Simon Montefiore - Stalin

“And who’s singing Wotan?” Zhdanov joked with Stalin. “A Jewish singer.” These Hebraic Wagnerians did not restrain Hitler from gradually moving troops eastwards. Stalin instinctively distrusted the intelligence from the new chief of GRU, military intelligence, General Filip Golikov, an untried mediocrity, and from the NKVD under Beria and Merkulov. He regarded Golikov as “inexperienced, naïve. A spy should be like the devil; no one should trust him not even himself.” Merkulov, head of the NKVD Foreign Department, was “dextrous” but still scared in case “someone will be offended.” It was understandable they were afraid of offending “someone.” All their predecessors had been murdered. [170] At the Eighteenth Party Conference in February 1941, Stalin divided Beria’s NKVD into two commissariats. Beria retained the NKVD while State Security (NKGB) was hived off under his protégé Merkulov. This was not yet a direct demotion for Beria: he was promoted to Deputy Premier and remained overlord or curator of both Organs.

Stalin and Molotov’s suspicions of their own spies reflected their origins in the murky Bolshevik underground where many comrades (including the Vozhd himself) were double or treble agents. They evaluated the motives of others by the standards of their own paranoid criminality: “I think one can never trust intelligence,” Molotov admitted years later. “One has to listen… but check on them… There are endless provocateurs on both sides.” This was ironic because Stalin possessed the world’s best intelligence network: his spies worked for Marx not Mammon. Yet the more he knew, the less he trusted: “his knowledge” writes one historian, “only added to his sorrow and isolation.” However insistent the facts of the German military build-up, the Soviet spymasters were under pressure to provide the information that Stalin wanted: “We never went out looking for information at random,” recalled one spy. “Orders to look for specific things would come from above.”

Stalin reacted to this uneasiness by aggressively pushing the traditional Russian interests in the Balkans which in itself alarmed Hitler, who was weighing up whether to attack his ally. He decided to invite Molotov to Berlin to sidetrack the Soviets into a push for the Indian Ocean. The night before Molotov left, he sat up late with Stalin and Beria, debating how to maintain the Pact. In his handwritten directive, Stalin instructed Molotov to insist on explanations for the presence of German troops in Romania and Finland, discover Hitler’s real interests and assert Russian interests in the Balkans and Dardanelles. 10Molotov meanwhile told his wife, “my pleasure honey,” that he was studying Hitler: “I’ve been reading Rauschning’s Hitler Spoke to Me… Rauschning explains much that H is carrying out now… and in the future.”

Molotov set off late on 10 November 1940 from the Belorussia Station with a pistol in his pocket and a delegation of sixty which included Beria’s two protégés, Dekanozov, Deputy Foreign Commissar, and Merkulov, sixteen secret policemen, three servants and a doctor. This was Molotov’s second trip to Europe. In 1922, he and Polina had visited Italy in the early days of Fascism. Now he was to observe Fascism at its apogee.

At 11:05 a.m., Molotov’s train pulled into Berlin’s Anhalter Station, which was festooned with flowers sinisterly illuminated with searchlights and Soviet flags hidden behind swastikas. Molotov dismounted in a dark coat with his grey Homburg hat and was greeted by Ribbentrop and Field Marshal Keitel. He spent longest shaking hands with Reichsführer-SS Himmler. The band deliberately played the Internationale at double time in case any ex-Communist passers-by joined in.

Molotov sped off in an open Mercedes with outriders to his luxurious hotel, the Schloss Bellevue, once an imperial palace, on the Tiergarten where the Soviets were dazzled by the “tapestries and paintings,” the “finest porcelain standing round exquisitely carved cabinets” and, above all, the “gold-braided livery” of the staff. Molotov’s entire delegation wore identical dark blue suits, grey ties, and cheap felt hats, obviously ordered in bulk. Since some wore the hats like berets, some on the back of their heads like cowboys and some low over the eyes like Mafiosi, it was clear that many had never worn Western headgear before. The tepidity of the visit became obvious when Molotov met Ribbentrop in Bismarck’s old office and gave little away. “A rather frosty smile glided over his intelligent, chess-player’s face,” noticed a German diplomat who was amused that, in the gilded Bismarckian chairs, little Dekanozov’s feet barely touched the floor. When Ribbentrop encouraged Russia to seek an outlet for her energies in warm oceans, Molotov asked: “Which sea are you talking about?”

After lunch at the Bellevue, the open Mercedes drove Molotov to the Chancellery, where he was led through bronze doors, guarded by heel-clicking SS men, into Hitler’s magnificent study. Two blond SS giants threw open the doors and formed an archway with impeccable Nazi salutes through which this plain, stalwart Russian marched towards Hitler’s gargantuan desk at the far end. Hitler hesitated, then walked jerkily to greet the Russians with “small, rapid steps.” He stopped and made a Nazi salute before shaking hands with Molotov and the others with a “cold and moist” palm, while his “feverish eyes” burned into them “like gimlets.” Hitler’s theatrical rigmarole to terrorize and impress his guests did not affect Molotov, who regarded himself as a Marxist-Leninist and therefore superior to everyone else, particularly Fascists: “There was nothing remarkable in his appearance.” Molotov and Hitler were exactly the same height—“medium” as the small Russian put it. But Hitler “was very smug… and vain. He was clever but narrow-minded and obtuse because of his egotism and the absurdity of his primordial idea.”

Hitler showed Molotov to a lounge area where he, Dekanozov and the interpreters sat on the sofa while Hitler occupied his usual armchair, whence he treated them to a long soliloquy about his defeat of Britain, generosity to Stalin, and disinterest in the Balkans, none of which were true. Molotov retorted with a series of polite but awkward questions on the relationship between the two powers, pinpointing precisely Finland, Romania, Bulgaria. “I kept pushing him for greater detail. ‘You’ve got to have a warm-water port. Iran, India—that’s your future.’ And I said, ‘Why that’s an interesting idea, how do you see it?’” Hitler ended the meeting without providing the answer.

That night, Ribbentrop hosted a reception for Molotov at the Kaiserhof Hotel attended by Reichsmarschall Göring, sporting a preposterous sartorial creation of silver thread and jewels, and Deputy Führer Hess. The Russian interpreter Berezhkov, observing Molotov talking to Göring, could not imagine two more different men. A telegram from Stalin awaited him, insisting again on the Balkans and Straits. The next morning, Molotov sent Stalin a telegram: “I’m leaving for lunch and talk with Hitler. I will press him on the Black Sea, the Straits and Bulgaria.” First he called on Göring at the Air Ministry where he asked Hitler’s “paladin” more embarrassing questions which the Reichsmarschall simply doused with his pinguid heartiness. He then visited Hess.

“Do you have a Party programme?” he asked the Deputy Führer, knowing the Nazis did not. “Do you have Party rules? And do you have a Constitution?” The Bolshevik ideologue was contemptuous: “How could it be a Party without a programme?”