At the beginning of 1939 Soviet Russia seemed to be coming steadily out of depression and purges; at the same time she met foreign threats with dignity; in August she manipulated her way into a strange understanding with Germany that assigned about half of Poland to Russia as a donation.
After Munich: German and Japanese Threats.
Diplomatic history soon appeared to stem from the Munich pact of Sept. 30, 1938. After Munich there came another threat to Russia from the West: the tip of Czechoslovakia, Carpatho-Ukraina, was erected by the Nazis as a semi-independent state to be the active nucleus of a Great Ukraina which the Nazis would help to carve, soon taking a small piece from Poland and the whole Dnieper region from the south of Russia. The Nazis hoped to use the heir of the Romanoff dynasty, but, although the Grandduke Vladimir visited Berlin in the middle of December, he soon denied that he would accept German aid to realize his Romanoff claims; at the same time the veteran White Russian General Denikin (in Paris) exposed Hitler's scheme and denounced any fellow Russians who might work with Berlin or Tokyo.
Then Poland again felt obliged to face two ways. Foreign Minister General Beck made a new trade agreement with Lithuania and renewed with the Soviet Union the non-aggression pact of 1933. In fact, Poland acquired the former crown jewels of Russia; at the Riga treaty of 1921 Soviet Russia had lost much territory and also promised Poland a large indemnity; three years later she had handed Poland the Russian crown jewels as security for the unpaid fund, some $14,000,000; in January 1939, failing to pay the second half of that fund (though Soviet Russia is thought to mine $175,000,000 in gold every year), she surrendered ownership of the former crown jewels to Poland. Foreign Minister Beck, however, also met Hitler secretly at Berchtesgaden (Jan. 5, 1939) and three weeks later conferred with German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop at Berlin. Early in February von Ribbentrop made an ostentatious visit to Warsaw supposedly to celebrate the anniversary of the German-Polish friendship treaty (Jan. 26, 1934).
On March 15, Hitler and the Nazis entered Prague, annexed Bohemia and Moravia, declared Slovakia a protectorate (see CZECHOSLOVAKIA), and let Hungary annex the ambitious little Carpatho-Ukraine. March 22 Hitler and the Nazis recovered the old German city of Memel from Lithuania (see LITHUANIA). At that time Rumania again seemed threatened and the Soviet Government (March 21) proposed a conference of the six interested governments.
The one move made by the Soviet Union was the Non-Recognition Note of March 19 to the effect that the Soviet Union could not recognize the recent annexations as legitimate, just or in harmony with the principle of the self-determination of nations.
Nor could Japan be quiet in the East. Continuing to encroach on Russian, British, French and American rights and dignities in China, she again found active opposition only from Soviet Russia. First came the fisheries. Moscow announced that the fishing grounds on the Russian half of Sakhalin would be leased for only one year and that 40 of the 380 areas would be closed, for strategic reasons. When Ambassador Togo protested to Litvinov (Dec. 14, 1938) in defense of 'Japan's treaty rights' and 'against altering a position consecrated by 30 years' usage.' Litvinov merely reminded Togo that rights and usages in the Far East were being greatly altered by the policies of Japan. The fisheries in question were a means of livelihood to a multitude of Japanese.
Later the Japanese Government, resentful, announced that it did not have to bid for leases on the fisheries because Japanese fishermen would fish as usual, protected, if necessary, by Japanese warships. So at Vladivostock on March 15, at the annual auction of fishing leases, there was no one to bid for Japan. Indeed there were rumors that day of heavy Japanese troop movements into Manchukuo and Japanese Sakhalin. But Moscow waited. A little later Litvinov and Togo signed a compromise (April 2): the Soviet Government reopened some of the areas previously closed and Japan agreed to pay rent at a 10-per cent higher rate. Tokyo newspapers expressed relief and satisfaction.
At the end of March when Japan suddenly occupied the Spratly Islands, potential bases for submarines and airplanes some 800 miles south of Canton, Britain and France did nothing. Poland and Manchukuo were to cause trouble again in May, but for the time foreign relations ceded their place of prominence to the Party Congress and questions of production, workers and peasants.
Communist Party Congress.
The 18th All-Union Congress of the Communist Party was assembled at Moscow, March 10-21. At its opening Comrade Stalin not only surveyed international rivalries but commented with confidence on the internal strength of the Soviet Union. Indicating the elimination of the remnants of the exploiting classes he declared that the workers, peasants and intellectuals had been welded into a common front; Soviet society, he said, 'enjoyed moral and political unity and the most democratic constitution in the world.' Without promising to disband his secret police for the sake of democratic freedom, he nevertheless railed at the notion that the purges had sapped the strength of the Soviet system; he announced that the edge of the intelligence service and the punitive instruments of the army were 'no longer turned against the enemy within the country but against the country's enemies abroad.'
