Although the Soviet Union began the year 1940 in the security of her non-aggression pact with Germany (signed Aug. 24, 1939), she had seriously shaken the security of her position by entangling herself in her war on Finland. Nevertheless, in other directions she later extended her frontiers, made important social changes at home, and ended the year apparently detached from the fighting in Europe and Africa.
War with Finland.
When Finland refused to be made a military protectorate, like the three Baltic states, the Soviet Union suddenly vilified her in the press and, without declaring war, attacked her Nov. 30, 1939. Against the Mannerheim Line, which lies between Leningrad and Viborg, and at the four points of attack between Lake Ladoga and the Arctic Ocean, the Russians lost most of the engagements of December, January and the first part of February. Their only real success up to then was in the bombing of Finnish cities.
Early Victories of the Finns.
The Finns, it is true, were more formidable enemies than their population of about 4,000,000 would lead one to expect. Their well-trained army numbered about 125,000 men, including cavalry and a tank company, but their total potential man power could hardly be reckoned as more than 500,000. Army and militia included expert riflemen and most of the older officers were veterans of the War of Liberation, i.e., the White-Red civil war of 1918. The leading veteran, General Baron Karl Gustav Mannerheim, was still in command, whereas Marshal Tukhachevsky and several other marshals of the Russian Red Army, had been killed by the purge of Stalin. Finland was more fortunate than Poland in that her 150 airplanes, with additions from abroad, especially from Sweden and Italy, kept operating from well-hidden air ports, hampering and threatening the enemy. But, most of all, Finland was protected by her rough and broken terrain, her thousands of lakes and millions of boulders, great natural difficulties for tank corps trained on the plains of Russia. Plunging half helplessly beyond their railroads, the Russians were often lost in Arctic darkness and subzero temperature, or in swirling blizzards.
The Finnish officers and men distinguished themselves in morale. As soon as a Russian column was well started on its path of invasion, Finnish sharpshooters on skis harried its flanks, plundered its food trains and broke its communications, so that masses of Russians found themselves in subarctic country without shelter or much food. The Russians fought and they rarely fled, but they died in large numbers. When the Finns made a counter-attack in the north, in December, they found great numbers of stalled machines and half-frozen men. The Soviet authorities were so bewildered that they dismissed and decorated their unsuccessful general, instead of boldly executing him.
Soviet Army Difficulties and Casualties.
The strength of the Soviet Army was not announced. Out of her millions of men, Russia had 1,300,000 in her standing army; but while it had some antiquated types of arms, the general equipment in rifles, machineguns, artillery and tanks seemed better than the equipment of any previous Russian army. Yet the limitations of transport were grave. During the march into Poland there had been pitiful breakdowns. It was apparent that the Soviet Union's transportation could not supply more than 1,000,000 men for any sustained campaign, and in the difficulties of the northwest probably much less — much less than the foreign press readily estimated. Moreover, the heavy demands of modern warfare made the staff work much too difficult for the hastily promoted young officers. The seriousness of the situation was revealed by a report of the French intelligence service to the French government in the summer of 1939, summarized the next February in Events. The report listed the disappearance or death of 3 marshals, of 75 of the 80 members of the Superior War Council and of a total of at least 30,000 officers, including about two thirds of the officers of the general staff. Captains were suddenly put in command of divisions. The level of official education had not been high before and the report said it would take years to recover the level of 1936. The Brigadier General and friend of the late Tukhachevsky, Alexander Barmine, who escaped from Athens in December 1937, wrote The New York Times (Jan. 19, 1940) giving the same figure, 30,000, for officers lost in the purge. It was understood that the whole army was under G. P. U. surveillance, that the navy had had a purge of 'even more murderous thoroughness' and that the officers of neither service had any initiative or any taste for responsibility. Yet with such an army, the Government made changes in the command early in January, supplied better troops and furnished more guns and bombers. This brought the break in the 'impregnable' Mannerheim Line on Jan. 26 (as it was afterwards learned). The Finns found the Russian prisoners better trained and equipped than at the beginning of the war, yet, before the month was out, they were able to report the worst Russian disaster of the war — 20,000 Russian casualties.
Finland's Lack of Arms.
