Russia at war 1941-1945

that the Russians would not be beaten before the winter had set in, Stalin not only enormously impressed him as a person, but also convinced him that the Russians would hold the Germans, and were preparing for a very long war. "A man," Sherwood wrote of the Hopkins-Stalin meetings, "who feared immediate defeat would not have put

aluminium so high on the list of priorities. .. The very nature of Stalin's requests proved that he was viewing the war on a long-range basis."

And Sherwood added:

Hopkins later expressed extreme irritation with the military observers in Moscow

when they cabled darkly pessimistic reports that could be based on nothing but

mere guesswork coloured by prejudice.

[Sherwood, op. cit., p. 345.]

This Hopkins account of his meetings with Stalin is invaluable. It is, in fact, the only detailed first-hand account there is of Stalin at the height of the German invasion. Several points are worth noting. Anxious to obtain American aid, Stalin painted a more

favourable picture than was warranted by the progress of the war at the end of July 1941.

He carefully avoided any suggestion of the Red Army's acute shortage of tanks and

aircraft. He knew that he could hardly expect anything at once and therefore stressed himself the desirability of building up the Soviet air force and armour in readiness for a spring campaign in 1942. He quite deliberately created the impression of planning for a long-term war. But he was not "currying favours"; he took it for granted that it was in both Britain's and America's interests to help Russia.

He went, of course, seriously wrong in assuming that the Germans would not advance

more than 125 miles, that the Russians would keep not only Moscow and Leningrad, but also Kiev, and that the front would become stabilised by the beginning of September, or the beginning of October at the latest. Was there not an element of bluff in his apparent optimism?

It was on the basis of Hopkins's reasonably optimistic forecast that the Stalin-

Beaverbrook-Harriman conference was to meet on September 29, a day before the "final"

German offensive began against Moscow.

The assurance given to Hopkins that Kiev would be held may well have accounted in part for Stalin's determination to hold on to the capital of the Ukraine; a decision which had, as we know, disastrous results.

One may well wonder, all the same, whether Stalin was not much more nervous about the general situation than would appear from Hopkins's account. The most striking

suggestion that Stalin made to Hopkins was that he would "welcome American troops on any part of the Russian front under the complete command of the American Army". More alarmist still were to be some of Stalin's dispatches to Churchill after the greater part of the Ukraine had been overrun by the Germans. Thus, on September 3 he wrote:

The position of the Soviet troops has considerably deteriorated in such vital areas as the Ukraine and Leningrad. The relative stabilisation of the front, achieved some three weeks ago, has been upset by the arrival of thirty to thirty-four German

infantry divisions and enormous numbers of tanks and aircraft... The Germans are

looking on the threat in the west as a bluff... They think they can well beat their enemies one at a time—first the Russians and then the British.

The loss of Krivoi Rog, etc., (he went on) has resulted in a lessening of our defence capacity and has confronted the Soviet Union with mortal danger... The only way out of this more than unfavourable situation is to open a second front this year

somewhere in the Balkans or in France... and simultaneously to supply the Soviet

Union with 30,000 tons of aluminium by the beginning of October and a minimum

monthly aid of 400 aeroplanes and 500 tanks (small or medium).