Conversations with Stalin Page 6

  When I mentioned a loan of two hundred thousand dollars, he called this a trifle, saying that we could not do much with this amount, but that the sum would be allocated to us immediately. At my remark that we would repay this as well as all shipments of arms and other equipment after the liberation, he became sincerely angry: “You insult me. You are shedding your blood, and you expect me to charge you for the weapons! I am not a merchant, we are not merchants. You are fighting for the same cause as we. We are duty bound to share with you whatever we have.”

  But how would the aid come?

  It was decided to ask the Western Allies to establish a Soviet air base in Italy which would help the Yugoslav Partisans. “Let us try,” said Stalin. “We shall see what attitude the West takes and how far they are prepared to go to help Tito.”

  I should note that such a base—consisting of ten transport planes, if I remember well—was soon established.

  “But we cannot help you much with planes,” Stalin explained further. “An army cannot be supplied by plane, and you are already an army. Ships are needed for this. And we have no ships. Our Black Sea fleet is destroyed.”

  General Zhukov intervened: “We have ships in the Far East. We could transfer them to our Black Sea harbor and load them with arms and whatever else is needed.” Stalin interrupted him rudely and categorically. From a restrained and almost impish person another Stalin suddenly made his appearance. “What in the world are you thinking about? Are you in your right mind? There is a war going on in the Far East. Somebody is certainly not going to miss the opportunity of sinking those ships. Indeed! The ships have to be purchased. But from whom? There is a shortage of ships just now. Turkey? The Turks don’t have many ships, and they won’t sell any to us anyway. Egypt? Yes, we could buy some from Egypt. Egypt will sell—Egypt would sell anything, so they’ll certainly sell us ships.”

  Yes, that was the real Stalin, who did not mince words. But I was used to this in my own Party, and I was myself partial to this manner when it came time to reach a final decision.

  General Zhukov swiftly and silently made note of Stalin’s decisions. But the purchase of ships and the supplying of the Yugoslavs by way of Soviet ships never took place. The chief reason for this was, no doubt, the development of operations on the Eastern Front—the Red Army soon reached the Yugoslav border and was thus able to assist Yugoslavia by land. I maintain that at the time Stalin’s intentions to help us were determined.

  This was the gist of the conversation.

  In passing, Stalin expressed interest in my opinion of individual Yugoslav politicians. He asked me what I thought of Milan Gavrilović, the leader of the Serbian Agrarian Party and the first Yugoslav Ambassador to Moscow. I told him: “A shrewd man.”

  Stalin commented, as though to himself: “Yes, there are politicians who think shrewdness is the main thing in politics—but Gavrilović impressed me as a stupid man.”

  I added, “He is not a politician of broad horizons, though I do not think it can be said that he is stupid.”

  Stalin inquired where Yugoslav King Peter II had found a wife. When I told him that he had taken a Greek princess, he shot back roguishly, “How would it be, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, if you or I married some foreign princess? Maybe some good could come of it.”

  Molotov laughed, but in a restrained manner and noiselessly.

  At the end I presented Stalin with our gifts. They looked particularly primitive and wretched now. But he in no way showed any disparagement. When he saw the peasant sandals, he exclaimed: “Lapti!”—the Russian word for them. As for the rifle, he opened and shut it, hefted it, and remarked: “Ours is lighter.”

  The meeting had lasted about an hour.

  It was already dusk as we were leaving the Kremlin. The officer who accompanied us obviously caught our enthusiasm. He looked at us joyously and tried to ingratiate himself with every little word. The northern lights extend to Moscow at that time of year, and everything was violet-hued and shimmering—a world of unreality more beautiful than the one in which we had been living.

  Somehow that is how it felt in my soul.

  6

  But I was to have still another, even more significant and interesting, encounter with Stalin. I remember exactly when it occurred: on the eve of the Allied landing in Normandy.

