Fiasco: The Anglo-Franco-Soviet Alliance That Never Was and the Unpublished British White Paper, 1939–1940

by 

Michael Jabara CARLEY

Professeur titulaire

Département d’histoire

Université de Montréal   

ABSTRACT

This article is about the Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations in 1939 for an

alliance against Nazi Germany and about how the British government

later tried to represent those negotiations to public opinion. The first

part of the essay presents the Soviet point of view on the negotiations

and how the British and French governments, though mainly the

British, reacted to Soviet alliance proposals. It is a fresh representation

of the Soviet perspective from published and unpublished Russian language

sources.

The second part of the essay focuses on how the British sought to represent

the abortive negotiations through a white paper, placing the

blame for failure on the Soviet Union. France opposed publication

because, however carefully prepared, the white paper showed that the

Soviet side had made serious alliance proposals with precise, reciprocal

undertakings which the British government was reticent to entertain.

The French were all the more annoyed because the white paper omitted

to underline that they had been more receptive to Soviet proposals.

The trilingual, multi-archival evidence presented in the first part of the

essay effectively supports the French perception of the white paper and

more generally of the failed tripartite negotiations.

In December 1939, the British government decided to issue a white paper or blue book on the

Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations of the previous spring and summer to conclude an anti-Nazi

alliance.1 The Soviet-Finnish “Winter War” had just broken out, and British public opinion was

enflamed. There was a propaganda side to the white paper: it would feed public animosity

against the USSR and build support for Britain and France at war with Nazi Germany. The

Foreign Office also sought to reply to the embarrassing question about why the negotiations

with the USSR had failed. The disastrous talks proved to be a fiasco and led to the conclusion of

the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact which permitted the German army to invade Poland without

fear of Soviet intervention. Without the USSR there was little Britain and France could do to help

the quickly beleaguered Poles. It was such a calamitous beginning of the war that the British

government felt the need to explain its actions and to assign blame to the Soviet side.

Was the USSR really to blame for what happened? To respond to this question, readers

should consider a brief narrative of the trilateral discussions which took place between March

and August 1939. To reconstruct those negotiations, there are large collections of archival papers

from the three governments, both published and unpublished. The Soviet archives were last to

be opened. These papers come from various sources, the most important being the

CONTACT Michael Jabara Carley michael.j.carley@umontreal.ca

Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID). The Russian foreign ministry archives (AVPRF) have been

gradually opened since the early 1990s, though not systematically. Nevertheless, a large number

of both published and unpublished Soviet documents are cited in this essay, some for the first

time. They permit a better understanding of the Soviet perspective on the critical events of the

spring and summer of 1939.2

I

Maxim Maximovich Litvinov

As Anglo-Franco-Soviet discussions began in late March 1939, Europe was in crisis. Nazi Germany

had just occupied Prague without firing a shot, and the rump state of Czechoslovakia had disappeared.

A week later, German forces seized the Memel district from Lithuania, likewise without a

shot fired. Public opinion in France and Britain was alarmed. It looked like war was imminent.

What could be done to stop German aggression? How could security be assured in Eastern

Europe? There were so many questions without answers. In 1935, the Soviet Union had signed a

pact of mutual assistance with France which turned out to be an empty shell. For more than five

years the Soviet government had promoted collective security without success.3 Could the failures

of the past be overcome and an agreement of last resort be reached with Moscow?

France and Britain found themselves facing a dilemma. The British and French governments

had pursued a policy of appeasement culminating in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia at

the Munich conference in September 1938.4 Even in early 1939, appeasement of Germany was

settled policy in London and Paris although not uncontested in the press or by the

Parliamentary Opposition. Its reverse side was an unwillingness to cooperate with the USSR

against Nazi Germany. In December 1938, the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop,

had visited Paris to sign a much publicised Franco-German understanding to maintain ’peaceful

and good neighbourly relations’. There was open discussion in the French right-wing press (and

more confidential exchanges in government circles) about abandoning treaty commitments to

Poland and the USSR. In early 1939, French and British missions were sent to Berlin to conduct

trade negotiations.5

The Anglo-French elites hated and feared the Soviet Union. Divisions amongst these elites

nevertheless existed. ’White crows’, one Soviet diplomat called them, favoured an alliance with

the USSR.6 They were pragmatists, realists, who reckoned that Nazi Germany was the greater

threat to European security, and like the sixteenth-century alliance of the French Catholic king

Francois 1er and the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, they should unite with Moscow

against the common foe. ’We have to have the courage to look at things as they are’, one relatively

unknown French colonel noted in 1936, ’Everything must be subordinated to a single idea:

organise against Germany all those who oppose it for whatever reason, in order to discourage it

from making war, and if it does make war, to defeat it.’7 Ironically, this was in fact the unstated

Soviet concept of collective security. As the European crisis intensified in March 1939, these

’white crows’ in the west appeared to gain the upper hand.

In Britain, the Opposition in the House of Commons, the Labour and Liberal parties, pressed

the government for action. So did dissident Conservatives. Winston Churchill, then a backbench

Tory MP, insisted that without an alliance with the USSR, France and Britain could not help their

allies or would-be allies in Eastern Europe. David Lloyd George, the former wartime Liberal prime

minister, teamed up with Churchill in the House of Commons to push the prime minister, Neville

Chamberlain, to conclude an alliance with the Soviet Union.

Chamberlain and other Conservatives were hard-core Sovietophobes. In 1924, the

Conservatives had exploited the so-called ’Zinoviev Letter’ and the Red Scare to win

Parliamentary elections against the Labour party. In 1927, ’Die-Hard’ Tories obtained a rupture of

diplomatic relations with Moscow. Even in 1936, Conservative Anthony Eden, then Foreign

Secretary, halted a promising rapprochement with the Soviet government because of communist

702 M. J. CARLEY

’propaganda’.8 If it had been up to the prime minister alone, there would have been no negotiations

with the USSR. But his ministers pressed him, at first only a minority, then as the threat of

war increased, practically all of them. The enemy of my enemy, they reckoned, is my ally. The

Red Army could immediately mobilise 100 divisions; Britain could put two divisions into France

in the first weeks of war. Gallup polls in Britain demonstrated strong support for an alliance with

the USSR. In April 1939, one poll showed 87% in favour of an Anglo-Franco-Soviet alliance; only

7% opposed it.9 No wonder. One hundred divisions necessarily attracted attention when you

only had two yourselves. It is true that in the west, many critics pointed to the Stalinist purges

as a reason for discounting Soviet military strength. The Red Army could not go on the offensive,

said Chamberlain. Could the British army, or the French? The French and British military attaches

in Moscow, who were in a better position to know, reported that the Red Army was recovering

from the purges and would prove a serious obstacle to any invader. By May 1939, even the

British Imperial General Staff conceded that the USSR was an ally worth having, whatever its

shortcomings.

Still, Chamberlain resisted. A cartoon by the iconic political cartoonist David Low at the end

of March showed the PM being pushed from behind but leaning back from a line called collective

security. Another in May presented Chamberlain on a horse called ’Anglo-Russ’ that would

not run.10 If Low knew enough to draw these cartoons, then everyone who mattered also knew

who was holding up progress with Moscow. Chamberlain himself made no secret of his position.

’It doesn’t make things easier to be badgered for a [meeting] of Parliament’, he wrote to his sister

Ida:’… and Winston… is the worst of the lot, telephoning almost every hour of the day.’.

Lloyd George was a close second to Churchill on the prime minister’s list of irritating colleagues,

’egging on’ the Opposition with the ’pathetic belief that in Russia is the key to our salvation.’.11

We know a great deal about British and French sentiment toward the USSR during the spring

of 1939, but less about Soviet views towards Britain and France. How did the Soviet government

see matters as the European crisis intensified? Mistrust and cynicism best characterise the Soviet

outlook. Anglo-French appeasement and anti-Soviet hostility embittered government officials in

Moscow. those anyway who had not disappeared during the Stalinist purges. By the beginning

of 1938, Maksim M. Litvinov, narkom, or commissar for foreign affairs, was sceptical of Anglo-

French determination to resist Nazi aggression. His colleagues in the NKID had nearly written off

a weak and fearful France, ’subservient to London’s ukaz’ and headed towards ’catastrophe’.12

After the Munich conference, Soviet confidence in Britain and France hit rock bottom. One

NKID report accused Britain of pursuing a ’policy of connivances’ (politika popusti- tel’stva) and

’continuous extortion’ (nepreryvnoe vymogatel’stvo) against Czechoslovakia, and of agreements

with the aggressor ’by means of payments at the expense of small countries and the USSR’. To

this end, Britain had obtained the ’complete subordination… of French foreign policy’.

According to Chamberlain, Czechoslovakia was an ’artificial state’, which should not pose an obstacle

to agreement with Germany. The British prime minister ’hates the USSR and its socialist system’,

the report went on, and he ’has attempted to paralyse active Soviet participation in

matters concerning the organisation of collective security’. Another NKID report observed that

France had ’betrayed an allied power’, refusing to fulfil its treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia.

As its influence weakened in central and south-eastern Europe, the French government had

sought to compensate by strengthening its relations with Britain. During the September crisis,

French policy amounted to approving British plans for Czechoslovak dismemberment and to

frightening French public opinion into believing that ’agreement with the aggressor’ was the

’world’s salvation’. Right-wing circles had ignored – ’hidden’ said the report – Soviet proposals to

support Czechoslovakia because they feared that in the event of war victory over fascism in alliance

with the USSR could unleash ’socialist revolution in capitalist Europe. and in France itself’.13

The NKID indictments against Britain and France ranged far and wide – and were not inaccurate

– but Litvinov needed no cues from his colleagues. He advised Iakov Z. Surits, his polpred or

ambassador in Paris, that the Politburo, or Soviet cabinet, had not yet had a ’serious

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 703

conversation’ about the Munich crisis, but for the time being would not denounce the Franco-

Soviet pact.14 In early November, Litvinov thought the European situation had become dire.

’There is no doubt’, he wrote to Surits ’that old man Chamberlain will go to the end of the road,

which he has marked out, or rather which [Adolf] Hitler has marked out, and France will, come

what may, trail along after him’.15

Was there any hope of escape from what appeared to be a catastrophic dead end? A fortnight

later, the French charg
e d’affaires, Jean Payart, called on Litvinov to find out. He ’had questions’,

Litvinov wrote in his dnevnik, or journal, ’about how I see the present international

situation and its future development’. This is a question, Litvinov replied, better put to France

and Britain. Payart persisted. ’I consider myself an advocate of collective security’, he said, ’and I

would like to know, do you still consider possible the policy of collective security?’

’On this, I said as follows’, Litvinov wrote in his journal: ’We consider the Munich agreement

to be an international calamity.’

England and France are now unlikely to retreat from the policy they have set out for themselves, which boils

down to unilateral satisfaction of the demands of all three aggressors— Germany, Italy and Japan. They will

present their claims in turn, and England and France will make them one concession after another. I believe,

however, that they will reach a point where the people of England and France will have to stop them. Then,

probably, we will. return to the old path of collective security, because there are no other ways for preserving

peace. England and France will, of course, come out of this situation seriously weakened, but still even then

the potential forces of peace will be greater than the potential forces of aggression.16

So if Litvinov was contemptuous of Chamberlain and the French, he had not abandoned collective

security. He must have believed that he retained the confidence of his ’boss’ Iosif V.

Stalin, if he felt comfortable speaking as he did to Payart, and then recording the conversation

in an official record. The question was, could he hold on to Stalin’s support?

In the New Year, Litvinov’s assessments became more acerbic. When the Soviet polpred in

London, Ivan M. Maiskii, predicted that war was coming and asked for funds to build a bomb

shelter at the embassy, Litvinov responded sceptically. ’I undertook to put it [your request] up

for approval… and I did, but I cannot promise anything as to the result….’ Anyway, there was

no rush. Litvinov would not exclude the possibility of war in 1939, but he did not think it likely.

’Chamberlain and even more the French have decided to avoid war in the coming years by any

means—I would even say at any price. It is not true that the resources for concessions have supposedly

run out or are running out.’ Litvinov then enumerated a list of possibilities. He doubted

Maiskii’s contention that Hitler and Benito Mussolini could make impossible demands:

Let me remind you, that [they] have enough friends in England and the necessary sources [of intelligence]

by which they can be sufficiently well informed beforehand of the limits of [possible] concessions.17

Litvinov poked fun at Maiskii’s predictions of war. ’Apparently you’ve unwittingly succumbed

to German-Italian propaganda and begun to believe in the readiness of Hitler and Mussolini to

declare war on France and England.’ It’s still ’blackmail, to which England and France will yield in

one way or another’.18

When Maiskii reported on a meeting with the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, Litvinov

responded that his tactics were wrong to criticise France for ’passiveness and defeatism’. The

trouble is that England justifies its ’flabbiness’ because of French weakness, and France justifies

its position, because of British weakness. ’We have to criticise France in Paris and England in

London.’ So, Litvinov said, ’we should talk to London about possible resistance from Paris with

the proper firmness from the British government, and in Paris about the possible firmness of the

English government’.19 Litvinov had thus not given up on collective security or abandoned his

sense of humour. Unfortunately, the British and French knew each other too well to fall for

Litvinov’s proposed strategy.

Then there was the problem of Poland. The Polish governing elite hated the USSR, and the

Polish government had for years obstructed Soviet proposals for collective security. During the

704 M. J. CARLEY

Munich crisis, Poland had pursued a ’policy of close collaboration with fascist Germany’, according

to one NKID report, and joined in on the partition of Czechoslovakia.20 Toward the end of

the year, however, the Polish ambassador in Moscow, Wactaw Grzybowski, proposed the settlement

of outstanding issues and a general improvement of relations.21 Litvinov reacted sceptically.

