Men of Influence: Stalin's Diplomats in Europe, 1930-1939 9781474467872

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Men of Influence

Men of Influence Stalin’s Diplomats in Europe, 1930–1939 Sabine Dullin

Translated by Richard Veasey

Edinburgh University Press

For René Girault

© Éditions Payot et Rivages, 2001 Copyright in this translation © Richard Veasey, 2008 First published in French 2001 by Éditions Payot et Rivages 106 boulevard Saint-Germain 75006 Paris France Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh Typeset in 11/13 pt Century Schoolbook by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 2219 1 (hardback) The right of Sabine Dullin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère français chargé de la culture – Centre national du livre. Published with the assistance of the French Ministry of Culture – National Book Centre. Published with the support of the Edinburgh University Scholarly Publishing Initiatives Fund.

Contents

Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

vii ix 1

Stalin’s actions and the part played by Litvinov

11

Litvinov and Stalin: a marriage of convenience Stalin’s obsessions Litvinov’s own sphere of action

11 20 28

Diplomats who were not quite like the rest

44

Portrait of a crocodile An elitist profile Litvinov, chief administrator The specific characteristics of state service in the USSR

44 51 61

Tactical oscillations

92

69

Away from Germany and towards France The three sides of the geopolitical triangle The quest for a policy of equidistance

93 111 122

Gathering information, exerting influence

158

Pro-Soviet milieux Soviet diplomats and the press Creating an image in Geneva

159 175 191

The shadow of the Kremlin

212

The cataclysm of the purges Stalin and his group take control of diplomacy

212 228

vi 6.

MEN OF INFLUENCE

Sidelined by the Soviet motherland

248

A story of demoralisation A signal to Hitler Epilogue: transition from the old to the new

248 264 274

Map of the places referred to Diplomats before and after the purges Primary sources Bibliography Index

299 300 307 321 337

Acknowledgements

This book is a reworking of my doctoral thesis in history on which I was given a viva in November 1998 at the University of Paris 1– Panthéon-Sorbonne. When new collections were subsequently made available to readers (the Stalin papers for example), I was able to do further research in Russia. I would have liked René Girault to be the first person to read it, as he gave me advice and showed confidence in me during the whole time I was working on the thesis. The book is dedicated to him. My thanks go also to Robert Frank and Marie-Pierre Rey for the help and encouragement they have given me in turning the thesis into a book. Throughout the many years I was doing research, I was given encouragement by Jean-Claude Allain, Wladimir Berelowitch, Gérard Bossuat, Marc Ferro, Peter Huber, Oleg Ken, Mikhail Narinsky, Silvio Pons, Élisabeth du Réau, Zinovi Sheinis, GeorgesHenri Soutou, Brigitte Studer, Alexandre Chubaryan and I would like to thank them for their support. I would also like to thank Catherine Claudon-Adhémar who, while I was still a student, taught me to love the Russian language. The warm and stimulating atmosphere of the Centre for Slavic History, the Centre for the History of Contemporary International Relations at the Institut Pierre Renouvin, as well as of the Centre for Russian Studies in the École des hautes études en sciences sociales has played a very important part and I would like to express my gratitude to everyone concerned. My thanks go also to those who, in difficult conditions, have patiently guided me through the labyrinthine archives in Moscow. Firstly, I would like to thank the friendly staff of the Russian State Archives of Political and Social History (RGASPI), and especially the archivists Larissa Rogovaya and Larissa Malashenko for their great help, as well as Irina Selezneva and Vera Levanovich for their kindness. I have to thank Sofia Somonova for the discovery vii

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of an interesting collection at the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF) and also thank Inna Dubrovets, Tania Zhukova and Nastia Medvedeva for their conscientiousness. Although it is said to be difficult to gain access to the archives relating to foreign affairs, I found people there were ready to listen. I would like to thank Elena Belevich who intervened on my behalf so that I could consult certain collections, salute Sergei Pavlov for remaining calm in the face of my impatience, and express my gratitude to Galina Shulga for her daily help. May I also thank all those who have helped me with their suggestions, support, enthusiasm, interest and friendship: Laurence Badel, Sylvain Boulouque, Katia Bubnova, Fanny and Philippe Moisan, Bruno Ciolfi, Sophie Coeuré, Yves Cohen, Juliette Cadiot, Pavel Chinsky, Laurent Coumel, Laurent Douzou, Bertrand, Sylvie, Françoise and Dominique Dullin, Isabelle and Guillaume Fournier, Mylène Ghariani, Svetlana Glazkova, Thomas Gomart, Olivia Gomolinsky, Catherine Gousseff, Julien Gueslin, Jean-Michel Guieu, Florence Ibarra, Claudio Ingerflom, Peter Jackson, Sabine Jansen, Dzovinar Kevonian, Oleg Khlevniuk, Galina Kuznetsova, Cécile Lefèvre, Elena Lekmanova, Marie-Hélène Mandrillon, Michel Menu, Françoise Mérigot, Raïssa Mézières, Jérôme Micheron, Nathalie and Caroline Moine, Claire Mouradian, François-Xavier Nérard, Raminta Neverdauskaite, Serge Ossipenko, Nikita Petrov, Christophe Prochasson, Laurent Rucker, Arnaud, Edmond and Odile Samuel, Philip Sinsheimer, Tracey Strange, Isabelle Surun, Taline Ter Minassian, Stéphane Vari, Nadia Vladislavova, Markus Wehner, Nicolas Werth, Micha Zaïtsev, Valentine Zuber and of course my daughter Julie. In particular, I would like to thank Alain Blum who read and corrected the whole manuscript, Fabrice Virgili who drew the map and my editor, Christophe Guias, whose suggestions and sustained interest were crucial to the writing of this book.

Abbreviations

APE FR CGT GARF GPU ILO INO KGB NEP NKID NKVD

OGPU OMS

RAN RGASPI RGVA SNK TUC

Archives relating to Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Confédération Générale du Travail (French Trade Union Federation) State archives of the Russian Federation Soviet secret police (acronym for State Political Administration) International Labour Organisation the foreign section of the NKVD [see below] Soviet secret police (acronym for State Security Committee) New Economic Policy acronym for the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Soviet secret police (acronym for People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) It was the successor to OGPU[see below] Soviet secret police (acronym for United State Political Administration). Otdel Mezhdunarodnoi Sviyazy; the section of the Comintern which headed the network of agents abroad. Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences Russian State Archives of Political and Social History Russian State Military Archives Sovnarkom; the Council of People’s Commissars Trades Union Congress

ix

Introduction

When Leon Trotsky was appointed Peoples’ Commissar for Foreign Affairs at the time of the October revolution, he believed that his task would be short-lived: all he had to do was publish the secret treaties of the tsarist government and ‘shut up shop’; the new Bolshevik Russia had no need of statutes of coexistence with other states because the revolution would before long engulf Europe and Asia. In fact, the new Bolshevik regime did very soon need diplomats as it found itself working in a hostile environment. Lenin chose as their head a former Menshevik, George Chicherin, a Russian of aristocratic descent recently returned from London, who had been trained before the war in the Tsar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He did a marvellous job of removing Bolshevik Russia from its position of isolation and forging lasting links with Weimar Germany. The number of diplomats increased. Most were former revolutionaries who, with their dinner jackets and top hats, adapted to their new role, conforming to the ‘accepted code of behaviour’ which prevailed in this traditionally aristocratic world.1 As a group, they were living proof of the revolution’s failure to spread and embodied the need for cohabitation between the socialist system and the capitalist world. For this reason, they aroused a certain amount of mistrust amongst militant communists. Chicherin’s deputy, Maxim Litvinov, who took over from him at the time of the ‘Great Break’ involving collectivisation and the five-year plan, had himself also lived in London before the Revolution where he had married an Englishwoman. In other respects, he was very different in temperament. He came from a family of Polish Jews and had been a Bolshevik from the beginning. Throwing himself wholeheartedly into his work as a diplomat, he expended the same amount of energy as he had done a few years earlier on behalf of the Bolshevik party. He remained in the 1

2

MEN OF INFLUENCE

diplomatic service for ten years under Stalin, in charge of the thousand or so people who worked at the headquarters in Moscow and in about thirty embassies and forty consulates. In Lenin’s eyes he was ‘the most crocodile-like of all our diplomats’, always tearing into people and never letting go.2 In the middle of the 1930s, however, he epitomised for the West the new positive and respectable image which the Soviet Union sought to project by his public endorsement of peace, collective security and, later, anti-fascism. A man of many facets, he was an immensely fascinating figure to his contemporaries. Was he still a revolutionary? Was his opposition to Hitler genuine? To what extent was he a Stalinist? Of the numerous accounts written about him, not one adopts a neutral stance. Some blacken his name by suggesting he destroyed the revolutionary ideal.3 Others eulogise him as the person who had a good influence on Stalin or who ‘stood up to’ him.4 One thing is certain, Litvinov was neither a hero nor a yes-man.5 His opinions and behaviour as the person in charge of foreign affairs and his relations with the leading bodies of the party, namely the Politburo and the Central Committee, all helped to shape his personality, which was certainly complex, but unbending and independent. This raises the puzzling question: how did Stalin trust and work with Litvinov for so long? To answer it one has to come to terms with two major historical issues which relate to the way the political system worked under Stalin and the way foreign policy was conducted in the 1930s. The political history of the Soviet Union has for a long time been disembodied because of a lack of archive material, apart, that is, from the omnipresent figures of Stalin and his rival Trotsky. Behind them there existed a shadowy bureaucracy which was nothing more than a generalised and reified concept. The totalitarian model which dominated French political analysis of the Soviet Union from the 1970s on reinforced this way of thinking.6 Why concern oneself with people who were active participants in this system if they were no more than obedient puppets of the allpowerful General Secretary? However, a revolution in the availability of documentary evidence brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union has meant that the concrete and the particular, the essential raw material for historians, have reassumed their rightful place. The bureaucracy has come to be seen as a whole network of administrative bodies with diverse objectives and practices, within which

INTRODUCTION

3

certain personalities stand out.7 Rather than adopting from the outset the notion that the Stalinist political system was a specific entity, it is perhaps more fruitful, as one would do in the case of other countries, to reflect upon the role played by senior officials in the decision-making process, to consider who they were as individuals and their position in relation to the power structure and its values, and to reflect also upon the conflicts of interest between different administrative bodies.8 By using the same analytical tools, one can evaluate empirically similarities with other countries but also those features specific to state services in the USSR. In addition, it allows one to see how this totalitarian system developed and changed and to understand the coexistence, in the 1930s, of two ways of thinking: the one reflected in the crudely despotic exercise of power by Stalin, the other in a more rational acceptance of people’s capacities as individuals, which was seen again during the war.9 Even if, from the beginning of the 1930s, Stalin was the most powerful figure within the Politburo, he did not yet have the complete control of the system to which he aspired. It was possible for Litvinov to be the head of the diplomatic service even though he had never been a close associate of Stalin or one of his favourites. This would no longer be the case in 1939 when administrative bodies, the victims of massive purges, lost any autonomy they still had. Totalitarianism prevailed to the extent that, on the eve of war, not only officers capable of prosecuting it but also diplomats capable of averting it were eliminated. Foreign affairs, which in the modern era have been the prerogative of the head of state – in other words, his personal fiefdom – were from the beginning of the regime closely associated with the seat of power. The Soviet system did not alter this; on the contrary, diplomacy became a privileged and ultra secret sphere of interest, which, moreover, has not made access to the archives at all easy. Closeness does not, however, mean that it is to be wholly identified with the seat of power. Litvinov and Stalin had a truly professional relationship, which we shall elucidate showing how it evolved over time, but it was in no way one of complicity, which was what developed from May 1939 with the appointment of Molotov. One usually draws a distinction in diplomacy between those who decide upon a strategy and those who put it into practice.10 However, even within the Soviet system, where decision making

4

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is particularly centralised, one should not draw too clear a distinction between conception and execution. Despite the lack of any real power of decision making, diplomats did play an important role in the 1930s. Certain objective constraints gave them an irreducible degree of autonomy. Because they were in direct and permanent contact with their foreign counterparts, they acquired a certain amount of information and established relationships which enabled them to promote one political line rather than another. This was even truer at a time when distances and difficulties of communication were important factors, not to mention the infrequency of visits abroad by heads of state. As General Secretary, Stalin did not leave the Soviet Union until 1943. Furthermore, uncertainty, especially surrounding Hitler’s intentions, was a crucial element in the international political situation during the 1930s, which was to the advantage of experts such as Litvinov, according to the analysis of the sociologist Michel Crozier: ‘Uncertainty so far as problems are concerned represents power for those who would act upon them.’ 11 However, the influence which diplomats could bring to bear on the political line to be pursued was limited by the existence of other institutions looking outwards and defending their own objectives. Esprit de corps relating to one’s function is something which has to be thought about in connection with political practices in the USSR.12 The esprit de corps of the Soviet diplomats is clear, if only because of the unique and pivotal position they occupied between two worlds. Rivalries between institutions which stemmed from this were managed, encouraged even, by the leadership which claimed to be an arbitrator. Totally controlled by those who had the power, they could not be seen as emblematic of a polycratic system as analysed by Martin Broszat in his study of Hitler’s state.13 On several occasions, moreover, there were very marked and explicit tensions in particular between diplomacy and foreign trade. Conflicts of interest between bureaucracies exist, of course, in democratic systems, but they are not the main expression of differing opinion in countries where political life is free. In the Soviet Union, as in Nazi Germany, one asks oneself if, on the contrary, personal preferences and opinions were not disguised in terms of the only allowable differences of opinion, those emanating from one’s professional position.14 A reading of certain purely professional yet virulent reports on Hitler by Litvinov leads one to think so.

INTRODUCTION

5

One can draw a distinction between the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ administrative agencies of the state and the party in the USSR.15 The former acted secretively whereas the latter proclaimed publicly what they were doing. The former were not concerned with legality, whereas the latter felt it their duty to be bodies which obeyed scrupulously the letter of the law within the regime. The Comintern and OGPU belonged to the first category and the diplomatic service to the second, but there was some interplay between the two categories. The diplomatic service, which at all levels – public statements, official or unofficial exchanges – employed language as a means of winning people to its point of view, had its secrets as well. Diplomats of all countries are sources of information and of propaganda. One might ask, however, whether in the case of the Soviet Union diplomats went beyond their remit by developing around their embassies networks of information and friendly contacts in the countries where they worked, even going so far as to use agents whose role was to influence people.16 Their strategy of winning over public opinion in the mid-1930s, in conjunction with the dynamic antifascist, popular front movement in Europe, had a striking effect in France and Geneva. The fact that certain French milieux were won over to the Soviet point of view owed a great deal to the international political situation, but also owed something to the frequent visits they made to the embassy. The importance of the image of the Soviet Union and of networks in French society sympathetic to the USSR has already stimulated considerable interest.17 We should now look at the specific role played by embassies and try to assess how influential they really were. To avoid either demonising or absolving Soviet methods, we should evaluate carefully the nature of this phenomenon. These diplomats, who must now be firmly placed in the context of Stalinist politics of the 1930s, were hardly visible before, except in certain works on Soviet foreign policy, and even then they were not central to the argument.18 They usually acted as witnesses for either the prosecution or the defence in the debate which divides historians over Stalin’s priorities abroad. One line of argument points to the fundamental realism of Soviet foreign policy, seeing ideology as an instrument rather than the motive force. If one takes the theory of ‘socialism in one country’ literally as enunciated by Stalin in 1924, diplomatic tactics would seem to have been shaped above all by the classic

6

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interests of all states, in particular the avoidance of war and the desire for international recognition. It is constructed on the basis of constant adjustments to the changing international situation. In this sense there can be no double-dealing. The action of diplomats on the ground coincides with the real objectives of those in power. When it failed to obtain the agreement it sought with France and Britain to counter the danger posed by Hitler, the Stalinist regime did a complete volte-face and signed the NaziSoviet pact in August 1939, in what appeared to be the ultimate act of realpolitik, the only means of avoiding war and of obtaining a measure of security.19 The alternative line of argument emphasises, to the contrary, the ideological objectives of the Soviet system which developed out of Bolshevism; the exporting of revolution being at the heart of the Stalinist project. Within this perspective, the role of the diplomat is above all that of furthering destabilisation by exploiting ‘differences between imperialist powers’. The anti-fascist movement in which diplomats and members of the Comintern participated, as well as the politics of collective security adopted by Litvinov’s teams, sought to fan the flames of conflict which finally erupted between the Western democracies and Nazi Germany.20 However, diplomats themselves, usually believed to have been sincere, were unaware of this. The Nazi-Soviet pact, signed a few months after Litvinov had been sacked and replaced by Molotov, can thus be seen as the most obvious sign of success of the plan conceived by Stalin in 1933 and which furthered the territorial and ideological expansion of the USSR. The hierarchy established by one side or the other between ideological and realistic objectives arises from a dualistic conception of Soviet foreign policy.21 This dualism (defence of the state, defence of the revolution), which the Bolsheviks in the 1920s were aware of, would seem to be inherent in the Soviet party-state. This notion does not, however, truly enable us to explain Stalin’s foreign policy. Institutionally, this duality persisted until the Second World War, with the Comintern on one side and diplomats on the other each addressing a different audience using different methods. But in the Kremlin, where decisions were made by Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich and a few others, the simultaneous pursuit of these two objectives was not seen to be contradictory. An explanation must be sought in a certain developing view of the world rather than by going back to a definition of objectives.22

INTRODUCTION

7

Stalin, Molotov and Litvinov shared the same global objectives as well as a pragmatic approach to foreign policy. I will attempt to demonstrate this for the years from 1933 to 1936. Conversely, the way they interpreted things, though based at the outset on the same Marxist-Leninist ideology, was not the same. The analytical grid which Stalin and those close to him used to decode the outside world, reveals itself above all in their arrogant anticapitalism, their hostility towards and mistrust of foreigners whom they despised out of fear, the dichotomy of ‘them’ and ‘us’, their fear of a fifth column.23 All these things were plain to see at the time of the great purges, and because of his contacts with foreigners the Soviet diplomat was, in the eyes of Stalin and his henchmen, such as Ezhov and Zhdanov, a potential traitor. Not having lived abroad, a lack of experience is apparent in the defensive attitude adopted towards what is foreign, in other words the unknown. Soviet diplomats had, in contrast, spent sufficient time in exile or in a post not to have the same edgy and disdainful attitude the Kremlin had towards the outside world. New elements were grafted onto this anti-capitalist political culture during the 1930s, in particular considerations of power, considerations which diplomats for their part were keenly aware of. Stalin inherited a system which he helped to create and within which he was formed. But to a large extent he reshaped it through an economic, social and cultural revolution which traumatised Russian society as a whole, from the peasant to the bureaucrat, but also laid the essential foundations of economic and military power. The syncretic notion of the ‘imperial communist’ or of the ‘imperial revolutionary’ which was used to define Stalin’s vision of the world after 1945, and which underpinned in part the culture of the cold war, was already taking shape.24 It was already visible in 1936 in the attitude adopted during the Spanish Civil War, in the new stance adopted by the Soviet Union towards its Baltic, Polish and Romanian neighbours, and of course in the Nazi-Soviet pact itself. The political system which Stalin created in the 1930s has partly remained an enigma, because no attention has been paid to the men who operated it. Were they fanatics, believers, lucid individuals who were prisoners of the system, or opportunist apparatchiks, who were either cynical or manipulated? In moving from the general to the particular, from outside the country to within, in examining the paradoxes of one man, Litvinov, and a group of

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senior civil servants, the diplomatic corps, this book seeks to unravel the human contradictions within a largely inhuman system.

Notes 1. Marcel Merle, La Politique étrangère (Paris: PUF, 1984), p. 20. 2. Léon Trotsky, Oeuvres, vol. 12 (Paris: EDI, 1985), pp. 107–9. 3. For Boris Souvarine, disillusioned with communism, Litvinov embodied Stalinist double talk: Staline. Aperçu historique du bolchevisme (Paris: Champ Libre, 1977), p. 512; the anarchist Victor Serge saw him as a puppet of Stalin: ‘Litvinov’, Esprit, no. 81, June 1939, p. 421. 4. This was the opinion of two pro-Soviet journalists in the mid-1930s: Louis Fischer, Men and Politics. An Autobiography (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), p. 127 and Geneviève Tabouis, Vingt ans de ‘suspense’ diplomatique (Paris: Albin Michel, 1958), p. 105. 5. Cf. the broad ideas of Pierre Bourdieu, ‘L’illusion biographique’, Actes de la Recherche en sciences sociales, 62–3, June 1986, pp. 69–72. 6. Sabine Dullin, ‘Les interprétations françaises du système soviétique’, in Michel Dreyfus et al., Le Siècle des communismes (Paris: Éditions de l’Atelier, 2000), pp. 47–65. 7. Let us cite the example of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, People’s Commissar for Heavy Industry, analysed by Oleg Khlevniuk, Stalin i Ordzhonikidze: konflikty v Politburo [Stalin and Ordzhonikidze: conflicts within the Politburo] (Moscow, 1994). Oleg Khlevniuk, In Stalin’s shadow. The Career of ‘Sergo’ Ordzhonikidze (ed.) D. J. Raleigh, translated by David J. Nordlander (New York, London: M. E. Sharpe, 1995). 8. Cf. Marc-Olivier Baruch and Vincent Duclert, Serviteurs de l’État. Une histoire politique de l’administration française, 1875–1945 (Paris: La Découverte, 2000). 9. See on this subject the stimulating analysis of Nicolas Werth, ‘Staline en son système dans les années 1930’, in Henry Rousso (ed.), Stalinisme et nazisme. Histoire et mémoire comparées (Bruxelles: Complexe, 1999), pp. 74–5. 10. See the categorisation of agents involved in international relations in Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Tout empire périra. Théorie des relations internationales (Paris: Armand Colin, 1992), p. 79ff. 11. Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg, L’Acteur et le Système (Paris: Seuil, 1977), p. 24. 12. Cf. the notion of functional identity or role behaviour which ‘is expressed in the following definition: image or perception depend on the position held’, Marlis G. Steinert, ‘La décision en matière de

INTRODUCTION

13. 14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20. 21. 22.

23.

9

politique étrangère, essai sur l’utilisation des théories’, in JeanBaptiste Duroselle, Tout empire périra, p. 323. Martin Broszat, L’État hitlérien. L’origine et l’évolution des structures du Troisième Reich (Paris: Fayard, 1985), ch. 9, p. 425. Ian Kershaw, ‘Retour sur le totalitarisme. Le nazisme et le stalinisme dans une perspective comparative’, Esprit, January-February 1996, pp. 103 and 111. Terry Martin, ‘Interpreting the New Archival Signals. Nationalities Policy and the Nature of the Soviet Bureaucracy’, Les Cahiers du Monde Russe, 40/1–2, January–June 1999, pp. 113–24. The definition of an agent of influence as ‘an individual manipulated by an intelligence service who uses his position to influence public opinion or decision making processes to promote the objectives of the country for which the service is working’ seems reasonably accurate, with one important qualification: one cannot equate an embassy with an intelligence service. Jacques Baud, Encyclopédie du renseignement et des services secrets (Paris: Lavauzelle, 1997), p. 14 (vF), note 4. Cf. the key work by Sophie Coeuré, La Grande Lueur. Les Français et l’Union soviétique (Paris: Seuil, 1999). See also François Furet, Le Passé d’une illusion. Essai sur l’idée communiste au xxe siècle (Paris: Laffont/Calmann-Lévy, 1995). There are also the more questionable books by Thierry Wolton, Le Grand Recrutement (Paris: Grasset, 1993) and La France sous influence. Paris-Moscou: 30 ans de relations secrètes (Paris: Grasset, 1997). With the exception of the book by Teddy John Uldricks, Diplomacy and Ideology. The Origins of Soviet Foreign Relations, 1917–1930 (London: Sage Publications, 1979). The realist interpretation of our period can be seen in Geoffrey Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1995) and also in Gabriel Gorodetsky, Le Grand Jeu de Dupes. Staline et l’invasion allemande (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2000). Cf. the analyses of Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power. The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941 (New York: Norton, 1990). Jacques Lévesque, ‘Quelques paradoxes de la politique internationale de l’URSS’, Communisme, no. 49–50, 1997, p. 8. Cf. the foreword by Sabine Dullin in the special issue of Communisme, ‘La politique internationale de l’URSS: nouvelles approches’, no. 74–5, 2003, pp. 3–8. On this subject see Silvio Pons, Stalin e la guerra inevitabile, 1936– 1941 (Turin: Einaudi, 1995); Oleg Khlevniuk, ‘The Reasons for the “Great Terror”. The Foreign-Political Aspect’, in Silvio Pons and Andrea Romano (eds), Russia in the Age of Wars, 1914–1945 (Milan: Fondazione Feltrinelli, 2000), pp. 159–70.

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24. Robert C. Tucker, ‘The Emergence of Stalin’s Foreign Policy’, Slavic Review, December 1977, pp. 563–89; Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War. From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).

Abbreviations

APE FR CGT GARF GPU ILO INO KGB NEP NKID NKVD OGPU OMS RAN RGASPI RGVA SNK TUC

Archives relating to Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation ConfØdØration GØnØrale du Travail (French Trade Union Federation) State archives of the Russian Federation Soviet secret police (acronym for State Political Administration) International Labour Organisation the foreign section of the NKVD [see below] Soviet secret police (acronym for State Security Committee) New Economic Policy acronym for the Peoples Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Soviet secret police (acronym for Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs) It was the successor to OGPU[see below] Soviet secret police (acronym for United State Political Administration). Otdel Mezhdunarodnoi Sviyazy; the section of the Comintern which headed the network of agents abroad. Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences Russian State Archives of Political and Social History Russian State Military Archives Sovnarkom; the Council of Peoples Commissars Trades Union Congress

ix

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and a manipulative personality. As with Stalin, though at a lower level, his career took off at the end of the 1920s. Some of his colleagues thought it revealed his ambition; Dmitrievsky, the secretary of his predecessor Chicherin, considered him capable of enduring any humiliation and trauma so long as he retained ministerial of ce .2 This does not adequately explain the in uence he acquired in the 1920s or the motives for his nomination in July 1930. The expert on the west Litvinov, who had been a deputy Commissar since 1918, found it dif cult playing second ddle, and did all he could to expand his role and to make himself indispensable. Highly active in meetings of the Politburo, where he was more at ease than Chicherin in handling his brief, he gradually extended the range of his activities and became the principal speaker on everything to do with the West.3 From 1926 he presented the annual foreign policy report to the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. But if his role widened considerably in the second half of the 1920s, it was not so much as a result of internal intrigues within the ministry as of developments in the diplomatic situation. The major achievement of Soviet foreign policy, which Chicherin too was most proud of, was the signing in 1922 of the Treaty of Rapallo, which established a special relationship between Germany, humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, and revolutionary Russia which had been ostracised. Under its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gustav Stresemann, Germany undertook to rejoin the community of nations. Having accepted its western borders by signing the Pact of Locarno, it joined the League of Nations in 1926. In the wake of this German diplomatic initiative, and to avoid renewed isolation and the opposition of former enemies who might have colluded against it, the Soviet Union began to take a greater interest in western Europe, a sphere of which Litvinov was adjudged to have the greatest knowledge. In 1927 the Soviet Union agreed to take part in the preparatory commission on disarmament. Litvinov headed the Soviet delegation. What is worth mentioning is that, in December 1927, he spoke at the 15th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to inform comrades about what was being done at Geneva and to quell rumours concerning a possible change of attitude on the part of the Soviet Union towards the League of Nations.4 His

STALINíS ACTIONS AND E HT PART L P AYED YB LITIV NOV

13

mandatory participation in the Politburo over matters concerning the West injured Chicherin s pride, and, to counterbalance it, the latter took it upon himself to accompany on a regular basis his assistant Karakhan, a recognised expert on Eastern affairs who had friends in the upper echelons of the party (Mikoyan and Enukidze) and used the familiar form of address when talking privately to Stalin.5 This seemed to him the only way of weakening Litvinov s exclusive role .6 However, Chicherin suffered health problems from 1928 which obliged him to spend long periods taking a cure at Wiesbaden. Since he was less and less in touch with what was going on in his of ce, this left the eld wide open for Litvinov. Litvinov and the opposition of the right The permanent appointment of Litvinov as head of Foreign Affairs, which seemed quite natural given the in uence he had acquired, was not, however, quite so straightforward. According to a statement of the British ambassador in Moscow, it was in fact extremely uncertain until the last minute.7 Other candidates were considered, such as Nikolai Krestinsky, the Soviet representative in Berlin, and Kuibyshev, then head of the Supreme Council for the national economy, to whom Chicherin wrote a long letter outlining the tasks and dif culties of his future post.8 The names of Kirov, Andreiev, and Mikoyan were also mentioned.9 A wavering attitude in the party leadership indeed revealed certain misgivings concerning Litvinov s personality and diplomatic style. On 27 September 1928 he had on his country s behalf signed the pact renouncing war formulated by Aristide Briand, the French Foreign Minister, and Frank Kellogg, the American Secretary of State. He had also persuaded most countries bordering the USSR to sign a peace protocol modelled on the pact.10 The way this initiative was received both within the Soviet Union and the Comintern revealed the extent to which diplomatic cooperation with Western peace initiatives, even if only limited, was unacceptable to many militants and communist leaders.11 Stalin remained very wary and Voroshilov, another senior member of the Politburo, was unsympathetic.12 On the contrary, Litvinov s initiative was warmly endorsed by Anatoly Rykov, one of the leaders of the rightwing opposition who remained head of the government until December 1930, when Stalin removed him in favour of Molotov.13

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During the years 1928 1929, foreign policy initiatives, before being voted on by the Politburo, were usually drafted by Litvinov, then interim commissar, in collaboration with Rykov who was in practice his principal ally.14 This working relationship was enough to make the Stalinist group suspect Litvinov of being too close to the leaders of the right-wing opposition, Rykov and Bukharin. Stalin s letters to Molotov contain clear and venomous examples of this in 1929. Two foreign policy issues were preoccupying the Soviet leadership at the time. Firstly, there was the threat to Russian interests in the Far East represented by the aggressive forces of the Chinese general Chiang Kai-shek and those of Japan. They had had to mount an armed defence of the railway in eastern China, which had been under Russian control since 1895; and Litvinov thought it necessary to make concessions to avert a worsening of the tensions between the Soviet Union and Japan.15 Strengthened by the military success of General Bl cher, Stalin criticised at the time the approach suggested by Litvinov, whom he saw as an ally of Bukharin in this matter, pointing out with irony the wisdom of giving a defeated enemy the fruits of victory.16 The second issue related to the need to re-establish diplomatic relations with Britain who had broken them off in 1927. Stalin did not wish to pay too high a price and refused, on the grounds that negotiations should be conducted with a Labour government, to allow any let-up in the struggle against reformism within the British working class. Somewhat crudely, Stalin complained about Litvinov s credulity in his dealings with the bastards of the Labour government, seen as dangerous enemies, and stated on 7 October 1929: Things really didn t turn out so badly with England [. . .] Rykov, along with Bukharin and Litvinov, was shown up. These people don t see the growth of the power and might of the USSR, nor those changes in international relations that have occurred recently .17 Stalin often came to the conclusion that his own colleagues were consciously or unconsciously playing into the hands of the enemy. In this context it is natural that within leadership circles, candidates other than Litvinov had been considered, such as Kirov or Mikoyan, militant Bolsheviks who had the political advantage but also the professional disadvantage as far as would-be diplomats were concerned of never having been abroad and of speaking no other language than Russian. Had they been appointed, a very

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different style of diplomacy to that of Litvinov would have evolved. He, after all, was married to an Englishwoman and had retained a good many British habits acquired during his exile in London, above all that of playing bridge. However, Stalin s moods were as changeable as the weather and Litvinov had, in the eyes of the General Secretary, the key attribute of being a good diplomat. The negative views which Stalin expressed about him would seem to have been entirely linked to the bitter struggle he was engaged in with the right-wing opposition, which might have derived some advantage from Litvinov s diplomatic style. But his negative attitude suddenly dissipated after the defeat of the right wing at the plenary session of the Central Committee in November 1929 which saw Bukharin s expulsion from the Politburo. A month later Stalin even expressed praise to Molotov for one of Litvinov s speeches.18 Without expressing long-term con dence in him, Stalin certainly realised how useful his skills might be to him. The judgement he had made a few months earlier about his future Commissar for Foreign Affairs Litvinov does not see and is not interested in the revolutionary aspect of policy was for a man like Stalin the basis of perpetual mistrust, but also a crucial factor for success on the diplomatic front.19 Undoubtedly, the General Secretary had a high regard for Litvinov s talents as an orator and for his skills as a diplomatic trickster.20 Nonetheless, to test his loyalty after his nomination in July 1930, Stalin involved Litvinov in the preparation and subsequent trial of the industrial faction in which a number of specialists in various economic ministries were accused and which was aimed at groups close to the right-wing opposition. One of the main accusations was the sabotage of Soviet industry to assist white Russians supported by France and its Polish and Romanian allies.21 A servant of the state with no political in uence The relationship between Stalin and Litvinov was never other than strictly professional. If they were both Old Bolsheviks, they had not belonged to the same networks of militants before the revolution. Stalin had never left Russia, whereas Litvinov had spent more than ten years in exile to escape the tsarist Okhrana which had been actively trying to nd him. Stalin had played an

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active part in the revolution and in Red Army campaigns during the civil war, which had increased his political in uence, while Litvinov had only been able to return to Russia in the autumn of 1918. Stalin was essentially surrounded by comrades-in-arms from the civil war and by those who had come up through the Party ranks thanks to his in uence. The correspondence between Party leaders which has now been partially published underlines the wide range of relationships which existed between Stalin and those who were or gradually became his subordinates, if only in the way they addressed him. Amongst those in his immediate circle who used the familiar form and the affectionate name of Koba were two important People s Commissars: Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who headed heavy industry between 1932 and 1937, and Kliment Voroshilov, a former ghter in the civil war who became Commissar for Defence. The loyal and deferential group of colleagues around him included the unavoidable gure of Molotov, truly the General Secretary s right hand man in the affairs of state, and Kaganovich who was more servile and called Stalin the boss . The two People s Commissars responsible for international relations, those concerned with trade and foreign affairs, did not belong to either of these two circles. When he became head of foreign trade in 1930, Rozengol ts bene ted from coming from the People s Commissariat of Workers and Peasants Inspection which was devoted to Stalin and served as a recruiting ground for his Commissariat.22 All those who in their turn looked after foreign affairs were far removed from the centre of power. Except for Trotsky s brief interlude in charge of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs when it was created in 1917, the head of the diplomatic service was never close to the Kremlin. Neither Chicherin from March 1918 nor Litvinov, his successor, had any political in uence within the Party. Each of them was elected to the Central Committee, the rst in 1925, the latter in 1934, a good many years after they had been appointed Commissar. Their election con rmed their professional role and rewarded them for services rendered rather than underlining their political importance. As Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Litvinov was thus one of the few members of the government not on the Central Committee at the beginning of the 1930s, while half the People s Commissars belonged at the same time to the supreme body of the Politburo.

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Throughout his career, Litvinov maintained a certain distance from Stalin and succeeded for the most part in avoiding any toadying behaviour towards him. According to Trotsky, he did not warm to the General Secretary s personality and remained in the background during the battles against the opposition: Litvinov did not take part in the internal struggles of the Party, as much from a lack of ideological interest as from caution on his part. He did not participate in the persecution campaign against me, but invariably sided with the majority .23 This remark clearly illustrates one aspect of Litvinov s personality. Far from being involved in the partisan squabbles and ideological debate within the Party, he saw himself as a servant of the state whose political militancy was a thing of the past. He now did everything he could to advance his career, convinced as he was of the validity of the regime for which he had fought as a militant throughout his youth and for which he would henceforth work. If Litvinov did not have a very high personal regard for Stalin, it would seem according to his daughter, however, that he considered him the lesser of two evils in comparison with Trotsky.24 For a member of the government such as Litvinov, Stalin seemed to incarnate a certain continuity of the state and he had worked suf ciently hard to this end since Lenin s death for his identi cation with the state to be valid, whereas Trotsky s legitimacy was much more ideological and political. While he served the state, Litvinov refused to serve Stalin and showed a certain independent-mindedness, acting as he saw t as soon as he was able to. A certain freedom was still possible at the beginning of the 1930s, even though it surprised foreign observers. The American journalist, Louis Fischer, expressed his surprise when Litvinov, seeking to help him with the book he was writing The Soviets in World Affairs advised him to go and see Khristyan Rakovsky, though he had been banished as a Trotskyite and was in exile at Saratov.25 The working relationship between Stalin and Litvinov In the functioning of the system at the beginning of the 1930s, the most important body was the Politburo to whom everyone in charge of a department had to defend what they were doing and where proposals were put to a vote. From 1924 meetings were especially devoted to secret matters which included diplomatic affairs and, in 1930, three of the six regular monthly meetings had to do

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Table 1.1 1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

1936

1937

1938

1939

14

26

42

21

39

29

28

24

15

Number of meetings in Stalin s of ce at the Kremlin attended by Litvinov, up to 3 May 1939 date of Litvinov s dismissal27

with issues relating to OGPU, foreign affairs, defence and foreign currency matters.26 However, the range and number of issues which formally came before the Politburo, together with the real power Stalin and his closest aids had acquired at the heart of the system, greatly distorted the way the system worked from the beginning of the 1930s. The Politburo began to rely increasingly on commissions, within which decisions were made. Those relating to foreign affairs were in the main presided over by Molotov and were made up of important individuals from foreign trade and the diplomatic service. They worked closely with Stalin, and the Politburo simply rubberstamped decisions already taken. Furthermore, key matters were passed to and fro between the People s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and Stalin s of ce, and this process intensi ed over the decade. Within Stalin s of ce, the proposals put forward by Litvinov and his assistants were reviewed by Molotov, Kaganovich, and often Voroshilov and Ordzhonikidze, alongside Stalin, and directives were issued as well. Summoned to the Kremlin at least twice a month from 1932, Litvinov was particularly heeded as a counsellor when the diplomatic line adopted by the Soviet Union was being modi ed between 1933 and 1935. If he was a less frequent visitor to Stalin s of ce in 1934, that is because he was often abroad. Litvinov communicated with him via his deputies or by means of coded telegrams. Each meeting was carefully prepared by both sides. Like Stalin and his colleagues, Litvinov had access to a range of information about political and diplomatic developments in foreign countries. All important Soviet diplomatic documents, especially the reports of meetings held in embassies and coded telegrams from ambassadors, were addressed to those in charge of Foreign Affairs and to another body called the pyaterka ( the ve ). These were the ve people in the Politburo already referred to. In the spring of 1937 this unof cial practice was made of cial. It brought together Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and Ezhov, who replaced Ordzhonikidze.28 These documents formed the

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basis of the work of Litvinov and his deputies and were not always looked at very carefully by the leadership. Some were, however, as is demonstrated by the annotations in red pencil done by Stalin and those in blue pencil added by Molotov. Stalin often interrupted the reading of telegrams which aroused his interest with positive or negative comments, laughter when he thought he detected ulterior Western motives, questions and sometimes a few words suggesting what should be done.29 It was assumed that their content was known, as Litvinov, in his correspondence with Stalin, often refers to a particular telegram by number without going into details. Those in charge of the Party and Foreign Affairs had two further sources of information. They were bulletins from the Tass press agency (especially those not for the press ) and papers which came from the intelligence services. If, at the beginning of the 1930s, Litvinov thought Tass correspondents incompetent as far as complex problems of a diplomatic nature 30 were concerned, his opinion subsequently changed once Doletsky, the head of the agency, had agreed to appoint journalists in whom he had con dence. As far as non-diplomatic documents were concerned, Litvinov was at something of a disadvantage compared with Stalin and his colleagues. He only received a selection of the documents which came from the political police and military counter intelligence.31 Moreover, he received them later than the Party leadership: something he complained about in April 1936: I believe it is useful to point out that I usually receive Tass bulletins as well as the interceptions of other documents much later than members of the Politburo. On the basis of these documents, you often consult me over issues which I only learn about late in the evening or even the next day. I ask for the following decisions to be taken, so that I can reply in time: 1. Request comrade Doletsky to send without delay press bulletins and those not intended for the press to the Commissar for Foreign Affairs. 2. Request those in the NKVD to forward intercepts of documents to the Commissar for Foreign Affairs when they are rst sent out.32

The Party leadership also obtained international press reviews and summaries produced within the Central Committee by the International Information Bureau, made up of three individuals and headed by Karl Radek.33

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If the Stalinist leadership had much more raw data, Litvinov, conversely, held the trump card. He had in-depth information relating to foreign affairs on various fronts: diplomatic, economic (reports from commercial representatives), political and military (reports from military attachØs and intercepts ). Thus, far from being isolated, he was at the centre of information-gathering relating to the outside world. Furthermore, it fell to him to produce a synthesis, as he addressed the Politburo each month giving it a short report which included the most interesting details.34 It is clear therefore that the diplomatic initiative was taken most of the time by the People s Commissar, who sent his proposals to various people, the number of which was inversely proportional to the importance of the speci c project. Ultra-secret proposals were only sent to Stalin and Molotov. Litvinov, with or without his aides, was then summoned by Stalin in order to discuss them and decide what action was to be taken. The obstinacy of the People s Commissar, together with a great sense of compromise and his skill in adopting the most consensual line of argument, meant that Litvinov often won the day, even though it might involve delays and amendments. The in uence which he achieved undoubtedly stemmed from a certain forcefulness on his part, but in the main it came from the congruity of Stalin s major preoccupations in the eld of foreign affairs and the basic strategy adopted by Litvinov from the end of the 1920s.

Stalinís obsessions With the adoption in 1928 of a political programme which linked an ambitious ve-year industrial plan with collectivisation in the countryside, Stalin gave a concrete, albeit largely theatrical, content to his December 1924 slogan: socialism in one country . It did not call into question the underlying communist political culture of the leadership, but helped develop and at the same time modify it, giving a new meaning to competition with the capitalist world. The West, adversary and model In seeking to justify the Great Break , Stalin referred to the obligations the Soviet government had to workers and peasants in

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the USSR and to the working class in the wider world. But he dwelt at greater length on the issue of national pride, in terms of a challenge to be taken up: The history of old Russia reveals that it has always been defeated because of its backwardness. It was defeated by the Mongol khans, it was defeated by the Turkish beys, it was defeated by the feudal Swedes, it was defeated by Polish-Lithuanian nobles, it was defeated by Anglo-French capitalists, it was defeated by Japanese barons, it was defeated by everyone, because of its backwardness. Because of its military backwardness, its cultural backwardness, its political backwardness, its industrial backwardness, its agricultural backwardness [. . .] We are fty to a hundred years behind capitalist countries. We have to overcome this in ten years. If not, they will crush us.35

Stalin s argument was based on a simple form of syllogism: being backward meant being weak and therefore being beaten. The interconnection of these three things meant that all those opposed to the intensive process of industrialisation were necessarily traitors to their country. His argument also re ected the sense of mobilisation which accompanied the implementation of the rst plan. However, the reiterated message of having to catch up and of competing with capitalist countries also revealed a slight change of perspective with new notions of power. Particularly important was the achievement of economic independence .36 During the period of the NEP, the reference point used to evaluate the economic and social successes of the regime was tsarist Russia. In 1927 the leadership congratulated itself on the fact that agricultural and industrial production in the USSR had at last surpassed that of 1914. The notion of power (derzhava) was still closely linked to that of imperialism, the domination of large-scale capital, and the exploitation of the masses, with all their military, nancial and colonial implications. But this notion evolved at the time of the Great Break . Success in the USSR began to be measured in the same terms as that of capitalist countries. Countries such as Germany and the United States had been admired for their technical prowess and for the organisation of labour, and were a source of inspiration from the beginning of the Bolshevik regime. Lenin had been

2

MEN OF INFLUENCE

fascinated by the organisation of Germany s war economy during the First World War, and the analyses of economic experts close to Bukharin and Rykov at the end of the NEP viewed in a favourable light the modernity and ef ciency of capitalism organised on an American model. The alleged pro-Americanism of those close to Bukharin was however opposed in the context of the struggle against the right-wing opposition and called into question when the world economic crisis began. If Stalin objected to anyone praising the capitalist system in any way, that did not prevent the pace of industrial development in the USSR taking as its yardstick the levels achieved by Germany and the United States. This helped to change the nature of competition between communism and capitalism. Trotsky has for a long time been seen as Stalin s opponent in regard to the question of internationalism. Before being expelled from the leadership of the Party and then deported in 1929, Trotsky s last battle in the USSR was effectively over his defence of the Chinese communist revolution. Nonetheless, Stalin s correspondence shows clearly that he too was counting on the spread of socialism to other countries.37 His internationalism was however based on the state. His ambition was to become head of a revolutionary state, which, with growing economic and military strength, would trouble the capitalist West and export, from a position of strength, the Soviet model of revolution. One can see in Stalin s crude and disdainful comments about the West a form of linguistic compensation for the inferiority complex which was latent in the political culture of those close to Stalin. When he wished to congratulate Molotov in January 1933 on the part of his speech devoted to foreign affairs, Stalin wrote to him: The con dent, contemptuous tone with respect to the Great Powers , the belief in our own strength, the delicate but plain spitting in the pot of the swaggering Great Powers , very good. Let them eat it. 38 The progressive rede nition of the main objectives of the Comintern went hand in hand with these developments.39 The international working class had as its main mission the enthusiastic and wholehearted support of the homeland of the proletariat in its con ict with capitalism. Its own emancipation would only be possible if it showed total solidarity. Unconditional support of the Soviet Union, together with a refusal of any compromise with bourgeois forces, including social democrats, in

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those countries where communists were active, led to Western communist parties becoming small isolated fortresses in a state of siege just like their big brother. Class struggle of the most radical kind remained the preferred method, and Kuusinen, one of the leading members of the Comintern, stated, at the 10th session of his executive committee, that factories would determine the outcome of the next war and of the next civil war .40 But the Marxist principle of turning war into civil war should rst be a way of countering anti-Soviet attitudes. His speech simultaneously expressed both defensive and offensive language. The arguments outlined at the 6th congress of the Comintern, whilst maintaining the combative strategy of class struggle, were expressed within the context of a defensive struggle to be waged against an anti-Soviet, imperialist war .41 The West, at once the mirage of modernity and the cause of upheavals whether of war or revolution, was Stalin s horizon. In his perception of the capitalist world, in his attitudes as in his directives, what he revealed most frequently was an awareness of the present vulnerability of the USSR. It was accompanied, however, by an in exible political will to get out of this situation in two ways: by strengthening economic ties with Western countries and by defending its borders. We must push grain exports furiously In the framework of the ve-year plan, the Soviet Union needed more than ever to import Western know-how. Economic cooperation with Germany since the Treaty of Rapallo was no longer sufcient and trade on a wider front became the priority, with the ve-year plan envisaging an annual growth in exports of more than 21 per cent. The nancing of costly imports of machines and of factories which were ready for use required Western credit facilities at reasonable rates and the export of Russian raw materials, principally in the form of oil, timber and wheat. Stalin was deeply involved in all these matters. In his letters to Molotov a recurrent theme was the need to export more and more, and this was even truer since, with the crisis of 1929 and the fall in the prices of raw materials, rates of exchange were disadvantageous to the Soviet Union. As a consequence, they had to export ever larger amounts. At the end of August 1930, adopting a tone of extreme urgency, among the points he made were:

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7) It is good that the United States have permitted the import of our timber. Our patience has borne fruit [. . .] 8) The treaty with Italy is a plus. Germany will follow suit. By the way, how are things with the German credits? 9) Force the export of grain to the maximum. If we can export grain, the credits will come[. . .]42

And two weeks later: 2) We have one and a half months left to export grain: starting in late October (perhaps even earlier), American grain will come on the market in massive quantities, and we won t be able to withstand that. If we don t export 130 and 150 million poods of grain in these six weeks, our hard currency situation could become really desperate. Again: We must force through grain exports with all our might [. . .]43

Between 1929 and 1931 the General Secretary kept up the pressure on all administrative departments responsible for promoting exports. From 1930 voices were heard proposing changes in the nature of foreign trade. Pyatakov, the head of the State Bank (Gosbank), worrying about in ation in the country due to shortages sent Stalin a memorandum asking for a reduction in the export of food products whilst conversely seeking an increase in imports of cotton and wool in order to stimulate the textile industry.44 At the Trade Commissariat some people proposed adjustments so that the country exported less and at better prices. Stalin opposed this vigorously. During his summer visit to Sochi, in July 1930, he told Molotov, who was standing in for him in Moscow, to oppose these measures: 2) Mikoyan reports that grain procurements are growing, and each day we are shipping 1 to 1.5 million poods of grain. I think that s not enough. The quota for daily shipments (now) should be raised to 3 to 4 million poods at a minimum. Otherwise we risk being left without our new iron and steel and machine-building factories (Avtozavod, Cheliabzavod etc.) Some clever people will come along and propose holding off on the shipments until the price of grain on the world market rises to its ceiling . Some of these clever people are in Trade. They ought to be horsewhipped, because they re dragging us into a trap. In order to hold off, we must have hard currency reserves. But we don t have them. In order to hold off, we would have to have a secure

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52

position on the international grain exchange. And we haven t had any position at all for a long time there we ll only obtain it now if we can exploit conditions that have arisen at the present moment and are particularly favourable to us. In short, we must push grain exports furiously.45

Through the pressure he put on those around him, Stalin intended to succeed in his aim: that of achieving an important position in the international market and of displacing his competitors. He was partially successful. Between 1928 and 1931 the Soviet Union sold a lot. The export of cereals, which was zero during 1928 1929, amounted to 15 per cent of the world market in 1930. The export of wood, which had ceased since the revolution, began again in 1927 and represented almost 18 per cent of world exports in wood in 1931 (in 1913 Russia had had a 15 per cent share of the market). But these enforced exports only accentuated the negative effects of collectivisation. The amount of cereals taken from the collective farms by the state was such that the richest cereal regions in the USSR suffered shortages of seed grain. Harvests were inadequate, creating the terrible famine of 1933 in which almost 6,000,000 people died, reaching dramatic proportions in Ukraine, the North Caucasus and Kazakhstan.46 Economic negotiations with leading Western countries were closely monitored by Stalin and Molotov, who controlled the commissions responsible for these matters on which Mikoyan, Litvinov, Rozengol ts and sometimes Pyatakov or Ordzhonikidze also sat, doing what was required of them. The only commercial agreements acceptable were those which resulted in the signatories importing large quantities of Soviet raw materials. In April 1930 Stalin insisted on the need for a commercial treaty with Great Britain and on 16 April a provisional agreement was signed which opened up the British market to Soviet exports.47 On 5 November a directive was approved by the Politburo, urging the vigorous reinforcement of Soviet economic interests in England, Italy and Germany.48 In May 1931 Stalin congratulated himself on the possibilities opened up for favourable orders in European countries , and, at the end of the summer, he issued new instructions for commercial negotiations with the United States and Italy.49 But the growth in exports desired by Stalin encountered increasing obstacles as the international exchange crisis deepened. With the slowdown in international trade, preferential

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systems and protectionist tariffs developed in Western countries, sidelining the Soviet Union and threatening to considerably reduce its ability to trade. Restrictive decrees relating to imports from the USSR existed in numerous countries. European economic trade pacts were also a possibility, which would have been harmful to Soviet exports. These effectively declined by 20 per cent in 1932. The rise of German protectionism and the adoption, at the Ottawa Conference, of preferential treatment of the Empire by Great Britain had a considerable impact on Soviet foreign trade. Great Britain, which until then had been the market most open to the USSR, receiving 27 per cent of its exports, rejected the AngloSoviet trade agreement in October 1932. This came at a bad time for Moscow, which had to begin repaying foreign debt to Germany in particular amounting to 1,400 million roubles at the end of 1931. In order to repay debts incurred by the USSR and to maintain a certain level of exports, Stalin and the Politburo had to seek solutions. The one which occurred immediately to the leadership was at once the simplest and the hardest on the population. Since the country had to make repayments and could only obtain credits with dif culty, the only way out was to reduce purchases abroad. Committees opposed to imports were formed in the USSR, and as a result imports fell in the period 1931 1932 from 1,105 to 787 million roubles.50 This had a negative effect on Soviet industrialisation, in particular so far as consumer goods were concerned, creating worrying shortages.51 However, other solutions were put forward by the departments responsible for foreign trade and foreign affairs. Diplomats especially sought to play up the value of multilateral action to lessen the effects of the economic crisis which was having a major impact on Western countries and was also affecting the Soviet system, despite propaganda to the contrary.52 Between reality and propaganda: the anti-Soviet war scare Stalin s second preoccupation, which interacted with the rst, arose from a fear of external threats. Being encircled by capitalists was something deeply rooted in people s consciousness during the civil war years of 1918 1921, when white Russians were helped by foreign intervention led by France and Great

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Britain. After a period of relative calm during the NEP, the USSR found itself isolated again and in an overtly hostile situation from 1927. During that year diplomatic relations, established three years earlier, were broken off between the Soviet Union and Great Britain, and there was a great deal of tension with France which expelled Trotsky s well-known associate, Khristyan Rakovsky, the Soviet representative in Paris at the time. During 1929 1930 fear of a full-scale attack was at its height. In one sense, it was something of a fantasy, but fed by real events. The borders in the Far East were not secure, and incidents had erupted in 1929. Stalin s attention, though directed eastwards, was equally focused on the West. He feared possible provocations from France s allies in eastern Europe, Poland and Romania, at a time when peasant discontent, linked to collectivisation, made the Ukrainian borders somewhat insecure.53 The threat of a renewed attack on the Soviet Union was for Stalin clearly a useful propaganda tool. It enabled him to justify his struggles against opposition forces in the name of necessary national unity against the imperialist enemy. In exploiting the idea of a threat to the home of the proletariat, he was able to consolidate power not only within the country but also within the Comintern. Its subordinate position was formally acknowledged when, on 27 January 1931, it was agreed, as a way of strengthening day-today links between the leaders of the Communist International and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, that the Soviet members of that leadership, Manuilsky and Pyatnitsky, should attend all meetings of the Politburo.54 Stalin s political calculations were, however, based on real fears. In a letter to Molotov, dated 1 September 1930, he referred to Polish intrigues in the Baltic region as a prelude to an attack on the Soviet Union. He demanded an immediate increase in the military budget in order to be able to deploy rapidly 150 160 infantry divisions to the borders.55 At the trial of engineers of the Industrial Party in December 1930, which led to a campaign of action against foreign intervention, Stalin s obsession and his political exploitation of it were largely indistinguishable. Charges were based on the accusation of preparations for armed action, involving industrial sabotage, with an alleged border incident with Romania or Poland serving as a pretext. Behind these machinations, Stalin saw the hand of France and of counter-revolutionary Russian ØmigrØs and he wrote to Menzhinsky, the head of OGPU:

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If Ramzin s testimony is con rmed and corroborated by that of the others who are accused, it would be a major victory for OGPU. We shall be able to make the documentation available in one form or another to sections of the Comintern and to workers of the world at large. We shall launch as broad a campaign as possible against interventionists and shall halt them and thwart their attempts in the next one or two years, which would be of great importance to us.56

Thus, to avert this military threat, Stalin used real military force and fabricated campaigns of repression and propaganda. However, it was the diplomats whose role was above all to avert the danger of war on the borders of the Soviet Union. While it was of great importance to him, the General Secretary played a less prominent role on the practical diplomatic front. How was the Soviet Union to emerge from the diplomatic isolation in which it had found itself since 1927? To whom could it turn and to what advantage? It was Litvinov s task to come up with ideas.

Litvinovís own sphere of action In his press statement of 25 July 1930, the newly appointed Litvinov gave three good reasons why the West should engage in peaceful coexistence with the USSR.57 The rst was that the Soviet Union had given irrefutable proof of its desire for peace by introducing a ve-year plan. Internal reconstruction took precedence over everything else. The second was that the West could no longer neglect the Soviet Union as it had previously done, because the latter would soon become, thanks to intensive development, an important player on the international stage again. The third was that the economic crisis meant that the USSR provided a lifeline for Western industry which capitalist countries would be wrong not to use. The intervention of diplomats on the economic front As soon as he took up his post, Litvinov wanted to give the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs an institutional role in international trade. An independent economic service was set up under the leadership of Boris Rozenblum, and each geographical department had a properly appointed individual. He looked after

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economic relations with those countries under the aegis of his department and cooperated with trade representatives from the People s Commissariat for Foreign Trade.58 Litvinov s initial objective was to subordinate, as far as was possible, the economic to the political. Soviet foreign trade could be used as a means of applying pressure in order to achieve what any diplomatic service aspires to: normal diplomatic relations with most foreign countries. This was far from the case when Litvinov took over. The United States, Switzerland, Spain and the countries of the Little Entente (Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) had not recognised the Soviet Union in 1930, as it was considered to be a country that was dangerous and destabilising for Western civilisation and values. Furthermore, Soviet diplomacy seemed vulnerable to changes of opinion, as illustrated by the break with Great Britain in 1927 and worsening diplomatic relations with Berlin after Hitler came to power. By creating an economic department, Litvinov hoped that the professional mindset of diplomats, which favoured exchanges with countries that had normal relations with the USSR, would carry more weight than the thinking of those in foreign trade who, to ful l the plan so far as an increase in trade was concerned, were ready to do business without considering possible political gains. It was a recurring problem which bedevilled relations between the two Commissariats. Litvinov deplored it in relation to the United States in 1928: The creation and development of trade relations, and especially direct trade relations, with any country, considerably, if not completely, reduces the chances of the USSR being recognised by that country [. . .]. Personally, I would say without hesitation that our chances of being recognised by the United States of America would be much greater at present, if we had not already had more trade with them than with any other country. [. . .] This, for a long time, has been the opinion of the People s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs which has invariably brought it into con ict with the desire of the People s Commissariat for Trade to extend trade relations to countries which do not recognise us [. . .]59

The Politburo was usually the arbitrator so far as the divergent objectives of the two bodies were concerned, favouring one side then the other. Concerned in 1934 with developing Soviet in uence

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in the Baltic countries, Litvinov rebuked Rozengol ts for doing nothing on the trade front in this area on the grounds that it was not advantageous.60 In this he was supported by the Politburo. In the mid-1930s Litvinov and his aides wanted to redirect the Soviet Union s trade with Germany towards France, to lend weight to the political line adopted by his Commissariat: We, in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, support the signing of an agreement because it would undoubtedly have a positive effect on our political relations with France and, furthermore, at the international level, it would assist our trade policy [. . .] We have not managed to convince Sudin of the necessity of accepting the current French proposals. We should therefore raise the issue of this disagreement between the Commissariats for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade with the government. I nonetheless believe that agreement can be reached with Foreign Trade and that a joint proposal will be put to the government.61

The problem was that from an economic perspective, relations with Germany were pro table whereas those established with France with some dif culty had not resolved the issue of tsarist debts. The Commissariat for Foreign Trade won the day in this case.62 By February 1936 Litvinov had been unable to achieve completely what he had wanted to do since 1930; establish a linkage between economic and political negotiations: Comrade Rozengol ts does not wish to accept that, even in capitalist countries, it is impossible to separate completely economics from politics; this is all the more true for the Soviet Union which has total control of foreign trade. In Moscow he tries his best to ignore the People s Commissar for Foreign Affairs.63

Furthermore, diplomats pursued multilateral economic diplomacy with greater vigour. The crisis of 1929 and the erce competition which it created had made the West very sensitive to the massive level of exports by the Soviet Union under the ve-year plan. It was accused of pursuing a policy of dumping and of using forced labour, which justi ed the introduction of protectionist measures relating to Soviet trade in Europe and the United States.64 To counter this anti-Soviet offensive, Litvinov had a

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number of original ideas concerning active multilateral diplomacy, without neglecting bilateral arrangements. He managed to convince Stalin and the other members of the Politburo that the Soviet Union would derive some bene t from systematic involvement in economic gatherings and international committees which sought solutions to the exchange crisis, and in particular the problem of the rapid drop in cereal and timber prices because of over-production. Despite the enormous reluctance of the Soviet leadership to engage constructively in meetings of capitalists, the diplomats, supported by foreign trade experts, won from Stalin and those around him, and also from Western organisations, the right to participate in various bodies. From May 1931 a Soviet delegation attended meetings of the commission set up to study European Union.65 It proposed an economic non-aggression pact, and, even though this did not get off the ground, it enabled the diplomats to inform Western opinion about what was happening to Soviet exports and to claim the Soviet Union s rightful place in international trade. These diplomats argued their case based on the size of the country a sixth of the earth s surface and on the fact that it was the heir of tsarist Russia.66 Equally, the Soviet delegation had no intention of allowing preferential European tariffs to be set up without saying anything; and here again geographical and historical arguments were used. The Soviet delegation expressed surprise that the Soviet Union would be kept out of discussions on this question, given that it was a European country which exported agricultural produce .67 Litvinov wrote to the Secretary General of the League of Nations, informing him that the USSR represented in Europe alone 45 per cent of the landmass of the continent .68 Thus, the Soviets took part in several economic conferences, from one in Rome in March 1931 to one held in London in June 1933. Did not the Soviet Union suffer the same problems as all exporters of cereals? Stalin and Molotov were opposed to a general agreement xing export quotas as a means of raising prices, as envisaged in certain Western proposals, especially those of the British Commonwealth. These were studied with some interest in the Soviet Union by economic experts in the Commissariats for Foreign Trade, Agriculture and Foreign Affairs.69 On the contrary, they were not opposed to more limited arrangements, especially if they involved credits or outlets. As far as wheat was concerned, the International Institute of

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Agriculture, the headquarters of which was in Rome and which the Soviet Union was ready to join, envisaged a system of guaranteed short-term credits based on stocks of cereals as a way of sharing more equitably the export of wheat throughout the year and in some measure freeing up the world market.70 In July 1932 projects were set in place to make use of foreign credit blocked in Germany, in particular British credits, both as a means of paying for Soviet exports outside Germany and as a means of repayment.71 Possible agreements between exporters were also envisaged as a way of sharing outlets. This happened at the conference concerning the timber industry and timber trade held in Vienna in June 1932, at which the Soviet delegation sought limited, concrete and effective negotiations with Nordic and Mediterranean countries.72 Economic issues were, however, only one facet of Litvinov s multilateral diplomatic initiatives. Fashionable diplomacy In the West, the strength of paci sm and the activities of the League of Nations had given rise to a form of diplomacy which was later pejoratively referred to as pactomania , and which was largely the initiative and to the bene t of those countries on the winning side in the First World War. Based on developing international law and on the text of peace treaties, it was characterised by a recourse to the principle of arbitration, to promises of disarmament, and to regionally based mutual assistance agreements, seeking to establish the ideal of collective security. There were certain trends also in favour of the new idea of European solidarity, in the spheres of economics and politics. The reaction of communist leaders in the Soviet Union during the 1920s was of cially to denounce these kinds of initiatives and to call instead for general disarmament and for a struggle against imperialism which was the real warmonger. Invariably, the League of Nations was denounced. The Soviet Union was not, however, totally excluded from all diplomatic initiatives and, from the end of the civil war, had sought rapprochement with the then so-called revisionist camp, the leaders of which were Germany and Italy, who were dissatis ed with what had been granted them in the peace treaties and were therefore doing all they could to have them revised. The Treaty of Rapallo, signed with Germany

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in 1922 and which sealed the bilateral agreement between the two countries proscribed by the Treaty of Versailles, had done much to free the new Soviet Russia from total isolation. The task of Soviet diplomats during the NEP went much further, however, than simple bilateral relations with those countries which challenged the international order, such as Germany, Italy and Turkey. The more general quest for peaceful coexistence , within a capitalist environment which would exist long term, had been on the agenda since 1920, when the last hope of the rapid spread of revolution had been thwarted by the patriotic resistance of the Poles.73 Diplomatic recognition of the USSR by France and Britain in 1924 had been one step on this path towards peaceful coexistence. Nonetheless, at Litvinov s instigation and despite initial reluctance on the part of the Stalinist leadership, this process took a more decisive turn. From 1928 the People s Commissar chose to adopt a Western diplomatic style in order to create a new more constructive and reassuring image of the Soviet Union for the outside world, and to impress public opinion and government circles in the West with concrete actions. In order to achieve this, Litvinov and his colleagues decided to break with the strictly geographical basis on which the ministry was organised. During the 1920s matters relating to the West were dealt with by a series of departments, each having responsibility for one speci c geographical sector: Scandinavian countries, Baltic countries, central European countries, the Balkans, AngloSaxon countries, Latin countries. Such an organisation suited strictly bilateral relations. The only general structure, which had existed since 1927, was the permanent commission charged with disarmament matters which prepared the directives for the Soviet delegation attending the annual meeting in Geneva. However, this commission functioned under the aegis of the High Command of the Red Army and not that of Foreign Affairs.74 The creation of a department concerned with general international issues in October 1931, directed by Boris Shtein, was a diplomatic innovation.75 It dealt with a wide range of issues: international political matters concerning a large number of countries (such as disarmament, non-aggression, the problems of security and military alliances, international debt, reparations etc.), international bodies of a political nature (such as the League of Nations, the European Union etc.), matters relating to the involvement of

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the USSR in international conferences and congresses, from the moment these had or acquired mainly political characteristics .76 By creating this tool, diplomats showed their willingness to act more decisively in Geneva, which was at the time the place where Western public opinion largely focused its attention, determined as it was not to experience again what it had suffered during the First World War. Moreover, this tted in with Litvinov s more personal views. His ideas and practical measures since 1928 were a bit out of line with the dogma of Soviet foreign policy dating from the earliest days of the regime. His view of things distanced him from the of cial isolationism of Soviet diplomacy; an isolationism which was characterised by a refusal to participate in any political or military alliance and which was based on a conviction that there were two types of war: anti-imperialist war, which could further the revolution, and anti-Soviet war which had to be challenged. The notion of indivisible peace, rst enunciated by Litvinov in December 1928, emerged cautiously from the doctrine of isolationism: The Soviet government, totally preoccupied with internal reconstruction, keeps out of diplomatic intrigues and machinations, in accordance with instructions from the highest authorities, and refuses to participate in any political or military alliance. At the same time, it is obliged to monitor carefully the way events unfold, acknowledging that a threat to peace in any part of the world could lead to a wider war. It recognises too that, even if the Soviet Union is not drawn into war by a provocative action, any war might be harmful to its economy and its plans for reconstruction.77

As a consequence of this notion of indivisible peace, Litvinov was prompted to challenge another dogma of the 1920s: support for the revisionist camp of those who had been defeated and for its arguments in favour of disarmament. In fact, the powers wishing to maintain peace were largely on the side of the victors and were concerned to preserve the status quo in relation to territory through collective security measures. The most prominent of these was France. When Litvinov signed the Briand-Kellogg pact in 1928 on his country s behalf, it was a timid step in this direction. When he af rmed that he gave personal and unconditional backing to his country s participation in the European Commission which grew out of Briand s plan for federal European links, he took

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another step, prompting the opening of negotiations with France in the spring of 1931.78 The priorities of the Politburo did not seem to coincide entirely with those of Litvinov. The key thing for Stalin and Molotov, who were seeking provisional guarantees of peace and the security of the country s borders, was the signing of a non-aggression pact with Poland; and the purpose of discussions with France, its protector, was to further this end.79 Litvinov s priorities, moreover, were entirely the opposite, as he did not share the Soviet leadership s fear of war on its Western borders, even though he remained deeply suspicious of the Poles. An agreement with France seemed to him an absolute priority.80 The two non-aggression pacts were nally concluded in July and November 1932, as well as similar agreements with most of the neighbouring countries. Imperceptibly, Litvinov s diplomatic activities had changed the basis of Soviet foreign policy which had been established in the 1920s. Success However, if Litvinov imposed his own style on Soviet diplomacy for several years, it was above all in projects such as the de nition of an aggressor which the People s Commissar put before the disarmament conference of February 1933. In offering a clear de nition of the notion of aggression based on objective criteria, it involved strengthening the signi cance of previous pacts and avoiding the possibility of an interpretation of aggression being based on the subjective views of some international body or other. Litvinov and the lawyers in his ministry had begun drafting this agreement in December 1932. It was not, therefore, a reaction to Hitler becoming Chancellor on 30 January 1933. The newness of what he proposed passed completely unnoticed in Moscow, with the Politburo ratifying what Litvinov presented as a new legal weapon in the diplomatic armoury which was in accordance with declarations concerning disarmament. In its content, however, it represented the rst of cial variation in prorevisionist Soviet policy, given that it included a legal measure which aimed to reinforce collective security and to guarantee the status quo regarding territory.81 It was recognised as new, on the contrary, by supporters of the West in the League of Nations. The Greek delegate Politis, an

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in uential legal expert in the League of Nations, thanked the Soviet Union for its text which was received with very great interest .82 For the rst time, a Soviet proposal was discussed and used at an international conference. At the end of May a clear, precise de nition of aggression emanating from the Litvinov proposal was formulated and approved by France. On the strength of this, Litvinov renegotiated with his East European counterparts, worried about Nazi expansionism, the whole range of non-aggression pacts at the economic conference held in London in June 1933. He even succeeded in extending this regional peace agreement to the Little Entente involving Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.83 In signing an agreement which recognised the inviolability of its borders with Bucharest, the Soviet Union indirectly acknowledged its loss of Bessarabia. If Stalin, who, like the rest of the Soviet leadership had always refused to accept this, congratulated the People s Commissar on signing the London protocol, it was because Litvinov s diplomatic success seemed more important to him.84 The prestige gained by the USSR over this issue was certainly to be welcomed given its obvious vulnerability at the time. Shortages were affecting the whole of the country and famine had devastated Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Caucasus in the spring and summer. The German ambassador, Von Dirksen, wrote to Berlin: Russia is currently withdrawing troops from its western borders (Poland). Only a small number of these troops have been sent to the Far East, the rest being deployed within the country because of the risk of disturbances arising from the shortages of supplies .85 When the meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR opened on 28 December 1933, Molotov paid a fulsome tribute to Litvinov. Recalling the London conference on the de nition of the aggressor, he stated: This success for Soviet diplomacy is inseparably linked with the name of comrade Litvinov whose services are widely recognised. We must however publicly acknowledge them here. I am sure this meeting will approve the proposal that comrade Litvinov gives us a more detailed report on the international political scene .86 As a general rule, since 1929 no speci c report from the Commissar for Foreign Affairs had been given to a meeting of the Executive Committee of the USSR. Litvinov s intervention on 29 December was an exception to this rule and revealed the importance of his achievement. His election to the Central Committee

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at the 17th Party Congress at the beginning of 1934 was to give him the political base he did not yet have.87 The prestige which Litvinov and the diplomats achieved at the end of 1933 arose out of a speci c external political situation. France had wanted a rapprochement with the USSR. The United States had nally normalised relations with the Soviet Union in December 1933. The League of Nations was ready to accept it as a member. Germany, now under Hitler s control, and a militarily aggressive Japan acted as the external spur. This prestige is also indirectly explained by the internal weakness of the Soviet Union which caused its leaders to open their minds to the idea of necessary compromises. However, one has to take into account the human factor as well. After all, success was also due to the diplomats themselves.

Notes 1. After the October Revolution, the old terminology such as ministry and minister was replaced with new ones: People s Commissariat and People s Commissar, and ambassadors were renamed plenipotentiary representatives (polpred). Both terms may be used. 2. S. Dmitrievsky, Dans les coulisses du Kremlin (Paris: Plon, 1933), pp. 182 207. The defector, Alexandre Barmin, expressed similar views in Vingt ans au service de l URSS (Paris: Albin Michel, 1939) p. 247. 3. The observation of Boris Bajanov [Bazhanov] (former secretary of the Politburo) in Avec Staline dans le Kremlin (Paris: Les ditions de France, 1930), p. 172. 4. The Soviet Union always had a negative attitude towards the League of Nations. XV S ezd VKP (b) [XVth congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] (Moscow, 1928), pp. 916 24. 5. Poslednaya sluzhebnaya zapiska G. V. Chicherina [The last of cial letter of Chicherin], Istochnik, no. 6, 1995, p. 100; Herbert von Dirksen, Moscow, Tokyo, London. Twenty Years of German Foreign Policy (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1951), p. 127; protocols of the Politburo, 1930, RGASPI, 17/3/771 808; the correspondence of Karakhan and Stalin, ibid, 558/11/745. 6. Poslednaya sluzhebnaya zapiska G. V. Chicherina , p. 100. 7. Sir Esmond Ovey to Henderson, Moscow, 28 July 1930, in L. Woodward and R. Butler (eds), Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919 1939, Second series, vol. 7 (London: HMSO, 1958), p. 144. 8. With Litvinov nally appointed, this letter was never sent. See Poslednaya sluzhebnaya zapiska G. V. Chicherina , p. 100.

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9. Rumours surrounding the nomination of Litvinov were circulated by Cerruti, the Italian ambassador in Moscow who was close to the Soviet diplomatic corps, as well as by Sir Esmond Ovey. Cf. Jonathan Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1930 1933. The Impact of the Depression (London: Macmillan, 1983), p. 14. 10. This pact was signed in Paris by fteen countries on 27 August 1928. Jacques BariØty, Le Pacte Briand-Kellogg de renonciation la guerre de 1928 , in Jacques BariØty and Antoine Fleury (eds), Mouvements et initiatives de paix dans la politique internationale, 1867 1928 (Bern: Peter Lang, 1987), p. 355. The Soviet Union submitted a separate protocol to neighbouring governments on 29 December 1928 referred to as the Litvinov protocol which was rati ed by the USSR, Poland, Romania, Latvia and Estonia. 11. On the negative attitude of the Comintern, see Walter Stoecker, La rati cation du pacte Kellogg et les partis communistes , La Correspondance internationale, no. 11, 6 fØvrier 1929; propos de la rati cation du protocole Litvinov , La Correspondance internationale, no. 21, 6 mars 1929. 12. Joseph Stalin, Deux bilans. Analyse du plan quinquennal. Rapport du ComitØ central au xvie CongrŁs du PCUS le 27 juin 1930 (Paris, 1930), pp. 14. and 17; the intervention of Voroshilov in Zvezda, Odessa, 21 September 1928. 13. The report of Rykov to the 5th Congress of the Soviets 20 May 1929, cf. J. Degras (ed.), Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, vol. 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 364. 14. Decisions taken at meetings of the Politburo, special protocols, no. 1 11, RGASPI, 17/162/9. 15. Successful operations had been led by the Soviet army of Bl cher to defend the railway in eastern China. Cf. Jonathan Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1930 1933, p. 81. 16. Letter of 29 August 1929 in Lars Lih, Oleg Naumov and Oleg Khlevniuk (eds), Stalin s Letters to Molotov, 1925 1936 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 175. 17. Letters of 9 September and 7 October 1929, ibid., pp. 177 and 182. 18. Speech given to the Central Executive Committee of the USSR in December 1929, letter of 5 December 1929, ibid., p. 183. 19. Letter of 29 August 1929, ibid., p. 175. 20. Boris Bajanov said that Litvinov made himself irreplaceable in his ability to deceive the bourgeois West , Avec Staline dans le Kremlin, p. 174; Dmitrievsky, for his part, characterised Litvinov as a rstclass revolutionary big businessman , Dans les coulisses du Kremlin, p. 200. 21. Litvinov, along with Voroshilov, Stalin, Menzhinsky (the head of OGPU) and Krylenko (People s Commissar for Justice), was a

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22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

39

member of the commission charged with using the witness statements of saboteurs in the legal preparations and directed the commission which supervised the progress of the trial. Cf. special protocols no. 13 and no. 16, 25 October and 25 November 1930, RGASPI, 17/162/9. Where else are we going to get outstanding people, if not from the Worker-Peasant Inspection? , Stalin wrote to Molotov in on 24 August 1930. Rozengol ts was deputy Commissar in this Inspection before becoming People s Commissar for Foreign Trade. See Stalin s letters to Molotov, pp. 206 and 218. Leon Trotsky, Oeuvres, dØcembre 1936 fØvrier 1937 (Paris: EDI, 1982). Trotsky did not have a very high opinion of Litvinov. So the way he characterised the relationship between Litvinov and Stalin was certainly not attering and appears credible. Dmitrievsky s view coincided with this. Calling Litvinov a great individualist and a balanced individual: neither a saint nor a crook , he made clear that he was never a Stalinist even if he served Stalin. Cf. Dmitrievsky, Dans les coulisses du Kremlin, pp. 200 7. An interview conducted by Hugh Phillips with Tatyana Litvinov in March 1981. See Hugh Phillips, Between the Revolution and the West. A Political Biography of Maxim M. Litvinov (Boulder: Westview, 1992), p. 109. Fischer, Men and Politics, p. 130. Gustav Hilger gives other examples in Gustav Hilger and Alfred Meyer, The Incompatible Allies. A Memoir-History of German-Soviet Relations 1918 1941 (New York: Macmillan, 1953), p. 112. A decision about Politburo meetings (Stalin), 30 December 1930, Stalinskoe Politburo v 30e gody, sbornik, dokumentov [The Stalinist Politburo in the 1930s, collected documents] (Moscow, 1995), p. 180.; Les sources archivistiques des organes dirigeants du PC (b) R , Communisme, no. 42/43/44, 1995, p. 24. Table established on the basis of a study of the records of meetings in Stalin s of ce, Istoritcheskii Arkhiv, no. 6, 1994, pp. 27 44; ibid., no.2, 1995, pp. 129 200; ibid., no.3, 1995, pp. 120 77; ibid., no. 4, 1995, pp. 16 73. Protocol no. 48 of the meeting of the Politburo on 16 April 1937, RGASPI, 17/3/986. Collection of telegrams annotated by Stalin, RGASPI, Stalin collection, 558/11/214, pp. 18, 35 and 49. Letter from Litvinov to Stetsky on the Central Committee, 1 April 1931 (copies to Stalin and Postyshev), APE FR, 05/11/73/15. Documents from the 4th section, staff headquarters, RGVA, 37977/5/335, pp. 168 and 311. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 26 April, 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1.

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33. Addition to protocol no. 7 of the Politburo, 26 May 1934, RGASPI, 17/162/16. 34. Short information bulletin no. 1, 5 April 1934, 5 May 1934, etc., APE FR, passim. 35. Speech of 4 February 1931, in Joseph Stalin, Sochinenya [Works], vol. 13 (Moscow, 1951), p. 29. The theme of Russian backwardness had recurred in Marxist and revolutionary thought in Russia from the 19th century; it came markedly to the fore on the eve of the 1930s. 36. Speech by Stalin at a plenary session of the Central Committee on 19 November 1928, ibid., vol. 11, 1949, p. 251. 37. Stalin s Letters to Molotov, passim; Stalin s correspondence with Kaganovich, RGASPI, 558/11. 38. Letter 76, Stalin s Letters to Molotov, p. 232. 39. On the evolution and radicalisation of the Comintern during the key years 1928 1929, see Serge Wolikow, Aux origines de la galaxie communiste: l Internationale , in Le SiŁcle des communismes (Paris: ditions de l Atelier, 2000), pp. 207 10. 40. Report by Kuusinen at the 10th session of the executive committee of the Comintern, 3 July 1929, La Correspondance internationale, no. 71, 17 August 1929, p. 971. 41. La lutte de l Internationale communiste contre le danger de guerre , La Correspondance internationale, no. 39, 11 May 1929, p. 555. 42. Stalin s Letters to Molotov, p. 201. 43. Emphasised by Stalin. A pood equals 16.38 kilograms, Stalin s Letters to Molotov, p. 203. One should remember that the aim of the pause in collectivisation announced by Stalin in March 1930 was to guarantee the harvest at a time of open warfare between the Party leadership and the peasants. 44. Stalin s Letters to Molotov, p. 188. 45. Letter of 24 August 1930, ibid., p. 205. The passages in italics were underlined by Stalin. Mikoyan was in charge of commerce. 46. Alain Blum, Na tre, vivre et mourir en URSS, 1917 1991 (Paris: Plon, 1995), p. 99. 47. Protocols no. 117 and no. 122 of meetings of the Politburo on 15 February and 5 April 1930, RGASPI, 17/3/776 and 781; a letter from Litvinov to the plenipotentiary in Great Britain in which he gave him the directives of the Politburo, 17 February 1930 and a memorandum of the government of the USSR dated 8 April 1930, Dokumenty Vneshei Politiki SSSR [hereafter DVP SSSR], vol. 13 (Moscow, 1967), pp. 92 and 196. 48. Special protocol no. 14, RGASPI, 17/162/9. 49. Report on orders placed abroad for 1931, 5 May 1931, special protocol no. 36; special protocols nos. 57, 58 and 60, 20 and 25 August, 5 September 1931, ibid., 17/162/10.

