The first five-year plan of my ambassadorship in England has come to an end!

[Visibly beguiled by the lofty position he now assumed, Maisky left a marvellous description in his memoirs of the presentation of his credentials:

Vansittart asked me over to brief me about the results of Barthou’s visit.

A full report is in DVP, 1934, XVII, doc. 246.

The British are very pleased with its outcome. The British government has promised to support the Eastern Pact scheme, as well as the project for a supplementary Franco-Soviet guarantee pact, but under the crucial condition that Germany be allowed to participate in the pact on an equal footing with France and the USSR. Simon will speak to this effect in the House tomorrow. The British ambassadors in Berlin and Warsaw have been instructed to advise (‘in a friendly manner’) participation in the Eastern Pact, while the British ambassador in Rome has been instructed to ask the Italian government to support the British move.

I informed Vansittart today that the Soviet government is ready to admit Germany as an equal member to the Franco-Soviet guarantee pact. Vansittart was very pleased and promised to take measures to secure wide coverage in the press. It would be good if the Soviet government also made its decision public. Germany’s sole objection to the Eastern Pact has now been removed. If Germany, nonetheless, once again declines the proposal, she will have only herself to blame when other countries become suspicious of her intentions.

I called on Vansittart to say goodbye before leaving for my holidays, and he used my visit for a serious political talk.

[A keen traveller, Maisky left England for an absorbing three-month journey through the much-admired cradle of Western civilization – Italy, Greece and Constantinople – before returning to the Soviet Union. Little did he know that this would be his last opportunity to travel freely in Europe before the dark clouds of repression engulfed Russia.

Maisky shared a passion for travel with his fellow Russians in exile – a passion which was to set them apart from Stalin and Molotov and the Bolsheviks who stayed behind in Russia. In her unpublished biography, Ivy Litvinov noted that ‘Like all Russians, Maxim

Page 409

was an indefatigable tourist, I had been taken for rambles in the home-counties before, but no Englishman had ever shown such an intimate knowledge of their byways as the Russian emigrants.’ Ivy Litvinov papers, draft memoirs.

In future, he would only be able to indulge his passion by stealing precious moments in Paris or Switzerland on his way to the League of Nations in Geneva, or in Stockholm en route to Moscow. Back home, balancing his act, Maisky spent some six weeks extensively touring the Ukraine and the south of Russia ‘studying conditions on the spot, both on the collective farms and in the countryside, as well as machine tractor stations’, forming a vivid picture of what was happening in Russia.

RAN f.1702 op.4 d.1141 l.44, Maisky to H.G. Wells, 12 Dec. 1934.

Yesterday, on the eve of the opening of parliament, the National Labour Party

Following the economic crash of 1929, MacDonald’s second Labour government broke up in 1931 on the issue of unemployment benefit cuts. MacDonald then formed the National Government, a coalition with a majority of Conservative ministers, including Baldwin and Chamberlain. It also comprised Liberals, headed by Samuel, and Labourites. MacDonald and the Labourite ministers, who were consequently expelled from the Labour Party, formed a marginal National Labour Party, which carried little weight.

held an important lunch which was attended by nearly the entire Cabinet, with MacDonald, Baldwin and Simon delivering major speeches. Their gist was that we are living, as before, in very threatening times and that ‘the National Government’ ought to remain in place. Baldwin even made it clear that a return to the traditional policy of single-party Cabinets was hardly to be expected in the near future. Simon plunged into philosophy: the post-war situation, it turns out, has demanded everywhere an extraordinary concentration of national forces. On the continent, this concentration takes the form of one-man dictatorships of various peoples, while in ‘democratic England’ it issues in a ‘National Government’. Evidently, yesterday’s lunch supplied the decision-making circles of the ruling classes with their guidelines, slogans and platform for the coming winter and perhaps even beyond.

I was told the other day that when the prime minister appears on the newsreel, the audience laughs.

I am increasingly convinced that despite everything, Baldwin is still the real leader of the Conservative Party and, consequently, the leader of England and the British Empire. But he is no ordinary leader. H. Macmillan

Harold Maurice Macmillan (1st earl of Stockton), Conservative MP, 1924–29 and 1931–64; parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Supply, 1940–42; undersecretary of state for the colonies, 1942–45.

(Conservative) once told me that Baldwin ‘is our Kutuzov’ (he meant the Kutuzov of L. Tolstoy’s War and Peace).

[In what today would be a routine practice, but was in the 1930s quite uncommon, Maisky diligently cultivated relations with the proprietors and editors of leading newspapers, particularly the more Conservative ones. His intensive correspondence with Garvin,

James Louis Garvin, founder and editor of the Observer, 1908–42.

the editor of the Observer, is a striking example. Maisky would brief Garvin, sometimes in a subtle way and sometimes quite bluntly, about issues which he deemed of sufficient importance to be raised in the paper. Shortly after his return from vacation in Europe, his new initiatives now endorsed by Stalin and Litvinov, he hastily approached Garvin: ‘There is so much to talk about concerning the international situation that one has the desire to discuss many topical questions with a well-informed student of international affairs.’ He would raise a trivial matter, such as a request for Garvin to put him up for membership of the London Library, en passant giving him marks for a recent editorial in which Garvin had put the case for peace ‘very ably and convincingly’, while congratulating him on ‘the magnificent service [he had] done to the cause of peace’. Maisky also did not hesitate to reproach Garvin for a leader which, he feared, was likely to encourage those influential circles in Britain seeking appeasement with Germany and which could create the wrong impression in Germany that Britain was leaving Eastern Europe out in the cold. He was then quick off the mark to congratulate Garvin on a corrective article which appeared the following week in the Observer, further briefing him on topics which he expected Garvin to raise in a second instalment. ‘The attitude of the British press to this question,’ he reassured Garvin, ‘is very important and that is why I feel that “Face to Face” was doubly welcome and timely.’

Garvin papers, 10 March, 12 Dec. 1933, 1 Jan., 20 and 26 Feb., 1935. Maisky paid equal attention to journalists, such as J. Cummings, the political editor of News Chronicle, who were highly critical of the Soviet Union; see VSD, p. 304, and I.M. Maisky, Vospominaniya sovetskogo posla v Anglii (Moscow, 1960), pp. 99–100.

]

In today’s Observer Garvin sharply attacks Japan’s demand for naval parity with Britain and the USA. Seen from the perspective of British imperialism, there is much truth in his arguments. Garvin draws the following conclusion: if an agreement between Japan, the USA and Britain proves impossible, then an agreement must be sought between the USA and Britain (against Japan). Garvin also chivvies the Americans into building grand sea and air fleets. Once again, from the point of view of British imperialism, Garvin’s conclusions are perfectly sensible.

Thank heavens! Yesterday, in Moscow, an agreement was signed between Glavkontsesskom (Comrade Trifonov)

Valentin Andreevich Trifonov, chairman of the Central Concession Committee of the Soviet government, 1930–37.

and Lena Goldfields (Marshall)

The representative of the stockholders of Lena Goldfields.

to annul an old dispute that dated back to 1930. When I think of the bother this case has given me! All this time it has been a thorn in the side of Anglo-Soviet relations! A major impediment to the improvement of these relations has been removed; the path for further steps toward rapprochement (insofar as this is possible) has been cleared…

Surits

Yakov Zakharovich Surits, like Maisky, joined the revolutionary movement in 1902. He was arrested and exiled first to Tobolsk and eventually to Berlin, where he studied political science. Recruited to NKID in 1918, he served as Soviet ambassador to Turkey, 1923–34, to Germany, 1934–37, and to France, 1937–40. Declared persona non grata by the French in March 1940, he was recalled to Moscow and consigned to the backstage of diplomacy until his retirement in 1948.

is down on his luck. Hitler kept him waiting for a fortnight without setting a date for the presentation of his credentials, while the secret police arrested a number of German communists who worked at the embassy right after his arrival in Berlin. The arrests were made on 20–21 October. When I arrived in Berlin on 22 October, on my way back from Moscow to London, there was no one to meet me at the station: the embassy chauffeur had been arrested. Bessonov

Sergei Alekseevich Bessonov, counsellor at the Soviet embassy in Berlin, 1933–35; subsequently provisional acting head of the second western department of NKID.

(councillor) sent a protest to the German Foreign Ministry the same day, but to no avail. It seems that Hitler was highly annoyed with Surits for excessively delaying his departure from Moscow, in the face of Germany’s insistent requests.

We celebrated the seventeenth anniversary of the October Revolution at the embassy last night. I gave a talk. Afterwards there were refreshments, followed by singing and dancing. People were in unusually high spirits. Partly, perhaps, because we were served only champagne and not vodka. It all ended at about 4 a.m.

Today I had a long meeting with Simon. Referring to M.M. [Litvinov], I formulated my question in the following way: We welcome the initial improvement in Anglo-Soviet relations, we desire further progress in this direction and see no objective causes that could impede this course of events. For: (1) The two sides have no designs on the territorial integrity of one another (the tsarist government may have coveted India, but the Soviet government pursues no such ambitions; the problem for Great Britain at the current time is not to acquire new lands but to preserve those it already has); (2) They are not competing on the global market; (3) They have no serious disagreements over any of the major international issues of our time (Europe: both sides want to preserve peace and to prevent Germany from violating it; the Middle East:

Although nowadays little distinction is drawn between ‘Near East’ and ‘Middle East’, Maisky does use two different expressions to denote the regions. For the sake of accuracy, the same distinction is made in this translation of the diaries.

both sides are interested in maintaining the independence of Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan; the Soviet government has no claims on Constantinople and the Straits; the Far East: both sides are interested in preserving peace and the integrity of China, and in preventing Japan from breaking the peace; (4) Both sides have excellent reasons to desire peace – the USSR because it is engaged in socialist construction and has no incentives for war: its domestic market is huge, it has every raw material except rubber on its territory, and it has no investments abroad; and Great Britain because any war in which it gets involved would threaten the integrity of the Empire. This, of course, is just a rough, schematic summary of my thoughts. Why, then, should we not try to improve relations further between the USSR and Great Britain? Why not take advantage of the chance that has come our way?

Last night I attended the lord mayor’s

Sir Stephen Henry Molyneux Killik, lord mayor of London, 1934–35.

annual dinner. November 9th is a great day in the life of the City. Lord mayors have been inaugurated on this day since time immemorial (they are elected every year from a list of the so-called aldermen of the City). The Lord Mayor Show, a medieval ceremony, proceeds along the streets of the town and in the evening a sumptuous banquet is held at the Guildhall for London notables, attended by some 500–600 guests. Heads of mission are also included in the list of guests, but… first, they are invited without their wives (though the English notables come with their ladies) and, secondly, not all heads receive this honour – only the ambassadors and the two most senior heads of mission.

There were some interesting moments at yesterday’s banquet.

When, in search of my seat, I found myself two chairs away from my destination, I was suddenly struck by the sound of Russian speech. I raised my head and saw the following scene. On the other side of the table, directly opposite my seat, a tall grey-haired lady wearing a grey-blue silk dress and a yellowish brocade cloak was in quite a state and making gestures. Her face was quite pleasant, but now it was all blotched with red. Two young people hung about her, quite at a loss: a young girl in green and a respectable grey-headed gentleman wearing a velvet suit with a star on his breast. I heard the woman saying hysterically in Russian: ‘I cannot sit here! I just can’t!’

MacDonald delivered a half-hour speech at the banquet, devoted to the situation at home and abroad. He welcomed, among other things, the USSR’s entry to the League of Nations, reproached Germany for its tendency to self-isolation, and made an emotional appeal for the preservation of peace the world over.

I met Jennie Lee

Baroness Janet (Jennie) Lee of Asheridge.

and her husband, the Labour MP Aneurin Bevan,

Aneurin Bevan, Labour MP, 1929–60.

at Naomi Mitchison’s

Naomi Mitchison, Scottish social activist and author of more than 70 books for adults and children.

literary soirée. They were in a foul mood. Jenny was particularly displeased. She is thought to be so far left as to be all but a communist, but now she is utterly depressed: the working masses have moved left, but they don’t even listen to the ‘left’. They believe in Labour, pin great hopes on a third Labour Cabinet which could rely on its own majority, and surrender all their sympathies and votes to Labour. The left, according to Jenny, is out of a job.

Today I attended the dinner given by the ancient guild, The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (already 600 years old).

Since last year, the chairman (or Master) of the guild has been the prince of Wales.

Prince of Wales, 1911–36; King Edward VIII of Great Britain, January 1936, becoming Prince Edward, duke of Windsor, after abdicating from the throne in December 1936.

Our ‘friend’ the archbishop of Canterbury made a witty toast in honour of the prince (the archbishop, it must be said, is an outstanding dinner speaker), and the prince responded in the customary manner. Then everybody moved to the smoking room. Here the prince, who considered it his duty as host to exchange a couple of niceties with every diplomat present, quite unexpectedly engaged me in a long and inappropriately serious conversation. First, he asked me whether I have to deliver many speeches. When I complimented him on his speech he, somewhat embarrassed, started talking about the best English orators, past and present. He named the late Lord Birkenhead,

Frederick Edwin Smith (1st earl of Birkenhead), a scholar in Oxford, later Conservative MP; secretary of state for India, 1924–28.

General Smuts and Lloyd George,

David Lloyd George, Liberal MP for Caernarvon, 1890–1945; prime minister of Great Britain, 1916–22; leader of the Liberal Party, 1926–31. When Hitler came to power, he advocated frontier concessions over the Saar, Danzig, Polish corridor and the Rhineland. He even visited Hitler at Berchtesgaden, describing him as the ‘George Washington of Germany’. In the wake of the Munich Agreement, he recognized the case of the Sudeten Germans but pressed for the end of appeasement and the launching of a vigorous policy of rearmament. He championed an alliance with the Soviet Union. Hindsight tends to overlook his powerful position well into the war; his speech in the Commons on 8 May 1940 was a major contributory factor in Chamberlain’s downfall and Churchill’s rise to power. He declined offers to join Churchill’s War Cabinet and the ambassadorship in Washington. On the 50th anniversary of his entry into parliament, Maisky, who had cultivated particularly close relations with him, sent him an exhilarated letter thanking him for their conversations ‘which will undoubtedly for ever remain in my memory as events of outstanding interest and pleasure’; RAN f.1702 op.4 d.994 ll.11–13, 12 April 1940.

but not MacDonald. He said of the premier, with a slight grimace: ‘You know, he is not exactly…’ Then he told me that only today he had attended an exhibition of machine-tools and had been delighted to learn that the USSR was a very loyal consumer of British machinery. I confirmed this and cited a few figures. He asked me about our process of reconstruction and the successes of the five-year plan, and remarked that he hoped for a further increase in Soviet orders placed in Britain. I responded with a smile: ‘Agreed, but give us appropriate conditions of credit.’ The prince made a gesture as if to say, ‘That is not really my business.’ He then moved on to international politics, speaking at length about the threat of war and the complicated international situation, before finally concluding: no one wants war – not England, not France (‘she only stands to lose by war!’) and not even Germany. I expressed my doubts as to the peaceful intentions of the latter, as well as of Japan. The prince did not object, but he began to argue emphatically that England strives only for peace, and that militarist ideas are alien to the spirit of the British nation. ‘When I have to say some parting words to a regiment or battalion headed to China or any other place in Asia,’ the prince continued, ‘I always tell them: I hope you will never need to use your weapons.’ He then praised the British soldiers and sailors, describing them as nice lads, amiable gentlemen, etc. For my part, I stated that Soviet foreign policy was a policy of peace, and that I was glad to hear from the prince of Wales that Great Britain seeks the same aim. This pleased the prince, who repeated that nobody really wanted war and that the forces of peace were far more numerous and mightier than the forces of war. I remarked, however, that the forces of war were much better organized, especially arms manufacturers, so the threat of war was very serious indeed. The prince agreed and added musingly: ‘You mention arms manufacturers… True, they do well out of war, but they could do no worse in peace time. Take the plan to build floating aerodromes in the Atlantic to facilitate the movement by air of passengers and mail between Europe and America. Wouldn’t that be good business for metallurgical companies? You could find many other similar opportunities.’ I entirely agreed with him and added that the forces of peace must be also well organized in order to combat effectively the forces of war. The states that oppose war must cooperate in safeguarding peace. The prince agreed with me. Towards the end of our conversation he inquired about my past, so I described my career in diplomacy. He then asked: ‘Where did you learn English?’ I answered that for five years, between 1912 and 1917, I had lived in England as a political émigré. The prince laughed and exclaimed: ‘And now you are the ambassador! It’s a sign of the times. We are living in an astonishing epoch!’

Maisky told Beatrice Webb (but did not report home) that the prince of Wales had actually intimated his wish to visit the Soviet Union. See N. MacKenzie and J. MacKenzie (eds), The Diary of Beatrice Webb (London, 1985), IV, p. 345.

I visited Eden on returning from holiday. I hadn’t meant to discuss serious matters, but our conversation seemed to veer of its own accord towards current political issues. The most important:

The Chinese envoy Guo Taiqi

Guo Taiqi, Chinese ambassador to London, 1932–41; Chinese delegate to the League of Nations, 1934–38; minister of foreign affairs, April–December 1941.

came by. We had a long talk about current political issues. G.’s mood was not the best. He told me bluntly: ‘It’s all right for you: the USSR is a mighty power, and England has to take you seriously. Not so with China. Each time Chinese and Japanese interests clash, England invariably sacrifices our interests for those of Japan.’

Today’s Observer features a very interesting article, ‘Crisis in the Pacific’, by Lord Lothian.

Philip Henry Kerr (11th marquess of Lothian), Lloyd George’s private secretary, 1916–21; chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, 1931–32; ambassador to the USA, 1939–40.

Concern over the future of British interests in the Far East seems to be growing. More far-sighted British politicians have already started looking for ways out of the situation that is developing – mainly, by promoting Anglo-American rapprochement. Well, from the point of view of our – Soviet – interests, this is not damaging. On the contrary, it could even be beneficial, since Anglo-American rapprochement isolates Japan.

‘Functions’ linked to the royal wedding have begun.

The duke of Kent married Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, his second cousin, on 29 November 1934, at Westminster Abbey.

Today our doyen, the Brazilian de Oliveira,

Raul Regis de Oliveira, Brazilian ambassador in London, 1925–40; doyen of the diplomatic corps, 1933–40, succeeded by Maisky.

held a reception for the diplomatic corps ‘to meet the Duke of Kent

Prince George Edward, duke of Kent, fourth son of George V.

and Princess Marina’.

Princess Marina, duchess of Kent, wife of Prince George, duke of Kent.

At around 6 p.m., all the Heads of Mission gathered in the doyen’s relatively small residence, accompanied by their wives. Only the Americans were missing, along with the ambassadors of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. These last two were away, but I can’t explain the absence of the Americans. The happy couple arrived at 6.30, accompanied by the parents of the bride. Excitement was growing in the hall. Silence, snatched whispers, ladies casting curious glances… Eventually the guests appeared, preceded by the doyen and his wife. Marina looked charming to me, much better than she did in the newspapers: a blonde with luxurious hair, a rosy complexion, bright eyes. Thin and refined. One diplomat later told me that her photographers should have been shot for ruining Marina. Right he was! The duke of Kent isn’t bad either: tall, slender, with quite a pleasant face. He stoops a little and seems to be very shy. In any case, he is the most handsome of the king’s sons. On the whole, seen from the physical and physiological point of view, they make a nice couple. The bride’s parents – Prince Nicholas of Greece

Prince Nicholas of Greece, father of Princess Marina who in 1934 married the duke of Kent.

and his wife (a Russian princess, I believe) – resemble provincial landowners of middling means…

This conversation reminds me of another, comparable episode. At a dinner party in Finland, three years or so ago, I was sitting next to the wife of the Polish envoy, Charwat.

