Russia at war

by Alexander C Werth

  During de Gaulle's first meeting with Stalin the General started by saying that the real trouble with France was that she did not have any alliance with Russia, and, also, that her eastern frontier was very vulnerable.

  Yes, said Stalin, the fact that Russia and France were not together had been a great misfortune for Russia, too. He then asked de Gaulle whether French industry was being restored.

  De Gaulle: Yes, but very, very slowly. There are terrible transport difficulties and a coal shortage. In order to equip her army, France has to appeal for arms from the Americans and, for the present these won't give her any. It will take France two years to restore her industry.

  Stalin expressed some surprise at this, and said that Russia was not finding the restoration of industry such an insuperable problem. The south of France had been liberated without difficulty, and there had not been much fighting in Paris, so what was the trouble?

  De Gaulle said that most of the French rolling stock had been destroyed and that much of what was left was being used by the British and Americans.

  Rather with the suggestion that it was these who were doing most of the fighting in

  France, Stalin then asked how France stood for officer cadres.

  De Gaulle replied that in 1940 the Germans had captured nearly the whole French Army and most of the officers. Only a small number were left in North Africa, and these were now fighting in France. Some had betrayed their country by collaborating with Vichy. So a lot of new officers now had to be trained.

  Stalin: The reason why I asked about this is that everywhere—whether in Poland, Hungary, Rumania or Yugoslavia—the Germans always try to round up officers

  and pack them off to Germany. But how do you stand for airmen?

  De Gaulle: We have very few airmen, and even those we have need complete re-training, as they are unfamiliar with modern planes.

  Stalin: Now the French airmen of the Normandie Squadron are doing very well on the Russian Front; so if you are so hard up for airmen, we could perhaps send them back to France?

  De Gaulle: No, no, this is quite unnecessary. They are contributing nobly to the common cause while in Russia.

  Stalin: I suppose you have very few training schools for airmen?

  De Gaulle: Yes, very few, and very few planes.

  Having got over this phase of the talk, in which he had to act the poor relation (there is no mention of these remarks in his Memoirs), de Gaulle tried to get down to more serious business. It would be a good thing for both France and Russia, he said, if the Rhineland could be joined to France. Maybe the Ruhr would have to be given an international

  régime, but not the Rhineland proper.

  Stalin asked how Britain and America looked upon this, to which de Gaulle replied that these had already let France down in 1918 by insisting on a temporary arrangement,

  which just didn't work. As a result, France was again invaded. Perhaps Britain and

  America had learned their lesson, but he couldn't be sure.

  Stalin: As far as I know, the British are considering a different solution: an international control of Rhineland-Westphalia. What you are proposing is

  something quite different. We must find out what Britain and America think about

  it.

  De Gaulle: I hope the matter may be examined by the European Advisory Commission.

  Stalin: Yes.

  De Gaulle then went on with his sharp criticism of Britain and America. They were

  neither geographically nor historically on the Rhine, and the French and Russians had had to pay a heavy price for this. Even though they were fighting there now, they would not be on the Rhine forever, while France and Russia would always remain where they were.

  The full-scale intervention of Britain and America always took place in peculiar

  conditions—much too late; as a result, France was nearly destroyed in 1940.

  Stalin was not convinced. The strength of Russia and France alone were insufficient to keep Germany in order. The experience of the two world wars had demonstrated this.

  Frontiers in themselves were not of decisive importance; what mattered was a good and well-commanded army. It was no use relying on the Maginot Line, or Hitler's Ostwall.

  And when de Gaulle still persisted, Stalin said:

  Please understand me. We simply cannot settle this question of France's eastern

  frontier without having talked about it to the British and the Americans. This and many other problems must be decided jointly.

  Obviously not at all satisfied with this, de Gaulle tried to approach the question from a different angle by bringing up Germany's eastern frontier.

  De Gaulle: If I understand the question correctly, the German frontier should run along the Oder and then along the Neisse, that is, west of the Oder.

