Between Giants (5 page)

To a considerable extent, this report almost certainly was written with foreknowledge of what Stalin wished to hear, and its content was designed to ensure that the writer did not offend his superiors. Nevertheless, intelligence from other sources appeared to confirm the views of the Germans and the Soviets that the three states would be forced to choose a side. In March 1937, a Finnish envoy to the region reported:

The territory of Lithuania is situated between Germany, the Soviet Union and Poland. If there is a clash between these states, it will threaten the existence of Lithuania. Such a frightening prospect obliges Lithuania to seek the safest position. It is axiomatic that [the Lithuanian government] seeks the protection of Great Britain and France – in vain, as they are far away. Neutrality? But in practice, neutrality means complete isolation. Thus, Lithuania has to choose between Poland, Germany and the Soviet Union, and Lithuania … [will choose] the latter. The essential difficulties in the relationship of Lithuania with Germany and Poland, do not exist in the relationship between the Soviet Union and Lithuania.
²

Negotiations between the Soviet Union and Germany were hamstrung by Litvinov’s Jewish ancestry, and this was one of the reasons for his dismissal by Stalin in May 1939.
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After the Munich Agreement of 1938, Stalin felt that there was little prospect of the capitalist powers containing Hitler, and he started to consider direct negotiations. Litvinov’s dismissal came during the era of Stalin’s widespread purges of the army and other organisations, and it was perhaps unsurprising that the sacking of the commissar was accompanied by the arrival of large numbers of NKVD troops at the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs; many of Litvinov’s aides were arrested and interrogated in a vain attempt to secure incriminating evidence against their leader.

Litvinov’s replacement was Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, who had been a Bolshevik almost from the start of the Communist Party. Born with the surname Scriabin, he adopted the name Molotov, derived from the Russian word
molot
, meaning hammer, for his political work. Many of his contemporaries preferred the nickname ‘Stone Arse’, on account of his long hours of work. It was characteristic of his reputation for pedantry that he often corrected colleagues, pointing out that Lenin had originally referred to him as ‘Iron Arse’. He was far less keen on reminding people of the occasion that Lenin had condemned him for being the author of ‘the most shameful bureaucratism, and the most stupid’.
⁴
He owed his rise more to his consistent loyalty to Stalin than to any political excellence, and had a reputation for brutality; he played a leading role in the wave of arrests and executions that did so much harm to the Soviet Union during the 1930s. As soon as he was appointed, Stalin instructed him to purge the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of Jews, using the phrase ‘Clean out the “Synagogue.”’
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Molotov later recalled this order: ‘Thank God for these words! Jews formed an absolute majority in the leadership and among the ambassadors. It was not good.’
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The fact that Molotov’s wife was Jewish appeared to make little difference to his enthusiasm for following his leader’s instructions.

Tentative moves towards negotiations between Germany and the Soviet Union started in April 1939, but although economic measures were agreed, at least in outline, during July, there was little progress on serious diplomatic talks until several weeks after Litvinov’s dismissal. Tensions had been raised during the summer when Latvia, under pressure from Germany, agreed to sign a non-aggression pact; Latvian diplomats joked lugubriously that ‘Germany can now sleep in peace: Latvia will not attack it.’
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Stalin and Molotov feared that they might find themselves with the unwelcome presence of German troops within easy striking distance of major Soviet cities, particularly after Nikitin, the Soviet ambassador in Tallinn, reported that German and Estonian officials had met to discuss collaboration in the construction of a major road from the Estonian–Latvian border to the north
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; consequently, the Soviets increased their own diplomatic approaches to Berlin. Despite this, progress remained slow, not least because the agendas of the two countries diverged considerably.

