Stalin Digital Archive

Back to Search

Stalin digital archive

Back to Search

Table of Contents

< Previous document Next document >

8 April

- Export Citation
- Export Annotation

View:

By Liakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)

The Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 2

Image view

Print
Save
Share
Cite

Translation Transcription

Translation

8 April

I would sum up the Allies’ intentions concerning a major war in the following way.

The Allies do not intend to launch large-scale military operations this year, provided the Germans do not initiate them themselves and provided the state of the domestic front in England and France does not demand such action. They are not planning major operations either in the west or the east (there are not enough forces, their quality leaves much to be desired, reserves are lacking, and there are many transportation difficulties). Moreover, neither the Balkan countries nor Turkey want to be turned into battlefields. Italy’s position is obscure and threatening.

In the meantime the Allies intend to step up the blockade, with no regard for the rights of neutral countries. Gloves off. The mining of Norwegian waters announced today is just the beginning. Various measures aimed at stopping the transportation of iron ore from Sweden to Germany are to be expected in the Baltic Sea (air raids, submarine operations, etc.). Also to be expected is stricter supervision of the maritime trade routes Belgium–Holland, Spain–Italy and USA–Vladivostok, and tougher quota restrictions for neutrals’ imports.

Yet another measure is the founding of the English Commercial Corporation, headed by Lord Swinton with government capital, in order to compete with Germany on neutral markets, above all in the Balkans. Previously the British talked a great deal about this sort of competition, but did little. Now they seem to be getting down to it.

***

I saw Colban. The old man is absolutely stunned by the news of the mining of Norwegian waters. He hadn’t expected anything of the sort. He says the British government’s note, handed to the Norwegian government on 5 April, did not

Page 785

portend such a move. The British government merely outlined its general view of the state of affairs in Scandinavia and stated that England would not be able to remain indifferent should a threat arise to Norway’s Atlantic coast from Germany or the USSR. Submitting the note, Halifax tried long and hard to convince Colban that England ‘is waging the war of the neutrals’, to which Colban allegedly replied that England was in fact fighting for its Empire, and that Norway felt it had nothing bad to fear from the USSR. Saying all this, Colban was preoccupied by just one question: how will Germany respond to the mining of Norwegian territorial waters? But he had nothing lucid to say about this.

[Maisky’s standing had hit rock bottom not only in England but – far more alarmingly – also in Moscow. The dismissal of Surits encouraged Molotov to clip Maisky’s wings. A series of harsh letters from Fedor Gusev,

The archetype of Stalin’s and Molotov’s new diplomat, Fedor Tarasovich Gusev graduated from the Institute of Soviet Construction and Law and worked in the Economic Planning Commission of the Leningrad region. With the repressions in Narkomindel in full swing, he underwent a crash course in diplomacy. His party loyalty landed him a brilliant career in Narkomindel, where, by 1938, at the age of 35, he had become the director of its West European department. He was appointed the Soviet ambassador in Canada in 1942 before replacing Maisky in London in 1943. Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, the British ambassador in Moscow, characterized him as ‘a rude, inexperienced and bad-mannered fellow’.

director of the western department of Narkomindel, severely criticized Maisky’s diplomatic work. He was instructed to restrict his encounters to top officials, and to obtain all necessary information from the media. Fulfilment of those instructions would have robbed him of his trump card – his prolific circle of interlocutors. Finding himself up against the wall, Maisky resorted not to his customary survival strategy of intricate manoeuvring and flattery, but rather to confrontation. What follows are some very intriguing excerpts from a nine-page visionary ‘lecture’ to Gusev on diplomacy in general and on its peculiarities in England. Though an apologia, it was just as much a lament on the vanishing vision of modern diplomacy, of which he was now virtually the sole survivor:

(Undated but early April 1940) … The most important and substantive element in the work of every ambassador is the actual contact he has with people. It is not sufficient to read the newspapers – that can be done in Moscow. It is not enough to work with books and statistical reports – that, too, can be done in Moscow … An ambassador without excellent personal contacts is not worthy of the name. Every country has its peculiarities. The nature and number of the contacts differ in accordance with the varying political, economic and individual conditions of each state. There cannot be a single template in such matters. What is acceptable in Paris may be completely unsuited to Tokyo, and vice versa … In the case of England, the creation of these vital personal contacts is extremely difficult and requires a great deal of the ambassador’s time …