But there was never much hope that Finland could ultimately win. She had friends; countless tokens of sympathy came from most of the free countries of the world in an anti-Soviet wave of enthusiasm similar to that which encouraged the Boers against Britain or the Belgians against the Kaiser. These activities were given an immense amount of space in the papers. Baron Mannerheim alternated between pessimism and optimism, but in general he was not deceived. Finland needed war materials and ammunition, not food, which she normally exports. He indicated to the Allies that he would need help on a much larger scale before spring, or he would have to retire, devastating the country. Out of deference to Norway and Sweden he delayed making formal request for aid. Volunteer aid came in small quantities from a world of friends.
Recovery of Soviet Army.
The Soviet army had discovered the folly of commencing the conquest of Finland at the beginning of one of the coldest winters of recent years, but it showed no panic and learned by its failures. After the middle of February some of the battles were lost by the Finns. At the Mannerheim Line the Russians placed their artillery hub to hub, used a vast quantity of ammunition, used masses of tanks with increasing skill, and made determined attacks from the air. The Russian tanks, planes, guns, and anti-tank equipment all worked well; tractors and trucks, however, were decidedly below standard and the Russian light machine-gun was defective. While their heavy guns toppled the Finnish forts forward, the Russians used relays of fresh soldiers against the tired Finns. It was something like the German attack on Verdun in 1916. The Finnish officers' nerves were ravelled by the retreat. The Finnish people were shaken. But all were willing to continue the fight. Early in March Baron Mannerheim asked the Allies for 50,000 trained men in April and received promise of them. Then suddenly there was talk of peace. The Finns may have feared the Germans would come when the Bothnian ice melted; the Russians probably feared the Allies would come at once. So a compromise treaty was signed in Moscow on March 12; the fighting ceased on the morning of March 13; the treaty was ratified by Finland March 15.
End of War and Terms of the Treaty of Peace.
According to this Treaty of Moscow, Finland ceded to the Soviet Union: the isthmus of Karelia including Viborg, its Bay and its islands; certain islands in the Gulf of Finland; the western and northern shores of Lake Ladoga with the towns of Kakisalmi, Sortavala, and Suojarvi; territory east of Merkjarvi with the town of Kuolajarvi, this being a mouse-shaped area two thirds of the way northward from Lake Ladoga to the Arctic Ocean; the northwest lobe of the peninsula of Rybachy giving the Soviet Union a strategic advantage over Petsamo; and granted the Soviet Union, for a naval base at the entrance of the Gulf of Finland, a 30-year lease of the peninsula of Hangoe with surrounding waters and islands, at an annual rental of 8,000,000 Finnish marks (perhaps $300,000).
Finland also promised not to maintain large armed ships, submarines or war planes on the Arctic Coast or to build naval bases there. The Soviet Union promised to withdraw her troops from the Petsamo region; she withdrew them a few weeks later when the northern winter had broken. These new territories were not large but they brought great strategic advantages to the Soviet Union.
Thus a collective-farm and large-industry state of 170,000,000 defeated a peasant-proprietor, small-industry state of nearly 4,000,000. The Finns won the brilliant battles but the Soviets won the war by bulk. Finland, therefore, was forced to accept a dependent position similar to that of the declining Baltic states, to accept terms a little worse than she had refused in November, but she was far from the 'Soviet Finland' which the Soviet Union had proclaimed in December. She had the prestige of a brave nation. Soon after the Moscow Treaty nearly 500,000 Finns who had lived in the Karelian Ishmus trekked over the new border as refugees into Finland. The dominance of the Soviet Union over the north Baltic had also been indicated by the fact that Germany, to whom her kindred barons and gentry of the Baltic states had been valuable political pawns, was obliged to recall these people to Germany (late 1939).
International Effects of the War.
The Finnish war had numerous international effects. The Swedes and the Norwegians were loath to have the Allies send an army across their lands for they imagined that if they themselves kept out of the war they would remain unmolested (by Germany). When they refused passage to troops their action was a great relief to England and France, who had enough to do to fight Hitler. Rumania and the other Balkan states suddenly felt less secure, less able to defy the Great Powers. In the United States it had been confidently predicted that sympathy for Finland would be used to drag the United States into a war against Red Russia. If this was ever the intention, it failed. (See also FINLAND; EUROPEAN WAR: First Phase.)
Supreme Soviet, March 29-April 4.
Some six weeks before the meeting of the Supreme Soviet, the Communist Party began a period of election, choosing, in a somewhat democratic manner, about 600,000 local and minor officials, i.e., all the lower officials of the Party. Then came elections for the Supreme Soviet and the Soviet of Nationalities, elections in which even the new parts, like Russian Poland, managed to elect the standard 98 per cent of the official candidates.