Some of Stalin's hearers must have remembered that the Party had reached its peak number, about 3,000,000, including 'candidates,' in 1933, but that the third enrollment purge (1933-36) and the blood purge (1936-38), had reduced the membership to about 2,000,000. 'Young Communists' numbered some 8,000,000 more. The Party had formerly had democratic cells (primary units or branches) but in 1934 the cells had been abolished and over each branch there was a secretary responsible to the higher authorities. Also, though a Party Congress was supposed to convene every third year, there had not been a Congress for five years. By 1939, however, the secret balloting under the new Soviet constitution had been carried to the Party, and the local bodies, now called 'committees' instead of 'cells,' were again somewhat democratic. Those who listened to Stalin may not have realized how far the democracy of the Party was dependent on his will.
Referring to the long purge, Andrei A. Zhdanov, Secretary of the Leningrad unit of the Party, admitted to the Congress that excesses had been committed but declared that between 50 per cent and 75 per cent of those dropped from the rolls had been reinstated and that new members might enter the ranks as young as 18 years. Intellectuals, too, were being admitted on the same basis as workers, peasants and soldiers. Nor was it any longer necessary to have 100 members to form a local Party committee.
Then D. Z. Manuilsky, Chairman of the Comintern, reported that Party members in other countries had increased in 5 years from 860,000 to 1,200,000, not including the underground movement in Germany or dispersed groups in China. He said that some 90,000 members in the United States were 'as yet but feebly connected with the masses and the farmers' movement.' But Comrade Manuilsky praised the United States Government for 'stiffening the resistance to Fascist aggression in other parts of the world including Europe.'
Before adjournment the Congress elected the new Central Executive Committee of 71 members and 68 alternates; 2 of the new members were women and only 16 of them had belonged to the previous Central Executive Committee. It re-elected the existing Politbureau: Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, L. M. Kaganovich, Kalinin, Andreyev, Mikoyan, Zhdanov, Khruschov.
Production and Workers.
Premier V. M. Molotov had reported to the Congress on the planned economy, reviewing the three plans: the first Five-Year Plan had been designed to promote industry, mechanize agriculture and socialize the national economy; the second Five-Year Plan had aimed to remove class distinctions and construct socialism; the third Five-Year Plan, then in its second year, was to introduce Communism. By Communism he meant a condition of more generous abundance for all. The Bolshevik formula for Socialism was: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work. The Soviet formula for Communism was: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Molotov further explained that workers and peasants were already beginning to merge in the social organism of the Soviet Union and thus the difference which Marx had noted between town and country was being effaced. That consumption goods were still short was partly the result of the pressure of military and naval needs of the time.
It is true that production had fallen below schedule. Indeed 1937 (although it had produced the record grain crop) had been a bad year because of dire purges and dangers in North China and Spain; its production had reached a total of only 69,000,000,000 rubles instead of 92,000,000,000, i.e., about 75 per cent of the schedule. The year 1937 had thus become an easy basis from which to reckon improvement. In 1938 food production increased 15 per cent, including marked increases in milk (24 per cent) and meat (41 per cent). Machine industry increased 15 per cent, light industry only 5.5 per cent. Lumber, a scandal in 1937, fell lower still in 1938. Altogether 1938 produced the value of some 77,000,000,000 rubles. All these increases, figured on the plan as a whole, were reported to be a total industrial increase of only 5.5 per cent instead of the desired 15 per cent. The 1938 grain harvest was 95,000,000 metric tons, as compared with the 120,000,000 record of 1937.
Another cause of worry was the serious decline at the end of 1938. During December iron production fell from 39,400 tons per day to 31,300; daily carloadings from 88,366 to 72,052. Lumber was still low. Only automobiles and coal failed to decline sharply.
Labor Discipline.
This condition at the end of 1938 caused concern and was attributed to the laxness of labor — laziness, drunkenness, nomadism, or general indifference to output. Therefore the decree of Dec. 29 required that after Jan. 15, 1939, every worker should carry a booklet recording his previous positions and his reason for leaving each. Another long step in regimentation. The new law strictly forbade stretching the lunch hour or going home early and it stipulated that a worker who was three times tardy in a month or more than 20 minutes tardy at a single time (as defined later), should be dismissed immediately. The worker was to give one month's notice before quitting, to get paid vacation only after 11 months or maternity benefit only after 7 continuous months. The disability pension, which was equal to wages in the case of anyone who had been in the same position for six years, was graded down so that, for a worker who had been less than two years in his position, it would be only 50 per cent of wages.
