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Table of Contents
The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 3
  • 10 January
  • 19 January
  • 20 January
  • 22 January
  • 26 January
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  • 30 January
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  • Conversation with Butler on 18 March 1940
  • 19 March
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  • Conversation with Halifax on 27 March 1940
  • 28 March
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  • 1 April
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© 2025
11 April
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By Liakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)

The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 2

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11 April
Halifax didn’t manage to get away to his estate after all! The Italians attacked Albania on the morning of the 7th, and as of today King Zog
Ahmet Muhtar Bey Zog I, king of Albania, 1928–39.
is already a refugee in exile.
I visited Halifax at his request.
Halifax summoned Maisky to ‘keep him in touch’, but deliberately concealed from him any details of the agreement being worked out with the Poles; TNA FO 371 23063 C5262/3356/18, 12 April 1939.
We talked at length about the spread of aggression in Europe and the need to take urgent measures against it. Halifax wanted to know whether we would agree to give Poland a guarantee in the forms that would make Soviet aid acceptable to Warsaw (arms, ammunition, aviation, etc., but not large land forces). I declined to give him a direct answer. Halifax further let me understand that the British government was preparing guarantees for Greece and possibly for Rumania, too. He tried to argue that Britain, like the USSR, was thinking about the organization of security all over Europe, only our methods were different: Britain wants to build security ‘from the bottom’, laying one brick on another, whereas the USSR wants European


Page 503

security to be built ‘from the top’ by setting up an all-embracing peace bloc. In Halifax’s view, the British path is more practicable.
I objected, arguing that aggression is like water: if you block it in one direction, it finds another. We should not split hairs and set about this like amateurs. We must stop the spread of aggression across Europe right away, and the only way of doing that is to form a ‘peace bloc’ around ‘the big troika’: Britain, France and the USSR. Our exchange came to nothing, of course, but I think I managed to put some useful ideas into Halifax’s head…


Page 966

Evidently not registered with Halifax, who did not feel that ‘any great progress’ had been made towards solving the real difficulties facing Britain; TNA FO 371 23065 C5068/3356/18.
[Litvinov was not impressed by Maisky’s telegram, which expanded on the last paragraph of this diary entry. He took the unreserved pledge to Poland to be an ‘unfriendly act’, which inadvertently strengthened Poland’s hand against the Soviet Union. He suspected that Britain sought from Russia ‘some sort of binding promise … without entering into any agreement … and without undertaking any commitments’. It was ‘intolerable’ for the Russians to be in the situation where a man ‘is invited to a party and then asked not to come because the other guests do not wish to meet him. We would prefer to be crossed off the guest list altogether.’ Litvinov further took a dim view of the line adopted by Maisky in his conversations with Halifax, which could have given the latter the false impression that the Soviet Union opposed ‘separate bipartite or tripartite agreements, and in general wanted to gain something from Britain’. He took the unusual step of submitting his response to Stalin for approval, adding that ‘Comrade Maisky should be instructed to assume a more reserved attitude in his conversations with representatives of the British government’. Maisky was accordingly reprimanded in harsh terms for indulging in criticism of British politics and for pursuing his own initiatives. He was ordered ‘to be guided by our direct instructions rather than by articles from our press’.
Litvinov to Surits and Maisky, God Krizisa, I, nos. 262, 263 & 264, 11 April 1939; DVP, 1939, XXII/1, docs. 216 & 217, Litvinov to Stalin and Maisky, 13 April 1939.
Seeds, the British ambassador in Moscow, ‘emphatically’ agreed with Maisky that some way should be found ‘to prevail’ on Poland and Rumania. He issued a prophetic warning that otherwise Russia could ‘quite properly be tempted to stand aloof in case of war and confine its advertised support of the victims of aggression to the profitable business of selling supplies to the latter’. He further foresaw the danger of Germany offering the Soviet Union ‘Bessarabia and parts of Poland not to mention perhaps Estonia and Latvia’.
Vansittart papers, VNST 3/2, Seeds to Halifax, 13 April 1939.
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Document Details
Document Title11 April
AuthorLiakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)
RecipientN/A
RepositoryN/A
ID #N/A
DescriptionN/A
Date1939 Apr 11
AOC VolumeThe Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 2
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