Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II

by Stuart D. Goldman

  The Comintern news weekly World News and Views accurately reflected Soviet apprehensions and anxiety during the period of political isolation. The dominant theme in the propaganda campaign was that the West (and Poland) faced grave peril at the hands of Germany, Italy, and Japan. This was hardly a new idea for the Comintern, but the frequency and intensity with which it now was stressed far surpassed that of earlier periods. Here are a few examples:65

  The plan of Hitler and the fascist alliance is completely to destroy the influence of Britain and France throughout the world… . All is not yet lost. But it is only the dogged and united resistance of the masses that can now halt the march towards destruction.

  Mussolini’s “minimum colonial demands” were said to be: cession of Tunisia to Italy; complete demilitarization of Corsica; recognition of Balearic Islands as Italian territory; and “internationalization” of the Suez Canal, with four zones of supervision, one to each of the Munich signatories.

  Germany intends to make Britain and France pay for her rearmament by demanding restitution of the reparation sums paid to them after the Great War.

  The German and Italian fascists, having gained possession of the Great Mediterranean port of Barcelona, have no longer hesitated in revealing their real intentions: to encircle France in order to be better able to attack it!

  The Japanese, now Masters of Shanghai, Prepare for Attack on Indochina.

  The obvious conclusion from these dire warnings was that London and Paris had better move quickly in concert with Moscow to resist the aggressors and avert disaster. But that is precisely what Moscow and the Comintern had been urging for more than three years without success. Something new had to be added. Immediately after the Munich Conference a scathing campaign against the appeasers, particularly Chamberlain, was begun. The argument was that Chamberlain did not merely surrender to Hitler at Munich, nor was he duped by the German dictator, but that he actively and knowingly conspired with Hitler to destroy Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain and Daladier were denounced as “emissaries of Hitler” who must be removed from power so that a united front could oppose the fascists. One headline shouted “Daladier Working for Hitler Against the French Nation”; another that “Chamberlain Wants a Mediterranean Munich.”66 Another Communist propaganda gambit was to try to split France from Britain by charging that Chamberlain, on behalf of the London capitalists, was betraying France to the fascists. A favorite statement of this ploy was reference to the “Chamberlain-Hitler-Mussolini plan” to repartition the French empire.67

  Despite the hysterical tone of many of these charges, even the more bizarre accusations enjoyed some credibility from their association with the general popular front line, part of which had proven correct in its early warnings about the dangers of fascism. This propaganda was effective among the growing number of people who were becoming disenchanted with the policy of appeasement and were prepared to believe the worst about Chamberlain and Daladier. The prime target of this invective, however, remained unmoved. Chamberlain wrote on January 8, 1939, that he had been urged to make a grand alliance with the USSR against Germany. “In other words, abandon my policy and adopt Winston’s! Fortunately my nature is, as Lloyd G[eorge] says, extremely ‘obstinate,’ and I refuse to change.”68

  While Moscow was pressing the West to alter its course and swing eastward, it also instituted some seemingly minor alterations in its relations with Poland and Germany.

  Soviet-Polish relations hardly ever had been friendly, but in 1938 they became particularly strained. During the height of the Czech crisis, Poland extorted the district of Teschen from Czechoslovakia, temporarily giving Poland’s foreign minister, Colonel Josef Beck, the appearance of a junior partner of Hitler and Mussolini. A month later, however, Beck was alarmed to discover that the next item on Hitler’s agenda was Poland. Germany demanded the incorporation of the Polish port of Danzig into the Reich and the creation of an extraterritorial German corridor across the Polish corridor, to link East Prussia with the rest of Germany.69 This signaled the failure of Beck’s entire foreign policy, which had been predicated on friendly relations with Germany. Beck tried to keep the German pressure secret while he set out to mend fences with Soviet Russia and the West, but Moscow was not deceived.70

  A series of seemingly casual conversations between Litvinov and the Polish ambassador in Moscow resulted in a joint statement on November 26, 1938, in which both countries reaffirmed their 1932 Nonaggression Pact and friendly resolution of any problems that might arise between them.71 This clutching at straws by Beck was important to Stalin, whose security depended on Polish resistance to Hitler. For if Warsaw, like Budapest, decided that circumstances compelled it to become a vassal of Germany, then the Nazi wolf would be at the Kremlin door.

