Russia at war

by Alexander C Werth

  Chapter VII THE DISSOLUTION OF THE COMINTERN AND

  OTHER CURIOUS EVENTS IN THE SPRING OF 1943

  Living and working conditions were still very hard for most of the civilian population in 1943. In essential industries people worked overtime—eleven, twelve hours. The labour shortage was such that, for simpler operations, children were employed in some plants for periods ranging from four to six hours a day.

  [Ehrenburg, Ludi, Gody, Zhizn (People, Years, a Lifetime), Novyi Mir, No. 3, 1963.]

  Rations, especially for dependents and non-working children, were miserably poor;

  everything in the kolkhoz markets was scarce and very expensive. In the cities, there was a black market of sorts, with sugar, for instance, fetching as much as 3,000 roubles a kilo.

  (About £30 per lb.)

  In 1943, a "deep war", in Ehrenburg's phrase, had set in; peace had become a distant memory and victory was still a long way ahead, in a dim future. There was still no "real"

  second front, and though between March and June there was an extraordinary display of official cordiality towards the Western allies, this contrasted strangely with the much more morose attitude towards them on the part of the general public. The feeling that the Allies were not pulling their weight, despite North Africa and the bombing of Germany, was very widespread. It is usually assumed that "the good Russian people" are much more pro-Western than their government; at this time the opposite was the case. The

  official cordiality was no doubt tactical, rather than genuine.

  First of all, soon after the uncomplimentary Stalin Order of February 23, the Soviet authorities, swallowing their pride, hastened to react to the Standley incident in a manner most agreeable to Roosevelt. Then there was the breach with the London Poles— which

  was likely to generate strong anti-Soviet sentiment in Britain and the United States, and it was essential, therefore, for the Russians to try to "localise" the Polish problem, and not allow it to affect Soviet-Anglo-American relations unduly. Hence perhaps the record

  warmth vis-a-vis Britain and America in May and June 1943.

  Although the loss of Kharkov was keenly felt, the winter campaign had still, on balance, been a magnificent success. Whether, as the Russians said, the Germans and their allies had lost 800,000 men, or only the 470,000 which the Germans admitted, the replacement of even this lower figure in time for the summer offensive was well-nigh impossible, all the more so since the Satellites had not the capacity, and still less the desire, to waste more of their men on "Hitler's war" which was now more than unlikely to be won. In spite of this, the Russians awaited the summer campaign with a touch of nervousness, for the memories of the terrible last two summers—1941 and 1942—were still fresh.

  On the eve of this decisive military showdown of July 1943 rumours became more

  frequent than at any other time in the war of separate peace offers by the Germans to both Russia and the West. In his May Day Order Stalin actually referred to these peace-feelers; and it is reasonable to suppose that the great display of official Russian cordiality towards the West was at least partly determined by nervousness at the possibility of a deal between Germany and the Western Powers. Similar suspicions existed on the other side too; for we know that Allied soldiers in the Mediterranean area were told that the war there would have to be pursued with the greatest possible vigour "in case the Russians packed up". Some suspicion was also aroused in the West by the curious and unexpected Russian move of setting up a "Free German Committee", with the Wilhelmian black-white-red as its colours, which were still believed to be cherished by a great part of the officer corps.

  [See pp. 733 ff.]

  Unlike his Red Army Day Order of February 23, Stalin's May Day Order of 1943 was

  full of friendly words for the Western Allies. After describing the great winter campaign in Russia, and after referring to the German counter-offensive at Kharkov which had been carried out thanks to the thirty divisions brought from the west (the only barbed "second front" reference in the whole statement) but which had, nevertheless, failed to become a

  "German Stalingrad", Stalin then spoke in glowing terms of "our victorious Allies in Tripolitania, Libya and Tunisia", and of "the valiant Anglo-American airmen" who were

  "delivering smashing blows on both Germany and Italy, thus foreshadowing the

  establishment of a second front in Europe". The Germans and their allies, he said, were in an increasingly bad mess, and there was more and more talk in the foreign press of

  German peace-feelers aimed at splitting the Anglo-American-Soviet alliance. The

  German imperialists, Stalin said, were treacherous people, and liked to judge others by their own standards. Nobody would fall for that kind of bait, and peace would be attained only through the complete rout of Hitler's armies, and the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany.