Franciszek Charwat, Polish ambassador in Finland, 1928–35.

We spoke of various things and finally came to her children (a boy and a girl, aged 6 and 8). I asked Mrs Charwat what careers she was preparing her children for. My interlocutor, a clever and educated woman with a PhD from some university, at first talked at great length about her hopes and expectations for her children, but then she suddenly broke off and said with great emotion: ‘Here I am speaking to you of my plans and calculations, but what’s the use? Life is so difficult and unstable nowadays, and the future is so dark and uncertain, that you don’t even want to think about it. I’ve got through my life one way or another, but what’s in store for my children? I don’t know.’

I had the following conversation with the Swedish envoy Palmstierna

Baron Erik Kule Palmstierna, Swedish foreign minister, March–October 1920; ambassador in London, 1920–37.

at breakfast.

For the last three days, there has been noise and confusion on the political stock exchange of Europe. Archimbaud,

Léon Archimbaud, Radical Party Deputy of Drôme, 1919–40.

a Radical deputy, speaking on the defence budget in the French National Assembly on 22 November, said among other things that a military defence alliance exists between France and the USSR. This immediately caused uproar in all the European capitals. The Parisian minister of foreign affairs [Laval]

Pierre Laval, prime minister of France, 1931–32, 1935–36, 1940 and 1942–44; foreign minister, 1934–36.

came out with a démenti, albeit a rather evasive one. M.M., who is presently in Geneva, rather cunningly told the journalists: it is up to Laval, not me, to correct Archimbaud. Yesterday Archimbaud himself offered some explanations to the press regarding his statement at the Assembly. Formally denying the existence of an alliance, he at the same time created the impression that it could be concluded at any moment. Allegedly, the ground for such an alliance has been thoroughly prepared. Here in England the press made a sensation out of Archimbaud’s statement, and I had to calm things down a bit.

The second ‘function’ concerning the royal wedding!

I witnessed a curious scene at the end of the reception.

Lady Astor

Lady Nancy Astor, Conservative MP for Plymouth, 1919–45, and the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. An unconventional politician, she accompanied Bernard Shaw on a tour of the Soviet Union and met Stalin, but diverted her sympathies to Hitler when she established the ‘Cliveden Set’, a spearhead in the appeasement of Nazism.

caught hold of me. Clad in a fine green velvet dress, as buoyant and ardently vigorous as ever, she made a very favourable impression against the general background of laxity and degeneration.

[Maisky’s memoirs, and particularly their Russian edition, geared as they were towards vindicating Soviet policies on the eve of the war, present a sinister and often factually inaccurate portrait of Lady Astor. They also conceal how intriguing he found the strikingly glamorous and witty American, who in 1919 was the first woman to enter parliament – a Conservative MP who championed the Soviet cause, following a tour of Russia and a meeting with Stalin at the Kremlin in 1931. Maisky was clearly attracted, though not beguiled, by the ‘small, thin, elegant lady with the slightly whipped dark hair, a minute expressive face and lively crafty eyes’ which rendered her the ‘absolute embodiment of eternal restlessness’. In retrospect, he would rue his overestimation of the power exerted by Lady Astor, wrongly assuming that close relations with her would ‘open to him the doors of other Conservative citadels’. In fact, he never ceased to seek her company. He remained a frequent visitor to her Versailles-modelled mansion at Cliveden, Buckinghamshire, even after 1937, when it became a Mecca for appeasers such as Chamberlain, Halifax, Hoare and others, who spent long weekends there. He was observed playing ‘absurd games’ at her instigation after dinner. ‘Who, for example, would ever expect to see Ivan Maisky … and four or five members of the British Government playing musical chairs?’ recalled Vernon Bartlett,

Vernon Bartlett, a leftist anti-appeaser correspondent of the News Chronicle.

the journalist-turned-politician.

V. Bartlett, I Know What I Liked (London, 1974), p. 97.

Maisky’s vision, coloured by cultural ideological predilections, led him to attach undue significance to those weekends, during which, he believed, crucial decisions were reached by the prime minister.

VSD, pp. 198–201, 238–40; Maisky, Who Helped Hitler?, pp. 54–66, 69.

Between 3 and 5 p.m. Agniya and I were at St James’s Palace, at a specially arranged viewing of the wedding gifts presented to the Duke of Kent and Marina. A great mass of people. An incredible crush and confusion. There were so many presents that when we entered the hall with the tables, chairs, beds and others gifts presented to the bride and groom, you might have thought you were in a furniture store. The greatest attention was lavished on the items of jewellery, especially the three diamond diadems given to Marina by her fiancé, her father and the British queen. The diadems were kept under glass, and the wives of the ambassadors and British notables were simply dying of envy and rapture. Out of all the books presented to the duke and Marina, it was a thick leather-bound volume entitled Russian Imperial Dinner Service that caught my eye.

The royal wedding finally took place today. From first light, and even from the previous night, London seemed to be overflowing its banks. Up to half a million people descended on the capital from all over the country. Many foreigners arrived from the continent. The streets along which the wedding procession would pass were filled to bursting by an immense crowd that had gathered on the previous evening to occupy the best places. Typically, the crowd consisted almost entirely of women. I, at least, noticed barely a single man on my way from the embassy to Westminster Abbey. Some newspapers also noted this (the Manchester Guardian for one). Large platforms were erected at various points along the procession, with seats being sold for between one and ten guineas. The city, particularly its central part, was decked out gaudily with flags, festoons and banners showing portraits of the bridegroom and the bride; and in the evening, the town was lavishly illuminated. The full works, in other words. The wedding was turned into a real national event.

A terrible disaster! Comrade Kirov

Sergei Mironovich Kirov (Kostrikov), first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU, 1926–34, member of the party’s Politburo from 1930.

has been killed in the Smolny in Leningrad. Who killed him? With what motives? Who sent him?… As yet, I know nothing. Fleet Street is thick with rumours and alternative versions. Some say that the assassin was an engineer with a grudge against Kirov. Others (the Daily Express) suggest that Alfred Rosenberg,

Alfred Rosenberg, editor of the Nazi Party newspaper Völkischer Beobachter; minister for eastern occupied territories, 1941–44.

Hitler’s aide-de-camp, had a hand in it. I know only one thing for sure: the obituary signed by Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov

Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, people’s commissar for defence, 1934–40; marshal of the Soviet Union from 1935; commander-in-chief of the Soviet forces in the war against Finland, 1939–40; deputy chairman of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars, 1940–45; commander-in-chief of the north-west armies and of the Leningrad front, 1941.

and others (I caught it on the radio) states that ‘the assassin was dispatched by class enemies’.

At the 17th Congress of the CPSU, the so-called ‘Victory Congress’, Kirov delivered a fiery speech which received a tumultuous ovation – in contrast to the reception of Stalin’s rather uninspiring oratory. It has since often been suggested that the assassination was related to the political threat Kirov posed to Stalin in 1934. Earlier on, J. Haslam in The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–39 (New York, 1984), pp. 408–9, had discharged any evidence as being ‘thin and based largely on conjecture’. More recently, Khlevniuk in Master of the House, pp. 65–8, 108–16, 128–9, has convincingly dismissed the persisting entrenched views on the basis of a thorough survey of the Russian archives. Both have further demonstrated how Stalin exploited the event to unleash the Great Terror, issuing a directive on the day of the assassination advocating harsh treatment (including the death penalty) for suspected terrorists. See also R.J. Overy, The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia (New York, 2004), pp. 51–3. Stalin’s complicity was vehemently denied by Molotov, who was present when Stalin received news of the assassination and personally took charge of the investigation the following day in Leningrad, interrogating the assassin, Nikolaev; see A. Resis (ed.), Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin politics, conversations with Felix Chuev (Chicago, 1993), pp. 218–22. Amy Knight adds no fresh evidence, though in Who Killed Kirov? The Kremlin’s greatest mystery (New York, 1999) she attributes its absence to the efforts undertaken by the Russians to block access to relevant archival sources. Recently declassified archival documents pertaining to Kirov’s death, however, confirm that Nikolaev acted on his own initiative and that his was a crime of passion, not a plot by counter-revolutionary terrorist groups, as Stalin’s baseless version would have it. It was typical of Maisky to initially take Stalin’s account at face value and endorse it, but then later, perceiving the consequences, to maintain a low profile.

Baldwin won a brilliant victory yesterday. A conference of the Council of the Conservative Party (attended by 1,500 to 1,600 members) was convened specially to discuss the Indian reform.

The reference is to Baldwin’s hope of helping India attain ‘dominion status’. Support came from Halifax and from Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times, but he faced fierce opposition from a militant section of Conservatives, led by Churchill and Croft and supported by the press magnates Rothermere and Beaverbrook. The joint select committee finally adopted a resolution stipulating the establishment of an All-India Federation with a central government, whose authority, however, did not extend to the vital spheres of defence and foreign policy. See L.S. Amery, My Political Life (London, 1955).

Baldwin defended the Joint Select Committee Report that guarantees a degree of self-rule to the provinces and establishes a limited central government on the basis of a federation of provinces and princes. The opposition, headed by Churchill, Lord Salisbury,

James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil (4th marquess of Salisbury), Conservative undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, 1900–03; lord privy seal, 1903–14 and 1924–29.

Page Croft

Henry Page Croft (1st Baron Croft), Conservative MP, 1910–40; undersecretary of state for war, 1940–45.

and others, argued that the new constitution meant abandoning the fundamental positions of British imperialism in India and agreed only to an acknowledgement of the self-government of the provinces. Once, the opposition was very strong and many believed that Baldwin’s position as party leader was teetering. Yesterday, Baldwin’s authority was strengthened as never before. The result of the vote was 1,102 for the government and 390 against, with a few abstentions.

Today the urn with Comrade Kirov’s ashes was immured in the Kremlin wall on Red Square. Hundreds of thousands of people were present, along with troops, members of the Central Committee and the government…

There was a reception for journalists in the embassy on the occasion of the arrival of Comrade Doletsky

Yakov Genrikhovich Doletsky (Fenigstein), director of the TASS agency, 1921–37. Purged in 1937.

(head of TASS) in London en route from Moscow to the USA. About a hundred people were present. Sir Arthur Willert,

Sir Arthur Willert, British delegate to the Geneva Disarmament Conference, 1932–34, and to the League of Nations, 1929–34; resigned from the Foreign Office, 1935.

head of the Foreign Office press bureau, visited the embassy for the first time. In general, it went off well. Today’s Star carries a semi-humorous account of the reception:

At M.M. [Litvinov]’s instruction, I acquainted Vansittart with the Franco-Soviet Protocol of 5 December.

Following the refusal of Germany and Poland to participate in an Eastern Pact, the Russians reverted to a joint protocol with the French, signed in Geneva on 5 December 1934. France and the USSR undertook not to enter into negotiations with potential members of

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the pact that might lead to multilateral or bilateral agreements, which would thus undermine an Eastern Regional Pact. They further undertook never to denounce the protocol and to inform each other of any overture made to them by the parties concerned. Czechoslovakia acceded to the protocol two days later. From Geneva, Litvinov instructed Maisky to inform Vansittart that the protocol was evoked by Hitler’s attempt ‘to sow mistrust’ between the Soviet Union and France through rumours of separate negotiations, ‘now with the USSR, now with France’. But his main concern, shared by Maisky, was of a possible British overture to Germany which might tie French hands; RAN f.1702 op.4 d.472 l.1, Litvinov to Maisky, 7 Dec. 1934, and DVP, 1934, XVII, docs. 415 & 416.

V. was obviously flattered by our attention and confirmed once again that the British government remains in favour of the Eastern Pact, as it was in the summer.

Garvin told me today:

I invited the Coles

G.D.H. Cole, fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1912–19, of University College, 1925–44 and Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory and fellow of All Souls, Oxford, 1944–57; chairman of the Fabian Society (1939–46 and 1948–50) and its president, 1952–57.

over today and had a serious talk with them about the Declaration of the 43.

A declaration of members of the Labour Executive and Trades Union Congress (TUC) against the execution without trial of the so called ‘enemies of the people’ in the Soviet Union following Kirov’s murder.

As I had assumed, the declaration was indeed their doing. During their conversation with me, both were highly agitated, now turning pale, now turning red. Mrs Cole’s hands even trembled nervously.

On 15 December, Maisky added a note to his diary that late the previous evening a messenger had arrived at the embassy and delivered by hand a letter from the Coles (whom Maisky referred to as ‘Sentimental idiots!’) and the ‘Declaration of the 43’.

Today, Vansittart and I concluded the conversation begun on 13 December.

The newspapers can’t stop writing about the Franco-Soviet alliance. On its front page, under the banner headline ‘The Conditions of the Franco-Russian Pact’, the Star has published the stunning news that an agreement on the pact was finally reached on 10 December, that the alliance has been drawn up for five years with the option of a further five-year prolongation, and that it is clearly directed against Germany and Japan. According to the Star’s sources, the alliance is of a defensive nature and stipulates cooperation between the staffs of the two countries, full cooperation in the air, the exchange of military missions, the immediate provision of the Soviet army with 400 French tanks, etc. In the event of a Japanese–Soviet war, France undertakes to supply ammunition and other war matériel to the USSR to a value of 4 million francs; and in the event of a Franco-German, war the USSR undertakes to supply grain to France to a similar sum. The pact does not stipulate direct mutual military assistance. This shocking sensation is seasoned with portraits of Laval and M.M. [Litvinov].

The White émigrés are clearly in great disarray. The Mensheviks, headed by Dan

Fedor Ilich Dan (Gurvich), leader of the Menshevik Party from 1905, exiled in 1922.

and Abramovich,

Rafail Abramovich, a Menshevik activist.

have taken an ‘awfully leftist’ stand. They back the idea of a united front against fascism and speak out not only against intervention, but even about defending the USSR in the event of an attack by a capitalist state. Dan had been expecting an amnesty, before 7 November, and had already packed his suitcases for Moscow… The Milyukovites from Poslednie Novosti are against intervention, against Japan, and against Germany. Early in the year Milyukov

Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov, liberal historian; founder and leader of the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party, 1905–17, and foreign minister in the Provisional Government in the wake of the February 1917 revolution. Emigrated to the United States once the Bolsheviks seized power.

delivered a report on ‘Russia and Europe’ at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, declaring that, were he to be serving as Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, he would pursue exactly the same policy as Litvinov!… And now the monarchists from Vozrozhdenie are seeking points of contact with the ‘new Russia’ under the banner of zoological nationalism…

Vansittart unexpectedly asked me over, at the height of the Christmas season. I felt somewhat anxious on my way to the FO. In fact, however, there was no cause for concern. This became clear at the very beginning of our conversation.

Another year has ended, and I stand on the threshold of a new year! Involuntarily, my gaze is cast back over the twelve months that have passed…

A fire at the embassy.

Mikhail Botvinnik

Mikhail Moiseevich Botvinnik, Russian chess grandmaster, world champion 1948–57, 1958–60 and 1961–63.

left today. He had come here to attend an international chess tournament in Hastings. He spent about a fortnight in England, played nine games and finished fifth. He was somewhat disappointed with the result, but he took it fairly well. All things considered, the result was not bad at all. Botvinnik is still very young – just 23. He’s been playing for 11 years. In Hastings, Botvinnik had to compete with the great champions of the world, such as Capablanca, Euwe, Flohr and others. What’s more, English food proved a terrible trial for him, and he had to play at an unfamiliar time – in the mornings. Add to that the inescapable effect of the climate. Given all these conditions, which must influence the state of any player, it should be said that Botvinnik coped with his task if not brilliantly, then at least perfectly well. His time is sure to come. But it is important that our top players should start arriving at international tournaments not at the last moment, but at least a week in advance, in order to get used to their surroundings. Lasker,

Emanuel Lasker, prominent German chess player, world champion, 1894–1920.

whom Botvinnik met in London, is of the same opinion. I have written about this to N.V. Krylenko.

Nikolai Vasilevich Krylenko, people’s commissar for justice of the Russian Federation, 1931–36, and of the USSR, 1936–38, during the height of the repression campaign. He fell victim to the purges in 1938, when he was sentenced to death by a kangaroo court in just 20 minutes.

I have just returned from the first lunch of the Contact Circle, organized by the Russian–British chamber of commerce. The Contact Circle’s purpose is to let English and Soviet economists meet in an informal setting and to give them the chance to get to know one another better. It will arrange lunches once a month, charging two shillings and sixpence per person. Not a bad idea. The first lunch was today, and I was asked to say a few words and give my blessing. I did so. The other speakers were Mather

Loris Emerson Mather.

(president of the chamber), Maginness

Sir Greville Simpson Maginness.

(vice-chairman), Ozersky and someone else. After the lunch, the Russian–British chamber held its annual meeting, at which Ozersky presented a report.

Mikhail Sholokhov

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1965, author of And Quiet Flows the Don, Virgin Soil Upturned and They Fought for their Country.

has left. He spent about a fortnight in London with his wife. They lived in the embassy. I arranged two receptions for him: one for journalists who interviewed Sholokhov (the interview was poorly covered in the press) and the other for writers. In addition, the SCR [Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR] held a grand evening soirée attended by some 400 guests. It was a brilliant success. Professor Abercrombie

Lascelles Abercrombie, British poet and critic, professor of English Literature at the University of London, 1929–35, and reader in English at the University of Oxford, 1935–38.

presided, Sholokhov and I gave speeches. Sir William Rothenstein,

William Rothenstein, principal of the Royal College of Art, 1920–35; trustee of the Tate Gallery, 1927–33; director of the Tate Gallery, 1938–64.

director of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, made the closing speech. The literary, academic and artistic worlds were well represented (among the guests were Keynes

John Maynard Keynes (Baron Keynes of Tilton), British economist, author of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) and editor of the Economic Journal, 1911–44. An agnostic and liberal, he deplored Marxism, which he argued rested on erroneous economic premises. If one needed religion, it could hardly be found ‘in the turbid rubbish of the red bookshop’.

and his wife

The Russian ballerina Lidiya Lopukhova of the Ballets Russes.

). There were also many journalists, but once again the press failed to cover the evening. Sholokhov gave a very vivid and interesting speech.

From London, where he had arrived via Sweden and Denmark, Sholokhov travelled to Paris, from where he was to return home, to the Soviet Union. Sholokhov stayed in Paris for just two days. He had an unpleasant incident there. He was supposed to leave Paris at 11 p.m. Everything was ready: the tickets were in his pocket, his bulky luggage (eight suitcases!) had been sent to the railway station, and the Sholokhovs were just about to get in the taxi, when Sholokhov suddenly realized that his passport had disappeared. They ransacked their pockets and searched the room, but the passport was nowhere to be found. They hastily sent a man to the railway station to see to it that their luggage should be kept back. In complete desperation they delayed their departure, wondering in vain where their passport might be. Then it suddenly turned up – at the bottom of a suitcase, stuffed in with collars, ladies’ stockings and gloves.

Today’s Times carries an editorial dealing with the forthcoming visit to London of the French premier and foreign minister, Laval. The article ends in characteristic fashion:

This was truly remarkable!

Today all the English papers published the following telegram from America:

I learned the following details about the meeting between the English and French ministers.

French Prime Minister Pierre Étienne Flandin and his foreign minister, Pierre Laval, visited London on 1–3 February and met MacDonald and Simon.

