If 1941 brought Russia to the brink of disaster as German armies began in November and early December to penetrate the outskirts of Moscow from three sides, the year 1942 opened and closed with the firm conviction that the Germans could be driven out. The Summer Campaign of 1942, with which the German High Command planned to knock Russia out or at least cripple her decisively for the duration, was finally stopped at Stalingrad and thrown into reverse in November. It became evident that the Russians were becoming relatively stronger than the Germans on the eastern front, due chiefly to their greater reserves in manpower and to their amazing morale. To cap it all a 'second front' was definitely on the way.
The relations of the Soviet Union with the United Nations were consolidated by Russia's formal acceptance of the Atlantic Charter, the alliance with Great Britain and the Lend-Lease Agreement with the United States. They became, in fact, the backbone, not only of assistance to Russia in matériel and other necessities, but also of a second front, the beginnings of which were delayed until early in November. As these nations gradually gained confidence in each other in the achievement of these negotiations, a real coalition in the military sphere, as well as in war aims, became a possibility.
The internal front, subordinated to the duty of helping in an all-out menacing military situation, continued to match the heroic armies, battling fiercely to free Russia from the invaders, with complete and whole-hearted acceptance of extreme privation and virtually complete regimentation. Civilian needs vanished in the midst of a gigantic effort to supply the front against staggering losses in territories and manpower. The fundamental eastward shift of economic basis toward the Urals and beyond, which was in process before Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, was accelerated and an increased tempo of war production was achieved in the rest of Russia, thus making up to a certain extent losses which were grave, but not fatal because of these factors.
Winter-Spring Campaign, 1941-42.
The Battle of Moscow was lost by Nazi Germany on Dec. 6, 1941, the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. On that day, the Russian High Command, sensing the exhaustion of the German forces, struck in the Kalinin sector of the central front at Dmitrov and Volokolamsk and near Kalinin. At the same time the Berlin radio announced that German armies were on the defensive along the entire front. It was under such circumstances that the Russians seized the initiative. Kalinin itself fell to the Russians on Dec. 16, Volokolamsk four days later, Kaluga on Dec. 30, Maloyaroslavets on Jan. 2, and Mozhaisk on Jan. 22. Moscow, whose suburbs had seen German scouts, had been saved.
In the meanwhile Russian armies advanced in the northwest. Tikhvin, important as a barrier to the junction of German and Finnish armies in the siege of Leningrad, was recaptured on Dec. 9 after being in the hands of the Germans for a month. Voibokala, on Leningrad-Tikhvin railroad, fell on Dec. 20. A week later fighting developed around Volkov. Between Jan. 11 and 23 Selizharovo, Kholm, Toropets, Staraya, Toropa and Dno were occupied in the advance through the Valdai Hills to cut the German supply lines to Leningrad from the south and to develop a menacing wedge northwest of Smolensk. The railroad from Rzhev to Velikie Luki was cut and by Jan. 24 Russian armies were seeking to surround both places.
To the south and southwest of Moscow, Elets was occupied on Dec. 9, Naro Fominsk on Dec. 26, Mosalsk and Serpeisk on Jan. 9.
On the southern front, Rostov fell to the Russians on Nov. 29 and an advance had been made in the Taganrog sector early in December. Kerch on the Crimean peninsula was occupied by a naval expedition early in January. In the last two weeks of the month Marshal Semeon Timoshenko launched a drive which succeeded in capturing Lozovaya, 75 miles south of Kharkov and 62 miles northeast of Dnepropetrovsk (Dniepropetrovsk).
Early in February Russian armies were threatening Smolensk and Kharkov and hammering on the German lines around Leningrad. Russian troops in the northwest had entered Usvyaty and Zaikovo in White Russia on Feb. 13. Although Smolensk was threatened from the Velikie Luki sector on the northwest and from Dorogobush from the southeast, the fortified pocket which included Rzhev and Viazma stood firm against Russian attacks and saved Smolensk. Marshal Timoshenko's armies threatened the southern Ukraine in the Lozovaya-Likhachovo sector, cutting off Kharkov from the south, but they seemed unable to take either that city or advance to Dniepropetrovsk.
The inclement weather, which was to bring slush and mud and many heavy rains and make large-scale movements virtually impossible, now set in. It was at this time that the agitation for a second European front gained momentum. It was not to end until an American-British army landed in North French Africa early in November.
From the end of February until May minor operations took place. The Russians were busy nipping off German wedges into their line and poking similar ones into the German line. Yukhnov, 130 miles southwest of Moscow, was taken by the Red Army on March 5. In the middle of the month Marshal Timoshenko was reported 'penetrating Orel, encircling Kursk, and nearing the suburbs of Kharkov.' Minor operations continued in this area for six weeks, while the German garrison in Staraya Russa in north was being besieged. Toward the end of March and during April, occasional counter-attacks by German forces were reported. At one point the Russians approached to within 40 miles northwest of Smolensk and 25 miles north of Kharkov. At the end of April the Soviet Information Service claimed that the Germans were concentrating 90 per cent of their forces for the coming attack on Russia. Hitler, in his speech before the Reichstag on April 26, admitted the grave peril, 'the threat of disaster,' in which the army, overtaken by the coldest of winters four weeks earlier than expected, 'could not be allowed either to stream back or to stay in posts then occupied (while) in the midst of an advance.' Defiantly he declared 'the battle in the East will be continued. The Bolshevist colossus will be hit until it is destroyed.'