Early in January it was announced, through the Trade Union Council, that wages, which had been increased nearly 10 per cent during the previous year, had now become more than the budget could carry; therefore the minimum output per man was to be increased 25 per cent and the pay per piece of work was to be reduced .14 per cent. Conspicuous efficiency at the bench was to be rewarded by three different medals of which the highest was to be called 'Hero of Socialist Labor' instead of, as before, 'Order of Lenin.'
Results of the new laws were soon evident. Workers were seen hurrying to their work and there was a sudden demand for alarm clocks. The new discipline was hard. Later a few prison sentences were given to executives who failed to enforce the rules. Then, early in June, the Moscow Central Executive Committee of the Party condemned the meeting of unions and of social and Party organizations during working hours. Pravda wrote: 'A decisive struggle must be waged against the bureaucratic (!) epidemic of conferences . . .' Thus a new strictness came into industrial life, although the workman always had a partial escape in the ease with which he could get another job. Production responded; iron and steel jumped back to their 1938 rates and carloadings went up to 102 per cent of schedule.
There was also an increase of discipline to be imposed upon the peasants; two rural problems arose in March and April. A Labor Union Council had to consider the farm laborers thrown out of work by machines and whether they could be absorbed in the factories. Also the Party Congress had admitted that there were hundreds of rural regions in which there were few Communists and no Party committees. Worst of all, in many such unguided places the effect of the purges and the shortage of consumption goods had released the old peasant individualism. The right, granted in 1935, to cultivate individual plots of land, had been abused to the point where some were escaping taxation, others were doing very little work on the collective farms, and some were even landlords letting out their illegal holdings. Therefore a decree of May 28 required the measurement of all individual plots and the enforcement of the local limit (usually between ½ and 2½ acres). The decree also set a minimum of labor days to be devoted to the collective work, a minimum ranging from 60 to 100 per year according to the region. Violators of these rules were in danger of being transferred to sparsely populated areas.
In fact there were various signs that population was being moved from thickly settled parts either to the Volga valley (decimated by the punitive famine of 1932), to regions east of the Urals, or to Maritime Province. More than 1,000 families went to Khabarovsk and Ussuri, thus strengthening a semi-independent economic base in the Far East. Some observers reported migrations managed 'with little friction' but others said that movements were purely voluntary and were greatly facilitated by the Government's generous arrangements for transportation, shelter, food and equipment. (See SIBERIA.) In any case the Government was keeping a firm hold on the rural population. Collective farms already included more than 90 per cent of the peasants. Walter Duranty wrote in the New York Times (May 28) that, in spite of a certain weakness caused by the purge and the shortage of consumption goods, the collective farm had come to stay, and that those farms that were managed competently had enormously improved the lot of the peasants. He added that the Kremlin had a secure position and, in a defensive war, could count on the loyal support of the people.
The Census.
The official view of conditions appeared in the census and the budget. The Soviet Government took a census early in 1939, the previous one having been taken in December 1926. In the summer Vice Commissar A. N. Voznesensky, who was also Chairman of the State Planning Commission, showed from the census that in the 12 years from 1926 to 1938 Russian grain production had increased to 1,333,000,000 bushels or at least twice the production of grain in 1926. The same efficiency, plus an increased demand, had brought the annual crop of raw cotton to 2,687,000 tons or almost 5 times the cotton production of 1926. These figures seemed to indicate that the agricultural revolution of 18th century England had at last reached full proportions in Russia. Moreover the labor of it had been much reduced by the tractors and combines supplied from 6,500 stations, the Government's keys to agriculture. Such an increase in the supply of the materials for food and clothing was far greater than the increase of population — from 147,000,000 to 170,000,000. There was also a marked increase in the proportion of urban to rural population: 18 per cent urban in 1926; 32 per cent urban in 1939. Moscow's population had more than doubled, passing 4,000,000.
Budget of 1939.
The budget was the first business of the third meeting of the Supreme Soviet, May 25. It calculated a total expenditure of 155,000,000,000 rubles for the current year, being a 22 per cent increase over that of the previous year. Of this sum about 92,000,000,000 rubles were to be raised by a turnover tax, i.e., 'practically a sales tax'; about 17,000,000,000 was to come from industrial and commercial profits; the rest from other sources including only about 6,000,000,000 from direct taxes. Of the expenditures, defense was to cost 41,000,000,000 rubles, a 52 per cent increase over 1938. The expenditure for schools, health and insurance was to be increased about 10 per cent. The ruble is worth 19 cents officially, but actually it is less; indeed as against clothing and shoes, always high in Russia, its purchasing power seems about a quarter of the official figure. On the other hand the Russian workman who receives the average monthly wage of $55 has some advantages over the American workman; he spends a much smaller share of his wages for rent and he pays very little for his transportation and amusements.