When the Supreme Soviet convened on March 29, Viacheslav M. Molotov, President of the Council and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, had much to say. Less than two weeks previous to that date, Hitler and Ribbentrop had gone to Brennero to confer with Mussolini and Ciano; Paul Reynaud had succeeded Edouard Daladier as Premier of France. Premier Molotov did not consent to visit his allies in Berlin but he gave his views fully to the Soviet. He denounced British and French designs to 'dismember Germany' but declared that the Soviet Union's neutrality would be 'unswerving.' The supposed plans of the Soviet Government to march on Afghanistan or India, he denounced as 'absurd lies.' This brought an answer the next day from Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty; he said in a broadcast: 'It is no part of our policy to seek a war with Russia. . . . Our affair is with Hitler.' Hitler, in fact, required only ten days more to spring his attack on Norway. Molotov, however, had hard words to say about Finland and her friends. He spoke of the Paris police raid on the Soviet consulate and of the English seizure of two Russian ships en route to Vladivostok and said these affronts expressed the frustration of the British and French in their inability to use the Soviet Union against Germany. 'If there is any truth in their statement that they are trying to stop trade that would benefit Germany, why do they not stop the more important trade between Rumania and Germany? It is time,' he said, 'that these gentry understood that the Soviet Union never has been and never will be a tool of the policy of others, that the U.S.S.R. has always pursued its own policy and always will pursue it, irrespective of whether these gentry in other countries like it or not.'
Turning to the Finnish incident, which he twice called a 'war,' he spoke of the immense strength of the Mannerheim Line, of the cruel atrocities committed by the Finns against Russian prisoners, listed the help which came to Finland from all sources, reported Russian casualties as 49,000 dead and 159,000 wounded and the Soviet General Staff estimate of Finnish casualties as 60,000 dead and 250,000 wounded. 'There is no need,' he said, 'to cite other facts to show that what was going on in Finland was not merely our collision with Finnish troops. It was a collision with the combined forces of a number of imperialist states most hostile to the Soviet Union.' He explained that those nations had no obligation to Finland. Then why did they help her more than they helped Czechoslovakia or Albania? 'Their assistance is explained,' he said, 'by the fact that in Finland they had placed arms ready for an attack on the U.S.S.R., whereas Albania did not occupy such a place in their plans. . . . These plans were thwarted by the brilliant success of the Red Army, particularly on the Karelian Isthmus.'
Two days later the new Karelian-Finnish Republic was added to the Union by a law proposed by A. A. Zhdanov, Party Leader of Leningrad and Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Supreme Soviet. Whereas capitalist countries merely oppress their colonies, he explained, the Soviet Union seeks only to free its peoples and to include them in a free federation. Late in June, Otto Kuusinen, who had been head of the Finnish puppet government of December 1939, was reported elected to the Party presidium of the Karelio-Finnish Republic.
Annexation of the Baltic States and Bessarabia.
As Paris fell and France was approaching her collapse, the Soviet Union craftily and quickly set up her defenses against a victorious German Reich. For a day or two there were reports of Soviet demands upon the Baltic states for closer association; reports of the kidnapping of soldiers of the Soviet Baltic garrisons, e.g., by Lithuanians; indications that Soviet forces were being strengthened on the Polish-Lithuanian frontier. Then, June 15-17, the ultimatums fell one by one; Lithuania, then Latvia, then Estonia were summoned to grant free passage to more Soviet troops and to set up new governments that would be capable and honest in carrying out the mutual assistance pacts of October 1939. The demands were granted and Soviet troops immediately occupied the three little states. It was claimed that there had been a plot to attack the Russian garrisons.
A month later (July 14-15) the three countries held a two-day election 'to choose their new parliaments.' As at Vilna the previous year the Communists took precautions such as making wholesale arrests of army officers, former ministers and high officials. The elections were held under the Red Armies and by the guidance of a single party directed by Communists. It so happened that a multitude went to the polls and from 92 to 99 per cent voted for the candidates friendly to the Soviet Union. Street demonstrations and the local press called for incorporation in the Soviet Union as the only escape out of chaos into peace and security. Therefore a week later the new parliaments convened in the three states, set up soviet governments, and petitioned for admission to the Soviet Union. (See also ESTONIA; LATVIA; LITHUANIA.)