Masaryk

Jan Garrigue Masaryk, Czechoslovak ambassador to Great Britain, 1925–38; minister of foreign affairs of the Czechoslovak government in exile in London, 1940–45 and deputy prime minister, 1941–45.

(the Czech envoy) informed me today that yesterday he had a frank talk with Vansittart. M. didn’t hide his concern about the meeting of English and French ministers and the communiqué of 3 February. But V. assured him that Czechoslovakia had no reason to be afraid for her future. He said that England was extremely interested in Czechoslovakia’s integrity and welfare. V. is rather sceptical about the upcoming talks with Germany and hardly expects a positive outcome. Yet such a step should be taken, if only for the sake of enlightening British public opinion. M. said that Beneš

Edvard Beneš, Czechoslovakia’s representative at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919–20; foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, 1918–35; president of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1935–38 and 1946–48; president-in-exile of the Provisional Czechoslovak government in London, 1940–45.

spoke to Laval today on the telephone from Prague and was assured that the Little Entente had nothing to be afraid of: France would continue to adhere to its commitments.

MacDonald and Simon, supported by The Times, Daily Mail and some other papers, are pursuing a systematic campaign to muzzle the Eastern Pact and divert attention entirely onto questions of ‘western security’. In other words, they are telling Hitler: ‘Leave France and England alone and, by way of compensation, do whatever you like in Eastern Europe.’ I am of the impression that Baldwin, Eden and Vansittart are aware of the impossibility and perils of a policy of aiding and abetting, yet for the time being they are giving MD and S. carte-blanche.

Litvinov agrees. He also thinks it appropriate to say a few plain words on current issues. He suggests that I should focus attention on the thesis that ‘the world is indivisible’ (there can be no ‘western security’ without ‘eastern security’), and that the problem of security cannot be resolved through the efforts of great powers alone (the Pact of the Four!), but only through the collective efforts of big states and small states. As for the fact that disarmament is impossible in the absence of ‘eastern security’, that is best left unmentioned for the time being.

Yesterday Vansittart invited me over to the Foreign Office. Until now I did not want to initiate such a meeting. V. had a long conversation with me, the primary aim of which was to reassure the Soviet government and dispel our fears concerning the communiqué of 3 February. The principal points of our talk can be summed up as follows:

The long-awaited German reply to the joint Anglo-French proposal of 3 February has arrived at last. It disappointed even Vansittart’s modest expectations. Hitler consented only to the air convention, which he wants to detach entirely from the context of the London programme. The rest is of no concern to him. He offers not the slightest hope of consent even in regard to the Rome agreements. The Eastern Pact, disarmament, and a return to the League of Nations are all taboo…

Yesterday I delivered my lecture at the League of Nations Union. I informed the London papers beforehand that I was planning to make an important political statement.

The importance attached by Maisky to his presentation is attested by his rebuke aimed at Garvin’s editorial in the Observer for failing to realize that ‘Peace and security in Europe [were] indivisible.’ The matter was rectified by a second editorial the following week; Garvin papers, 20 Feb. 1935.

As a result, the hall at the School of Economics was chock-full (some 600 people came), and correspondents from every newspaper and agency sat at the press desk, with many foreigners among them. Lady Astor presided. Lord Passfield (Sidney Webb)

Sidney James Webb, a Fabian; served as president of the Board of Trade in the first Labour government, 1924, and in the House of Lords as secretary of state for the colonies, 1929–31.

and Jarvie,

J. Gibson Jarvie, chairman of the United Dominions Trust, hailed Stalin’s five-year plan in a major speech in Glasgow in 1932 which was then often quoted by Stalin, who omitted Jarvie’s qualifying comment that although Russia was claiming ‘to be a Communist State, nevertheless that country to-day was, unquestionably, practising state capitalism’ (The Times, 21 October 1932).

a banker, also spoke on planning in the USSR. The audience listened to my lecture with bated breath, although I was speaking (or rather reading) for about an hour. The mood in the auditorium could be described as one of strained sympathy. The lecture was interrupted by applause at many points, as when I said that there was no unemployment in the USSR and that women enjoyed equal rights, or when I described the peace policy pursued by the Soviet government. The final part of the lecture, dealing with the communiqué of 3 February, attracted particular attention. Excerpts from it were broadcast last night on the radio. The presidium of the conference thanked me for choosing the platform of the League of Nations Union to make a political statement of major importance. Today all organs of the press gave a detailed account of the lecture, and some featured it in their editorials. Excellent! We’ve fired the first shot at MacDonald and Simon. The bullet seems to have hit the target. But we cannot rest on our laurels.

The second shot followed sooner than I had even imagined.

M.M. [Litvinov] informs me that the lecture on the British constitution which Simon is to read in Paris on 26 February will be used for a meeting between the British and French governments on the line they should take in connection with the German response to the proposals of 3 February. Roughly the following steps are envisaged: the British government will be authorized to negotiate with the German government, for which S. will go to Berlin (he is very keen on doing so), while the French government will be authorized to demand a final response from Germany on the Eastern Pact. The British government, by all appearances, is thinking of focusing attention primarily on the air convention.

I’ve been in a very difficult situation this past week.

Lloyd George’s family and nearly his whole ‘party’ had lunch with us yesterday: the old man himself, his wife, Gwilym

Gwilym Lloyd George, Lloyd George’s son; Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary at the Board of Trade.

and Megan.

Megan Lloyd George, Lloyd George’s daughter; Liberal MP, 1929–51, and Labour MP, 1957–66.

Also present were Steel-Maitland

Arthur Steel-Maitland (1st Baronet Steel-Maitland), Conservative politician who served in Lloyd George’s wartime coalition government.

(a prominent Conservative), Jarvie, a banker, the ‘independent’ Labourite Josiah Wedgwood

Josiah Clement Wedgwood (1st Baron Wedgwood), Labour MP, 1919–42; sought to become ambassador to Moscow in 1940, but Churchill opted for Stafford Cripps.

and others.

I visited Vansittart yesterday

The meeting took place on 28 February.

and told him about Moscow’s attitude to Simon’s visit. V. was glad and only felt sorry that they had not made the move earlier. He had worked on the visit intensively during the past week, but the lack of response from the Soviet side somewhat weakened his position, all the more so as there are those in the Cabinet who oppose the visit (according to my information, these are the war minister, Lord Hailsham, and the minister for Indian affairs, Hoare

Samuel John Hoare (1st Viscount Templewood), Conservative, minister for Indian affairs, 1931–35; secretary of state for foreign affairs, 1935; first lord of the Admiralty, 1936–37; secretary of state for home affairs, 1937–39; lord privy seal, 1939–40; secretary of state for air, 1940; ambassador to Spain on special mission, 1940–44.

). Now V. can expedite the matter. The Cabinet will make a decision in three or four days’ time. Simon’s visit to Berlin has been approved only in theory; the dates and further itinerary have not yet been set. The Polish government has sent an unofficial invitation to visit Warsaw, but the official invitation has yet to arrive. V. was not quite sure who would go to Moscow – Simon or Eden, but I emphasized that we were expecting Simon.

One must give Hitler his due – his energy is inexhaustible.

Vansittart and his wife dined with us in the embassy. I had a talk with V. after dinner and gleaned the following from him.

I have information from Paris that Laval is also shifting. He was ready to discuss the following compromise with Simon on 28 February: a mutual assistance pact between the USSR and France and a non-aggression pact between all other participants. The Little Entente’s protests made Laval abandon his plan.

A totally unexpected surprise! Yesterday Hitler ‘fell ill’. The day before he was seen in a perfectly healthy state at the automobile exhibition in Berlin, and the next day, don’t you know, he managed to catch cold and become hoarse, so very hoarse in fact that he can’t receive the British ministers. He requests that the visit scheduled for the 7th be postponed, and cannot name a new date as yet. He’ll see. It all depends on the course of his illness.

The decision has been taken!

Undoubtedly, the decision to send Eden and not Simon is a mild form of anti-Soviet discrimination on the part of the British government, although Simon’s personal reluctance to go to the USSR also played its part. It also seems clear that the British government intends to scare Hitler and to make him more complaisant. Fine! The Bolsheviks have never made a fetish of prestige, have never sacrificed content for form. In actual fact, Eden is better for us than Simon, for Eden’s star is rising, while Simon’s is setting. Eden has been promoted by Baldwin, an influential Conservative, while Simon essentially represents no one. Compromised at home, he is liked neither by the Conservatives, nor the Liberals, nor Labour. Finally, Eden takes a tolerant attitude towards the USSR, while Simon is our inveterate adversary. Yes, Eden is much better! Walter Elliot, who entertained Agniya and me for lunch today, argued at length that a visit by Eden is preferable to a visit by Simon. Vansittart said the same. The press, especially the Daily Telegraph, commends Eden in every way and asserts that the lord privy seal ranks either fifth or sixth among the ministers. The press department has been soliciting for a sympathetic response in the Soviet press to the decision to send Eden. [Gordon-]Lennox

Victor Gordon-Lennox, diplomatic correspondent of the Conservative Observer and Daily Telegraph.

(diplomatic correspondent of the Daily Telegraph) even informed me today by phone that, according to ‘the most reliable reports’, Simon will leave the Foreign Office after the king’s jubilee, to be replaced by Eden… The Foreign Office is really trying!

[The idea of a ministerial visit to Moscow was first mooted by Maisky in autumn 1934. The plan had been cooked up with Vansittart, behind the backs of Litvinov and Simon, long before the foreign secretary’s visit to Berlin was contemplated. Maisky hoped the visit would drive a wedge between the different factions in the Foreign Office, which were divided over the attitude to be adopted towards Germany. He received little encouragement from Litvinov, who (it is seldom recognized by historians)

One notable exception is Carley, ‘Down a blind-alley’, pp. 157–8.

continued to view the British with suspicion, assuming them to be the main stumbling block in the attempt to extend security arrangements to Eastern Europe. He feared that any Russian initiative might be snubbed by the British or used as a card in their negotiations with the Germans.

TNA FO 371 19450 N1072/17/38, Chilston to Vansittart and FO minutes, 2 and 5 March 1935.

Hurrah! Moscow seems to look favourably on Eden. M.M. has asked me to deliver an official invitation and suggests that Eden come to Moscow as soon as possible, sometime between 13 and 15 March (unlikely!), or later – concurrently with Simon’s departure for Berlin or after the Berlin talks.

I’ve just seen Vansittart and Eden. They were both in Vansittart’s office. Vansittart remarked with a genial smile: ‘When you asked for a meeting, we were intelligent enough to understand what it was all about. So we decided to see you together.’

I’ve called Moscow to ask whether I should accompany Eden. It would be good if the answer were affirmative.

Zarinš

Karlis Zarinš, Latvian envoy to Great Britain, 1933–40.

(the Latvian envoy) was looking for me today to inquire about Eden’s route. He said that Riga had informed him that they would like to see Eden in Latvia on his way to Moscow or back. Of course they would!

Ribbentrop met François-Poncet

André François-Poncet, French ambassador to Germany, 1931–38, and to Italy, 1938–40.

in Berlin a few days ago and told him something to this effect: let us settle all controversial issues between ourselves. Forget Russia – it’s an Asian power. Why should we, Europeans, allow it into Europe? François-Poncet replied that, according to physical and political geography, Russia is located in Europe.

The Foreign Office is worried and perplexed at seeing no response to the decision on Eden’s visit in the Soviet press. Indeed, it’s not quite right. I’ll have to push Moscow.

M.M. is still sceptical about Eden’s visit. He even thinks it might not happen at all, or not for a good while. For this reason he has put off deciding whether or not I should accompany Eden. He has another reservation: Eden is not a Foreign Office minister. But I’ll still go. I’ll arrange it.

Presumably as a result of yesterday’s telephone conversation with Eden,

Maisky pleaded with Eden to ensure that the visit took place ‘with the least possible delay’, so as not to create the impression that the British government was postponing the visit ‘until such time as Berlin was prepared to receive a similar visit’. According to Eden, Maisky sounded ‘both insistent and worried’, and he feared he was ‘unable wholly to reassure him’; TNA FO 371 19468 N1270/1167/38.

Simon and Eden invited me to parliament today. I arrived at 3 p.m. We talked for some 40 minutes. The subject of the talk was the timing of Eden’s visit to Moscow. Simon spoke nearly the whole time, admiring himself and skilfully juggling words. Eden spoke little.

M.M. called me at 1 p.m. from Moscow, as I had asked in the telegram I had sent yesterday.

Maisky had impressed on Litvinov the significance that Eden and Simon attached to a meeting with Stalin, who, in the past, had met Bernard Shaw, Lady Astor and Lord Lothian. Eden would be the first Western minister ever to be received by Stalin; DVP, 1935, XVIII, doc. 108.

He spoke directly from Comrade Stalin’s office. The reply was as follows: let Eden come to Moscow on 28 March; Comrade Stalin will receive him; I should accompany Eden, from Berlin onwards; it is desirable that Simon should make a public statement on the equal importance of the Berlin and Moscow visits; it would be good if Eden stopped in Prague on his way home.

I have started organizing the tour. There are many details to think about: a special railway car for Eden should be sent to Nagoreloe on the border; the Nagoreloe–Moscow train must not fall two hours behind schedule en route; the restaurant car in the train should be clean and serve filling and inexpensive food; the meeting in Moscow should be properly organized, and suitable lodgings should be found for the English (Spiridonovka?).

The palatial lodgings of a former Russian merchant turned into the guest house of the Soviet Foreign Ministry in the Moscow countryside.

After all our people can make completely unnecessary slips, simply through carelessness and inattention to detail. I’ll call Moscow to ask about all this.

Judging by reports in English papers, von Hoesch (the German ambassador in London) will accompany Simon to Berlin and back, and the Polish ambassador Raczyński

Count Edward Bernard Raczyński, Polish delegate to the disarmament conference in Geneva, 1932–34; ambassador to Great Britain, 1934–45.

will meet Eden in Stolbtsy on his return trip from Moscow. The ambassadors are on the move!

There were two curious incidents at the Persian reception.

Eden has been as good as his word. Yesterday, speaking at a large demonstration in Swansea in support of the government, Simon declared:

I’ve been asked again by Moscow to exert pressure on Eden in regard to Prague. There are no signs so far that he is planning to go there. I’ll try to do something.

A great historic date: Hitler issued a new law yesterday: compulsory military service is being introduced in Germany, and the strength of the army has been set at 500,000.

I spent the weekend in the country at the Webbs’. Wonderful old people! The cream of the world intelligentsia. In spite of their age (he is 75 and she is 77), they are working hard on their political testament, Soviet Communism. Two volumes of about 1,000 pages. Nine-tenths of it is ready. We spoke about the book at length, and I made a series of critical comments and corrections. The authors listened, sometimes objecting but mostly agreeing. Then Webb and I went for a stroll. He walked so quickly that I could hardly keep up with him. I got back drenched in sweat. How’s that for 75 years! Agniya asked the old man about his heart. ‘My heart?’ he asked wonderingly. ‘I never feel it.’

The reaction of the English press to Hitler’s actions has been weaker than might have been expected. The directing hand of the Foreign Office can be felt. The British government is obviously perplexed. It has to make a choice, and it doesn’t like it. So it tries to buy time and defer the moment of decision-making. Maybe it will all come out in the wash!…

Having communicated with Moscow and Eden, I finally fixed the following timetable for Eden’s stay in Moscow:

M.M. is very angry – and rightly so – with the English note to Hitler concerning the decree of 16 March.

Without consulting the French, on 18 March the British government sent a note of protest to the Germans over their unilateral action, ending by asking whether the Germans were still interested in a meeting between Simon and Hitler; Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, p. 86.

He considers it a complete capitulation to Germany.

Yesterday’s conversation appears to have had an effect: today Eden got the laissez-passer for Prague from the Czech chargé d’affaires! But Eden has not directly informed me or Čorny (the chargé d’affaires) about the trip.

Vansittart invited me to see him today. He was in a somewhat melancholy, even slightly despondent, mood as if he had had a bout of illness the day before and had not yet fully recovered. V. spoke of the extreme importance of the improvement of Anglo-Soviet relations, of his own struggle for this improvement, and of his delight at Eden’s forthcoming visit to Moscow. Yes, he regards Eden’s visit as a major historic event, and it is crucial that his visit should have major historic consequences. It would be good for the three of us to get together on the 22nd, on the eve of Eden’s departure, and discuss the measures that could ensure the best outcome of the Moscow visit. I willingly agreed. In an almost trembling voice, V. added: ‘For many months we have been working together in the cause of Anglo-Soviet rapprochement, and I have brought the matter to its present stage, at which you have initiated direct talks between ministers. Here, naturally, I had to efface myself and step back…’

Vansittart filled me in on a great many details regarding the events of recent days. The following transpired. In the British government, a struggle is being fought between two tendencies in regard to Germany – ‘hard’ and ‘soft’. The same in the Foreign Office. Simon is for the ‘soft’ line, and V. for the ‘hard’. The note of 18 March was sent by Simon against S.’s wishes and without his knowledge (this is a bit hard to believe). The French government knew nothing about the note and is most displeased with the British government. But the protests from Paris and Rome have done their job and Simon will take a fairly firm line in Berlin, all the more so as Eden will be with him. Simon, however, refused to pay a visit to Paris before going to Berlin, and so Eden has been sent to Paris now. V. expects nothing from the Berlin talks, but he considers the visit useful from the point of view of educating Labour-pacifist public opinion. We’ll see.

I learned some curious things today from good sources. Simon, it seems, is obsessed with the quite fantastic idea of becoming prime minister after MacDonald, who, it has allegedly been decided, will step down immediately after the royal jubilee. Simon needs an impressive ‘success’ to achieve that. He has been planning to bring this ‘success’ back from Berlin. That’s why, early in the year, he began ‘secret’ negotiations (unknown to the Foreign Office) with Hitler through Lothian, Ribbentrop and others. During these negotiations, Hitler pulled the wool over Simon’s eyes, refusing to commit himself definitively, but sending the vague message that, under certain conditions (which?), he might be ready to ‘consider’ the question of arms limitation, a return to the League of Nations, and the preservation of the demilitarized zone on the French border. Simon believed, with peculiar naiveté, that all these concessions were more or less in the bag, hence the blatantly pro-German line he has been espousing for the last three months. Hence also his craving to travel to Berlin, and his servile attitude to Hitler with regard to the latter’s ‘hoarseness’ and to the decree of 16 March. At a conference on Sunday, 17 March, which was attended by Baldwin, MacDonald, Eden, Simon and Vansittart and was held to discuss the reaction to the German decree, Simon and Vansittart argued so heatedly that Vansittart was on the point of declaring his resignation, before he was eventually persuaded to stay. Vansittart insisted that it was necessary to consult with the French government before deciding how to act. Simon, on the contrary, insisted on an immediate response. Simon was victorious, and the note was sent on 18 March. In order to ease the situation for Simon, Hitler promised that Ribbentrop would fly to London on 20 March and give an interview to the newspapers, where he would announce, in vague terms, the possibility of Germany returning to the League of Nations ‘under certain conditions’. However, on the morning of the 20th, the French government resolved to appeal to the League of Nations against Germany’s violation of the Versailles treaty. Hitler found out about this immediately and intercepted Ribbentrop, who had already departed for London, in Hanover, instructing him to return. As a result, Simon found himself in an awkward position. Serves him right.