The exports of the United States to the Soviet Union in 1938 were nearly $70,000,000, a 63 per cent increase over the previous year and the largest since 1931. In the late thirties imports from Russia amounted to almost three-fourths of exports to Russia.
Home Ownership.
There were two other social topics; the desire for private property reappeared boldly, both in the legal movement for home ownership and in the wave of anti-social speculation. Having succeeded in taking away nearly all the private farms, the Soviet government, by an odd contrast, adopted the policy of encouraging individuals to own their own houses. In April the Economic Council provided for loans up to a maximum of 5,000 rubles per worker, at the rate of 2 per cent, a low interest for Russia, for the construction of private houses as private property. The borrowing worker was to contribute at least 30 per cent of the cost, either in cash or in labor and he was not to transfer the house till he had paid for it. When he had paid all he was to own the house as private property. The Party allows large incomes to writers and to engineers because of the great need for propaganda and construction. Probably wherever the need is particularly urgent and the danger of abuse rather limited, the Communists are willing to resort to the stimulus of private property. Government bonds are another case.
Speculation.
But the drive for ownership broke legal bounds and caused the Supreme Soviet to issue its decree of May 28 against speculators. In June five persons were tried at Alma Ata, Kazakstan, under the charge of selling land illegally and the witnesses explained that the practice was common in those parts. Apparently the shortage of consumption goods had likewise tempted store managers. The Soviet store manager had recently (1935) been given more freedom and more responsibility. He still had to obey the regulations of the Government, submit his merchandising plans to the trade organization next above him, satisfy the sanitary and the union inspectors and please the public. Although he had none of his own capital in danger he could in general, advance his own income in proportion to the success of his business. He often had modern premises and rarely met any real competition. Thus he had a position somewhat like that of the manager of a chain store. But in 1939 some of these managers betrayed public trust and risked severe punishment to buy up large quantities of clothing and shoes in the hope of selling later at 100 per cent profit. In Moscow five such speculators were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of from 2 to 5 years each. In July the Soviet press told of many such cases. The Chief Prosecutor, M. I. Pankratiev, however, warned detectives not to have police bring anyone to court without real evidence against him.
Review of Russian Progress.
In 1913 there were three industrial centers at the western end of the Empire — Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Russian Poland — and there was one great coal field — the Don-Donetz. By 1939 half a dozen other coal fields had been opened, so that the Donetz mines, which in 1913 produced 87 per cent of the Empire's coal, was by 1939 producing only 60 per cent of the coal of the Union (with its own output tripled). Likewise by 1939, in addition to the original centers of industry, the small production of Ukraina had been vastly enlarged and new industrial centers had been started in the Urals, at Novosibirsk, and at other places along the Trans-Siberian Railway and in Maritime Province. Thus many parts of the Union could share the new wealth, and the urban population increased from 15 (1913) to 32 per cent. Again, in 1913 those of the landlords who practiced scientific agriculture had made Russia the leading wheat exporting country of the world, while the Russian peasants tightened their belts. By 1939, though the wheat production of Russia had doubled, Russia had practically retired from the world wheat market and was consuming the extra wheat at home. Industrial production was more than doubled by the first Five-Year Plan, doubled again by the second Plan, and was to be nearly doubled by the third; therefore by 1942 the Soviet Union was to have about eight times the productive capacity of the Union in 1927. Thus, instead of being a country with a small, recently hatched industrial system, the Soviet Union has become (1939) the second industrial country of the world. Moreover, by surveying the hitherto unsurveyed 89 per cent of Russian territory, the Bolsheviks have found gold deposits about as rich as those of South Africa — whereas the last Tsar borrowed much money in France. Finally, in 1913 Russian workmen were forbidden to have unions of their own and they had almost no legal protection or regulation in wages, hours, or conditions. By 1939 Russian workmen averaged a seven-hour day, with a day of rest every sixth day, and were encouraged to every kind of organization that would improve their conditions or serve their amusement or culture, as long as it did not attack the Government. Moreover, while unemployment swept over other countries, the Russian workmen were not afraid of losing their jobs.
Diplomatic Appointments.
The new American ambassador to Moscow was announced at Washington March 4. Laurence A. Steinhardt, formerly American ambassador to Sweden, and later to Peru, was assigned to take charge of the embassy at Moscow vacated nine months previously by Ambassador Joseph E. Davis.
Constantine Oumansky, Chargé d'Affaires, was appointed May 10 to succeed A. Troyanovsky as Soviet Ambassador to the United States.
Soviet Concession at the New York World's Fair; Arctic Flight of Kokkinaki and Gordienko.
Russia's contacts with the world and her contribution to it were to be seen chiefly in the Soviet exhibit at the New York World's Fair, and in her aviation and science. The Soviet concession presented a massive and dignified building surmounted by a giant statue of a Russian worker holding aloft the Red Star. The building was full of a variety of displays to show industry and agriculture, work and recreation in the socialist society.
