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Pt'i Ate AitivtStfr May extremely

Your

the USSR

about

in my opinion, might

people

after

murdered

millions

of innocentmen

to warning

but he cannot

for the overthrow

of Stalin

refused

to have

from British,

Donnelly 1941 was

be sure of it.

and

and women;

of the attack

and his own sources.

American

he had had

though

attack;

for

(shattered)

hid

Stalin

he was known by his entourage

to listen

the

with

leader

as they did around

patriotism

the German

ten days

The Russian

on this.

the current

in 1941 even though

Stalin

though

round

rally

(or greater)

same

count

you cannot

exchange:

a nuclear

to stand

unable

bein

remark

to Donnelly's

attention

special

of yesterday:

discussion

interesting

our

about

points

the followino

I make

be right;

may

an opportunity But it did

and Communism.

not happen.

One consequence (a) innovation

is feared

(b) stagnation

which likely

of an economic

reasons but in

for political

seems

in which

system

intolerable,

is surely

abroad,

to be expansion

e_ This growth

is perhaps

of Soviet

for propaganda

the more

power

probable

and influence

on the domestic

front;

ei(a)

abroad

the

is important

(b) there

is

/a residual

2

•

a residual belief in the expectation that Communism is destined to spread - however much we may disagree on the importance of 'ideology'; and, (c) it also fits in with Russian nationalist ambitions.

Thus

we may see what one US professor, Bialer of dtstrares Colombia, scoolas the unlimited expansion abroad of a system which is declining domestically. Absurd (as Professor Nove said sharply) but in the 20th century the absurd is always still possible. Indeed, one of the omissions in our meeting was a consideration of the extent to which the Soviet is daily waging a twilight war against the West for power and influence through all sorts of surrogates not only the Cubans: e.g. picking on a useful 3rd world "freedom movement" and sustaining it by arms, propaganda etc.

We are not exactly at war with the

USSR, true, but we are very definitely not at peace with her in the sense, say, that we were with Russia before 1914.

3.

I think the papers underestimated ideology.

May I repeat: the eleven members of the politburo are not just the worried leaders of a huge nation; nor simply chief conspirators on an extraordinary scale; they are the high priests of a cult to which a hundred foreign communist parties look for guidance and perhaps as many states.

/These

men

•

3

allergia-These

l

men are conscious

that many

tom

i

governments

of new states

look to Russia

country

which,

swiftly

industrialised

and armed

knowing

(or not caring

to recall)

before

despite

horrible

1917 was a formidable

already

steel was higher

between

injustice, itself

has

well,

not

that Russia

industrial

(her rate of increase

as a

power

of production

in

1870 and 1914 than

in

1921 - 40).

The domestic of Russia

dislocation

were well

brought

and contradiction out:

but there

an international

contradiction.

of "imperialism"

is assumed

but Soviet

is also maintained

than ever domestic

power too.

as ever;

to be greater

of view are needed

for

propaganda.

The Schultz attitude

Thus the threat

to be as great

Both points

is also

doctrine

is surely

to assume

that

in the end the nations

will

become

free

the destruction

("pluralism"):, an olympian

influence

War and the purges

took Russia

or two).

The tone

(to which

by Archie

Brown)

say, not House

should

back

empire

Nove

a generation

reference

was made shall we

As to details:

/the

said,

in the Civil

be Goethe-like,

of Commons.

confidence

of the Soviet

(even if, as Professor of western

the right

extension

•

4

) Russian

the extension

peoples

considered. wrote

of broadcasting

of the Soviet

I think

that,

empire

before

Liberty

that ten years

and Radio

ago President

for this extension not afford again.

they

should

that

there

Georgia

should

of course show

with

to pay

if we could to do so

this).

Such

be very balanced

that Britain

are such places

pasts

but

recognises

as Lithuania,

historic

I

told me

offered

agree

remembers

at least

etc.,

Europe,

Nixon

it - and they might

be re-

the president

of the BBC service

(Tony Parsons

broadcasts

Free

should

the election,

to you that Mr. Shakespeare,

of Radio

to the non

Latvia,

and perhaps

futures; (ii)

a policy

be discounted, Michael

in my view,

Kaser

did.

last paragraph of judgement,

of economic

Dr. Amman

high

defence

the proposed they

should

where should

cultural

useful

sporting

visits)

(in the

economic

or technological

of the USSR.

contacts,

could

item

grain,

be separately

Where

circumvented,

without Each

opinion

if it turns

not be implemented.

examined.

as

public

budgets,

be implemented

be seriously

technoloay,

Western

can be easily

of course

they might

as lightly

not

this to be a matter

to the strength measures

should

recognised

not expertise.

out that we are making contributions

quite

of his paper)

may not support

measures

But evasion

they

(high

credits, examined /only

- if

5

•

only because the matter is bound to be raised again as a possible substitute for war after the next Soviet outrage (invasion of Iran? troops in Poland?); (iii)

an articulate, intelligent and subtle

projection of the western case should be reconsidered againvalong the lines of the paper put forward by the C.R.D. under the chairmanship of Eldon Griffiths in 1980, and as also suggested to you by George Urban, Leonard Schapiro etc. .The aim is presumably to help flotnisn three clien-Cbles: the West; the Soviet bloclthe 3rd world:CNB

George Urbanswho may socn become

head of Radio Free Europe, has returned to this thema

6.

