Throughout, Stalin did receive contrary advice. It was at the time reported that Litvinov, who regarded Molotov as a fool, warned of Hitler as a serious and hostile force to be reckoned with; but he was undermined by his deputy, Nikolai Krestinskii, who had behind him nearly a decade of success as ambassador in Berlin.20 Krestinskii confirmed Stalin and Molotov in their complacency. From the unthinking Left in the Comintern, the head of the sector dealing with Germany, Knorin, took a position akin to 'the worse the better', since revolution needed to break the fetters of constitutionalism, to which the working class had apparently become wedded. Hitler was in this deluded image a bulldozer with the KPD at the wheel. Were not most Nazi Party members former members of the KPD? The thinking Left, represented by Trotsky in exile, argued very differently and essentially took Litvinov's position. The fact that both Trotsky and Litvinov were Jewish undoubtedly heightened their powers of perception of an anti-Semite like Hitler. But Trotsky's advocacy - which was closely monitored at great distance in the Kremlin - doubtless also confirmed Stalin in his stubborn resistance to such views.
Salvation too late
From Moscow's vantage point, backing German nationalism was a low-cost policy. Hitler's arrival in power at the end of January 1933 did not occasion an abrupt change of line. Instead the Russians assumed a policy of watchful waiting. At the Comintern the prevailing view was ably expressed by Osip Piatnitskii in a letter to Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich on 20 March. Piatnit- skii carried some weight as head of the international communications section of the Comintern - basically the intelligence section which worked hand in glove with the OGPU - and as a member of the presidium of the Comintern executive committee (IKKI). He reasserted the current myth that in Germany 'the revolutionary crisis is fast developing' and that it would, under Hitler, gather speed and that therefore the resistance of the masses could not but develop. 'The establishment of an open Fascist dictatorship,' he wrote, 'dispelling all democratic illusions among the masses and freeing the masses from the influence of Social Democracy, will speed up the pace of development of Germany towards a proletarian revolution.'[143] This bizarre misreading was commonplace in Moscow at the time and was sustained even after the successful persecution of the KPD and simultaneous harassment of the mass of Soviet trade and diplomatic employees in Germany took on alarming proportions. By summer the KPD had been suppressed with extraordinary ease and rapidity. Meanwhile in Moscow uneasy inertia began to give way to a more resolute position, though not all illusions - including those of Molotov - were extinguished as late as 1941.[144]
Pressure was building, however, from within Comintern ranks for a change of line. At the head of the British party, Harry Pollitt called for the Comintern presidium to discuss the situation in Germany and the united front strategy (then non-existent). Piatnitskii carefully separated the two, even though they were indissolubly linked in Pollitt's mind and in the minds of others unhappy at the recent course of events.[145] A straw in the wind was the failure of Piatnitskii - then effectively running the Comintern - to prompt what remained of Communist supporters in Germany to have Moscow agree to boycotting the referendum forthcoming in Germany that autumn.[146]
At the level of interstate relations Litvinov fought for a policy based on the assumption that Hitler posed a fundamental threat to the peace of Europe, since, on this view, a war begun anywhere on the subcontinent was destined to spread. Therefore the new Germany had to be contained by a system of alliances - what, in effect, had heretofore been the policy of the French that the Russians had always condemned. France was by now courting the Russians for an alliance premissed on the USSR's entry into the League of Nations in order to appease French allies in Eastern Europe, the so-called Little Entente: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania. Within the Comintern calls for a united riposte to German Fascism had begun to have some impact in Moscow, but dogma as well as the refusal to believe the German revolution was well and truly dead held up progress. And if France had turned to Russia for help, was not reliance on German nationalism paying off? The Leninist policy of exploiting contradictions between imperialist powers precluded alliances with them since by definition imperialism meant war. Within the rank and file of the Bolshevik Party opposition to accepting French entreaties was pressed on this basis. The issue came to turn on whether ideological principle or pragmatism should predominate in determining the future course of policy. Domestically ideology had triumphed, duly celebrated at the Seventeenth Party Congress in January 1934, though at a bloody price. Stalin could therefore now afford to accept a degree of ideological heresy abroad as well as at home, provided he could be assured that the Left would not reassert itself and once more accuse him of counter-revolution.
The Popular Front against Fascism
Whereas the united front of working-class parties against a common enemy was well within Leninist doctrine, what came into being as the Popular Front bore no relationship at all to Leninist doctrine. This was partly as a result of accident. After his trial in Leipzig for setting fire to the Reichstag, which Dimitrov successfully exposed as a charade, the Bulgarian militant was evacuated to Moscow at Soviet behest. Here he used immediate access to Stalin to make the case for dropping the suicidal policy of opposing Social Democracy and for returning to the united front policy dropped in 1928, on the grounds that Fascism was a real danger to one and all. Having agreed to adopt the Litvi- nov line on collective security, it made little sense for the Kremlin to sustain a Comintern policy so at odds with common sense. Stalin moved cautiously, however, and only gave Dimitrov, now general secretary of the Comintern, freedom to experiment before any policy was finalised by a full Congress. In the teeth of resolute opposition from others within the Comintern apparat - head of the German section Knorin was still prattling on about 'The beginning of the crisis of German Fascism'[147] - and most probably also fundamentalists such as Molotov, who tended to a dogmatic vision on foreign affairs, Dimitrov began to loosen the reins and finally, in the summer of 1934, allowed member parties to open contacts with socialist parties along the lines of an anti-Fascist united front.[148]
France was on the front line against Fascism in 1934. The Great Depression hit France late but with as much force as elsewhere. Thus the French political system began to destabilise just as German power was effectively resurrected under Hitler. The initial testing ground for the united front was thus effectively France. Here, however, revolutionary tradition reached back much further than 1917; echoes of 1789,1830,1848 and, not least, 1871 still resounded through the capital. Complications lay in the fact that France was also the natural ally of Russia against any German plans for European conquest. How could the governing classes of France be expected to ally with a revolutionary power when they themselves so feared revolution at home from the very people in receipt of continual advice and subsidy from Moscow? The only hope lay in persuading Stalin that it was in Soviet interests not only to ally with France against Germany but also to nullify the effectiveness of the PCF in the domestic arena. The trouble was that Stalin trusted no one, and the PCF was so anti- military, because the French military was so anti-revolutionary, that this circle could not easily be squared.
143
N. Komolova et al. (eds.),
144
Jonathan Haslam,
145
Letter from Piatnitskii to Stalin and Molotov, 26 July 1933, in Anderson and Chubar'ian,
146
Observe the exchange of letters between Piatnitskii and Soviet leaders in late October: ibid., docs. 83-6.
148
See Jonathan Haslam, 'The Comintern and the Origins of the Popular Front, 19341935',