94. DBFP, 2nd series, XIII: 364–71 (June 5, 1935), 477–84 (E. Drummond in Rome to Samuel Hoare, June 25); XIV: 329–33 (Drummond in Rome to Hoare); DGFP, series C, IV: 253–62 (June 4), 262–6 (June 4), 269–71 (June 5), 271 (June 5), 272–3 (June 5); Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I: 213. Germany’s Admiral Raeder had caught British attention in April 1935 when he had announced, in an obvious negotiating ploy, that Germany had begun to build twelve submarines. To London, it appeared to be a choice between a deal to get the Germans to proceed more slowly, as Hitler claimed he was inclined to do, or to build up the British fleet even more rapidly. But even beyond financial straits, the British admiralty rightly anticipated that between 1936 and 1941 their ship building capacity would be sufficient to replace the existing fleet but not to expand it. The British also reasoned, conveniently, that resistance to approving German rearmament of any kind (the French position) would only elicit a far stronger German action. And British naval intelligence concluded that Hitler needed a fleet for use against the Soviet Union in the Baltic Sea, not against Britain. Wark, Ultimate Enemy, 134–9, 141–2.
95. The battleship plans originally dated to Nov. 1934. Dülffer, Weimar, Hitler und die Marine, 570. In May 1936, Germany laid the keels for five instead of the agreed two A-cruisers. Hildebrand, Foreign Policy, 43. The Bismarck would be laid down in July 1936 (and finished in Sept. 1940), while the Tirpitz would be laid down in Oct. 1936 (and finished in Feb. 1941). The Germans reported the Bismarck to Britain as 35,000 tons displacement; in reality, the design was for 41,000. See also R. Ingrim, Hitlers Glücklichster Tag: London, den 18 Juni (Stuttgart: Seewald, 1962).
96. Aubrey Kennedy, the journalist, replied that Baldwin was more the kind of man to hear political proposals than expositions of ideas. Martel, Times and Appeasement, 180. Kennedy had written a book calling early for Versailles treaty revision. Kennedy, Old Diplomacy and New.
97. Most of the rest of the seats had to be purchased. Many of the attendees were political émigrés, such as Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich and Klaus Mann, Anna Seghers, and Robert Musil. Stalin evidently wanted to prevent an anti-German eruption, for though Shcherbakov had been dispatched to keep a watchful party eye on the proceedings, the dictator sent him a telegram to “harmonize all reports and speeches with our envoy Potyomkin.” Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 386n7 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 52, l. 114: June 20, 1935). Shcherbakov wrote privately in his diary, “there is not one tractor or motorcar on the roads of Poland . . . And Vienna loses its past greatness, and withers, and is dying.” Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 145 (citing RGASPI, f. 88, op. 1, d. 467, l. 1, 3–4); Golubev, “Esli mir obrushitsia na nashu Respubliku,” 13 (citing RGASPI, f. 88, op. 1, d. 467, l. 1).
98. Maksimenkov, Bol’shaia tsenzura, 384–6, n1 (RGASPI, f. 329, op. 2, d. 4, l. 160–161ob.), n2 (f. 17, op. 163, d. 1059, l. 186), n3 (d. 1063, l. 131; f. 558, op. 11, d. 52, l. 108), n5, n7; Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’, 256–7 (RGASPI, f. 88, op. 1, d. 472, l. 1–2: Shcherbakov to Stalin, May 27), 264–5 (f. 17, op. 3, d. 965, l. 42: June 19). A giant Gorky likeness was set up in the hall. Ehrenburg, living in Paris with a Soviet passport, had written worriedly to Bukharin (editor of Izvestiya, which published Ehrenburg) that “there will be few stars and many Bohemian wretches of the Trotskyite-anarchist type. Our delegation is peculiar: none speak foreign languages, and out of eighteen souls just five are even a bit known in the West as writers.” Voroshilov voted against Babel’s inclusion.
99. Ehrenburg’s denunciation: Literaturnaia gazeta, June 17, 1933, published in French translation in his essay collection Dumael, Gide, Malraux, Mauriac.
