(1) Following the English custom, I had long been planning to pay an official visit to the new PM. Other ambassadors in London had the same intentions. Chamberlain, however, postponed the visits week after week until the end of the parliamentary session. To tie up loose ends before leaving for holidays, the PM began to receive representatives of the great powers one after the other: the American, Bingham, the Italian, Grandi, and others. He received me in his office in the House of Commons on 29 July. Knowing that he was very busy, I decided not to waste time and to take the bull by the horns. I already had information before visiting Chamberlain that the conclusion of a four-power pact and especially the improvement of relations between Britain and Germany represented the general line of his foreign policy. I wanted to check whether this was true and asked him straightaway: which in his view are the best methods to achieve the ‘appeasement of Europe’?

(2) Chamberlain, who clearly hadn’t been expecting a question of this sort, hesitated and looked at me either in surprise or embarrassment. Then he began his reply, articulating his words slowly and occasionally faltering. ‘I cannot suggest a shortcut to achieving this result. The appeasement of Europe is a complicated and lengthy business. It demands great patience. Any means and any methods that might prove effective are good. Any available opportunity should be exploited.’ The PM paused for a moment, pondered, and continued: ‘I think that a successful settlement of the Spanish question could be the first direct step towards the appeasement of Europe. Spain is now the focus of attention. Events there generate many complications and conflicts in Europe. If the Spanish war does not end soon or is not at least fully localized, we can expect more serious perturbations in Europe in the near future. Spain needs to be dealt with – this is a prerequisite for the appeasement of Europe.’ I asked Chamberlain what he meant by the expression, ‘the settlement of the Spanish question’. Chamberlain paused again, pondered, and replied: ‘In my view, to settle the Spanish question means to turn the Spanish struggle into one that is purely Spanish. We hope we shall eventually be able to achieve this – with your help, may I assume?’ I accepted the challenge and said that the same idea prevails in the Soviet government’s policy towards Spain. But how is this goal to be achieved? It is an open secret that a large Italian army and numerous detachments of German specialists – pilots, artillerymen, tank men and others – are fighting on Franco’s side. Does Chamberlain think that the Italians and the Germans are really ready to withdraw their so-called ‘volunteers’ from Spain? I doubt it. The work carried out in the Non-Intervention Committee over 11 months makes me sceptical. Meanwhile, it is the evacuation of ‘volunteers’ that is currently at the heart of the entire problem of non-intervention today.

(3) Chamberlain did not answer at once. He first looked out the window, then at the ceiling, before beginning slowly: ‘There is no doubt that Mussolini is very keen to see a fascist Spain. Just two days ago, Grandi communicated a personal message to me from Mussolini, assuring me that Italy had no territorial ambitions in respect of Spain, while also arguing that Franco has to win. In Mussolini’s opinion, Franco’s victory is needed to avoid Spain turning into a “Bolshevik state”. If Franco fails, the triumph of communism in Spain is, he says, inevitable, and that is something Italy cannot accept. I don’t agree with Mussolini’s appraisal. I don’t think that communists can win in Spain now, whatever the conditions. But this is what Mussolini thinks. Nevertheless, I am not too despondent. I don’t think that the head of the Italian state has said his last word. We must act with restraint and with patience. He will retreat from his present positions and then it will be possible to persuade him to withdraw the Italian legionaries from Spain.’ I said: ‘If only you were right. My government would be only too glad if your forecast came true. Unfortunately, I am yet to see any encouraging signs in this direction.’ Chamberlain stuck to his guns, however, and repeated that we must be restrained and patient.

(4) Then the PM inquired what we think about the Spanish conflict and what position the USSR holds in the matter. I provided the requisite explanations and underlined our desire to eliminate intervention and turn the Spanish conflict into a purely Spanish affair. True to our common principles, we, too, are striving to secure ‘the right to national self-determination’ for the Spanish people. We do not aim to establish a communist or any other system in Spain. The Spanish people themselves should decide on their form of government. But we are trying, as best as we can, to prevent any kind of foreign intervention in Spain’s domestic affairs. In our struggle to secure Spain’s right to decide its fate independently, we have always tried to coordinate our actions with those of Britain and France. We happened to disagree on some practical matters relating to the Spanish problem over the past 11 months, and we may have disagreements in future. I hope, however, that the differences will not be exaggerated on both sides and that they will not hinder the joint efforts of the USSR and Great Britain in the cause of the strengthening of peace. Chamberlain listened to my account with great attention and evident sympathy, but afterwards it immediately became clear that he had understood it in his own way. The PM said: ‘Mussolini wants to establish a fascist state in Spain, and you do not want this to happen. We are facing two extremes. Britain tries to hold an intermediate position between you and Mussolini.’ I objected that he was giving a false picture of the actual state of affairs. In fact, Mussolini wants to establish a very definite regime in Spain – a fascist one – while the USSR is not striving to establish some particular regime there, whether socialist, communist or other. The USSR wishes only that all other powers should leave Spain alone and give it the opportunity to establish independently such a regime as is desired by the popular masses of Spain. There is a very great difference between the positions of Italy and the USSR. At this point Chamberlain had to acknowledge that there was indeed a difference, and that it was a serious difference. He expressed approval of our position and added that in principle it was very close to that of Great Britain. ‘Unfortunately,’ Chamberlain added, ‘I fear that we shall not be able to resolve the Spanish problem very soon, and without that it is difficult to conceive of the possibility of any serious measures towards the real appeasement of Europe.’

(5) The PM paused again and turned to another subject:

I asked Chamberlain what exactly he had in mind. The PM answered:

In reply, I briefly outlined my doubts concerning the effectiveness of this route to the ‘appeasement of Europe’ charted by Chamberlain. The PM was obviously not too happy about this, but as he did not want to enter into further argument, he hastened to say that we were discussing a very complicated issue and that naturally there could be entirely honest differences of opinion. Chamberlain said that in any event he was ready to listen to the views of those who thought differently.

(6) That was the end of the business part of our conversation. The rest was pure protocol and not worth recording. The conversation left me with the general impression that Chamberlain is seriously entertaining the idea of a four-power pact and of organizing western security, and is prepared to make considerable concessions to Germany and Italy in order to attain his goal. However, if it were to transpire in the course of events that an agreement with those two countries was impossible or that the price England had to pay for the agreement was unacceptable, he would take a far firmer stand towards the fascist powers than was taken by Baldwin.

Repeated in DVP, 1937, XX, doc. 269. In a typical retrospective attempt to prove that the Munich Agreement had been foreordained, Maisky presented a crude picture (as he did throughout his memoirs). Writing to The Times, 8 June 1971, he did quote Chamberlain as saying ‘Oh, if we could sit down with Hitler at the same table with pencils in our hands and go over all the differences between us, I am sure that the atmosphere would clear up immensely!’ This was a deliberate retrospective distortion, which is also evident in Maisky, The Munich Drama (Moscow, 1972), p. 13, and in Who Helped Hitler?, pp. 68–9. As is obvious from the conclusion of the talk, Maisky saw fit to stress the qualifying and, as it turned out, misleading comments made by Chamberlain that failure to reach an agreement would lead him to seek an alternative solution. A few months later, however, Maisky grasped, as he told the Webbs, that ‘that hard grained but frank reactionary’ was set on a renewal of the four-power pact for peace in the west, while the Soviet Union ‘was to be left outside to mind her own business’; Webb, diary, 27 Oct. 1937, p. 6393.