The Polish foreign minister, J
ozef Beck, was his b^ete noire. ’We do not harbour any illusions

about the solidity of a rapprochement with Poland’, Litvinov advised. It might only be a diplomatic

manoeuvre and something to trade in bargaining with Hitler. Moreover, Beck was aware

of ‘intrigues’ against him at home because of his risky foreign policy, ’putting Poland face to

face with the greatest of dangers’, and so he had ‘decided to make a slight correction in his line

toward us’. Still, there was nothing to lose from playing along even if a ’relaxation of tensions’

was short- lived.22 The way Litvinov saw it, Poland was in a tough spot:

In so far as it depends on him, Beck will still try to retain freedom of action, manoeuvring between us and

Germany, without tying himself too firmly to either side. But will Hitler allow him to do it? Will he not pose

a dilemma to Poland—either total subordination to orders from Berlin and complicity in its policies, or else

exposure to Hitler’s anger and to the ensuing consequences?23

As the narkom’s assessments of Beck went, this one was generous and accurate. Litvinov was

not always so kind, thinking that in Polish manoeuvring, there was ’a noticeable inclination’

towards Germany.24 The de-contraction of Polish-Soviet relations continued until March 1939.

The French pr
esident du Conseil,
Edouard Daladier, and his foreign minister, Georges Bonnet,

were also targets of Litvinov’s ire. ’I consider it necessary to add’, he wrote to Sur- its in Paris, ’that

in regard to France, there is here [emphasis added] not less mistrust but even more than toward

England’.25 The use of the word ’here’ in his despatch meant the Soviet leadership in Moscow;

Litvinov was not just expressing a personal opinion. French conduct during the Czechoslovak crisis,

especially Bonnet’s, had provoked a public Soviet expression of contempt for France which led to

a rupture of personal relations between Litvinov and the departing French ambassador.26

Sir Robert Vansittart, then ’chief diplomatic advisor’ in the Foreign Office, who had long favoured

an Anglo-Soviet rapprochement, persuaded the Cabinet to send, Robert Hudson, Secretary

for Overseas Trade, to Moscow as a first step towards improving relations. He was expected to

arrive in the Russian capital in the latter part of March. Litvinov remained doubtful. It was throwing

a line to the USSR in case Britain and France were forced to go to war. These are ’only gestures

and tactical manoeuvres’, opined Litvinov, ’and [do] not [signal] a real desire by

Chamberlain for cooperation with us’.27

Maiskii wrote to his journal that there were signs of change in British policy. One important

Conservative interlocutor told him that appeasement was dead. Chamberlain was ’not very

happy’ about it, but he had to go along with the change of mood, or resign. ’The country is

saying’, Maiskii observed, ’that Germany is the enemy’. He was not so certain, however, whether

Chamberlain saw matters in the same way.28

As usual, Litvinov was sceptical. If Hitler can restrain himself for just a little while and perhaps

even makes some ’new peaceful gesture’, Chamberlain and Daladier will again defend their

’Munich line’. Could Moscow count on any solid change of policy? In fact, ’the Czechoslovak

events… fit entirely into the framework of the concept, agreeable to them [Chamberlain and

Daladier], of the movement of Germany towards the East’. Litvinov still hoped that something

might come of the Hudson mission, but he doubted it would dissipate ’the suspicion and mistrust’

in Moscow. Again, Litvinov was not just speaking for himself. Hudson hoped the Soviet

government would make concrete offers for he was not authorised to do so. ’I think’, Litvinov

advised Maiskii, ’that we [emphasis added] will not make such proposals to him’.

For five years we have been engaged in the field of international politics where we made suggestions and

proposals about the organisation of peace and collective security, but the powers ignored them and acted

in spite of them. If England and France have really changed their line, then let them either speak about the

proposals we made earlier, or make their own suggestions. They should take the initiative.29

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 705

The Hudson conversations in Moscow are interesting. According to the British account,

’Litvinov began by pointing out that if his policy had been followed the present situation

would never have arisen.’ The narkom held to this conviction long after. He said much the

same to the future British ambassador in Moscow, Sir Stafford Cripps, in a bomb shelter in

Moscow in the summer of 1941, and to Stalin at a Central Committee meeting in 1940.

Litvinov went on for ten minutes ’in total silence’, according to one witness. This is not suprising;

it took remarkable courage to depart from party narratives to Stalin’s face in the presence

of the party leadership.30

Sir William Seeds, the then British ambassador, ridiculed the Soviet commissar: ’Litvinov’s

review was most comprehensive… developed with his usual mastery of the subject, it exhibited

the constant retreat of the Western Democracies from one position after another, culminating in

the Munich capitulation and the cold-shouldering of the Soviet Union.’ Litvinov reserved special

scorn for the French:

France was practically done for: she was


full of German agents, disaffected and disunited


He [Litvinov]

foresaw in the not far-distant future a Europe entirely German from the Bay of Biscay to the Soviet frontier

and bounded, as it were, simply by Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Even that would not satisfy German

ambitions but the attack, he said smiling happily, would not be directed to the East.31

Litvinov had a point about the fate of France and the future of Europe, but in fact, he was

not then so sure in which direction Hitler would strike.

From the British record it appears as though Litvinov and Hudson got on well. ’The Soviet

government [Litvinov said] would be prepared to consult with H.M. [His Majesty’s] Government

and other governments regarding all suitable measures of resistance whether diplomatic or military

or economic. He made it clear that he had in mind the possibility of resistance by force of

arms.’ There is no such comment in Litvinov’s record either because Hudson exaggerated or

because Litvinov had to respect his own colleagues’ scepticism.32 Hudson stayed in Moscow for

several days, but nothing concrete resulted from his mission.

When Litvinov talked about opinion ’in Moscow’ or used the word ’we’ to describe government

thinking, he was not just expressing a personal opinion. When he spoke on his own

responsibility, he made that clear to his colleagues.33 Stalin himself had issued a public warning

in a speech in Moscow on 10 March when he advised France and Britain not to count on the

USSR to pull their ’chestnuts’ out of the fire. Stalin implied that Moscow was not going to get

ahead of France and Britain only to be left in the lurch to face Nazi Germany alone. As Litvinov

had done privately, Stalin openly referred to the failures of collective security and wondered

whether the Soviet Union could rely on Britain and France in the event of war.34

While Hudson met with Soviet officials, other developments were unfolding in London. The

British government finally took the initiative after refusing a proposal by Litvinov for a major

international security conference in Bucharest. On 20 March, the Foreign Office proposed a fourpower

declaration, which included the Soviet Union and called for consultations in the event of

a threat to European peace. Two days later, both the French and Soviet governments agreed to

it. Only Poland had yet to reply.

On 24 March, the Polish foreign minister Beck rejected the British proposal. The Foreign Office

did not immediately inform Maiskii of the Polish decision. The news leaked out over the next

few days. On 25 March, Litvinov told Surits that he was unenthusiastic about the British proposal

even if it was better than nothing. He doubted that Poland would agree, but he had no definite

news.35 On 28 March, Vladimir P. Potemkin, zamnarkom, or deputy commissar in the NKID, reassured

Polish ambassador Grzybowski that the Soviet government wanted to improve relations. In

a meeting on the following day, Payart asked Litvinov if, according to press reports, the Soviet

government had put conditions on its agreement to the four-power declaration. ’We made no

conditions’, Litvinov replied, ’and we consider very important cooperation with Poland which we

have always offered to her’. Still without news from London, Litvinov retained his doubts about

706 M. J. CARLEY

Polish intentions. ’I think that as long as Poland does not receive any direct blow from Germany,

it is unlikely to change Beck’s line of conduct.’36

It was now 29 March. Litvinov wrote again to Surits that he had no definite information on

the Polish response to the British proposal, ’although it was, apparently, sufficiently negative to

provide Chamberlain and Bonnet with a pretext to avoid further action’.37 The permanent undersecretary,

Sir Alexander Cadogan, finally called in Maiskii on that day to tell him, according to

the British record, that the four-power declaration was off. He was ’slightly embarrassed’, Maiskii

reported, perhaps because he had waited five days to advise the Soviet government. The

Foreign Office had got the news on the evening of 24 March. The Poles nixed the British idea

because they did not want to be ‘associated openly with the Soviet government’, or to provoke

Germany.38 It was not the first time that Poland had acted as a spoiler. The long silence from

London made a bad impression in Moscow.

’The four power declaration failed because of Polish opposition’, Maiskii wrote in his journal:

’the British government, telling us nothing, began strenuously to search for other methods “to

stop aggression”’. The Foreign Office let it out to the press, in order to calm the opposition, that

it was ‘in close touch’ with the Soviet government, but ‘it is already 12 days since I have seen

Halifax’.39 Maiskii later denied a government statement in the House of Commons to the effect

that he had been advised of the failure of the four-power declaration. ‘Cadogan never communicated

to me in direct and clear language that the four power declaration had failed.’ This was an

assumption, but ‘there was no precise statement to this effect’. Cadogan’s implication was that

the ’declaration’ could come back.40 The nuanced language of the permanent undersecretary’s

record of meeting appears to bear out Maiskii’s observations.

On 31 March, Chamberlain announced a British guarantee of Polish security in the House of

Commons. Two hours before the announcement, Halifax saw Maiskii to tell him what was about

to happen. He showed Maiskii Chamberlain’s statement and asked for his reaction to it. The

ambassador quickly scanned the text. ‘It is difficult for me to give any kind of informed opinion’,

Maiskii replied, ’in the end there is no clear indication that England will go to the aid of Poland

by force of arms. What effects will this produce on Hitler? Will he believe in the seriousness of

British intentions? I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no.’ Then out of the blue, Halifax asked if

Chamberlain could say the Soviet government approved of the statement. Maiskii was taken

aback. ’I immediately understood what was going on’, he wrote to his journal, ’Chamberlain

wants to use our name to cover himself against attacks from the Opposition.’

’I don’t quite understand you Lord Halifax’, Maiskii replied:

In preparing your Polish action you did not consult with us. The Soviet government has not seen the

present declaration. I myself had the possibility to familiarise myself with it only a few minutes ago. In these

circumstances how can the prime minister say that the Soviet government approves of his declaration?

’Halifax was embarrassed’, Maiskii noted, ’and hastened to say: “Yes, of course, you are right”’.

It’s because of the Poles, Halifax explained, not because the British government does not want

to consult with Moscow. The Poles oppose ’the participation of the USSR in any kind of general

combination with them’.41 They were not the only obstacle; the prime minister was another.

Elsewhere in London, at the House of Commons, Chamberlain invited Lloyd George to chat. It

was an unusual gesture because the prime minister disliked ’LlG’, an ’unscrupulous little blackguard’,

as he once called him.42 Lloyd George was up in arms, and the Parliamentary whips

thought the PM should try to calm him down. He wanted to talk about the British guarantee to

Poland and he wanted to know where matters stood with the Soviet Union. Chamberlain said

that Romania and Poland were ’making difficulties’ about Moscow and that Britain could depend

on Poland to serve as a potential second front against Germany without Soviet cooperation.

Lloyd George was incredulous and mocking: ’Without the USSR there cannot be a second

front. Without the USSR the guarantee of Poland is an irresponsible gambler’s throw, which can

finish very badly for our country’.43 According to Maiskii’s report of this conversation,

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 707

undoubtedly from Lloyd George, Chamberlain did not know how to respond for he could not

say to Lloyd George, what he was then saying privately to more sympathetic listeners, that he

opposed a Soviet alliance. Fortunately, Poland provided the prime minister with an alibi.

In Moscow, that same day, Potemkin called in Grzybowski for confirmation of the Polish position.

We are still trying to maintain a ’political balance’ between Germany and the USSR, said

the ambassador: ’The future position of Poland will depend on Hitler. If his attitude toward

Poland takes on a clearly aggressive character, the oscillations of the Polish government would

cease… .’44

Litvinov returned to his usual cynical analyses in a long despatch to Maiskii. ’Chamberlain is

probably quite content. to dump the [four power] declaration and similar statements on Poland

and Romania.’ This was more or less true. The British talk about some kind of a bloc in which

the USSR would participate, Litvinov continued, but there is no clarity about its members or its

functions. The idea seems to be that the bloc would be formed between Britain, France and

Poland, and possibly Romania. They would work out the details, ’and then. would inform us

what role had been reserved for us’.

If they are thinking thus, then you cannot deny them their naivet
e. Our d
ementi yesterday to insinuations

in the press should dispel any English illusions regarding the acceptability for us of any role whatsoever

which will be presented to us on the basis of decisions by some combination of governments without our

participation. We [emphasis added] will prefer, probably, not to tie our hands.

Again Litvinov spoke of ’we’, that is to say, Stalin and the Politburo. But let Litvinov continue:

maybe Chamberlain thinks that Italy and Spain, possibly Japan will put pressure on Hitler to

hold up his plans. Maybe he thinks he can frighten Hitler but who can say if Britain would really

decide to go to war with Germany? ’In any case for us the situation presents a certain advantage,

where they [Britain and France] turn to us, as the last decisive factor.’ Maybe Chamberlain

hopes to push Hitler in other directions, to the north-east, for example, expecting us to counter

any such move, provoking a war in the east ’about which Chamberlain dreams’. Litvinov wondered

why Britain was so willing to accommodate Beck’s objections and manoeuvring: it is as if

Poland were offering assistance to Britain and not the other way around:

The deciding word should belong to Chamberlain and Daladier, and not to Beck. It is not the first time that

England makes to us proposals for cooperation and then withdraws them with references to real or

possible objections of Germany, then Japan, and now Poland… For us, it is the intolerable situation of a

person who they invite on a visit, but then they ask him not to come because other invited guests do not

want to meet with him. We would prefer to be crossed off the invitation list. In as much as Chamberlain

sends us invitations under the pressure of public opinion and tries to get away with general declarations

about consultations, about conversations with the Soviet ambassador and so on, you should not help him

in this


It is necessary to make the English understand our unhappiness with such types of ’consultation’

and ’close collaboration’.

Then Litvinov turned to France which:

has faded away, even leaving to the English alone the conversations with us. During all this time Bonnet

only once, namely on 31 March, unexpectedly turned to comrade Surits, with questions, what will be our

position, in case of an attack on Poland and Romania. Nor did he stint, of course, on general phrases about

his intentions not to ignore the USSR, but on the contrary, to collaborate with us and so on.45

Litvinov was exasperated. ’We know very well’, he wrote to his polpred in Berlin, ’that to hold

back and stop aggression in Europe without us is impossible and that the later they [Britain and

France] appeal for our help, the higher our price will be. We remain therefore entirely composed

in the uproar raised around the so-called change in English policy’.46 ’We’, Litvinov again noted.

