Stalin sent representatives to the capital cities of each to introduce Soviet-style rule. Indigenous political institutions were crushed and new elections called, though only Communists could run. The NKVD began arresting and executing hundreds of “anti-Soviet elements.” In due course, the Baltic states were coaxed into asking to become members of the Soviet Union, a wish granted in early August.32 These nations would never entirely accept their loss of independence and would struggle for their freedom, no matter how dark the times or slim the chances, until they finally won, half a century later.
Andrei Zhdanov, who went to Estonia, later candidly told a secret party gathering in Leningrad that Soviet policy was to take advantage of the war in order to expand. In a November 1940 speech, he quoted Stalin saying that the Bear (the historical image of Russia) had to “make the rounds to demand payment for each tree as the forester chops the wood.” Zhdanov said that in the previous year that policy had “resulted in the expansion of the socialist territories of the Soviet Union” and that more gain could be expected in the future.33
Stalin seemed to think Red Army occupation brought happiness, since after all, he asked rhetorically, were the people not “liberated from the yoke of the landlords, capitalists and police and other scoundrels”? Should they not be grateful that they now were situated inside the “socialist front” against the capitalists? What he wanted in all the occupied territories was to make good on the Bolshevik mission that had failed after the Russian Revolution, that is, “to substitute the pluralistic texture of the borderlands with an ideological uniformity.”34
Nevertheless, he grew anxious about the Soviet grip on the newly incorporated areas, and Beria proposed “cleansing” them in mid-May and again in mid-June, to round up all “anti-Soviet, criminal, and socially-dangerous elements,” as well as “counter-revolutionary organizations.” Anyone whose past was deemed suspect was sent away or killed. The NKVD had long since worked out procedures for deporting whole families while keeping local interference to a minimum. Women and children were separated from husbands and fathers only at the railway station. The operations in the night of June 13–14 deported 12,569 from Lithuania, 16,564 from Latvia, and 6,700 from Estonia.35 Most were the family members whose household heads had been arrested and likely already executed. All were considered dyed-in-the-wool opponents of Communism.36 Although estimates vary, a consensus on the numbers killed, deported, or missing in the year of Soviet occupation puts the toll at 34,250 for Latvia, around 61,000 for Estonia, and 39,000 for Lithuania.37
Stalin also threatened Finland, and by the autumn of 1939 he had opted to invade in what he thought would be a two-week “lightning war.” The attack began on November 30, but what became the Winter War dragged on for 105 days. In the midst of it, the dictator assured his circle in the Kremlin that “world revolution” would inexorably move forward, even with this slight bump in the road.38 In March 1940, Molotov reported to a hushed meeting that 52,000 Red Army soldiers had been killed out of a total of 233,000 casualties.39 Stalin tried to put the best spin on the disaster in a speech to the Central Committee in April. It was their army’s first real war, he said. Then he gave a long list of excuses, but there was no getting around the fact that the Finns showed up the glaring weaknesses of the Soviet armed forces.
Everyone knew that Hitler was watching, and it drove Stalin to distraction when the German ambassador dared offer assistance “if we are encountering difficulties in the fight with the Finns.”40 Someone had to pay, so in May Stalin shifted responsibility for the mess in Finland onto the shoulders of People’s Commissar of Defense Voroshilov, an old ally who dared blame the Great Terror for killing off the top military men. He was dismissed but remained a person of influence until his death in 1969.41
As the time ticked down to the clash of the two dictatorships, Hitler had every reason to hope for a quick victory, while Stalin had less room for optimism, and perhaps that was why he tried appeasement. A better course might have been to reach out to Great Britain and above all to the United States, but in Stalin’s theory, the capitalists were supposed to fight among themselves, and none of them were going to rescue the USSR. He was wrong on both counts.
STALIN’S GREATEST ERROR
Hitler was long convinced that he had a mission to make war against the detested home of Communism. For years he had said that merely trading for resources was not the answer to Germany’s problems, for it also needed Lebensraum, a vast area that the “master race” would settle and dominate. German prowess pushed the British, French, and Allied forces into hastily retreating to the English Channel near Calais and Dunkirk. France agreed to an armistice on June 22, 1940—only weeks into the fighting, leaving Stalin flabbergasted at the easy German victory and disgusted that Hitler had begun to present himself as the man who would liberate Europe from Communism.42
All of Europe was impressed by the German victories, and Nazism was attractive even to many people outside Germany. Prime Minister Churchill was definitely not one of them, but even he fleetingly thought some kind of peace might be an option. No matter what he said in public about “victory at all costs,” it was not that simple. Back on May 26, with many troops still stranded at Dunkirk, he thought out loud about making a deal with the Nazis. The next day he said he might agree to talks, if Hitler were prepared “to make peace on the terms of the restoration of German colonies” and settle for domination over Central Europe.43 But the wavering ended definitively on July 19, when Hitler mentioned a semiserious peace offer, to which Churchill would not deign to respond.44 The German leader then kept postponing Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain, and on September 17 he put it off indefinitely.45
The Battle of Britain was far from won when Hitler broke his own cardinal rule about avoiding a two-front war and on December 18, 1940, issued the directive for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s spies were extraordinarily well informed and had been tracking the German decision-making process intensively since June. Over the next months, they reported, with ever-growing certainty, on the attack to come. On December 29 and in follow-up notes, they confirmed Hitler’s decision, which, they noted, was based on his belief that “the state of the Red Army was so low” that victory would be easy.46 There followed a flood of reports from these spies, which were astonishingly accurate, about the coming German attack, mentioning dates, troop strength, routes of invasion, and the exact three-prong strategy, along with the respective military commanders.47
As Germany readied for war, it was briefly diverted from these plans and moved in a southeasterly direction toward Yugoslavia and Greece. On April 5, Stalin boldly offered the Yugoslavs a friendship and nonaggression treaty, in the hope that such a gesture would warn off Hitler.48 Quite to the contrary, the Wehrmacht began pounding Belgrade even before the delegates in Moscow could celebrate their treaty. Rather pathetically, the Soviet Boss began worrying that holding a banquet with the Yugoslavs might be taken in Berlin to have a “brazenly provocative character.” Thus, apart from the mildest protest, Stalin continued Soviet-style appeasement. He made endless gestures of goodwill, such as recognizing new puppet governments put in place by the Nazis as they conquered one country after the next.49