  Stalin: Yes, I think the old Polish territories-—Silesia, East Prussia, Pomerania—

  should be returned to Poland, while the Sudeten country should be given back to

  Czechoslovakia.

  But he did not rise to the bait.

  Throughout the de Gaulle-Bidault visit, Stalin was, significantly, in regular

  communication with Churchill. The day after his first meeting with de Gaulle he cabled to Churchill saying that he had informed de Gaulle that the question of Germany's

  western frontier could not be settled independently of Britain and the United States. As regards the Franco-Soviet Pact, he had told de Gaulle that the matter would require a many-sided examination. Churchill, in reply, indicated his preference for a Tripartite Pact.

  It was during the Molotov-Bidault meeting of December 5 that the Russians bluntly

  raised the question of the recognition of the Lublin Committee by France.

  Molotov: Why shouldn't France and the Polish Committee exchange official representatives? After all, both Britain and the USSR entertain relations with both the Yugoslav Liberation Committee and the Royal Yugoslav Government. By

  establishing official relations with Lublin, France would not need to break with the Polish émigré government.

  Molotov then said that he liked the French draft of the Soviet-French Pact, but the Soviet Government considered that the signing of this Pact should go together with the

  establishment of official French relations with the Lublin Committee.

  Bidault, obviously taken aback, said he was surprised that the Franco-Soviet Pact should have this condition préalable attached to it; for their own part, the French also had some questions they would like urgently settled: for instance, that of the Rhine frontier.

  Molotov dodged the issue, without telling Bidault that Stalin had already cabled to

  Churchill about it. Instead, he stressed that the Soviet Union was still bearing the brunt of the war and that, in signing a Pact with France, she would like a definite decision to be taken about Poland; this would be of the greatest importance to the implementation of the Pact.

  During the second Stalin-de Gaulle meeting on December 6, Poland was the main topic.

  De Gaulle referred to the old cultural and religious bonds uniting France and Poland, and (without mentioning the anti-Soviet cordon sanitaire) said that France had tried, in 1918, to turn Poland into a great anti-German force. Unfortunately, men like Beck had tried to make an agreement with Germany, and were both anti-Russian and anti-Czech. He [de

  Gaulle] was all in favour of both the Curzon Line and the Oder-Neisse Line.

  He had no objection to an Anglo-Franco-Soviet bloc; but he would like a straight Franco-Soviet Pact to begin with.

  Stalin (still busy consulting Churchill) said he thought the matter could be settled in the next few days. He would like, instead, to return to the question of Poland. He hoped France would adopt, vis à vis Poland, a more realistic attitude than that shown by Britain and the United States. The British Government had, unfortunately, got itself tied into knots with both the Polish Government in London and Mihailovic, who was now "hiding somewhere i
n Cairo". The London Poles were playing at musical chairs, while the Lublin Poles were carrying out a land reform, similar to what France had done in the 18th

  century. He went on to demonstrate that the London Government were becoming more

  and more discredited in Poland and talked at some length of the "folly" of the Warsaw rising, saying that the Red Army could not have taken Warsaw in time, with its guns and shells lagging 200 miles behind.

  De Gaulle was not convinced about the London Government being "discredited" in Poland, and said it would become more apparent what the Polish people really felt once the whole country had been liberated.

  On December 7, Stalin cabled Churchill saying that he and his colleagues had approved Churchill's idea of a Tripartite Anglo-Franco-Soviet Pact, and had submitted it to the French, but had not yet received a reply.

  That same day Bidault told Molotov that it was not satisfactory for France to simply

  "join" in the old Anglo-Soviet Pact; it might give rise to the idea that France figured in such a Pact as a kind of junior partner. Molotov brushed this argument aside, and

  returned to the question of French recognition of the Lublin Poles. This was an aspect of the Franco-Russian talks on which Stalin was not keeping Churchill informed—though the British Embassy in Moscow knew, of course, more or less what was going on.

