Russia at war 1941-1945

have stopped being enemies. The political art in foreign affairs is... to reduce the number of enemies of one's country, and to turn yesterday's enemies into good

neighbours.

History has shown that enmity and war between Russia and Germany have never

led to any good. These two countries suffered more from the last World War than

any other.

Molotov obviously expected a new war in Europe to break out at any moment; but this

did not seem to worry him unduly: "Even if a military collision cannot be avoided in Europe, the scale of such a war will be limited. Only the partisans of a general war in Europe can be dissatisfied with this."

The Soviet-German agreement has been violently attacked in the Anglo-French and

American press, and especially in some "socialist" papers... Particularly violent in their denunciations of the agreement are some of the French and British socialist leaders... These people are determined that the Soviet Union should fight against Germany on the side of Britain and France. One may well wonder whether these

warmongers haven't gone off their heads. [Laughter.]

Under the Soviet-German Agreement, the Soviet Union is not obliged to fight either on the British or the German side. The USSR is pursuing her own policy, which is

determined by the interests of the peoples of the USSR, and by nobody else. [Loud

cheers.]

If these gentlemen have such an irresistible desire to go to war, well then—let them go to war by themselves, without the Soviet Union. [Laughter and cheers.] We'll see what kind of warriors they will make. [Loud laughter and cheers.]

Molotov had set the tone of the "debate".

Soon afterwards Shcherbakov rose to speak: "Two great nations," he said, "have solemnly declared their good-neighbourly relations... And now the Western socialists are furious. For they would like the Soviet Union and Germany to attack one another."

What Molotov had said about the British and French, Shcherbakov continued, showed

that, in their negotiations with the Soviet Union their attitude, especially that of the British, was insincere. There was no real desire to form a mutual assistance front. He then proposed that, in view of the "perfect clarity" of Molotov's statement, there should be no debate, that the policy of the Soviet government be approved and the Soviet-German

agreement ratified.

Needless to say, neither Molotov nor Shcherbakov had any grounds for fearing a debate; but there is no reason to suppose that it would have been marked by any high degree of enthusiasm.

A few hours later the Germans invaded Poland. Nothing was said in Moscow at that stage of the role that the Soviet Union was going to play in the destruction of that country, except for a slightly mysterious TASS statement on August 30 denying that Soviet troops were being transferred to the Far East:

On the contrary, TASS is authorised to state that, owing to the strained situation in the West, the garrisons on the Western frontier of the USSR are being reinforced.

Needless to say, Molotov's and Ribbentrop's Secret Protocol was not published. This, as we know, provided that "in the event of territorial and political transformations" the northern frontier of Lithuania would be the frontier of the Soviet-German "spheres of interest" in the Baltic States, and, roughly, the Narew-Vistula-San line the provisional demarcation line. The Soviet Union and Germany would subsequently decide whether to

maintain an independent Polish state, and if so, within what frontiers.