p The veil of secrecy that covered the Munich deal did not delude the Soviet Union. The USSR evaluated Munich at once as a gross betrayal. Yet the Soviet leaders would not abandon the idea of uniting the peaceful European countries against nazi aggression.
p That is why the USSR agreed to negotiate with Britain and France in 1939. With peace a vital stake in its grandiose plans of construction, the Soviet Union tried sincerely to reach agreement, and hammer out a treaty for effective mutual aid against aggression guaranteeing the security of countries in Central and Eastern Europe. That treaty would provide for the forms and magnitude of mutual aid against any attack. What Moscow did not want was a scrap of paper instead of a treaty. "They were in earnest,” Arnold Toynbee, the English historian, wrote of the USSR, "in wishing to conclude a military convention as soon as possible." [31•1
p But was that what the British and French governments wanted? At times, points of contact appeared between the Soviet and French positions, but none between the Soviet and British.
p The British and French governments were in no way motivated by the desire to avert German aggression when consenting to negotiate with the USSR. As a matter of fact, what they wanted was the very reverse. The parleys with the USSR were only meant to allay and deceive home public opinion, which clamoured for an alliance with the USSR to repulse the nazis. But that, too, was secondary. The main objective was to put the choice before the German Government : either we, the British and French, erect a coalition with the Soviet Union against Germany if she imperils the Western powers, or you, Germany, better start your war against the USSR with our, British and French, support.
p At the same time, the British and French governments hoped to saddle the Soviet Union with commitments, the 32 fulfilment of which would inexorably draw the USSR into a war with Germany in the absence of any definite commitments on the part of the British and French. And in the event of Germany’s turning westward, the British and French hoped to secure Soviet aid. The consent of the British and French governments to negotiate with the Soviet Union was, thus, merely another move in their double game, a projection in new garb of their Munich policy. They hoped that by going through the motions of coming to terms with the USSR, they would spur Germany into concluding a far-reaching agreement with them, which, while unprejudicial to the British and French monopolies in the world market, would ensure Germany’s attacking the Soviet Union.
p This view of the Anglo-French stand in the 1939 parleys with the USSR is long known to progressive historians. Now it has been reconfirmed by many new documents, as the memoirs of men involved in those events.
p Iain Macleod, Neville Chamberlain’s biographer, says: "... Chamberlain was reluctant to acquiesce in the opening of negotiations with the Soviet. He did so only under strong pressure from the French Government and from public opinion at home as reflected in the Press, in Parliament and in the anxieties of his Cabinet colleagues." [32•1 On March 26, 1939, before the parleys began, Chamberlain put down in his diary: "I must confess to the most profound distrust of Russia." [32•2 Subsequently, Macleod wrote: "He was neither elated when the negotiations seemed to be going well, nor cast down when they seemed to be going badly... " [32•3 And Lord Halifax, then Britain’s Foreign Minister, commented: "It was desirable not to estrange Russia but always to keep her in play." [32•4 Exactly! That was the official British line.
p This policy, then secret, was reflected in Britain’s memofandum to France on May 22, 1939. "It would seem desirable,” it said, "to conclude some agreement whereby the Soviet Union would come to our assistance if we were attacked in the West, not only in order to ensure that Germany would have to fight a war on two fronts, but also perhaps for the 33 reason ... that it was essential, if there must be a war, to try to involve the Soviet Union in it." [33•1 In other words, the idea was to secure Soviet aid and, if possible, expose the USSR to a German attack, while assuming no commitments to aid the Soviet Union in case it was attacked.
p This coloured the behaviour of the British and French governments in their negotiations with the Soviet Union; they were insincere to the extreme. And doubly so, because Anglo-French attempts were simultaneously made to obtain closer contacts with Germany. Secret Anglo-German talks took place in London in June-August 1939 concerning agreements formalising an alliance against the Soviet Union. During these talks, the British spokesman, Minister Robert Hudson, told his German opposite number, Helmuth Wohlthat, that if Britain and Germany were to come to terms, broad opportunities would arise for the two countries in the British Empire, China and Russia. Hudson stressed specially that in Russia "there was a possibility for Germany to take part in vast economic activities". [33•2 This was as much as saying that Britain was eager to slice up the world between herself and Germany, prodding Germany to engage in economic expansion and also attack the USSR.
