Stalin judged that subjectively they might feel friendly toward his country, but objectively their acts revealed the opposite. The “real aim” of the Marshall Plan, he asserted, was “to create a western bloc and isolate the Soviet Union.” Therefore he would regard their going to Paris “as a break in the front of the Slav states and as an act specifically aimed at the USSR.” All he offered as compensation was more trade with the Soviet Union. The delegation obsequiously asked for his help to formulate a rejection to the British and French that did not offend him in any way. Dismissively, he told them to get in touch with the Bulgarians, who had already turned down the invitation. At the end of the little chat, he emphatically reminded them to send their refusal to Paris “immediately.”49
When the weary travelers returned to Prague, they closeted with the government all day on July 11, then rescinded their acceptance of the invitation. Jan Masaryk told his friends about the ghastly experience: “I went to Moscow as the Foreign Minister of an independent sovereign state. I returned as a lackey of the Soviet Government.”50
After this turn of events, even the Czech Communists, who perhaps had believed they could bring about socialism their own way, knew what was really expected. They might have thought they were linked to Soviet Communism by comradeship and shared ideas, but after their appearance as supplicants in Stalin’s court, they could hardly doubt that theirs was a master-slave relationship.51
On July 11 the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, Walter Bedell Smith, wrote Secretary Marshall to express alarm at Soviet actions. Smith, a senior army general who had served under Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, said that he regarded the Kremlin’s act of forcing the Czechs to back out as “nothing less than a declaration of war by the Soviet Union on the immediate issue of the control of Europe.” The Kremlin believed it could win such a contest with the food and resources under its command, or at least that was what Smith thought. He said that never before had Moscow been “so firm in handling its satellites.”52
The Communist boss of Poland, Władysław Gomułka, was convinced that a “Polish road to socialism” was possible, and Stalin initially encouraged him. By the time the Poles got around to holding elections in January 1947, the Soviet dictator was no longer as interested in keeping up appearances.53
The issue of American aid became a test for Poland. After Molotov walked out of the Paris meetings in a huff, he wrote party leaders in Warsaw on July 5 to say that the Soviet Union would not be attending the Marshall Plan meetings, but that it would be “desirable” for “friendly countries” to go along, be obstructive, and then march out. As of July 7, Polish leaders were telling U.S. authorities they were interested and wanted to hear more “about the scope of the plan.”54 As of two P.M. on July 9, the president of Poland informed the new U.S. ambassador, Stanton Griffis, that they would certainly be in Paris. Seven hours later the foreign minister called the ambassador back to say that Poland had rescinded its acceptance. Griffis reported that the Poles wanted to go but were “overruled by higher authority.”55
And so it was that the Soviet empire took on more formal appearances, much to the chagrin of at least some of Stalin’s faithful disciples.
CHAPTER 18
Stalinist Failures: Yugoslavia and Germany
At the pinnacle of Soviet power in the postwar years, the ruling process was highly personalized, with an almost feudal character. Stalin knew and met with the key people both from the USSR and from the countries in the Soviet sphere of influence. Communists from abroad sought and sometimes all but begged for his permission to make trips to Moscow or to visit him on vacation. Between 1944 and 1952 his Kremlin visitors’ book recorded no less than 140 meetings with Eastern European leaders. In addition, he had as many or more semiofficial gatherings at one of his dachas outside Moscow or in the south. Invitations were selective and usually prized. The most frequent visitors in the Kremlin were the Poles (59 times), but the East Germans were there on 11 occasions. At these events, just as during his international conferences, he could be rude, gruff, and intimidating, or he could be quiet and charming, changing his persona as the context demanded.1
In this period Stalin’s thinking about how to rule the Communist parties across Europe was gradually taking shape. The image that emerged was that of a single transnational party that covered the globe. The various branches, all sensitive to conditions on the ground, would culminate in a single headquarters based in Moscow and run from the Kremlin.2 However, it proved not to be so simple to control Communists who became leaders of their own countries, and while the self-proclaimed Master might lay down ideological-political dogma from Moscow, enforcing it was a delicate matter.
VISITS AND PRIVILEGES
Foreign disciples who made it to Moscow tended to view Stalin as the Kremlin oracle dispensing wisdom. Interlocutors were spellbound by his knowledge, overwhelmed by the simplicity of his lifestyle, and impressed by the quiet manner of this “friend of the people.”3
The Boss took it for granted that foreign Communists would see him in person on important issues. His preferred role was that of a patron who tempted foreign clients with shows of opulence and lavish vacations. Communists from abroad came to expect the best and loved to be spoiled. The top ranks of the Polish party, for example, took time away from state making in September 1946 for sumptuous family vacations in Livadia, near Yalta on the Black Sea. The Soviets flew them in and welcomed them with a buffet of cold appetizers, fruit, and soft drinks. An honor guard escorted them to roomy and posh accommodations. This locale was where the Big Three had once met. Nothing was spared, especially when it came to provisions; “perishable produce, delicacies and drinks” were brought in daily by plane from distant Moscow.4
Communist leaders rationalized their privileges to themselves as necessary to ensure their well-being, to help them do the best possible job of looking after their nations. That was precisely the explanation offered by the ruling pigs in George Orwell’s famed allegory Animal Farm, which was written in 1943, before any of these events occurred. The story was inspired by what the English writer saw as he fought alongside the Reds in the Spanish Civil War in 1936–37 and by what he had read about the Soviet Union.5
Like Orwell’s pigs, Stalin’s clients were self-centered and demanding. Indeed, Stalin could not continue to manage all of them on an individual basis and concluded that some kind of international organization might provide a better means of exerting control. As far back as April 1945 he had mentioned to Tito the idea of creating a new international organization, and he hinted to other visitors from time to time that Tito wanted something vaguely resembling the old Communist International, but he invariably added that any such body was no more than a remote possibility. In March 1946 he mentioned the topic to Hungarian party boss Mátyás Rákosi, and he brought it up several times in May and June, when Yugoslavs and Bulgarians, looking for Soviet economic assistance, came to visit.6 One evening and seemingly out of the blue, Stalin began running down the old Comintern. He embarrassed its former head Georgi Dimitrov, who was present, then coaxed him into saying that it would be useful to create a new International and, further, that it might be led by Tito. No one dared to take the bait.