Summit meetin s. Personally I cannot see the

point of you or indeed anyone else meeting Andropov. When has such a meeting been a success?

It would have

been better if even the wartime Big Three meetings had not occured.

Stalin did bring himself to go

abroad once (by train) to Teheran and Roosevelt to make up for this concessiontstayed in the Soviet embassy.

The result was the abandonment of Poland.

Even Churchill was fooled personally a b t by Stalin, Roosevelt far more.

The argument that in that way

you would get a picture of what Andropov is like is unconvincing - Stalin

("Uncle Joe")and

/i
6

•

Khrushchev clearly put over quite false pictures of their true selves.

Who would have guessed from

the jokey Nikita Khrushchev that Christians were treated worse by him than even under Stalin after 1945?

Nor do I think that Andropov would be

influenced much if he visited the West and e.g. stayed in Claridges as Bulganin and Khrushchev did. He would continue to believe what he wants to bleieve.

The trouble with summits is that they

give rise to inflated expectations. 00441*1r/rich,„ Fitts. i4

7.

att.* n yr;

v

Soviet war dead:

it seems.

the figures are not exaggerated,

But what has been neglected is the question

of how they all died - many of them were victims of Stalin as much as Hitler.

(attadaa)

See for example the

paragraphs recently published by Count Nikolai Tolstoy in his book Stalin's Secret War.

q

1,71„.4.3 Sept-fitthe( etI 1183 t,,3

s' Possibly the most extraordinaryexample of the 'Russian mytho repusome among even today, intact y is one which survives largel tablehistorians. This is to the effect that much is owed to the Soviet war regime because the Russians lost an estimated twenty million on guilt acute of s feeling ed dead. These enormous figures inflict Soviet by used still are and Allied leaders and public then and since, from spokesmen as credit when attempting to extract concessions s appear cited y usuall the West.7 The origin of the specific figure a ing accept were obscure. In 1947 pro-Soviet writers in the West boasted figure of seven- million Soviet war dead.8 In 1945 Mikoyan . Later, losses' le that victory had been achieved with 'the least possib it was when when more precise figures became available —or Suslov M. — s appreciated that more, not less, blood was advantageou this even claimed (in 1965) that twenty million had perished.9 But of s analysi l figure appears to have been an underestimate. A carefu like hing the first post-war census, that of 1959, revealed that somet lly twenty-five million more people died in the war years than norma was rate would have been expected. In addition the projected birthpossible down by twenty million; a figure to be accounted for by a seems wartime decline, and greatly inflated infant mortality.'° It Russians that, in all, a staggering total of not less than thirty million least died in the war years, if we make the modest assumption thatat a quarter of expected births took place. from all This figure may be compared with the numbers dead the about lasted war That War. causes as a result of the First World of r numbe same the ly rough ed same length of time and involv one can How ' 000.' 1,66o, was Russian soldiers. The total death-rate greater account for this amazing discrepancy?Fire-power was much most in ties casual this, e in the Second World War, but despit conus previo the in than theatres tended to be considerably lower s. quarter close very at flict, with its bloody struggles fought often the in men n millio a The British Empire, for example, lost nearly But First War, and less than a quarterof that number in the Second. which , macht Wehr the best comparison must surely be that with the time needless to say fought the same battles over the same period of the 1944 ber and with much the same numbers. By 30 Novem r anothe and German Army in Russia had lost 1,419,000 men killed, million 907,000 missing. It seems probable that about two and a half Germans in all were killed in battle on the EasternFront.12 known The number of Russian troops killed on the Front is not conwith any degree of precision. The Soviet authorities were little appears cerned with the fate of the individual soldier, and no record Stalin to have been preserved of losses incurred. During the war

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WESTERN ATTITUDES

nty million war f acute guilt on I used by Soviet ncessions from ly cited appears ere accepting a ikoyan boasted le losses'. Later, r when it was ous —M. Suslov But even this eful analysis of t something like rs than normally d birth-rate was for by a possible ality. 10 It seems illion Russians tion that at least .9

rs dead from all lasted about the same number of " How can one as much greater sualties in most he previous conclose quarters. Ilion men in the the Second. But ehrmacht, which e period of time ember 1944 the lled, and another and a half million ront.'= ont is not known s were little conno record appears g the war Stalin

