The relationship between the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the leader of the Soviet Union during the Second World War has fascinated historians for a long time. Was Churchill charmed by Stalin, or was he just trying to wrap the dictator around his finger?
"It is impossible to imagine the Great Coalition that was formed during the war years without a personal bond between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin," reads Geoffrey Roberts' Churchill and Stalin. Toxic Brothers . While each of the leaders of the Big Three's powers had different origins, temperaments, political goals, and leadership styles and working methods, they all had one thing in common:they were people with a lot of political experience. All three also attached great importance to personal contacts. The axis of the Great Coalition was the Stalin-Churchill relationship.
Churchill was a calculated politician, but also very emotional. There are many testimonies that he had tears in his eyes on several occasions. It seems, however, that he preferred to play on the emotions of others rather than be guided by his own. He was the son of the Empire, a British gentleman, and he couldn't let his emotions take over him.
His relationship with Joseph Stalin was a particularly interesting combination of affect and calculation. How did it even happen that Churchill - an unrepentant anti-communist who was one of the greatest supporters of intervention in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution - suddenly became an ardent advocate of cooperation with Stalin? There is only one answer:realism.
As the old saying goes:Britain has no friends or enemies, it only has interests. And Churchill was guided by interests that required the Soviet Union to be drawn into the war with Hitler . Besides, he saw Stalin as a realist. The political trials of the 1930s, when the dictator murdered most of the old ideological Bolsheviks, made Churchill believe that Stalin did not attach importance to communist ideology - he was another great leader of Russia and he was guided by its good. He openly said that Trotsky was the devil and supported Stalin himself.
In his book, Roberts proves that Churchill liked to create an image of his political partner and then bend reality to that image. This is how he created a vision of Stalin - a Russian realist, not a communist ideologist.
British-Soviet alliance
British efforts to establish an alliance with Moscow have a long history. The Grand Coalition was, in a sense, a continuation of the Triple Agreement between the British, French and Russians of the early twentieth century. "In the face of the growing threat from Nazi Germany, Churchill became a determined advocate of closer cooperation with the Soviets, ready to renew the alliance from before 1914," writes Roberts in his book Churchill and Stalin. Toxic brothers.
As late as 1939, France and Great Britain tried to reach an agreement with Stalin, but they did it so sluggishly that Hitler defeated them. Effect? The Soviet-German non-aggression treaty of August 23, 1939 and the treaty of borders and friendship of September 28, 1939. This was the defeat of Churchill's pre-war campaign for the great Soviet-Western alliance. However, this did not mean the end of his efforts:this is evidenced by the direct and indirect contacts of Churchill and Stalin before the German invasion of the USSR.
Even before the German invasion of the USSR, Churchill and Stalin had direct and indirect contacts.
The British Prime Minister was against the declaration of war on Moscow after September 17, 1939, and did not consider the Soviet Union and the Third Reich to be ideological twins - a view that was popular in the British Isles at the time. Already on October 1, 1939, it justified the occupation of eastern Poland by the Red Army. On the radio he said:
There is no doubt that the positions taken by Russian troops are essential to Russia's security in the face of the Nazi threat. I cannot predict what action Russia will take in the future. This is a big puzzle, but there may be a key to it. The key is Russia's national interest.
Significantly, he was talking about Russia - not the Soviet Union. Shortly thereafter, he met the Soviet ambassador to London, Ivan Mayski, and assured him that Britain and the USSR had common interests. Moscow's war with Finland interrupted the efforts for an alliance for a while, but soon Churchill sent Stafford Cripps, an advocate of warming relations between the countries, to the Russian capital. He then wrote his first letter to Stalin, in which he argued that "although Great Britain and the Soviet Union are on opposite ends of Europe, they share a common cause, which is to oppose German domination on the continent."
When Britain fought alone against Nazi power, Churchill had one goal:to win an ally in the war, or at least to induce the USSR to adopt an attitude of genuine neutrality. Stalin had his plans - he knew that a war with the Third Reich was inevitable, but he wanted to postpone it as long as possible. He also knew the old truth that the British liked to persuade others to defend their own interests and shed the blood of their allies during wars. The term "perfidious Albion" didn't come out of nowhere.
Brothers in Arms
Throughout the spring of 1941, the British (and Churchill in person in his correspondence) informed Stalin about the concentration of German troops on the Soviet border. The leader of the USSR, although he himself prepared for war, disregarded these warnings - perhaps precisely because he was afraid that London wanted to push him into battle, and - as he himself said - pull someone else's chestnuts out of the fire.
When, however, on June 22, 1941, Germany actually invaded the Soviet Union, the British Prime Minister delivered a speech on the radio immediately. It made the famous assurance that it would support the Soviet Union by all means, which his country has at his disposal. Churchill, he argued, did not renounce his anti-Bolshevism and did not deny anti-communist declarations, but:
All this fades in the face of the present spectacle. The past with its crimes, folly and tragedies passes in the blink of an eye. I see Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their homeland, guarding the fields their fathers have cultivated since time immemorial. I see them guarding the houses where wives and mothers pray - because there are times when everyone pray - for the safety of their loved ones, for the safe return of their hosts, intercessors and defenders.
I see them, I see tens of thousands of Russian villages where they work the land with such laborious effort, where there are still simple human joys, where you can hear the laughter of girls and the merry cries of children.
The text is based on the book by Geoffrey Roberts, Churchill and Stalin. Toxic Brothers ", which has just been released by Bellona.