At the end of April it became imperative for the Russians to forestall the summer campaign planned by the Germans and accordingly Marshal Timoshenko began a major drive in the second and third week of May which appeared to have Kharkov and the southern Ukraine as its objective. In line with this strategy the garrison in Sevastopol was to hold as long as possible. (Sevastopol surrendered only after a long and stubborn fight on July 3.) The Germans met the advance upon Kharkov by an attack beginning May 19, in the Izyum-Borvenkova sector, 80 miles southeast of that city and by driving the Russians out of Kerch and intensifying the seven-month-old siege of Sevastopol. As it became clear that the German forces aimed at Rostov and the Caucasus, the Russian attack on Kharkov slackened. On June 26 the Germans broke through at Kupyansk and the initiative in the summer campaign passed to the Germans.
The Red Army had held the initiative about six months. During that time it had saved Moscow and pushed the German army from 100 to 200 miles away from the capital in so decisive and costly a manner that a second frontal assault would have been foolhardy. Immense losses and indescribable suffering had been inflicted on the 'invincible' Nazi army. Its generals had been ousted by Hitler and his new appointees and then recalled toward the end of the period. At one time in January and February the entire German front was put in danger. Marshal Timoshenko had succeeded in delaying the German summer offensive — a fact that was to count decisively in the plans of the Soviet High Command which called for another winter offensive. Immense quantities of material had been destroyed and countless booty had fallen into the hands of the Russians. German power and German prestige had suffered a mighty blow from which it became more and more evident that it had not recovered.
Summer Campaign of 1942.
The break-through at Kupyansk on June 26 became the signal for the launching of the long expected German drive and their seizure of the initiative. Two days later the German army advanced on a 50-mile front east of Kursk, its northern flank headed for Livny, its center for Voronezh, and its southern flank for Staryi Oskol. Its general direction indicated the objective of separating the armies of Gen. Gregory Zukhov on the central front from those of Marshal Timoshenko on the southern front by seizing Voronezh, from which strategic center, dominating the upper Don, the Germans might later wheel around to the north after taking Saratov and strike Moscow from the rear, isolating it from the Urals. At the same time they then could turn south from Voronezh to overrun the region between the Don and the Volga, thus cutting off northern Russia from the south.
The advance from Kursk was checked by the Russians at Livny in the north and at Staryi Oskol in the south, while the center, following the Kursk-Voronezh railway made speed to the western banks of the Don opposite Voronezh. On July 7 the Germans claimed Voronezh. Apparently there was street-fighting which resulted in a major setback for the Germans. They lost the strategic value of Voronezh when the Russians attacked northwest of the city and succeeded in establishing bridgeheads west of the Don by the end of July. Here German strategical plans to seize Voronezh, go on to Sartov on the Volga, and thereafter advance northward behind Moscow were definitely frustrated. This proved to be one of the decisive events of the Summer Campaign in 1942.
On July 2 other German forces attacked further south in the vicinity of Belgorod and Volchansk, northeast of Kharkov, and broke through on a wide front. Marshal Timoshenko withdrew his forces to the Don, covering his retreat with artillery and heavy tanks. The spearhead of the German armies in this region covered an average of 15 miles per day during the first week. Rossosh, on the Moscow-Rostov railway and Kantemirovka were occupied on July 9-10. Two days later the Don was reached at Boguchar which fell into their hands. From here the army turned south into the area west of the bend of the Don.
Strong forces based on Lisichansk, occupied July 12, dashed eastward to Millerovo, further south than Rossosh on the Moscow-Rostov railway. After taking this important town on July 15, they advanced eastward to the Don in the direction of Kletskaya and southward toward the lower Don, in the direction of Tsimlyansk, outflanking the Russian line extending from Tagaurog to Slavyansk on the Donets, which Marshal Timoshenko had set up to defend Rostov from the north. After cutting the Rostov-Stalingrad railway, which runs through Likhaya, on July 17, German forces reached Tsimlyansk on the Don the next day. Four days later they crossed the Don threatening Rostov from the east and Kotelnikovski from the southwest.
Coincident with the Millerovo break-through, a German army crossed the Donets southeast of Lisichansk, captured Voroshilovgrad on July 17 and pushed on toward Novocherkassk. This caused the Russians to begin their withdrawal from Rostov which fell after a powerful tank attack on July 23-24. Four days later Novocherkassk succumbed.
The fall of Rostov, 'gateway to the Caucasus,' doubtless brought into operation a major decision by the Russian High Command which was to defend the Caucasus with relatively minor forces, while the greater part of those which had been defending Rostov were withdrawn eastward to block the road to the Volga and the Caspian. In this way, as Stalin indicated, the Russians avoided the trap to allow large forces to be separated, on the road to the Caucasus, from the main southern army which planned to prevent the Germans from crossing the Volga and wheeling northward behind Moscow and at the same time to protect the Caspian, a direct route to the Caucasus and Transcaucasus.
