Stalin полностью

Czechoslovakia was now surrounded on three sides by German troops, and its western border defenses were gone. Back when Stalin had agreed to mutual assistance pacts with France and Czechoslovakia, he had pledged to come to the latter’s aid if France did so first.²⁸ On the same day Hitler spoke in Vienna and Bukharin was executed, deputy foreign affairs commissar Potyomkin, who had taken over for the arrested Krestinsky, told the Czechoslovak ambassador that requests for reassurance should be addressed to Paris.²⁹ On March 21, 1938, Sergei Alexandrovsky, the Soviet envoy in Prague, warned his interlocutors that the defense of Czechoslovakia was not in the first instance the Red Army’s responsibility.³⁰ On March 26, Litvinov wrote to Alexandrovsky that “the Hitlerization of Austria has predetermined the fate of Czechoslovakia.” That day he had been in Stalin’s Little Corner, along with Molotov, Voroshilov, and others, for two hours.³¹ By March 27, the despot was compelled to close the Soviet embassy in Vienna “in connection with the elimination of the Austrian state.” Austria’s legation in Moscow was signed over to Hitler. On March 28, Stalin sent Marshal Kulik to Prague. Krejčí was again ingratiating, joining denunciations of Trotsky and asking Kulik point-blank, “Will you help us if the Germans attack?” According to the Soviet notetaker, “Comrade Kulik answered ‘that help will be forthcoming.’”³² But on March 29, Pravda warned that “German aggression against Czechoslovakia will occur only if Germany is sure that the other powers will not intervene on the Czech side. Thus, everything depends on the attitude adopted by France and Britain.”³³

Over in Spain, Franco’s forces reached the Mediterranean, slicing the Republic’s zone in two. At the same time, French intelligence, citing a “top-secret and completely reliable” source, reported on Germany’s war plans against Czechoslovakia.³⁴ On April 21, Stalin met in the Little Corner with Molotov, other minions, Litvinov, and Alexandrovsky, who was instructed to reaffirm that the Soviet Union stood with France and Czechoslovakia—a reminder of France’s obligations.³⁵ Hitler traveled to Italy, his second visit since becoming chancellor, seeking Mussolini’s assent to a Nazi plan to “take out” Czechoslovakia. Despite seven days of pomp, sightseeing, and spectacle recalling the visit of Holy Roman emperor Charles V in 1536, the Führer came away without a binding military pact.³⁶

Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš, who had studied for a law degree in France and had represented the new Czechoslovakia at Versailles, showed resolve, telling the Soviet envoy (May 18, 1938) that he would defend his state’s frontiers and sovereignty “with all the means at his disposal” and urging that this message be conveyed personally to Stalin.³⁷ Between May 19 and 22, under the impression that a German strike was imminent, in a repeat of the Austrian scenario, Beneš called up reservists, 199,000 men, which doubled the force structure, and he repositioned troops to the front lines in the Sudetenland. The British issued a formal protest of Hitler’s presumed war plans and evacuated nonessential staff from their Berlin embassy.³⁸ Whether a German offensive had been imminent remains uncertain; it appears that the Czechoslovaks had been fed disinformation.³⁹ The emergency Czechoslovak mobilization, in eliciting the warning from Britain to Germany, had made it seem as if Hitler had had to abandon his putsch at the last minute under pressure, which provoked his fury. In fact, Hitler had already decided on an attack, and the planning was well under way for a short war against Czechoslovakia, but now those secret plans were given stronger impetus and refined (with a target completion date of October 1).⁴⁰ Even more consequentially, hyper-war-averse Britain had accidentally emerged as the ostensible roadblock to Hitler’s continental Lebensraum and racial aspirations. French hostility—which Hitler took for granted—would be far more threatening if Britain stood shoulder to shoulder with France. The Führer began to contemplate the necessity of a war in the west as prelude to his eventual expansionism in the east.⁴¹

Germany’s heightened spring–summer preparations against Czechoslovakia became known to Stalin, who ordered the Kiev and Belorussian military districts reorganized into a special military command (with a completion deadline of September 1), but to unspecified purpose. The Soviet high command internally noted that the Czechoslovak army and populace were in a fighting mood, and that President Beneš, who had been born to a peasant family, seemed inclined to stand up for his country.⁴² But in Prague, the severe doubts about Moscow, which General Krejčí had expressed back in March, persisted. Would Stalin help defend them?

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