We had talks between the three of us today: Eden, Vansittart and I. Both my interlocutors emphasized that they would like to make the visit a historic date in the sphere of Anglo-Soviet rapprochement. The circumstances are favourable. The Englishmen had nothing definite to propose, but they announced that in Moscow Eden would bring up not only the communiqué of 3 February, but also the question of Anglo-Soviet relations. I, of course, had no objections.

[Maisky accompanied Eden on his train journey from Berlin to Moscow. The ambassador’s advice to pamper Eden was followed to the letter. Crossing into Russia, at the tiny hamlet of Nagoreloe, he was greeted by dignitaries and led to a ‘palm-bedecked restaurant at the station, where a black-tied string orchestra played soft airs to beguile the tedium of the 90-minute wait’ for the special coach which was to carry him to Moscow.

The Times, 27 March 1935. Maisky’s full itinerary of the visit is in RAN f.1702 op.3 d.105 ll.1–2.

After a preliminary meeting with Litvinov, Eden was grudgingly shown the Pushkin Museum’s prodigious collection of impressionists – ‘bourgeois art’ – which was closed to the general public. From there he was whisked off to Litvinov’s dacha, which the latter had received from the Soviet government in recognition of the success of his Washington talks which had led to American recognition of the Soviet Union in 1934. A stiff walk on frozen ground in the surrounding woods was followed by a banquet-like lunch. Pats of butter were served in the form of rosettes; at the base of each appeared Litvinov’s famous dictum: ‘Peace is indivisible.’ This evoked a wry warning from Strang when Maisky was about to help himself to a pat: ‘Be careful how you cut that!’

J. Gleasor, War at the Top: Based on the experiences of General Sir Leslie Hollis (London, 1959), p. 125; and Sheinis, Litvinov, pp. 272–3.

After a long meeting in Litvinov’s study, the guests enjoyed a game of billiards, ‘as is done in England (to judge by the novels)’.

Kollontay, who happened to be on leave in Moscow, left her vivid impressions in Diplomaticheskie dnevniki, II, p. 280. See also A. Eden, The Eden Memoirs: Facing the Dictators (London, 1962), pp. 158–9, and Maisky, Who Helped Hitler?, p. 51. A candid description of the visit by Chilston is in TNA FO 371 19468 N1871/1167/38.

On his last day, Eden was taken for a ride on the first line of the spectacular Metro, which had just been completed. He was unaware, of course, that it had been constructed by inmates of forced labour camps. He was also entertained to lunch at Molotov’s home, and dined at the home of Voroshilov, the minister of defence.

Yesterday and today I’ve been thinking about the situation that has developed in England. A complicated picture! A contradictory picture!

I attended the dinner of the ‘dying swans’, as the diplomats called it. Any day now there will be a Cabinet reshuffle, and MacDonald will retire as prime minister. Many other ministers will also be replaced. Tonight, though, the old members of the government were still in their posts and they gave the annual dinner in the Foreign Office to mark the king’s birthday. This time the celebration was on a larger scale than usual: the king has turned 70.

A rather unusual neighbour moved in last year to house No. 12a (our embassy occupies No. 13), namely General Sir Bahadur Shamsher Jung Bahadur Rana, the Nepalese envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, together with his staff. I’d read in the papers that this Bahadur had arrived in London on a special mission, to bestow on the king the highest order of his country, and that he had fulfilled his mission successfully and with all due solemnity. Later, caught up in daily events, I forgot about Bahadur; I even thought that he had returned to his mountainous homeland.

I called on Vansittart. He met me cordially, but looked somewhat worn out and upset. Paler than usual. He took me aside and informed me on an entirely confidential basis (but with the request that I tell the Soviet government!) that Samuel Hoare had been appointed foreign secretary.

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In the reorganization of the Cabinet, Baldwin became prime minister, while Hoare replaced Simon as foreign secretary. Sixteen out of the 22 Cabinet members were Conservatives.

He had hoped for better, but this wasn’t too bad. Yesterday he had an extensive conversation with his new boss and learned to his delight that their views were fundamentally similar. Vansittart fears, however, that the name Hoare might make an unfavourable impression in Moscow, and that the Soviet press might give him a hostile reception. One should not jump to conclusions. Just wait and see… Hoare will invite me for a talk immediately after Trinity Sunday. Vansittart hopes fervently that I shall try to reassure Moscow.

We had a grand dinner in honour of Eden tonight. Twenty-seven guests were present… The atmosphere was not bad, even though Hoare had been appointed foreign secretary. Eden and Lord Cecil assured me that Hoare was a convinced advocate of collective security and that he would make a good foreign secretary. We’ll see!

Having placed his bet on Eden, Maisky, in reporting home, went out of his way to explain that, although Eden had failed to receive any significant portfolio, Maisky had been assured by Vansittart that Eden would become a full member of the Cabinet and as such would have ‘more influence in the conduct of foreign policy than before’; DVP, 1935, XVIII, doc. 261.

[One of the first issues to claim Hoare’s attention when he assumed office was Litvinov’s harsh analysis of Hitler’s speech and demand from the British government to reassert its commitment to the principle of indivisible peace in Europe. While Vansittart and the northern department at the Foreign Office wanted to allay Russian fears, Sargent warned that any response to Litvinov’s ‘very cunning note’ was likely to be distorted and exploited in the Soviet negotiations with the French. Vansittart disagreed. He reminded the new foreign secretary that it was in Britain’s interests to maintain a friendly attitude towards Russia, and that this could only be realized if the Russians were treated as ‘participants in the scheme of things’. Hoare, however, was more attentive to Vansittart’s warning that the ‘able and pertinacious’ Maisky would return to the charge. He dreaded the idea of another meeting with Maisky, having himself gained the impression that Maisky was eager ‘to indulge in a legalistic cross-examination’. Maisky was therefore put on hold while events unfolded.

TNA FO 371 18845 C4564/55/18, 15 June 1935.

To overcome the impasse, Vansittart assisted Maisky in setting up a powerful lobby within Conservative circles. The introduction of Maisky to the Fleet Street magnate Beaverbrook resulted in the first favourable mention of Moscow in the Daily Express, which, according to Maisky, hitherto had printed only ‘obvious libels’. Maisky was further invited to a dinner en famille at Vansittart’s home, where he met Churchill. ‘I send you a very strong recommendation of that gentleman,’ wrote Beaverbrook to Maisky. ‘In character he is without a rival in British politics. I know all about his prejudices. But a man of character who tells the truth is worth much to the nation.’ Churchill indeed told Maisky that, in view of the rise of Nazism, which threatened to reduce England to ‘a toy in the hands of German imperialism’, he was abandoning his protracted struggle against the Soviet Union, which he no longer believed posed any threat to England for at least the next ten years. He fully subscribed to the idea of collective security as the sole strategy able to thwart Nazi Germany.

Just back from my first meeting with S. Hoare. He invited me according to the custom of receiving all diplomatic representatives accredited in London, but our conversation, which lasted some 40 minutes, far exceeded the bounds of mere etiquette.

The lengthy meeting was more likely forced on Hoare, who complained that ‘although it was [Maisky’s] first and on that account a ceremonial visit, he soon plunged into European politics’. He emerged from the meeting, though, with the wrong impression that Maisky ‘seemed pleasantly surprised with an interview between himself and one like myself who is known to have continuously disapproved of the Bolshevik regime’; TNA FO 371 19451 N3187/17/38. See also Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, p. 146.

What first impression did I gain of ‘my’ new foreign secretary?

Just back from a big Labour banquet. It was arranged by Hicks to mark the construction of the new building of the union. Up to 350 guests were present, including Lansbury, Morrison, Citrine and other Labour notables. Agniya and I were the only foreigners. As befits a faint-hearted reformist, Hicks invited me to the banquet, but handled it clumsily. To start with, my name was printed ‘Ivan Maisky’ in the seating plan, without reference to my ambassadorial rank. Then, naming all and sundry in his welcoming speech, Hicks ‘forgot’ a minor trifle – the presence in the hall of a Soviet representative. Agniya, in line with her temperament, unleashed her indignation on her neighbour Clynes. As I later learned, Walkden,

A.G. Walkden, general secretary of the National Association of General Railway Clerks, 1906–36.

secretary of the clerks’ union, immediately sent Hicks a note protesting about the chairman’s incomprehensible behaviour. As a result, Hicks announced my presence in his second speech, and this elicited a round of applause. Clynes spoke and said a few heartfelt words about the USSR and my presence at the banquet. There was another burst of applause. Lansbury spoke, too. He took issue with the prince of Wales and suggested that those in power go not only to Berlin, but also to Moscow. This, too, was followed by a storm of applause in our direction. In general, the mood at the banquet was obviously pro-Soviet, and Hicks was taught a good lesson.

At the banquet, Lansbury related to me the following details about the 1907 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) congress. One morning he received a telephone call from Fells, the owner of Sunlight Soap, asking him to come over. Lansbury and Fells were friends (J. Keir Hardie

James Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party. Formed the Scottish Labour Party in 1888; Labour Representation Committee in 1900, changing its name to the Labour Party in 1906. Resigned as leader of the Labour Party in 1908.

was also on friendly terms with Fells), and Fells often consulted with him on various matters. When Lansbury came into his office, Fells told him that Brailsford had asked him to lend 2,500 pounds to the Russian Social Democrats, who were holding their congress in London and didn’t have the money to return home. Fells was unsure and asked Lansbury for his advice. Lansbury said that the Russians should be supported. Fells was still hesitant. Lansbury suggested that they should attend the congress and speak to the participants. Fells agreed. Lansbury does not remember whom they saw and spoke to at the congress, which was held in the Brotherhood Church, but afterwards Fells decided to give the money. The only thing he requested was an ‘acknowledgement of debt’ signed by all congress participants. This was done; moreover, it was declared in the letter that the RSDLP would return the money to Fells in the event of the revolution succeeding. When Krasin arrived in London in 1921, he asked his first secretary, Klyshko,

Nikolai Klementevich Klyshko, Soviet ambassador in Estonia, 1920–21; head of the export department of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade, 1923–37. Arrested on charges of terrorism and shot in 1937; later rehabilitated.

to find Fells. Fells had since died, but his widow lived in England. Krasin, on behalf of the Soviet government, paid back the money lent in 1907 and asked in return for the paper acknowledging the debt of the 5th Congress. Lansbury was greatly moved by the old story and repeated several times that it was a unique episode in the history of the world labour movement. Incidentally, Lansbury told me that Fells was a Polish Jew by origin.

During the naval parade in Spithead I found myself on the same ship (the Maine) as Leith-Ross,

Frederick William Leith-Ross, chief economic adviser to government, 1932–46; director-general, Ministry of Economic Warfare, 1939–42; chairman of Inter-Allied Committee on Post-War Requirements, 1941–43.

chief financial adviser of the British government. He will soon leave for China to study the question of the strengthening of the Chinese currency. Our acquaintance until then had been entirely superficial, but today Leith-Ross suddenly started speaking to me on a very serious subject.

I paid a visit to Guo Taiqi yesterday. He is in a foul mood. Small wonder. The Japanese have seized the Hebei province, including Beijing and Tianjin, are intending to grab Chaha’er and Suiyuan, and plan to extend their influence as far as the Yellow River – and nobody moves a finger to stop it. Nanjing is powerless and is afraid even to appeal to the League of Nations or to the members of the Nine-Power Treaty, so as not to irritate the Japanese still more. The USA merely ‘observes’ the events in northern China. Guo paid a visit to Vansittart and informed him, on instructions from Nanjing, about what was going on in China. Moreover, on his own initiative, he drew Vansittart’s attention to the violation of the Nine-Power Treaty by Japan. V. promised nothing, merely stressing that the British government was going to send its financial adviser, Leith-Ross, to China in late July or early August to examine the situation and work out measures for lending China financial and economic assistance. Guo doubts, however, that the British would render such assistance if Japan objected.

I’ve learned (admittedly, from a third party) some details of Stalin’s meeting with Laval.

More arias from the opera ‘The Situation Changes’!

Today – Act Two. I had a visit from the major owner of Imperial Chemical Industries, Lord Melchett

Henry Mond (2nd Baron Melchett), Liberal minister of health, 1921–22.

(b. Alfred Mond), a young man of quite pleasant appearance. He said that he and a group of friends wanted to visit the USSR in September for a theatre festival. He was also interested in the Jewish colonies in the USSR. He asked me about travelling conditions and requested assistance.

One more interesting detail from my talk with McGowan. When I mentioned in the course of conversation that we have at our disposal a powerful air fleet in Primore, which, in the event of an emergency, is capable of destroying Japanese cities, McGowan’s eyes lit up with delight and he exclaimed with joyous enthusiasm: ‘That’s really good! Really excellent!’

Abyssinia is the focus of attention today.

Obsessed with the idea of restoring the fallen Roman Empire, Mussolini sought his empire in North Africa and Ethiopia, after securing a veiled agreement from Laval. In

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September 1935, Italian troops invaded Ethiopia. The League of Nations condemned the invasion and imposed economic sanctions on Italy, but these were frustrated by Germany and the United States, which continued trading with Italy. The results exposed the bankruptcy of the League of Nations and hastened the rapprochement between Hitler and Mussolini, which finally led to the formation of the ‘Axis’; see R. Overy, The Road to War (London, 1999), pp. 183–8.

The English are in a bit of a fix. Yesterday’s parliamentary session was interesting. The project of ceding to Abyssinia a tiny piece of British Somalia, including the port of Zeila, caused an absolute uproar in parliament! Yells from the members’ benches when Hoare said that parliament should ‘trust’ the executive! Someone even shouted: ‘Hitler!’

The more far-sighted representatives of the British bourgeoisie evidently share my views as to how Britain and France could settle the Italo-Abyssinian conflict while remaining true to their own system. Sir George Paish,

George Paish, English economist at London School of Economics, 1932–38.

for example, unexpectedly called on me today. With a long preamble and a certain secretiveness, he shared with me ‘the thoughts that came into his head’. Italy should be given a colony in Africa to calm her down. Which colony? Paish, for some reason, would like it to be Tunisia. I laughed and asked him why the ‘bone’ he intends to throw to Italy should necessarily wear a French costume?… Paish was a little embarrassed and hastened to add that England should certainly make its own ‘sacrifice’, too. Paish reckons that Italy might be presented with a former German colony in Africa, like Cameroon or Togo. Most remarkable of all, however, was Paish’s final suggestion, ‘of an absolutely confidential and amicable nature’, that I should try to sway the British and French governments in the direction indicated. I laughed and said that it was none of my business. Since it is England and France who have to make ‘sacrifices’, let those Englishmen and Frenchmen who consider these ‘sacrifices’ essential raise the question. Paish had a long think and decided to discuss his plan with Sir Herbert Samuel.

Herbert Samuel (1st Viscount Samuel), Liberal MP, 1902–18 and 1929–35; secretary of state for home affairs, 1931–32; leader of the Liberal Party, 1931–35.

Vansittart asked to see me in order ‘to state his case’.

Here is an outline of Great Britain’s position in the world as I see it:

[Maisky spent his holiday in Copenhagen, Norway and Stockholm, on his way to a protracted stay at a sanatorium at Kislovodsk. Before his departure, he took his leave of Samuel Hoare. Their conversation left him with a grim impression that Hoare was ‘fully prepared to reach a compromise with Germany on the basis of European Security’. His concerns were not allayed by his meeting with the more benign Baldwin, who constantly referred him to Hoare’s speeches in parliament.

DVP, 1935, XVIII, docs. 327 & 330.

While in Moscow, Maisky found the Kremlin ‘greatly perturbed’ by rumours and snippets of information about French and British attempts to reconcile with Germany. The Anglo-German naval treaty made it ‘doubt the friendliness of the Conservative government’. Maisky clearly feared that circumstances were propelling the Russians into an isolationist position. Although the danger of an immediate attack on the Soviet Union had receded, the Kremlin had become convinced that Germany was intent on breaking up Czechoslovakia and on bringing about Anschluss with Austria. The door to Germany, though, remained closed. While Schacht

Horace Greeley Schacht, president of Reichsbank, 1923–30 and 1933–39; minister of economics, 1934–37; minister without portfolio, 1939–43.

was anxious to promote trade, the embassy in Berlin was ‘practically isolated from the German Government … the diplomats might just as well not be there, they are made to feel “not wanted”’. At various meetings with Vansittart, some of which are described in the diary, Maisky appeared ‘evidently very suspicious’, posing endless questions, ‘the one on which he was most pertinacious was whether there was any foundation at all for the rumours … in regard to the possibility of an Anglo-Franco-German agreement, to which he added the corollary “at the expense of Russia”’. Maisky was little soothed by Vansittart’s admission that it was ‘an open secret that [Laval] liked, perhaps even preferred, the pastime of riding two horses at once … it was quite possible … that he would like to have some arrangement with Germany as well as with Russia’.

TNA FO 371 18851 C7596/55/18 & C7730/55/18, 9 & 18 Nov. 1935; Webb, diary, 18 Nov. 1935, p. 6092.

The new Bulgarian envoy Radev

Simeon Radev, Bulgarian ambassador to London, 1935–38.

paid me a visit. A middle-aged man, of professorial appearance and build, speaks decent Russian. He is writing a treatise on the history of Russo-Bulgarian relations in a spirit antagonistic to tsarism. He has already published two volumes and is preparing the third. He asked for help in getting material from our archives. Radev has been somewhat infected by Pan-Slavism. He recalled the Slavophiles, who asserted that the Russian nation is destined to resolve the ‘social question’ and thereby fulfil its special global ‘mission’. ‘And now this has come true!’ he exclaimed. He spoke at length about Bulgaria’s desire to live in peace and tranquillity and to maintain good relations with the USSR, France and all her neighbours. He became agitated when I told him that we would welcome Bulgaria’s accession to the Balkan Entente, insisting that it was not so essential: peace could be achieved without it. On parting, he expressed the wish to meet more often and to speak heart-to-heart.

Following my absence of nearly three months from England, I visited Hoare to renew contact. Hoare was so very polite that I began to feel somewhat ill at ease. There’s too much sugariness and formality in this civility. You can’t help being on your guard…

I saw Ashton-Gwatkin at the Foreign Office. He sits in the ‘tower’, as he calls his office on the fourth floor, admires the beautiful view of St James’s Park, and guides the ‘economic department’ of the Foreign Office. In Moscow he said: ‘I’m the same in London as Rozenblyum

Boris Danilovich Rozenblyum, head of the economic department of the USSR People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, 1933–38. Victim of the repressions; rehabilitated posthumously.

is in Moscow…’

I called on Collier in the Foreign Office to ‘renew contact’ after my leave. I’d been expecting a general chat, but our conversation took a much more serious turn. C. informed me (on his own initiative, without my prompting him) that the draft of a 20-year loan to the USSR had been submitted for consideration to the Foreign Office and the trade and finance ministries. The Foreign Office supports the draft, but the final decision does not lie with the FO alone. In all probability, the draft will be brought to the Cabinet for consideration after the election. I asked whether the British government was going to tie the loan to a demand for compensation to old claimants, etc., and stressed that in that case a loan would be out of the question for us. We are not pursuing a loan, and certainly not one with ‘addenda’. C. replied that the British government understood this perfectly well, and that the loan would be simply a loan, unrelated to the claims. We shall see. In any event, this information deserves serious attention.