Another brilliant contact had already been made between Soviet Russia and the United States. On April 28 at 4 A.M., the Soviet fliers, Brig. Gen. Vladimir Kokkinaki and Major Gordienko, took off on a nonstop flight from Moscow to New York, anxious to arrive for the opening of the World's Fair. They flew across Sweden, following the Arctic circle over Iceland and Greenland. An emergency, however, — General Kokkinaki's fainting at an altitude of 27,000 feet — forced Gordienko to land, 22 hours after the take-off, at Miscou Point, New Brunswick, some 5,000 miles distant. A rescue plane landed them at Floyd Bennett Field on April 30. On May 2, General Kokkinaki handed to Grover Whalen letters postmarked 'Moscow April 28' and 'New Brunswick April 28' during a ceremony held before the great statue of George Washington. They departed on May 14, three days before the Soviet Pavilion was formally opened (May 17). (See also SIBERIA.)
Science and Education in the U.S.S.R.
Soviet interest in medical science was illustrated in certain new methods of blood transfusion. Guided by American laboratory experiments, the Russian surgeons began to use blood banks, in which blood could be kept for about three weeks and be ready for emergencies — a system later imitated by American hospitals. Cadaver blood was also discovered to be useful, especially as it reliquifies without the admixture of sodium citrate and can therefore be used with less danger of infection. This discovery was very convenient for use in emergency hospitals and invaluable in case of war.
Russian dentists seemed more occupied in social service than in scientific discovery. By the end of the civil war (1921) the Bolsheviks already had 2,000 dentists busy in public clinics and by 1927 they had three times that number. In 1936, 30,000,000 persons were enabled to visit dentists. Candidates have been hurried through dental college in four years to be ready to attend the multitudes. They work six hours a day for incomes about equal to those of physicians and teachers. Most of the Russian dentists were women.
In anthropology Dr. A. P. Okladnikov, of the Anthropological Institute of Moscow and Leningrad, discovered in a cave on a high cliff in central Asia the skeleton of a Neanderthal child about 8 years old. The discovery was announced July 7. Dr. Ales Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institution verified it thus: 'we had been hoping, but hardly daring to hope, for such a discovery, and now this young Soviet archeologist has done it. It shows that the Neanderthal Man was widely spread over the Old World. For the first time it gives us clear evidence of a culture extending clear across from Europe to the Far East.'
The studies of the Oriental Institute of Leningrad were complimented by Mortimer Graves, Executive Secretary of the American Council of Learned Societies, writing in the July-October issue of the American Quarterly on the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Government gave official support to education by assigning in the budget 10 per cent more money for social and cultural purposes than in the previous year. Part of this increase was to be used to put 10 per cent more children in school. Already the Government's technical schools were turning out twice as many specialists as they had ten years previous, thus rapidly giving agriculture, industry and science the necessary trained leaders.
Relations with Poland and the Baltic States; Resignation of Litvinov; Non-aggression Talks with Great Britain.
Ambassador Lipski of Poland was called to the Berlin Foreign Office and given three demands: that Poland allow Germany to occupy Danzig, give Germany two rights of way over the Corridor with sovereignty, and give up her close relations with Moscow. The Polish ambassador took the first train to Warsaw. Polish troops were called out. Finally, March 31, Premier Chamberlain announced in Parliament an agreement with Poland: during further negotiations the British Government promised Poland full military support in case the Polish Government should be driven to war. On April 13, Great Britain and France guaranteed help to Greece and Rumania against any attack; April 26, Premier Chamberlain announced conscription in Britain. The Soviet Union was naturally attentive to these events and also to Hitler's Reichstag speech of April 28, with its omission of bitter attack on Communist Russia, the omission being, perhaps, an answer to Stalin's speech at the Party Congress seven weeks earlier.
Commissar Maxim Litvinov had stood with the mighty on May Day, but two days later he was relieved of office 'at his own request.' The portfolio of Foreign Affairs was entrusted to Stalin's man, Premier V. M. Molotov. The resignation was apparently the end of a distinguished political career. Born in 1879 at Bialystok in East Poland, Litvinov was the son of a poor Jewish merchant. In 1901 he was sentenced to 5 years in Siberia, but he escaped and joined Lenin in London in 1902. In 1905-6 he met Stalin in Georgia and helped him hold up a money convoy to replenish revolutionary funds. He then went to England where he married Ivy Low, niece of Sir Maurice Low of the London Times. Immediately after the Brest-Litovsk treaty, he became the assistant of the suave, well-born George Chicherin, whom he succeeded as head of the Foreign Office in 1939. After the rise of Hitler, Litvinov devoted his services to Collective Security, to which he added his own winged words: 'Peace is indivisible.' In the League and in coping with the general tension in Europe Litvinov reached his full stature and became one of the foremost statesmen of his period. In view of danger from both Germany and Japan, cooperation with the peaceful, status quo Powers in the League, seemed for a time the best protection for Soviet Russia.