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50. M. R. Dohan, The Economic Origins of Soviet Autarky, 1927/28 1934 , Slavic Review, December 1976, p. 627. 51. Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR (London: Penguin, 1989), p. 203; M. R. Dohan, The Economic Origins of Soviet Autarky, 1927/28 1934 , pp. 625 31. 52. RenØ Girault, RØ exions sur la politique extØrieure de Staline devant la crise Øconomique mondiale , in Francis Conte (ed.), L Union soviØtique dans les relations internationales (Paris: conomica, 1982), pp. 47 58. 53. On the existence of political opposition groups in Ukraine, see Nicolas Werth and Gaºl Moullec, Rapports secrets soviØtiques, 1921 1991 (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), p. 492; Bohdan Nahaylo and Victor Swoboda, AprŁs l Union soviØtique. Les peuples de l espace post-soviØtique (Paris: PUF, 1994), pp. 66 72. 54. Stalinskoe Politburo v 30-e gody, p. 178. 55. Stalin s Letters to Molotov, p. 209. 56. Ibid, p. 196. 57. Statement by Litvinov to press correspondents, 25 July 1930, DVP SSSR, vol. 13, doc. 270, p. 424. 58. Annuaire diplomatique du commissariat du people aux Affaires ØtrangŁres (Moscow, 1932), p. 78. 59. Letter from Litvinov to the collegium of the Commissariat for Foreign Trade, 17 January 1928, in A. Fleury and D. Tosato-Rigo (eds), Suisse Russie, 1813 1955, contacts et ruptures (Berne: Paul Haupt, 1994), doc. 62. 60. Letters from Litvinov to Stalin, 13 May and 21 June 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117. 61. Krestinsky to Potemkin, 4 October 1935, ibid, 010/10/60/148. 62. Litvinov to Potemkin, 19 November 1935, and Potemkin to Litvinov, 11 December 1935, APE FR, 010/10/60/148; Krestinsky to Stalin, 13 October 1935 and Krestinsky to Maisky, 19 October 1935, ibid., 010/10/48/7. 63. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 15 February 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 64. Protectionist measures against the USSR had been taken in France with the decrees of 3 October 1930, reducing imports of wheat and banning those of hemp and wood. These measures were lifted in the spring of 1931 when Franco-Soviet negotiations began. 65. Created in September 1930, the role of the European Commission was to study the federal project of European Union put forward by Aristide Briand on 5 September 1929 in a speech to the League of Nations and about which he had written a memorandum in 1930. In 1931 only the economic aspect of Briand s proposals remained, as the Commission sought to solve the crisis by establishing European

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66.

67. 68. 69.

70. 71. 72.

73.

74.

solidarity. Cf. Antoine Fleury (ed.), Le Plan Briand d Union fØdØrale europØenne (Berne: Peter Lang, 1998). Remark made by Boris Shtein in Geneva, 2 April 1931, APE FR, 0415/8/5/4; directives of the Politburo, 10 May 1931, RGASPI, 17/162/10; speech by Sokol nikov, 2 November 1931, and minutes of the special commission set up to examine the plan for an economic non-aggression pact, League of Nations Archives, 10D/32507/31362. Note from the Soviet delegation on the problem of the preferential proposals put forward at the conference on agriculture in Rome, March 1931, APE FR, 0415/8/5/9. Letter from Litvinov to the Secretary General of the League of Nations, 6 February 1931, APE FR, 0415/2/24/6. The Commonwealth was in favour of preferential treatment for the Empire so far as the export of various commodities was concerned, but preferred an agreement between world exporters of wheat, given the limited capacity of the British market to absorb imports. It proposed measures to halt the expansion of cultivation, the setting-up of an international commission which would establish export quotas, a price policy and a sharing out of markets; see the account given by Kissin, the Soviet expert in overseas trade, of his conversation with representatives of the British Commonwealth, 31 March 1931, APE FR, 0415/8/5/9. Directives to the delegation at the international conference on wheat, 15 March 1931, special protocol no. 29, RGASPI, 17/162/9. Special protocol no. 109, 23 July 1932, ibid., 17/162/13. Proposals on the politico-commercial objectives of the Commissariat for Foreign Trade relating to the development of the world economic crisis, special protocol no. 79, 8 December 1931, RGASPI, 17/162/11; extract from protocol no. 8 of the collegium of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, 20 March 1932, APE FR, 0415/9/7/5; intervention of the Soviet delegate, a member of the collegium of the Commissariat for Foreign Trade, at the international conference on timber in Vienna, 9 11 June 1932, publications of the League of Nations, economic-timber committee, Geneva, 5 July 1932, League of Nations archives 10D/36973/32232. On the origins and the use of the term peaceful coexistence in Soviet Russia during the 1920s, see Edward Hallet Carr, A History of Soviet Russia. Foundations of a Planned Economy, 1926 1929, vol. 3, part 1 (London: Macmillan, 1976), pp. 3 5. This term in Russian contains two ideas: cohabitation between states and/or competition between two social systems. V. Zubok and A. Kokoshin, Upuschennye vozmozhnosti 1932 goda? [Missed opportunities in 1932], Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn [International life], January 1989, p. 124.

STALINíS ACTIONS AND E HT PART L P AYED YB LITIV NOV

3 4

75. Plan to establish a department for general international affairs, 13 October 1931, APE FR, 0415/8/6/25. From September 1934, when the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations, this department was renamed department for League of Nations affairs. 76. Plan to establish a department for general international affairs, ibid. 77. Report by Litvinov to the Executive Committee, 10 December 1928, in Degras (ed.), Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, vol. 2, p. 342. 78. Letter from Litvinov to Kursky, 30 January 1931, APE FR, 05/11/59/15. 79. On 10 September 1931, Stalin and Molotov had asked Litvinov and his deputy Stomonyakov to draft a full report on Polish intentions. On 1 December, a commission on which all four sat took charge of relations between the USSR and Poland. Cf. special protocols nos. 61 and 63, 10 and 20 September, nos. 68 and 78, 10 October, 1 December 1931, RGASPI, 17/162/11. 80. Ibid., nos. 66 and 74, 30 September and 15 November 1931. 81. Letter from Litvinov to the Politburo, 25 January 1933, APE FR, 05/13/90/11. 82. K. W. Davies, The Soviets at Geneva. The USSR and the League of Nations, 1919 1933 (ChambØry, 1934), p. 185. 83. The Hugenberg memorandum, presented by the Nazi delegation at the London economic conference on 17 June, openly referred to German plans for colonising the south of the Soviet Union and central Europe. It was subsequently disclaimed by Hitler. Poland, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan signed the London agreements with the Soviet Union in July. Two separate agreements involved the Little Entente and Lithuania, with Poland not wishing to take part because of territorial disputes over Vilnius and Cieszyn. 84. According to Louis Fischer, Litvinov had wanted, since the 1920s, to resolve the dispute with Romania, abandoning territorial claims to Bessarabia. Cf. Fischer, Men and Politics, p. 135. 85. Document intercepted by Berzin s intelligence services and sent to Voroshilov and Artuzov, 4 September 1933, quoted in Yuri Diakov and T. S. Buschueva (eds) Fashistskii mech Kovalsya v SSSR. Krasnaya Armiya i Reishsver. Tainoe sotrudnichestvo. 1922 1933. Neizvestnye dokumenty. [The fascist sword was fashioned in the USSR. The Red Army and the Reichswehr. A secret collaboration, 1922 1933. Unpublished documents] (Moscow, 1992), p. 332. 86. Speech by Molotov, 28 December 1933. DVP SSSR (Moscow, 1970), vol. 16, p. 779. 87. On these elections, see Izvestiya Tsentral nogo Komiteta KPSS, no. 7, 1989, pp. 114 17.

2 Diplomats who were not quite like the rest

With evening dress for official ceremonies and three-piece suits for every-day wear, Soviet diplomats of a certain rank were few in number compared with those of the Quai d’Orsay, for example.1 Less than 300 in number in the mid-1930s, they seemed more like diplomats than revolutionaries, more westernised than Soviet.2 If the clothes they wore when they entered the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs helped forge their identity, they were not so much a part of them that they altogether crushed their individuality. They still drew on their personal experience, using what was helpful professionally both within the Soviet Union and in their dealings with the outside world. Working within a diplomatic framework which, in many respects, retained traditional administrative structures and practices, their links with the Soviet political culture and way of life was no less crucial to them. It was true for Litvinov, the old Bolshevik, but also for his young and not so young colleagues.

Portrait of a crocodile ‘A large diplomat with a lined face, resembling a very wealthy diamond merchant from Antwerp, or a City banker doubtless related to the Rothschilds [. . .], indolently at ease in his role yet keeping a very small spiritual candle alight in front of his strongbox’: this is the somewhat unflattering portrait of Litvinov given a month after he was ousted from his Foreign Affairs post on 3 May 1939, penned by the militant, anti-Stalinist revolutionary, Victor Serge. Litvinov began his political career, however, as an ardent Bolshevik, struggling against tsarist oppression as a militant supporter of the proletarian revolution. Victor Serge also described him as he appeared in a picture of 1901 held by the tsarist police: ‘a strong, solid head, a moustache, a tunic with an 44

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embroidered collar; he was a man with an air of determination’.3 His age and his altered function and status (from clandestine revolutionary to head of the diplomatic service) are the determining factors in our understanding of the physical and psychological change in Litvinov. Nevertheless, certain character traits and key experiences in his life enable us to determine the nature of his personality. The radical and daring militant Litvinov, whose real name was Meir Genoch Moiseyevich Wallach, was born on 4 July 1876 into a family of Jewish tradesmen in Belostok, a small town in eastern Poland on the fringes of the Russian empire. He spent his childhood in a Jewish cultural community and lived in a ghetto at a time when anti-Semitism was rife. After secondary school, Litvinov quickly sought to escape from his milieu, whose faith he did not share, and joined the Russian army at the age of seventeen. Thus he completely distanced himself from his roots, both geographically, as garrison life represented a complete break with his native town, and culturally, since there were few Jews in the tsarist army. Litvinov immersed himself in a world where the Russian language and culture were pre-eminent. Furthermore, he then became directly involved in the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party, unlike others who first joined the Bund. Litvinov could not, however, deny his origins. He spoke Russian with a very marked accent, having found it more difficult to learn than German. Once he became a diplomat, he was the target of anti-Semites in the West, who tried to determine his real name behind the pseudonym, referring to him sometimes as Finkenstein.4 Given his Jewish background, young Litvinov was fully aware of the repressive nature of tsarism. In the prevailing anti-Semitic atmosphere of the time, he was doubtless affected by the misfortune which befell his father. Accused as a result of a denunciation, he had been imprisoned for six weeks in 1881.5 Moreover, as a result of the quota established in 1887, whereby only 10 per cent of places were available to Jews in secondary schools, Litvinov was unable to enter a gymnasium. Instead, he went to a secondary school, where the curriculum was less oriented towards the classics, and which was therefore not thought highly of by the Russian intelligentsia.6 Already a rebel, he was caught up in the

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ferment of ideas which characterised the Russian empire in the 1890s. He discovered Marxism and the anti-establishment writings of the Russian populists while he was garrisoned at Baku for five years in the 17th Caucasian Infantry regiment. His revolutionary activities began in earnest in 1898, after he left the army.7 He then settled in Kiev, where he worked in the office of a large sugar refinery. Having joined the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party, he mixed in clandestine revolutionary circles, whose main task was to produce oral and written propaganda against tsarist oppression and in support of the emancipation of the working class. After his arrest in 1901 and while he was in prison, Litvinov came across the journal Iskra, edited by a group exiled in Geneva, the most prominent member of which was Lenin. Litvinov’s profound admiration for Lenin and his desire to work with him can be dated from this period. Historians of Bolshevism have shown that Lenin’s supporters were recruited mainly from the ranks of young social democrats who were keen and active.8 Litvinov was one of them. From the beginning, he showed the characteristics of a man of action: determination, a taste for danger and adventure, resourcefulness, an ability to organise. His enlistment in the army, his incredible and daring escape from gaol in Kiev in 1902, his role in the trafficking of arms on behalf of the Bolshevik party during 1906–1907, in league with Kamo, ‘the expropriator’ of the Caucasus, all reveal the spirited and enterprising nature of the young Litvinov. Indeed, the tsarist police offered a reward for his capture in November 1907.9 It required a certain impudence and self-confidence, as well as negotiating skills to practise the deception of buying arms in Europe and transporting them back to the Empire. In his multiple disguises (including an officer of the Ecuadorian army, and a Belgian business representative in Germany), Litvinov carried out his missions and regularly avoided the Okhrana agents who were actively pursuing him. Lenin, whom he met during his first exile in Switzerland in 1902, seems to have appreciated Litvinov’s determined character as he got even the most difficult practical tasks done. Within the office of the League of Russian émigré Social Democrats, founded in 1901, he was given the task of coordinating the distribution of the journal Iskra inside the Russian empire. After the split between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in 1903, Lenin sent Litvinov, who had rallied to his side, back to Russia as a delegate on the

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Central Committee representing the north-west region. It was in this capacity that Litvinov took part in the 1905 revolution.10 After the October manifesto, which guaranteed freedom of the press in Russia for the first time, the Bolsheviks began to publish a new journal in St Petersburg, Novaya Zhizn (New Life). Litvinov again played an important part in its publication and distribution. Because of his efficiency, he was even elected president of the committee of the free press in St Petersburg, which coordinated the work undertaken by the different journals to defend themselves against the police and postal authorities. Though a good organiser and someone who showed initiative, he was not one of the leading thinkers in the Bolshevik party. He was, however, a Social Democrat delegate at the congress of the Second International in Stuttgart in 1907 and a permanent member of the Committee of the Socialist International in Brussels on the eve of war. This was essentially due to his administrative abilities. In December 1913 he was given the task of defending the Bolshevik line at a meeting of the Committee in London, where the question of the unity of the Russian Social Democratic Party was to be addressed. Finding himself face to face with people like Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg and Plekhanov, Litvinov was not up to the task and was cut short after only five minutes. Rosa Luxemburg deplored the fact that the Bolsheviks were represented on the Committee of the Second International by a ‘complete idiot’.11 In the spring of 1914 Litvinov refused to go to Vienna as Lenin requested, justifying himself in an impertinent remark about the ‘old stagers’: To tell the truth, I have no desire to sit next to old Axelrod. There are no equal rights on the Committee. Some are allowed to do things which are denied to others, and only the big guns count. Only you, of all the Bolsheviks, would have some sway with the Committee.12

The young revolutionaries behaved in one of two ways towards the founders of Russian Marxism such as Plekhanov and Axelrod. There were those, like Litvinov, who saw them as yesterday’s men and thought that the split of 1903 and Lenin’s political attitude towards them represented a necessary break, and those, like Trotsky, who admired them and considered the split unwarranted. Throughout the war, Lenin continued to rely on Litvinov. At the conference of socialist parties from countries in the Entente,

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held in London in February 1915, to which the Bolsheviks were not invited, Litvinov managed to make a declaration on behalf of the Bolshevik party denouncing social-chauvinism. A man of action rather than a theoretician, he had nonetheless acquired certain polemical skills and a Marxist political culture whilst with the exiled Russian Social Democratic intelligentsia. The years in England Litvinov lived in London for ten years. He settled there in 1908, after he was expelled from France, and, for a few months after the October revolution, became the Soviet representative there. The years spent in England are important for an understanding of his personal odyssey. For years, Litvinov had lived a clandestine life, rubbing shoulders for the most part only with professional revolutionaries like himself. Constantly on the move, he had no social life other than that of a militant Bolshevik, and in reality knew only the political world of the tsarist empire. Leaving behind the eventful, adventurous existence he had led until then, he began to enjoy a more settled life in England, and one which was not wholly devoted to the revolutionary cause. He was soon known within the circle of Russian revolutionaries, which numbered some 300–400 people in 1908, and became secretary of the London group of Bolsheviks. However, he broadened his acquaintances and gradually emerged from his exclusively Bolshevik environment. Working with an English publisher, he began to frequent the homes of comfortably-off Russian émigrés. With the help of close friends such as Fedor Rotshtein and Alexandra Kollontai, he came into contact with members of the Labour Party, with trade unionists, and also with the milieu of the progressive intelligentsia.13 His friend Klyshko, who was married to an Englishwoman, introduced him to the social circle of the Eders, where feminists, Fabians and Zionists met, including well-known figures such as Bernard Shaw and Chaim Weizmann. Ivy Low, whom Litvinov married in 1916, was David Eder’s niece. A very cultured though rather apolitical woman, she was born into an English military family on her mother’s side and her father belonged to an émigré Jewish family from central Europe.14 The marriage simply reinforced Litvinov’s integration into a certain London milieu.

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Following the October revolution, when he was made the Soviet representative in Great Britain, Litvinov encountered scarcely any problems with his work, at least until the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918. He obtained visas, was allowed communications with Russia, and even to use codes. One should point out that Sir Rex Leeper, the Foreign Office staff member chosen by the British government to establish unofficial contact with the new Soviet representative, was a close friend of Litvinov’s wife and knew Litvinov very well, having had Russian conversation lessons with him! When the proposal was made to arrest Litvinov, whose propaganda in favour of the Bolshevik revolution was beginning to alarm certain MPs, Lord Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, made the following comment: This all seems absurd to me. Litvinov has been in the country for years. His wife is, I believe, the niece of Sir Sidney Low. If he was to be arrested for marrying under a false name, why haven’t the police done so before now? Litvinov has diplomatic status.15

As a result of the years spent in London, and his marriage to an Englishwoman who did not belong to the close circle of militant revolutionaries, Litvinov retained an openness of mind in his approach to the outside world. He got to know people in left-wing intellectual circles and had a less distorted, less narrowly ideological view of the social and political reality in Western Europe. Once he joined the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, the presence of his very ‘British’ wife strengthened his image as a Westerner. She usually accompanied her husband on his European trips, and any feelings of concern and awkwardness surrounding the arrival of a Russian communist were thereby diminished. General Réquin and Major-General Temperley, who were military representatives of France and Great Britain at the preparatory sessions of the disarmament conference, were captivated by Ivy Litvinov. Réquin thought her ‘highly intelligent’ and Temperley took pleasure in the fact that she was ‘a pleasant, cultured Englishwoman, the daughter of a professor at London university’.16 This the West found reassuring. According to the testimony of his wife and daughter, Litvinov, who had become a revolutionary in the context of tsarist oppression, was a pragmatic individual. For this reason, it is uncertain whether he ever envisaged the advent of the revolution in

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England which he longed for in Russia and which he greeted with great enthusiasm when it happened there: 17 March, London What joy, what joy! Is it true there is no way of getting to Russia? Now of all times? I rushed to the Russian Consulate, to obtain a passport, but was told by despondent officials that they had received no instructions [. . .] What to do? Perhaps I should phone the Provisional Government to seek authorisation to leave? But they have much more important things to think about than my return to Russia. I remember, in 1905, how sorry I felt for the comrades in exile who were unable to witness with me the joyful spectacle of revolutionary events. Now, I find myself in the same situation. Extraordinary happiness and extraordinary disappointment. What a tragedy – to spend half one’s life[. . .]17

An old Bolshevik serving the new Russia Detained in London on 8 September 1918 in a tit-for-tat response to the attack on the British Embassy in Moscow and the arrest of Bruce Lockhart, Litvinov and the British representative were finally exchanged and he reached Moscow at the end of October 1918. Once there, on the recommendation of Lenin, he joined the collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs with Chicherin and Karakhan. At the beginning of 1919, when the Paris peace conference opened, he was involved, with Lenin and Chicherin, in drawing up peace proposals to bring the intervention to an end. Lenin and Litvinov were united in their solidarity as Old Bolsheviks. Within the leadership at the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Chicherin and Karakhan were certainly revolutionaries, but they had joined the Bolshevik party somewhat belatedly. A former Menshevik, the Commissar for Foreign Affairs had become a Bolshevik on his arrival in Petrograd in January 1918. As for Karakhan, he joined the party with Trotsky and the rest of his circle in July 1917. Until then, he had always refused to choose between the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions within the Russian Social Democrats. Though he valued the diplomatic skills of a man like Chicherin, Lenin certainly considered it politically important to put in place ‘party militants’ – and Litvinov was one of them.18 As an Old Bolshevik, he also worked in the People’s Commissariat of

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Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, where he was in charge of the complaints department. According to the Leninist view of things, the role of the former nucleus of the Bolshevik party was to provide a defence against any bureaucratic slippage on the part of the regime by keeping an eye on administrative bodies. Litvinov’s status as a longstanding member of the Party meant that he was at ease, something which was observed both by Bazhanov, the Secretary of the Politburo until 1923, and by Hilger, the second attaché at the German Embassy who was ‘amongst the foremost experts on Russia’. At meetings of the Politburo, where either Chicherin or Litvinov reported on what was happening abroad, the latter found it easier to intervene and express his views as opposed to Chicherin, who was much more unassuming and timid. Indeed, Litvinov felt sufficiently confident to make jokes in the presence of the Bolshevik leadership, which were sometimes in rather poor taste.19 Litvinov was not, however, one of the more prominent figures at the beginning of the revolution; and in fact he had little to do with them. His acquaintances were militant Bolsheviks of lesser standing, apart from Tsyurupa, who was a member of the Central Committee.20 But Litvinov benefited from the sense of comradeship which existed amongst the earliest Bolsheviks, and it proved a useful lever in his career. When the Society of Old Bolsheviks was formed in 1922, among the fourteen who gathered for the first meeting were Stalin, on whose initiative the Society was created, Kuibyshev and Preobrazhensky, as well as Litvinov. The others, who all had positions in the Party or the State, were less wellknown. The objective of the Society was to maintain cohesion and the bonds of comradeship born out of their illegal activities and revolutionary struggle and to pass their values on to the younger generation. Members had to have joined the Bolshevik party before 1905 and been continuously active militants since that time.21 So Litvinov took his status as an Old Bolshevik seriously.

An elitist profile In what way did the Soviet diplomats, who were under Litvinov’s control in the 1930s, resemble him? The group was sufficiently small to be homogeneous. If the number of embassies increased as the Soviet Union broadened its

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diplomatic relations, the number of consulates on the other hand tended to decrease. By 1936 ten or so consulates out of the fifty which had existed were already closed.22 As a consequence, the personnel of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs remained relatively stable: there were 400 people working either in the Moscow headquarters or in local offices within each Republic of the Soviet Union. There were not quite 600 in posts abroad.23 Given their background and training, they were an elite who preserved many of the characteristics of the pre-1917 revolutionary avant-garde, and also had certain traits of the ‘bourgeois specialists’ which the Bolshevik regime had turned to out of necessity in order to keep the machinery of state running. If the younger ones had what the 1936 constitution referred to as the profile of the ‘new Soviet intelligentsia’, the process of Russification and the wish to ‘plebeianise’ Foreign Affairs was only at the planning stage on the eve of the great purge which affected the diplomatic service in 1937.24 Cultured and cosmopolitan diplomats Two generations of people existed side by side in the mid-1930s within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs headed by Litvinov. There were those who joined at the very beginning of the NEP as a result of a more widespread involvement of Soviet diplomats on the world stage, and they still occupied a third of the senior posts in Europe. Then there were those who had only been in the service for five years, having been recruited at the time of the ‘Great Break’ when certain diplomats who were too old had to be replaced, and when new posts were created and gaps had to be filled as a result of the first purges and the defections of renegades.25 The latter began their careers as diplomats while Litvinov was in charge and putting his personal stamp on things. They represented the majority, occupying half the senior posts and being largely responsible for the youthful appearance of the service, in which thirty-five to forty-five year-olds predominated.26 The significant number of new arrivals in the diplomatic service after 1929 did not fundamentally alter either the overall cultural level or the proportion of non-Russians within the administration of Foreign Affairs. The Commissariat was particularly cosmopolitan, as Russians

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Figure 2.1 Date of birth of serving diplomats

Date of entry into diplomatic service

40%

35%

35%

30%

30%

25%

25%

20%

20%

after 1932

1929– 1932

0

1925– 1928

0

after 1900

5% 1894– 1900

5% 1884– 1893

10%

before 1883

10%

before 1925

15%

15%

Different generations serving the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs27

were only just in the majority and there was also a very large number of Jews.28 In the first generation of diplomats, who joined before 1925, of the principal nationalities represented 48 per cent were Russians, 33 per cent Jews and 4.5 per cent were from the Baltic nations.29 Of those who joined Foreign Affairs after 1929 in a senior position, the percentage of Russians had increased to 56 per cent. There was still, however, a very large representation of other nationalities: almost 30 per cent were Jewish and 6 per cent Ukrainians. In the middle of the 1930s, all those in charge of Foreign Affairs and most of the diplomats were not Russians. Litvinov, Sokol’nikov, Khinchuk, Surits and Dovgalevsky were Jews, Krestinsky and Antonov-Ovseenko were Ukrainians, Stomonyakov was a Bulgarian and Bekzadyan and Davtyan were Armenians. The few Russians who were ambassadors belonged in fact to the nobility (Kollontai, Alexandrovsky and Ustinov). Those in the administration were also highly educated. In 1933 60 per cent of the personnel possessed a degree,30 which had been obtained in a variety of circumstances. Old revolutionaries, who had been in exile for long periods before the war, had constantly restarted their university education and sometimes completed it as they travelled from one place to another driven by the work

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they were doing as professional activists.31 Dovgalevsky completed his engineering studies at Toulouse in 1913; Surits received a law degree from the University of Berlin; Maisky had studied in Munich, and Arossev in Liège. Ustinov took an agronomy course in Zurich during the war. Only Krestinsky and Potemkin had studied in Russia. The latter, who before the war had been a member of the liberal opposition, had completed his studies normally and obtained a degree in history from the University of Moscow, before becoming a teacher in various schools in tsarist Russia and the editor of a journal with democratic leanings Kurier (The Courier). In the early days of the Soviet regime, their background was also enriched by their varied professional experiences, either because they had worked in Leonid Krassin’s team at Foreign Trade or within the Comintern. Kobetsky was one of its leaders until 1924; Raskol’nikov belonged to the secretariat of its Executive Committee and intervened over the Chinese question in 1927.32 In this case, entry into the diplomatic service was a way of keeping opponents out of the political debate, while still making use of their professional skills. Diplomats born at the turn of the century, however, received their training or completed it during the Soviet period. They were adolescents at the time of the revolution and often followed a similar path despite their varied social backgrounds. They joined the Party having enlisted in the Red Army during the civil war. They then served the new regime, continuing their studies at the same time. Hirshfel’d, born in 1899 into a family of Jewish doctors, entered the Commissariat for Communications in 1922. Hershel’man, who was born in Warsaw in 1903 into a Russianspeaking German family belonging to the nobility, entered the visa department of Foreign Affairs. Both studied at the same time in the international relations department of the Social Sciences Faculty at Moscow University. During the 1930s they were respectively counsellor at the embassy in Paris and general secretary within the ministry. Barmin, a Russian from a modest background, joined Chicherin’s secretariat in 1922 and studied at the Military Academy.33 Some, having obtained degrees in economics, law or social sciences during the 1920s, did further studies at the Institute of World Economics and World Politics of which Jenö Varga was the head, or at the Institute of Red Teachers which was attached to it.

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Hirshfel’d completed evening classes there in 1931.34 Gnedin, who worked for Izvestya, then as secretary in the embassy in Berlin in 1935, together with Umansky and Neuman, who were director and deputy director of the ministry’s press department, were as young journalists involved in research and publishing activities at the Institute at the beginning of the 1930s.35 Rozenblum, having been a student there, was permanently involved in the Institute from May 1932, at the same time as he was head of the economics department at Foreign Affairs.36 At the beginning of the 1930s, the Institute of World Economics and World Politics was the most prestigious place for training international relations experts who subsequently worked either within the apparatus of the state or within Comintern. Postgraduate studies were meant to last for two years. They included theoretical studies on dialectical materialism and on economics, classes on the world and the Soviet economy, and involved the knowledge of at least two languages. German was the first language followed by English and French. Students were expected to do private study in history, in research methods and the analysis of sources and statistics. There was also practical training which took two forms: involvement in propaganda and work as consultants for mass meetings, participation at international congresses, in Soviet delegations (in the technical team), and missions abroad.37 Young diplomats who did these postgraduate studies received a first-class multidisciplinary training, as their lecturers were economics and statistics specialists such as Varga and Ossinsky, well-known lawyers like Pashukanis, journalists such as Lapinsky and Radek and diplomats like Rotshtein and Shtein.38 It was only from November 1934 that the training of diplomats was undertaken within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, which created an Institute dedicated to it. The aim was to give three months’ training to forty candidates who had already completed a programme of postgraduate education.39 The training involved lectures and practical classes and included history and geography, as well as law, sociology and economics. Ambassadors like Kollontai, Maisky, Troyanovsky and Shtein gave seminars on the history of international relations and soviet foreign policy. Pashunakis and Zvavich, a specialist on the British economy at the Institute of World Economics and World Politics, also taught there. Lecturers on socio-economics and the history of the

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Communist Party of the Soviet Union came from the training college for propagandists and the training college for organisations of the Central Committee of the Party.40 The rejection of plebeians Like other Commissariats, Litvinov’s was subject to recruitment campaigns organised by the Party at regular intervals from 1926, in order to strengthen the working-class element within the apparatus of the state. The politics of social promotion grew in an unprecedented way above all at the time of the ‘Great Break’, with the arrival of vydvizhentsy (‘those from the ranks’) in Soviet institutions. Between 1928 and 1931, ‘ouvrierism’ and the fight against ‘bourgeois specialists’, who were accused of causing every dysfunction in the process of industrialisation, enabled a number of workers to climb the social ladder. Within the leadership of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, there was a marked reluctance to take on trainee diplomats on the sole basis of their working-class origins. The testimony of Arkady Semenov on his recruitment as a diplomatic courier in 1926 speaks for itself: There was an enormous campaign in 1926 to recruit workers into Soviet institutions. The Party organisation of typographers, ‘The Red Proletariat’, chose a few people of whom I was one. I filled in a questionnaire in the offices of the Central Committee of the Party and said that I hardly knew any French. Very few of us spoke foreign languages, and I am sure that was why I was sent to Foreign Affairs [. . .] On the commission which looked at my questionnaire (which also had a representative from the Central Committee of the Party, N. M. Shvernik), was an old stager from the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs who questioned the usefulness of taking me on in the field of foreign affairs: – I do not understand why a qualified worker, with two specific skills, should be taken from his job, he said. N. M. Shvernik replied: By adopting your way of thinking, we end up with the working class simply operating machines. Who will then lead the workers’ state of the Soviet Union? That is why we intend to have workers within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, who will gradually become specialists. And we shall get rid of those who just cannot get used to the idea of worker-peasant power [. . .]41

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The Party archives also reveal the antagonism which existed between those put in posts by the Central Committee and senior diplomatic staff. On 22 April 1931 Lychev, who was head of the consulate in London and who had contacts on the Central Committee, complained directly to Stalin about the way he was being ostracised by those within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs since his arrival in London in December 1929.42 In a series of anecdotes concerning in particular Litvinov and Sokol’nikov, he described the cool welcome given to new recruits placed in the Commissariat by the Central Committee. When someone was placed in a Soviet embassy in this way, it very often caused trouble. Soviet diplomatic personnel abroad had a certain level of education and a good knowledge of foreign countries, which the new arrivals totally lacked. As a result, they were looked down on. Raskol’nikov’s wife related in her memoirs how they were received at the embassy in Estonia: ‘Unfortunately for us, in place of Buravtsev who was leaving, Antipov was named first secretary and he was an appointee (vydvizhenets). The mildmannered Masitsky was also replaced by another of them called Frolov and he turned out to be a total drunkard (an old soak)’.43 The social and cultural differences between these new working-class arrivals and the diplomats in post cannot be denied. In addition, there was deep political mistrust on both sides. The ‘appointee’ often seemed to have been told by the Party, or even by the NKVD, to spy on the old revolutionary intelligentsia. It is impossible to calculate precisely the number of these ‘appointees’ occupying an important post in the mid-1930s. If one looks at the statistics produced in 1933, the number of senior officials of working-class origin had increased, since the end of the 1920s, from 5 per cent to 19 per cent.44 It would appear, however, that Litvinov and his friends had managed to contain the situation. Some did not stay very long, partly on account of the ill will of those in charge, partly due to their own incompetence. This was true of Lychev and Frolov. Few were promoted before the great purges and most remained in technical posts. The best of them were put in charge of consular departments within embassies, as attachés or second secretaries. A few, however, had dazzling careers. Podol’sky, who was born in 1897 and had been a Party member since 1916, was a worker in the Ukraine during the 1920s. After two years’ study of Marxism, from 1928 to 1930, he

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entered the diplomatic service for a three-month training course and became first secretary in Tokyo before being posted as counsellor to the embassy in Poland in April 1932.45 The circle of the faithful Two things seemed essential if one was to belong to the group which collaborated closely with Litvinov. Firstly, a friendship forged before the revolution helped things along because of mutual trust and understanding. Secondly, in the choice of his closest colleagues, Litvinov valued professional competence, with an emphasis being placed on the knowledge of foreign languages. Litvinov’s great friend and spiritual mentor from his London days was Fedor Rotshtein, who had been a member of the collegium from 1923 to 1930 and remained his chief advisor. He had an excellent understanding of international relations, was officially a historian in the 1930s, and was usually invited by Litvinov to attend important meetings of the Commissariat. The People’s Commissar sometimes employed his son Andrew Rotshtein, the Tass correspondent in London, getting him to translate his Geneva speech into ‘good literary English’.46 From the days of his exile before the revolution, Litvinov had also kept up his friendship with Ivan Maisky and Alexandra Kollontai; and Boris Stomonyakov had been a close friend for a long time. In the pre1914 revolutionary movement, they had both carried out similar organisational tasks of a technical nature and, in 1906, they were involved together in procuring arms for the Bolshevik ‘expropriators’ in the Caucasus.47 In the group which Raskol’nikov’s wife referred to as ‘Litvinov’s diplomatic cohort’, there were ‘intelligent and capable people yet who had no political influence’.48 It was true of those faithful to Litvinov, whatever their age. Figures at the forefront of the political opposition who had been turned into diplomats by the leadership – Sokol’nikov, Antonov-Ovseenko and Raskol’nikov, for example – were not close acquaintances of Litvinov. Moreover, amongst his favoured younger colleagues, not one was known for his political militancy. Diplomats such as Potemkin and Veinberg, who were overtly Stalinist zealots, were not greatly liked by Litvinov. His entourage was made up of social-democratic militants of his own age who had never played a leading role and specialists who had had little to do with militant politics. The one

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exception to this rule was his old friend from his days in exile Alexandra Kollontai. She led the workers’ opposition and then went on to a career in diplomacy. Many of them became Bolsheviks late on. Yakov Surits had been a militant in the Bund for a long time, then joined Bukharin during the war before working with Trotsky in the Petrograd Soviet. Lev Khinchuk and Ivan Maisky had been Mensheviks and Kollontai had wavered between the two strands of Russian social democracy.49 Others seemed far removed from Marxism. Boris Shtein, the ambassador in Italy from 1932 and a protégé of Litvinov, favoured a liberal labour form of socialism at the time of the Russian revolution. He had been opposed to the October revolution and taken part in the demonstration of the municipal Douma in Petrograd in front of the Winter Palace. During the civil war, he had continued fighting in the town of Zaporozhe for a moderate form of socialism, before joining the Bolsheviks in 1920.50 The embassy counsellor and future deputy general secretary of the League of Nations, Vladimir Sokolin, whose ‘experience, contacts and tact’, Litvinov admired, was a Geneva-born Russian who went to defend his country in 1914 before rallying to the cause of new Bolshevik government as a ‘humanist’.51 His young colleagues in the central state apparatus in Moscow were often not members of any party. Their careers were marked by total apoliticism. The two legal advisors Litvinov listened to the most and who played an important role in the department of League of Nations affairs were Vladimir Egoriev and Georgy Lashkevich, both aged about thirty-five at the time. Both also belonged to the Russian nobility and were former civil servants within the tsarist Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They had still not joined any political party in the mid-1920s.52 It was Egoriev who, together with Litvinov, drafted the definition of an aggressor.53 The head of the economics department, Boris Rozenblum, whom Litvinov relied on especially, was another example of the partyless specialists whom the Commissar liked. Rozenblum was working as secretary of the agro-food trust of the government in Odessa when he asked to join the diplomatic service in 1924. The administration of the diplomatic service requested a character reference from the president of the trust ‘both from a political and a professional point of view’. This was the president’s reply: ‘It is only from a professional point of view that Rozenblum can

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be positively assessed, because, in political terms, we have no information about him.’ Further, which was uncommon in the 1930s, he still did not belong to the Communist Party.54 Litvinov was not interested in a person’s political background, but did, nevertheless, value their abilities. He looked for someone with experience, who had useful knowledge and practical skills rather than at the degree they had obtained at the end of their higher education. These were the criteria derived from his own personal development. As opposed to Krestinsky and Potemkin, but like Stomonyakov and Shtein, who had studied business, Litvinov had a more utilitarian than theoretical background. Professional experience was what mattered most: the fact that Lev Khinchuk had been a Deputy Commissar at Foreign Trade, that Stomonyakov had been a commercial representative in Berlin, that Evgeny Gnedin had been a press correspondent. He favoured those who spoke several languages. Two languages, often French and German, were considered the minimum requirement. Most could get by in three or four languages. Some experience of living abroad could also be a great advantage in a diplomatic career. This was true of Litvinov’s companions in exile, but also of younger diplomats. Evgeny Rubinin, head of the 3rd department until 1935 then ambassador in Belgium, had studied law in Paris before the war and spoke fluent French, as well as Polish, German, English and Italian. Samuel Kagan, a counsellor at the embassy in London since 1931, had lived in the United States from 1915 and only returned to Russia in 1921.55 Marcel Rozenberg and Vladimir Sokolin, who succeeded one another as deputy general secretary at the League of Nations, had spent their youth abroad, the first in Germany, the second in Switzerland.56 Lastly, Litvinov valued loyalty and resourcefulness, and he gave some impetus to the career of certain of his subordinates. For example, he actively supported Eduard Hershel’man, whom he considered irreplaceable, and had him appointed Secretary General of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. He was only thirty at the time.57 This small ‘real group’ does not altogether coincide with the organisation chart of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.58 Though representative of the diplomatic staff as a whole in some respects, it nonetheless had certain peculiar or more pronounced characteristics.

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Litvinov, chief administrator The conflicts between Litvinov and Chicherin, and subsequently Karakhan, reveal one thing: despite the existence of an official collegial leadership, Litvinov only ever accepted collective action when it involved colleagues who were his subordinates. Similarly, ambassadors insisted on having authority over all other Soviet officials working abroad. The principle of single leadership introduced in 1934 confirmed the strong leaning towards hierarchy which already existed within the administrative structures of Foreign Affairs. The conflict between Chicherin and Litvinov The conflict between Chicherin and Litvinov was the most celebrated episode in the internal history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 1920s. Numerous contemporary accounts reveal their contrasting natures. The views which come closest to the truth are probably those of the German diplomats Gustav Hilger and Herbert von Dirksen, and the American journalist Louis Fischer; but the description of Chicherin given by Dmitrievsky is of value, because he was his secretary from 1925 to 1927.59 Chicherin was an aristocrat from a family belonging to the old nobility. He showed great subtlety of mind and was a man of a sensitive disposition, exacerbated by his sickly constitution. Those who met him were impressed by his culture, his memory which never failed him and his great talent as a pianist. They were also struck by his oddities, his ‘strange inability to distinguish what was important from mere details’.60 By comparison, Litvinov’s personality was much less distinguished. The son of trades people, a man of solid good sense, he had retained from his adventurous youth a certain rough tone and manner which Chicherin found difficult to accept, it would seem. From the outset, there was hostility between them, which can largely be explained in terms of their contrasting social backgrounds and temperaments. But there were also personal reasons for Litvinov’s animosity towards Chicherin. As a Menshevik, the latter had been president of the commission of the Russian SocialDemocratic Party charged with investigating the ‘expropriations’ committed on behalf of the Bolsheviks, and which were thought to discredit a working-class movement. However, Litvinov had

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been actively involved in this. Also, Chicherin’s nomination as People’s Commissar must have struck Litvinov, the leading Bolshevik in London, as something of an injustice. When the revolution began in 1917, both were in England, but it was Chicherin, the cultured Menshevik and former civil servant in the tsarist Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was chosen to head the diplomatic service of the new Russia. The lack of understanding between the two men was reinforced by important differences in their diplomatic style and preoccupations. Chicherin was passionately interested in two fundamental aspects of diplomacy in the 1920s: the Rapallo policy and the Chinese question. In his view, the signing of the Rapallo Treaty in 1922 was not something which happened by chance. Having struck up a friendship with the German Ambassador in Russia, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, he gradually convinced himself that Russia and Germany shared a common destiny. Chicherin was also deeply interested in Far-Eastern affairs, and he devoted a good deal of time and thought to the Chinese revolution after 1925 together with his colleague Karakhan. Litvinov, in contrast, viewed Soviet foreign policy in a less emotional manner in the 1920s, seeing things solely in terms of what was effective. He was less well-versed in Far-Eastern affairs than Chicherin, and remained somewhat insensitive to the nationalistrevolutionary potential in China. He was preoccupied principally with Britain and Japan. That was clear from the way work was divided up within the Commissariat. Litvinov as DeputyCommissar together with Stomonyakov took charge of matters relating to the West, while Chicherin and Karakhan ran all the departments dealing with the East. Their ways of working were, moreover, radically different. Chicherin’s approach was that of the scholar in his personal library rather than the head of an administration. Having gathered together all the dossiers available to him, he dealt with a matter in its entirety. He delegated very little, worked at night, and was often unavailable to his colleagues. In his behaviour, he harked backed exactly to the way things were done within ministries during the tsarist period: the octogenarian Gorchakov would be woken up because of an urgent telegram; Lobanov, at the age of seventy-five, would go down to his office in the middle of the night.61 Litvinov did not share these experiences and was above all an administrator who proved to be ‘very skilled at sharing tasks

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amongst his colleagues’ and who ‘worked quickly and effectively with an ability to concentrate’.62 Unlike Chicherin, he was willing to observe a certain number of rules and defended the role of the collegium which brought together the four principal figures in the Commissariat and met three times a week: Litvinov’s theory was as follows: each member of the collegium is in charge of his section, brings issues to the collegium and carries out its decisions, distributes to members of the collegium for their information letters and telegrams which he has sent. With Karakhan, who was responsible for the East, it was completely different. I discussed with him on a daily basis anything new relating to the East, and we worked together in total harmony. Litvinov always refused to do this, pointing out that I attended the meetings of the collegium three times a week and could express my opinion. He suggested I write him letters on certain issues and said that no further contact was necessary.63

Litvinov’s colleagues saw him as a hard-working individual, who showed great firmness in the way he organised things: ‘Access to the People’s Commissar was strictly controlled, the dates and times of meetings with M. M. Litvinov being fixed very precisely’.64 He made demands of himself, and was equally demanding of his subordinates, who respected and feared him. If mistakes were made or people indulged in ‘wild intellectual flights of fancy’, he could be scathing.65 When Litvinov took control of the Ministry, the work was done with greater rationality, but the relaxed, warm atmosphere of the 1920s largely disappeared. The change was partly due to the very real differences in style and temperament of the two Commissars, but also to the way in which the political situation and the working methods of administrative bodies was evolving. Litvinov became Commissar at the beginning of the 1930s, when Stalin took a firm grip of the leadership of the Party in the face of various opposition forces. The relative freedom of speech and of action which the Soviet administrations had enjoyed during the NEP became gradually restricted during the 1930s. There was less improvisation within the administration, as the government tried to introduce scientific working methods, which appalled Chicherin: The ‘typing pool’ is a particularly ghastly example of ‘rationalisation’. I, together with the members of the collegium and all the

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section heads have to go to the typing pool to dictate our texts. First of all, we have to queue up, then, in order to drown the surrounding din, we bellow in stentorian voices, revealing matters of extreme secrecy to typists we hardly know. I have opposed this appalling idiocy (‘scientific working methods!’) by issuing ultimatums. No head of a department can work like this.66

Litvinov did not share this opinion. Towards a single command structure When Litvinov was appointed in July 1930, meetings of the collegium still had an important function and decisions were taken following collective discussion. The proposals he put to Stalin and the Politburo were made on behalf of the collegium, which, apart from himself, included Karakhan, Krestinsky and Stomonyakov, and later Sokol’nikov from 1933, once he returned from Britain where he had been ambassador.67 They worked together and deputy-commissars often went to see Stalin. During 1932–1933, they took part in 68 per cent of the meetings held in Stalin’s office dealing with diplomatic matters.68 From an institutional point of view, Litvinov was primus inter pares. Moreover, at the Congress of the Soviets in March 1931, he was elected to the Council of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union along with Deputy-Commissars Karakhan and Krestinsky, and Sokol’nikov, Khinchuk and Troyanovsky, who were ambassadors.69 However, in December 1931 a decree of the Council of People’s Commissars limited the role played by the collegium in the work of Commissariats by reducing the number of its meetings.70 This decision, aimed at diminishing discussion within administrations, tended to make the collegium a body which simply recorded decisions taken elsewhere and gave the Commissar greater authority. Litvinov was extremely happy with this decision, though he continued to work collectively. To make up for the reduced number of collegium meetings, he proposed extraordinary meetings, as well as a more extensive use of memoranda and telephone calls. He also emphasised the need for much more thorough preparation of issues to be discussed at collegium meetings. An internal political newsletter enabled information to be made available within departments and embassies.71

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In 1934 centralisation around Litvinov was greatly reinforced as a consequence of administrative reforms which both caused and legitimised important changes of personnel. Already in August 1933 the Politburo had decided to introduce the idea of the single command structure. Colleges were done away with and the number of deputy-commissars was limited to two. On 10 May 1934 the measure was adopted by the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, and Krestinsky and Stomonyakov became first and second deputy Commissars.72 The setting up of a council of forty to seventy people, some of whom would come from outside, was, however, also envisaged. It would meet twice a month. This was the point at which Karakhan and Sokol’nikov left the leadership of the Commissariat.73 Karakhan’s role had diminished from May 1933 and his loss of status, it would seem, was largely due to Litvinov. From the beginning of the 1930s, he had suffered following the departure of Chicherin, with whom he was close, and from the growing influence of Litvinov, who did not like him. The friendly relations he enjoyed with Stalin in the 1920s had also weakened to a considerable extent. The handwritten private letter he sent Stalin on 16 April 1934 was rather pathetic. Writing like a vassal to his lord, he began by acknowledging his mistakes: Dear Stalin I know you are dissatisfied and angry with me. I know there is some basis for your attitude towards me. Your dissatisfaction is well founded. But the conditions and the amount of work imposed upon me are too harsh, unjust and unproductive. In the first half of 1933, I had serious personal problems which I found very difficult to cope with and which damaged my health. As a consequence my work suffered, and that did not escape you. I did not dare to ask for time off.74

He then referred to the series of criticisms made about his way of working, and implicitly blamed Litvinov for making him work to merely 30 or 40 per cent of his abilities and only giving him files relating to Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan. He refused to continue on this basis, citing his seventeen years of diplomatic activity, and asked for his brief to be extended to include the West or the Far-East, or, better still in his view, to be sent abroad to the West to gain more experience. His preferred choice was the post of ambassador in England, because he spoke English and would

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be at the heart of international affairs, or in France, as he would quickly learn the language.75 But Karakhan’s lengthy complaint to Stalin had no effect and he was sent as ambassador to Ankara. Sokol’nikov’s case was somewhat different, as Stalin had always been hostile towards him. He had been a member of the Central Committee since 1917 and a member of the government under the NEP, but he became a nuisance to the Stalinist leadership at the time of the first plan and was appointed ambassador to Great Britain in 1929. His temporary return to Moscow as deputy Commissar in 1933 was linked to the departure of Litvinov to the United States. But it was doubtless also due to the more ‘moderate’ political climate at the time within the Politburo, which was sufficiently worried about the consequences of the first five-year plan, at the level of inflation and social unrest to seek the advice of competent economists.76 Sokol’nikov, who had been People’s Commissar for Finance from 1922 to 1926, was, as far as economic matters were concerned, a believer in strict financial control and a stable rouble.77 At the political level, however, he had done enough to attract the lasting animosity of Stalin. He had joined the left-wing opposition when Zinoviev sided with it. At the 14th Congress of the Communist Party, he had also been the only speaker to challenge Stalin’s appointment as General Secretary. During the debate, he had declared: I believe it is pointless to raise the issue as to who should be General Secretary of the Party and whether the post is really necessary – as this issue could well divide us. . . Yes, we had comrade Lenin. . . But comrade Lenin was neither president of the Politburo nor General Secretary, which did not stop him from having the final word within our Party. And if we contradicted him,we thought about it for some time before doing so. This is why I say: if comrade Stalin wants to enjoy the same trust as comrade Lenin, he must strive to earn it.78

He then became leader of the right-wing opposition at the time of the ‘Great Break’. A friend of Bukharin’s at secondary school, he shared a number of his economic views.79 Ultimately for Stalin, Sokol’nikov was the link between the right-wing opposition and the Kondratiev-Groman group, which was condemned in 1930.80 Thus his return to the centre of things during 1933–1934 was short-lived. In May 1934 he was transferred to the Commissariat for the Timber Industry. Neither he nor Karakhan were able to

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halt the process whereby they joined the ranks of the accused three years later. After their departure, Litvinov’s dominant position with regard to all diplomatic matters was unchallenged. His deputies had, nevertheless, plenty of scope for action. Krestinsky was an intermediary with the Party, the government and the information services in Moscow. As a former member of the Politburo, where, in 1919, he had sat alongside Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and Kamenev, and as a former secretary of the Central Committee, he understood well how the Party machine worked. He was responsible for personnel matters, working with the Organisation Bureau of the Central Committee, and also negotiated the Foreign Affairs budget with the Council of People’s Commissars.81 In addition, he liaised with the section of the Comintern in charge of international links, run by Pyanitsky. Finally, consular matters, strictly controlled by the foreign department of OGPU, were also part of his brief.82 Moreover, Krestinsky had diplomatic responsibilities. Having spent ten years in his Berlin post, he was considered the expert on Germany. Working with David Shtern, who headed the second department dealing with the West from 1932 until 1936, he corresponded regularly with the two ambassadors who succeeded each other in Germany, Lev Khinchuk until 1934, and then Yakov Surits until 1937.83 He also handled matters concerning the Middle-East (Persia, Turkey, Afghanistan) and certain economic dossiers relating to the West. In the spring and summer of 1934 he conducted negotiations with Czechoslovakia, Greece and the United States.84 Litvinov’s second deputy, Stomonyakov, was utterly loyal to him, and his responsibilities covered a very wide geographical area. Since 1926 he had been in charge of relations with the Soviet Union’s western neighbours (Poland, the Baltic and Scandinavian countries) and from May 1934 was responsible for the Far-East. His working day lasted long into the night.85 Litvinov himself dealt mainly with Western Europe, looked after by the third department with responsibilities for the West. This department, headed by Evgeny Rubinin, handled dossiers relating to France, Italy, and the Anglo-Saxon countries, the United States being considered a mere excrescence of Great Britain within the organisational framework of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs! The ambassadors with whom Litvinov was in

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constant communication were those in France and Great Britain: Dovgalevsky and then Potemkin in Paris, Sokol’nikov and then Maisky in London. Equally, he devoted a large part of his time to multilateral issues and relied heavily in this sphere on advice from the legal and economic departments as well as the department which dealt with general international affairs; from September 1934 and the Soviet Union’s entry into the League of Nations, this office took charge of matters relating to the League of Nations under the leadership of three people: Hershel’man, Egoriev and Lashkevich.86 The pre-eminence of ambassadors There was also a very clear hierarchy within each embassy. The plenipotentiary was legally in charge of all other Soviet representatives abroad, including the trade representative and the military attaché, whose salaries were lower. He received copies of reports from them on what they did.87 This ‘privileged position’, accorded to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, whereby diplomats alone communicated with the external world, giving it precedence over all other ministries, was in fact the general rule and not specific to the Soviet Union. If this rule was breached, the plenipotentiary had the right of appeal to the Central Control Commission for its arbitration.88 Kobetsky, for example, the Soviet ambassador in Denmark, complained to the commission over errors made by his colleague Krasnov, the trade representative, who did not inform him adequately as to what he was doing.89 Similarly, during negotiations over the trade deal with France which took place in the autumn of 1933, Gurevich, the trade representative in Paris, was criticised by the Central Control Commission for having worked on his own.90 It was also the job of the ambassador to select and recruit local staff, of whom there were a great number in Soviet organisations involved in trade. When, in June 1932, the Central Committee decided to purge its Berlin staff involved in the export of oil, Khinchuk, together with the trade representative, coordinated the selection of new senior officials, whose appointment required his backing.91 When Sokol’nikov was ambassador in London, he refused to accept the dismissal of any English members of staff without his agreement, which was tiresome for his colleague in the Trade section.92 In England, at the beginning of the 1930s,

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many former Russian émigrés worked for various Soviet bodies (as they also did in France). An increasing quota of posts was, however, reserved for members of the Soviet nomenklatura, and another quota, agreed by the Central Committee with Pyatnitsky, was allocated to local militants and communist sympathisers. The ambassador was expected to ensure the good behaviour of Soviet officials abroad and worked with the Central Control Commission to this end, informing it of any cases of indiscipline or breaches of Soviet regulations relating to people living abroad. Maisky, for example, gave the Control Commission the name of a Pravda correspondent who, believing he was using a woman to obtain information from Scotland Yard, was in danger of compromising himself.93 Sokol’nikov, too, used the Party’s control agencies in the case of an individual called Markovich, who criticised him at staff meetings in the embassy for not countering propaganda concerning forced labour in the USSR. Reminding them that, according to the rules imposed on personnel abroad, there was to be no discussion of political matters, he demanded some form of sanction: ‘by widening the conflict, he wrote, Markovich will ensure that the Daily Mail finds out’.94 The Politburo further increased the authority of ambassadors in May 1934 by regulating statements made to the foreign press. From then on, Soviet officials abroad (personnel in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Intourist offices) were forbidden to give interviews or to make statements to the press, unless they were deemed necessary by the ambassador, who was required to check their contents.95 The principles of hierarchy and of superiority were not exclusive to the USSR, neither was the use of arbitration. Conversely, militant and ideological political control at every level was much more obviously a product of the partisan working of the system.

The specific characteristics of state service in the USSR Soviet diplomats lived in a particular world and were subject to ideological party control on three levels. Active militants of the Party kept an eye on the actions and attitudes of their superiors both in Moscow and in the embassies. Ideologues on the Central Committee gave their reactions to explanatory accounts of foreign policy formulated by diplomats and intended for the Soviet public, and militants and important figures in the Comintern in

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Europe listened to the speeches and conversations of diplomats, sometimes attacking them. However, the impact of these controls was often insignificant, if not counter-productive, because, at least until 1936, diplomats usually had the last word. A restricted way of life Control over the daily lives of diplomats was that much easier because they all lived in one place. For those abroad, this was normal, as they usually lived in the embassy. Troyanovsky described what the embassy compound in Washington was like, with its apartments, offices and reception rooms. Citing the lack of space, however, he sought permission to buy or rent another building to house the new military and naval attachés as well as their deputies.96 But the situation was the same in Moscow. Many of the staff were housed at their place of work, that is to say in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, situated at the corner of Dzerzhinsky street and Kuznetsky Most. Others lived in nearby blocks of flats. The size of the accommodation depended on the size of the family. Each flat usually had from two to five rooms. There was also a hostel for young diplomats (obschezhitie).97 In 1934 the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs put forward its own building project in the context of the reconstruction plan for Moscow – known as the Stalin plan. It involved the creation of a single building with work and living space for all diplomatic personnel, by extending the existing building on Vorovsky street. Around the main building, with its offices, reception rooms and apartments for senior officials, a block was to be constructed housing the cultural and social facilities and the auxiliary services. Another would provide accommodation for the rest of the staff. This project, which Molotov and the Gosplan thought too ambitious, was nonetheless partially completed.98 Being housed together, diplomats also had little financial room for manoeuvre to give their lifestyle a more personal touch. They had to preserve a certain standing in order to keep up appearances in western capitals, but, at the same time, they were subject to the economic restraints which prevailed in Moscow. The Soviet Union lacked currency and this restricted life in the embassies to a certain extent. With the authority of the Council of People’s Commissars, the Commissariat for Finance, headed by Grin’ko, systematically reduced the budgetary requests of the Commissariat

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for Foreign Affairs. In this respect, negotiations between ministries were conducted like those in Western states. The Commissariat for Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection and the Central Control Commission, under Belen’ky, which were administrative bodies close to the Party and which sought to uncover any kind of privileges, also maintained their grip on things. Their proposals were often more severe than those of the Commissariat for Finances. In 1936, for example, these various bodies discussed whether dinner jackets should still be bought in London or whether they could be made in the Soviet Union. Despite what Grin’ko and Belen’ky thought, Litvinov won the day and Soviet diplomats continued to wear ‘British’ dinner jackets! Conversely, the life of each suit was prolonged. The clothing rules for diplomats were very precise and hierarchical. A dinner jacket was worn only by the ambassador. Like tails and a morning coat, it had to last four years. A smart suit, half of which was paid from a diplomat’s salary, was expected to be worn for three years, like the top hat (the Russian version being cylindrical) worn only by the four most senior members of the embassy staff: the ambassador, the counsellor, the consul and the first secretary. Their short, lacquered boots were expected to give two years’ wear. The wives of diplomats were a little more fortunate! They were allowed to renew their wardrobe (an evening dress, a smart dress and flat shoes) every year.99 At the end of 1936 Litvinov also contacted the Council of People’s Commissars, backing Potemkin’s request for an extra storey to be built onto the consulate in Paris. At the beginning of 1937 he received the authorisation of the Commissariat for Finance, but was turned down by the Central Control Commission, which proposed a reorganisation of the space, having looked in detail at the number of square metres involved.100 Without doubt, Soviet diplomats were not very comfortably off in material terms, but some were resourceful. They attempted, through exchange transactions, to compensate for their worsening financial situation due to inflation in a number of countries. This practice was condemned by the Central Control Commission which investigated the matter through Matison, the head of the financial department in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Referring to a ruling made in 1932 which stated that all payments should be made by the State Bank and in the local currency, it criticised certain ambassadors: Shtein, ‘who personally supervised

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the exchange of French francs into Italian lira in different countries’, and Raskol’nikov, who used the ‘private services’ of a number of speculators. The Commission concluded there was a risk of corruption within embassies.101 Litvinov strongly defended the way things were done in his Commissariat, accusing the members of the Central Control Commission of ‘quixotic’ behaviour and of knowing nothing about the financial practices of the diplomatic community as a whole. Exchanging currency at the official rate, which was considerably overvalued in relation to market prices, meant ‘giving the Germans, the Italians, the Romanians, the Bulgarians, the Hungarians and the Latvians and now the Poles huge sums of money’.102 Litvinov, moreover, proposed the systematic exchange of weak currencies abroad in order to obtain them at the best rate. The situation became even more difficult in 1937 when devaluation halved salaries in certain countries. Litvinov wrote to Mikoyan asking for them to be increased, going so far as to say that certain colleagues in France ‘were literally going hungry’.103 The least enviable position was that of junior employees. There were five salary bands and, according to a regulation of July 1933, ambassadors to second secretaries were allowed to travel first class, the rest going third class. Krestinsky who, whilst he was ambassador in Berlin, always travelled second class, considered this regulation unfair. He demanded that everyone, with the ultimate exception of ambassadors and counsellors, should travel second class, given that journeys lasted several days, that there were no couchettes in third class, and that people travelled with their families including small children.104 But, whether one was counsellor, a secretary or a diplomatic courier, the living conditions of Soviet citizens abroad were broadly the same, and the embassy was often the only reference point. In many countries, diplomats were obliged to live in a closed world, contact with those outside being for the most part official. Embassies such as the one in Paris, where certain diplomats moved in fashionable circles, were the exception. Furthermore, in the second half of the 1930s, directives from Moscow strove to restrict as far as possible the places where people could meet. For example, a draft decision of 2 January 1936 obliged ambassadors to provide accommodation within their compounds for comrades passing through, who, ‘as a security measure, could not and should not stay in a hotel’.105

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Under the eye of the militant In each location abroad and at the headquarters in Moscow, there was a Party organisation which Litvinov and the ambassadors had to take into account by attending certain of its meetings. Litvinov attached little importance to this. As a consequence, he was strongly rebuked, especially by a certain number of angry militants, at the moment when his Commissariat was purged. Within embassies, everything depended upon the nature of the minister plenipotentiary. Some were ‘apolitical’ and courteous. Maisky, for example, gave regular, purely professional accounts of the Soviet Union’s relations with Great Britain to the Party organisation.106 Such accounts were obviously very different when ambassadors were former political opponents. On the tenth anniversary of Lenin’s death, Kollontai made a speech on the building of socialism in the USSR which was criticised by the Party organisation for its lack of orthodoxy. Finally, ambassadors such as Potemkin, doubtless partly for careerist reasons, tried to get the Party organisation on their side. When he arrived in Italy in 1932 as ambassador, Potemkin made a long militant speech about Mussolini’s Italy, characterising fascism as ‘the armed dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’, ‘the arm and defence mechanism of monopoly capitalism which is waging war against the proletariat and social revolution’.107 The tone of his diplomatic dispatches concerning Mussolini was totally different. Anyway, the Central Control Commission expressed its pleasure in October 1932 at the good relations Potemkin had established with the secretary of the Party organisation.108 Often overlooked by diplomats, the grass-roots organisations of the Party had a certain function, in particular that of monitoring and even informing on people. Party cells abroad had direct links with the Central Committee, through the Bureau of Cells Abroad, which from 1934 was known as the Department of ExtraTerritorial Organisations of the Party.109 Linked to the department of senior officials (cadres), where Ezhov was in charge, its role was to check the dossiers of Party members working abroad. There were large-scale checks of Party cards on a regular basis within the Soviet Union which resulted in purges. This happened both in 1929 and again in 1933. For Soviet citizens abroad, checks took place when individuals moved from one post to another or were visiting Moscow. Thus, when Surits left Turkey in 1934 to take up his post in Berlin, Vassiliev, who was responsible for Party

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cells abroad, checked his dossier, noting for the record that he had been in the Party since December 1917, but had been a Bundist, then a Menshevik, then an ally of Bukharin and Pyatakov from 1914 to 1917.110 The Bureau of Cells Abroad also received correspondence from militants working in embassies and commercial organisations. They contained numerous – often critical – comments on the behaviour of plenipotentiaries and trade representatives. For example, Arossev, who was chargé d’affaires in Czechoslovakia, was denounced in 1932 by the secretary of the Party organisation in Prague for his involvement with Trotskyists and for his political errors.111 Kollontai was criticised for her speech to the Party meeting in Stockholm which ‘was riddled with political errors’; the affair being brought to the attention of Stalin, Kaganovich and Postyshev.112 At the end of 1933, Ezhov sent Kaganovich a report on Dovgalevsky, ambassador of the Soviet Union in France, drawing on evidence which showed that he three times lent his support to representatives who had then refused to return to the USSR.113 In most cases, these denunciations had no consequences during the first half of the 1930s. At most, they resulted in a change of post. Thus, Petrovsky, a former secretary of Kaganovich and the Soviet plenipotentiary in Austria and Hungary, was recalled in September 1934, after he had been denounced by the Tass correspondent in Vienna for his admiration of Admiral Horthy.114 Such evidence, which was politically compromising in Stalin’s Soviet Union, was added to the lists of charges of all those arrested at the time of the Great Terror. If the Central Committee intervened in matters relating to personnel abroad, its objectives were not solely ideological, however. Sometimes, it used inspections as a way of ensuring that staff were competent and efficient.115 So, between 1930 and 1933, inspectors of the Central Control Commission were given the task by the Central Committee of purging Soviet organisations abroad. The recurrent problems they dealt with related to a lack of qualifications and alcoholism, but there were political issues too, such as the risk of Soviet administrative bodies being infiltrated by White Russians and fascists. The arrival of an inspector in an embassy resulted in meetings, sessions of self-criticism and a certain number of dismissals. Thus, when an inspection took place in Paris in October 1933, ‘the criminal attitude’ of those in charge of affairs generally and of the trade section, who had recruited Russian

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émigrés without investigating them or asking why they had left the Soviet Union, was condemned. In addition, after a session of selfcriticism by the leadership, Gurevich, the trade representative, and Sokolin, the second secretary at the embassy, were instructed to make up the numbers of staff required by hiring ‘Frenchmen from local organisations’.116 The work of inspectors depended to a great extent on the institutionalised practice of people making complaints. Every Soviet official working abroad was entitled to inform the Central Control Commission of behaviour which threatened the smooth running of any institution. On 25 October 1932 the ambassador in Norway, for example, informed the inspectors of the drink problem of two employees in the trade section.117 Sometimes the Central Control Commission requested an additional enquiry by the foreign department of OGPU. This body, run by Artuzov, was in any case kept informed of the outcome of inspections and of the recall of officials whose actions or behaviour left something to be desired. Letters of complaint could be more personal. Rozenberg, a counsellor at the embassy in Paris, wrote to Ezhov on 9 June 1932, complaining of a cabal organised against him by the Party cell and of the complete lack of understanding which existed between him and the first secretary at the embassy, Barkov.118 This letter prompted a visit to Paris by an inspector who informed Moscow of the virulent personal animosities within the embassy, and referred to the existence of an anti-Semitic cabal, orchestrated by Barkov, which targeted not only Rozenberg, but also the trade representative, his deputy and even the secretary of the Party. As a result, Barkov was recalled to Moscow and sent to China to serve as counsellor at the embassy there. His departure did not, however, result in improved relations between the militants and those in charge, and so a decision was taken to remedy the weak political nature of the Party organisation in Paris through changes of personnel.119 In addition to the internal system of control, there were two external groups which kept an eye on things: the agitatorpropagandists of the Central Committee and the militants and leaders of the Comintern. Diplomats confronted by professional communists The relations which Soviet diplomats had with those they referred to as communists were complex. Though they themselves

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had a revolutionary background and were members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, they considered themselves different from political professionals. They had adopted pragmatic methods and reflexes. The communist strand in their make-up had been transformed into a desire to do something useful for their country. Litvinov and his colleagues clashed first with those whom the People’s Commissar referred to as the ‘censors’ of the Central Committee. They were responsible for the very important areas of agit’prop, the press and publishing. Responsibilities were shared, to some extent, between the Central Committee of the Party and its department of culture and propaganda run by Stetsky, and the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and its press department, headed in the 1930s by Konstantin Umansky and then by Evgeny Gnedin.120 This department published pamphlets and books which sought to explain to the general public the diplomatic course of action they were pursuing. The pamphlets, usually less than 100 pages long, were published in large numbers. Two, containing speeches and Soviet proposals on disarmament, were published in 1928 and 1933, as well as a collection of pieces on Soviet action at the international economic conference in London, edited by Rozenblum and Varga, and two others on the Soviet Union’s entry into the League of Nations.121 Most of these popularising works were written by officials in the press and information department of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, which contained a pool of journalists such as Gnedin, Mironov, Umansky and Neuman, but also by diplomats such as Rozenblum and Shtein. For Shtein, who had published a large number in the 1920s, these pamphlets were significant because they brought certain documents to people’s attention and explained the objectives of Soviet foreign policy, without being in any way scientific.122 Kol’sky’s pamphlet on the League of Nations, of which 80,000 copies were published a few days after the USSR joined this body, was however criticised for being too rushed.123 These publications, as well as the numerous articles on foreign policy in the press, usually portrayed Litvinov and Soviet diplomats in a very favourable light.124 Some of the booklets and articles, often including photographs, suggested that the Soviet delegation played the leading role in Geneva.125 Litvinov’s speeches were described as‘brilliant’, in which he expressed ‘deep, fundamental thoughts’.126 Soviet proposals won the support of a

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majority of the delegates and aroused interest, understanding and even enthusiasm.127 The tone was very different when Karl Radek engaged in his campaigns to explain foreign policy. From April 1932 he was the head of the Information Bureau for International Affairs of the Central Committee.128 Unlike the line of argument put forward by the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Radek and his colleagues emphasised the sustained hostility of the capitalist world towards the USSR, and when they commented on diplomatic activity, it was the Soviet government, the Party and Stalin to which they drew attention, rather than Soviet diplomats. Furthermore, they were critical of Gnedin’s books in 1934, because he failed to draw attention to the fundamental differences between Soviet proposals and bourgeois aims.129 When, on 20 September 1934, Radek gave a long exposé on the entry of the USSR into the League of Nations, his aim above all was to see its importance in relative terms: I do not need to tell this meeting that it is not one of the most important levers of power. The most important action we can undertake is to organize the opposition to war of the world proletariat and of all colonised peoples. We have an important lever, namely the development of the Red Army, and the strengthening of the defence capability of our country in all our economic measures. One does not need to say this here, though it is important to bring it to the attention of the masses, so that there can be no pretext for accepting the illusory belief that our entry into the League of Nations represents a serious guarantee against war. But we are a sufficiently important country to act in dozens of different ways and today, in entering into the League of Nations, we shall try to take advantage of one of these levers of power, though certainly not the most important since it is a diplomatic lever.130

Similarly, when, on 3 October 1935, Radek set out to explain what was at stake in the conflict between Italy and Ethiopia which was just beginning, one sensed that he was sceptical as to the efficacy of sanctions and was unwilling to support wholeheartedly cooperation with imperialist Great Britain against Italy. In this respect, he contradicted what was said by the diplomats.131 The discrepancy is even more striking if one looks at the other ideological instrument of control, which existed partly outside

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the Soviet Union: namely the Comintern. The gap between the consensual approach of diplomats, which grew more marked, at least until 1935, and the ultra left analyses of those within the Comintern was very clear. The discrepancy did not greatly bother diplomats who were very happy to stand aloof; on the contrary, it put the communists in a difficult position, principally in relation to social democrats. The Comintern leadership, which felt itself to be cold-shouldered by the diplomats, often made clear its displeasure. In 1931 it criticised Izvestya over articles which were too conciliatory towards German social democrats.132 And Comintern recriminations were ratcheted up at the time of the disarmament conference in Geneva in February 1932. There was very little in common between the pacifist speeches of the Soviet delegation and articles in the Comintern journal, International Correspondence, which continued to attack the ‘purveyors of pacifism’.133 Lunacharsky, a delegate at the disarmament conference whose pro-socialist attitude scandalised the militants, was indicted by the Swiss Communist Party in August 1932.134 However, these differences worked largely in favour of the diplomats in the mid-1930s with the nomination of Dimitrov as head of the Comintern and the establishment of an anti-fascist united front at the end of 1934.135 The fact that, as a consequence, they became little more than instruments created bitterness amongst foreign militants and made them feel they were being used. Western communist parties had to defend themselves against the new accusation that they were mere tools in the service of Soviet diplomacy. Such criticisms, coming from socialists and a large section of the Western press, were focused on their lack of autonomy and the priority given to defending the self-centred interests of the Soviet Union in the guise of antifascism. Pyatnitsky wrote to the Central Committee of the French Communist Party on 25 August 1934 outlining arguments it could use to defend itself against the socialists. Insisting on the genuinely peaceful policy of the USSR, as opposed to that of various imperialist powers, he concluded: ‘One must denounce the hypocrisy implicit in any attempt to oppose the interests of the Soviet Union and those of the proletariat worldwide and demonstrate that they are identical’.136 From 1934, in the eyes of many militants, Soviet foreign policy was hard to accept because, even though based on a legitimate opposition to Hitler, it called into question the two fundamental

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principles of the workers’ movement, namely anti-militarism and the fight against imperialism. In the report of the Politburo of the French Communist Party, following the Central Committee meeting of 1 and 2 November 1934, Maurice Thorez reminded them that the communist movement was dedicated to general disarmament and to a substantial reduction of the spending on war preparations.137 Moreover, in upholding the rights of the people of Alsace-Lorraine to self-determination, he expressed a clear reluctance simply to adopt the anti-German attitude of Soviet diplomacy.138 Pollitt, the leader of the British Communist Party, reaffirmed in October 1934 the acceptance by the British workingclass movement of the principle of the general strike in opposition to war, and emphasised the reluctance of militants to engage in any proposed action against an aggressor.139 The uneasiness expressed by the communist press concerning Soviet foreign policy provoked reactions within the Comintern leadership. On 27 September 1934 editorials in the Communist International were discussed within the framework of preparations for the 7th congress of the Comintern. Underlining the mutual interests of the Soviet Union and the working-class movement throughout the world, Manuilsky intervened to criticise the confused thinking revealed in articles about foreign policy. Citing two examples, the question of the Treaty of Versailles and the decision of the USSR to join the League of Nations, his main aim was to draw to their attention the clumsily defensive nature of the arguments put forward, revealing the bad conscience of communists for which there were no grounds.140 In front of 510 delegates at the 7th Congress which opened on 25 July 1935, Togliatti, the head of the Italian Communist Party, referred to the use of diplomacy. Having underlined the danger represented by Hitler, he addressed the issue of the Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact signed in May 1935 and sought to defend it: Some comrades may have thought that the signing of mutual assistance pacts meant that people had lost sight of the possibilities of revolution in Europe [. . .] Such comrades have merely proved they were unable to distinguish between advance and retreat. Can one imagine a more remarkable achievement than a great capitalist country having to sign a mutual assistance agreement with the Soviet Union, involving defence against an aggressor and a willingness to defend peace and the borders of the homeland of the dictatorship of the proletariat?141

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The positions adopted by Dimitrov and Togliatti were in accordance with the diplomatic strategy advocated by Litvinov. While recognising that it was not the role of the Comintern to intervene in diplomatic matters between states, Dimitrov defended the need to organise public opinion in support of pacts and an effective League of Nations.142 Togliatti spoke in defence of an alliance between Great Britain, France and the USSR to overthrow the German dictatorship and reproached the Polish communists for not having campaigned enough at home for the movement of Soviet troops across Polish territory.143 Thus, Soviet diplomats had the wind in their sails, and any criticism of them was ineffectual. To the contrary, they had many powerful allies including some within the Comintern. Yet the network of defenders of orthodox Marxist-Leninism still existed. They would become active again in the context of the Great Terror. As we have observed, the cohesion of the diplomatic corps existed at several levels. Firstly, it can be seen in the biographical profiles of diplomats, with the exception of new recruits who were kept at a distance, if not openly rejected. It grew stronger in the face of those who criticised the Soviet diplomatic style, of whom there were a considerable number within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Comintern. But the esprit de corps derived also from the particular nature of state service under Stalin, with its militant fervour and the practical attitude it promoted within each administrative body, stronger than that which existed in other countries. Soviet diplomats lived in a closed world, residing mostly within the shared accommodation belonging to the Commissariat. Whereas Western diplomats might be part of different social networks: their family, religious and political groups, various levels of society as well as associations, giving them a diverse, complex identity, their Soviet counterparts defined themselves in large measure in terms of their diplomatic status and activities. However, as far as the oldest were concerned, they retained a certain irreducible individuality. Would Sokolin have been as successful as Deputy Secretary General at the League of Nations in Geneva had he not spent his childhood there, living in a Russian milieu which idealised its country of origin? Would Litvinov and Surits have been as clearsighted about the rise of Hitler had they not had a Jewish childhood and experienced anti-Semitism?

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Notes 1. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle reckoned there were 686 individuals following the two career paths of diplomat or consul on the Quai d’Orsay. Cf. Politique étrangère de la France. La décadence, 1932– 1939 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1979), p. 269. 2. Annuaire diplomatique du commissariat du peuple aux Affaires étrangères (Moscow, 1934). The personnel in the main departments in Moscow included commissars and their secretaries, those responsible for different services, their deputies and counsellors, as well as delegates and diplomatic representatives for the federal republics, and lastly abroad the plenipotentiaries, together with their counsellors, secretaries and attachés, and finally the consuls. 3. Victor Serge, ‘Litvinov’, Esprit, no. 81, June 1939, p. 419. 4. Tabouis, Vingt ans de ‘suspense’ diplomatique, p. 200. G. Bessedovsky, a renegade and former Soviet diplomat, penned this anti-Semitic description of Litvinov: ‘a small shopkeeper from a Jewish district of Warsaw’. Cf. Bessedovsky, Oui j’accuse. Au service des Soviets (Paris: A. Redier, 1930), pp. 91–7. 5. Litvinov’s daughter, Tatyana, recalled in 1981 her father telling her that what lay behind his revolt against the tsarist system was a vague desire to see Russia ‘without prisons’ one day. Conversation with Hugh Phillips, quoted in ‘From a Bolshevik to a British Subject. The Early Years of Maxim M. Litvinov’, Slavic Review, 48, no. 3, 1989, p. 389. 6. Leon Trotsky had the same experience. Cf. Ma vie (Paris: Gallimard, coll. ‘Folio’, 1953), p. 70. 7. Arthur Upham Pope explains Litvinov’s forced departure from the army in terms of his heroism, as he refused to fire on striking workers in Baku. This seems unlikely, as insubordination in the tsarist army had more serious consequences than being dismissed. A. U. Pope, Maxim Litvinoff (New York: L. B. Fischer, 1943), p. 36. 8. Leopold H. Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), pp. 117–20; Solomon Schwarz, The Russian Revolution of 1905. The Worker’s Movement and the Formation of Bolshevism and Menshevism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), p. ix. 9. In order to obtain funds, the Bolsheviks began in 1906 to engage in criminal activities in the Caucasus referred to as ‘expropriations’ and needed arms to do this. Souvarine, Staline. Aperçu historique du bolchevisme, pp. 105–24. 10. Adam Ulam, The Bolsheviks (New York: Collier Books, 1968), p. 195; Z. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, revolyutsioner, diplomat, chelovek (Moscow: Politizdat, 1989), pp. 62–7.

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11. Elzbieta Ettinger (ed.) Comrade and Lover. Rosa Luxemburg’s letters to Leo Jogiches (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979), p. 182. 12. Quoted in Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, p. 94. 13. Fedor Rotshtein, who became a Marxist before Lenin and had known Engels, had been living in London for more than twenty years in 1908 and knew Labour Party people. Alexandra Kollontai was a friend of the Webbs. 14. John Carswell, The Exile. A Life of Ivy Litvinov (London: Faber & Faber , 1983), pp. 63–70. 15. Ibid., p. 87 and the following pages. Sir Sidney Low was a recognised expert in international law. 16. Général E. Réquin, D’une guerre à l’autre (1919–1939) (Paris: Charles Lavauzelle, 1949), p. 140; Major-General Temperley, The Whispering Gallery of Europe (London: Collins, 1938), p. 76. 17. Extract from Litvinov’s diary in London, 17 March 1918, quoted by Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, p. 108. 18. Account of the conversation between Litvinov and Lenin at the beginning of November 1918, quoted by Z. Sheinis in ‘Pervye shagi diplomaticheskoi deyatel’nosti M. M. Litvinova’ [The first diplomatic steps of M. M. Litvinov], Novaya i noveishaya istorya, no. 1, 1988, p. 153. 19. Hilger and Meyer, The Incompatible Allies. A Memoir-History of German-Soviet Relations 1918–1941, pp. 110–12; Bajanov, Avec Staline dans le Kremlin, p. 172. 20. Aleksandre Dmitrievich Tsyurupa, who was a member of the Central Committee in the 1920s and People’s Commissar for Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection at the end of 1922, attended meetings of the Politburo. 21. T. P. Korzhikhina, ‘Obschestvo starykh Bolshevikov (1922–1935 gg.)’ [The Society of Old Bolsheviks], Voprosy Istorii KPSS, no. 11, 1989, pp. 50–65. 22. Paris, Genoa, Stettin, Tallinn, Helsinki, Riga were closed, whereas Danzig, Memel, Milan, Lvov, Hamburg and Koenigsberg remained open. 23. E. L. Magerovsky, ‘The People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs’, unpublished thesis, Columbia University, 1975, vol. 2, p. 397; Letter addressed to Stalin, 29 February 1936, RGASPI, 17/120/228. 24. The term to ‘plebeianise’ is used by Marc Ferro in Naissance et effondrement du régime soviétique (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1997). 25. A considerable number of diplomats left the service at this time and went over to the West, including Dmitrievsky, Bessedovsky, Agabekov, Solomon etc. 26. This emerges from a comparative study of the diplomatic yearbook for 1925 and the years 1933–1936.

