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Table of Contents
The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 1
  • 27 October 1937
  • 12 July
  • 18 July
  • 9 August
  • 30 October
  • 31 October
  • 1 November
  • 4 November
  • 5 November
  • 6 November
  • 7 November
  • 9 November
  • 10 November
  • 12 November
  • 15 November
  • 16 November
  • 17 November
  • 18 November
  • 23 November
  • 24 November
  • 25 November
  • 27 November
  • 28 November
  • 29 November
  • 1 December
  • 5 December
  • 6 December
  • 11 December
  • 13 December
  • 16 December
  • 17 December
  • 18 December
  • 19 December
  • 20 December
  • 24 December
  • 27 December
  • 31 December
  • 8 January
  • 9 January
  • 15 January
  • 18 January
  • 25 January
  • 26 January
  • 28 January
  • 1 February
  • 4 February
  • 6 February
  • 10 February
  • 12 February
  • 14 February
  • 15 February
  • 20 February
  • 21 February
  • 22 February
  • 28 February
  • 1 March (1)
  • 1 March (2)
  • 2 March
  • 4 March
  • 5 March
  • 6 March
  • 7 March
  • 8 March
  • 9 March
  • 11 March
  • 12 March
  • 13 March
  • 14 March
  • 15 March
  • 16 March
  • 17 March
  • 18 March
  • 19 March
  • 20 March
  • 21 March
  • 22 March
  • 23 March
  • 3 June
  • 5 June
  • 6 June
  • 12 June
  • 15 June
  • 16 June
  • 17 June
  • 19 June
  • 27 June
  • 2 July
  • 8 July
  • 9 July
  • 7 September
  • 4 November
  • 6 November
  • 8 November
  • 13 November
  • 14 November
  • 15 November
  • 14 December
  • 16 December
  • 20 January
  • 21 January
  • 26 January
  • 28 January
  • 29 January
  • 30 January
  • 31 January
  • 10 February
  • 8 March
  • 9 March
  • 10 March
  • 28 March
  • 2 April
  • 3 April
  • 8 April
  • 3 May
  • 7 May
  • 10 May
  • 22 May
  • 26 May
  • 28 May
  • 12 July
  • 1 December
  • 10 January
  • 16 January
  • 17 February
  • 12 March
  • 10 April
  • 16 April
  • 17 April
  • 18 April
  • 21 April
  • 24 May
  • 9 June
  • 15 June
  • 16 June
  • 28 June
  • 1 July
  • 27 July
  • 29 July
  • 29 July
  • 1 August
  • 10 August
  • 23 August
  • 25 August
  • 12 September
  • 14 September
  • 19 September
  • 27 October
  • 6 November
  • 16 November
  • 17 November
  • 18 November
  • 24 November
  • 1 December
  • 4 December
  • 12 December
  • 14 December
  • 4 January
  • 15 January
  • 20 January
  • 25 January
  • 27 January
  • 28 January
  • 7 February
  • 11 February
  • 25 February
  • 1 March
  • 8 March
  • 11 March
  • 22 March
  • 23 March
  • 29 March
  • 31 March
  • 12 April
  • 14 April
  • 10 May
  • 4 August
  • 6 August
  • 7 August
  • 10 August
  • 11 August
  • 15 August
  • 16 August
  • 17 August
  • 20 August
  • 24 August
  • 26 August
  • 27 August
  • 28 August
  • 29 August
  • 30 August
  • 31 August
  • 1 September
  • 2 September
  • 3 September
  • 4 September
  • 5 September
  • 7 September
  • 8 September
  • 11 September
  • PS 1 October
  • 12 September
  • 13 September
  • 14 September
  • 15 September
  • 16 September
  • 18 September
  • 19 September
  • 20 September
  • 21 September
  • 22 September
  • 23 September
  • 24 September
  • 25 September
  • 26 September
  • 27 September
  • 28 September
  • 29 September
  • 30 September
  • 1 October
  • 6 October
  • 11 October
  • 13 October
  • 15 October
  • 17 October
  • 19 October
  • 20 October
  • 22 October
  • 25 October
  • 26 October
  • 27 October
  • 28 October
  • 30 October
  • 31 October
  • 1 November
  • 3 November
  • 9 November
  • 15 November
  • 16 November
  • 17 November
  • 25 November
  • 27 November
  • 7 December
  • 11 December
  • 13 December
  • 18 December
  • 19 December
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© 2025
4 January
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By Liakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)

The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 1

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4 January
I found Vansittart’s name in the New Year’s Honours List. But what kind of an ‘honour’ is this? As yet, it’s hard to tell.
V. has been accorded a lofty award and a new position to boot: he ceases to be permanent undersecretary (a most important post as effective head of the Foreign Office staff and thus to a significant extent head of the FO itself) and becomes ‘chief diplomatic adviser’ to the foreign secretary. What does this mean?
No one is quite sure, because the post has only just been created. There is no precedent in the history of the FO. But all the information I have been able to muster, together with the observations of experienced people, adds up to the following.
If V. succeeds in working his way into the PM’s entourage (like Horace Wilson, chief industrial adviser to the British government) and in gaining the latter’s trust, then the new appointment will represent a major promotion for him and his influence will grow. If, however, V. fails in this and remains in the capacity of ‘adviser’ only to the FO, the new appointment will have to be regarded as a demotion or, more precisely, as a retirement ticket, only with uniform, decorations and a pension. We shall see what we shall see.
It is beyond doubt that V.’s new appointment is a typical British compromise in the struggle occupying government circles between the Francophiles and Germanophiles. The latter wished to get V. away from London and pack him off as ambassador to the United States, whereas the Francophiles insisted on V.’s retention in his former post. Eventually, V. stayed in London, but lost direct control of the FO.
The Observer was hostile about Vansittart’s appointment, and so was The Times. These are good signs, but who knows what tomorrow will hold.
[Chamberlain’s appointment as prime minister proved to be a severe blow to Maisky and Litvinov, and added to the fear that Britain was seeking new allegiances, leaving the Soviet Union out in the cold. Frustrated at the League of Nations’ failure to sustain peace,


