During May and June 1941 when Stalin dreaded more than ever a German attack,
important raw materials such as copper and rubber were being rushed to Germany by
express trains from the East and the Far East to keep Hitler happy in an effort of
"appeasement" that was as frantic as it was futile. A few weeks later this copper, after processing, was used to kill thousands of Russians.
So, on the surface, all seemed well on January 10 when the new economic agreement was signed with Germany—an agreement which covered the period up to August 1, 1942—
by which time the Germans were well on their way to Stalingrad and the Caucasus.
But only three days later a new kind of rot started. Pravda published the following ominous statement: "The foreign press has suggested that we had approved the entry of German troops into Bulgaria. If there are German troops in Bulgaria, they are there
without our consent. We were never consulted." It had now become clear that the Germans had taken no notice of Molotov's plea that the "Eastern Balkans" were a Soviet sphere of interest. Yet, if the Russians were annoyed they still showed it only by small petulant pinpricks. Thus, for no obvious immediate reason, they attacked Knut Hamsun, calling him a "rotting corpse" who did not share his fellow-Norwegians' hearty dislike for German rule. "And to think that this corpse—rotting alive—used to be a highly popular author in our country'"
[ Pravda. January 25, 1941.]
Hitler's speech of January 30 was duly reported. He said that the outcome of the war had already been settled in 1940; that an all-out U-boat war against England would start in the spring, and that the Americans were "wasting their time". But what struck the Russians most was that there was no mention of the Soviet Union. Moreover, there was that
ominous little phrase at the end: "I have calculated every conceivable possibility." Stalin knew that, by now, his December "proposals" had been ignored by Hitler.
Moscow's nervousness produced strange results. On January 30 there was an ukase of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet appointing Beria, head of the NKVD, "General
Commissar of State Security"; a few days later the People's Commissariat of the Interior (NKVD) was turned into two different commissariats—Interior (NKVD) under L. P.
Beria and Security (NKB) under V. N. Merku-lov.
The phrase "mobilisational preparedness" kept recurring over and over again in propaganda and the press; the ukase of the previous June on labour discipline was being more and more rigidly enforced, "slackers" and absentees in industry being subjected to ruthless punishment; great attention was being given to the training of young people for industry in a network of establishments like railway and FZO (factory) schools with their 600,000 pupils. These young people were intended to become an important labour
reserve in the great national emergency.
In the middle of February, at the 18th All-Union Conference of the Party, long, detailed and rather critical reports were produced by Malenkov on the "Successes and
Shortcomings of Industry and Railways", by N. Voznesensky on the "General Progress of the Economy of the USSR in 1941 ", and so on.
The usual glorification of the "invincible" Red Army, referred to as recently as December 1940 by Zhukov as "the mightiest army in the world", gave way to a more sober and critical assessment. On Red Army Day, February 23, 1941, the same General Zhukov
clearly suggested in an article in Pravda that the Army was undergoing a process of transformation, which had not yet been completed, and that things were still far from perfect. 1941, he wrote, would be the year of the "great change" (perelom) in the Red Army, the year of "the reconstruction of the whole system of the soldiers' training and education". He congratulated himself on the changes that had already been made since the Finnish War, and pointed out that in August 1940 the officer's "single command" had been restored, which meant that the officer was no longer under the thumb of the
commissar; as a result the status, responsibility and authority of the officers had been greatly increased. This, Zhukov emphasised, was the "essential foundation" on which the other reforms would be built.
He stressed the importance of military "professionalism" and attributed the spectacular defeat of the French Army in 1940 largely to the French soldiers' low standard of
training, and to their un-familiarity with modern weapons. In the Red Army such "sloppi-ness" would not be tolerated: "An imperialist war is raging round us. In the reconstruction of our system of military training we have achieved some unquestionable successes. The training is taking place in near-combat conditions, and we have improved the tactical skill of our troops; but it would be a grave error to be smug and complacent about it; much still remains to be done."
The whole article, without sounding alarmist, nevertheless betrayed a certain feeling of uneasiness, though it is impossible to say whether a man like Zhukov anticipated a
German invasion only four months later; the whole suggestion underlying his article was that the "great change" in the Red Army was a fairly long-term affair which was not likely to be completed until 1942.
In reality the international situation in February 1941 was already rapidly deteriorating from the Russian point of view. The big question was whether Hitler would move west or east.
On February 16, the Soviet press quoted The Times—with some relief, one may suspect
—on the continued danger of a German invasion of England; on February 25 it reported another Hitler speech promising more victories over the British, but again, as on January 30, there was no mention of the Soviet Union. And then the trouble in the Balkans started in real earnest. On March 3, Andrei Vyshinsky, Deputy Foreign Commissar, informed the Bulgarian Government that he "disagreed" with its decision to let German troops enter Bulgaria "to protect peace in the Balkans". "On the contrary," Vyshinsky said, "we consider that this measure will merely extend the area of conflict to the Balkans, and the Soviet Government cannot, therefore, support the Bulgarian Government's policy." This was blunt enough; it was, in fact, the first open and official clash between Soviet and German interests.
There were now German troops in Hungary, Bulgaria and Rumania. But on March 27
there was a popular uprising in Belgrade against Yugoslavia becoming a German satellite with the connivance of its rulers. A group of officers, with General Simovic at their head, had organised the coup, which took place two days after Premier Cvetkovic and his Foreign Minister, with Prince Paul's blessing, had signed in Vienna an agreement joining the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan. The Simovic revolt aroused great popular enthusiasm amongst the Serbs and incensed Hitler.
Thinking no doubt that the Germans would still "reckon" with the Soviet Union, and obviously unaware of Hitler's decision to invade Yugoslavia, the Soviet Government
hastened to conclude a Friendship and Non-Aggression Pact with the new Yugoslav
Government. Significantly, it did not dare propose to Yugoslavia a Mutual Assistance Pact which would have committed Russia to immediate military action, should Germany
attack. Stalin and Molotov were wrong if they thought that such qualified support would frighten off Hitler.