Stalin’s requirements from a treaty with Germany were more than simply a non-aggression pact. In order to ensure that Leningrad could be defended, it was highly desirable for the Soviet Union to be given a free hand to place troops in Estonia. Although the border with Latvia was a little further away from vital locations, and the land route from this border into the Soviet interior was a difficult one, as the Wehrmacht would discover in 1941, a similar argument could be made for Latvia as for Estonia. The Western Powers had steadfastly refused to countenance granting the Soviet Union such freedom of action, and although an Anglo-French delegation travelled to Moscow in August 1939, there was little prospect of an agreement that would satisfy Stalin. Hitler, by contrast, about to invade Poland, was anxious to secure an agreement with the Soviet Union, and had no compunction about agreeing spheres of influence with his large eastern neighbour. On 15 August, the German ambassador to Moscow, Graf Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg, informed Molotov that the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, wished to have a meeting, and that matters such as a non-aggression pact and a division of Eastern Europe into spheres of influence could be settled to the mutual advantage of the two powers. On 17 August, Kliment Voroshilov, the Commissar for Defence, proposed to the Anglo-French delegation a treaty of mutual military assistance, which would require Poland and Rumania to allow the passage of Soviet troops in the event of a German attack. When the British representative replied that he had no authority to agree such a deal, Stalin lost patience and decided to cement arrangements with Germany.
⁹

Two days later, Molotov summoned Schulenburg and presented him with a draft non-aggression pact. On 21 August, the Anglo-French delegation was dismissed, even as Ribbentrop prepared to travel to Moscow. The German Foreign Minister arrived on 23 August, and met Stalin and Molotov that afternoon. The broad outline of a deal was agreed within hours, and the pact, designed to last ten years, was signed at 0200hrs on 24 August.

The treaty became public on the same day, and was greeted with shock throughout the world, by both allies and potential foes of Germany and the Soviet Union. Ambassador Nikitin in Tallinn reported with great satisfaction that the bewilderment of the Estonians was complete, and that the government was totally disoriented by this new development.
¹⁰
Neither of the signatories had any illusions about the pact. On the very day that the pact was signed, Stalin joined his closest associates on a duck hunt, telling them: ‘Of course it’s all a game to see who can fool whom. I know what Hitler’s up to. He thinks he’s outsmarted me but actually it’s I who’s tricked him.’
¹¹

Hitler, too, regarded the treaty as merely a temporary expedient. As preparations for the invasion of Poland progressed, he gave his views to his followers: ‘There is no time to lose. War must come in my lifetime. This pact was only meant to stall for time, and, gentlemen, to Russia will happen what I have practised with Poland – we will crush the Soviet Union.’
¹²

Caught between the two powers, the Baltic States struggled to adapt to the sudden change in their world. For several years, they had been pressured, often overtly, by Germany and the Soviet Union to choose which they would support. Suddenly, the two opposed powers were friends. They struggled to make sense of this dramatic shift and its effect on their own status, unaware that a protocol to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact had already decided their fate. The text of the protocol, secret at the time and denied by Moscow until the fall of the Soviet Union, gave Stalin his desired territorial gains to protect the approaches to Leningrad:

In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the regions making up the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) the northern frontier of Lithuania will simultaneously serve as the frontier of the spheres of interest of Germany and the USSR. In this, Lithuania’s interest in connection with the Vilnius District is recognised by both parties.
¹³

Given longstanding German claims to Estonia and Latvia, based on historical involvement in the area, the ease with which Germany conceded these territories to the Soviet Union is indicative of how keen Hitler was to secure a deal with Stalin, but nothing less would have appeased the Soviet leader, who regarded the deployment of the Red Army in the two countries as an essential requirement for the defence of Leningrad. At first, the Germans requested that their sphere of influence should include Courland, the western part of Latvia, but Stalin responded that the entire region had been part of the Russian Empire, and that the USSR therefore had an overriding claim to the territories.

As war between Germany and Poland drew ever closer, the German envoy to Lithuania, Erich Zechlin, informed the Lithuanian government on 29 August that in the event of war, Berlin would require Lithuania to observe total neutrality; should this not occur, Germany would have to take whatever steps were required to safeguard its interests. In an attempt to sway Lithuanian sentiment, the Germans hinted that any conflict between Germany and Poland could result in territorial realignment, including the Vilnius region, currently part of Poland, and that the Lithuanians should take steps to seize the region once war began. It was clear that the German concept of ‘strict neutrality’ was somewhat different from what the words might have been taken to mean. The Lithuanians now found themselves under pressure from other quarters: the British and French pressed the Lithuanian government not to attack Poland, even within the disputed Vilnius region.