Following July 26 the Germans unfolded a three-prong attack on the road to the Caucasus. One part of the forces drove southeast to the valley of the Manych toward Salsk which they took on Aug. 1, another pushed on in the direction of Tikhoretsk, a key railway center, the junction of the Stalingrad-Novorossisk and the Rostov-Baku railroads. Tikhoretsk fell on Aug. 6. The advance was continued along the Rostov-Baku railway past Armavir, taken on Aug. 8, Pyatigorsk following two days later, Georgievsk five days after that. Off to the west, Maikop and Krasnodar fell, between Aug. 9 and 20. By Aug. 26 German forces were operating in the Mozdok area some fifty miles from the Grozny oil fields. In the meanwhile, the third group of forces had cleared the coast of the Sea of Azov by Aug. 25 and by Sept. 12 had taken the Black Sea naval base of Novorossisk. Due east of Salsk, the capital of the Kalmyk Republic, Elista, had been occupied on Aug. 13. Beyond Elista, Mozdok and Novorossisk the drive slackened after Sept. 15 and little actual progress was made in the foothills of the Caucasus.
The retreat of the minor Russian forces, designated for this purpose, had been so rapid that no armies were trapped or crushed and hence no military decision was achieved. The Germans had greatly extended their lines. Except for the Maikop oil field, which yielded 7 per cent of Russia's production and was destroyed, wells and refineries, no other oil field had been taken. Stubborn resistance blocked the Germans beyond Mozdok on the Terek, and later beyond Nalchik on the road to Ordzhonikidze, the terminus of the Ossetian Highway and the Georgian Military Road across the Caucasus, as well as at Tuapse, the provisional Russian naval base on the Black Sea. To the German armies battling in the foothills, the Caucasus must have looked forbidding as they towered thousands of feet above them. And so they proved to be. They were a mirage beyond which was oil!
Having failed to decoy the main part of Timoshenko's armies to the south, German strategy faced the task of a frontal attack all along the Don and the Volga beyond, against the bulk of his forces. The advance to the Caucasus had drawn off large German forces and delayed the attack on the middle Don. This delay probably saved Stalingrad and the Russian plan of campaign.
From July 22 to Aug. 4 the Germans, crossing the lower Don in several places, advanced on Kotelnikovski, from which place Stalingrad could be attacked along the railroad from the southwest. By the end of July, the Germans had entered the bend of the Don west of Stalingrad near Kalach and Kletskaya. Two weeks later (Aug. 11) they broke through south of Kletskaya, and this made further resistance of the Russians in the bend of the Don virtually impossible. Their forces either withdrew or were captured or mopped up in the course of a week.
Attempts were now made to relieve the southern front between the Don and the Volga by diversions in the north. The Leningrad besiegers were attacked, a pocket was created at Volkov, and there was action near Orel and Bryansk. The result was negligible. The Germans wiped out the Volkov pocket and bettered their position at Rzhev. This was in July. In August (4-11) the Russians initiated a drive to seize Rzhev and advanced far enough to engage in street-fighting in that important 'springboard for an attack on Moscow.' But the offensive apparently failed of its purpose, as did also fighting in the Kaluga region.
Beginning Aug. 21, von Bock, the German commander-in-chief on the southern front, initiated the attack on Stalingrad, the key city of the Don-Volga region south of Voronezh. Here was to be repeated the strategy which failed at Voronezh in July and was to result in one of the greatest sieges of history. On that day the Germans advanced across the Don in force near Kletskaya. Here the region between the Don and the Volga, really one of the most famous and most important of all of Russia's portages, is about 40 miles wide. It was in reality the bottleneck of southern Russia. To win Stalingrad was to cut off a large tonnage of river traffic essential to all that part of central Russia that lives on its oil, wheat, coal and manganese. To be able to use Stalingrad as a pivot from which to advance northward behind Moscow was worth the greatest of exertions by the Germans. Here, at this city, they determined to hurl all their remaining power in reserves. Here was their chance to win the war in the east in 1942.
The Germans, already a month late according to their schedule, began the siege on Aug. 25. They had cut the railway lines running from the north, west and the southwest into Stalingrad. On the flat steppe land, varied only by low hills, Marshal Timoshenko had created a defense in the depth of some twenty to thirty miles outside the city to the east of which flowed the Volga. A stolid infantry and an excellent artillery were to defend this important strategic position against some 30 to 40 divisions, a decisive tank superiority and about 1,000 planes.
Advancing deliberately, the Germans broke into the outskirts from the southwest on Sept. 12. Two days later they occupied a hill on the northwest. They penetrated the remaining outskirts on Sept. 16 and held small footholds both north and south of Stalingrad on the Volga. Their bombers made havoc east of the Volga in hampering transport, by river and land, destined to relieve the besieged city. To the great surprise of the Germans, Stalingrad, whose streets and buildings were systematically bombed, did not yield. It became, in fact, a great fortress although it had been but an open city on the Russian steppe. Fighting in the mass in the city was impossible. Tank attacks were of limited value. Russian Volga gunboats and Siberian troops became a sensation, as the one poured a deadly fire into the German positions and as the other doggedly dug in. Already on Sept. 21, German sources intimated that the fall of Stalingrad had been delayed, but that it would be in German hands before winter.