But there remained some two more weeks before the meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the Union on Aug. 1, and during that time many essential local changes were rapidly made, ostensibly by the local authorities: the Baltic armies were absorbed by the Russian army; the names of former high Baltic officials were sullied, e.g. one minister was assaulted, one president accused of embezzlement, etc.; the land, the industries and the banks were nationalized by the three Baltic governments; the introduction of collective farming was delayed, but the debts and taxes of poor peasants were annulled. In this way the brusque invasion of old rights and habits was accomplished before the little states were actually admitted to the Soviet Union. Already the three Baltic states were military camps of the Soviet Empire: a Soviet fleet occupied the Bay of Riga, and the principal cities were occupied by a total of perhaps 500,000 men.
On June 26, directly after the fall of France, the Soviet Union sent an ultimatum to King Carol of Rumania demanding the restoration of Bessarabia and the transfer of N. Bukhovina. Two days later Soviet troops began to occupy the territories but with considerable bloodshed. The Soviet press reported that their soldiers were greeted everywhere in Bessarabia with kisses and hugs. In this way the Soviet Union annexed a large province between the Dniester and the Pruth with a population of 3,000,000 of whom about 20 per cent are Ukrainian. The Union thus added to the safety of Odessa, pushed her frontier within forty miles of the rich oil fields of Moldavia, and finally, by securing supervision of the Danubian ports of Galati, Braila and Tulcea (west of the Pruth) she got a hand on the commerce of the Danube. Being interested in waterways the Soviet Union soon opened the Dniester to navigation (Sept. 19) and by Oct. 28 she was represented in the Conference to regulate the commerce of the Danube. The same month (Oct. 11) she made an agreement with Finland for the demilitarization of the Aaland Islands. Thus, though the fall of France left the Soviet Union to face alone the greatest military power of the Continent, the Union made some quick strokes to strengthen her frontiers.
On the crest of victory came the meeting of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, Aug. 1-7. The three Baltic states, N. Bukhovina and Bessarabia were admitted to the Union with great enthusiasm. Premier and Foreign Commissary Molotov again discussed Soviet foreign policy. The frontiers of the Soviet Union, he said, having shifted to the West, have reached the mighty Danube, a river second only to the Volga and a great commercial route to many countries. The affiliation of these new republics with the Union, he said, promises their rapid economic development and the flowering of their national culture. By admitting Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia and N. Bukhovina, he declared, we have added to the Union a population of 10,000,000 which, when joined with the 13,000,000 from former Poland, raises within one year the population of the Soviet Union from 170,000,000 to 193,000,000. These successes have all been achieved by our policy of peace. (See also EUROPEAN WAR: Third Phase.)
The Budget.
A more prosaic topic of the Supreme Soviet was the budget for 1940. On the debit side the major sources of revenue were, first, the sales or turnover tax, which has in recent years provided about 3/4 of the annual budget; second, an increased income tax; third, the State mass loans providing perhaps 5 per cent. The total budget was to be more than 182,000,000,000 rubles (Rubles: 5 to the dollar, officially; unofficially, 10 or more). As compared with the previous year, the budget showed an increase of 18 per cent, but the military portion an increase of 38 per cent; thus, whereas the military portion of the budget of 1939 was 26 per cent of the total, the military portion in 1940 was to be 31 per cent of a larger total. On the other hand, cuts in the bureaucracy were to save about 1 per cent on the budget. The economic and social items were still high: education, exercise and health, 23½ per cent; a large allowance for new tractor stations, including 275 in new Russian Poland. Whereas Lenin had expected to control the villages largely by electrification, Stalin does so by tractoration. The new income tax law had some curious increases and exemptions. It started on low incomes falling on all wages over 150 rubles per month, except that 'Heroes of the Soviet Union,' 'Heroes of Labor,' and those having the 'Revolutionary Sword of Honor' are not taxed at all on wages or salaries and they pay on other kinds of income only when it exceeds 500 rubles a month. Also exempt are: students with scholarships up to 210 rubles a month; army and navy men; persons on pension or those with unearned incomes of less than 50 rubles per month. Wages over 150 rubles pay less than 1 per cent on the income as a whole plus 3 per cent on the amount over 150 rubles, but from there the rate is graduated up so that salaries of 1,000 or more pay more than 4 per cent on the salary as a whole and 7 per cent on the amount over 1,000 rubles. Craftsmen and artisans pay 4 to 10 per cent surtax; drivers for hire and independent craftsmen producing from their own materials and selling pay a 35 per cent surtax; priests and 'non-workers,' 40 per cent surtax; most surprising, writers and artists, whose royalties used to be exempt to a high figure, are now taxed 8 per cent on any income up to 150 rubles per month, with increases beyond. This budget, the largest Russia had ever known, was passed with very little discussion.
