Russia at war
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winter nights— like dogs howling... And, of course, they fed their faces; they devoured everything—chicken and geese and pigs and ducks. They would chase the ducks and
geese and beat them to death with sticks. And then they burned down the town. I avoided them the last days; they were in such a foul temper. And now," he went on, "people live here in dugouts (for all the houses have been burned down), or on the kolkhoz not far away. Tomorrow—on September 1—the school will open, but it's not our school, but
another one, five kilometres away; our old school (he pointed at a patched-up building) was burned down, but has now been patched up as a hospital."
Three points emerge very clearly and indisputably from these (and many similar)
accounts: firstly, that the public executions of communists and other "suspects"—usually branded "partisans"— were a common practice in towns and villages occupied by the Germans. Since these executions frequently took place "on the first day" of the occupation, they were apparently the work not of any special detachments under
Himmler, but of members of the Army itself. It seems also true that the "communists"
must have been picked as a result of denunciations either by willing collaborators, or by people frightened into doing so.
[That executions were carried out by the Army is persistently denied by German generals, but, according to the Russian eyewitnesses I saw in 1942, it was "ordinary soldiers" who did the hanging. However, this is a much argued point, and it seems that the practice varied from place to place.]
Secondly, that, already in 1941, the Germans were practising a scorched-earth policy, with incendiary teams burning down whole towns and villages before retreating—if they had the time to do so. Thirdly, that the Germans appointed Russian burgomasters in the towns and starostas in the villages—people picked from what they considered "reliable"
elements, ex-bourgeois, or ex-kulaks. How many of these were willing collaborators, and how many had simply been bullied into accepting such jobs, and whether they deserved to be shot once the Russians returned (or even whether they actually were always shot) are questions on which very little light is thrown by either Russian or German authors. It is certain however, that many such Russian "collaborators" were playing a double game, and that some Soviet "underground" members were actually encouraged to join the German-appointed local-government agencies. As in all other Resistance movements, so in Russia, the Resistance had its "own" men and women "colonising" such German-appointed bodies, picking up information, and maintaining contact with partisans or other pro-Soviet elements.
Chapter II THE ANGLO-SOVIET ALLIANCE
The background to the Anglo-Soviet Alliance of May 1942 is too well known to need
detailed discussion here. In December 1941 Mr Eden had gone to Moscow, and Stalin
and Molotov had asked for a recognition of the Soviet frontiers as they stood at the time of the German invasion. This meant a recognition of the new frontiers with Finland and Rumania and the incorporation of the Baltic States in the Soviet Union, as well as that of the territory which Churchill still persisted in calling "Eastern Poland". But while Churchill was prepared to give way on these questions, including that of the Baltic States, he met with opposition from Washington, where such an incorporation was regarded as
being contrary to the principles of the Atlantic Charter. The Soviet Government, no doubt with some mental reservations, had subscribed to "the general principles and aims" of the Atlantic Charter. Privately, the Russians often said that if they had some "mental reservations", Churchill had many more still. Ultimately, on May 23, during Molotov's visit to London, Eden proposed to substitute for a territorial agreement a general and public Treaty of Alliance for twenty years, omitting all references to frontiers, and a treaty on this basis was signed on May 26.
As for the question of the Second Front, this had first been raised by Stalin in a letter to Churchill in the summer of 1941 and the Russians had continued to press it on both the British and the Americans.
American proposals made in the spring of 1942, particularly General Marshall's proposal
"that we should attempt to seize Brest and Cherbourg ... during the early autumn of 1942"
were not to Churchill's liking at all, even though he "did not reject the idea from the outset."
[ Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4, pp. 288-9.]
Both in 1941 and during part of 1942 Churchill took the view that Russia was an
"expendable" ally, and was at times highly pessimistic about her chances of survival.
Thus, as we have seen, he took a much more dismal view of the Beaverbrook Mission to Moscow at the end of September 1941 than seemed warranted by Beaverbrook's own
attitude. To Beaverbrook the Soviet Union was an ally of immense value, and he was
anxious to back it at almost any price. Even after the Russians had repelled the first German onslaught on Moscow, Churchill thought that Russia's early defeat was not at all unlikely, and he felt with some bitterness—and perhaps a touch of malice—that they had
"brought it upon themselves". In a letter to Sir Stafford Cripps, now evacuated to Kuibyshev, of October 28, 1941, he wrote:
I fully sympathise with you in your difficult position, and also with Russia in her agony. They certainly have no right to reproach us. They brought their own fate
upon themselves when ... they let Hitler loose on Poland. They cut themselves off from an effective Second Front when they let the French Army be destroyed... If we had been invaded and destroyed in July or August 1940... they would have remained utterly indifferent.
[Churchill, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 420.]
For one thing, Churchill was keenly aware that, at that stage, Britain would have to bear the brunt of any Second Front operation. So he preferred other ideas—a landing in
French North Africa, or "Jupiter"—the liberation of Northern Norway, which would
"represent direct aid to Russia", and he regarded 1943 as the earliest date for landings in France.
