We returned by car and stopped to see Canterbury Cathedral on the way. An enormous, ancient building full of historical, mostly bloody, memories. The church warden showed us around the chapels, corridors and vaulted spaces of the cathedral, telling us almost cheerfully, with little jokes and facetious remarks, about the executions, murders and crimes that the cathedral walls had witnessed in spades.

Early in 1936, Maisky was in the middle of packing, about to depart for Moscow for consultations, when he received instructions to remain at his post owing to the ‘present disturbed state of Europe’. This was clearly prompted by rumours that originated with Laval about a possible agreement between the Western countries and Germany. Eden’s appointment as foreign secretary now put Maisky’s expectations to the test, particularly against the backdrop of the swift British move towards appeasement. On 6 January, Maisky met Eden briefly, as part of the foreign secretary’s introductory round of meetings with foreign ambassadors. Reporting home, Maisky emphasized Eden’s commitment to the stand he had taken in Moscow and his adherence to the Eastern Pact. The British records convey a different picture. Maisky appeared desperate to bring about a movement in relations. He did not conceal from Eden that ‘it would be a great grief to him personally … as well as a misfortune for Europe’ if the opportunity was missed. He further bolstered his own position by reminding Eden that, like four other Soviet ambassadors, he was to be inaugurated in Moscow as a member of the Central Committee of the Party (which he rather oddly chose to depict as being a member of parliament ‘untroubled either with constituents or election expenses’).

DVP, 1936, XIX, doc. 3; TNA FO 371 20338 N125/20/38 & N120/20/38, conversations with Collier and Eden, 6 Jan. 1936 and minutes. See also Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, p. 157.

Maisky’s request for a loan to Russia, which he proposed to use as a litmus test of British intentions, was foiled by Sargent, who warned that Hitler would represent the loan as British support for the French policy of encirclement, which would render ‘still more difficult’ the efforts of the government to ‘come to terms with Germany’. Dithering, Eden did raise the issue in Cabinet, albeit reluctantly, though not before expressing his concern that some of the money would ‘find its way into communist propaganda in the Empire’. ‘The German propaganda against Russia and her allies,’ the Czechoslovak ambassador, Jan Masaryk, alerted Maisky, ‘is not altogether without success in this country.’

RAN f.1702 op.4 d.1460 ll.1–4, 30 July 1936.

The overwhelming support for Sargent’s views at the Foreign Office led Eden to finally concede that ‘while I want good relations with the bear, I don’t want to hug him too close. I don’t trust him, and am sure there is hatred in his heart for all we stand for.’

Quoted in Manne, ‘Anglo-Soviet rapprochement’, pp. 747, 748–50.

It was becoming increasingly apparent that Maisky’s own personal safety was intertwined with the success of collective security. He could not afford to remain passive. On 11 February, he went on the offensive, confronting Eden with a long survey of the international scene. To his chagrin, he found Eden determined not to undertake any further commitment in Central and South-East Europe, expecting France to do ‘the dirty work’. Maisky therefore resorted to a new plan. He encouraged Tukhachevsky, in London for the king’s funeral, to fraternize with Duff Cooper, the secretary of state for war, over breakfast at the embassy. He hoped Duff Cooper’s association with Churchill and his concern about Hitler’s ambitions might make him an effective channel for exerting pressure on the government. The convivial atmosphere over breakfast led Maisky to float the idea of a visit by Duff Cooper to Moscow ‘to inspect the state of the Soviet Armed Forces’.

In reporting home, however, he attributed the idea to the secretary of state; RAN f.1702 op.4 d.1407 l.1 and DVP, 1936, XIX, doc. 36.

In reporting home, Maisky suggested that it was Eden who turned the conversation to a possible visit by Duff Cooper. Eden’s report, however, shows that the initiative clearly emerged from Maisky, who wondered whether the government ‘would have any objection if the Soviet government were to extend to Mr Duff Cooper an invitation to go to Moscow’. It further emerged that the choice of 1 May, rather than August, when military manoeuvres were planned (a far more attractive prospect for Duff Cooper), was Maisky’s. Eden’s initial approval, however, encountered stiff opposition from the Foreign Office. In a memorandum that prefigures the machinations of the fictional Yes, Minister television series, Sargent reminded Eden that a Cabinet committee had been set up to investigate the possibility of ‘a general understanding with Germany’. It was advisable, therefore, to avoid any negotiations with a third party which might be seen to conflict with the ‘German Policy’. The timing for the visit was hardly propitious. Whatever hopes Maisky may have entertained of stopping the drift towards appeasement were dashed when Sargent specifically warned against any further conversations with Maisky on a common policy – conversations which Sargent expected to be put ‘to very dangerous uses’ by a man like Maisky. ‘I agree,’ minuted Eden. ‘Let us beware of Mr Maisky – he is an indefatigable propagandist.’

DVP, 1936, XIX, doc. 42; TNA FO 371 20339 N833/20/38, 19 Feb. 1936.

The extent of the drift towards Germany, however, had not yet fully sunk in. Maisky remained confident, ‘full of beans about the change of opinion in high circles’. There was talk, he told the Webbs, ‘of a parliamentary deputation to the USSR … Winston [Churchill] wants to go to the Red Army manoeuvres; Samuel Hoare wants to revisit the Russia he knew under the Czar.’

Webb, diary, 25 Feb. 1936, p. 6128.

However, the sobering moment came on 7 March, when Hitler abrogated the Locarno Treaty of 1925 and moved into the demilitarized Rhineland. Worse still, he justified the advance by the supposed incompatibility of the Locarno Treaty with the Franco-Soviet pact, ratified on 27 February. Baldwin admitted in Cabinet that, with Soviet help, France could possibly defeat Germany, but he feared it would lead to the Bolshevization of Germany. His heart, he asserted, would not break if Hitler went to the east. Eden followed suit, acknowledging that Hitler’s fresh proposal for a revised agreement was ‘deserving of careful study’. No wonder the 18 March resolution of the General Council of the League of Nations on the remilitarization of the Rhine zone recognized the German violation of the Covenant, but failed to reach an agreement on common action. Negotiation on a ‘new Locarno’ dragged on for nearly a year.

Page 420

Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark, pp. 136–55; R. Lamb, The Drift to War 1922–1939 (New York, 1991), p. 192; and P.M.H. Bell, The Origins of the Second World War in Europe (London, 1987), p. 210.

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