  But though catastrophe was staring Germany and Italy in the face, this still did not mean that the war was as good as won. Some very hard battles were still facing the Soviet Union and the Western allies, but the time was approaching when, together

  with the armies of its allies, the Red Army would break the back of the Fascist Beast.

  During the days that followed, the Soviet press was more pro-Ally than ever before. On May 9, Stalin warmly congratulated Roosevelt and Churchill on "the great victory in North Africa", and all over the country coloured posters were displayed of three equal-sized bolts of lightning, bearing the British, American and Russian colours, breaking the Beast's back. It was a mangy, hyenalike beast with a Hitler head.

  The end of the Tunisian campaign had raised high hopes— perhaps excessively high

  hopes—in Russia.

  In any case, the space allotted in Pravda to the Allies was unusually large. The following long articles (podvals, the equivalent of the Times "turnover") appeared in Pravda in May and June:

  May June

  Germany

  1

  2

  Germany's Satellites

  1

  2

  Britain and USA

  4

  6

  Occupied Slav

  7

  2

  Countries

  France and Belgium

  1

  2

  Neutrals

  1

  -

  The articles on the Allies concerned the blows against Italy, the submarine war, the British Navy, the RAF and American war industries. Moreover, the principal Western

  statesmen were generously reported—

  May 21, Churchill 5 Columns

  May 22, Eden 1 Columns

  May 26, Stettinius 2 Columns

  May 28, Roosevelt 3 Columns

  June 2, Sumner Welles 1.5 Columns

  June 8, Churchill 4 Columns

  June 8, Eden 1 Columns

  June 22, Cripps 1 Columns

  What impressed Soviet military commentators most was that, in Tunisia, the English and Americans had won their first major land battle. This was represented as the prelude to much bigger land operations in Europe. The air forces were preparing the way for them.

  On May 22—largely as a gesture to impress Britain and America— the dissolution of the Comintern was announced. This took the form of a Resolution by the Presidium of the

  Executive Committee of the Communist International. It declared the whole organisation to be "out of date", and that it was even "becoming an obstacle in the way of the further strengthening of the national working parties." It then explained that the war had demonstrated a very important fact:

  Whereas in the Axis countries it is important for the working class to strive to

  overthrow the government, in the United Nations countries it is, on the contrary, the duty of the working class to support the governments' war effort.

  This strange document concluded: "The Executive Committee calls upon its supporters to concentrate on the smashing of German fascism and its vassals."
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  It was signed by the following members of the Presidium: Gott-wald, Dimitrov, Zhdanov, Kolarov, Koplenig, Kuusinen, Manuilsky, Marty, Pieck, Thorez, Florin, Ercoli (i.e.

  Togliatti), and also the following representatives of the Sections: Biano (Italy), D.

  Ibarruri (Spain), Lechtinen (Finland), Anna Pauker (Rumania), M. Rakosi (Hungary).

  A few days later, in a statement to Harold King of Reuters, Stalin declared the dissolution to be "right and timely".

  It showed up the Nazi lie that "Moscow" intended to interfere with the lives of other states, or to "bolshevise" them... It also facilitated the work of all patriots for uniting all the progressive forces, regardless of party allegiance and political

  beliefs... It was particularly timely just when the Fascist beast was exerting his last reserves of strength that the freedom-loving nations should organise a common

  onslaught on him, and so save all nations from the Fascist yoke...