In planning the gigantic enterprise of 1943 it was not possible for us to lay aside all other duties. Our first Imperial duty was to defend India... To allow the Germans and Japanese to join hands in India or the Middle East involved a measureless
disaster to the allied cause. It ranked in my mind almost as the equal of the
retirement of Soviet Russia behind the Urals, or even of their making a separate
peace with Germany. At this date [spring 1942] I did not deem either of these
contingencies likely, [but] our Indian Empire... might fall an easy prey... Hitler's subjugation of Soviet Russia would be a much longer and, to him, more costly task.
Before it was accomplished the Anglo-American command of the air would have
been established beyond challenge. Even if all else failed this would be finally
decisive...
[ Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 288.]
Roosevelt was extremely sceptical about "any junction between Japanese and Germans"
and was, like General Marshall, more favourable than Churchill to an attempt to open a Second Front in France in 1942.
That was certainly the impression that Molotov brought back from his visits to
Washington and London in May-June 1942, and the present-day Soviet History makes the most of the fact that Roosevelt twice assured Molotov that the Second Front would be opened in 1942, and that General Marshall told him that the USA had every possibility of opening such a front. According to Hopkins, however, what Roosevelt had twice told
Molotov was that he expected a Second Front to be opened in 1942. Hopkins also records that "Marshall felt that the sentence about the Second Front [which Molotov had drafted for the communiqué] was too strong, and urged that there be no reference to 1942", adding: "I called this particularly to the President's attention but he, nevertheless, wished to have it included".
The public statement issued on June 11 therefore included the sen
tence:
"In the course of the conversations full understanding was reached with regard to the urgent task of creating a Second Front in Europe in 1942."
Now the fat was in the fire. Although Churchill discreetly omits to mention Roosevelt's responsibility for this statement, and felt forced to subscribe to it on Molotov's return from Washington to London, he insisted on handing to Molotov the now well-known
aide-memoire saying, inter alia:
It is impossible to say in advance whether the situation will be such as to make this operation feasible when the time comes. We can therefore give no promise in the
matter, but, provided that it appears sound and sensible, we shall not hesitate to put our plans into effect.
[Sherwood, op. cit., p. 582, and Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 305. Churchill underlines the words "We can therefore give no promise in the matter"]
The plan in question, as we know, concerned "a landing on the Continent in August or September 1942", and Molotov's great hope was that "at least forty German divisions"
would be drawn off from the Russian front.
At the ceremony in London on May 26 at which the Anglo-Soviet Treaty was signed very warm speeches were made by Molotov and Eden, both of whom stressed the great
importance of the alliance, not only during the war, but also after the war. For all that, Churchill's attitude continued to be somewhat reserved. According to both the Russians and Americans, relations between Molotov and Roosevelt were much more friendly than
between Molotov and Churchill.
[Many anecdotes were told both then and later about Molotov's week-end at Chequers.
One diplomat told me it had all been "rather like a Marx Brothers' film." Molotov's English was limited to three words: "Yes", "no", and "second front". At dinner one night, Molotov remarked on the extraordinary patriotic fervour of the Russian people as
displayed in this war—a fervour the depth of which had even surprised the government.
"The Old Adam coming out, what?" Churchill growled. Molotov took some trouble to explain that this was not only Russian patriotism, but also Soviet patriotism, not quite the same thing. There was also this record of Molotov's first impression of Churchill: "A very strong man—very strong." Then, as an afterthought: "Unfortunately, he'll never make a good communist." But the best stories about Molotov demanding his bedroom key, and the Russian search for bombs under his bed, the revolver on his bedside table, and the special way of making his bed, so that he could jump out in a hurry in case of anything, are told by Churchill himself. (Op. cit., vol. 4, p. 201.)]
As Hopkins wrote to Winant after Molotov's visit was over:
Molotov's visit went extremely well. He and the President got along famously and I am sure that we at least bridged one more gap between ourselves and Russia. There is still a long way to go, but it must be done if there is ever to be any real peace in the world. We simply cannot organise the world between the British and ourselves
without bringing in the Russians as equal partners. [As for the Second Front] I have a feeling that some of the British are holding back a bit, but all in all it is moving as well as could be expected.
[Sherwood, op. cit., pp. 582-3.]
It was largely as a result of the Molotov visit to Washington that a new Lend-Lease
agreement—or rather, a wider agreement on what was called the "principles of mutual aid against aggression"—was signed by Cordell Hull and Litvinov, the Soviet
Ambassador, on June 11.
In Moscow it was decided to make immense political capital out of Molotov's visits to London and Washington. A special meeting of the Supreme Soviet at the Kremlin was
called on June 18 to ratify the Anglo-Soviet Alliance. But for fully a week before that the Soviet press had built up the Molotov visits to the West as an event of the most far-reaching importance.