Reading the fresh issue of the Daily Worker on the morning of 7 November, Agniya showed me the following announcement:

So, last night the five of us (Agniya, I, the Kagans and Mironov) sat in the Royal Automobile Club and listened to radio broadcasts about the election results until 2 a.m. We walked for a while along streets that were unusually calm for an election night. Today, we’ve learned the basic outcome of yesterday’s voting. Well, the results are not bad, though they differ from my expectations. I thought that about 200 Labourites would win seats, but only 150 or 160 have been elected. As for the Liberals, my forecast was right: there are 20 in the new House! There is pleasant news: the Communist Gallacher

i William Gallacher, socialist agitator; chairman of Clyde Workers’ Committee, 1914–18; leading member of the Communist Party and Communist International from 1920 onwards; president of the Communist Party, 1956–63; Communist MP for the Western Division of Fife, 1935–50.

got in in Scotland. He is the first Communist since 1922, when the unfortunate Newbold

John Turner Walton Newbold, first Communist MP, 1922–23; disillusioned with communism he joined the Labour Party and supported National Labour after 1931.

was elected. There are grounds to believe that Gallacher will be more successful. The government majority is 250 (instead of the former 411) – a large majority, but significantly weaker than before. MacDonald failed pitifully, together with his son…

The situation becomes more and more mysterious.

A visit out of the blue from Sir George Paish yesterday, even though it was Sunday. He’d obviously come on behalf of the League of Nations Union. He related the following details of the ‘peace plan’. Baldwin, as well as Hoare, is responsible for it and was informed about it in due time. Laval ‘frightened’ Hoare (and Baldwin) by refusing to support the British fleet in the Mediterranean, lest Mussolini decide to attack it as a result of oil sanctions. The British sounded out Yugoslavia, but she, too, refused (most likely at France’s bidding) to help England in case of need with sea ports, aeroplanes, etc… That is why Hoare and Baldwin approved the Paris plan. How easily ‘frightened’ the British ministers are! It is as if they want to be ‘frightened’. It’s impossible to believe that Mussolini would take the risk of attacking the British navy, even under the worst circumstances. And suppose he did attack – would the British not be able to hit back? These are all children’s tales. Nobody was ‘frightened’. It seems to me that the British actions proceeded from the desire to have done with the Italo-Abyssinian conflict and free their hands to act in the Far East and Europe (Germany!). At the same time, they want an end to the conflict which would not harm the ‘prestige’ of the white man. Despite the widely spread rumours to the contrary, the English do not want to overthrow Mussolini: it is too dangerous in terms of foreign policy and in terms of facilitating class struggle.

Wickham Steed

Henry Wickham Steed, a BBC foreign correspondent and former editor of The Times, who endorsed ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, but despite his notorious anti-Semitism was early to warn of Hitler’s intentions.

lunched with me. We discussed a variety of issues and happened to be in full agreement on matters of European politics. I presented my theory of German expansion to the south and south-east, and Steed concurred with me throughout. He said that Austen Chamberlain approved of his letter in The Times of 1 January.

King George V died yesterday.

[When Maisky first met King George in November 1932, he was astounded by the king’s resemblance to his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II.

Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov (Nicholas II) was the last Russian emperor, 1894–1917, forced to abdicate after the 1917 February revolution and shot with his family by the Bolsheviks in July 1918.

‘I thought he would look upon me as a … murderer,’ he confessed to Lady Vansittart, ‘but it was quite different from what I had expected.’ Maisky resented such insinuations, which were frequently made: ‘After all, if we are regicides, if we killed Tsar Nicholas, you killed King Charles and the French sent Louis XVI to the guillotine.’ ‘Yes,’ retorted Lady Vansittart, ‘but that was two centuries ago and more, and you killed the entire imperial family.’ As Maisky recalled, she then added, in a characteristic English reflex: ‘Why! You even killed their dog!’ The observant Lady Vansittart noticed tears in the eyes of Maisky as he joined in the funeral procession for the cousin of the tsar.

VSD, pp. 138–40; see also Colvin, Vansittart in Office, pp. 33–4, 56; RAN f.1702 op.4 d.940 l.1, Maisky’s condolences to Eden.

]

M.M. [Litvinov] has just arrived. I travelled to Dover to meet him.

The king’s funeral finally took place today. It was all most solemn and imposing, but I will not give a detailed description of the ceremony, which can be found in the newspapers. I would like to record something else here, which was not mentioned in the press and probably never will be.

A day of appointments and meetings.

M.M., Agniya and I had lunch at Vansittart’s. Prior to Litvinov’s arrival in London, I hinted to V. that it might be good for him to meet Litvinov in private. I proposed lunch at the embassy. V. declined my offer and insisted on lunch at his home. I did not object.

M.M. left England today. Agniya and I accompanied him to Dover. The weather was damp, there was occasional rain, and the Dover cliffs were hidden in the fog. We shook hands firmly – till our next meeting. Where? When? Most probably in the summer, when I’ll travel to the USSR on leave. But who knows?

[If Maisky expected Eden to have been won over by his Moscow visit, he was to be disappointed. ‘I have no sympathy to spare for Mr Maisky,’ Eden minuted. ‘I hope that next time M. Maisky comes with complaints he will be told that our goodwill depends on his Government’s good behaviour; i.e. keep their noses and fingers out of our domestic politics. I have had some taste of the consequences of this lately … I am through with the Muscovites of this hue.’

TNA FO 371 19452 N5966/17/38, C7730/55/18, 20 Nov. & N6030/17/38, 21 Nov. 1935. Maisky told Beatrice Webb that he was extremely careful not to be associated with the British Communist Party, whose members were not even invited to functions at the embassy. She herself noticed that militant Labour leaders, such as Stafford Cripps and herself, were always met ‘alone and not “in company”’; Webb, diary, 18 Nov. 1935, p. 6092. M.J. Carley is one of the few historians to recognize Eden’s shortcomings and the fact that he turned out to be ‘a false friend’; see Carley, ‘“Fearful concatenation”’.

All that talking on the part of Collier, Ashton-Gwatkin, Leith-Ross and others, and all of Marshall’s bustle have come to an unexpected and rather poor end.

I don’t like the British response to Hitler’s ‘coup’ in the Rhineland. Today’s Sunday press is appalling. In the Observer, Garvin chides Hitler mildly for his bad manners, then insists on the need to pay due to attention to ‘the Fuhrer’s brilliant and timely proposals’ and to do so ‘in a spirit of sympathy and good will’. The Labourite People regards Hitler’s seven points as a basis for establishing peace in Europe. The Sunday Times alone takes a more decent stance, stating that ‘the policy of the fait accompli’ has destroyed all trust in Hitler’s words and promises. I haven’t met any influential people about this (‘weekend!’), but I sense a new and very dangerous turn towards Germanophilia in British policy. Those ‘7 Points’ will provide men like Londonderry and Rothermere with excellent ammunition and will sow terrible confusion in the minds of lily-livered pacifists and spineless Labourites who fancy that Hitler’s declaration of his desire to return to the League of Nations solves the entire German problem at one fell swoop. If only France remains firm! A lot will depend on that.

See I. Kershaw’s impressive work, Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and the British road to war (London, 2004).

I was unable to meet Eden, who flew to France at four o’clock, so I spoke with his deputy Cranborne.

Robert Arthur Gascoyne-Cecil (Viscount Cranborne, later 5th marquess of Salisbury), parliamentary undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, 1935–38; secretary of state for dominion affairs, 1940–42 and 1943–45; secretary of state for the colonies, 1942; lord privy seal, 1942–43 and 1951–52.

The mood of the English? They are in the mood to negotiate, of course. It is clearly a national English disease: negotiations, negotiations, negotiations… Therefore, the British government is prepared to begin exploration (what a lovely word!) on the topic of whether Hitler’s ‘7 Points’ provide a suitable basis for negotiations. Cranborne’s words indicate that the British government hopes to restore Locarno minus the Rhine zone. Everything else is of far less interest to them.

The directives arrived from M.M. They coincide entirely with what I told Cranborne yesterday.

The directive is in DVP, 1936, XIX, doc. 71. Expressing his personal views, Maisky warned against Hitler’s proposal for a non-aggression pact with Czechoslovakia and Austria. He expected the Germans to concoct some internal agitation which would ‘lead to an Anschluss’. Negotiation on Germany’s return to the League could only take place after a show of force by the ‘three great nations of the League’ – England, France and Russia. At a follow-up meeting, he conveyed the Soviet government’s grave concern and opposition to any negotiations or exploratory conversations with the German government. It was ‘the last in a long chain of actions which … could only end, if not stopped, in the complete destruction of the League and collective security’. Germany had become, ‘to use an American phrase, “Aggressor No. 1”’ and the Soviet Union was prepared to ‘take part in any action, whatever it might be, which was decided by the League’; TNA FO 371 19889 C1602/4/18 & 19890 C1716/4/18. The Soviet opposition to any negotiations was conveyed by Maisky through Corbin, the French ambassador in London, and provoked strong German reactions, Documents on German Foreign Policy (London, 1956) (hereafter DGFP), V, 141. See also H. Ragsdale, The Soviets, the Munich Crisis, and the Coming of World War II (Cambridge, UK, 2004), p. 28.

M.M. maintains that the British standpoint signifies a reward for the aggressor, the break-up of the collective security system, and the end of the League of Nations. Talks with Hitler on the day after his speech will have more harmful consequences than the Hoare–Laval plan. Trust in Britain will be undermined for good. The League of Nations will lose its importance as an instrument of peace. The USSR is ready to support any action of the League of Nations adopted collectively. Quite right!

An unpleasant experience.

I was right. Moscow is not going to sell aeroplanes to Abyssinia.

A new memorandum from Hitler, brought by Ribbentrop from Berlin!

Agniya and I lunched at the Vansittarts. I thought I would have an open talk with V. about the current situation, but he seemed to want to avoid this: for some reason, he had also invited MacDonald and Ishbel MacDonald, who chatted away pointlessly at table and immediately slipped away after lunch. Then I exchanged a few words with the host.

We are leaving for France tomorrow for ten days: Easter. Time to blow away the cobwebs.

[An article in the official Journal de Moscou (which, Maisky impressed on Churchill – ‘entirely entre nous’ – was written by Litvinov and faithfully represented the Soviet point of view)

Churchill papers, CHAR 20/253/134, 24 April 1936.

stirred Maisky to prod Litvinov into action. In the article, Litvinov had reluctantly yielded to the Kremlin that belligerence towards Germany was undesirable, and had called for a special meeting of the League of Nations to establish the necessary conditions for talks with Hitler. In a strictly personal letter to Litvinov on 24 April, Maisky, most likely inspired by what he had heard in Paris from Potemkin, whose ears were well attuned to the sounds emanating from the Politburo,

Kollontay, Diplomaticheskie dnevniki, II, pp. 356–7.

urged Litvinov to take the lead in a European conciliation, redressing what he recognized to be Germany’s justified grievances:

Yesterday the Abyssinian Negus fled the capital to Djibouti, from where, if today’s newspapers are to be believed, he plans to cross over into Palestine. Addis Ababa is in flames, there is plundering on the streets, rifle shots ring out… The war has ended (although peace is still far away), Abyssinia is conquered, Mussolini triumphs. This is also the final nail in the coffin of the League of Nations; and Europe is at a fateful junction. You can smell the gunpowder! A terrible storm is approaching at full speed!

Muddle and confusion…

On 5 May, I presented new credentials to the new king. The ceremony was simplified and conducted in full accord with former precedents (as I was assured by the marshal of the diplomatic corps, Sidney Clive); and certainly with the precedent created by the late George V. No court carriages were sent for me, and my ‘retinue’ did not accompany me: I just drove to the palace in my own car. All heads of mission gathered in the Bow Room and, in order of seniority, presented their credentials to the king, who was in the adjoining room. The doors to the hall were open, and those awaiting their turn could hear snatches of the king’s conversation with the head of mission who was presenting his credentials. The king spent two or three minutes with each ambassador or envoy. It was, therefore, a presentation en masse.

Leaving the palace, I met Monck, the Foreign Office chief of protocol, and told him that I was going to present new members of my diplomatic corps to the king at the nearest levee.

My conversation with the marshal reminded me of Kollontay’s story about the commotion caused by her appointment in the Swedish court and the protocol.

During all these difficult days I have seldom been as depressed as I was after today’s conversation with Brailsford.

[Arthur] J. Cummings told me about his conversation with Churchill. Churchill is ranting and raving at the government’s spinelessness and indecision. Baldwin bears the brunt of the blame. Cummings asked when Baldwin would retire, and Churchill exclaimed irritably: ‘He will never retire of his own accord! He wants to stay not only until the coronation but afterwards, too, if he can. Baldwin must be kicked out – this is the only way to get rid of him.’ Then Churchill added: ‘Baldwin reminds me of a man who has held on to the gondola of a rising balloon. If he lets go of it when the balloon is only 5 or 6 metres above ground, he will fall but he won’t break his bones. The longer he hangs on, the surer he is to die when he does inevitably fall.’

Yesterday Sir Edward Grigg

Edward Grigg (1st Baron Altrincham), director of Reuters, 1923–25; Conservative MP, 1933–45; parliamentary secretary to the minister of information, 1939–40; joint parliamentary undersecretary of state for war, 1940–42.

and General Spears

Sir Edward Louis Spears (1st Baronet Spears), Conservative MP, 1922–24 and 1931–45; Churchill’s personal representative to French prime minister, May–June 1940, and to General de Gaulle, June 1940; British minister to Syria and Lebanon, 1942–44.

came to lunch, where they cursed and swore (insofar as this is possible in English and at the table of the ambassador of a great power) in the direction of Baldwin and the government. The Cabinet lacks spine, is unable to take decisions on serious matters, and has no policies, especially foreign policies. It has lost its way in broad daylight and is rapidly driving the country to disaster and Europe to war. But when I tried to discover my guests’ political line, embarrassment followed: they, too, were confused and unable to make any definite statements. In Grigg’s words, the masses at large are all right: they sense the growing danger from Germany and are ready to act, but they need the government’s guidance. There is none. For this reason, if Hitler attacks Czechoslovakia, ‘England will be unable to do anything – unless perhaps the USSR will help her?’ (Grigg). Grigg would not mind Germany swallowing Czechoslovakia – he reckons that it would set off a salutary reaction in Great Britain which would seriously mobilize British public opinion against the threat from Berlin. Spears, who is the London director of the well-known Czechoslovak shoemaking company Bat’a, was not so casually inclined to sacrifice Czechoslovakia. Both guests asked me to arrange a showing of the film, The Struggle for Kiev, in the parliament building. Spears also wanted me to deliver a report on foreign policy (as I did last year) for his group of MPs…

At Garvin’s request I received a correspondent of the Observer who wished to collect information about Chicherin.

Georgii Vasilevich Chicherin, son of a retired diplomat, Chicherin was born into the nobility. An outstanding polymath and polyglot, he graduated from the historical-philological faculty of St Petersburg University and joined the archives department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. A highly accomplished pianist (he eventually produced an authoritative biography of Mozart), he was deeply interested in cultural modernism, and in 1904 took leave of absence and moved to Berlin, where he joined the Menshevik section of the Russian Social Democratic Party. He spent the rest of the years until the revolution in political exile in Paris and (mostly) in London, where he befriended Maisky. Returning to Russia after the revolution, he joined the Bolsheviks and was appointed by Trotsky as his deputy people’s commissar for foreign affairs and, from 1918–30, replaced him as commissar. In this capacity he was the architect of the Brest-Litovsk agreement and the Rapallo Agreement, and of the gradual accommodation with the capitalist world. His unconventional methods of work led to a fierce and open clash with his deputy, Litvinov, whom he regarded as boorish and amateurish, but who, in 1930, replaced him as people’s commissar.

The article appeared today:

[There follows a long gap in the diary at a rather crucial moment, marked by a swift deterioration in relations between the two countries and the unleashing of the political trials and terror in Moscow. The Anglo-French debacle in handling Mussolini, Maisky lamented, was leading the Soviet government to doubt ‘whether it was worthwhile binding themselves up with such half-hearted partners as the British Government’. The Foreign Office was ‘split from top to bottom … and the Cabinet did not know its mind’. With Japan, Germany and Italy ‘greedy’ for colonies, it was ‘the British Empire which was in peril – and not the USSR’, which deemed it ‘wiser … to withdraw and mind [its] own business’ even if that implied the establishment of a German ‘Mittel Europa’.

Webb, diary, 11 May 1936, pp. 6158–60.

Almost a year later, we still find Maisky disclosing the Kremlin’s views that ‘after the experience of Spain and the shilly-shallying of the British and French governments, the USSR might virtually withdraw from any further collaboration with Western powers and devote itself to the building up of socialism and the further development of defence’.

MacKenzie and MacKenzie, Diary of Beatrice Webb, IV, 27 Feb. 1937.

And yet, despite recurring setbacks, Maisky, unlike Litvinov, remained convinced – right up until the outbreak of war – that Anglo-Soviet interests were in harmony and that gradually the British were bound to seek Soviet assistance. As early as June 1936, he approached Brailsford (whom he held in great esteem as ‘a better judge of the English character’) to inquire whether he shared his view that the current ‘drift and indecision’ was only ‘a temporary phase and that before long the force of circumstance will compel Britain to take a definite attitude’.

RAN f.1702 op.4 d.862 l.15, 3 June 1936.

For the moment, however, he obviously had to toe the Kremlin line, though he would make persistent subversive attempts to prepare the ground for an approach by Britain.

Lothian lunched with me today. Despite some wobbles along the way, we meet and talk from time to time. It’s interesting. He is a bright representative and ideologist of the imperialist wing of the English bourgeoisie par excellence, and his pronouncements often reflect its latest moods…

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.

[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.

]

The Japanese ambassador, Shigeru Yoshida,

Shigeru Yoshida, Japanese ambassador to Great Britain, 1936–39; prime minister of Japan, 1946–54.

paid me an unexpected visit. The pretext of his visit was quite absurd: allegedly, he wanted to inform me personally why the lunch he had invited me to the day before yesterday had had to be cancelled (although I already knew the reason from a telephone conversation between our secretaries). But such clumsiness is quite in the spirit of Japanese diplomacy.

Today I gave Vansittart our declaration of adherence to the regulations of submarine warfare.

On 4 March, all heads of diplomatic missions submitted their credentials to the new king, George VI.

King George VI, 1936–52. Strangely, Maisky does not relate much about the abdication crisis.

The procedure was simplified and carried out en masse. All the ambassadors and envoys were lined up in order of seniority in the Bow Room of Buckingham Palace. They were admitted one by one to the neighbouring room, where the king was expecting them, submitted their credentials to him, exchanged a few remarks as demanded by protocol, and left, giving way to those still waiting. The king devoted two or three minutes to each diplomat. Eden was present at the ceremony and gave some assistance, as the king is taciturn and easily embarrassed. He also stammers. The entire ceremony went smoothly. The only shock, which caused quite a stir in the press and in society, was Ribbentrop’s ‘Nazi salute’. When the German ambassador entered the room to meet the king, he raised his right hand in greeting, rather than making the usual bow. This ‘novelty’ offended the English deeply and triggered an adverse reaction in conservative circles. Ribbentrop was accused of tactlessness and was compared with me – a ‘good boy’ who greets the king properly, without raising a clenched fist above his head.

In Spanish Notebooks, p. 86, Maisky summed up his impression of Ribbentrop: ‘Since I sat for a whole year diagonally opposite the German Ambassador at the table of the Committee for “Non-intervention”, I had the opportunity of studying him at close quarters. And I must without mincing words say that this was a coarse, dull-witted maniac, with the outlook and manners of a Prussian NCO. It has always remained a mystery to me how Hitler could have made such a dolt his chief adviser on foreign affairs.’

Reviewing Anglo-Italian relations since the end of the Abyssinian war, one can distinguish two periods.