  During his third meeting with Stalin on December 8 de Gaulle again announced that

  Germany was France's Number One Problem and that "so long as the German people

  existed, there would always be a menace." And again he started on the Rhine frontier. It was essential for France and Russia to join forces. Britain, which was "always late", could rank only as a "second-stage" ally, and the United States as a "third-stage" ally.

  Neither could be depended upon in the great moment of danger, and under a Tripartite Pact all immediate action would inevitably be slowed down by the British.

  Stalin agreed that a straight Franco-Soviet Pact would make France more independent in relation to "other countries", but since it would be difficult for Russia and France alone to win the war, he still preferred a Tripartite Pact.

  De Gaulle then said that the Tripartite Pact was "un-French"; it would, in present circumstances, stress France's inferiority vis-à-vis England; it would be easier for France to deal direct with Russia; France was uncertain about Britain's future attitude to

  Germany, and, moreover, she was expecting all kinds of difficulties with the British both in the Middle East and the Far East.

  Stalin remarked that the Tripartite Pact was Churchill's idea, and that he [Stalin] and his colleagues had agreed to the British proposal. True, Churchill had not vetoed the Franco-Soviet Pact, but, all the same, he preferred the Tripartite Pact.

  If we shelve this (Stalin continued), Churchill will be offended. However, since the French are so anxious to have a straight Franco-Soviet Pact, let me suggest this: if the French want us to render them a service, then let them render us one. Poland is an element in our security. Let the French accept in Paris a representative of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, and we shall sign the Franco-Soviet Pact.

  Churchill will be offended, but it can't be helped.

  "You have probably offended Churchill before," de Gaulle said.

  "I have sometimes offended Churchill," Stalin replied, "and Churchill has sometimes offended me. Some day our correspondence will be published, and you will see what kind of messages we have sometimes exchanged."

  There seems, at this point, to have been an embarrassed silence and then Stalin suddenly asked de Gaulle when he intended to return to France. De Gaulle said he was hoping to leave in two days.

  After a somewhat irrelevant digression on the aircraft factory the French guests had visited, de Gaulle remarked that he much regretted that there could be no Franco-Soviet Pact, and it would now be necessary to start discussing a Tripartite Pact. He appreciated Stalin's policy on Poland, but it was not at all clear what the Lublin Committee

  represented.

  The meeting broke up in a chilly atmosphere.

  Later that day Bidault called on Molotov and said there had perhaps been some

  "misunderstanding" about the Lublin Committee. Anyway, de Gaulle intended to see the member of this Committee on the following day. Molotov said he hoped this meeting

  would make a great difference, and meantime he and Bidault could work on the draft of the Franco-Soviet Pact.

  De Gaulle was no more impressed by Bierut, Osöbka-Morawski and Rola-Zymierski than

  Eden and Churchill had been, and agreed, in the end, before leaving Moscow, to no more than sending an "unofficial" French representative to Lublin, and "quite independently"

  of the Franco-Soviet Pact.

  Such was the horse-trading that went on for over a week between Stalin and de Gaulle—

  each, in his own way, trying to pull a fast one on Britain and the United States.

  The atmosphere surrounding this French visit to Moscow was not devoid of comedy. One day, de Gaulle and Bidault were taken for a ride on the Metro, where nobody took any notice of them and where they were pushed about and had their feet trodden on

  mercilessly. Bidault seemed particularly outraged when he told me about it. In their negotiations, he said, the Russians were pretty rough: "Ça manque d'élégance, ça manque de courtoisie. C'est un régime brutal, inhumain". As for the people in the Metro:

  "Ces gens sont muets. Ont-ils des sentiments?"

  ["There's a lack of graciousness, a lack of courtesy. A brutal, inhuman régime... " "Are these people mute? Have they any feelings at all?"]

  One assured him that they had, though not necessarily for official French visitors, of whom they knew little or nothing. And the people on top, Bidault fumed, were mean and accrocheurs. [ Sticky.]