Reports of the Supreme Soviet's meeting were received with enthusiasm, particularly the Molotov report on the diplomatic situation. Every word of this report, said one resolution, 'deals a well-aimed blow at the British-French warmongers and their hired agents.'
But the budget did not seem adequate. On July 1 the government floated a new loan of 8,000,000,000 rubles to run 20 years at 4 per cent. From the fact that the Trade Union Council 'recommended' that each workman subscribe from two to four weeks' wages, it was clear that the government was raising money by an almost forced loan but, according to the Russian money market, was paying a fair interest for it. The loan was floated to promote the 5-Year Plan and to improve defense.
Soviet Economy.
The general wealth of the people, however, was increasing less rapidly than the Federal budget. There were hardships during the Finnish war. Before the end of January water rates were tripled and gas rates almost doubled in Moscow. Because transportation was overburdened and engines hampered by excessively low temperatures, milk, potatoes, vegetables, meat, fish and fuel became scarce in Moscow. Food prices rose considerably; breadlines were reappearing; peasants came to town seeking food until an order went out prohibiting peasants from boarding the Moscow trains within sixty miles of the city, unless they had special permits. A speaker in the Moscow Soviet (Feb. 27) severely criticized the local transportation. Another speaker declared that 1,000 taxis were out of order, awaiting repairs; a government official said that half of the idle 560 taxis were out of order. The hotels seemed to be full of Germans who bought freely from the depleted shops to send food to their families in Germany. Several of the provinces were in worse condition than Moscow.
Yet below these war hardships the socialist economy seemed to be sound. In January the State Planning Commission reported that in the previous year (1939) the production (reckoned in rubles) had shown a 14.7 per cent average increase over the production of the preceding year, including a gain of 46.5 per cent in the defense industries. Thus the plan for 1939, which called for an increase of 14 per cent, had resulted in an increase of 14.7 per cent. Late in the spring some industries were reported lagging: daily car-loadings had increased very little; the foundries were slow and had a high rate of spoilage; oil and gold were lagging; because of poor methods and defective discipline production of railway cars was far behind schedule. In Ukraina a Communist leader in Kiev complained of the shortage of fodder and yet said their live stock should be increased a hundred fold. It was also complained that citizens were apparently eating half their pigs with their hide on them, for, while 8,000,000 pigs had been slaughtered, only 4,000,000 hides had reached the tanneries. Perhaps private enterprise was breaking out again. But if the Gosplan's figures in rubles were trustworthy, the Soviet economy was steadily advancing.
Waterways.
Waterways showed more advance than did oil production. May 7 opened the Samu-Divichinsk Canal running parallel to the shore of the Caspian Sea from Derbent 66 mi. southward toward Baku. It provides irrigation for 25,000 acres of vegetables and vineyards and furnishes water power. It is soon to be extended the other 60 mi. to Baku to provide another supply of water to that city of 800,000 and to irrigate a second large area. It was reported that almost 1,000,000 farmers were at work far to the east of the Caspian constructing a great Usbek irrigation system. The promising Don-Volga project, however, was shelved, because the distance and the rocky hills would require about ten times the work that was necessary to construct the Panama Canal.
But the greatest canal of the year was opened early in August, the Pripet canal, completing the waterway connection between the Black Sea and the Baltic. It ran 125 mi. with 8 locks. It drained the Pripet marshes, opening 250,000 acres to cultivation, saving the cities of White Russia from being surrounded annually by the waters of spring, perhaps eliminating the mosquitoes and the fever. Not only barges but ships were enabled to leave the Black Sea east of Odessa, go up the Dnieper and the Pripet, through the canal, down the Bug and the Vistula to the Baltic. The route therefore touches Kherson, Kiev, Pinsk, Brest-Litovsk, passes 20 mi. north of Warsaw, and ends at Danzig. It provides cheap transportation for oil, grain and metals from south Russia to north Germany and will facilitate cultural contacts the whole distance. The Bolsheviks have done more than the Tsars to unite and develop the country.