  This time too no one told me anything in advance. They simply informed me that I was to go to the Kremlin, and around nine in the evening they put me in a car and drove me there. Not even anyone in the Mission knew where I was going.

  They took me to the building in which Stalin had received us, but to other rooms. There Molotov was preparing to leave. While putting on a topcoat and hat, he informed me that we were having supper at Stalin’s.

  Molotov is not a very talkative man. While he was with Stalin, when in a good mood, and with those who think like him, contact was easy and direct. Otherwise Molotov remained impassive, even in private conversation. Nevertheless, while in the car, he asked me what languages I spoke besides Russian. I told him that I had French. Then the conversation took up the strength and organization of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. I emphasized that the war found the Yugoslav Party illegal and relatively few in numbers—some ten thousand members, but excellently organized. I added, “Like the Bolshevik Party in the First World War.”

  “You are wrong!” Molotov retorted. “The First World War found our Party in a very weak state, organizationally disconnected, scattered, and with a small membership. I remember,” he continued, “how at the beginning of the war I came illegally from Petrograd to Moscow on Party business. I had nowhere to spend the night but had to risk staying with Lenin’s sister!” Molotov also mentioned the name of that sister, and, if I remember correctly, she was called Maria Ilyinichna.

  The car sped along at a relatively good clip—about sixty miles an hour, and met with no traffic obstacles. Apparently the traffic police recognized the car in some way and gave it a clear path. Having gotten out of Moscow, we struck out on an asphalt road which I later learned was called the Government Highway because only Government cars were permitted on it long after the war. Is this still true today? Soon we came to a barrier. The officer in the seat next to the chauffeur flashed a little badge through the windshield and the guard let us through without any formalities. The right window was down. Molotov observed my discomfort because of the draft and began to raise the window. Only then did I notice that the glass was very thick and then it occurred to me that we were riding in an armored car. I think it was a Packard, for Tito got the same kind in 1945 from the Soviet Government.

  Some ten days prior to that supper the Germans had carried out a surprise attack on the Supreme Staff of the Yugoslav Army of People’s Liberation in Drvar. Tito and the military missions had to flee into the hills. The Yugoslav leaders were forced to undertake long strenuous marches in which valuable time for military and political activities was lost. The problem of food also became acute. The Soviet Military Mission had been informing Moscow in detail about all this, while our Mission in Moscow was in constant contact with responsible Soviet officers, advising them how to get aid to the Yugoslav forces and the Supreme Staff. Soviet planes flew even at night and dropped ammunition and food supplies, though actually without much success, since the packages were scattered over a wide forest area which had to be quickly evacuated.

  On the way Molotov wished to know my opinion regarding the situation that had arisen in connection with this. His interest was intense but without any excitement—more for the sake of obtaining a true picture.

  We drove about twenty miles, turned left onto a side road, and soon came to a clump of young fir trees. Again a barrier, then a short ride, and the gate. We found ourselves before a not very large villa which was also in a thick clump of firs.

  We no sooner entered a small hall from the entrance than Stalin appeared—this time in shoes and dressed in his plain tunic, buttoned up to his chin, and known so well from his prewar pictures. Like this
he seemed even smaller, but also simpler and completely at home. He led us into a small and surprisingly empty study—no books, no pictures, just bare wooden walls. We seated ourselves around a small writing table, and he immediately began to inquire about events concerning the Yugoslav Supreme Staff.