My wife and I were invited by Eden to lunch at the Savoy. The guests were a mixed bunch: Minister for the Coordination of Defence Inskip,

Thomas Inskip (1st Viscount Caldecote), minister for coordination of defence, 1936–39; secretary of state for dominion affairs, January–September 1939 and May–October 1940; lord chief justice of England, 1940–46.

Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps Clive, the Chinese ambassador [Guo Taiqi], the Austrian [Franckenstein],

Georg Albert von und zu Franckenstein, Austrian ambassador to the United Kingdom, 1920–38. An opponent of Nazism, he sought asylum in London after being dismissed from his post.

and others, all in all 25 people. I was the senior guest.

That was some lunch! Yoshida, evidently sticking to his course of trying to improve relations with the USSR, hosted a lunch at which I and the Chinese ambassador were senior guests. Also present were the Japanese ambassador in Moscow Shigemitsu,

Mamoru Shigemitsu, Japan’s vice-minister of foreign affairs, 1933–36; ambassador to Moscow, 1936–38; ambassador to London, 1938–41.

Leith-Ross, Rendel

Sir George William Rendel, head of the eastern department, Foreign Office, 1930–38; envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Bulgaria, 1938–41; British minister and (later) ambassador to the Yugoslav government in London, 1941–43.

(head of the Near East department of the Foreign Office), and some others. It turned out to be a sort of show of Japanese–Soviet–Chinese friendship. It was the first time during my stay in London that I received an invitation to lunch from the Japanese ambassador, and to a very exclusive lunch at that!

The Vansittarts came to us for lunch. The lunch was à quatre and our conversation was quite frank. Vansittart is certain that the Cabinet will be restructured after the coronation, with Baldwin resigning, Chamberlain taking his place, and Simon most probably becoming chancellor of the exchequer. Eden will remain in his post. When I inquired about Chamberlain’s foreign policy, V. said that its general character would not change but that it would become somewhat better defined. As regards Germany, Chamberlain is considered all right. Well, we shall see. I’m somewhat sceptical about V.’s assurances. I recall how, in the spring of 1935, he also tried to set my mind at rest concerning Hoare, and we know how that turned out…

Eden and his wife came to dinner at the embassy. There were many diplomats, public figures and other guests. On the whole, it went off well.

The battleship Marat, which had arrived to take part in the coronation festivities, left yesterday. She was docked at Spithead for a week. The effect of her appearance was certainly positive. First, it was a sort of official recognition of the Soviet navy on the part of England. Soviet ships had never participated in naval parades in Great Britain before. Second, it was a good display of the efficiency of our navy. Two things particularly impressed the English: (a) during that week there was not a single case of drunken misbehaviour, a single fight or a single scandal involving sailors from the Marat. So the ‘jail’ prepared for Soviet sailors just in case remained empty, whereas similar ‘jails’ prepared for sailors from other countries had no lack of clientele; (b) on entering Spithead, the Marat moored in the space of 55 minutes, whereas warships of other nations spent several hours on this operation, while, at the previous coronation in 1911, it had taken a Russian battleship a whole 15 hours; (c) the arrival of the Marat was interpreted in court and political circles as a sign of the USSR’s friendly disposition towards England. Churchill told me that the king and the government were particularly impressed by the ‘Hurrah!’ with which the Marat sailors greeted the passing royal yacht, as custom demands. It was an ordinary Russian ‘Hurrah!’ – broad, booming and repercussive. However, compared to the short and abrupt hurrahs of the English and most other nations, which sounded rather like the barking of dogs, it was perceived by court circles as especially warm and cordial. Even the press said the same.

I went to see Vansittart. We discussed a variety of subjects, but there were two issues of particular importance.

[Vansittart denied a reorientation of British policy towards Germany but conceded – though Maisky neglected to report the fact to Moscow – that a change in atmosphere meant ‘the prospects of reaching a result were perhaps slightly better’ than a couple of months earlier. Vansittart further admitted (as Maisky did report to Moscow) that the propaganda campaign waged by ‘Germanophile elements’ in England had intensified considerably.

TNA FO 371 20735 C4229/270/18; DVP, 1937, XX, fn. 121.

Chamberlain was indeed coming under increased pressure from various quarters to rein in the Foreign Office. Hoare strengthened his hand, complaining that ‘the FO is so much biased against Germany (and Italy and Japan) that unconsciously and almost continuously they are making impossible any European conciliation’.

A competent survey of the discussion is in Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, pp. 216–17. It did not prevent Hoare from sending Maisky a most friendly letter on his move from the Admiralty to the Home Office; RAN f.1702 op.4 d.1657 l.6, 10 June 1937.

The drift towards ‘appeasement’ became the subject of conflicting appraisals in Narkomindel and the London embassy. It seemed to confirm Litvinov’s growing belief that the British government was intent on washing its hands of Spain, enabling Germany and Italy to beat the Republicans. Maisky was less than comforted by Eden’s assurances that ‘as long as he was in the chair’ there would be no change in policy. He attributed the drift to the British failure to detach Italy from the newly established German–Italian ‘axis’ following the war in Abyssinia. He was ‘not inclined to attach much significance’ to the overtures made to Berlin, as he expected Hitler to produce ‘new tricks’ in Spain or elsewhere in Europe, which would bring rapprochement to an end.

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DVP, 1937, XX, doc. 195, Maisky’s report on meeting Eden, 11 June 1937; No. 211 & No. 212 for the meetings on 23 & 24 June 1937.

]

The Australian premier Lyons came to see me at the embassy and the two of us had a frank talk over tea.

Today I called on Titulescu,

Nicolae Titulescu, Rumanian foreign minister, 1927–28 and 1932–36; permanent representative at the League of Nations, 1920–36.

who is staying, as always, in the Ritz Hotel and who is his usual noisy, dazzling, confident and even impudent self.

I visited Beaverbrook at his country home. He was talking over the telephone with someone in Canada when I arrived. This immediately directed our conversation to the subject of the Imperial Conference that had just ended. B. was far from enthusiastic about the conference. It had been dull and boring. It had added nothing to the cause of imperial unity. On the contrary, it seemed to have introduced a certain anxiety, for even as inveterate an imperialist as B., when summing up the results of the conference, stated frankly that the strength of imperial bonds could only be proven by the experience of war; he hoped they would stand the test. ‘He hoped.’ B.’s words did not express complete confidence, and this is highly symptomatic.

[After his appointment as prime minister in May 1937, Chamberlain hastened to seize the initiative from Eden and pursue his own foreign policy. He hoped to restore good relations with Italy (now a pariah after the conclusion of the war in Abyssinia) by recruiting her to a four-power pact together with Germany and France. Maisky first met Neville Chamberlain, then chancellor of the exchequer, on 16 November 1932. Though scornful of the ‘revolting but clever little Jew’, Chamberlain’s early contacts with Maisky did not betray the animosity which would settle in later. In fact, his amiable approach was deplored in the Foreign Office.

R. Self (ed.), The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters: The Heir Apparent, 1928–33 (London, 2002), III, pp. 357–8, 19 Nov. 1932; TNA FO 371 16321 N6619/22/38; RAN f.1702 op.2 d.3 d.101 ll.7–11, FO and Maisky’s reports of the meeting, 16 Nov. 1932.

Maisky might have been somewhat misled by his encounter with Neville Chamberlain’s half-brother Austen, a former secretary of state, whom he found ‘extremely sympathetic and responsive … most satisfactory of all, we were in complete agreement on the international questions’.

Gilbert Murray papers, Box 75, Maisky to Murray, 24 Jan. 1936.

Maisky does not seem to have been much influenced by Churchill’s warning back in 1936 that it was ‘better to have the Devil you know than the Neville you do not know’.

Sylvester papers, diary, A32, 6 July 1936.

Nor does he appear immediately to have appreciated (as he later claimed he did) Lloyd George’s scorching judgement: ‘a provincial manufacturer of iron bedsteads’.

Maisky, Who Helped Hitler?, p. 68.

It took Maisky a while, as it did Eden, to realize that Chamberlain’s appointment undermined the attempts to hitch Britain to collective security.

Vansittart told me today that King Carol of Rumania

King Carol II of Rumania, 1930–40.

has met Chamberlain, Eden and himself during his current trip to London. V. has the impression that Carol has ‘developed politically’ to a significant degree since his visit for the funeral of George V. Carol cannot be described as a Germanophile; on the contrary, he leans towards France and Britain (especially Britain), as is evident from his visits to Paris and London, but for obvious reasons he does not want to quarrel with Germany. The British ambassador in Bucharest corroborates this information. V. is sure that Carol will be very cautious towards the USSR and will not permit himself to do anything that might cause a quarrel between him and us. Time will tell.

The Far East is on fire. The consequences are hard to foresee, but they may be immense.

Masaryk called on me. I’ll note the following from his accounts:

[Maisky wrote the following with no date mentioned but obviously during a visit to Paris in mid-August.]

I visited Vansittart and asked him what the British government had decided about arms supplies to China and about China’s intention to raise the question of Japanese aggression at the forthcoming session of the League of Nations. V. was very reserved in his replies, stressing that the government had not yet discussed or taken decisions about the matters that interested me. He promised to inform me about the decisions once they were reached.

Guo told me today that the export of arms from England to China goes on unhampered so far. The Chinese recently bought – partly for cash and partly on credit – a few planes in France. Kong placed big military orders with Škoda in Czechoslovakia.

Hore-Belisha,

Leslie Hore-Belisha (1st Baron Hore-Belisha), secretary of state for war, 1937–40; member of the War Cabinet, 1939–40.

the new war minister, came up to me unexpectedly at the Foreign Office dinner on 9 June and began to speak to me in very animated tones about his great interest in the USSR and his desire to visit us, to see the country, the people and, of course, the army. I expressed polite approval of his idea, but promised nothing, since it was not yet clear to me what Moscow would think of the war minister’s intention. He continued, even more vigorously than before: ‘When do you do manoeuvres?’ I replied that we usually conduct manoeuvres in the autumn, in August and September. Looking at me cunningly through squinted eyes, Hore-Belisha suddenly said: ‘Well, if I were to get an invitation to see your manoeuvres, I would probably come.’

This evaluation of all that happened in Nyon and Geneva last week

The Nyon Conference was convened to address the unrestricted submarine warfare carried out by Italy. Seen from Maisky’s point of view it forced France and Britain to adopt a more belligerent attitude towards Italy and Germany. Maisky is referring to an attached press

Page 426

cutting from the Observer, which stated that ‘In a subtle way Britain is being forced to take sides against Germany and Italy.’

is even more revealing than the quotation I gave on 12 September. Even the Observer has to admit, gritting the teeth, that Russian diplomacy drove Italy away from the conference, bringing non-intervention to an end.

The first five-year plan of my ambassadorship in England has come to an end!

Martin, the Abyssinian minister, told me at a party given by the lord mayor’s wife that a month ago Mussolini suggested to the Negus that he return to Abyssinia as a vassal monarch. The Negus flatly refused. Then Mussolini began to cajole the crown prince, who was in Jerusalem. As a precautionary measure, the Negus hastened to summon his son to London, where he currently resides. According to Martin, the total number of refugees from Abyssinia has now reached seven to eight thousand, scattered over various countries (Kenya, Palestine, Egypt and elsewhere). Their material status is very grave. Money is being collected for them everywhere. The Negus’s coffers have been greatly depleted (he gave abundantly to support the Abyssinians’ struggle against Italy), but newspaper reports about his ‘destitution’ are unfounded.

I saw Collier. He told me a piece of quite pleasing news. In the opinion of the Foreign Office, the project of a German airline to fly via Afghanistan to China and Japan has been set aside for a long time, if not forever. The reasons are the war between Japan and China, the failure of two maiden flights to Xinjiang, flown by German pilots, and British pressure. The British were particularly unhappy about German planes flying frequently near the Indian border this summer, allegedly in connection with the quests for the lost German pilots. If there really is no way of avoiding it, the British might let the German line to the Far East pass through India along the route currently used by British and Dutch planes, but the border between Afghanistan and India must be free of German intrigues.

Today Agniya and I attended the ‘state banquet’ given by George VI in honour of King Leopold of Belgium, who has arrived on a four-day visit. It was a banquet like any other: 180 guests, the entire royal family, members of government, ambassadors (but not envoys) and various British notables. We ate from gold plates with gold forks and knives. The dinner, unlike most English dinners, was tasty (the king is said to have a French cook). Two dozen Scottish ‘pipers’ entered the hall during the dinner and slowly walked around the tables several times, filling the palace vaults with their semi-barbarian music. I like this music. There is something of Scotland’s mountains and woods in it, of the distance of bygone centuries, of man’s primordial past. Pipe music has always had a strange, exciting effect on me, drawing me off somewhere far away, to broad fields and boundless steppes where there are neither people nor animals, and where one feels oneself young and brave. But I saw that the music was not to the taste of many guests. They found it rough, sharp and indecently loud in the atmosphere of palatial solemnity and refinement. Leopold was one of the disgruntled diners…

Lothian visited me after nearly a year’s absence. We drank tea and talked about world problems.

Oh, perfidious Albion! Corbin told me today that the French government had not been informed about Halifax’s forthcoming visit. He himself learned about it from the Evening Standard and then asked the Foreign Office what it all meant. The FO confirmed the fact of the visit and showed him the text of the announcement made by Simon in the Commons on 12 November. Paris is terribly irritated by the ‘two-faced’ position taken by the English. Corbin consoles himself that an identical episode had occurred 25 years ago (he checked it in the embassy’s archives), in connection with Haldane’s

Richard Burdon Haldane (1st Viscount Haldane), paid a visit to Berlin, in his capacity as minister of war (1905–12), in a futile attempt to stop the naval arms race.

visit to Berlin. Corbin hopes that Halifax’s mission will end no better than that of his predecessor. We shall see.

[Maisky included in his diary a draft undated letter to Litvinov, excerpts of which are reproduced here.]

The London Trades Union Council, together with the Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, arranged a grand dinner on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution. More than 400 people were present. Attlee proposed a toast in honour of the twentieth anniversary. Elvin, the current chairman of the General Council, responded with another. The dinner was opened by Wall,

Alfred M. Wall, a former communist he became an active trade unionist.

secretary of the London Trades Union Council. I spoke in reply.

The French ministers have finally left London, and it is now possible to sum up the results of the exciting month that has just passed. The following picture transpires.

[Attached is an article from the Manchester Guardian of 24 November 1937 conveying the essence of the ‘orientation platform’ proposed by Göring. Britain would consent to the reshaping of the Czechoslovak state along the lines of the federal model of Switzerland; the Sudetenland would acquire a status similar to that of a Swiss canton and would undertake to refrain from rendering any diplomatic, political or military assistance to Austria.]

[The ferocious purges meant that Maisky’s personal survival had become bound up with the success of collective security, for which the extraordinary connections he had forged in London were vital. This was an extremely delicate balancing act: he had to manoeuvre between the need to provide Moscow with objective evaluation and the need to keep alive the prospects of an alliance with the West. Early in the summer, he had already expressed in private his concern that the failure of non-intervention in Spain might lead to ‘an interval of isolation policy on the part of the UK and the USSR – each distrusting the other’. From Lloyd George he had gleaned the fact that Eden was indeed toying with the idea of adopting a neutral position in Spain, were non-intervention to collapse. Chamberlain, on the other hand, was seeking to change the committee of non-intervention into ‘a four-power pact … detaching itself from the Soviet Union’.

Webb, diary, 25 July, p. 6359; DVP, 1937, XX, doc. 261, 26 July 1937.

Good riddance!

Today, spending the weekend with the Webbs, I put to this old couple the possibility of a united front in England (not to the left with the communists, but to the right with Liberals of all stripes, National Labourites, etc.).

Beatrice told us the amusing story of Bernard Shaw’s marriage.

The British are increasingly troubled by events in the Far East.

Refers to the Japanese capture of Shanghai in November 1937, and of Nanjing a month later.

Serves them right. It’s high time for them to be taught a good lesson in one part of the world or another. It will be very beneficial in cleansing their brains, which have gone to fat.

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.

[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, 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.

[Attached to the diary is an article from the Evening Standard of 15 January 1938 offering two versions of an incident which occurred in the British embassy in Tokyo on 15 January. According to the police report, a certain Japanese citizen, Makato Watanabe, met the British ambassador, Robert Craigie,

Robert Leslie Craigie, assistant undersecretary of state in the Foreign Office, 1934–37; British ambassador in Japan, 1937–41.

and told him that Great Britain must revise its policy toward Japan. He then pulled out a long sword and handed it to the ambassador. The man was arrested and interrogated. According to the official version of the Japanese news agency Domei, the sword was given to the ambassador in recognition of his efforts to improve Anglo-Japanese relations.]

China remains high on the agenda.

Today Chamberlain received a delegation of the National Council of Labour (the trade unions, the Labour Party Executive Committee, and Parliamentary Labour), which made a formal submission to the PM about the urgent need to intensify the struggle against Japan and assistance to China. Citrine, Noel-Baker and Dallas

George Dallas, trade unionist.

spoke on behalf of the delegation. Chamberlain replied that any serious action against Japan could only be taken in the form of naval military operations, for which the cooperation of the US was essential; but the latter had shown little desire to do anything. Chamberlain mentioned in passing that the Soviet Union was powerful on land and in the air, but weak at sea; so cooperation with Moscow was of no relevance in this context.

I visited Vansittart and inquired about his new position and duties.

[On 24 January, Maisky begged Litvinov confidentially to allow him to proceed to Geneva within days, ostensibly for consultations over pressing issues concerning Anglo-Soviet relations. But ‘above all’, Maisky impetuously got to the point, ‘I have a highly important personal question which I would like to discuss with you’. If it could not be justified as a business trip, he was even prepared to make the journey as ‘a private one’.

RAN f.1702 op.4 d.143 l.63 & d.111 ll.15–16, letter to Kollontay, 6 Feb. 1938.

Though there is an absence of any reports on what transpired in Geneva, corroborative evidence seems to confirm Maisky’s growing concern about the future of Litvinov, his guardian and mentor, no less than about his own continued stay in London. Life had become unbearable, with rumours of his imminent withdrawal circulating widely in the press and with the intrusion of the NKVD into the embassy and an attempt to recall Kagan, his loyal first secretary, from an embassy that was already seriously understaffed.

In a personal letter to Litvinov, Maisky wrote that Kagan ‘himself told me a few days ago that if he goes away on holiday then he will never return to London. All the more reason

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to complete his recall in the normal way. It is important for London, for all those many connections and colleagues that he formed or made over the years of his work in England.’ RAN f.1702 op.4 d.143 ll.64–5, 26 April 1938.

The circumstances surrounding the hastily arranged encounter between Maisky and Litvinov are reminiscent of Maisky’s similar approaches at the outset of his career, prompted by Agniya, who was determined to return to the homeland.

On Agniya’s influence, see the ‘Introduction’ and on the impact of the purges on her see the commentary following the diary entry for 16 November 1937 and the commentary following 10 May 1938.

]

Eden had a talk with М.М. [Litvinov] in Geneva. First, Eden showed М.М. the statement he was going to make at the Council session and then asked M.M. what statement he would make. M.M. replied half in jest that he had reckoned on finding everything ready, since it followed from my report from London that Eden was planning a joint statement. Eden got very embarrassed and tried to assure him that there was some kind of misunderstanding. Apparently, he hadn’t spoken to me about a joint statement. I must have meant the possibility of Council adopting a resolution. Such a resolution would turn out to be rather bland and thin, however, so it would be better to forgo it. Eden then began fervently trying to convince M.M. that he must say something because it was important, through individual statements, to demonstrate the solidarity of the permanent members of the Council. M.M. gathered from Eden’s behaviour that he had really spoken to me about a joint statement, but, for whatever reason, was now beating a retreat…

So, Hitler has struck a blow at his army!