  It was well-known that both Churchill and Roosevelt had pressed for this step. Stalin had always replied that the Comintern was moribund, and did not matter. What he did not

  say, however, was that this "moribund"—and now dead—body comprised many future leaders of the "new democracy" in Europe—Thorez, Togliatti, Gottwald, Kopecky, Dimitrov, Pauker, Rakosi, et cetera. They led at the time a very retiring existence either at Ufa or in Moscow, where most of them lived in the grubby Hotel Lux in Gorki Street,

  only very occasionally wrote in the Soviet press, and were seldom seen in public, except at the very end of the war. But they were kept in reserve. Even so, many wondered

  whether Stalin had not a genuine grudge against the Comintern leaders. Had not Dimitrov overdone his "imperialist war" stuff in 1939-40. And who had thought up the "Kuusinen government"?

  In my Diary notes during the few weeks before the Battle of Kursk I find a record of a number of conversations with Russians on the dissolution of the Comintern. One said that

  "it must have been a very hard decision for Stalin to take; after all, he had sworn on Lenin's tomb never to abandon the cause of the world revolution. But just like his

  'socialism in one country' this decision was another sign of Stalin's greatness that he could adapt himself to changed conditions". Another Russian described it jokingly as

  "our NEP in foreign policy"; and still another said that "Stalin had been a bit fed-up with the Comintern for some time, especially for their screaming about the 'imperialist war' in 1939-40". This had caused no end of damage in a country like France, and had also grossly misled the Soviet Government on a number of occasions.

  Then there was the rather spectacular visit on May 30 of ex-Ambassador Joseph Davies, of Mission to Moscow fame, who had done his utmost to explain the Purge Trials in a manner most favourable to the Soviet Government. On arriving in Moscow, he got the

  Russians to paint "Mission to Moscow" in white paint on the fuselage of his plane. He went to see, as he called them, "his old friends" Mikoyan, Vyshinsky and Judge Ulrich.

  The film of his Mission to Moscow was full of absurdities—Vyshinsky with a great black beard, Mrs Molotov speaking pidgin Russian, and so on. They showed it at the Kremlin the night he was there, and the big Russian bosses laughed themselves nearly sick, but agreed that the film was friendly, and useful in debunking the Red bogey idea, still, according to Davies, very strong in the USA. The British Embassy were pretty mad with Davies about the monocled silly-ass who was supposed to represent Lord Chilston, the British Ambassador, scared to death of OGPU microphones, and so on. The US Embassy

  and the American press were uniformly hostile to Davies, partly because of his peculiar showmanship, and partly because of his excessive display of pro-Soviet sentiment, not to say sentimentality. Davies, for his part, was very pleased with the dissolution of the Comintern and remarked that when he was Ambassador in Moscow, he used to say to

  Litvinov that the Comintern—the stick with which everybody beat the Soviet Union—

  was the real source of all the trouble.

  *

  Sandwiched between the Dissolution of the Comintern and Stalin's statement on it were the celebrations of the first anniversary of the Anglo-Soviet Alliance which took the form of enthusiastic articles in the press, messages from Kalinin to George VI, and so on. On June 9, the anniversary of the Soviet-American Agreement, the papers were full of

  compliments to the USA, complete with expressions of gratitude for lend-lease

  shipments. Said Pravda: "The Soviet people not only know about them, but they highly value the support coming from the great Republic beyond the ocean." The most important thing now, Pravda said, was not to give Hitler any respite.

  This constant boost of the Allies in May and June, and the great ideological concessions the Russians were making to the West were not, of course, without reference to the

  military situation. A period of extremely hard fighting was imminent, and the Russians were hoping that a tremendous new effort (now that North Africa was a closed chapter) would be made by the Allies in the near future.

  In its "Second Anniversary of the War" statement on June 22, 1943, Sovinformbureau went so far as to say that "without a second front victory over Germany is impossible."

  The main theme of the statement was that thanks to the Red Army, which was tying up

  200 German and thirty satellite divisions, the Western Allies had been given enough time to prepare themselves for an all-out attack on the Axis on the continent of Europe.

