Stalin: A Biography полностью

Stalin and Molotov, with their limited diplomatic experience, assumed dual responsibility; and although Molotov occasionally stood up to Stalin in matters of ideology,¹² they never clashed about foreign policy. But this commonalty increased the country’s jeopardy. Stalin could scarcely have fashioned a more perilous arrangement in which decisions of state might be taken. He alone took the supreme decisions. On his mental acuity depended the fate of his country and peace in Europe and the Far East. Most leaders would have lost sleep over this burden of responsibility. Not Stalin. He was supremely self-confident now that he had liquidated those prominent intellectuals who had made him feel edgy and — deep down in his mental recesses — inadequate. He learned fast and prided himself on his mastery of detail. He had never lacked will power. The rest of the Politburo, terrified by the purges of 1937–8 and immersed in their other vast functions of governance, left foreign policy to the Boss. Steadily the inner group was left out of discussions. Yet its members remained impressed by his competence and determination. This was a situation which beckoned to disaster. Disaster was not long in paying a visit.

An event occurred in the early hours of 24 August 1939 which shocked the world when the USSR and Germany sealed a ten-year non-aggression pact. The ceremony took place in Molotov’s office in the Kremlin with Stalin in attendance,¹ and the two foreign ministers — Molotov and Ribbentrop — appended their signatures. Six years of mutual vilification between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich ended. Pravda ceased to excoriate Hitler and Nazism in its editorials and Hitler stopped criticism of ‘Judaeo-Bolshevism’. Anti-German films were withdrawn from Soviet cinemas; anti-Soviet pamphlets and books were taken down from the shelves of German bookshops. Two dictatorships which had supported opposite sides in the Spanish Civil War embraced each other.

Stalin in his dog-eared tunic looked over Molotov’s left shoulder as he signed the document. Like Lenin with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, he kept back in case things turned out badly. Stalin was delighted with the way things had turned out since Ribbentrop’s arrival at the Central Aerodrome on the previous day. Ribbentrop had come to the Kremlin in mid-afternoon, where Stalin and Molotov met him. For Ribbentrop, this was a sign that the Soviet leadership really had a serious interest in a deal with the Third Reich. Diplomatic notes had passed between Berlin and Moscow for three weeks. Ribbentrop had come to propose an agreement to settle the Soviet–German relationship from the Baltic Sea down to the Black Sea. Hitler’s immediate objective was an invasion of Poland, but the enterprise would be perilous without the USSR’s collusion. The Führer authorised Ribbentrop to arrange a non-aggression treaty between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The proposed treaty anticipated the division of the northern regions of eastern Europe into two zones of Soviet and German influence; it also laid down a scheme to increase mutually beneficial trade. Ribbentrop had flown to Moscow to stress that Hitler, despite being the author of Mein Kampf, was in earnest.

The willingness of Stalin to enter such an arrangement with Nazi Germany had been strengthened by the half-heartedness of diplomatic efforts by alternative powerful partners. By mid-August the prospect of alliance with Britain and France had disappeared, and each day made any German offer more tempting. Molotov on Stalin’s instructions sent a confidential note agreeing to diplomatic talks. Germany’s impatience was growing. Hitler needed to invade and subjugate Poland before winter set in. On 19 August Stalin intimated that Moscow was ready to receive Ribbentrop. Such was the haste of the rapprochement that Hitler had no time to attend — or perhaps he would not have gone to Moscow in any case.