  The winter of 1938 was too early for Stalin to propose a deal to Hitler, although that idea was probably already on his mind. But the Soviet leader’s hand was too weak; he had nothing substantial to offer Hitler and would not have unless the prospects of a Soviet alliance with the West improved dramatically. In the meantime, some innocuous groundwork was laid. In October Litvinov reached an oral agreement with the German ambassador in Moscow whereby the press and radio of each country would restrain their previously virulent attacks upon the other country and its leaders. Tentative German feelers for an expansion of German-Soviet trade were well-received in Moscow, and on January 10, 1939, Soviet ambassador Aleksey Merekalov in Berlin informed the German Foreign Office that the Soviet government wanted the commercial negotiations to be resumed immediately and in Moscow.72

  This outward easing of German-Soviet tension primarily served not as a stepping stone toward an alliance with Hitler but as a hint to the West that such an alliance was possible. This supplemented Comintern propaganda aimed at getting London and Paris to cease their appeasement of Hitler. One of the most explicit public statements of this theme came in Stalin’s now-famous address to the Eighteenth Communist Party Congress on March 10, 1939, in which he declared, “The tasks of the Party in the sphere of foreign policy are: 1) To continue the policy of peace and of strengthening business relations with all countries; and 2) To be cautious and not to allow our country to be drawn into conflicts by warmongers who are accustomed to have others pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them” (italics added).73

  Strangely enough, only five days after Stalin spoke these words, the change in Western policy that he so fervently desired was set in motion—and Moscow had very little to do with it.

  The Watershed

  On March 15, 1939, the German army marched into truncated Czechoslovakia. Shorn of its western defense lines, its allies, and its will to resist, as a result of the Munich Conference, Czechoslovakia succumbed without a struggle. Hitler flew to Prague that very night, where, from the Hradschin Castle, the ancient Palace of Bohemia’s kings, he wrote the words, “Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist.” Another great bloodless victory for Nazi expansion, a testament to Hitler’s consummate skill and timing; it would be his last such triumph.

  The German occupation of post-Munich Czechoslovakia was more than just another treaty violation. It was incontrovertible evidence even Chamberlain could not disregard that Hitler’s appetite grew with eating, that it was whetted rather than satiated by appeasement. Chamberlain was outraged and apparently genuinely shocked by this blatant violation of the pledge Hitler had made at Munich that the Sudetenland was Germany’s last territorial grievance. Adding to Chamberlain’s indignation was that he had staked his political reputation on the policy of appeasement, proclaiming “peace in our time,” and now had been made to look a fool.

  Under mounting pressure from the Labour opposition as well as from his own Conservative Party in Parliament, Chamberlain reacted to Hitler’s seizure of Czechoslovakia by reversing his previous foreign policy. Further German aggression would be opposed, by force if necessary. On March 18 the British Foreign Office asked Litvinov what the Soviet attitude would be in the event of future German aggression. The comm
issar for foreign affairs suggested a six-power conference—Britain, France, the USSR, Romania, Poland, and Turkey—to consider the problem. London immediately countered with a proposal for four-power talks aimed at a mutual assistance pact among Britain, France, the USSR, and Poland.74 London immediately was embarrassed by the refusal of the Polish government to take part in such negotiations.75 Then on March 23 the urgency of the situation was heightened by Hitler’s extortion of the territory of Memel from Lithuania. Chamberlain was provoked into action. Abandoning traditional British circumspection in such matters, and without any Soviet commitment, the prime minister went before the House of Commons on March 31 and announced his historic unilateral guarantee of Polish independence. It is difficult to know who was more encouraged by the events of this momentous fortnight: Beck, who knew that Poland was the next item on Hitler’s agenda, or Stalin, who knew that a sure consequence of the British pledge to Poland would be an Anglo-French effort to draw closer to the USSR.