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27. Annuaire diplomatique du commissariat du peuple aux Affaires étrangères (Moscow, 1926–1928, 1932–1936); Diplomaticheski Slovar, 3 vols (Moscow: Nauka, 1958–1987), Entsiklopedicheski slovar Instituta Granat, vol. 41: Deyateli SSSR i Oktyabrskoi Revoliutsii, 3 vols (Moscow, 1927–1929); Otkryvaya novye stranitsy, Mezhdunarodnye voprosy: sobytya i lyudi [New pages open, international affairs: events and those involved] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1989); Arkhivy raskryvayut tainy . . . Mezhdunarodnye voprosy: sobytya i lyudi [Archives reveal secrets . . . International affairs: events and those involved] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1991); personal files, APE FR, collection relating to the department dealing with cadres, RGASPI, Party cards, collection 17. 28. According to Soviet law, being Jewish was the equivalent of being Armenian or Russian. It was a nationality. Nationality was defined by culture and language but also by territory. In the end, Jews were given Birobidjan, so that their nationality was like that of others. 29. Sostav rukovodiaschikh rabotnikov i spetsialistov Soyuza SSSR (Moscow, 1936), pp. 296–303. 30. Ibid. 31. Representatives of this generation of ambassadors were: Alexandrovsky (Prague), Antonov-Ovseenko (Barcelona), Arossev (Prague), Dovgalevsky (Paris), Khinchuk (Berlin), Surits (Ankara, Berlin), Ustinov (Bucharest), Kobetsky (Athens), Kollontai (Stockholm), Maisky (London), Bekzadyan (Budapest), Davtyan (Warsaw), Raskol’nikov (Sofia). 32. Branko Lazich and M. Drachkovich (eds), Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern (Hoover institution: Stanford University Press, 1986), pp. 218–19 and pp. 386–87. 33. Party biographical questionnaire of Hirshfel’d, RGASPI, 17/97/338; Alexandre Barmine, Vingt ans au service de l’URSS (Paris: Albin Michel, 1939); administrative questionnaire of Hershel’man in 1924, APE FR, collection relating to the department dealing with cadres, d.10157. 34. List of those who took the exam at the evening classes of the Institute of Red Teachers of World Economics and World Politics, RAN, 354/1/66. 35. Umansky, who was born in 1902, studied for a year at the Institute of Red Teachers in 1930, RGASPI, 17/100/99, Party record card, 12 August 1942. 36. Protocol of the meeting of the directorate, 5 June 1932, RAN, 354/1/67. 37. Programme of the Institute for 1931, ibid., 52. 38. Ossinsky, Pashukanis and Rotshtein were part of the management of the Institute at the end of the 1920s (ibid., 66); Shtein was

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39.

40.

41.

42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49.

50.

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concerned with research and publications about USSR foreign policy at the beginning of the 1930s (ibid., 52); Lapinsky and Radek were responsible in succession for a research group (ibid., 67). On the organisation and activities of the Institute (Institut podgotovki diplomaticheskikh rabotnikov), October 1934, GARF, R5446/15a/1043. Protocol no. 16 of the meeting of the Politburo, 13 November 1934, RGASPI, 17/3/954; A. A. Roschin, ‘V. Narkomindele v predvoennye gody’ [At the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in the pre-war years], Otkryvaya novye stranitsy, Mezhdunarodnye voprosy: sobytya i lyudi (Moscow: Politizdat, 1989), p. 45; letter from Litvinov to the Council of the People’s Commissars, 26 October 1938, GARF, R-5446/22a/219. A. S. Semenov, ‘Prizvannyi revoliutsiei’ [Devoted to the Revolution], Dolg i otvaga, rasskazy o dipkurerakh [Duty and courage, accounts of diplomatic couriers] (Moscow, 1989), p. 109. In 1935, he became an attaché at the embassy in France. Letter from Lychev to Stalin with a copy to Kaganovich (highly secret and personal), 22 April 1931, RGASPI, 17/120/37. K. M. Vassilievna, ‘Moya zhizn’s Raskol’nikovym’ [My life with Raskolnikov], Minuvshee, Istoricheskii Almanakh, 7, Moscow, 1992, p. 74. Frolov was consul-general in Tallinn during 1931–1932. Sostav rukovodiaschikh rabotnikov i spetsialistov Soyuza SSSR, pp. 296–303. Letter from Litvinov to Kaganovich, 22 October 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. Letter from Litvinov to Maisky, 7 January 1933, ibid., 05/13/90/11. V. V. Sokolov, ‘Na postu zamestitelya narkoma inostrannykh del SSSR’ [In the post of Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs], Novaya i noveishaya istorya, no. 5, 1988, pp. 111–26. K. M. Vassilievna, ‘Moya zhizn’ s Raskolnikovym’, p. 100. Autobiography of Yakov Zakharovich Surits, dated 12 November 1924, RGASPI, 17/97/1445; autobiographies of Vladimir Alexandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko and Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai, Granat, vol. 1, 1927, pp. 6–10 and pp. 194–201; autobiography of Lev Mikhailovich Khinchuk, ibid, vol. 3, pp. 199–205; for Maisky, see Vospominanya sovetskogo posla [Memories of a Soviet ambassador], vol. 1 (Moscow, 1964), p. 252. Questionnaire for entry to the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, 1921, APE FR, collection relating to the department dealing with cadres, d.259; Z. Sheinis, ‘Sud’ba diplomata. Shtrikhi k portretu Borisa Shteina’ [The fate of a diplomat. Elements of a portrait of Boris Shtein], in Arkhivy raskryvayut tainy Mezhdunarodnye voprosy: sobytya i lyudi, pp. 286–311.

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51. Letter from Litvinov to Krestinsky, 10 April 1935, APE FR 010/10/60/148, Vladimir Sokolin, Ciel et terre soviétiques (Neuchâtel: La Baconnière, 1949). 52. Questionnaires from 1922 and from 19 October 1923, APE FR, collection relating to the department dealing with cadres, d.113/78 and 104/65. 53. Draft definition of an aggressor, 14 January 1933, APE FR, 05/13/90/11. 54. Questionnaire from 1924, letters of 13 and 27 May 1924, APE FR, collection relating to the department dealing with cadres, d.9844, list of the leadership 1 May 1935, RAN, 354/3/17. 55. Rubinin’s Party record card (1954) RGASPI, 17/100/108; Kagan’s Party record card for 1954 and autobiography, 2 November 1923, ibid., 17/107 and 17/100/144619. 56. Biographical details of 10 April 1935, AMAEF, European Series 1930–1940, USSR, vol. 895; questionnaires for entry to the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. 16 August 1923 and 7 October 1924, APE FR, collection relating to the department dealing with cadres, d.5125 and d.11364. 57. Letter from Litvinov to the Politburo concerning nominations to the Secretariat of the League of Nations and the movement of personnel within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, 31 October 1934, ibid., 05/14/96/10. 58. On the issue of the ‘imposed group’ and the ‘real group’ see Duroselle, Tout Empire périra. Théorie des relations internationales, p. 65. 59. Hilger and Meyer, The Incompatible Allies, Herbert von Dirksen, Moscow, Tokyo, London. Twenty Years of German Foreign Policy (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1951); Fischer, Men and Politics; Dmitrievsky, Dans les coulisses du Kremlin. 60. Hilger and Meyer, The Incompatible Allies, p. 99. 61. ‘Poslednaya sluzhebnaya zapiska G. V. Chicherina’ [Chicherin’s last letter as Commissar], Istochnik, no. 6, 1995, p. 99. Gorchakov was Foreign Minister from 1856 to 1882 and Lobanov-Rostovsky from 1895 to 1896. 62. A. A. Roschin, ‘V. Narkomindele v predvoennye gody’, p. 41. 63. ‘Poslednaya sluzhebnaya zapiska G. V. Chicherina’, p. 100. 64. A. A. Roschin, ‘V. Narkomindele v predvoennye gody’, p. 41; A similar view was expressed by Evgeny Rubinin, quoted in Z. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, p. 257. 65. Fischer, Men and Politics, p. 130. 66. ‘Poslednaya sluzhebnaya zapiska G. V. Chicherina’, p. 99. 67. Karakhan and Stomonyakov had been members since the mid1920s; Krestinsky, who returned from his post as plenipotentiary in

86

68.

69. 70.

71.

72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83.

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Berlin, replaced Rotshtein in 1930. E. L. Crowley (ed.), The Soviet Diplomatic Corps, 1917–1967 (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1970), pp. 4–5. Out of 99 convened in 1932 and 152 in 1933, calculation based on the review Istoricheski Arkhiv, ‘Posetiteli Kremlevskogo Kabineta I. V. Stalina’ [Visitors to Stalin’s office in the Kremlin], 1994, no. 6, pp. 19–44; 1995, no. 2, pp. 128–200. VI S’ezd Sovetov. Stenograficheski otchet [The 6th Congress of the Soviets. Shorthand report], March 1931. Colleges were to meet no more than a maximum of once a decade. Note from Litvinov sent to members of the collegium of Narkomindel, 5 December 1931, APE FR, 0415/8/6/25. The political newsletter, which appeared every ten days, was devoted to one department with the list of issues dealt with, the sources used, the principal telegrams and letters exchanged and the decisions taken by the collegium. Note from Divil’kovsky, 20 October 1931, ibid. All trace of this newsletter becomes lost in the middle of the 1930s. Protocol of the Politburo meeting of 26 May 1934, RGASPI, 17/3/945. Protocol of the Politburo meeting of 15 August 1933, RGASPI, 17/3/928. Private letter from Karakhan to Stalin, 16 April 1934, RGASPI, Stalin collection, 558/11/745, pp. 109–16. Ibid. On the ‘moderate’ line of the Politburo in 1934, see Oleg Khlevniuk, Le Cercle du Kremlin. Staline et le Bureau politique dans les années 1930: les jeux du pouvoir (Paris: Seuil, 1996), pp. 125–26. Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR (London: Penguin, 1989), p. 118. XIV s’ezd VKP (b), stenograficheski otchet (Moscow, 1926), p. 335. Anna Larina Boukharina, Boukharine, ma passion (Paris: Gallimard, 1990), p. 108. Letter no. 57 from Stalin to Molotov, August 1930, in Lih et al. (eds), Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 1925–1936, p. 200. Letter from Krestinsky to the president of the Council of People’s Commissars, Molotov, 22 March 1933, APE FR, 05/13/90/11. For example, Artuzov, the head of INO (the foreign department of OGPU), sought his opinion as to whether it was politically opportune to grant visas to Austrian political refugees. Letter from Artuzov to Krestinsky, 6 March 1934, and Krestinsky’s reply, sent to Stalin, Yagoda and Pyatnitsky, 8 March 1934, RGASPI, 495/19/381. This second department covered Germany, central Europe and the Balkans, as well as Switzerland and the Netherlands.

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84. DVP SSSR, vol. 17 (Moscow, 1972), p. 183, passim. 85. A. A. Roschin, ‘V. Narkomindele v predvoennye gody’, p. 44. 86. Annuaire diplomatique du commissariat du people aux Affaires étrangères, 1935, pp. 115–16. Lashkevich had been legal advisor to the People’s Commissar since 1933. 87. Annuaire diplomatique du commissariat du people aux Affaires étrangères, 1928, pp. 190–91. 88. The Central Control Commission (TsKK) was created at the same time as the People’s Commissariat of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection (NKRKI), at the beginning of the 1920s, with the aim of supervising administrative bodies and guarding against the danger of bureaucratisation within the apparatus of the state and the Party. This was one of Lenin’s principal preoccupations at the end of his life. In 1934, the Central Control Commission was split in two: on the one hand, the Soviet Control Commission; on the other, the Party Control Commission, headed by Kaganovich and, from 1935, by Ezhov. 89. Letter from Karpov, head of inspection for European countries, to Shkiryatov, secretary of the Central Control Commission, and to Belen’ky, deputy commissar at Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, 9 February 1933, RGASPI, 17/120/107. 90. Letter from Gurevich (foreign trade) to Ezhov and Belen’ky, 9 September 1933, ibid., 42. 91. Protocol of the sector of the cadres abroad, June 1932, ibid., 83. 92. Letter from Liubimov to Rozengol’ts and Shvarts (in charge of the sector of the cadres abroad – sektor zagrankadrov), 8 September 1931, ibid., 64. 93. Letter concerning the London correspondent of Pravda, sent to Shkiryatov, Belen’ky and Karpov, 8 August 1933, ibid., 83. 94. Letter from Sokol’nikov to Litvinov, Krestinsky, Postyshev (secretary of the Central Committee and member of the Organisation Bureau) and Andreiev (Commissar for Workers’ and Peasants Inspection and president of the Central Control Commission), 13 February 1931, ibid., 37. 95. ‘Concerning press statements and interviews given by colleagues abroad’, adoption of the proposal put forward by Zhdanov, protocol of the meeting of the Politburo, 4 May 1934, ibid., 17/3/944. 96. Letter from Krestinsky to Kuibyshev (copied to Grin’ko), 20 February 1934, GARF, R-5446/15a/1023. 97. List of where people lived, 20 December 1937, ibid., 20/4038. 98. Letter from Krestinsky to Kuibyshev, 19 May 1934, with notes made by Molotov; letter from Krestinsky to Molotov and Mezhlauk, 9 October 1934; letter from Litvinov to Molotov and Mezhlauk, 11 November 1934, ibid.,15a/1036.

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99. On the subject of a diplomat’s wardrobe, GARF, R-5446/20a/902 and 22a/221. 100. Litvinov to Rudzutak, Molotov’s deputy on the Council of People’s Commissars, 30 December 1936; note from Grin’ko, 25 February 1937; note from Belen’ky and Petrunichev for the Central Control Commission, 21 March 1937, GARF, R-5446/20a/877. 101. ‘On the illegal financial transactions of certain embassies’, report from the Central Control Commission to Ezhov and Shkiryatov, 9 October 1936, GARF, R-5446/18a/879. 102. Letter from Litvinov to Molotov, 1 November 1936, ibid. 103. Letter from Litvinov to Mikoyan, 23 October 1937. An increase was granted by Molotov in April 1938, GARF, R-5446/22a/694. 104. Letter from Krestinsky to Rudzutak, vice-president of the Council of People’s Commissars, 14 January 1934, ibid., 15a/1024. 105. Draft decision adopted 3 January 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 106. For example, the report of the meeting of the London group in May 1933, RGASPI, 17/120/37. 107. Potemkin’s speech to the ‘Soviet group’ in Italy: ‘On the conditions and aims of our work in Italy’, RAN, 574/3/38. 108. Account given by Karpov, head of inspection at TsKK-RKI, October 1932, RGASPI, 17/120/37. 109. The Buro Zagranichnykh Yacheek [Bureau of Cells Abroad] was transformed in the autumn of 1934 into the Sektor Eksterritorialnykh Partorganizatsi [The Department of External Organisations of the Party]. It was then attached to the department of the leading organs of the Party, headed by Vassiliev in 1934 and 1937, and by Aliev from 1935 to 1936. 110. Check on Surits’s Party documents, 1934, RGASPI, 17/97/1445. 111. Letter to Kaganovich, ibid., 17/120/43. 112. Letter to Stalin, Kaganovich and Postyshev, 28 February 1932, ibid., 39. 113. Letter from Ezhov to Kaganovich, 16 December 1933, ibid., 17/120/42. 114. K. M. Vassilievna, ‘Moyazhizn’s Raskol’nikovym’, p. 63 and meeting of the Politburo of 23 September 1934, RGASPI, 17/3/952. 115. At the beginning of the 1930s, Karpov was head of the Inspectorate for Europe; he was a member of the Central Control Commission and of the collegium of the Commissariat of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. Letter from Karpov to Belen’ky and Ezhov, 2 December 1931, RGASPI, 17/120/64; checks on bodies abroad, 13 August 1931 and 5 November 1932, ibid., 36 and 42; letters from Karpov to Shkiryatov, Belen’ky and Ezhov on the results of inspections in European countries in 1933, ibid., 83 and 107.

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116. Report of the inspection of the trade section in Paris, October 1933, ibid., 83. 117. Ibid. 118. Letter from Rozenberg to Ezhov, 9 June 1932, ibid., 42. 119. Report by Inspector Mandalian on the situation in Soviet organisations in Paris, 2 June 1933, ibid. 120. The department of culture and propaganda headed by Stetsky was divided up in 1935 into agit’prop, the press and publishing, schools, culture and education, science and technology. Protocol of the Politburo, 13 May 1935, RGASPI 17/3/63. 121. SSSR v bor’be za razoruzhenie. Sovetskaya delegatsiya na IV sessii podgotovitelnoi komissii po razoruzheniu. Fakty i dokumenty, vystupleniya, stat’ya. [The URSS fighting for disarmament. The Soviet delegation to the 4th session of the preparatory commission on disarmament. Facts and documents, speeches and articles] (Moscow: NKID, 1928), 60pp.; Konventsii ob opredelenii agressii, podpisannye v Londone 3–5 Yulya 1933 g. Convention defining an aggressor signed in London 3–5 July 1933] (Moscow: NKID, 1933), 19pp.; SSSR na mirovoi ekonomicheskoi konferentsii [the USSR at the world economic conference] (Moscow, 1933), 71pp. and 10,200 copies; L. Kanner, Pochemu SSSR vstupil v Ligu [Why the USSR joined the League] (Leningrad: Lenoblizdat, 1934), 16pp.; A. Kolsky, Liga Natsii (ee organizatsya i deyatelnost) [The League of Nations, its organisation and activities] (Moscow: Moskovski Rabochi, 1934), 47pp. 122. Remarks of Boris Shtein at a meeting of the research group on Soviet foreign policy at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, November 1929, RAN, 354/1/37. 123. L. Ratner, ‘Populiarnaya literatura o Lige Natsii i razoruzhenii’ [Popular literature on the League of Nations and disarmament], Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo, no. 1–2, 1935, p. 190. 124. When the Council and the Assembly of the League of Nations were in session, the Soviet press devoted numerous articles to the Soviet delegation. For example, between 21 September and 13 October 1936, there were six in-depth articles in Izvestya, four in Pravda, three in the Journal de Moscou and one in Komsomolskaya Pravda. 125. B. Khorvatsky, Liga Natsii (Moscow, 1937), p. 71. 126. Ibid., pp. 60 and 62. 127. E. Gnedin, Razoruzhenie. Uzel mezhdunarodnykh protivorechii [Disarmament, the nub of international disagreements] (Moscow and Leningrad, 1934), pp. 58 and 119; Kornev (alias Mironov), Litvinov (Moscow, 1936), pp. 50–1. 128. Protocol no. 94 of the Politburo meeting of 1 April 1932, RGASPI 17/3/878.

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129. L. Ratner, ‘Populiarnaya literatura o Lige Natsii i razoruzhenii’, pp. 189–90. 130. K. Radek, ‘SSSR i Liga Natsii’, shorthand report of the conference held on 20 September 1934, RAN, 354/2/146, pp. 63–5; two articles drew directly on this: K. Radek ‘Vstuplenie SSSR v Ligu Natsii’, Bolshevik, no. 17, pp. 19–36; I. Lemin, ‘Sovetskii Soyuz i Liga Natsii’, Mirovoe khozaistvo i mirovaya politika, no. 10, pp. 3–20. 131. ‘Italo-abissinskii konflikt’, shorthand report, 3 October 1935, RAN, 354/2/184. 132. Letter from the leaders of the Comintern to the editors of Izvestya, 22 August, 1931, RGASPI, 17/120/61. 133. Gabriel Péri, ‘Du plan Tardieu au discours de Vandervelde’, La Correspondance internationale, no. 12, 13 February 1932. 134. RGASPI, 495/28/210, quoted by Brigitte Studer, Un parti sous influence. Le Parti communiste suisse, une section du Komintern, 1931– 1939 (Lausanne: L’Âge d’Homme, 1994), p. 543. 135. On the strategy and changing attitudes of the Comintern, see Pierre Broué, Histoire de l’Internationale communiste (Paris: Fayard, 1997) and Stéphane Courtois and Annie Kriegel, Eugen Fried. Le grand secret du PCF (Paris: Seuil, 1997). 136. Letter to the Central Committee of the French Communist Party, 25 August 1934, addendum to protocol no. 231 of the political secretariat, RGASPI, 495/3/424. 137. On 18 October 1934 there was a resolution proposing a campaign for general disarmament and for a substantial reduction of the arms budget. Protocol no. 408 of the political commission of the political secretariat, 15 October 1934, RGASPI, 495/4/315. Thorez’s report to the Central Committee of the French Communist Party reaffirmed this policy, RGASPI, 495/2/192. 138. Thorez’s report on the French question to the Presidium of the executive committee of the Comintern, 9 December, 1934, ibid. 139. The English question. Report by Pollitt to the Presidium of the executive committee of the Comintern, 11 October 1934, protocol no. 76, RGASPI, 495/2/186a. 140. Intervention of Manuilsky, 27 September 1934, protocol no. 404 of the political commission of the political secretariat, RGASPI, 495/4/312. 141. Quoted by Stéphane Courtois and Marc Lazar in Histoire du PCF (Paris: PUF, 1995), p. 127. 142. The Presidium of the executive committee of the Comintern met between 23 March and 1 April 1936 in order to take stock of the period which began with the 7th Congress. This resulted in the resolution of 1 April 1936 on the struggle to maintain peace; meetings

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of 24 and 26 March 1936, interventions by Dimitrov, RGASPI, 495/60/216, pp. 69 and 8. 143. Intervention by Togliatti (Ercoli), 24 March, ibid., pp. 62–3. The problem to do with the Red Army crossing Poland was also raised by Dimitrov, 26 March, ibid., p. 3.

3 Tactical oscillations

Knowing what ultimately happened – the signing of the NaziSoviet pact in August 1939 – has often led people to interpret the past retrospectively in the light of this. Thus they have concluded that Stalin always intended to seek an understanding with Germany in order to fan the flames of inter-imperialist conflict and to take advantage of it so as to extend his powers, whether for geopolitical reasons or from an affinity with Hitler, the other important totalitarian leader of the day. Furthermore, the foundations laid by the Treaty of Rapallo provided a sufficiently strong basis and Hitler’s coming to power only seemingly changed the foreign policy of the Soviet Union.1 However, this makes Stalin appear singularly omniscient, suggesting he had a long-term view about Hitler and his politics, which other leaders at the time could not possibly have had. From spring 1933, after he had become Chancellor in January, Hitler appeared altogether unwilling to enter into negotiations with the USSR and was openly anti-Soviet. There was a prevailing sense of uncertainty in international politics as a whole, and this was especially the case in the mid-1930s. With a hint of irony, Maxim Litvinov reminded people that it was not possible to make fiveyear plans in international politics. Soviet foreign policy was largely reactive, changing according to events and circumstances.2 In this context, Soviet diplomats were aware early on of the specific danger represented by Hitler, and it was they who sounded a warning and put forward diplomatic proposals to prevent conflict, which involved assessing the numbers of antiGerman forces in Europe. However, to maintain his influence and the course which had been set, Litvinov was obliged to obtain results.

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Away from Germany and towards France The German threat The rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, in electoral terms and as a militant force, had provoked real concern amongst diplomats from the spring of 1932. Hitler’s plans beyond Germany’s borders were directed mainly at the Soviet Union, and were already having some influence on the politics of Chancellors Brüning and Von Papen, according to the Soviet ambassador in Berlin.3 What the diplomats thought about Nazism, however, did not coincide with the official government line emanating from the USSR or with the analysis formulated by the leadership of the Comintern. In his role as President of the Council of People’s Commissars, Molotov referred, in January 1933, to the ‘special place’ which Germany had in Soviet foreign policy.4 As far as the leaders of the Comintern were concerned, Nazism, the latest stage in the crisis of German capitalism, was less dangerous than social democracy, seen as a disguised bourgeois force which could deceive the working class. The Comintern’s assessment of the Nazi Party’s foreign policy was positive, since, like the communists, the Nazis were violently opposed to the European settlement of Versailles, and were revisionists. They shared the same hatred of social democracy as the ‘corner-stone of imperialist French hegemony and defender of the Treaty of Versailles’.5 The view of the diplomats was entirely different. It is possible that the Jewish background of most Soviet representatives meant that they saw clearly and at an early stage the danger that Hitler posed. Khinchuk in Berlin, Dovgalevsky and Rozenberg in Paris, Maisky in London and Litvinov in Moscow took Hitler’s ideas seriously and knew already in 1932 what was in Mein Kampf. Litvinov compared the images and methods of Nazism with those of the Inquisition.6 It was above all the view of other countries as expressed in Nazi ideology, however, which drew their attention. They were less concerned with the revisionism and the desire to do battle with France, and concentrated more on the expansionist plans to the East and the need for living-space which would be to the detriment of the Slavs and the Bolsheviks.7 Following the German presidential elections in April 1932, which were won by Hindenburg and in which Hitler obtained a very good result (13.4 million votes), Khinchuk,

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analysing the situation, foresaw the rapid rise to power of the Nazis. Yet, the awareness of danger which they shared did not stem from any clearly defined anti-fascist stance. This was proved by the fact that the diplomats insisted on drawing a distinction between Hitler and Mussolini.8 Italian fascism had never constituted a threat in the eyes of the Soviet leadership, and this was still the case. On the contrary, the Duce was one of Moscow’s most reliable partners, as Litvinov recognised at a meeting of the Politburo in the autumn of 1931.9 All the same, public demonstrations of support for fascist Italy were confined to the diplomatic world, for fear of putting Western communists in a difficult position. Manuilsky, one of the leaders of the Comintern, had in fact complained to Kaganovich in December 1931, following an untimely outburst by Lunacharsky, a Soviet delegate to the disarmament conference at the time. He had praised the Italian regime in an interview, saying it would safeguard Italy in the face of the European crisis. Social democrats and anarchists were quick to use these remarks against communists, and Manuilsky demanded that Lunacharsky refute them vigorously.10 When they analysed the danger represented by Hitler, Litvinov and his colleagues did not do so as anti-fascists, or as Germanophobes. Up until then, Litvinov had on occasions been more favourably disposed to the smooth working of the GermanSoviet relationship than Stalin himself. For example, when discussions were held within the Politburo in September 1931 as to whether serious negotiations should take place with Poland over a non-aggression treaty, Litvinov was against it, arguing that, negotiating with Warsaw risked the loss of the ‘strategic partnership’with Berlin, as Moscow saw it. His argument was in line with the Treaty of Rapallo, one of the fundamental bases of which was the mutual hostility of Germany and the USSR to the existence of the Polish state. After all, until 1935, according to the strategic plans of the Red Army, Poland was the main enemy on its Western front.11 Litvinov was all the more committed in this matter because he had little liking for the Polish (‘I know best and You here know nothing about this’). He distrusted them, partly no doubt as a result of his Jewish childhood in eastern Poland, and felt that their main objective was the formation of an antiSoviet military bloc from Finland to Romania. The Politburo rejected his analysis, however, supporting the opposing view

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expressed by Karakhan. He felt they should negotiate with Poland, especially in the face of the Japanese threat in Manchuria.12 There remained the sensitive issue of frontiers, echoed by Litvinov. General Adam, chief of staff of the Reichswehr, had warned Voroshilov, the People’s Commissar for Defence, that, as far as the German army was concerned, ‘it would be most displeasing if, in the course of these negotiations with Poland, our existing frontiers, which we cannot recognise with Poland, were fixed’.13 After their first assessment in the spring of 1932, Soviet diplomats sounded the alarm again, not when Hitler became Chancellor, but a few months later. Problems and disputes had multiplied by then. Initially, the Soviet leadership turned a deaf ear to speeches which were offensive to them and merely bristled in the face of increasing harassment. On 5 May 1933, following an interview between Khinchuk and Hitler, the Treaty of Berlin, which had in 1926 updated the Treaty of Rapallo, was extended, as if everything was normal.14 However, it became more and more difficult for the USSR to export to Germany, as trading companies were subjected to numerous searches and consulates were even attacked. But declarations about the Ukraine by Nazi ideologues in the spring of 1933, when the famine was at its peak giving rise to the organisation of relief collections for the starving in both Germany and Poland, led diplomats to sound warnings about the danger of Nazism which were heeded and taken up by the leadership of the Party. Within the Politburo there was great sensitivity concerning the issue of Ukrainian irredentism. In fact, Khinchuk had already obtained special extra funds at the end of 1932 so that books showing the Socialist Republic of Ukraine in a positive light could be published in Berlin.15 However, the famine in Soviet Ukraine had led to the formation in Lvov of a central Ukrainian aid committee made up of deputies from western Ukraine who sat in the Polish parliament and representatives of various Ukrainian organisations.16 At the same time, Alfred Rosenberg put forward a plan whereby Ukrainian territory would be given to Poland in exchange for the Danzig corridor, a plan also proposed by Hugenberg in his speech at the London economic conference in June 1933. It was in this context that military collaboration between the Reichswehr and the Red Army came to an end. The last German bases on Soviet soil, which had enabled the Red Army to keep

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abreast of the latest techniques, were dismantled between May and August 1933.17 Disputes about this military collaboration went back to 1931, with Soviet military personnel complaining that the most up-to-date technologies were being kept secret by the Germans.18 According to Tukhachevsky, the USSR was from then on ‘better informed in England or Italy’ on the new armoured vehicles.19 In May 1933 Voroshilov and Egorov, the Chief of Staff, warned the German General von Bockelberg, head of the weapons department, that collaboration was no longer possible, given the political stance of the German government. On 30 May Levichev, the Soviet military attaché in Germany, informed the head of the Russian section in the Reichswehr that there would be a reduction in the number of technical exchange programmes and that experiments on the use of gas in combat would cease.20 The fact that the Reichswehr maintained test bases in the Soviet Union was also beginning to compromise relations with France, the French parliament having ratified a non-aggression treaty with the USSR on 16 May. In July Khinchuk came to the conclusion that ‘German-Soviet relations no longer existed’. Turning once again to the ‘fundamental direction’ of Nazi foreign policy, he concluded, in a letter to Kaganovich, that of all the different scenarios of war he could envisage, only a war of expansion harmful to the Soviet Union was possible: They realise that if the great powers allow them to fight anyone, it will be the USSR. A war against Poland is impossible, because the French would not leave the Poles at the mercy of Hitler. Were they to fight France and Poland at the same time, they would invite an attack from the Anglo-Saxon countries. Moreover, from the military point of view, there is nothing to be gained. Besides, they cannot count on the support of Italy, because, in the struggle for central Europe, Italy will always lean towards France, fearing, just like the French, the overwhelming influence of Germany, were she to annex Austria. Only one project remains which undoubtedly has a greater chance of success than a war against Poland and France: the division of the Soviet Union and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state under German protection, compensation for Poland to the detriment of Lithuania and Ukraine and the regaining of the corridor. Such a plan can only be achieved through a military alliance with Poland, and France as well if possible. In this context, it was not by chance that

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Hitler received the Polish minister, that he sent the Nazi government in Danzig on a visit to Warsaw, and, in his speech to the Reichstag, made a comment which would have been inconceivable six months ago. What he did was to recognise the right of the Polish people to their own independence and to proclaim a policy of peace towards Poland. At the same time, we hear that Goering spent three hours with the French ambassador, François-Poncet, and gave a friendly interview to the French press. As well as making overtures to Poland and France, the covert anti-Soviet aspect of which is perfectly plain, Hitler’s government has continued to hold discussions about intervention against the USSR with British Conservative circles (Rosenberg), with Italy, the Vatican, and with Russian and Ukrainian émigrés. One can hardly expect the Reichswehr to offer any serious opposition to the adventurist foreign policy initiatives of the National-Socialists. Even in Schleicher’s day, there was strong support in the Reichswehr for a military alliance with France and Poland against the USSR. These tendencies will certainly increase, under the influence of the National-Socialists.21

Adopting the standard idea of an anti-Soviet bloc, Khinchuk offered an analysis of what he imagined might happen in Europe with, on the one side, a German-Polish alliance directed against the USSR and, on the other, possible opponents of Nazi expansionism, centred around France. Litvinov entirely shared this view of the likely war, basing it on Hitler’s ‘book-programme’ and anticipating within a short time German rearmament and the Anschluss. He made clear to Stalin in November 1934 that ‘the military power built up’ by Germany would be unleashed against the Baltic countries, the Soviet Union, and Ukraine, with the support of Japan, Poland and Finland.22 Although a Soviet-Polish non-aggression pact had been in existence since July 1932 and countless negotiations had subsequently taken place with Warsaw, the German-Polish coalition foreseen by diplomats in the spring of 1933 shaped the geopolitical and strategic vision of Soviet decision-makers during 1934–1935. The feared alliance between Berlin and Warsaw became a material fact with the signing of the German-Polish treaty on 26 January 1934, which Litvinov wrongly suspected might contain secret territorial and military clauses. The treaty gave rise to the reshaping of its strategy on the part of the Red Army, undertaken by Tukhachevsky, the Deputy Commissar for Defence, and Uborevich, the military

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commander in Belarus.23 Until February 1935, the strategic plan for war in the West ‘had as its principal objective the defeat of the Polish state’. It counted on at least the indirect support of Germany which was ‘provisionally well-disposed towards the USSR and violently hostile to Poland’. By deploying their forces on the border with eastern Prussia, the Germans would threaten the rear of the Polish army. Poland’s only ally was thought to be Romania. Tukhachevsky’s new strategy paradoxically both broke with and maintained the previous plan. It maintained it inasmuch as ‘the defeat of the Polish state’ was still a military objective. It broke with it insofar as Germany became ‘the principal agent of anti-Soviet intervention’. In future, the Red Army would have to fight both the Polish and German armies, which in coalition were much more dangerous than the previous Polish-Romanian alliance because of the military forces they had on the ground and also because the countries were not geographically separated and a rapid invasion of Lithuania would be possible. From there, Germany could threaten Riga and thereby put pressure on Latvia and ‘obtain an air base which would allow regular flights over Leningrad and Kronstadt (500 kilometres)’. The German-Polish bloc could equally count upon the support of Japan and possibly Finland. Without knowing the exact delays and possible modifications which the plan underwent, the manoeuvres which took place in the autumn of 1936 were based on the scenario of a German-Polish war against the USSR.24 The potential of the French Soviet diplomats had shown an interest in the potential of the French well before Hitler came to power. Just as Germany, through the Treaty of Locarno and its entry into the League of Nations, emerged from the isolated position in which it had found itself at the beginning of the 1920s, so Litvinov, at the beginning of the 1930s, thought it was time for the USSR to enter the diplomatic arena by creating ties with France. The Franco-Soviet rapprochement only became anti-German in tone during 1933. As far as Soviet diplomats were concerned, good relations with France depended to a large extent on the presence of Radicals in the government. It was Herriot’s government which had decided to recognise the USSR in 1924. It was also a Radical government from June 1932, under the leadership of first Édouard Herriot

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then Joseph Paul-Boncour, which agreed to the signing of a nonaggression pact in November 1932. Similarly, Paul-Boncour entered into negotiations with the Soviets in October 1933 in order to establish a pact of mutual assistance.25 Given the political instability of the 3rd Republic, however, it was difficult to maintain for very long a government which was well disposed to this policy. It was up to diplomats to cement ties of friendship as quickly as possible, before they could be challenged. One of the major preoccupations of the Russian embassy was to see that the pacts were ratified by the French parliament in advance of a change of majority and to implement them quickly on the ground. The lengthiness of French parliamentary procedures wore the diplomats down. For example, in January 1933 Litvinov suggested to Dovgalevsky that he should ‘cautiously prod Boncour’ into signing the non-aggression pact without going through parliament. When, in February, the future of his cabinet was threatened, pressure from Moscow was ratcheted up: ‘Boncour must abandon this “pointless ceremony” of discussing and voting on the pact in the Assembly’.26 Everything was done to speed up the ratification. Karl Radek’s article in Pravda, in which, for the first time in the Soviet Union, the revision of a treaty and an act of war were seen as one and the same thing, was addressed primarily to the French government and it had an impact.27 Litvinov immediately checked with diplomats in Paris as to what reactions there had been to the article: Although this article did not appear in Izvestia and was not an editorial, but was written by comrade Radek, it must have come to the attention of political and public leaders in France, as, for the first time in many years, it deals with the burning issue of the revision of treaties. The article has been received with obvious satisfaction in Poland and this is probably true also of France. All the more so, since numerous declarations by Herriot, Daladier and other leading Radicals as well as articles in the press concerning rapprochement with the USSR have until now been echoed very discreetly in our own press.28

Moreover, the objective was to make the rapprochement a practical reality in two specific ways: in the cultural sphere and through military cooperation.29

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In December 1932 a mission led by Simonov, who was in charge of supplies for the Red Army, was sent to Paris with approximately 500,000 roubles to spend.30 Yet France did not have priority status as far as military procurements were concerned, as Tukhachevsky revealed to Krestinsky. Trade relations were subject to considerable disputes as a result of unpaid tsarist debts, with the French government repeatedly refusing to guarantee credits granted to the USSR. To compensate for the likely reduction of orders in Germany, the Soviet leadership was intending to explore possibilities in the United States, Britain and Czechoslovakia.31 Dovgalevsky insisted, however, that they should take advantage of the favourable disposition of PaulBoncour’s government, and that negotiations over arms sales in France were ‘more political in nature than commercial’.32 This test of French goodwill worked. Indeed, on 28 December 1932 Daladier, the Minister of War, informed the French Army high command that the government now accepted in principle the sale of military equipment to the USSR.33 Daladier even put pressure on reluctant companies such as Schneider, which refused to sell arms to the Red Army as the orders were too small, and because they feared that prototypes would simply be copied and that there would be political repercussions if they did so.34 Links between the USSR and the Radicals were strengthened through the organisation of visits. In May Rozenberg had the idea of bringing Édouard Pfeiffer to the Soviet Union. As a former general secretary of the Radical Party and an advisor on foreign affairs to Daladier, he was considered useful because he had influence, was friendly towards the USSR and was also interested in the Far East, which the Soviets wished to include in their negotiations with France, given their concerns about Japanese expansion.35 Édouard Herriot, though no longer in the government, and Pierre Cot, minister for the air force, also paid a visit in September 1933.36 They were made especially welcome, their stay carefully planned so that they would be well disposed towards the USSR and have a positive influence on public opinion in France. Édouard Herriot made a very favourable report on his trip, denying the existence of famine in Ukraine, and as result was then portrayed as the best friend of the Soviet people. Litvinov’s report to the Central Executive Committee of the USSR on 29 December 1933 was applauded by those present when he referred to ‘the visit to the Soviet Union of one of

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the most outstanding representatives of the French people . . . M. Herriot’.37 As far as Moscow was concerned, the Radical triumvirate of Paul-Boncour, Herriot and, provisionally, Daladier was considered an asset, and, at the end of 1933, the Politburo hoped to see these three in power, because they were relatively well-disposed towards the Soviet Union and shared similar views about the danger of Hitler. Yet it was also necessary for Moscow to take account of any likely change of political leadership. Litvinov pressed the ambassador in Paris to ‘strengthen his ties with Tardieu and his political supporters and with right-wing parties in general’.38 That turned out to be more difficult. According to the ambassador, only Paul Reynaud, ‘one of the most intelligent right-wing politicians’, had views and made speeches about the Soviet Union which were ‘acceptable’.39 Equally, it was thought appropriate to develop further links with the armed services. An exchange of military attachés made this easier. Colonel Mendras, of whom Rozenberg had spoken highly (‘a cultured man with a subtle understanding of Russian literature’), arrived in Moscow at the beginning of April and was pleased to acknowledge the ‘markedly friendly attitude’ towards the French.40 Initially, Sediakin was nominated military attaché in Paris, but Mendras thought this an unfortunate choice, since, besides speaking no French, he saw him as an ‘intransigent communist’, ‘ a man with an inflexible mind, of limited intelligence and withdrawn’. Finally, General Ventsov took up the post on 7 May. Mendras found him ‘open, astute, friendly and approachable, having spent some time in Geneva and knowing a little French’, and added: ‘Litvinov never disguised the fact that Ventsov was his choice’.41 Meetings between diplomats and senior figures in the French army were strongly encouraged, alongside the activities of the military attachés.42 French and Soviet strategy began to coincide once Hitler walked out of the League of Nations on 14 October 1933, declaring his intention to rearm Germany. Paul-Boncour’s proposal, put to the Soviet ambassador, that they should sign a pact of mutual assistance and that the Soviet Union should join the League of Nations, was accepted by Moscow as a basis for negotiations. The Soviets had certain ulterior motives, expressed in the following terms:

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We are resolutely opposed to an increase in German armaments, as sooner or later they will be turned against us, given the foreign policy of the present German government. Nonetheless, there is a considerable risk that Germany will be allowed to obtain additional arms. Though we have received no communication from Litvinov about his talks with Mussolini, we are justified in thinking that the Italian government will authorise both qualitative and quantitative reinforcement of the German army. Britain too, it seems, will raise no objections to the growth of the Reichswehr to three hundred thousand men and will only express reservations about aviation. We cannot be sure that Poland will not sanction new German armaments, in exchange for some form of compensation now or in the future. There is not even total unanimity on this question amongst French politicians. Consequently, it is important for us to support the members of the present French government and those who might lead it in the near future who are opposed to separate negotiations with Germany and to any increase in the German army. I refer to politicians such as Boncour and Herriot. Our agreement in principle to discussions about joining the League of Nations and a mutual assistance pact will make it possible for Boncour to suggest closer ties with us as opposed to partial acceptance of German rearmament when he debates these matters with his opponents in cabinet. This is why we have decided to respond positively to Boncour’s proposals.43

This became official policy in December 1933. The decision was taken quickly. Following a meeting in the Kremlin on 9 December, Litvinov, together with lawyers in the Commissariat, Egoriev and Sabanin, was authorised to draft the Soviet proposals. They were put to the Politburo by Litvinov and Dovgalevsky, firmly agreed by Stalin and those close to him on the 19th and sent to Paul-Boncour on the 28th.44 The Soviet Union declared that it was ready to join the League of Nations on certain conditions, in particular the normalisation of relations with other member states which had not recognised it and the acceptance of amendments to the system of mandates concerning former colonies. It also stated it was ready to sign a regional mutual defence pact against the risk of German aggression. As far as the Soviets were concerned, the pact had to be drawn up in such a way that France and Poland were definitely included and certain other countries were seen as possible partners: Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and

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Finland. The Soviet Union, seeking support in case of a SovietJapanese conflict, also wanted a mutual commitment to moral and material aid in the event of foreign aggression. Litvinov had discussed on several occasions the important matter of the Far East in his negotiations with the French.45 In a conversation with Daladier in July, for example, he had referred to the indivisible nature of peace which made it ‘impossible to remain indifferent to events in Asia, where any conflict might be used by the Germans or others to create complications in Europe’. The Soviet Union was also relying a great deal on the United States, which had just recognised it. Before Litvinov left for Washington, the Politburo had authorised him to enter into substantive negotiations concerning relations with Tokyo and to approve any possible proposal Roosevelt might make, including a provisional agreement against Japan.46 At the opening of the session of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR on 28 December 1933, Molotov paid an exaggerated tribute to Litvinov.47 The next day, Litvinov intervened personally, which was exceptional, because since 1929 the Commissar for Foreign Affairs had no longer given specific reports to the Executive Committee.48 It was a sign of the importance attributed to diplomacy at the time and also revealed the leadership’s desire to personalise the line it had adopted. Litvinov had come to embody the policy of rapprochement with France and the United States as a way of protecting the Soviet Union from the double threat posed by Germany and Japan. It was in the context of this renewed diplomatic activity that Litvinov was elected for the first time to the Central Committee at the 17th congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.49 Officially referred to as the ‘Congress of the victors’, because it demonstrated Stalin’s supreme power and the success of the ‘Great Break’, it nonetheless had to take stock after a year of grave crisis, of the below-average performance of the economy and the scale of social de-structuring which had led many communist officials to seek to modify the objectives of the second fiveyear plan. The desire for a more moderate social and political policy and the new direction initiated by Litvinov in favour of a territorial status quo in Europe were parallel developments. For the Soviet leadership, any interaction between them was doubtless unthinkable. Yet what lay behind these two policies was a similar recognition, namely the weakness of the Soviet Union, ‘a

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society built on shifting sands’50 as far as those engaged in internal politics were concerned, and a country in danger, unable to fight a war from the point of view of diplomats and the military. It is difficult to comprehend the level of influence Litvinov achieved in the mid-1930s, unless one takes into account the feeling of vulnerability in the country which forced the leadership to accept compromises. The categorical imperative of security and compromises with the real world Negotiations to secure an eastern pact only took shape the following spring.51 Soviet diplomats were initially worried by the formation of a government of national unity under Doumergue after the events of 6 February 1934, as they were aware of André Tardieu’s anti-Soviet stance and had unhappy memories of Louis Barthou’s attitudes twelve years earlier at the conference of Genoa.52 However, the Soviets were on exactly the same wavelength as Barthou, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, as far as their objectives and way of dealing with Germany were concerned. The ‘harmony’ between them was clearly visible in the conversation which Litvinov had with Barthou on 18 May at Geneva.53 Convinced of the danger presented by Germany, the two men wanted to create a pact to counter the threat. In his account of the meeting, Litvinov recalled Barthou’s own reference to ‘friendship and even a military alliance’; a remark which did not however appear in the notes made on the French side.54 It must be said that the word ‘alliance’ had been taboo on the Quai d’Orsay since the traumas of the First World War. But the two men felt it their duty to act within the framework established by the principle of collective security. Thus, in the plan outlined by the Secretary General of the Quai d’Orsay, Alexis Léger, it was suggested that Germany should be part of an eastern pact involving mutual assistance, thereby nullifying any outward appearance of an anti-German bloc. This was the only course open to Barthou to remain in line with the views of the Quai d’Orsay, to gain the support of public opinion and, above all, to win over Britain and allies in central Europe.55 Litvinov too found the plan ‘quite ingenious’, as it proved a convenient means of overcoming resistance in Moscow. The pact could not be interpreted as an act of war against Germany, with whom Stalin did not wish to clash.

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Litvinov sought and obtained the agreement of the Politburo on 10 May 1934, underlining the ‘important advantages’ of the plan which guaranteed assistance from France, Germany and the Baltic countries (except for Lithuania) against Poland, and from France, Poland and the Baltic countries against Germany.56 It was seen as an eastern pact of mutual assistance which additionally offered a Franco-Soviet guarantee. Furthermore, it was to be viewed in strictly regional terms, involving Germany if possible but being enacted without her if she turned it down, which both Barthou and Litvinov considered most likely.57 Further to good relations between France and the Soviet Union, the planned eastern pact required a climate of cooperation between these two countries and central and eastern Europe. At the end of April Louis Barthou visited the capitals of central Europe to revitalise alliances which had weakened. From the Soviet point of view, it proved not to be a wholly successful mission. The intelligence services of the Red Army obtained numerous details of the meeting between Barthou and Pilsudsky in Warsaw, noting the ‘extremely frosty welcome’ accorded to the French Foreign Minister and Pilsudsky’s insistence on Poland’s need to retain its ‘freedom of action’ and concluding that Poland might well be a major obstacle to the creation of an eastern pact.58 However, friendly relations with France proved useful to Moscow as it sought to extend Soviet influence in neighbouring countries, which Stalin and Molotov as well as Litvinov considered crucial to the security of the USSR. Litvinov was especially preoccupied with the Baltic region, which seemed to him ‘the likely battleground in any future war against the USSR’ and, given Polish hostility, the only direct means of access to Germany should the USSR honour its commitment to France of mutual assistance.59 That is why, in his negotiations with the French, he insisted on numerous occasions that they give direct assurances of assistance to the Baltic countries, thereby reducing German pressure on these states.60 The Red Army’s strategic plans developed in 1935 anticipated a direct attack by the Germans in the direction of the Baltic through Lithuania and Latvia. Despite all his efforts, Litvinov obtained nothing from the French in this respect: The worst thing of all is that the Baltic countries are deprived of any assistance. Were we to come to the aid of these Baltic countries, we would immediately forgo any possibility of receiving help from

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France in accordance with the guarantee under the agreement, as we would be seen as an aggressor towards Germany. In other words, we would have to remain indifferent were the Baltic countries to be occupied and wait until the German army had crossed our borders for the French to act under this agreement.61

Since the signing of the Kellogg pact, the Soviet Union had shown a desire to set itself up as a peacekeeper in the region. Following the non-aggression pacts and the London agreement of July 1933, it claimed to act as the guarantor of borders and of the status quo in eastern Europe. The plan to have an eastern pact would reinforce the sense of solidarity between neighbours, since it would involve not only not attacking but also defending each other in the event of aggression. Far from being philanthropic, it demonstrated an imperial attitude to security, since the underlying idea was to guard against a German attack on Soviet territory by intervening in what were thought of as buffer zones which had been part of the Russian Empire until 1917. The eastern pact as drafted had the advantage of giving the advance defence of Soviet territory on Polish, Baltic or Romanian soil the legitimacy of mutual assistance and aid from France. Yet these countries had to accept the idea of receiving assistance from the Red Army against Germany. In the case of Poland, it was a difficult task. Several months after the shock signing of the German-Polish pact, the objective was to counter pro-German feelings in Poland by emphasising rapprochement with France. In order to achieve this, Litvinov put forward concrete proposals, namely a visit by Red Army personnel to Poland as well as trade and air agreements.62 These were all to no avail as, at the end of 1934, Poland rejected the eastern pact, and from then on was considered to be an ally of Hitler by Moscow. The chances of success seemed greater in the Baltic countries, certainly in Lithuania. In March 1934 Litvinov and Stomonyakov decided to put to Berlin the idea of guaranteeing jointly the inviolability and independence of the Baltic countries. By making such a gesture, aimed at the West as well as the Baltic peoples, Litvinov sought to demonstrate an absence of extremism in his anti-German policy and a desire, rather, to seek ways of cooperating to ensure the protection of neighbouring states. He was certain in his own mind, however, that Germany would reject the idea, which she did on 14 April.63

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In addition to this proposal, which might make them better disposed towards the Soviet Union, it was felt necessary to engage in ‘a systematic campaign to influence them at the political, economic and cultural level’. Already in January 1934 Litvinov proposed a more active policy in the Baltic region, which was accepted by the Politburo. It included inviting politicians and military leaders from the Baltic states to the USSR, increasing orders made by the Commissariat for Foreign Trade from these countries, and engaging in a number of cultural initiatives (various artistic tours, visits by journalists and scientists, etc.).64 Litvinov considered trade links crucially important from a political perspective as a way of reinforcing a sphere of influence, even though he also recognised that the economic advantages to the Soviet Union would be somewhat limited.65 There was enormous reluctance on the part of the Commissariat for Foreign Trade, however, to develop trade links which produced little profit. Litvinov even complained in May at the lack of goodwill in the Commissariat for Foreign Trade, which bought almost nothing from the Baltic countries, though the trade balance was largely in the USSR’s favour. From his point of view, it created an ‘awkward situation’, had a negative impact on political relations and strengthened Germany’s influence, since the Germans bought the raw materials which the USSR refused to purchase.66 Litvinov was particularly concerned about Lithuania, knowing that German and Polish influence in Latvia and Estonia were considerable. Lithuania, on the other hand, occupied a ‘key position’, representing, as it did, the only means of ‘leverage’ which the Soviet Union had over the Baltic countries. If it was to be kept in the Soviet camp, it should not be left ‘at the economic mercy of the Germans’.67 Soviet influence in central Europe also increased thanks to the establishment of diplomatic relations, under the aegis of France, with the countries which had signed the Little Entente. It represented no real problem for Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.68 Relations were immediately very warm with Prague in particular.69 Negotiations were more delicate with Romania, on the other hand, Bessarabia proving to be a bone of contention. Litvinov sought to allay fears: ‘Personally, I think it would now be possible and helpful to settle once and for all with Romania our mutual grievances’.70 But the Soviet leadership thought that Bucharest should acknowledge the existence of disagreements between the

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USSR and Romania.71 Litvinov proposed a compromise in which no mention was made of Bessarabia, and this was the solution finally adopted by the Politburo on 1 June.72 The interest of the Soviet Union in the Danube region was also revealed in its request to become a member of the European commission on the Danube, which comprised Great Britain, France, Italy and Romania. The principal reason for this decision, taken by the Politburo on 5 July, was the possibility of using the Danube for the transit of goods to and from the Soviet Union.73 Nevertheless, as far as Litvinov and Rozenblum, head of the economic department, were concerned, it contributed to the normalisation of relations with Romania. It also marked another stage in the Soviet Union’s reintegration as one of the major European powers, something Moscow demanded as a historical right, since Russia had always belonged to this commission since its creation in 1856.74 In order to develop Soviet influence in eastern Europe, in addition to their friendly relations with the French, diplomats on several occasions took advantage of their tsarist Russian heritage and the links that had been forged with the Slav peoples.75 This was particularly striking from the moment the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations in September 1934. A year later, the French delegate, René Massigli, referred to the fund of goodwill the Soviet Union was able to draw on, attributing it to the reestablishment of the old Slav solidarity: The presence of the USSR in Geneva has enabled the Slav countries to affirm more freely their feelings of solidarity and encouraged them to strengthen their political ties with Moscow. The Little Entente and the Entente between the Balkan states are now as much directed towards Russia as towards France.76

The entry of the USSR into the League of Nations, made possible by Britain’s approval of French plans for an eastern pact, should have speeded up negotiations, but the assassination of Barthou on 9 October 1934 caused a great deal of damage to the FrancoSoviet plan. Litvinov then tried to save certain elements of it in an altogether different context. Pierre Laval, the new French Foreign Minister, had a very different attitude towards Germany from his predecessor, and was able to argue that, because Poland and Germany opposed and

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refused to subscribe to the plan, it should be abandoned.77 Litvinov, fearing a postponement on the part of the French and the Soviet leadership, submitted a report to Stalin at the beginning of November, emphasising the importance of an eastern pact. With illegal rearmament taking place in Germany, which meant that the country would be able to go to war in less than two years, mutual assurance would provide a significant power of ‘dissuasion’. Bringing the negotiations to a successful conclusion would have the more immediate bonus of preventing Laval from fulfilling ‘his principal objective’, namely an anti-Soviet agreement between France and Germany. Seeking to reassure Stalin, Litvinov concluded by stressing the fact that, in the absence of a common border with Germany, the Soviet Union was committing itself less than France, as its only obligation was to come to the aid of neighbouring countries attacked by Germany, which, in any case, was a matter of Soviet territorial security.78 On 2 November, the People’s Commissar went to the Kremlin and the following resolution was adopted: 1. To accept the possibility of an eastern pact without Germany and Poland in the event of agreement with France and Czechoslovakia or France alone. 2. To make no proposals on our own initiative concerning the legalisation of German arms. Should France show readiness to accept this demand by Germany, propose that France insists on German participation in an eastern pact of mutual assistance. 3. To propose to France a reciprocal agreement whereby neither France nor the Soviet Union will sign a political agreement with Germany.79

From the Soviet point of view, German rearmament remained the main preoccupation, as it had been a year earlier, but to this must be added their renewed fear of an agreement between France, Britain, Italy and Germany to the detriment of eastern Europe.80 An eastern pact was to serve as a means of protection and a bargaining counter: Hitler would not be permitted to rearm unless he accepted in return a guarantee towards eastern Europe. At the same time, rumours spread by the Soviets and their French allies concerning a Franco-Soviet military alliance were intended to worry the Germans sufficiently so that they would at least agree to a non-aggression pact, if not to mutual assistance.81

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Ultimately, at the instigation of Laval and Léger and despite Soviet objections, the far-reaching plan for an eastern pact was transformed into bilateral pacts between the USSR and France on the one hand, and the USSR and Czechoslovakia on the other. Mutual assistance, in the event of German aggression, would be decided upon by the Council of the League of Nations and the signatories to the Treaty of Locarno, which rendered the pact somewhat ineffectual.82 The pact was unacceptable to the Soviet leadership in this limited, bilateral form, and Litvinov was asked to break off negotiations. It had a number of disadvantages, one of which was that it looked like an alliance against Germany without any real guarantee of security for eastern Europe. However, the People’s Commissar, while apparently agreeing with Stalin and his colleagues, insisted on it being signed as quickly as possible, since, in his view, its significance was political rather than military. Its purpose was to prevent rather than bring about war: It is unwise within the framework of the pact to have serious expectations of military assistance in the event of war. Our security depends entirely upon the Red Army, as it has done in the past. For us, the importance of the pact is chiefly political, diminishing the likelihood that either Germany on the one hand or Poland or Japan on the other will start a war. Furthermore, the pact may serve as an obstacle to the fulfilment of Polish aspirations for the creation of an anti-Soviet bloc, made up of Poland, Germany, France and a few other countries. If one looks at it in this way, different formulations become much less important.83

The Soviet leadership had three meetings with Litvinov within the space of five days and finally accepted the advice of the People’s Commissar.84 There were two main preoccupations as far as the eastern pact was concerned: the avoidance of any anti-Soviet agreement and finding diplomatic means of preventing a Germanarmed attack on eastern Europe. In Litvinov’s view the only obvious way of preventing a conflict with Germany was to create a mood of fear by strengthening the army, but he also believed in diplomatic initiatives to gain the support of France and its allies for the Soviet Union. He played an essential role, defining objectives and both leading and accelerating

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negotiations. His views were not, however, entirely shared by the Soviet leadership, even though he always carried the day at moments of indecision.

The three sides of the geopolitical triangle Though it was relatively weak, the Soviet Union held a geopolitical trump card. It was one pole of the ‘tri-polar galaxy’ it formed in Europe with Germany and France.85 Since the nineteenth century, this geometric configuration had deeply affected the way the leaders of these three countries thought. Rapprochement between any two of them was only ever undertaken with reference to what the other might think. The Soviets inherited two traditions arising out of this strategic situation. On the one hand, there was the ‘shared destiny’ of Germany and Russia which had enjoyed its finest hour at the time of Bismarck and the Treaty of Rapallo, and, on the other hand, the obverse alliance between France and Russia which could become the categorical imperative in the face of a German threat, as at the end of the nineteenth century and again at the time of Hitler. There was also the practical diplomatic alternative of achieving some sort of balance between these two clear-cut positions, which the Soviets, like the others, mainly relied upon. Thus, in July 1933 Khinchuk spoke of the ‘game of Rapallo’ in which the Germans engaged to strengthen their position in the eyes of the West and to which the Soviets should still subscribe in order to hold a trump card in their negotiations with France and her allies: ‘If we were to acknowledge openly that German-Soviet relations no longer had any meaning, that would merely lower our standing in the eyes of those opposed to Germany’.86 Only economic ties with Germany, which were still profitable and had never really been broken, could achieve this end. When he met the German Foreign Minister, von Neurath, Litvinov also referred ironically to the game of seesaw in which both Berlin and Moscow were engaged: I mentioned that we, like Germany, would seek rapprochement in the future with these two countries. I added jokingly that our warm feelings for France and Poland would increase as Germany’s friendship with them grew stronger. Neurath replied that he was not opposed to such ‘rivalry’. 87

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Several readings For Litvinov as for his closest colleagues, including the Soviet representatives in Berlin, Khinchuk and his successor in 1934 Surits, what remained of the Treaty of Rapallo could only serve as a means of achieving their strategy focused henceforth on France. While he remained prudent in his approach to Berlin, Litvinov did not disguise his desire to pursue a wholly antiGerman policy. In a letter to Maisky, he drew an explicit parallel between the mutual assistance pact of May 1935 and the FrancoRussian agreement of 1892: ‘One must remember that there was never an alliance between the tsarist government and France, only an exchange of notes and an agreement between the two high commands’.88 This view was not shared by Krestinsky, deputy commissar and former ambassador in Berlin for ten years during the successful period of the Treaty of Rapallo, who refused to despair of GermanSoviet relations. Differences of opinion were marked from the beginning of 1933. Whereas the Soviet embassy in Paris was busy trying to improve relations with France, Krestinsky was insisting on the maintenance of friendly relations with Germany. Where Rozenberg, a counsellor in the Paris embassy, saw a ‘change in French policy’, he, on the other hand, interpreted it as a ‘shortterm manoeuvre’ aimed at sowing discord between the Soviets and the Germans.89 In December 1933 Krestinsky was still evaluating Soviet decisions in the light of their likely impact in Germany: ‘Entry into the League of Nations is a less clear-cut, less wounding anti-German move than a mutual assistance pact’.90 Krestinsky’s opinions derived from the positions he had held and those he still occupied. Together with David Shtern, the head of the second department dealing with the West, he was responsible for following day-to-day events in Germany.91 This was sufficient for the Foreign Minister in Berlin to consider them both as ‘Germanophiles’ as opposed to Litvinov, whom he judged to be a ‘Francophile’. The same thing was true within the Commissariat for Defence and the high command of the Red Army, where officers who had been engaged in military collaboration with Berlin and still had friends there were thought to be pro-German: There is a strong tendency in Russia for them to distance themselves from us and draw closer to the French. This marked tendency

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is represented at the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs by Litvinov. The majority of Russians are hostile towards us. In my view, while maintaining friendly relations with Russia (without obsequiousness of any kind), we should allow our Russian friends, who still exist on the right of the Party and in military circles, to intervene against Litvinov’s Francophile policy.92

Speeches given by the Soviet leadership were somewhat nuanced. An anti-German attitude was present to a greater or lesser extent and support was sometimes lukewarm for a system of collective security. As opposed to Litvinov, whose political analysis of Germany was rooted in his anti-Nazism, Molotov always showed a certain reserve in his remarks about the German regime. One only has to compare the speeches they made on 28 and 29 December 1933.93 Whereas the People’s Commissar made no concessions in his indictment of Nazism, describing relations with Germany as ‘altered beyond recognition’, provoking an official protest from the German ambassador in Moscow,94 Molotov took great care to draw a distinction between the basic (eternal) structure of Germany and the Germany of the Nazi ideologues, the current face of German politics: Our relations with Germany have always occupied a special place in our conduct of international relations. The USSR, in remaining faithful to its principles – the defence of peace world-wide and the independence of our country – has no reason on its side to change its policy towards Germany. Nevertheless, on the German side, leading groups have made a series of attempts to revise relations with the Soviet Union. Such attitudes are not difficult to find, indeed they are plain to see. One need not dwell on the declarations of Messrs. Rosenberg, Hugenberg and others, which have been written and spoken about enough. One thing is clear to us: until recently, friendly relations between the USSR and Germany were based on their common desire for peace and the development of economic relations. We remain today wholly wedded to these principles. Only by upholding them shall we witness the strength of political and economic cooperation between the USSR and Germany, which is in the interest of both countries and of universal peace. In the meantime, the political line adopted by militant Nazi ideologues, such as Rosenberg and others, is directly opposed to such a policy. It is determined entirely

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by reactionary objectives and plans for imperial conquest and is at odds with any strengthening of friendly relations with the USSR. We also consider it to be incompatible with a great future for Germany.

Molotov here revealed his hope that closer ties with France, which had been forced upon the Soviet Union at the end of 1933, would only be provisional. However, the tone he adopted reflected his position within the power structure of the USSR. Whereas Litvinov, as head of the diplomatic corps, was at the forefront of the campaign to neutralise Germany politically, Molotov, as President of the government, was concerned to maintain good relations between the two states of Germany and the USSR. Stalin’s public position on the German question lay somewhere between the two. In his report to the 17th Party Congress of February 1934, he denounced at some length German fascism and its racist and expansionist theories, maintaining that they now held sway in Germany. He emphasised ‘the change in German policy’ and ‘an increase in feelings of revenge and imperialist tendencies within the country’. He also drew attention to ‘the change which had occurred inasmuch as better relations had been established between the USSR and Poland and between the USSR and France’, saying he looked forward to tangible results and referring to ‘the ultimate success of the undertaking’. All the same, he took care to remind people of an earlier policy and of those who supported it: ‘The “new” policy has clearly replaced the old. It is not a matter of chance that the supporters of the “new” policy have seized the initiative and that those in favour of the old policy find themselves repudiated’.95 Where Stalin differed radically from Litvinov was in his vision of war and peace. As far as the General Secretary of the Party was concerned, peace was not indivisible, as a distinction could be drawn between two kinds of war: anti-Soviet war, which they had to guard against, and imperialist war, which constituted no threat to Soviet security and might even prove beneficial were it to provoke revolutionary crises and weaken the capitalist belligerents. In adopting Litvinov’s policy which sought to neutralise German aggression, Stalin subscribed to the first of these arguments. But the second line of argument, which reflected the dominant opinion of most communists, meant that Stalin refused ‘to endorse warmly the Treaty of Versailles’ and only reluctantly accepted the USSR’s position as a co-defender of inter-imperialist peace.96

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Entering the League of Nations was therefore a difficult step to take for Stalin, even though it might strengthen the security of the USSR, as the Politburo recognised in December 1933: If one disregards the fact that for many years we refused to join the League of Nations and comes to the question of substance, it is clear that, following the withdrawal of Japan and the current German regime from the League, we would start to play a leading role within it and could, in large measure, make it serve the interest of our own security [. . .]97

One has to say that criticism of the League of Nations, referred to as ‘an agency for imperialist businessmen’ and an ‘antiworking-class comedy’, and accused of colonialism and militarism, had punctuated Stalin’s speeches since the beginning of the 1920s.98 When Walter Duranty, the New York Times correspondent in Moscow, asked him on 25 December 1933 what his position was, the phrases he used showed how difficult Stalin found it to speak positively of the Geneva-based organisation: Despite the withdrawal of Germany and Japan from the League of Nations, or perhaps indeed because of that, the League may curb the outbreak of military conflict or delay it. If this is the case, if the League can act as an obstacle to war, in some small measure, and work in favour of peace, then we are not against it. Yes, if historical events unfold in this way, then it is not impossible that we shall support the League of Nations, despite its enormous inadequacies.99

In the spring of 1934 Litvinov had to use all his powers of persuasion in urging Stalin and the Politburo to accept the idea of a Soviet application to join the League at the next Assembly meeting in September, given their continued misgivings as to the value of joining.100 Barthou’s visit to London and British approval on 10 July of the proposed Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact, which Litvinov represented to Stalin as a gesture of ‘enormous importance’, were very favourably received as was the assurance given to the USSR that it would sit as a permanent member of the Council.101 The issue arose again the following year, when Germany officially announced its decision to rearm. Stalin considered rearmament dangerous, yet, at the same time, refused to protest at this

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violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Litvinov raised objections, as he believed it necessary to show solidarity with France.102 A few days previously, Stalin had made the following remark to Sir Anthony Eden, the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, then on a visit to Moscow: ‘A great people like the Germans must free itself from the bonds of Versailles’. This did not prevent him from drawing the necessary conclusions: ‘The nature and circumstances of this withdrawal from the Treaty of Versailles are such that they give us great cause for concern and in order to forestall unpleasant complications, we now need firm assurances. The eastern pact of mutual assistance offers such an assurance’.103 These differences of opinion depend sometimes on the professional position of those concerned, but in most cases they may be read in terms of a specific code. If a global consensus existed between 1933 and 1936 as to the danger represented by Germany and the means at the disposal of the USSR to guard against it, Litvinov, Stalin and Molotov did not use the same ‘grammar’ to decode the outside world. Their differences sometimes gave Moscow’s partners in the West, especially the Germans, the impression that it was possible to influence Soviet foreign policy through certain individuals. Soviet diplomats did the same when they weighed up influential figures in Paris and Berlin whose views were considered friendly towards the Soviet Union. Seeking a firm basis in order to pursue a particular political policy was the work of diplomats everywhere. In the case of both the Soviet Union and Germany, it was in part an illusion, given the nature of the regimes. The Soviet leadership did, however, take full advantage of such differences of opinion, as they represented possible levers in the event of a change of tactics or another swing of the pendulum. Germanophiles versus ‘the anti-fascists’ The Soviet leadership had no desire to aggravate the conflict with Germany and was prepared to do all it could to mitigate and try to reduce sources of tension between the two countries. Thus, in October 1933, the Politburo advocated that they should take advantage of Litvinov’s visit to the United States to organise en route a meeting with von Neurath or even Hitler himself, and let it be known that the USSR was determined to do everything it could to re-establish relations.104 However, tension

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was then at its height. One merely has to recall the Leipzig trial of September 1933, when communists were accused of having set fire to the Reichstag, and the fact that negotiations were taking place with France concerning mutual assistance. Soviet journalists had been denied entry to the courtroom which had led to the expulsion of German journalists from Soviet soil by way of reprisal.105 Periodically, as a consequence of economic negotiations or due to a setback in political relations with France, soundings were again made concerning German intentions vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. At such times, there was a general mobilisation of all those keen to achieve understanding with the Germans. When the discussions which began early in 1934 resulted in a credit agreement on 14 April, Krestinsky expected a parallel gesture of political conciliation which failed to materialise. In addition, on the same day, he was extremely disappointed at Berlin’s refusal to guarantee the independence of the Baltic states, which had been proposed by Litvinov, and he wrote to Khinchuk expressing his inability to understand the reasons for this: Nadolny himself had not expected a negative response, having personally supported our proposal, though with certain reservations, when Litvinov put it to him and in a subsequent discussion with Voroshilov and myself. I would really like to know the underlying reason for their negative decision.106

In 1935, because of shilly-shallying on the part of the French and given that economic negotiations were taking place between Germany and the USSR, Litvinov had to battle hard on numerous occasions to win the argument against those optimists in the Soviet embassy in Berlin who insisted on the weight of pro-Soviet opinion within the Reichswehr and economic circles; the names most often mentioned being Schacht and Goering.107 This was the view taken by Kandelaki, the trade representative, and by Bessonov, a counsellor in the embassy, who was thought to be Molotov’s emissary by his colleague Evgeny Gnedin.108 Bessonov faithfully reported Schacht’s comments on the political benefits which would flow from economic links and the on-going movement towards rapprochement with the USSR, which Hitler knew of and supported.109 Surits, who had been the ambassador since 1934, remained much more circumspect.

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The economic negotiations, concluded in April 1935 with a credit agreement of 200 million marks, created difficulties for the policy of collective security then being pursued by Soviet diplomats. Firstly, these negotiations had raised the hopes of ‘certain comrades’ that Germany would sign the eastern pact, which, in Litvinov’s view, risked slowing negotiations with France over a mutual assistance agreement.110 Then, in reaction to the reality of German rearmament, a committee was set up in Geneva to determine the economic and financial sanctions which would be adopted in the event of subsequent violation of its international obligations by Germany. The Soviet delegate, Hirshfel’d, adopted a firm line, until both Litvinov, who was obliged to consider ‘the politico-commercial circumstances of the USSR’, and the Kremlin told him to show caution.111 When, in June, Schacht offered the USSR credit of 1,000 million marks in exchange for oil and raw materials, opinion was divided as to what the response should be. Litvinov feared it was a ploy on the part of the Germans to poison Franco-Soviet relations in the wake of the signing of a mutual assistance pact. Kandelaki then suggested they test the German government’s good faith by asking for written confirmation of the credit proposal. Finally, the balance tipped in Litvinov’s favour, with him and his deputies going to the Kremlin on a number of occasions between 22 June and 5 July. Kandelaki received orders to ‘reject future discussions on new credits’, while Litvinov clarified matters with the French on 26 June telling Alphand, the ambassador in Moscow, of Germany’s proposal and the Soviet rejection.112 Differences of opinion between Litvinov and Kandelaki can initially be explained by the rivalry already alluded to between the Commissariats for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade. The sole preoccupation of the latter was to develop economic relations for the Soviet Union. Litvinov, on the other hand, always insisted that good trade links had to be subordinated to political relations between the USSR and its partners. When, on 15 July, Kandelaki told Schacht he wanted better German-Soviet relations in advance of any new agreement, it was a sign not of the Soviets’ obsessive desire to get on with Hitler, but rather of the influence of Litvinov’s point of view. He was not happy with the total separation of economic and political relations which the Nazis sought to introduce.

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It is obvious, however, that German-Soviet relations cannot be explained solely in terms of differences between rival factions. Our second illustrative case makes this clear. At the end of November 1935, the Soviet government ordered Surits to develop contacts within German government circles. In doing so, Moscow was following the example of France, worried by the fact that François-Poncet, the French ambassador in Germany, had had talks with first Ribbentrop and then Hitler from the end of October, while Fernand de Brinon, seen by the Soviets as Laval’s special emissary, was in Berlin. Surits’s mission was in the first instance a reaction to Laval’s diplomacy, judged to be pro-German. But it was also one of the soundings Moscow made periodically in German circles. On each occasion, supporters of better Soviet-German relations did all they could to achieve success. The impression that German policy was perhaps changing was doubtless reinforced by the analysis of the German situation made by the Comintern, the Central Committee and by diplomats. All of them realised that Germany was in the throes of a major economic crisis and, with Marxist logic, thought this might weaken Hitler and create political opposition which they ought then to exploit. For his part, Litvinov dispelled any illusions as to a possible German opposition to Hitler. In a note to Stalin on 3 December 1935 he set out to discredit the key figure of Schacht, director of the Reichsbank, seen by Kandelaki and Bessonov as the USSR’s best friend. Having established through Rozenberg and Potemkin that Schacht had told the director of the Bank of France of Germany’s intention to partition Soviet Ukraine with Poland, Litvinov tried to convince Stalin of his unreliability, pointing out that this alleged supporter of the Soviet cause with Hitler, according to Kandelaki, was at the same time subscribing to Hitler’s plan to carve up Soviet territory!113 Like Surits, Litvinov did not consider a reversal of Germany policy possible. On November 28 Surits gave a negative assessment of his various meetings. He had met diplomats (the minister von Neurath, the ambassador Nadolny, and Kriege, a functionary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and Nazis (Goebbels, Rosenberg and Massov, a member of the foreign affairs department of the Nazi Party). He had invited the celebrated Doctor Schacht and General Von Blomberg of the Reichswehr. Emphasising Hitler’s three principal preoccupations – in order of importance: hostility

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towards the Soviet Union, the Jewish question and the Anschluss – he concluded: ‘All the contacts I have had with Germans have only reinforced my previous conviction, namely that Hitler’s hostility towards us remains unaltered and we should not expect any serious changes whatever in the near future’.114 Litvinov warmly endorsed what he said: ‘The conclusions you have reached on the basis of intensified contacts with the Germans have not surprised me in the least [. . .] I have had no illusions about the matter for a long time’.115 Bessonov, on the other hand, sent two reports in December, the first dealing with ‘the prospects of German-Soviet relations’, the second with ‘the attitude of the Reichswehr to the Red Army’. Basing his argument on conversations he had had with a certain number of lower-ranking officials, he concluded, unlike Surits, that ‘there exist in Germany circles and groups interested, for various reasons, in the normalisation of relations with the USSR’. This was true in particular of industrialists, most of the military and part of the diplomatic corps. In his view, conciliatory gestures from Moscow might help to strengthen this tendency in Germany and have some influence on Hitler.116 His argument seemed to carry the day. Surits himself recognised ultimately that something might be achieved with the Germans if the economic negotiations were a success.117 Litvinov took the opposing view, expressing scepticism at the reports of the Soviet embassy in Berlin. He felt there was no political advantage to be gained and thought they were giving ‘substantial support to German fascism’ by placing too many orders in Germany, at a time when it was encountering ‘major difficulties’ on the economic front.118 As far as he was concerned, it was a known fact that certain circles within the Reichswehr and in heavy industry did not support the anti-Soviet stance of the Nazis, but that did not affect Hitler’s foreign policy in any way. Litvinov was indignant at Bessonov’s suggestion that they show goodwill towards Germany: The issue of our mutual relationship is put the wrong way round. It is as if we had withdrawn from the Treaty of Rapallo, had suddenly changed previously established relations, had called for a crusade against Germany, and Germany for her part had been totally passive. And now we have to prove our goodwill and almost apologise for our attitude.119

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The Commissar for Foreign Affairs in fact defended the opposing political view: he argued that relations with Germany should be reduced to the minimum and a very hard line adopted. He put his case to Stalin, expressing quite openly what he thought of those in the Soviet Union who wanted closer relations with Germany. Thus, Litvinov criticised what he referred to as the ‘Tolstoyan position’ adopted by the Soviet press towards Nazi Germany and asked Stalin to order that ‘a systematic counter-campaign against fascism and German fascists’ be launched.120 Firmly underlining the vehemence of German insults against the Soviet Union, he sought to arouse the anger of Stalin, who in no way shared the humanist Christian attitudes Litvinov attributed to Tolstoy and the Soviet press. He was unable, however, totally to counteract the influence which the ‘Germanophiles’ had on Stalin. In fact, the Soviet leadership adopted an intermediate position. Contrary to Litvinov’s advice, it decided to remain open to economic discussions, convinced that Germany was irreplaceable as an economic partner and wanting to maintain contacts with leading figures in Germany. It did not, however, accept that there was a more favourable political climate within Germany towards the Soviet Union, which some claimed they saw. When Schacht proposed new credits of 500 million marks to Kandelaki at the end of 1935, the Soviet government was willing to discuss them, while pointing out that there was no sign of any change in the political attitude of the German government to the USSR.121 The relative success of the ‘Germanophile’ faction in Moscow at the end of 1935 derived in part from the sense of failure surrounding the policy of collective security. The Franco-Soviet pact had still not been ratified, despite Potemkin’s insistence and Litvinov’s interventions, supported by Osusky, the Czech minister in France.122 Soviet diplomats wholly distrusted Laval and, despite all the pressure, the hoped-for government formed by Herriot, which the embassy wanted to see at the end of 1935, did not come about. Litvinov thought that the Premier, together with François-Poncet, supported a policy of appeasement and understanding with Hitler. He was anti-communist and considered the Franco-Soviet pact a mistake rather than a success, and his proItalian stance over the war in Abyssinia helped to discredit the League of Nations and the idea of collective security.123 Indeed both factions – those who supported conciliation with Germany and those who wanted to adopt a firmer line – lacked

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credibility at the end of 1935. Litvinov’s approach was, however, closer to the reality of the situation. There was one established fact: the German-Soviet credit arrangement could not compare with the Franco-Soviet pact. A change of government and a reorientation of political attitudes in favour of the Soviet Union was a much more credible scenario in democratic France than in Hitler’s Germany. The ratification of the Franco-Soviet pact in March 1936 followed by the victory of the Popular Front might have favoured the political line defended by Litvinov. However, at the same time, the remilitarisation of the Rhineland and the Spanish Civil War were factors which emphasised the weakness of France in Soviet eyes and made Germany appear the dominant force in Europe. The Soviet Union had to take these things into account.

