Russia at war 1941-1945

"closest co-operation" must continue between the three Powers after the war. A Four-Power Declaration (the work chiefly of Cordell Hull) was signed on the unconditional capitulation of the Allies' "respective" enemies; in addition to the Big Three, the Chinese Ambassador in Moscow also signed this document on his country's behalf. (The Russians were no longer much scared of provoking the Japanese and were anxious to please Hull who had set great store on this Declaration, which gave China a Great-Power status.) Another of the statements foreshadowed the constitution of a United Nations

Organisation. The Conference also published a statement on Austria, in effect warning the Austrians not to cooperate with Germany to the bitter end, and urging them to

contribute to their own liberation—a principle of which much was later to be made in Rumania, Bulgaria, etc. Finally the Conference published a Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin declaration on war criminals. They established the principle that these criminals would be returned for trial to the country where the alleged crimes had been committed.

Eden and Cordell Hull were optimistic both during and after the Conference. During an interval at the Bolshoi (they were playing the inevitable Swan Lake) I remember Eden telling me: "This is a good conference—better late than never. But the question of travelling to Moscow is infernally complicated. Here we've got to set up the right kind of machinery—we want it, and the Russians want it, too. If the machine is functioning, we'll find it much easier to deal with a problem like Poland. What we are striving for is to get the machinery set up, and to set as many things as possible down on paper."

He got this "machinery" in the form of the European Advisory Commission, but it was quite clear that both at the Moscow Conference and, later, at Teheran, Poland was among the problems that were inevitably shelved. At the Moscow Conference there was much

talk of getting both Turkey and Sweden into the war, but this led to nothing. On direct Soviet-Western military co-operation the Russians were still reserved, and did not

respond very favourably at first to the American proposal for shuttle bombing, with the setting-up of US air bases in Soviet territory. Nothing was going to be decided about this until February 1944.

Cordell Hull, though very tired at the end of the Conference, received the Press at the US

Embassy and sounded very pleased:

When I started out over here, (he said) most people thought that nothing would

come of this meeting, since Russia was liable to go the isolationist way.

[ It is amusing to think that, just as Hull dreaded Russian isolationism so, by 1945, the Russians dreaded American isolationism—one reason, by the way, why they insisted on

UN having its headquarters in the USA.]

Yet we exchanged at length our views, and were tremendously gratified to find that the Soviet statesmen were more and more disposed towards the view that

isolationism was bad... Now the spirit of co-operation has been born, and we can

begin to build. Now, indeed, was the time to get together. The foundations have been laid. Some problems are delicate and complicated, but with the spirit of harmony

existing between us, nothing can bring estrangement."

He then hinted that the three heads of governments would meet shortly, and sounded

particularly pleased with the Four-Power Declaration which included China. There was, however, still a Herculean task ahead of the Allies—problems like the future of Poland and Germany had not yet been settled, but consultation on both questions were in

progress.

He also said that AMGOT (Allied Military Government in Occupied Territories) would

gradually disappear and that the EAC would have an ever-growing number of problems

to deal with. And then:

Stalin is a remarkable person showing at once unusual ability and judgment and a

grasp of practical problems. He is one of the leaders who, together with Roosevelt and Churchill, has a responsibility which no other man may have in the next 500