In May, therefore, it was widely rumored that Litvinov's policies were to go out with him and that a new policy would appear. It was remembered that the Soviet Union had always to consider Japan. Hitler's omission of bitter epithets against Russia and Litvinov's resignation seemed to be omens.
Meanwhile, as early as May 11, Great Britain and Russia, aiming at the formation of an anti-aggression front, had begun a discussion that was to be long, intricate and to involve many different persons in several capitals. Before many weeks, however, Poland refused to permit Soviet troops to enter her territory to repel an aggressor, and Britain supported Poland in that refusal. The small Baltic states shared Poland's fears and helped in the obstruction. Although this attitude of the border states blocked any practical military alliance between the Soviet Union and the democracies, the negotiations were continued indefinitely, perhaps from a kind of inertia.
Border Clashes with Japan.
Meanwhile there was trouble with Japan. After friction over the fisheries and the refusal of Manchukuo (since March 1938) to make the last payments on the Chinese Eastern Railway contract of September 1934, a frontier skirmish began May 11 on the Manchukuo-Mongolian frontier, though for more than a month the incident was not admitted to be serious. Toward the end of June, Pravda spoke of the border struggle near Lake Buir and of Japanese bombers over Outer Mongolia (see SIBERIA). The Tass Agency (Soviet) reported the casualties of July 5-12: Japanese-Manchukuan forces had 2,000 killed and 3,500 wounded; Soviet-Mongolian forces had repulsed the attack with a loss of 293 killed and 653 wounded. Tass reported that for a period of six weeks Japan had lost 199 planes; the Soviet Union had lost 52. These days of heavy fighting in July were soon followed by Soviet air raids especially over the Harbin-Hailar Railway (3rd raid July 16). Then came disputes about oil concessions in Sakhalin with Japanese forces moving to Sakhalin waters. (See also JAPAN; MONGOLIA: Outer Mongolia.)
Non-aggression Pact with Germany; Invasion and Partition of Poland.
On July 21 the Moscow radio announced that the Soviet Union was negotiating with Germany for a trade agreement. A month later it was suddenly learned by the public that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had agreed (Aug. 12) to conclude a pact. Very quickly a ten-year non-aggression pact was signed in Moscow (Aug. 24) by Foreign Ministers von Ribbentrop and Molotov; the Soviet Union ratified it Aug. 31 and the German army invaded Poland the next morning at dawn. The British and French military missions, which had been conferring regarding an anti-aggression front, had not left Moscow until Aug. 26. On Sept. 3 Great Britain and France declared war against Germany in support of Poland, but the Polish army alone was unable to resist the drive of German forces from both Silesia and East Prussia. The Soviet Union was soon reported to be mobilizing; the Union came to a favorable agreement with Japan Sept. 15; next day large Soviet forces occupied eastern Poland to 'cooperate' with the German army. Italy remained neutral. Japan was far away.
The Soviet-Nazi combination shocked a quarter of mankind and provoked every variety of comment. At the time the British and French military missions withdrew from Moscow, Marshal Voroshilov said their common plans were deadlocked because, unless Soviet troops were permitted to enter Polish territory, there would be no way for them to make contact with the aggressor's troops. To the Supreme Soviet, on Aug. 31, Premier Molotov said that the international situation, both west and east, had become so much worse that the pact with Germany was 'of tremendous practical value.' Only after the rebuff from England, France and Poland, had the agreement been made with Germany. He explained at some length the great, natural relations between Russia and Germany and showed that peace was better than war, but made no mention of the help thus to be given to Germany in her lawless attack on Poland. After the Premier's speech, the Soviet ratified the pact unanimously. Thus the story as told at Moscow made it seem that Stalin had persisted in pursuing collective security after Litvinov had given it up and resigned. (See also GERMANY; ITALY; COMMUNISM; FASCISM.)
Warsaw fell Sept. 27 and soon afterward Russia and Germany divided Poland along a line from north to south following, approximately, the Narev, Vistula and San rivers, thus giving Russia about three-fifths of Poland and about 13,000,000 inhabitants. In his address of Oct. 31 to the Supreme Soviet, Premier Molotov stated that more than 10,000,000 were Ukrainians and White Russians, more than 1,000,000 Jews, and more than 1,000,000 Poles. It is true, moreover, that much of Russia's new territory had been taken from her after the World War when Poland had defeated the Russian army, ignored the Lord Curzon Line and, by the Treaty of Riga (1921), annexed the territory and secured the promise of the large indemnity paid off ultimately with the former Russian crown jewels. As Russian casualties in the present occupation, Premier Molotov recorded only 737 killed and 1,862 wounded.
