Russia at war 1941-1945

consulting old officers who received their education in the old Cadet schools... The boys will be chosen from among the sons of soldiers and partisans, and also from

among children whose parents were killed by the Germans... The uniforms are

modelled on Red Army uniforms, with epaulettes and other markings; so that from

childhood the boys should develop a feeling of love and respect for the uniform... We

have already received many applications, for an officer considers it an honour that his

son should carry on his military traditions. (Emphasis added.)

For some weeks afterwards the press, particularly the military press, went on publishing articles by old generals, notably by Lieut-Gen. Shilovsky, giving an attractive account of their days in the old Cadet School under the old régime.

A year later, when I visited the Suvorov School at Kalinin, I found that, among the

subjects the budding little officers were taught were English, fine manners and old-time ballroom dances (the waltz, the mazurka, the pas-de-quatre, etc.). On the walls, there were large pictures of Suvorov, but also equally large ones of Stalin and of numerous Red Army generals.

All this went together with the revival of the Church in Russia, already described.

September 1943 saw the crowning of the Patriarch of Moscow, and the visit of the

Archbishop of York.

No doubt all this was partly intended for foreign consumption; it was useful to put

Churchill and Roosevelt in a good mood, and to get the New York Times to talk about a

"return to Tsarism" and even perhaps to capitalism. But it was more than that: the dissolution of the Comintern, the establishment of the Suvorov Schools, General

Krivitzky's articles, in October 1943, on "the glorious traditions of General Brusilov"

[The most successful Russian general of World War I], the election of the Patriarch, and the orgy of gold braid and new uniforms—uniforms for diplomats, uniforms for

railwaymen ("and why not," Ehrenburg later said, "for poets, with one, two or three lyres on their epaulettes? ")—all this was strangely significant of the Stalinist Great-Russian ultra-nationalism of 1943— a year that contrasted so strikingly with the année terrible only two years before, or even with one year before.

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Not that the "Socialist" side of things was being entirely neglected: alongside with the Suvorov Schools for a new officer caste a large network of Trade Schools for metal

workers and others was to be set up in nine of the liberated areas; and there was nothing

"Tsarist" about these; and, in 1944, as we shall see, there was a return, in some respects, to "Leninist Purity" and a drive for greater "Soviet-consciousness"; but this was, somehow, less striking than the manifestations of Great-Russian ultra-nationalism of 1943.

It all had a certain bearing on Stalin's relations with Britain and America. It seems significant, for instance, that in the November 7, 1943, slogans the very mention of capitalism should have been avoided.

The first of the slogans said: "Hail the 26th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution which overthrew the power of the Imperialists in our country, and proclaimed peace among all the nations of the world!"

And the other slogans were "Long live the victory of the Anglo-Soviet-American

Coalition! " "Long live the valiant Anglo-American troops in Italy!" "Greetings to the valiant British and American airmen striking at the vital centres of Germany! ", etc., etc.; and this was when the British Ambassador, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, told me that Stalin had assured him that "in a way, he, too, believed in God."

How deep this regard for the Allies was in Party and Komsomol circles may, however, be questioned. On October 27, at a meeting celebrating the 25th anniversary of the

Komsomol—that was the time of the Foreign Ministers' Conference in Moscow, and the

"November slogans" had already been published—N. A. Mikhailov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, paid tributes to Lenin, Stalin, the Army, and the Party, but did not mention the Allies at all.

There was below the surface something of a conflict at that time between "Holy Russia"

and the "Soviet Union". Sometimes compromises were reached between the two. Thus, on the question of the new State Anthem a curious compromise was reached at the end of 1943. No new Anthem by Shostakovich or Prokofiev was approved; but the new