Russia at war 1941-1945

Russia had had the choice of two policies: one was to "cash in on the goodwill she had accumulated during the war in Britain and the United States." But they (meaning Stalin and Molotov) had, unfortunately, chosen the other policy. Not believing that "goodwill"

could constitute the lasting basis for any kind of policy, they had decided that "security"

was what mattered most of all, and they had therefore grabbed all they could while the going was good—meaning the whole of eastern Europe and parts of central Europe. At

this point, Vyshinsky walked past, and gave us both an exceedingly dirty look. Litvinov was never to appear at any public reception again. Ivy Litvinov's reckless indiscretions at the same party—remarks made for anybody to hear —added to Molotov's great

displeasure.

In the end, for a variety of reasons, it was the "conservative" policy that prevailed, i.e. the policy lying half-way between the "softy" policy and the "world revolution" policy. The

"conservative" policy finally adopted by Stalin was a rejection of the "world revolution"

idea, at least in any foreseeable future (his advice that the Communist "patriotic militia"

be disbanded in France after the liberation is a case in point); at the same time, the security of the Soviet Union, as he saw it, required a strict Russian control of eastern Europe, a control that became increasingly strict as the cold war developed. The most important landmark in this process was the "stalinisation" of Czechoslovakia in February 1948.

The "softy" attitude was not perhaps widespread among the Party hierarchy in 1943-4, but it certainly was among the general public, and most of all, perhaps, among the

Russian intellectuals. Their great belief was that, after the war., Russia would be able to

"relax".

In Moscow, in particular, there were some extraordinary signs of relaxation by the middle of 1944, with a kind of foretaste of easier living conditions, of post-war prosperity and of a growing frivolity in public taste.

Although the "commercial restaurants" and "commercial shops" which opened in April 1944 had nothing to do with that ideological "softness" against which the Party journals were to protest before long, they undoubtedly contributed to the easy-going mood among the more privileged sections of the Moscow population, and even among wider sections.

Foreigners in Moscow, and especially the English, with their ideas on war-time austerity, were scandalised by anything so "undemocratic" as these shops and restaurants where people with a lot of money could buy any luxuries they liked. In such restaurants, a good meal, including drinks, cost about 300 roubles or, at the "diplomatic" rate, about £6 per head. These shops and restaurants represented a sort of legal black market.

After a ruinous party for four at the Moskva Restaurant on May-Day, 1944 (there was a jazz band playing, and the meal, with two bottles of wine, cost nearly £30) I asked Boris Voitekhov, the writer, a diehard party-man, about the "party line" on these commercial restaurants.

"This country," he said, "is in a tragic plight after three years of war. Look at our women, for instance. When I see how they work— how they run our agriculture, and look after their children, though tired and dirty and hungry, how they drive steamships and fly aeroplanes—it brings a lump to my throat. It affects me more even than the Red Army, with its fearful casualties. There are people in our country who are literally dying of hunger. At first sight, the commercial restaurants are a scandal. But they are not. And I'll tell you why. It is sentimental democracy to say you mustn't allow an officer on leave to have a night out at the Moskva. What he eats and drinks is a drop in the ocean and won't help the poor and the starving. It is also a good thing when a factory director from the provinces, who has been reporting on his work to the Kremlin, can go somewhere for a decent meal. It keeps him in good humour, makes him think kindly of Moscow, and has a good effect on his work. And even if there are twenty or thirty crooks and racketeers out of every hundred people in the restaurant, it doesn't matter. Crooks don't last long in our country."

People were, in fact, glad to have commercial restaurants and commercial shops to go to.

Especially the shops. These gave even the poorly-paid a chance to have an occasional treat, such as buying some chocolates or cream cakes, even at an absurd price, and so, for once, getting something different from the same dreary old rations. The restaurants were mostly frequented by highly-paid industrial executives, writers, artists and scientists and, above all, by officers on leave who were only too glad to "blow" a whole month's unspent salary on a night out.

These commercial shops and restaurants were also part of a long-term policy for