The quest for a policy of equidistance The impossible Franco-Soviet military agreement When the Popular Front government came to power, links between France and the Soviet Union were renewed, especially in the military sphere. Certainly, since 1918, France’s ally on the other front had shifted geographically in the thinking of French strategists. Russia was no longer seen as the counterbalance in the east to a threat from Germany; instead, what was referred to as the eastern barrier took its place, formed by the new states which emerged from peace treaties, and above all Poland. According to French military reports, the army in which France had the greatest confidence was that of Poland, and the Red Army did not seem a possible ally in the eyes of the French high command. It was seen at best as offering possible logistical support.124 Yet, the traditional geopolitical vision of a FrancoRussian alliance was deeply embedded in the thinking of a section of both the French and Soviet leadership. With the remilitarisation of the Rhineland reducing the military effectiveness of the network of allies in the east, the alliance again found favour. Litvinov saw the extent to which remilitarisation, by weakening France, could give the Soviet Union a more decisive role than hitherto.125 Allying himself with Alexandrovsky, the Soviet representative in Prague, he addressed a letter to Stalin on 7 September 1936, suggesting it was the right moment to counter

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‘the mood of capitulation’ and implement mutual assistance pacts by negotiating a military agreement, referring to the goodwill of the Czechs and the presence of Léon Blum in the French government.126 During the course of September, he gained Stalin’s support and that of leading members of the Politburo, helped by the fact that supporters of military contacts with France within the Commissariat for Defence were gaining ground. Yakir, who was present as head of mission during a series of manoeuvres by the French army and who had good contacts within its leadership, became a member of the military Council of the Commissariat for Defence.127 At the beginning of September, Tukhachevsky emphasised the need for conversations between the two high commands to Schweisguth, a French general who was present at manoeuvres in Belarus. Discussions began in October on the initiative of Pierre Cot and with the agreement of Léon Blum,128 and, though confined to the air force, they were viewed positively by Potemkin. He considered that ‘well-prepared technical exchanges on possible future joint action by the French and Soviet air forces’ were more worthwhile than ‘somewhat vague general exploratory talks binding noone’.129 Furthermore, Ventsov, the military attaché, proposed an exchange of information about the German army on 21 October and broached the delicate issue of moving Soviet troops across Poland: France is going to help with Polish rearmament. Can she be sure that the current Polish military effort is aimed solely at Germany? Would it not be a good moment to obtain formal guarantees that her arms are not directed at another country (the Soviet Union, in fact)? Should she not use this opportunity to obtain free passage in Eastern Galicia for Soviet troops which might be called upon to intervene in Czechoslovakia under the Czech-Soviet assistance pact? There is no territorial dispute between Poland and the USSR. In the event of conflict with Germany, Soviet industry would be valuable to Poland. Does that not provide a basis for understanding between the two countries? And should not France, as a quid pro quo of its support, put pressure on Poland to sign such an agreement?130

The Rambouillet agreement between France and Poland, signed in September after General Gamelin’s visit to Warsaw, provided for a loan of 2,000 million francs for arms orders spread over four

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years. This agreement worried Moscow as it thought that France was granting unilateral favours to Colonel Beck, the powerful Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs. It did, however, consider it an opportune moment to press the French military to intervene on its behalf with the Poles.131 At the beginning of November, a wide-ranging discussion took place within Léon Blum’s government to decide whether or not the French high command should engage in talks with its Soviet counterpart. As a result of differences of opinion, no decision was taken. Potemkin concluded they should be patient and that the outcome was uncertain.132 In addition to disagreements within the French government, there were very negative reports from the French high command and especially General Schweisguth, which the Soviet intelligence services transmitted to Stalin in November.133 Potemkin then received new directives from Moscow: On the basis of very reliable information in our possession, I have to inform you for your guidance that the French military authorities are vehemently opposed to a Franco-Soviet pact and speak openly about it [. . .] You will have to act on this basis, recognising that we in no way want to speed up negotiations, nor do we wish them to suspect that we ourselves are backing away.134

Potemkin took note and, with his military colleagues, made no further moves, acknowledging what he referred to as ‘the lukewarm attitude of his comrades in the leadership towards FrancoSoviet military contacts’.135 At first sight, it might appear that the entire responsibility for this failure rested with France and one might interpret the Soviet disengagement which became apparent in the following months as a natural reaction to the lack of goodwill and the anti-Soviet attitude of the French high command. This, however, would be too simple. From the outset, the Franco-Soviet relationship was unsatisfactory to both parties. The French had two grievances, firstly the non-repayment of Russian loans and secondly the impression that the Franco-Soviet rapprochement was bolstering the rapid spread of communist propaganda at the time of the Popular Front. The French also suspected Stalin of having hidden motives, thinking that he might be counting on a war between

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France and Germany which would then allow him to play arbitrator in a weakened Europe.136 There were also numerous drawbacks on the Soviet side. The relationship with France did not have the same economic advantages that the USSR obtained from Germany. Moreover, technical cooperation with France on the military front, which the Soviets had considered important since 1932, had not lived up to their expectations. Though they had been interested in French naval equipment, the only exchanges occurred in the aeronautical field, which was of only moderate interest to them. The support they received from Pierre Cot and his chief military adviser, Colonel Jauneaud, was not matched in the other armed services, where there was great reluctance to do anything.137 Ventsov referred to a lack of goodwill on the part of Daladier and the Ministry of the Navy in a note of 15 July 1936.138 At the end of 1936, Schneider also refused to fulfil Soviet orders for naval equipment after months of negotiations, using as a pretext possible nationalisation which would jeopardise existing contracts. Potemkin was disgusted at this. He referred to it as a totally unexpected refusal and went on: I warned Daladier and Blum at the time that the stance adopted by the French government in relation to our orders for military equipment in France would be a sort of test, showing whether they were willing to contribute to the strengthening of our military capability. I believe this is the right moment to say to the French that the outcome is not satisfactory.139

The Soviet Union was hardly more cooperative in terms of technical exchanges. Neither party wished to contribute to the development and modernisation of the other’s army. With the exception of the air force, which was newer and less conservative, and whose minister, Pierre Cot, was friendly towards the Soviet union, the Red Army was not seen as an ally. In Moscow’s eyes the French army remained a capitalist army, and was therefore a potential enemy. What interested the Commissariat for Defence was the unilateral reinforcement of the Red Army through the purchase of foreign prototypes. Thus, Voroshilov stubbornly refused to sell planes to the French so long as Soviet orders were not honoured. The same thing happened with Czechoslovakia, with Benes asking for technical aid and bombers and the Soviet Union complaining of its difficulties obtaining guns from Skoda, the principal Czech arms

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manufacturer.140 In the end, the only supporters of genuine mutual cooperation were those directly involved, namely members of the Soviet embassy in Paris and the Air Ministry on the French side. Furthermore, the main objective of the Soviets, when they entered into military negotiations with Paris in September and October 1936, was to engage France against Hitler and to disengage her from her ‘British tutelage’. Since the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, the Soviets considered war to be imminent. In March 1936 the proposal to react to a German attack with collective sanctions had been supported by Soviet diplomats, who hoped that France and Britain, as signatories of the Pact of Locarno, would take military action against Hitler.141 It was not to be, and for Litvinov and Maisky this was a sign that the French government was under the thumb and the influence of Britain. If remilitarisation lessened any chance of France giving practical aid to its allies in the East, it also showed that aggressive action on Hitler’s part might be directed at the West, and this did not escape the attention of leaders in the Kremlin.142 Since 1935 Stalin had entertained the hope that war might begin against France, but it remained a remote possibility until March 1936.143 Thereafter, the likelihood increased, with the Soviet Union no longer being the inevitable target of Nazi aggression. In articles and speeches published at the time, an isolationist tone came more markedly to the fore once again.144 Responding to questions from the correspondent of Le Temps on 19 March 1936, Molotov raised openly the possibility of Germany beginning a war in the West and, in a veiled threat, alluded to the Soviet Union maybe adopting a policy of appeasement with Berlin. Varga, an economic expert on the Central Committee and director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics, emphasised that in his view a war between imperialist powers within the capitalist economic system was inevitable.145 This new perspective affected Soviet policy towards France. Entering into talks with the aim of achieving a possible military agreement offered a means of pressing the French government to adopt a firmer policy towards Germany. Soviet diplomats also hoped to persuade the Popular Front government to intervene in Spain, where the civil war had being going on since the summer of 1936, and to support a fellow popular front government against the rebel forces of Franco. In August the Soviet Union accepted the policy of non-intervention proposed by France and Britain.

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Maisky and Kagan, who were members of the committee responsible for enforcing it which met in London, were counting on fascist violation of the agreement to persuade France to intervene jointly with the USSR. At the end of September, when the Politburo decided to abandon the policy of non-intervention and to give military help to Republican Spain, Soviet diplomats in Europe still hoped to persuade the French leadership to change its mind, by drawing attention to the efficacy of a firmer line.146 In the French Communist Party press and in conversations at the embassy, constant references were made to the threat which a Spain ruled by Franco would pose to the security of France. On 21 October 1936, Ventsov made the following observation to the head of the 2nd Bureau: Franco is receiving significant military aid from Germany and Italy. It will be repaid, perhaps, in the form of the transfer of territory in the Balearics or in Morocco, or more likely in the form of economic concessions. Is it in the interest of France to allow Germany to become the dominant influence in Spain?147

But the Blum government disappointingly failed to intervene. The Quai d’Orsay took the necessary steps in November to let Moscow know that there was no chance of France intervening in Spain, that the spread of revolutionary activity hindered better FrancoSoviet relations, and that Franco-British solidarity was as strong as ever.148 Eidemann, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council who was on a visit to France in connection with the joint Franco-Soviet air force collaboration, came to the following conclusion: ‘The French position regarding Spain will doubtless remain unchanged. Blum’s petit-bourgeois government is too cowardly and too anxious to view things from every angle to take decisive action’.149 Litvinov, for his part, pencilled the following observation on a report sent by Boris Shtein, then a Soviet delegate in Geneva: ‘France has given striking evidence of her weakness and indecision’.150 Though the tone adopted by diplomats and military men was different, their conclusions were the same. One policy against another The disillusionment felt by Soviet diplomats was all the greater because, since the summer of 1936, they had put forward proposals,

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with the active support of the French, in an attempt to create a coherent policy to strengthen the collective security of Europe. Litvinov and his colleagues wanted to establish ‘an Anglo-FrancoSoviet arrangement’,151 working with the French who supported the idea, and especially Joseph Paul-Boncour. Thus, when France proposed, on 5 August 1936, that the Soviet Union should support a non-intervention agreement in relation to the Spanish Civil War, Litvinov was well disposed towards the idea and obtained the backing of the Politburo, despite Krestinsky’s reservations about certain passages in the text.152 Furthermore, in July 1936 the Assembly and the Council of the League of Nations, in accordance with a British proposal, had called upon Joseph Avenol, the secretary general of the Geneva based organisation, to coordinate the different proposals aimed at improving the implementation of the principles enshrined in its pact.153 The government of the Soviet Union was one of the first to respond. The British wanted to remove any constraints from the sanctions imposed on an aggressor as a way of bringing Germany back to Geneva. The Soviets, on the other hand, sought to strengthen article 16 relating to military sanctions against the aggressor.154 The aim of the Soviet plan was to involve the League of Nations in support of the various pacts of mutual assistance by increasing the speed and efficiency of decision making within the Council. Rejecting the principle of unanimity, which was almost impossible to obtain (especially if Germany were the aggressor), while envisaging the obligatory imposition of sanctions by everyone, the aim of the plan was to make the pacts more effective, by speeding up decisions of the Council and dissociating it from military action on the ground. Having obtained Stalin’s agreement, Litvinov gave a copy of the document to Joseph Avenol on 22 August 1936.155 Litvinov, Surits and Maisky wanted to forge ahead. Litvinov prepared various plans which he sent to the Kremlin, in anticipation of the annual assembly of the League of Nations which was to open on 7 September. Kaganovich, who stood in for Stalin while the latter was on holiday in Sochi, only redirected them to the ‘boss’ on 14 September with a somewhat lukewarm comment: ‘None of these issues has any immediate significance. We did however promise him that we would pass them on. If you consider them crucial at the present juncture, please let me have your thoughts’.156 Contained in the proposals put forward by the diplomats was the

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idea of a pan-European mutual assistance pact, which had been mooted since the spring by both Soviet and other European supporters of collective security, and which seemed to Maisky a good way of involving Britain more directly in matters relating to European security.157 At the beginning of September, Litvinov saw it as a way of countering the Franco-British inclination to abandon central Europe and the pro-German leanings of Italy: Germany’s forceful foreign policy and the colossal increase in her armaments frighten many states, turning them away from defensive alliances and pacts of mutual assistance, sowing doubts as to the efficacy of such pacts, and, in particular, their ability to deter German military intervention. Is it not time to raise the issue of a unified and powerful defensive bloc? What I am referring to, if I may put it this way, is the consolidation of the disparate alliances and pacts which exist in Europe and are directed against Germany and the other revisionist countries. A general pact of mutual assistance against any aggressor, involving the USSR, France, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and Turkey, which together have a total population of about 275 million people, might encourage Germany to become more reasonable and to change its political stance [. . .] Such a bloc would win respect both in Great Britain and Italy, and, even if they did not join, they would be sympathetic to its objectives, namely to curb Germany.158

Far from being a vague project for Litvinov and Maisky, it kept them busy until November. At the beginning of November 1936, just as Mussolini announced the creation of the Rome-Berlin axis, Litvinov wrote to Maisky saying that all was not lost and that the ‘panic’ within French government circles at the formation of the Axis and Belgium’s return to neutrality might serve as a warning signal and encourage Blum and Paul-Boncour to give some serious thought to the matter. Litvinov seemed to interpret this European spasm as offering one last chance and fervently hoped for some action on the part of the British, ‘even if it was no more than a gesture’. Yet he feared that the Labour defeat in the municipal elections might restrain Eden in his dealings with the League of Nations and quickly strengthen ‘the position of those friendly to Hitler in Great Britain’.159 But Britain’s promise of military aid to France and Belgium in the event of an attack came too late – much to Litvinov’s displeasure:

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‘If it had only been said sooner and more often, Hitler’s position would have been different’.160 Litvinov had also drawn up a strange plan for the League of Nations. Like André Tardieu in 1932, he proposed that an international air force be set up under the aegis of the League to implement military sanctions. According to him, the Soviet leadership would now accept measures such as this, whereas a few years earlier there had been opposition.161 The Soviet Union ought to be able to announce its willingness to put more than 300 of its planes at the disposal of the League. Of course, a plan such as this only had propaganda value for its author. Knowing full well that a measure of this kind had no chance of being adopted, it was a question of demonstrating the forceful role of the USSR in safeguarding peace and also of having a positive impact on public opinion.162 Extremely watered down elements of these plans could be seen in interventions Litvinov made to the Assembly in Geneva at the end of September. On 28 September, proposing a ‘universal agreement’, he suggested as the framework for talks a peace conference or the committee for European Union as the best forum for settling political issues, but only envisaged binding agreements on members in the event of a European state refusing to participate (a reference to Germany).163 He made no mention of an international air force. It has to be said that his proposals received only a lukewarm response from the Politburo. At the end of September, in spite of objections from Litvinov who was anxious to maintain Anglo-French-Soviet solidarity, Stalin took the initiative and decided to break the non-intervention agreement and give military aid to Republican Spain.164 On 21 September it was decided to send Antonov-Ovseenko to Barcelona as consul to counterbalance Marcel Rozenberg, a close ally of Litvinov and judged to be too moderate.165 On 28 September the question of Spain was discussed and, in an uneasy atmosphere, the decision was taken to send cargoes of military equipment there.166 The threat posed by Franco was increasingly worrying, and a wave of solidarity with Spain on the part of communist parties and the Soviet people continued to grow. In the autumn of 1936, the Soviet leadership did not want Franco to win: Things are going badly in Spain. The whites are getting closer to Madrid. I am sending you a few communiqués which reveal the

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situation. We have given them some help, and not just foodstuffs. Now, we are proposing to do more by way of tanks and planes. For a start, this is technically very difficult and then there is little organisation and order on their side. Our party is still not up to much and the anarchists are behaving as one would expect them to. Thus, despite the willingness to fight at the grassroots level, organisation and leadership on the ground are bad, and it is difficult for us to do much about it. However, we should in no way consider the position of Madrid hopeless, as the coded telegrams of our ambassador suggest. He is not fully in the picture. At the boss’s instigation, we have sent AntonovOvseenko to Barcelona as consul, and he may be better than Rozenberg. If we shared a common border with Spain, then we really would have been in a position to supply aid. But events in Spain and the way things have developed there, reveal the strength of our great people and the depth of its international awareness and sentiments.167

The policy of non-intervention was, however, denounced in several stages. On 7 October 1936 the Soviet representative on the London committee gave an initial warning that non-intervention was no longer preventing military aid from being sent to the rebels by fascist states. On 12 October a Soviet proposal was put to the committee that controls should be imposed at Portuguese ports by the French and British fleets. On 23 October Maisky announced that the Soviet Union would no longer be bound under the non-intervention agreement while other members failed to respect it.168 Nevertheless, continuing negotiations over controls meant that he could still take part in discussions. All these initiatives, which had as their objective Soviet freedom of action to assist the Republicans in Spain, were taken by Stalin himself. The decision to intervene was represented by Kaganovich as liberating, and Litvinov’s policy of following the lead set by the French and the British had always conflicted with those whose politics were imbued with a partisan and anticapitalist spirit: In general terms, things are not going badly. We have very good relations with the boss. The most recent declarations concerning Spain were made on his initiative and drafted by him, which doubtless you could tell from the style ‘straight to the point, concise, spirited’. Our declaration has had an astounding effect. They [the British and the

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French] thought we were being tamed and that we would lend our name to this shameful hypocrisy, but once again they were mistaken. This has raised the morale of the Spanish, and especially as deeds have followed words, since the declaration was made. We have sent . . . Thus, comrade, is revealed the great dialectic of politics, which our illustrious friend and father understands to perfection. Now, obtuse bourgeois politicians, and especially journalists, exclaim ‘Stalin wants to blow a hole in the agreement’, though they close their eyes to the fact that it is being sabotaged. Stalin does not wish to play any part in the cowardly suppression of the Spanish Republic. On the contrary, he wants to help Spanish Republicans suppress the fascists.169

Strong political support and solidarity with Spain won the backing of most communist leaders and militants. At the extraordinary 8th Congress of the Soviets, Litvinov drew attention to the unjust nature of the non-intervention agreement, which ‘certainly went against usual conventions of international relations whereby arms of any kind can be provided by one government to another which it recognises, and according to which such provision is forbidden to rebels in a country with which diplomatic relations are maintained’.170 Even though he officially denounced the policy of non-intervention, Litvinov firmly supported it. Within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, there was a range of opinions. In Maisky’s view, only two attitudes were defensible: a complete ban on all intervention or decisive intervention. Moscow had rejected the first of these, so the second had to be implemented with no half measures: We have adopted a different position [rather than non-intervention] in relation to Spain and, as you rightly pointed out in your letter to Rozenberg, this has worsened to some degree our relations with Britain and France. From a political point of view, that is certainly a minus, but it would be largely offset by a Republican victory in Spain, because victory would deal a serious blow to Hitler’s and Mussolini’s aggressive tendencies, and would increase enormously the international prestige of the Soviet Union. [. . .] If only our strength were clearly visible in Spain, France and Britain would, within a short time, be ‘favourably disposed’ towards us once again, and doubly so. However, were we to stop giving aid to the Spanish in the near future, Franco would be victorious, and the political consequences of the whole business would be extremely damaging for us. The threat of

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war would be closer, our prestige would diminish, and, because of Spain, mistrust of the USSR would be reawakened in France and Britain and would remain for a long time a major obstacle to any Franco-British-Soviet alliance.171

For Maisky, the consequences of a Republican victory in Spain could be enormously important: ‘The threat of war would be averted and the formation of a bloc of peaceful states around us would represent a great step forward’. His conclusion was that they had to see it through – until Franco was defeated. Where he differed from Litvinov was essentially in his assessment of the likelihood of a Republican victory. The People’s Commissar, like the ambassador on the ground, Marcel Rozenberg, did not think it likely: It is unfortunate that on the Republican side there is a great deal of enthusiasm, but also a lack of discipline, organisation and a single command structure, whereas on the opposing side there is total discipline, a single high command and regiments trained to fight. Of course, we are aware of the negative aspects on one side only, and it is possible there are many unknown weaknesses in the Franco camp, but the way things are unfolding does not lead me to be optimistic at the present time.172

Furthermore, he thought that intervention on the part of the Soviet Union, which was necessarily limited because of the distance, would not really alter the situation of the Republicans. Maisky, on the contrary, felt it was a decisive factor. Finally, Litvinov worried about the risks involved in the Soviet intervention in Spain, whereas Maisky rejected such fears: You are afraid that in the near future ships of ours may be captured by the Germans and the Italians [. . .] Hitler is not yet ready for a largescale war and it is unlikely that Mussolini ever will be. At the present time, they have decided not to engage us in a serious conflict.173

The events of October and November 1936 seemed to justify Maisky’s analysis of the situation, as Soviet aid contributed to the successful defence of Madrid against Franco’s forces, and Soviet fighter planes and tanks demonstrated the technical capabilities of Soviet military equipment during the fighting.174 In a

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telegram he sent on 17 December, Maisky pointed out how impressed the British had been, including some in government circles, by the presence of this ‘force in Europe’, demonstrating clearly the indivisibility of peace and ‘capable of saying “Stop” to Hitler and Mussolini’.175 The Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, Sir Orme Sargent, wrote as follows: ‘The Soviet government has saved the government in Madrid which everyone expected to collapse and has since organised it in such a way that it may still be victorious. Soviet intervention has indeed completely changed the situation’.176 Soviet aircraft also made a strong impression on the Air Ministry in France. During a Soviet technical mission to France in December 1936, Boussotrot, the president of the parliamentary commission on aviation, his deputy André, and a number of French officers ‘applauded the remarkable achievements of Soviet planes in Madrid, which crushed the Germans and Italians’. Eideman, the head of the mission, said in his report to Voroshilov: ‘One can confirm without exaggeration that the way the war has unfolded in Spain has significantly increased the status of our aircraft and their technical capabilities, as well as of our aircrews in the eyes of the French’.177 The intervention in Spain demonstrated the growing strength of Soviet military power and was an example of active anti-fascism. Conversely, Litvinov’s misgivings seemed to be borne out in the spring of 1937 with military defeats on the ground and the risk of the conflagration spreading beyond Spain. On 29 May, the German battleship Deutschland was attacked by Republican planes, bringing reprisals from German planes which bombed Almería on 31 May. There were fears in Moscow, and especially in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, of an escalation of violence.178 Litvinov felt that, from the beginning, Indalecio Prieto, the Spanish Minister for National Defence, had been a war-monger, opposed to any idea of restraint.179 The head of the diplomatic corps distrusted a Spanish government which he considered irresponsible: 1. We should recognise that the position of Negrin and Prieto, who insist on active measures being taken against Germany after the events in Almería, is probably not based solely on feelings ‘of wounded Spanish national pride’. Indeed, at one point, Prieto stated that the solution to the Spanish problem was a broadening

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of the conflict into a more general war. For this reason, Prieto possibly takes the same view today, thinking that, by retaliating against the German fleet, a European war might be provoked in which Spain would cease to be the principal theatre of action. 2. Our aim must be to curb ill-conceived actions on the part of the Spanish government which would only weaken the position of the Spanish Republic. Secondly, we should act to calm those elements within Spain which are inclined to panic in the face of an open threat of war by Germany and Italy against Republican Spain. Thirdly, we should demonstrate clearly to international public opinion how the Soviet government reacts to the fascist aggression in Almería. Fourthly, we should prevent open war by Germany and Italy against the Spanish Republic by putting forward measures to ensure international order, which might be supported by Britain and France, acceptable to the Spanish government and could not be rejected by Germany and Italy.180

Thus, the Soviet Union requested the Spanish government to avoid all acts of aggression against German warships and to ask instead for their withdrawal and to demand that fascist states no longer be allowed to participate in control measures. For its part, the Soviet Union would demand a condemnation of the bombing of Almería from the London Committee. At the same time, Litvinov considered Maisky’s actions on the Committee too radical and his attitude of systematic opposition (based on his conviction that non-intervention was about to collapse) puerile and dangerous: ‘One has the impression that Britain in agreement with France is proposing various measures to calm the situation in Spain and prevent war and that we are causing it all to fail’.181 The fear of becoming involved in military action against fascist states because of the Spanish government was an important element in Soviet politics in the spring of 1937. Together with the ideological objectives of reinforcing Stalinism and fighting against Trotskyism, it was certainly an important factor in the infiltration of the Republican government apparatus which was increasing at the time.182 It would be false to oppose interventionism, motivated uniquely by ideological considerations, on the one hand, and non-intervention, explicable solely in terms of political realism, on the other. The supporters of military aid and those who spoke

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out on behalf of non-intervention had different perceptions of the balance of forces in Spain and of the political policy which would bring the greatest benefits and prestige to the Soviet Union. Diplomatic calculations entered into the thinking on both sides. ‘Competent Comrades’ carry the day Discussions with France over military matters and mixed fortunes in the Spanish Civil War influenced Stalin’s policy towards Germany. On occasions he would try to mollify the German government, at others he sought to intimidate them. These fluctuations, already apparent in 1935, reflected the Kremlin’s new conviction, which differed from Litvinov’s, that war between Germany and the USSR was not the only eventuality. As a consequence, foreign policy towards Germany was no longer conciliatory out of fear of being attacked. Its aim was also to highlight the importance of the USSR so that Hitler and those around him would understand the advantages of Soviet neutrality in the war which was looming. In July the view shared by Litvinov and his colleagues that they should not negotiate with Germany again found favour with ‘comrades in the leadership’.183 The arguments put forward by Soviet diplomats were accepted, namely that economic negotiations with Berlin were pointless, since Britain had signed a trade agreement with the USSR and there was no reason therefore to support politically the German regime. As a result of a decision taken by the Politburo, Surits was instructed to bring the discussions to a conclusion by making impossible demands: he was to propose Soviet orders for military equipment.184 From September, however, there were disagreements amongst them. Following ‘fierce and abusive’ speeches by Hitler, Goebbels and Rosenberg at Nuremberg, Surits demanded on 11 September that the USSR should respond with a note of complaint, that speeches should be made in public and that shipments of raw materials should be halted. Litvinov, who two months later was to tell Coulondre, the French representative in Moscow, that ‘the absence of an ambassador was more in tune with the present state of German-Soviet relations’,185 supported Surits’s demands made to Kaganovich, still standing in for Stalin then on holiday in Sochi:

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I believe that our passive and tolerant attitude towards such speeches in the past has given rise to those made today and will encourage even more violent speeches in the future. Our disdainful silence on these occasions is not fully understood in the outside world. I do not think that Hitler wishes to break off relations or provoke us into doing so. He engages in these outbursts against us which are unprecedented in international affairs, precisely because he is certain we will not break off relations so as not to compromise our peace initiatives. I support comrade Surits’s proposal that we send a note and make strong speeches, but I do not believe that settling our debts in gold rather than in raw materials will have any noticeable impact on Germany. We have no raw materials which Germany cannot obtain from other countries in exchange for gold.186

Kaganovich forwarded Litvinov’s request to Stalin with his own negative comment on it. He said he supported totally the tactics proposed by the General Secretary a month previously and which had been in place throughout 1935, that they should ‘not give way to hysteria but preserve a calm, reserved attitude’.187 Stalin agreed with him and Litvinov’s request was rejected. From November 1936 onwards in his correspondence with diplomats, Litvinov frequently dissociated himself from the orders he sent out, stating that they were the views of ‘competent comrades’. One senses, on the part of diplomats, some uncertainty as to the fundamental nature of the policy being pursued. Should they still be trying to establish closer ties with France? Soviet diplomats in Paris did just this, yet did not know how far they should go. In the face of difficulties over military negotiations with France, Moscow tried to normalise relations with Berlin in December 1936, following various overtures from the Germans.188 Soviet diplomats saw it as one way of bringing pressure to bear on the French leadership, but it is likely that Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich took a different view, agreement with France not being high on their list of priorities.189 For reasons of trade, but also doubtless to create a diversion and to prevent the establishment of closer ties with France, Hermann Goering, through his cousin Herbert who was close to people within the Soviet embassy, asked to meet Surits. Moscow accepted and the meeting between them took place on 14 December.190 If Goering insisted on the apolitical nature of economic relations,

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the demands put to Kandelaki by Schacht at the end of December were, from Surits’s point of view, political in nature and made clear what the Soviet Union had to do: withdraw from Spain, distance itself from France and Czechoslovakia, cease its policy of encircling Germany with a ring of semi-Sovietised states.191 In Litvinov’s view, it was a tactical ploy aimed at the British and French governments: Berlin wished the rumour to spread of normal relations being established between Germany and the USSR in order to make the British and French more inclined to negotiate and give needed financial support to the German economy.192 On 8 January 1937, the ‘draft oral response to be given by Kandelaki’, confirmed by Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Ordzhonikidze and Voroshilov, proposed the opening of political talks in Berlin: The Soviet government has not only never turned down political negotiations with the German government, but has in its time put specific political proposals to Germany. The Soviet government categorically affirms that its policy is not directed against the interests of the German people. This is why it is now ready to enter into negotiations with the German government to improve mutual relations and in the interests of a wider peace. The Soviet government does not reject direct negotiations conducted through official diplomatic representatives. It is also ready to treat them as confidential and not to divulge anything either about our last talks or those which will take place, if this is what the German government demands.193

The Soviet proposal to enter into negotiations was conveyed by Kandelaki to Schacht on 29 January, and at the beginning of February Litvinov was convinced that the Germans would follow suit.194 However, it remained to be confirmed and Surits made clear that what transpired in January 1937 and in his interviews with Neurath and Schacht had not led to the full and firm confirmation of Moscow’s position. As far as the ambassador was concerned, any real change in German policy remained extremely hypothetical. After a long silence, Schacht finally informed Surits on 21 March 1937 that there was no likelihood of talks taking place in the near future.195 Given the absence of results on the French side, both the Soviet leadership and the diplomats were in favour of discussions with Berlin. But each had a different agenda. Within the Commissariat

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for Foreign Affairs it was hoped as a consequence that France would be pressed into making rapid decisions in favour of the Soviet Union. The main purpose of contacts with the Germans seemed to be to put pressure on French politicians. This indeed was the view held in Berlin by von Neurath and Hitler and in the Foreign Office by Sir Robert Vansittart.196 The leaking of information about the secret talks in Berlin was done both by the Germans and the Soviets who were gathering the reactions to these rumours in Geneva and Paris. The rumours themselves lasted longer and were more intense than what happened in reality, since the German-Soviet talks never really got off the ground. At the beginning of 1937 rumours circulating referred to military contacts as well as diplomatic talks. In January 1937 Benes was informed by Mastny, his representative in Berlin, of close links between members of the Red Army and of the Reichswehr. He notified Blum who, from then on, became much more reluctant for France to become involved in close ties with the USSR.197 This disinformation emanating both from the NKVD and the Gestapo about alleged contacts between the Red Army and the Reichswehr became part of the evidence used by the Kremlin to prosecute those members of the Red Army, such as Tukhachevsky, accused of complicity with the enemy (Nazi Germany) who were arrested at the end of May and sentenced to death on 11 June 1937. The background of these events involving Germany had an effect on Franco-Soviet relations at two levels. It pushed France into making a few gestures to avert the possible re-establishment of a German-Soviet agreement. It created a wait-and-see attitude on the part of the Soviets, who told their representatives in Paris on several occasions to do nothing. At the end of December, Potemkin referred to a reawakening of interest in a possible military agreement with the USSR on the part of France: ‘It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that our friends will move from words to actions’.198 At the time when the Politburo was agreeing to enter into negotiations with Berlin, Semenov, the new Soviet military attaché in France, was summoned by General Schweisguth.199 The French high command was expecting the USSR to indicate what aid the Red Army would give France in the conflict with Germany. Semenov had no illusions as to the significance of his approach, as he did not believe the high command wanted to have links with

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the Red Army.200 While acknowledging the crude and clumsy way the General’s deputy had raised the subject when talking to Semenov, putting it down to his poor German, Potemkin viewed the approach of the French high command in a positive light.201 He intended to remind the French government of its obligation to fulfil Soviet arms orders and to open direct and substantive negotiations between the two high commands.202 But Litvinov wrote saying he was to do nothing and to wait, referring to the attitude of the leadership: I consider your declaration to Léger concerning the desirability of direct and substantive negotiations between official representatives of the high commands a little premature. Unlike you, I would be aware if Moscow was inclined to enter into such negotiations, and I strongly doubt whether that is the case.203

Though it avoided pressing for substantive discussions between the high commands, the USSR nonetheless gave an official reply to the French request on 8 January. It reminded France of the need for Soviet troops to cross Poland and Romania and made clear that if, for ‘incomprehensible reasons’, these countries opposed such movements, ‘Soviet help would necessarily be limited’. Potemkin emphasised that the Soviet navy would have a crucial role to play in getting troops to France and deploying aircraft. This was a clear reminder of the difficulties encountered by the Soviet Union when it had ordered naval equipment from Schneider. Finally, the Soviets wanted to know exactly what help the French might offer.204 It took some time for the French to give their response. On 10 April Daladier informed Potemkin that France could not provide the USSR with military equipment, since it needed all its resources for its own use; furthermore, he suggested that Poland and Romania were most unlikely to accept the passage of Soviet troops. It was at this point that Litvinov felt it necessary to put an end to the rumours. On 17 April he sent the following telegram to Hirshfel’d in Paris and to Alexandrovsky in Prague: Assure the Minister for Foreign Affairs that rumours circulating abroad about our rapprochement with Germany are without foundation. We have not and will not conduct any negotiations with the Germans, which must be clear, despite the simultaneous recall of our

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plenipotentiary and trade representative. Clearly, the Germans and the Poles have spread these rumours for reasons we do not understand.205

Did these rumours have any impact on the French government? On 21 April Pierre Cot suggested they had had a positive effect, but that they should not be allowed to persist any longer.206 It is true that, at the beginning of May, with Delbos’s help, he succeeded in re-launching the question of military cooperation, and Léon Blum authorised a renewed initiative involving contacts between the high commands of the two air forces. Yvon Delbos also had in mind an exchange of information through military attachés, which France had with its other allies. As he told Eden, it was a matter of responding to the Soviet request which would prove the least restrictive, as any deferment might reinforce Soviet suspicions and risk turning the USSR away from France.207 Within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, they were moving towards a more long-term policy as far as France was concerned, and no longer considered immediate discussions between the high commands a principal objective. It was a question of preparing the ground for a possible change of government and especially a change of policy. They also wanted to gain the support of those who might ultimately recognise that France should have its own political policy independent of that of Great Britain. Concerning a possible visit to Moscow by Camille Chautemps and Paul Reynaud, Potemkin wrote that they were interesting individuals and could expect support and a friendly reception in Moscow. He also pointed out that Litvinov considered such a visit by Paul Reynaud highly desirable and in the interest of the USSR.208 Potemkin, for his part, asked Hirshfel’d to talk to the leaders of the French Communist Party and stop them from criticising Léger and Daladier: Convince him [Gabriel Péri] that greater restraint towards Léger and Daladier would really help us in our dealings with these people. Make it clear to him in particular that Léger will be working in the MID [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] after the likely replacement of Delbos. You can also point out to him that, in matters of interest to us regarding Franco-Soviet collaboration, Léger’s position is currently clearcut and positive. He has proved this, as you know, in his conversation with Delbos concerning the need for the French government to preserve a certain independence over technical contacts between our high commands.209

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The outcome of Litvinov’s stay in Paris, where he met Delbos and Blum, was judged to be positive.210 The reports received from all the Soviet diplomats seemed to suggest that a new phase in Franco-Soviet relations would begin during May, following the prevarications and political swings between Berlin and Paris which occurred at the beginning of 1937. But it was to prove illusory. In June the purges in the Soviet Union dealt a serious blow to Franco-Soviet relations. On 21 June Potemkin referred to the extremely negative consequences of the purges of military personnel, which led the international press to cast doubt on the military power of the Soviet Union and on the stability of the regime. The purges also stirred up strong opposition to the Franco-Soviet pact, and the French high command congratulated itself on having rejected any form of military alliance with Moscow.211 In the spring of 1937, internal issues took precedence and the strengthening of Stalin’s power within the USSR became the primary objective. Did that mean that all the energy and financial resources expended by diplomats in the preceding years were entirely wasted in their attempt to foster Franco-Soviet friendship and to promote pro-Soviet attitudes in the West?

Notes 1. The following authors defend one or another of these arguments: Gerhard Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power. The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941 (New York: Norton, 1990); Jiri Hochman, The Soviet Union and the Failure of Collective Security (New York: Ithaca, 1984). 2. Jonathan Haslam and Geoffrey Roberts emphasise this: Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1930–1933, and The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–1939 (London: Macmillan, 1984); G. Roberts, The Unholy Alliance. Stalin’s Pact with Hitler (London: Tauris, 1989), and The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War. 3. See J. Bariéty, ‘Les relations internationales en 1932–1933. Documents français; études étrangères’, Revue historique, no. 2, 1967, pp. 347–64; C. Bloch, Le IIIe Reich et le monde (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1986); M. Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord. La Politique française en matière de désarmement, 9 décembre 1930–17 avril 1934 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1981).

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4. Report to the 3rd session of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, 23 January 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16 (Moscow, 1970), no. 22, p. 50. 5. Resolution of the Political Secretariat of the Comintern, 5 June 1931, RGASPI, 495/20/727. On the analyses of Nazism within the Comintern, see P. Ayçoberry, La Question nazie. Les interprétations du national-socialisme, 1922–1975 (Paris: Seuil, coll. ‘Points’, 1979). 6. Speech by Litvinov to the 4th session of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, 29 December 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, p. 785. 7. There are several references to the book in the diplomatic correspondence between Litvinov and the ambassadors referred to, APE FR, collection 05, passim. 8. Letter from Khinchuk to Krestinsky, 28 April 1932, DVP SSSR, vol. 15 (Moscow, 1969), p. 287. 9. Quoted in O. Ken and A. Rupassov, Politburo TsK VKP (b) i otnoshenya SSSR s zapadnymi sosednimi gosudarstvami [The Politburo and Soviet relations with neighbouring Western states], vol. 1 (1928–1934) (St Petersburg: Evropeïskii dom, 2000), p. 262. 10. Letter from Manuilsky to Kaganovich, 26 December 1931, RGASPI, 17/120/61. 11. Marshal M. N. Tukhachevsky, 1893–1937 gg. Komplekt dokumentov iz fondov RGVA [Marshall M. N. Tukhachevsky (1893–1937). Documents from the collection of the Russian Military Archives] (Moscow, 1994). 12. Note from Litvinov to Kaganovich, copied to members of the Politburo, 15 September 1931, and remarks of Karakhan before 20 September, O. Ken, Politburo TsK VKP (b), p. 259 and ff. 13. Account of the conversation between General Adam and Voroshilov, 19 November 1931, quoted in Iuri Dyakov and T. Bushueva (eds), Faschistskii mech kovalsya v SSSR: Krasnaya Armya i Reishsver. Tainoe sotrudnichestvo, 1922–1933, Neizvestnye dokumenty [The fascist sword was forged in the USSR: the Red Army and the Reichswehr. A secret collaboration, 1922–1933. Unpublished documents] (Moscow, 1992), p. 127. 14. Letter from Khinchuk, an account of his conversation with Hitler, 28 April 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, no. 138, p. 271. 15. Special protocol of the Politburo, no. 125, 10 December 1932, RGASPI, 17/162/14. 16. M. Carynnik, L. Luciuk, and B. Kordan (eds), The Foreign Office and the Famine. British Documents on Ukraine and the Great Famine of 1932–1933 (Kingston: Limeston Press, 1988), pp. 322–8. 17. Created between 1925 and 1926, they comprised a laboratory for chemical experimentation and a school teaching the techniques of

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20.

21. 22. 23.

24.

25.

26.

27. 28.

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using gas for military purposes at Tomka, a base and a flying school for fighter pilots at Lipetsk and a tank school at Kama. Cf. Georges Castellan, ‘Reichswehr et Armée Rouge, 1920–1939’, in JeanBaptiste Duroselle (ed.), Les Relations germano- soviétiques de 1933 à 1939 (Paris, 1954), pp. 175, 180 and 185. On the purposes of the work at Kazan, Lipetsk and Tomka, see Berzin’s report to Voroshilov, 1931, RGVA, 33987/3/375. Von Dirksen’s account of his discussion with Tukhachevsky, 13 November 1931, passed on to von Tvardovski, the counsellor at the embassy in Moscow. A Soviet information document, in Fashistkii mech kovalsya v SSSR, p. 124. General von Bockelberg’s report on his stay in the Soviet Union, May 1933, sent by Berzin to Voroshilov, RGVA, 33987/3/505; letter from Levichev to Voroshilov 13 June 1933, ibid., p. 497. Letter from Khinchuk to Kaganovich, Secretary of the Central Committee, 7 July, 1933, RGASPI, 17/120/107. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin and Molotov, 1 November, 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117. Tukhachevsky’s memorandum (10 pp.) was dated 5 February and that of Uborevich (25 pp.) 19 February 1935, RGVA, 33987/3/400 and 279, quoted in Lennart Samuelson, ‘Wartime Perspectives and Economic Planning. Tukhachevsky and the Military-Industrial Complex, 1925–1937’, in Pons and Romano (eds), Russia in the Age of Wars, 1914–1945, p. 207. Georgi Isserson, ‘Zapiski sovremennika o M. N. Tukhachevskom’ [Notes of a contemporary on M. N. Tukhachevsky], Voenno Istoricheskii Zhurnal [Journal of Military History], 1963, no. 4, pp. 73–5. The negotiations for a non-aggression pact were initiated by Aristide Briand, who discussed the matter with Litvinov in May 1931 in Geneva, as he was worried about the proposed AustroGerman customs union. He did so, having arranged for the discriminatory measures relating to Soviet imports into France to be lifted. See Sabine Dullin, ‘Le rôle de l’Allemagne dans le rapprochement franco-soviétique, 1932–1935’, in Ilja Mieck and Pierre Guillen (eds), Deutschland-Frankreich-Russland. Begegnungen und Konfrontationen. La France et l’Allemagne face à la Russie (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2000), pp. 245–62. Letter from Litvinov to Dovgalevsky, 14 January 1933, APE FR, 05/13/90/11; letter from Krestinsky to Dovgalevsky, 4 February 1933, ibid., 010/8/32/89. Karl Radek, ‘Revizya Versalskogo dogovora’ [The revision of the Treaty of Versailles], Pravda, 10 May 1933. Litvinov to Dovgalevsky, 17 May 1933, APE FR, 010/8/32/89.

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29. Krestinsky to Rozenberg, 20 May 1933, APE FR, 05/13/94/7; Litvinov to Dovgalevsky, 17 May 1933, ibid., 010/8/32/89. 30. Decision of the Politburo, 7 December 1932, special protocol no. 125, 10 December 1932, RGASPI, 17/162/14. 31. Letter from Krestinsky to Dovgalevsky, 27 January 1933, concerning the directives of the Revolutionary Council and a discussion with Tukhachevsky, APE FR, 05/13/94/64. 32. Dovgalevsky to Krestinsky, 9 January 1933, APE FR, 010/8/32/89. 33. Note for the high command of the French Army on the sale of military equipment to the USSR, 14 January 1933, 2nd Bureau, section concerned with foreign armies, SHAT, 7N 3182; on the activities of Édouard Daladier at the Ministry of War from 18 December 1932, see Élisabeth du Réau, Édouard Daladier, 1884–1970 (Paris: Fayard, 1993), pp. 91–4. 34. Report of the meeting held 31 December 1932 in the office of the Ministry of War on the sale of military equipment to the USSR, SHAT, 7N 3182. 35. Letter from Rozenberg to Krestinsky, 10 May 1933, APE FR, 010/8/32/89. 36. Herriot from 26 August to 9 September, Cot from 13 to 22 September; on Herriot’s visit to the USSR, see Sophie Coeuré, La Grande Lueur à l’Est, pp. 385–93; and on the visit by Cot, see Sabine Jansen, Pierre Cot, un anti-fasciste radical (Paris: Fayard, 2002). The critical British view is interesting, see M. Carynnik, L. Y. Luciuk, and B.S. Kordan (eds) The Foreign Office and the Famine: British Documents on Ukraine and the Great Famine of 1932–1933 (Kingston: Limeston Press, 1988), pp. 297–302. 37. J. Staline, URSS. Bilan 1934 (Paris: Denoël, 1934), p. 171. 38. Letter from Litvinov to Rozenberg, 19 May 1933, APE FR, 05/13/94/64. 39. Letter from Rozenberg to Litvinov, 10 May 1933, ibid. 40. Letter from Rozenberg to Krestinsky, 25 February 1933, APE FR, 010/8/32/89; report by Colonel Mendras, French military attaché in Moscow (8–23 April 1933), SHAT, 7N 3121. 41. Nomination of Sedyakin, protocol no. 133 of the Politburo meeting of 20 March 1933, RGASPI, 17/3/918; nomination of Ventsov, protocol no. 136 of the Politburo meeting of 23 April 1933, ibid., 17/3/921; report by Colonel Mendras, 8–23 April 1933, SHAT, 7N 3121. 42. Letter from Krestinsky to Rozenberg, 19 May 1933, APE FR, 05/13/94/64. 43. Letter from Krestinsky to Dovgalevsky, 4 December 1933, APE FR, 05/13/94/7; see also Krestinsky’s telegram to Dovgalevsky, 29 November 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, no. 396, p. 695. 44. ‘Directives relating to France’, 19 December 1933, special protocol of the Politburo no. 151, RGASPI, 17/162/15; Soviet proposals sent

146

45.

46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51.

52. 53.

54.

55.

56.

57. 58.

MEN OF INFLUENCE

to Paul-Boncour, 28 December 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, note 321, p. 876; Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 2, 1995, p. 199. Telegram from Litvinov on his conversation with Daladier, Paris, 6 July 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, no. 222, p. 417; telegram from Litvinov on his conversation with Paul-Boncour, Paris, 31 October 1933, ibid., no. 332, p. 595. Directives relating to America, 25 October 1933, special protocol of the Politburo no. 148, RGASPI, 17/162/15. Speech by Molotov, 28 December 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, p. 779. Speech by Litvinov, 29 December 1933, ibid., p. 785. His name was only crossed out on the single list of members and substitutes on the Central Committee by four of the 1,059 voters. Cf. Izvestya Tsentralnogo Komiteta KPSS [News of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union], no. 7, 1989, pp. 114–17. Moshe Lewin, La Formation du système soviétique (Paris: Gallimard, 1987), p. 65. Talks between the French and the Soviets were resumed after the French note of 17 April 1934, which put an end to attempts to achieve reconciliation between France and Germany. Stomonyakov’s account of his conversation with Alphand, 13 February 1934, DVP SSSR, vol. 17, no. 54, p. 140. The meeting between Litivnov and Barthou on 18 May was a decisive step on the part of the French. Cf. J.-B. Duroselle, Politique étrangère de la France, p. 106. Account given by Litvinov, DVP SSSR, vol. 17, p. 798; account provided by Bargeton to the Quai d’Orsay, Documents Diplomatiques Français (1932–1939)[hereafter DDF], 1st series, vol. 6 (Paris: Imprimerie National, 1972), p. 501. J.-B. Duroselle, ‘Louis Barthou et le rapprochement francosoviétique en 1934’, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 1962, no. 4, vol. 3, pp. 525–45. Litvinov wrote two important letters to Stalin about his negotiations with the French on 3 and 10 May 1934 (APE FR, 05/14/103/117). He was received by Stalin at the Kremlin on 10 May and stayed more than five hours (Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 3, 1995, p. 131). This resulted in the agreement of Stalin and his close colleagues: ‘Directives to Litvinov’, 10 May 1934, special protocol of the Politburo no. 7, 26 May 1934, RGASPI, 17/162/16. Account of the conversation between Barthou and Litvinov in Geneva, 18 May 1934, DDF, 1st series, vol. 6, p. 501. A summary account by the 4th section of the general staff of the Red Army, May 1934: copies to Voroshilov and his two deputies Gamarnik and Tukhachevsky, to Egorov, the head of the general

TACTICAL OSCILLATIONS

59. 60.

61. 62.

63. 64.

65. 66.

67. 68.

69.

70.

71. 72. 73.

147

staff, and to Litvinov, ‘The outcome of Barthou’s visit to Warsaw’, 29 April 1934, RGVA, 37977/5/335. Litvinov to Stalin, 11 January and 21 June 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117. Account of the conversation between Barthou and Litvinov, Geneva, 18 May 1934, DDF, 1st series, vol. 6, p. 501; communication from the Soviet embassy, plan for an eastern pact, 15 June 1934, DDF, no. 342, p. 711; ‘Concerning negotiations with France’, note of 23 April 1935, APE FR, 010/10/60/148. Letter from Litvinov to Potemkin, 4 March 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, no. 95, p. 158. Litvinov to Stalin, 13 May 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117; letter from Krestinsky to Khinchuk, 17 April 1934, DVP SSSR, vol. 17, no. 128, p. 263. Litvinov to Stalin, 17 March 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117. ‘Political, economic and cultural matters relating to the Baltic countries’, 17 January 1934, special protocol of the Politburo no. 152, 20 January 1934, RGASPI, 17/162/15. Litvinov to Zhdanov, 9 May 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117. Litvinov to Stalin, 14 May 1934, ibid. Litvinov made similar complaints concerning trade relations with Poland, remaining somewhat unconvinced by the arguments put forward by the Commissariat for Foreign Trade for not signing a trade agreement with Poland, ibid., 13 May 1934. A commission, made up of Mikoyan, Stomonyakov and Rozengol’ts, was established in June to consider the question of economic relations with Estonia and Latvia, special protocol no. 9, 26 June 1934, RGASPI, 17/162/16. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 21 June 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117. Litvinov was authorised to re-establish relations with these two countries, with no conditions attached, directive of the Politburo 1 June 1934, special protocol no. 8, 9 June 1934, RGASPI, 17/162/16. ‘I think we shall succeed in establishing very good relations with Czechoslovakia’, letter from Litvinov to Potemkin, USSR ambassador in Italy, 27 June 1934, DVP SSSR, vol. 17, no. 218, p. 415. Litvinov to Stalin, 9 May 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117. Bessarabia, a province of the Russian empire before the revolution, had been annexed by the Romanians as a result of the civil war. This was unacceptable to the new Soviet state. ‘On the directives sent to Litvinov’, 10 May 1934, special protocol no. 7, 26 May 1934, RGASPI, 17/162/16. Special protocol no. 8, 9 June 1934, RGASPI, 17/162/16. Protocol of the Politburo meeting , 15 July 1934, RGASPI, 17/3/948.

148

MEN OF INFLUENCE

74. ‘On the decision to join the European Commission on the Danube’, directives from Litvinov and Rozenblum to ambassadors Maisky, Potemkin and Rozenberg, 17 July 1934, APE FR, 05/14/96/10. 75. Sabine Dullin, ‘Les diplomates soviétiques et l’Europe au seuil des années 1930’, in M. Narinski, É. du Réau, G. H. Soutou and A. Tchoubarian (eds), L’URSS et l’Europe dans les années 1920 (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2000), pp. 151–66. 76. Note by Massigli on the Russian question, 29 March 1935, AMAEF, Massigli’s papers, vol. 20. 77. On Laval’s foreign policy, see Fred Kupferman, Laval (1883–1945) (Paris: Balland, 1987), pp. 125–39. 78. ‘On the negotiations of an eastern pact’, Litvinov to Stalin and Molotov, 1 November 1934, APE FR,05/14/103/117. 79. ‘On relations with France’, Litvinov to Poskrebyshev, Stalin’s personal secretary, 2 November 1934, ibid.; Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Zhdanov had taken part in an ‘exchange of views’ with Litvinov and Stomonyakov, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 3, 1995, p. 142. 80. The negotiations which concluded with the conference at Stresa were of particular concern to Moscow, Potemkin to Krestinsky, 10 February 1935, APE FR, 010/10/60/148. 81. On 24 November, the Soviet press alluded to an ‘alliance’ between France and the USSR, and, on 23 November 1934, Archimbaud, a Radical-Socialist Deputy and spokesman on the war budget in the Chamber of Deputies, drew attention to the might of the Red Army which the French army would have at its side in the event of a German attack. Rumours were also circulating abroad about a secret military alliance, signed by Laval and Litvinov in Geneva. Cf. Alphand’s telegram of 25 November 1934, AMAEF, Europe 18– 40, vol. 1004. 82. J.-B. Duroselle refers to it as ‘a piece of utter nonsense’, Politique étrangère de la France, p. 142. 83. ‘Concerning negotiations with France’, note of 23 April 1935, APE FR, 010/10/60/148. 84. Litvinov went to the Kremlin on 22, 23 and 28 April (Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 3, 1995, p. 163); the pact with Czechoslovakia presented the same problems and, by 4 May 1935, nothing had been settled because, as Litvinov explained to Maisky: ‘The narrow terms of the French pact , which Benes also wants to adopt, make us hesitant’, Litvinov to Potemkin, 4 May 1935, APE FR, 010/10/60/148. 85. The term used by Renata Fritsch-Bournazel in Rapallo, naissance d’un mythe (Paris: FNSP/Armand Colin, 1974), p. 70. 86. Letter from Khinchuk to Kaganovich, Secretary of the Central Committee, 7 July 1933, RGASPI, 17/120/107.

TACTICAL OSCILLATIONS

149

87. Litvinov on his conversation with von Neurath in Berlin, 28 October 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, no. 329, p. 590. 88. Litvinov to Maisky on the Franco-Soviet pact, 3 May 1935, APE FR, 010/10/48/7. 89. Krestinsky to Dovgalevsky, 19 February 1933, ibid., 010/8/32/89; Rozenberg to Krestinsky, 25 February 1933, ibid. 90. Letter from Krestinsky to Dovgalevsky, 4 December 1933, APE FR, 05/13/94/7. 91. David Grigorievich Shtern was head of the second political department concerned with the West from 1932 to 1936. He was responsible for German matters. A former colleague of Krestinsky, he was arrested at the same time as him in June 1937. See Herbert von Dirksen’s account of the ‘Germanophile clan’ within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in the autumn of 1933 in Moscow, Tokyo, London, Twenty Years of German Foreign Policy, pp. 129 ff. 92. Letter from von Tvardovski to von Dirksen, 25 September 1933, Fashistskii mech Kovalsya v SSSR, p. 335. 93. Speech by Molotov, President of the Council of People’s Commissars, 28 December 1933 and by Litvinov, 29 December, at the 4th session of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, pp. 779 and 785. 94. On 3 January, Nadolny protested to Litvinov who was very curt. In the eyes of the German ambassador, Litvinov’s speech was a repudiation of his own actions and a provocation to Hitler as Chancellor. Litvinov’s account of his conversation with Nadolny, 3 January 1934, DVP SSSR, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 17. 95. Report to the 17th Party Congress, 26 January 1934, in J. Staline, Questions du léninisme (Paris, 1969), vol. 2, pp. 650–2. 96. Ibid., p. 644. Similar analyses may be found in ‘The crisis of the Versailles settlement and preparations for a new war to re-divide up the world’, Bolshevik, bimonthly organ of the Central Committee, 30 December 1933, and in speeches made at the thirteenth session of the Executive Committee of the Comintern: E. H. Carr, The Twilight of the Comintern, 1930–1935 (London: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 104–16. 97. Letter from Krestinsky to Dovgalevsky, 4 December 1933, APE FR, 05/13/94/7. 98. Speech at the 14th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and interview with Stalin by a delegation of foreign workers, 5 November 1927, Degras (ed.), Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, vol. 2, pp. 69 and 274. 99. Interview with Stalin by Walter Duranty, 25 December 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, no. 438, p. 767, which appeared in Izvestia, 4 January 1934. 100. Litvinov to Stalin, 9 May 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117.

150

MEN OF INFLUENCE

101. Litvinov to Stalin, 14 July 1934, ibid., 05/14/103/117, and Litvinov to Maisky, 19 July 1934, ibid., 010/9/35/7; on the entry of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations, see Sabine Dullin, ‘Les diplomates soviétiques à la SDN’, Relations internationales, no. 75, 1993, pp. 329–43. 102. Litvinov had discussions lasting two hours with Stalin, Molotov Ordzhonikidze, Voroshilov and Kaganovich on 2, 7, 8 and 9 April, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 3, 1995, pp. 161–2.; telegram from Litvinov, Geneva, 14 April 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, p. 285. 103. Account of a conversation between Stalin and Eden, 29 March 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, p. 249. 104. Special protocol of the Politburo no. 148, 25 October 1933, RGASPI, 17/162/15. 105. Special protocol of the Politburo no. 146, 23 September 1933, RGASPI, 17/162/15; note from Litvinov to the chargé d’affaires, von Tvardovski, 26 September 1933, DVP SSSR, vol. 16, no. 300, p. 536. 106. Letter from Krestinsky to Khinchuk, 17 April 1934, DVP SSSR, vol. 17, no. 128, p. 263. 107. Letter from Surits to Litvinov, 14 January 1935, quoted in ‘Osobaya Missia Davida Kandelaki’ [A special mission by David Kandelaki], Voprosy Istorii, no. 4–5, 1991, p. 146. Contrary to what has frequently been said, economic negotiations with Germany (with the possible political implications which might result from them) were not conducted in secret, unknown to Litvinov and his colleagues. Kandelaki, undoubtedly an important figure, was almost always received by the Kremlin when he visited Moscow together with his superior Rozengol’ts and in the presence of Litvinov and his deputies. 108. Kandelaki, the trade representative in Berlin from the end of 1934, and Bessonov, counsellor at the embassy, were responsible for economic negotiations from 1935 to 1937. They had similar backgrounds. Former revolutionary socialists, they became Bolsheviks during the civil war and played an active role in Berlin from 1935 to 1937 before disappearing during the purges. E. Gnedin, Katastrofa i vtoroe rozhdenie, memuarnye zapiski [Catastrophe and rebirth. Memoirs], Amsterdam, ‘Biblioteka Samizdata’ series, no. 8, Herzen Collection, 1977, p. 178. 109. Letter from Bessonov to the NKID, 12 April 1935, quoted in ‘Osobaya Missia Davida Kandelaki’, p. 147. 110. Letter from Litvinov to Potemkin, 4 April 1935, APE FR, 010/10/60/148. 111. Letter from Hirshfel’d to Litvinov, 14 June 1935; letter from Litvinov to Hirshfel’d, 16 June 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8. The resolution adopted on 17 April by the Council of the League of

TACTICAL OSCILLATIONS

112.

113. 114. 115. 116.

117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124.

125. 126. 127.

151

Nations condemned Germany’s unilateral violation of its international obligations and set up a committee of thirteen people to consider the question of sanctions. Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 3, 1995, pp. 170–71; letter from Litvinov to Surits, 27 June 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, p. 647; telegram from Litvinov to Potemkin about his meeting with Alphand, 26 June 1935, ibid., p. 646. Note from Litvinov to Stalin, 3 December 1935, published in Izvestya TSK KPSS, no. 2, 1990, pp. 211–12. Letter from Surits to Litvinov, 28 November 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, p. 569. Letter from Litvinov to Surits, 4 December 1935, quoted in ‘Osobaya Missia Davida Kandelaki’, p. 147. Bessonov mainly met officials from the Auswärtiges Amt, the official in charge of the Russian section for counter-espionage, the Secretary of State for Aviation, colleagues of Schacht, ibid. Letter from Surits to Litvinov, 18 December 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, p, 595. Letter from Litvinov to Surits, 19 December 1935, ibid. Ibid. Note from Litvinov to Stalin, 3 December 1935, Izvestya TSK KPSS, no. 2, pp. 211–12. Letter from Krestinsky to Surits, 11 January 1936, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, p. 25. Letter from Litvinov to Krestinsky, 3 August 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8. Letters from Litvinov to Stalin of 3 October and to Rozenberg of 4 December 1935, ibid. ‘Note concerning the advantages and disadvantages of an alliance with Russia’, Army High Command, 2nd Bureau, 24 April 1935, SHAT, 7N3131, 4th dossier; Maurice Vaïsse, ‘Les militaires français et l’alliance franco- soviétique au cours des années 1930’, in Forces armées et système d’alliance, proceedings of the colloqium of military history and of the study of national defence, Montpellier, 2–6 September 1981, pp. 693–99; for a more recent study see Peter Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace. Intelligence and Policy Making, 1933–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 7 May 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 7 September 1936, ibid. Report by Ventsov, 10 June 1936, RGVA, 33987/3/879; B. M. Orlov, ‘V poiskakh soyuznikov: Komandovanie Krasnoi Armii i problemy vneshnei politiki SSSR v 30-kh godakh’ [In search of allies: the command of the Red Army and the problem of Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s], Voprosy Istorii, no. 4, 1990, pp. 50–1.

152

MEN OF INFLUENCE

128. Report of 8 October 1936 and Litvinov’s directives of 19 October 1936, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, pp. 465 and 766. 129. Letter from Potemkin to Krestinsky, 12 November 1936, RGVA, 33987/3/1027, p. 148. 130. Account given by Lt-Col. Gauché, head of the 2nd Bureau, 22 October 1936, SHAT, 7N3131, dossier 4. 131. Letter from Semenov, military attaché in Poland, to Voroshilov, 26 August 1936, RGVA, 33987/4/33, p. 251. 132. Letter from Potemkin to Krestinsky on the issue of military cooperation with France, 12 November 1936, ibid., 33987/3/1027, p. 148. 133. This report, dated 4 October 1936, gave a very negative assessment of the potential of the Red Army and showed political mistrust on the part of the French high command towards the Soviet Union, DDF, 2nd series, vol. 3 (Paris, 1975), p. 513. 134. Litvinov to Potemkin, 19 November 1936, APE FR, 010/11/77/113. 135. Potemkin to Litvinov, 26 December 1936, ibid. 136. For the French side, see René Girault, ‘Les relations francosoviétiques à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Bilan des années 1937–1940’. Revue des Études slaves, Paris, L/3, 1977, pp. 417–28; Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace, passim. 137. Letter from Krestinsky to Stalin (copies to Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Ordzhonikidze, Chubar), 13 August 1936, RGVA, 33987/3/878, p. 33; account of a conversation between Ventsov and Colonel Jauneaud, 29 July 1936, ibid., p. 50. 138. Letter from Ventsov, 15 July 1936, ibid., 33987/3/1027, p. 125. 139. On Schneider’s ulterior motives, see René Girault, ‘Les relations franco soviétiques à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale’, p. 422; letters from Potemkin to Litvinov, 11 January 1937 and 2 February 1937, APE FR, 011/1/8/76. 140. Voroshilov’s observations, 28 September to 5 October 1936, RGVA, 33987/3/1027, p. 167; note on the sale of models of SB and I-16 planes in exchange for French planes, 14 August 1937, ibid., 1146, p. 16; note of a conversation between Alexandrovsky and Benes, 18 January 1937, DVP SSSR, vol. 20, p. 37. 141. Telegrams from Litvinov to Potemkin and from Litvinov to Maisky, 9 March 1936, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, pp. 129 and 130; DDF, 2nd series, vol. 1, no. 366. 142. Litvinov to Stalin, 7 May 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 143. This hypothesis appeared in Stalin’s hand, in March 1935, when he corrected an article by Tukhachevsky which appeared in Pravda, 29 March, Izvestya TSK KPSS, 1990, no. 1, p. 169. 144. Pons, Stalin e la guerra inevitabile, 1936–1941, pp. 3–67. 145. Interview with Molotov, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, doc. 90, p. 166; Eugène

TACTICAL OSCILLATIONS

146.

147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152.

153.

154.

155.

156. 157. 158. 159. 160.

153

Varga, ‘Konets Lokarno’ [The end of Locarno], Mirovoye khoziaistvo i mirovaya politika, 1936, no. 4, pp. 5–15. Details of the opinions of Soviet delegates at Geneva, 12 October 1936, and the account of Lt.-Col. Gauché, 22 October 1936, SHAT, 7N3131, dossier 4; report from Eideman to Voroshilov, 9 December 1936, RGVA, 33987/3/878, p. 362. Account of Lt.-Col. Gauché, SHAT, 7N3131, dossier 4. Warnings of the French ambassador in Moscow, DDF, 2nd series, vol. 3, nos. 472 and 497. Report from Eideman to Voroshilov, 9 December 1936, RGVA, 33987/3/878, p. 362. Account sent by Shtein to Litvinov, 4 January 1937, APE FR, 05/17/128/15. Maisky to Litvinov, 11 November 1936, APE FR, 010/11/66/17. An account of the conversation between Payart, chargé d’affaires in the French embassy, and Veinberg, deputy director of the 3rd Western department, 5 August 1936, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, document 242, p. 392; letter from Litvinov to Kaganovich, 22 August 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. Following the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, Germany put forward a vast peace plan, involving a non-aggression pact as well as an aerial pact between Germany, France and Belgium and also proposed to rejoin the League of Nations. The practical propositions put forward by Litvinov were as follows: in the event of any aggression, there would be a three-day delay before the Council was convened followed by the adoption of a resolution; a majority of three quarters of the Council would be needed for a resolution to be passed; all members of the League would be obliged to apply economic and financial sanctions and to adopt customs and trade measures against ‘renegades’; finally, signatories of mutual assistance pacts would be obliged to apply military sanctions. Plan presented by Litvinov to Stalin, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Ordzhonikidze, Chubar, 16 August 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1; letter from Kaganovich to Stalin, 17 August, requesting his decision, RGASPI, Stalin collection, 558/11/743; letter to the secretary general of the League of Nations, 22 August 1936, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, p. 399. RGASPI, 558/11/743. Maisky’s diary and a letter from him to Litvinov, 24 April, quoted in Silvio Pons, Stalin e la guerra inevitabile, pp. 68–9. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 7 September 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. Litvinov to Maisky, 4 November 1936, ibid., 010/11/66/17. Litvinov to Potemkin, 4 December 1936, ibid., 010/11/77/113.

154

MEN OF INFLUENCE

161. Draft letter to the secretary general of the League of Nations, Litvinov to Stalin, 7 September 1936. Litvinov recalled Soviet hostility to an international force put forward by Tardieu at the disarmament conference, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 162. Ibid. 163. Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement, no. 154, Geneva, 1936, p. 10. 164. Krivitsky said that the Soviet decision to give military aid to Spain was taken at the end of August: Walter G. Krivitsky, Agent de Staline (Paris, 1940), p. 103; Pierre Vilar said that the turning-point was Stalin’s meeting with Thorez on 22 September: Pierre Vilar, La Guerre d’Espagne (1936–1939) (Paris: PUF, ‘Que sais-je?’ series, 1986), p. 221. According to Kaganovich and protocols of the Politburo, the decision was taken at the end of September. 165. Decision taken on 21 September, protocol no. 43 of the Politburo, 11 October 1936, RGASPI, 17/3/981. 166. Ibid., 28 September 1936. The decision was taken by the Politburo after discussion of an aid plan drawn up by the Commissariat for Defence and the NKVD; cf. M. Mescheryakov, ‘SSSR i Grazhdanskaya Voina v Ispanii’ [The USSR and the Spanish Civil War], Otechestvennaya Istorya, no. 3, 1993, p. 85. 167. Letter from Kaganovich to Ordzhonikidze, 30 September 1936, quoted in O. Khlevniuk, A. Kvashonkin, L. Kocheleva, and L. Rogovaya (eds), Stalinskoe Politburo v 30e gody, sbornik dokumentov [Stalin’s Politburo in the 1930s. Collection of documents] (Moscow, 1995), p. 149. 168. DVP SSSR, vol. 19, pp. 463, 470 and 513. 169. Letter from Kaganovich to Ordzhonikidze, 12 October 1936, Stalinskoe Politburo v 30e gody, p. 151. Pierre Broué’s argument that the shift from a policy of non-intervention to one of active military support was the result of pressure from ‘old Bolsheviks’ on Stalin is unconvincing. It was Stalin and his close colleagues who wanted to intervene in Spain. Pierre Broué, Staline et la Révolution. Le cas espagnol (1936–1939) (Paris: Fayard, 1993), pp. 132–3. 170. Speech by Litvinov, 28 November 1936, in M. Litvinov, L’URSS et la paix, collection of speeches (Paris, 1939), p. 57. 171. Maisky to Litvinov, 11 November 1936, APE FR, 010/11/66/17. 172. Litvinov to Maisky, 19 November, ibid. 173. Letter from Maisky to Litvinov, 11 November, ibid. 174. Ten cargo loads arrived in Spain between 15 and 28 October. In total, there were around fifty planes, 100 or so light tanks, 400 lorries and 400 specialists all of which arrived in time to have some impact on the battle for Madrid. Pierre Vilar, La Guerre d’Espagne, p. 221.

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175. Letter from Maisky to Litvinov, 17 December 1936, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, p. 673. 176. Report of 14 October 1936, W. Medlicott (ed.), Documents on British Foreign Policy, 2nd series (London, 1979), vol. 17, p. 30. 177. Report from Eideman to Voroshilov, 9 December 1936, RGVA, 33987/3/878, p. 362; Boussotrot was a left-wing Radical. 178. D. T. Cattell mentions that, at the time, certain British and French leaders thought that the Soviet Union was deliberately engaging in provocation to overturn the policy of non-intervention: Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1957), p. 80. In fact, the Soviet position was the reverse of this. 179. Litvinov to Stalin, 14 June 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. E. H. Carr refers to the different positions adopted within the Spanish government after the bombing of Almería: Juan Negrin, together with the communists, was in favour of temporising, whereas Indalecio Prieto proposed the systematic aerial bombardment of all German ships in the Mediterranean. The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 48. 180. ‘Considerations of the position to be adopted following the events of Almería’, 25 June 1937, APE FR , 011/1/4/38. 181. Litvinov to Stalin, 22 June 1937, ibid., 05/17/126/1; telegram from Maisky, 29 June 1937, DVP SSSR, vol. 20, p. 336. 182. Neither D. T. Cattell nor E. H. Carr mention this in the books already referred to. Pierre Broué, on the other hand, explains the ‘colonisation of the Spanish state’ as essentially an inherent feature of Stalinism but also in terms of the desire for order on the part of the Spanish petite-bourgeoisie, the principal supporter of the Spanish Communist Party. Staline et la Révolution. Le cas espagnol, pp. 189–91. 183. Letter from Krestinsky to Surits, 4 August 1936, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, p. 389. 184. Letter from Krestinsky to Surits, 11 August, and Litvinov to Surits 19 August 1936, APE FR, 010/11/68/34. 185. Letter from Coulondre to Delbos, Moscow, 25 November 1936, DDF, 2nd series, vol. 4, p. 45. 186. Letter from Litvinov to Kaganovich, copies to Stalin and Molotov, 14 September 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 187. Letter from Kaganovich to Stalin concerning Litivnov’s proposals, 14 September 1936, RGASPI, Stalin collection, 558/11/743. 188. On the German-Soviet negotiations which began in January and collapsed in March 1937, cf. ‘Osobaya Missia Davida Kandelaki’, Voprosy Istorii, no. 4–5, 1991, p. 149, and Geoffrey Roberts, ‘A Soviet Bid for Coexistence with Nazi Germany,

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189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196.

197.

198. 199.

200. 201.

202. 203. 204.

205. 206. 207. 208.

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1935–1937’, The International History Review, XVI, no. 3, August 1994, pp. 466–90. Letter from Potemkin to Litvinov, 26 December 1936, APE FR, 10/11/77/113. ‘Osobaya Missia Davida Kandelaki’, p. 149. Letter from Surits to Krestinsky, 27 January 1937, APE FR, 05/17/130/42. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 4 February 1937, ibid., 05/17/126/1. Draft oral response to be given by Kandelaki, 8 January 1937, ibid. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 4 February 1937, ibid. Letter from Surits to Litvinov, 21 March 1937, APE FR, 059/1/244/1715, quoted in ‘Osobaya Missia Davida Kandelaki’, p. 152. Letter from von Neurath to Schacht, 11 February 1937, quoted in Louis Fischer, Russia’s Road from Peace to War (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 241; the opinion of the Foreign Office concerning the development of a Franco-Soviet agreement, 17 April 1937, AMAEF, League of Nations, vol. 783, p. 232. Account of the conversation between President Benes and Alexandrovsky, 3 July 1937, in Vestnik, no. 8, 1989, p. 44; J. E. Dreifort, Yvon Delbos at the Quai d’Orsay (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1973), p. 113. Potemkin to Litvinov, 26 December 1936, APE FR, 010/11/77/113. Colonel Gauché, head of the 2nd bureau, acted as intermediary for the interview which took place between Semenov and Schweisguth on 8 January. Letter from Semenov to Voroshilov, 10 January 1937, RGVA, 33987/3/1027, p. 82. Letter from Potemkin to Litvinov, 11 January 1937, APE FR, 011/1/8/76. Semenov spoke German and Polish and learned French when he was appointed military attaché in France. Semenov’s biography, 11 October 1936, RGVA, 4/19/18. Letter from Potemkin to Litvinov, 28 January 1937, APE FR, 136/21/169/840. Letter from Litvinov to Potemkin, 4 February 1937, ibid., 839. Notes of meetings involving the presidency of the Council, conversation with Potemkin, 17 February 1937, DDF, 2nd series, vol. 4, pp. 787–8. DVP SSSR, vol. 20, p. 174. Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, 26 April 1937, conversation with Pierre Cot, 21 April 1937, APE FR, 011/1/7/74. Conversations between Eden and Delbos, 15 May 1937, quoted in J. E. Dreifort, Yvon Delbos at the Quai d’Orsay, p. 114. Letter from Potemkin to Surits, 4 May 1937, APE FR, 0136/21/169/839. The Radical, Camille Chautemps, a close ally of

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Daladier, assumed leadership of the government when Léon Blum resigned on 22 June 1937. For his part, Paul Reynaud, a moderate right-wing deputy, was remarkably perceptive about the threat posed by Hitler. He was Premier during the ‘phoney war’. 209. Letter from Potemkin to Hirshfel’d, 4 May 1937, ibid., 011/1/8/76. Potemkin wrote a similar letter to Surits who was about to become the new Soviet ambassador in France: ‘Before I left Paris, I was convinced that Léger might still do us great favours, if one paid him particular attention’, ibid., 0136/21/169/839. 210. Letter from Hirshfel’d to Potemkin, 27 May 1937, ibid., 011/1/8/76. 211. Letter from Potemkin to Surits, 21 June 1937, ibid., 0136/21/169/839; Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace, p. 237.

4 Gathering information, exerting influence

The Soviet Union had a whole apparatus for gathering information and bringing its influence to bear. Three information services worked on Moscow’s behalf, each in its own sphere: the foreign section of OGPU, the Comintern’s department of International links, and the counter-espionage services of the Red Army. The Commissariat for Foreign Affairs also played a part, but there was nothing secret about it. At the time, all diplomatic missions did the same thing. Diplomats made use of information provided by intelligence-gathering agents of the army and they had a designated budget for ‘special expenses’ which was used to ‘oil the wheels’ of the press. This subject has been little studied until now, and not much is known about the sums spent by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in France, or about any special expenditure made by the Quai d’Orsay.1 The Soviet case is, however, special. Firstly, because OGPU had a presence within embassies, though its precise role is still difficult to determine. The archives of the ex-KGB are still closed to researchers, and the sale of various scoops of information by officials does not really alter things. Soviet diplomats also had difficulties becoming integrated. Often kept at arm’s length by their Western counterparts, they resorted more than others to voluntarist measures. They did not have easy access to information, unlike British, German and French diplomats who moved in a series of networks where they met political figures, friends or socialites. They lived in societies where hostility towards communism and the Soviet Union was very apparent and where friends of the Soviet Union were few in number, even though that number increased when, in the diplomatic sphere, the USSR rallied to the French cause, joined the League of Nations and engaged in anti-fascist politics. 158

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The fact that embassies sought to develop networks of informers and to manipulate public opinion did not however predetermine the success of their undertaking.