Suffering great losses, the Germans occupied the workers' settlement on Sept. 27. The conflict was fought up to this time from one street to another amidst the ruins of buildings destroyed by air attacks and artillery fire. Thereafter, Germans and Russians struggled to take from each other single bunkers or houses, every part of which was used for the fight. On Oct. 2 the Luftwaffe raided the city with some 600 to 1,000 planes, while the next day the Russians counter-attacked in the northwest. Five days later the Germans announced their objective had been achieved, the city would be reduced by bombardment. Apparently the besiegers were getting tired. On Oct. 11 the Germans announced again that they had achieved their objectives, the center of the city had been taken. It was no longer necessary for the infantry to sacrifice itself, artillery and planes would finish the destruction. But four days later the Germans made another furious attempt with infantry to 'finish' the task. This, too, failed. It was plain that the Germans had exhausted themselves. It was of no avail that Hitler had ordered the city to be taken by Nov. 6. During the last days of October the British Eighth Army had routed Marshal Rommel's forces on the El Alamein line. On Nov. 7 an American-British expedition had landed in French North Africa. The rout in Libya and the successful occupation of French North Africa had taken the initiative from the Germans in a new theater of war closely connected with Europe. On Nov. 19 the Russians seized the initiative on the eastern front when they began the first of their drives to raise the siege and trap the besiegers of Stalingrad.
Winter Campaign, 1942-43.
The Winter Campaign began on Nov. 19, two weeks after the landing of the American-British expedition to French North Africa, when the first of several successive Russian drives began the encirclement of the German army before Stalingrad from the north and south and initiated a major offensive to seize Rostov and to bottle up the Nazi armies in the Caucasus region. These armies were now operating beyond Mozdok on the road to Grozny, beyond Nalchik in the direction of Ordzhonikidze and the Georgian Military Highway, and before the provisional Soviet naval base at Tuapse on the Black Sea. Ten days later (Nov. 29), the Soviet armies launched an offensive in the region of Velikie Luki on the central front. In this manner, for a second time during the period since Nazi Germany attacked Soviet Russia in June 1941, the Russians had seized the initiative from German armies which having failed to achieve their objectives were exhausting themselves, this time in the south, before and in Stalingrad and beyond Mozdok and Nalchik. In contrast to the previous winter, the cold weather was slow in coming and as a consequence the rivers had not frozen in the region of Stalingrad and to the south. This was a disadvantage to the attacking Russian armies.
Apparently, this winter, also in contrast to the last one, was to see not campaigns of limited objectives, but campaigns of major offensives whose purpose was to be the encircling and crushing of German armies and in which the action on both the southern and central fronts was to be coordinated so that the Russian forces on the central front would advance to the major objective of the encirclement of the German armies based on Smolensk, if the Germans weakened their central front to prevent disaster in the south. Because of the defeat of Rommel and the success of the American-British expedition to French North Africa, the Soviet High Command would be able to risk throwing in greater numbers of reserves, thus changing the operations from limited offensives to major offensives with vast potential strategic perspectives which envisaged the ultimate crumbling of the entire Nazi eastern front extended over 1,500 miles.
In the five weeks left of 1942, the siege of Stalingrad was transformed into the entrapment of 22 Nazi divisions, the middle Don was reoccupied, while the German advance in the foothills of the Caucasus was stopped and the Russian offensive from there begun. When the year closed the Red Army was battering at Kamenka, Voloshino, Tarasov and Tatinskaya in the eastern Donets valley. To the south, it had captured Kotelnikovski and advanced to the Sal river on the railroad toward Salsk and Tikhoretsk, the same time as other armies in the group captured Elista and Priyutnoe and approached Divnoe, a northern terminal of one of the Caucasian railway lines. Thus a line some 80 to 100 miles from Rostov curving south from the Donets to the Manych was being drawn around the Rostov position, endangering not only the city but the entire Nazi line extending into the foothills of the Caucasus.
With much pride a special Soviet communiqué on Dec. 31 announced, in a review of the winter campaign initiated on Nov. 19, that 175,000 Fascist officers and men were killed and 137,650 taken prisoners. It was claimed that 36 enemy divisions were completely routed, including six tank divisions, and heavy losses inflicted on seven other divisions. A 'tight circle' had been drawn about 22 divisions in the Stalingrad area. Among the enumerated classes of booty there were captured or destroyed: 1,791 planes, 3,251 tanks, 5,910 guns, 10,869 machine guns, and 20,444 trucks.
International Relations of the Soviet Union.
Joint Declaration of United Nations.
The year 1942 opened auspiciously on Jan. 1 with the Joint Declaration by the United Nations, then 26 in number, of which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was one. It stated that 'having subscribed to a common program of purposes and principles embodied in the Joint Declaration of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland dated Aug. 14, 1941, known as the Atlantic Charter,' each Government 'pledges itself to employ its full resources, military or economic, against those members of the Tripartite Pact and its adherents with which such government is at war' and 'to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto and not make a separate armistice or peace with the enemies.' By this act Russia was definitely and specifically committed to the purposes and principles of the Atlantic Charter and to make peace in common with the United Nations. Because the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan, that part of the Joint Declaration pertaining to military cooperation did not apply to Russo-Japanese relations.