Oil production.
On the other hand, oil production was down. The Caucasian fields (Baku) fulfilled only half of their program during the first quarter of 1940. Late in February it was reported that Soviet Russia had spent more than $2,000,000 buying drilling rigs in the United States and several million more in the purchase of refining equipment. Soviet Russia was still second country in oil resources in the world, producing about 15 per cent as much as United States, yet her own needs for her trucks and tractors were so great that she exported, ordinarily, only 2 or 3 per cent of her total product. The main difficulty was the lack of refining facilities. Another difficulty was transport. The old, 8-inch pipe line from Baku to Batum (500 mi.) was supplemented by a new, 10-inch pipe, so that the two could deliver annually about 2,500,000 tons to the Black Sea, the Danube, etc. Early in the year new oil barges of capacity from 250 to 4,000 tons, to be drawn by tugs, were constructed for oil traffic on the Volga River system up to Moscow. Wharves were enlarged; the eastern Russians were overhauling their oil fleet to carry Sakhalin oil up the Amur River. The Dnieper-Vistula waterway was also counted on for the transport of oil. In February a Russian tanker reached Bulgaria in accordance with a new trade treaty. It was the first Russian ship in Bulgarian waters since 1915 and crowds welcomed the crew at Varna with fruit and wine. The bi-monthly Moscow-Sofia air line was opened earlier the same month. By these means the government hoped to produce and market more oil.
How much grain and oil Germany was getting from Russia, it was difficult to find out. Before the Polish war Russia was exporting very little of either grain or oil and it was a question how much sacrifice she would make. Nor could Rumania furnish Germany much oil, nor the Danube valley furnish her food in large quantities, partly again because of limited transportation. Late in May the exporters in New York heard that the Soviet leaders, stunned by Germany's conquest of the Low Countries and uneasy about Ukraina, were sending her very little in the way of supplies. Thus, as in the World War, Germany is statistically quite unable to get adequate supplies, yet she fights lustily on.
Trade with the United States.
The trade of the United States with the U.S.S.R., during the seven months from the outbreak of the Polish war to the end of the Finnish war, showed exports to Russia 81 per cent above the figure for the same period of the preceding winter. In fact United States exports, to the Allies and neutral countries generally, increased about enough to compensate for the loss of the Nazi-Fascist markets. Early in 1940, however, the United States sent to the U.S.S.R. greatly increased quantities of iron, steel and copper, i.e., raw materials useful in war. Later in the year the value of American exports to Russia dropped from $13,000,000 in January to $500,000 in May and it was still very low in July. One obstacle was export licenses, especially for machine tools. The annual trade treaty was renewed Aug. 5 and ratified in Moscow Aug. 7 and business increased. Soviet Russia needed gasoline, machine tools, drilling equipment, and machines to mine the copper around Alma Ata in Kazakstan. Her September orders included $30,000,000 worth of machines and machine tools.
Early in the fall the Soviet Union made a trade agreement also with Sweden for machine tools and steel in return for oil, manganese and fodder. A Soviet Consulate was established in Budapest in November. A trade treaty with Slovakia was signed in December.
Since by the beginning of summer American ships were prohibited from plying in the Barents Sea or in the Mediterranean, the whole volume of the United States-Soviet Russia trade tended to go across the Pacific to Vladivostok. Early in December, therefore, after long conversations between Undersecretary Sumner Welles and Ambassador Oumansky, it was announced that Angus I. Ward would go abroad to complete arrangements for the new American Consulate General at Vladivostok. The Consulate will be a very important business center and a listening post for imperialistic rivalries in the Far East. Thus Vladivostok may draw two great countries closer together, under the eyes of Japan. Another sign of improved relations was the hundreds of American visitors at the Soviet Embassy in Washington for the celebration of the Bolshevik anniversary (Nov. 7).
Foreign Relations.
For further data on the Soviet Union's foreign relations, see articles on BULGARIA; GERMANY; ITALY; JAPAN; and TURKEY.
Social Changes.
These great changes in Soviet business and in Soviet foreign relations were hardly more important than the new social conditions and the new spirit promoted by a series of decrees, most of them in the first half of the year, decrees affecting the farmers, the workmen, the army, and touching the mental and moral attitudes of Soviet citizens.
