Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (13 page)

The events that followed the Pact also transformed the Official Soviet
Identity of the USSR as a civilization. The Soviet relationship with foreign technology and cultural products was largely unchanged. How- ever, the posture of the USSR in relation to the suffering workers of the capitalist West evolved significantly in September 1939. The arrival of the Red Army in the former capitalist territories of Eastern Poland was justified, in part, on the basis that the residents of the newly occupied territories were fellow Ukrainians and Belorussians. As Molotov explained on 17 September ‘the Soviet government can hardly be expected to have a careless attitude towards the case of the consanguin- eous Ukrainians and Belorussians.’ However, it was also justified on the basis that the Red Army troops were bringing the progressive beacon of Soviet civilization with them. The USSR was morally obliged to ‘extend the hand of friendship’ to them and ‘take them under our protection’.
^{13
As the Red Army embarked on its largely unopposed takeover of}
Eastern Poland, the official press published pictures of local children with smiles on their faces and gifts in their hands welcoming the arriving troops who brought with them the Soviet way of life.
^{14
The Red Army}
had become a liberating force that could set the oppressed capitalist

^10
Pravda
, 02.09.1939, p. 5; 21.09.1939, p. 5.

^{11
Werth exaggerates the extent to which the invasion was marginalized within the}
press: Werth,
Russia at War
, 54. See:
Ogon¨ek,
1939: 24, p. 3;
Pravda,
11.09.1939, p. 4.

^12
Pravda,
29.09.1939, p. 1.
^13
Pravda
, 18.09.1939, p. 1.

^14
Ogon¨ek
, 1939: 24, pp. 1–3.

The Liberator State? 1939–41
7

peoples free. The end of collective security and the realities of border
expansion precipitated a double shift in the Official Soviet Identity of the USSR. These twin narratives of peace and liberation remained the organizing principles of Soviet identity until the Nazi invasion in 1941.

THE DIPLOMATIC IDENTITY OF THE USSR

Up to June 1940: the anti-imperial peace maker

Between October 1939 and mid 1940, the Soviet press professed
total neutrality in international relations, whilst clearly privileging the German interpretation of events. The foremost greeting to Stalin on his sixtieth birthday in December came from Hitler, and
Pravda
continued

to offer ample coverage of the Fuhrer’s speeches.
^{15
However, the orgy of}
Germanophilia only lasted a few weeks past the signing of the Pact. The Production Agreement between the USSR and Germany in February

1940 was greeted in rather muted tones, and the Soviet press settled
down to a sympathetic but circumspect narrative concerning the USSR’s new ally.
¹⁶

The negative narrative concerning the Western powers was much
more consistent.
Pravda
’s cartoon department went into attack mode, publishing twelve images in late October and November that accused the capitalists of fostering war to increase their profits and suppressing freedom at home.
^17
As
Ogon¨ek
explained, the war in Western Europe had been ‘begun by the imperialists against the will and interests of the people’.
^{18
Molotov went even further at the Supreme Soviet in October}
1939, dubbing the calls to continue the struggle against Germany ‘meaningless and criminal’.
^19
Meanwhile
Pravda
kept up a barrage of accusations that the imperialist powers were seeking to expand the war by dragging in neutral powers, including the USSR.
²⁰

This anti-Allied narrative peaked during the Finnish War that broke
out on 30 November 1939. As diplomatic pressure failed to produce a result in mid November, the Soviet press began to denounce the Finns

^15
Werth,
Russia at War,
62–71;
Pravda
, 11.11.1939, p. 5; 01.02.1940, p. 5.

^16
Pravda
, 18.02.1940, p. 1.

^17
e.g.
Pravda
, 25.10.1939, p. 5; 26.10.1939, p. 5; 12.11.1939, p. 5.

^18
Ogon¨ek,
(undated) 1939: 29–30, p. 28.

^19
Pravda
, 01.11.1939, p. 1.
^20
Pravda
, 06.10.1939, p. 1; 20.11.1939, p. 5.