Exasperated though he was, Litvinov did not remain passive for at the beginning of April, he

had several conversations with Grzybowski, prodding him over Polish hostility to the USSR and

warning him of the Nazi danger to Poland.47 At the same time, Maiskii, apparently on his own

initiative, proposed through a go-between that Litvinov should visit London. In his journal, he

708 M. J. CARLEY

wrote that the idea was circulating in the government. At the Foreign Office, the proposal found

no support. A bad idea, thought Sir Orme Sargent, deputy permanent undersecretary, which

would arouse everyone’s suspicions and produce no positive results. ’I hope we will not allow

Maisky’s fictitious grievances and Litvinov’s assumed sulks to push us into action against our better

judgement.’

’I agree’, Cadogan wrote, ’Personally I regard association with the Soviet as more of a liability than an asset.’

Halifax was less obdurate: ’We want if we can—without making a disproportionate amount of mischief—to

keep them in with us. .’48

So were Soviet ’fictitious grievances’ and ’assumed sulks’ unfounded? What did Chamberlain

think about Anglo-Soviet cooperation? ’I must confess to the most profound distrust of Russia’,

Chamberlain wrote to his sister Ida:’. I distrust her motives which seem to me to have little connection

with our ideas of liberty and to be concerned only with getting everyone else by the

ears’.49 Was that it then? Litvinov was putting on an act, and Moscow, only interested in getting

’everyone else by the ears’?

From Paris, Surits reported that the French had finally faced realities: Nazi Germany was going

to expand beyond its borders, and without allies, France could not defend itself.50 In early April,

Bonnet called in Surits almost every day to ask for news from Moscow and to stress the need for

cooperation. Even Daladier summoned him to rail against the uncooperative Poles. On 7 April,

Italian armies invaded Albania. Surits reported that he had seen Bonnet ‘in a state of complete

prostration’. War could break out at any time, Bonnet said, as he pointed to a pile of depressing

intelligence reports on his desk. The French have panicked, Surits advised: they are not so finicky

now about Soviet aid. All the same, French funk was not enough to reassure Surits. We can’t

trust them, he told Litvinov, and should only negotiate on the basis of strict reciprocity of obligations.

51 Surits was preaching to the converted.

At the same time, the British also seemed to be moving. On 6 April, an Anglo-Polish defence

agreement was concluded. On 13 April, the British government announced security guarantees

for Romania and Greece, and France did the same. With Stalin’s authorisation, Litvinov rebuked

Maiskii for being too negative with Halifax and instructed him to convey to the Foreign Office

Soviet openness to reciprocal cooperation in assisting Romania to preserve its independence. On

the following day, the British invited the Soviet government to make unilateral guarantees to

Poland and Romania, while Bonnet proposed strengthening the Franco-Soviet mutual assistance

pact. Was momentum building at last for trilateral cooperation against the Axis? Dubious,

Litvinov was blunt with Seeds, asking for specifics and insisting on reciprocity.52 That was nothing

new.

What was new is that on 15 April, Litvinov sent Stalin a proposal for a tripartite political and

military alliance with France and Britain. The British and French were beginning to show their

hands, Litvinov wrote to Stalin: ’If we want to gain something from them, we also must disclose

a little our own wishes. We ought not to wait for the other side to propose to us the very thing

which we want.’53 On the following day, Litvinov saw Stalin, some modifications were made and

an eight-point proposal finalised. The USSR proposed the conclusion of a formal five- to ten-year

agreement for immediate mutual assistance of every kind including military ’in case of aggression

in Europe against any of the contracting parties’. Following points spelled out reciprocal

obligations including the rendering of assistance to all the East European states from the Baltic

to Black Seas, along Soviet frontiers. Military staff talks should take place ’in the shortest period

of time’ to establish the details of military assistance to all the countries named in the proposal.

The contracting parties would agree to no separate peace. The Soviet proposal dotted the ’i’s, or

most of them. On 17 April, Litvinov handed the Soviet proposals to Seeds. ’A huge step!’ Maiskii

wrote to his journal: ’Now the general line is clear.’54

After declaring that Britain and France should take the initiative, what made Litvinov and

more importantly Stalin change their minds? On the face of it, the sudden shift in policy would

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 709

seem remarkable in view of Soviet mistrust of the British and French governments. One cannot

say for certain, but it appears to have been a combination of circumstances: Bonnet’s ’panic’, the

Italian invasion of Albania, the British declarations and Litvinov’s pertinacity. During the 1920s,

Litvinov had identified with Sisyphus, condemned to deal with all kinds of obstacles in defence

of Soviet national interests.55 In 1939, Sisyphus-Litvinov was still pushing his rock to the mountain’s

peak. Could he this time defy the Gods?

Senior Foreign Office officials Cadogan and Sargent had demanded specifics from Litvinov

and now here they were. So did Bonnet. Logically, the French and British should have grasped

the Soviet proposals with both hands. But that is not what happened. In the Foreign Office, the

Soviet demarche provoked sneering. ’Extremely inconvenient’, said Cadogan. The French ambassador

in London, Charles Corbin, would later observe that the British rejected the Soviet proposals

with ’disdain’.56

Much to British irritation, Bonnet was more receptive to the Soviet demarche. My ’first impression’,

he told Surits, ’is very favourable’.57 This is easy to understand: France did not have the

English Channel for use as a moat to keep out the Nazi Wehrmacht. Daladier and Bonnet had

never liked the idea of a war fighting alliance with the USSR. Both feared the spread of communism

in Europe should there be another war, but 100 Soviet divisions now looked more attractive.

The French military attache in Moscow said the Red Army could field 250 divisions one year after

mobilisation.58 In fact, when war came to the USSR in 1941, the Red Army organised more than

double that number. French public opinion, like the British, strongly favoured, indeed counted

on a Soviet alliance though on the right, especially in France, there remained opposition to

closer relations with Moscow. The virulence of the French right-wing press eventually drew a

protest from Potemkin in the late spring. If you want us as allies, he told the French ambassador

in so many words, stop insulting us.59 Payart, the French charge d’affaires in Moscow, cautioned

Paris that if France ignored the USSR, the Soviet government could turn to a policy of isolation

or to a rapprochement with Germany. From 1933 onwards, the French embassy in Moscow had

repeatedly issued this warning. French ambassador Corbin advised Cadogan that ’great care

would have to be taken’ in responding to the Soviet proposals. ’A flat rejection would enable

the Russians to cause both governments considerable embarrassment, and it would be better if

some practical counter proposals could be devised.’60

From London there was only silence. Litvinov began to show signs of impatience: he rounded

on Surits for not giving Bonnet a written as opposed to only an oral description of Soviet proposals,

as if that would have made any difference to Bonnet.61 ’We consider… our proposals to

be a single and indissoluble whole’, he advised Surits a few days later: ’The proposal as a whole

is the minimum of our wishes. We would like to know the opinion of the French and British governments

to the project as a whole.’62 Do Litvinov’s reactions sound like a Soviet government

not making serious proposals and not wanting serious replies? ‘Scholars who continue to deny

that Stalin ever wanted a military alliance with the West’, Stephen Kotkin writes, ’have to explain

why he offered one, in written form’.63

On 21 April, Litvinov had a tense meeting with Stalin and his right arm Viacheslav M.

Molotov, amongst others, about the negotiations with Britain and France. Maiskii was also there,

having been recalled for consultations. He wondered if the writing was on the wall for

Litvinov.64 The longer the narkom waited for word from London, the more he worried. Maybe

Chamberlain and Bonnet hope for an opening from Hitler, so that they can ’return to the

Munich position’. Such ’recidivism’ from Chamberlain and Bonnet, Litvinov wrote: ’I would by no

means exclude. Chamberlain is conducting negotiations with the USSR only under pressure from

the opposition, from some Conservatives and from public opinion.’65 This was true.

In Moscow, it was easy to mistrust Chamberlain and Bonnet. This time, however, Litvinov was

a little hard on Bonnet who had been trying to persuade the Foreign Office to move off its

opposition to a Soviet alliance. We need to offer reciprocal guarantees and commitments to

Moscow, Bonnet believed, but even so, his idea of reciprocity was limited. The USSR would come

710 M. J. CARLEY

to the aid of Britain and France if they acted against German aggression in Central or Eastern

Europe, according to Bonnet’s formula, but the French and British were not obliged to come to

the aid of the USSR if it intervened in similar circumstances.

The French embassy forwarded Bonnet’s idea to the Foreign Office where it received a cold

reception. ’I am afraid this looks as if the French government would want to take something of

the Russian plan’, observed Cadogan, ’more than we should be disposed to do’. ’I don’t like this

much!’ Halifax replied.66 You can see why, as Seeds later explained, because Bonnet had ’cut

across’ British policy. ’When faced by two divergent proposals, only the fool (which the Russian

is not) will not go all out for the more advantageous… .’67

On 25 April, in an uncharacteristic gesture of independence from the British, Bonnet handed

over his own text to Surits. ’The formulation of the project’, replied Litvinov, ’is insulting, but

send it [the draft] nevertheless’.68 On 28 April, eleven days after making the Soviet proposals,

Litvinov told Payart that the British had still not responded and that Bonnet’s reply was going in

the wrong direction. London and Paris, Payart replied, were not keeping either him or Seeds

informed of the negotiations.69 On the same day, Litvinov reported to Stalin that it was not clear

whether Bonnet’s proposal had British approval or whether it was Bonnet’s own idea. Surits had

heard that the British were sticking to their original idea of unilateral guarantees.70 Litvinov then

received another telegram from Surits indicating that Bonnet was acting on his own and that his

proposal was only ’officieux’, semi-official, and his ’personal suggestion’.71 Were the French and

British again putting off the Soviet government? In Moscow, it looked that way.

On 29 April, Halifax invited Maiskii to see him after the ambassador’s return from Moscow.

According to Halifax, it would be at least another week before he could expect a reply to

Litvinov’s demarche. The government was ’too busy’, according to Maiskii’s report, and ’did not

have the time to discuss seriously the Soviet proposal’.72 Three days earlier, ’a reliable source’

had told the German counsellor in London that the British government would give an answer to

Soviet proposals ’tantamount to a rejection’. The late British historian D. C. Watt accused a

’Foreign Office traitor’ of passing on this information, which was better than the NKID

was getting.73

Not everyone in the Foreign Office lined up behind the government position. Vansittart and

Laurence Collier, head of the Northern Department, dissented. We appear to want ’to secure

Russian help and at the same time to leave our hands free to enable Germany to expand eastward

at Russian expense’, Collier remarked. It is a bad idea for the ’Russians are not so naive as

not to suspect this, and I hope that we ourselves will not be so naive as to think that we can

have things both ways’. Soviet support was worth having, Collier insisted: ’we ought not to boggle

at paying the obvious price—an assurance to the Russians, in return for their promise of

help, that we will not leave them alone to face German expansion’.74 Collier’s superiors did not

agree with him.

On that same day, Surits was summoned to the Quai d’Orsay, the French foreign ministry, for

an urgent meeting. Off the bat, Bonnet asked if there was any news from Moscow about his proposal.

Not yet, Surits replied. ’I have been all the time in discussions with the English’, Bonnet

said, ‘but until now I have not obtained [their] agreement’. Bonnet handed Surits a new text of

his proposal, blaming his secretary-general, Alexis Leger, for ’unfortunate’ imprecisions in an earlier

draft.75 This meeting made a bad impression on Surits.

Bonnet’s role in the history of the response to our proposal is very mysterious and suspicious.

On April 29th he showed me the English answer, which Seeds should have handed you on the same day.

What is the reason for the delay? It is difficult, of course, to believe that Bonnet invented this whole story

about an English response - a memorandum. Most likely. it was only a ’draft’ of the response, which was

transmitted to the French for information and delayed at Bonnet’s request. This was done, of course, not

because the draft was considered by Bonnet ’inadequate and not entirely successful’ (this, as you will recall,

Bonnet told me, although he did not mention that its delivery to you might be delayed), but because of

the desire on behalf of both countries to keep [the initiative for] the negotiations with us in their own

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 711

hands. Bonnet apparently had committed to the English to examine our position and try to obtain from us

an agreement that would not bind France and England too strongly, would not impose any special

obligations on them in relation to the USSR, and at the same time ensure our assistance to the countries

with which France and England are already bound… Bonnet, as you know, tried to explain all this as his

oversight and blamed the ’unfortunate’ first draft on Leger. But it is unlikely that anyone will believe that

before sending such an important document the minister would not read over its contents. In any case,

Bonnet is the least suitable mediator for us with London, and I am therefore glad that at last a direct

connection with London has been restored through Maiskii.“76

The unfortunate impression made on Surits by the meeting with Bonnet got back to the

Foreign Office. According to the Quai d’Orsay, Surits ’had seemed to suspect hidden objects (sic)

in French and British governments’ approach to Soviet government. In the heat of the conversation,

and in order to dispel suspicions of Surits, Bonnet had given him the text of the French

proposal modified on the spot.’.77

The NKID forwarded Surits’ revealing despatch to Stalin and the Politburo. The British and

French were caught hiding their own disagreements, if not negotiating in bad faith. Halifax told

Maiskii that the government had been ’too busy’ to examine the Soviet proposals, but Bonnet

said to Surits that he was in constant discussions about them with the British. The contradiction

between the statements by Halifax and Bonnet would have jumped immediately to Litvinov’s

eyes, and Stalin’s, in reading the telegrams from Paris and London. Bonnet was looking for a

’compromise’ solution, but that was not working.

In the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Policy, Chamberlain opposed the Soviet proposition.

’The Soviet’s present proposal was one for a definite military alliance between England, France

and Russia’, Chamberlain said: ’It could not be pretended that such an alliance was necessary in

order that the smaller countries of Eastern Europe should be furnished with munitions.’ Then

there was the problem of Poland. According to Chamberlain, it should not be argued that:

a Russian connection was ideologically a thing to be abhorred. Instead of this he [Chamberlain] had argued

that the objection to a public association of Poland with Russia was that it might be expected to sting

Germany into aggressive action.78

Was it only a question of munitions? Chamberlain held on to Poland as a pretext for not

concluding an alliance with the USSR. The French were exasperated with the Poles. Beck is

’entirely cynical and false’, Leger opined, and looking for a way ’to tuck in closer to

Germany’.79 This was about right. If pushed too hard, Beck could go over hand and foot to the

German side. Then victory over Nazi Germany would mean the disappearance of the Polish

bulwark against the USSR.

