Stalin полностью

Denunciation of the nonaggression declaration seemed to indicate a likely intention to attack Poland, for which Hitler might want to secure Soviet neutrality. His speech had conspicuously omitted the usual denunciations of “Judeo-Bolshevism,” which Western observers duly noted. German press attacks against the USSR ceased, as the Soviets duly noted.²⁸³ On May 3, 1939, General Karl Bodenschatz, Göring’s adjutant, warned the French military attaché in Berlin that “something is up in the East.” He repeated his warning to the Polish military attaché. (The next day was Litvinov’s dismissal.) Four days later, Bodenschatz informed the French ambassador in Berlin, Robert Coulondre, that Hitler wanted an agreement with the Soviet Union.²⁸⁴

VISIONS OF A DEAL

On the evening of May 5, the delayed Kremlin banquet for May Day parade participants took place in the St. George’s Hall, and among the artists summoned for the first time was Igor Ilinsky, the stage and film actor (of Volga-Volga fame), who read from Chekhov’s comic writing. “Everyone ate, drank, conversed,” Ilinsky complained, “and, it seemed, no one was listening to me.”²⁸⁵ Earlier that day, Merekalov had been recalled from Berlin, which left the embassy to Georgy Astakhov, the chargé d’affaires (rumored to be an NKVD intelligence operative). That same day, Karl Schnurre, head of the East European and Baltic section of the commercial policy department in the German foreign ministry, informed Astakhov, in a response to Merekalov’s inquiry regarding the Škoda Works, that its new German director would fulfill Soviet orders.²⁸⁶ Astakhov, according to the German notetaker, “was visibly gratified at the declaration and stressed the fact that for the Soviet Government the material side of the question was not of as great importance as the question of principle.” Astakhov then asked whether negotiations might be resumed. When Schnurre was noncommittal, Astakhov stressed the significance of Molotov’s replacement of Litvinov.²⁸⁷ Astakhov reported to Moscow in detail on the reaction in Germany to Litvinov’s dismissal, but he did not have access to Hitler.²⁸⁸

While Stalin’s embassy in Berlin also sought to drive home the significance of the personnel change, Germany’s embassy in Moscow buzzed with the implications of the dismissal of Litvinov (known on Nazi radio as “Litvinov-Finkelstein”). Each side’s functionaries reported that the other side looked eager for rapprochement.²⁸⁹ The timing was propitious: German economic planners were warning that Germany’s war machine might fall critically short of oil, rubber, and manganese, all of which Stalin could supply.²⁹⁰ But was Hitler interested? Internally, Göring had broached the idea of approaching Moscow, if only to frighten Warsaw into concessions.²⁹¹ Stalin had long suspected that Hitler might be simulating talks with Moscow in order to frighten London into cutting a deal with Berlin.

Britain’s stance vis-à-vis the Soviet Union offered no greater clarity, given the nonanswer to Moscow’s alliance proposal that Seeds had delivered to Litvinov (the day before the latter’s ouster was announced in the press). Litvinov vanished from public view. He was said to be playing bridge, reading poetry, taking walks at his state dacha, and learning to type. But Stalin did not authorize an arrest.²⁹² No sentimentality was involved. Litvinov’s destruction would have delivered an unequivocal signal abroad. Had the despot wanted to consign Britain and France to hell for good—and he did seem to want just that—he would be doing so with no security alternative at hand.²⁹³ Most worrisome, if he abandoned Britain and France definitively, they might cut a nightmare deal with Hitler behind his back.

A German-Japanese anti-Soviet coalition remained a possibility as well. Japan posed a significant threat to the Western powers’ colonies, and Germany sought to convert the Anti-Comintern Pact into a real military alliance with Japan in order to raise the cost of any British and French declaration of war against Germany on behalf of Poland. Sorge reported from Tokyo (May 5, 1939) that the Japanese side was divided: its navy sought to include as mutual enemies the United States and Britain, not just the Soviet Union, while Japan’s army dreamed about a joint war with Nazi Germany against the USSR.²⁹⁴ Germany was also hoping to sign binding military obligations with its Italian partner in the Axis. In Milan on May 6–7, Ribbentrop met Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law and the foreign minister, to iron out final details for a bilateral “Pact of Steel” (Mussolini had wanted to call it the Pact of Blood). Japan had been given no advance notice, but Ribbentrop informed a skeptical Ciano that Germany wanted to include Japan.²⁹⁵ For Stalin, getting some sort of deal with Hitler also promised to drive a crucial wedge between Tokyo and Berlin, and possibly with Italy, too.