  The very manner of his inquiry showed a sharp contrast between Stalin and Molotov. With Molotov not only his thoughts but also the process of their generation was impenetrable. Similarly his mentality remained sealed and inscrutable. Stalin, however, was of a lively, almost restless temperament. He always questioned—himself and others; and he argued—with himself and others. I will not say that Molotov did not easily get excited, or that Stalin did not know how to restrain himself and to dissimulate; later I was to see both in these roles. But Molotov was almost always the same, with hardly a shade of variety, regardless of what or who was under consideration, whereas Stalin was completely different in his own, the Communist, milieu. Churchill has characterized Molotov as a complete modern robot. That is correct. But that is only one, external side of him. Stalin was no less a cold calculator than he. But precisely because his was a more passionate and many-sided nature—though all sides were equal and so convincing that it seemed he never dissembled but was always truly experiencing each of his roles—he was more penetrable and offered greater possibilities. The impression was gained that Molotov looked upon everything—even upon Communism and its final aims—as relative, as something to which he had to, rather than ought to, subordinate his own fate. It was as though for him there was nothing permanent, as though there was only a transitory and unideal reality which presented itself differently every day and to which he had to offer himself and his whole life. For Stalin, too, everything was transitory. But that was his philosophical view. Behind that impermanence and within it, certain great and final ideals lay hidden—his ideals, which he could approach by manipulating or kneading the reality and the living men who comprised it.

  In retrospect it seems to me that these two, Molotov, with his relativism, with his knack for detailed daily routine, and Stalin, with his fanatical dogmatism and, at the same time, broader horizons, his driving quest for further, future possibilities, these two ideally complemented one another. Molotov, though impotent without Stalin’s leadership, was indispensable to Stalin in many ways. Though both were unscrupulous in their methods, it seems to me that Stalin selected these methods carefully and fitted them to the circumstances, while Molotov regarded them in advance as being incidental and unimportant. I maintain that he not only incited Stalin into doing many things, but that he also sustained him and dispelled his doubts. And though, in view of his greater versatility and penetration, Stalin claims the principal role in transforming a backward Russia into a modern industrial imperial power, it would be wrong to underestimate Molotov’s role, especially as the practical executive.

  Molotov even seemed physically suited to such a role: thorough, deliberate, composed, and tenacious. He drank more than Stalin, but his toasts were shorter and calculated to produce a particular political effect. His personal life was also unremarkable, and when, a year later, I met his wife, a modest and gracious woman, I had the impression that any other might have served his regular, necessary functions.

  The conversation with Stalin began with his excited inquiries into the further destinies of the Yugoslav Supreme Staff and the units around it. “They will die of hunger!” he exclaimed.

  I tried to show him that this could not happen.

  “And why not?” he went on. “How many times have soldiers been overcome by hunger! Hunger is the terrible enemy of every army.”

  I explained to him, “The terrain is such that something can always be found to eat. We were in much worse situations and still we were not overcome by hunger.” I succeeded in calming and assuring him.

  He then turned to the possibilities of sending aid. The Soviet front was still too distant to permit fighter planes to escort transports. At one point Stalin flared up, upbraiding the pilots: “They are cowards—afraid to fly during daytime! Cowards, by God, cowards!”

  Molotov, who was informed on the whole problem, defended the pilots: “No, they are not cowards. Far from it. It is just that fighter planes do not have such a range and the transports would be shot down before they ever reached their target. Besides, their payload is insignificant. They have to carry their own fuel to get back. That is the only reason why they have to fly nights and carry a small load.”

  I supported Molotov, for I knew that Soviet pilots had volunteered to fly in daytime, without the protection of fighter planes, in order to help their fellow-soldiers in Yugoslavia.

  At the same time I was in complete agreement with Stalin’s insistence on Tito’s need, in view of the serious and complicated circumstances and tasks, to find himself a more permanent headquarters and to free himself of daily insecurity. There is no doubt that Stalin also transmitted this view to the Soviet Mission, for it was just at that time, on their insistence, that Tito agreed to evacuate to Italy, and from there to the island of Vis, where he remained until the Red Army got to Yugoslavia. Of course Stalin said nothing about this evacuation, but the idea was taking shape in his mind.

  The Allies had already approved the establishment of a Soviet air base in Italy for aid to the Yugoslav soldiers, and Stalin stressed the urgency of sending transport planes there and activating the base itself.

  Apparently encouraged by my optimism regarding the final outcome of the current German offensive against Tito, he then took up our relations with the Allies, primarily with Great Britain, which constituted, as it appeared to me even then, the principal reason for the meeting with me.