Pro-Soviet milieux One thing is clear: Soviet diplomats were only able to create firstrate networks in specific circumstances. It was only in the context of good diplomatic relations between the USSR and the countries where staff were posted that they were assured, through multiple friendly links, of sources of information and the possibility of influencing people in a variety of ways. In the 1920s the embassy in Berlin was the main focus of Soviet European policy, because of Germany’s broadly favourable attitude towards the Soviet Union. In the mid-1930s Paris came to occupy this position along with, to a lesser extent, Geneva. Great Britain, on the other hand, was never very fertile ground for obtaining high quality information by ‘ordinary means’, nor was it possible for the Soviet diplomats to exert much influence there. Paris-London: different degrees of intimacy Embassy journals (dnevniki), often to be found in Soviet archives and providing exhaustive accounts of conversations, are a particularly rich source of material enabling one to evaluate the range of relations which existed and the quality of information received. They were classified as top secret and addressed both to Litvinov and to the chief members of the Politburo. They cannot however be treated in the same way as the reports sent by secret agents. If a diplomatic document was to be sent to anyone outside the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, it would, without exception, bear the signature soversheno sekretno. The ambassador, the counsellor and embassy secretaries would each keep this kind of journal, recording the names of everyone they spoke to and what that person said, sometimes adding a comment suggesting the importance to be attributed to it. The tone adopted by those who had dealings with members of the Soviet embassy in Paris was usually frank and personal. The French loved giving friendly advice and lessons in diplomacy, believing they were dealing with novices. For example, Pierre Comert, who was head of the press section at the Quai d’Orsay

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and had held the same post at the League of Nations, had lengthy discussions with Vladimir Sokolin, when the latter, who had been a secretary at the embassy in Paris, was appointed to the post of deputy general secretary at the League of Nations in Geneva. He wanted to give him practical advice about his job in Geneva and tell him about the intrigues, the groups and the nature of the work at the secretariat.2 The French naval attaché in London did exactly the same thing with his newly arrived Soviet colleague, giving him his views on all the senior staff in the British navy and pointing out the interesting and influential figures he should meet.3 The British who had contacts with the Soviets were much more reserved. In November 1935 the Soviet ambassador knew full-well the limits of any exchanges with the British, even though there were closer links between Moscow and London as a result of the conflict between Italy and Ethiopia: The British government wishes for the moment to maintain and develop good relations with the USSR, but without getting too close. When the British speak of ‘closeness’ in this connection, they think especially of France. They believe that Franco-Soviet relations have become very close, I wonder why, and, as a consequence, believe that the Soviet government is interfering in internal French affairs, especially through the ‘popular front’. The British both dislike and fear this.4

Maisky and Kagan, his counsellor at the embassy, had far fewer visitors than their opposite numbers in Paris and the content of their conversations remained rather formal. When Maisky arrived in London in 1932, he renewed old acquaintances which dated from his pre-revolutionary exile. For the most part, they were members of the Labour Party, amongst whom he counted Ernest Bevin and Arthur Greenwood as his friends, or Liberals, Lloyd George in particular. Kagan was sorry when Clement Attlee became leader of the opposition in October 1935, as he found him ‘difficult to get on with’; he would have preferred Arthur Greenwood, who ‘is more favourably disposed towards us’.5 On the contrary, broadening contacts with the Conservative Party appeared more difficult. Despite this, the political situation favoured the efforts made by the embassy in London. Faced with

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the resurgence of a threat from Germany, a more ‘realistic’ approach was adopted by those on the conservative right, with whom contacts became advantageous, even though they remained somewhat distant due to deep mutual ideological suspicion. Anthony Eden, Robert Vansittart and Winston Churchill formed what Maisky referred to as the ‘friendly trio’.6 The ambassador seemed particularly well-disposed towards Churchill, referred to as ‘a determined political bulldog’, and he liked to quote his colourful and peremptory remarks about Germany ‘an enormous, scientifically organised war machine, led by half a dozen American gangsters’.7 The Soviet embassy in London found itself in a paradoxical situation. In the mid-1930s genuinely friendly relations could only be established with supporters of the Labour Party, but their pacifist leanings led them to distance themselves from the more anti-German position adopted by the Soviet embassy. This was particularly apparent at the time of the remilitarisation of the Rhineland: Maisky was scandalised by Labour Party declarations concerning the rights of German minorities in Europe and the need to negotiate with Hitler which he considered dangerous and anachronistic.8 However, the convergence of views on the part of Soviet diplomats and the more realistic political right wing was too superficial to establish a genuine rapport. By comparison, there was a considerable flow of people in and out of the Paris embassy, some visiting infrequently whereas others were regulars. The latter were a source of information for Moscow, and a number of them, together with embassy staff, helped determine what should be done to establish closer FrancoSoviet ties. Most of the frequent visitors were journalists and Radicals. Geneviève Tabouis, a journalist on L’Oeuvre, whose impressive address book was filled with the names of politicians and diplomats, Pertinax (André Géraud), a columnist on the Écho de Paris, François Quilici, diplomatic editor for the Havas agency, and Léon Gaboriaud, the editor of L’Ère Nouvelle, whom Potemkin considered ‘Herriot’s close confidant’,9 were all regular visitors at the embassy, anxious to receive information but also supplying it. Amongst the team running the Petit Journal, the editor-in-chief Alfred Mallet and the foreign affairs editor Claude Vallet also frequently met Hirshfel’d and Sokolin. All these people were journalists working for political newspapers in Paris, some of which were radical (L’Oeuvre, L’Ère Nouvelle),

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others on the right (L’Écho de Paris, Le Petit Journal). It was through their eyes that the Soviet embassy gained an insight into the French political system and what was happening, but also into the mood on the Quai d’Orsay and the various strands of opinion there. Litvinov, however, distrusted information obtained from journalists such as Tabouis, whose gossipy remarks and lack of critical perspective were often recorded by the embassy, and he regularly sought confirmation of what they said from another source.10 The Radical group which gravitated around the embassy included men like Édouard Pfeiffer, Henri Laugier, Jacques Kayser and Pierre Cot. They were engaged in political debate and belonged to the pro-Soviet faction within Radical circles. Links between Radicals and the Soviet Union dated back to the leftwing coalition (Cartel des Gauches) in 1924 and the formation at the time of the Franco-Russian parliamentary group, which, besides Radicals, included a number of Republican-Socialists and Centrists. This was the first embryonic pro-Soviet grouping. Two figures stood out in the years between 1932 and 1935: Joseph Paul-Boncour and above all Édouard Herriot. Marcel Rozenberg, who helped organise his visit to the Soviet Union in 1933, described the leader of the French Radicals in the following terms: ‘Herriot is well-known for his vanity amongst the French. He likes to be shown an outward display of respect, which he can then brush aside in a great democratic gesture [. . .] he is a man with an actor’s gifts and an emotional need to display them’.11 Within the Commissariat for Defence, he was considered ‘smug, someone who constantly seeks to be the centre of attention’, yet, at the same time, they recognised him as the crucial political figure as far as Franco-Soviet rapprochement was concerned (‘at the present time, he is very useful’).12 Most of these French men and women visited the embassy in connection with geopolitical and diplomatic matters. As a group, they were undeniably anti-German in their attitudes. They were no less anti-British, critical of the ‘idiotic pacifism’ of the British and the head of the Foreign Office, Sir John Simon, whom Henri Laugier described as ‘one of the stupidest people in Europe’.13 Their pro-Soviet feelings arose out of a desire to see France adopting a political line which was independent of that of Great Britain. Countries in central Europe, as well as Italy, would also have been acceptable to them as political allies. Geneviève

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Tabouis, who was very close to the Soviets and also had many friends in pro-Italian and Polish circles, was representative of this trend.14 On the Quai d’Orsay, criticism was focused on two significant individuals: Alexis Léger, who seemed too keen on cooperation with Great Britain, and the ambassador, François-Poncet, suspected of seeking to achieve better Franco-German relations. Their colleague, René Massigli, who dealt with matters relating to the League of Nations, was viewed in a more positive light.15 At the beginning of 1935, Pertinax and Édouard Pfeiffer were hoping that Alexis Léger would be replaced by Léon Noël, then secretary general of the cabinet office, a man they considered intelligent and who supported a policy of firmness towards Germany.16 Louis Barthou, who was fiercely anti-German and at the same time wanted France to dissociate itself from the British position, was for these people a point of reference and a model. The opinions of Soviet diplomats were shaped in large measure by the analyses of those with whom they discussed things. The diplomats did, however, maintain a certain reserve, knowing that open animosity was often a reflection of personal resentment. For example, Potemkin did not have the same negative attitude towards Alexis Léger as the French people who visited the embassy. He valued his intelligence.17 Though they supported Franco-Soviet friendship, most of those who went to the embassy did not share ideologically the values embodied in the socialist experiment taking place within the USSR. This was obviously true of Édouard Herriot. It was also the case with Geneviève Tabouis, who, having accompanied Herriot to the Soviet Union, confided to the Geneva-based journalist William Martin: ‘it is a frightful country, where everyone works under the threat of the knout, where one is never alone for one minute, never has a secret in one’s life, in any way’.18 In 1937 Sokolin considered her and Quilici to be ‘members of the proSoviet group of journalists’, though that did not mean that they in the least supported the Popular Front and especially communists.19 While he expressed satisfaction at the development of Franco-Soviet relations, in May 1935 Édouard Pfeiffer complained of communist propaganda in France and in Indo-China.20 Nonetheless, some used expressions which were current in the communist press at the time. François Quilici sometimes resorted to Marxist terminology; and, according to Hirshfel’d, Vallet

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even accused the Trotskyites of being in the pay of the French Association of Heavy Industries (Comité des Forges).21 But might that not have been a rewriting on the part of the counsellor at the embassy? In the main, the conversations which took place were a means of continuously assessing the attitudes of those favourably disposed towards the Soviet Union or, alternatively, towards Germany and determining what should be done to strengthen or counter them. French political life was viewed in the light of one central preoccupation, the creation of an eastern pact and, after May 1935, the reinforcement of the Franco-Soviet pact. Each in his own way tried to influence things in this direction. Pierre Laval, who succeeded Louis Barthou as Foreign Minister in October 1934 before becoming Premier, was the focus of attention within the embassy throughout 1935. He was judged to be fundamentally opportunistic, flexible and easily influenced, and, as a result, until the autumn of 1935, attention was paid to those around him and to shifts in public opinion, seen as the only ways of tipping the balance in favour of political understanding with Moscow. It was thought important to increase the influence of Léon Noël to counter that of someone like Fernand de Brinon, judged to be proGerman. Close cooperation with France’s allies within the League of Nations was also considered essential as a way of impressing Laval.22 Though he remained sceptical, Édouard Herriot proposed that tasks be shared between them, which was considered novel by the counsellor in the Soviet embassy: ‘He takes it upon himself to influence public opinion and asks us to work on . . . Laval’.23 The embassy not only had those with whom it discussed things but also new allies within French political circles. The antifascist movement which resulted in the victory of the Popular Front in May 1936 had begun to take shape following the signing of the joint action pact between the French Communist Party and the Socialist Party (SFIO) on 27 July 1934 and Thorez’s appeal to Radicals in October. Within certain urban areas during the second round of the municipal elections in May 1935, there was a union of the left. Two months previously, the embassy had seemed ready to use its support of the ‘united front’ as a bargaining counter with Laval in order to achieve a rapid signing of the pact: Our friends within the united front assure us it would cost them nothing to give Laval the support requested, if we consider it helpful

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to Franco-Soviet rapprochement. I have had a special meeting with Sadoul. For the time being, I have refrained from giving an answer in order to put the matter to you. In my opinion, Sadoul’s plan will only be successful on two conditions. Laval must give us his word that he will conclude the eastern pact and, better still, that he will do so before the Senate elections. Conversations with him on this subject must of course be conducted by his old friends, the present members of the united front. We should take no part in such an arrangement.24

Their readiness to barter revealed two things. Firstly, the embassy did not hesitate, if it considered it necessary, to use elements within French political life which were favourably disposed towards it. Secondly, the new electoral pact creating a unified left gave impetus to Laval’s visit to Moscow and the signing of the Franco-Soviet pact. Interference by the embassy in electoral campaigns had to remain as discreet as possible, however. Jacques Sadoul, who knew Laval well and who provided information which Rozenberg found ‘extremely interesting’, served as an intermediary, even if Litvinov urged caution.25 In the autumn of 1935 Laval, who was pursuing a policy of appeasement towards Germany and Italy, lost the little credit he had just gained with pro-Soviet supporters in the spring. Soviet diplomats sided with those who held the most negative opinions. Potemkin spoke of ‘his desire to discredit us no matter what and to turn public opinion against us’.26 Thus, the objective was to cause the downfall of Laval and to have him replaced by Herriot. At the beginning of November, Litvinov wrote to Potemkin: From the point of view of our interests, one would wish to see him leave office, at least temporarily, which would mean that ratification could go ahead. It would also remove the negative effects of Laval’s influence on the Little Entente and to some extent on Britain. Therefore, not only should Laval step down as Premier, but also as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He could be a nuisance even if he remained a minister without portfolio. Herriot shows great naivety if he believes Franco-Soviet cooperation can continue under Laval.27

Potemkin busied himself throughout November, clearly stepping beyond the boundaries he should have respected as an ambassador. Anatole de Monzie complained ‘very prudently and in private’ to his old friend Davtyan, the Soviet ambassador in

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Poland, of ‘Potemkin’s unnecessary involvement in internal French matters’, stating that he had met a whole series of politicians and ‘had either exhorted them, or had expressed the wish that Herriot return to power’.28 French supporters of cooperation with Moscow played an important role in discrediting Pierre Laval in December, the prelude to his fall in January 1936. On 13 December L’Oeuvre (Tabouis) and L’Écho de Paris (Pertinax) revealed the contents of the secret Hoare-Laval plan, provoking anger amongst the defenders of collective security and anti-fascism in the Assembly and the country at large. The plan satisfied most of Mussolini’s demands, giving him two thirds of Ethiopia and the rest as a protectorate. The leak had been made by a secretary within the Quai d’Orsay who gave a copy to François Quilici of the Havas agency. Some saw it as the work of Pierre Comert.29 In any case, the indiscretion emanated from the pro-Soviet network close to the embassy. The downfall of Laval did not, however, result in the Herriot government which the embassy wished to see. This popular figure, the Radical pillar of the 3rd Republic, was beginning to lose his political influence, as the Popular Front was bringing to the fore younger, more left-wing and more modern Radicals such as Daladier and Pierre Cot. Herriot disappointed the Soviets, with Litvinov referring in November to his ‘total spinelessness’.30 Disagreements increased with the remilitarisation of the Rhineland; Potemkin describing Herriot, who no longer headed the Radical Party, as the ‘chief exponent of French-style pacifism’.31 However, elected Radicals remained an essential force if rapprochement between Paris and Moscow was to be consolidated, and the embassy knew it. Potemkin engaged in a real electoral campaign amongst Radicals for the ratification of the Franco-Soviet pact in both chambers, meeting a number of deputies, helping to draft the declaration in favour of ratification which was put to the Commission for Foreign Affairs in the Assembly, and counting on Joseph Paul-Boncour to use his influence and prestige with Senators.32 Nevertheless, from 1936 onwards, the groupings of those cultivated by the embassy changed a little. Moderate Radicals fell from grace to be replaced, on the one hand, by ‘young Turks’ within the Radical Party and socialists, and, on the other, by members of the anti-German right such as Georges Mandel

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and Paul Reynaud.33 Potemkin’s analyses of the crisis in the Rhineland in March 1936 were very similar to Mandel’s views on what was taking place. The degree of cooperation with the embassy was very different depending on the individual. Georges Mandel, and still more Paul Reynaud and Léon Blum, whom Soviet diplomats respected, simply had conversations about the current political situation and what France’s foreign policy should be. Édouard Herriot and Pierre Cot, and journalists such as Geneviève Tabouis and Pertinax, on the contrary, were more actively involved, defining tactics with members of the embassy in order to achieve political influence and in support of the Franco-Soviet axis. Without wishing to resort to an oversimplified psychological interpretation, one could imagine they were flattered by the fact that diplomats believed they had influence in French political life. They were individuals who liked social and political recognition, and had rather grand ideas about their position and the role they could play.34 As we have seen, Soviet diplomats were not concerned with the political allegiances of those they talked to. They were interested in discovering their diplomatic leanings, in assessing the political weight they had, and their closeness to those in positions of power or to useful sources of information. Alongside these official and/or informal contacts, more secret relations existed between the embassy and informers working for the intelligence services. One comes across mostly anonymous documents, for example, giving information about Germany from 1934. The embassy was a channel of communication. Two individuals played a fundamental role: the military attaché, who sent documents from agents to the counter-intelligence services (GRU), and the secretary at the embassy, who was in charge of the press section or the consular service, which, it seems, often worked in parallel for the NKVD. In order to understand the extent and the exact nature of the embassy’s role in all this, one would need access to the military intelligence archives and those of the KGB, which is far from possible even today. What one can establish, however, is that Litvinov was very anxious to avoid direct contact between these sorts of informers and the embassies. Nonetheless, the embassy in Paris sought ‘permission’ to have contact with some of them.35 Embassies took care also to maintain secrecy over contacts with the Comintern, to demonstrate publicly the separation

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between interests of the state and the objectives of the communist movement. They are, however, discernible on at least two levels. Part of the information which was sent back to Moscow by the embassies, that relating to communist parties in one way or another, was readdressed to Pyatnitsky, the head of the section concerned with international links in the Comintern (OMS).36 Thus, in 1936 he received an interesting report from Sokolin on the Sûreté générale (the French CID) and its infiltration of the French Communist Party.37 An extra quota was also allowed in the personnel of trade sections, banks and Soviet import-export firms, under the control of the embassies, and these people, recruited locally, were militants or communist party sympathisers, and were chosen with the agreement of Pyatnitsky.38 Were they contacts or intermediaries, and what did they do? It is impossible to say, given our present knowledge. In France especially, where the Communist Party witnessed significant growth in the number of militants and in electoral terms, Soviet diplomats tried to maintain a certain distance and to look at things solely in terms of what was good or bad for Soviet foreign policy. In the spring of 1936, far from wanting a communist victory, Soviet diplomats hoped for more graduated electoral results, because ‘the likely increase in communists in the Chamber’ would not necessarily serve ‘a left-wing parliamentary alliance’.39 They wanted to avoid too great a communist ascendancy in France, fearing it might provoke a tougher line against the USSR on the part of the moderate left, which was still anxious to placate the right and to deny any accusations of collusion with Moscow it might make. As far as the diplomats were concerned, the ideal government was a left-leaning Radical one, with the socialists having an important influence on French political life. Litvinov, however, feared a government formed by Daladier, who was seen as a supporter of appeasement. With a degree of lucidity, he envisaged what the long-term consequences of a complete victory of the left might be: ‘Even if, at first glance, they are good results, in particular the victory of the Communist Party, I foresee that the result will be a strengthening of the activity of right-wing parties and France’s slide into fascism’.40 On his arrival in 1937, Potemkin’s successor in Paris, Yakov Surits, assessed the negative impact that communist and Soviet activity in France at the height of the Popular Front was having on the minds of leading French figures who were potentially

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favourable to a foreign policy centred on Moscow: ‘Relations between our countries must take place unencumbered by any involvement in internal affairs on either side. The basic condition of our collaboration has been breached by us having too great an influence on internal events in France’. In his view, the consequence of this interference had been to turn away from the Soviet Union those who truly supported close ties, that is to say men of the right, such as Georges Mandel and Paul Reynaud, who were concerned about the national interest and conscious of the threat posed by Germany.41 Despite their endeavours, the Soviets had failed, even in France, to impose a government which was truly favourable towards them. Attempts to influence governments had their limitations: they could not replace genuine political conviction. Geneva – the new focus of attention When the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations in September 1934, new opportunities opened up in Geneva, both in terms of information and influence. Soviet delegates to the Assembly and the Council as well as Soviet representatives within the Secretariat and the commissions made sure they used them. The Soviet delegation, led by Litvinov, also included Vladimir Potemkin and Boris Shtein. With Litvinov, Potemkin was the most prominent Soviet diplomat in Geneva. Having been in Rome before he was sent to Paris at the end of 1934, he was thought of as someone with broad cultural interests and a keen intelligence. Those on the Quai d’Orsay considered him to be ‘a genuine and committed supporter of rapprochement with France’.42 Boris Shtein, who had been the Soviet representative in Italy since 1934, was seen as Litvinov’s faithful lieutenant.43 Alexandra Kollontai was also part of the delegation and was the most flamboyant individual. Both feminine and a feminist, she was a colourful presence in Geneva. Semenov, who in 1935 was an attaché at the embassy in Paris and had on several occasions attended sessions of the Assembly of the League of Nations, remembered her with admiration: As in the past, she was indefatigable, stubborn and delightfully feminine. Delegates at the League of Nations showed her a great deal of

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deference and, when she intervened during a session of the League, not only were all the seats occupied (which was rarely the case with other speakers), but there was hardly any room for guests. Everyone wanted to hear this astonishing woman, an emissary of the Socialist State and a Leninist ‘Red ambassador’.44

The Soviet personnel in Geneva was largely made up of people who had been in Paris, which was as one might expect because, without France, the Soviet Union would neither have wished nor have been able to join the League of Nations. It also created a certain continuity between Paris and Geneva as far as information and influence were concerned. In order to gain information, it was most important to be represented within the Secretariat of the League of Nations and to occupy the post of under-secretary general, which every permanent member of the Council was entitled to do. Litvinov stressed the importance of this post, as one was then able to read all correspondence with the League so long as one managed ‘to establish adequate relations with [one’s] colleagues, led a social life and organised receptions’.45 There were also posts to be filled on specialist committees which worked in tandem with each section of the Secretariat.46 The People’s Commissar felt it necessary to send diplomats and specialists to Geneva who could at least speak English and French and had the slenderest links with the Party. The respectability of the Soviet Union in Geneva was at stake, since members of the Secretariat had to maintain the strict neutrality expected of all international officials, and every Soviet representative on the committees had to be seen as ‘a faithful servant of the League’. Confronted with the vague desires of leading figures within the Politburo to place those they referred to as ‘our men’, Litvinov insisted it was impossible to find ‘Party men with the necessary qualifications’. For the most part Litvinov got what he wanted as his candidates were ultimately chosen. Marcel Rozenberg, described by Louis Fischer as ‘a hunchback with dark, burning eyes’, held the post of under-secretary general from 1935 to 1937, before being replaced by Vladimir Sokolin. When he was counsellor at the Paris embassy, he first came to people’s attention because of his social skills and the fact that he frequented fashionable salons.47 Boris Rozenblum, who was close to Litvinov, acted as representative on the economic committee and Semen Ventsov, the military attaché

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in Paris, joined the consultative commission on military matters. In only one case was Litvinov’s advice not heeded. He had proposed Arkus, the deputy director of the Soviet State Bank, as the representative on the finance committee, but Stalin’s own brotherin-law, Alexandr Svanidze, took up the post.48 The choice of ‘apolitical’ candidates was of the highest importance to Litvinov. For him, it was a guarantee that links could be established with various milieux in Geneva and that real work could be done. It is certain that Rozenblum, already known to experts at the League of Nations for his ‘detailed knowledge of economics’, was better placed than Svanidze, whose nomination, because he was Stalin’s brother-in-law, initially provoked feelings of hostility.49 The nomination of eminent Soviet professors was greeted warmly by the public health committee, which had longstanding links with the Soviet Union going back to the famine of 1921 when, through Doctor Nansen and his international committee, it had brought relief to the starving population of Soviet Russia.50 On the other hand, Gilbert Murray, the president of the Commission for Intellectual Cooperation, was disappointed when he learned that Valerian Ossinsky had been nominated, whose ties with the government he thought were too close.51 Ossinsky was in fact vice-president of the Gosplan and president of the Central Office of Statistics. Litvinov took note of the fact that those in and around the League of Nations in Geneva reacted with some misgivings to the appointment of individuals adjudged too political. To a certain extent, the post of under-secretary general fulfilled their expectations. Rozenberg and then Sokolin sent numerous reports back to Moscow of papers prepared by the office of the Secretary General, Joseph Avenol, based on a great range of information and dealing with all the international issues of the day. Marcel Hoden, the head of Avenol’s staff, was a useful contact within the Secretariat, which was on the whole rather hostile. As a defender of the eastern pact and a security policy dealing with the threat from Germany, he did all he could to involve the Soviets in the work of the League. As far as the Soviet delegation was concerned, he might even become a crucial link in the transmission to Moscow of more confidential information concerning French foreign policy: I draw your attention to the fact, Shtein wrote to Litvinov, that there is here coded French correspondence (about political issues overall,

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sent to the General Consulate) and which is easier to read here than in Paris as Hoden, for example, will act as intermediary and is willing to show it to us.52

Ludwik Rajchman, the head of the public health section, was another helpful contact.53 Although he was Polish, he did not display the same hostility to the Soviet Union as a number of his compatriots. On the contrary, he was close to the Soviet delegation and met Litvinov in person each time he came to Geneva. According to information contained in the Second Bureau, at the end of June 1936 he acted as intermediary between the Chinese representatives at the League of Nations and the Soviet delegates on the Council in discussions about arms deliveries providing defence against Japan and the concentration of Soviet troops in the Far East.54 He passed on information about Chinese and Polish policies whenever Litvinov visited Geneva, but the Soviet delegate remained ambivalent as to its value: ‘I will give Rajchman some credit so far as Chinese matters are concerned, but not over Polish affairs. He is no less a Polish patriot than our Polish communists. One cannot exclude the possibility that he is acting as an agent of the Polish government’.55 The Soviets tried to establish new useful contacts as soon as they could. Thus, in May 1936, Litvinov supported the appointment of a former Danish minister in Moscow , whom he happened to know, as head of the minorities section. Within the Secretariat, alongside international officials whose time at the League of Nations represented a stage in their career, there were idealists who believed in the major role the League could play in securing peace. These people were usually favourably impressed by the actions of the Soviets at Geneva. This was true of men such as Konni Zilliacus, a member of the Labour Party, and Frank Walters.56 The type of document sent from Geneva to Moscow became more varied from 1936 on. Between 1936 and 1938, as well as internal reports of the League of Nations, the Soviet under-secretary general received more confidential information about the politics involving France and its central European allies. At the beginning of 1938, Sokolin had in his possession an account of Delbos’s visit to Romania containing his personal reactions as well as those of Alexis Léger. When he had taken up his post in Geneva at the beginning of 1937, Sokolin alluded in vague terms to an

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unofficial source: ‘For the moment, the delivery of more detailed bulletins has not been reinstated. This is because of the dispute which has arisen between the person who produced them and the source of his information’.57 Most of the information came directly or indirectly from the Quai d’Orsay and was limited in scale. The mechanism set up by diplomats was not perfect, partly due to technical reasons. From the moment he took up his post, the under-secretary general was confronted by the fact that there was no direct link between Geneva and Moscow and this made the rapid transmission of information difficult. Unlike other members of the Secretariat, all of whom came from countries which maintained diplomatic links with Switzerland, the Soviets could not use the technical services of an embassy or a consulate in Geneva to send wires to Moscow. Shtein raised the problem in February 1935 and proposed to Litvinov that a permanent secretariat be set up in Geneva: I have received quite a number of valuable pieces of information, but their value is lost because it is impossible to send them by telegraph. Rozenberg faces the same problem and sees no point in being here if he cannot make use of the information he obtains. In my view, I think we should establish a small technical team here which would be called the secretariat of the Soviet delegation.Thus the delegates arriving here would find some personnel (typists) and would be able to transmit urgent information.58

The proposal was rejected by Litvinov, since it involved the creation of ‘permanent representatives in Geneva’ which was politically impossible.59 Two years later the same problem was still hindering the regular flow of information from Geneva. Sokolin’s letters were sent via the Soviet embassy in Paris and Hirshfel’d, then counsellor at the embassy, sent on letters addressed to Sokolin from Moscow or took them with him when he visited Geneva. Because of these constraints, the letters of Soviet under-secretaries general were irregular. On the other hand, they had the advantage of being less formal than those exchanged between ordinary diplomatic legations and Moscow. They were mostly handwritten in a somewhat personal style and described life and work within the Secretariat of the League of Nations. However, the information they conveyed was unfortunately late, incomplete and often one-sided.

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The Soviets in the Secretariat were at a disadvantage because they had a restricted number of contacts. Rozenberg felt ill at ease in Geneva and only moved within the small circle of those who were particularly friendly towards the USSR. According to his successor ‘the mood of suspicion and coldness within the Secretariat and the fact that his dynamism irritated his superiors without producing positive results’ weighed him down.60 He was bad-tempered and it was easy to fall out with him.61 This was also the view of two important individuals within the Secretariat, a Greek and a Spaniard, who both remembered the man as an excessively brusque and tense individual.62 Anyway, in a letter expressing his disillusion which he sent to Litvinov in April 1936, Rozenberg spoke of Geneva as a ‘dead-and-alive hole’ and expressed doubts as to ‘the possibility of making sane judgements about international politics from here’.63 Sokolin proved more combative on his arrival in 1937, seeking ways of avoiding the isolation and inactivity which seemed inevitably to bedevil the Soviet under-secretary general and the circumstances in which he found himself, as he was given nothing to do.64 He demanded and obtained from the heads of the Secretariat the right to receive a certain amount of information and to take part in the different activities of the League of Nations.65 Moreover as a former ‘Russian in Geneva’, he knew how to ‘strengthen and develop’ links between Soviets and the different milieux there. In order to achieve this, he determinedly sought to change the living conditions of Soviet delegations in Geneva: renting even a modest town house seemed to him more suitable than hotel accommodation, because he would be able to organise receptions.66 By March 1937 his contacts within the Secretariat were certainly more varied than those of his predecessor: My relations with Avenol and the Anglo-Saxons who make up the leadership are completely normal. I have steered clear of the FrancoCzech group and chosen people from different nationalities. Avenol and the most prejudiced members of the Secretariat seemed to me to be pleasantly surprised by my tactics. I led my good friends to believe in the least hurtful manner that it would be better for me and for them.67

The new measures adopted by Sokolin seemed to produce broader and more detailed information about the internal workings of the Secretariat and politics in Geneva. In Moscow they congratulated

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him on this.68 In 1937 Litvinov remarked that, among the 600 officials of different nationalities who worked at the League of Nations, the Soviet Union could boast that it had the ear of ‘groups of extremely radical intellectuals who are sympathetic towards us’ as well as of those faithful defenders of the spirit of the League who want ‘to secure peace and international cooperation in accordance with the principles of justice’.69

Soviet diplomats and the press In order to influence Western public opinion in favour of the USSR, Soviet diplomats developed an important strategy involving the press. Initially, action was taken at source, since dispatches and articles written by accredited foreign correspondents in Moscow were subjected to censorship by the press department of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.70 The Commissariat then created its own paper, the Journal de Moscou, whose role was to provide journalists and Western chancelleries with items of information. Lastly, ambassadors and secretaries within the embassies responsible for press matters did what they could to influence the tone of the press in the countries to which they had been posted, using their contacts and money from the special budget set aside for these purposes. The means of action In January 1934 Litvinov put to Stalin the idea of creating a weekly paper in French. Until then, there had been two foreign language papers published in Moscow. The Moscow Daily News was published in two versions: as a daily it was aimed at American engineers and workers within the USSR and as a weekly it was directed at members of the intelligentsia and of the working class in the United States who were favourably disposed towards the Soviet Union. The Moskauer Rundschau had, however, ceased publication in 1933, as it could no longer be circulated in Germany after Hitler came to power. In Litvinov’s view the creation of a new paper was essential because ‘the USSR had developed and broadened its international links’. Its purpose was to express the Soviet point of view on current international affairs so that it was understood by leaders in foreign countries. The paper had to be in French, so that its distribution would be as

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wide as possible, with a readership not only in France but also in Poland, in countries belonging to the Little Entente and the Near East and even in Britain and America, where, according to Litvinov, French was widely understood in government circles. Broad circulation was dependent on something else as well: The paper must not read like an official organ of the Soviet government and for this reason it would be preferable if it were published by the press association. Editorial control of the paper should be in the hands of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs [. . .] As well as having editorials on foreign affairs, the paper should provide a regular review of the Soviet press, especially relating to foreign affairs, and also information about life inside the USSR and the way the country is developing. Material should be selected to appeal to the foreign reader. The paper should focus especially on matters relating to foreign trade and to artistic and scientific life within the USSR.71

In April 1934, 27,000 copies of the Journal de Moscou were published for the first time, and the paper rapidly became a point of reference in the West. It was frequently quoted in press reviews put out by the Quai d’Orsay, and was rightly thought by people there to offer the Soviet point of view on foreign affairs. Its editorials were in fact written by Litvinov personally or based on his notes. Certain newspapers, such as the Journal des Nations and Temps, often reprinted articles taken from it. Litvinov, for whom the success of the Journal de Moscou was an asset in his attempt to influence Western diplomacy in the right direction, became worried when sales fell in February 1936 due to a change in the editorial line. In particular, he protested at the full-length reproduction of speeches made at the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, which were of no interest to foreign readers. After the editor-in-chief, Lukyanov, was sacked in 1935, the Journal de Moscou was in fact subjected to attacks by the press department of the Central Committee. Having been taught a lesson, the new editorial team sought to ‘satisfy 100 per cent the severest critical demands of the Party’ instead of appealing to the Western reader. Litvinov complained to Stalin. He saw no point in reprinting articles from Pravda and pleaded for a clear distinction to be made between papers produced for a Soviet readership and the Journal de Moscou.72

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The press section in each embassy also played a crucial role. It was their mission to create propaganda on behalf of the USSR, by producing brochures, organising conferences and putting out public reports. Above all, they sought to influence the press by increasing their contacts with journalists. Like the Quai d’Orsay, the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs had secret funds available. This special expenditure had been voted for by the Politburo since 1929 and the money was taken from special reserves held by the Council of People’s Commissars.73 Khinchuk, the Soviet ambassador in Germany, gives an interesting insight into the methods used by the press section in a letter he wrote to Kaganovich in June 1932. The main objective was to get positive information about the Soviet Union into the most important papers. In order to achieve this, the section tried to influence editorial boards and to offer them articles and documents.74 A practice frequently used by the embassy was to have special numbers devoted to the USSR. The democratic paper, Berliner Tageblatt, which had considerable influence abroad and with Social-Democrats, and whose Moscow correspondent adopted a very favourable line towards the USSR, was central to the Soviet mission to achieve influence and received money, though it is not known whether this was a regular subsidy.75 It devoted a special number to the USSR, the basic information having been provided by the embassy. Papers whose foreign policy reflected an ‘Eastern’ bias were also targeted. There were frequent contacts with the editorial teams of the Kölnische Zeitung and the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung as a way of countering antiSoviet tendencies and reassuring those who supported a proRussian policy, at the time when Moscow was negotiating with France and Poland. Finally, without going into details, Khinchuk referred to ‘the very effective use of disinformation as regards the bourgeois press’, practised by the press section.76 After the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, with its resulting suppression of freedoms, and following the changed Soviet foreign policy towards Europe, propaganda put out by embassies was realigned, as until then Berlin had been a crucial focus of attention. In 1935 the sharing of special funds allocated to embassies revealed Soviet priorities in this respect. Western Europe was particularly favoured, with the Paris-London-Geneva axis becoming the principal target of a diplomatic propaganda offensive. Paris was by far the most important place, with the

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Soviet embassy there receiving 60–65 per cent of the total funds available. In the substantial estimate of secret expenditure which Litvinov put to Stalin in 1936, the primacy of France and Geneva was clearly established: Given the political hostility of Laval and the acknowledged instability in other leading French political circles, including that of Herriot, we must do more to influence French public opinion by penetrating the French press. According to the detailed calculations of comrade Potemkin, he needs 240,000 francs a month or 2,916,000 francs a year. If one converts it into gold roubles, Potemkin needs 218,000 gold roubles a year. We must also increase our expenditure this year in Geneva. Already last year, in addition to the 10,000 Swiss francs, we had to transfer several thousands of francs from other countries. The sum of 30,000 Swiss francs or 12,000 gold roubles is needed in Geneva.77

Suffice it to say that, for Litvinov, public confidence was far from being won over to the newly oriented Soviet foreign policy, based on cooperation with France and the safeguarding of collective security. To gain it, considerable work had to be done with the press, which would be costly. Nevertheless, the payment of a regular subsidy to a newspaper by the USSR did not necessarily mean that the editors would adopt pro-Soviet positions. At most, the money spent served to weaken criticism of the USSR, and might even cause it to cease. It also made it possible to convey information, to get a short or perhaps a longer article published. Between 1934 and 1936 there was an increase in the sums allocated. In October 1934 Krestinsky cited the opening of new embassies in countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain as a reason for requesting more money; he also mentioned the need to influence the press in Geneva from then on, something which was underlined by Litvinov.78 The table below shows that the money allocated for special expenses was considerable and that it grew markedly between 1935 and 1936. One has, however, to bear in mind inflation in a number of countries.79 As one can see, the embassies spent most of their special funds on influencing the press. In France the expenditure represented 97 per cent of the total sum. Drawing a lesson from the year 1936, Litvinov remarked in a letter to Stalin: ‘The special funds spent last year by our plenipotentiaries were principally devoted to prop-

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Table 4.1 Expenditure on the press

Total expenditure Country

1935

1936

1935

1936

France Britain United States Japan Latvia Geneva China Poland Iran Czechoslovakia Greece Afghanistan Various Total

105,000 29,200 9,000 7,000 6,500 6,000 2,800 2,600 2,100 2,000 1,000 1,100 2,700 177,000

525,000 112,000 29,000 23,000 – – 46,000 – – – – – – –

101,500 12,668 – 6,000 5,750 6,000 2,100 2,300 ,750 ,600 ,0 ,0 – –

510,000 37,300 12,000 23,000 – – 31,000 – – – – – – –

Special embassy funds to recruit informers and influence the press (in gold roubles)80

aganda through subsidies to the press and other things. There was a corresponding reduction in the sums spent on recruiting secret informers, which I consider justified’. 81 The recruitment of informers in Western Europe was not so essential compared with the need for propaganda, as well as the need to influence public opinion. This can be explained in terms of the broader range of information which embassies could obtain from their multiple contacts. Outside Europe, however, with the exception of Japan and China, a larger amount of money was devoted to the recruitment and payment of informers. This was true in Iran, Greece and Afghanistan, where the role of the press was much more limited, but also in the United States, where half of the secret funds was spent on informers. In 1937, however, Troyanovsky wanted to spread the money more widely and asked for 100,000 dollars (500,000 roubles) to spend on an anti-Trotsky campaign in the United States, at the time of the trials in Moscow. This he intended to do using Soviet Russia Today, which had a print run of 50,000 copies, and through films. Litvinov considered his request a little excessive.82 In Britain the task of influencing the press was more indirect than in France or Geneva. The money was used first and foremost

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to subsidise the Anglo-Russian parliamentary committee which produced a number of publications aimed at the British public. In 1935 it received half of the funds allocated to the embassy. The money was also used to ‘inspire’ newspapers. Litvinov estimated, in 1936, that documents which emanated from the embassy appeared in 300 different British papers. To achieve this, the press section as well as the trade section, which had contacts with economic and financial papers, used their own funds, but the embassy subsidised the information office responsible for the provincial press through a British journalist. In Czechoslovakia too, the embassy made use of intermediaries. A society which favoured rapprochement with Russia was used to influence public opinion. Tremendous possibilities in France In many respects, France was a striking example of the sums of money involved. In 1935 special funds for the French press stood at a little over 110,000 francs a month. It was a significant sum, given that prices were at their lowest for a decade. Le Temps, a paper with close links to the Quai d’Orsay, received the most: approximately 40,000 francs a month.83 Sums of money were also given to journalists and intellectuals such as Geneviève Tabouis and Romain Rolland.84 For what purpose might this money be used? The embassy seemed to count on these Frenchmen and women, who were convinced that the Soviet desire for rapprochement with France was a worthy cause, to redistribute it so that the cause of rapprochement would be better represented in those papers with which the press section was not necessarily in direct contact. According to ambassador Potemkin, who was anxious to obtain more money from Moscow, the possibilities for influencing people were still not being exploited to the full due to a lack of funds: We have already indicated more than once the need to increase the funds allocated to the embassy in order to influence French public opinion. The need is particularly acute at the present time. We must point out that the sums allocated to the embassy do not enable it to go beyond a narrow circle of contacts. What is more, within these limits, the embassy’s influence is restricted for the most part to preventing hostile comments in one paper or another. In order to give a lead, to

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Table 4.2 Newspapers and journalists

Sums allocated per month (in francs)

Le Temps L’Oeuvre L’Ère nouvelle France Presse, Paris-Soir, Paris-Midi Vu, Lu Rolland Quilici/Havas Vallet/Information Tabouis Total

41,600 10,000 15,000 20,000 10,000 5,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 113,600

Special funds allocated to the French press in 193585

inspire, and to provide the press with the necessary information on a regular basis, the embassy requires much more substantial financial resources.86

A year later, Litvinov made the same observation. It would be possible to influence public opinion in France more than elsewhere, if one was ready to pay for it: ‘The possibilities are especially great in France. There, one can influence all the papers, even those which are hostile to us such as Le Matin. The only problem is money’.87 From 1936 on the objective of the Paris embassy was to broaden its contacts across the press as a whole. Having tested the ground, Potemkin thought it would be possible, if the necessary funds were released to him, to increase the number of journalists given money by the embassy and to finance a variety of newspapers including major popular papers such as Le Journal and Le Petit Matin, papers specialising in economics and the key papers dealing with international affairs.88 Was Potemkin able to carry out his plans? Whatever the answer to that question might be, Litvinov did provide a global figure for the regular subsidies paid to seventeen newspapers in the year 1936. The desire to influence the press did not however predetermine the outcome. Certainly, the ambassador took pleasure on more than one occasion in the impact his efforts had on the press. In January and February 1935, for example, the embassy mounted press campaigns in favour of the eastern pact, the response being judged satisfactory:

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Table 4.3 Papers

Circulation

Petit Journal Information Agence politique Petite Gironde Ordre Journal L’Intransigeant Tribune des Nations Journée industrielle Petit Parisien Havas L’Intransigeant

1,300,000 1,050,000 1,050,000 1,500,000 1,050,000 1,000,000 1,400,000 1,025,000 1,030,000

Estimate of francs spent per month 10,000 5,000 5,000 10,000 5,000 15,000 5,000 5,000 10,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 85,000

Request for an increase in special funds together with the list of papers to be subsidised (February 1936)

We have tried to use our links with the press to reveal to the public the danger of the opportunist policy Laval is veering towards [. . .] I will simply list the papers in which we chose to place the necessary articles as well as smaller items and telegrams. They are L’Ère nouvelle, Le Temps, L’Information, L’Ordre, Havas89 amongst others. We have had very lively and useful discussions with Pertinax, Tabouis, the editor responsible for diplomatic information at Havas, Comert, the chief press and information officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a whole host of other people. Without exaggeration, one can say that in recent times our press office has demonstrated not only that it has good relations with the press in this country but that it has had a marked influence on it, countering the opportunist tendencies of Laval. This is a convincing illustration of what we can achieve in Paris in this respect, if we have adequate funds.90

Potemkin gave additional details of the methods he adopted a few weeks later: I have made contact with the press through Tabouis, Gaboriaud, Rolland and Pertinax, acting as intermediaries. In order to stimulate the press concerning the London agreement, we have placed three articles in L’Ère nouvelle, three in L’Oeuvre, and two in L’Écho de Paris as well as a series of short pieces and telegrams in L’Information.91

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From the end of 1936 and through the beginning of 1937, the embassy also witnessed a positive outcome of its dealings with the press. In order to put pressure on the French government to enter into military negotiations with the USSR, the Soviet embassy spread partially founded rumours about a GermanSoviet rapprochement, relying on press statements. Sokolin, who was in Geneva, judged these rumours successful. Pierre Comert, head of the press section on the Quai d’Orsay, told him in fact that, as a consequence of a number of reports circulating in France and Geneva, the French were extremely fearful that the USSR might re-establish an alliance with Germany.92 In April 1937, as a result of a conversation he had had with Hirshfel’d, Pierre Cot suggested these rumours were having a positive effect, but advised him not to go on circulating them too long as they might eventually have a negative impact.93 The French government in fact restarted negotiations with the USSR during the spring of 1937, fearing a possible German-Soviet entente. The involvement of the embassy with the press had, to some extent, contributed to this. Nonetheless, the influence they had was limited for several reasons. Firstly, pro-Soviet journalists were few in number and quickly seen to be mouthpieces of the embassy, especially as what they said was taken up and widely quoted in the Soviet press.94 As a result, their articles were read ‘with full knowledge of the facts’. Pierre Comert was aware of the influence the embassy had on certain journalists, and it seemed to him on the whole beneficial for Moscow to use this channel to send messages and voice opinions, while seeing that the embassy did not exceed certain limits. However, at the beginning of 1937, when the Popular Front was being attacked by all and sundry, including journalists close to the embassy, Comert suggested caution. This is the advice he gave Sokolin, who passed it on to Moscow for his successor as secretary in the embassy: Everything written and said against the French government by those in favour of Franco-Soviet rapprochement is thought to emanate from the embassy, not only by the man in the street but also by the most important figures in the government. My successor must bear in mind that Moscow-inspired comments in the press or made by politicians are now almost immediately recognised. The anti-Soviet public will always attribute all ills to us, but

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those in positions of power distinguish between attacks on the government which come from the bowels of the embassy and the expression of views on day-to-day issues which contain no such attack. Comert added that he was not alluding to information gathered by the police, but was speaking in general terms to whoever would take over from me: ‘The fewer the journalists who go there, the better it will be for the embassy. As for the Italians and Germans, we know how crude and impudent they are in their control of a number of papers. It will all turn very sour for them in the end. The Soviet embassy does things more subtly, but it is under a great deal of suspicion. Such suspicions must not be allowed to become reality. Your best friends should not mistrust the sincerity of your friendship. Whoever takes over from you should heed my advice and be extremely cautious with all journalists and politicians. In France it is easy to respond to an atmosphere of political frankness, but a person representing an embassy should remember how and by whom his “confidential” remarks may be interpreted. His conversation must be neither enigmatic nor aggressive.’ Apologising for this didactic tirade, Comert said that I myself and staff in the Paris embassy were aware of all these points, but that given the tense situation he considered it his duty as a friend to go over them again.95

The pro-Soviet attitudes of certain journalists such as Geneviève Tabouis and François Quilici were confined to foreign affairs. Their criticisms of the Popular Front, which the government attributed to the embassy, more often reflected their own opinions on internal political matters and the general right-wing or centrist leanings of their papers, rather than being directives from Moscow. In some cases, it was to the disadvantage of the USSR. Indeed, these journalists, who were detested by members of the Popular Front for their attacks on the government, were as a result less well-placed to convince it of the need for FrancoSoviet cooperation: Quilici suffers from his collaboration with right-wing newspapers which systematically attack the Popular Front government, using, amongst other things, material he obtains from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in his role as diplomatic editor of Havas. Tabouis runs a similar risk too because she writes whatever she comes across,

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because many government opponents (the pro-Italian Poliakov, Herriot, the Polish etc.) feed her ideas, and because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs want to put her in her place. It is certainly galling that neither Quilici nor Tabouis were worried when Laval was in power. It is possible that by attacking Quilici, the left-wingers around Delbos believe they will stifle that bastion of reaction, the Havas agency, and possible also that the rebuffs experienced by Tabouis indicate the attribution of blame to more confirmed schemers. Viewed objectively, however, the pro-Soviet lobby of journalists is becoming weaker.96

Spreading positive information about the USSR through the League of Nations Both through the numerous publications of the League of Nations and through the press, which reported the debates and speeches of the Assembly and the Council, the important issue for the Soviets was to provide and to control as far as possible the information put out so as to give a positive image of the USSR and its politics. From 1935 Soviet delegates initially used debates by commissions of the Assembly to promote the Soviet regime in a favourable light. Kollontai used a debate in September 1935 about the equality of women, having first supported the draft agreement on the nationality of women, to describe in fulsome terms the situation of those ‘free and happy female citizens of the Soviet Union’.97 Kollontai, Rozenblum and Hershel’man, the head of the League of Nations department in Moscow, saw fit to intervene at some length during sessions which took place in 1935 and 1936 in discussions about the situation of women, the progress made in public health, the absence of drug trafficking and the merits of a planned economic system. Rozenblum’s panegyric on the Soviet economy in September 1936 showed how much confidence the Soviet delegation had acquired.98 Certain subjects such as the flight of refugees from the Russian revolution or the system of justice were however more sensitive issues for the Soviet delegates. In September 1935, during the presentation of the report by the committee on the trafficking of women, Kollontai conspicuously left the room at the point at which they were about to address the ‘situation of Russian women in the Far East’.99 During a debate about the suppression of prison terms for children, the French delegate, the Comte Carton de Viart, embarrassed the

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Soviet delegate by drawing attention to the fact that the USSR had just introduced legislation which meted out the same punishment to children as to adults, including the death penalty.100 In work published by the League of Nations, commentaries on economic and financial matters gave the Soviets the opportunity of revealing in the most favourable light the achievements of their five-year plans. Litvinov, as well as Rozenblum and Svanidze, did all they could to make the Soviet leadership aware of this, as the non-political activities of the League of Nations seemed derisory viewed from Moscow. The exchange of statistics which took place in the 1920s ceased in 1929 with the disappearance of the Soviet Economic Institute. At Litvinov’s request, the Politburo decided on 6 March 1935 to ‘create a supervisory body which would provide the League of Nations with statistical data relating to the economy of the USSR’. By July, however, the body was still not operational and figures requested by the economic and financial sections of the League of Nations, run by Stoppani and Loveday, arrived in dribs and drabs and were often contradictory, and therefore detrimental to the image and validity of Soviet statistics. Litvinov wrote an angry letter to the president of the State Planning Commission (Gosplan).101 Despite the slow progress in Moscow, Svanidze did all he could to provide Loveday with the Soviet figures he needed for publication, while Paul Elbel, the chairman of the economic committee, and Stoppani took advantage of advice and information given by Rozenblum.102 Bolshevik, the ideological review of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, did however applaud the accuracy of the analyses published by the League of Nations, based on statistics which revealed the success of the socialist programme of construction. Publications about health and nutrition were also favourable to the Soviet Union. The friendly links which existed between the health section of the League and the People’s Commissariat for Public Health were reflected in the reports presented at sessions of the Assembly before being published. In June 1935 the commission received a flattering account of approaches to public nutrition in the USSR. In September 1936 a report produced by the health committee, after a visit by several of its members to the Soviet Union, was warmly received by Kollontai and praised for its ‘impartiality’.103 Even within the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which was separate but complemented the work of the League of

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Nations and where the atmosphere was ‘more hostile’,104 there were improvements. Boris Markus, who represented the Soviet Union there, painted a positive picture at the beginning of 1937. He pointed, on the one hand, to the disappearance of anti-Soviet speeches and, on the other, to the increase in the number of publications based entirely on data provided by Moscow. The ‘authentic’ reports of officials of the ILO who had returned from the USSR had furthermore helped a great deal to discredit those with anti-Soviet tendencies. Finally, he pointed to the success Soviet delegates had had in using the platform of the ILO ‘for propaganda purposes concerning the achievements of the USSR in eliminating unemployment, in improving conditions of work and raising the standard of living’.105 The propaganda and contacts described by Markus had also influenced a section of the International Federation of Trade Unions and, though elements around Walter Citrine, its president and general secretary of the TUC, remained extremely hostile, those around Léon Jouhaux, the French general secretary of the CGT, and above all those on the left were more sympathetic. Conversely, the publication of military data, which was also a task of the League of Nations following its work on disarmament, was never based on figures obtained from Moscow, as the Commissariat for Defence not only refused to reveal the number of corps and divisions in the USSR and what its budget was; neither would it provide published material or books about the Red Army and its organisation.106 Despite a certain number of successes, Soviet participation in the work of the League remained very limited when compared with that of other nations. Above all, it became more and more intermittent from the spring of 1937 when the atmosphere of terror prevented people from coming and going between Geneva and Moscow and diplomats and Soviet citizens working at the League of Nations were themselves victims of the purges. Attempts to control the press in Geneva Public relations had an important role to play in Geneva. At the League of Nations most debates were open and it therefore functioned both as a showcase for the diplomacy of each country and as a platform for speeches. The impact which delegates could have on public opinion was a vital element in all this and depended in

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part on the role played by press correspondents and on the political orientation of the different papers which gravitated around the League of Nations. The main weapon of the Soviet delegation was speechmaking, which enabled those concerned to present an image of the Soviet Union as a moderate but resolute power which sought to defend collective security against fascist aggressors. Certainly, Litvinov’s major speeches to the Assembly, which were reported in the press, had an impact on public opinion. Moreover, Soviet press correspondents did all they could to publicise them as widely as possible; contacts had been built up between them and the press and information section of the League of Nations from the beginning of the 1930s. Vladimir Romm, the Tass agency correspondent in Geneva, was an elected member of the international association of journalists accredited by the League and had a permanent visa to enter Switzerland, following a decision taken by the federal Council.107 In April 1934 Vladimir Romm was replaced in Geneva by Mark Guelfand. He played an important part in the run-up to the Soviet Union joining the League of Nations in September that year.108 In 1936 Andrew Rotshtein became the permanent Tass representative in Geneva. As journalists, both Guelfand and Rotshtein were very close to the Soviet diplomats around Litvinov. Andrew, who had always lived in England, was the son of one of Litvinov’s old friends, Fedor Rotshtein, and a protégé of the People’s Commissar. Some of the newspapers in Geneva reproduced quite a large proportion of the communiqués put out by the Tass agency and gave considerable space to the opinions expressed by the Soviet delegation. From the time of the disarmament conference and above all after the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations, it was no longer the exclusive role of Soviet or communist papers to convey a positive image of the Soviet Union.109 At the time of the disarmament conference, in L’Europe Nouvelle, a review sympathetic to Briand, Louis Fischer was already painting a favourable picture of the Soviet Union and its foreign policy in the articles he wrote. From 1934 on, Le Journal des Nations also praised Soviet diplomacy. Moreover, one can see how the diplomatic sphere spread its influence to the social and political spheres. As Litvinov became an increasingly fervent defender of collective security, certain papers revised their opinions concerning the political evolution of the Soviet regime.

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Thus, until 1932, L’Europe Nouvelle, whilst hailing Soviet initiatives such as the signing of non-aggression pacts, had maintained a critical stance towards the USSR.110 But in 1933 the review adopted a new tone when it allowed Louis Fischer, who was sympathetic to the Soviet system, to write extensively in its pages. He painted a picture of a country which was calming down, apart that is for its programme of economic modernisation which was proceeding apace, and attributed this evolution to Stalin (sic): ‘The Soviets are happily discarding a number of their earlier bizarre ideas, which represented a curious mixture of misplaced radicalism and a lack of maturity, manifestations of a “puerile leftism” ’.111 In the field of foreign policy, he was pleased to acknowledge the failure and the abandonment for the foreseeable future of a possible world revolution. The changed attitude of the review towards the USSR stemmed from the ‘complete volte-face’ in Soviet foreign policy, symbolised by the definition of the aggressor. And Albert Mousset viewed the London agreements of July 1933 as marking ‘the reappearance of Russian diplomacy’ in Europe.112 In addition to its positive assessment of Soviet diplomacy, the review had praise for Litvinov whom it considered ‘a powerful candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize’.113 The Journal des Nations adopted an even more favourable tone towards the USSR from 1934. Founded in 1931 by Oryng, a Pole, it had the support of France and its central and eastern European allies. The principal financial backers were the countries of the Little Entente, but its editor also received financial support at regular intervals from the Quai d’Orsay through the French consul general in Geneva.114 The financial subsidy provided by the Quai d’Orsay ended in June 1934, when Prato, an Italian by birth, assumed the editorship. According to Marcel Hoden, he was ‘a confirmed anti-fascist zealot, the Geneva correspondent of L’Écho de Paris and the personal informant of Pertinax’.115 In Hoden’s opinion, the Journal des Nations had become a propaganda tool of the Petite Entente, hostile to Italy and doubtless to Poland as well. Did the Soviet Union now take over the provision of a subsidy from France? No document has provided any proof of this. But the line adopted by the journal was very close to that of the USSR in Geneva. Soviet delegates spoke of it as a valued ally. Hirshfel’d expressed satisfaction that it had ‘approved totally of the position of the USSR and Czechoslovakia’116 over the resolution of the

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conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay in December 1934. At the beginning of 1935, Litvinov, referring to the reluctance of the financial committee to accept a representative of the socialist system, acknowledged with pleasure the article in the Journal des Nations which ‘criticised these sycophants’.117 According to Potemkin, Poznansky said exactly the right thing in his articles about the Italian-Ethiopian conflict and the policy of Laval in December 1935.118 At the beginning of 1937, Litvinov intervened at a session of the Council on behalf of the journalist Prato, who had been censured by the Swiss authorities who did not like the anti-fascist tone of his articles.119 During their quarrels with the Swiss government at the end of the 1930s, Prato and the Journal des Nations obtained financial support from Republican Spain as well as money from the Rassemblement universel pour la paix (World-wide Peace Union), a body largely under the control of the USSR.120 Prato, whose journal was banned in Switzerland after Munich, then joined the editorial team of the Geneva-based socialist paper Le Travail, which was edited by Léon Nicole, whose sympathies for the Soviet Union were incontestable.121 The editorial anti-fascist line expressed by the Journal des Nations had led Prato to adopt a pro-Soviet stance in the second half of the 1930s.122 The dynamics of anti-fascism meant that the USSR and its foreign policy had an influence which went beyond narrow communist confines. It is nonetheless true that the often enthusiastic behaviour of the press in wholly identifying antifascist ideology with Soviet diplomacy at the League of Nations did not reflect entirely the action undertaken by the USSR at the League and sometimes restricted Litvinov’s room for manoeuvre as well as that of his colleagues. On occasions, the Soviet delegation found itself in an awkward situation, in particular during the Italian-Ethiopian conflict. Represented in the press as being vehemently opposed to Italian fascism, and to its colonial adventure in Abyssinia, it strove to live up to the image people had of it, while pursuing within the Council a policy of compromise towards Italy and France. In order to maintain his balancing act, Litvinov was in favour of strictly controlling the information released. He was particularly keen on using the Secretariat to filter information given to journalists about sessions of the Council held behind closed doors and he also wanted an inquiry to discover those who were

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‘guilty’ of systematically distorting the comments made by delegates, and especially the Soviet ones.123 Soviet influence on the press was in fact often countered by other influences, as papers were quite ready to widen the sources of their funding. On 2 September 1936 Litvinov recognised that they had failed to some extent and acknowledged Germany’s superiority in its ability to manipulate the foreign press: Not only has the anti-Soviet press campaign conducted by the Germans not abated, it has spread to other countries. I consider it impossible to achieve the desired results by seeking to influence journalists and papers in the usual ways and even by issuing denials through the Tass agency. We therefore need to adopt exceptional measures to counter this unprecedented campaign.124

Litvinov was used to obedience from a disciplined and systematically supportive Soviet press corps. Even if he exploited the Western press as much as possible, he finally found it difficult to accept its freedom, its love of scandal, its opportunistic and venal nature from the moment these characteristics served the politics of his own country less than those of its adversaries. Furthermore, these adversaries had greater influence in Western milieux and in the major papers which were at the time predominantly right-wing.

Creating an image in Geneva The desire to influence the press and to create groups of people with pro-Soviet sympathies were simply elements in a global policy to re-establish the international importance of the Soviet Union as the true heir of Russia. This involved legitimising the Soviet state, and an entente with France served this end. Becoming a member of the League of Nations was another key factor, as it was the best place for ‘image-building on a foreign stage’.125 However, and this was their principal problem in joining it, the League of Nations was the only democratic body in which the Soviets were involved, and they therefore risked having to face expressions of open hostility towards them. Yet in spite of this, the wager they made in seeking to win people over and convince them of their good faith was partially successful, as Soviet representatives did acquire some credit within the League of Nations and were able to use it to their advantage.

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A difficult battlefield For political, geopolitical or ideological reasons, some delegations allowed themselves to be convinced that the USSR had returned to normal and was genuine in its opposition to fascism and in its support for peace. In the meantime, Moscow had to counter the numerous prejudices of those who, when they looked at the Soviet representatives, saw behind them the revolutionary and totalitarian nature of the Soviet system. One can measure the changes in attitude when one compares the frosty reception the Soviet delegates received when they first entered the League of Nations with the position they were able to establish in the two years which followed. According to the procedures adopted by the League of Nations, the Soviet Union had to receive the votes of two thirds of its members, in order to join. This did not prove easy, despite the campaign organised by France and Édouard Benes, who was then president of the Council. If all of France’s allies in central Europe were in favour, including Poland, whose hostile then indecisive attitude had long bothered Moscow, Britain and Spain had to intervene at the last minute in order to convince the waverers. Salvador de Madariaga used his influence with the countries of Latin America, and Britain put pressure on the members of the Commonwealth.126 The USSR was admitted by a vote of thirtyeight to three, with seven abstentions, and the decision was only confirmed following a meeting of the Assembly at which opponents could express their point of view.127 Litvinov expressed his displeasure, as he had not anticipated any problems over joining and had said as much in order to persuade the Soviet leadership. In assessing the difficulties the USSR had encountered, René Massigli, the French representative, referred to the ‘the many feelings of resentment and the fears’ which Soviet diplomats had to allay. The Foreign Office, on the contrary, was pleased at the cool welcome the Soviets had received: ‘It is alright for Russia to join the League of Nations, but we should not welcome her with open arms!’128 The issue as to whether the USSR was becoming more moderate was central to the debate which took place in September 1934 between those who supported the entry of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations and those who opposed it. Louis Barthou, who was influenced by geopolitical considerations involving the

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encirclement of Germany, defended the idea that the Russian revolution was a distant phenomenon, observing that ‘a remarkable change had occurred since the time of Lenin’. He based his argument on a comparison with the French Revolution: ‘Jacobins who are ministers do not always remain Jacobin ministers’.129 He was supported by Benes, the Czech Foreign Minister, who, on the basis of political realism, believed that that the Soviet Union should become once again part of the map of Europe.130 Conversely, the Swiss and Portuguese delegates, echoing public opinion in their own countries, were totally inflexible in their attitude towards the USSR. Refusing to accept the idea that the Bolshevik regime had changed or become more moderate, they pointed to the ideological conflict in which the defenders of Christianity and the ‘civilised’ world were opposed to the Bolsheviks. This is how Giuseppe Motta, the Swiss representative, summed things up: The most radical negation of all the basic values by which we live [. . .] Soviet communism opposes religion and spirituality in all its forms [. . .] Communism breaks up families; abolishes individual initiative; it does away with private property [. . .] Russian communism seeks to implant itself everywhere.131

In adopting a firm position and refusing to vote in favour of the USSR, Motta sought to prevent patriotic and religious organisations in Switzerland from campaigning for the country’s withdrawal from the League of Nations.132 The international entente, chaired by Théodore Aubert in Geneva, which was opposed to the 3rd International, was at the forefront of the fight to prevent the USSR from joining the League of Nations, whose moral integrity it sought to defend. When the Assembly opened in September, this group distributed a pamphlet to delegates entitled The Comintern, the Soviet Government and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, denouncing these bodies as dangerous and revolutionary.133 The exiled Ukrainian, Georgian and Armenian representatives, of whom there were large numbers in Geneva and who were represented on the High Commission for Refugees, also produced pamphlets and engaged in protest demonstrations; the actions of the exiled Georgians, who were Mensheviks and members of the 2nd International, having some influence on socialist members of the League such as the Swede Sandler.134

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Giuseppe Motta acted as spokesman in their demands for independence, solemnly declaring: ‘Armenia, Ukraine and other countries as well will witness honourable men continuing to defend their interests’.135 Confronted with the dilemma of wishing to involve Moscow in the preservation of peace and yet heeding the legitimate claims of the peoples of the USSR, the League of Nations chose the path of political realism or deliberately turned a blind eye, depending on one’s point of view. It had already acted in a similar fashion at the time of the famine in 1933, when the Council refused to listen to the humanitarian demands of the Ukrainian representatives, directing them to the Red Cross instead on the grounds that any action was ‘politically impracticable’.136 The democratic, and therefore partly unpredictable, nature of the Assembly of the League of Nations was initially a handicap for Soviet diplomats, and it differed from the Council, which comprised the Great Powers who supported the involvement of the USSR. Thus, the Soviet delegation feared the moment of truth when elections to the organising committee of the Assembly took place at the opening of each ordinary session of the Assembly. The results in September 1935 were wholly negative, with Litvinov failing to obtain sufficient votes to become one of the six vice-presidents. He was in seventh place, whereas it was usual for those countries which were permanent members of the Council to automatically obtain the first six places in the ballot.137 Litvinov was ‘disappointed’ and found it difficult to accept this public rejection, and so the French delegation had to find a way of ‘putting things right and getting the USSR elected to the organising committee of the Assembly by other means’.138 The next day, following a proposal from the Belgian Foreign Minister Van Zeeland, which was openly supported by Édouard Herriot, the Assembly unanimously accepted Soviet membership of the organising committee, given the number of votes they had obtained.139 So, in order to obtain a place reserved for the Great Powers, the Soviet Union had to circumvent the democratic process and fall back on the help of France. This humiliating and unfortunate turn of events was very badly received in Moscow. The following year, the Politburo anticipated a walk-out on the part of the delegation if a similar electoral setback occurred.140 Though he was opposed to such an extreme measure, Litvinov was extremely pessimistic about the outcome of the vote. Within the secretariat,

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Marcel Hoden led a campaign aimed in particular at the Latin American countries, who were very hostile, so as to avoid a renewed rejection of the Soviet Union which would have discredited the ‘pro-Soviet’ policy of the Great Powers on the Council of the League of Nations, and especially France.141 In the end, the Soviet Union received a respectable mandate, coming in fifth place in front of Italy and behind France, Great Britain, Yugoslavia and Canada.142 Though partly due to the actions of the Secretariat, the result also reflected the strengthening position of the Soviet Union within the League of Nations. As a result of the war in Ethiopia in particular, the delegation achieved legitimacy, finding itself somewhere between the lesser powers who defended the sovereignty of the Assembly and the Great Powers, whose negotiations, either within the Council or in private, were often responsible for the political line adopted by the League. Having publicly declared themselves to be ardent supporters of economic and financial sanctions against Italy in October 1935, demanding that retaliatory measures be adopted against those guilty parties who continued to trade with Rome, the Soviet delegates had also ridden the wave of anti-imperialist feelings stirred up amongst the small and medium sized nations sidelined within the League by the Franco-British plans of December 1935 which were favourable to Italy.143 This did not, however, prevent the Soviet delegation from playing a moderating role as a member of the Council when the interests of the USSR were at stake. From the beginning to the end of the conflict, the Soviet delegation stood foursquare behind the collective decisions of the League of Nations and avoided too overt an attack on Italy so as not to precipitate the breaking off of relations.144 In January 1936 the Soviet delegation was much more hesitant than the British about the extension of oil sanctions, as oil was a significant part of what it sent to Italy.145 Similarly, following the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, the Soviet Union did not wish to fall out with either the British or the French and was concerned not to push Italy into the arms of Germany, and so it too accepted the de facto annexation of Ethiopia by Italy. Their behaviour as a Great Power was criticised by the Czechs, who reproached the USSR for having ‘wavered’.146 However, in September 1936 the Soviet delegation was again able to demonstrate its readiness to ‘champion’ the smaller against

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the larger powers, by defending the legality of the Ethiopian government which was not allowed to have a seat, on the grounds that Ethiopia was no longer an independent country.147 Litvinov had the support of delegates who, either because of their anti-fascism, their anti-imperialism or their sense of solidarity as a small state, refused to strike Ethiopia off the map, and so he was elected with the largest number of votes to the commission charged with checking the accreditation of delegations.148 Soviet respectability guaranteed by the League of Nations Enjoying, on the one hand, the support of the French and their allies, and, on the other, the prestige they had gained with public opinion which favoured the defence of collective security and was also anti-fascist, the Soviets in Geneva tried to get the League of Nations openly to support the Soviet Union against its critics over various issues. This arose first in relation to the way refugees were dealt with. In Geneva, Russian, Armenian and Ukrainian refugees were represented within the vast network of committees and commissions whose role it was to sort out the problem of refugees. From the end of the 1920s, the Soviets had sought to infiltrate the associations of Armenian refugees which belonged to the consultative committee of private organisations, in order to set in motion their return to Soviet Armenia. According to a note dated 30 August 1930 from Madame de Navailles, the head of the Commissariat for Refugees in Germany had had ‘contacts with the Soviets’ and, as a result, had ‘made it possible for OGPU to have access to Russian groups of refugees’.149 In parallel with its strategy of infiltration, the Soviet Union was resolutely hostile to refugee organisations once it became a member of the League of Nations. Litvinov indicated that the intergovernmental commission on refugees, which appointed representatives to the administrative council of the Nansen Commission for Refugees, had as technical advisors members of the ‘Council of former Russian ambassadors’ and also individuals from the ‘delegation of the Republic of Armenia’.150 The fact that the Nansen Commission was able to give a certain legitimacy to governments in exile seemed scandalous to Moscow. In March 1935 Litvinov told Boris Shtein to request a study of the membership of the Commission for Refugees and suggested that ‘representatives

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belonging to organisations of White Guards, whether members or “technical advisors”, as well representatives of fictitious national counter-revolutionary governments’151 should be excluded. In July Avenol promised to look into the matter and take it up with the Nansen Commission. In fact, the only action taken was to suggest to the Commission that it strike off those bodies which had come under suspicion, while allowing members who belonged to them to continue under another guise. Shtein saw behind this manoeuvre the hand of the ‘White Guard’ Pastukhov, who was secretary of the Commission for Refugees and a member of the political section of the Secretariat.152 There were numerous expressions of dissatisfaction with the activities of the Nansen Commission from the Soviet delegation to the Assembly. The provisional status of this body had been regularly extended since the end of the 1920s and Moscow simply wished to see it wound up. Indeed, the Soviet Union wanted the status of refugee, granted to thousands of White Russians who had fled the Revolution, to be abolished, because, in its view, this status constituted an affront and a way of maintaining political influence for anti-Soviet Russians. In September 1935 Potemkin was opposed to Nansen’s organisation taking charge of refugees from Germany, as they were the responsibility of an independent high commission. Such action risked giving Nansen’s organisation a second wind and perpetuating the status of Russian communities in exile as refugees.153 The hostility which the USSR felt towards Russian émigré organisations was an additional reason to support the French plan for the international suppression of terrorism. After the assassination of King Alexander 1st of Yugoslavia and Louis Barthou on 9 October 1934, France tabled a draft international agreement to crack down on terrorism. Litvinov warmly supported the French proposal at a meeting of the Council on 10 December 1934. It is obvious that Moscow was interested in the adoption of a coercive legal mechanism which would restrict the scope of the right to asylum. Kirov had just been assassinated in his stronghold of Leningrad, and immediately the NKVD tried to claim that his assassin, Nikolayev, was a member of a terrorist organisation inspired by Zinoviev and organised and financed from abroad by Trotsky. Soviet intelligence services had always placed great emphasis on the real or alleged incursion of foreign terrorists on Soviet soil. Had not the monthly journal For Russia,

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which was published in Belgrade, called in November 1934 for the ‘use of armed terrorism’ and ‘the overthrow of the leaders of the Soviet Union’? Immediately following the attack on Kirov, around a hundred people who had entered the USSR illegally from Poland, Romania, Finland and Latvia were executed without trial.154 The active participation of Soviet delegates on the Genevabased commission which sought to fight against terrorism can be understood in this context. Hirshfel’d insisted, for example, that the agreement should include ‘the extradition not only of those who had already committed political assassinations, but also those who organised armed groups amongst émigrés with the aim of invading a foreign country or formed groups amongst émigrés, which were of a military nature or run on military lines’.155 What this meant was that, through the agreement, it would be legitimate to extradite a certain number of political émigrés who were in countries which bordered the Soviet Union. As well as seeking the necessary legislative reform concerning the holding of weapons in all countries, the Soviet delegation also stressed the need to outlaw direct or indirect support for terrorism and violence.156 Press campaigns organised by anti-Soviet organisations in Europe would as a consequence be banned. These particular Soviet proposals provoked strong reactions on the part of delegates from Britain, Belgium and Switzerland, as implicit within them were significant restrictions on the freedom of the press and the right to asylum. A year later, when the first trial had already taken place in Moscow, the Belgian delegate, Rolin, said that he refused to extradite to the USSR those who might be guilty of anti-Soviet acts.157 Conversely, the position of the Soviet delegation was accepted by France and the countries of the Little Entente. Preoccupied with the terrorist threat in Europe posed by fascist organisations and regimes, they saw the Soviet Union as a powerful ally in the fight against fascist violence. Nonetheless, under the worthy cover of their anti-fascist stance, Moscow seemed preoccupied above all else to obtain international legal support for the fight led by Stalin and the NKVD against political opponents abroad. Furthermore, having associated himself in 1934 with those leaders who were fighting terrorist subversion, Stalin had already obtained some sort of international support for the repression he was about to undertake of those he represented as dangerous Trotskyist terrorists, allied to Hitler. Thus, following the trial of the sixteen in August

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1936, when the USSR asked Norway to revoke the right to asylum granted to Trotsky, it based its demands on the resolution passed by the Council of the League of Nations on 10 December 1934, which established between members ‘the duty to help each other in the fight against terrorism’.158 Trotsky had, however, already reacted strongly, in January 1936, to the presence of Litvinov on the Geneva commission: Marxists, as we know, have firmly rejected and still reject acts of individual terrorism. But that has never prevented them from always being on the side of William Tell and never that of the Austrian tyrant Gessler. Soviet diplomats, on the other hand, currently discuss with the Gesslers of this world ways of exterminating the Tells. In supporting the international repression of terrorism, Stalin carries out in the best way possible his own terrorist repression of the Bolsheviks. It goes without saying that in the eyes of the League of Nations, of the American government and even of Hitler, our denunciation [of Stalin’s atrocities against revolutionaries] can only enhance Stalin’s standing which is already considerable.159

In the whole business of the fight against terrorism, the USSR flaunted itself as a state which defended international public order, alongside the so-called bourgeois states. This legalist image, which it maintained in the conduct of the Moscow trials, was reinforced simultaneously with the drafting of the new Soviet constitution. The League of Nations was able to give the USSR credibility in matters relating to the respect for legality and the fight against terrorism. It did so too in approving publicly the Soviet argument that the Comintern was entirely detached from the Soviet state. Uruguay, which had been the first South American country to recognise the Soviet Union in 1926, took the decision, influenced by Brazil, to break off diplomatic relations with Moscow at the end of 1935. The Soviet legation in Montevideo was denounced by the Uruguayan government as an active centre financing and directing revolutionary movements which were developing in Brazil at the time. The Soviet Union brought the matter to the Council of the League of Nations, seeking arbitration. The Council took it up at once, as the majority of members sought to justify collaboration with Moscow over collective security by pointing to the now normal nature of the Soviet Union and the fact that it was not promoting

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revolutionary activities. Marcel Hoden told Potemkin that the Soviet government’s appeal had caused a great deal of comment and, even though it was a delicate subject, he was convinced that Litvinov would successfully get the appropriate resolutions passed in a spirit of moderation.160 Litvinov in fact seized the initiative at the Council, explaining self-assuredly that Uruguay had violated the treaty of the League, that its anti-Soviet attitude was wellknown, and that it did not require Moscow’s involvement for a revolutionary situation to develop in Brazil and Uruguay. Finally, he demanded proof of the accusations made by Uruguay. The Uruguayan delegate was much less convincing, resorting to generalities and refusing to provide documentation which, because it emanated from a bank, was confidential. Litvinov then made a great impression by stating that his government was ready to lift the professional secrecy of banks in Uruguay where Soviet representatives held deposits. Massigli concluded with a certain lucidity: ‘One can foresee that the Soviets will seek to draw conclusions from today’s session which will far exceed in scope the matter under discussion within the Council’.161 Thus, while the absence of links between the Comintern and the Soviet embassy in Uruguay was a complete fiction, it was Litvinov’s exposé which carried the day in the face of the embarrassed caution on the part of the Uruguayan delegate. The Soviet Union also played on the notion that might is right. However, Trotsky vehemently denounced the Great Power chauvinism which the Soviet Union displayed towards Uruguay: ‘They allow themselves in their puffed up role as a Great Power to attack Uruguay, “small”, “insignificant”, “difficult to find on a map” [. . .] The reactionary attitude of the ruling bureaucracy can best be seen in “trifles” of this kind rather than in its broader politics’.162 The Council did not resolve the issue between the two parties, leaving the matter to the judgement of international public opinion.163 The holding of a debate on this subject within the League of Nations was however more advantageous to the USSR. Despite the range of means adopted, one is struck by the coherent manner in which the machinery used to inform and influence people was manipulated by Soviet diplomats in the 1930s. It can be attributed to the clearly defined objectives and targets and to the efficient pinpointing of them by men such as Vladimir Sokolin who was strikingly effective. The coherence of their strategy came also from a genuine separation of tasks. Diplomats in Europe

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never allowed their strategy to overlap that being pursued simultaneously by the Comintern or the GPU. If the system as a whole worked for Stalin and his colleagues in the Kremlin, it did not prevent it from operating on different bases which in no way reflected the sensibility and political culture at the top.

Notes 1. There are a few details in Claude Bellanger et al., Histoire générale de la presse française, vol. 3 (Paris: PUF, 1972), and in Jean-Noel Jeanneney, L’Argent caché. Milieux d’affaires et pouvoirs politiques dans la France du XXe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 1981), chapter 11. 2. Dnevnik Sokolin, 11 February 1937, APE FR, 011/1/7/75. 3. Note of the conversation between Antsipo-Chikunsky and the French naval attaché, 8 June 1936, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 6, 1993, p. 105. 4. Letter from Maisky to Litvinov, 25 November 1935, APE FR, 010/10/48/7. 5. Letter from Kagan to Krestinsky, 10 October 1935, ibid. 6. Letter from Maisky to Litvinov, 25 June 1935, ibid. 7. Vospominanya sovetskogo diplomata [Memoirs of a Soviet diplomat] (Moscow, 1987), p. 322; telegram fom Maisky to Litvinov, 15 June 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, p. 397. 8. Telegram from Maisky, 8 March 1936 and telegram from Litvinov, 13 March 1936, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, p. 129; letter from Maisky to Litvinov, 9 May 1936, APE FR, 010/11/66/17. 9. Letter from Potemkin to Krestinsky, 11 November 1935, APE FR, 010/10/60/148. 10. Letter from Hirshfel’d to Krestinsky, 25 August 1935, and letter from Litvinov to Potemkin, 19 November 1935, ibid. 11. Coeuré, La Grande Lueur à l’Est, p. 172. 12. Account given by Unshlikht to Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and Alksnis, 25 August 1934, RGVA, 33987/3/576. 13. Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, 31 January and 24 February 1935, APE FR, 10/10/60/152. 14. Dnevnik Sokolin, 11 February 1937, ibid., 011/1/7/75. 15. Conversation with Pertinax and Quilici, Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, 11 January 1937; with Tabouis, Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, 30 January 1937; with Hoden, 11 April 1937, ibid., 74; letter from Potemkin to Litvinov, 26 June 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, p. 416. 16. Conversations with Hirshfel’d, 16 and 26 January 1935, ibid., 010/10/60/152. 17. Letter to Litvinov, 14 February 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, p. 106; letter to Litvinov, 8 February 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8.

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18. Conversation between Geneviève Tabouis and William Martin, 14 October 1933, archives of the League of Nations, Martin collection, conversations, 2nd series, p. 1946. 19. Dnevnik Sokolin, 11 February 1937, APE FR, 011/1/7/75. 20. Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, 25 May 1935, ibid., 010/10/60/152. 21. Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, 11 January 1937 and 12 May 1937, ibid., 011/1/7/74. 22. Conversation with Jean Paul-Boncour, 5 February; with Geneviève Tabouis, 23 February; with Pierre Comert, 24 February 1935; conversation with the Czech ambassador in France, Stefan Osusky, 23 February 1935; lunch at Potemkin’s with Stefan Osusky, Colonel Fabry, Claude Vallet, Pierre Comert, François Quilici and Pertinax, 7 March 1935, Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, APE FR, 010/10/60/152. 23. At lunch in the embassy on 16 February 1935 with Geneviève Tabouis, Édouard Herriot, Stefan Osusky, Politis, Pertinax, Berle and Pinon, ibid.; letter from Potemkin to Krestinsky, 10 February 1935, ibid., 010/10/60/148. 24. Letter from Potemkin to Krestinsky, 10 March 1935, APE FR, 010/10/60/148. Moscow seems not to have taken up this proposal. On 26 March 1935, Potemkin wrote to Krestinsky: ‘For the moment, we, for our part, have made no promises to Laval, nor have we given him cause to think that we will not support him’, ibid. 25. Letter from Rozenberg to Litvinov, 19 November 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8. 26. Potemkin to Litvinov, 26 December 1935, ibid., 05/15/105/8. 27. Letter from Litvinov to Potemkin, 4 November 1935, ibid., 010/10/60/148. 28. Dnevnik Davtyan, conversations with de Monzie, 25 November 1935, ibid., 122/19/170a/8. My thanks to Oleg Ken, a historian of Soviet-Polish relations at the University of St Petersburg, for this reference. 29. Alfred Mallet, Pierre Laval (Paris: Amiot-Dumont, 1954), vol. 1, p. 111; Fred Kupferman, Laval (1883–1945), p. 163. 30. Letter from Litvinov to Maisky, 4 November 1935, APE FR, 010/10/48/7. 31. Telegram from Litvinov, London, 14 March 1936, DVP SSSR, vol. 19, p. 142. 32. Directive from Litvinov to Potemkin, 4 December 1935, APE FR, 10/10/60/148; Letters from Potemkin to Krestinsky, 26 November, and to Litvinov, 11 December 1935, ibid. 33. Letter from Potemkin to Krestinsky, 10 February 1935, APE FR, 10/10/60/148. In the biography of Georges Mandel, there is little about his relations with the Soviet embassy: Bertrand Favreau,

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34.

35.

36.

37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44.

45. 46.

47.

203

Georges Mandel ou la passion de la République, 1885–1944 (Paris: Fayard, 1996), pp. 355–6. Serge Berstein, Édouard Herriot ou la République en personne (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1985); Sabine Jansen, Pierre Cot, un anti-fasciste radical (Paris: Fayard, 2002). Letter from the embassy in Paris, 29 October 1934, APE FR, 05/14/96/10; Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, 1935, ibid., 010/10/60/152; letter from Sokolin, 26 March 1937, 05/17/128/15. The OMS (Otdel Mezhdunarodnoi Svyazy) was at the head of a network of agents abroad, charged with establishing links between Moscow and foreign communist parties. See Branko Lazich, ‘La formation de la section des liaisons internationales du Komintern (OMS), 1921–1923’, Communisme, 1982, no. 4, pp. 65–80; Peter Huber, ‘The Cadre Department, the OMS and the “Dimitrov” and “Manuilsky” Secretariats During the Phase of the Terror’, in Mikhail Narinsky and Jürgen Rojahn (eds), Centre and Periphery. The History of the Comintern in the Light of New Documents (Amsterdam: International Institute of Social History, 1996), pp. 129–32. RGASPI, 495/19/381. Protocol of the meeting of the sector within the Central Committee responsible for cadres abroad, June 1932, RGASPI, 17/120/83. Letter from Rozenberg to Litvinov, Geneva, 26 April 1936, APE FR, 05/16/116/13. Letter from Litvinov to Potemkin, 4 May 1936, ibid., 010/11/77/113. Letter from Surits to Potemkin, 12 August 1937, ibid., 011/1/8/76. Telegram from Dampierre, in the embassy in Rome, 2 August 1934, AMAEF, Protocol series, Diplomatic Corps, file 54. Barmine, Vingt ans au service de l’URSS, p. 351; Telegram from the French ambassador in Rome, 4 May 1939, AMAEF, Europe series 18–40, URSS, vol. 962. A. S. Semenov, Dolg i otvaga. Rasskazy o dipkurierakh [Duty and courage. Accounts of a diplomatic courier] (Moscow, 1989), pp. 121–2. Letter from Litvinov to the ‘authorities’, 31 October 1934, APE FR, 05/14/96/10. On the different commissions and permanent bodies alongside the Secretariat, see the organisation chart of the League of Nations in P. Gerbet, V. Y. Ghebali and M. R. Mouton, Les Palais de la paix. Société des Nations et Organisation des Nations Unies (Paris: Éditions Richelieu, 1973), p. 386. Louis Fischer, Men and Politics, pp. 262–3.

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48. Letter from Litvinov to the Politburo, 22 October 1934, APE FR, 05/14/96/10. Litvinov expressed his disapproval of this appointment which he considered too political: note by Eden of 31 January 1935, FO/W642/164/98, quoted in I. Plettenberg, ‘The Soviet Union and the League of Nations’, Société des Nations: rétrospective (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1983), p. 156. 49. Declaration of the economic committee when Rozenblum was nominated on 7 January 1935, League of Nations archives, 10A/15634/357; letter from Otto Niemeyer, a British expert on banking and tax, to Sir John Simon, 15 January 1935, FO/W718/705/98, in I. Plettenberg, ‘The Soviet Union and the League of Nations’, p. 156. 50. The USSR placed Nansen’s name in the Soviet Pantheon of foreign heroes. See Izvestya, 15 May 1930: ‘The death of a great scientist and a friend of the USSR, Fridtjof Nansen’. 51. Letter from Gilbert Murray to Jean de Montenach, 9 January 1935, League of Nations archives, 5B/15869/5884. 52. Letter from Shtein to Litvinov, 21 February 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/7; Dnevnik Potemkin, conversation with Hoden, 10 January 1936, 010/11/76/110. 53. Letter sent from Paris by Rozenberg to Litvinov, 8 February 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8; Hirshfel’d met Rajchman frequently, ibid., 010/10/60/152. 54. ‘Deals between the Soviets and the Chinese representatives in Geneva’, reliable source, 19 December 1936, dossier on the relations between the USSR and the Far East, SHAT, 7N 3132. 55. Letter from Litvinov to Krestinsky, Geneva, 3 August 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8; the friendly relations between Litvinov and Rajchman and the likelihood that the latter was a ‘fellow-traveller’ (very close to Karl Radek) are referred to by Marta Alexandra Balinska, Une vie pour l’humanitaire: Ludwik Rajchman, 1881– 1965 (Paris: La Découverte, 1995), pp. 170–1. 56. Konni Zilliacus was an ‘internationalist through and through’. Born of a Finnish father and an American mother, he was a naturalised Briton and had married a Polish woman from Vladivostok. Cf. M. A. Balinska, Une vie pour l’humanitaire, p. 110; Andrew J. Williams, Labour and Russia. The Attitude of the Labour Party to the USSR, 1924–1934 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), p. 126; F. P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952). 57. Letter from Sokolin to Hershel’man, 26 March 1937, APE FR, 05/17/128/15. 58. Letter from Shtein to Litvinov, 21 February 1935, ibid., 05/15/105/7. 59. Letter from Litvinov, 4 March 1935, ibid.

