Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 полностью

Having ascertained the Soviet bottom line, Matsuoka departed Moscow. In Berlin, Ribbentrop tried to dissuade him from signing any conclusive agreement with the USSR. Matsuoka, for his part, learned definitively that the Nazis would not be invading Britain—Japan would be on its own in taking on the Anglo-Americans—but that an invasion of the USSR was in the cards. He played a double game with the Germans regarding Japan’s intentions, payback for the 1939 surprise Hitler-Stalin Pact.¹⁵¹

On his way home, Matsuoka returned to Moscow on the day Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. Soviet negotiators were still demanding territorial concessions. Stalin intervened, receiving the Japanese on April 12 at the Near Dacha—unprecedented for a foreigner. The two evidently shared a rant against Britain and the United States. In the Kremlin the next day, Molotov and Matsuoka signed a neutrality pact vowing “to maintain peaceful and friendly relations” and remain neutral should either of them “become the object of hostilities on the part of one or several third powers.”¹⁵² It had taken eighteen months of talks about fishing rights and territories. In a separate declaration, the USSR recognized the territorial integrity of Manchukuo; Japan, of Mongolia.¹⁵³ Stalin would continue to aid China militarily.¹⁵⁴ A lubricated feast was laid on. With the Japanese foreign minister scheduled to depart that same day (April 13), the 4:55 p.m. Trans-Siberian was held up.

After Matsuoka had arrived at Moscow’s Yaroslavl Station, Stalin, in full view of the diplomatic corps, appeared, striding down the platform in his long military-style overcoat to see him off. An evidently tipsy despot placed his arms around the German ambassador, Schulenburg, telling him, “We should remain friends, and now you need to do everything for that!” When Stalin spotted a six-foot-tall German in full dress uniform (acting military attaché Colonel Hans Krebs), he tapped him on the chest. “German?” he asked. After an affirmative reply, Stalin slapped him on the back, took Krebs’s hand in both of his, and said, “We’ll remain friends, no matter what.” Krebs answered loudly: “I am convinced of that.” The schoolmarmish Molotov, staggering a few paces behind Stalin, “kept saluting all the time, shouting the motto of the Soviet scouts: “I am a Pioneer, I am [always] ready.” Stalin, escorting Matsuoka to his carriage, was heard to say, “We shall organize Europe and Asia.”¹⁵⁵

MASTER OF CEREMONIES

On April 18, Fitin sent Merkulov a report from “Lycée-ist” out of Berlin, conveying that an inside source had told him that Göring’s inner circle “was very worried about the problem of grain reserves in Germany,” especially after supplying 2 million tons to Spain and 1.5 million to France. “On its territory Germany cannot gather the quantity of wheat necessary to meet its minimal needs in 1941–1942. . . . It must seek new sources for wheat. According to German calculations, ‘an independent Ukrainian state,’ governed by Germans, with German organization and technology, can in the next two years not only meet the needs of Germany but satisfy the needs of the European continent.”¹⁵⁶ Did this mean outright seizure of Ukraine, or a demand for a “lease”? On April 20, “Yeshenko” reported from Bucharest on the movement of German troops from Yugoslavia back toward the Soviet frontier in Romania, and Antonescu’s increasing war preparations to retrieve Bessarabia.¹⁵⁷

The next day saw the annual commemoration of Lenin’s death at the Bolshoi and the culmination of a Ten-Day festival of Tajik art (April 12–21, 1941) in Moscow, involving some 750 participants.¹⁵⁸ Stalin attended the Tajik ballet Du Gul (“Two Roses”) and the concert finale at the Bolshoi, lingering after the performance until 2:00 a.m. He hosted the Tajik delegation on April 22 at the Kremlin, regaling attendees with stories about Matsuoka and Lenin. “We are . . . the students of the great Lenin,” the despot told the Tajiks. “I, as a Bolshevik, must say it is necessary to remember this man, who trained us, forged us, led us, made us into people, taught us not to know fear in struggle.” Stalin continued: “He created a new ideology of humanity, an ideology of friendship and love among peoples, equality among races. An ideology that holds one race above others and calls for other races to be subordinated to that race is a moribund ideology; it cannot last long.” After this reference to Nazism, Stalin concluded that “the Tajik people is a distinctive one, with an old, rich culture. It stands higher than the Uzbeks and Kazakhs.”¹⁵⁹