The discussion in London took place on 24 April. Halifax also backed unilateral declarations.

’A tri-partite pact on the lines proposed, would make war inevitable. On the other hand, he

thought that it was only fair to assume that if we rejected Russia’s proposals, Russia would sulk.’

And then Halifax made this comment, almost as an afterthought: ’There was. always the bare

possibility that a refusal of Russia’s offer might even throw her into Germany’s arms.’80 Was anyone

listening? If you asked the British and French everyman’s opinion, war was already inevitable.

Once again the Foreign Office reduced Soviet national interests to ’sulking’. Chamberlain

confided to his sister Hilda:

Our chief trouble is with Russia. I confess to being deeply suspicious of her. I cannot believe that she has

the same aims and objects that we have or any sympathy with democracy as such. She is afraid of Germany

& Japan and would be delighted to see other people fight them. But she is probably very conscious of her

military weakness and does not want to get into a conflict if she can help it. Her efforts are therefore

devoted to egging on others but herself promising only vague assistance… .81

’Promising only vague assistance?’ It was the Soviet Union pressing for a military alliance with

clear reciprocal obligations and it was Chamberlain and Halifax who opposed it. Litvinov was

well informed, and on 3 May, reported to Stalin:

712 M. J. CARLEY

The English are not in a hurry to reply to us. They were evidently waiting for the Soviet reply to Bonnet

and would repeat their proposal for unilateral guarantees. I would therefore consider desirable to dispel as

soon as possible Anglo-French illusions about the acceptability for us of the previous proposals.82

Stalin sacked Litvinov that same day and named Molotov in his place. Litvinov’s dismissal

’was unforeseen’, Payart cabled to Paris: ’The event is grave.’ British ’stalling’ in response to the

Soviet April proposals had apparently exasperated the Soviet leadership. The last straw, according

to Payart, was Maiskii’s 29 April meeting with Halifax and the British intention to stick with

unilateral declarations.83 Could Molotov get more respect and better results from Paris and

London than Litvinov had been able to do? It remained to be seen. The British, in any case,

dropped use of the word ’sulks’ when it came to describing Molotov. They used other pejoratives,

but not that one.

A few days after Litvinov’s sacking, the British government again proposed unilateral declarations.

’The mountain has given birth to a mouse’, Maiskii remarked.84 The ’mouse’ meant in

effect the flat rejection of the Soviet proposals of 17 April. The French were uncomfortable with

the British position. Payart later explained to Potemkin that the Quai d’Orsay knew the French

ideas given to Surits were unacceptable to the Foreign Office and so had gone along with the

latest British proposals, thinking they were ’a step forward’. Potemkin replied that the British proposals

were ’not sufficient’ and that the British government would be so informed.85

The French position, whatever Payart might say, was scarcely better than the British. Even as

Bonnet tried to sell the ’French formula’ to London, he emphasised that its appearance was

more important that its substance. We are not thinking about ’a permanent entente’ with

Moscow, Bonnet advised Corbin, but only ’a casual agreement (occa- sionnel) confined to a

clearly limited and concrete eventuality’.86

Cadogan was almost as cavalier with Ambassador Corbin as he had been with Litvinov. He

did not see any need for prior consultation with the French over British proposals to Moscow.

’But we must certainly remember to keep the French informed,’ Cadogan advised his colleagues.

87 Maybe the British thought that the USSR would behave like the French. ’Our problem.

is to keep Russia in the back ground’, Chamberlain explained to his sister Hilda, ’without antagonising

her…’.88That was just what the Soviet government would not do, remain ’in

the background’.

It was 10 May. Maiskii reported that the ’advocates of the Munich policy’ were again bestirring

themselves. ’I have already repeatedly had to point out that Chamberlain’s “soul of souls” in the

field of foreign policy can be summed up simply as an agreement with the aggressors at the

expense of third countries. However, since mid-March, further open implementation of this policy

has become very difficult for the prime minister’. Events in March, especially the disappearance

of Czechoslovakia, had aroused public opinion. So now, Chamberlain has to manoeuvre, having

abandoned his original positions and yielded ground to the ’so-called “new policy”’. But he will

return to ’appeasement’ if he can, although he faces large obstacles. Public opinion is ’decidedly

anti-German and is demanding resistance to the aggressor’. Maiskii mentioned the Gallup poll

reporting 87 per cent support for an ’immediate alliance with the USSR’.

Also very interesting was domestic reaction to the departure of Comrade Litvinov. During the first three

days, the entire English press was heavily speculating on the reasons for his leaving and its significance. A

lot of very diverse, sometimes completely fantastic theories were advanced. However, as a red thread,

through all these arguments…, there was one alarming question: does it not mean a Soviet rejection of

cooperation with Britain and France? And not only in the press. I know that on May 4th, that is, on the day

after the departure of comrade Litvinov became known in England, the Foreign Office was in a state of

panic, and the mood there began to calm down only on May 5th after relatively calm messages were

received from Seeds in the sense that the departure of Comrade Litvinov did not signify a change of policy.

’I am inclined to the conclusion’, Maiskii wrote, that the ’recidivism’ of the appeasers ’scarcely

has any chance of long life and that the logic of things must push England to a line of resistance

against the aggressor’.89

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 713

Maiskii reported regularly on British public opinion as of course he was expected to do. The

NKID wanted to know whether the British government was serious about collective security

against Nazi Germany. It had not been in the past. Maiskii tried to persuade Molotov that the circumstances

had changed. His assessments were well informed; he had contacts everywhere in

London. He did not hold out much hope for Chamberlain, but he worked on other members of

the Conservative party as well as on members of the Parliamentary Opposition. Daniel Hucker, in

a recent article in this journal, proposes that the Soviet perception of Anglo-French public opinion

encouraged Soviet obduracy in negotiations. Hucker occasionally cites the English translation

of excerpts from Maiskii’s diary or Soviet comments second hand from British diplomats to buttress

his point, but nothing from Soviet archives.90 That is soft ground upon which to build such

a supposition. Obduracy in Moscow derived from scepticism about Anglo-French determination

to confront the Nazi aggressor. The failures of the previous five years to obtain agreements on

collective security led Molotov to want to pin the French and British to the wall to make sure

they would not leave the Soviet Union in the lurch against the Wehrmacht. This was not Soviet

paranoia, it was Soviet experience. Would not any prudent diplomat in the same position, after

years of being spurned, mistrust interlocutors like Chamberlain and Bonnet? Maiskii’s reports

appear to have encouraged the Soviet government to invest in continued negotiations. The

obduracy in Moscow derived from doubts about British and French intentions which Maiskii and

Surits could not overcome, and that for good reason.

Maiskii also wanted to persuade his British interlocutors that Litvinov’s sacking did not indicate

a change in Soviet policy. As if to underline this point, Molotov signalled to Warsaw on 10

May that the USSR was willing to support Poland against Germany. On the following day, the

Polish ambassador Grzybowski returned a negative reply. Minister Beck is coming around, the

ambassador later told Potemkin, but he never did. The Italian ambassador, Augusto Rosso, went

to see the zamnarkom to ask about what was going on. ’The Polish government is anxious’,

replied Potemkin, ’about its territorial integrity which is threatened by Germany.’ Rosso opined

that the German government was sensing serious resistance to its expansion into Eastern Europe

and did not like it. ’Naturally, the backbone of opposition to the German onslaught… is the

USSR.’ The ambassador admitted that his views did not entirely reflect those of his government,

which was rather an understatement. Potemkin recorded no reply to Rosso’s observations.91 In

late June, Beck authorised Grzybowski to take summer holidays. Incroyable indifference et optimisme

polonais, noted the French ambassador in Moscow.92 In July, the Polish killing of a Soviet

border guard soured relations. During a meeting with the Polish charge d’affaires, Potemkin

refused to discuss any other issue even as the European crisis intensified.93 Soviet-Polish relations

were back to their usual dead end.

On 14 May, Molotov informed Seeds that unilateral guarantees were unacceptable. The pattern

of the spring continued into the summer with the Soviet government pressing for strict reciprocity

and specificity of commitments and the British, trying to avoid them. Bonnet let the

Foreign Office take the lead. Maiskii would later say of France that it was Britain’s ’brilliant no. 2’,

and increasingly under British domination after 1936. During the Spanish civil war, France

became a mere ’appendix’ of Britain. ’Paris always took its bearings from London on the most

important questions of foreign policy.’94 Like Litvinov, Maiskii was being a little hard on the

French, but only a little.95

Chamberlain continued to drag his feet and in one instance boasted to his sister Hilda of having

proposed an illusory formulation of commitments which would allow Britain to escape them

when so desired.96 This was essentially what Bonnet had proposed earlier, and one may wonder

whether Chamberlain’s idea was of Gallic origin. It sounded like a continuation of the British

’policy of connivances’ employed against Czechoslovakia. The Soviet side was on the alert for

such deceptions and British evasions during the summer reinforced Soviet mistrust. The British

of course claimed they were negotiating in good faith, and that it was the Soviet side, which

kept upping its demands.97

714 M. J. CARLEY

This is untrue. Soviet objectives were spelled out in April and May and maintained throughout

the negotiations. It was a mistake, Maiskii would later say, for the Soviet side to state an

’irreducible minimum’ at the outset and not move off it.98 Amongst the main issues in dispute

was Red Army transit across Poland and Romania to establish a front against the Wehrmacht.

The USSR had no common frontiers with Germany. If Poland or Romania would not agree to passage

rights, how could the Red Army come to grips with the common foe? The issue came up

for the first time in 1934 and then every year thereafter. Security guarantees for the Baltic States,

a sticking point in 1939, first came up in 1934. In the following year, Litvinov offered Soviet guarantees

of French eastern frontiers in exchange for French guarantees of Soviet frontiers in the

Baltic. The French turned down the Soviet offer. Litvinov had long considered the Baltic area a

potential place d’armes for an assault on Leningrad. The question of staff talks, another key

Soviet desideratum, arose for the first time in discussions with the French in 1935 and every year

thereafter. Neither the French nor the British governments wanted them. In 1939, this issue was

nothing new.99 Nor was the difficult question of ’direct or indirect aggression’ (indirect meaning

the Nazi subversion of the independence of the East European states). Chamberlain himself used

such terminology regarding Poland in a statement in the House of Commons on 6 April.

‘What does the word “indirect” mean?’ Maiskii asked Halifax on that same day: ’And who shall

define whether or not such a threat exists?’ These were reasonable questions. According to the

British record, Maiskii pursued them with ‘inquisitorial persistence’.100 So when Molotov later

raised the same issues, it was not upping the stakes. If the British made an evasive proposal,

Molotov moved to check them. It was tick and tack. When the Italian ambassador asked what

was going on, Potemkin replied: ’It is quite natural that the positions of the parties are subjected

to close scrutiny for it is a matter of very serious mutual obligations.’101

’During the course of negotiations’, explained the French ambassador Paul-
Emile Nag- giar,

’suspicion falls on the one who proposes weak formulations.’102 In June, the Foreign Office sent

William Strang, the head of the Central Department, to Moscow to assist Seeds in negotiations.

Strang told Naggiar that his instructions ’were to try not to draw nearer to the Russian point of

view… but to take back concessions made [earlier] to the Russians…’.103 This position proved

impossible to defend, and Molotov obtained satisfaction on some points but not on others. One

worried cabinet minister asked Maiskii how the negotiations could be quickly resolved. ’There is

one very simple way,’ Maiskii replied, half joking, half serious, ’accept Soviet proposals.’104 The

British wanted concessions from Molotov in exchange for their concessions. Molotov gave some

ground on the linkage between political and military agreements, but on the key question of

Soviet security in the Baltic, he would not budge. Once burned, twice shy, was the Soviet axiom.

’Too greedy’, D. C. Watt said of the Soviet side.105 ’The British PM appeared to be taking Stalin

for a fool’, Kotkin writes.106 At the end of July, the French and British finally agreed to staff talks

in Moscow. ’I can’t make up my mind’, Chamberlain wrote to Ida, ’whether the Bolshies are double

crossing us and trying to make difficulties or whether they are only showing the cunning &

suspicion of the peasant’.107

Naggiar worried about the interminable negotiations and pleaded with Paris to get a move

on. He asked for plenipotentiary powers to conclude an agreement, but did not get them for

that would have meant resuming an independent French policy. Bonnet wanted to let the

British ’make the running’; France would stay in the background.108 Maiskii accused the Foreign

Office of ’stalling tactics’. He had heard that even the US president was confused by British

’methods’. London was acting not as if ’engaged in. concluding the most important international

treaty, but as if it were buying a Persian rug in the bazaar: it haggles for each trifle and adds a

penny every half hour’.109 Over lunch with Maiskii, Lloyd George offered his own opinion:

’Chamberlain until now has not reconciled himself to the idea of an Anglo-Soviet pact directed

against Germany and, making use of any suitable pretext, would like to sidestep it.’110 This was

true. The PM continued to complain to Hilda about the negotiations and the anxiety of his colleagues

to get an agreement. ’I have to go very warily but I am so sceptical of the value of

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 715

Russian help that I should not feel that our position was greatly worsened if we had to do without

them.’ Even if we get an agreement, Chamberlain said in a subsequent letter to Hilda, ’I shall

not regard it as a triumph.’111

During the summer, David Low drew two cartoons showing Nazi representatives sitting in

Molotov’s outer office or standing at his door waiting for British and French diplomats to

leave.112 If Low could see the danger, why could not the people who held power in London and

Paris? In fact, many did see the danger. The chiefs of staff worried about a possible Soviet turn

towards Germany and argued for an alliance. Poland could not put up ’serious resistance to a

German invasion’; the Soviet Union had to be brought on side. Chamberlain did not like hearing

these arguments and attempted to limit discussion to ’political considerations’.113 Of course, the

military ’considerations’ should have taken precedence.

The French were also worried, as Daladier advised at a meeting in Geneva with British ministers

in mid-May. According to Halifax, ’He [Daladier] thought their [the Soviet] attitude had stiffened

since M. Litvinov’s departure and that they were now on their dignity and would accept

nothing less than complete equality and reciprocity.’