Molotov, flying in a fast British bomber high over Scandinavia, returned from London on June 13; but already on June 11 the Soviet press had published the full text of the Anglo-Soviet agreement, as well as the famous "Second Front" communiqué. On the 13th, it published the text of the Soviet-American agreement. The papers that day were, by
Russian standards, spectacular. Over the front page of Pravda was splashed a photograph showing Eden and Molotov signing the alliance, with a pussy-face Maisky on one side
and a cigar-chewing Churchill on the other. Here also were the text of the Soviet-
American agreement, the text of warm bread-and-butter letters from Molotov to
Churchill, Eden, Roosevelt and Cordell Hull; the text of Roosevelt's cable to Stalin thanking him for having sent Molotov to Washington on his "most satisfactory" visit, and Stalin's cable of thanks to Roosevelt, and so on. In his cables to both Churchill and Roosevelt, Molotov specifically referred to the "Second Front in 1942". Page two of Pravda prominently announced the decision of the Soviet Union and Canada to exchange diplomatic representatives. Such a display was enough to make any Soviet citizen
extremely ally-conscious. In its editorial Pravda wrote that day:
At countless meetings throughout the country the workers, kolkhoz-niki,
intellectuals, soldiers, officers and political workers of the Red Army are expressing the greatest conviction that the strengthening of these bonds [between the Big
Three] will hasten final victory... 1942 must become the year of the enemy's final rout. Our Soviet people have reacted with great satisfaction to the complete
understanding concerning the urgent tasks for the creation of a Second Front in
1942.
During the days that followed the press kept up this optimistic Second Front barrage.
The splendours of the Supreme Soviet meeting—the first since the beginning of the war
—contrasted strangely with Moscow's down-at-heel appearance. In the Kremlin,
diplomats (many of whom had specially come from Kuibyshev) and members of the
government were driving up in their limousines. Outside the main entrance of the palace I noticed a car flying a little Japanese flag. In the former Throne Room, completely rebuilt since the Revolution, Lenin stood in his floodlit niche above the rostrum. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet sat on the left, and the members of the government on the right.
On the platform behind the speaker sat members of the Politburo and other leading
deputies. On the floor of the hall there was room for some 1,200 deputies of the two Houses sitting jointly— the Chamber of the Union and the Chamber of Nationalities. A large number of these had been flown from distant parts of the country, and there were many colourful oriental costumes and dresses in the front half of the floor. Many of the women wore bright scarves and sari-like dresses, and many men wore embroidered
coloured caps, and many of the faces were Mongol, and others almost Indian-like.
Among the members of both Houses were many soldiers in uniform, some wearing war
decorations; but many seats were empty, partly owing to the difficulty of reaching
Moscow at short notice, but chiefly because many deputies were at the front, while others had already been killed.
Then suddenly the whole building shook with applause as the State Defence Council,
with Stalin inconspicuously among them, took their seats on the platform. For several minutes the deputies stood up and cheered, and shouted Stalin's name. Stalin and the others on the platform also rose, and Stalin himself clapped, in acknowledgment of the ovation he was receiving. Finally everybody sat down. Stalin was wearing a well-cut
pale-khaki summer tunic— plain, without any decorations. His hair was much greyer and his build much smaller than I had imagined it to be, I had never seen Stalin before. There was a pleasant casualness in his manner as, in the course of the meeting, he talked
informally to his neighbours, or as he turned round to exchange remarks with people
behind him, or as he stood up with the rest and clapped somewh
at lazily when, time after time, his name was being acclaimed by the Assembly.
Molotov was the first to speak, and for a long time he spoke about the principal episodes in the process of the rapprochement between Britain and the Soviet Union—the Cripps-Molotov agreement of July 12, 1941, the Hopkins, Beaverbrook and Eden visits; then he outlined the main points of the agreement now signed in London: the first part was, in the main, a repetition of the July 1941 agreement, now embodied in a regular treaty; the second part, on post-war co-operation was "in agreement with the main theses of the Atlantic Charter to which the Soviet Union had already subscribed in the past". He then quoted Stalin in confirmation of his further remark that the Soviet Union had no
territorial ambitions anywhere, and said that, in terms of the Treaty, Britain and the Soviet Union would strive to "render impossible any future aggression by Germany, or any other State linked with her in her acts of aggression in Europe". (The Russians were at that time still very careful not to say anything that might conceivably offend Japan.) The Treaty, he said, was for twenty years, and subject to renewal, and he added:
I cannot but associate myself with the words of Mr Eden: "Never in the history of our two countries has our association been so close. Never have our obligations in respect of the future been more perfect." This is unquestionably a happy omen...
The Treaty has met with the most favourable response in both Britain and the
Soviet Union, while in the enemy camp it has caused confusion and angry hissing.
As the speech went on, one became aware of a feeling of impatience in the hall: What about the Second Front? At last Molotov came to that:
Naturally, serious attention was given to the problems of the Second Front, both in London and Washington. The results of these talks can be seen from the identical
Anglo-Soviet and American-Soviet communiqués. .. This is of great importance to
the peoples of the Soviet Union, because the establishment of a Second Front in
Europe would create insuperable difficulties for the Hitlerite armies at our front.
Let us hope that our common enemy will soon feel on his own back the results of the ever-growing military co-operation between the three Great Powers.