281

to minimize Soviet quoted obviously doctored statistics designed could be made. A es casualties, and afterwards only informed guess soldiers were ,000 7,500 Soviet demographer has estimated that about close to the as ps perha killed in battle or died of wounds, which is an deaths civili 0,000 truth as we can hope to get." This leaves 22,50 military the for, but it will be best to examine unaccounted casualties separately. died for every German How can it-be explained that three Russians ers-of-war. Of five and soldier killed? Firstly, there were the prison ans, more than three a half million Russians taken by the Germ through neglect and illmillion had by 1945 been murdered or died clearly fall on the Nazi treatment. 14 Though the major blame must be accorded to the Soviet butchers responsible, not much less should refusing to accede to the regime which collaborated in the crime. By to collaborate with the Geneva Convention on Prisoners-of-War or nt (as it well knew) International Red Cross, the Soviet Governme German ill-treatment of effectively sentenced its citizens to death. '5 a response to Soviet Russian prisoners did not come about as upon before the invabrutality, as it was a policy already decided ted the provisions of accep a sion. '6 Nevertheless, had Soviet Russi questioned whether fairly be international law in this matter, it may his policy of exterwith ue Hitler would have been able to contin y concerned with undul mination of Russian prisoners. He was not derations. But consi an legal procedures, still less with humanitari in a civilized ers prison had the Soviet authorities treated German (the evidence must kind manner, pressure for Germany to respond in . effect , suggests) have had considerable, if not irresistible deducted are ity captiv If the three million Russians who died in the dead, war ry milita from the the estimated total of 7,500,000 total can This an. each Germ USSR still lost around two of her soldiers for manner of waging rous barba 's Army Red the only be attributed to succession of blunderwar, in which lives counted as nothing in the Staff in 1941-2. These ing offensives conducted by Stalin's General Like virtually everything tactics included the use of penal battalions. ated by the resourceelse in the Soviet state, this was a concept origin thousand of the Petroful Lenin. On 20 October 1919 he ordered ten front ('machine-guns to grad 'bourgeoisie' to be dispatched to the n against the White drive and the rear of them, a few hundred shot') lines. '7 the people' from their The NKVD collected droves of 'enemies of

282

STALIN'S

SECRET WAR

untrained and frequently prisons and camps, and sent them off, NKVD machine-gunners unarmed, to the battlefield. There, with hurled in waves against crouching safely behind them, they were sion they were deprived of German defensive positions. On occa y fire. Their most useful camouflaged uniforms, so as to draw enem driven on in extended ranks, task was the clearance of minefields: blown up every mine. The they moved slowly forward until they had Britain, General Ratov, in head of the Soviet Military Mission explaining mine-detectors, actually declined an offer of British al attack typic a In 8 ' le'. peop blandly that 'in the Soviet Union we use men. 1,5oo its of 500 lost on a German position one penal battalion men D NKV d arme wellthe They had one rifle to every three men; own their all g killin to battle behind them confined their role in the killed were iers' 'sold many wounded. It is impossible to know how hundreds of thousands. A into run must er numb the in this way, but frequent inclusion of women particularly unpleasant aspect was the in punitive units.' 9 other wasteful forms of Apart from losses incurred by this and immaterial provided objecfighting, where losses were considered unusual causes of casualties. tives were attained, there were other Svetlana Stalin tells how Beria of whole army units, at carried out the abominable liquidation German advance into swift times very large ones, who, during the selves cut off from them d the Ukraine and Byelorussia, had foun odds, had found tful frigh their own lines, and who later, against their way back.2° in minor battles between Actions like this, frequently resulting the end of the war.2' NKVD and regular troops, continued until military casualties can et Sovi of scale Thus the disproportionate s, totalling as they losse an civili readily be accounted for, but what of hed as a direct or peris ers did some 22,500,000 lives? Large numb er of a million quart a ibly indirect result of German actions. Poss partisans, and et Sovi st again civilians were killed during operations Yar and elseBabi at acred some 750,000 Russian Jews were mass Ukraine in the in have died where. A further million people may the urban feed to attempt 1941-2, when the Germans made no perished have Yet another million civilians could population. to half a up ly, cities. Final during the siege of Leningrad and other Thus h.2.2 Reic -labour in the million Russians died working as slave

about four mi the Germans 'scorched ear However g residue of so Any calculati sible, but it fantastic mor Firstly, th Poland and minuscule Khrushchev figure may b Secondly, tions of th resulted in Thirdly, lines throug victims bei millions. nationalists people wer Republics from elsew similar nu already bee Fourthly camps of G enormousl population must be ad that at L'vo advance, a with his c that seven of the wa nothing i Fifthly co deported s subsequen

