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Table of Contents
The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 3
  • 10 January
  • 19 January
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  • 22 January
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  • Conversation with Butler on 18 March 1940
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© 2025
16 May
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By Liakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)

The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 2

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Page 535

16 May
On 14 May in Moscow our reply to the British proposals of 8 May was handed to Seeds. It boils down to the following:
The proposals of the British government of 8 May cannot serve as the basis for organizing a peace front to counter the further expansion of aggression in Europe.
Our reasons:
(1) The British proposals lack the principle of reciprocity with regard to the USSR, thereby placing her in an unequal position. England, France and Poland, on the basis of reciprocity, guarantee each one against direct attack by an aggressor. The English proposals do not provide the USSR with such a guarantee from England and France.
(2) The English proposals provide for guarantees only to Poland and Rumania, while the north-western borders of the USSR (Latvia, Estonia and Finland) are left exposed.
(3) The absence of English and French guarantees in the event of direct attack on the USSR, as well as the exposure of the north-western borders of the USSR, may provoke aggression against the USSR.
In the opinion of the Soviet government, at least three conditions are essential in order for peace-loving states to erect a genuine barrier against the expansion of aggression in Europe:
(1) An effective tripartite pact of mutual assistance between Britain, France and the USSR.
(2) Guarantees on the part of these three great powers to Central and Eastern European states which find themselves threatened by aggression, including Latvia, Estonia and Finland.
(3) The signing of a concrete agreement between Britain, France and the USSR on the forms and scope of assistance to be extended to one another, as well as to the states guaranteed by them. Without this, the mutual assistance pact would risk being stranded in mid-air, as the experience of Czechoslovakia has shown.


Page 969

The Soviet Union demanded reciprocity, which implied a requirement that the Baltic States be included in the guarantees which would be sustained by an agreement on military assistance; TNA FO 371 23065 C6922/3356/18, 11 May 1939.
Excellent. In particular, our proposals are brief, simple and convincing in their clarity. This will help us a great deal in winning over the public in Britain and France.
[Commenting on the new draft proposal to the Russians, the chiefs of staff embarrassed Chamberlain and Halifax on 16 May by insisting that any arrangement short of a full-blown alliance might have ‘serious military repercussions … of ultimately throwing the USSR into [Germany’s] arms’. The Cabinet was split on the issue. While Chamberlain, tacitly backed by Halifax, rejected the idea of a grand alliance, underlining the ‘political’ aspects which were overlooked by the chiefs of staff, Lord Chatfield, the minister of defence, warned that – ‘distasteful’ as it was for him personally to contemplate an


Page 536

alliance with the Soviet Union – the chiefs of staff were ‘very anxious that Russia should not, in any circumstances, become allied with Germany’. Irritated by Maisky, who was ‘working hand in hand’ with the opposition, Chamberlain hardly budged from his position, warning that an alliance would increase Britain’s ‘liabilities’ as well as the ‘probability of war’. He anticipated ‘trouble’ from the Russians, who had ‘no understanding of other countries’ mentality or conditions and no manners’. Halifax, however, wished the Cabinet to reach a decision before his departure for Geneva. It was clear to him that the only choices were for the negotiations to be ‘allowed to break down, or a full military alliance with Russia accepted’. This precipitated Vansittart’s evening meeting with Maisky, which was aimed at toning down the terms of the proposed agreement.
TNA FO 371 23066 C7268, 7400 & 7401/3356/18, and Halifax’s conversation with Corbin in the same vein in TNA FO 371 23066 C7268/3356/18, 17 May 1939; Self, Chamberlain Diary Letters, IV, p. 416, 14 May 1939. See also the excellent reconstruction in Manne, ‘The British decision for alliance with Russia’, pp. 22–4.
]
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Document Details
Document Title16 May
AuthorLiakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)
RecipientN/A
RepositoryN/A
ID #N/A
DescriptionN/A
Date1939 May 16
AOC VolumeThe Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 2
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