Stalin полностью

Soviet class suspicions extended to Spanish military men fighting for the Republic. The same intelligence summary noted that, “up to now, officers and generals who are politically unreliable have had great influence in the bureaucracy of the war ministry and on the general staff and the staffs of the fronts. They are hindering and sabotaging measures for the organization and a more rational use of the Republic’s armed forces.”²¹ Complementing these class-politics suspicions was the Soviets’ low opinion of the Spaniards’ know-how.²² “In the Spanish army, the situation was so bad that our advisers were required to perform both organizational and operational combat tasks,” recalled Kirill Meretskov, a top Soviet military official in-country.²³ Of course, Soviet advisers knew little of Spanish history, mentalities, or language. Nikolai Kuznetsov, the chief naval adviser, had spent his first week wandering Madrid on his own, attempting to pick up a few words of the language, while evaluating the Republic’s military situation. Often, no interpreter was available, or only a terrible one. Officials in Moscow initially refused to accept “White Guard” émigré Russians who volunteered for the Republic. Even after Moscow relented, no more than one interpreter per ten Soviets was ever found.²⁴

Ignorance was only part of the challenge. Antonov-Ovseyenko nearly provoked the resignation of the Spanish finance minister, Negrín, who accused the Soviet representative in Barcelona of being “more Catalan than the Catalans.”²⁵ Many Soviet advisers were said to emulate feudal lords, keeping villas, Spanish wine caches, and concubines.²⁶ Ambassador Rosenberg projected imperiousness, being escorted everywhere by half a dozen bodyguards. “If he stepped into a pissoir on the Cuatro Caminos,” observed Louis Fischer, the fellow-traveling American journalist, “they surrounded its tin walls and waited.”²⁷ Rosenberg would visit Largo Caballero, with his sprawling entourage, and, like a proconsul, issue explicit instructions (“It would be expedient to dismiss X”).²⁸ The politburo, by telephone poll, had approved a directive that Rosenberg not force this or that decision on the Spanish government (“An ambassador is not a commissar, but at most an adviser”), but it was too late.²⁹ “Out you go! Go out!” Largo Caballero finally had shouted at Rosenberg, during a meeting in January 1937, loud enough for all those outside to hear. “You must learn, Señor Ambassador, that the Spaniards may be poor and need aid from abroad, but we are sufficiently proud not to accept that a foreign ambassador should try and impose his will on the head of the Spanish government.”³⁰

While Soviet condescension collided with local pride in Spain, in Moscow the Spanish Republic failed to finance its embassy during its first year or to keep its representative informed, even though Stalin afforded the ambassador, Dr. Marcelino Pascua—a medical statistician who spoke Russian—unusual access (as well as a two-story mansion, featuring eight bedrooms, four baths, two kitchens, and two salons). By protocol, Stalin did not receive foreign envoys, but in the Little Corner on February 3, 1937, he, along with Molotov and Voroshilov, received Pascua, who was carrying a personal letter from Largo Caballero (dated January 12).³¹ The Soviet trio warned the envoy that Spanish Republic codes were easy to break and urged him to use couriers instead of telegrams. (Eight months later, Voroshilov was still issuing the warning.) Pascua, for his part, indicated that Spain would like to sign a treaty of friendship. Stalin rebuffed him, disingenuously stating that “if Spain distanced itself somewhat from the USSR,” the Republic could “obtain aid from Britain.”³² The conversation lasted nearly five hours. Stalin asked Pascua to convey to the Spanish people his wishes “for a complete victory over the internal and external enemies of the Spanish Republic.”³³