Jubilant Crowds Heartily Welcome N. S. Khrushchev.
Population to Red Army: "You have Saved our Lives!"
Such were some of the headlines. On September 20 Pravda reported "great animation in Lwow" and the great enthusiasm with which the people there had gone to see the film
"Lenin in 1918".
Another report from the Rovno area read: "An old peasant, named Murash, went up to our soldiers. 'I am seventy,' he said, 'and I know that there is in Moscow a man who is the father of all the oppressed, a man who thinks of us and cares for us. And I know that his name is Joseph Stalin.'"
All the same, the Soviet hierarchy must have known that there was at least some slight uneasiness in the country over what was in effect a partition of Poland in the company of Hitler. Hence, for instance, the publication in Pravda on September 18 of a poem by Nikolai Aseyev called "Hold Your Heads Up"—
The landlords' (panski) flag has been trampled underfoot,
But you, Polish people, have not been humiliated...
You toilers of Poland, do not believe the tale
That we have stepped forward
Just to add to your sorrows.
If we have crossed the frontier,
It is not to make you afraid;
We do not want you to cringe to us;
Proudly you can hold up your heads.
In fact, the great majority of "real" Poles were to remain under German occupation, as most of the people in the areas taken over by the Russians were Ukrainians or
Belorussians. As we now know, the NKVD soon got busy in the liberated territories of the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. The deportation to the east of "hostile" and
"disloyal" Poles was to run into hundreds of thousands. They were to constitute a major political problem in 1941-2. The Polish soldiers captured by the Russians were
demobilised before long, but most of the captured Polish officers were to remain in
Russian captivity—with dire consequences, as we shall see.
The land reform in the liberated areas—a reform described in the Soviet press as early as September 27 as "the distribution of landlord estates"—began almost at once.
On September 27 Pravda published a map of Poland showing the provisional
demarcation line between the Russian and German armed forces. This ran from the southeast corner of East Prussia down to Warsaw and then further south along the river San.
On the following day Ribbentrop came on his second visit to Moscow. On September 29
Pravda published a large front-page photoigraph showing Molotov signing the German-Soviet Agreement of Friendship and on the Frontier between the USSR and Germany;
standing behind him were Ribbentrop, Stalin, Pavlov (the interpreter), and Gaus. The paper also spoke of the dinner given by Molotov in Ribbentrop's honour. Among those
present were Forster, Gaus, Schnurre, and Kordt of the Ribbentrop party, Schulenburg and Tippelskirch of the German Embassy, as well as Stalin, Voro-shilov, Kaganovich,
Mikoyan, Beria, Bulganin and Voznesensky.
"Comrade Molotov and Herr von Ribbentrop exchanged speeches of welcome. The
dinner took place in a friendly atmosphere." That day the following Soviet-German Statement was published:
Having signed today an agreement which finally settled the problems that had
arisen from the disintegration of the Polish State, and having thus laid the solid foundations for a lasting peace in Eastern Europe, the Soviet and German
Governments declare that the liquidation of the war between Germany on the one
hand and Great Britain and France on the other would be in the interests of all
nations.
If, however, the endeavours of both governments remain fruitless, this will only
show that Great Britain and France will bear the responsibility for continuing the war. If this war is to continue, the Governments of Germany and the Soviet Union
will consult each other on the necessary measures to be taken.
(Signed) Molotov. Ribbentrop.
Later, during the war, I had occasion to discuss with a number of Soviet intellectuals the effect this statement had in Russia at the time. It appeared that the "recovery" of Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine had indeed caused much satisfaction, partly because it had pushed the Soviet frontier further west—and nobody had ever trusted Hitler.
Secondly the one thing many people dreaded was that Britain and France might make
peace with Germany. They knew that Russia had become thoroughly disreputable in
French and British eyes over the "partition" of Poland, and feared that there might be a Western deal with Hitler at Russia's expense.
No sooner was the war in Poland over, than the Russians inflicted on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania "mutual aid and trade agreements" under which the Soviet Union was given military, air and naval bases in all three countries. In that matter, too, the consummation of the secret protocol drawn up by Ribbentrop and Molotov, when the Soviet Nazi treaty was concluded, made steady progress. Vilno, however, which had been part of Poland,
was handed back to Lithuania by the Russians after they had secured the required military hold on that small country, as they had on the two other Baltic States.
Meanwhile Molotov and Ribbentrop continued to go through all the usual motions of
friendship. On September 29, before leaving Moscow, Ribbentrop declared in a statement to Tass:
Again this visit to Moscow was too short, and I hope my next visit will last longer.
All the same, we made good use of these two days.
1) German-Soviet friendship is now finally established;
2) Neither country will allow any interference from third parties in East-European affairs;
3) Both countries wish a restoration of peace, and they want Britain and France to stop their absolutely senseless and hopeless war against Germany;
4) If, however, in these countries, the warmongers gain the upper hand, then
Germany and the USSR will know how to react to this.
He then referred to "the great programme of economic cooperation which had been agreed upon and which would be valuable to both countries", and, he concluded: "The talks took place in a particularly friendly and splendid atmosphere. I should like, above all, to stress the extraordinarily cordial reception given me by the Soviet Government and particularly by Herr Staun and Herr Molotov."
[ Pravda, September 30, 1939.]
Looking back on this statement, a number of Russians later told me that it had created a
"rather reassuring impression". Among many Russians there was the hope—or the illusion—that Ribbentrop perhaps belonged to that Ostpolitik faction in Germany who were decidedly against conflict with Russia. That was the impression that Stalin and Molotov also had; they were, moreover, convinced that Ambassador Count Schulenburg
belonged to the old Bismarckian, no-war-with-Russia school of thought. In this they were right. The big question mark was Hitler himself.
On October 8, a week after the Ribbentrop visit to Moscow, Hitler made another peace offer to Britain and France, but it was rejected, again, one suspects, to the Russians'
relief.
The Soviet Press during the weeks following the destruction of Poland makes pretty