negotiate another Munich-style deal, leaving Hitler on his borders?
Stalin therefore required a contractual military alliance with the West if he was not to turn to Hitler. On 29 June, Zhdanov backed the German option in a
Britain and France had despatched a hapless and ludicrously low-level delegation to Moscow by slow steamship to offer an alliance but no guarantee of Soviet frontiers and no freedom of action in the Baltics. When Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (author of a book called
Stalin was unimpressed with the quadruple-barrelled Admiral when he discussed the delegations with Molotov and Beria: “They’re not being serious. These people can’t have the proper authority. London and Paris are playing poker again…”
“Still the talks should go ahead,” said Molotov.
“Well if they must, they must.” This was now turning into an auction for Stalin’s favours but with only one serious bidder. In Germany, meanwhile, Hitler decided to invade Poland on 26 August: suddenly, the agreement with Stalin was desperately necessary. The meetings with the Western powers only got started on 12 August but the gap between what the West was willing to offer and the price Stalin demanded was unbridgeable. That day, the Russians signalled to the Germans that they were ready to start negotiations, even on the dismemberment of Poland. On the 14th, Hitler decided to send Ribbentrop, his Foreign Minister, to Moscow. On the 15th, the German Ambassador Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg requested a meeting with Molotov, who, rushing to check with Stalin, reported that Russia was ready. When this news reached Ribbentrop, he hurried to tell Hitler at the Berghof. On the 17th, Voroshilov proposed a treaty of mutual military assistance to the British and French but added that there was no point in continuing the discussion until they had persuaded the Poles and Romanians to allow the passage of Soviet troops in the event of a German attack. But Drax had not yet received orders from London.
“Enough of these games!” Stalin told Molotov. “The English and French wanted us for farmhands and at no cost!” On the afternoon of Saturday the 19th, Molotov hurriedly summoned Schulenburg, handing him a draft non- aggression pact that was more formal than the German version but contained nothing objectionable. Having signed the trade treaty that Stalin had specified was necessary before the real business could begin, the Germans, whose deadline was fast approaching, waited with a gambler’s anticipation. Hitler shrewdly decided to cut the Gordian knot of mutual trust and prestige by personally addressing Stalin in a telegram dated 20 August: “Dear Mr. Stalin.” Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov agreed to the reply:
To Chancellor of Germany A. Hitler. Thank you for your letter. I hope the German–Soviet agreement of non- aggression will be a turning point towards serious improvement of political relations between our countries… The Soviet government has instructed me to inform you that it agrees to Mr. Ribbentrop visiting Moscow on 23 August.
Far to the east, that Sunday the 20th, Georgi Zhukov, commander of the Soviet army on the Khalkin-Gol River, launched a formidable cannonade against the Japanese, then attacked across the front. By the 23rd, the Japanese were defeated with losses as high as 61,000 men, a bloody nose that was enough to dissuade them from attacking Russia again.
At 3 p.m. on Monday the 21st, Molotov received Schulenburg who passed on Hitler’s request for a meeting on the 23rd. Two hours later, he and Stalin confirmed the historic visit of Ribbentrop. Suddenly the two dictators were no longer holding back but hurtling towards one another, arms outstretched. At 7 p.m. the next day, Voroshilov dismissed the British and French: “Let’s wait until everything has been cleared up…”[152]
Stalin’s reply reached Hitler at eight-thirty that evening: “Marvellous! I congratulate you,” declaimed Hitler, adding, with the flashiness of the entertainer: “I have the world in my pocket.”
That night, Voroshilov was leading a vital delegation of the Soviet leadership on a duck-shooting expedition into the countryside. Khrushchev had just arrived from Kiev. Before setting off to shoot duck, Khrushchev dined with Stalin at the dacha. It was then that Stalin, “who smiled and watched me closely,” informed him that Ribbentrop was arriving imminently. Khrushchev, who knew nothing about the negotiations, was “dumbfounded. I stared back at him, thinking he was joking.”
“Why should Ribbentrop want to see us?” blurted out Khrushchev. “Is he defecting?” Then he remembered that he was going hunting with Voroshilov on the great day. Should he cancel?
“Go right ahead. There’ll be nothing for you to do… Molotov and I will meet Ribbentrop. When you return, I’ll let you know what Hitler has in mind…” After dinner, Khrushchev and Malenkov set off to meet Voroshilov at his hunting reserve while Stalin remained at the dacha to consider tomorrow. Unless he was in a very good mood, he thought “hunting was a waste of time.”[153] Perhaps it was that night that Stalin, reading Vipper’s
On Tuesday, 22 August, all the magnates visited the Little Corner some time during the day. If the details were secret, the policy was not. Its architects were Stalin assisted by Molotov and Zhdanov but there was no party against it. Even Khrushchev and Mikoyan, in their memoirs designed to blacken Stalin wherever possible, admitted that there was no choice. These Leninists, as Kaganovich put it, understood this was a Brest-Litovsk in reverse.
That evening, as the duck-shooters set off into the marshes of Zavidovo, seventy miles north-west of Moscow, the tall, pompous, ex–champagne salesman Ribbentrop set off in Hitler’s Condor aeroplane, Immelman III, with a delegation of thirty. At 1 p.m. on 23 August, Ribbentrop arrived and descended from the Condor in a leather coat, black jacket and striped trousers, impressed to find the airport emblazoned with swastikas. An orchestra played the German national anthem. Ribbentrop was then guided into a bullet-proof black ZiS (a Soviet Buick) by Vlasik. They sped into town for a short stop at the German Embassy for caviar and champagne. At three, Ribbentrop, due to meet Molotov, was driven through the Spassky Gate to the Little Corner. Ribbentrop was greeted by Poskrebyshev in military uniform and led up the stairs through anterooms, into a long rectangular room where they found Stalin, in Party tunic and baggy trousers tucked into boots, and Molotov in a dark suit, standing together.
When they sat down at the table, the Russians, with their interpreter N. N. Pavlov on one side, the Germans on the other, Ribbentrop declared: “Germany demands nothing from Russia—only peace and trade.” Stalin offered Molotov the floor as Premier.
“No, no, Joseph Vissarionovich, you do the talking. I’m sure you’ll do a better job than I.” They swiftly agreed to the terms of their pact which was designed to divide Poland and eastern Europe into spheres of influence—Stalin got Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia in Romania, though Hitler kept Lithuania.
But when Ribbentrop proposed a paean to German–Soviet friendship, Stalin snorted: “Don’t you think we have to pay a little more attention to public opinion in our two countries? For many years now, we have been pouring buckets of shit over each other’s heads and our propaganda boys could not do enough in that direction. Now all of a sudden, are we to make our peoples believe all is forgotten and forgiven? Things don’t work so fast.” With so much agreed so fast, Ribbentrop returned to the embassy to telegraph Hitler.
At 10 p.m., he arrived back at the Little Corner, accompanied by a much larger delegation and two photographers. When Ribbentrop announced that Hitler approved the terms, “a sudden tremor seemed to go