Do you think there is ’a danger of the Soviet breaking off talks?’ Halifax asked. It’s ’a serious

danger’, Daladier replied: ’Litvinov’s departure certainly meant something and it might well be

that the Soviet government would think it the best policy to retire into isolation and let Europe

destroy itself if it would.’ French ministers present at the meeting agreed: there was a ’serious

danger of an accommodation between Germany and Russia if we failed to close with the

Russians…’. When someone pointed out that Surits thought an agreement could be reached

’without undue difficulty’, Halifax was doubtful. ’Russian policy was quite incalculable and was

liable to sudden changes. It was impossible to follow the workings of the Soviet mind from day

to day.’114 In fact, Surits did think an agreement could be achieved. What he said to the French,

he said to Molotov.115 What was so hard to understand about Soviet frustration over years of

failed collective efforts to stop Hitlerite Germany?

Let Chamberlain explain, as he did to his sister Ida, on the same day, Daladier rang alarms

bells in Geneva: ’I have had a very tiresome week over the Russians. They may be just simple

straight forward people but I cannot rid myself of the suspicion that they are chiefly concerned

to see the ’capitalist’ powers tear each other to pieces while they stay out themselves.’ Nor was

he moved by warnings of a Soviet-German rapprochement, even from his Cabinet colleagues. As

he explained to Ida, these were ’a pretty sinister commentary on Russian reliability’.116 What an

extraordinary statement from Chamberlain who had sought and continued to seek a rapprochement

with Nazi Germany.

The penultimate acts of British folly occurred during the summer. British officials, Sir Horace

Wilson, Chamberlain’s main advisor, and Robert Hudson, still Secretary for Overseas Trade,

entered into discussions in London with Helmut Wohlthat, a senior German economics official.

The main line, which Halifax himself had taken with the German ambassador in London, was

that if Hitler stopped his aggressive policies; there could still be Anglo-German entente.117 On 22

July, the news of a Hudson meeting with Wohlthat leaked to the press, and two days later, there

were sharp questions in the House of Commons. Chamberlain was annoyed with Hudson, not in

principle, but because the news leaked and because he had stolen his ideas from other colleagues.

The prime minister still held the door ajar to Berlin through ’other and discreeter (sic)

channels’.118

The second act of British folly was to send to Moscow for staff talks in August a low- ranking

military delegation on a chartered merchantman, the City of Exeter, making thirteen knots, without

written credentials and without plenipotentiary powers but with instructions to negotiate

’very slowly’. The French chief delegate, General Joseph Dou- menc, complained that he went to

Moscow with ’empty hands’, les mains vides.119 Naggiar was thunderstruck. Even in 1935, he

commented, ’the USSR proposed strong commitments to which we responded with weak formulations’.

120 This was true. What was the British government thinking? The deputy chiefs in

716 M. J. CARLEY

London made a clear case for an alliance and for insisting on Polish and Romanian cooperation.

121 It was too late.

The Germans were waiting in the wings, just as cartoonist Low had depicted them. In July,

they continued their pursuit of a rapprochement with Moscow launched during the spring. The

German ambassador in Moscow, Friedrich Werner von Schulenburg, was the principal suitor. At

the beginning of July, he was still frustrated by Molotov’s aloofness. Zamnarkom Potemkin

remained distant in a meeting with Schulenburg on 1 July, as he wrote to his journal, but nevertheless

appeared to drop a hint. ’In reply to the [ambassador’s] obviously provocative chatter, I

limited myself to the dry remark that nothing prevented Germany from demonstrating the seriousness

of its desire to improve relations with the USSR.’122 Potemkin’s records of meeting often

signalled the Soviet mood. He could be accommodating or reserved and sharp tongued. Call

him Comrade Barometer. At the beginning of July, he was still signalling rough weather to

Schulenburg.

At the end of July, everything changed. Molotov opened the door to offers from Berlin. The

shift in Soviet policy occurred over a period of little more than three weeks, hastened apparently

by the Anglo-French delegations’ absence of plenipotentiary authority and by intelligence that a

German attack on Poland was imminent.123 In an epitaph for the staff talks, Molotov told the US

ambassador on 16 August that the time for empty public declarations was over and that only

’concrete obligations’ for mutual assistance against aggression were acceptable for Moscow. The

Soviet government had committed a great deal of time to the negotiations with Britain and

France, but their success did not depend only on the Soviet side.124 Litvinov could have spoken

these words. On the following day, Molotov handed Schulenburg a proposal for a non-aggression

pact. On 23 August, the agreement was signed in Moscow. The Wehrmacht invaded Poland

eight days later.

’You double-crossed us,’ came the response from London and Paris: ’You were talking to the

Germans at the same time you were talking to us.’ This was Pot calling Kettle black. Could the

Soviet side forget the Munich surrender or Wohlthat’s discussions in London? Naggiar’s formulation

is apposite: Apres Munich, c’est la r
eponse du berger a la bergere.125

II

The 1939 negotiations were not easily forgotten. In September, an American journalist, Louis

Fischer, who wrote for the US magazine, The Nation, asked the Foreign Office for inside information

to do a story on the negotiations with the USSR. According to Fischer, the story would ’be

good propaganda to put out through a neutral source—particularly… the “Nation” which was

distinctly leftish in character and could not be accused of conservative propaganda’. Neither

Sargent nor Cadogan supported the idea. Halifax agreed: ’I don’t think we should touch this. We

can hardly gain anything in this way of disillusioning “left” feeling. about Russia. It might not

impossibly cause ourselves some embarrassment, therefore we seem to have little to gain, & perhaps

something to lose.’126 Fischer was well regarded by the Foreign Office News Department,

but not so much by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). One unsigned report in SIS files was

hostile. ’… Fischer is undoubtedly a distributor of Soviet funds and a trusted agent of the

O.G.P.U.’127 The SIS report sounds like a canard, but Halifax was right to fear embarrassment.

That fin de non-recevoir did not put an end to ideas of publicising the British view of the

Soviet negotiations. In early October, an MP raised the issue during Parliamentary Questions. Will

the Prime Minister arrange for the publication of a blue book on the negotiations with the

USSR? Foreign Office officials, endorsed by higher authority, said no. ’The Soviet Government

may not yet have definitely taken up their position by the side of Germany’, minuted Frank

Roberts, then a clerk in the Central Department, ’and we should not therefore do anything calculated

to push them further along the German path’.128 The question kept coming back. ’I have

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 717

glanced hastily through the voluminous files dealing with the Anglo-Soviet negotiations’, Roberts

again minuted, ’and there is really very little material which is suitable for publication. It is a very

long and complicated story in which we either appear in a humiliated role, or alternatively, by

defending ourselves effectively, show up the Soviet Government in such a light that our relations

must inevitably suffer still further’.129

In the meantime, the City of Exeter, that embarrassing merchantman, returned to the fore. Mr

Roberts again explains: ’There has been a certain amount of public criticism of the fact that the

military missions went to Moscow by a rather slow passenger ship, and the Russians have used

this as an argument to show that our negotiations were not “serious”.’ The French wanted to go

by train, faster by a week and less expensive, but the Service Departments had insisted, according

to Roberts, and the French reluctantly agreed. The difficulty was an invoice for £3,500. The

Treasury department wanted to bill Paris. Roberts thought this was a bad idea. The French had

not wanted to travel by ship in the first place and only agreed after ’considerable pressure’ was

applied. ’I therefore think’, Roberts advised, ’that it would be a mistake to submit any bill to the

French, and it might have unfortunate psychological consequences at the moment, in view of

the fact that the French think that they are now bearing a greater burden than they should’.130

Roberts was referring to the British Expeditionary Force in France which in December amounted

to approximately five divisions, not many for holding the front against the Wehrmacht. The

French army would have to stop an invasion if it came to that.

The Foreign Office held its ground on the blue book until the beginning of December when

the outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Finland changed everything. Public opinion

erupted. In the Foreign Office, it seemed like an opportune time for a riposte. The first

idea was to ’give out [an] inspired comment attacking the Soviet Union’, to The Times, old reliable

as a Foreign Office messenger. ’I think a few divulgations… would be most useful’,

Sargent commented.

Both from the point of view of answering belated criticisms of the failure of H. M. Government’s Russian

policy last summer and also as a means of satisfying the anti-Bolshevik feelings which have been aroused in

this country by the attack on Finland. I mentioned the matter this morning to the S of S [Halifax], who was

prepared to authorise the Ministry of Information to take this line, on the clear understanding however that

we must not allow such anti-Bolshevik propaganda to get out of control. It is essential that it should not

develop or degenerate into a clamour for war against the Soviet Union.

A main line of attack was that the negotiations had failed ’owing to the British and French

refusal to agree to Russian demands which would have endangered the integrity of the Baltic

states and of Finland’. This was a post facto argument. During the spring of 1939, Cabinet ministers

had noted that ’the importance of securing an agreement with Russia was much greater

than the risk of offending the smaller states’. Even Poland thought it should have some ’regard’

over the Baltic States.131 ’It was true’, Halifax said during one of the interminable discussions of

the Soviet alliance, ’that we should go to the assistance of Holland if she was attacked by

Germany without any request from Holland to do so…’.132

The Times article led to new Parliamentary Questions, and this time Chamberlain decided that

the government would issue a white paper. There was still reticence in the Foreign Office, which

was overruled for the time being. The purpose of the white paper, as Chamberlain put it, ’would

be to tell the truth and not to attack the Soviet Government’. Cadogan asked Halifax for

his approval:

I think there would be advantages in publication if, as seems probable, it would show that we honestly did

our best to obtain an agreement and that delays and evasions came from the other side. it will be clear

that the suspicions which we tried to dismiss from our minds were unfortunately well-founded.133

There was also approval from the Ministry of Information and from the future distinguished

historian E. H. Carr. ’If it could be showed (sic) that the negotiations had broken down mainly

because we had refused to condone in advance Soviet aggression in the Balkan (sic) States, it

718 M. J. CARLEY

would be the best piece of propaganda in neutral countries that we had done.’134 Well then,

was it to be ’truth’ or propaganda?

Within a fortnight, the Foreign Office put together a collection of documents for the white

paper.135 There was discussion of what documents to publish or not and of whose susceptibilities

to protect or not. Maiskii ended up in the latter of category. He had ’used his position quite

shamelessly to intrigue against His Majesty’s Government and we need not treat him too tenderly’.

136 So to say, Maiskii was good at his job.

’Publication of the truth’ remained an objective of the exercise. Other departments were consulted.

’Fair and accurate’ was the War Department view, though it had a quibble about British

instructions and the British delegation’s powers. This was a sensitive issue, which provoked discussion.

Halifax ruled out including anything too ’controversial’ from Maiskii. Recently promoted to assistant

undersecretary, Strang was in a hurry to publish. ’The time is now from the propaganda point of

view. .’137 So it was propaganda after all, which was upper most in Foreign Office calculations.

Everything went smoothly. The Foreign Office had page proofs before Christmas and circulated

them for comment to the interested departments. Publication was planned for mid-January

with a first print-run of 100,000 copies. But then there was a snag. Halifax asked that proofs be

sent for comment to the French and Polish embassies. Before he had even seen them, French

ambassador Corbin went to talk to Cadogan. ’He was bound. to tell me that in Paris he found

that the Quai d’Orsay had certain misgivings about the publication. He wondered whether it was

really necessary and whether it would really achieve any positive good.’ Cadogan tried to head

off the ambassador’s obvious manoeuvre by saying that there was no going back on the government’s

decision to publish. Corbin persisted. Amongst his ’misgivings’ was ’the reflection’ that

in the earlier stages of the negotiations, ’it was the French government which had urged concessions

on us [to the USSR] and he thought that possibly if this were to appear from the publication

of the documents it might give an unfortunate impression’. Corbin had heard that the white

paper would not include ’much of the direct correspondence between Paris and London’, but he

did not see how this could be avoided. Then the ambassador hinted that the French government

might publish a ’yellow book’ to set matters straight.138

Corbin would not be put off. A week later, he returned to the charge having seen the proofs

and consulted Paris. In a six-page memorandum, Corbin noted that the French government had

’serious reservations’ about publication of what he called the ’English blue book’.

The general impression which emerges from the reading of this document is that, from the beginning to

the end of the negotiations, the Russian government did not cease to insist upon giving to the agreement

under discussion the maximum scope and efficacy. Sincere or feigned, this determination of the Soviet

government to cover effectively all the routes of a German aggression seemed all through the negotiations

to run up against Anglo-French reticence and against the intention of the two governments to limit the

field of Russian intervention.

It is true, Corbin noted, that an argument could be drawn from the documents that the

French and British governments were defending the interests of the small powers. There was

something in the draft for those for and against the USSR, especially after the occupation of

eastern Poland (in mid-September 1939) and the invasion of Finland. Nevertheless, those who

believed that the USSR only turned to Germany ’after having taken the measure of the hesitations

of France and England, of their repugnance to commit themselves thoroughly vis-a-vis

Moscow, of their scruples to facilitate direct action of the Russian armies against Germany, would

find in the projected publication a certain number of arguments in their favour’. Corbin brought

up again the possibility, the threat in fact, of a French yellow book. The Quai d’Orsay was particularly

irked by the omission of documents demonstrating French efforts to show more flexibility

towards Soviet proposals.

The publication of the exchange of views [between the French and British governments] would necessarily

underline the differences which at times developed between the English and French positions. It would

particularly highlight the actions undertaken by the French side, especially at the beginning, in order to

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 719

obtain, given the importance of the objective to be reached, a greater openness toward Soviet desiderata. It

is surely unnecessary to point to the drawbacks of the polemics which would follow the manipulation of

these divergences of policy possibly from various points of view. The French government is certain that the

Foreign Office will want to associate itself with its intense desire to avoid anything that could damage, in

the opinion of foreign states, the complete solidarity uniting our two countries.

Finally, Corbin added that the Soviet government could respond to the ’double publication’

(this was the veiled threat of the French yellow book) with its own collection of documents,

where ’the authors would not be burdened by any scruple of accuracy and sincerity and which

could risk to provide important weapons to German-Soviet propaganda’. What Corbin meant

was that the fragile Daladier government could not stand a cross-fire between left and right provoked

by the white paper. And Corbin had one last request. Would the Foreign Office please

delete Litvinov’s comments in March 1939 that ’France was practically done for’? How ironic. In

six months, France would in fact be ’done for’, and Corbin, out of a job.

