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Table of Contents
The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 3
  • 10 January
  • 19 January
  • 20 January
  • 22 January
  • 26 January
  • 27 January
  • 30 January
  • 3 February
  • 4 February
  • 6 February
  • 11 February
  • 13 February
  • 14 February
  • 15 February
  • 17 February
  • 18 February
  • 20 February
  • 23 February
  • 25 February
  • 27 February
  • 28 February
  • 2 March
  • 7 March
  • 8 March
  • 9 March
  • 12 March
  • 14 March
  • 15 March
  • 16 March
  • 17 March
  • 19 March
  • 20 March
  • 22 March
  • 23 March
  • 25 March
  • 29 March
  • 31 March
  • 1 April
  • 6 April
  • 11 April
  • 12 April
  • 14 April
  • 15 April
  • 16 April
  • 17 April
  • 18 April
  • 28 April
  • 29 April
  • 30 April
  • 1 May
  • 2 May
  • 3 May
  • 4 May
  • 6 May
  • 9 May
  • 11 May
  • 15 May
  • 16 May
  • 17 May
  • 18 May
  • 19 May
  • 21 May
  • 22 May
  • 23 May
  • 25 May
  • 26 May
  • 27 May
  • 28 May
  • 30 May
  • 3 June
  • 8 June
  • 11 June
  • 12 June
  • 16 June
  • 17 June
  • 22 June
  • 23 June
  • 25 June
  • 28 June
  • 29 June
  • 30 June
  • 1 July
  • 2 July
  • 4 July
  • 5 July
  • 6 July
  • 7 July
  • 12 July
  • 13 July
  • 14 July
  • 15 July
  • 18 July
  • 22 July
  • 25 July
  • 28 July
  • 30 July
  • 4 August
  • 5 August
  • 6 August
  • 11 August
  • 20 August
  • 21 August
  • 22 August
  • 23 August
  • 24 August
  • 26 August
  • 28 August
  • 29 August
  • 30 August
  • 31 August
  • 1 September
  • 2 September
  • 3 September
  • 4 September
  • 2 September
  • 7 September
  • 8 September
  • 9 September
  • 12 September
  • 13 September
  • 14 September
  • 15 September
  • 17 September
  • 19 September
  • 20 September
  • 21 September
  • 22 September
  • 23 September
  • 27 September
  • 28 September
  • 29 September
  • 3 October
  • 4 October
  • 6 October
  • 7 October
  • 11 October
  • 12 October
  • 13 October
  • 14 October
  • 16 October
  • 17 October
  • 19 October
  • 21 October
  • 24 October
  • 26 October
  • 27 October
  • 28 October
  • 30 October
  • 31 October
  • 2 November
  • 3 November
  • 7 November
  • 9 November
  • 10 November
  • 13 November
  • 14 November
  • 15 November
  • 16 November
  • 18 November
  • 20 November
  • 21 November
  • 22 November
  • 27 November
  • 28 November
  • 29 November
  • 1 December
  • 3 December
  • 5 December
  • 8 December
  • 12 December
  • 14 December
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  • 21 December
  • 23 December
  • 24 December
  • 25 December
  • 31 December
  • 2 January
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  • 5 January
  • 7 January
  • 8 January
  • 11 January
  • 14 January
  • 15 January
  • 18 January
  • 19 January
  • 20 January
  • 21 January
  • 23 January
  • 25 January
  • 26 January
  • 27 January
  • 29 January
  • 30 January
  • 31 January
  • 2 February
  • 7 February
  • 8 February
  • 9 February
  • 10 February
  • 11 February
  • 15 February
  • 19 February
  • 21 February
  • 25 February
  • 8 March
  • 11 March
  • 12 March
  • 13 March
  • 16 March
  • 17 March
  • 18 March
  • Conversation with Butler on 18 March 1940
  • 19 March
  • 23 March
  • 27 March
  • Conversation with Halifax on 27 March 1940
  • 28 March
  • 29 March
  • 1 April
  • 2 April
  • 4 April
  • 5 April
  • 6 April
  • 8 April
  • 9 April
  • 10 April
  • 11 April
  • 12 April
  • 13 April
  • 15 April
  • 16 April
  • 17 April
  • 18 April
  • 22 April
  • 27 April
  • 28 April
  • 2 May
  • 4 May
  • 7 May
  • 8 May
  • 13 May
  • 14 May
  • 15 May
  • 17 May
  • 18 May
  • 19 May
  • 20 May
  • 21 May
  • 22 May
  • 23 May
  • 24 May
  • 25 May
  • 26 May
  • 28 May
  • 1 June
  • 4 June
  • 5 June
  • 6 June
  • 10 June
  • 11 June
  • 12 June
  • 14 June
  • 15 June
  • 16 June
  • 17 June
  • 18 June
  • 23 June
  • 25 June
  • 27 June
  • 28 June
  • 29 June
  • 30 June
  • 1 July
  • 2 July
  • 3 July
  • 4 July
  • 5 July
  • 6 July
  • 7 July
  • 8 July
  • 9 July
  • 10 July
  • 11 July
  • 12 July
  • 22 July
  • 23 July
  • 25 July
  • 26 July
  • 27 July
  • 28 July
  • 31 July
  • 5 August
  • 6 August
  • 7 August
  • 10 August
  • 14 August
  • 15 August
  • 17 August
  • 18 August
  • 20 August
  • 22 August
  • 30 August
  • 31 August
  • 1 September
  • 6 September
  • 7 September
  • 8 September
  • 9 September
  • 10 September
  • 13 September
  • 14 September
  • 16 September
  • 17 September
  • 4 October
  • 6 October
  • 9 October
  • 10 October
  • 12 October
  • 13 October
  • 20 October
  • 22 October
  • 2 November
  • 4 November
  • 5 November
  • 11 November
  • 12 November
  • 19 November
  • 30 November
  • 1 December
  • 2 December
  • 11 December
  • 12 December
  • 16 December
  • 19 December
  • 27 December
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© 2025
3 February
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By Liakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)