p Though every minute counted, Britain and France employed dilatory tactics in the talks with the USSR, and to speed them up the Soviet Government suggested parleys by military missions of the three countries in Moscow. The suggestion was accepted, and a French delegation came to London in order to depart for Moscow jointly with the British. This was when Ivan Maisky, Soviet Ambassador to Britain, had a very revealing talk with the head of the British delegation to Moscow. Here is Maisky’s record of it:
p "7: ’Tell me, Admiral, when are you leaving for Moscow?’
p "Reginald E. Drax: ’That hasn’t been settled, but in the next few days.’
p "/: ’You are flying, of course? Time is precious: the atmosphere in Europe is extremely tense.’
p "Drax: ’Oh no! We of the two delegations, including the technical personnel, are about 40, arid there is the luggage... It would be inconvenient to fly.’
34p "I: ‘If flying is unsuitable, perhaps you will go to the Soviet Union in one of your fast cruisers?... That would be forceful and impressive—military delegations aboard a warship.... Besides, it would not take too long from London to Leningrad.’
p "Drax (with a sour expression): ’No, a cruiser won’t do either. If all of us were to go aboard a cruiser, we should have to evict several dozen of its officers and take their place in their cabins.. ..Why cause inconveniences? No, no, we shan’t go by cruiser.’
p "7: ’In that case you will perhaps go by one of your speedy liners?... I repeat, time is short and you must get to Moscow as quickly as possible.’
p "Drax (obviously reluctant to continue): ’I really can’t say... Transportation is in the hands of the Ministry of Trade.... Everything is in its hands. I have no idea what will happen.’" [34•1
p What happened, however, was that the delegations left London as late as August 5, 1939, aboard a combined freighter-passenger doing 13 knots and arriving in Leningrad on August i o.
p When the talks began at last, it was discovered that the British delegation was not empowered to work out and conclude any pertinent convention. The secret was out!
p The British and French spokesmen had no intention of concluding a mutual aid treaty with the Soviet Union. They referred to the Polish Government’s refusal to join the USSR in any concerted measures repulsing German aggression. Yet it was they who had inspired Poland’s refusal, just as they had inspired a similar refusal by the Baltic states. It was also discovered that in some cases the British and French negotiators did not even consult the governments concerned when they pleaded their refusal.
p To make the negotiations founder was a preconceived Anglo-French plan. On July 10, Britain’s Ambassador in Germany told the French Foreign Minister: "... the negotiations with the Soviets had reached a stage when they lacked a sense of realities.... The important thing was to end negotiations one way or another as soon as possible." [34•2
35p The Soviet Union realised it could not succeed in reversing the Anglo-French stand by merely negotiating. Other assurances were required. Just when the talks of the military missions in Moscow were stymied by the British and French delegations, on August 20, 1939, the German Government offered to conclude a non-aggression treaty with the USSR. This was a renewal of previous proposals, turned down while hope still existed of a mutual aid agreement with Britain and France. [35•1 When this hope was dashed, the choice had to be made. The Soviet Union had to foil the German plan of attacking with Japanese involvement and supported by Britain, France and the USA. A meaningful step had been taken at Munich towards a united anti-Soviet front, while Japan, which feared missing the bus, made a try at grabbing a slice of the Mongolian People’s Republic, a friend of the USSR.
p These factors could not be left out of the reckoning. The situation in the Far East was still simmering, despite the crushing setback suffered by the Japanese at the hands of the Red Army. Japan’s rulers were obviously waiting for Germany to attack the USSR.
p Yet the nazis were still hesitant, inclining towards immediate war against the Soviet Union one day—which the rulers of the USA, Britain and France encouraged—and shying from the prospect of a war the next.
p But this uncertainty, obviously, could not go on for ever.
p If the Soviet Union rejected the German proposal or dallied with the reply, the balance could tilt against it. And this at a time when German aggression against the USSR had to be averted in order to frustrate the plans of a world “crusade” against the socialist country, to eliminate the threat of the bloc whose creation had been discussed in Munich and to win time and build up defences. In the circumstances, the choice had narrowed. But one thing could be done: the German proposal had to be accepted.
p The non-aggression treaty between the Soviet Union and Germany was signed on August 23, 1939, effective for 10 years. On Moscow’s part it was a natural reaction to the Western powers’ deal with Germany in Munich.