Stalin reciprocated them with a radio speech on July 3, 1941, in which he declared that he would wage a war with Germany together with Great Britain and the United States. On July 12, a formal agreement was reached. Churchill could celebrate - he gained a powerful ally.
The era of cooperation between the two politicians has arrived. "An examination of Churchill's personal contacts with Stalin proves that although his attitude towards Bolshevism remained unchanged, the same cannot be said of his attitude towards Stalin," writes Geoffrey Roberts. And he adds:"In the case of the Soviet leader Churchill beamed at the thought of Stalin the leader and then proceeded to perceive the relationship between them as a" brotherhood in arms " ". What was it like on the other side?
Stalin saw Churchill as a man who could be influenced, shaped by persuasion or by playing on feelings of guilt and gratitude and using Churchill's soldier instincts to push him into offensive actions but in conflict with the political instinct to save Britain's strength and human resources .
Nonsense instead of rifles
The words of the British prime minister to Stalin, full of warm feelings, could have surprised him. For Poles, they must have sounded particularly unpleasant. However, no particular importance should be attached to them. "If Hitler invaded hell, I would have kindly mentioned the devil in the House of Commons" - said Churchill himself at the time . The lofty language of his speech was to carefully mask the fact that London by no means made any specific offer of aid to the USSR. The prime minister spoke about the brotherhood of the war, but he did not intend to - because he also could not - pursue it in any particular way.
Moscow was counting on specific actions, such as the delivery of supplies or the sending of a military expedition. But Churchill was silent about this. Anhona Eden, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, was an advocate of tangible support for Stalin. His secretary neatly summed up Churchill's rhetorical assistance to Moscow:"Sentimental and flowery style ..., nonsense instead of rifles."
The facts are that Stalin's request that Britain send 25 to 30 divisions to the Soviet front did not receive a prompt response. The Prime Minister excused himself with various obstacles. He did not feel morally obligated to the Soviets. In October 1941 he wrote directly to Ambassador Cripps:"They brought it on themselves when they signed the pact with Ribbentrop, allowing Hitler to attack Poland and start a war."
Instead of real support, Churchill offered the USSR… words of encouragement.
He was possibly ready to send troops to the Caucasus. The problem is that the Red Army did not defend itself there, and this region - also oil-bearing - lies close to countries belonging to the sphere of direct influence of London. It was suspected that if the British hosted in the Caucasus, they would not really want to leave it . At least not for free.
Almost at the same time, Churchill was persuading Stalin:“There is no way to express what we feel when we think of your enormous, heroic struggle. We hope we will be able to prove it with our deeds. " As Roberts writes in his book Churchill and Stalin. Toxic Brothers :"Emotions and attempts to manipulate them were at the core of Churchill-Stalin relations in both forms."
Stalin - an exceptional man
On August 12, 1942, the Prime Minister of Great Britain came to Moscow for the first time - this was a dangerous journey, but Churchill felt it was necessary. He hoped that he would win Stalin thanks to his personality. Interestingly, considered him a "peasant" at the same time and all the leaders of the Soviet Union as naughty barely detached from the plow.
The conversations had their own dramatic moments. At one point the Brit was offended (or pretended to be offended). He was irritated by Stalin's complaints that the Western Allies were reluctant to fight the Germans. The dictator's blunder was to ask about the defeat at Gallipoli during the First World War. As you know, it was Churchill who was then the First Lord of the Admiralty that was blamed by the public for the deaths of thousands of British soldiers during this unsuccessful battle.
“Stalin's relationship with Churchill was fragile, and at the same time close and deep. Churchill had a lively temper, and his relationship with Stalin was therefore violent, ”we read in the book Churchill and Stalin. Toxic brothers. Ultimately, the visit was successful and the Prime Minister soon spoke in the House of Commons:
Russia is very lucky to have such a great and unyielding leader in times of agony. He is a man with a powerful, unique personality, fit for the dark and turbulent times in which he lived. A man of exceptional courage and willpower, direct and even honest in speech, which does not bother me personally, as the House of Commons knows, especially when I have something to say.
In his speech, Churchill called Stalin a man with a powerful, unique personality.
It was a public speech - it was known that it would reach Moscow. Meanwhile, on the website, Churchill argued Anthony Eden that:"we should treat Russians coolly, without getting excited about the lies they tell, and persistently carry out our task." Moreover, on October 5, 1942, during a cabinet meeting, he argued for a long time that Germany should not be excessively weakened, because it might turn out that it would be needed in the war with Russia ...
The leader of the Soviet Union was then furious with the policy of the Allies. Sea shipments with supplies of equipment were not as numerous as he had hoped. According to him, the Anglo-Saxons used every excuse to abandon them. He did not acknowledge that the ships that could protect the transports were needed for the Battle of the Atlantic, crucial for Washington and London.
Moreover, in the fall of 1942, the British Prime Minister informed Stalin that the Allies were going to invade North Africa. The prospect of opening a second front in Europe, which would relieve the Red Army, was therefore receding again. No wonder the dictator believed that the Western allies were deliberately delaying the attack because they wanted the Soviet Union to bleed out.
Of course, Stalin also played his role well and sent Churchill happy birthday on November 30. And "nonsense" as an element of two-way communication remained the main lubricant of mutual relations until the end of the war.
Source:
The article was inspired by the book “Churchill and Stalin. Toxic Brothers "by Geoffrey Roberts, which was released by Bellona.