’We must talk about this’, Halifax minuted: ’I don’t much like going against the strong feeling

of the French Govt. There is something to their argument, tho’ I think they exag- gerate.’139 The

French also acted through the British embassy in Paris passing the same message. ’A cursory

reading [of the white paper]’, wrote the British ambassador in Paris, ’might seem to imply that at

the earlier stages of the negotiations it had been the Russians who were pressing us for precise

undertakings which we had been reluctant to give’. Was this not so? Then the British ambassador

reiterated that the Soviet Government might ’issue a reply which would not have the objective

character of the White Paper and might also cause some confusion’.140

Maiskii had followed the news of the white paper since it was announced in the House of

Commons in mid-December. The Winter War was destabilising Anglo-Soviet relations.

Ambassadors Seeds and Naggiar had been recalled from Moscow. Maiskii was worried. Along

with the white paper, these actions could be a prelude to the rupture of diplomatic relations.141

On 5 January, Maiskii wrote to his journal that Strang had called at the embassy. On Halifax’s

instructions, he offered Maiskii the opportunity to examine proofs of the blue book. The idea

was ’that if there were any passages in the records of conversations between the Secretary of

State and himself which might embarrass him, he could let me know’, according to Strang’s

account, ’and we could then consider how to deal with them’.142

’I admit it’, Maiskii wrote, ’the temptation at once to take “the book” in my hands was very

strong. But I immediately checked myself, for there and then like a lightning bolt flashing

through my mind came the thought that the “pious” Halifax had set a trap for me’. So Maiskii

declined the invitation, as he told Strang, since the British government was publishing the blue

book on its own responsibility without the collaboration of the USSR. Here is how Maiskii put

it,’… in actual fact, if I had accepted his “kind” offer… it would have given him [Halifax] in the

future the possibility to say that the Soviet government was informed of the contents of the

’book’ before publication and that it agreed with the text at least in part’. Well then, Strang

replied, Lord Halifax ’regarded it as his moral duty to make you his offer […]. Now he will consider

that his conscience is clear’. Maiskii mocked Halifax’s plummy sanctimony and grandee

morality. With his mind thus at ease, the ambassador noted sarcastically, the foreign secretary

could proceed to ’his next intrigue in the dirty kitchen of British foreign policy’.143

Maiskii soon heard about the contents of the white paper through an unnamed source. ’The

reader of the ’book’ would have to conclude’, Maiskii recorded, ’that the USSR—is in essence, a

“wolf in sheep’s clothing” and that the British government acted very wisely, not allowing the

conclusion of a pact with such dangerous partners’.144 That was the Foreign Office message.

’This will be a first rate piece of propaganda for us’, minuted one Foreign Office clerk. Carr was

particularly keen to go ahead. He was planning extensive publicity and had sent advance proofs

’to most of the press attaches [in London], who were being authorised to make translations.’. Of

course, nothing to be released until the white paper had been issued. We must make sure,

Carr noted, that last-minute revisions are sent out so that press attach
es can correct their

720 M. J. CARLEY

copy.145 Carr’s zeal seems now to be somewhat incongruous for he soon left the Ministry

of Information to become a leader writer at The Times where he began to praise the

Soviet Union.

The French guessed correctly, by the way, that the NKID would reply to a white paper.

Potemkin called a meeting of NKID officials on 7 January, only two days after Strang visited

Maiskii. Apart from Potemkin those present were F. T. Gusev, Maiskii’s eventual successor in

London, A. E. Bogomolov, eventual ambassador to the various Allied governments in exile in

London, and A. A. Sobolev, NKID secretary general who later became Gusev’s counsellor in

London. ’The main objective of the proposed publication of documents’, according to the

minutes, was ’exposure of Anglo-French policy, which, in its negotiations with the USSR, sought

to draw the Soviet Union into an armed conflict with Germany and transfer the entire burden of

this struggle to the USSR without taking on specific obligations and remaining on the sidelines.

Demonstrate through the documents that, with regard to Germany, the Soviet Union from the

very beginning to the end of the negotiations was alien to any aggressive intentions and persisted

in its goal solely to protect the peace and its own defense’.

Thus, the battle lines were drawn. Documents would be selected from the period 15 March to

1 September 1939, and as a second possibility, from September 1938 to examine the

Czechoslovak Crisis. The proposed collection would ventilate Soviet grievances, as in fact Litvinov

had discussed them with his ambassadors. Moreover, to underline British hypocrisy, the NKID

planned to focus on Wohlthat’s negotiations with British officials in June-July 1939.146

In London, the Polish government in exile also advised the Foreign Office that publication

of the white book would be ’inopportune’. You can see why the Poles would object, but it was

French opposition, which caused the Cabinet on 18 January to postpone publication ’to a

more appropriate time’. Despite Cadogan’s statement to Corbin, the government did after all

go back on the decision to publish. It was agreed that Chamberlain would ’consult’ with the

leaders of the Opposition ’in regard to any necessary arrangements … to give effect to this

decision’.147

On that same day, Rab Butler, the Parliamentary undersecretary in the Foreign Office,

’mentioned’ to Maiskii that there were ’different opinions in the British as well as French governments

on the expediency of publication of the [Blue Book]’.148 Butler and Maiskii met frequently

during this period to keep the lid from blowing off Anglo-Soviet relations. They often discussed

the subject of Soviet-German relations.

The ’basic difficulty’, Butler noted, ’is rooted in the fact that the USSR is supporting our mortal

enemy. Many people in England now believe that between the USSR and Germany exists ’a

castiron’ [in English in the original], poured from iron agreement which in effect transforms both

governments into a single, unbreakable bloc’.

’I laughed’, Maiskii wrote,’… and recommended to Butler to believe a little less all the newspaper

canards about a “Soviet-German alliance”.’’

’If we knew with certainty’, replied Butler, ’that the USSR really was conducting its own independent

policy, much, very much could be different.’ Maiskii insisted that the USSR pursued its

own interests and policies. Don’t take us for political simpletons (in English in the original), he

would say to Butler on another occasion.149

Then there were more complications. ’The story has got about’, Roberts advised, ’that the

French have been pressing us not to release the White Paper.’ What was worse, the Germans

had broadcast the news in English even before Corbin had left his memorandum with

Cadogan.150 The Soviet embassy also picked up the news from George Bilainkin, a journalist with

the Kemsley newspaper group, who had heard:

From the best of sources that the ’Blue Book’ was not being released because the French and Polish

governments objected, saying that the book. clearly showed that England had frozen the negotiations and

did not wish to conclude the pact with the USSR. Chamberlain supposedly browsed the book and came to

the conclusion it was better not to publish it. However, inasmuch as they had formally promised

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 721

publication. in Parliament, they called in the leaders of the opposition [Clement] Attlee and [Archibald]

Sinclair and consulted with them.151

What Maiskii did not hear is that Attlee, who had previously been doubtful about publication

of the white paper, told Chamberlain that he had changed his mind. The prime minister was

forced to take the matter back to Cabinet. ’If it is decided to publish’, Roberts noted, ’we shall

have to explain the position to the French (and the Poles).’152 While the Poles in exile were not

in a position to protest, the French showed no signs of backing down. The white paper was

turning into a fiasco.

The Foreign Office went back to Corbin to see if the French government would reconsider

the question. Doubtful, was the ambassador’s reply. Painting out the ’discordance at particular

moments between French and British policy’ had raised hackles in Paris.153 The fiasco was deepening.

The government found itself caught between the French, Attlee and MPs in the House of

Commons asking awkward Parliamentary Questions. There were also some doubts in the Foreign

Office over the drafting of an introduction to the white paper, which might necessarily be too

one-sided. Like the French, Roberts worried about how Moscow could respond, not knowing

that the NKID was getting ready to return fire. ’We must also bear in mind’, Roberts noted, ’that

we are opening the door to whatever tendentious falsifactions (sic) the Soviet Govt. may choose

to issue as a reply.’ Pot was again calling Kettle black. The Foreign Office and Ministry of

Information were aiming for ’good propaganda’; and leaving out French and British policy differences

was of course ’tendentious’.154

News of the delay in publication and French objections provoked malicious comments in the

British press. In response, there was only silence from the Quai d’Orsay. Strang wrote to

Ambassador Campbell in Paris to try a new line of argument, ’… as it were, countering] their

embarrassments with a statement of our own [emphasis in the original]’.155 Daladier remained

adamant: no white paper.156 On 6 March, Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons

that the white paper would not be published ‘at present’.157 This language left the door ajar, to

reopen at a later date, but it never was. Mr Roberts was tasked with getting back the proofs in

various quarters and destroying them. There were a number of copies circulating, some in

embassies, and he did not get them back without difficulties. It was the last chapter in the

fiasco. Let Roberts recount the story.

Mr. French [of the Foreign Office] was rung up this afternoon by the Stationery Office to say that they had

been approached by one Miss Suckling of Photostat Limited. A private customer had asked Photostat to

make a [copy] immediately of a proof of the. White Paper. In view of a note attached to the copy given to

them they suspected that this customer must be in touch with the Roumanian Legation

In fact, it was the copy given to the Romanian minister, Viorel Tilea. It was embarrassing for

the Foreign Office and for M. Tilea because it revealed sloppy security of a confidential document.

The only person who came out well in the affaire was the sharp-eyed Miss Suckling. Tilea

went to see Sargent and himself broached the subject ’with protestations of injured innocence

and embarrassment’. The minister blamed everything on a translator working for the legation:

’he hoped that we had never supposed that even if he, M. Tilea, had wished to betray the confidence

we had placed in him, he would have been so stupid as to have adopted such a clumsy

method of obtaining a copy.’. It turned out, after Tilea had made ’somewhat belated enquiries’

that ’the young man’ in question who had worked for the legation for many years, had ’habits

and opinions. not altogether orthodox’. In fact, he was a lecturer at the University of London.

But let Sargent continue from his long memorandum: ’He [his name was Victor Cornea] seems to

have somewhat socialistic views and, what is still more strange, it appears that he changes his

place of residence nearly every week.’ Sargent suggested making ’a few enquiries’ at M.I.5 about

Cornea, who had ’again vanished’.158

Roberts finally advised that he had received all the outstanding copies and had destroyed

them, but maybe not.159 In 1941, Maiskii obtained a photographic film of the white paper ’by

722 M. J. CARLEY

unofficial means’ for which he got into desperate trouble after the war. Given the many proofs

let out for consultation, who knows whence came Maiskii’s microfilm. Anywhere was possible.160

III

Other more important matters soon intruded, especially the fall of France. Britain then had to

fight on alone, its army having been run out of Europe without its guns and Lorries. One supposes

that the Soviet proposals of April 1939 would have looked good in London as everything

was falling apart. Due in some measure to Maiskii and Butler, a rupture of Anglo-Soviet relations

was avoided, and the Winter War ended in mid-March. No thanks to the French, who contemplated

war against the USSR and tried to sabotage Soviet- Finnish peace negotiations.

After the Winter War ended, the British government resumed efforts from the previous

autumn to draw the USSR into more cooperative relations. Those efforts were unsuccessful until

the Nazi invasion of the USSR changed everything. The Soviet side had not wanted to be left

alone to fight the Wehrmacht, and yet there it was during the summer of 1941 fighting almost

alone. Daladier objected to the white paper because it would pour oil upon the flames of

French politics and bring down his government. He had to resign anyway in mid-March 1940.

This narrative is not without its ironies. The French rarely objected to British policy: the white

paper was one case where they did, another being when Bonnet tried to nudge the British

toward an agreement with Moscow.

In London, French obstinacy over the white paper was perplexing. Foreign Office officials saw

themselves as honest and well-intended. The white paper, they said, represented ’the truth’

about the failed 1939 negotiations. But Carr was out for ’good propaganda’ which normally only

resembles ’the truth’. French dissidence was written out of the collection as were the sententious

minutes of Halifax, Cadogan and Sargent against the Soviet alliance. Chamberlain’s comments in

Cabinet Conclusions and the Committee on Foreign Policy were not included. Collier and

Vansittart are invisible. So were expressions of concern about the possibility of a Soviet rapprochement

with Germany. The result was a sanitised presentation of the negotiations mainly

via the telegrams of Halifax and Seeds taken out of the longer context of failed negotiations in

the 1930s.

The white paper concealed the British government’s responsibility for the failure of the 1939

negotiations. The archival evidence demonstrates that the Soviet government made serious proposals

for an anti-Nazi war fighting alliance, which the Foreign Office, and especially

Chamberlain, did not want to entertain. The selection of documents for the white paper, as careful

as it was, could not hide the reality which caused the French to oppose publication.

Chamberlain wanted to finesse the Soviet government. That strategy did not work. Molotov

forced the British and French back to the Soviet agenda, but without getting the alliance. The

lumbering City of Exeter carrying a British head of delegation without written credentials or plenipotentiary

powers, instructed to negotiate ’very slowly’, must have been the camel-breaking

straw for Stalin and his colleagues, not people who took kindly to being deceived or treated

lightly. They looked for an alternative and agreed to the non-aggression pact. How abhorrent to

compose with Hitler, but after all is that not what Britain and France had tried to do? Stalin confirmed

the Soviet position during the war in dinner conversation with his American and British

allies.161 And yes, Stalin made the big decisions. He approved the 17 April proposals to France

and Britain; they were Soviet proposals, not Litvinov’s personal policy. Stalin also made the decision

on the non-aggression pact. Did Stalin think Nazi Germany was just another state with

which one could make deals? Or was he pursuing a risky policy of playing for time? Either way

Soviet strategy turned out badly in June 1941 when the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.

Do the Russian documents matter? These papers show that Soviet officials communicated

amongst themselves as though they were serious about an anti-Nazi alliance in spite of cynicism

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 723

over Anglo-French policy. They became angry, and in Litvinov’s case worried, when there was no

response from London. They saw that something was wrong when they got conflicting messages

from Paris and London about Soviet proposals, and they guessed that it was the same old

Anglo-French bad faith. They tried to pin down the British. Chamberlain saw Soviet policy as a

ruse to get Britain and France into a war with Germany while the USSR sat aside waiting until

the end to spread communist revolution in Europe. The Soviet side saw it the other way around

convinced by various Anglo-French attempts to come to terms with Hitler. No wonder everything

went wrong.