In order to drive the collective farmers forward, the Council of Commissaries issued a decree April 7 requiring crop deliveries no longer according to sowings but according to total acreage. The purpose was to push cultivation or stock-breeding on marginal lands — of which Russia has so many. The other part of this policy was to extend the resettlement that has been tried in recent years, first with millions of exiled kulaks sent to dig irrigation ditches in deserts or open Arctic Siberia to habitation; then with other settlers, invited or sent to try to fill up the Far East against the danger from Japan. In the thirties an average of a quarter of a million people a year had passed the Urals into Siberia, but most of them went to the new factory towns like Novosibirsk. By the late thirties the resettlement was much better organized. The government made preliminary preparations, furnished free transportation, food, stock and seed. In 1940 the authorities were even trying to transfer whole little communities of people who were accustomed to work together. The same year the government had plans to resettle 140,000 people on Siberian lands. This policy was to provide for the thousands of rather extra people who had not very hard work in the collective farms because of increased labor-saving machinery, and, at the same time, to apply their labor to undeveloped rich lands. It was said that two million of these could be spared at once and that many of them had also said they were willing to go. They might do better in Siberia. These policies of forcing the use of marginal lands and transferring marginal farmers to more efficient work must have affected nearly half the population of the Soviet Union; the collective farmers make up 44 per cent of the population as against less than 2 per cent composed of individual peasants. These policies grew out of Russia's farm problem of two decades and out of the discovery that a planned society needs to be planned not only economically but geographically.
Two months later the government stiffened the discipline of the workers. The workers had in the previous year (January 1939) been required to carry record books, to give a month's notice before quitting and to be quite punctual in their working hours. In 1940, by the decree of June 26, the Council of Commissaries abolished the convenient Bolshevik calendar with its week of 5 working days of 7 hours each, and returned to the customary week of 6 working days of 8 hours each, an addition of a little more than 6 hours' work per seven days. Further, the worker wishing a change not only had to give notice but to get permission, for if he left his job without permission he could be sent to prison. On Aug. 9, Commissary of Justice N. H. Richkov, ordered the dismissal of all judges who were not strict with tardy, idle or wayward workmen. Procedure was hastened and a few penalties were increased. When one adds to this the income tax levied on wages over a mere 150 rubles per month and the almost required loans collected, one can see how the workmen's incomes were reduced and their hours lengthened — for the sake of production, and defense.
After the difficulty of defeating little Finland (and the 'imperialist states' in combination with her) the Red Army could expect new discipline. Most of the military titles had already been restored as far back as 1935, except the title 'General' which had been marred in the slogan of hated authorities — 'Landlords, Capitalists, Generals.' In 1937 Marshals had been killed and Marshals had been made. In 1940, by decree of May 8, the various grades of general were restored and the list of officers' titles was completed in both army and navy. The officers were given positive control over their men and were to be saluted by them even when off duty. Pravda called for the 'strengthening of military discipline,' for the end of 'familiarity and false democracy,' and spies were appointed to report both men and officers for any neglect of the new code. Though Communist doctrine was still taught, the new officer no longer had to argue with the political commissioners or agents. These stormy petrels had appeared naturally during 1917, had gradually lost influence during the busy 5-Year Plans, had been definitely strengthened again in 1937 by Stalin, over the dead bodies of Marshals Tukhachevsky and Bluecher, but they were now out of place in a strict system and their definite demise was announced Aug. 12. If an officer kept much of the democratic manner, a spy would report him and a judge would scold or punish him until he had more selfish confidence — lest he curry favor with common soldiers or sailors. So the Red Army which started in 1918, so free, hopeful and unconventional in organization and spirit, had to restore one means of discipline after another in order to match the efficiency and order of its enemies. Communism is now quite competitive.
While the Communist leaders were increasing the discipline of the workers and of the army, they organized a new group between the two, a kind of industrial militia somewhat on the Nazi pattern. A decree of Oct. 3 authorized the annual mobilization of about one million Russian youths for industrial training and work, a multitude of young men to use as labor reserves. Called from city and country alike, some youths at 14 or 15 were to go to professional or railway schools; others of 16 or 17 were to go to industrial schools. After a period of training the young men were to work four years on state enterprises. During the whole period they were exempt from military service. The new army regulations, labor code and the drafting of labor reserves were all decreed after the German successes in Norway and were designed to form a more military society. (See also COMMUNISM.)
Moral Changes.