Page 786

In order to be au courant with what is happening in different areas of English life, it is not enough to know one or two people in each group … It is quite simply not enough to have contacts with, for example, the secretary for foreign affairs and his deputy, but also one needs to know the head of the northern department of the FO, for the USSR falls within his sphere of competence … It is necessary to maintain contact with around 15–20 people in the FO alone, and of course our work requires us to have business with other ministries: the Ministry of Trade, of Finance, of the Economy, of Defence and so on. Or else, to take another example, consider parliament and the political parties. This is an extremely important element of English political life. It is most useful to attend the more important sittings of parliament (which works for about eight months of the year): you get an exceedingly accurate impression of the current mood of the country. But this is not enough. If you wish to be well informed of the different areas of interior and exterior policy, then you need to be in personal contact with a significant number of MPs. Of course, it is inconceivable, as well as unnecessary, to maintain relations with all 615 MPs. But let us say that you do need to know around a hundred MPs from all the different parties. Here is yet another example: the press. This is an extremely complex and active group, with an immense number of people belonging to it. The people are capricious and don’t stand on ceremony. They come to you with all sort of questions, surveys and clarifications – personally, or else by telephone, at any hour of the day or night … In order to maintain normal contacts with the press, one needs to know about 50 people. I am not going to enumerate the relations one needs to have with the other groups. The preceding examples are sufficient. I will, however, add that, in the English environment, the diplomatic corps plays a comparatively minor role. I have made the calculations and come to the conclusion that, if the ambassador wants to fulfil his duties as they should be fulfilled, then he needs to maintain contact with at least 500 people (if we include the representatives of all the groups mentioned above). Now, as for the nature of these contacts. What does it mean to maintain a contact? Certainly it is not enough to have a nodding acquaintance with a man, and to meet him once or twice a year at some official function or in the corridors of parliament. You will get precisely nothing from such contacts. The sort of contact which can be useful from our point of view must be a much closer contact. This means that you must meet the person more or less regularly, invite him to breakfast or dinner, visit him at home, take him to the theatre from time to time, go when necessary to the wedding of his son or his daughter, wish him many happy returns on his birthday, sympathize with him when he is ill. It is only when your acquaintance has come a little closer to you (and Englishmen need to scrutinize someone for quite some time before they count him among their ‘friends’) that his tongue starts to loosen, and only then may you start to glean things from him, or else start to put the necessary ideas into his head. … How should an embassy work to maintain contacts? It is normally the case that every English ‘circle’ of interest to us can be divided into a number of sectors … and every comrade will be expected to maintain and widen his knowledge of

Page 787

the sector, to meet the relevant people, to have breakfast or dinner with them (in England, all meetings usually take place at table – over breakfast, at tea, at dinner, etc.), to give them the information it is decided to give them, to nudge them in a direction favourable to us. But this work does not have any clear boundaries. So far as our own London embassy is concerned, the situation over the last year has been as follows: to all intents and purposes all contacts with foreigners have been in the hands of two people, myself and Comrade Korzh. Comrade Popov’s poor grasp of the language means that he can be of no use to us. Comrade Zonov has been weighed down with consular work, as well as with the business of the Soviet school in London and the summer camp for the children. Our two interns – Comrades Krainsky

Anatoly (Ariel) Markovich Krainsky, secretary at the Soviet embassy in Great Britain, 1939–44.

and Mikhailov – could not be used for external work, because they are not yet official diplomats. Also, Mikhailov came to London without knowing the language. As a result of this, I repeat that all our contacts have been in the hands of two people – myself and Comrade Korzh. We have had to run like hamsters in a wheel. It has been an advantage that, thanks to my old acquaintances built up in the years of Anglo-Soviet ‘friendship’, I have been able to behave ‘normally’ with many people (Lloyd George, Layton, Beaverbrook, Churchill, Eden, Butler, Vansittart and others): it has not been necessary to throw them a breakfast or a luncheon every time I have needed them, and sometimes I could just call them on the phone, or meet them in the corridors of parliament and so on. However, even with these advantages it has sometimes been physically impossible to maintain an active relationship with various individuals with whom we should have kept in contact, and we have had and still have many gaps. The programme you have set out, if we are to take it seriously (and of course, this is how we should take it), is extremely complex. It will require qualified workers with a great deal of time to devote to this project alone. And whom do we have in the embassy at the moment? Comrade Korzh, whom you wish to control the information gathering, has, as well as a complete lack of time for such work, no experience of literary or scientific research. In the past he was a sailor, then he commanded a charter ship, and for the last two years he has been carrying out current diplomatic duties as a first secretary. The intern Comrade Krainsky has a technical education, was a security officer in Washington for two and a half years and has only just now started embassy work. I have deputed him to watch the English economy. He is a keen worker, but it is a new area for him and he is unaccustomed to it, and it is difficult at the moment for him to orientate himself. The other intern, Comrade Mikhailov, still does not know English and has an incomplete degree from an agricultural academy. Before joining the NKID, he worked at a tractor station, and has never done any sort of either diplomatic or research work. Comrade Mikhailov is also a keen worker, and at the moment he helps Comrade Korzh in the press bureau; but after only four months in England, he is, of course, as yet not particularly comfortable with English, and nor is he at home with the situation here.

Page 788

I will conclude with a couple of words … In the state of spy mania in which England exists at the moment, we have to be extremely careful with any observations, so as not to give our enemies an excuse for anti-Soviet provocation. On this note, I will bring this letter to an end, and I hope that the department and the embassy will now work more harmoniously together.

RAN f.1702 op.3 d.278 ll.1–9.

The German Blitzkrieg in the west, however, would play into Maisky’s hands, again rendering him indispensable and ensuring his continued stay in London on his own terms.]

Transcription

Document Details

Document Title8 April

AuthorLiakhovetsky, Ivan Mikhailovich (Maisky)

RecipientN/A

RepositoryN/A

ID #N/A

DescriptionN/A

Date1940 Apr 8

AOC VolumeThe Complete Maisky Diaries: Volume 2

Login Required

Your subscription has expired.