WESTERN

equently gunners s against rived of st useful d ranks, ine. The 1 Ratov, plaining cal attack 500 men. VD men eir own ere killed sands. A f women forms of ed obj ecasualties. units, at ance into t off from had found between ar. 2t alties can ing as they a direct or a million tisans, and and elsekraine in the urban perished p to half a ch.2.2 Thus

ATTITUDES

283

s may be laid at the door of about four million Russian civilian death must have resulted from the the Germans. A further death toll sides when retreating. 'scorched earth' policy pursued by both interpreted, there is still a However generously these figures are Russian corpses to account for. residue of some ten to fifteen million exactitude is clearly imposAny calculation remotely approaching ral terms to account for this sible, but it is not difficult in gene fantastic mortality. during Stalin's invasions of Firstly, there were the losses incurred first campaign resulted in Poland and Finland in 1939-40. The were enormous. casualties,23 but in Finland they minuscule men died there, though the true Khrushchev believed that a million ber. figure may be about a quarter of that num the evacuation of large secSecondly, Soviet policy in compelling athy for the invaders symp of tions of the population suspected t ghou the countryside.24 resulted in widespread epidemics throu spread purges behind the Thirdly, the NKVD conducted wide in reoccupied territories, their lines throughout the war, particularly thousands or, very likely, victims being counted in unknown in a regular war against Ukrainian millions. This culminated the regime.25 About 1,600,000 nationalists and other opponents of the Crimean Tartars, Caucasian people were deported from among aps another million Germans Republics and Volga Germans. Perh underwent the same fate, and a from elsewhere in the Soviet Union s from Soviet Karelia had similar number of Ukrainians.26 Finn . already been deported en massein 1939 ality in the greatly swollen mort ented Fourthly came unpreced , terrible as it was, increased camps of GULAG. The normal death-rate ed by the expanded prison enormously through difficulties caus ons of conditions.27 To this population and other wartime aggravati in prison massacres such as must be added the myriads exterminated eastwards to escape the German that at L'vov, when being evacuated s:28 A former prisoner, who advance, and in the camps themselve h-and-ready estimate, reckoned with his comrades conducted a roug were slaughtered in the first year that seven million GULAG inmates of checking such figures, but of the war.29 There is no means suggest; it need be exaggerated. nothing in the history of GULAG ians who, as prisoners-of-war, Fifthly comes the category of Russ into German hands and were deported slave-labour or refugees, fell some 5,500,000 were recovered, subsequently repatriated. A total of

284

STALIN'S

SECRET

WAR

of whom 2,272,000 were obligingly handed back by the British and Americans.30 Thousands were massacred on arrival, whilst the overwhelmingly majority of the remainder disappeared and died in forced-labour camps.3' It will readily be seen that all this mortality accounts without difficulty for the missing statistic of Russian losses. However one assesses the proportion, it is clear that casualties directly attributable to the Germans account for only a third, or at most half, of Soviet overall losses in manpower in the years 1939-45, even if we discount the heavy responsibility that must rest on the Soviet Government for the military and political blunders of 1941-2, and the fate of the prisoners-of-war in Germany. Most Russians killed at that time died in the invasion of Finland and in the subsequent war of the NKVD against the civil and military population of the USSR. aro ed the enthusiastic loyalty of so many in the West. Tho much f what was going on in Soviet Russia was hidden from iew more n enough information was accessible to those wh ishe to know. The truth was available in countless books d article written b fugitives from the USSR, from thousa s of Sovi citizens an after 1941) Poles in the West, from estern visitor such as Malc m Muggeridge, Eugene Lyons d Andrew Smit , and even from blished Soviet sources. Wha as glaringly obvio s to Arthur Koestl and George Orwell mi have been equally so o Louis Aragon, J. Bernal or Lillian lman.32 How did it happ n that thousands o intelligent pe le inveigled or encourag d millions less intellec ally end ed into blind admiration of m s murder, torture and sla ry? At the time, support e Soviet Union often took the form f neo-religious adulatio , i which truth and Stalin's communi were identified and ostile 'ticism simply heresy. The continua y accruing mass of idence rev ing it for what it really was had to e exorcized as unscrupulous c llenge to faith, and its opponen s excoriated a shrill vein of h vy-handed sarcasm which ow much, i appearance at least, to Len 's inimitable style of polemic . With indsight, apologists for the eneration of Marxists an fe w-travellers claim that their faith w the inevitable reaction t era of triumphant Fascismnaced in th West by bankrupt poli ticians bent on appeasement or betrayal. Onl he Soviet Union th against the

rising t standab the Par It is become counter Comm this ar than th B urhop ing out The socia test, Clear surpr ing t Transla and th Socialis depend The intellec Bertran extrem or your three'.3reality. and soc ment i replace 1ectual s seemed them in This the con the lod striking 1940s.