On 4 February, Hitler concentrated power in his own hands, replacing Werner Fritsch, the army’s commander-in-chief, with General Keitel and assuming command of the Wehrmacht and abolishing the Defence Ministry. Whether or not inspired by Stalin, Hitler went on to purge the Foreign Ministry of its hard core of professional diplomats, replacing Neurath with Ribbentrop at the head of the office.

The legal ‘opposition’ to the dominance of the ‘party’, which grouped around the Reichswehr and included big industrialists, landlords, old-school diplomats and so on, has been broken for good. The removal of Schacht was a sign of the approaching climax. Blomberg’s

Werner Fritz von Blomberg, German minister of defence and later of war, 1933–38; commander-in-chief of the German armed forces, 1935–38.

marriage to a plebeian was the last straw. Is the ‘purge’ over? Hard to tell. I am inclined to think that the disgraced military will come in for more exiles, arrests and so on. To give Hitler his due, he carried out the operation very skilfully and with lightning speed. Even if this is only a 75% victory, it is a victory none the less.

Went to see Eden. The immediate reason for my visit was the ‘consular conflict’.

In an attempt to further curtail the power of Narkomindel, as well as the flow of Westerners to the Soviet Union, the Kremlin reduced the number of Soviet consulates abroad and forced European consulates to withdraw from Russia; DVP, 1938, XXI, fn. 59.

On 11 January, Potemkin notified Chilston of the Soviet government’s decision to ask Britain to close down its consulate in Leningrad for reasons of parity, retaining only the consular department at the embassy in Moscow. The proud Brits took offence. Chilston had a few sour conservations with M.M. and then submitted two notes. The British decided to resort to punitive measures. They closed down the consular department in Moscow and announced that parity was thereby observed, as they had only one consulate in the USSR, in Leningrad. They suggested that we should now receive all ordinary visas in Leningrad (they agreed to issue only diplomatic and business visas in Moscow). I was instructed to meet Eden in order to resolve the conflict in some way. He knew nothing about it and promised to ask me over next week after he had familiarized himself with the essence of the dispute…

[Two threads intertwine when it comes to ‘appeasement’: retrospective attempts by the main actors to portray themselves as having been conscious of the German danger, and the common dismissal of the alarmists by contemporaries as oddities or warmongers. It should be noted, though (as the diary entry above attests), that just a week before his resignation Eden appeared to be rather complacent, convinced that the German danger to England had receded.

This emerges as well in Cadogan’s comments on Eden’s draft autobiography; see Cadogan papers, ACAD 4/5, 25 Jan. 1962. On Eden’s subsequent exaggeration of his rift with Chamberlain on matters of principle, see A.R. Peters, Anthony Eden at the Foreign Office, 1931–1938 (Aldershot, 1986), pp. 338–9.

It was Chamberlain’s decision to pursue negotiations with Mussolini behind Eden’s back which led to the latter’s resignation on 20 February.

R. Mallett, ‘Fascist foreign policy and official Italian views of Anthony Eden in the 1930s’, The Historical Journal, 43/1 (2000). An admission of that is in Cadogan papers, ACAD 4/5, letter to Eden, 22 Nov. 1961.

Chamberlain confided to his sister that he had gradually reached the conclusion that ‘at bottom Anthony did not want to talk either with Hitler or Mussolini, and as I did he was right to go’.

Self, Chamberlain Diary Letters, IV, p. 303.

Seen from Chamberlain’s perspective, both Halifax and Cadogan were pliant, whereas Vansittart had been openly hostile and Eden difficult to manage, particularly when it came to Mussolini. Halifax was an ideal choice for the post of foreign secretary. He found Eden’s ‘preconceived prejudices’ against the dictators ‘too strong … in as much as you have got to live with the devils whether you like them or not’. Presumably that should have rendered him more amenable to Stalin than Chamberlain was, but class bias, historical legacy (reinforced by his experience as viceroy in India) and his High Church leanings coloured his views of the Soviet Union. Moreover, he doubted his own competence for the position of foreign secretary, and finally accepted it reluctantly and only after receiving assurances that he could continue to spend the weekends hunting on his estate and would be exposed to a reduced load of material, which could be consulted ‘on train or at home’. His laidback demeanour enabled Chamberlain to bypass the Foreign Office and to call on his own advisers, particularly Horace Wilson.

After the disturbances and worries of the past few days, life is returning to its normal course. Chamberlain got his way after all, and Halifax was appointed foreign secretary, but it is the PM who will be speaking in the Commons on all the more important foreign-policy issues. A certain Butler, former parliamentary assistant minister of labour, has replaced Cranborne. He is a newcomer to foreign policy, but an obedient type. It transpires that up to a hundred coalition government members sympathize with Eden, but only Vyvyan Adams voted against the government, and 22, including the duchess of Atholl, abstained. The rest did not dare to cross Chamberlain: such is the power of the ‘party machine’.

Today Halifax received all the ambassadors, one after the other. Monck met them in the lobby and supervised the visits, notifying each ambassador that he would have 10 to 15 minutes with Halifax.

(1) Neville Chamberlain. In order to better understand the origin and significance of the ministerial crisis that ended in Eden’s resignation, we must have a clearer understanding of the personality of the current prime minister – Neville Chamberlain. As you probably know, he is certainly not a man of great stature. He is narrow-minded, dry, limited, lacking not only external brilliance but also any kind of political range. Here, he is often called the ‘accountant of politics’: he views the whole world primarily through the prism of dividends and exchange quotations. It is for this reason that Chamberlain is a darling of the City, which places implicit trust in him. At the same time, Chamberlain is very obstinate and insistent, and once an idea has lodged in his mind he will defend it until he is blue in the face – a rather dangerous quality for the prime minister of a great power nowadays, but such is his nature. A particularly important trait of Chamberlain’s character is his highly developed ‘class consciousness’, which, of course, is the ‘class consciousness’ of a great-power British bourgeois. Lloyd George recently told me (and this is corroborated by information from other sources) that Baldwin, the current PM’s predecessor, was a quite different man in this regard.

[The resignation of Eden, whom Maisky had been meticulously cultivating, was yet another blow to collective security. This was further undermined by the muzzled reaction in Britain to Hitler’s annexation of Austria on 12 March – a precursor to the Czechoslovak debacle six months later.

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In his Commons speech on 14 March, Chamberlain condemned the Anschluss, but in the same breath acknowledged German interests in Austria. Both Britain and France refrained from raising the issue at the League of Nations. See Maisky’s observations in DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 82.

‘Extremely pessimistic’, Maisky expected Chamberlain to ‘throw overboard’ the League of Nations and try to resuscitate the four-power pact, ‘excluding the Soviet Union’. He had no high hopes of Chamberlain, who, he assumed, was guided exclusively by his ideological bent, vividly remembering his comment during the 1932 negotiations for a British loan: ‘Why on earth should we lend out our money to our blatant enemies?’ Consequently, Maisky feared that the crisis might reinforce the drift towards isolation which had ‘already been discerned in Moscow for quite some time’. Had it been possible to bring about a closer and more effective alliance between the USSR, France and Britain, he told the French ambassador in London, ‘his government would certainly have engaged in a more active policy of European collaboration. The successive disappointments inflicted on her led to the gradual turnabout.’

DDF, 2 Serie, VIII, Doc. 254. Identical words were used by Maisky over lunch à deux with Harold Nicolson; see Nicolson, Diaries, p. 238. On his pessimism, see telegram to NKID, 17 March, DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 88.

Chamberlain, Maisky told Lloyd George, ‘was playing with one card, on which he had put all his money’.

A.J. Sylvester, Life with Lloyd George: The diary of A.J. Sylvester, 1931–1945 (London, 1975), p. 197. See also a similar prognosis in Maisky’s long telegram to Litvinov, 26 Feb., DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 52.

His observations were spot on, as Chamberlain indeed confided to his sister on 18 March that he had ‘abandoned any idea of giving guarantees to Czecho-Slovakia or to France in connection with her obligations to that country’.

Self, Chamberlain Diary Letters, IV, p. 307, 20 March 1938. Self dismisses out of hand the story spread by ‘the less than reliable Maisky’ as a ‘slip of the tongue’ by Chamberlain, p. 18.

Last night, Agniya and I attended a grand dinner at the Spanish embassy. The guest-list was surprisingly exalted. Among those present were Cadogan and Plymouth with their wives, Sir Sidney Clive (marshal of the diplomatic corps) and his wife, Lord Robert Cecil and his wife, who usually stayed away from such functions, and a host of other diplomats and politicians. Taking into account the current situation in Spain, this was not at all bad. I even congratulated Mrs Azcárate,

The wife of Pablo de Azcárate y Florez, Spanish ambassador in London, 1936–39.

who sat next to me at the table, on the success of her dinner.

Today I returned a visit to Kennedy, the new US ambassador to Great Britain. He is quite a character: tall, strong, with red hair, energetic gestures, a loud voice and booming, infectious laughter – a real embodiment of the type of healthy and vigorous business man that is so abundant in the USA, a man without psychological complications and lofty dreams.

‘The Americans,’ Maisky told Beatrice Webb, ‘had no civilisation of their own: they were first rate as mechanics, good organisers, open and alert minded; but fundamentally without a national culture or traditional background, in the sense that these are present in Great Britain, France, Germany and Scandinavia’; Webb, diary, 8 Aug. 1933, p. 5503.

I attended a session of the House of Lords for the first time ever during my life in England – whether in exile or after the revolution.

I have rarely experienced such a sense of disgust and loathing as I did at today’s meeting of the Subcommittee,

Of the Non-Intervention Committee. On its agenda was Lord Plymouth’s proposal to evacuate about 75 per cent of the combatants on both sides. The final decision was adopted at the end of May, but by then a separate Anglo-Italian agreement had been signed. Negotiations commenced on 8 March and the agreement, signed on 16 April, ensured the withdrawal of the Italian troops from Spain once the Civil War was over. In justifying the agreement, Chamberlain suggested that Mussolini and Hitler had sent their troops to forestall the bolshevization of Europe and were now prepared to withdraw them, as such a threat no longer existed; see Maisky, VSD, pp. 430–50.

presided over by the chairman.

A very interesting conversation with Sun Fo. (Incidentally, he is not the son of Sun Zhongshan,

Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen), Chinese revolutionary; founder of Guomindang (National People’s Party) in 1912; leader of the Republic of China, 1921–22 and 1923–25.

as many believe. The only connection is that his second wife is the daughter of the great Chinese revolutionary’s sister.)

The Abyssinian envoy Martin came to see me. A tragic figure. He still shows up everywhere – at official receptions, in society, among diplomats – wearing his tunic covered in gold and a green-red-yellow sash over his shoulder. Outwardly, everyone still shows him respect and sympathy (some do so emphatically), but behind his back they ask: ‘How long will this last?’… Martin walks about as a living ghost, and at the same time as a bleeding wound on the conscience of ‘Western democracies’. His dark-skinned, full figure is a daily reminder of the triumphant insolence of the fascist aggressors, the myopic weakness of Western democracies, and the flagrant injustice committed right before our eyes with the connivance of England and France…

[An Anglo-French summit meeting in London on 28–29 April revealed the hegemony of the hosts. Daladier’s

Edouard Daladier, French minister of defence, 1932–34, 1936–38 and September 1939–March 1940; prime minister, January–October 1933, January 1934 and April 1938–March 1940.

passionate advocacy of stiff resistance to Hitler in Czechoslovakia, with Soviet help if necessary, did not carry the day. It was, Cadogan commented, ‘Very beautiful, but awful rubbish’.

This episode is covered by Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark, pp. 564–7, who argues that the oratory was double-edged, aimed also at relieving France of its obligations, which the chiefs of staff did not believe she could assume. This should be borne in mind when considering the accusations in the same vein levelled against the Russians, who, as the diary and related material show, were extremely well informed about the state of the Anglo-French negotiations and their aftermath.

Masaryk disclosed to Maisky that the British had been ‘highly defeatist’, arguing that ‘neither France, nor the USSR was in a position to render any effective help to Czechoslovakia’. He further revealed that on the eve of the talks, Hore-Belisha, the secretary of state for war, who was just back from Rome, had intimated that ‘the expansion of Germany in the direction of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Balkans was inevitable, that England was not prepared for war, that as long as Hitler’s actions were confined to Europe there would be no war’.

DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 153, 30 April 1938. Confirmed by Aleksandrovsky from Prague, see L. Bezymenskii, Gitler i Stalin pered skhvatkoi (Moscow, 2009), p. 141.

Briefed by Halifax, Maisky was left in no doubt that Britain, determined not to get involved directly in the conflict, was at best prepared to act as a go-between, though only once Beneš had made further substantial concessions.

TNA FO 371 21591 C3995/13/17, 5 May 1938, and Maisky’s version in DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 163.

]

Sir Horace Wilson came over for lunch. His fate has followed a rather bizarre course. I was acquainted with him in late 1932 upon my arrival in Britain as ambassador, in connection with the newly opened negotiations on a trade agreement. The previous agreement of 1930 had been denounced and a new agreement had to be signed. I headed the Soviet delegation at the negotiations, while Wilson, who at that time was on the Board of Trade and had the high-sounding title of ‘chief industrial adviser to the government’, was the de facto head of the British delegation. I say ‘de facto’ because the British delegation was nominally headed by Walter Runciman, president of the Board of Trade. The negotiations were tough and abounded in dramatic turns. They were broken off for four months during the Metro-Vickers trial and the trade embargo, and resumed only after the conflict had been settled. We tussled and argued over the new trade agreement for a whole 15 months and signed it only on 16 February 1934. During this time, I had the opportunity to get to know Wilson well and establish an acquaintance. He always struck me as a clever, cunning and somewhat cynical fellow, well versed in the politics of trade, a dab hand at formulating compromises, and an ardent defender of the interests of British industrialists and traders. I never saw him display an understanding of international politics, still less a desire to be engaged in those complex and sensitive matters.

[The time had arrived for Maisky’s obligatory summer vacation and, far more terrifyingly, the newly instituted procedure of annual hearings for ambassadors at the ministry. His gloomy reports to Narkomindel on appeasement were now tempered by an illusionary conviction, largely sustained by conversations with members of the opposition, such as Churchill, Lloyd George and Beaverbrook, that ‘the ground was systematically shifting under the English Government’s feet, though that process does not make headway fast enough’.

DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 176, 12 May 1938.

As insurance, before he left for Moscow, Maisky extracted from Lloyd George ‘a warm message of admiration to Stalin, as the greatest statesman alive!’ At the same time, he did not fail to keep the elderly Liberal informed of his whereabouts in Russia and, though well aware that it was monitored, kept up a constant flow of correspondence while he was away. This served to boost his standing in England: ‘I look forward to your return,’ wrote Beaverbrook, ‘and that view is held by most Englishmen, but not by all foreigners’ – a clear reference to the Germans and Italians.

Beaverbrook papers, BBK\C\238, 20 June 1938. See also RAN f.1702 op.4 d.1532 l.3, Lloyd George and Pritt to Maisky, 29 July 1938.

Perhaps as striking was his unabashed interference in British domestic politics, as he incited the anti-Chamberlain opposition in wishful anticipation that the worsening international situation would encourage it to overthrow the prime minister and install either Eden or Churchill in his stead.

Webb, diary, 7 Aug. pp. 6522–3; Lloyd George papers, LG/G/14/1/5, 24 July 1938, letter from Maisky. The first to detect this was Aster in ‘Ivan Maisky and parliamentary anti-appeasement’. The diary and the recently released Soviet documents betray the wide scope of such activities.

Maisky lost no time in seeking a meeting with Eden and his ‘English friends’. In order to dispel the rumours of his poor standing in Moscow, he depicted in rosy colours the ‘very pleasant and refreshing holiday’ he had had there. His hopes were dashed, though, when Eden, instead of seizing the reins in the run-up to the Munich Conference, opted for a long break from politics to go on ‘a motoring tour in Ireland’. He did not expect to return to London, so he informed Maisky, before the end of September.

RAN f.1702 op.4 d.940 l.6 & d.1357 l.2, 9 & 12 Aug. 1938. References to ‘the delightful holiday’ and ‘our happy holiday in our country’ also pervade his correspondence with Bernard Shaw and Ben Tillott; RAN f.1702 op.4 d.1184 l.12 & d.1127 l.4, 22 & 29 Aug. 1938.

Maisky nonetheless went out of his way to deliberately convey to Moscow the fallacious impression that the anti-Chamberlain forces were on the rise. He suggested, for instance, that Vansittart had recovered his voice within the Foreign Office; that a highly agitated Churchill advocated patience in anticipation of the forging of an Anglo-Franco-Soviet alliance; and that Horace Wilson appeared to be disillusioned with Hitler.

DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 319, 29 Aug. 1938. Indeed, the young De La Warr, the lord privy seal, impressed upon Halifax that a ‘demonstration’ of consultation with the Soviet and French ambassadors ‘would do good with the Russians whose help after all we may need in the last resort’; quoted in Aster, ‘Ivan Maisky and parliamentary anti-appeasement’, p. 325.

]

Guo Taiqi came to see me, together with the newly appointed Chinese ambassador to the USA (I forget his name). He was interested in the impressions I had gained during my trip to the USSR and told me about his affairs.

I have received interesting information about the Anglo-French talks held during the king’s visit to Paris. Halifax promised Bonnet

Georges-Etienne Bonnet, French ambassador to the United States, 1936–37; finance minister, 1937–38; minister of foreign affairs, 1938–39; justice minister, 1939–40; member of the National Council, 1941–42.

that the British–Italian agreement would not be implemented until the Spanish question was resolved, but he did not agree to link this to the conclusion of a similar French–Italian agreement. On the issue of Czechoslovakia, Halifax maintained the following: Czechoslovakia is an artificial state incapable both of defending itself and of getting assistance from the outside.

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In a Cabinet meeting preceding the talks, Halifax insisted that Britain should not take any military obligations upon itself. To discourage the Germans from embarking on hostilities, he suggested that the Germans be told that they could obtain close to 60 per cent of their demands through negotiations; TNA CAB 23/93, 27 April 1938.

Great Britain will not detach itself from Central European developments, but France should exert greater pressure on Prague, demanding more serious concessions to Henlein. The Czechs must be made to come to terms with the Germans. In particular, France must obstruct the immediate introduction of the nationality code into the Czech parliament. (The English are afraid that the code may tie the hands of the Czech government on the one hand, and fail to satisfy Henlein on the other.) If the Czechs persist, Henlein might raise the question of a plebiscite, to which the British government would not be able to object. Chamberlain has constantly to keep in mind that public opinion and the dominions are against Great Britain’s meddling in Central European affairs. Phipps, the British ambassador in Paris, has put forward a plan of how to neutralize Czechoslovakia (it envisages the annulment of the pacts signed by Czechoslovakia with France and the USSR, in exchange for a joint guarantee of Czechoslovakia’s independence by France, Germany and the USSR). He did so on his own initiative – the British government allegedly had nothing to do with it. Wiedemann

Fritz Wiedemann, Hitler’s adjutant, 1935–39.

came to London to pave the way for Göring’s visit and to assure the British government of Hitler’s wish to bolster friendly relations with Britain. He also broached the question of arms limitation. But Halifax replied to Wiedemann that no foundations existed for successful Anglo-German negotiations without a peaceful resolution of the Czechoslovak issue. Wiedemann claimed that Germany posed no threat to Czechoslovakia. Bonnet just echoed Halifax.

