On July 7, 1941, the Comintern, now once again in its customary, more spirited operating mode, issued a special directive to foreign parties to form united or “national fronts” in countries occupied by Germany and to unify the struggle against Hitler.3 That would also be the slogan Moscow would soon be using to sponsor new governments in the lands liberated by the Red Army.
FDR AND CHURCHILL SHED MORE RESERVATIONS ABOUT STALIN
The advance of the Germans and their allies was halted at Moscow at the end of 1941, but in the new year they renewed efforts and started to look unstoppable again. The Soviet Union wanted a new treaty of assistance, and Molotov flew to London in May 1942 to sign it. He insisted again on the USSR’s 1941 borders, but the British would not agree. Then, much to everyone’s surprise, Stalin changed course and told Commissar Molotov to get the treaty without an agreement on territory.4 In his instructions to him, Stalin noted ominously that in any case frontier issues would soon be decided by force.5
The commissar traveled on to the United States, to get a decision about a second front in Europe and further economic assistance. At his first meeting with Roosevelt on May 29, Molotov asked the president if it was true that he was “unsympathetic” to Soviet demands for its western frontiers as of 1941. FDR “replied that indeed he did not want that question mentioned in any treaty, in view of U.S. public opinion. He believed that a proper moment should be found to raise this question, but it had not yet come.” Molotov got the president’s commitment or at least an expression of hope for an Allied landing in Europe in 1942, with perhaps six to ten divisions going ashore in France.
FDR confessed that these American soldiers might have to “live through another Dunkirk and lose 100,000 to 120,000 men.” The operation would supposedly damage German morale, “ease the situation and raise the spirit of the Red Army.” Such an outlandish statement can only be understood as a gesture to placate the abrasive Molotov. Indeed, the president confessed to his adviser Harry Hopkins that of all the people with whom he had dealings, he had never had to cope with anyone quite so difficult. According to Hopkins, the president was motivated “to spare no effort to discover the common ground which, he was sure, must somewhere exist.”6
At eleven P.M. at the end of the first day, Hopkins took the unusual step of visiting Molotov in his room at the White House. He suggested the commissar might “draw a gloomy picture” of the Soviet situation when he next met the president, as well as Army Chief of Staff General Marshall and Commander in Chief of the Navy Admiral Ernest King. Hopkins believed a negative assessment of Soviet prospects would win over the Americans. It was peculiar that a U.S. official would be advising a foreign diplomat on how to gain advantage with his country’s leaders. But it seems that Roosevelt’s top adviser was convinced the Soviets were interested only in security and thought they would work with the Americans for “a world of democracy and peace.” In any case, General Marshall held his ground, saying there were insufficient landing craft for an amphibious invasion in Europe. Molotov complained in his note to Stalin that “the insincerity of this reply was obvious.”7
The commissar also turned up his nose at the president as an unredeemable capitalist and imperialist, like Churchill. When Molotov pressed FDR to open a second front, he and Stalin knew perfectly well it was impossible.8 At a final meeting, Molotov again insisted on a direct answer to the question about a date for the second front, but Roosevelt was evasive and said only that it was under active consideration.9
Meanwhile, FDR and Churchill worried that Stalin might yet seek a deal with Hitler, for in July 1942 the Wehrmacht broke through into the Caucasus, heading for the big oil fields in the south. At the end of the month, Stalin finally consented to a visit from FDR’s emissary Averell Harriman and Churchill himself. When they came to the Kremlin on August 12, they did not please the dictator with the news that there could be no landing in France in 1942. As if to compensate, the prime minister spoke expansively about Operation Torch, an attack in North Africa, which would begin on November 8. However, all of this left Stalin cold, muttering that it was a poor substitute for the invasion of continental Europe.10 His spies in London had already informed him that the British War Cabinet had made its decision on July 25, so the dictator’s show of surprise was purely for effect.11
When Stalin cast doubt on the courage of the British Army, Churchill almost stormed out. But he put country before pride and stayed, passing along the news that the Royal Air Force would bomb Germany into submission. He also mentioned the forthcoming Dieppe raid on August 19 on the French coast, but that did not placate his Soviet partner in the slightest.
The three Allied leaders agreed that Germany had to be divided to ensure postwar peace and security. At this meeting with Stalin, Churchill said he thought Prussian militarism and Nazism had to be destroyed and Germany disarmed. Stalin also wanted its military leaders exterminated and the country deprived of its main industrial center in the Ruhr.12 One member of the British delegation, writing in his diary, compared the dictator to a python and another labeled him a criminal. Still, Churchill and Harriman came away convinced the Soviets would stay in the war.13
Back in the 1930s, President Roosevelt had been upset when Stalin persisted in using “Trojan Horse tactics” to help the American Communist Party and continued doing so even after U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union in 1933. That bothered FDR, but he was no isolationist and thought he could get an understanding with Stalin. This inclination to reach agreement soon led to the president’s distrust of the State Department’s hard-liners and particularly American ambassador William C. Bullitt in Moscow, who resigned in the summer of 1936. FDR took the opportunity to appoint Joseph E. Davies, who served from November of that year to June 1938. He was an old friend and political supporter and was considered “soft” on the Soviet Union. Roosevelt despised everything Hitler stood for and sending Davies was a gesture of friendship to balance things out in Europe.
When preparing for his first trip to Moscow, Davies made a point of telling everyone that he was going to be friendlier than the previous ambassador. Speaking with a Soviet newspaper reporter, he said that in the tense international situation there was room for cooperation.14 The staff at the American embassy in Moscow instantly rejected Davies as unqualified and went so far as to consider tendering their resignations.15 In Moscow, Davies, a lawyer by profession, attended the show trials and, remarkably, accepted their validity. He even found credible the fable that Stalin had stopped a coup “by acting with great vigor and speed.”16
By 1939, FDR had condemned German and Soviet aggression in Poland and was sympathetic to Britain and France, but he had wanted to avoid direct involvement in the war.17 As late as October 30, 1940—long after the fall of France in June—he assured citizens in one of his election addresses: “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”18 Nevertheless, in view of the grave situation Britain faced, the president soon introduced Lend-Lease aid to that country and later extended the funding to supply other nations.19