The British decision not to publish the white paper postponed the exchange of fire until 1948

when the US State Department published a collection of documents intended to indict the USSR

in the origins of the Second World War. The Soviet government replied with its own publication,

Falsifiers of History, demonstrating inter alia the affinities of the British and French elites for Nazi

Germany.162 These were the opening salvos in a struggle to control the historical narrative of

World War II that continues to the present day. It is therefore worth exploring what happened in

1939 in order to try to set the record straight.

Notes

1. The terms ’white paper’ and ’blue book’ were used interchangeably but the Foreign Office used ’white

paper’ as the header on its document jacket covers.

2. For a summary of the historiography of appeasement and war origins, M. J. Carley, 1939: The Alliance that

Never Was and the Coming of World War II (Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 1999), xiii–xix. Cf., Geoffrey Roberts,

’The Alliance that Failed: Moscow and the Triple Alliance Negotiations, 1939’, European History Quarterly,

xxvi (1996), 383-414;V. Ia. Sipols, Diplomaticheskaia bor’ba nakanune vtoroi voiny (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye

otnosheniia, 1989); I. A. Chelyshev, SSSR- Frantsiia: Trudnye gody 1938–1941 (Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi

istorii, Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk, 1999); M. I. Mel’tiukhov, 17 sentiabria 1939: Sovetsko-pol’skie konflikty, 1918-

1939 (Moscow: Veche, 2009); Silvio Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War 1936-1941 (London and Portland, OR:

Frank Cass, 2002); Zara Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark: European International History, 1933–1939 (Oxford

and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Annie Lacroix-Riz, De Munich a Vichy: L’assassinat de la

Troisieme R
epublique 1938–1940 (Paris: Armand Colin, 2008), Georges Vidal, Une Alliance Improbable: L’arm
ee

franc¸aise et la Russie sovi
etique (Rennes: Presses universi- taires de Rennes, 2015);and Sabine Dullin, Des

hommes d’influences: Les ambassadeurs de Sta- line en Europe, 1930–1939 (Paris: Payot, 2001).

3. M. J. Carley, ’Who Betrayed Whom? Franco-Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1932–1939’ in C. Koch (ed), Gab es einen

Stalin-Hitler-Pakt? Charakter, Bedeutung und Deutung des deutsch-sowjetischen Nichtangriffsvertrages vom 23.

August 1939 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Edition, 2015), 119–37.

4. M. J. Carley, ’“Only the USSR has Clean Hands”: the Soviet Perspective on the Failure of Collective Security

and the Collapse of Czechoslovakia, 1934–1938’, part 1, Diplomacy & Statecraft, xxi (2010), 202-5; part 2, xxi

(2010), 368–96; and Hugh Ragsdale, The Soviets, the Munich Crisis, and the Coming of World War II

(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

5. Carley, 1939, 83–5, 135;Annie Lacroix-Riz, Le choix de la d
efaite: Les
elites franc¸aises dans les ann
ees 1930

(Paris: Armand Colin, 2006), 474–82.

6. Iakov Z. Surits, Soviet polpred (ambassador) in Paris, to Maksim M. Litvinov, Soviet commissar for foreign

affairs, no. 137, secret, 26 Mar. 1938, Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow, fond 011, opis’ 2,

papka 17, delo 165, listy 105–91 (hereinafter AVPRF, f., op., p., d., l [l].).

7. The historical allusion is from Colonel Charles De Gaulle to his mother on 20 December 1936 (Vidal, Alliance

improbable, 280, from Charles de Gaulle, Lettres, notes et carnets, 1905–1941 [Paris: Robert Laffont,

2010], 828–29).

8. M. J. Carley, Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations (Lanham, MD: Row- man &

Littlefield, 2014), and idem, ’“A Fearful Concatenation of Circumstances”: the Anglo- Soviet Rapprochement,

1934–36’, Contemporary European History, v (1996), 29–69. See also R. A. C. Parker, Chamberlain and

Appeasement: British Policy and the Coming the Second World War (London: Macmillan Press, 1993); Louise

Grace Shaw, The British Political Elite and the Soviet Union, 1937–1939 (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass,

2003); Keith Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 1919–1939 (Cambridge

and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

9. Andrew David Stedman, Alternatives to Appeasement: Neville Chamberlain and Hitler’s Germany (London and

New York: I. B. Tauris, 2011), 134.

10. ’Towing the Line’, Evening Standard, 24 Mar. 1939;’Timing the Favourite’, Evening Standard, 22 May 1939.

724 M. J. CARLEY

11. Chamberlain to Ida, 9 Apr. 1939, University of Birmingham, Neville Chamberlain Papers, NC18/1/1093.

12. Surits to Litvinov, no. 466/s, secret, 27 Nov. 1937, AVPRF, f. 05, op. 17, p. 136, d. 110, ll. 277-83; V. P.

Potemkin, zamnarkom or deputy commissar for foreign affairs, no. 1427, secret, 19 Dec. 1937 AVPRF, f. 05,

op. 17, p. 135, d. 109, ll. 53–7; Potemkin to Surits, no. 6200, secret, 4 Apr. 1938 AVPRF, f. 05, op. 18, p. 148,

d. 158, ll. 25–30.

13. ’Survey of Basic Developments in the Domestic and Foreign Policy of England for June-September 1938’,

no. 20444, secret, NKID (not signed), 20 Oct. 1938, AVPRF, f. 011, op. 2, p. 21, d. 227, ll. 78–53;’ Survey of

Basic Developments in the Domestic and Foreign Policy of France for June–September 1938’, no. 20445,

secret, NKID (not signed), 20 Oct. 1938, AVPRF, f. 011, op. 2, p. 21, d. 227, ll. 17–1.

14. Litvinov to Surits, no. 5494/L, secret, 17 Oct. 1938, AVPRF, f. 05, op. 18, p. 148, d.158, ll. 70–1.

15. Litvinov to Surits, no. 5524/L, secret, 4 Nov. 1938, AVPRF, f. 05, op. 18, p. 148, d. 158, ll. 75–7.

16. Litvinov’s dnevnik, ’Meeting with Payart, 20 November 1938’, unnumbered entry, secret, AVPRF, f. 0136, op.

22, p. 172, d. 863, ll. 5–7.

17. Litvinov to Maiskii, no. 4145/L, secret, 19 Feb. 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 3, ll. 20–23 and Maiskii

to Litvinov, no. 32/s, secret, 10 Feb. 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 4, ll. 6–8.

18. Litvinov to Maiskii, no. 4114/L, secret, 4 Feb. 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 3, ll. 15–6.

19. Litvinov to Maiskii, no. 4112/L, secret, 4 Feb. 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 3, ll. 24–5.

20. 20 ’Quarterly Survey on Poland, July-September 1938’ secret, NKID (not signed), nd, AVPRF, f. 011, op. 2, p.

21, d. 227, ll. 104–90.

21. Potemkin’s dnevnik, ’Meeting with the Polish ambassador Grzybowski, 2 December 1938’, no. 6581, secret,

AVPRF, f. 011, op. 2., p. 20, d. 207, ll. 141–38

22. Litvinov to Surits, no. 5604/L, secret, 4 Dec. 1938, AVPRF, f. 05, op. 18, p. 148, d. 158, ll. 81–4 and Litvinov

to Surits, no. 5611/L, secret, 10 Dec. 1938, ibid., ll. 85–7.

23. Litvinov to Surits, no. 4040/L, secret, 11 Jan. 1939, AVPRF, f. 0136, op. 23, p. 176, d. 912, ll. 47–51.

24. Litvinov to Maiskii, no. 4062/L, secret, 19 Jan. 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op, 23, p. 66, d. 3, ll. 9–12.

25. Litvinov to Surits, no. 4236/L, secret, 19 Mar. 1939, AVPRF, f. 0136, op. 23, p. 176, d. 912, l. 30.

26. Carley, 1939, 75–7.

27. Litvinov to Maiskii, no. 4190/L, secret, 4 Mar. 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 3, ll. 27–9.

28. I. M. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, 3 vols. (Moscow: Nauka, 2006-2009), entries of 20 and 25 Mar. 1939, I,

362–63, 364–65.

29. Litvinov to Maiskii, no. 4235/L, secret, 19 Mar. 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 3, ll. 30–4.

30. Sir William Seeds, British ambassador in Moscow, no. 43, 23 Mar. 1939, C3880/3356/18, National Archives of

the United Kingdom (hereinafter TNA), Foreign Office (hereinafter FO) 371 23061;Cripps no. 757, 26 July

1941, N4105/4105/38, TNA FO 371 29619;Z. S. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov: revoliutsioner, diplomat,

chelovek (Moscow: Politizdat, 1989), 367.

31. Seeds, no. 107, 3 Apr. 1939, C5121/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23063.

32. Seeds, no. 43, 23 Mar. 1939, C3880/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23061;Litvinov’s record of conversation with

Hudson, 23 Mar. 1939, God krizisa, 1938-1939. Dokumenty i materialy, 2 vols. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1990),

I, 317–19.

33. For example, Litvinov to Surits (Berlin), no. 337/L, secret, 4 Dec. 1935, AVPRF, f. 082, op. 18., p. 80, d. 1, ll.

102–3;Litvinov to Surits, no. 3680/L, secret, 4 Sep. 1936, AVPRF, f. 05, op. 16, p. 118, d. 44, ll. 33–4.

34. Carley, 1939, 97–8.

35. Litvinov to Surits, no. 4261/L, secret, 25 Mar. 1939, AVPRF, f. 0136, op. 23, p. 176, d. 912, ll. 28–9.

36. Potemkin’s dnevnik, “Meeting with the Polish ambassador Grzybowski, 28 March 1939,” no. 5188, secret,

AVPRF, f. 06, op. 1, p. 13, d. 143, ll. 16–8;and Litvinov’s dnevnik, “Meeting with Payart, 29 March 1939,” no.

4279/L, secret, AVPRF, f. 0136, op. 23, p. 176, d. 910, ll. 23–4.

37. Litvinov to Surits, no. 4276/L, secret, 29 Mar. 1939, AVPRF, f. 0136, op. 23, p. 176, d. 912, ll. 24–6.

38. Untitled note by Cadogan, 29 Mar. 1939, C4692/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23062;Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 29

Mar. 1939, I, 365–67;“Record of conversation… with Cadogan,” Maiskii, secret, 29 Mar. 1939, Dokumenty

vneshnei politiki (hereinafter DVP), 26 vols. thus far (Moscow: Politizdat/Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia/Grif i K

and Maikop: OOO “Poligraf-IuG”, 1958-), xxii, bk. 1, 238–40.

39. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 31 Mar. 1939, I, 367–69.

40. Maiskii to Litvinov, no. 60, secret, 15 April 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 4, ll. 31–2.

41. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 31 Mar. 1939, I, 367-69;and Maiskii to NKID, 31 Mar. 1939, God krizisa, I, 351–3.

42. Chamberlain to Hilda, 27 Feb. 1938, U.Birm., N. Chamberlain Papers, NC18/1/1040.

43. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 1 Apr. 1939, I, 369–70.

44. Potemkin’s dnevnik, ’Meeting with the Polish ambassador Grzybowski, 31 March 1939’, no. 5195, secret,

AVPRF, f. 06, op. 1, p. 13, d. 143, ll. 20–1.

45. Litvinov to Maiskii, no. 4298/L, secret, 4 Apr. 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 3, ll. 36–40.

46. Litvinov to A. F. Merekalov, no. 4303/L, secret, 4 Apr. 1939, AVPRF, f. 082, op. 22, p. 92, d. 4, ll. 23–2.

47. Carley, 1939,118–19.

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 725

48. Record of conversation between W. N. Ewer, correspondent for the Daily Herald, and Maiskii, 1 Apr. 1939,

C5430/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23063;Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 20 Mar. 1939, I, 362–63;minutes by Sargent, 6

Apr.;Cadogan, 7 Apr.;Halifax, 8 Apr. 1939, C5430/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23063.

49. Chamberlain to Ida, 26 Mar. 1939, U.Birm., N. Chamberlain Papers, NC18/1/1091.

50. Surits to Litvinov, no. 72, secret, 26 Mar. 1939, AVPRF, f. 0136, op. 23, p. 176, d. 913, ll. 11–25.

51. Surits to Litvinov, no. 98, secret, 11 Apr. 1939, AVPRF, f. 06, op. 1, p. 19, d. 207, ll. 70–3.

52. Litvinov’s dnevnik, ’Meeting with the English ambassador Seeds, 15 April 1939’, no. 4343/L, secret, AVPRF, f.

069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 1, ll. 33–4.

53. Litvinov to Stalin, secret, 15 Apr. 1939, DVP, xxii, bk. 1,277–78.

54. Soviet proposals handed to Seeds, 17 Apr. 1939, DVP, xxii, bk. 1, 283-84;Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 18 Apr.

1939, i, 376–77.

55. Carley, Silent Conflict, 274.

56. Corbin, no. 409, 25 May 1939, Documents diplomatiques francais, 1936-1939 (hereinafter DDF), 2e s
erie,

19vols. (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1963-1986), xvi, 562–66.

57. Carley, 1939,129.

58. Colonel Auguste-Antoine Palasse to General Henri Fernand Dentz, deputy chief of staff, no. 1955, 18 June

1938, Chateau de Vincennes, Service historique de l’arm
ee de terre (hereinafter SHAT), 7N 3186.

59. It was Jour-
Echo de Paris (known for its connections to the French high command) which provoked the

zamnarkom’s dismay (Potemkin’s dnevnik, ’Meeting with the French ambassador [Paul
Emile] Naggiar, 8

June 1939’, no. 5345, secret, AVPRF, f. 011, op. 4, p. 24, d. 7, ll. 87–5).

60. Ivone Kirkpatrick to Sir Eric Phipps, British ambassador in Paris, 20 Apr. 1939, C5692/3356/38, TNA FO

371 23064.

61. Litvinov to Surits, no. 4357/L, secret, 19 Apr. 1939, AVPRF, f. 011, op. 4, p. 32, d. 178, ll. 90–89.

62. Litvinov to Surits, immediate, very secret, 23 Apr. 1939, DVP, xxii, bk. 1, 311.

63. Stephen Kotkin, Stalin vol. 2: Waiting for Hitler, 1928-1941 (London: Allen Lane, 2017), 621.

64. Chelyshev, SSSR-Frantsiia, 115–16.

65. Litvinov to Surits, no. 4380/L, secret, 23 Apr. 1939, AVPRF, f. 0136, op. 23, p. 176, d. 912, ll. 11–2.

66. “M. [Guy] de Charbonniere, French embassy, conversation”; minutes by Cadogan and Halifax, 22 Apr. 1939,

C5842/3356/38, TNA FO 371 23064.