The popular spirit seemed to adjust itself to regimentation and to life under the police. The average Russian did not seem to resent the loss of his liberty. He was much occupied in his daily work, in hunting out and buying his daily necessities, and in the social life of factory and tenement. Politics? No. His country had had enough of war and revolution; then the purges had showed what political meddling leads to. It is better to read the papers: Pravda and Izvestia can always explain things, tell one what to think and what to do. So, though he did not always comply with it, he accepted with a pervasive apathy the society which had been growing more rigid and close during the Thirties. Anything seemed better than going back to those dark days of capitalists, landlords and Tsars. Besides, Soviet Russia was becoming the greatest land in the world.
A second moral change was the submission to the censors. Unlike Afghanistan or Tibet some decades ago, lands that were closed but seemed bound ultimately to respond to science, travel and civilization, Soviet Russia was once open but is now become closed. Most of the foreign correspondents have departed; only German newsmen seem to get enough to justify remaining. As the doors close it may become almost impossible for a foreigner to collect enough information to fill a good book on Soviet Russia. At the same time the minds of the Russians are being closed up and varnished over. There is no more desire to stir world revolution. As G. E. R. Gedye explained in The New York Times (Sept. 13-15), the Russian loses all conception of a foreign country and thinks of 'abroad' as an odd, extreme void where happen such fantastic things that only a double-Dostoyevsky could recount them. Fortunately in the Soviet papers everything is true and nothing important is omitted. So the papers are the obvious guide for a sane citizen.
Furthermore, whereas Russia of the Twenties used to give writers high honor and certain immunities, in 1940 income tax falls on writers as soon as they earn more than a pittance. Then, in popular education, the 1939 census showed that less than 10 per cent of the people had had a secondary education and less than 1 per cent had had any college training whatever. In December 1939, shortly after Stalin's 60th birthday, 1900 Stalin Fellowships were started in institutions of higher education, but the decree of Oct. 3, 1940 required all secondary school students to pay 150 to 200 rubles tuition per year and all college students to pay 300 to 400 rubles tuition per year — high sums for a proletarian classless society. However, 81 per cent of the population are literate and can read the Soviet propaganda.
In these ways the Russian soul became adjusted to a Communistic regimented society under a dictator like Comrade Stalin.
May Day.
The great Soviet Union showed her might as usual on May Day by celebrations in cities, including Viborg. In Moscow, Marshal Voroshilov made a brief speech. Litvinov was not seen. The parade included more tanks than formerly and several new types of planes. There was also the portrait of the German Communist, Ernst Thaelmann, beginning a seven-year prison term without trial. There were delegates from all parts of the Union and from the Baltic states and Bulgaria, and German officers and diplomats resplendent in their uniforms.
New Appointments.
A week later there were high military appointments. Grigory Kulik, Boris Shaposhnikov, the Chief of Staff, and Simeon Timoshenko were all made marshals of the Red Army; the last, Marshal Timoshenko, being appointed People's Commissar of Defense in place of Klementi E. Voroshilov. Marshal Voroshilov, Defense Commissar since 1925, member of the Politbureau since 1926, became Vice Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and Chairman of the Council's Defense Committee. An earlier appointment, in January, had been A. I. Shakhurin to the post of Commissar of Aviation, relieving M. M. Kaganovich for other duties. In February the respected historian and diplomat, Vladimir P. Potemkin, thought by some to be marked as the successor of Litvinov, was transferred from Vice Commissar of Foreign Affairs to Commissar for Education in the R.S.F.S.R.
Events Having Diplomatic Bearing.
In June Sir Stafford Cripps, who had recently enjoyed the assistance of both Chinese and Soviet officials in his study of conditions in Sinkiang, was appointed British Ambassador to Moscow. Another event having diplomatic bearing took place in the Mexican village of Coyoacan Aug. 21, 1940: the assassination of Leon Trotsky. Before dying he said his murderer was 'a member of the OGPU or a Fascist — most likely the OGPU.'
Soviet Attitude at the End of 1940.
Toward the end of the year 1940 Japan strove to draw the Soviet Union to support her war against China but in December and January the Union made commercial treaties with Chiang Kai-shek promising war materials in exchange for wool and tea. Likewise in November and December, while Italy was trying to make war on Greece and while Germany, moving hundreds of thousands of her troops into Rumania, seemed about to violate Bulgaria for an attack on Salonika, still the Soviet Union consented to no extension of German control south of the Danube. There, too, Soviet Russia stood firm but held herself aloof from the fighting.
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