The fundamental significance of this agreement was to become more evident as the war progressed and as the tide turned in favor of the United Nations. Russia had already adhered to the London Resolution on Postwar Plans, Sept. 24, 1941, whereby it 'approved' the Atlantic Charter and 'agreed to cooperate for the mutual rehabilitation' of the peoples of the United Nations. In the Joint Declaration of Jan. 1, 1942, the Soviet Union in a formal document now subscribed to the Atlantic Charter and 'pledged itself' to all the other United Nations to stay in the war to the end. In essence, then, the Russians had agreed (among other principles which were included in that document), that they sought 'no aggrandizement, territorial or other,' and 'no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned'; that they respected 'the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they live'; that they wished 'to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them'; that they would further 'the enjoyment by all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity'; that they hoped 'to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries ... free from fear and want'; that 'they believe that all the nations of the world ... must come to the abandonment of the use of force'; and that the aggressor nations shall be disarmed. The whole-hearted acceptance of these fundamentals would do much to allay suspicions, whether justified or not, and lay the basis for a growing confidence among the United Nations.
General War Strategy.
In regard to the general strategy of the war on the side of the United Nations it was first necessary to decide whether the bulk of the armed forces of England and the United States should be turned against Nazi Germany or Japan. Some time in the spring of 1942 this decision was definitely made. Nazi Germany was to be overcome first. The next questions were, how and when was this to be done, questions which dealt with the demand for a second front in Europe in 1942. Although those problems were definitely military problems they had to be decided through diplomatic channels since there was no supreme war council whose duty it was to do so. They became, therefore, a matter of public debate in anti-Axis countries. But since they involved military secrets, such debates could hardly satisfy their participants.
Arguments on Postwar Problems and Boundaries.
If the Soviet Union was to bear so great a burden in war, it was only natural that Stalin should endeavor to seek agreement on postwar problems and boundaries in Central and Eastern Europe. This was the opportune time for such negotiations. The voices of those who would openly oppose such an agreement were for the time silenced, though their opposition remained latent. They might at any time revive and prevent it. The agreements in 1941 with England, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the United States indicated Russia's desire not only to secure allies and aid, but also to make some progress along these lines. The Anglo-Soviet Treaty of July 12, 1941, called for the making of a common peace. The Treaty between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, signed on July 18, 1941, arranged for the formation of Czechoslovak military units on Russian soil and for a common policy in regard to Germany similar to the pre-Munich treaty between the two countries. The treaties (of July 30 and Dec. 4, 1941) between the Soviet Union and Poland recognized 'the Soviet-German treaties of 1939 as to territorial changes in Poland as having lost their validity,' called for a common war until complete victory against Nazi Germany was obtained, created Polish military units on Russian soil, and agreed that 'a new organization of international relations on the basis of the union of the democratic countries in a durable alliance' was the only way to 'ensure a durable and just peace.' 'Respect for international law, backed by the collective armed force of all the Allied States,' it was stated, 'must form the decisive factor in the creation of such an organization.' The Agreement of Aug. 2 with the United States provided for the continuation and facilitation of previous commercial arrangements, and the exchange of communications between President Roosevelt and Stalin on Oct. 30 and Nov. 4, 1941, arranged for a loan of $1,000,000,000 without interest under the Lend-Lease Act for the payment of armaments and war materials for the Soviet Union.
In a diplomatic situation which was developing in December 1941, the British Government, desiring to create as strong and durable a war front and postwar basis as possible, worked toward a more specific agreement with the Soviet Union, especially as this was Stalin's express and insistent desire. British statesmanship was considering either a division of Central Europe into Soviet and British spheres of influence or a joint guarantee of collective security, on the basis of a dual alliance. During the latter part of December, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden went to Moscow where he held long and thorough conferences with Stalin. It appears certain that the entire set of postwar problems was gone into. 'Strategic frontiers' were discussed and these probably included Bessarabia, Bukovina, the Baltic States, and the Soviet-Finnish frontier. A 'strong' Poland, the future of Germany, and agreement on Iran, it is stated, also came up for consideration.
There are indications that a draft of an Anglo-Soviet agreement was referred to Washington. President Roosevelt, fearing that the draft agreement would violate the principles of the Atlantic Charter, opposed it. The negotiations were thereupon shifted from the basis of spheres of influence and strategic frontiers to that of collective security, but not without British fears that Russia might be alienated.
The point of view of the United States favored a long-term agreement between Great Britain and the Soviet Union on the basis of the Atlantic Charter, 'safeguarding the security of both states, with the moral and whenever necessary the physical support of the United States,' the creation of a second front as soon as possible, and the increase and acceleration of supplies to the Soviet Union. The problem of 'strategic frontiers' was to 'remain open until after the war,' and the United States would agree to declare war upon Hungary, Bulgaria and Rumania, as desired by the Soviet Union, thus 'removing them from the boundary and other protections of the Atlantic Charter.'
Anglo-Soviet Alliance.
When Vyacheslav Molotov, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, arrived in London on May 21 to discuss the problems indicated above, he was informed of the course of these Anglo-American negotiations. Molotov referred the matter to Stalin who approved of the modified basis suggested by the United States. The result was the Anglo-Soviet Alliance of May 26, 1942.
The treaty of alliance went far beyond the previous agreement of July 12, 1941. The two Powers gave 'expression to their intention to collaborate closely with one another as well as with the other United Nations at the peace settlement and during the ensuing period of reconstruction on the basis of the principles enunciated' in the Atlantic Charter and desired 'to provide for mutual assistance in the event of attack upon either high contracting party by Germany or any of the states associated with her in acts of aggression in Europe.' Each pledged the other 'military and other assistance and support of all kinds in war against Germany and all those states which are associated with her acts of aggression in Europe,' and they undertook to make common war and negotiate or conclude the armistice or peace treaty together. They promised to 'take into account the interests of the United Nations in the establishment of peace, and they will act in accordance with the two principles of not seeking territorial aggrandizement for themselves and of non-interference in the internal affairs of other States.' Furthermore, they agreed 'to render one another all possible economic assistance after the war.'