  These events signaled that the long and perilous period of Soviet diplomatic isolation was at an end. Stalin’s patience had been rewarded. But this striking development was not primarily the result of Stalin’s efforts. Soviet diplomacy and Comintern propaganda had had little effect on the obstinate Chamberlain, who wrote on March 26, 1939, “I must confess the most profound distrust of Russia. I have no belief whatever in her ability to maintain an effective offensive, even if she wanted to. And I distrust her motives, which seem to me to have little connection with our ideas of liberty, and to be concerned only with getting every one else by the ears. Moreover she is both hated and suspected by many of the smaller states, notably by Poland, Roumania and Finland” (italics added).76 The greatest single factor responsible for the volte-face of Anglo-French policy (France, pilotless in the storm, continued to follow in Britain’s wake) was Hitler’s demonstration of rapaciousness in March. Thus, the success of Stalin’s diplomacy up to this point was not primarily the result of his actions. In the next few months, however, Stalin made the most of the opportunity given him.

  The British prime minister either was slow to realize or reluctant to admit that his guarantee of Poland required actual cooperation with the USSR. This anti-Soviet aversion was shared by many members of his cabinet. As they discussed the prospects of building an effective anti-German coalition, they reviewed all of their reasons for excluding the USSR: Poland, Romania, and Finland would refuse to cooperate with the USSR; Catholic opinion in Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere resented any “flirtation with the Bolsheviks”; Italy or Japan, or both, would be “driven into Hitler’s arms”; Soviet military potential vis-à-vis Germany was “negligible”; and furthermore, they simply did not trust Stalin.77

  Immediately after Chamberlain announced the guarantee to Poland in the House of Commons, he was called to a private meeting with David Lloyd George, the former wartime prime minister and outspoken critic of appeasement. Lloyd George wanted to know the specific circumstances under which Chamberlain had risked involving Britain in war with Germany. Chamberlain replied that he was confident Germany would not risk fighting a two-front war. Lloyd George then asked “where the second front might be,” to which Chamberlain answered: “Poland.” The aged Lloyd George burst into sarcastic laughter, warning Chamberlain that such a policy was “an irresponsible game of chance which can end up very badly.”78

  In succeeding weeks the point of Lloyd George’s criticism became increasingly evident at the Foreign Office and in cabinet discussions. Strategically, the Soviet Union was indispensable both as a deterrent to German aggression and as an ally in case Germany were not deterred. Yet Britain’s old reluctance to associate too closely with Bolshevism still was strong, particularly with Chamberlain, who now professed to believe that the announcement of an Anglo-Soviet alliance “might be expected to sting Germany into aggressive action. That was an unnecessary provocation to offer to Germany, and one which ought to be avoided.”79 London sought in vain for an acceptable formula whereby Moscow could be committed to act in defense of Poland and Romania without seeming to create an Anglo-Soviet alliance. The Soviets would have none of that and insisted upon the necessity of a formal, concrete political-military alliance not unlike the Triple Entente of 1914.80