  The substance of his suggestions was, on the one hand, that we ought not to “frighten” the English, by which he meant that we ought to avoid anything that might alarm them into thinking that a revolution was going on in Yugoslavia or an attempt at Communist control. “What do you want with red stars on your caps? The form is not important but what is gained, and you—red stars! By God, stars aren’t necessary!” Stalin exclaimed angrily.

  But he did not hide the fact that his anger was not very great. It was a reproach, and I explained to him: “It is impossible to discontinue the red stars because they are already a tradition and have acquired a certain meaning among our fighters.”

  Standing by his opinion, but without great insistence, he turned to relations with the Western Allies from another aspect, and continued, “Perhaps you think that just because we are the allies of the English that we have forgotten who they are and who Churchill is. They find nothing sweeter than to trick their allies. During the First World War they constantly tricked the Russians and the French. And Churchill? Churchill is the kind who, if you don’t watch him, will slip a kopeck out of your pocket. Yes, a kopeck out of your pocket! By God, a kopeck out of your pocket! And Roosevelt? Roosevelt is not like that. He dips in his hand only for bigger coins. But Churchill? Churchill—even for a kopeck.”

  He underscored several times that we ought to beware of the Intelligence Service and of English duplicity, especially with regard to Tito’s life. “They were the ones who killed General Sikorski in a plane and then neatly shot down the plane—no proof, no witnesses.”

  In the course of the meeting Stalin kept repeating these warnings, which I transmitted to Tito upon my return and which probably played a certain role in deciding his conspiratorial night flight from Vis to Soviet-occupied territory in Rumania on September 21, 1944.

  Stalin then moved on to relations with the Yugoslav Royal Government. The new royal mandatory was Dr. Ivan Šubašić, who had promised the regulation of relations with Tito and recognition of the People’s Liberation Army as the chief force in the struggle against the forces of occupation. Stalin urged, “Do not refuse to hold conversations with Šubašić—on no account must you do this. Do not attack him immediately. Let us see what he wants. Talk with him. You cannot be recognized right away. A transition to this must be found. You ou
ght to talk with Šubašić and see if you can’t reach a compromise somehow.”

  His urging was not categorical, though determined. I transmitted this to Tito and to the members of the Central Committee, and it is probable that it played a role in the well-known Tito-Šubašić Agreement.

  Stalin then invited us to supper, but in the hallway we stopped before a map of the world on which the Soviet Union was colored in red, which made it conspicuous and bigger than it would otherwise seem. Stalin waved his hand over the Soviet Union and, referring to what he had been saying just previously against the British and the Americans, he exclaimed, “They will never accept the idea that so great a space should be red, never, never!”

  I noticed that on the map the area around Stalingrad was encircled from the west by a blue pencil mark. Apparently Stalin had done this in the course of the Battle of Stalingrad. He detected my glance, and I had the impression that it pleased him, though he did not betray his feelings in any way.

  I do not remember the reason, but I happened to remark, “Without industrialization the Soviet Union could not have preserved itself and waged such a war.”

  Stalin added, “It was precisely over this that we quarreled with Trotsky and Bukharin.”

  And this was all—here in front of the map—that I ever heard from him about these opponents of his: they had quarreled!

  In the dining room two or three people from the Soviet high echelon were already waiting, standing, though there was no one from the Politburo except Molotov. I have forgotten them. Anyway they were silent and withdrawn the whole evening.

  In his memoirs Churchill vividly describes an improvised dinner with Stalin at the Kremlin. But this is the way Stalin’s dinners were in general.

  In a spacious and unadorned, though tasteful, dining room, the front half of a long table was covered with all kinds of foods on warmed heavy silver platters as well as beverages and plates and other utensils. Everyone served himself and sat where he wished around the free half of the table. Stalin never sat at the head, but he always sat in the same chair—the first to the left of the head of the table.