Stalin полностью

Stalin’s family had become an afterthought, but his children could suddenly remind him of their existence: that same day, Vasily happened to write a letter to his father. “Little Svetlana got things mixed up telling you that I want to come home for the [winter] holidays and that you authorized me to come,” he wrote. “Papa! I’ll not come home again until I finish school, even though I miss you very much. There is only a little time to go and I decided to tough it out, because I think that it would be more pleasant for you to see me after I’ve finished school, and for me too it would be more pleasant. I think you’ll understand me and agree with me.”⁹⁴

Internationally, Stalin made sure not to appear the aggressor. On November 13, V. I. Chuykov, commander of an army group, had baldly declared from the dais of the Belorussian Supreme Soviet, “If the party says so, we’ll follow the lines of the song—first Warsaw, then Berlin.” On the ciphered report from the Belorussian party boss, Panteleimon Ponomarenko, Stalin wrote a note for Voroshilov: “Chuykov, it seems, is a fool, if not an enemy element. I suggest you give him a swift kick. This is a minimum.”⁹⁵

On November 14, Schulenburg called on Molotov to ascertain the disposition of the Soviet-Finnish negotiations, and he found the foreign affairs commissar “very angry at the Finns” and downright mystified. Molotov voiced suspicions that the Finns’ stubbornness “was being bolstered by England.”⁹⁶

On November 23, Hitler would summon 200 Wehrmacht officers to urge accelerated preparations for an offensive against the Western powers. “The purpose of this conference is to give you an idea of the world of my thoughts, which governs me in the face of future events, and to tell you my decisions,” he began, before reviewing German history and developments under his rule, including the victory over Poland in a war he forced. Germany and he himself had to fight, Hitler insisted. “In fighting I see the fate of all creatures,” he noted, encapsulating his worldview. “Nobody can avoid fighting if he does not want to go under.” Hitler deemed this “struggle” to be “racial” and material (for oil, rubber, food), and he asserted that “the moment is favorable now; in six months it might not be so anymore.” Just weeks before, Hitler had escaped Elser’s attempt to assassinate him in Munich. “As a final factor I must, in all modesty, list my own person: irreplaceable,” Hitler concluded. “Neither a military nor a civilian personality could take my place. Attempts at assassination may be repeated. . . . The fate of the Reich depends on me alone.”⁹⁷

Stalin, as earnestly as he worked for a deal, seems not to have grasped that a Finnish concession of any national territory, in purely procedural terms, required a five-sixths majority in the Finnish parliament, which, the Finns explained, was far from automatic. Accustomed to the Supreme Soviet, he mocked this barrier, proposing that they count his and Molotov’s votes, too.⁹⁸ Nonetheless, it is beyond doubt that the despot was not crudely bullying the Finnish negotiators, as he had the Balts.⁹⁹ Why he was treating Finland differently remains unclear. It was not because he feared or even respected the Finnish military. Perhaps it was a dose of sentimentality: it had been in Finland that he first met Lenin, in December 1905, and he himself had found sanctuary there from the tsarist police.¹⁰⁰ Perhaps it reflected realism about the depth of Finnish national pride. Whatever the motive, Stalin was far from being maximalist, and he had reduced his demands multiple times. And yet he could not get the Helsinki government to take him at his word.¹⁰¹ Stalin’s track record and methods—beginning with the approaches by the NKVD station chief in Helsinki—did not inspire confidence. Still, in his own way, he had made plain his sincerity: he had attended six of the seven formal negotiations, on October 12, 14, and 23 (twice) and November 4 and 9. Stalin did not countenance, let alone attend, that many bargaining sessions with anyone else.

WISHFUL THINKING