Russia at war

by Alexander C Werth

  Our grandfathers had risen from the dead,

  And were shielding us with their outstretched arms,

  And praying for us, their godless grandchildren...

  Russia, our homeland, what is it? I ask you;

  It's not Moscow houses, where we cheerfully lived,

  It is rather these poor huts where our grandfathers laboured,

  And the Russian graves with their simple crosses...

  Here was a kind of nostalgia for the Russian land, even in its poorest and most archaic form.

  Or the still more famous Wait for me, with its irrational, almost religious undertones: Wait for me, and I'll return, only wait very hard.

  Wait, when you are filled with sorrow as you watch the yellow rain;

  Wait, when the winds sweep the snowdrifts,

  Wait in the sweltering heat,

  Wait when others have stopped waiting, forgetting their yesterdays.

  Wait even when from afar, no letters come to you,

  Wait even when others are tired of waiting...

  Wait even when my mother and son think I am no more,

  And when friends sit around the fire, drinking to my memory.

  Wait, and do not hurry to drink to my memory, too;

  Wait, for I'll return, defying every death.

  And let those who did not wait say that I was lucky;

  They will never understand that in the midst of death,

  You, with your waiting, saved me.

  Only you and I will know how I survived:

  It's because you waited, as no one else did.

  This literal translation naturally does not render the rhythm of the original; as a poem it is, in fact, very mediocre; but, nevertheless, from the autumn of 1941, when it was first published, right through 1942, it was the most popular poem in Russia, which millions of women recited to themselves like a prayer.

  It is difficult at this distance, except for those who were in Russia at the time, to realise how important a poem like this was to literally millions of Russian women; no one could tell how many hundreds of thousands had died at the front since June 22, or had been taken prisoner or were otherwise missing.

  Almost equally important were some other poets and writers. People were deeply moved for instance by Zoya, Margarita Aligher's poem on the partisan girl who was hanged outside Moscow—a poem later turned into a play. This represents the girl's hallucinations during the night between her torture by the Germans and her execution, Stalin appearing in the last scene to say that Moscow has been saved. Important, too, was Surkov's poetry, e.g. his prose poem, A Soldier's Oath written in 1941:

  I am a Russian man, a soldier of the Red Army. My country has put a rifle in my

  hand, and has sent me to fight against the black hordes of Hitler that have broken into my country. Stalin has told me that the battle will be hard and bloody, but that victory will be mine.

  I heard Stalin, and know it will be so. I am the 193 million of free Soviet men, and to all of them Hitler's yoke is more bitter than death...

  Mine eyes have beheld thousands of dead bodies of women and children, lying along the railways and the highways. They were killed by the German vultures... The tears of women and children are boiling in my heart. Hitler the murderer and his hordes shall pay for these tears with their wolfish blood; for the avenger's hatred knows no mercy...

  Of the greatest importance, too, as morale-builders, were Ehren-burg's articles in Pravda and Red Star—brilliant and eloquent diatribes against the Germans, which were very popular in the Army. They were, occasionally, criticised on the ground that he tended to ridicule the Germans, forgetting what a powerful, deadly enemy they were. His

  suggestion that all Germans were evil was, of course, at variance with the official ideological line (repeated once again in Stalin's order of the day of February 23), but

  "Ehrenburgism" was fully approved in the circumstances as the most effective form of hate propaganda. Nor was he alone in taking this propaganda line: there were also

  Sholokhov and Alexei Tolstoy, and many others. The "all Germans are evil" motif was to become even more outspoken in the fearful summer of 1942.

  Chapter XIII THE DIPLOMATIC SCENE OF THE FIRST

  MONTHS OF THE INVASION

  Diplomatically, the Soviet Union was in a very strange position at the time of the German invasion. The only two embassies in Moscow that seemed to count in the eyes of the

  Soviet authorities before that were the German and the Japanese Embassies, and, of all ambassadors, Count von der Schulenburg was the one the Russians cultivated most. The Japanese Ambassador was also being courted, especially since the Matsuoka visit a few months earlier. As a gesture of appeasement towards Hitler, diplomatic relations had been broken off in May 1941 with Norway, Belgium, Yugoslavia and Greece; but Vichy

  France was represented by a full-fledged Ambassador, Gaston Bergery.

  Apart from Sweden, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Finland, very few neutral countries were represented; and if, with the American Embassy, under Laurence A. Steinhardt,

  relations were correct, but no more, the British Embassy, under Sir Stafford Cripps, was officially treated with deliberate coolness, almost bordering on rudeness. Cripps had the greatest difficulty in maintaining contact with the Soviet Foreign Commissariat, and, till the outbreak of the war in June 1941, he had not been privileged to meet Stalin, and had to content himself with occasionally seeing Vyshinsky, whose manner was far from

  forthcoming.

  There is in Churchill's Second World War [ Vol. 3, pp. 320-3.] a very curious passage concerning the one and only message he sent Stalin on April 3, asking Russia, in effect, to intervene in the Balkans.

