Arthur Greenwood asked whether the Soviet Union had been brought into it, to which
Chamberlain replied that discussions were in progress with numerous countries,
including the Soviet Union. Three days later, in connection with Beck's visit to London, the Soviet press reported further House of Commons discussions. It reported
Chamberlain as saying that the guarantee to Poland had marked a sharp change in British foreign policy. But already it focused all its attention on what was being said about the Soviet Union and the "trap" the Poles had laid:
Sir Archibald Sinclair said that the Soviet Union held the key to peace in Eastern Europe. British-Soviet cooperation was therefore of the utmost importance.
Mr Lloyd George asked why the British Government had not got Soviet support before entering into these colossal obligations. Britain should tell Poland that she could be helped only on certain conditions. In talking about the Soviet Union,
Chamberlain, Lloyd George said, was merely trying to appease the Opposition. If
Britain did not secure Soviet aid, her help to Poland would merely be a trap.
Mr Hugh Dalton hoped he would soon see some action about the Soviet Union, and not just vapid assurances.
The press reported that, according to a public opinion poll in Britain, eighty-four percent of the people now wanted close cooperation with the Soviet Union; but, it added, there was nothing to show that the Government was following suit. If the Labour and Liberal press were now saying that no resistance to German aggression could be effective
without the Soviet Union, The Times and the Daily Telegraph were still beating about the bush, assuring Germany that no "encirclement" was contemplated, and trying to draw fine distinctions between Polish independence and Polish territorial integrity. " The Times", Pravda wrote on April 10, "is trying to suggest that this is a return to collective security; but it is not, if only because the Poles are still talking about 'holding the balance'."
All the same, something seemed at last to be stirring in Britain, and there was already much talk of conscription—which was, indeed, to be introduced at the end of April. But for a fortnight after the announcement of the guarantee to Poland, no new proposals came to Moscow from the West—or vice versa. It was not till April 15 that the British Foreign Office came forward with a proposal to the Russians that they give Poland, Rumania and other European states a unilateral guarantee against German aggression—in case these countries desired such help. It was for these countries to decide what kind of help would be convenient to them. This was unacceptable to Moscow.
More constructive, from the Soviet point of view, was a simultaneous French proposal for a joint Soviet-French declaration based on mutual assistance to each other, as well as to Rumania and Poland. The Soviet Government apparently sensed Daladier's dislike of the guarantee to Poland which Chamberlain had forced on him and which made him
prefer the Russian alliance. So, "in order to coordinate the various British, French and Soviet proposals", the Soviet Government now came forward with the proposal for a straight Anglo-Franco-Soviet alliance, to be signed for a period of five or ten years. This alliance would provide that they undertake to render each other every help, including military help, in the event of an aggression in Europe on any of the three signatories, and also to render similar help to all East-European countries bordering on the Soviet Union between the Baltic and the Black Sea.
"This offer", Coulondre wrote, "was almost undreamed of at the time." He thought this was a tremendous step in the right direction, and attributed it to the fact that Litvinov, the
"collective security man", with his obvious predeliction for the West, was still in charge of Soviet foreign policy. In actual fact such a proposal could not have been made simply on Litvinov's initiative. But the Chamberlain Government turned down the Soviet
proposal which—Coulondre argued—could have still saved the day had it been seized
with both hands.
Instead of accepting the Soviet proposal, the British Government started producing—in Coulondre's phrase—more and more sophisticated formulae, the purpose of which was to provide Soviet guarantees to countries that did not even want them. The British
Government made it indeed clear, in a Note addressed to the French Government, that the various objections raised by Poland made any agreement with the Soviet Union very
difficult.
[R. Coulondre, op. cit., p. 263.]
The "undreamed of offer" had been made by Russia—and had been rejected. A new approach was needed. It had now become necessary to give Soviet foreign policy not
only a more flexible and opportunist character, but also to give it the maximum authority.
And Molotov's position in the Party was second only to Stalin's. Just as in May 1941, with a German invasion threatening, Stalin was to take over the Premiership, so in May 1939, with Europe on the brink of war, Molotov took over the Foreign Commissariat.
Litvinov was temperamentally a "Westerner"—but he had received poor thanks from the West. As a Jew, he had been fiercely abused by the Germans for years. He was ill-suited for any new departures that might now become necessary for Soviet foreign policy. In the eyes of the Party he no longer carried sufficient authority, especially after the rejection by London of the Soviet Plan of April 17.
There was no perceptible change in the tone of the Soviet press or in official utterances after Molotov had become Foreign Commissar. The press continued to report the great
success in England and elsewhere of Russian anti-Nazi films like Professor Mamlock and Alexander Nevsky; patriotic speeches continued to be made about the might of the Red Army which would "smash any aggressor on his own territory if he ever dared attack the Soviet Union"
[ Thus, at the graduation ceremony of the Red Army academies on May 7—a ceremony
attended by Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Zhdanov and others,
Kalinin declared: "Our people are convinced that, with an Army like ours, they can peacefully go on building and developing the Soviet state, a classless socialist society and communism. The international situation demands from you a state of constant
preparedness. I hope you will fully justify the confidence our people have placed in you."
And Colonel Rodimtsev, Hero of the Soviet Union (and a future hero of Stalingrad), said at the same meeting: "We swear to carry out the order of Comrade Voroshilov to smash any aggressor on his own territory..."] and the press continued to publish ominous little items like this one in Pravda (May 16):
HITLER'S VISIT OF INSPECTION.
Berlin, May 15 (TASS). Hitler today left for the Western frontier to inspect the so-called Siegfried Line. He was accompanied by staff officers and by Himmler, the
head of the Gestapo.
Was this meant to suggest that Hitler might, indeed, turn on the West and that the Soviet Union and not the West had better hurry and join forces? At any rate, even a month after Molotov's appointment Nazi Germany was still treated as No. 1 Danger.
When the Supreme Soviet met at the end of May, A. G. Zverev, the Commissar for
Finance, declared amid loud cheers that the expenditure on defence would be increased from twenty-three milliard roubles in 1938 to forty-one milliard roubles in 1939. "The stronger we are," he said, "the better will be the chances that peace will not be disturbed, and that the Fascist aggressors will not dare attack our country." This could only mean Nazi Germany.