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10 January

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By Liakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)

The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 1

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10 January

The last two or three months have seen unmistakable shifts in British foreign policy. These have been suggested first by Eden’s four speeches last November and December, and secondly by the change in the British government’s attitude towards the Spanish question.

I’ll begin with the speeches. But first I should say a few words about my conversation with Eden on 3 November. We had a long talk which was primarily devoted to the Spanish issue but which also dealt with a range of other international issues. On the Spanish question, I criticized the British position openly, before telling Eden: yes, serious disagreement exists between us. But we should not exaggerate its significance. We should do our best to localize it so that this specific disagreement should have the smallest possible effect on Anglo-Soviet relations in other parts of the world and in other important matters of world politics. We should not forget that besides Spain there exists an entire world – Europe, the Near East, the Far East, the League of Nations, etc. Let us make every effort to ensure that the course outlined by the Moscow communiqué which was issued at the end of Eden’s visit to the USSR is pursued as closely as possible in all these spheres and problems, a course that proceeds from the fact that no serious clash of interests between the USSR and the British Empire can be found anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, life will resolve the Spanish question one way or another.

Eden agreed with my point of view and promised to assist in making it a reality.

The conversation took place on 3 November 1936; TNA FO 371 20584 W15074/9549/41. Eager to present a rosy picture, in his report home Maisky concealed Eden’s continued irritation with communist subversion in Spain; DVP, 1936, XIX, doc. 344. Eden had, in fact, commended Vansittart for ‘his excellent plain speaking’ when Maisky came to see him on 6 January, complaining that Maisky tended to ‘presume too far’. Maisky, however, cabled to Moscow that Vansittart saw eye to eye with him; TNA FO 371 21318 W647/7/41 and DVP, 1937, XX, doc. 2.

Then we discussed Germany, Italy, the League of Nations, etc. It was then that Eden told me that the British government, thanks in large measure to his insistence, had decided to make one more attempt to revive the League of Nations and that he was busy developing various initiatives in this direction. I replied that this was all well and good, but that the most important factor in containing aggressive tendencies in Europe was the steadfast position of England and France, and particularly of England in regard to Berlin and Rome. Comically horrified, Eden exclaimed: ‘You don’t want me to be as impudent as Hitler, do you?’

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‘I don’t mean impudence, I mean firmness,’ I parried.

We continued discussing general political subjects for a while. I noticed that Eden’s mind was in ferment, that he was looking if not for ways, then at least for forms through which he could carry out his policies.

And then there followed the four speeches made by the foreign secretary: in parliament on 5 November, in Leamington, his constituency, on 20 November, at the lunch arranged by the British Chamber of Commerce in honour of the Belgian prime minister, Van Zeeland, on 28 November, and in Bradford on 15 December. A summary of the content of the speeches would lead one to the following conclusions:

(1) The British government has decided to make one more attempt to revive the League of Nations and, in particular, to achieve the repeal of the unanimity rule, as set out in Article 11, and the de facto application of Article 19.

(2) The British government has recognized the indivisibility of peace in Europe in principle, but in practice it is prepared to render armed assistance against aggression only to France and Belgium (and, outside Europe, to Iran and Egypt).

(3) The British government has declared that it is ready to seek an agreement with Germany, but one which should not bear an exclusive character and which should not be directed against third countries. At the same time, the British government has made it clear that there can be no question of giving any serious assistance to Germany in the financial-economic sphere without a general European settlement, which must also include issues of disarmament.

(4) Finally, the British government has come out very firmly against the division of the world into two ‘ideological blocs’, the issue which the Nazis have been so hysterical about lately. It was with this in mind that the British government censured the anti-Comintern pact, while the British press has not held back in its sharp criticism of Hitler and Ribbentrop.

Appraising Eden’s speeches, I would define the current position of the British government in the following way: England’s prolonged retreat in the face of aggression has ended, at least for as long as the guidelines announced by Eden remain in force; but there has been as yet no counteroffensive against the aggressors. So far only the intention has been declared. In other words, the British government issued a political ‘promissory note’ of major importance through Eden’s speeches. The future will show how this note is to be paid.

Now a few words on the Spanish question. Last October the British government clearly gambled on Franco winning. This was all too obvious in the notorious Non-Intervention Committee. Moreover, Eden himself ventured a rash statement against the USSR in parliament. Responding to the opposition’s attacks concerning the failure by Germany and Italy to observe the principle of non-intervention, he lost his temper and said that those two countries were

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hardly the worst sinners in this respect. The arrow was manifestly aimed at the USSR. It is said that Eden’s words slipped out at a moment of extreme vexation, under harassment from Labour MPs, and that afterwards he greatly regretted his lack of restraint… Perhaps. But facts are facts.