  PRIME MINISTER TO SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS

  Following from me to M. Stalin, provided it can be personally delivered by you:

  I have sure information from a trusted agent that when the Germans thought they

  had got Yugoslavia in the net—i.e. after March 20—they began to move three out of the five Panzer divisions from Rumania to Southern Poland. The moment they

  heard of the Serbian revolution this movement was countermanded. Your

  Excellency will readily appreciate the significance of these facts.

  Eden, in his dispatch to Cripps accompanying the Churchill message asked that Cripps should point out to Stalin (if he were to see him) that the Soviet Union now had an

  opportunity of joining forces with Britain in the Balkans by furnishing material help to Yugoslavia and Greece; this would delay a German attack on Russia.

  Cripps meantime had sent a detailed letter along the same lines to Vyshinsky; and he therefore thought that Churchill's "fragmentary" message would do more harm than good.

  I greatly fear that the delivery of the Prime Minister's message would not be merely ineffectual, but a serious tactical mistake. If, however, you are unable to share this view, I will of course endeavour to arrange urgently for an interview with Molotov.

  "I was vexed at this," Churchill wrote, "and at the delay which had occurred."

  After some acrimonious exchanges between Churchill and Cripps via Eden, Cripps finally wired more than a fortnight later (after Yugoslavia had already been invaded) that he had sent the text of Churchill's message to Vyshinsky; and on April 22 he wrote to Eden:

  "Vyshinsky informed me in writing today that message had been conveyed to Stalin."

  In the summer of 1941, in talking to me, Cripps alluded to this episode, when he said: In London they had no idea what difficulties I was up against here. They did not

  want to realise that not only Stalin, but even Molotov avoided me like grim death; for several months before the war, Vyshinsky was my only contact, and a highly

  unsatisfactory one at that. Stalin, I can tell you, did not want to have anything to do with Churchill, so alarmed was he lest the Germans found out. And Molotov was no

  better. At the same time, they let it be understood that they didn't mind th
eir

  military talking to our military.

  Churchill later commented:

  I cannot form any final judgment upon whether my message, if delivered with all

  the promptness and ceremony prescribed, would have altered the course of events.

  Nevertheless I still regret that my instructions were not carried out effectively. If I had had any direct contact with Stalin I might perhaps have prevented him from

  having so much of his air force destroyed on the ground.

  It was clear from what Gripps later said that the message could certainly not have been delivered "with all the promptness and ceremony prescribed" for the simple reason that Stalin would not even dream of having any such "ceremony". Finally, it is also clear that this particular message, suggesting that the Russians intervene in the Balkans, would have produced no results, since Stalin had firmly set his mind to continue in his policy of co-existence with Hitler. Moreover, it would have arrived too late to save Yugoslavia.

  But even if the Russians were frightened of being dragged into a Balkan war they might all the same have listened to Cripps when the latter persisted in warning them of the imminent German attack on the Soviet Union. At the same time Eden kept on warning

  Maisky who, as the latter later assured me, did not fail to pass these warnings on to Moscow. But it was no good.

  Cripps had no reason to be satisfied with the Soviet leaders; nevertheless, when the invasion started, he did his utmost to restore normal relations between Britain and the Soviet Union. There is a suggestion in Churchill's Second World War that the Russians were at first wholly unresponsive to his famous broadcast of June 22—

  ... except that parts of it were printed in Pravda... and that we were asked to receive a Russian military mission. The silence at the top was oppressive, and I thought it my duty to break the ice. I quite understood that they might feel shy, considering all that had passed since the outbreak of the war.. .

  [Volume III, p. 340.]

  Maybe they were shy; but, in reality, they were delighted and, as I often heard it said at the time, "pleasantly surprised " by Churchill's broadcast; with their peculiar mentality, they had thought an Anglo-German deal not entirely out of the question, and they had been confirmed in this suspicion ever since the Hess episode.

  Although Stalin did not communicate with Churchill personally until after the latter had written to him on July 7, he hastened to establish close relations with Cripps. Barely a week after the invasion, the first batch of the British Military Mission, with General Mason MacFarlane at its head, flew to Moscow. At the same time Cripps had been

  discussing with both Stalin and Molotov the terms of a joint Anglo-Soviet Declaration, which was to be made public on July 12. The idea of this joint declaration originated on the Russian side, as is apparent from Churchill's message to Cripps of July 10.

  It is reasonable to suppose that if Stalin did not communicate with Churchill immediately after the latter's broadcast of June 22, it was because the Soviet Government was

  bewildered by what was happening. After all, it took Stalin fully eleven days after the invasion to formulate anything in the nature of a policy statement even to his own people.

  Also without necessarily feeling "shy", Stalin may well have had a variety of long-standing inhibitions, doubts and reservations about British policy, and may have been anxious to secure the Anglo-Soviet Declaration before proceeding any further. And

  when, finally, on July 18, he did write to Churchill, it was to propose the establishment of a Second Front—"in the west (northern France) and in the north (the Arctic)".

  The best time to open this Front is now, seeing that Hitler's forces have been

  switched to the east... It would be easier still to open a Front in the north. This would call for action only by British naval and air forces, without landing troops or artillery. Soviet land, naval and air forces could take part in the operation. We would be glad if Great Britain could send thither, say, one light division or more of the Norwegian volunteers, who could be moved to Northern Norway for insurgent

  operations against the Germans.

