German and Italian planes, following General Franco’s directives, had sunk 10 British-registered merchant ships and seriously damaged 37 more that were en route to Spanish Republic ports, but even after outrage had erupted in the House of Commons, Neville Chamberlain had merely told his Tory cabinet that if Franco “must bomb the Spanish [Republic] government ports he must use discretion and that otherwise he might arouse a feeling in this country which would force the government to take action.”7 Franco had sent a letter to Chamberlain thanking him for his “friendship” and underscoring how both leaders stood for “world peace.” In Stalin’s mind, Spain had starkly illuminated not only the limits of Soviet relations with the West, but also the expansiveness of British-French accommodation with “fascism” (Germany, Italy, and a Francoist Spain). Conversely, the limited but bloody purges inside the Spanish Republic further reinforced doubts among the Western powers about security cooperation with Stalin.
Unlike Litvinov—no less a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist—Stalin refused to distinguish between the imperialists, as either “pacific” (democratic) or “aggressor” (fascist). He divided the world into just two camps, and for him, as for Lenin, all diplomacy amounted to two-faced intercourse with enemies.8 This stance facilitated a flexible readiness to contemplate either of two diametric opposites: the expedient of “collective security” with the “democratic” capitalists, in Litvinov’s parlance, or détente with the “fascists.” Post-Munich, Stalin would renew the Soviet efforts at negotiations with Britain and France against Germany. Simultaneously, he would ramp up his so far failed stratagems to reach rapprochement with Hitler’s Germany, despite the venom about “Judeo-Bolshevism” out of Berlin.9 But the image of a wily Stalin brilliantly keeping his options open, to extract maximum advantage, is belied by the fact that neither Hitler nor Chamberlain proved at all forthcoming. Europe’s collective security dilemma, drawing in Japan, had deep structural foundations.
PERSONALITIES, REGIMES
In London, far too many British officials labored under the delusion that “moderates,” such as Göring, existed in the Nazi hierarchy and could act as restraining influences on Hitler.10 Some British officials held the view, largely originating with Nevile Henderson, the ambassador to Berlin, that Hitler was like Jekyll and Hyde: normally cautious and reasonable, but given to flying off the handle if provoked or humiliated. Others speculated that, like all dictators, he engaged in “foreign adventurism” to quiet domestic dissatisfaction.11 Still others subscribed to the view that his seemingly impetuous actions were driven by economic crisis, a view picked up from disaffected Germans.12 In Moscow, too, next to nothing of Hitler’s personality or the operation of his regime was well understood, beyond his uncanny success and Western indulgence of it.13 Walter Krivitsky, a Soviet intelligence officer (born Samuel “Shmelka” Ginsberg in Austro-Hungarian Galicia), had defected to the West and, in 1938, in the most authoritative Russian émigré newspaper and then in
Hitler’s early circumstances had been nowhere near as humble as Stalin’s. (Hitler’s father, a senior customs official in the Habsburg empire, earned roughly the same salary as a school principal, and then enjoyed a handsome pension.)15 But Hitler, too, had not completed his basic education, let alone attended university. No less a striver than Stalin, he had assembled an extensive private library, but he delighted in melodramas, the occult, German translations of Shakespeare, Carlyle’s biography of Frederick the Great, Henry Ford’s four-volume