67. Seeds to Sir Lancelot Oliphant, assistant undersecretary, 16 May 1939, C7614/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23066.

68. Surits to Litvinov, 25 Apr. 1939, God krizisa, I, 399;and Litvinov to Surits, 26 Apr. 1939, ibid., 403.

69. Litvinov’s dnevnik, “Meeting with Payart, 28 April 1939,” no. 4404/L, secret, AVPRF, f. 0136, op. 23, p. 176, d.

910, ll. 32–4.

70. Litvinov to Stalin, secret, 28 Apr. 1939, DVP, xxii, bk. 1,315–16.

71. Surits to Litvinov, very secret, 28 Apr. 1939, DVP, xxii, bk. 1, 316–17.

72. Maiskii to NKID, 29 Apr. 1939, God krizisa, I, 410–12.

73. Theodor Kordt to foreign ministry, Berlin, no. 144, urgent, 26 Apr. 1939, Documents on German Foreign

Policy, series D, 13 vols. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1949–1964), VI, 336;D. C. Watt, How

War Came (London: Mandarin, 1990), 439; Kotkin, Stalin, 623.

74. Collier to William Strang, head, Central Department, 28 Apr. 1939, C6206/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23064.

75. Surits to NKID, 29 Apr. 1939, God krizisa, I, 413.

76. Surits to Litvinov, not numbered, original letter is handwritten, copies to Stalin and others, 1 May 1939,

AVPRF, f. 06, op. 1, p. 19, d. 207, ll. 99–102.

77. Phipps, no. 258 saving, 3 May 1939, C6541/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23065.

78. Minutes of the Committee on Foreign Policy, 24 Apr. 1939, C5812/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23064.

79. Carley, 1939,106–07.

80. Extract from Cabinet Conclusions, 3 May 1939, C6595/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23065.

81. Chamberlain to Hilda, 29 Apr. 1939, U. Birm., N. Chamberlain Papers, NC18/1/1096.

82. Litvinov to Stalin, secret, 3 May 1939, DVP, xxii, bk. 1, 325–26.

83. Payart to Bonnet, nos. 326–29, r
eserv
e, 4 May 1939, DDF, 2e, xvi, 107–8.

84. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 6 May 1939, i, 387.

85. Potemkin’s dnevnik, “Meeting with the French charg
e d’affaires Payart, 14 May 1939,” no. 5273, secret,

AVPRF, f. 06, op. 1B, p. 27, d. 3, ll. 20–1.

86. Bonnet to Payart, nos. 167–71, 16 May 1939, Ministere des Affaires
etrangeres, Paris (hereinafter MA
E),

Papiers Naggiar/9.

87. Cadogan’s minute, 18 May 1939, C7266/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23066.

88. Chamberlain to Hilda, 29 Apr. 1939, U.Birm., N. Chamberlain Papers, NC18/1/1096.

89. Maiskii to Molotov, no. 70/s, secret, 10 May 1939, AVPRF, f. 069, op. 23, p. 66, d. 4, ll. 35–8.

90. Daniel Hucker, “Public Opinion, the Press and the Failed Anglo-Franco-Soviet Negotiations of 1939,”

International History Review, xl (2018), 65-85; Gabriel Gorodetsky (ed), The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambassador to

the Court of St James, 1932-1943 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015).

726 M. J. CARLEY

91. Potemkin’s dnevnik, ’Meeting with the Italian ambassador Rosso, 15 May 1939’, no. 5281, secret, AVPRF, f.

011, op. 4, p. 24, d. 7, ll. 42–40.

92. Carley, 1939, 140–41; Potemkin’s dnevnik, ’Meeting with the Polish ambassador Grzybowski’, no. 5277,

secret, 14 May 1939, AVPRF, f. 06, op. 1, p. 13, d. 143, ll. 22–3; marginalia on Paul-
Emile Naggiar, no. 556, 24

June 1939, MA
E, Papiers Naggiar/10.

93. Potemkin’s dnevnik, ’Meeting with the Polish charg
e d’affaires [Tadeusz] Jankowski’, no. 5417, secret, 20 July

1939, AVPRF, f. 06, op. 1, p. 13, d. 143, ll. 30–3.

94. Maiskii to Molotov, no. 144, secret, 22 Dec. 1939, AVPRF, f. 011, op. 6, p. 36, d. 8, ll. 6–1.

95. For differing views on this point, see Peter Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace: Intelligence and Policy

Making, 1933–1939 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000);Robert J. Young, France and the

Origins of the Second World War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

96. Chamberlain to Hilda, 28 May 1939, U.Birm., N. Chamberlain Papers, NC18/1/1101.

97. Most recently, see Hucker, ’Public Opinion’, 77 and 79.

98. According to Halifax to Seeds, no. 488, 23 June 1939, C8979/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23069.

99. Payart, no. 313, 20 Aug. 1934, DDF, 1res
erie, VII, 202-5;Carley, Silent Conflict, 110;idem., ’Only the USSR has

Clean Hands’, part 1,204–7, 216–19.

100. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 6 Apr. 1939; also 21 May 1939, I, 370–71, 395–98; Halifax to Seeds, no. 255, 6 Apr.

1939, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 3rd series, 10 vols. (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1949–61), v, 53–4.

101. Potemkin’s dnevnik, “Meeting with the Italian ambassador Rosso,” no. 5400, secret, 4 July 1939, AVPRF, f. 011,

op. 4, p. 24, d. 7, ll. 121–19.

102. Naggiar, nos. 525–27, 21 June 1939, MA
E, Papiers Naggiar/10.

103. Naggiar’s undated marginalia on his telegram to Paris, nos. 481-83,14 June 1939, MA
E, Papiers Naggiar/10.

104. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 22 June 1939, I, 414–15.

105. Watt, How War Came, 371.

106. Kotkin, Stalin, ii, 657.

107. Chamberlain to Ida, 10 June 1939, U.Birm., N. Chamberlain papers, NC18/1/1102.

108. Strang’s memorandum, 16 May 1939, C7206/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23066;Bonnet to Naggiar, nos. 218–19, 14

June 1939, MAE, Papiers Naggiar/9.

109. “Conversation with professor [Harold] Laski,” no. 100, Maiskii, secret, 10 July 1939, AVPRF, f. 013a, op. 1,

p. 14, d. 2, l. 29.

110. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 14 July 1939, I, 424–25.

111. Chamberlain to Hilda, 2 and 15 July 1939, U.Birm., N. Chamberlain Papers, NC18/1/1105 & 1107.

112. ’If the British don’t, maybe we will’, Evening Standard, 29 June 1939; ’Expert Assistance’, Evening Standard, 19

July 1939.

113. Minutes of the Committee on Foreign Policy, 16 May 1939, C7401/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23066.

114. Halifax (Geneva) to Foreign Office, no. 8 L.N., 21 May 1939, C7551/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23066.

115. Surits to Molotov, no. 116, secret, 6 May 1939, AVPRF, f. 011, op. 4, p. 32, d. 178, ll. 98–95.

116. Chamberlain to Ida, 21 May 1939, U.Birm,. N. Chamberlain Papers, NC18/1/1100.

117. Carley, 1939, 179–81.

118. Chamberlain to Ida, 23 July 1939 and to Hilda, 30 July 1939, U.Birm., N. Chamberlain Papers, NC18/1/1108

& 1110.

119. Doumenc, ’Souvenirs de la mission en Russie, aout 1939’, ff. 11–12, SHAT7N 3185.

120. Naggiar’s undated marginalia on his telegram, nos. 941–43, 23 Aug. 1939, MA
E, Papiers Naggiar/10; and

Carley, 1939, 185–87.

121. Carley, 1939, 198–99.

122. Potemkin’s dnevnik, ’Meeting with the German ambassador Schulenburg, 1 July 1939,’ no. 5394, secret,

AVPRF, f. 011, op, 4, p. 24, d. 7, ll. 114–10.

123. Carley, 1939, 179, 189–94, 201–4;cf., Ingeborg Fleischhauer, Pakt: Gitler, Stalin i initsiativa ger- manskoi

diplomatii, 1938–1939 (Moscow: Progress, 1991), 152-266;Geoffrey Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of

the Second World War: Russo-German Relations and the Road to War, 1933-1941 (London: Macmillan Press,

1995), 62–91.

124. Record of conversation between Molotov and US Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt, secret, 16 Aug. 1939,

Sovetsko-amerikanskie otnosheniia, 1934–1939 (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Materik”, 2003), 733–35.

125. Naggiar’s marginalia on his telegram, nos. 965–72, 25 Aug. 1939, MA
E, Papiers Naggiar/10.

126. Untitled note, Kirkpatrick, head of the Central Department, 27 Sep. 1939;minutes by Sargent, 28 Sep.;

Cadogan, 30 Sep.; and Halifax, 1 Oct., C16202/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23074.

127. Untitled, unsigned note, 21 Sep. 1939, TNA KV2/1910.

128. Roberts’ minute, 4 Oct. 1939, C15881/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23074.

129. Roberts’ minute, 6 Oct. 1939, C16431/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23074

130. Roberts’ minute, nd; enclosed letter to Treasury, 14 Dec. 1939, C19978/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23074.

131. Carley, 1939, 166; Halifax to Seeds, no. 230, 11 Apr. 1939, C5068/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23063.

THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 727

132. Minutes of the Committee on Foreign Policy, 5 June 1939, C8138/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23067.

133. “White Paper on Anglo-Soviet Negotiations,” Strang, 11 Dec. 1939;“S of S,” Cadogan, 11 Dec. 1939, C20386/

3356/18, TNA FO 371 23074.

134. Sir Frederick Whyte to John Balfour, 12 Dec. 1939, C20307/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23074.

135. For the white paper documents, see Tim Coates (ed), Dealing with Josef Stalin: The Unpublished British Blue

Book (London: Argonaut Papers, 2009).

136. “Secretary of State,” Roberts, 19 Dec. 1939, C20926/3356/18, TNA FO 371 23074.

137. L. C. Hollis to Strang, secret, 18 Dec. 1939; Halifax’s minute, 29 Dec.; Strang’s minute, 17 Dec., C20926/3356/

18, TNA FO 371 23074.

138. Untitled memorandum, Cadogan, 3 Jan. 1940, C186/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

139. Untitled memorandum in French, on stationery of the French embassy, London, not signed (but delivered by

Corbin to Cadogan), 12 Jan. 1940;and Halifax’s minute, 13 Jan., C671/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

140. R. H. Campbell to Strang, 11 Jan. 1940, C699/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

141. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 3 Jan. 1940, II (1), 95–7.

142. Untitled memorandum, Strang, 5 Jan. 1940, C338/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

143. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 5 Jan. 1940, II (1), 99–100.

144. Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry of 8 Jan. 1940, II (1), 101–3.

145. Minute, signature not recognised, on R. B. Stevens to Carr, 9 Jan. 1940, C575/23/18;untitled minute by

Roberts, 6 Jan. 1940, C515/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

146. F. T. Gusev, ’Protocol of a meeting in the office of deputy commissar for foreign affairs Potemkin V. P., 7 Jan.

1940…’, AVPRF, f. 011, op. 6, p. 36, d. 8, ll. 14–10.

147. Strang’s minute, 19 Jan. 1940, C1074/23/18 and Extract from Cabinet Conclusions, 17 (40), 18 Jan. 1940,

C1030G/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

148. ’Conversations with the Parliamentary undersecretary in the Foreign Office Butler’, no. 11, Maiskii, secret, 10

Mar. 1940, AVPRF, f. 06, op. 2, p. 11, d. 106, ll. 5–24.

149. Ibid.

150. Roberts’ minute, 23 Jan. 1940, C1339/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

151. Mikhail V. Korzh, Soviet embassy, London, “Record of conversations with individual journalists,” no. 10,

secret, 10 Mar. 1940, entry of 2 Feb. 1940, AVPRF, f. 06, op. 2, p. 11, d. 106, ll. 1–4 and Maiskii, Dnevnik, entry

of 2 Feb. 1940, II (1), 118.

152. Roberts’ minute, 23 Jan. 1940, C1339/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

153. Roger Makins (Foreign Office) to Campbell (Paris), no, 347, 16 Feb. 1940, C2545/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

154. Various Foreign Office minutes, especially Roberts, in mid-January, C2883/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

155. Strang to Campbell, 27 Feb. 1940, C2999/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

156. W. H. B. Mack (Paris) to Kirkpatrick, 6 Mar. 1940, C3561/23/18, TNA FO 371 24395.

157. Various papers in C3564/23/18, TNA FO 371 24396.

158. Minute by Roberts, 10 Apr. 1940;untitled memorandum by Sargent, 12 Apr. 1940, C5577/23/18, TNA FO

371 24396.

159. Roberts’ minutes of 25 April 1940 and 11 May 1940, C6180 & C 3564/23/18, TNA FO 371 24396.

160. I. M. Maiskii, Izbrannaia perepiska s Rossiiskimi korrespondentami, 2 vols. (Moscow: Nauka, 2005), II, 559–60.

161. Geoffrey Roberts, ’Stalin, the Pact with Nazi Germany and the Origins of Postwar Soviet Diplomatic

Historiography: A Research Note’, Journal of Cold War Studies, iv (summer 2002), 93–103.

162. Cf., Roberts, ’Pact with Nazi Germany’; and Vladimir O. Pechatnov, ’How Soviet Cold Warriors Viewed World

War II…’, Cold War History, xiv (2014), 109–25.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Nachalnik Anna Nikolaevna Zaleeva and her colleagues at the Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki

Rossiiskoi Federatsii, the Russian foreign ministry archives in Moscow, for access to the dela cited in this article;and

Fr
ed
eric Dessberg, Joseph Maiolo, Vladimir O. Pechatnov and, especially, Zara Steiner for having read and commented

on earlier drafts of the manuscript. I also wish to recognise the Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Council of Canada, which is supporting, through a major “Insight” grant, the research upon which the present article

is based.