  Churchill, in his reply of July 21, dismissed all this as totally unrealistic, including the Norwegian light division, which was simply "not in existence", but proposed a number of naval operations in the Arctic, and the establishment of a number of British fighter squadrons at Murmansk.

  On July 26, Churchill wrote to Stalin again, saying that 200 Tomahawks would soon be sent to Russia; that two or three million pairs of ankle boots "should shortly be available in this country for shipment", and that, moreover, "large quantities of rubber, tin, wool and woollen clothes, jute, lead and shellac" would be provided.

  All this was only a small beginning; but it should be remembered that in the summer of 1941 Britain was, in fact, Russia's only ally; the United States was not in the war yet.

  This would partly explain a certain petulance in Stalin's tone in his relations with Britain, and particularly with Churchill: this was the only country from which he could "demand"

  direct military co-operation; but since such direct military aid was clearly not

  forthcoming, the most important thing to do was to try to obtain from the West the

  maximum economic aid in the form of armaments and raw materials; and, in this respect, the United States was far more important than Britain.

  The big question—and Stalin was fully aware of it—which bothered both Britain and the United States was whether Russian resistance to Germany could, or could not, last any length of time. As one could guess at the time, and as we know now, Churchill was by no means certain that Russia would "last" long.

  The British military were almost unanimous in believing that Russia would be defeated in a short time: even at press conferences given during the first days of the war at the Ministry of Information in London, War Office spokesmen made no secret of it. Their

  tone became slightly different by the middle of July, largely, one suspects, as a result of the dispatches sent from Moscow by General Mason MacFarlane who, while referring

  occasionally to "this bloodstained régime", nevertheless did not underrate the fighting qualities of the Red Army. Mason MacFarlane, with whom I had numerous talks in

  Moscow, appeared convinced, even during the blackest moments, that the Russians were at any rate determined to fight a very long war, and that even the loss of Moscow—which was not to be ruled out early in October—would not mean the end.

  Opinion at the American Embassy in Moscow was rather divided. The Military Attaché,

  Major Ivan Yeaton, was convinced that the Red Army would be smashed in a very short

  time; Ambassador Steinhardt took less gloomy a view; but the big clash between the two schools of thought was not to come until later, with the appointment as Lend-Lease

  representative in Moscow of Colonel Philip R. Faymonville. This appointment was made by President Roosevelt at Harry Hopkins's suggestion. Faymonville had accompanied

  Harriman to Moscow at the end of September, and he was convinced from the start that the Red Army's prospects were by no means as hopeless as Yeaton had been making out

  ever since the beginning of the invasion.

  The fact that Faymonville should have been appointed to Moscow at Hopkins's

  suggestion was highly significant. It was Hopkins who unquestionably decided, during his visit to Moscow at the end of July that the Russians could, if not win the war, at any rate hold out for a very long time, and this was also the view held by Faymonville. And after the Battle of Moscow, Faymonville became finally convinced that the Russians

  would not lose the war.

  Harry Hopkins's visit was of crucial importance to the whole future of American-Soviet and Anglo-Soviet relations. As Robert E. Sherwood wrote:

  The flight [from Archangel] to Moscow took four hours, and during it Hopkins

  began to be reassured as to the future of the Soviet Union. He l
ooked down upon the hundreds of miles of solid forest, and he thought that Hitler with all the Panzer divisions of the Wehrmacht could never hope to break through country like this.

  On arriving in Moscow

  Hopkins had a long talk with Steinhardt in which he said that the main purpose of his visit was to determine whether the situation was as disastrous as pictured in the War Department, and particularly as indicated in the cables from the Military

  Attaché, Major Ivan Yeaton.

  The views of Ambassador Steinhardt, as described by Sherwood, tally with Steinhardt's attitude, as I was able to observe it in Moscow in the summer of 1941.

  Steinhardt said [to Hopkins] that anyone who knew anything about Russian history

  would hardly jump to the conclusion that the Germans would achieve easy

  conquest. Russian soldiers might appear inept when engaged in offensive operations

  —they had done so in the Napoleonic wars and again in Finland. But when they

  were called upon to defend their homeland they were superb fighters, and there

  were certainly a great many of them. But, Steinhardt emphasised, it was supremely difficult for any outsider to get a clear picture of what was really going on... because of the prevailing attitude of suspicion toward all foreigners and consequent

  secretiveness. Hopkins said that he was determined somehow or other to break

  through this wall of suspicion.

  [ The White House Papers of Harry Hopkins, by Robert E. Sherwood. Volume I, pp. 327-8 (London, 1949).]

  Then came his account of Hopkins's first meeting with Stalin:

  After Hopkins's introductory remarks to the effect that the President believed that the most important thing to be done in the world today was to defeat Hitler and

  Hitlerism, and that he therefore wished to aid the Soviet Union, Stalin spoke.

  He welcomed Hopkins to the Soviet Union and then, describing Hitler and

  Germany, spoke of the necessity of there being a minimum moral standard between

  all nations... The present leaders of Germany knew no such moral standard and

  represented an anti-social force in the world today...