Russia at war 1941-1945

of them everywhere: in Moscow, Riga, Lwow, Orel, Tallinn, Czernowitz, Voronezh,

Kiev, Odessa, Archangel, Murmansk, Sebastopol, Tbilisi, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk,

Erevan, Viborg, Krasnoyarsk, Baku, Alma Ata, Vladivostok and other cities.

Altogether, over 5,000 combat planes of different types and classes took part in

these air parades and, but for the bad weather in some places, there would have

been 8,000. Our proud Stalin Hawks flew these remarkable planes, the work of our

glorious Soviet constructors.

[" Stalin Hawks" was the affectionate term for Soviet airmen.]

It then spoke lyrically of the "growing army of Stakhanovites" who had also taken part in the parade, and of the thousands of children—those "Soviet children who have a happy, cloudless today and a secure tomorrow".

There was, of course, no suggestion that a high proportion of the 5,000 planes that had taken part in these air parades near the German, Finnish and Japanese borders, and

elsewhere, were wholly obsolete. No doubt the general public knew no better, but the German military and air attachés at the Red Square parade may well have drawn more

professional conclusions.

In Leningrad, where there appears to have been no air display owing to bad weather, the parade was directed by the commander of the Leningrad Military District, Hero of the Soviet Union, Lt.-Gen. Kirponos, who was to come to a tragic end in the Kiev

encirclement, barely ten months later.

Looking back on this strange period, one has the curious feeling that, in his own way, Molotov was made to play in Russia the part of Laval; like Laval, he was le vidangeur, who had to do all the dirty work, while Pétain—and Stalin—tried to keep their hands

relatively clean, and refrained, as far as possible, from any direct dealings with the Germans. It was significant that, in the TASS denial published at the end of August, a point should have been made of the fact that Stalin had not seen the German Ambassador

"during the last six or seven months".

Molotov, on the other hand, was extremely busy and active. Although he did not go to Laval's extreme of saying "je souhaite la victoire allemande", it was his job to present to the Soviet people the Soviet-German Pact at all its stages in the most favourable light possible.

This does not mean that Molotov crawled and grovelled to the Germans; on the contrary, he had, throughout, been thoroughly hard-headed and businesslike in his dealings with them and was one of the few men not to appear impressed, still less overawed, by Hitler, when he at last met him face-to-face in Berlin on November 12, 1940.

This is borne out by the story of the events leading up to Molotov's visit to Berlin in November 1940 and his handling of the matter. In June, without asking the Germans'

permission, the Russians had occupied the Baltic States, Bessarabia and Northern

Bukovina. The Germans then became particularly alarmed by the Russians' proximity to the Rumanian oilfields, a source of oil supremely important to Germany. This started a process which, within a few months, was to end in the complete German subjugation of Rumania, and the virtual occupation of Bulgaria, to be followed by the German invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece. The German penetration of Rumania had begun, in a more or

less camouflaged form, soon after the Russian occupation of two of Rumania's northern provinces and had coincided with Hitler's "Vienna Award", under which a large part of Transylvania had been handed over to Hungary. What was left of Rumania—now a plain

Fascist dictatorship under Antonescu—was "guaranteed" by Germany and Italy.

[King Carol abdicated and went to Switzerland with Madame Lüpescu, leaving the throne to his young son Michael.]

The Russians took the beginning of this German penetration of the Balkans very badly, and charged the German Government with violating Article III of the Soviet-German

Pact which called for consultation. The Germans retorted that they had not been

consulted about either the Baltic States or Bessarabia-Bukovina. A further complication arose from reports that German troops had been seen in Finland, ostensibly in transit to Northern Norway, and that Germany was selling large quantities of armaments to

Finland. Worse still, at the end of September the Germans informed Molotov that a