Agreement with United States for Lend-Lease Assistance and Future Economic Expansion.
Molotov continued negotiations in Washington where on June 11, 1942, an agreement for assistance to the Soviet Union on the basis of the Lend-Lease Act was concluded and a loan of $3,000,000,000 extended. In the preamble of this agreement the Joint Declaration by the United Nations of Jan. 1, to which the Soviet Union subscribed was stressed. The President of the United States, pursuant to the Act of Congress of March 11, 1941, 'determined that the defense of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics against aggression is vital to the defense of the United States,' and, as a consequence, a preliminary agreement was signed similar to other Lend-Lease Master Agreements. The United States promised to continue to supply the Soviet Union with 'defense articles, defense services, and defense information' as authorized by the President, and the Soviet Union promised 'to continue to contribute to the defense of the United States and the strengthening thereof and will provide such articles, services, facilities or information as it may be in a position to supply.' The patent rights of citizens of the United States were expressly protected. As in the case of the Lend-Lease Master Agreement of Feb. 23, the Soviet Union pledged itself in Article VII 'not to burden commerce between the two countries, but to promote mutually advantageous economic relations between them and the betterment of world-wide economic relations. To that end, they shall include provision for agreed action by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America, open to participation by all other countries of like mind, directed to the expansion, by appropriate international and domestic measures, of production, employment, and the exchange and consumption of goods, which are the material foundations of the liberty and welfare of all peoples; to the elimination of all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce, and to the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers; and, in general, to the attainment of all the economic objectives set forth in the Joint Declaration [Atlantic Charter] made on Aug. 14, 1941, by the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the basic principles of which were adhered to by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Sept. 24, 1941.'
Question of a Second Front.
On June 11, 1942, it was announced in Washington and in London that 'in the course of the conversations, full understanding was reached in regard to the urgent task of creating a second front in Europe in 1942.'
This statement was taken by many to mean that a second front would be established in 1942. As the Russian armies lost the initiative late in June, and as results did not seem to be forthcoming from the conference of American and British political and military leaders in London a new agitation set in. The disastrous results of the Dieppe Commando raid on August 19 were used to point to the difficulties surrounding the establishment of a second front. It was intimated that the declaration had been made primarily as a move in the 'war of nerves' against Germany. The British disaster in Egypt at the end of June, the lagging war production in the United States, and the critical situation in the Southwest Pacific area all had their effect upon the timing of the expedition to French North Africa which was finally decided upon in June and worked out in detail in the London Military Conference in July. In the middle of August Prime Minister Churchill conferred with Stalin in Moscow. Here he had to tell Stalin that a second front in Europe was impossible in 1942 and explained the circumstances behind the decision to send an expedition to French North Africa.
Further public pressure in anti-Axis countries and his desire to explain Russia's reverses to the world as well as to her own people, led Stalin to give a statement to the Associated Press on October 4 as follows: 'As compared with the aid which the Soviet Union is giving the Allies by drawing upon itself the main force of the German fascists, the aid of the Allies to the Soviet Union has so far been little effective. In order to amplify and improve this aid, only one thing is required: that the Allies fulfill their obligations fully and on time.' Russian armies were fighting doggedly with their backs to the Volga, the Caspian, and the Caucasus and were desperately holding on to a part of Stalingrad. It was only when the British Eighth Army broke through the El Alamein Line at the end of October and the Anglo-British Expedition landed in French North Africa on Nov. 7 that the pressure for a second front subsided.
Relations with Japan.
Soviet Russia's relations with Japan rested on the precarious basis of the Treaty of Neutrality of April 13, 1941. From certain indications it would seem that Japan expected Hitler to have his way with Russia without war and to attack England vigorously, while she engaged in expansion in the South Seas and Southeast Asia. War between Germany and Russia greatly upset the calculations of the Japanese foreign office. As Hitler was unable to crush Russia, the Japanese view leaned to a truce between them, while, on the other hand, the Germans put pressure on Japan to concentrate their forces in the north on Russia, rather than in the south against the British Empire. To go ahead on their anti-Anglo-American policy, the Japanese tried to cripple the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. Determined to fight only on one front at a time, the Pacific front, and not add a second front on the northwest against Russia, until the proper time, the Japanese at times menaced the Russians to give pretended aid to Germany but they never allowed things to come to a break.
At one time, in April, 1942, a year after the signing of the neutrality pact, the Pravda issued a warning to Japanese militarists: 'It is necessary that the Japanese military Fascist cliques whose heads are turned by military successes realize that their prattle about an annexationist war in the north may cause damage in the first place and most of all to Japan itself.' The rapid and determined come-back of American power in the naval battles in the Coral Sea, at Midway, and among the Solomons gave pause to Japanese hotheads. It was becoming evident in the last half of 1942 that Japan had bitten off more than she could chew and that she might after all be fighting on two fronts before she knew it. All this played directly in line with the Soviet Union's policy to avoid fighting on two fronts. As the year ended, peace between the two was as precarious as it was at the beginning. Germany, no more than the United States and England before her, was able to influence the Japanese to give up their 'incident' in China. The Anglo-American policy had as its motive to keep the peace in the Pacific. Germany desperately tried to have Japan make peace with China in order to make war on Russia. Japanese foreign policy was fast sewing itself up into a sack as the tide turned in favor of the United Nations after November. Alongside these fundamental issues, the renewal of fishing leases and the ratification of the Mongolian-Manchukuoan border agreement were minor matters in Russo-Japanese relations.