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60. ‘L’Union soviétique et la Société des Nations’, manuscript, Sokolin collection, p. 61. 61. Interview with Sokolin, 15 November 1968, in Henry Krisch, ‘Soviet Participation in the Non-Political Work of the League of Nations, 1934–1939’, unpublished manuscript, University of Connecticut, 1976, p. 18. 62. Interview with Pablo de Azcarate, 13 November 1968 and with Thanassis Aghnides, 12 November 1968, ibid., pp. 19–22. 63. Letter from Rozenberg to Litvinov, 26 April 1936, APE FR, 05/16/116/13. 64. In spite of the agreement of 1932 which stipulated that under-secretaries general ‘should always be responsible for sections and be totally integrated as members of the Secretariat’, the Soviet undersecretary general had no specific administrative task. 65. Letter from Sokolin to Hershel’man, Geneva, 8 July 1937, APE FR, 05/17/128/15. 66. Ibid., 13 and 18 April 1937. 67. Letter from Sokolin to Hershel’man, 26 March 1937, ibid. 68. Letter from Hershel’man to Sokolin, 28 March 1937, ibid. 69. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 5 February 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 70. Coeuré, La Grande Lueur à l’Est, p. 143. 71. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 16 January 1934, APE FR, 05/14/103/117; decision taken by the Politburo on 20 January, protocol no. 152 of the meeting of the Politburo, RGASPI, 17/3/937. 72. After an interim period when Arens was editor, the first editor in chief, Lukyanov, was replaced by Raievsky in April 1935, a journalist with the Tass agency and close to Karl Radek. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 23 February 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 73. Letter from Krestinsky to Molotov, concerning special expenditure, 8 October 1934, GARF, R-5446/15a/1042. 74. In June 1932 the embassy succeeded in getting published in the international politics review Europaïsche Sprache a speech on disarmament by Litvinov as well as an article by Boris Shtein on the pacts between the USSR and Poland and France: letter from Khinchuk to Kaganovich, 17 June 1932, RGASPI, 17/120/63. 75. In 1931 the Berliner Tageblatt, considered to be ‘in a difficult financial situation’, received 25,000 gold roubles from the Soviet embassy in Berlin, ibid. 76. RGASPI, 17/120/63. 77. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 13 January 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 78. Letter from Krestinsky to Molotov, 8 October 1934, GARF, R5446/15a/1042.

206

MEN OF INFLUENCE

79. In France, if the base was 100 in 1935, the price index had reached 111 by 1936. 80. Based on figures contained in the statement of special expenditure for 1935, 22 February 1936, and in the report on secret funds, 31 March 1937, APE FR, 05/16/114/1 and 05/17/126/1. 81. On the secret funds of the NKID, see the letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 31 March 1937, ibid. 82. Ibid. 83. The subsidy given to Le Temps by the Soviet Union was, it seems, ‘within accepted limits’. By comparison, Le Journal des Nations received the same sum from the Quai d’Orsay in 1932, which was the equivalent of 33,900 francs in 1935, taking into account the prices index. See the letter from Dulong to Amé-Leroy, the French consul general in Geneva, 3 January 1932, and the letter from Amé-Leroy to Massigli, 8 January 1932, AMAEF, League of Nations, vol. 1904. 84. On Romain Rolland, a major pacifist intellectual and fellowtraveller, who visited the USSR in 1935, see Coeuré, La Grande Lueur à l’Est; Christophe Prochasson, Les Intellectuels, le socialisme et la guerre (1900–1938) (Paris: Seuil, 1993); and Nicole Racine, ‘Le Comité de vigilance des intellectuals antifascistes (1934–1939)’, Le Mouvement social, no. 101, 1977. 85. Table established from a letter sent by Litvinov to Stalin, 22 February 1936, drawing up the balance sheet of special expenditure for the year 1935, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 86. Litvinov quoted this extract from a letter from Potemkin in his own letter to Stalin, 22 February 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 87. On the secret funds of the NKID, Litvinov to Stalin, 31 March 1937, ibid., 05/17/126/1. 88. ‘There are other journalists whom we cannot sound out unless we give them a firm assurance that their demands will be met. They include, for example, Pertinax, Jules Sauerwein and Pironneau’, 22 February 1936, ibid., 05/16/114/1. There is, however, no proof that these journalists subsequently accepted or received money from the embassy. 89. Havas was the major French press agency. 90. Letter from Potemkin to Krestinsky, 11 January 1935, ibid., 010/10/60/148. 91. Ibid., 10 February 1935. 92. Letter from Sokolin to Hershel’man, 26 March 1937, APE FR, 05/17/128/15. 93. Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, 26 April 1937, concerning a conversation with Pierre Cot on 21 April 1937, ibid., 011/1/7/74. 94. For example, in Geneva, in May 1936, when the Council was in session, Soviet papers referred on several occasions to articles by Tabouis.

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207

95. Dnevnik Sokolin, 11 February 1937, conversation with Pierre Comert, APE FR, 011/1/7/75. 96. Dnevnik Sokolin, ibid. 97. Report of the first commission, 13 September 1935, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, Geneva, special supplement, no. 139, p. 13. 98. Rozenblum’s intervention relating to the monetary agreement between France, the United Kingdom and the United States, second commission, 8 October 1936, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement, no. 157, p. 75. 99. Note to René Massigli on the work of the fifth commission, Geneva, 13 September 1935, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 101. It referred to the Russian émigré community at Harbin in Manchuria, following the defeat of the White armies of the Far East. 100. Note to Massigli, Geneva, 16 September 1935, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 101. 101. Letter from Litvinov to Mezhlauk, chairman of Gosplan, 11 July 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8. 102. A series of publications Monnaie et banque, League of Nations archives, 10B/22496/7200; letter from Paul Elbel to Stoppani, 2 March 1936, letter from Stoppani to Rozenblum, 20 March 1936, League of Nations archives, 10A/21288/1952. 103. Interventions by Kollontai, second commission, 25 September and 3 October 1936, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement no. 157, pp. 12 and 32. 104. ‘On the International Labour Organisation’, note from Litvinov, 9 October 1934, APE FR, 05/14/96/10. 105. Note from Markus on the relations between the USSR and the ILO, sent to Stalin, Andreiev and Molotov, 23 January 1937, ibid., 011/1/5/49. 106. Letter from Ventsov to Litvinov and Voroshilov, 27 February 1935, and from Litvinov to Voroshilov, 3 March 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8. 107. Letter from Pierre Comert to René Massigli, Geneva, 16 January 1929, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 1904; letter from Camille Gorgé, a member of the Swiss delegation, to Jean de Montenach, Berne, 26 June 1934, League of Nations archives, 13/5176/8225. 108. Letter from Doletsky, general manager of the Tass agency in Moscow, to Pelt, head of the information section at the League of Nations, 22 April 1934, League of Nations Archives, 13/5176/8225; Z. Sheinis, ‘Pis’ma M.M. Litvinova iz Merano: 1934 g.’ [letters from Litvinov in Merano in 1934], Novaya i noveishaya istorya, 1992, pp. 136–46. 109. In Switzerland, the overlapping and complex communist press organisations as well as the numerous bodies sympathetic to the

208

110.

111. 112.

113. 114.

115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120.

121.

122.

MEN OF INFLUENCE

USSR have been studied by Brigitte Studer, Un parti sous influence (Lausanne: L’Âge d’homme, 1994), pp. 418 and 541. In 1932, six articles were devoted to the USSR, five of which were on the Soviet economy. Pierre Frédérix drew attention in particular to the agricultural policy of the Soviet government on 1 October 1932 with this lucid insight: ‘There is a total correlation between the progress made in agricultural collectivisation and the increase in the problems relating to foodstuffs within the Soviet Union’. Louis Fischer, ‘La révolution soviétique n’est pas finie’, Moscow, 28 October 1933, L’Europe nouvelle, no. 821, 4 November 1933, p. 1060. Introductory editorial note on the policies of the Soviet Union, L’Europe nouvelle, no. 807, 29 July 1933, p. 725; Louis Fischer, ‘Problèmes de politique extérieure’, Moscow, 12 July 1933, ibid., no. 807, 29 July 1933, p. 728; Albert Mousset, ‘L’URSS sur la scène diplomatique de l’Europe’, ibid., no. 807, 29 July 1933, p. 730. Louis Fischer, ‘Problèmes de politique extérieure’, p. 728. Letter from Dulong to Amé-Leroy, the French consul-general in Geneva, 3 January 1932 and a letter from Amé-Leroy to Massigli, 8 January 1932, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 1904. Remark made by Marcel Hoden about the Journal des Nations, Geneva, 16 June 1934, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 1904. Letter from Hirshfel’d to Litvinov, 23 December 1934, APE FR, 05/15/105/8. Letter from Litvinov to Shtein, 20 January 1935, DVP SSSR, vol. 18, p. 36. Letter from Potemkin to Litvinov, 26 December 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8. Report by Lagarde on the Prato affair, Geneva, 26 January 1937, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 151. Confidential note sent by the French consul-general in Geneva to the French ambassador in Berne, 27 April 1938, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 1904; Sabine Jansen, ‘Louis Dolivet, kominternien’, Communisme, no. 40–41, Spring 1995, pp. 117–29. Letter from the French consul-general in Geneva to the ambassador in Berne, 7 October 1938, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 1904. The positions adopted by Léon Nicole at the end of the 1930s have been analysed by B. Studer, ‘Les communistes genevois, Léon Nicole et le Komintern dans les années trente’, Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie, vol. 22, 1992, pp. 84–5. On Soviet and communist involvement in the anti-fascist movement, see François Furet, Le Passé d’une illusion. Essai sur l’idée communiste au xxe siècle (Paris: Robert Laffont/Calmann-Lévy, 1995), chapters 7 and 8.

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209

123. An intervention by Litvinov, 14 October 1935, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement, no. 145, p. 44. 124. Letter from Litvinov to Kaganovich, 2 September 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 125. Robert Frank, ‘Images et imaginaire dans les relations internationales depuis 1938: problématiques et méthodes’, Les Cahiers de l’IHTP, no. 28, June 1994, p. 10. 126. Letter from Massigli in the French section of the League of Nations, 18 September 1934, AMAEF, League of Nations series, vol. 63. Litvinov and Madariaga knew each other before the war in London through their wives. See Carswell, The Exile. A Life of Ivy Litvinov, p. 70. 127. The opponents were Swiss, Portugese and Dutch delegates. Actes de la 15e session ordinaire de l’Assemblée. Journal officiel de la Société des Nations (Geneva, 1934), special supplement, no. 130, pp. 17–27. 128. Letter from Massigli to the French department dealing with League of Nations, 18 September 1934, AMAEF League of Nations series, vol. 63; report by Sir Robert Vansittart at the British embassy addressed to Barthou and communicated to the French League of Nations department, 20 September 1934, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 63. 129. Actes de la 15e session ordinaire de l’Assemblée, p. 22. 130. Ibid., p. 24. 131. Ibid., p. 18. 132. Reply from Motta, the head of the political department, to the Swiss minister in Bucharest, 11 October 1934, in A. Fleury and D. Tosato-Rigo (eds), Suisse Russie, 1813–1955, contacts et ruptures (Berne, Stuttgart, Vienne: Éditions Paul Haupt, 1994), p. 449. 133. Correspondence between individuals and associations on the admission of the USSR to the League of Nations, League of Nations archives, section 1, 10502. 134. Choulguine (the head of the Ukrainian mission in France and representative of the Ukrainian Republic at the League of Nations), La Candidature de l’URSS à la SDN et l’Ukraine. Chavichvily, the Georgian representative, demanded freedom for Ukraine and Georgia as preconditions of Soviet membership; correspondence between individuals and associations on the admission of the USSR to the League of Nations, League of Nations archives, section 1, 10502; note on the entry of the USSR and Georgia, Geneva, 11 September 1934, AMAEF, SDN, general Secretariat, vol. 63. 135. Actes de la 15e session ordinaire de l’Assemblée, p. 18. 136. Letter from the British delegation, 30 September 1933, letter from the president of the Council of the League of Nations to Sir John

210

137.

138. 139.

140. 141.

142.

143.

144.

145.

146. 147. 148.

MEN OF INFLUENCE

Simon, 27 September 1933, and letters containing Ukrainian demands, 25 September 1933, in Carynnik et al., The Foreign Office and the Famine, document 53, pp. 322–8 The French delegate obtained 46 votes, the British and Italian 41, the Spanish 31, the Belgian and Mexican 30 and the Russian 29; Actes de la 16e session ordinaire de l’Assemblée, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement no. 138, p. 38 Account given by Massigli, Geneva, 9 September 1935, AMAEF, League of Nations series, vol. 101. Account given by Massigli, Geneva, 10 September 1935, ibid.; Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement no. 138, p. 40. Litvinov to Kaganovich, 14 September 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1 Comment by Marcel Hoden on the organising committee of the Assembly, Geneva, 5 September 1936, AMAEF, League of Nations series, vol. 102. Elections of the vice-presidents, 17th ordinary session of the Assembly, September 1936, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement no. 155, p. 42. Declaration by Litvinov to the coordinating committee, 19 October 1935, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement no. 145, p. 27; declaration by Potemkin to the committee of the eighteen, 12 October 1935, ibid, p. 40; letters from Potemkin to Shtein and Litvinov, 26 December 1935 APE FR, 05/15/105/8. Letter from Litvinov to the ‘authorities’, 26 October 1935, APE FR, 05/15/105/8; intervention by Litvinov at the sub-committee on economic measures, 17 October 1935, at which he suggested approaching the Permanent Court at the Hague in order to establish in law the following principle: ‘the non-fulfilment of contracts following the imposition of sanctions must be considered a case of force majeure’, League of Nations archives, 1/20375/20347. Intervention by Rozenblum, Soviet representative on the committee of experts discussing the imposition of sanctions, 3 February 1936, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement no. 148, p. 42; intervention by Litvinov at the committee of the eighteen, 22 January 1936, ibid., p. 9. Letter from Rozenberg to Litvinov, Geneva, 26 April 1936, APE FR, 5/16/116/13. Telegram from Lagarde, secretary general of the French delegation, Geneva, 21 September 1936, AMAEF, SDN, vol. 102. Political aspects of the 17th session of the Assembly, 21 October 1936, AMAEF, League of Nations, vol. 102; in the elections to the commission which verified accreditation, out of 52 votes, one of which was declared void, 47 were for Litvinov and Eden, 46 for

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149. 150. 151. 152. 153.

154. 155.

156. 157.

158. 159.

160. 161. 162. 163.

211

Delbos, 43 for the Czech and Greek delegates, 41 for the Turkish delegate etc.: 17th ordinary session of the Assembly, September 1936, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement no. 155, p. 42. Note of 30 August 1930, AMAEF, League of Nations series, vol. 1807. Litvinov’s presentation of the different committees of the League of Nations, 22 October 1934, APE FR, 05/14/96/10. Letter from Litvinov to Shtein, 17 March 1935, ibid., 05/15/105/8. Letter from Shtein to Litvinov, 5 July 1935, ibid. Intervention by Potemkin at the sixth commission, 13 September 1935, proceedings of the 16th Assembly, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement no. 143, p. 14. Alla Kirilina, L’Assassinat de Kirov. Destin d’un stalinien, 1888– 1934 (Paris: Seuil, 1995), p. 153 and pp. 68–9. Interventions on 30 April 1935 and 7 January 1936 at the committee on the international repression of terrorism, AMAEF, League of Nations, vol. 381–382. Intervention by Hirshfel’d, 1 May 1935, AMAEF, League of Nations, vol. 381. Debates at the first commission on the international repression of terrorism, 17th ordinary session of the Assembly, 30 September 1936, Journal officiel de la Société des Nations, special supplement no. 156, pp. 31–3. Journal de Moscou, 1 September 1936. ‘Stalin’s revolutionary prisoners and the world-wide working class movement’, 15 January 1936 (in Bulleten Oppozitsii, February 1936), Leon Trotsky, Oeuvres. vol. 8, p. 109. Meeting between Hoden and Potemkin in Paris, 10 January 1936, APE FR, 05/16/116/13. Telegram from Massigli, Geneva, 23 January 1936, AMAEF, League of Nations, vol. 428. ‘L’Uruguay et L’URSS’, 10 January 1936 (in Bulleten Oppozitsii, no. 48, February 1936), Leon Trotsky, Oeuvres, p. 73. Telegram from Massigli, 24 January 1936, AMAEF, League of Nations, vol. 428, p. 73.

5 The shadow of the Kremlin

In July 1936 Litvinov celebrated his sixtieth birthday and was honoured on this occasion with the order of Lenin. He received numerous telegrams of congratulation, a large number of people wrote articles about him, and a biography was published praising him as ‘a man who fought for peace’ and who combined the ‘typical Bolshevik characteristics of American know-how and Russian revolutionary fervour’.1 Litvinov’s thanks for the honours bestowed on him contained the customary praise for the velikii vozhd, the Great Guide, but nonetheless revealed a certain distance: ‘Many of you know how much I dislike jubilees and celebrations. Celebratory notices in the press sometimes seem to me like obituaries’.2 This was not far from the truth. The purges were about to begin, hastening his political decline and the takeover of diplomatic functions by the leadership.

The cataclysm of the purges The Commissariat for Foreign Affairs was certainly not spared during the successive waves of purges which affected Soviet administrative bodies between 1936 and 1939. For the most part, it was made up of diplomats who had spent long periods living abroad, where a certain number of former opponents were to be found. Thus, as an institution, it was a suitable target for the inquisitorial ardour of the NKVD. However, diplomats were not targeted more than other groups by the Great Terror, which was of extraordinary brutality for all the administrative personnel in the country.3 It is nonetheless true that the purging of the diplomatic corps and of staff officers was the most striking at the time, because war was getting ever closer and these were people who had a high profile abroad. 212

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At least 34 per cent of the people who worked in the diplomatic field disappeared during the purges. Amongst those in very senior posts (around 100 people), the percentage was twice that, with 62 per cent becoming victims, 16 per cent keeping their post and 14 per cent escaping the purges, either by defecting or dying before they happened; (the fate of approximately 8 per cent is unknown).4 Thus, of the 157 individuals who are known to have worked in the senior posts in the years from 1940 to 1946, 85 per cent started their career in diplomacy after 1936.5 The purging of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs took place in two main stages. The first great wave of arrests, at the time of Ezhov, occurred when the public trials were taking place from 1937 to 1938. Sokol’nikov, who appeared at the trial which showcased Pyatokov and Radek, received ten years imprisonment. Krestinsky, one of the co-accused with Bukharin and Rakovsky in March 1938, was shot at the same time as Rozengol’ts, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Trade. The purge really began in the wake of Krestinsky’s arrest, at the beginning of June 1937: the diplomats Karakhan, Rozenberg, Arens, Antonov-Ovseenko, Asmus, Davtyan, Karsky, Yurenev, Gaikis, Tikhmenev, Bekzadyan, Podol’sky and Brodovsky, were all arrested before the end of 1937, though Raskol’nikov fled abroad. Bessonov, a former counsellor at the embassy in Berlin, was arrested in October, and played the role, it would seem, of agent provocateur at the trial which took place in March 1938. The central staff at the Commissariat were not spared either, since the Secretary General, Hershel’man, the lawyers Lashkevich and Sabanin, the chief of the Eastern section Zukherman, and the heads of the Western departments, Shtern and Neuman, were all arrested. The second wave of arrests came later. It began at the end of 1938 and gathered momentum at the time Litvinov was removed. Though its target was above all the personality of the People’s Commissar himself, the purge was actually directed at his closest collaborators: Stomonyakov, who had not been in a post since August 1938, Litvinov’s personal secretary Nazarov, and those in charge of the main departments of the ministry, Barkov, Veinberg, Vinogradov, Plotkin, Gnedin and Hirshfel’d. The purges were on a vast scale and had repercussions for the conduct of diplomacy and the personnel involved. They also lead one to ask moral, or simply human, questions about the involvement of top officials such as Litvinov in the whole enterprise.

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Certainly he had, on many occasions, falsified what was really happening in order to paint an idealised picture of events for foreign eyes, without considering the consequences. One simply has to recall his denial, along with that of his colleagues, of the famine in Ukraine. But from 1937 on, for the first time, not only was he more or less aware of what was happening, remained silent or concealed the reality of the repression: he was at the heart of it and was afraid. One can imagine Litvinov’s inner turmoil. Yes, he made a few gestures of resistance, but his actions placed him firmly on the side of the hammer, though he realised he might quickly become one of its victims on the anvil. Litvinov and the purges Litvinov maintained a wholly reserved and cautious attitude. As a member of the Central Committee, he attended the various plenary sessions which took place to decide the fate of leading members of the Party who were accused, but he did not intervene personally, voting usually with the majority for the individual to be excluded from the Party and for his dossier to be sent to the NKVD.6 Cooperating on a similar basis with the Central Committee in the checking of people’s identity, he took account of the fact that a succession of diplomats was being dismissed, and tried at the very most to delay their recall, often pointing out the harm to Soviet prestige of a prolonged absence or the fact that there was no-one competent in an embassy. Before sending Gaikis, who in the 1920s had flirted with the Trotskyist opposition, as counsellor to the embassy in Spain, Litvinov sought special authorisation from the Central Committee so as not to risk being accused of a lack of vigilance: During his past life as a militant, he wrote to Kaganovich in August 1936, there was nevertheless a flaw, as in 1923 he voted for the Trotskyist platform. The Party has never criticised him for this until the present purges nor has he concealed the fact. Moreover, it has not prevented him from doing his job in the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs or abroad. Given the present situation, I do not think I can possibly transfer Gaikis to a new post in Spain without special permission from the Central Committee.7

While seeking the sanction of the Central Committee, Litvinov let it be known that Gaikis’s past political error was not, in his

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eyes, a reason for preventing him from working. He made the same observation about Ostrovsky, who was ambassador in Romania. Indeed, Litvinov wrote to Stalin, passing on a letter from the plenipotentiary in which the latter wondered whether, as a former Trotskyist, he should continue working abroad. Litvinov gave him his backing and thought that the Party should continue to have full confidence in him, adding: ‘I have not heard anyone express the slightest suspicion about him and thus I see no reason for him simply to give up his job’.8 He only achieved half his request. Gaikis was indeed sent to Spain, but then recalled in October 1937. As far as Ostrovsky was concerned, Stalin’s personal Secretary, Poskrebyshev, informed Litvinov in February 1937 that the decision to recall him had been taken. The People’s Commissar did however manage to delay his actual departure until the end of the year, on the grounds that no-one else was familiar with the issues – Komarovsky, the counsellor at the embassy having already been recalled – and that they would have to train a replacement.9 On several occasions, Litvinov cautiously tried to obstruct things, for example by not allowing close colleagues to take leave in Moscow. Thus, he wrote several times to Boris Shtein: ‘You are needed in Rome and are forbidden to return’.10 He did however have to come back to Moscow in February 1939, following his mission to Finland. The attitude of the People’s Commissar in defending his staff and trying to maintain the Soviet diplomatic corps to the limited extent that these things were possible was not of itself exceptional. Potemkin, deputy Commissar since the spring of 1937, also made similar approaches to the Central Committee. For example, in March 1938 he requested that the Orgburo reconsider the decision taken concerning Veinberg and allow him to remain as head of the third Western department, referring to his solid experience, the fact that he spoke four foreign languages (French, Italian, German and English), and his serious knowledge of international political affairs. He added that he was a regular contributor to Pravda and Bolshevik, had good relations with those involved in the organisation of the Party and with the agit’prop department of the Central Committee which called on him to give lectures.11 Veinberg was close to Potemkin and ‘in the way he thought and acted, he was one of those who sought to “unmask the enemies of the people” ’. Despite his pro-Stalin militancy

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and Potemkin’s support for him, he was nevertheless arrested in 1939.12 In April 1939 Potemkin also tried to help Surits who was then the Soviet representative in Paris, warning him in a handwritten letter of ‘the very hard line’ being adopted in the verification of cadres: ‘The slightest lapse is not only recorded but also provokes a swift and violent reaction’. He recommended he forgo the services of a certain Léon as quickly as possible, whom the Central Committee considered suspect.13 In addition, he advised him not to come to Moscow and to send in his place the counsellor at the embassy, Krapivintsev.14 There were however differences between the two men. Potemkin only ever lent his support at the Central Committee to communists whose past was wholly orthodox and who, a priori, had the trust of the Party. Litvinov, on the other hand, was ready to support colleagues who had had links with ‘enemies of the people’ and keen to show he considered it of little importance, in the same way that he never referred to the opinion the Party organisation within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs might have about a particular individual. Litvinov did even more. On several occasions, he revealed both his inability to understand and his disagreement. At the plenary session held in February and March 1937, during which Bukharin and Rykov stood trial in front of their former colleagues, Litvinov – like Rozengol’ts – distanced himself. Whereas Lozovsky, Budienny, Kalinin and Kossior all supported Mikoyan’s fierce indictment of Bukharin, and Gamarnik made ironical comments about his hunger strike, Litvinov only intervened once, following the interrogation of Rykov. Voroshilov, backed by Molotov, claimed that Rykov had, on several occasions, appeared trembling and sickly which was proof of his guilt. Litvinov then asked: ‘When was this?’15 One thing remains constant in Litvinov’s stance in the face of all the accusations made: he expected the charges to be plausible and concrete evidence to be produced by the prosecution. It was the reflex of a diplomat who wanted to maintain the credibility of the Soviet Union abroad, and therefore wanted the charges brought to be coherent. It was also a veiled criticism of the methods adopted. Nominated to sit on the commission of thirty-six members which was set up to decide the fate of Bukharin and Rykov, he

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aligned himself with the ‘moderates’ behind Postyshev, who, during the plenary session, opposed the death penalty. Of the twenty members of the commission who spoke, Ezhov, Budienny, Manuilsky, Kossarev, and Yakir proposed they be ‘convicted and shot’; Postyshev, Shkiryatov, Antipov, Khrushchev, Nikolaiev, Kossior, Petrovsky and Litvinov backed the motion that they be ‘convicted but not shot’. Stalin resorted to the most frequently used compromise at the time, proposing that ‘the papers be sent to the NKVD’; he was backed by Lenin’s widow, Krupskaya, Vareikis, Molotov and Voroshilov.16 Litvinov’s reaction to the sacking of the whole team working for Journal de Moscou, in October 1937, also revealed the irritation and disapproval he felt concerning the grounds on which these people were sacked and subsequently arrested: I must also point out that the Journal de Moscou publishes no secret information and is involved in no secret activity. I am convinced that those involved in the paper who have been sacked today and who are simply criticised for having relatives abroad or travelling abroad themselves, their trips having been authorised at the time by the bodies concerned, could have gone on working for the interests of the state without any risk. If there are people who can meet 100 per cent of the demands made of them, then we will find them work which will suit them better and where they will be more usefully employed than on the staff of the newspaper, the Journal de Moscou, which supports no party.17

He underlined how absurd it was to criticise journalists for having contacts abroad which were necessary for their work. The Journal de Moscou had since its creation been subjected to criticism by the Central Committee, which tended to think of it as a foreign newspaper. Its editors had never managed to retain their position for very long: Raievsky was arrested in October 1936, and it was the turn of Viktor Kin to be sacked, then arrested in January 1938.18 According to his daughter, Litvinov also felt he was in danger. His wife, Ivy, had had to leave Moscow at the end of 1936 and take up a post as an English teacher in Sverdlovsk. This was for personal reasons, the diplomatic corps was told. The probable reason for her removal, however, was that she was outspoken, which could prove embarrassing at diplomatic receptions in the capital.19 During the second half of 1937, thirteen out of nineteen

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People’s Commissariats had new leaders and most of the old ones had been arrested.20 At the beginning of 1938, within the Council of People’s Commissars presided over by Molotov, only Mikoyan, Litvinov and Voroshilov had kept their posts, Chubar and Kossior having become victims of the purges. In 1938, for the first time, Litvinov did not go to Karlsbad on holiday. ‘In any case’, he wrote to his wife, ‘I shall certainly no longer go abroad on holiday’. He also had to bring his children home from England where they were studying.21 In December he was twice summoned to appear before Stalin at very unusual hours: on the 7th he found himself at the Kremlin between 1.30 and 2 a.m. in the presence of Stalin and Molotov, who had a meeting with Beria, Andreiev and Malenkov just after he left; and on the 15th he was again summoned at the same hour.22 Simultaneously, Bukharin’s wife, who was in prison, was questioned by Beria about her husband’s links with Litvinov. Stomonyakov was then arrested on 19 December 1938.23 Thus, at the end of 1938 Litvinov appeared to be under a great deal of pressure and this undoubtedly profoundly affected his relations with Stalin. If one is to believe what Sheinis said, though his comments are somewhat hagiographical and therefore not to be trusted, Litvinov even considered resigning at the time.24 Cabals and intrigues against him began to develop within the ministry. According to various accounts, Potemkin, who had been appointed deputy Commissar in April 1937 following Krestinsky’s arrest, played a part in these. His careerism and desire to be seen in a favourable light by the Soviet leadership made him a rival of Litvinov. On his appointment, Pravda devoted the first page to him, including a photograph and biographical details.25 Litvinov had not received the same coverage in July 1930. At the time of the electoral campaign for the Supreme Soviet which preceded the elections of 12 December 1937, Potemkin, who was a candidate in the region of Tambov, gave a number of speeches in which he projected himself above all as a Stalinist, reminding people that he had taken part in the civil war alongside the future General Secretary (for which he had received a medal in 1934) and denouncing the enemies within, Trotsky and Bukharin. He ended one of his speeches with the words: ‘I have been a Stalinist, I still am and always shall be’.26 The cabals against Litvinov came from the ranks of militant communists such as Veinberg and Shmitt within the main offices

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of Foreign Affairs. Shmitt, who was deputy head of the press department and a former secretary of Sokol’nikov and Stomonyakov, was a ‘disciplined individual who obeyed the rules’. He considered Litvinov’s policies deviationist in relation to Party directives and informed the Central Committee of this. Many militants were unhappy with Litvinov’s indifference towards the Party and were hostile to him.27 When Gnedin was crossexamined, following his arrest, the evidence given by Veinberg contained most of the criticisms and invectives which Potemkin usually made about Litvinov.28 The control exercised both by Litvinov and his deputy Potemkin over diplomatic affairs diminished considerably during the purges. The bodies which became truly responsible for diplomatic personnel were the NKVD and the Central Committee, and the demands and complaints of the People’s Commissar seeking to retain control went largely unheeded. The purges and diplomacy The initial consequence of the ‘Great Terror’ was that the NKVD assumed responsibility for two areas of diplomatic life: it purged cadres and controlled travel between the USSR and abroad. From June 1937, after Korzhenko was appointed head of cadres, the NKVD’s control of personnel was strengthened. Born in 1894 into a family of Russian railway workers, called up in August 1915 and given an officer’s training in Kiev, Korzhenko joined the Party in March 1917 while he was at the front in Romania. It was during the civil war that he became an official in Cheka and, during the Russian-Polish war, he was made deputy head of the special department in the 3rd army. His career within OGPU took him to Odessa, Simferopol, Chita, Leningrad, Smolensk and Stalingrad before he returned to Moscow and the headquarters of Foreign Affairs.29 All the personal dossiers of diplomats were available to him and he proceeded to fill them out with the observations and denunciations made by colleagues and subordinates. He was therefore a useful tool for Ezhov and then Beria, and was able to organise from within the purge of the diplomatic service.30 Furthermore, a series of measures ratified by the Politburo gave the NKVD and the intelligence services of the Red Army real control over travel abroad, and this meant that people

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working in other countries could be kept under close surveillance. The commission of the Central Committee responsible for missions abroad was reorganised in April 1937. Under the chairmanship of Andreiev, secretary of the Central Committee, it was made up of Poskrebyshev, head of Stalin’s personal secretariat, Agranov, one official of the NKVD, and Uritsky, a member of the general staff of the Red Army.31 Every Soviet citizen sent abroad had to appear before this commission. It gave them instructions about how they were to behave abroad, and each applicant had to swear to abide by these instructions. From 1936 the Soviet leadership also tried to centralise the issuing of visas to foreigners, which until then had been done by each embassy. Though the NKVD already kept an eye on this procedure through those members of the intelligence services who worked in each consular department, the ambassador nonetheless retained the right to intervene and to decide whether a visa should be issued. Litvinov protested, rejecting the decision of the Central Committee of 28 February 1936 ‘relating to protective measures preventing spies, saboteurs and terrorists from entering the USSR’ which forbade embassies to issue visas without authorisation from the centre. In his view, this measure contradicted ‘international rules of courteousness’: ‘The refusal to grant a visa on the spot to a foreigner in a senior position, to diplomats returning to their posts, to diplomatic couriers etc. is frequently taken as an insult and is not done by any country’. Litvinov therefore asked for exceptions to be made to the rules and wondered what motives lay behind the decision to raise this matter at the Central Committee. Following a telephone call to Ezhov on 5 March, he received the confirmation he was expecting: it did not apply to requests for visas made by officials.32 However, Litvinov returned to the questions of visas several times in the years which followed, as the ever stricter rules applied by the NKVD to foreigners entering the USSR hampered the normal diplomatic and consular activities of embassies. Thus, on 27 April 1937 he complained that the drastic reduction in the number of tourist visas was damaging the image of the USSR.33 And at the beginning of 1939 he raised with Stalin the question of accepting a certain number of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, reminding him that 250 communists in Czechoslovakia whose documents had been sent to the NKVD were worriedly awaiting their visas for the Soviet Union, as they feared being seized by the Gestapo.34

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The movements of Soviet citizens and of foreigners to and from the USSR ceased to be under the control of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, which no longer had any prerogatives in this area. The purges had important repercussions abroad, affecting both the image of the Soviet state and its foreign policy. When he could, Litvinov tried to explain the purges as an additional antifascist measure of the USSR, revealing total bad faith in his dealings with foreign countries. When foreign press correspondents were arrested in November 1936, he asked Stalin, Molotov and Ezhov not to make so much of their terrorist activities but to emphasise the fact that they were organising pro-fascist spy groups.35 In addition, he made sure through the NKVD that French citizens living in the USSR were shown some consideration, given ‘the particular nature of Franco-Soviet relations’.36 It was officials of the NKVD who drew up the charges against those who were to be arrested, preparing the witness statements and confessions of the accused. However, in the case of public trials in particular, the Party leadership played a crucial role in the political and ideological orientation of the indictments. Those caught up in the Moscow trials as well as senior staff officers of the Red Army eliminated in June 1937 were principally accused of being terrorists in the pay of the Gestapo, working for Hitler and Trotsky. One notes however that France and England were not spared during plenary sessions of the Central Committee, which served as true rehearsals behind closed doors of the trials to come. At the plenary session which took place in December 1936, when Sokol’nikov, Pyatokov and Radek were brought before their comrades, the accusations made by Ezhov centred on their activities on behalf of the British government. According to Stalin, the basic aim of this spy network was to open up Russia to foreign and above all British capital. Pyatokov was accused of having been involved in direct negotiations with the British company Arcos. Compromising conversations between Kamenev and the French ambassador, Alphand, also meant that France was under suspicion, a point insisted on by Molotov. Finally, the PyatokovRadek-Sokol’nikov spy-ring was accused of engaging in industrial espionage for major British, French and German heavy industries.37 Similarly, at the plenary session in February and March 1937, when members of the Central Committee had to reach their

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verdict in the Bukharin-Rykov affair, the evidence of a certain Grolman was used. He declared that Bukharin was an apologist of parliamentary government and bourgeois democracy and his conversations with Édouard Herriot and Jacques Sadoul, during which he had spoken admiringly of Laval, were thought to constitute proof.38 Why were Molotov and Zhdanov so keen to point the finger at France and Britain? How does one explain Molotov’s insistence on including the French and the ambassador Alphand in spying activities in December 1936? Finally, what does one make of the criticisms of the Journal de Moscou in April 1938, which, in seeing every German or Japanese as a possible spy or agent of the Gestapo, was thought to be wrong-headed and publishing politically harmful articles?39 It is clear that, from the end of 1936, antiimperialism took precedence over anti-fascism in the targets chosen, though the latter received more publicity. At the same time, Stalin and his entourage began to distance themselves from Litvinov’s Franco-British political line, readopting their undifferentiated view of the capitalist world. This process became more marked in the years which followed. Clearly, these attacks aroused irritation in both London and Paris. During the third trial which took place in March 1938, the British Intelligence Service was implicated and this provoked strong feelings and censure in British political circles, including Labour supporters sympathetic to the USSR, for what was considered ‘a deliberately unfriendly act’. Charles Corbin, the French ambassador in London, remarked upon the strange conduct of the Soviet leadership which had succeeded in arousing general hostility: It should be pointed out that Sir Stafford Cripps, who, in a recent speech on behalf of the executive of the Labour Party, proposed a policy of political understanding with the USSR like that embodied in the Franco-Soviet pact, was immediately repudiated by the body for which he claimed to speak.40

Robert Coulondre, the French ambassador in Moscow, picked out passages relating to France and was troubled by the recurring theme of capitalist encirclement and the denunciation of French colonial activities in Vyshinsky’s speech of indictment at the third trial.41

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Litvinov tried to mollify the harmful effects. He sought to obtain from Stalin and the Politburo clear information about the recall of ambassadors, suggesting that without it contradictory rumours were harmful to the image of the Soviet regime.42 Furthermore, he pointed out on several occasions to Vyshinsky the inconsistencies in the indictment which the international press had picked up, lamenting the disastrous effect this was having abroad. One incident provoked a very strong reaction on his part, especially as the Soviet leadership attributed the unfortunate mistake to the press department of his Commissariat whereas Litvinov blamed it on the incompetence of the Tass agency. In the United States, the death penalty for those accused at the second trial had in fact been announced to the press before the verdict had been pronounced at the tribunal!43 On this occasion, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs referred scathingly to the ‘unacceptable bureaucracy’ of Doletsky, the director of the Tass agency, who rebuked the Foreign Affairs press department for their inadequate censorship.44 Litvinov, conversely, thought that, by making things easier for foreign press correspondents, his press department made them more favourably disposed towards the Soviet Union: One has to recognise in general that the communiqués relating to the trial sent by foreign correspondents in Moscow have been entirely correct and acceptable and are often reproduced by our own press. That would not have been the case if the press department in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs had negatively affected the way foreign correspondents thought by engaging in pernickety bureaucratic measures, which would have had immediate repercussions on their communiqués.45

The information put out by Western press correspondents present at the trials seemed, in Litvinov’s eyes, much more convincing and helpful ways of bolstering the image of the USSR abroad than the ‘dry, bureaucratic’ communiqués of the Tass agency, which were often taken up by Havas and Reuters. Thus, during the worst excesses of Stalinism, Litvinov continued to play his allotted role, that of the ‘trickster’ who was a past master at ‘deceiving the Western bourgeoisie’.46 He was, however, no fool and knew the serious damage the purges were doing to

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Soviet diplomacy. To those who gave credence to Vyshinsky’s indictments, the purges damaged the reputation of the whole Soviet state, corrupted as it seemed to be by betrayal. To those who were sceptical about the guilt of the accused, the purges tarnished for some considerable time the positive image of their country which Soviet diplomats had sought to project. They also caused serious disruption to the work of the embassies. Paralysis Litvinov was confronted with the fact that numerous posts remained vacant. He had to explain defections and recalls, and above all get used to the lack of contact between Soviet citizens and foreigners. The situation often became absurd and led to a kind of non-diplomacy in a number of countries. The People’s Commissar found it all the more unacceptable because he had always done his utmost to avoid discontinuity in diplomatic activity. In June 1937 he informed Stalin that ‘Paris, one of our most active diplomatic locations, has been without a plenipotentiary for around seven weeks’.47 However, in the following months, this phenomenon developed on an unprecedented scale. As far as the French ambassador in Poland was concerned, at the end of 1937 the Soviet Union was absent from Warsaw. Indeed, the recall of Davtyan and then of the counsellor Vinogradov meant that secretary Listopad, who knew no other language than Russian, was left as chargé d’affaires. In addition, all relations between the embassy and the world outside were carefully avoided: He and his colleagues live entirely apart; they have no contact with any other diplomatic mission; they avoid all Polish milieux. On those particular occasions when they feel obliged to attend a ceremony or a gathering, they simply go as a group and speak to no-one.48

Traditional diplomatic activity was paralysed in certain countries, and, in order to overcome the lack of personnel, special missions had to be created in 1939; Shtein was sent to Finland and Potemkin first to the Balkans and then to Warsaw. At the League of Nations, too, from 1937 the purges and the more and more frequent ban on travel called into question again the efforts at integration which were beginning to bear fruit.

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Litvinov refused to accept a reduction of the Soviet delegation, which had always been at a minimum level in comparison with others: I consider it undesirable or at least premature to add to the impression which has gained ground abroad that we are distancing ourselves from the League of Nations. The impression stems from the failure of Soviet representatives to participate in sessions of the different commissions of the League, having only been elected after considerable effort on our part. In addition, the absence from Geneva of certain Soviet representatives whom for many years one expected to meet has given rise to inevitable rumours about their arrest, even though the comrades concerned still occupy their positions. I ask for some thought to be given to these matters.49

On each occasion, Litvinov requested that Soviet delegates be allowed to attend meetings in Geneva. For example, he sought permission for Svanidze to participate in meetings of the finance committee in October 1937 and for Hirshfel’d to take part in the conference on terrorism.50 In December 1937 he opposed the Politburo’s decision to exclude Professor Bronner from the public health committee, pointing out that he was working as an international civil servant, having been appointed by the Council of the League of Nations, and not as a Soviet representative. As a consequence, his exclusion was not possible.51 Nevertheless, his efforts were without success and the obstacles imposed by the leadership on the normal working practices of Soviet representatives at Geneva continued to grow. The military attaché Semenov, who had been the Soviet representative since 16 February 1937 on the permanent commission which dealt with military, naval and air-force matters, no longer fulfilled his formal duties after October.52 The mandates of Rozenblum and Svanidze on the economic and finance committees were renewed for three years by their colleagues at the League in October 1937. Svanidze declined to accept, however, on 31 October, stating that his work prevented him from leaving Moscow. Rozenblum also stopped attending meetings of his committee. On 6 December he wrote to Stoppani saying it was impossible for him to travel to Geneva. As for Professor Bronner, he did not reappear in Geneva after March 1937.53

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The defections of diplomats also had an impact upon the credibility and image of the Soviet Union. The defection of Butenko, the chargé d’affaires in Romania, for example, led the Soviet government to adopt a barely tenable position. After his disappearance on 6 February 1938, the USSR put forward the idea that Butenko was the victim of a political assassination carried out by a Romanian fascist organisation and demanded that the Romanians open an enquiry.54 When it was discovered that Butenko had in fact crossed the border and sought refuge in Italy, where he made statements to the press denouncing the Soviet regime, the USSR refused to accept the facts and Litvinov was ordered to deny the evidence: We have received information that an Italian paper has printed a certain declaration and an article by F. Butenko, and that this person is in Rome and has invited foreign journalists in order to make a number of declarations. If this is the case, we are in no doubt that his captors obtained these articles and declarations from F. Butenko by force and gave them to some White Russian guard or other who, in the guise of F. Butenko, is at present talking publicly in Italy, knowing full well that the fascist authorities will do nothing to unmask him. So long as F. Butenko fails to appear in a free country and does not present himself to those who know him personally, we shall remain entirely convinced that he is still in Romania in the possession of his captors, if he has not already been killed.55

No-one abroad believed the Soviet version of events. Alexandre Barmin, counsellor at the embassy in Greece, and Fedor Raskol’nikov, the former ambassador in Bulgaria, also refused to return home. On 17 August 1939 the latter managed to publish an open letter in the Russian émigré press which was vehemently critical of Stalin and his ‘mad orgy’.56 At the beginning of 1939 Litvinov presented a catastrophic overview of the position in relation to senior staff and in a letter to Stalin criticised the Central Committee’s policy of purges, surveillance and the banning of travel abroad: At present, the post of plenipotentiary remains vacant in nine capitals: Washington, Tokyo, Warsaw, Bucharest, Barcelona, Kaunas, Copenhagen, Budapest and Sofia. If comrade Chernykh, presently in the USSR, does not return to Teheran, that will make ten.

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In some of the capitals referred to there has been no plenipotentiary for more than a year. Leaving chargés d’affaires in charge of embassies and legations for prolonged periods acquires a political significance and implies that diplomatic relations are less than satisfactory. I consider it particularly embarrassing and damaging to our relations that a plenipotentiary is lacking in Warsaw, Bucharest and Tokyo. Following the suggestion of a rapprochement with Poland, the Polish press announced the imminent nomination of a plenipotentiary to Warsaw resulting from this rapprochement. Given the absence of a plenipotentiary in Bucharest, we have absolutely no idea of what is going on in Romania, either internally or as far as its foreign policy is concerned. We have to conduct negotiations with Japan through the Japanese ambassador, as our chargé d’affaires has almost no access to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (as a general rule, it is unusual for a minister to meet a chargé d’affaires in person). The position of counsellors and embassy secretaries is no better. The following vacancies exist: nine counsellors, twenty-two secretaries, thirty consuls and vice-consuls and forty-six other embassy posts (heads of press departments, attachés and secretaries in consulates). We are unable to recall certain plenipotentiaries to Moscow in accordance with the decision of the Central Committee, because noone else is left (there is not a single individual in the embassy in Athens) or no-one to whom the running of the embassy can be entrusted, even temporarily. I have not even referred to the posts which remain vacant within the central offices of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Suffice it to say, that out of eight departments, only one has an appointed head and in seven others the person in charge is temporary. There are not enough technical staff in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and especially in the embassies. We received almost no reports from London in the last mail because there was no typist there. In recent days, we have had to stop the courier service, because permission to travel abroad has not been granted to twelve couriers until their personal files have been examined. The situation has arisen not only because agents of the NKVD have withdrawn a certain number of those working in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Broadly speaking, the situation is that almost all those working abroad who have come to the USSR on vacation or

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because we recalled them have not received permission to depart. Similarly, the majority of the central staff at the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs have not been allowed to travel abroad. As a precautionary measure, a significant number of workers have been excluded from the Party by the Central Committee. Others have been excluded from the secret service and, as a consequence, their role within the 7th department of the NKVD is of no value to the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.57

As well as having a personal effect on most diplomats, the situation only increased the despondency and sense of helplessness of those who remained in post. The relative inertia affecting Soviet foreign policy between the spring of 1937 and the beginning of 1939 is not explicable solely in terms of the purges, and we shall return to this, but the purges did have a major part to play, alongside the progressive loss of any room for manoeuvre on the part of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in relation to the men in the Kremlin.

Stalin and his group take control of diplomacy Stalin had a personal way of preparing for possible conflict. From the outside, it appeared suicidal as, in purging a large number of economic, military, diplomatic and political cadres, he no longer had at his disposal the range of people whose competence in handling government and administrative affairs had been built up during the 1930s. But competence was not enough according to the internal logic of the Stalinist system. Efficacy for Stalin lay in having absolute control of the state machine and in the irrefutable loyalty of those who worked within it. The experience of the Spanish Civil War reinforced this conviction, it would seem.58 There was a lack of military effectiveness within the ranks of the Republicans, because there was no discipline. Above all, there was what Stalin thought of as a Trotskyist fifth column, which OGPU agents on the spot tried to eradicate using force. The same thing had to be done in the Soviet Union; one had to eliminate and centralise in order to consolidate. It was in relation to foreign policy towards Spain and Germany that Stalin began to intervene more during 1936–1937. However, Litvinov’s influence only declined over a period of time. Despite his strong personal dislike of Litvinov, Molotov recognised that

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he had considerable qualities as well as prestige abroad which the Politburo had to acknowledge.59 He was only dismissed in May 1939 for a lack of loyalty. Centralisation and control The Politburo officially delegated its authority over foreign affairs on 14 April 1937: A permanent commission will be set up alongside the Politburo, comprising Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Ezhov. Its role will be to prepare dossiers on behalf of the Politburo, where the matter is urgent, where secret issues have to be resolved, and especially in relation to foreign affairs.60

This was part of a general process of hyper-centralisation, as the Politburo itself met more and more infrequently.61 A permanent economic commission was also set up to deal with urgent matters. Its members were Molotov, Stalin, Chubar, Mikoyan and Kaganovich.62 In practice, however, the conditions of work hardly changed. Indeed, the way decisions were arrived at in the preceding years already involved meetings between Stalin and his colleagues and Litvinov and his deputies. Between 1936 and 1939, the people’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs was summoned on average twice a month to attend meetings which on occasions were real working sessions lasting between two and a half and four hours. This meant there was a real exchange of views and not a simple issuing of directives. The meetings were, however, irregular. They depended on Litvinov being in Moscow (in September, for example, he was always in Geneva for the Assembly meeting of the League of Nations), and occurred more frequently at important or critical moments. In April 1936, when a decision had to be taken about relations with France, given that the pact had been ratified and that German soldiers were in the Rhineland, Litvinov visited the Kremlin on seven occasions. In the autumn of 1936 and at the beginning of 1937, the questioning of Litvinov’s policy and the new options being defended by the Kremlin gave rise to numerous meetings. In December Litvinov spent almost nine hours in Stalin’s office. During 1938, the Anschluss in March and the Munich conference at the end of September resulted in a

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series of meetings between Litvinov and the group of five, which Zhdanov and Mikoyan also joined.63 The working relationship between the Kremlin and the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs had changed however. Firstly, the amount of time Litvinov and his deputies spent in Stalin’s office decreased. This was all the more striking in 1938 as one might have expected the opposite to be the case, given the international tensions in that particular year.64 Secondly, the unity which had characterised the leadership of the Commissariat since 1934 largely disappeared. Until 1937 Litvinov was very often accompanied by his deputies Krestinsky and Stomonyakov. Subsequently, however, it became more usual for an individual to be summoned on his own. Potemkin and Stomonyakov were each asked to see Stalin separately, without the Commissar being present. This undoubtedly increased the rivalry between Litvinov and Potemkin. The latter, referred to by those French papers which supported Soviet diplomacy as ‘the king-pin of FrancoRussian relations’,65 acquired influence once he was back in Moscow. Molotov sought to take advantage of his careerist tendencies to weaken the position of Litvinov. Because Litvinov was in Geneva during the Munich crisis, it was Potemkin who went to the Kremlin on several occasions to discuss with Stalin and Molotov the policy they should adopt towards Czechoslovakia and Poland.66 At the 18th Party Congress he was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee and began to publish articles on foreign policy in different papers, and in particular in Bolshevik, the review published by the Central Committee.67 Finally, in April 1939, his mission to the Balkans and Turkey was made following close cooperation with Molotov, with Litvinov being partly sidelined. However, there were no disagreements between the two men concerning the diplomatic policy to be pursued or the methods to be adopted. Potemkin supported an alliance with France and Great Britain, even after Litvinov resigned. In contrast, concerned as he was to achieve both professional and social recognition, he had a better idea than Litvinov of the right thing to say in accordance with the official line, between 1937 and 1939. His speeches to the Supreme Soviet were deliberately anticapitalist and revolutionary in tone. On 17 December 1938, for example, having spoken of the dangers of war created by fascist Germany and the failure to respond by the ‘reactionary

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bourgeoisie in countries like Britain and France’, he turned to the experience of the First World War in order to announce the future revolution: Hitler is following the same path in his foreign policy as imperialist Germany, though he is less well armed than Wilhelm II. But if that policy ended in defeat and capitulation, if the first imperialist war unleashed social revolutionary forces and contributed to the creation of the great socialist country of the Soviets, then the blow which will strike the fascist aggressor were he to start a war will be even more profound and destructive, and the social upheavals caused by that war greater still.68

As they introduced a vertical structure and compartmentalised decision making powers, Stalin and Molotov also began to summon ambassadors to the Kremlin, thus bypassing the authority of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Merekalov, the new representative of the USSR in Germany, visited Stalin’s office five times in 1938, and on three of these occasions he was not accompanied by Litvinov.69 As Stalin gradually took control of foreign policy, all institutions were affected. Thus, at the end of 1936, direct relations were established between a number of members of the Politburo and Stashevsky, the trade attaché in Barcelona, who in fact acted as political and financial advisor to the Spanish Republican government.70 In February 1938 Stalin and Molotov strengthened their direct control of the diplomatic corps as they planned to recall Soviet representatives abroad on a regular basis: Given that representatives of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and the Commissariat for Foreign Trade working in other countries often complain that they are cut off from what is happening in the USSR and therefore continue working abroad for long periods with some reluctance, we have instituted the following rule whereby plenipotentiaries, counsellors, first secretaries and military attachés in embassies, consuls, trade representatives and their deputies who work in Europe and in near-eastern countries must return to the USSR for a period of a month or a month and a half every five or six months to give information and obtain instructions. Those working in America, Japan and China must return every eight months.71

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As a result of this measure, the People’s Commissar and his deputies lost a major part of their function as a channel of communication between Moscow and the embassies, both in terms of conveying information and of decision-making. At the same time, they were subjected to controls which showed just how suspicious Stalin and those close to him were of anyone who had a senior post within the state apparatus. Senior staff were free to choose the members of their personal secretariat until 1937. Thereafter, the Central Committee obtained a supervisory role and was obliged to validate the appointment of all secretaries and deputy secretaries.72 Thus, at the end of October, Litvinov had to send Malenkov, who was responsible for cadres, a curriculum vitae of his own personal secretary, giving a guarantee as to his orthodoxy and listing all the characteristics which would make him blameless in Stalin’s eyes: son of a professional revolutionary, a member of the Party since 1932, never having been criticised, never having had links with the opposition, not having a relative living abroad.73 Those opposed to Litvinov At the end of the 1930s, Molotov, Zhdanov and Beria, who succeeded Ezhov in July 1938, were those within Stalin’s entourage who helped to discredit Litvinov and his methods.74 During this period when the absolutist forms of Stalin’s power were growing stronger, evening parties involving all the leaders were first held in Stalin’s dacha as well as night-time sessions in the Kremlin. According to Dmitri Volkogonov, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Beria and Zhdanov were invited to attend the dinners held by Stalin at his dacha at Kuntsevo.75 Molotov, who was ten years younger than Stalin, had for a long time been his eminence grise. He was his right hand man, especially in relation to matters of foreign policy, and was officially superior to Litvinov in the hierarchy as president of the Council of People’s Commissars. He was always present when Stalin received senior officials of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and was a member of all the commissions which dealt with foreign policy. He was however slightly sidelined at the time of the trial of the ‘Trotskyist-Zinoviev centre’ in August 1936, as Stalin sought perhaps to unsettle him and to make sure of his fidelity at a point when, for the first time, the death penalty was

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being demanded for old Bolsheviks such as him. When Vyshinsky drew up his indictment, the fact that his name did not appear on the list of Party leaders whom Zinoviev, Kamenev and others intended to assassinate was not without significance.76 But in November 1936 he was back centre stage. The career of Zhdanov, six years his junior, had begun more recently. He had been secretary of the Central Committee, alongside Stalin, Kaganovich and Kirov, since the 17th Party Congress, and looked after the department responsible for the leading organs of the Party.77 A candidate member of the Politburo in 1935, he became a full member in March 1939.78 But his regular presence in Moscow was considered indispensable from April 1935, when he was Party secretary in Leningrad, a post which became vacant with the death of Kirov.79 From the end of 1936 he was usually present at the long working sessions which brought the leaders together in Stalin’s office in the Kremlin. His presence, however, perhaps had more to do with the fact that he cooperated with Stalin over the purges than with his involvement in foreign policy at the time of the Spanish Civil War.80 If one is to believe Molotov, Stalin liked him: ‘After Kirov, he liked Zhdanov most’.81 He played an indirect though important role in foreign policy until 1938–1939. Initially, because he was responsible for the politics of cadres, he worked closely with OGPU and the NKVD and kept a watchful eye on links between the USSR and the outside world. From May 1934 he was head of the commission set up by the Central Committee to take charge of missions abroad; its role being to evaluate the political soundness and practical value of all visits to foreign countries.82 Then, as the Party representative in Leningrad, Zhdanov was particularly alert to any threats in the Baltic region. Indeed, he was sent on a mission to Estonia in June 1940 when the Baltic states were sovietised.83 Moreover, as head of the Central Committee’s department of ‘Culture and Propaganda’, he kept an eye on dossiers which involved links between the Tass agency and foreign press agencies and on the Intourist organisation. He was also responsible for the planning of congresses against war and fascism and controlled press declarations and interviews given to papers by Soviet citizens living abroad.84 Censorship and the control of newspapers, including those of the Comintern, came under his central control during the ‘Great Terror’.85 In April 1938, for

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example, he was informed of the slightest errors committed by the Journal de Moscou.86 He also followed closely the line adopted by communist parties concerning the Nazi-Soviet pact at the end of August 1939.87 Beria’s career also took off at the end of the 1930s and he was elected as a candidate member of the Politburo in March 1939. He became head of the NKVD in July 1938, some time before Ezhov was officially disgraced, and organised the purges of those close to Litvinov. Dekanozov, a Georgian like Beria, whom the latter appointed as head of the foreign section of the NKVD (INO), took over as deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs on 4 May 1939, the day after Litvinov was dismissed. He subsequently supervised the sovietisation of Lithuania in 1940 and then became ambassador in Berlin. The INO, which was reorganised at the beginning of 1939 in the context of an impending war, seems to have conducted a successful disinformation campaign in relation to the Germans. In addition, the quality of the information it obtained about German-Japanese negotiations enabled the Soviet leadership to take important decisions in 1939.88 However, information gathering was perhaps not Beria’s only activity in the field of foreign policy. His role in the negotiations which led to the Nazi-Soviet pact still requires a good deal of clarification.89 These three men are involved in all the issues over which Litvinov and his team were challenged in one way or another between 1937 and 1939. Zhdanov came to be seen at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War as the public figure who was the antithesis of Litvinov. His anti-capitalist and revolutionary speeches created an image of him as a pure hardened ideologue.90 At the 8th Congress of the Soviets in November 1936, he brutally attacked the small Baltic countries: ‘If the governments of the small Baltic countries allow fascist adventurers to make hostile use of their territory against the USSR in time of war, then we shall open up our small window onto Europe with the aid of the Red Army’. Zhdanov’s violent remarks were not included in the official transcript, as they would undoubtedly have given rise to protests on the grounds that they breached international rules of courtesy and mutual respect.91 During 1938–1939 moderation was no longer the order of the day and Zhdanov’s almost entirely xenophobic speeches were directed, in the context of the ‘Great Terror’, at spy networks threatening the Soviet state. It was at this time that public

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criticism of the policies of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs grew in frequency. Zhdanov, who was charged with the task of purging Leningrad of all elements that were hostile or potentially hostile to the Soviet government, thought that foreign consulates were nothing but dens of spies. By the end of 1937 fourteen of them, most importantly the Japanese, German, Italian and Polish consulates, had already closed.92 But things were not going fast enough for Zhdanov. Once he was elected chairman of the Commission for Foreign Affairs of the Supreme Soviet on 17 January 1938, at the instigation of Beria, and having paid tribute to ‘the esteemed Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Litvinov, and his policies in pursuit of peace’, Zhdanov went on to express surprise at the laxity shown towards certain foreign consuls who ‘largely exceed their functions and engage in subversive activity against our country’. Attacking France in particular, he expressed indignation at the existence on French soil ‘of organisations which preach and organise acts of terror against the USSR’, adding that he had doubts about the reality of Franco-Soviet cooperation: The fact that this sort of organisation exists on French soil, within the borders of a country with whom we enjoy normal relations and have a pact of mutual assistance, gives specific and deliberate encouragement to genuinely hostile activities on the part of all kinds of ne’er-do-wells of Russian and non-Russian extraction [. . .] That is why we now have to ask: does this pact exist or not? 93

Zhdanov’s bellicose remarks, directed at the policy of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, at foreigners and the French in particular, were officially approved by Molotov who spoke next and declared it ‘vital’ for the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs to deal with the matter as quickly as possible. The public repudiation of Litvinov and his policies was clear. He reacted, as he did most of the time throughout the ‘Great Terror’, by taking them at their word and asking for concrete details. France herself had a right to demand proof of the accusations made against her in a full session of the Supreme Soviet: ‘Given comrade Zhdanov’s criticisms of the French government, supported by the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, we must, it seems, put certain demands to the French government’. Litvinov then asked Ezhov to give him details of the terrorist

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organisations and individuals together with their addresses if that were possible.94 Zhdanov again revealed his isolationism in the context of his activities as chairman of the Commission for Foreign Affairs of the Supreme Soviet. In opposition to suggestions Litvinov made, which would enable deputies to achieve a better understanding of relations between the USSR and Western countries – in particular the USA – Zhdanov claimed only to be interested in their immediate neighbours, whose frontiers might be called into question in time of war, given that people of the same nationality lived on both sides of the border.95 It was a way of involving the representatives of the different Republics situated at the extremities of the USSR who sat on the Supreme Soviet. After a communiqué from Litvinov at the first meeting of the commission in August 1938, Zhdanov established as a priority an examination of the agreements made with neighbouring countries in order to detect those clauses which were either favourable to or discriminated against the USSR. He also insisted on the need to look at local sources in order to study border incidents and the reaction of countries facing each other across the border. The countries to be looked at were Iran and Afghanistan in the east, and in the west the Baltic countries, Poland and Romania, whose relations with the Soviet Republic of Ukraine were also to be examined. This parliamentary commission, which had no powers, did however provide Zhdanov with a platform and allowed him to develop his purely territorial vision of the country’s security and to express himself on behalf of all Soviet citizens and their national interests. Behind Zhdanov, the spokesman, stood Molotov, the man in government, who was trying to weaken Litvinov’s position, especially over the issue of cadres. Litvinov’s ‘anti-party attitude’ When he created the Institute for the training of diplomatic and consular cadres in 1934, Litvinov saw the necessity of renewing the diplomatic corps in the coming years in order to replace those who retired. In a letter to Stalin of 5 February 1937, the People’s Commissar wrote: ‘The number of cadres qualified to work abroad is going down’.96 Anxious to give competent diplomats the best training he could, he considered all possible means of

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achieving this, seemingly oblivious to the Terror which was growing ever stronger in the country. Thus, in February 1937, when the purges were having scarcely any impact on his own Commissariat, he proposed, in a falsely naïve or vaguely provocative manner, sending a dozen trainee diplomats who had just left the Institute to the League of Nations for language training: You know the difficulties we are having at the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in finding suitable people for diplomatic and consular work, who speak foreign languages. Our diplomatic training courses have enabled a few dozen future colleagues to acquire some theoretical knowledge of foreign languages. But that counts for little, as one must speak a language fluently and that can only be achieved with practice. One can do this neither within the headquarters of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs nor in embassies, where our people are inclined to stew in their own juice, moving only in Soviet circles and avoiding contact with foreigners except on those occasions when they have to talk to people in connection with their work. Comrades should be placed in situations where they have to talk exclusively in the foreign language, and then, within a short time, they would be able to understand and converse fluently. There is the possibility of placing a certain number in the Secretariat of the League of Nations. I could easily obtain a few posts. There are hardly any Russians in Geneva and therefore our colleagues would be obliged to use foreign languages, all the more so as the publications of the League of Nations are written in French and English. Furthermore, they will acquire work experience within the organisation. In this regard, the Secretariat of the League of Nations is an exemplary body.97

Litvinov criticised in passing the confined atmosphere in which diplomats had to work. He did not abandon the idea that diplomatic personnel should speak a language other than Russian, and returned to the matter again on 23 July 1938, when he sought, unsuccessfully, to obtain additional resources for the provision of foreign language teaching within embassies during the course of 1939.98 The People’s Commissar considered that the Institute which trained diplomatic cadres produced good people at an intermediary level, such as secretaries for consulates and embassy attachés. However, it had not yet had time to train high grade

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staff in a satisfactory manner. Having made this observation in March 1937, he asked the Central Committee for a dozen individuals with solid experience of political matters who spoke a foreign language.99 To make up for the shortages of personnel caused by the purges, the Central Committee sent groups of communists to the Institute where they followed crash courses in order to become operational as quickly as possible. It was above all during the summer of 1937 that recruitment was intensified. Thirteen new members of staff entered the diplomatic service in July and Litvinov asked the Central Committee to accelerate the process.100 In August Malenkov, who headed the section responsible for cadres on the Central Committee, sent eighty-five communists to the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. In a letter to Stalin, Litvinov pointed out that only fifteen of them had some knowledge of a foreign language and not one of them could become a plenipotentiary within a short space of time.101 The People’s Commissar, whose criteria for selection, as we have seen, depended on a good knowledge of foreign languages, was more often than not unhappy with the standard of candidates put forward. Out of the eighty-five, fifty were finally chosen by Litvinov in August 1937 to receive a three-month training and fifteen were immediately sent abroad as counsellors or embassy secretaries, such was the shortage of diplomatic personnel.102 Promotion was rapid. During those years one quickly rose from being an embassy secretary to the post of plenipotentiary, despite Litvinov’s somewhat negative assessment of most of the new recruits. Diplomats such as Plotnikov and Listopad who only spoke Russian very soon found themselves appointed as ambassadors. But there was a tangible human cost attached to these lightning promotions which took place in a deadly atmosphere. Most of those who were newly promoted took over the posts and flats of those who had been arrested. Faced with a lack of accommodation, Potemkin asked Molotov and Ezhov to remove the seals from the apartments of former diplomats considered ‘enemies of the people’, and to expel their families in order to house the new arrivals.103 One can only imagine the atmosphere in the block of flats for diplomats on the Kuznetsky Most, just a stone’s throw from the Lubyanka, with night-time arrests, the expulsion of the wives and children of ‘enemies of the people’, and the re-housing of new people . . .

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Whenever they could, Litvinov and Potemkin preferred to rely on those already working in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, who had gradually climbed the ladder acquiring skills and competence. Thus, Litvinov lent his support to a woman, Nikitnikova, a rarity in the diplomatic corps at the time, who was ‘the only person within the service who spoke Turkish’.104 He also backed Galkovich, the deputy-director of the press department, who knew English and had spent three years working in Japan.105 Similarly, in 1938 Potemkin sought to promote to senior posts those who had been in the diplomatic service for a long time such as Veinshtein, Plotkin and Ananov.106 They were all over forty and had been to university, but neither Plotkin nor Veinshtein or even Ananov was Russian. Plotkin had only joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1937, and Veinshtein had been a militant in the Bund between 1913 and 1919. In the end, before Molotov took charge of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, the log-jam surrounding the whole issue of cadres was obvious. Litvinov criticised the Central Committee’s incoherent policy, as new diplomats trained in the 1930s and ready to take up posts were in most cases not given permission to travel abroad: The new staff, who have followed the programme we set up for them in recent years, are not given permission to work abroad. Nor has the Central Committee sent us in the recent past the new recruits we require. Those who have signed on for courses will only be able to begin work once they have completed their training, in one and a half to two years’ time. Therefore we see no possibility of filling our senior posts if the current attitude regarding permission to travel abroad and to do secret work continues.107

Intending to fulfil his role as administrative head of the Commissariat, Litvinov asked for a commission to be set up to investigate the issue of cadres, which would include a member of the Politburo, Malenkov and himself. In the meantime, Molotov, as head of the Council of People’s Commissars, criticised Litvinov for rejecting candidates put forward by the Central Committee and for not following the Party line over matters of recruitment. Several months after he had taken up the post of Commissar, at a Party meeting which took place in July 1939 in front of an audience of diplomatic personnel,

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Molotov challenged the policy relating to cadres which had been adopted by Litvinov. If the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs was not completely Bolshevik, it was Litvinov’s fault, because he had defended a number of individuals who were outsiders and hostile to the Party and the Soviet state, and he had ‘an anti-Party attitude’ to new recruits joining the Commissariat.108 The recruitment policy adopted by Molotov in the spring of 1939 was very different. Deliberately choosing to break with the pattern associated with the former diplomatic service, he picked candidates who were Russian, young, and mostly from a humble background. This was the point at which a generation of future Soviet ambassadors entered the diplomatic service. They had received their political training within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Molotov made them responsible for a geographical sector within the central headquarters in Moscow, before sending them as counsellors or ambassadors to countries of which they had acquired specialist knowledge. Gromyko, who was chosen by Molotov and Malenkov, entered the diplomatic service in the spring of 1939 as the head of the American department, before being appointed counsellor six months later in the embassy in Washington. He was the archetypal new diplomat. Born in 1909, he was thirty when he entered the diplomatic service. A militant communist of working-class origins, he had had a technical education before being propelled by the Party apparatus in Belarus into studying economics first in Minsk and then in Moscow from 1933 onwards.109 Lavrentiev also began his diplomatic career in May 1939. Having been in charge of the department responsible for Eastern Europe, he became ambassador first in Bulgaria and then Romania during 1940–1941. Bogomolov and Orlov followed similar paths. The former, having worked in the first Western department, became a counsellor and then ambassador in France. The latter headed the department dealing with the Scandinavian countries before becoming the Soviet representative in Finland. These new diplomats, who were all in their thirties when they were recruited by Molotov in the spring of 1939, enjoyed long careers as all of them were still in very senior diplomatic posts after the war. Gromyko, having been ambassador in the United States and then permanent Soviet representative at the United Nations, became deputy minister and then Foreign Minister for twentyeight years, from 1957 to 1985. Bogomolov remained ambassador in

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France until 1950. Like Lavrentiev, he then became deputy Foreign Minister.110 In his Memoirs Molotov states several times that loyalty in a diplomat is more important than experience or competence. He contrasts Litvinov – ‘he was an intelligent man, an outstanding personality, but one did not trust him’ – with others such as Dekanozov – ‘a good public servant, a loyal individual’ – and Gromyko – ‘still young and inexperienced, but loyal’.111 The official explanation which Stalin telegraphed to all Soviet ambassadors abroad when Litvinov resigned also emphasised the central question of loyalty: Given the current major conflict which exists between the chairman of the SNK, comrade Molotov, and the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, comrade Litvinov, a conflict which arose out of Litvinov’s disloyal attitude to the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, comrade Litvinov addressed the Central Committee, asking to be relieved of his duties as People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs. The Central Committee approved comrade Litvinov’s request and freed him of his responsibilities as People’s Commissar. The chairman of the SNK of the USSR, comrade Molotov, has been appointed People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, in addition to his other posts.112

In the context of the very important negotiations which the Soviet Union would have to conduct to guarantee its security and safeguard its interests, Stalin was unwilling to see them carried out by someone he might have distrusted, who in his eyes showed a lack of ‘loyalty’. The question of loyalty did not however arise simply over the selection of cadres. It was much more deeply embedded in the whole evolution of foreign policy, rendering Litvinov’s style and personality more of a nuisance than anything else.

Notes 1. N. Kornev, Litvinov (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1936), p. 21. 2. Telegram from Litvinov to Stalin, Molotov and Kalinin, 17 July 1936 (reply to telegrams of congratulation on his sixtieth birthday), ibid., p. 7. 3. There are two different analyses: R. Conquest, The Great Terror. The Stalinist Purges of the 1930s (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

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4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19.

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1991) and John Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges. The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). T. J. Uldricks, ‘The Impact of the Great Purges on the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs’, Slavic Review, June 1977, p. 190. E. L. Magerovsky, The People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, 1917–1946 vol. 2, p. 345. The exclusion from the Party of Rudzutak and Tukhachevsky on 24 May 1937, of Yakir and Uborevich on 30 May 1937, RGASPI, 17/2/615; the case involving Postyshev’s exclusion from 28 February to 2 March 1938, the exclusion of Egorov, 9–11 January 1939, ibid., 17/2/640. Letter from Litvinov to Kaganovich, 20 August 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 5 February 1937, ibid., 05/17/126/1. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 11 February 1937, ibid. Z. Sheinis, ‘Sud’ba diplomata. Shtrikhi k portretu Borisa Shteina’ [The fate of a diplomat. Contributions to a portrait of Boris Shtein], in Arkhivy raskryvayut tainy . . . Mezhdunarodnye voprosy: sobytya i lyudi [The archives reveal secrets . . . International questions: events and those involved] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1991), p. 301. Letter from Potemkin to Andreiev, 15 March 1938, APE FR, 05/18/138/3. E. Gnedin, Katastrofa i vtoroe rozhdenie, memuarnye zapiski [Catastrophe and rebirth. Memoirs] (Amsterdam: ‘Biblioteka Samizdata’ series, no. 8, Herzen Foundation, 1977), p. 217. Handwritten letter from Potemkin to Surits, 4 April 1939, APE FR, 011/4/32/179. Ibid., 19 April 1939. ‘Materialy fevralsko-martovskogo plenuma TSK VKP (b) 1937 goda’ [Documents of the plenary session of February-March 1937], Voprosy Istorii, 1992, no. 2–3, pp. 3–44; no. 4–5, pp. 3–36; no. 5–6, pp. 3–29. Arkadi Vaksberg, Vychinski, le procureur de Staline. Les grands procès de Moscou (Paris: Albin Michel, 1991), p. 105. Letter from Litvinov to Andreiev, 26 October 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. Viktor Kin, whose real name was Viktor Pavlovich Surovikin, was a young proletarian writer who, before being appointed editor of the Journal de Moscou, had been in charge of the Tass agency in Paris. The Journal de Moscou did not survive after Litvinov’s resignation. Report of the French military attaché (January–February 1937), SHAT, 7N3123; Carswell, The Exile. A Life of Ivy Litvinov, pp. 165–8.

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20. Kaminsky at Health, Rozengol’ts at Foreign Trade, Grin’ko at Finance etc; J. Arch Getty and R. T. Manning, ‘The Impact of the Great Purge on Soviet Elites’, in Stalinist Terror. New Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 255. 21. Carswell, The Exile. A Life of Ivy Litvinov, p. 167. 22. ‘Posetiteli kremlevskogo kabineta I. V. Stalina’ [Visitors to Stalin’s office in the Kremlin], Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 5–6, 1995, pp. 25–6. 23. Boukharina, Boukharine, ma passion, p. 207; V. V. Sokolov, ‘Na postu zamestitelya narkoma inostrannykh del SSSR’ [The post of deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs], Novaya i noveishaya istorya, no. 6, 1988, p. 150. 24. There was a letter of resignation in Litvinov’s personal archives which had not been sent. Cf. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, p. 361. 25. Pravda, 5 April 1937. 26. Speech by Potemkin, 7 December 1937, RAN, 574/3/152. 27. Gnedin, Katastrofa i vtoroe rozhdenie, p. 204 and ff. 28. Ibid., pp. 217–18. 29. Registration document as a member of the Party, 4 February 1939, and his autobiography of 8 April 1937, RGASPI, 17/99 and 17/100/147119. 30. Gnedin, Katastrofa i vtoroe rozhdenie, pp. 107–8. 31. Protocol no. 47 of the meeting of the Politburo of 7 April 1937, RGASPI, 17/3/985. Subsequently, Agranov and Uritsky were replaced by Frinovsky (commander of the military forces of the GPU) and Berzin; finally, in 1938, the commission comprised Uritsky, Slutsky and Malenkov. 32. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 3 March 1936, and letter from Litvinov to Krestinsky, 7 March 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 33. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin (Molotov and Ezhov), 27 April 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 34. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 17 January 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenya, vol. 22 (Moscow, 1992), book 1, p. 50. 35. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 15 November 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. 36. Letter from Potemkin to Surits, 4 May 1937, ibid., 0136/169/839. 37. Shorthand record of the plenary meeting of the Central Committee, 4–7 December 1936, RGASPI, 17/2/575. 38. ‘Materialy fevralsko-martovskogo plenuma TSK VKP (b) 1937 goda’ Voprosy Istorii, 1992, no. 2–3, p. 41. 39. Letter to Zhdanov, 26 April 1938, RGASPI, 17/120/259. 40. Telegram from Corbin, 8 March 1938, AMAEF, League of Nations, vol. 2256.

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41. Telegrams from Coulondre, 7 March and 13 March 1938, ibid. 42. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 15 November 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 43. The second Moscow trial (23–30 January 1937), or the trial of the seventeen, ended with thirteen of them being condemned to death (including Pyatakov and Serebryakov) and four sent to prison (ten years for Radek and Sokol’nikov). 44. In Doletsky’s view, dispatches should not be checked where the trial was being held. Rather, foreign correspondents should be required to leave them with the Foreign Affairs press department so that they could be scrutinised more closely. 45. Letter from Litvinov to Molotov, 14 February 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 46. Bajanov, Avec Staline dans le Kremlin, p. 174. 47. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 7 June 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 48. Telegram from Léon Noël, Warsaw, 2 March 1938, AMAEF, League of Nations, 2256, p. 158. 49. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 2 July 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 50. Litvinov to Stalin, 20 and 23 October 1937, ibid. 51. Letter from Litvinov to Boldyrev, People’s Commissar for Health, and to Molotov, the president of the Council of People’s Commissars, 31 December 1937, APE FR, 011/1/5/49. 52. Letter from Adams, the secretary of the naval sub-commission, 6 October 1937, informing Semenov that he was to be chairman of the naval and air-force sub-commission from 14 October 1937 to 13 February 1938, according to the existing rules. When Semenov failed to respond, the Swedish delegate became chairman, League of Nations Archives, 7A/13673/1123. 53. Henry Krisch, Soviet Participation in the Non-political Work of the League of Nations, 1934–1939 (University of Connecticut, 1976), p. 53 and ff. 54. Butenko disappeared on 6 February 1938. The official communiqué appeared in Izvestia on 10 February. 55. Declaration made by Litvinov to the Romanian government, 17 February 1938 and which appeared in Izvestya on 18 February. 56. Letter published in French (translated by Boris Souvarine) in Le Contrat Social, September 1965, vol. 9, no. 5, p. 313. 57. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 3 January 1939, Dokumenty Vneshnei Politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 10. 58. Oleg Khlevniuk, ‘The Reasons for the “Great Terror”: The ForeignPolitical Aspect’, in Pons and Romano (eds), Russia in the Age of Wars 1914–1945, pp. 159–70. 59. F. Tchouev, Conversations avec Molotov: 140 entretiens avec le bras droit de Staline (Paris: Albin Michel, 1995), pp. 103–5.

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60. Protocol no. 48 of the Politburo meeting, 16 April 1937, RGASPI, 17/3/986. 61. During 1934–1935 it regularly met a little over once a month (eighteen sessions in 1934, sixteen in 1935). Subsequently, the meetings became more and more infrequent (nine sessions in 1936, six in 1937 and only three and then two in 1938 and 1939). Stalinskoe Politburo v 30e gody, sbornik dokumentov (O. V. Khlevniuk, A. V. Kvashonkin, L. P. Kosheleva, L. A. Rogovaya) (Moscow, 1995), pp. 231–52. 62. Protocol no. 48 of the Politburo meeting, 16 April 1937, RGASPI, 17/3/986. 63. ‘Posetiteli Kremlevskogo Kabineta I. V. Stalina’, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, No. 4 and no. 5–6, 1995, pp. 16–73 and pp. 4–64. 64. Litvinov spent forty hours at the Kremlin in 1936 and 1937 and ten hours less in 1938. 65. L’Oeuvre, 6 and 13 April 1937; Paris Soir, 31 March 1937. 66. ‘Posetiteli Kremlevskogo Kabineta I. V. Stalina’, no. 5–6, 1995, pp. 18–20. 67. Potemkin’s personal documents, RAN, 574/2/9; Z. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, p. 360. 68. Potemkin’s report on foreign policy to the Supreme Soviet, 17 December 1938, RAN, 574/3/153. 69. In January 1938, he spent ten minutes in the presence of Stalin, Molotov, Ezhov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Zhdanov and Mikoyan; in June 1938, he spent an hour with Stalin, Molotov and Ezhov; on 22 November, he saw Stalin together with Voroshilov for an hour. ‘Posetiteli Kremlevskogo Kabineta I. V. Stalina’, no. 5–6, p. 5, p. 16, p. 24. 70. Letters from Stashevsky to Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Ordzhonikidze and Andreiev, December 1936–February 1937, RGASPI, 17/120/263; Walter Krivitsky had already mentioned Stashevsky’s role in the unofficial conduct of Spanish affairs alongside Berzin. 71. On employees working abroad for the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and the Commissariat for Foreign Trade. Decision of the Politburo, 28 February 1938, RGASPI, 17/3/996. 72. Decision of the Politburo, 17 October 1937, protocol no. 54 of the decisions, 23 September to 25 October 1937, RGASPI, 17/3/992. 73. Letter from Litvinov to Malenkov, 22 October 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 74. Pons, Stalin e la guerra inevitabile, 1936–1941, pp. 185–7; Amy Knight, Beria (Paris: Aubier, 1994), p. 158. 75. D. Volkogonov, Staline. Triomphe et tragédie (Paris: Flammarion, 1991), p. 165.