  An atmosphere of anxiety, mistrust, and fear of betrayal overhung the negotiations between London and Moscow. Each side suspected the other of trying to maneuver them into becoming the lightning rod for German aggression. It now appears that the suspicions on both sides may have been justified. Declassified British documents bear witness to the validity of Soviet ambassador Ivan Maisky’s view, which he cabled from London to his government on May 20, that “the British Government is avoiding a three-power [Anglo-Franco-Soviet] pact purely from a desire not to burn its bridges to Hitler and Mussolini.” Indeed, Chamberlain clung to the belief, after most others in his government had been disillusioned, that in the end Hitler might be dissuaded from plunging Europe into war. He saw an alliance with Stalin as a provocative step toward war rather than as a sobering deterrent. However, the threat of an Anglo-Soviet alliance might be helpful in “taming” Hitler, and so the continuation of the talks with Moscow served that purpose, as well as quieting the parliamentary opposition to his government’s foreign policy. Chamberlain’s foreign minister, Lord Halifax, explained on April 25 that it was his policy “not to estrange Russia, but always to keep her in play.” A bit later he put it more bluntly in a cabinet meeting, when he acknowledged that “our main object in the negotiations was to prevent Russia from engaging herself with Germany” (italics in the original).81 If Britain sought to use the USSR as a “bogeyman” with which to frighten Hitler, then Soviet fears were not groundless that in the event of war, the bogeyman might become the fall guy.

  Conversely, British fears of Soviet duplicity were also amply justified. On May 17 Georgie Astakhov, the Soviet chargé d’affaires in Berlin, met with a senior German diplomat, who filed this report of the conversation: “Astakhov stated in detail that there were no conflicts in foreign policy between Germany and the Soviet Union and that therefore there was no reason for any enmity between the two countries… . He commented on the Anglo-Soviet negotiations to the effect that under the present circumstances, the result desired by England could hardly be achieved.”82

  Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hitler could not fail to note the purport of Astakhov’s words, but they offered no direct or immediate reply. They, no less than Chamberlain and Halifax, were intensely suspicious of Stalin’s motives.

  If British leaders at that time are to be criticized for wishing not to “burn their bridges” to Germany, Soviet policy is no less culpable for its covert efforts at bridge building with Germany. However, since Hitler did not respond to the initial Soviet overture, Stalin had good cause to continue the Anglo-Soviet negotiations, because Stalin knew that the threat of a triple alliance, of a repetition of Germany’s great error of 1914, would bring Hitler around—if anything would. And if that gambit failed, the talks with Britain were all the more vital for Stalin in order to assure himself of allies in the event of war.

  Toward a German-Japanese Military Alliance?

  One reason why the diplomatic seeds that Stalin was sowing in Berlin did not bear fruit promptly was the German fear that it was a tainted offering, meant to bring forth an apple of discord among the anti-Comintern allies.83

  While the Anglo-Soviet talks limped on, and before the furtive Soviet-German dealing had even begun, serious negotiations aimed at converting the Anti-Comintern Pact into a full military alliance had been under way since mid-1938. The negotiations were protracted because Germany and Japan were pursuing divergent and, as events were to prove, irreconcilable objectives. Nonetheless, those talks require more than a mere footnote in history; they must be brought into the picture in order to show the background against which subsequent German-Soviet relations developed.

  The two biggest problems that Japan faced in early 1939 seemed to be her inability to bring China to i
ts knees, and the threat of war with the USSR. Since many Japanese leaders blamed Soviet aid to Chiang for the prolongation of the China War, and the bitter memory of the fighting at Changkufeng was still fresh in their minds, Soviet Russia appeared to many in Tokyo to be at the crux of Japan’s problems. In the negotiations that Japan began with Germany immediately after the Changkufeng conflict (August 1938), Tokyo sought a military pact directed explicitly against the Soviet Union. Japanese army leaders were especially eager for such an alliance.

  In Berlin, meanwhile, the diplomatic situation was developing along different lines. As early as April 1938, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, after consultation with Hitler, informed Ernst von Weizsacker, state secretary for foreign affairs, that Germany’s new foreign policy would have to take English opposition into account, and that while Soviet Russia still might officially be designated as the primary enemy, in reality Germany’s plans were directed against Great Britain.84 Hitler and Ribbentrop wanted a military alliance with Japan, but they sought a pact that would apply to any potential enemy. The Germans hoped thereby to forestall British and French opposition in Europe by heightening the Japanese threat to their vulnerable Asian empires.