German forces invaded Poland on 1 September. Polish refugees flowed into Lithuania, which proclaimed its intention to remain strictly neutral; to the disappointment of the Germans, Lithuania made no attempt to seize Vilnius and the surrounding area. On 17 September, Soviet forces entered Poland from the east. As it was clear that the Red Army would seize Vilnius – the city itself fell to Soviet troops on 19 September – Berlin ordered Zechlin to stop encouraging the Lithuanians from making any move of their own.

With the entire Vilnius region in Soviet hands, Stalin found himself in a strong position with regard to both Germany and Lithuania. Molotov put off discussions with either nation about Vilnius, though he hinted to the Lithuanians that Vilnius would be part of a general settlement of issues in the area.
¹⁴
Meanwhile, Ribbentrop informed the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Juozas Urbšys, that Germany was prepared to offer a treaty in which Lithuania would fall under the protection of Germany, with Lithuanian troops coming under the command of the Wehrmacht. To the irritation of the Germans, the Lithuanians informed both the British and the Soviets of the German offer, and Ribbentrop cancelled a proposed meeting with his Lithuanian counterpart.

If Germany was having some difficulty in securing its share of the Baltic States, the Soviet Union appeared to have no such handicaps. The first move came against Estonia, aided by an incident involving a Polish submarine. The
Orzeł
, deployed in the Baltic Sea, reached Tallinn on 14 September, where the ship’s captain was hospitalised with a serious illness. The Hague Convention required Estonia to intern the submarine, and, after German demands for action, Estonian forces duly boarded the vessel. The crew of the
Orzeł
had other ideas, and slipped out of the harbour on 18 September, taking advantage of foggy conditions. They left two Estonian sailors who had been aboard the submarine on the Swedish coast, together with clothing and sufficient money for them to return to Estonia, and escaped to Britain, eventually reaching the naval base in Rosyth. On 24 September, Molotov informed Karl Selter, the Estonian Foreign Minister, who happened to be in Moscow to discuss trade agreements, that the ‘
Orzeł
incident’ demonstrated that Estonia was not acting as a true neutral state, and that the Estonian authorities must have collaborated with the Polish submarine crew during their escape. As its neutrality was now in question, Estonia had to accept a military alliance or mutual assistance agreement with the Soviet Union. Selter was also informed that some 160,000 Soviet troops were deployed along the Estonian border, and that they would take whatever action was required to ensure that Estonia fulfilled its obligations. The Estonians were given little time to agree to what amounted to an ultimatum. A tentative approach to Germany was rebuffed by Berlin – the Germans added that they would block any arms shipments to Estonia from the west.
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The Soviet Air Force sent its planes sweeping low over Tallinn to intimidate Päts’ government, and on 27 September, Selter was summoned to the Bolshoi Ballet, where Stalin and Molotov were watching a production of Swan Lake. During the interval at the end of the first act, they met Selter in the lobby of the theatre. Molotov insisted on an immediate agreement stationing 35,000 Soviet troops in Estonia. Stalin generously offered to reduce this to a mere 25,000, but in any event Estonia had no option but to acquiesce, not least because the entire strength of the Estonian armed forces amounted to only 16,000 men.
¹⁶
The agreement was signed the following day, allowing 25,000 Soviet troops to be stationed on two islands and in the port of Paldiski.
¹⁷

With Estonia out of the way, Soviet attention turned to Latvia. On 30 September, Moscow invited the Latvian government to send plenipotentiaries to the Soviet capital for discussions. On 2 October, Molotov informed the Latvian delegation that the Soviet Union intended to bring its relations with Latvia into line with its new arrangements with Estonia. Like Päts in Estonia, Ulmanis knew that Latvia could not stand alone against the Soviet Union. The lack of reaction by Germany to the Soviet ‘agreement’ with Estonia confirmed widely held suspicions about the existence of the secret protocol to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and on 4 October, Latvia caved in to Soviet pressure. Around 30,000 Soviet troops moved into Latvia over the next few days.