Russia at war 1941-1945

in the dark, people presumably wouldn't do unless they felt like it. There could be no doubt about Stalin's authority, especially since that July 3 broadcast. He was the khoziain, the boss, who it was hoped knew what he was doing. Even so, people felt that things had gone badly wrong, and many were greatly surprised that Russia should have been

invaded at all.

Patriotic plays were being concocted, such as The Confrontation in Tairov's Kamerny Theatre, in which a German agent finally gives up in despair, finding all the Russian people completely united; or plays about Suvorov or Kutuzov, those victorious "Russian ancestors". The Ermitage Garden continued to be crowded on Sundays by a half-civilian, half-military public; here, in a crowded hall, Busia Goldstein played Tchaikovsky's

Violin Concerto, while in one of the theatres they were playing "satirical sketches"

ridiculing Hitler and Goebbels, and German soldiers and German generals and German

paratroopers, who were always outwitted by the patriotic Russian villagers. None of it, perhaps, terribly convincing in the circumstances. Nevertheless, people enjoyed it, and laughed.

Poets and composers were busy writing patriotic poems or patriotic war songs, and

soldiers would be seen marching down the streets singing the pre-war Little Blue Scarf, or Katyusha or V boi za rodinu, v boi za Stalina (Into battle for the country, into battle for Stalin), or Alexandrov's brand-new and solemn Sacred War, which was to remain a kind of semi-official anthem throughout the war years:

But alongside all this, many theatres continued as before—the Moscow Art Theatre going on with The Three Sisters, and Anna Karenina, and The School for Scandal, and the usual Bolshoi Ballet season opening at the end of September with Swan Lake, with

Lepeshinskaya dancing... This only a few days before the Germans' "final" offensive began...

The British and American Embassies were very active during those days. Cripps and

Steinhardt had become familiar Moscow figures, and could often be seen on newsreels.

At the end of July diplomatic relations were restored with the Polish Government in

London, though this was soon to lead to the first complications. When, a day or two after the Maisky-Sikorski Agreement of July 30, I asked Lozovsky whether the release of

Polish war prisoners had begun and whether steps had been taken to form a Polish Army in Russia, he became extremely cagey, saying that such steps were being taken, but with the Poles "scattered all over the Soviet Union", there were a lot of practical problems still to be settled; nor could he state how many Polish prisoners there were, since this would give away vital secrets to the enemy.

Soon after that Sikorski referred in a broadcast to the destruction of Poland by Germany and Russia in 1939, and demanded that Poland be restored within her 1939 frontiers.

Izvestia immediately protested:

Sorry, but frontiers are not immutable, and the British Government realises this, and has not guaranteed any East-European frontiers. Mr Eden said so the other

day. But with goodwill on both sides, Poland and the Soviet Union will settle this question, as they settled so many other questions. Moreover, Russia did not want to

"destroy" Poland, but merely wanted to prevent the Germans from getting too near Minsk and Kiev.

Diplomatic relations were also resumed with the exiled governments of Yugoslavia,

Belgium and Norway. An important Anglo-Soviet decision was to occupy Iran; a

decision which was to produce some unintentionally amusing stories in Pravda, whose correspondent, describing the enthusiasm with which the Soviet troops were welcomed

by the Persian population, quoted one old man as saying: "I welcome you in the name of Article 6 of the Treaty of 1921." This also gave rise to some bitter jokes like this one:

"Thank God we've occupied Persia; when the Germans have occupied the whole of

Russia, we'll have somewhere to run away to."

The highlight of diplomatic activity during that grim summer was Harry Hopkins's visit to be followed later by the Beaverbrook visit. All this, especially the Hopkins visit, had a cheering effect on the Russians. The exact purpose of the Hopkins visit was, of course, not disclosed at the time, except that it was assumed that the Americans were going to