  He twisted his wrist about in the air. He also thought their whole ideology completely cockeyed—an incredible medley of Hegel, Marx and Stalin—what kind of political

  philosophy was that? He thought that in a completely ruined Europe, there would be a wave of something more extreme than communism, as understood here; and "they must be terrified of Trotskyism! "

  Something wasn't quite clicking. As a Russian colonel whom I met at the great reception given at the French Embassy said: "You know, we can't really take the French terribly seriously. Toulon and Kronstadt and l'alliance Franco-Russe with Marseillaise and God Save the Tsar don't mean a damned thing to the present generation of Russians!"

  All the same, that Embassy reception was really something. There was an enormous

  tricolour flag outside, floodlit in the blizzard, and the Embassy teemed with dozens of celebrities—Ulanova and Lepeshinskaya and Ehrenburg and Prokofiev amongst them.

  The gallant French airmen of the Normandie Squadron, who had been decorated by de

  Gaulle that morning, were also there. With surprising graciousness, de Gaulle was doing the round of the guests. When he came to me I mentioned his visit to Stalingrad. "Ah, Stalingrad!" he said, "c'est tout de même un peuple formidable, un très grand peuple."

  "Ah, oui, les Russes. .." "Mais non," said de Gaulle with a touch of impatience. "Je ne parle pas des Russes, je parle des Allemands. Tout de même, avoir poussé jusque là!"

  ["Ah, Stalingrad! All the same, they are a pretty tremendous people, a very great people."

  "Ah yes, the Russians... " " No, I'm not talking about the Russians; I mean the Germans.

  Fancy having pushed all that far!"]

  In later years, when de Gaulle started on his "Paris-Bonn Axis" and publicly embraced Adenauer, I often remembered that remark. Was he, in 1944, still full of professional admiration for an Army that had smashed the French Army in five weeks? Or was this

  astonishing remark a reaction to the condescension with which Stalin had spoken to him, only a few days before, of the French Army, most of which had been taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940? Or did de Gaulle perhaps want to remind the Russ
ians that they, too, had been on the run, and that thanks to their geography, they had been able to run much farther even than the French had run in 1940?

  At the Kremlin banquet on the last night Stalin behaved with a mixture of truculence, bonhomie and buffoonery ("il avait l'air de se foutre un peu de nous," one of the French guests later remarked), and it was not till after de Gaulle had made an angry and

  spectacular exit that the Russians finally decided to sign the Franco-Soviet Pact without the Polish "counterpart", except for a very minor face-saver. The Russians only signed the Pact in these conditions because they thought it might still come in useful at some later date, and would also help the French Communists. But, throughout the de Gaulle visit, they made no secret of their low opinion of France's contribution to the allied war effort, and the idea of basing the future security of Europe and of the Soviet Union in the first place on a Franco-Russian alliance struck them as unrealistic.

  Stalin did not raise a finger to get de Gaulle invited to Yalta two months later. In December 1944 what mattered to Stalin were Britain and the USA, with their armies and air forces and economic resources.

  It is more than improbable that Stalin would have agreed to the Rhine frontier

  independently of them even if de Gtaulle had agreed to recognise the Lublin Committee.

  The only deal that Stalin had proposed was the signing of the Franco-Soviet Pact (even at the risk of annoying Churchill) in exchange for a French recognition of Lublin.

  But to de Gaulle this Pact was still important as part of that "independent" French policy

  —the "Between-East-and-West" policy —that he and Bidault tried (unsuccessfully) to pursue for two years after the war.

  Chapter XIII ALTERNATIVE POLICIES AND IDEOLOGIES

  TOWARDS THE END OF THE WAR

  The last three months of 1944 were marked by a variety of Russian military campaigns in preparation for the final onslaught on Nazi Germany between January and May 1945. In the north the Red Army overran the Baltic Republics, where they met with a somewhat

  mixed reception from the population. There were Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian

  formations in the Red Army, and much was also made in the Soviet press of a