The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 2

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3 February
Visited Butler. Total chaos in the corridors of the Foreign Office: filing cabinets, boxes, heaps of files, bundles of documents, etc. Virtually impossible to get through. I asked the attendant what the matter was. It turns out that the Foreign Office is building an anti-gas shelter and the basement has to be temporarily cleared…
Butler was most friendly and enlarged upon the point that A[nglo]-S[oviet] rapprochement is a fundamental guarantee of peace. So far the British government has not paid proper attention to A[nglo]-S[oviet] relations (B[utler] evidently meant the Chamberlain government), but this was not due to any hostility to the USSR. It simply had its hands full. Now, the situation is different. A[nglo]-S[oviet] relations are high on the agenda. In this connection, Butler mentioned that he had familiarized himself with the record of my conversation with Halifax of 27 January and he is of the view that a renunciation of the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement would be entirely unjustified. He will discuss the matter with Stanley…
Excellent! My pressure clearly yields results.
We compared our impressions of Hitler’s speech of 30 January. Butler gives it a pessimistic appraisal. Hitler has offered carte blanche to Mussolini, who will not be slow to act. Hitler, for his part, will probably take certain steps, too – for instance, in the direction of Holland. In short, a new crisis is in the air. The British, however, are not considering entering into any ‘appeasement’ talks with Hitler. The return of colonies to Germany is out of the question.


