Stalin: A Biography

There remained the speculation that, if the wartime negotiations had demanded more of Stalin, the situation might not have arisen; yet not only Roosevelt but also Churchill had made commitments to him which were difficult to overturn unless the Anglo-Americans were willing to break with Stalin entirely. Even Churchill was averse to a military incursion over the agreed boundaries between the hegemonic zones of the USSR and its Western allies. Churchill had a long memory. At the end of the First World War many socialist and labour militants had been active in opposing military intervention in Soviet Russia after the Civil War. But from 1945 it was Attlee who governed the United Kingdom, and no public figure of importance advocated an incursion over the River Elbe. Truman and Attlee might well have had trouble mobilising popular support for any such action. The troops of the USA and the UK had been trained to regard the Soviet forces as allies. Civilians had heard the same propaganda. Germany and Japan had been identified as the only enemies and the task of orientating public opinion towards active military measures would have been extremely difficult. The chance had been lost at Yalta, Tehran and Potsdam — and even at those three Allied Conferences it would have been a tricky feat to pull off without trouble at home.

The USA and USSR were great powers which assumed that permanent unrivalrous coexistence was an implausible prospect. Stalin, moreover, was more active than Truman in making things worse. He grabbed territory. He imposed communist regimes. He anyway took it for granted that clashes with ‘world capitalism’ were inevitable. Indeed he was mentally more ready for war than were the American and British leaders. The Cold War was not unavoidable but it was very likely. The surprise is that it did not become the Hot War.

47. SUBJUGATING EASTERN EUROPE

There was little interference with the USSR’s actions in Soviet-occupied eastern Europe after the Second World War. Truman and Attlee grumbled but they did not act far outside the scope of the agreements at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam. The tacit deal remained in place that the USSR could get on with its military occupation and political domination while the USA, the United Kingdom and France imposed their control in the West. Stalin had small acquaintance with his vast zone. He had been to Kraków, Berlin and Vienna on his trip before the First World War, but his subsequent interest had been limited to the internal affairs of the Comintern. Yet he was a fast learner when events drove the need for knowledge. Already in the Second World War, as Hitler occupied countries near the USSR, Stalin took account of the situation in consultation with Dimitrov and Litvinov. He also recognised that unless communist parties adopted a more obviously national image they would never succeed in appealing to their electorates. He had planned in 1941 to abolish the Comintern. In 1943 this aim was fulfilled. Behind the scenes, though, the International Department of the Party Central Committee Secretariat commanded the foreign communist parties everywhere. Once given, orders were obeyed.

Stalin’s concern with countries of the region grew as the end of the war approached. In Moscow he received representatives of the communist parties. In January 1945 he discussed economic aid, military dispositions and even the official language, frontiers and foreign policy of the Yugoslav state with Tito’s emissaries. Informed of their desire to form a huge federation with Bulgaria and Albania, he urged caution. Continually he cajoled the Yugoslav leaders, who were more cocksure than others in eastern Europe, to ask his opinion in advance of large-scale action.¹

Regular reports and requests came to Moscow after the war, and Stalin went on meeting communist visitors. His ability to issue impromptu decisions was extraordinary. In 1946 he had even set the timing of the following year’s elections in Poland.² Polish President Bolesław Bierut prefaced his discussion with the following obeisance: ‘We’ve journeyed to you, comrade Stalin, as our great friend in order to report our consideration on the course of events in Poland and check on the correctness of our evaluation of the political situation in the country.’³ His control over eastern Europe was facilitated by the consolidation of communism’s organisational network across the region with the protection of the Soviet armed forces. Years of subordination, enforced by terror, ensured compliance. Communist leaders, with the exception of the Yugoslavs and perhaps the Czechs, also knew how weak their support was in their countries: dependency on the USSR’s military power was crucial for their survival. New police agencies were set up on the Soviet model, and Moscow infiltrated and controlled them. Soviet diplomats, security officials and commanders monitored eastern Europe as if it was the outer empire of the USSR.