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76. Derek Watson, Molotov and Soviet Government, Sovnarkom 1930– 1941 (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 162. 77. Protocol no. 8 of the Politburo meeting of 9 June 1934, RGASPI, 17/3/946. 78. On 1 February 1935, the Central Committee elected Mikoyan and Chubar to the posts left vacant by the deaths of Kirov and Kuibyshev. Zhdanov became a candidate member, pp. 468–9. Conquest, The Great Terror. 79. Protocol no. 24 of the Politburo meeting of 26 April 1935, RGASPI, 17/3/962. 80. ‘Posetiteli Kremlevskogo Kabineta I. V. Stalina’, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 4, 1995, pp. 31–73. 81. Tchouev, Conversations avec Molotov, p. 258. 82. Protocol no. 7 of the Politburo meeting of 26 May 1934, RGASPI, 17/3/945; after Zhdanov’s departure as Party leader in Leningrad, Ezhov became chairman of this commission. 83. Vyshinsky was the special envoy to Latvia, see A. G. Dongarov, G. N. Peshkov, ‘SSSR i strany Pribaltiki (avgust 1939–avgust 1940)’ [The USSR and the Baltic countries, August 1939–August 1940], Novaya i noveishaya istorya, no. 1, 1991, pp. 33–49. 84. Protocol no. 25 of the Politburo meeting of 13 May 1935, RGASPI, 17/3/963; protocols no. 5 and 7 of the Politburo meetings of 15 April, 4 May and 9 June 1934, ibid., 17/3/943–944–946. 85. In the distribution of tasks within the secretariat of the Central Committee, Zhdanov’s control over the press and its editors was once more confirmed. Protocol no. 66 of the Politburo meeting of 26 November 1938 to 4 January 1939, RGASPI, 17/3/1004. 86. Letter about the Journal de Moscou, 26 April 1938, ibid., 17/120/259. 87. Letter from Dimitrov to Zhdanov, 27 August 1939, ibid., 17/120/7. 88. D. C. Watt, How War Came. The Immediate Origins of the Second World War (London: Heinemann, 1989), p. 230. 89. Knight, Beria, p. 158; Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, Le KGB dans le monde, 1917–1990 (Paris: Fayard, 1990), pp. 246–7. 90. His numerous speeches which are in the Zhdanov collection in the Party archives have been exhaustively studied by Silvio Pons, Stalin e la guerra inevitabile, 1936–1941, pp. 122–6, pp. 185–7, pp. 225–7 and passim. 91. Information from the NKID, 12 March 1937, SHAT, 7N3129, 2nd dossier. 92. E. L. Magerovsky, The People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, 1917–1946, vol. 2, pp. 337–8. 93. Report by Colonel Palasse on the 1st session of the Supreme Soviet, 24 January 1938, SHAT, 7N3123.

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94. Letter from Litvinov to Ezhov, 21 January 1938, APE FR, 011/2/17/165. 95. Speech given by Zhdanov at the meeting of the commission, 26 August 1938, RGASPI, 77/3c/18. 96. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 5 February 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 97. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 5 February 1937, ibid. 98. Letter from Litvinov to Molotov, 23 July 1938, GARF, R-5446/22a/689. 99. Letter from Litvinov to Andreiev, 29 March 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 100. Letter from Litvinov to Andreiev, 11 July 1937, ibid. 101. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 5 August 1937, ibid.; protocol no. 52 of the decisions of the Politburo, 31 July to 10 September 1937, RGASPI, 17/3/990. 102. Ershov, Listopad, Belyaiev, Atroshchenkov, Vetrov etc., were recruited in August 1937. They were appointed at the end of September, the first two as counsellors in London and Warsaw, the rest as embassy secretaries in Austria and Latvia. One could give numerous other examples. Protocol no. 54 of the decisions of the Politburo, 23 September to 25 October 1937, RGASPI, 17/3/992. 103. Attached to it was the list of the ‘enemies of the people’ who had been arrested and the size of their flats, GARF, R-5446/20/4038. 104. Olga Ivanovna Nikitnikova had worked during the 1930s as an editor dealing with Turkish affairs in the first Eastern political department. 105. Letter from Litvinov to Andreiev, 15 February 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1. 106. Letters from Potemkin to Andreiev, 19 May, 16 and 19 October 1938, ibid., 05/18/138/3. 107. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 3 January 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 10. 108. A. A. Roschin, ‘V. Narkomindele v predvoennye gody’ [At the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in the pre-war] Otkryvaya novye stranitsy, p. 49. 109. Andrei Gromyko, Mémoires (Paris: Belfond, 1989), p. 29 and passim. 110. A. A. Gromyko, A. G. Kovalev, P. P. Sevostyanov, and S. L. Tikhvinsky (eds), Diplomaticheskii Slovar (Moscow: Nauka, 1985– 1987), vol. 1, pp. 140 and 275, vol. 2, pp. 131 and 316. For a more detailed analysis, see Sabine Dullin, ‘Une diplomatie plébéienne? Profils et compétences des diplomates soviétiques, 1936–1945’, Les Cahiers du Monde Russe, no. 44/2–3, pp. 437–64. 111. Tchouev, Conversations avec Molotov, p. 104. 112. Telegram from Stalin, 3 May 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 327. SNK or Sovnarkom refers to the Council of People’s Commissars.

6 Sidelined by the Soviet motherland

War was on everyone’s mind in the years 1937–1939. It began in the Far East, where China, with logistical help from the USSR, was fighting against Japan. It threatened to break out in Europe after the Anschluss and Hitler’s subsequent annexation of the Sudetenland gave Germany supremacy on the continent. The Soviet Union had begun a programme of rearmament at the end of 1931 which it greatly intensified from 1936 on; it was not, however, ready for war, and this was all the more true since the purges had paradoxically decimated the ranks of the general staff.1 Like all the other major powers on the continent, it did what it could on its own behalf to avoid war, even though it accepted that others might become involved. The proposals for collective security put forward by Soviet diplomats in previous years seemed rather absurd given the ever-growing reticence of the Western democracies and the ever-growing power of Germany. The story we have to tell is one of demoralisation which affected Litvinov and those around him. Arguments for collective security did not disappear, rather they were now essentially a way of pressing the democracies to engage and a screen to obtain guarantees of security from neighbouring states. However, when Litvinov was dismissed in May 1939, a further bridge was crossed in the rejection of the Western powers which explosively came to a head with the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact on 23 August.2 Yet, should we see the new style of Soviet diplomacy imposed by Molotov as a break with the past? Or can one still see certain links with the period when Litvinov was in charge?

A story of demoralisation The Soviet Union was more and more kept at arm’s length over decisions taken in Europe. This did not, however, mark a return 248

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to the diplomatic situation in which the USSR had found itself at the end of the 1920s. The fact that it turned inwards was both the result of Western policy and something which Stalin and those around him wanted to happen. They saw that isolationism was a more sensible means of avoiding war than collective security and a way of negotiating intervention or non-intervention from a position of strength. Soviet isolationism was no longer the isolationism of the weak. It derived its strength from growing industrial and military self-sufficiency as well as from the xenophobic and anti-capitalist discourse which was revitalised in the context of the ‘Great Terror’, and it manifested itself in the imperial notion of a zone of security.3 This policy, however, made life difficult for the diplomats. ‘Isolation does not frighten us’ At the end of 1937 Soviet diplomats had very largely lost confidence in the potential support of France and a fortiori that of Great Britain. The fact that both were inclined to appease Hitler and to support non-intervention in Spanish affairs had already on numerous occasions undermined the position of Soviet diplomats in the eyes of the Kremlin. But, by the end of 1937, the Western policy of negotiating with aggressors was sufficiently advanced for the diplomats themselves to begin to doubt the wisdom of cooperation. At the end of 1937, when Yvon Delbos travelled to central Europe, he did not visit Moscow but found time to hold discussions with the German minister von Neurath. In Litvinov’s view, this journey was part of a general plan of ‘European appeasement’ of which Austria and Czechoslovakia would be the principal victims. He concluded: ‘We have to say from our point of view that Britain and France have abandoned their former position and clearly moved into the opposing camp which is hostile to us in terms of international politics’.4 For his part, Surits, the new Soviet ambassador in France, observed that ‘in terms of diplomacy, our paths diverge from those of France on almost every issue. Our immediate mutual relations are scarcely those of allies’.5 Analyses such as these made by diplomats merely reinforced the isolationist views of the Soviet leadership which can be seen in the directives given to Surits for the meeting of the Council of the League of Nations in January 1938: ‘It has been

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decided that we should distance ourselves from the French, not become closely involved with them and furthermore not make any overtures [. . .] France needs the USSR; we can easily manage without the French’.6 Soviet diplomats increasingly crossed swords with everyone else. This is clearly seen in relation to Spain. In July 1937, at the Committee for Non-Intervention held in London, the debate centred on the withdrawal of foreign volunteers and on the legal rights of the two belligerents in the war.7 It was inconceivable that the Soviet Union would accept Franco as a belligerent, given that the Republicans constituted the legal government of Spain. At the beginning of July Litvinov again suggested they adopt a flexible attitude and not try to defend too strongly a position of principle. Indeed, he hoped for some movement on the French side, as France had ‘the distinct possibility of putting pressure on the Foreign Office and of doing something for once rather than clinging to Britain’s coat tails’, and this was all the more likely as Maisky predicted a mobilisation of the Labour and Liberal opposition around Attlee and Lloyd George.8 But these hopes were dashed and flexibility proved counter-productive. Surits could not find words strong enough to criticise Delbos’s attitude in the whole affair. So, the Soviet Union adopted an intransigent and obstructive attitude, and continued to provide, albeit more limited, military support to Spain, so as to delay as long as possible a victory for Franco.9 On 4 August 1937 Litvinov himself recognised it was no longer a time for making concessions. The directives he sent to ambassadors in October concerning Franco-British policies were bitter and negative. He said they were ‘condemned by all men of good sense’ and took no account of advice given by the USSR.10 The Soviet Union alone supported the appeal by the Spanish government to the Council of the League of Nations on 21 August, protesting against the attacks by submarines on merchant vessels entering Republican ports and naming Italy as the aggressor. Great Britain and France, who were then conducting a policy of rapprochement with Mussolini, tried to bury the issue of Italian responsibility for what had happened by proposing a conference on the general problem of ‘piracy in the Mediterranean’, which all countries with sea coasts would attend, apart from Republican Spain, and to which Germany would be invited as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union.

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The Nyon conference opened on 10 September 1937.11 Unconcerned that their action would cause irritation, on the 7th Soviet diplomats had sent a note to Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, protesting at ‘the aggressive acts of Italian warships against Soviet merchant vessels’.12 The strongly worded Soviet note sought to provoke anger in the Italians and thence their refusal, as well as that of Germany, to take part in the conference. The Soviet manoeuvre was partially successful, as the Germans and Italians were absent when the Nyon conference opened, but for all that the Soviet Union failed to obtain permission for Republican Spain to be represented, though she was the principal victim of the actual piracy. Despite exhortations from Delbos and Eden, Litvinov made his annoyance over this issue quite clear.13 The outcome of the conference was that France and Great Britain agreed to offer protection against ‘pirates’ to nonSpanish ships in the Mediterranean. The agreement took effect immediately and attacks by submarines rapidly ceased. Litvinov was delighted at the result. Soviet firmness had paid off. However, the conference also revealed the isolation of the USSR.14 There were numerous clashes between the British and Soviet delegations and the conference showed how unpopular the Soviet Union was with the small Mediterranean countries who would not even consider Soviet patrols along their coasts.15 Maisky noted ‘the mobilisation of anti-Soviet attitudes’ within the Committee at the end of October 1937, following a vote of eight to one on the legality of the belligerents and a proposal from the Portuguese delegate that the Soviet vote be discounted.16 Litvinov then made the following reassuring comment to him: ‘We sometimes prefer to be isolated rather than to go along with the bad actions of others, and that is why isolation does not frighten us’.17 Though Maisky’s tactics provoked general hostility, they did serve the Republican cause, as recognition of his rights as a belligerent would have meant that Franco could mount a real blockade of the Republican coastline, with the help of the Italians and the Germans. Even though Litvinov himself recognised that it would have given ‘greater pleasure to slam the door’, Soviet involvement at meetings of the London Committee was considered useful until March 1938.18 The predominant tone of the reports made by Litvinov and his team was one of defiance and hostility towards the West. Certainly, there was a genuine expression of disappointment and

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bitterness in these analyses, but also an element of opportunism, which must not be overlooked. Given the prevailing atmosphere in the Soviet Union at the time, it was better to write what Stalin and those close to him wished to read. Indeed, the proposals put forward by diplomats at the time of the two great crises, the Anschluss and Munich, showed that they had not yet abandoned the idea of containing Hitler’s aggression through strong collective actions although few means remained available to them, not to mention the absence of the necessary goodwill in either Western Europe or the USSR for a successful outcome. 1938 – the ‘final appeals’ On 12 March 1938 Germany annexed Austria. There was no government in France, as Chautemps and his cabinet had just resigned. In Great Britain, Sir Anthony Eden, the remaining supporter of collective security within the government, had just been replaced on 20 February 1938 by Lord Halifax, and Prime Minister Chamberlain informed the French that any opposition to the Anschluss was inopportune. However, Soviet diplomats and French communists briefly hoped that French policy would change. Delbos, who left office on the 12th, and Paul-Boncour, who became Foreign Minister on the 14th, both reaffirmed France’s commitment to Czechoslovakia. Thorez seized the initiative, having doubtless consulted the embassy. The Politburo of the French Communist Party met on the evening of the Anschluss to consider communist participation in a government, if the idea of forming a government of national unity which would embrace everyone from Louis Marin to Maurice Thorez and which had been in the air since January was still a possibility. The General Secretary of the Communist Party, who took the view that Czechoslovakia was henceforth ‘the first country Hitler was likely to attack’, argued as follows: Whether an attack will happen tomorrow will depend on the strength of the reaction in France. If things are left as they are, as one might abandon a wounded dog, then Hitler will do something provocative as he has done in Austria [. . .] Let us consider the core of the issue: we in the Politburo are convinced that even the most broadly based government, which includes us, offers the possibility of preserving, maintaining and even widen-

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ing the opportunities of the working class, the opportunities for democracy [. . .] and for defending and securing the country [. . .] I will go further. Since a moment ago I referred to two aspects of the issue: the internal and the external, I would add that such a coming together would contain elements which would be favourable to the Soviet Union, would further understanding with the Soviet Union. Without us means against us sooner or later and to a greater or lesser extent.19

The matter was also considered by the Soviet embassy in Paris. On 11 March Surits had discussions with Paul Reynaud, whom he considered a ‘true patriot’. Undoubtedly, the intention was to inspire a spirit of resistance in France so as to halt Hitler’s eastward advance, which would not displease Stalin, always anxious to deflect Hitler’s aggression towards some other arena than the USSR. Paul Reynaud, however, considered it premature to form a government of national unity which would include communists: ‘It is conceivable in the context of another Charleroi, in the context of a government of national safety for which no basis yet exists’.20 Finally, Blum formed a government on 14 March, which was left-leaning and defended the spirit of resistance, but did not, however, consider including the communists.21 Both Thorez’s telegram, which he sent to the Comintern on 18 March supporting the idea of communist participation in a national front government, and the reply from Moscow on the 20th, which stated that communist participation in a government of public safety could only be considered in time of war, were too late to have any impact whatsoever.22 The formation of a new French government did, however, motivate Litvinov to some degree, as he made a press declaration on 17 March, proposing a conference of the Great Powers to discuss what future measures might be adopted. It was not accompanied by any concrete diplomatic overtures either to France or Great Britain.23 For Litvinov, it was above all a way of pressing Great Britain to offer support to Czechoslovakia alongside France and the USSR. A press campaign on this theme was orchestrated in the USSR. On 29 March Izvestya referred to ‘the excellent army of one hundred and eighty thousand men’ as well as to the spirit of resistance amongst the Czechs. The following comment appeared in Pravda on 25 March 1938: ‘German aggression against Czechoslovakia will only occur if Germany is

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sure that the other Powers will not intervene on the Czech side. Thus, everything depends on the attitude adopted by France and Great Britain’. The major mobilisation of military forces which the Czech government initiated on 20 May 1938 as a reaction to German troop movements in Saxony was a success and underlined the determination and courage of the Czech people. The Soviet Union was perhaps indirectly responsible for this show of military strength. A meeting had taken place on 21 April 1938 in Stalin’s office, attended by those closest to the General Secretary (Molotov, Kaganovich, Ezhov, Voroshilov and Zhdanov), but also by Litvinov and Alexandrovsky, the Soviet ambassador in Prague who happened to be in Moscow. The decisions taken implied that cooperation with the French and the Czechs was a necessity.24 Gottwald, the head of the Czech Communist Party, had also had a meeting with Stalin on 5 May and came away, it seems, with assurances of Moscow’s assistance if an attack took place which he passed on to the government of Benes. Soviet diplomats and their French allies obtained what they wanted from this event. Franco-British solidarity played its part, with France advising Prague to show caution and Britain issuing warnings to Berlin. Georges Mandel was pleased that Germany had been warned in this way.25 However, if the diplomats supported Western gestures of resistance, their own attitude was more that of observers than men of action. The policy of the Kremlin after the Anschluss was in fact based more and more on the principle of non-engagement in European affairs. On 26 March 1938 Litvinov wrote as follows to Alexandrovsky, words which were heavy with meaning: My declaration constitutes, without doubt, a final appeal for cooperation in Europe. Thereafter, it seems, we shall adopt a position whereby we show only the slightest interest in the future development of events in Europe. The Anschluss already guarantees Hitler hegemony in Europe, whatever the future fate of Czechoslovakia.26

Everything was in this statement: the ‘I’ of Litvinov and the ‘we’ of the ruling group, ‘the appeal for cooperation’ from the diplomats and ‘only the slightest interest’ of Stalin. The Anschluss had changed the way the cards were stacked in Europe by giving

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Germany sufficient weight so that war could now only be avoided by means other than dissuasive cooperation. The position did not change in the succeeding months despite Stalin’s promises to Gottwald at the beginning of May. French questions concerning Soviet intentions over Czechoslovakia were invariably met with evasive answers from diplomats. Litvinov pointed out to Georges Bonnet, who had replaced PaulBoncour as foreign minister at the beginning of April, and to Robert Coulondre, the new French ambassador in Moscow, that an agreement with the high commands of the Baltic countries, of Poland and Romania concerning the movement of Red Army troops on their soil was still a prerequisite. On 29 May Potemkin expressed serious reservations on Moscow’s part concerning possible negotiations with France. On 1 June 1938 Stalin summoned Molotov, Voroshilov, Litvinov and Maisky to a meeting. The directives urged prudence as well as disengagement, and negotiations, which Coulondre and Massigli on the French side were pressing for, ceased at the end of June.27 After the Anschluss, Romania expressed a certain interest in rapprochement with the Soviet Union and Alexandrovsky visited Bucharest. However, Moscow refused to take any initiative over the possible passage of Soviet troops on Romanian soil and nothing was done to establish the basic conditions for rapprochement.28 There had been no Soviet representative in Bucharest since February and a replacement was not envisaged. Furthermore, Moscow had no intention of renouncing its territorial claims to Bessarabia. The Soviets were, moreover, outraged by the attitude of the French ‘who crudely and cynically propose that we should fulfil our duty of help to Czechoslovakia and France by giving up Bessarabia’.29 In any case, military aid through Romania would have been extremely difficult given the state of Romanian roads and railways and the mountainous nature of the terrain. In addition, were there to be a German attack, the front would be in Bohemia and Moravia and not in eastern Slovakia.30 Certainly, at that time, the Soviet factor counted for little in the thinking of either France or Britain and even Germany. The purges and the lack of organisation in the command structure of the Red Army called into question the military capacity of the USSR. On the eve of Munich, the leadership in Germany either did not believe in the likelihood of Soviet intervention in

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Czechoslovakia or thought it would take place in the limited form of a few bombing raids and the provision of arms.31 The British had taken no account of the assurances given to the British military attaché by Voroshilov in May.32 Certain reports from the intelligence services in France referred in July 1938 to the growth of military collaboration between Moscow and Prague, but no intelligence official and no member of the French high command really believed that Soviet intervention was likely. Daladier was convinced that the USSR had neither the capacity nor the intention of engaging in military operations in Europe in the near future. The purges had strengthened his conviction.33 If the West did not take Soviet intervention seriously, Litvinov found it more difficult, it would seem, to persuade Alexandrovsky that the Soviets would not intervene. He was the ambassador on the ground and had left Moscow at the end of April, at a time when the Kremlin was assuring Gottwald of its support. In his correspondence, Litvinov used often allusive and ambiguous statements which did not have the sharpness of Stalin’s judgements in private: ‘We are however ready, given the way we think about resistance to an aggressor, to lend our support, but we would not go so far as to demand it and still less fight to obtain it’.34 Was it to avoid documents opposing the official Soviet line falling into the hands of foreign chancelleries? Was it an indication that the policy was still ambivalent? Litvinov’s message was essentially non-interventionist. Alexandrovsky was under orders not to initiate any negotiations between the high commands of France, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union and not to protest if the preservation of peace was achieved at the cost of certain concessions to Germany: ‘You must not, however, lose sight of the fact that we have no interest in the issue of the Sudeten Germans being resolved by a resort to force’.35 All the same, he twice suggested he take the matter up in the analysis he made in his speech to the electors of Leningrad on 23 June 1938 so that it would not be understood as a call to resistance.36 Litvinov offered him a brief critical analysis on the subject in mid-August, emphasising that opposition to the ending of peace treaties was first and foremost a matter for the Western powers, notably Britain and France. He instructed him not ‘to encourage Czech intransigence’, yet to avoid at the same time in his conversations with Benes ‘any marked insistence on our lack of interest in European affairs’.37 In particular, he told him not to criticise publicly the

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objectives of Lord Runciman’s mission which began on 3 August, the aim of which was to mediate between the government in Prague and the representatives of the Sudeten Germans. At the end of August, however, Hitler’s strike against the Sudetens appeared imminent and the British, French and Soviets tried once again to discover each other’s intentions, though no precise response was given by any of them. On 29 August Lord Robert Vansittart expressed his concern to Maisky at the absence of any official Soviet declaration over Czechoslovakia, and Churchill, who had already raised the issue following the Anschluss, returned to it on 31 August. Maisky remained very evasive. For his part, the People’s Commissar consulted Alexandrovsky as to the nature and degree of support the French might lend to Czechoslovakia. When, on 1 September, Payart, the French chargé d’affaires in Moscow, asked Litvinov what sort of aid his country might provide, given their difficulties with regard to Romania and Poland, the latter addressed the very same question to Payart, reminding him that help from the USSR depended on French engagement.38 The Soviet position outlined by Litvinov on 2 September had been defined the previous day at a meeting between the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs and the country’s principal leaders.39 Referring to the framework established by the League of Nations, Moscow made it clear that its policy would be defined in terms of international legality, and because of successive failures of the League of Nations over collective security, the underlying message was that it intended to do nothing.40 This is how it was understood in Paris. The People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs did, however, refer to the need for military negotiations to establish a concrete basis for the communal defence of Czechoslovakia and recalled his proposal of 17 March. Some people have taken this as proof of Soviet willingness to act.41 One might, rather, see in it a Soviet desire to maintain its image as an anti-fascist power honouring its commitments, as Potemkin’s comment makes clear following a request from Benes: ‘We can give no other response than a positive one’.42 The next day, Alexandrovsky received an order to confirm the determination of the USSR to aid Czechoslovakia within the framework of its international obligations, as a signatory of the pact of mutual assistance and as a member of the League of Nations. The USSR undertook to give the Czech government military support if France honoured its commitments,

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and, in the event of a German attack, it would support an appeal by the Czech government to the League of Nations, asking for articles 16 and 17 of the pact to be applied.43 They adopted this position at a crucial moment. Indeed, the Soviet ambassador in Prague informed Benes of the decision by telephone as the Czech government was discussing the Franco-British plan concerning the Sudetens.44 This perhaps had some bearing on the Czech decision to reject it. But the gesture of national pride, warmly welcomed by public opinion, was to no avail as, on 21 September at 5 p.m., Benes accepted the ultimatum which the French and the British had made in the early hours of the morning. At the same time, in a speech at the League of Nations, Litvinov sought to have the matter brought before the League and spoke warmly of the Czech people.45 The gesture made on 20 September together with Litvinov’s speech meant that Moscow was able at little cost to dispel rumours of its abstentionist stance over Czechoslovakia.46 We should consider, nonetheless, the significance of troop movements which began on 21 September in the military districts of Kiev, Belarus and Kalinin.47 Could they be interpreted as preparations for potential support for Czechoslovakia? Igor Lukes says no, basing his argument on archive material in Prague. Firstly, within the Czech high command itself, there was a prevailing mood of pessimism over Soviet intentions. General Husarek, who knew the Soviets well and had met Stalin and Molotov in June 1938, affirmed on 30 September, at the very moment when the Czech government had to decide whether to resist or to accept the agreements reached at Munich: ‘The Soviets will not fight, they will not go to war on our behalf ’. Furthermore, the meetings between Alexandrovsky and Benes, which took place between 21 and 30 September, revealed that, on the Soviet side, there had never been a willingness to take practical steps with the Czechs to prepare for action.48 Moreover, on 25 September, in an atmosphere of febrile preparation for war, Benes asked the Soviet ambassador how many airborne troops the Red Army could deploy in Czechoslovakia and what technical assistance the USSR might give. Alexandrovsky wrote in his diary: ‘I confess that I felt uncomfortable, as I could say nothing to Benes, particularly about these “practical matters” ’. On 27 September Alexandrovsky also noted that Benes was expecting to receive definite information about the help the Red Army

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might provide, but that he could not give him an answer. Finally, Benes’s ‘anguished appeal’ of 30 September, when he urgently sought to establish Moscow’s position, received no reply.49 Military preparations were aimed in the first place at Poland, not at Germany. Warsaw’s schemes to settle its own territorial disputes with Lithuania, on the one hand, and Czechoslovakia, on the other, by means of Hitler’s belligerence provoked strong reactions on the Soviet side. At the time of Austria’s annexation, Poland issued an ultimatum to Lithuania requiring the immediate restoration of diplomatic relations. They had been broken off in 1920 when Wilno (Vilnius) and the surrounding region were annexed by Poland, which the government in Kaunas never accepted. Moscow, fearing Polish expansion into Lithuania secretly orchestrated by Hitler in exchange for the corridor, had issued a severe warning to Warsaw while counselling Kaunas to accept the Polish ultimatum.50 Moscow’s resolute attitude towards the Poles caused Robert Coulondre to write: ‘The initial onslaught could well be fierce, and I would not want Poland to experience such an attack’.51 Taking advantage of the Sudeten crisis, the Polish ambition after 16 September to seize the Czech district of Teschen, the population of which was principally Polish, also provoked a very strong Soviet reaction. The USSR responded with military measures and by issuing a warning on the night of 23 September to the Polish chargé d’affaires in Moscow. In the event of a Polish attack on Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union would renounce the non-aggression pact it had with Poland.52 It is probable that military action against Poland had been envisaged by the Soviet leadership in the event of the Czechs resisting Polish demands. At the beginning of October, Litvinov was, however, astonished that Prague had agreed to yield without a fight ‘important economic centres where the majority of the people were Czech’.53 From 1938 Moscow turned Poland’s own arguments concerning minorities against them by drawing attention to the Belarussians and Ukrainians living in eastern Poland. And from 1938, too, the scenario already existed for the inevitable division of Poland, even if it did not correspond to the way it would be envisaged in September 1939. In April 1938 Potemkin outlined the following scenario in a letter to Surits:

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Germany is pushing towards armed conflict with us. Hitler has taken into account that Poland will be crushed by our troops. When we occupy certain regions of Poland, Germany will do the same on its side. In fact, by carrying out the German plan, Poland is setting in train for the fourth time the division of the country and the loss of its national independence. It would not be a bad idea to organise an antiPolish campaign in the French press, taking advantage of our friendly relations with journalists such as Pertinax, Buré, Tabouis and others.54

However, these military preparations could also serve as a test of German resolve. On 23 September Hitler rejected the FrancoBritish plan, affirming openly his desire to send troops into the Sudetenland. There was still a chance that a policy of resistance would succeed. The French and the British did not oppose the general mobilisation of the Czech army which began on the evening of 23 September. The next day France initiated partial mobilisation and Daladier seemed to adopt a firm stance. It is in this context that we should consider the proposal put forward by Litvinov on 23 September in Moscow: Although Hitler has committed himself to such an extent that it would be difficult for him to back down, I nonetheless think that he would back down if he thought at the outset that joint Soviet-FrenchBritish action against him was certain. From now on, no declaration, even a joint one, and no conference will have any effect on him. Something more convincing has to be done. Given that a war in Europe, which we shall be dragged into, is not in our interest and that we should do everything we can to avoid it, I raise the following question: should we not declare even partial mobilisation and start a press campaign which will force Hitler and Beck to acknowledge that a major war involving us is a possibility [. . .] It is possible that France will now agree to partial mobilisation at the same time as us. We have to act quickly.55

At this moment when everything seemed possible, Litvinov’s reflexes as a diplomat, which he had relied on at a time of collective security and indivisible peace, came once more to the fore. Hitler’s boldness merely reflected the pusillanimity of the democratic camp, and Litvinov was counting on the fact that he was not so stupid as to engage in a war against all the other European

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powers. What is more, he had to believe this might happen. To make Hitler back down, they had to be as threatening as possible. However, Litivinov’s proposal to announce partial mobilisation and to initiate an anti-German campaign was not taken up. The only idea Potemkin continued to put forward until the end of September in his letters to Stalin was for an international conference on the proposal of 17 March.56 Certainly, mobilisation measures were intensified on 23 and 24 September on the western borders of the USSR, and the French were informed of this on 25th by the Soviet ambassador in Paris. Following a crisis meeting on 28 September 1938, partial mobilisation took place in all of the military districts west of the Urals. Colonel Palasse, the French military attaché in Moscow at the time, sent a telegram on the same day giving details provided by the Soviet high command of the precautionary military measures being adopted in the western part of the country: ‘Thirty infantry divisions placed on a war footing, as well as air-force and tank units in the region’.57 Yet, there was no publicity about these mobilisation measures and no official warnings were given, unlike what was done when Poland posed a threat. They were merely part of the precautionary measures adopted by all the countries concerned between 26 and 28 September at a time when war was becoming a distinct possibility. Inertia and defiance The Munich conference generated more intense suspicion on the part of those diplomats who were most open to the West such as Litvinov and Maisky. The impression that Western powers were deliberately turning their back on them so that Hitler’s attention would be directed eastwards gained ground all the more readily as a lack of information in Moscow fed their worst fears. In fact, while events were unfolding, the diplomatic corps had been given very few details about the content of the negotiations which led Western leaders to attend the Munich conference or about the position in Prague and Paris. Soviet ambassadors in the principal European capitals had been kept at arm’s length and the intelligence services which were then in complete disarray had been unable to do much to compensate for the lack of information.58 A number of secret agents working for the 4th section of the Red Army (the counter-intelligence services) were victims of the

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repression. Moreover, the services themselves had been restructured and absorbed into the NKVD, which had also been purged on a vast scale following Beria’s appointment in July 1938. At the beginning of October Litvinov discovered to his surprise, in the course of a conversation with Georges Bonnet, that Benes had been ready on 20 September to accept the plan drawn up at Berchtesgaden provided that it took the form of an ultimatum. He therefore asked Alexandrovsky if this ‘warped’59 assertion was to be believed. He also sought clarification of Prague’s hurried capitulation (1 October) in the face of Polish demands over Teschen. He asked him finally to provide a record of the whole sequence of events: I realise that you have not felt able to provide a detailed account, given the whirlwind of events. They are so important, if only from a historical point of view, that you must now reconstitute from memory, preferably in the form of a diary, exactly what has gone on in Czechoslovakia during the last month. Do this when you are less preoccupied with your current tasks.60

In accordance with Litvinov’s suggestion, Alexandrovsky produced his version of events in mid-October but refuted any suspicion of capitulation on the part of the Czech government, insisting rather on its spirit of resistance and even talking of its willingness to provoke a wider war. According to him, Benes was ready to drag the Soviet Union into war in order to transform a local conflict between Germany and Czechoslovakia (which would necessarily have ended in defeat for the Czechs) into a much larger conflagration.61 Alexandrovsky’s analysis contains the same worries as those which Litvinov expressed about the Spanish government in 1937, suspecting them of seeking to transform the Spanish Civil War into a broader conflict involving Germany and the USSR. Surits, from his vantage point in France, drew attention to anticommunist attitudes and to the fact that a few men within the French government, in particular Georges Bonnet, supported by Flandin, Pietri and Caillaux, ‘had conspired with supporters of Hitler in Britain and flooded the press with false information about the position of the USSR’.62 With the notable exception of General Gamelin, the French high command had revealed its defeatism, and tended to exaggerate the strength of German armed forces.

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The Munich agreement, ‘a great calamity’ for Litvinov, ‘a new Sedan’ for Surits, brought once more to the fore the belief in a widespread anti-Soviet plot.63 The inclination to be optimistic about potential cooperation with Western democracies which had persisted as an undertone in diplomatic dispatches throughout 1938 disappeared altogether. Soviet diplomats now became entirely convinced of a conspiracy theory and Litvinov, like Maisky and Surits, appeared incapable of bringing any pressure to bear on Western governments.64 In the past, Soviet diplomacy had shown considerable vigour in its attempt to influence and put pressure on governments to make them change their positions, even though it often proved a total waste of time. Nothing like this happened at the end of 1938. For Maisky and Litvinov the British government, now the principal player as far as the Soviets were concerned, would in no way modify the position it adopted at Munich: ‘Chamberlain is incorrigible. He cannot change his ways’.65 In the eyes of the Commissar for Foreign Affairs, the fact that British policy towards Germany did not change one iota even after Kristallnacht was proof enough. Moreover, according to the diplomats, the overall aim was to push Hitler in the direction of the USSR: hence the rumours about Ukraine in the Western press and Georges Bonnet’s reticence about Soviet-Polish rapprochement.66 None of these things were without foundation, even if anti-Soviet attitudes were neither calculated nor collectively inspired or even a priority, though the diplomats from this moment on seemed to think they were. For these reasons, Soviet diplomats did not fully take account of the real change in British foreign policy which resulted from Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Litvinov wrote as follows just after it occurred: Events in Czechoslovakia have apparently had some impact on public opinion in Britain, France and other countries. Nevertheless, if Hitler does not now engage in further expansionist activity and even makes a peaceful gesture, Chamberlain and Daladier will again begin to defend the Munich doctrine [. . .] We can have no confidence in the state of mind which has been fostered in government circles favouring cooperation with the USSR. Even if they have caused some concern to Chamberlain and Daladier as guarantors of Hitler’s sworn promises and assurances, events in Czechoslovakia and the ultimatum to

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Romania form part of their overall vision which leads them to favour a German move eastwards.67

A signal to Hitler The systematically negative attitude towards British policy adopted by diplomats such as Litvinov and Maisky after Munich has led certain historians to blame them in part for the failure of the triple alliance. In their analyses, the diplomats have accentuated to the full the Soviet leadership’s suspicion of British intentions, thereby making any subsequent rapprochement between the USSR and Britain difficult. Stalin’s mistrust, illustrated by the Nazi-Soviet pact, lasted until June 1941 when he refused to believe information indicating that an attack by Hitler was imminent, considering it merely as British disinformation. Geoffrey Roberts goes even further, suggesting that Litvinov had become a dead weight, an obstacle even to the establishment of a framework of cooperation between the British, the French and the Soviets in the spring of 1939, and that his resignation stemmed from this.68 However, the facts seem to substantiate the traditional explanation that Litvinov’s dismissal was a necessary step in order for negotiations with Hitler to begin.69 ‘Time is on our side’ After Munich, France was no longer at the forefront of Soviet preoccupations, as London then became ‘the focus of all negotiations and activities relating to the situation in Europe’.70 Two outcomes were possible within the near future: a war involving an alliance of Britain and France against Germany, leaving the Soviet Union free to do as it wished, or Franco-British support for the Soviet Union. In the situation which existed post-Munich, it was very difficult to determine the most likely scenario. Until mid-April neither Stalin nor Litvinov envisaged any cooperation with France and Great Britain, which they viewed with the utmost suspicion. At the same time, the German sphinx was becoming warlike. Moscow did make placatory gestures in its direction, such as the extradition by the NKVD of hundreds of Germans who were handed over to the Gestapo and a marked reduction in the level of criticism of Nazi Germany in the Soviet press, criticism which

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from then on was directed instead at the democratic powers. In January 1939 credit negotiations began again between the USSR and Germany, following the signing in Berlin of a commercial agreement on 19 December 1938. The Soviets insisted that the negotiations should be held in Moscow at the beginning of February.71 But the anticipated visit of Julius Karl Schnurre, who was responsible for economic policy within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, did not in the end take place.72 The Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in Moscow was informed that Berlin wanted these negotiations to demonstrate to the British and the French, who were ‘so gullible’, that Eastern European states were ready to settle their own affairs with Germany.73 But Moscow also had its ulterior motives. It sought to emphasise its economic strength, so that Germany would realise that its own interest lay in not involving the USSR in any conflict. A similar strategy was adopted with Italy, as one sees from the meeting of Shtein and Potemkin after the signing of a new commercial agreement with Italy on 7 February 1939, which emphasised that Rome recognised the economic advantages of possible Soviet neutrality.74 Stalin had even considered making a more important gesture towards Germany. On 17 October 1938, post-Munich, the Kremlin had considered breaking off the Franco-Soviet pact of mutual assistance. However, influenced by Litvinov, they felt that such a gesture was ill-considered and premature.75 The Soviet leadership preferred to keep all its options open and not make any definite decisions. In response to questions from the French chargé d’affaires in Moscow, Potemkin stated that, on the one hand, the Soviet Union was ready to normalise its relations with Germany and to buy manufactured goods which would be useful for its own arms industry, and that, on the other, the Franco-Soviet pact remained in force.76 The position outlined by Litvinov to Naggiar, the new French ambassador in Moscow, was worthy of the Pythian oracle: ‘We are ready to move towards effective cooperation, if others wish it, but we are also ready to forgo such cooperation and that is why we do not actively seek it’.77 There were new opportunities for Soviet diplomacy in the month of March, in the wake of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia on the 15th, the annexation of Memel which was part of Lithuania on the 22nd, and the German-Romanian economic agreement of the 23rd.78 Great Britain, now aware of the dangers of Hitler’s expansionism, stepped up the level of its

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engagement with Eastern European countries and showed its willingness to reopen dialogue with the Soviet Union. Following Hitler’s armed attack on the Czechs, Great Britain echoed the Soviet proposal for a conference bringing together the USSR, Great Britain, France, Poland and Romania, suggesting a joint protest by four countries (France, Great Britain, the USSR and Poland). However, there was no chance that these two proposals would come to anything and everyone knew it. Poland as well as Romania could not defy Hitler in this way, unless they had firm guarantees in advance of military assistance.79 A British trade delegation led by Hudson, which had political objectives, visited Moscow but was coolly received. Stalin still displayed an attitude of mistrust and considerable reserve, as did Litvinov.80 The latter wrote to Maisky as follows: It is clear, in the light of all your communications, that Hudson has no mandate and does not intend to put forward concrete proposals, but wishes to hear what proposals we have to make. I do not think he will receive any such proposals. For five years now in the field of foreign affairs, we have given instructions and made proposals about safeguarding peace and collective security, but the other powers have ignored them and acted against them. If Britain and France genuinely wish to change their position they should either fall in with the proposals we have previously made or offer alternatives. It is up to them to take the initiative.81

The People’s Commissar indicated they should not have ‘any illusions about the sincerity and honesty of Chamberlain’s motives’. He also said that they should simply make a general statement, echoing the famous speech which Stalin had just made at the 18th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in which he declared that the Soviet Union would not be anyone else’s cat’s paw.82 Yet, at the same time, the situation created by Hitler’s successive annexations was extremely worrying to Moscow, because it was leading Germany and the USSR towards an inevitable conflict. Thus, everything was done on the Soviet side to press the British government into making firm commitments of help to states bordering the USSR, without the latter having to make its own commitments. British attempts to get the Soviet Union to declare itself ready to come to the aid of neighbouring states in the event of German aggression failed. On 22 March the Tass

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agency denied that the Soviet Union had offered help to Poland and Romania should an attack take place.83 Litvinov wrote to Surits saying they should not be in any haste to accept the British proposals. When, a few hours before the decisive offer guaranteeing unilateral British assistance to Poland, Lord Halifax had asked Maisky if the USSR was ready to give arms and supplies to Poland in the event of a German attack, Maisky simply drew attention to ‘the manifest lack of goodwill on Poland’s part to come to our aid’ and added that the USSR remained ‘a keen observer’ and had no intention of imposing its aid on anyone. On 1 April Litvinov repeated to the British ambassador, William Seeds, that the USSR was ‘free of any obligations’. Two days later he suggested to Stalin that they should deny the rumour circulating abroad that the USSR would automatically offer aid to Poland in the form of arms and aeroplanes.84 This did not prevent Soviet diplomats from blowing hot and cold in order to make sure that the British became more deeply involved in East European affairs. On 29 March Maisky expressed his scepticism to Alexander Cadogan, the undersecretary of state at the Foreign Office, about Chamberlain’s promises to give military assistance to Poland and Romania, reminding him of the longstanding British reluctance to commit itself on the continent. The same day, in reaction to Hitler’s armed attack on Memel, the Soviet Union seemed to take a step towards giving unilateral guarantees of assistance to the Baltic states, thus showing London what it should do. When Lord Halifax read Maisky the outline declaration of assistance to Poland, the latter was quick to acknowledge that it represented ‘an important step’. But as soon as it became official policy, Soviet diplomats once again expressed ‘perplexity’. Litvinov was deliberately very cool towards the British ambassador and cut short their conversation.85 Chamberlain’s declaration of 31 March was judged to be inadequate. Perpetually suspected of anti-Sovietism, Great Britain was asked to make clear which aggressor they were referring to, otherwise there was a risk of a conflict erupting between Britain and the Soviet Union were the Red Army to enter Poland.86 Moreover, London was expected to make a similar gesture to Romania, or else the Soviet Union might suspect it of channelling Hitler’s aggression in that direction.87 As far as France was concerned, Litvinov continued to think that it would only go to war in the event of a direct attack on itself, or on either

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Belgium or Switzerland. He also thought it was prepared to sacrifice other countries, including Poland and Romania.88 Moscow recommended to its ambassadors in France and Great Britain that they remain detached and not give the impression that the USSR sought to obtain anything.89 The unilateral guarantees of assistance given to Poland by Great Britain on 31 March and then to Romania on 13 April, did, however, fundamentally alter the situation for the Soviet Union which became much less vulnerable. Soviet diplomats recognised this. On 4 April Litvinov wrote as follows to Merekalov, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin: We know full well that it is impossible to restrain and halt aggression in Europe without us and, later, our help will be sought, which will cost them dearer, and they will have to recompense us. That is why we remain so placid in the face of the tumult which has erupted around what is referred to as the change in British policy.

Merekalov replied on 12 April, stating that he fully understood the cautious position adopted by the Soviet Union ‘given that time is on our side’.90 Litvinov: supporter of the triple alliance After 13 April, Litvinov realised that Britain was now ready to go to war against Hitler. The conclusions he drew from this were very positive. Litvinov’s preferred solution, which had always been cooperation with France and Britain, now seemed possible again after several months when it had appeared improbable. They could now count on Western action in the form of FrancoBritish intervention should Germany attack Poland, Romania or the Baltic states, as well as assistance within the framework of their mutually agreed commitment should the USSR be attacked. Through Maisky, Moscow also declared itself ready to take part in aid to Romania, as it was greatly concerned over the fate of that country. There was however no question of any unilateral obligations, especially as the countries themselves did not want them.91 In response to proposals put forward by Great Britain (a request for a unilateral Soviet guarantee to Poland and Romania) and by France (that the Franco-Soviet pact of mutual assistance

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be widened), Litvinov presented a plan for a triple alliance to Stalin on 15 April, which was then put to the British ambassador in Moscow two days later with a few modifications. Everything points to the fact that it was to a large extent a personal initiative of the People’s Commissar. Outlining the plan in writing to Stalin, he said he did not know if it was still Soviet policy to cooperate with the Western democracies and wondered why a decision had been taken to recall Maisky. This was surely a sign that he was working on his own, cut off from the others. Though he had visited Stalin four times in the early days of April, the People’s Commissar was not summoned to the Kremlin again after 13 April.92 In addition, the tone and gist of the text certainly reflect Litvinov’s approach: If we want to obtain something from them, we also have to reveal a number of our own preferred options. We cannot expect the other side to put forward exactly what we want. If we still seek collaboration with Britain and France, then I consider these to be our minimum demands: 1. There is a mutual obligation on the part of Britain, France and the Soviet Union to come to each other’s assistance in the event of an attack on one of these countries resulting from the fact that it had gone to the aid of a country bordering the USSR. (This differs from the British proposal in that it transforms a unilateral declaration into a bilateral pact, and from the French proposal in that includes the Baltic states and Finland as possible victims of aggression). 2. Britain, France and the USSR make a commitment to each other that they will come to the aid of states bordering the USSR. 3. Representatives of the three states should hold discussions without delay to determine the measures to be adopted and the nature of this assistance. 4. The USSR, Britain and France undertake not to make decisions and not to enter into agreements with other states over issues relating to Eastern Europe without the general agreement of the three states. They also undertake not to enter into peace agreements with any aggressor independently of the others.93

Expecting the negotiations to be complicated and urgent, Litvinov asked that Maisky be allowed to stay in London, as he considered it impossible for such negotiations to be undertaken exclusively with British representatives in Moscow. He also drew attention to

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the fact that there was no-one else within the Soviet embassy in London who could conduct serious diplomatic negotiations. Thus, within the framework of a very ambitious plan, Litvinov proposed that unilateral guarantees should be replaced by mutual obligations, which would essentially benefit the Soviet Union. Stalin and Molotov made a few changes to the proposals on 17 April. These revealed that, in considering British policy and the position of the Poles and the Romanians, anti-Soviet attitudes remained a live issue within the Kremlin. Chamberlain had firstly to make clear that the guarantee to Poland would only be fulfilled in the event of a German attack since, as Litvinov explained to Surits, ‘though we have no intention of attacking Poland, we consider that such an obligation on Britain’s part is incompatible with the relations we seek to maintain with her’.94 Moscow also requested that the pact between Poland and Romania be annulled or that the two states make a public declaration that the pact related to any act of aggression, including a German one. Finally, unlike Litvinov who was principally concerned with what might happen in the North, Molotov was preoccupied chiefly with the South and in particular the Turkish straits. He considered it imperative that Turkey be strongly involved and, when the definitive version of the triple alliance was drawn up, he made it a priority, altering Litvinov’s rather vague version in which Turkey would be invited to join a possible future agreement: ‘We consider it essential for Britain, France and the USSR to enter into joint negotiations with Turkey concerning a special agreement of mutual assistance’.95 Furthermore, on 15 April Molotov had given some impetus to the initiation of these negotiations by requesting that the chargé d’affaires in Ankara convey to the president of the Turkish Republic a proposal for a joint consultation over measures to be adopted against an aggressor in the Balkans and the Black Sea.96 It was suggested that the meeting should take place in Tbilisi or Batumi to preserve maximum secrecy. Finally, Potemkin was sent on a mission to Ankara, as requested by the Turks. He left Moscow on 22 April, travelled to Bucharest and Sofia, and arrived in Ankara on 28 April. The Soviet plan for the Triple Alliance contained eight interlinked points and provoked a very lukewarm response. Potemkin had foreseen this and wrote personally to Surits on 19 April: ‘We shall see what the outcome of our new approach will be. It raises certain questions and will not be easy to resolve with partners

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such as Bonnet, Chamberlain, Beck and Gafenku’.97 Georges Bonnet’s counter-proposals which he presented on 28 April seemed to Litvinov a bad joke. Indeed, they envisaged that Franco-British assistance to the Soviet Union would not be given if the USSR attacked Germany first. Litvinov, however, felt that, before responding to the French, they should wait to hear what the British thought, as well as the outcome of Potemkin’s negotiations with the Romanians, and also Hitler’s speech which, he said, ‘will doubtless strengthen our position’.98 Indeed, Hitler vehemently criticised the Treaty of Versailles and stated that the Munich agreement had not resolved all the issues relating to the revision of European borders, but he scarcely mentioned the Soviet Union, which Litvinov was pleased to mention to the Polish ambassador the next day. Following Western guarantees to East European states, Great Britain and France certainly seemed to be Hitler’s principal adversaries. Weizsäcker, the German secretary of state for Foreign Affairs, and Merekalov had taken advantage of their meeting on 17 April to discuss the general question of GermanSoviet relations.99 Weizsäcker acknowledged that the Soviet Union appeared calmer about the future than the British and that the Soviet press was behaving in a more responsible manner. In response to a question by Merekalov about possible future relations between the two countries, Weizsäcker replied that, despite ideological differences, Germany intended to develop economic relations with the USSR.100 In Litvinov’s view, the USSR should use this as a means of putting pressure on France and Britain to conclude a worthwhile agreement with the USSR. On 3 May Litvinov suggested to Stalin that he put his cards on the table. He should first dispel any Franco-British illusions by stating clearly that their proposals up to now were unacceptable. He should then obtain a guarantee regarding the whole of Eastern Europe and, in exchange, accept a reciprocal guarantee in relation to Holland, Belgium and Switzerland.101 Litvinov was also irritated by Molotov’s Turkish policy which the latter had taken over from 15 April. He wrote to Stalin about it on 3 May 1939, expressing his displeasure and criticising the way in which the negotiations were being conducted. In his view, the whole business had started badly and he suggested that directives be sent to Potemkin as quickly as possible, as his position in Ankara was becoming embarrassing. Litvinov could see scarcely

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any value in a mutual assistance pact with Turkey.102 However, Molotov, who replaced Litvinov the very same day, sent an optimistic telegram to Potemkin, emphasising the benefits of negotiations with the Turks to obtain certain guarantees, and through them the support of the Bulgarians in exchange for a Romanian promise to hand over southern Dobruja.103 It was in this precise context that Litvinov was sidelined. Signs of things changing Litvinov’s resignation had important repercussions abroad and was often interpreted at the time as a sign that Soviet foreign policy was changing. Lord Halifax asked Maisky, on his return to London, if the proposals made on 17 April still stood now that Litvinov had gone. Coulondre, the French ambassador in Berlin, asked his Soviet counterpart what the reasons were for his resignation and expressed concern for the future. The Germans, on the contrary, were pleased at the news, hoping that it marked the abandonment by the USSR of its policy of collective security.104 Were they right? The hypothesis that Litvinov’s departure represented a gesture towards Berlin seems the most plausible explanation. By removing Litvinov, who in Western eyes symbolised and was the embodiment of collective security, Stalin reestablished an equilibrium in his foreign policy between Germany and the Western democracies. It was in the interest of the Soviet Union, from the end of March, to uphold its position as an arbiter, in order to take account of the offers which might be made by different countries. On 5 May Merekalov, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, was recalled and Astakhov, a counsellor in the embassy since the spring of 1937, was appointed chargé d’affaires. Formerly head of the press department and probably a member of the NKVD, he spoke English, French and German and ‘knew how to get on with foreign correspondents’.105 In the reports which he sent to Moscow in the succeeding months one is struck by his freedom of tone, by the importance of his initiatives, and by the number of proposals he submitted to those at the head of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. On 6 May he reported in detail on the reaction in Germany to Litvinov’s resignation and concluded that ‘there was certainly nothing in all this which warranted further conclusions being drawn’.106 Astakhov did, however, draw attention to a

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change of tone in the press, to the absence of attacks on the Soviet Union and on Bolshevism in the most recent speeches, and to the fact that the German authorities had authorised Skoda (the principal arms manufacturer in the protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia) to fulfil the orders it had received from the USSR. They were merely signs, but Astakhov felt there should be some response: I do not think you would object to me responding to these overtures from the Germans and those close to them by saying that, for the present, we have no reason to take these ‘changes’ seriously, but that we are always ready to anticipate an improvement in relations.107

On several occasions, Astakhov reiterated Moscow’s readiness to improve its relations with Germany, but said that it was up to Germany to prove its sincerity.108 From May onwards, the Soviet Union envisaged better relations in the medium term but, not wishing to embark lightly on such a course of action, it expected Germany to make serious moves in its direction. Indeed, it was possible that German tactics towards the USSR were nothing more than a temporary manoeuvre, with the aim of thwarting negotiations between the USSR, Great Britain and France over the triple alliance. The attitude which Molotov adopted on 20 May towards the German ambassador, von Schulenburg, bears this out. He firmly rejected the German proposals to restart economic negotiations, twice repeating that ‘a political basis had to be established in advance of economic negotiations’.109 Molotov’s declaration to the ambassador showed that the USSR was willing to engage in talks with Germany, but on its own conditions. The Soviet Union did not intend sacrificing the negotiations it was conducting with the Western democracies for better relations with Germany which might prove illusory. On the contrary, Moscow used its discussions with the British to influence German policy. Intelligence agents working for the Soviets in London provided the German embassy with documentary evidence exaggerating Britain’s readiness to enter into an alliance with the USSR. The aim of this manoeuvre was clearly to worry the Germans and to put pressure on them to make serious offers.110 Japan’s refusal to participate in the Steel Pact, a military alliance signed by Germany and Italy on 22 May, reinforced the Soviet leadership’s view that it occupied a position of strength and could pursue all its options. This seemed all the more feasible

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as German diplomacy was directed towards getting Japan to join an alliance against the Western powers, which suggested to the Soviets, somewhat reassuringly, that Germany would seek in the first instance to do battle with these powers. Lastly, the fact that no military alliance existed between Germany and Japan meant that an attack on the USSR was unlikely.111 It is certainly true that diplomatic possibilities with Germany were being explored from April onwards. Litvinov, however, was much too inclined to come down on the side of the democracies. Some years later, Vladimir Sokolin wrote: Litvinov would not have been prepared to oversee the reversal of policy which happened in August 1939, if it had been reasonable to put such an idea to him, but he would not have told anyone of his refusal to do so, other than those who needed to know.112

Epilogue: transition from the old to the new The removal of Litvinov completed the process of marginalisation which had begun in 1937. Increasingly distanced from the decisionmaking process and drafting plans ignorant of the global strategy at the top, Litvinov had become the only obstacle preventing the complete take-over of diplomacy by Stalin and Molotov. Litvinov had maintained a low profile from January to April, being content simply to carry out the orders of the leadership, but he regained the initiative to some extent after 13 April. The growing tensions between him and the Kremlin revealed that they no longer wanted such a person at the head of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Externally, the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact and the expulsion of the USSR from the League of Nations in December, following the Soviet attack on Finland, undermined everything that Litvinov’s policies had achieved in the West.113 What is more, the Finnish delegate did not fail to remind the members of the League of Nations of all of Litvinov’s fine words about the concept of aggression.114 All the same, as head of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, he did leave behind him a certain legacy. New methods are introduced Both in relation to Finland and in his negotiations with the French and the British over the triple alliance, Molotov’s

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methods were diametrically opposed to those of Litvinov. When he took over, however, the new People’s Commissar did not have a completely fresh team at his disposal and had to rely on experienced members of staff who tried, unsuccessfully, to maintain the working practices of their deposed former chief. In their negotiations with Helsinki, the Kremlin had to rely on the services of three individuals who were close to Litvinov: Kollontai, who was in Stockholm, Shtein who had been recalled from his post as ambassador in Italy and who knew Finland well having been the Soviet representative there until 1934, and Maisky, who was sent on a mission to Helsinki on 19 April. The Germans had controlled Memel since March 1939 and were threatening Danzig, having engaged in naval manoeuvres in the Baltic Sea at the end of March. Therefore, access to the Gulf of Finland and to the isthmus of Karelia was of strategic importance in Soviet eyes. The Soviet Union demanded that Helsinki hand over five islands in the Gulf of Finland in exchange for forests on the frontier with Karelia. Their objective was to be able to monitor shipping routes into Leningrad and the Kremlin rejected any notion of compromise: ‘We need all the five islands’.115 Despite immediate rejection on the part of the Finns, the Soviets remained insistent, resorting to veiled threats and blackmail. Conversations continued in private between Shtein and Erkko, the Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs, until 3 April. Moscow made the signing of a trade agreement between the two countries and a Soviet vote in favour of the remilitarisation of the Åland Islands conditional upon a positive Finnish response. The Finns, supported by the Swedes, had in fact requested a revision of the international status of these islands at the League of Nations, which required the unanimous vote of the members of the Council, and the issue was to be resolved at the next session in May. The content of these negotiations revealed the Great Power mentality which the Soviet Union now adopted towards its neighbours, seeing their territory as an integral part of a Soviet security zone. The negotiations were a bitter failure which Stalin and his colleagues would not forget.116 This failure doubtless contributed to the Litvinov team being discredited. The meeting which took place with Maisky and Litvinov on 21 April in the Kremlin was a stormy one, with Stalin and Molotov rebuking them for their casual attitude and lack of discipline. The focus of the dispute

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was a conversation between Maisky and the Finnish Foreign Minister which the Soviet leadership had not authorised.117 For his part, Boris Shtein found himself without a post following the failure of his mission to Finland. The Council of the League of Nations met after Litvinov had resigned. Molotov did not travel to Geneva and so Maisky represented the Soviet Union. He received very firm directives from his superior about the remilitarisation of the Åland Islands: he was either to obtain an adjournment over this issue or vote against it.118 In the face of significant support for the Finnish proposal and the fact that it was entirely legal, Maisky informed Moscow on 22 May that an adjournment was impossible. Refusing to vote against it, he suggested to Molotov that the USSR should abstain, as a compromise solution, which was entirely in keeping with the way Litvinov thought diplomacy should be conducted. For Maisky, the difficulties confronting the USSR would be considerable if they insisted on using their veto. They risked being totally isolated, as Britain, Poland and France supported the FinnishSwedish demands, and also risked being accused of bad faith, as every assurance had been given the Soviet Union by Finland in Holsti’s declaration. Finally, they would be accused of putting pressure on the little powers. He emphasised that a negative attitude over this issue risked undermining Soviet plans for a triple alliance.119 Molotov however refused to consider Maisky’s arguments and maintained his position. According to him, the Finnish reply was unsatisfactory. Guaranteed neutrality of the islands was inadequate in time of war, and Molotov insisted that the Soviet Union had the same rights as Sweden over the issue of remilitarisation. This is why he repeated his earlier directives to Maisky: Bear in mind that we attach particular importance to the matter of the Åland Islands. Use all your skill and authority to undermine the British and the French and lead them towards a decision to adjourn. If you fail to convince them, you must vote against. There can be no question of abstaining.120

Molotov’s approach proved successful. The USSR achieved its ends as no decision was reached during the May session over the Finnish-Swedish proposal concerning the Åland Islands. There was a communiqué which simply outlined the various positions.

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Nevertheless, his approach took little account of the repercussions his attitude was likely to give rise to in France and Britain and in the smaller East European states which were supposedly to become future allies of the USSR. The disagreement between Molotov and the ambassadors of Litvinov’s era was also evident during the spring of 1939 in relation to the triple alliance. Molotov’s responses to the various French and British proposals resulting from the outline plan for the triple alliance produced on 17 April were invariably negative.121 On 8 May he suggested that ‘the British and the French are demanding unilateral and free assistance on our part, without offering us any equivalent help’.122 In his reply to the British ambassador of 14 May, he refused to negotiate other than on the basis of Soviet proposals for a triple alliance.123 On 31 May, in a speech to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he rejected publicly new proposals put forward on 27 May on the grounds that the Baltic countries were the object of a separate protocol. The views obtained by Molotov from his principal ambassadors and from Potemkin pointed, however, in a different direction. Far from envisaging either wholesale acceptance or rejection of the triple alliance, they thought that the Franco-British proposals provided a possible basis for negotiation. Surits, the ambassador in France, went furthest in expressing a personal opinion. While acknowledging that Bonnet’s proposal was flawed, he suggested that it nonetheless provided a ‘skeletal framework’ for a ‘mutual assistance pact between three countries’ in the form of ‘a defensive military alliance’, that it offered protection against a German attack on the USSR from two possible directions (Poland and Romania), and that they ought to do everything they could to extend that protection to the third possible route, namely the Baltic countries. His thoughts ranged more widely than this, however. He implicitly posed the crucial question in his letter to Molotov. Was the Soviet plan for a triple alliance simply an ‘impeccable’ tactical weapon to avert any future accusation should the USSR fail to intervene in the war? Or, was it a plan the aim of which was to construct a ‘real barrier against an aggressor’? Surits made clear he did not doubt this second objective. He also ruled out in his argument either an agreement with Hitler or the neutrality of the USSR were the Germans to attack in the east:

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It is difficult to imagine a situation in which Germany would attack Romania and Poland, Britain and France would come to their aid, and we would stay out of the conflict. This is not a possibility for us. With or without an agreement, we would have to fight in these circumstances and it seems to me it would be better were we to have an agreement.124

Moreover, he thought that agreeing to discuss the matter was a way of proving to the whole world, and in particular to French public opinion, that the Soviet Union was ready to help its neighbours, thereby putting an end to talk of its so-called doubledealing with Germany. In this way, the British would be put on the spot.125 Potemkin also urged acceptance of the Franco-British proposals. Firstly, he thought that the USSR gained great prestige from the French and British acknowledgement that Soviet assistance was necessary and that, without it, effective defence of Poland, Romania and the Turkish Straits was inconceivable. Even though he recognised the unilateral aspect of the British declaration, he felt it contained certain advantages: The declaration put to the USSR by the British reinforces the general framework of guarantees against aggression made by Britain and France to Romania, Poland, Greece and even Turkey. It gives moral reinforcement to the weakest countries and may work in our favour in countries which are still hesitating such as Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. It may also indirectly help to resolve the differences between Romania and Bulgaria. In concrete terms, the British proposal guarantees our protection of Romania and Poland, yet avoids at the same time an embarrassing formal agreement for these countries. Furthermore, it places us under no very direct obligation to come to their aid.126

Molotov, however, took no account of these views. Whereas Litvinov, eager to win people over with his diplomacy, sought compromise and worked within the limits of what was possible, the new People’s Commissar was above all keen not to show any sign of weakness and remained impervious to external pressure. The former had long term objectives whereas Molotov wanted immediate results.

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Men at the disposal of the government Gradually, during 1939–1940, those diplomats who had escaped the purges were sidelined. Boris Shtein, along with the former plenipotentiary first in Japan and then in the United States Troyanovsky, were demoted by the new head of Foreign Affairs, and both joined the editorial board of the journal Trud (Work).127 Astakhov returned from Germany in October 1939 to take up a junior post in the museum devoted to the peoples of the USSR. Evgeny Rubinin was not given a permanent post on his return from Belgium in the autumn of 1940 following its invasion.128 Surits, who was expelled from France by the government of Paul Reynaud in March 1940, arrived in Moscow in July and remained ‘on the reserve list’ until 1943. Potemkin also left his post as deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs in 1940 and was appointed People’s Commissar for Education of the RSFSR and a member of the Academy of Sciences.129 What happened to Sokolin was somewhat unusual. After the USSR was expelled from the League of Nations, he had to resign from his post as deputy Secretary General as requested by Joseph Avenol.130 He did not however return to the Soviet Union but presented himself to the Swiss authorities as a political refugee. Switzerland suspected that he was still receiving instructions from the USSR and acting as a spy. In March 1940 the federal police responsible for foreigners asked him to leave the country as soon as possible, but Sokolin refused and was kept under house arrest in Montana.131 Two ambassadors from Litvinov’s circle remained in post. Maisky finally went back to London and Kollontai stayed on in Stockholm. Doubtless, their knowledge of the local situation made them irreplaceable, at least in the short term, in these two key countries. Great Britain, Hitler’s only remaining opponent, was a major preoccupation of the Soviet leadership in the years 1939–1941. Sweden, for its part, played the role of mediator in the conflict between the USSR and Finland and later, as a neutral country, it served as a conduit for unofficial offers of peace from various sources. During this period, Kollontai, more than Maisky, seemed like a prisoner serving a suspended sentence, having no room for manoeuvre though her image was useful. Following the Finnish Foreign Minister’s offer of mediation, she took part in the negotiations

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which led to the peace treaty between the USSR and Finland on 13 March 1940. She was, however, closely watched for her ‘pro-Finnish sympathies’ by agents of the NKVD and she was not allowed to take any initiative.132 Most of these diplomats felt themselves to be in a precarious position, above all Kollontai who, during the Great Terror, knew that she as well as all those close to her were being targeted. In September 1937 she tried to ward off fate by congratulating Stalin on his ‘brilliant foreign policy’.133 Observations written on 25 March 1938 on a sheet of headed notepaper at a hotel where she was taking a cure revealed her distress: I fear for numerous friends. I feel tormented, broken-hearted because of them [. . .] I suffer, I am in a state of torment. For many people. Because it is inevitable, inescapable, like a natural calamity. But that brings no relief. It will be a miracle if I am not crushed by this wheel. I know there is nothing against me, nothing I have done, no motives. But at this point in history, actions do not count – the criteria are not the same. Will future generations understand it all? Will they understand what is happening? It is terrifying living through it.134

From May 1939 there were certain signs that a general dossier of all of Litvinov’s diplomats was being compiled, but it was abandoned, seemingly, in the autumn. During the questioning of Gnedin and Hirshfel’d, the diplomats in trouble whose names came up most often, apart from Litvinov, were Kollontai and Shtein.135 For those who were ‘at the disposal of ’ (v rasporiazhenii) or ‘sidelined by’ the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs or the Central Committee, the fear of imminent arrest was very great. This was true of Litvinov who was given no other job until 1941 and who, according to certain accounts, slept with a revolver under his pillow as he feared he would be arrested at night.136 From 1940 on, Shtein tried in vain to get his Party card back, which was being held by the department responsible for extraterritorial organisations. When he asked the Party cell of the Academy for Diplomats if he could be reinstated, he was given a questionnaire dating back to 1937 in which all his ‘anti-Soviet activities in 1918’ were recorded and he was then made to engage in several acts of self-criticism.137

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Despite the fact they were under suspicion, certain individuals such as Shtein and Rubinin were allowed to teach at the Academy for Diplomats and train new recruits. They were however strictly controlled. Potemkin, who supervised them as they wrote the monumental History of Diplomacy in three volumes between 1941 and 1945, had to make sure, in his role as an academician and eminent professor, that publications relating to diplomacy conformed to orthodox views.138 Furthermore, the teaching they did at the Academy for Diplomats was monitored. Boris Shtein’s lectures provoked criticism on several occasions. On 24 August 1944 Vyshinsky criticised him publicly: Although one of his lectures which we criticised severely and corrected has not been accepted, a member of our staff has taken no notice of the corrections made. When we looked at his copy, we discovered five to ten passages which were diametrically opposed to what we had agreed. The lecturer in question is comrade Shtein.139

Though they were potential suspects, they were nonetheless given posts within the framework of the Grand Alliance. After a lean period from May 1939 to June 1941, Litvinov was sent to negotiate with Roosevelt and to obtain financial and material aid from the United States to fight Hitler. He was sent as ambassador to Washington in November 1941 and arrived a few days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. From then until April 1943, his image was important as a means of building confidence between the two Allies, of thereby obtaining aid from Washington and trying to convince Roosevelt of the need to open a second front in Europe.140 Maisky, who remained ambassador in Britain until 1943, played the same sort of role with the British and with the French who were in London. Molotov did however keep an eye on them.141 From 1943, after their return to Moscow, they were given the task of planning for the post-war period.142 Maisky, a deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and Potemkin became members of the commission headed by Voroshilov which was preparing for the armistice. For the most part the commission was made up of military leaders.143 Litvinov, also a deputy Commissar, was in charge of the commission whose job was to prepare peace agreements and the organisation of the post-war period. Lozovsky, a former secretary general of the International Trade Union

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(Profintern) who was made a deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs in 1939, and Manuilsky, formerly head of the Comintern, joined Litvinov on the commission. Occasionally there were acrimonious discussions between, on the one hand, Litvinov, usually supported by Surits and Shtein, and, on the other, Lozovsky and Manuilsky whose analysis of the international scene was much more ideological.144 One of the central ideas in Litvinov and Maisky’s analyses was the absolute necessity of consolidating the links established during the war between the three Great Powers in order to guarantee a period of lasting peace for the Soviet Union and thereby obtain economic aid for the reconstruction of the country.145 Though their notes and reports of course took into account the official views of Stalin and Molotov, they nonetheless revealed a little of their own thinking concerning relations between the Soviet Union and the outside world. The note about the United States produced by Litvinov in June 1943, a few months before the Teheran conference, was quite personal in tone. Apologising for having strayed outside the framework defined by Molotov, Litvinov put forward a series of proposals with the aim of strengthening cooperation between the USSR and the United States, so long as Roosevelt remained President. Such cooperation was, in Litvinov’s view, of fundamental importance in the post-war period. Speaking very highly of the American President whom he saw as a convinced anti-Nazi and a friend of the Soviet Union, he underlined the fact that Roosevelt was prepared to overlook the territorial ambitions of the USSR and, like the Soviet leadership, wanted Germany to be broken up. In his report, Litvinov implicitly criticised current Soviet diplomacy for having failed to seize the opportunities for closer ties with the United States while distancing the latter from Great Britain. Litvinov was here alluding to Stalin’s refusal to take part in the conference at Casablanca in January 1943 and the absence of the Soviet Union from the Trident conference in May 1943.146 Litvinov’s overall strategy was that they should take advantage of the war to establish solid lasting relationships between the USSR and the United States, as these could only be advantageous to the USSR: If we recognise the role and importance of the United States during the war against our common enemies, and especially after the war, given that they will emerge the least weakened and impoverished and

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the strongest economically and financially, and if we wish to eliminate current misunderstandings and establish the conditions for mutual understanding and cooperation, then the following measures must be adopted [. . .]147

There followed a series of proposals on the need to set up permanent political-military contacts with the United States in order to influence their strategy, to obtain useful information and to discuss what would happen after the war. The document, which was sent to Stalin and Molotov, was considered sufficiently interesting to be passed not only to other members of the Ministry (Vyshinsky, Dekanozov, Lozovsky) but also to the principal members of the Politburo (Voroshilov, Mikoyan, Beria, Malenkov). It perhaps influenced the policy adopted at the first tripartite conference held in Moscow on 19–30 October 1943 and then at the Teheran conference.148 Maisky’s point of view concerning relations between the future three Great Powers after the war differed somewhat from that of Litvinov. In his opinion there were likely to be tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. Alternatively, SovietBritish relations might be established around mutual antiAmerican interests.149 Litvinov’s notes about matters relating to Britain, written in the context of preparations for the meeting between Stalin and Churchill in October 1944, were less positive. According to him, it was not certain that Great Britain favoured the prolonged weakness of Germany which would leave the Soviet Union as the ‘only strong continental European power’. However, he favoured rapid agreement with Britain over the ‘friendly division of security zones in Europe’, as it was important to take advantage of the USSR’s position of strength before conflicts of interest on the continent between the two powers attained ‘new levels of intensity’.150 These analyses doubtless reflected, in large measure, the prevailing views of the Soviet leadership. But their insistence on the need to establish lasting understanding with the United States and Britain in the post-war period stemmed from personal convictions based on the fact that they were used to cooperating with the West and the belief that this served the interests of the Soviet Union.151 Cold war logic, which prevailed in international relations from the end of the 1940s, meant that the few diplomats from Litvinov’s

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era who had survived were now permanently pensioned off. Litvinov himself was relieved of his functions on 14 July 1946, his seventieth birthday, and Maisky left the Ministry in 1947, devoting himself thereafter to the study of history within the Academy of Sciences. Kollontai was recalled to Moscow in March 1945 and was not given another post before her death on 9 March 1952. She only succeeded in publishing six short articles during those eight years and her letters to various leaders (Molotov, Stalin, Malenkov, Voroshilov) went unanswered.152 The bonds of friendship which existed between them were strengthened in the aftermath of the war and during these years of relative idleness. Shtein, Troyanovsky and Litvinov used to play bridge together, and Litvinov often visited Maisky and Kollontai.153 She asked Litvinov to correct the contents of her diary and nostalgically recalled the past, as these few lines she wrote to him shortly before her death reveal: ‘Lying in bed here at home, I often think of you. Life was more interesting forty years ago when we were fighting for our ideals. You were in England, and I was roaming all over the world’.154 Yet they still took a close interest in Soviet foreign policy which, it seems, disturbed them and aroused their disapproval. Kollontai’s Swedish secretary, Emi Lorensson, wrote on 8 July 1950: ‘Maksim Maksimovich visited us today. Alexandra Mikhailovna had invited him to tea. He is very worried about the situation in Germany. He is less concerned about Israel and Yugoslavia’.155 In her personal notebooks, Kollontai stressed the ‘narrow dogmatism’ of Vyshinsky, who succeeded Molotov as Foreign Minister, yet this did not prevent her from writing him letters full of flattering comments about the ‘wisdom’ of his foreign policy and the brilliant nature of his speeches, in her concern to safeguard the professional future of her grandson who was a student at the Institute of International Relations.156 In private Kollontai said that the cold war was in part the result of inept and inflexible Soviet diplomacy: If, after the war ended [. . .] our foreign policy had been both more flexible and ‘sensible’, and had the ‘lawyers’ not complicated matters with their clumsy and unremitting activities, we would have slowed [. . .] the growth of hostility and reactionary opposition. The aim of diplomacy is above all to obtain the maximum advantages for one’s country in unfavourable circumstances. Since the end of 1945, our

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diplomacy has followed a different path. Our failure to understand the psychology of leaders in other countries [. . .] has given rise to senseless difficulties which could have been avoided. ‘Lawyers’ make bad diplomats.157

In 1952 the fight against cosmopolitanism and Zionism then reaching its peak was directed, amongst others, at former diplomats most of whom were Jewish and who were accused of furthering the cause of imperialism. Solomon Lozovsky, who remained a deputy minister within the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs until 1946, was arrested and condemned to death in 1952. Boris Shtein did not suffer the same tragic fate. Having been a member of the delegation at the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in the autumn of 1946, and then having spent two years there writing the speeches given by Molotov and Gromyko to the Security Council, he became an academic historian.158 He was criticised in 1952, following the publication of his book The Bourgeois Falsifiers of History which, according to the journal Bolshevik, justified the imperialist policy of the United States. He was then expelled from the Academy of Sciences and from the Academy for Diplomats and criticised by the Party. He did however escape arrest. Evgeny Rubinin was arrested in January 1950 and sent to a camp. During a trial which took place in February 1953, Maisky had to confess that he was part of a British spy ring led by Churchill, Lloyd George and Lord Beaverbrook.159 Neither Surits, who had been ambassador in Brazil between 1945 and 1947, nor Litvinov were accused or acted as witnesses in this latest purge. Both died just before it took place, Surits in January 1952 and Litvinov on 31 December 1951. On the day he died Kollontai wrote: ‘Litvinov is dead. For me, the world is empty. I have lost a friend and it has lost a great man! Desolation . . . Grief. . .’ She was shocked too that his death passed almost unnoticed: just a brief obituary in Pravda.160 Thus, despite his strong personality, Litvinov did not share the same fate as many old Bolsheviks of his generation and many Soviet diplomats of the inter-war years. Like Surits and Kollontai, whose careers were in no way orthodox, he had the good fortune to die a natural death at the beginning of the 1950s, a period when human life was cheap, only ever having been held in a tsarist prison. His family and his closest friends were spared.

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His wife was able to return to England in the mid-1960s, while his grandson Pavel, who was born in 1940, became a leading dissident in 1967. Even Molotov was not so lucky, suffering under Stalin’s repressive regime with the deportation of his Jewish wife. One can offer no explanation for this, other than that the implacable logic of Stalinist power could not totally destroy the element of chance in individual destinies.

Notes 1. R. W. Davies and Mark Harrison, ‘The Soviet Military-Economic Effort during the Second Five-Year Plan (1933–1937)’, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 49, no. 3, 1997, pp. 369–406. 2. There have been numerous analyses of the negotiations which led to the pact: Gabriel Gorodetsky, ‘The Impact of the RibbentropMolotov Pact on the Course of Soviet Foreign Policy’, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 31, 1990, pp. 27–42; M. J. Carley, ‘End of the “Low Dishonest Decade”. Failure of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet Alliance in 1939’, Europe-Asia Studies, no. 2, 1993, pp. 303–41; Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War; M. L. Semiryaga, Tainy stalinskoi diplomatii 1939–1941 [The secrets of Stalin’s diplomacy] (Moscow, 1992); Silvio Pons, Stalin e la guerra inevitabile. 3. See Sabine Dullin, ‘Les diplomates soviétiques des années 1930 et leur évaluation de la puissance de l’URSS’, Relations internationales, no. 91, Autumn 1997, pp. 339–55. 4. Letter from Litvinov to Surits, 8 January 1938, APE FR, 011/2/17/165. 5. Letter from Surits to Litvinov, 27 November 1937, ibid., 011/1/8/76. 6. Letter from Potemkin to Surits, 11 January 1938, ibid., 011/2/17/165. 7. Cattell, Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War, p. 86. 8. Letters from Litvinov to Surits and from Litvinov to Maisky, 4 July 1937, APE FR, 011/1/1/12 and 0136/21/169/839, and from Litvinov to Stalin, 28 July 1937, ibid., 05/17/126/1. 9. Letter from Surits to Potemkin, 12 August 1937, APE FR, 011/1/8/76; Cattell, Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War, p. 87; Sir Anthony Eden describes Maisky’s attitude in confronting ‘the strongest rebuffs’ without giving ground, The Eden Memoirs, p. 407. 10. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 4 August 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1; letter from Litvinov to Surits, 4 August 1937, ibid.; letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 17 October 1937, ibid., 05/17/126/1; letter from Litivnov to Surits, 19 October 1937, ibid., 0136/21/169/839.

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11. The conference took place at Nyon from 10 to 17 September 1937, outside the framework of the meeting of the Assembly of the League of Nations. Those taking part were the foreign ministers of France, Great Britain, Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria and the USSR. The Soviet delegation was made up of Litvinov, Smirnov (the commander of the Black Sea fleet), Hershel’man and two experts, Lashkevich and Egoriev. Measures were adopted for naval patrols to take place and they were given permission to fire on any attacking submarines. Cf. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Histoire des relations internationales de 1919 à 1945 (Paris: Armand Colin, 2001), vol. 1, p. 202. 12. Letter from Hirshfel’d to Potemkin, 11 September 1937 (also sent to Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Kaganovich), APE FR 011/1/8/76; Cattell, Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War, p. 92. 13. Note to the French and British embassies in the USSR, 7 September 1937, DVP SSSR, vol. 20, pp. 489–90; Cattell, Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War, p. 95, note 18. 14. Statement made by Litvinov, in Cattell, Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War, p. 95, note 20; telegram from Litvinov, 10 September, DVP SSSR, vol. 20, p. 750. 15. The Eden Memoirs, p. 467. 16. Britain, France, Germany and Italy, along with Sweden, Belgium, Portugal and Czechoslovakia voted in favour of the rights of the belligerents. Only the Soviet Union voted against, which meant that the resolution could not be adopted since a unanimous vote was required. Telegram from Maisky, 26 October 1937, DVP SSSR, vol. 20, p. 564; letter from Maisky to Litvinov, 9 December 1937, APE FR, 011/1/4/38. 17. Telegram from Litvinov to Maisky, 29 October 1937, DVP SSSR, vol. 20, p. 579. 18. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 28 October 1937, APE FR, 05/17/126/1; letter from Litvinov to Maisky, 19 March 1938, ibid., 011/2/11/17. 19. Thorez’s declaration to the Central Committee of the French Communist Party which met at Montreuil on 12 March 1938, RGASPI, 495/10a/15. 20. Letter from Surits to Litvinov, 11 March 1938, APE FR, 011/2/17/165. The defeat at Charleroi was followed on 26 August 1914 by the formation of the second Viriani cabinet. It was a government of national unity which included for the first time ministers belonging to the SFIO (the French Socialist Party). 21. The new Blum government, which was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on 17 March, lasted barely a month (until 9 April). 22. Stéphane Courtois blamed Stalin in part for the failure of the Blum government because he did not allow communists to participate,

288

23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

28. 29.

30.

31.

32.

