growing might of
Germany. But our relations are not based on temporary ad hoc considerations, but on the fundamental state interests of the two countries."
What he said about Britain was at any rate distinctly less ill-tempered than anything said or published for a long time: "There have been no substantial changes in our relations with England. After all the hostile acts she has committed against us, it was hard to expect any favourable developments in Anglo-Soviet relations, even though the
appointment of Cripps as British Ambassador to Moscow may point to a desire on the part of Great Britain to improve her relations with the Soviet Union."
[ Emphasis added.]
The incorporation in the Soviet Union of the Baltic States, Bessarabia and North
Bukovina was presented by Molotov in a manner that was to be expected. It was, no
doubt, pleasing to see the Soviet Union recover some of the territories which had once belonged to the old Tsarist Empire, and even to annex an area— Northern Bukovina,
including the large city of Czernowitz—which had never been part of it. Northern
Bukovina, Molotov said, was chiefly inhabited by Ukrainians and Moldavians—and
these, as well as the inhabitants of Bessarabia, had now become Soviet citizens "with great joy". There was now every reason to believe that relations with Rumania would become normal again. As for the Baltic States, Molotov explained their incorporation in the Soviet Union in the following terms:
The mutual assistance pacts we had with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia did not produce the desired results. The bourgeois cliques in these countries were hostile to the Soviet Union, and the anti-Soviet "Baltic Entente" between Latvia and Estonia was latterly extended to Lithuania.
Therefore, especially in view of the international situation, we demanded a change in the government personnel of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and the introduction into these countries of additional Red Army formations. In July free parliamentary elections took place in all three countries, and we can now note with satisfaction that the peoples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in a friendly élan elected representatives who have since unanimously declared themselves in favour of the introduction of the Soviet system in all three countries, and for their incorporation in the USSR. Ninety-five per cent of all these people had previously formed part of the USSR (sic).
Molotov reckoned that, since September 1939, the population of the Soviet Union had
increased by about twenty-three million people, all of which meant "an important increase in our might and territory".
Relations with Turkey and Iran, he went on, were now "fairly normal", despite the revelations in the German White Paper on the sinister role the two countries had played in the Anglo-French plotting against the Soviet Union. Relations with Japan—since the licking she had received at Halkin Gol—were now also "fairly normal", and a Manchukuo-Mongolian commission would shortly deal with the frontier problem
between the two countries. And then: "I shall not dwell on our relations with the USA if only because there is nothing good to report. [Laughter.] We understand that some Americans don't like our successes in the Baltic countries." He also referred to the gold belonging to the Baltic States which the USA had "grabbed", even though the Soviet Union had bought this gold from them.
He ended with the suggestion that the war would continue for a long time; and that "the entire Soviet people" must remain in a state of "mobilised preparedness" in view of the danger of a military attack on them. "We must not be caught unawares by any 'accident'
or any of the tricks of our foreign enemies."
Paletskis, Kirchenstein and Lauristin respectively representing Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, spoke at this Supreme Soviet meeting, and on August 2 new laws were adopted on the "Formation of the Moldavian SSR", on the "Inclusion of Northern Bukovina and the Khotinsk, Akkerman and Ismail districts of Bessarabia in the Ukrainian SSR", and on the "Admission of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian SSR's into the USSR". These laws were passed at the request of the parliaments of the three countries, and in virtue of Arts. 34 and 35 of the Soviet Constitution. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was
instructed to fix the date for elections in the three countries. On August 10 Pravda published a "Poem on Stalin" by Salome Neris, a Lithuanian poetess.
Meantime, in the three Baltic States a purge was being carried out amongst "Fascist" and other unreliable elements, with Vyshinsky, Dekanozov and Zhdanov supervising these
operations; estimates vary as to the number of persons deported from the Baltic
Republics between July 1940 and the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, but it is not improbable that they ran into tens of thousands.
Although the Baltic States, like the rest of Europe, had been affected by the war in the West, consumer goods were still plentiful in cities like Tallinn and Riga, and even long afterwards, all the elaborate and ingenious pretexts Russians used to think up in 1940
forgoing on more or less official "missions" to these newly-recovered territories in order to replenish their wardrobes and buy other nice things continued to be a standing joke.
The elections in the three Baltic Soviet Republics followed the usual Soviet pattern, but Russians who visited these countries in the autumn of 1940 had no great illusions about their peoples' unanimous love for the Soviet Union. There were strong pro-Soviet
currents among the Latvian working class, but that was about all. When the Germans
overran the Baltic States in June-July 1941, they met with very little opposition from the population; certain elements continued to be violently anti-Soviet, as is admitted in much of the Russian post-war writing on that stage of the war. The Estonians, although most of them disliked the Germans, had strong affinities with Finland, and Finland was at war with Russia...
Chapter VI RUSSIA AND THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN: A
PSYCHOLOGICAL TURNING-POINT?
In post-war Soviet histories of the war, there is a marked tendency to minimise the
importance of Britain's resistance to Germany between the fall of France and the summer of 1941; one Soviet author went so far as to say that the Battle of Britain was something of a myth; there had really been no such thing. There had been important air battles over Britain, but it had never come to a real clash between the "bulk" of the German and British forces. One explanation currently offered in recent histories is that Hitler's fear of the Red Army stopped him from making an all-out attempt to invade England.
Although this assertion may have some substance, one might as well recall that, on
August 23, 1940, i.e. just as the Battle of Britain was about to start in real earnest, Pravda as good as egged Hitler on to attack England. In its editorial that day, celebrating the first anniversary of the Soviet-German Pact, it wrote:
The signing of the Pact put an end to the enmity between Germany and the USSR,
an enmity which had been artificially worked
up by the warmongers... After the
disintegration of the Polish State, Germany proposed to Britain and France a
termination of the war— a proposal which was supported by the Soviet
Government. But they would not listen, and the war continued, bringing hardships
and sufferings to all the nations whom the organisers of the war had dragged into the bloodbath... We are neutral, and this Pact has made things easier for us; it has also been of great advantage to Germany, since she can be completely confident of
peace on her Eastern borders.
[Emphasis added.]
After referring to the Economic Agreement of February 11, 1940, the article concluded that Soviet-German relations had "honourably stood the test of time", which was all the more valuable with a great war raging elsewhere.
The most notable news items in the Soviet press during the last week of August and the beginning of September were a brief announcement on August 24 of Trotsky's death
[This read as follows: "London, August 22 (TASS). London radio reports that Trotsky has died in hospital in Mexico City of a fractured skull, the result of an attempt on his life by one of the persons in his immediate entourage."]; another Timoshenko speech on the reorganisation of the Red Army; a TASS denial of a Japanese report that Stalin had, at the end of August, discussed with Ambassador Schulenburg an agreement between the
USSR, Germany, Italy and Japan on the abolition of the Anti-Comintern Pact: "TASS is authorised to state that this is a pure invention. During the last six or seven months Comrade Stalin has had no meeting with Schulenburg." On September 5, there was a report on the destroyers that the United States had given to Britain. From September 9 on, following the first great German air-raid on London on the night of September 7, more and more space was devoted to the Battle of Britain—though it was never called that.
There was at first scarcely any first-hand reporting of news from "our own
correspondent", but the coverage, consisting chiefly of official German and British communiqués, extracts from DNB and Reuter reports, and quotations from the British