Russia at war 1941-1945

Then, for two days (November 16-17), Pravda ran, for no apparent reason, two whole pages by André Maurois on "Why France Lost the War", which for all their crypto-Vichyism, were scarcely pro-German. On the next day there was a story about 400,000

Frenchmen being thrown by the Germans out of Lorraine, and there were numerous

reports of "Famine in Paris". There were further suggestions of the Soviet Union not being really sympathetic to the Axis Powers; thus, on November 18, TASS denied a

German story that Hungary had joined the German-Italian-Japan axis "with the approval and encouragement of the Soviet Union". Then, as later, there were frequent accounts of German air-raids on England (Coventry, Manchester, etc.) and of the air blockade of

Britain, shipping losses, and so on.

One of the peculiarities of the Soviet-German Pact was that it provided for no "cultural"

contacts between the two countries, and one of the few manifestations of a heightened Russian interest in German Kultur was Eisenstein's production, on November 22, 1940, of the Walküre at the Bolshoi Theatre. A peculiarity of this Eisenstein production was his original and unconventional treatment of the Wagner opera—with pantomime effects

introduced, for instance, in Act I to illustrate Siegmund's narrative. Members of the German Embassy who attended the première referred to the "deliberate Jewish tricks"

with which Eisenstein had desecrated the Master's work. But, on the other hand,

Sieglinde was sung by Mme Spiller, who, according to Moscow gossip, was Molotov's

lady-friend —perhaps a subtle compliment to the Germans.

Nothing much happened in December. There were the usual celebrations of Constitution Day, and there were many self-congratulatory articles saying that, in 1938, the Soviet Union had a population of 170 million, in 1939 one of 183 million, and in 1940, one of 193 million, since the Baltic Republics had joined the USSR and Bessarabia and

Northern Bukovina had been freed from "the yoke of the Rumanian boyars".

The elections in the new Karelo-Finnish Republic, and in the Western Ukraine and

Belorussia later in December proved a "dazzling victory of the Stalin Bloc of Communist and Non-Party Candidates". The press also reported that at a Supreme Soviet election meeting at Czernowitz, the candidate, General G. K. Zhu-kov, Commander of the Special Kiev Military District, had declared to his voters: "Under the wise leadership of Comrade Stalin, our country has become the mightiest country in the world"—a statement

strangely contrasting with the much more cautious words General Zhukov was to use

only a few months later.

The press continued to deal in some detail with the situation in Britain, with Churchill's statement that the danger of an invasion was not over, with British victories in the Western Desert and with Italian defeats in Albania. There was also a report of some

particularly powerful new American bombers; altogether, much interest continued to be shown in American aid to Britain. Occasionally, there were also some more explicitly anti-Nazi items like this in Pravda of December 19: "Hungary: All Jews (except 3,500) Deprived of Voting Rights."

New Year 1941 was celebrated in Russia with the usual exuberance and in the customary holiday atmosphere, complete with the giant New Year parties for children, and

celebrations in millions of homes. The editorials in the press tried to sound highly reassuring. On December 31, 1940 Pravda wrote: "We can look back on 1940 with a feeling of deep satisfaction... As Comrade Kalinin said on November 6, our economic

progress resulted in an eleven per cent increase of production... Much was done in 1940

by the Party and the Government to increase the military might of the USSR and the

defensive strength and military preparedness of the people. There have been great

improvements in the training and education of the Army and Navy personnel, and

important work is being done in the military education of the civilian population, and of our young people in particular... In all fields our successes have been stupendous."

And after recalling once again the incorporation of new territories in the Soviet Union, the editorial concluded: " 1941 will be the fourth year of the third Stalinist Five-Year Plan. And as we enter 1941, which will be a year of an even more tremendous

development of our socialist economy, the Soviet people are looking into their future cheerfully and full of confidence."

Ironically, during the next few days, the Soviet press spoke more and more frequently of the possibility of a German invasion of England, largely on the strength of speculation in the British press. Was there here a touch of wishful thinking? Even in February and

March this motif was frequently to be found in the Russian papers.