  [This statement said that, in two years, Germany and her allies had lost 6.4 m. men in killed and prisoners, 56,000 guns, 42,000 tanks, 43,000 planes. The Soviet Union had lost 4.2 million men in killed and missing (i.e. including prisoners), 30,000 guns, 30,000

  tanks, 23,000 planes. It then dealt with the Partisan movement which it credited with having killed 300,000 Germans, wrecked 3,000 trains and over 3,000 bridges, destroyed

  "hundreds of tanks", et cetera, all of which is highly improbable, since the Partisan movement did not assume major proportions until the second half of 1943.]

  Was the Sovinformbureau statement merely another tactical move to butter up the allies, or was it a sign of genuine nervousness on the eve of the great summer battles?

  For June 1943 was certainly an anxious month. Everybody felt that the storm might break at any moment. Many were surprised that the Germans had not attacked yet. There was

  intense air activity on both sides. On several nights the Germans raided Gorki, causing much damage to its industrial areas, especially to a large tank-assembly plant. There were also raids on Kursk, Saratov, Yaroslavl, Astrakhan, et cetera, and the Germans also

  dropped mines on the Lower Volga. The Russians raided Orel and other places.

  Altogether, it was clear that the Kursk-Orel area would be the main battleground; and when the German offensive began, it completely lacked all elements of surprise. Even their famous new weapons, the Tiger and Panther tanks were no secret. A number of

  them had been captured near Leningrad, and two were even included in the Trophies

  Exhibition in Moscow during June. They had undergone all the necessary Russian

  experiments for knocking them out.

  On June 11 I recorded a conversation with a Russian correspondent who had just been to Kursk. He said the Russian equipment there was truly stupendous; he had never seen

  anything like it. What was also going to make a big difference this summer was the

  enormous number of American trucks; these were going to increase Russian mobility to a fantastic degree. The Russian soldiers were finding them excellent.

  On the same day I also wrote:

  Molotov today gave a lunch to celebrate the anniversary of the Soviet-American

  agreement. He was extremely friendly, and kept talking about not only wartime, but also post-war co-operation between the Big Three. All the toasts dealt indeed with this tripartite association continuing after the war. Clark Ker
r said he was glad the Anglo-Soviet alliance had turned out such a sturdy child; it had looked a bit bandy-legged at first. Admiral Standley dwelt on Lend-Lease deliveries, which had been a bit slow at first, but were very satisfactory now, with a lot of stuff all over the place, with Oerlikons on Russian ice-breakers and British guns on the Red October

  battleship. .. The Russians are thinking (or talking) more and more in terms of a Big-Three peace after the war...

  During the second half of June there had been two air-raid warnings in Moscow. In fact, on June 9, some stuff had been dropped on the outskirts, though not on Moscow itself.

  The planes were on their way to Gorki. Even so, instructions were given to the civil defence people in Moscow to be on the alert.

  On June 19 Ehrenburg published a rather alarmist article about future air-raids on

  Moscow: "Don't forget that they are still at Orel; forget that they are no longer at Viazma.

  They will not take Moscow, but they hate Moscow, the symbol of their failures; and they will try to cripple and disfigure it."

  In June I saw a great deal of the airmen of the French Normandie Squadron, a mixed

  bunch ranging from Paris communist workers talking with a delightful faubourg accent to the ginger-haired Vicomte de La Poype. The Russians were astonished that a vicomte should want to fight on the side of the Bolsheviks. But the most impressive amongst this marvellous group of fellows was the commander of the Squadron, Commandant Tulasne,

  small, handsome, with something of the finesse of Alfred de Vigny's officers.

  The squadron was formed in Syria in 1942. For political reasons, de Gaulle had decided to send this small French force to Russia. They had been here since the end of 1942, had already been in action, and, by June, the squadron had shot down fifteen German planes, for the loss of three. Now, in June 1943, they were preparing for those big battles in which so many of them were going to lose their lives. They got on well with the Russian mechanics at the air-base, and also had plenty of fun with the girls in the near-by village.