Page 252

Litvinov wavered, sharing the Kremlin’s increasing sense of marginalization and passivity in the face of an imminent war. But, like Maisky, he did not yet abandon his expectations of a long-term shift towards collective security.
S. Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War: 1936–1941 (London, 2002), pp. 95–6, 103–8. Litvinov resorted to the German card in press interviews, probably as a means of exerting pressure on England and France. Maisky’s main concern was that the nature and timing of the Cabinet changes might enhance the Soviet tendency to retreat into isolation; Lloyd George papers, LG/G/14/1/4, 10 Feb. 1938. See also RAN f.1702 op.4 d.111 ll.15–16, Maisky to Kollontay, 6 Feb. 1938.
As the New Year dawned, Maisky could only hope that the brazen display of German aggressive intentions might lead to ‘something completely unexpected’ in Britain. His hopes that the Republican victory in the battle of Teruel on the Aragon front, in December 1937, might tip the scales were, however, shattered when the town was recaptured by Franco on 21 February 1938.
RAN f.1702 op.4 d.111 ll.15–16, Maisky to Kollontay, 6 Feb. 1938.
To make things worse, the British drift towards appeasement intensified following the resignation of Eden and the ‘promotion’ of Vansittart to the lofty but powerless position of chief diplomatic adviser. The Soviet retreat from collective security into isolation was, therefore, enforced rather than self-inflicted.
The diary, as well as related documentary material produced in this volume, clearly indicates the extent to which Soviet foreign policy remained reactive, and did not dogmatically pursue Lenin’s 1916 ideological premise, which dictated the need for ‘isolation’ in a war that was perceived to be inevitable.
In her magnum opus, The Triumph of the Dark, pp. 439–40, Steiner attributes the terror to Stalin’s desire for absolute power and ‘his ideologically based belief in the coming


Page 429

war’, a point which historiography has yet to establish firmly. She relies heavily on J. Harris, ‘Encircled by enemies: Stalin’s perceptions of the capitalist world, 1918–1941’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 30/3 (2007), who claims that the way Stalin handled the intelligence reports submitted to him evinced his ideological predisposition. However, it reflects, at best, a cultural revolutionary bias, hardly different from the ideological bias discernible in the official British and French reports on Russia, the content of which were well known in the Kremlin but which Harris tends to overlook. The Western bias is convincingly presented in the prolific works of J. Carley (cited within this volume), as is the revolutionary culture, which by no means signifies a dogmatic modus operandi. T.J. Uldricks, ‘Soviet security policy in the 1930s’, in G. Gorodetsky, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1991 (London, 1994), continues to serve as a sound and objective compass. Similar subtle, complex and convincing arguments were produced by Pons in The Inevitable War. Naturally the synoptic nature of Steiner’s masterpiece leads to inconsistent presentations of Stalin, who occasionally is also viewed as ‘the pragmatic Soviet leader’ (The Triumph of the Dark, p. 443). The inconsistency reflects the absence of consensus among experts in the field, even after the partial opening of the Soviet archives. The failure to reach a single common explanation for the purges leads Steiner to reach a final verdict that the terror was ‘rooted in Stalin’s fierce determination to establish his absolute control over all men and institutions that might threaten his monopoly of power’ (ibid., p. 461). She does, however, overlook a significant corroborative element – the struggle for power and ideas within the Soviet elite, which goes beyond the simple selfish interests characterizing the totalitarian model. See J.A. Getty and O.V. Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the self-destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939 (New Haven, 1999).
Speaking in Geneva on 27 January, Litvinov reaffirmed that, although some members had withdrawn from the League, the Soviet Union was ‘prepared as before for full cooperation with the remaining loyal members of the League’. Maisky, however, disclosed to the Webbs that ‘the Soviet government was tending towards isolation and though she will not leave the League she will cease to be interested in it. Collective security must be applied everywhere or nowhere – to Germany in the west as well as to Japan in the east’.
DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 27; Webb, diary, 23 Jan. 1938, p. 6433. An isolation, contingent on military might and economic autarky, was ordained from the outset by the failure of collective security and was first enunciated by Molotov in January 1936. See Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security, p. 93. The entire work of Pons, The Inevitable War, presents a fusion of the ideological and pragmatic approach, but Pons’s narrative, based on impressive archival findings, overwhelmingly underlines the reactive nature of the policy.
He was certainly attentive to Zhdanov’s
Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov, replaced Kirov, after his murder in 1934, as general secretary of the Communist Party in Leningrad; chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet, 1938–47; member of the Politburo, 1939–48. Actively involved in the purges of the 1930s, he introduced the Zhdanov Doctrine – the rigorous communization of Eastern Europe – as well as the cultural purges of the post-war era.
frontal attack on Litvinov a couple of days earlier, during which he castigated Narkomindel’s policies. Zhdanov now chaired the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Supreme Soviet, which gradually took over the formulation of foreign policy from the deflated Politburo and Narkomindel. As will be seen below, Maisky most likely learned that, in his despair, Litvinov had composed, but not sent, a letter of resignation addressed to Stalin.
Suggested by Pons, The Inevitable War, pp. 106–10.
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Document Details
Document Title4 January
AuthorLiakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)
RecipientN/A
RepositoryN/A
ID #N/A
DescriptionN/A
Date1938 Jan 4
AOC VolumeThe Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 1
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