Upon its entrance into foreign adventures, the Soviet Union had to adjust its attitudes and its laws. First, in propaganda, the Government immediately withdrew the Tolstoy play, 'The Road to Victory' and such films as 'The Oppenheim Family' (Feuchtwanger) and 'Alexander Nevsky.' There were also financial and military measures. A state loan had just been floated a month earlier (Aug. 1), 6,000,000,000 rubles to run 20 years at 4 per cent to finance industry and defense. At the end of August the Supreme Soviet that ratified the Soviet-Nazi pact, passed a military act extending many of the army services from 2 to 3 years and the terms of naval officers to 4 or even 5 years. Officers not selected for promotion were to be retired at 45 instead of 60. Women with medical training were to be liable for service. Later some of the woman fliers wished to be permitted to fight, but Marshal Voroshilov persuaded them to accept teaching aviation or flying ambulance planes as more appropriately feminine services. The army that entered Poland Sept. 16 was described as 1,000,000 strong and a rather motley array. Each commander was held in check by a Communist Party deputy.
By the middle of September, under fear of war scarcity, non-perishable goods such as sugar, flour, kerosene and soap were being bought up by peasants in such large quantities that small stores were soon emptied and the supplies had to be restricted. The buying panic continued: cigarettes ran out, then tobacco, and after the staples were restricted, potatoes and cabbages were bought up. Speculators, it was announced, would be tried quickly and sentenced to at least five years.
After a few weeks the newly-annexed territories of Poland, i.e., West White Russia and West Ukraina, were asked to vote for official candidates in the Soviet system, a vote which, if affirmative, would accept annexation. After election, the delegates of West Ukraina (Nov. 1) and of West White Russia (Nov. 2) filed in and stood before the platform of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet at Moscow. About the same time 5 Soviet engineers reported that certain Polish mines had been worked very unscientifically but that they had a high quality of coal, probably 10,000,000 tons. The occupied territories were still sealed to foreign observers and for about two months they were even cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union.
Early in November Germany and the Soviet Union began to arrange for the exchange of population and it was soon estimated that Germany would recover from West Ukraina and elsewhere perhaps 140,000 Germans and that the Soviet Union would withdraw perhaps 1,000,000 from German Poland, including Ukrainians, White Russians, Russian Jews and Polish Communists. German agents were already busy appealing to Germans in the Baltic countries and Germans were to come north from the Tyrol, all to strengthen the Teutonic element in the Corridor and in East Prussia. (See also POLAND.)
The Baltic States.
Soon after the fall of Warsaw, the Soviet Union began a new policy with small states, especially with those on the shores of the Baltic, where naval bases and airports seemed desirable. Foreign ministers were invited to confer in Moscow. The first treaty was signed with Estonia Sept. 29, conceding the U.S.S.R. the use of Baltic Port as a naval base and air port. A similar treaty with Latvia (Oct. 5) conceded the Soviet Union the use of Windau and Libau and the privilege of setting up a coast battery near Ventspils. By a treaty of Oct. 10, Lithuania accepted Soviet garrisons. In the latter case, however, Lithuania's historic capital, Vilna, recently a part of Poland, was given back to Lithuania Oct. 30; at Kaunas the Lithuanian Ministry attended church in a body to offer thanks for the return of the city; bells pealed throughout the country; the Russians had prudently arrested in Vilna many Polish Social Democrats and Jewish members of the Bund. Each of these treaties was put forward as a continuation of previous friendship, each carried clauses promising mutual help against a common enemy, and each carried mutual promises to respect the independence and the social order of the other. But each treaty permitted the Soviet Union to garrison her concessions and her soldiers always entered within a few days. The Baltic states are particularly inhospitable to Bolshevism and the Soviet Union seems to have had no idea of promoting revolution. But in military and naval ways, the Soviet Union enormously strengthened its hold on the Northern Baltic as against any rival power, e.g., Germany. (See also BALTIC ENTENTE; ESTONIA; LATVIA; LITHUANIA.)
Relations with Turkey and the Balkans.
Turkey's trade treaty with Germany had expired and she considered a treaty with the Soviet Union; in fact, Foreign Minister Saracoglu was in Moscow while the Baltic ministers were there, but he departed Oct. 16 without signing anything. On Oct. 19 Great Britain, France and Turkey signed a triple treaty of mutual assistance against aggression in the Mediterranean, an agreement followed two months later by a trade treaty. It was also plain that Russian statesmen had not forgotten the loss of Bessarabia. But the outward calm of the Balkans was the wonder of warlike Europe, a calm which they enjoyed at least to the end of 1939. (See also TURKEY.)
