80. Soviet counterintelligence personnel did not trust even the Communists installed in power there by Moscow, especially in Estonia. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 306–7 (TsA FSB, f. 8os, op. 1, d. 81, l. 2; f. 14os, op. 1, d. 15, l. 201–2). On July 27, 1940, Stalin’s “big fleet” program was reined in: ten instead of fifteen battleships, eight instead of sixteen battle cruisers, even as two small aircraft carriers for the Pacific Fleet were added. Hauner, “Stalin’s Big-Fleet Program”; Rohwer and Monakov, Stalin’s Ocean-Going Fleet, 113.
81. The report reached Stalin the very next day. Naumov, 1941 god, I: 20–6 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 435, l. 39–51).
82. Of Chamberlain and the Tories, Cripps had publicly written, “I am convinced that our reactionaries have no genuine desire to enter into a reciprocal agreement with Russia, but rather wish to use Russia for our own purposes so that by embroiling Russia with Germany they may save their own skins.” Tribune, March 24, 1939.
83. Gorodetsky, Mission to Moscow, 42–3.
84. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, II/i: 197–99; Jones, Lloyd George, 247–8; Rudman, Lloyd George. Lloyd George had met Hitler in Sept. 1936, gushing that the Nazi desired friendship with the British people, had “achieved a marvelous transformation in the spirit of the [German] people, and was the greatest German of the age, the George Washington of Germany—the man who won for his country independence from all her oppressors.” He even concluded that “the establishment of a German hegemony in Europe, which was the aim and dream of the old pre-war militarism, is not even on the horizon of Nazism.” “I Talked to Hitler,” Daily Express [London], Nov. 17, 1936; Jones, Diary with Letters, 269.
85. Hanak, “Sir Stafford Cripps”; Gorodetsky, Mission to Moscow; Clarke, Cripps Version, 183–241.
86. “I am sorry for Sir S. Cripps, who is now entering the humiliating phase which all British negotiators in Moscow have to go through when they are simply kept waiting on the doormat until such time as the Soviet Government considers it desirable, as part of their policy of playing off one Power against the other to take notice,” a perceptive foreign office official in London observed on June 23, 1940. “Stalin hopes to be able to counter any German browbeating and nagging by pointing to Sir S. Cripps on the doormat, threatening to have him in and start talking with him instead of the German Ambassador.” Hanak, “Sir Stafford Cripps,” 59 (citing TNA, FO 371/24844 5853: Sir Orme Sargent).
87. The logbooks for Stalin’s office for July 1 list only Molotov, 5:35 p.m. until 6:25 p.m., but also note “last ones departed at 9:40 p.m.” It is likely that Molotov left to retrieve Cripps, who noted that the meeting commenced at 6:30 p.m., and returned with Cripps, but neither was recorded in the logbooks. Na prieme, 305. Cripps had handed Molotov the letter from Churchill at 5:00 p.m., according to the Soviet translator-notetaker Pavlov: DVP SSSR, XXIII/i: 399 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 2, pap. 10, d. 100, l. 1–2).
88. For the Soviet transcript of Cripps’s July 1, 1940, conversation with Stalin, see “Priem angliiskogo posla S. Krippsa,” Diplomaticheskii vestnik (Moscow, 1993), 74–7, reprinted in Sochineniia, XVIII: 190–7, and in DVP SSSR, XXXIII/i: 394–9 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 278, l. 4–11). For the British version, see Gorodetsky, Mission to Moscow, 52 (citing PRO, FO 371/24846, f. 10, N 6526/30/38: Cripps to the Foreign Office, July 16, 1940); and Clarke, Cripps Version, 192.
89. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 19–22; Gorodetsky, Stafford Cripps in Moscow, 52–5; Gorodetsky, Mission to Moscow, 60. For Churchill’s message to Stalin: Woodward, British Foreign Policy, I: 466–7. British embassy staff concluded that “nothing of importance emerged from this interview” with Stalin. Clarke, Cripps Version, 192 (citing FO 371/29464, f. 128).
90. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 19–22. Maisky was convinced the foreign office was sabotaging Cripps. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, II/i: 211–3 (July 1, 1940). Churchill later sought to scapegoat Cripps, but Gorodetsky exposed Churchill’s distortions. Gorodetsky, Mission to Moscow, 116–22. Still, there was some truth to Churchill’s remark concerning the Labourite Cripps that “we did not at that time realise that Soviet Communists [read: Stalin] hate extreme Left Wing politicians even more than they do Tories and Liberals.” Churchill, Second World War, II: 118.