The British government’s attitude has certainly changed for the better. Already in his Bradford speech (15 December), Eden declared that ‘England is deeply interested in the integrity and inviolability of Spain and Spanish possessions’, while during our conversation of 21 December he plainly admitted that the war in Spain was ‘international’, citing the German landing in Cadiz. Several days later, on 30 December, Burgin (deputy minister for trade) openly told me that England should in fact be deeply grateful to the USSR for what the latter was doing in Spain. One could hear similar views quite often here in recent weeks. Plymouth’s

Ivor Miles Windsor-Clive (2nd earl of Plymouth), Conservative parliamentary undersecretary for dominion affairs, January–June 1929; parliamentary undersecretary at the Department of Transport, 1931–32, the Colonial Office, 1932–36, and the Foreign Office, 1936–39.

conduct in the Committee has also changed. I would characterize the British government’s current position with regard to Spain roughly as follows: it is not supportive of the Republicans, but it has also stopped supporting Franco. Its position is close to genuine neutrality, with perhaps a slight bias towards Valencia. The British government does not itself want to render assistance to the Republic, but it is prepared to sympathize if somebody else does so. At least that’s something!

What are the reasons for this shift in British foreign policy?

I would single out four major elements:

(1) England’s increased fighting efficiency, particularly in the sphere of aviation.

(2) The reinforcement of Anglo-French rapprochement, which, with the rise to power of the Blum government in France, has effectively grown into an Anglo-French alliance.

(3) The activity of the USSR in Spain, which shows that we can be a serious factor in Western Europe and that the forces for peace in this part of the globe can count on the Soviet Union.

(4) The growing ‘impertinence’ of Germany, which takes the liberty not only of openly mocking Locarno, but also of furthering its colonial demands.

Of course, any illusions here would be dangerous. The English are infected to the core with the poison of ‘compromise’ and ‘balance-of-power politics’. Besides, class hatred towards the USSR remains a fixed reality. Also, the current situation deters the City from effecting any drastic changes in the political and economic spheres. I do not know whether British policy will remain at its present level (if not above it), yet the aforesaid shifts are certainly interesting and cannot be ignored.

‘Self-preservation’ would increasingly lead Maisky (as so many other Soviet diplomats during the terror) to amplify his successes in ameliorating relations with Britain and to cautiously temper his observations. A typical example is a telegram to Litvinov in mid-March, suggesting that ‘The past three to four months have witnessed a step-by-step increased

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coldness in relations between London and Berlin.’ This he attributed to the Nazi threat to the West. However, Maisky qualified his judgement with a warning that a change in the international situation could easily lead again to a thaw in Anglo-German relations; DVP, 1937, XX, fn. 129.

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[The setback to collective security and the creation of the anti-communist German–Japanese Axis, which Italy soon joined, prompted the Kremlin throughout the second half of 1936 to project a sense of invincibility, based on rapid expansion of the military and the doctrinal avant-garde reforms of the Red Army.

S. Naveh, In Pursuit of Military Excellence: The evolution of operational theory (London, 1997).

The autumn manoeuvres of 1935 and 1936 certainly impressed observers such as General Wavell,

Archibald Percival Wavell, field marshal, commander-in-chief, Middle East, 1939–41; commander-in-chief, India, 1941–43; supreme commander, south-west Pacific, 1942; viceroy and governor-general of India, 1943–47.

particularly when it came to the defensive and deterrent capabilities of the Red Army.

By far the most lucid presentation of the Western perceptions is in K. Neilson ‘“Pursued by a Bear”: British estimates of Soviet military strength and Anglo-Soviet relations, 1922–1939’, Canadian Journal of History, 28 (1993).

Maisky’s unusual candour in assuring the Foreign Office that ‘neither Germany nor Japan, acting separately, would venture to attack Russia’ was dismissed as ‘a good deal of whistling to keep his courage up’. Indeed, when the Latvian minister taunted Maisky with what he called ‘cock-crowing’ about Soviet military strength, Maisky replied with a smile: ‘It is done deliberately, and it “has its effect”.’ But the confidence was genuine and on open display during a weekend he spent with the Webbs.

An example of such bravura is Maisky’s address to the National Congress of Peace and Friendship with the USSR, reported in The Times, 15 March 1937.

Maisky was scathing about the performance of the Wehrmacht, and sceptical about Germany’s ability to launch an attack on the Soviet Union. The army, he argued, had ‘neither the trained men, nor the mechanical equipment, for effective action … Half the tanks on the recent manoeuvres, attended by the military attachés of the Berlin embassies, failed to reach their destination either because the drivers were not skilled, or because the tanks were badly constructed.’ The British ‘far-flung empire’ seemed to him to be more vulnerable, and without allies could not defend either its Far Eastern shores against Japan or the route to India out of the Mediterranean. Although the Soviet Union entertained no territorial ambitions, he feared that the British statesmen were ‘bad imperialists, who were prepared to sacrifice the British Empire to their prejudice against the new social order of the USSR’.

TNA FO 371 20348 N5866/287/38, 19–25 Nov. 1936, and TNA FO 371 21103 N1479/270/18, 23 March 1937, respectively; Webb, diary, 15 Nov. 1936, pp. 6260–1.

The confidence, which might have encouraged the Russians to opt for isolation, was short-lived, however, and dissipated with Stalin’s massacre within the armed forces.

See note 58 below.

]

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Document Details

Document Title10 January

AuthorLiakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)

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Date1937 Jan 10

AOC VolumeThe Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 1

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