Relations with Other Countries.
Soviet relations with Poland continued on the same basis as before. No agreement on the interpretation of the Treaty of July 30, 1941, in regard to mutual boundaries was arrived at. The military units of the Polish Army on Soviet soil, for which the Russians granted a loan of 400,000,000 rubles, were transferred to the Near East through Iran between April and August, 1942. Nevertheless, the relations between the two remained outwardly friendly.
Turkey occupied an anxious corner in Anglo-Soviet relations. Eden had made a definite and assuring statement to the Turks on his conversations with Stalin. The German envoy von Papen, however, did his best to hint at secret clauses aimed at Russian domination of the Straits in the Anglo-Soviet Alliance of May 26. The affair of the alleged assassins in the attempt of Feb. 2, on the life of von Papen, who escaped unhurt, dragged through the spring and summer, causing an unnecessary strain on Russo-Turkish relations, which both the Russians and the British did their best to improve. In November, the Soviet Union took particular pains to send greetings on the nineteenth anniversary of the Turkish Republic, and these included messages from Kalinin to Inonu, from Stalin to Saracoglu, and from Molotov to Menenemcioglu. As the year closed reports were increasing that under American mediation an agreement between the two states was being discussed which would end Turkey's fears and thus consolidate the front of the United Nations in the Near East.
In August 1941, Soviet and British troops had entered Iran to drive out German influence and make secure a route over which assistance to Russia might flow freely. It took until Jan. 29, 1942, for the Anglo-Russian-Iranian agreement to be arrived at. It provided for a guarantee of Iranian independence and territorial integrity and assured that country of military assistance in case of attack. The two intervening Powers pledged themselves to withdraw their forces as soon as the military situation warranted. In May, Iran became the recipient of assistance from the United States under the Lend-Lease Act.
The problem of Finland remained throughout 1942 in very much the same condition. Finland would not or could not get out of the war. American efforts to bring about peace between Soviet Russia and Finland failed by the middle of summer, 1942. The United States withdrew her consular representatives and requested that Finland withdraw hers on Aug. 16.
The recognition by the Soviet Union of the French National Committee headed by General Charles de Gaulle was to have importance before the end of the year in the situation created by Darlan's position in French North Africa after the American-British occupation of that region. The recognition of Albania indicated the Soviet Union's abiding interest in the Balkan problem.
The Internal Front.
Every bit of usable space and all activities of whatsoever character behind the front line in the Soviet Union were completely utilized or subordinated to the imperative duty to supply all possible manpower, matériel, and services to the Red Army in its unmatched exertions to stop and expel the Fascist armies. In such a situation civilian needs entirely disappeared or became negligible. Losses of manpower on the battlefield or disabled in the hospitals and of territories important in the economic life of the country left no other alternative. The leaders of the Soviet Union with real foresight and great energy had for two decades been creating the machinery of war in a totalitarian economy whose almost complete centralization enabled it to act quickly, to produce secretly, and to absorb without collapse the cruelest blows of the world's most powerful war machine. This had been amply demonstrated in the first five months of the war in 1941.
In the scenes behind the lines, Russian women tended more and more to occupy the center of the stage, with men too old to fight and even children along side of them. Every occupation for which women could be trained was progressively turned over to them in order to allow all men, except those absolutely necessary in the factories and on the farms, to enter the armed forces and increase its huge reserves which were destined to play the decisive role on the battlefield.
Effect of the War in Russia.
Tremendous territorial losses and unbelievable destruction and disablement of manpower formed the tragic background of any future development. White Russia, the Ukraine, the Don Basin, and the region north of the Caucasus remained in the hands of the Germans or fell into them during the year. Gone was one-third of Russia's population. This did not include the dead and disabled which must have numbered several million. The territorial acquisitions of the enemy involved at least a loss of some 35 per cent of Russia's coal production, 30 to 40 per cent of her wheat, 60 per cent of her barley, 50 per cent of her vegetable oils and 80 per cent of her tobacco production. These losses were to a certain extent being made up by the accelerated tempo of production of the remaining Central Russian and Siberian regions and by the transfer of factories and machinery with the labor and the intensification of agriculture. Except for iron and oil (access to which in Groznyi [Grozny] and Baku was made difficult in the last half of the year), considerable progress was made during the year to whittle down the losses. At least they were being transformed from catastrophic proportions which are painfully felt in the entire economy of the Soviet Union, but which are not fatal. Not fatal, in view of the over-all strategic set-up in which for another year Germany could make little economic use of what she had conquered, due to the thorough scorched-earth policy of the retreating Red Army and the havoc caused by guerrilla warfare. For Germany had to feed the conquered population, even if only at starvation levels; the oil-burning agricultural machinery that was left intact or could be repaired, demanded unavailable oil; and the lines of communication were being constantly over-extended. These were not favorable factors for Nazi Germany as she entered the most crucial period for her of the war this winter and the next half-year, suffering from her own irreplaceable losses on the Russian front. From this point of view the situation for Soviet Russia was not all dark, tremendous as her losses had been.