p During the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations, the Polish Government took a highly negative view of co-operating with 36 the USSR in terms of mutual aid against aggression. Out of hand it refused all Soviet aid. So there was no question of Soviet commitments vis-a-vis Poland in the Soviet-German talks. "The only thing that could still be done,” Pravda reported on September 23, 1939, "was to save-the Western Ukraine, Western Byelorussia and the Baltic republics from a German invasion. The Soviet Government received German assurances that the line formed by the rivers Tissa, Narev, Bug and Vistula would not be crossed." [36•1
p The Soviet-German non-aggression treaty greatly annoyed the Munichites in the USA, Britain and France. They realised that their designs had failed. The same annoyance is displayed in certain official publications seeking to conceal the true story behind the outbreak of the Second World War and keep a secret that had long since ceased to be one. [36•2 Attacks on the treaty and its misinterpretation are frequent among reactionary writers. West-German historian Kurt Assmann, for one, who endeavours to vindicate the nazi aggression and its abettors, swings out at the treaty and peddles the old lie about an alleged deal partitioning Poland. [36•3
p Yet writers unafraid of the truth, no matter how distasteful to them, admit that the USSR had acted wisely. Arnold Toynbee holds, for example, that the head of the Soviet Government had not only "saved Russia from war, but he had done so without any sacrifice whatever—or rather, with immense gain. Without firing a shot, he had recovered for Russia much of the territory which she had lost in the days of her weakness, and which every Russian held to be part of the national apanage." [36•4
p Ernst Niekisch, another bourgeois historian, wrote: "Soviet vital interests- required destroying the English-German relations so thoroughly and so conclusively as to end the fear of an Anglo-German conspiracy against Soviet existence. The Soviet-German non-aggression treaty was no doubt a bold, even reckless, undertaking. Yet the situation in the world was so complicated that it spelled the deliverance of Soviet Russia." [36•5
37p The Soviet-German non-aggression treaty secured a temporary peace for a considerable portion of Europe, affording the Soviet Union a distinct gain in time. This largely predetermined the favourable outcome of the Second World War. Tire treaty altered the course of events and paved the way for the future alliance of the USSR, USA and Britain against Hitler Germany, contributing prominently to Germany’s defeat in the context of the coalition of freedom-loving peoples.
p As a side effect it compelled Japan to check her aggression against the Mongolian People’s Republic and the USSR. The Hiranuma Cabinet, which insisted on continuing the aggression, was forced to resign and the Japanese Premier referred ruefully to the treaty as having caused the shift in the policy he had recommended to the Emperor. [37•1
p * * *
Those were the secrets, that the governments of Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, Britain and France resorted to as cover for engineering the war. Many of them, however, were exposed by Soviet foreign policy and progressives abroad at the time. The situation in which the Second World War was precipitated differed from that directly preceding the First World War.
Notes
[31•1] Survey of International Affairs, 1939-1946. The Eve of War, 1,936. Ed. by A. and V. Toynbee, London, 1958, p. 481.
[32•1] I. Macleod, Neville Chamberlain, London, 1961, p. 273.
[32•2] Keith Failing, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, London, 1946, p. 403.
[32•3] I. Macleod, op. cit., p. 273.
[32•4] Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, Third Series, Vol. 5, London, 1952, p. 331.
[33•1] Ibid., p. 646.
[33•2] Herbert von Dirksen, Moscow-Tokyo-London. Twenty Tears of German Foreign Policy, London, 1951, p. 338.
[34•1] I. Maisky, Kto pomogal Gitleru (Who Helped Hitler), Moscow, 1962, pp. 152-53.
[34•2] Documents on British Foreign Policy 1913-1939, Third Series, Vol. 6, London, 1953, p. 331,
[35•1] I.V.O.V.S.S., Vol. I, p. 175.
[36•1] I.V.O.V.S.S., p. 176.
[36•2] E. g., Nazi-Soviet Relations, Washington, 1948.
[36•3] Kurt Assmann, Deutsche Schicksalsjahre, Wiesbaden, 1951, S. 113-18.
[36•4] Survey of International Affairs, 1939-1946. The Eve of War, 1939, p. 594.
[36•5] Ernst Niekisch, Das Reich der niederen Damanen, Hamburg, 1953,8.292.
[37•1] The Times, Oct.. 4, 1939.
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