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but this undoubtedly attributes too much importance to Stalin’s role. No-one in France wanted communists involved and the government had already been formed when the telegram from Moscow arrived. Courtois and Kriegel, Eugen Fried. Le grand secret du PCF, pp. 309–10. Directives from Litvinov to Surits, 20 March 1938, DVP SSSR, vol. 21, p. 138. ‘Posetiteli Kremlevskogo kabineta I. V. Stalina’ [Visitors to Stalin’s office in the Kremlin], Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 5–6, 1995, p. 14; letter from Fierlinger to Krofta, 23 April 1938, Dokumenty i materialy po istorii sovetsko-tchekhoslovatskikh otnoshenii, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1977), document 271. Conversations with Osusky, 30 May, with Comert, 2 June, with Mandel, 4 June, Dnevnik Hirshfel’d, APE FR, 011/2/17/164. Letter from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 26 March 1938, APE FR, 05/18/149/166. Letters from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 25 May 1938, DVP SSSR, vol. 21, p. 284; Potemkin to Surits, 29 May 1938, ibid., p. 716; ‘Posetiteli Kabineta Stalina’, no. 5–6, 1995, p. 15; letter from Coulondre to Massigli, 1 June and 11 July 1938, AMAEF, Massigli papers, vol. 96; letter from Massigli to Coulondre, 29 June 1938, ibid., vol. 103; see G. H. Soutou concerning René Massigli’s position, ‘La conception de la puissance chez Massigli’, Relations internationales, no. 33, spring 1983, pp. 11–22. Letter from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 26 March 1938, APE FR 05/18/149/166. Letter from Litvinov to Surits, 3 April 1938, ibid., 011/2/17/165. The conversation between Alexandrovsky and Petresco Comnène, the Romanian Foreign Minister, on 14 April produced no tangible results. During the negotiations for a mutual assistance pact between the USSR and Romania which took place during the time of Titulesco and resulted in failure, the construction of a railway line between the Dniestr and Czechoslovakia was discussed. See Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, p. 162; A. A. Shebyakov, Sovetsko-rumynskie otnoshenya i problema evropeiskoi bezopasnosti, 1932–1939 [Soviet-Romanian relations and the problem of European security] (Moscow, 1977). Adam Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence. Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973 (New York: Praeger, 1974), p. 254; see also Igor Lukes and Erik Goldstein (eds.) The Munich Crisis, 1938 (London: Frank Cass, 1999). Foreign Office, 371/22299, N2278/954/38, quoted by Silvio Pons, Stalin e la guerra inevitabile, p. 213.

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33. Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace, p. 291, and ‘French Military Intelligence and Czechoslovakia, 1938’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. 5, no. 1 (March 1994), pp. 88–9; du Réau, Édouard Daladier, pp. 246–8. 34. Letter from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 11 August 1938, APE FR, 05/18/149/166. 35. Letter from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 11 June 1938, ibid., 05/18/149/166. 36. Certain historians have interpreted it in this way: Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, p. 175; Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War, p. 53; Litvinov’s speech was published in Leningradskaya Pravda, 24 June 1938 and in the Journal de Moscou, 5 July 1938, cf. Pons’s exhaustive analysis in Stalin e la guerra inevitabile, pp. 201–4. 37. Letter from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 11 August 1938, APE FR, 05/18/149/166. 38. DVP SSSR, vol. 21, pp. 458–9, pp. 464–5; letter from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 26 August 1938, APE FR, 05/18/149/166; letter from Potemkin to Stalin, 1 September 1938, ibid., 05/18/138/3; telegram from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 2 September 1938, DVP SSSR, vol. 21, p. 470 ; document 29, DDF, 2nd series, vol. 11. 39. Meeting held on 1 September 1938 in Stalin’s office with Voroshilov, Molotov, Kaganovich and Litvinov, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 5–6, 1995, p. 18. 40. This is also Adam Ulam’s interpretation, see Expansion and Coexistence, p. 257 and that of Duroselle, who writes of a ‘deliberate intention to do nothing’ in Histoire diplomatique de 1919 à nos jours, p. 217, and more recently of Pons, Stalin et la guerra inevitabile, p. 213. 41. Cf. the analyses of Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, pp. 182–3; Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War, p. 54. 42. Letter from Potemkin to Stalin, 20 September 1938, APE FR, 05/18/138/3. 43. Letter from Potemkin to Alexandrovsky, 21 September 1938, ibid.; Potemkin talked with Stalin and his colleagues for around two hours on 21 September, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 5–6, 1995, p. 19. 44. Chamberlain returned from Berchtesgaden on 18 September with a compromise plan which envisaged the handing over to Germany of areas where at least 50 per cent of the population were of German origin. The French government finally accepted it on 19 September in exchange for a Franco-British guarantee to Czechoslovakia.

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45. Speech given by Litvinov on 21 September 1938 at the 19th session of the League of Nations, M. M. Litvinov, L’URSS et la paix (Paris: 1939), p. 113. 46. Telegram from Litvinov, who was in Geneva, and a letter from Potemkin to Stalin, 17 September 1938, APE FR, 05/18/138/3. 47. These military preparations are described in detail by G. Jukes, ‘The Red Army and the Munich Crisis’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 26 (1991), pp. 195–214. He comes to the conclusion that the Soviet Union was ready to intervene in Czechoslovakia, even if the French failed to do so. His argument is, however, unconvincing. 48. Igor Lukes, ‘Stalin and Benes at the End of September 1938. New Evidence from the Prague Archives’, Slavic Review, 52, no. 1, Spring 1993, pp. 28–48. He has studied Czech accounts of the conversations and also Alexandrovsky’s diary. See also, by the same author, Czechoslovakia between Stalin and Hitler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 49. Ibid. 50. Moscow wanted to prevent Polish expansion in Lithuania but, at the same time, sought to avoid open conflict with Poland, hence the policy of firmness with flexibility. The Lithuanians were asked to accept the ultimatum and at the same time Litvinov warned the Polish ambassador in a declaration of 18 March 1938 that they should not in any way violate the independence of Lithuania, because ‘any misunderstanding could have fatal consequences’, DDF, 2nd series, vol. 8 (Paris, 1973), document 521, 20 March 1938; DVP SSSR, vol. 21, document 87. 51. Letter from Coulondre to Massigli, 4 April 1938, AMAEF, Massigli papers, vol. 96. 52. Declaration made by the Soviet government to the Polish government, DVP SSSR, p. 516. Litvinov envisaged just this in August in a letter to Alexandrovsky, 11 August 1938, APE FR, 05/18/149/166. 53. Letter from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 11 October 1938, ibid. 54. Letter from Potemkin to Surits, 4 April 1938, APE FR, 011/2/17/165. 55. Telegram from Litvinov who was in Geneva, 23 September 1938, DVP SSSR, vol. 21, p. 520. 56. Letters from Potemkin to Stalin, 25 and 28 September 1938, APE FR, 05/18/138/3. 57. Report from the French military attaché, 18 October 1938, SHAT, 7N3123. 58. Watt, How War Came. The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, p. 115; Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, Le KGB dans le monde (Paris: Fayard, 1990), p. 243.

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59. Telegram from Litvinov who was in Paris, 2 October 1938, God Krizisa, 1938–1939 [The year of the crisis, 1938–1939] (Moscow, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 39–40. 60. Letter from Litvinov to Alexandrovsky, 11 October 1938, APE FR, 05/18/149/166. 61. Igor Lukes, ‘Stalin and Benes at the end of September’, p. 44. 62. Letter from Surits to Litvinov, 12 October 1938, God Krizisa, vol. 1, p. 57. 63. Letter from Surits to Litvinov, ibid., p. 54. 64. In Watt’s view, who begins his analysis at this point, they were mediocre diplomats, How War Came, p. 117 and ff. 65. Letter from Maisky to Litvinov, 10 January 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 30. 66. Letter from Litvinov to Maisky, 4 December 1938, APE FR, 011/2/11/17; telegram from Maisky, 30 November 1938, letter from Litvinov to Surits, 4 December 1938, note of a conversation between Litvinov and Payart, 19 December 1938, God Krizisa, vol. 1, pp. 121, 128 and 155; letter from Maisky to Litvinov, 10 January 1939, account of a conversation between Potemkin and Payart, 27 January 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, pp. 29 and 79. The rapprochement between Poland and the USSR began at the end of October and was confirmed in a communiqué published by the Tass agency on 27 November 1938. 67. Letter from Litvinov to Maisky, 19 March 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 206. 68. Watt, How War Came, pp. 217–18; Geoffrey Roberts, ‘The Fall of Litvinov. A Revisionist View’, Journal of Contemporary History, October 1992, pp. 642–5. 69. On the background to the Nazi-Soviet pact and interpretations of it, see Pierre Grosser’s synthesis, Pourquoi la Seconde Guerre mondiale? (Bruxelles: Complexe, 1999), pp. 229–33. 70. Letters from Litvinov to Surits, 29 March and 4 April 1939, APE FR, 011/4/32/178. 71. Telegrams from Merekalov, 5 and 8 January 1939, God Krizisa, vol. 1, pp. 167 and 177, telegram from Merekalov, 11 January 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 36. 72. Schnurre’s visit to Moscow was cancelled. The negotiations had to be conducted by the embassy (Schulenburg and Hilger), Dnevnik Merekalov, 6 February 1939, ibid., p. 103. 73. Letter from Potemkin to Surits, 4 February 1939, ibid., p. 99. 74. Report from Shtein, 25 February 1939, ibid., p. 156. 75. Letter from Litvinov to Surits, 17 October 1938, APE FR, 0136/22/172/865; Pons, Stalin et la guerra inevitabile, p. 222; letter from Litinov to Surits, 4 November 1938, DVP SSSR, vol. 21, p. 619.

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76. Note of the conversation between Payart and Potemkin, 27 January 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, pp. 78–80. 77. Letter from Litvinov to Surits, 10 February 1939, ibid., p. 119. 78. On 15 March German troops occupied Czech and Moravian territories. Hungary occupied sub-Carpathian Ukraine and Slovakia became an independent state under German protection. Romania then faced a direct threat from Germany, which demanded that she sign an economic agreement guaranteeing monopoly control of Romanian oil. 79. Protest note sent to the German ambassador in Moscow, 18 March 1939, God Krizisa, vol. 1, p. 289; telegram from Litvinov to Surits and Maisky, 18 March 1939, ibid., p. 294. 80. Litvinov was also very hostile to a visit of a French trade delegation, reckoning that the USSR needed nothing from France and that it was unacceptable for France to use ‘such subterfuge’ to test political opinion in the USSR. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 20 March 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 208. 81. Letter from Litvinov to Maisky, 19 March 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, p. 206. 82. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 20 March 1939, ibid., p. 209. 83. God Krizisa, vol. 1, p. 314. 84. Letter from Litvinov to Surits, 25 March 1939, APE FR, 011/4/32/178; telegram from Maisky, 31 March 1939, God Krizisa, vol. 1, p. 352; account of a conversation between Litvinov and the ambassador William Seeds, ibid., p. 354; Litvinov to Stalin, 3 April 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 246. Maisky had sent Litvinov the British plan for Soviet cooperation on 1 April: the provision of arms, military equipment and raw materials to Poland and Romania, a refusal to supply the same things to Germany, a possible intervention by the Soviet air force: telegram from Maisky to the NKID, 1 April 1939, ibid., p. 243. 85. An account given by Maisky of his conversation with Cadogan, 29 March 1939, DVP SSSR, vol. 22, book 1, pp. 238–40; telegram from Maisky, 31 March 1939, God Krizisa, vol. 1, p. 352; an account of the conversation between Litvinov and William Seeds, 1 April 1939, ibid., p. 354. 86. ‘An indication that we have no intention of attacking Poland and Romania and that, as a result, we need not worry, in no way reassures us [. . .]. We rightly expected Britain, in promising aid, to indicate precisely that it is aid against Germany’, letter from Litvinov to Maisky, 11 April 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 265.

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87. In a telegram of 11 April, Maisky said he did not believe in a British guarantee to Romania, as Chamberlain wished to leave open a corridor so that Hitler could reach the USSR through Hungary and Romania, ibid., p. 266. Litvinov agreed with this analysis: letter from Litivnov to Stalin, 13 April 1939, ibid., p. 270. 88. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 9 April 1939, and a telegram from Litvinov to Surits, ibid., p. 263. 89. Telegram from Surits of 6 April 1939 in which he made clear he had followed the directives urging caution sent by Moscow, ibid., p. 257; letter from Litinov to Stalin and a telegram from Litvinov to Maisky, 13 April 1939, ibid., p. 270. 90. Letter from Litvinov to Merekalov, 4 April 1939, and Merekalov’s reply, 12 April 1939, ibid., pp. 252 and 268. 91. Letter from Litvinov to Maisky, 13 April 1939, and letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 15 April 1939, ibid., pp. 270 and 277. 92. ‘Posetiteli kabineta I. V. Stalina’, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 5–6, 1995, pp. 34–6. 93. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 15 April 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, pp. 277–8. 94. Telegram from Litvinov to Surits, 17 April, ibid., p. 284. 95. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 17 April 1939; note concerning Molotov and the plan for the triple alliance in relation to document 229, proposals made by Litvinov to William Seeds, the British ambassador in Moscow, ibid., p. 283. 96. Telegram from the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, Molotov, to the chargé d’affaires in Turkey, 15 April 1939, ibid., p. 278. 97. Handwritten letter from Potemkin to Surits, 19 April 1939, APE FR, 011/4/32/179. 98. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 28 April 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 315. 99. The official reason for the meeting between the two men was to settle problems over orders for arms which the Soviet Union had placed with the Skoda factories, now in occupied Bohemia, and which, to date, the military authorities had not wished to honour. 100. Account of the conversation between Merekalov and Weizsäcker, 17 April 1939, DVP SSSR, vol. 22, book 1, pp. 291–2. 101. Letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 3 May 1939, ibid., p. 325. 102. Ibid., pp. 326–7. 103. Telegram from Molotov to Potemkin in Ankara, 3 May 1939, ibid., pp. 328–9. 104. Telegram from Merekalov to the NKID, 4 May 1939, telegram from Maisky, 6 May 1939, letter from Astakhov, the chargé d’affaires in

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105. 106. 107. 108.

109. 110.

111. 112.

113.

114. 115.

116.

117.

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Berlin, 6 May 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, pp. 332, 338, 339–41. Watt, How War Came, p. 230; letter from Litvinov to Stalin, 14 January 1936, APE FR, 05/16/114/1. Letter from Astakhov to Molotov, 6 May 1939, DVP SSSR, p. 339. Letter from Astakhov to Potemkin, 12 May 1939, God Krizisa, vol. 1, p. 457. Account of the conversation between Astakhov and Schnurre, 15 May 1939, ibid., p. 465. Astakhov pointed out, in relation to German-Soviet relations, that ‘the German government must consider ways of improving them’. Note of the conversation between Molotov and Von Schulenburg, 20 May 1939, DVP SSSR, p. 386. D. C. Watt, ‘John Herbert King. A Soviet Source in the Foreign Office’, Intelligence and National Security, no. 4, 1988; How War Came, p. 231. How War Came, p. 248. Document written by Sokolin ‘L’URSS et la SDN’, Vladimir A. Sokolin collection, Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève, p. 73. It was an extraordinary meeting of the Assembly in Geneva, 11–14 December 1939, which, following a speech by Holsti, the Finnish Foreign Minister, voted to condemn Soviet aggression and in principle to give humanitarian and material aid to Finland. There were nine abstentions (the neutral countries, the Baltic states now within the Soviet sphere of influence, Bulgaria and China). The Council voted unanimously for the expulsion of the USSR from the League of Nations, Actes de la XXe session de l’Assemblée, League of Nations Archives, 1/39400/39392. Speech by Holsti, 11 December 1939, ibid., p. 8. Account of the conversation between Shtein and the Finnish Prime Minister, 13 March 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, pp. 178–80; telegram from Litvinov to Kollontai, 13 March 1939, ibid, p. 177; telegram from Litvinov to Shtein, 18 March 1939, p. 204. In the autumn, Finland’s refusal to accept Soviet military bases on its territory led to the Soviet attack of 30 November against Finland, which Moscow dressed up as armed support to the Popular Republic of Finland, a puppet regime presided over by Otto Kuusinen. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, p. 362; ‘Posetiteli kabineta I. V. Stalina’, no. 5–6, 1995, p. 36; in his official account, Maisky of course makes no mention of this dispute, Vospominanya Sovetskogo Diplomata [Memories of a Soviet diplomat] (Moscow, 1987), p. 394.

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118. Telegram from Molotov to Maisky, 20 May 1939, God Krizisa, vol. 1, p. 481. 119. Telegram from Maisky, 22 May 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 388. 120. Account of the conversation with the Finnish representative in the USSR, 23 May 1939, God Krizisa, vol. 1, p. 490; telegram from Molotov to Maisky, 23 May 1939, ibid., p. 492. 121. Georges Bonnet put forward a proposal of mutual assistance on 29 April and William Seeds presented the British plan on 8 May. On 27 May, new proposals were put to the USSR. 122. Telegram from Molotov to Surits, 8 May 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, p. 342. 123. Note to Sir William Seeds, 14 May 1939, God Krizisa, vol. 1, pp. 458–9. 124. Letter from Surits to Molotov, 6 May 1939, APE FR, 011/4/32/178. 125. Telegram from Surits, 10 May 1939, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, book 1, pp. 354–5. 126. Telegram from Potemkin to Molotov (Warsaw), 10 May 1939, ibid., pp. 352–3. 127. Z. Sheinis, ‘Sud’ba diplomata. Shtrikhi k portretu Borisa Shteina’ [The destiny of a diplomat. Details towards a portrait of Boris Shtein], Arkhivy raskryvayut tainy . . . Mezhdunarodnye voprosy: sobytya i lyudi [Archives reveal secrets . . . International questions: events and those involved] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1991), p. 305. It was in 1940 that Sheinis, then in charge of foreign affairs as a member of the editorial board of Trud, got to know Shtein and Troyanovski. 128. Astakhov’s Party member’s card, 14 February 1940, RGASPI, 17/99; Rubinin’s Party card, 1973, ibid., 17/100/108. 129. Supplement to Surits’s personal dossier, 1948, RGASPI 17/100/218103; Vestnik MIDa, no. 4, March 1988, pp. 50–5; Diplomaticheski Slovar (Moscow: Nauka, 1986), vol. 2, p. 407. 130. Letter from Joseph Avenol to Sokolin, 18 December 1939, AMAEF, Avenol papers, vol. 37. 131. Letters from the Counsellor of State in charge of the Department of Justice and the Police to Mr Vladimir Sokolin, 2 March and 8 June 1940, letters from the head of the Federal Police responsible for foreigners to Sokolin, 11 and 24 September 1940, Public and University Library of Geneva, collection Vladimir A. Sokolin, correspondence. 132. Arkady Vaksberg, Alexandra Kollontai (Paris: Fayard, 1996), pp. 414–21. 133. Letter from Kollontai to Stalin, 4 September 1937, RGASPI, 558/11/749.

296

MEN OF INFLUENCE

134. Vaksberg, Alexandra Kollontai, p. 393. 135. E. Gnedin, Katastrofa i vtoroe rozhdenie, memuarnye zapiski [Catastrophe and rebirth, memoirs] (Amsterdam: ‘Biblioteka Samizdata’ series, no. 8, Herzen Foundation, 1977), pp. 148–51; Arkady Vaksberg, Hôtel Lux. Les partis frères au service de l’Internationale communiste (Paris: Fayard, 1993), pp. 154–7. 136. Carswell, The Exile. A Life of Ivy Litvinov, p. 168. However, on 20 October 1939 he was appointed chairman of the Soviet delegation on the Soviet-German commission responsible for organising the exchange of German, Ukrainian and Belorussian people living on each side of the demarcation line in occupied Poland. 137. Z. Sheinis, ‘Sudba diplomata. Shtrikhi k portretu Borisa Shteina’; supplement to Boris Shtein’s personal dossier, 1957, RGASPI, 17/100/226068. 138. Comments by Potemkin on the work of Troyanovsky and Shtein, 1941, RAN, 574/1/62; Diplomaticheski Slovar, p. 407. 139. Speech made by Vyshinsky at a meeting of the lecture unit of the Committee of the major academies attached to the Council of People’s Commissars, A. Vaksberg, Vyshinsky, le procureur de Staline. Les grands procès de Moscou (Paris: Albin Michel, 1991), p. 247. 140. Z. S. Sheinis, ‘M. M. Litvinov: vozvraschenie v stroi i poslednye gody zhizni’ [M. M. Litivnov: the return to order and the final years of his life], Novaya i noveischaya istorya, no. 4, 1988, pp. 116–26. 141. Tchouev, Conversations avec Molotov, pp. 102–5. 142. A. M. Filitov, ‘Problems of Post-War Construction in Soviet Foreign Policy Conceptions during World War II’, in F. Gori and S. Pons (eds), The Soviet Union and Europe in the Cold War, 1943–1953 (London: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 3–22; V. O. Peshatnov, The Big Three After World War II. New Documents on Soviet Thinking About Post War Relations with the United States and Great Britain, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper a. 13, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 1995. 143. ‘Zanyatsya Podgotovkoi Buduschego Mira’ [Taking charge of preparations for peace], Istochnik, no. 4, 1995, pp. 117–18. 144. Protocols of meetings of Litvinov’s commission, 1943–1944, APE FR, 06/6. 145. Litvinov’s note on United States policy, 2 June 1943, published in Vestnik MIDa, no. 7, 1990, pp. 54–63; ’O perspektivakh i vozmozhnom baze sovetsko-britanskogo sotrudnichestva’ [Concerning the perspectives and possible basis for Anglo-Soviet cooperation], notes by Litvinov, April–November 1944, APE FR, 06/6/14/143, pp. 31–89; ‘O zhelatelnykh osnovakh buduschego mira’ [The desirable bases

SIDELINED BY THE SOVIET MOTHERLAND

146.

147. 148. 149. 150.

151.

152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159.

297

for future peace], note by Maisky, 11 January 1944, Istochnik, no. 4, 1995, pp. 124–42. The Soviet leadership was suspicious of the United States from 1942 onwards, as Stalin and Molotov had been unable to get Roosevelt to recognise Soviet borders which included the Baltic States, Karelia, eastern Poland and Bessarabia. Also, in May 1942, no mention was made of the post-war map of Europe in the AngloSoviet treaty of mutual assistance. Thereafter, the Soviet leadership adopted an entrenched position, pursuing its military operations and demanding the opening of a second front. See René Girault, Robert Frank, and Jacques Thobie, La Loi des géants, 1941–1964 (Paris: Masson, 1993), pp. 58–60. Note by Litvinov on United States policy, 2 June 1943, p. 63. Ibid. Note by Maisky, 11 January 1944, pp. 140–1. ‘O perspektivakh i vozmozhnom baze sovetsko-britanskogo sotrudnichestva’, pp. 81 and 84. The Soviet Union’s maximum sphere of interest would have included Finland, Sweden, Poland, Hungary Czechoslovakia, Romania, the Slav states in the Balkans and Turkey; the British sphere would have included Holland, Belgium, France, which occupied a special position, Spain, Portugal and Greece; the neutral group would have included Norway, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Italy. Litvinov foresaw difficulties on the British side over Norway, Yugoslavia and Turkey. Concerning Litvinov’s ‘philo-Occidentalism’, we have the comments of Molotov as well as details from Litvinov’s conversations and observations which reached the West: Tchouev, Conversations avec Molotov, pp. 102–3; V. Mastny, ‘The Cassandra in the Foreign Affairs Commissariat: Maksim Litvinov and the Cold War’, Foreign Affairs, no. 54, 1975–1976, pp. 366–76. Vaksberg, Kollontai, pp. 449–66. Sheinis, M. M. Litvinov, pp. 426–31; ‘Sud’ba diplomata. Shtrikhi k portretu Borisa Shteina’, p. 310; Vaksberg, Kollontai, p. 449. Letter from Kollontai to Litvinov, 8 December 1951, RGASPI, Litvinov collection, 1/12, p. 44. Sheinis, ‘M. M. Litvinov: vozvraschenie v stroi i poslednye gody zhizni’, p. 133. Vaksberg, Kollontai, pp. 462–3. Ibid., p. 463. Diplomaticheski Slovar, vol. 3, p. 587. Z. Sheinis, ‘Sud’ba diplomata. Shtrikhi k portretu Borisa Shteina’, pp. 309–10. Rubinin was rehabilitated in February 1954 and taught at the Institute of International Relations, details from his Party card for 1973, RGASPI, 17/100/108; A. Nekrich, ‘The Arrest and

298

MEN OF INFLUENCE

Trial of I. M. Maisky’, Survey, 22, 1976, pp. 313–20; Vaksberg, Hôtel Lux, pp. 166–73. Maisky was freed in 1955 and rehabilitated in 1960. 160. Vaksberg, Kollontai, pp. 464 and 493; Sheinis, M. M. Litvinov, pp. 430–1.

Map of the places referred to

Arctic Ocean

Petsamo

ICELAND

FINLAND

SWEDEN

North Sea

KARELIA NORWAY

Åland Helsinki

Oslo

Stockholm

Gulf of Finland

Tallinn Baltic Sea

IRELAND

LITHUANIA

Kaunas

Memel Danzig

THE NETHERLANDS

BELGIUM

Brussels Paris

Leipzig

RHINELAND LUXEMBOURG

FRANCE

Geneva

POLAND

Lvov

Prague Teschen

Danube

Munich Vienna

SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA

Nyon

Rapallo

REPUBLIC OF UKRAINE

Dniestr

Zaporoje Odessa

Budapest BUKOVINE

BESSARABIA ROMANIA

HUNGARY

Trieste Belgrade

Bucharest

YUGOSLAVIA SPAIN

Barcelona

Kiev SOVIET SOCIALIST

EAST GALICIA

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

ITALY

Madrid

Saratov

Brest-Litovsk

Warsaw

GERMANY

Moscow SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF SOVIET FEDERAL Vilnius BELORUSSIA SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF RUSSIA Minsk

East Prussia Bialystok

Berlin

London

UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

LATVIA

Riga DENMARK

UNITED KINGDOM

Leningrad

ESTONIA

CRIMEA-RUSSIAN SOVIET FEDERAL SOCIALIST REPUBLIC

Black Sea

DOBROUDJA BULGARIA

Sofia

Istanbul

Rome

Mediterranean Sea

Ankara

ALBANIA TURKEY GREECE

The Soviet Union in 1938 The territorial acquisitions of the USSR (1939–1940)

Note: The borders are those of 1938

299

Sotchi

300 Krestinsky N. N. (A. 06/37, E.03/38) Stomonyakov B. S.

Deputies

Potemkin V. P. (App. 04/37) Stomonyakov B. S. (R. summer 38, A. 12/38, E. 10/41)

Litvinov M. M. (R. 05/39)

END OF 1937 (AFTER THE FIRST WAVE OF PURGES)

Potemkin V. P. (R. 40) Dekanozov V. Lozovsky S. A.

Molotov V. M.

IN 1939 (AFTER THE SECOND WAVE OF PURGES)

Key to chart: A. – Arrested; App. – Appointed; D. – Defection (flight abroad); E. – Executed; R. – Recalled or Relieved of post; The execution of most diplomats between 1937 and 1941 took place immediately after they had been sentenced to death for spying. They were rehabilitated between 1954 and 1957. Names in bold type: new recruits to the diplomatic service at the time of the purges, between 1936 and 1938. Names underlined: generation of diplomats who arrived with Molotov in the spring/summer of 1939.

Litvinov M. M.

IN 1936 (BEFORE THE PURGES)

People’s Commissar

POST HELD

Diplomats before and after the purges

Hershel’man E. E. Lashkevich G. N. (A. 11/37, E. 08/38) Egoriev V. V. Rivlina N. E. Barkov V. N. Berezhov L. E. Fekhner A. V. (A. 08/37) Ilinsky Ya. S. Shtern D. G. (A. 06/37) Bezhanov G. Ya. Levin V. L.

Neuman A. F. (A. 08/37, E. 04/38) Veinberg F. S. Vinogradov S. I.

Protocol department

1st department Western politics

2nd department Western politics

3rd department Western politics

Hershel’man E. E. (R. 12/37) . Kozlovsky Yu. M

IN 1936 (BEFORE THE PURGES)

Department dealing with League of Nations affairs

Secretary to the Commissar

General Secretariat Secretary-General

POST HELD

Veinberg F. S. (A. 05/39) Vinogradov S. I. (A. 05/39)

Bezhanov G. Ya.

Barkov V. N. (A. 05/39)

Nazarov P. S. (A. 05/39, E. 07/41)

END OF 1937 (AFTER THE FIRST WAVE OF PURGES)

Roschin A. A. Gromyko A. A. (American dep.)

Pavlov V. N. (Feb.–Sept.) Gusev F. T. Lavrentiev A. I. (Eastern Europe dep.) Alexandrov A. M. (Central Europe dep.)

Bogomolov A. E. Vasyukov (Baltic States dep.) Orlov P. D. (Scandinavian countries dep.)

Bogomolov A. E. Sobolev A. A.

IN 1939 (AFTER THE SECOND WAVE OF PURGES)

Sabanin A. V. (A. 09/37, E. 08/38) Plotkin M. A. Kolchanovsky N. P. Rozenblum B. D. Morshtyn Ie. M. Astakhov G. A. Mironov B. M. (R. 08/37) Zaslavsky A. V.

Legal department

Economics department

Press & information department

Cadres department

Raskolnikov F. F. (R. 12/37, D. 04/38) Buravtsev M. V., Tkaychev N. P. (R. 09/37)

Rubinin E. V. (Polpred) Antonov K. V. (Counsellor)

*Polpred is the Russian abbreviation for plenipotentiary.

BULGARIA Polpred Secretaries

BELGIUM/ LUXEMBOURG

AUSTRIA (ended March 38) Polpred* Podolsky Ya. S. (A. 11/37) Counsellor Vlasov I. P. Secretary Tverdynin S. A. (R. 09/37)

IN 1936 (BEFORE THE PURGES)

POST HELD

Prasolov N. I. (chargé d’affaires)

Rubinin E. V.

Belyaiev A. D., Atroschenkov P. S.

Korzhenko V. S.

Gnedin E. A. (A. 05/39)

Plotkin M. A. (A. 05/39, E. 07/41)

END OF 1937 (AFTER THE FIRST WAVE OF PURGES)

Prasolov N. I., Lavrentiev A. I. (App. 09/39)

Rubinin E. V. (R. 09/40)

Dekanozov V.

Scheglov Palgunov N. G.

Kuroptev L. M., then Pavlov A. P. Kolchanovsky N. P.

IN 1939 (AFTER THE SECOND WAVE OF PURGES)

IN 1936 (BEFORE THE PURGES)

Asmus E. A. (A. 08/37, E. 12/37) Austrin A. A., Yartsev B. N.

FINLAND Polpred Secretaries

Derevyansky V. K. (App. 01/38) Yartsev B. N.

Nikitin K. N.

Alexandrovsky S. S. Sukhorev A. A.

END OF 1937 (AFTER THE FIRST WAVE OF PURGES)

Potemkin V. P., Surits Ya. Z. (App. 37) Surits Ya. Z. Hirshfel’d E. V. Hirshfel’d E. V. (R. 10/38, A. 05/39) Sokolin V. A. Biryukov O. Ya., Braun V. O. Biryukov O. Ya., Braun V. O., Semenov A. S.

Ustinov A. M. (App. 11/37) Klyavin Ya. Yu., Lapin P. I.

ESTONIA Polpred Secretaries

FRANCE Polpred Counsellors Secretaries Attachés

Tikhmenev N. S. (R. 12/37) Linde F. V.

DENMARK Polpred 1st secretary

CZECHOSLOVAKIA (ended March 39) Polpred Alexandrovsky S. S. Counsellors Tumanov Io. R. Secretary Shaprov M. S.

POST HELD

Kotov L.

Surits Ya. Z. (R. 03/40) Krapivintsev P. N.

Derevyansky V. K. Yudanov M. G. (Counsellor)

Nikitin K. N. (R. 06/40)

Vlasov I. F. (chargé d’affaires)

IN 1939 (AFTER THE SECOND WAVE OF PURGES)

HUNGARY (Break in relations Feb.–Oct. 39) Polpred Secretary Bekzadyan A. A. (A. 11/37, E. 08/38)

Kobetsky M. V. (R. 37) (Polpred) Barmin A. G. (D. 37) (counsellor)

Maisky I. M. Kagan S. B. Stolyar S. L., Shuster A. V.

GREAT BRITAIN Polpred Counsellors Secretaries

GREECE/ALBANIA

Magalif Ya. M.

Pozdnyakov N. G., Gnedin E. A.

Surits Ya. Z., Yurenev K. K. (App. 04/37, A. 09/37, E. 08/38) Bessonov S. A. (A. 10/37)

IN 1936 (BEFORE THE PURGES)

Secretaries Attachés

Counsellors

GERMANY Polpred

POST HELD

Sharonov N. I. (10/39–06/41)

Sharonov N. I. Sergeiev M. G. (chargé d’affaires)

Sharonov N. I.

Plotnikov V. A.

Maisky I. M.

Skhvartsev N. (App. 09/39) Nikolaiev M. V. Ivanov N. V., Pavlov V. N. Smirnov A. A.

Astakhov G.A.(chargé d’affaires) (R. 10/39)

IN 1939 (AFTER THE SECOND WAVE OF PURGES)

Maisky I. M. Kagan S. B., Ershov V. S. Korzh M. V., Popov I. S.

Yakovlev A. V., Nikolaiev M. V., Smirnov A. A.

Astakhov G. A.

Merekalov A. F. (App. 05/38, R. 05/39)

END OF 1937 (AFTER THE FIRST WAVE OF PURGES)

Brodovsky S. Zh. (R. 10/37, A. 11/37) Pokhvalinsky B. A.

Podolsky B. G. (A. 11/37, E. 07/38) Kofman S. M.

Yakubovich I. S. (R. 37) Ananov L. K.

Davtyan Ya. Kh. (A. 11/37, E. 07/38)

LATVIA Polpred Secretaries

LITHUANIA Polpred Secretary

NORWAY Polpred Secretary

POLAND Polpred Vinogradov B. (A. 02/38, E. 08/38) Nikolaiev B. N., Alexandrov G. A. (A. 12/37, E. 01/38)

Guelfand L. B. Dneprov P. M., Fridgut P. S.

Counsellors Secretaries

Counsellors Secretaries

Shtein B. E.

IN 1936 (BEFORE THE PURGES)

ITALY Polpred

POST HELD

Listopad P. P. Lebezhishin B. N.

Nikonov

Krapivintsev P. N.

Zotov I. S. (App. 11/37) Vetrov M. S.

Guelfand L. B. Kulazhenkov A. L.

Shtein B. E. (R. 02/39)

END OF 1937 (AFTER THE FIRST WAVE OF PURGES)

Listopad P. P.(chargé d’affaires), Sharonov N. I. (App. 05/39)

Plotnikov V. A. (App. 10/39, R. 06/40)

Pozdnyakov N. G. (chargé d’affaires then Polpred from 10/39 to 08/40)

Zotov I. S. (R. 04/40)

Guelfand L.B. (chargé d’affaires), Gorelkin N. V. (App. 10/39)

IN 1939 (AFTER THE SECOND WAVE OF PURGES)

Rozenberg M. I. (R. 12/37, A. 08/38) Gaikis L. Zh. (R. 10/37)

SPAIN Polpred Counsellor

Karakhan L. M. (A. 06/37, E. 12/37) Karsky M. A. (App. 03/37, R. 10/37, A. 11/37), Zalkind O. A.

Terentiev A. V. (App. 04/38)

Kollontai A. M.

Marchenko S. G. (chargé d’affaires)

Butenko F. Kh. (D. 02/38) Kukolev P. G.

END OF 1937 (AFTER THE FIRST WAVE OF PURGES)

Nikitnikova O. I.

Terentiev A. V.

Kollontai A. M.

Marchenko S. G.

Kukolev P. G. (chargé d’affaires)

IN 1939 (AFTER THE SECOND WAVE OF PURGES)

Sources: Rasstrelnye spiski, Moskva 1937–1941, ‘Kommunarka’ , Butovo [Lists of those executed, Moscow 1937–1941, ‘Kommunarka’, Butovo], Moscow, Memorial Association, Zvenia, 2000 (this refers to the politicians imprisoned then executed in the NKVD military zone which was near Moscow, beside the ‘Sovkhoz’ (State farm); Annuaire diplomatique du Commissariat du Peuple pour les Affaires Étrangères (Moscow, 1936); Diplomaticheski Slovar, 3 vols (Moscow, 1985–1987); protocols of the Politburo from July 1936 to February 1938, RGASPI, 17/3/979–996; T. J. Uldricks, ‘The Impact of the Great Purges on the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs’, Slavic Review, June 1977, pp. 187–203.

Conclusions to be drawn from the table: We see that the number of diplomats in Europe was reduced by a half (from 83 to 46). Of the 83 individuals selected in 1936, eight were still working for the NKID after May 1939, that is less than 10 per cent. Of the 46 individuals who occupied a post in 1939, 28 were new recruits, that is to say a little over 60 per cent.

TURKEY Polpred Counsellors

Kollontai A. M. Mirny S. M. (R. 37)

Komarovsky K. A. Bel’ko S. P. (R. 09/37)

Counsellors Secretaries

SWEDEN

Ostrovsky M. S. (R. 12/37)

IN 1936 (BEFORE THE PURGES)

ROMANIA Polpred

POST HELD

Primary sources

Russian public archives (Moscow) Archives relating to foreign affairs of the Russian Federation [Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii] (APE FR): League of Nations (0415). Papers of the department of general international affairs, 1931 (2/24/2), notes concerning the Pan-European project (2/24/6), dossier on European Union (8/5/4), agricultural conferences in Vienna and Rome (8/5/9), notes on relations between the USSR and the League of Nations (2/29/56), composition of delegations at the disarmament conference (3/33/2), correspondence (3/33/4), speeches and notes (3/34/13, 3/34/14, 3/35/25), projects and amendments (3/34/15, 3/34/16), correspondence between Litvinov and Henderson (3/34/17), personal letters to Litvinov (3/35/23, 5/40/7), Soviet nominations to the League of Nations (5/40/5), telegrams from the Commissariat and from embassies concerning the entry of the USSR into the League of Nations (5/40/6), disarmament issues, 1934 (5/41/18, 5/41/27), intellectual cooperation (5/44/70), papers of the department responsible for League of Nations affairs (7/52/17), notes on participation in meetings of the League of Nations and on Soviet personnel in Geneva(10/68/10), assorted notes (8/6/23, 8/6/25, 9/7/1, 9/7/8). Litvinov’s Secretariat (05). Letters from Litvinov to the Central Committee and to plenipotentiaries concerning European Union, 1930– 1931 (10/57/17, 10/58/19, 11/59/15, 11/73/15), letters from Litvinov to plenipotentiaries concerning negotiations in Geneva and the disarmament conference, 1932–1934 (12/81/2, 12/81/13, 13/90/11, 14/96/9), correspondence between Drummond and Litvinov (12/81/10), correspondence between Litvinov, Radek and the Central Committee concerning issues in Geneva (13/89/2), relations between the USSR and the League of Nations 1933–1934 (13/90/12, 14/96/10), political letters from Litvinov and his deputies to the Central Committee and to the plenipotentiary in France, 1933 (13/94/7, 13/94/64), letters from Litvinov to the Central Committee 1934–1937 (14/103/117, 16/114/1, 17/126/1), issues in Geneva,

307

308

MEN OF INFLUENCE

1935–1937 (15/105/7, 15/105/8, 16/116/13, 17/128/15), Dnevnik Litvinov (17/127/4), letters from Potemkin to the Central Committee, 1938 (18/138/3), political letters from Litvinov and his deputies to the embassy in Czechoslovakia (18/149/166). Krestinsky’s Secretariat (010). General political letters/France, 1933– 1937 (8/32/89, 10/60/148, 11/77/113), general political letters/Great Britain, 1934–1936 (9/35/7, 10/48/7, 11/66/17), conversations with Litvinov and Rubinin/France, 1934 (9/45/154), conversations with Litvinov and Shtein/Italy, 1935 (10/56/97), Dnevnik Potemkin (10/60/151, 11/76/110), Dnevnik Hirshfel’d (10/60/152, 11/76/111), Dnevnik Sokolin 11/77/112), Dnevnik Kagan (11/66/16), Dnevnik Shtein (11/71/57). Potemkin’s Secretariat (011). General political letters/France, 1937– 1939 (1/8/76, 2/17/165, 4/32/178, 4/32/179), general political letters/Great Britain, 1937–1939 (1/1/12, 2/11/17), general political letters/issues in Geneva (1/5/49), London committee (1/4/38), military matters/France (2/17/166), press/France (1/8/77, 2/18/167), economic relations/France (2/18/168), Dnevnik Potemkin (1/7/73), Dnevnik Hirshfel’d (1/7/74, 2/17/164), Dnevnik Sokolin (1/7/75), Dnevnik Maisky (1/1/9, 2/11/15). Molotov’s Secretariat (06). Correspondence with the League of Nations, 1939 (1/3/23), the Litvinov commission on the preparation of peace agreements and the organisation of the post-war period/protocols of meetings, 1943–1944 (6/14/141, 6/14/143, 6/14/145), Litvinov commission/notes and reports, 1944–1945 (6/14/146, 7/17/173, 7/17/175). Referentura Po Frantsii (0136). Dnevnik Rozenberg, 1932 (28/154/725), Franco-Soviet relations, general political matters, 1937 (21/169/839, 21/169/840). Department dealing with cadres, personal dossiers. Egoriev (113/78), Hershel’man (10157), Lashkevich (104/65), Potemkin (6315), Rozenberg (5125/87), Rozenblum (9844), Sokolin (11364), Shtein (259), Surits (6076/288). Russian state archives of political and social history [Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii] (RGASPI): Collection relating to the Central Committee (17). – Protocols of the Politburo, October-November 1927 (3/657,3/660, 3/661), 1930–1939 (3/771 to 3/1004); protocols of secret decisions/special dossiers, osobye papki, taken by the Politburo and supplementing ordinary protocols, November 1929 to August 1934 (162/8 to 162/16).

PRIMARY SOURCES

309

– Protocols of meetings of the Orgburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee, 1933 (114/334, 114/336, 114/342, 114/344, 114/346, 114/348, 114/350 and 351, 114/356 and 357), 1936–1937 (114/621, 114/627 to 630). – Plenary sessions of the Central Committee: February 1934 (2/516), Sokol’nikov affair (2/575), Bukharin affair (2/612), report on Molotov’s foreign policy, March 1940 (2/656). – Correspondence of departments of the Central Committee, of the Control Commission: Zhdanov and the Komintern press,1939 (120/7), notes of the East European department of the NKID and of the special bureau of the NKVD concerning Poland, September 1939 (120/15), missions abroad (120/20), documentation of the Control Commission and correspondence with embassies and trade representations abroad, 1930–1934 (120/36, 120/37, 120/39, 120/42, 120/63), letters from plenipotentiaries and the Central Committee on the choice of cadres for embassies 1930–1933 (120/40, 120/43, 120/64, 120/107), meetings and correspondence of the Control Commission on the work of Soviet organisations abroad, 1933–1934 (120/49, 120/83), letters from the executive committee of the Komintern, from Communist party representatives on the Komintern concerning the organising of work within Soviet milieux abroad, 1931–1932 (120/61), correspondence between ambassadors, consuls and Party secretaries, August 1932– October 1936 (120/84), correspondence between departments of the Central Committee and the executive committee of the Komintern and the Institute of World Economics and Politics concerning the choice of cadres, January 1935–August 1936 (120/211), NKID budget for 1936 (120/228), matters concerning the press and publications abroad, March 1936–November 1938 (120/258), on the Journal de Moscou, June 1936–January 1939 (120/259), letters from Rozengol’ts and Stashevsky concerning the situation in Spain and economic relations with Spain, December 1936–March 1937 (120/263). – Sector concerned with external Party organisations, personal dossiers on communists returning from postings abroad (1936–1941), Gnedin, January 1937 (97/351), Hirshfel’d, March 1936 (97/338), Potemkin, May 1937 (97/1213), Rozenberg, May 1937 (97/1257), Shtein, December 1939 (97/1680), Surits, September 1940 (97/1445). – Registration forms for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: Astakhov, Korzhenko, Stomonyakov, Surits, Umansky (100/99), Kagan, Roschin and Shtein (100/107), Rubinin and Maisky (100/108); personal dossiers: Astakhov (100/26860), Kagan (100/144619), Korzhenko (100/147119), Maisky (100/303474), Roschin (100/54647, 100/360867), Rubinin (100/163801), Shtein (100/226068), Stomonyakov (100/158761), Surits (100/218103), Umansky (100/173106).

310

MEN OF INFLUENCE

Stalin Collection (558). Papers of the foreign department of the NKVD, 1933–1936 (11/186–188), coded telegrams from plenipotentiaries, consuls and diplomatic agents with Stalin’s replies and decisions, 10 May 1936–28 April 1938 (11/214); correspondence between Stalin and Kaganovich, 1933–1936 (11/741, 11/743), correspondence between Stalin and Karakhan (11/745); correspondence between Stalin and Kollontai (11/749), correspondence between Stalin and Radek (11/792, 11/793).

Litvinov Collection (37). Correspondence between Litvinov and the Soviet leadership, 1929–1951 (1/12), correspondence between Litvinov and various foreigners, 1917–1950 (1/13). Communist International Collection (495) – Protocols of meetings of the Praesidium of the Communist International: on the British Communist Party, 11 October 1934 (2/186a), on the French question, 9 December 1934 (2/192), on Spain and the Popular Front in France, 17 September 1936 (2/232), on the war in Spain, 28 December 1936 (2/241). – Protocols of meetings of the political secretariat of the Communist International: on the Balkan pact, March 1934 (3/421), on the French question, July–August 1934 (3/423, 3/424), directives to the Polish Communist Party, September 1934 (3/425), on the errors of the Czech Communist Party, December 1934 (3/427), concerning the 13th Congress of the British Communist Party, December 1934 (3/429) – Political Commission of the Political Secretariat of the Communist International: discussions about editorials in L’Internationale communiste, 27 September 1934 (4/312), draft resolution concerning France, 15 October 1934 (4/315). – Manuilsky’s secretariat: meetings of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party, 1938 (10a/15), assorted correspondence (10a/391). – Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, 1919–1941: draft resolutions on the aims of the French Communist Party, 7 December 1933 (18/958), resolutions on the European anti-fascist congress, on the 7th Komintern congress, 8 February–17 September 1934 (18/993, 18/994). – Pyatnitsky’s secretariat: correspondence with the NKID (19/381), NKID documents sent to the Communist International (19/386). – Secretariat’s Bureau of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, 1924–1941: on measures to be adopted to defend Abyssinia, 22 September–14 November 1935 (20/1, 20/2), on the objectives of the Swiss Communist Party, 7 May 1931–26 March 1939 (20/604,

PRIMARY SOURCES

311

20/605), on preparations for the 7th congress of the Komintern, 15 April–15 October 1934 (20/676), decisions taken in the struggle against war and fascism, 7 September 1928–19 June 1935 (20/727), on preparations for the congress in defence of peace, 7 September 1935–5 October 1936 (20/730, 20/731). State archives of the Russian Federation [Gosudartsvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii] (GARF): Central office of the Council of People’s Commissars (R-5446). NKID budget, 1934–1935 (15a/1023, 16/3961), missions abroad (15a/1024), special expenditure for 1934–1935 (15a/1027, 15a/1030, 15a/1042), expenditure in 1937 (20a/897), non-intervention committee expenditure (20a/898), money for the Institute for the training of diplomatic and consular cadres 1934–1938 (15a/1043, 22a/219), expenditure of Soviet institutions abroad (18a/879), statistics for the League of Nations (16a/1208), expenditure for the visit of Laval (16a/1209), diplomats’ accommodation and embassy housing (15a/1036, 16a/1222, 20a/877, 22/365), foreign languages (20a/892), assorted correspondence with the NKID in 1938 (20/4038, 22a/204), clothing for diplomats (20a/902, 20a/904, 22a/221), diplomats’ salaries (22a/694, 22a/700). Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences [Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk] (RAN): Institute of world economics and politics of the Communist Academy (Institut mirovogo khozyaistva i mirovoi politiki Komakademii) (354). Training plans for cadres, group research work, 1930–1935 (1/37, 1/51, 1/52 1/75, 1/92, 1/100), protocols of meetings of the directors (1/66, 1/67), list of work produced by members of the Institute from 1934 to 1936 (1/123), work produced, conferences and debates at the Institute, Karl Radek, ‘SSSR i Liga Natsii’, 20 September 1934 (2/146), Karl Radek, ‘Italo-abissinskii, konflikt’, 3 October 1935 (2/184); list of associates of the Institute (3/2, 3/10, 3/17, 3/18, 3/22). Potemkin Collection (574). Work produced and conferences (1/24, 1/27, 1/28), autobiography (2/1), library (2/40), letter to Stalin, 1922 (3/36), Potemkin’s speeches and conversations in Italy, 1932–1934 (3/38), extracts from the French press concerning Potemkin (3/39), Potemkin’s electoral campaign for the Supreme Soviet, 1937 (3/152), electoral speech at Tambov on foreign policy, 17 December 1937 (3/153), correspondence as a deputy, 1938 (3/154), letters to Potemkin: requests for interventions to be made to the Supreme Soviet over arrests, 1937–1938 (3/157), correspondence with Stalin, 1922–1945 (4/74).

312

MEN OF INFLUENCE

Russian state military archives [Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv] (RGVA): People’s Commissariat for Defence (Narkom Oborony or NKO) (4). Shorthand accounts of meetings of the Military Council, 8–14 December 1935, 13–19 October 1936, 21–7 November 1937 (18/52 to 54), correspondence with the Central Committee, 1936 (19/16), copies of documents addressed to the Politburo, 5 June–26 December 1936 (19/18). Secretariat of the People’s Commissariat for Defence (33987). Politicalmilitary material relating to France, 1933–1934 (3/500, 3/576), correspondence of the military attaché in France, 1936 (3/878, 3/879), politicalmilitary cooperation with France, 1937 (3/951), technical-military material relating to France, 1936–1937 (3/1027), reports from the Soviet military attaché in Poland, 1936 (4/33), documents relating to the study of probable enemies of Poland, 1936 (4/34), documents of the 4th section of the General Staff (counter-espionage services), 1934 (5/335, 5/336).

French public archives (Paris) Archives of the French foreign ministry (AMAEF): Section relating to Europe 1918–1940, sub-section relating to Russia/ USSR. Composition of the Soviet government (892), information on Soviet political figures (895), Soviet foreign policy, 1932–1933 (960), foreign policy, general dossier, 1939 (962), France-USSR, 1930–1939 (1004–1005). Section relating to the League of Nations, sub-section relating to the general secretariat. Admission of the USSR, January–September 1934 (62–63), expulsion of the USSR, December 1939 (69), 15th-20th sessions of the Assembly of the League of Nations, May 1934–December 1939 (100– 105), foreign delegations (111), sessions of the Council, 1933–1939 (148– 156), delegations to the Council (157–158), general under-secretaries (163–164), liaison between the Secretariat and member states (175), correspondence of the department dealing with League of Nations affairs, 1919–1938 (226), repression of terrorism, November 1934–October 1937 (381–382), the Italian-Ethiopian conflict, attitude of the USSR, March– May 1935 (385), attitude of various countries, September–December 1935 (392–393), questions of sanctions, July–December 1935 (400–402), disagreement between the USSR and Uruguay, December 1935–February 1936 (428), Soviet/Finnish conflict, 1939–1940 (430–431), Franco-Soviet pact, May 1935–December 1938 (783), eastern pact, June 1934–November 1936 (804–805), disarmament conference, 1932 (867–869), disarmament, general matters, February–April 1935 (893–894), organisation for

PRIMARY SOURCES

313

refugees, 1930–1938 (1806–1807), press, general dossier (1904), USSR – general matters, 1935–1939 (2254–2257). Section Y – International 1918–1940. USSR/League of Nations (495–496). Protocol Section A. French embassy in Russia (53), Russian embassy in France (54), secretaries and foreign attachés (136), military attachés, Russia, 1899–1940 (146). Papers of officials. Private archives. Avenol (006), organisation of the League of Nations, May 1931–November 1939 (5), correspondence (36– 37); Massigli (217), reform of the League of Nations, 1934–1937 (12), Spanish Civil War, August 1936–June 1938 (14), Franco-Soviet relations, 1933–1936 (20), private correspondence (96, 104). Historical department of the army (SHAT): Section 7N. Papers of the EMA – 2nd Bureau: reports of military attachés, 1933–1940 (3121–23), notes, information and papers on the USSR, 1920–1939 (3129), Soviet relations with countries other than France, 1930–1939 (3131), Havas papers and dispatches, 1936–1939 (3132), information on purges in the USSR, 1936–1939 (3150), the transfer of war materials to the USSR, 1932–1939 (3182).

Archives in Geneva League of Nations archives (SDN ARCHIVES): – Political section. Correspondence on the situation in Russia, 1933–1939 (1/5028/2692), admission of the USSR to the League of Nations (1/3637/10502), coordinating committee 1935–1936 (1/20375/20347), application of sanctions by governments 1935–1936 (1/20455/20406), statistics on trade with Italy (1/23174/22448), appeal of the Finnish government, 1939–1940 (1/39400/39392), exclusion of the USSR (1/39507/39392). – Section dealing with cultural cooperation. Nominations (5B/15869/ 5884), sessions of the committee responsible for intellectual cooperation, 1935–1936 (5B/16824/1976, 5B/22574/1976, 5B26307/2051), correspondence with the USSR (5B/26255/305). – Disarmament section. Permanent consultative commission on military, naval and air force matters – correspondence with the USSR, 1935–1939 (7A/1548/1548, 7A/13673/1123), visas and protection of the Soviet delegation (7B/34321/3071). – Economic and financial section. Nominations to the economic committee (10A/15634/357, 10A27660/26730), preparation of sessions (10A/21288/1952, 10A28445/26730, 10A30100/26730), correspondence

314

MEN OF INFLUENCE

with the USSR (10B/10161/10161, 10B/19805/2194), economic nonaggression pact and observations by governments (10D/32041/31362, 10D/32507/31362, 10D/33874/32840, 10D/35029/32840), meetings on the export of timber, 1932 (10D/36973/32232, 10D/37358/32232). – Press and information section: press correspondents at the League of Nations, 1927–1932 (13/3307/8079), Pravda and Tass representatives in Geneva, 1933–1935 (13/5176/8225). – Willam Martin collection, conversations (2nd series): 1930–1933. Vladimir A. Sokolin Collection (The History and Archaeology Society of Geneva/Public and University Library). Biographical details, documents and letters (File 1), manuscripts including ‘L’Union soviétique et la Société des Nations’, 164 typed pages (File 2).

Published sources Carynnik, M., L. Y. Luciuk and B. S. Kordan (eds), The Foreign Office and the Famine: British Documents on Ukraine and the Great Famine of 1932–1933 (Kingston: Limeston Press, 1988). Dyakov, Yuri and T. S. Bushueva (eds), Fashistskii mech kovalsya v SSSR: Krasnaya Armiya i Reishsver. Tainoe sotrudnichestvo. 1922– 1933. Neizvestnye dokumenty (Moscow: Sovetskaya Rossiya, 1992). Documents diplomatiques français (1932–1939), 1st series (1932–1935), 10 vols ; 2nd series (1936–1939), 19 vols, ministère des Affaires étrangères, commission de publication des documents relatifs aux origines de la guerre 1939–1945 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1963–1986). Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939, Second Series, vol. 7 (eds) L. Woodward and R. Butler (London: HMSO, 1958) ; Second Series, vols 12–19 (ed.) W. Medlicott (London: HMSO, 1972–1982). Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, Series C, vols 1–6 (1933–1937) (London: HMSO, 1957–1983), Series D, vols 1–4 (1937–1939) (Washington, London: HMSO, 1949–1951). Dokumenty i materialy po istorii sovetsko-chekhoslovatskikh otnoshenii, vol. 2 (eds) C. H. Amort et al. (Moscow, 1977). Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR (1930–1938), vols 13–21 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1967–1976). Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1939 god, vol. 22, 2 vols (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 1992). Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, 1940–22 iyuniya 1941, t.XXIII, kniga 1 (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 1995), kniga 2 : 2 vols, ibid, 1998. Dukh Rapallo, Sovetsko-germanskie otnosheniya. 1925–1933 (ed.) G. N. Sevost’yanov (Ekaterinburg: Nauchno-prosvetitel’skii tsentr ‘Universitet’, 1997).

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God Krizisa, 1938–1939, Dokumenty i materialy, 2 vols (Moscow, Politizdat, 1990). Ken, Oleg and A. Ruppasov, Politburo TsK VKP (b) i otnosheniya SSSR s zapadnymi sosednimi gosudarstvami (St Petersburg: Evropeiskii dom, 2000), vol. 1 (1928–1934). Konventsii ob opredelenii agressii, podpisannye v Londone 3–5 iyulya 1933 g. (Moscow: NKID, 1933). Lih, Lars T., Oleg V. Naumov, and Oleg V. Khlevniuk (eds), Stalin’s letters to Molotov, 1925–1936 (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1995), preface by Robert C. Tucker (English version of Pis’ma I.V. Stalina V.M. Molotovu, 1925–1936 gg. Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow, 1995)). Litvinov, M. M., SSSR v bor’be za mir, rechi i dokumenty (Moscow, 1938). Litvinov, M. M., L’URSS et la paix, recueil de discours (Paris, 1939). Litvinov, M. M., Vneshnyaya Politika SSSR, rechi i zayavleniya, 1927– 1937 (Moscow, 1937). Lunacharski, A. V., Stat’i i rechi po voprosam mezhdunarodnoi politiki (ed.) L. A. Istomin (Moscow, 1959). Marshal M. N. Tukhachevski (1893–1937 gg.). Komplekt dokumentov iz fondov RGVA (Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voennyi Arkhiv) (Moscow, 1994). Moskva-Rim : Politika i diplomatiya Kremlya, 1920–1939 : Sbornik dokumentov (ed.) Irina Khormach (Moscow: Nauka, 2002). Politbiuro TsK RKP (b) – VKP (b). Povestki Dnya Zasedanii. Katalog. (Moscow: Rosspen, 2001), vol. 2 (1930–1939). Politbiuro TsK RKP (b) – VKP (b) i Evropa. Resheniya “osoboi papki”. 1923–1939 (Moscow: Rosspen, 2001). Politbiuro TsK RKP (b) – VKP (b) i Komintern, 1919–1943. Dokumenty (Moscow: Rosspen, 2004). Polpredy soobschayut . . . Sbornik dokumentov ob otnosheniyakh SSSR s Latviei, Litvoi i Estoniei, avgust 1939 g.–avgust 1940 g. (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1990). Shestoi s’ezd sovetov, stenograficheskii ochet (Moscow, 1931). S’ezd VKP (b), stenograficheskii ochet, XIV-yi (Moscow, 1926), XV-yi (Moscow, 1928). Sostav rukovodiaschikh rabotnikov i spetsialistov Soyuza SSSR (Moscow, 1936). Sovetsko-amerikanskie otnosheniya, Gody nepriznaniya. 1926–1933 (ed.) G. N. Sevost’yanov (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi Fond ‘Demokratia’, 2002). Sovetsko-amerikanskie otnosheniya 1934–1939 (ed.) G. N. Sevost’yanov (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi Fond ‘Demokratia’, 2002), 2003. Sovetsko-norvezhskie otnosheniya, 1917–1955 : Sbornik dokumentov (ed.) A. O. Chubaryan (Moscow: Elia-Art 0, 1997).

316

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Sovetsko-rumynskie otnosheniya. Dokumenty i materialy, vol. 1 (1917– 1934), vol. 2 (1935–1941) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 2000). Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy (ed.) J. Degras, 3 vols (vol. 2 : 1925– 1932, vol. 3 : 1933–1941) (London, 1951–1953). SSSR v bor’be za razoruzhenie. Sovetskaya delegatsiya na IV sessii podgotovitelnoi komissii po razoruzheniu. Fakty i dokumenty, vystupleniya, stat’ya Shteina (Moscow: NKID, 1928). SSSR na mirovoi ekonomicheskoi konferentsii (Moscow, 1933) (introductory articles by Varga and de Rozenblum). Staline, I. V., Sochineniya, vol. 11 (Moscow, 1949), vol. 13 (Moscow, 1951). Staline, Joseph, Deux bilans. Analyse du plan quinquennal. Rapport du Comité central au XVIe Congrès du PCUS le 27 June 1930 (Paris, 1930). Staline, Joseph, URSS. Bilan 1934 (Paris, 1934). Staline, Joseph, Questions du léninisme, vol. 2 (Paris, 1969). Stalin i Kaganovich. Perepiska. 1931–1936 gg. (Moscow: Rosspen, 2001). Stalinskoe Politburo v 30e gody, sbornik dokumentov (eds) O. V. Khlevniuk, A. V. Kvashonkin, L. P. Kosheleva, and L. A. Rogovaya (Moscow, 1995). Suisse Russie, 1813–1955, contacts et ruptures (documents tirés des Archives du ministère des Affaires étrangères de Russie et des Archives fédérales suisses) (ed.) Antoine Fleury and Danièle TosatoRigo (Berne, Stuttgart, Vienne: Éditions Paul Haupt, 1994). L’URSS à la conférence du désarmement, textes et documents (Moscow, 1932). Werth, Nicolas and Gaël Moullec, Rapports secrets soviétiques, 1921– 1991 (Paris: Gallimard, 1994). Material published in reviews ‘Dokumenty Kominterna i Kompartii Germanii, 1930–1934 gg’, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 1, 1994, pp. 148–74. ‘Iz istorii velikoi otechestvennoi voiny (dokumenty 1935–1940 gg.)’, Izvestiya TsK KPSS, no. 1, 1990, pp. 160–72. ‘Materialy fevralsko-martovskogo plenuma TsK VKP (b) 1937 goda’, Voprosy Istorii, 1992, nos 2–3, pp. 3–44, nos 4–5, pp. 3–36, nos 5–6, pp. 3–29. ‘O podgotovke Germanii k voine. Zapiska M.M. Litvinova I.V. Stalinu, 3 dekabrya 1935 g. i pis’mo Ya.Z. Suritsa N.K. Krestinskomu, 28 avgusta 1936 g.’, Izvestiya TsK KPSS, no. 2, 1990, pp. 211–15. ‘Osobaya Missia Davida Kandelaki’ (publication of documents from the foreign policy archives prepared by N. A. Abramov and L. A. Bezymenskii), Voprosy Istorii, nos 4–5, 1991, pp. 144–56.

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‘Otstavka Narkoma. Poslednyaya sluzhebnaya zapiska G. V. Chicherina’, Istochnik, no. 6, 1995, pp. 99–116. ‘Politika SShA v 1943 godu : Vzglyad Sovetskogo Posla iz Vashingtona’, Vestnik MIDa, no. 7, 1990, pp. 54–63. ‘Posetiteli Kremlevskogo Kabineta I.V. Stalina’, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, 1994, no. 6 (pp. 4–44, for the years 1924–1931), 1995, no. 2 (pp. 129–200, for the years 1932–1933), no. 3 (pp. 120–77, for the years 1934–1935), no. 4 (pp. 16–73, for the years 1936–1937), nos 5–6 (pp. 4–64, for the years 1938–1939). ‘Zanyatsya Podgotovkoi Buduschego Mira’ (published documents on the work of committees for post-war preparations), Istochnik, no. 4, 1995, pp. 114–144. Newspapers consulted Bolshevik, La Correspondance Internationale, L’Europe Nouvelle, L’Internationale communiste, Izvestya, Journal des Nations, Krasnaya Zvezda, Mirovoie khoziaistvo i mirovaia politika, Pravda, Le Temps, Journal de Moscow (1934–1939). The Official Journal of the League of Nations, Geneva, special supplements: acts of the 15th ordinary session of the Assembly, September– October 1934, nos 123–131, acts of the extraordinary session of the Assembly, 20–24 November 1934, no. 132, acts of the 16th ordinary session of the Assembly, September–October 1935, nos 38–143, disagreement between Italy and Ethiopia, October 1935–March 1936, nos 145–150, acts of the 16th ordinary session of the Assembly, second part, 30 June–4 July 1936, no. 151, documentation relating to the implementation of the principles of the Pact, no. 154, acts of the 17th ordinary session of the Assembly, September–October 1936, nos 155– 162, acts of the extraordinary session of the Assembly, 26–27 May 1937, no. 166, acts of the 18th ordinary session of the Assembly, September–October 1937, nos 69–175, acts of the 19th ordinary session of the Assembly, September–October 1938, nos 183–189. Memoirs, private diaries and works by contemporaries Bajanov, Boris, Avec Staline dans le Kremlin (Paris: Les Éditions de France, 1930). Barmine, Alexandre, Vingt ans au service de l’URSS (Paris: Albin Michel, 1939). Benes, Édouard, Munich (Paris: Stock, 1969). Bessedovsky, G., Oui j’accuse. Au service des Soviets (Paris: Redier, 1930). Boukharina, Anna Larina, Boukharine, ma passion (Paris: Gallimard, 1990).

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Index

Adam, Gen., 95 Agabekov G., 82n Agranov Ya, 220 Alexander, King of Yugoslavia, 197 Alexandrovsky, S., 53, 122, 140, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 262 Alphand, C., 118, 221, 222 Ananov, L., 239 Andreiev, A., 13, 218 Antonov-Ovseenko, V, 53, 58, 130, 131, 213 Archimbaud, L., 148n Arens, J., 205n, 213 Arossev, A., 54, 74 Artuzov, A., 75 Asmus, E., 213 Astakhov, G., 272–3, 279 Attlee, C., 160, 250 Aubert, T., 193 Avenol, J., 128, 171, 174, 197, 279 Bajanov (Bazhanov), B., 37n, 38n, 51 Balfour, Lord, 49 Barkov, V., 75, 213 Barmine (Barmin), A., 37n, 54, 225 Barthou, L., 104, 105, 108, 115, 163, 164, 192, 197 Beaverbrook, Lord, 285 Beck, Col, 124, 271 Bekzadyan, A., 53, 213 Belen’ky, Z., 71 Benes, E., 125, 139, 192, 193, 254, 256, 257, 258–9, 262 Beria, L., 218, 219, 232, 234, 235, 262, 283 Bessedovsky, G, 81n, 82n Bessonov, S, 117, 119, 120, 150n, 213

Bevin, E., 160 Blomberg, Gen. von, 119 Blücher, Gen., 14 Blum, L., 123, 124, 125, 127, 139, 141, 142, 167, 253 Bockelberg, Gen. von, 96 Bogomolov, A., 240 Bonnet, G., 255, 262, 263, 271, 277 Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 49 Briand, A., 13, 34, 41n, 144n, 188 Briand-Kellogg, pact, 34, 106 Brinon, F. de, 119, 164 Brockdorff-Rantzau, U. von, 62 Brodovsky, S., 213 Bronner, Prof. W., 225 Brüning, H., 93 Budienny, Marshal, 216 Bukharin, N., 14, 15, 22, 58, 66, 74, 213, 216, 218, 222 Buravtsev, M., 57 Buré, E., 260 Butenko, F., 226 Cadogan, Sir A., 267 Caillaux, J., 262 Cerrutti, V., 38n Chamberlain, N., 252, 263, 266, 267, 270, 271 Chautemps, C., 141, 252 Chiang Kai-shek, 14 Chicherin, G., 1, 12, 13, 16, 50, 51, 54, 61–3, 65 Chubar, V., 217, 229 Churchill, W., 161, 257, 283, 285 Ciano, Count, 251 Citrine, W., 187 Comert, P., 159, 166, 182, 183 Corbin, C., 222

337

338

MEN OF INFLUENCE

Cot, P., 100, 123, 125, 141, 162, 166, 167, 183–4 Coulondre, R., 136, 222, 255, 259, 272 Cripps, Sir S., 222 Daladier, E., 99, 100, 101, 103, 125, 140, 141, 166, 168, 256, 260, 263 Davtyan, Y., 53, 165, 213, 224 Dekanozov, V., 234, 241, 283 Delbos, Y., 141, 142, 172, 185, 249, 250, 251, 252 Dimitrov, G., 78, 80 Dirksen, H. von, 36, 61, 144n Dmitrievsky, S., 12, 39n, 61 Doletsky, Y., 19, 223, 244n Doumergue, G., 104 Dovgalevsky, V., 53, 54, 68, 74, 93, 99, 100, 102 Duranty, W., 115 Eden, Sir A., 116, 129, 141, 161, 251, 252 Eder, D., 48 Egoriev, V., 59, 68, 102 Egorov, A., 96 Eidemann, Gen., 127, 134 Elbel, P., 186 Enukidze, A., 13 Erkko, E., 275 Ezhov, N., 7, 18, 73, 74, 75, 213, 219, 220, 221, 229, 232, 234, 235, 238, 254 Fischer, L., 17, 43n, 61, 170, 188–9 Flandin, P.-E., 262 Franco, Gen., 130, 132, 133, 250, 251 François-Poncet, A., 97, 119, 121, 163 Frédérix, P., 208n Gaboriaud, L., 161, 182 Gafenku, 271 Gaikis, L., 213, 214–15 Galkovich, 239 Gamarnik, Ya, 216 Gamelin, Gen., 123, 262 Gauché, Lt-Col, 156n George, Lloyd, 160, 250, 285

Gnedin, E., 55, 60, 76, 77, 117, 213, 219, 280 Goebbels, J., 119, 136 Goering, Herbert, 137 Goering, Hermann, 97, 117, 137 Gottwald, K., 254, 255, 256 Great Break, the, 1, 11, 20, 21, 52, 56, 66, 103 Greenwood, A., 160 Grin’ko, G., 70, 71 Gromyko, A., 240, 285 Guelfand, M., 188 Gurevich, M., 68, 75 Halifax, Lord, 252, 267, 276 Herriot, E., 98, 100, 101, 102, 121, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165–6, 167, 178, 185, 194, 222 Hershel’man, E., 55, 60, 68, 185, 213 Hilger, G., 51, 61 Hirshfel’d, E., 54, 55, 118, 140, 141, 161, 163, 173, 183, 189, 198, 213, 225, 280 Hitler, A., 2, 4, 5, 29, 35, 37, 43n, 78, 79, 80, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96–7, 98, 101, 109, 111, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 126, 129–30, 131, 133, 134, 136, 137, 139, 161, 175, 198, 199, 221, 231, 248, 249, 252, 253, 254, 257, 259, 260–1, 262, 263, 264, 265–6, 267, 268, 271, 277, 279, 281 Hoare, Sir S., 166 Hoden, M., 171–2, 189, 195, 200 Holsti, R., 276 Horthy, Adm., 74 Hudson, R., 266 Hugenberg, A., 95, 113 Husarek, Gen., 258 Jauneaud, Col, 125 Jouhaux, L., 187 Kagan, S., 60, 127, 159 Kaganovich, L., 6, 16, 18, 74, 94, 96, 128, 131, 136, 137, 138, 177, 214, 229, 232, 233, 254 Kalinin, M., 216 Kamenev, L., 67, 221, 233 Kamo, 46

INDEX

Kandelaki, D., 117, 118, 119, 121, 138, 150n Karakhan, L., 13, 50, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65–6, 95, 213 Karpov, V., 88n Karsky, M., 213 Kautsky, K., 47 Kayser, J., 162 Kellogg, F., 13 Khinchuk, L., 53, 59, 60, 64, 67, 68, 93, 95, 96–7, 111, 112, 117, 177 Kin, V., 217, 242n Kirov, S., 13, 14, 197–8, 233 Klyshko, N., 48 Kobetsky, M., 54, 68 Kollontai, A., 48, 53, 55, 58, 59, 73, 74, 169–70, 185–6, 275, 279, 280, 284–5 Kol’sky, A., 76 Komarovsky, N., 215 Kondratiev, N., 66 Korzhenko, V., 219 Kossior, S., 216, 217, 218 Krapivintsev, P., 216 Krassin, L., 54 Krestinsky, N., 13, 53, 54, 60, 64, 65, 67, 72, 100, 112, 117, 128, 178, 213, 218, 230 Krushchev, N., 217 Krupskaya, N., 217 Krylenko, N., 38–9n Kuibyshev, V., 13, 51 Kuusinen, O., 23 Lapinsky, L., 55 Lashkevich, G., 59, 68, 213 Laugier, H., 162 Laval, P., 108–9, 110, 119, 121, 164–5, 166, 178, 182, 185, 190, 222 Lavrentiev, A., 240, 241 League of Nations, the, 12, 31, 32, 33, 35–6, 37, 59, 60, 68, 76, 77, 79, 80, 98, 101, 102, 108, 110, 112, 115, 121, 128, 129, 130, 158, 160, 163, 164, 165, 169–75, 185–8, 190–6, 199–200, 224–5, 229, 237, 250, 257–8, 274, 275, 276 Leeper, Sir R., 49 Léger, A., 104, 110, 140, 141, 163, 172 Lenin, V., 1, 2, 16, 21, 46, 47, 50, 66, 67, 73, 193, 212, 217

339

Levichev, V, 96 Listopad, P., 224, 238 Locarno, pact of, 12, 98, 110, 126 Lorensson, E., 284 Loveday, A., 186 Low, Sir S., 49 Lozovsky, S., 216, 281–2, 283, 285 Lukyanov, S., 176, 205n Lunacharsky, A., 78, 94 Luxemburg, R., 47 Madariaga, S. de, 192 Maisky, I., 54, 55, 58, 59, 68, 69, 73, 93, 112, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132–4, 135, 159, 161, 250, 251, 255, 257, 261, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268, 269, 272, 275–6, 279, 281, 283, 284, 285 Malenkov, G., 218, 232, 238, 239, 240, 283, 284 Mallet, A., 161 Mandel, G., 166–7, 169, 254 Marin, L., 252 Markus, B., 187 Martin, W., 163 Massigli, R., 108, 163, 192, 200, 255 Mendras, Col, 101 Menzhinsky, V., 27 Merekalov, A., 231, 268, 271, 272 Mikoyan, A., 13, 14, 24, 25, 72, 147n, 216, 218, 229, 230, 283 Mironov, B., 76 Molotov, V., 3, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 31, 35, 36, 70, 93, 103, 105, 113–14, 116, 117, 126, 137, 138, 216, 217, 218, 221, 222, 228–9, 230, 231, 232–3, 235, 236, 238, 239–40, 241, 254, 255, 258, 270, 271–2, 273, 274–5, 276–7, 278, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286 Monzie, A. de, 165 Motta, G, 193, 194 Murray, G., 171 Mussolini, B., 73, 94, 102, 129, 132, 133, 134, 166, 250 Nadolny, R., 119, 149n Naggiar, E., 265 Nansen, F., 171, 196–7 Navailles, Mme de, 196 Nazarov, P., 213

340

MEN OF INFLUENCE

Nazi-Soviet Pact, 6, 7, 92, 234, 248, 264, 274 Negrin, L., 134, 155n NEP (New Economic Policy), 21, 22, 27, 33, 52, 63, 66 Neuman A, 55, 76, 213 Neurath, K. von, 111, 116, 119, 138, 139, 249 Nicole, L., 190 Nikitnikova, O., 239 Nikolaiev, M., 217 Nikolayev, L., 197 Noël, L., 163, 164 Ordzhonikidze, G., 16, 18, 25, 138 Orlov, P., 240 Ossinsky, N., 55, 171 Ostrovsky, M., 215 Osusky, S., 121 Ovey, Sir E., 38n Palasse, Col, 261 Papen, F. von, 93 Pashunakis, E., 55 Paul-Boncour, J., 99, 100, 101–2, 128, 129, 162, 166, 252, 255 Payart, J., 257 Péri, G., 141 Pertinax (André Géraud), 161, 163, 166, 167, 182, 189, 260 Petrovsky, G., 74, 217 Pfeiffer, E., 100, 162, 163 Plekhanov, G., 47 Plotkin, M., 213, 239 Plotnikov, V., 238 Podol’sky, B., 57–8, 213 Pollitt, H., 79 Poskrebyshev, A., 215, 220 Postyshev, P., 74, 217 Potemkin, V., 54, 58, 60, 68, 71, 73, 119, 121, 123, 124, 139, 140, 141, 142, 161, 163, 165–6, 167, 168, 169, 178, 180–1, 190, 197, 200, 215–16, 218, 219, 224, 230, 238, 239, 255, 257, 259, 265, 270–1, 277, 278, 279, 281 Prato, A., 189, 190 Preobrazhensky, E., 51 Prieto, I., 134–5, 155n Pyatakov, G., 24, 25, 74, 213, 221 Pyatnitsky, O., 27, 67, 69, 78, 168

Quilici, F., 161, 163, 166, 181, 184–5 Radek, K., 19, 55, 77, 99, 213, 221 Raievsky, S., 205n, 217 Rajchman, L., 172 Rakovsky, K., 17, 27, 213 Rapallo, treaty of, 12, 23, 32, 62, 92, 94, 95, 111, 112, 120 Raskol’nikov, F., 54, 57, 58, 72, 213, 226 Réquin, Gen., 49 Reynaud, P., 101, 141, 167, 169, 253, 279 Ribbentrop, J. von, 119 Rolin, H., 198 Rolland, R., 180, 181, 182, 206n Romm, V., 188 Roosevelt, F., 103, 281, 282 Rosenberg, A, 95, 97, 113, 119, 136 Rotshtein, A., 95, 97, 113, 119, 136 Rotshtein, F., 48, 55, 58, 188 Rozenberg, M., 60, 75, 93, 100, 101, 112, 119, 130, 131, 132, 133, 162, 165, 170, 171, 173, 174, 213 Rozenblum, B., 28, 55, 59–60, 76, 108, 170, 171, 185, 186, 225 Rozengol’ts, A., 16, 25, 30, 147n, 150n, 213, 216 Rubinin, E., 60, 67, 279, 281, 285 Runciman, Lord W., 257 Rykov, A., 13–14, 22, 216, 222 Sabanin, A., 102, 213 Sadoul, J., 165, 222 Sandler, R., 193 Sargent, Sir O., 134 Schacht, Dr H., 117, 118, 119, 121, 138 Schleicher, Gen. von, 97 Schmitt, G., 218–19 Schneider, E., 125 Schnurre, Dr K., 265 Schulenburg, F. von, 273 Schweisguth, Gen., 123, 124, 139 Seeds, Sir W., 267 Semenov, A., 56, 139–40, 169, 225 Serge, V., 44

INDEX

Shaw, B., 48 Shkiryatov, M., 217 Shtein, B., 33, 55, 59, 60, 71, 76, 127, 169, 171, 173, 196, 197, 215, 224, 265, 275, 276, 279, 280–1, 282, 284, 285 Shtern, D., 67, 112, 149n, 213 Shvernik, N., 56 Simon, Sir J., 162 Sokolin, V., 59, 60, 75, 80, 159, 161, 168, 170, 171, 172–3, 174, 183, 200, 274, 279 Sokol’nikov, G., 42n, 53, 57, 58, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 213, 219, 221 Souvarine, B., 8n Staline (Stalin), J., 2–7, 11–28, 31, 51, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70, 74, 77, 92, 94, 102, 103, 104, 105, 109, 110, 114–15, 116, 119, 122–3, 124, 126, 128, 130, 131–2, 136–7, 138, 171, 175, 176, 178, 189, 198, 199, 201, 215, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 226, 228–30, 231–3, 236, 238, 241, 249, 252, 253, 254–5, 256, 258, 261, 264, 265, 266, 267, 269, 270, 271, 272, 274, 275, 282, 283, 284, 286 Stashevsky, A., 231 Stetsky, A., 76 Stomonyakov, B., 43n, 53, 58, 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 106, 147n, 213, 218, 219, 230 Stoppani, P., 186, 225 Stresemann, G., 12 Surits, Ya, 53, 54, 59, 67, 73, 80, 112, 117, 119, 120, 128, 136, 137, 138, 168, 216, 249, 259, 262, 263, 267, 270, 277, 279, 282, 285 Svanidze, A., 171, 186, 225 Tabouis, G., 161, 162–3, 166, 167, 180, 181, 182, 184–5, 260 Tardieu, A., 101, 104, 130 Tell, W., 199 Temperley, Maj.-Gen., 49

341

Thorez, M., 79, 164, 252–3 Tikhmenov, N., 213 Togliatti, P., 79–80 Trotsky, L., 1, 2, 16, 17, 22, 27, 47, 50, 67, 74, 179, 197, 199, 200, 218, 221 Troyanovsky, A., 55, 64, 70, 179, 279, 284 Tsyurupa, A., 51 Tukhachevsky, M., 96, 97–8, 100, 123, 139 Uborevich, I., 97 Umansky K., 55, 76 Uritsky, S., 220 Ustinov, A., 53, 54 Vallet, C., 161, 163–4, 181 Vansittart, Sir R., 139, 161, 257 Varga, E., 54, 55, 76, 126 Vassiliev, S., 73 Veinberg, F., 58, 213, 215, 218–19 Veinstein, 239 Ventsov, S., 101, 123, 125, 127, 170 Versailles, treaty of, 12, 33, 79, 93, 114, 115, 271 Viart, Comte C. de, 185 Vinogradov, B., 213, 224 Voroshilov, K., 13, 16, 18, 95, 96, 117, 125, 134, 138, 216, 217, 218, 229, 232, 254, 255, 256, 281, 283, 284 Vyshinsky A., 222–3, 224, 233, 281, 283, 284 Walters, F., 172 Weizmann, C., 48 Weizsäcker, E. von, 271 Zeeland, P. van, 194 Zhdanov, A., 222, 230, 232, 233, 234– 6, 254 Zillicaus, K., 172, 204 Zinoviev, G., 66, 197, 232–3 Zukherman, V., 213 Zvavich, I., 55