Russia at war 1941-1945

Just to add to your sorrows.

If we have crossed the frontier,

It is not to make you afraid;

We do not want you to cringe to us;

Proudly you can hold up your heads.

In fact, the great majority of "real" Poles were to remain under German occupation, as most of the people in the areas taken over by the Russians were Ukrainians or

Belorussians. As we now know, the NKVD soon got busy in the liberated territories of the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. The deportation to the east of "hostile" and

"disloyal" Poles was to run into hundreds of thousands. They were to constitute a major political problem in 1941-2. The Polish soldiers captured by the Russians were

demobilised before long, but most of the captured Polish officers were to remain in

Russian captivity—with dire consequences, as we shall see.

The land reform in the liberated areas—a reform described in the Soviet press as early as September 27 as "the distribution of landlord estates"—began almost at once.

On September 27 Pravda published a map of Poland showing the provisional

demarcation line between the Russian and German armed forces. This ran from the southeast corner of East Prussia down to Warsaw and then further south along the river San.

On the following day Ribbentrop came on his second visit to Moscow. On September 29

Pravda published a large front-page photoigraph showing Molotov signing the German-Soviet Agreement of Friendship and on the Frontier between the USSR and Germany;

standing behind him were Ribbentrop, Stalin, Pavlov (the interpreter), and Gaus. The paper also spoke of the dinner given by Molotov in Ribbentrop's honour. Among those

present were Forster, Gaus, Schnurre, and Kordt of the Ribbentrop party, Schulenburg and Tippelskirch of the German Embassy, as well as Stalin, Voro-shilov, Kaganovich,

Mikoyan, Beria, Bulganin and Voznesensky.

"Comrade Molotov and Herr von Ribbentrop exchanged speeches of welcome. The

dinner took place in a friendly atmosphere." That day the following Soviet-German Statement was published:

Having signed today an agreement which finally settled the problems that had

arisen from the disintegration of the Polish State, and having thus laid the solid foundations for a lasting peace in Eastern Europe, the Soviet and German

Governments declare that the liquidation of the war between Germany on the one

hand and Great Britain and France on the other would be in the interests of all

nations.

If, however, the endeavours of both governments remain fruitless, this will only

show that Great Britain and France will bear the responsibility for continuing the war. If this war is to continue, the Governments of Germany and the Soviet Union

will consult each other on the necessary measures to be taken.

(Signed) Molotov. Ribbentrop.

Later, during the war, I had occasion to discuss with a number of Soviet intellectuals the effect this statement had in Russia at the time. It appeared that the "recovery" of Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine had indeed caused much satisfaction, partly because it had pushed the Soviet frontier further west—and nobody had ever trusted Hitler.

Secondly the one thing many people dreaded was that Britain and France might make

peace with Germany. They knew that Russia had become thoroughly disreputable in

French and British eyes over the "partition" of Poland, and feared that there might be a Western deal with Hitler at Russia's expense.

No sooner was the war in Poland over, than the Russians inflicted on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania "mutual aid and trade agreements" under which the Soviet Union was given military, air and naval bases in all three countries. In that matter, too, the consummation of the secret protocol drawn up by Ribbentrop and Molotov, when the Soviet Nazi treaty was concluded, made steady progress. Vilno, however, which had been part of Poland,

was handed back to Lithuania by the Russians after they had secured the required military hold on that small country, as they had on the two other Baltic States.

Meanwhile Molotov and Ribbentrop continued to go through all the usual motions of