The source was Surits, who had been briefed in detail by Bonnet; DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 269.

It transpires that the signing of an open Anglo-Italian agreement on 16 April coincided with a secret agreement by the parties of a financial nature. The Italians agreed, for a term of 66 years that could be extended to 99 years, to cede the right to the utilization of the water of Lake Tana in Abyssinia to an Anglo-Egyptian consortium. In return, the English agreed to make an advance payment to the Italians under this concession, covering a period of 530 years.

The published declaration on Lake Tana (addendum No. 5 to the agreement of 16 April 1938) bore out only previous (1936) Italian commitments to Britain (M. Curtis (ed.), Documents on International Affairs. 1938, I (London, 1939), p. 147).

In other words, Chamberlain promised Mussolini a fairly large loan, albeit in covert form.

Masaryk had much of interest to tell me.

Beaverbrook phoned me to welcome me back to England and invited both of us to have dinner at his country house. There were about a dozen guests, mostly staff from his newspapers, and a beautiful young lady presented by the host as a Jewish refugee from Vienna.

Resuming contact after my vacation, I visited Oliphant.

Lancelot Oliphant, deputy undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, 1936–39.

He’s just the same. Hasn’t changed a bit.

So, the hostilities in Manchuria have ceased. The armistice has been signed. Both sides remain where they are, i.e. we hold Zhanggufeng. Very good. The outcome is definitely in our favour.

In London, nerves are on edge; there is even alarm. People are frightened by the large-scale German manoeuvres. What are they for?

Masaryk came over straight after a weekend spent at Eden’s country house in Yorkshire. He told me many interesting things about Eden.

Bidding farewell to me before my vacation, Halifax asked me to visit him as soon as I got back from Moscow. I planned to do so immediately upon my return. However, the developments on the Manchurian border forced me to postpone my visit to the foreign secretary: the press might kick up a racket and interpret it as a request for mediation. Such rumours did begin to circulate on Fleet Street after my visit to Oliphant on 10 August – imagine what would have happened if I had gone to see Halifax! While I lingered and put the meeting off, the mountain itself came to Mahomet: today, Halifax invited me round.

Yesterday Agniya and I visited Lloyd George in his country house in Churt. The old man told us many interesting things.

Nicolson confirms that Eden is aiming for the post of prime minister, yet he may need some time to realize his ambition. He also confirms that Chamberlain is still strong (‘he saved us from war!’), although so-called ‘solid Conservative opinion’ is turning against his foreign policy more and more. But it is considered unpatriotic to challenge the PM openly.

What an awful life!

On his return from Germany several days ago, Schulenburg, the German ambassador in Moscow, started ‘frightening’ diplomatic circles in the USSR. The Sudeten problem is very acute. The military and right-wing nationalists in Czechoslovakia are unwilling to make any concessions to their German population. They are blocking Beneš’s efforts to reach a compromise. If this dispute is not resolved satisfactorily in the nearest future, an armed confrontation will be inevitable. Runciman is the last hope for peace. Will he succeed? The purpose of Schulenburg’s talks is clear: to exert moral pressure on Czechoslovakia, France and the USSR.

Vansittart invited me over lunch. We were alone in his apartment. We spoke almost exclusively about international affairs.

Vansittart invited me to a lunch tête-à-tête. We talked with complete frankness.

The Cabinet held its meeting today, and the government took one really ‘important decision’: to do nothing. Nevile Henderson attended the meeting to shed light on some issues. Tomorrow he is returning to Berlin, but contrary to yesterday’s rumours he is not carrying a ‘personal letter’ from Chamberlain to Hitler. He is not even meant to seek a meeting with Hitler or Ribbentrop.

An acquaintance of mine passed Halifax’s words to me: even though no decisions were taken at today’s Cabinet meeting, it was ascertained after three hours of debate that all ministers except one (who could it be? Kingsley Wood?) consider it impossible for Britain to stand aside if war breaks out over Czechoslovakia.

[Unbeknownst to Maisky, Chamberlain had just come up with the most ‘unconventional and daring’ plan ‘Z’, which ‘took Halifax’s breath away’: if the crisis in Czechoslovakia continued, he proposed to fly to Germany and meet Hitler to avert war.

Self, Chamberlain Diary Letters, IV, pp. 342, 344–5, Chamberlain to Ida, 3 & 11 Sep. 1938.

Sir Horace Wilson visited me today and we had lunch together. The last time I saw him was in May, just before I left for my vacation. I was curious to see him now and feel his current political pulse.

Yesterday Winston Churchill invited me for dinner. We met in the apartment of his son, Randolph.

Hitherto no such meeting was known about; this sheds fresh light on their meeting on 4 September.

Azcárate, who recently returned from Spain, told me that Barcelona, after Franco’s response, regards the opening of the French border as its priority. About two days ago, Azcárate visited Vansittart, who treated him with the utmost attentiveness and asked him many questions about the situation at the front lines, at the rear, etc., and did not conceal that his sympathies lay with the Republicans. In conclusion, V. asked Azcárate to set out in a private letter his personal considerations concerning the Spanish question as it stands today. Azcárate has already done so. Later, he also visited Halifax, where he received a quite different reception. Outwardly, Halifax observed all the proprieties, but when he heard Azcárate declare that England and France, having actively insisted in July on the immediate adoption of the Committee’s plan for Barcelona, were now morally obliged (following the plan’s rejection by the insurgents) to free the Republic from the shackles of non-intervention, he could do nothing better than lecture the Spanish ambassador on the benefits of non-intervention. Further proof that Chamberlain will never give up this damned Committee!

A visit from Corbin, who has just returned from holidays in Évian-les-Bains. In Paris he met Daladier and Bonnet. The situation in Europe is critical, according to them, and Corbin wants to be in as close contact with me as possible. Simon’s speech in Paris is considered insufficiently clear and firm. France itself will fulfil its obligations to Czechoslovakia.

Yesterday, Kennedy, the American ambassador, had a lengthy talk with Chamberlain. The prime minister asked him to approach Roosevelt and find out what would be the US interpretation of their neutrality law in the event of a European war. Can the democratic countries rely on getting weapons and money from America? Kennedy promised to contact the president.

Plymouth invited me over and passed on to me the British government’s memorandum, which boils down to sending Hemming to Burgos (probably to Barcelona as well) for talks with Franco (possibly with Negrín,

Juan Negrín, Spanish minister of finance, 1936–37; premier of the Republican government, 1937–39; following Franco’s victory in 1939, he fled to Paris, where he tried to organize a government in exile; found refuge in England when the Germans invaded France in 1940. Maisky spent most weekends at his country house in Bovingdon.

too) about the Committee’s future plans. Franco, you see, doesn’t grasp all the subtleties of the plan, and Hemming will clarify them. Plymouth asked me what I thought about the memorandum, but I merely declared that I would convey its content to Moscow.

An exceptionally important conversation took place yesterday in Moscow between M.M. [Litvinov] and Payart, the French chargé d’affaires.

I visited Churchill on his country estate.

[The diary conceals the main purpose of this second meeting with Churchill in two days: to disclose to him ‘in detail’ Payart’s statement to Litvinov and to prod him to relay the information to Halifax. Maisky was acting on his own initiative. Churchill recalled how Maisky asked to come down to Chartwell to see him ‘at once upon a matter of urgency’. He attached such significance to the meeting that a whole chapter – ‘The Maisky Incident’ – appeared in an early draft version of his memoirs and was later dropped, while the final account of the meeting was criticized by his literary agent for lacking colour.

Churchill, The Second World War: The Gathering Storm (London, 1948), pp. 229–30; Maisky, Who Helped Hitler?, pp. 78–80; Maisky, Munich, p. 38; Reynolds, ‘Churchill’s writing of history’, p. 239. See also letter to Churchill, 22 December 1947, reproduced in M. Gilbert (ed.), Winston Churchill and Emery Reves, Correspondence, 1937–1964 (London, 1997), pp. 279–80.

]

Today I saw Corbin and was surprised to find out that he still knew nothing about Litvinov’s conversation with Payart on 2 September. I had to relate it to him in its every detail. Strange! Such an important talk at such a crucial moment should, it seems, have been conveyed to the French ambassador in London right away and yet… Something is wrong here! Equally strange is the fact that, despite the talkative nature of the French, not a word has been written about the Moscow conversation in the French press. Bonnet, it seems, is trying to hush up the news…

[The Times leader of 7 September, which was appended to the diary, floated a ballon d’essai on behalf of the inner Cabinet. The fateful lines were written by the editor Geoffrey Dawson, whose close All Souls College connections with Halifax made him an ‘ex officio member of the Cabinet’, with exclusive access to the proceedings of the crucial 30 August meeting. The article urged the Czechoslovak government to cede the Sudetenland, as ‘the advantages to Czechoslovakia of becoming a homogeneous state might conceivably outweigh the obvious disadvantages of losing the Sudeten German districts of the borderland’.

R. Cocket, Twilight of Truth: Chamberlain, appeasement, and the manipulation of the press (New York, 1989), p. 71.

]

I have seldom felt such indignation as I did reading the above citation.

Referring to the leader in The Times of 7 September, quoted above.

So, the English already want more than ‘the fourth plan’ which was adopted by the Czechoslovak government the day before yesterday under the very greatest pressure from London and Paris. Hitler wrinkled his nose – so let’s throw him yet another bone. Now The Times suggests a revision of the Czechoslovak borders! Of course, it’s not just The Times; it’s Chamberlain launching his ballon d’essai. And tomorrow Runciman will present it as his own ‘plan’.

Halifax sent over the main points of his upcoming speech in Geneva concerning the reform of the League of Nations. Very nice of him. But the things he’s planning to come out with! I can hardly believe my eyes.

An unexpected invitation to see Halifax.

This is misleading, as the meeting had been engineered by Maisky and failed to produce the anticipated results. As could be gleaned from Maisky’s semi-clandestine meetings with Churchill of the previous days, the ambassador had been using him to impress on Halifax the seriousness of Litvinov’s stance and to galvanize him into action. Considering, as he wrote in the diary on 3 September, that ‘Unfortunately, we have very little time, and we must act quickly’, he clearly expected his conversations with Churchill to lead to his meeting with Halifax.

It turned out that he wanted to ask me to convey his apologies to Litvinov for not being able to meet him in Geneva, on account of the European crisis. He is really very sorry, he was greatly looking forward to meeting and speaking to M.M., but sadly there is nothing to be done. The British delegation to the League will be headed by Lord De La Warr.

Tomorrow morning, Agniya and I are going to drive to Geneva to attend the session of the League of Nations.

[Appeasement, as Paul Kennedy has convincingly argued, was entrenched in the ‘pragmatic, conciliatory and reasonable’ British approach to conflict resolution. This assumed that, unless national interests were ‘deleteriously affected’, the peaceful settlement of disputes was preferable to war.

P. Kennedy, Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945 (London, 1983), p. 19.

British historiography of the Munich Agreement has undergone radical metamorphosis: from the ‘Guilty Men’ verdict of contemporaries (pinning all the blame on Chamberlain for his naivety, ignorance and arrogance in the pursuit of foreign policy), through the revisionism of the 1970s (which convincingly introduced the constraints on Chamberlain – economics, pacifist public opinion, the poor state of British armaments, etc.).

A most exhaustive and comprehensive review of the debate on appeasement is to be found in S. Aster, ‘Appeasement: Before and after revisionism’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 19/3 (2008).

Conspicuous by its almost total absence is an analysis of the Soviet Union’s role in Munich – a role which, by and large, sustains the ‘counter-revisionist’ view that, although Britain’s position was fraught with exceptional difficulty, ‘the way in which issues were perceived and tackled reflected a priori principles and choices’.

See R.J. Beck, ‘Munich’s lessons reconsidered’, International Security, 14/2 (1989); and D. Hucker, ‘The unending debate: Appeasement, Chamberlain and the origins of the Second World’, Intelligence and National Security, 23/4 (2008), pp. 542–3.

Pessimistic assessments were selected to justify a preconceived policy. Taking into account the constraints, recent research has nonetheless reverted to and reinforced earlier appraisal that Chamberlain’s judgement was clouded by personal prejudices, obstinacy, self-righteousness and dictatorial proclivity. The resurgence of a viable Soviet alternative in the Munich crisis is clearly validated by the diary and the recent stream of thoroughly documented works by Carley and others. The extensive archival sources and subtle arguments expose the impact of embedded cultural anti-communism on the failure to erect an effective all-embracing anti-Hitler alliance in 1938–39.

Carley, 1939; M. Carley, ‘“Only the USSR has… clean hands”: The Soviet perspective on the failure of collective security and the collapse of Czechoslovakia, 1934–1938’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 21/3 (2010); Aster, ‘Ivan Maisky and parliamentary

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anti-appeasement’, pp. 326–35. See also L.G. Shaw, The British Political Elite and the Soviet Union, 1937–1939 (London, 2003). Russia, typically, hardly figures in the pivotal work of R.A.C. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement: British policy and the coming of the Second World War (London, 1993).

]

Here we are, in Geneva at last.

How funny! On the way back from Geneva, Agniya had lunch in the same restaurant in Dijon where we’d eaten on the way down, and they returned the Baedeker I’d lost there.

The three-day trip from London to Geneva was a true rest for me. Today working life resumed.

Taking advantage of the fact that the commissions had not yet started working in earnest, Agniya and I drove out to Montreux. The weather smiled on us: the Lake of Geneva shone in its dazzling way, but a light haze, unfortunately, covered the French shore. We visited the Castle of Chillon. I’d been there during the emigration years and it had struck me as gloomy, menacing and majestic – perhaps I was under the fresh influence of the famous poem by Byron,

‘The Prisoner of Chillon’.

whom I’d been so fond of in my childhood and youth. The castle now seemed much less impressive, something between a museum and a hotel made out to look old. The romanticism had gone, leaving only the prose of life. I even felt bored. Or maybe it’s the years that have taken their toll? After all, 30 years have passed since I first set foot in the castle of Chillon – and what 30 years they’ve been!

The debate on the League of Nations began today in the Assembly. Article 16 was the main issue. Sandler

Rikard Sandler, Social Democrat prime minister of Sweden, 1925–26; foreign minister, 1932–39.

(the Swede) and Patijn

Jacob Adriaan Nicolaas Patijn, Dutch foreign minister, 1937–39.

(the Dutchman) made speeches. They advocate complete capitulation: Article 16 must be made optional. The Dutchman, an ancient and sickly creature who can hardly move on his legs, was particularly insistent. Is the struggle against aggression really a fit concern for such a man?! On hearing these speakers, Petrescu-Comnen,

Nicolae Petrescu-Comnen, Rumanian foreign minister, 1938–39.

the Rumanian foreign minister, exclaimed in my presence: ‘But this means the end of the League of Nations!’

The situation is becoming increasingly acute. After Hitler’s speech yesterday, Henlein announced today that the Karlsbad Programme was already obsolete and that a plebiscite was now the order of the day. Disturbances and provocations have begun in the Sudetenland. The tension grows with every passing hour. Attlee has again been to see Chamberlain and said that a plebiscite in the present situation would mean a partition of Czechoslovakia, which is why the British workers’ movement was against it. The PM replied that he, too, was against a plebiscite, but he did so in such a manner that Attlee departed full of suspicion…

The day was spent in boring committees. I sat, kept silent and listened. M.M. thinks there is no sense for us to be active at the moment in these committees, except perhaps one or two. There was no Assembly today. We spent the evening in the Lignon Castle. M.M., Surits, Shtein and E.N. played bridge, while I interviewed the sous-secretaire on various issues surrounding the League of Nations.

[Butler, whose support for appeasement and the Munich Agreement exceeded even that of Chamberlain, was the first to insist in his memoirs that he ‘was left in no doubt that the Russians did not mean business’ and that ‘Litvinov had been deliberately evasive and vague’.

Butler, The Art of the Possible, pp. 70–1 elicited a furious response from Maisky in The Times, 8 June 1971. For a tarnishing revision of Butler’s image as a respected elder statesman, see P. Stafford, ‘Political autobiography and the art of the possible: R.A. Butler at the Foreign Office, 1938–1939’, The Historical Journal, 28/4 (1985).

However, the diary and corroborative material sustain the argument that Stalin’s caution and Litvinov’s vague public statements reflected a Soviet dilemma. Any public statement might be provocative towards Germany and have unimagined repercussions if the Anglo-German negotiations did indeed reach a positive conclusion, as was anticipated. While unilateral assistance was therefore not on the cards, the Soviet Union’s commitment to its contractual obligations, provided the French first fulfilled their obligation, remained unshaken. Such an outlook, a precursor to the following year’s negotiations on a triple alliance, drew on the lasting and clear lesson of the failure to turn the 1934 agreement with France into a full-blown military alliance and the dismal experience of acting alone in Spain while appeasement of Germany was in full swing. It was one thing fighting the Germans and Italians on the edges of Europe, but quite another having to face Germany alone on the Soviet border, with an insouciant Western Europe looking on. What Litvinov vainly sought in Geneva, therefore, was the inception of military talks in London and Paris (which might have deterred Hitler), rather than negotiations with Beneš at the Castle in Prague.

Steiner, ‘Soviet Commissariat’, has done admirable work, reconstructing brick by brick the Soviet policy, unearthing many hitherto unknown documents. Her verdict that ‘it is hard to believe that an offer of unilateral Soviet support, even if it had been made, would have changed the outcome of the Czech deliberations’ can be confidently accepted. She is equally right to refute retrospective Soviet claims (as well as Maisky’s own) that the Soviet Union would have considered rendering unilateral support to Czechoslovakia. Her narrative is only marred by an uncritical adaptation of Igor Lukes’s claims that the Soviet demise in Munich led the country’s leaders back ‘to their revolutionary roots’ (pp. 755, 759, 762). In his otherwise engaging work, Czechoslovakia between Stalin and Hitler: The diplomacy of Edvard Beneš in the 1930s (Oxford, 1996), as well as in ‘Stalin and Czechoslovakia in 1938–39: An autopsy of a myth’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 10/2–3 (1999), p. 38, Lukes developed a fanciful theory that Stalin expected Hitler’s offensive to be ‘but a prelude to a wave of socialist revolutions in Europe’. Such ideas have been effectively refuted by Ragsdale in The Soviets and in his ‘Soviet military preparations and policy in the Munich Crisis: New evidence’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 47/2 (1999).

In the morning Agniya and I drove to Lac de Lucerne and on the way back stopped in Lausanne. Lunched again at Hotel d’Angleterre. Then we had a good long stroll around town. I found the street and the house where I lived in the summer of 1908, right after my emigration from Tobolsk province. The house is 17, Avenue Eduard Dapples. Agniya photographed it. I stood opposite the familiar building and thousands of reminiscences crowded in my mind. How much water has flowed under the bridge since then! How the times have changed! How I, too, have changed! 1908 and 1938 – they are like two quite separate worlds, divided by centuries.

Chamberlain’s visit to Hitler is the focus of attention.

The first encounter between Chamberlain and Hitler took place in Berchtesgaden on 15 and 16 September.

M.M. [Litvinov] told me about his meetings with Bonnet in Geneva (11 September) and Herriot (somewhat later).

So, Chamberlain is in Berchtesgaden today. According to the press, he will be Hitler’s guest for one or two days at least.