Page 451

Were the Germans prepared to content themselves with extended access to colonial raw materials, it would be another matter. In that case, the British government would make considerable compromises. But such a solution does not satisfy Hitler. In these circumstances, there is nothing to do but wait. Talks will take place nonetheless between British and German industrialists – without the participation of politicians, but with their blessing – concerning the elimination, or at least the softening, of rivalry on the world market.
[The ill winds of isolation blowing from the Kremlin in the wake of the Munich Agreement, further accentuated by Litvinov’s depression, disillusion and exclusion from the formulation of policy – increasingly firmly in the hands of Stalin and Molotov – drove Maisky into reclusiveness. But he was himself partly to blame: in his efforts to keep pace with the Kremlin, he had inflamed suspicions in Moscow by suggesting that Chamberlain was ‘deliberately promoting the “Ukrainian direction” of German aggression, in an attempt to prompt Hitler to embark on precisely such a course’.
God Krizisa, I, nos. 65, 66, 77 & 107. See also Bezymenskii, Stalin i Gitler, pp. 149–51.
At the same time, Maisky blatantly ignored his instructions to stay out of things, and instead tried to prod the British into action by sounding the alarm. To judge by Butler’s record of the meeting, Maisky acknowledged that ‘since Munich the Soviet Union had been hesitating before deciding on a policy of complete isolation’ and was bound to be discouraged by Chamberlain’s continued appeasement, which left no room for ‘friendship with Russia’. Maisky was nonetheless faithfully echoing Litvinov’s warnings to Seeds that if France and Great Britain were to ‘continue to capitulate’, the Soviet Union would ‘keep aloof all the more readily as their interests were not directly threatened’. No wonder Butler emerged from the meeting convinced that the Russians were ‘content to wait’ and would ‘pursue an isolationist policy’.
Vansittart papers, VNST 3/2, Seeds to Halifax on meeting Litvinov, 19 Feb. 1939, not mentioned in Litvinov’s report in DVP, 1939, XXII/1, doc. 103; TNA FO 371 23677 N669 & N1342/57/38; DVP, 1939, XXII/1, doc. 128. See also Maisky’s concern about isolation in his conversation in the same vein with L. Fischer in Men and Politics, pp. 556–7; J. Harvey (ed.), The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey 1937–1940 (London, 1970), pp. 259–60; and Liddell Hart, who gained the impression that Maisky was ‘very anxious about the possibility of Stalin turning away from Litvinov’s policy of trying to create a common front against Hitler’; The Liddell Hart Memoirs, p. 222.
And yet Maisky’s fervent lobbying revealed an ambiguity which often brought him into conflict with Litvinov, who did not subscribe to his appraisal that the Conservatives were undergoing a ‘sobering’ process, that ‘Chamberlain’s road of “appeasement”’ could not be pursued indefinitely, and that the moment was approaching ‘when one will have to say in all firmness: “So far and no further!”’ He remained convinced throughout 1939 that the British and Soviet interests coincided, but he failed to persuade Litvinov. Detesting Maisky’s air of superiority, Litvinov reprimanded him: ‘I am not claiming that my prognosis is watertight, and surprises are surely possible, but those should be reduced to a minimum.’
God Krizisa, I, no. 156, 19 Feb. 1939; see also Roberts, ‘The fall of Litvinov’, p. 647.
Maisky soon reverted to his familiar pattern of seeking to influence the course of Soviet foreign policy by encouraging his interlocutors to usher in ideas which might prompt the Kremlin to alter its policy. Harold Nicolson recorded in his diary how Maisky ‘with his little Kalmuk eyes twinkling around the table’ argued over lunch that Russia, ‘obviously much wounded by Munich’, would not embark on any initiative; but if Britain were to make an approach, she would not ‘find Russia as aloof or offended as we might have supposed’.
Nicolson, Diaries, 9 Feb. 1939.
Likewise, over tea at the embassy, Maisky told Amery that the exclusion of the Soviet Union from Munich had infuriated the Russians and they were ready ‘to break [with the Western powers] altogether’; though ‘nothing would induce them to take the initiative in offering cooperation in case of a crisis in the West, the door was still open if the initiative came from our end’.
Amery papers, diary, AMEL 7/32, 15 Feb. 1939; Amery, My Political Life, p. 294.
For the moment, Litvinov’s scepticism was


Page 452

spot on. Chamberlain boasted to his sister that he would resist the pressure exerted on him by Churchill to ‘make a grand alliance against Germany … Fortunately my nature is as L[loyd] G[eorge] says extremely “obstinate”, & I refuse to change.’
Self, Chamberlain Diary Letters, IV, p. 373.
]
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Document Title3 February
AuthorLiakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)
RecipientN/A
RepositoryN/A
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DescriptionN/A
Date1939 Feb 3
AOC VolumeThe Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 2
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