This war has forced on the Soviet Union the acceleration of a fundamental shift of economic basis from European Russia eastward to the Urals and beyond, to the region between the Urals and Lake Baikal. The economic center, already slowly gravitating toward the east before the war, has been given a tremendous push by events which have taken place since Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. As early as 1931 it was foreseen that the Ukraine and the Caucasus might some day be lost. The leaders in the Kremlin decided that the possible loss of these regions, including western Russia, must be made good by the construction of a second industrial base relatively more safe from attack by any one, but more particularly by Germany and Japan. Thus, for the greater part of the last decade, through the instrumentality of the Second and Third Five-Year Plans, the new industrial backbone of Russia has been in process of construction, with Magnitogorsk, Kuznetsk, Angarastroy (the hydro-electric development on the Angara) as symbols of a vast industrial and metallurgical base. This war, then, continued and accelerated the fundamental eastward shift of economic forces which was in process before Nazi Germany provoked the war.
In the region between the Urals and Lake Baikal, it has been estimated by the geologists, economists, and engineers of the Soviet Union, are to be found about 80 per cent of that country's energy resources (coal, oil, turf, gas, wood and water power). Except in the case of iron ore, of which this region has reserves of only some 28 to 40 per cent, all other reserves of coal, water power, copper, zinc, lead, and rare metals represent over 80 per cent. The area suitable for wheat production includes over 60 per cent and the yearly growth of forest over 72 per cent of the resources of the entire Soviet Union.
Alongside of this, the latest pre-war figures would indicate that over 15 per cent of the industrial production of Russia was already to be found in this region. Industrial production in this area has increased sharply since the war both by expansion and by intensification, and, if we are to believe good testimony, most, if not all, of the Third Five-Year Plan was completed in Siberia before 1942. Many industrial plants, much machinery and millions of workers and members of their families were transported in 1941 and 1942 from European Russia into the Urals and beyond. This great shift of economic forces and population has led to the crowding of the cities in Siberia and has produced numerous social and cultural problems, some of which are already becoming evident. Siberia, once called 'a second North America' by German propagandists who cast longing eyes in that direction, is not only destined to play a decisive rôle in this war, but is likely to become increasingly the core of postwar Russia. Its population at this time is being estimated at about 40,000,000.
Russian Morale.
Perhaps the staggering losses in territories and manpower inflicted by Nazi Germany upon the Soviet Union would have been fatal had it not been for one factor which the German war lords totally miscalculated — namely, the amazing morale of the Russian people — their indomitable and invincible spirit, their complete devotion to the political independence of their homeland, whatever its political or economic structure or régime.
The totalitarian economy, with its almost complete centralization, had for a decade been developed to produce an industrial apparatus which took into calculation the most modern elements of war machinery. Soviet Russia, therefore, did not require a painful delay in transition from peacetime economy to war economy. Its ability to supply vast quantities of matériel and its resiliency to Nazi blows has had its attractiveness for many Russians, in Russia and abroad, who are not Communists. The Communist Party, numbering something under 2,000,000 men and women, possesses the ruling power. Since no other party is permitted to exist, the Communist Party has the political monopoly. All other adults are 'non-party.' Attractive as the régime is to party members and others and to a considerable part of the generation of youth brought up under it, Russian morale cannot wholly be explained in these terms. The vast majority of the adults are non-party people, and these doubtless form an overwhelming per cent of the armed forces. Why have the Russian people as a whole, both at the front and behind the lines, shown such a whole-hearted devotion and supported the régime unflinchingly in the midst of catastrophic losses? The answer doubtless lies in great part in the fact that the régime prepared for and with utmost resolution fought a traditional enemy which the people believed would crush their political independence. The Russian people are intensely devoted to their country, regardless of régime or party creed. Here there enters a powerful historical force, a tradition which instinctively affects most Russian leaders and countless Russians, without distinction of party — the consciousness that the enemies of Russia have always sought to cut her off from access to the sea and that, if they succeeded, this meant the loss of political independence for the Russian people. The Russians know now, as in the past, loss of access to the sea would mean loss of political independence and enslavement. A land-locked Russia would not be an independent Russia. It would not have the diversity of resources and the manpower to retain its independence. Once lost, as in the time of Mongol rule, the Russians know the uphill fight and the deprivation which would result. In this respect, the Germans have been a traditional enemy and the Japanese a recent one. Both planned to seize Russia's sea-coasts. What a role access to the sea now plays in the attempt to transport vital matériel to Russia is obvious. Behind the sieges of Leningrad, the Russian 'window on Europe,' and of Stalingrad, where Russia may be cut off from two seas, is a pathos which those who do not know Russians and Russian history cannot understand. The dogged and unflinching resistance of the Red Army in these sieges derives a considerable part of its morale from these factors. In his Order of the Day on Red Army Day, on February 23, 1942, Stalin struck a chord which reverberated through Russian emotions everywhere when he wrote, 'The Red Army's strength lies above all in the fact that it is not waging a predatory, imperialist war, but a patriotic war, a war of liberation.'