War with Finland.
During the summer Finland had supported Poland in her refusal to permit Soviet troops on her territory. In October the Soviet Union demanded the usual naval bases and airports (Aaland Islands, Hangoe, etc.). Foreign Minister E. Erkko admitted that Leningrad is a great city dangerously near the Finnish frontier (about 20 mi.) and would consider rectification of the frontier, but a naval base or airport he would not cede. Both sides were stubbornly patient for weeks, but Nov. 27 the Soviet Government claimed that four Russians had been killed by Finnish fire and asked that the Finnish troops withdraw twelve miles. The same day a new note of bitter personal abuse of Premier Cajander appeared in Pravda. The next day Premier Molotov's note said Finland had shown her 'profound hostility' by her denial of the shelling and by the refusal to withdraw Finnish troops without a simultaneous withdrawal of Soviet troops, thus keeping Leningrad under threat. Molotov said the Union would no longer feel bound by the non-aggression pact of 1932. He did not mention Finland's offer to arbitrate. On Nov. 30, without declaration of war, Russian troops attacked Finland. It should be added that the Soviet press kept its readers in ignorance for several days and after that gave them only vague and misleading reports mixed with bitter attacks on the Finns, thus following not at all the truthful and realistic tone of Erkko and of Litvinov in the discussion of foreign affairs.
The Soviet troops swarmed down on Finland and by the end of December it was estimated that on seven fronts the Soviet authorities had used about 700,000 men against Finland's total army of 400,000. But north of Lake Ladoga the Russians blundered into a country full of lakes and dense woods and frequent driving snows, and while their tanks fell into traps or ran into mines, they themselves became lost and were harassed by Finns on skis, sometimes on skates. Finally Lake Ladoga froze and Russian troops swarmed over its ice, but the waiting Finns shot the ice away with artillery and drowned the Russians. In the concentrated fighting on the Karelian Isthmus, the young Soviet generals marched their troops against the Mannerheim Line, defended by the 72-year-old General Baron Karl G. E. Mannerheim, who had been a Lieutenant General under Tsar Nicholas. In the first days of the war, the Communists set up a puppet Communistic government for Finland, without getting the least response. Indeed the parties of all types were in solid support of the legal Government. In spite of sharp contradictions between Finnish and Soviet despatches, the Russians lost very heavily both from attacking good defenses and from sub-zero weather, while the Finnish losses were quite small. (See also FINLAND.)
Diplomacy played around the edge of the conflict. From the beginning the Communists bombed Finnish cities often setting fire to some of them. President Roosevelt, having put in a plea for the Finns in October, on Dec. 1 gave the press a sharp comment on Soviet action. The Soviet Government immediately withdrew from the New York World's Fair and let it be known that the Soviet building would be at once dismantled and taken back to Moscow. The next day (Dec. 2,) the President recommended a moral embargo that would refuse the Soviet Union planes, engines, bombs and other means used to attack civilians in open towns. On Dec. 10 the United States Government extended Finland a credit of $10,000,000, everyone seeming to remember that Finland had paid all her war debts to United States. By the end of December even England and France were sending planes to Finland.
Finnish resistance brought the League of Nations to life. On Dec. 11 Finland presented her case to the League Assembly and simultaneously published her White Book, her first full account of her relations with the Soviet Union. When the League asked the Soviet Union to negotiate, Premier Molotov replied that the Soviet Union was not at war with Finland. Undeterred by such a legal difficulty, the Assembly proceeded to vote the Soviet Union out of the League. Thus Soviet Russia was a member of the League from Sept. 18, 1934. to Dec. 14, 1939. (See also LEAGUE OF NATIONS.)
Friendly Adjustment with Japan.
With Japan in the east, the Soviet Union was more successful. As a result of negotiations at Chita and at Moscow an agreement was announced the last day of the year. Manchukuo promised the Union the final payment of 6,000,000 yen (about $1,400,000) on the Chinese Eastern Railway contract; Japan leased the Sakhalin fisheries again for only one year; all boundary disputes were to be adjusted. (See also JAPAN.)
Stalin.
Stalin's 60th birthday was celebrated Dec. 21. In a special edition of Pravda, Molotov gave him a very complete series of compliments. Stalin had only one decoration, the 'Order of the Red Banner,' won by his bravery in the Russian civil war. He was therefore given 'Hero of Labor,' and 'Order of Lenin.' Now A. A. Zhdanov, Chairman of the Leningrad Soviet, had for months been spoken of as chosen by Stalin as his successor and it was thought that the Finnish policy was his, pushed vigorously against a cautious Politbureau. Others were honored but Zhdanov's name was conspicuously absent among the birthday decorations.
No comments:
Post a Comment