8
Being Soviet

for turning their country into an ‘armed camp’ directed against the
USSR.
^{21
The war was presented as a prophylactic measure to preserve}
peace, reaffirming the official diplomatic identity of the USSR as a peace-loving state. However, the fiercest anger of the Soviet press was not directed at the ‘White Finnish bandits’ but the Western powers who had supposedly incited them to attack the USSR.
^{22
British imperialists}
and Scandinavian millionaires had whipped up Finland’s antagonism against the USSR and were seeking to get others ‘to do their dirty work’ in order to protect their commercial interests.
²³

The end of the Finnish War did not bring about a softening of this
line. Molotov’s 29 March 1940 speech to the Supreme Soviet denounced Britain and France as strongly as any from this period. He reiterated that the USSR would not become ‘a weapon of the Anglo-French imperialists in their struggle for world hegemony’ and warned that the British build- up in the Levant might reflect ‘objectives antagonistic towards the Soviet Union’.
^{24
This anti-Allied narrative was particularly vehement in rela-}
tion to Britain, who was regarded as the prime mover in the warmonger- ing camp. D. Zaslavskii’s summary of international affairs for
Pravda
in April 1941 warned darkly of British intentions directed towards ‘the oil wells of Baku, the colourful hills of Georgia and the valleys of Armenia’.
^{25
N. Nikitin’s}
Eto Nachalos v Kokande
, a spy novel about a British agent living in Central Asia and plotting to murder Soviet officials was released in 1940.
^{26
Meanwhile in March 1940 the Interna-}
tional Organization for Aid to Revolutionaries (MOPR) began offering lectures on the ‘Offensive of reaction in the capitalist countries in connection with the imperialist war’.
²⁷

The expansion of the war into Norway, the Low Countries, and
France in April–June 1940 was heralded, in similar terms, as a sign of Anglo-French malfeasance. Hitler’s claim, that the Wehrmacht had been forced to invade Norway in order to protect it from the Allied violations of its neutrality, was given a broad airing in the Soviet press. This argument was repeated in relation to Holland and Belgium, which Britain and France had regarded as ‘petty change . . . in their dangerous

^21
Pravda
, 13.11.1939, p. 5; 16.11.1939, p. 5.

^22
Ogon¨ek
, (undated) 1939: 33, pp. 2–3.

^23
Ogon¨ek,
02.1940: 4, p. 10;
Pravda
, 04.02.1940, p. 5.

^24
Pravda
, 30.03.1940, pp. 1–2.

^25
Pravda
, 24.04.1940, p. 5.

^{26
V. Kiparsky,}
English and American Characters in Russian Fiction
(Berlin, 1964), 65.

^{27
RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 8, l. 4.}

The Liberator State? 1939–41
9

political game’. When Paris fell in June 1940,
Pravda
offered prominent coverage of Hitler’s triumphant address.
²⁸

Throughout this period, the primary identity of the USSR as a
diplomatic force was as a peacemaker. Stalin’s wise policy had shielded Soviet women and children from the terrible burden of war.
^29
Hence
the October 1939 agreements with the Baltic powers were ‘a witness to the peace policy of the USSR’, and the end of the Finnish War was a ‘glorious victory of the Stalinist peace policy’.
^{30
The official press}
also stressed the global nature of the peace movement that looked to Moscow for leadership and support.
^{31
A simple piece of Red Army}
propaganda from this period presented a triangle with London at the apex and Moscow and Berlin at the bottom two corners under the heading, ‘What did Chamberlain want?’ A second triangle with Moscow at the top and London and Berlin at the bottom was captioned, ‘What did Comrade Stalin do?’
^{32
The USSR had risen above the}
conflict and preserved the security of its people.

June 1940 to April 1941: cautious neutrality

The Soviet press was scathing in its criticism of the Western powers
when they capitulated before the Wehrmacht in 1940. However, from the summer of 1940 onwards, it became noticeably less keen to pour praise on the Germans. German military successes were reported with cool objectivity, particularly after the British evacuation from Dun- kirk.
^{33
Between June 1940 and April 1941, explicitly pro-German}
stories received a pitiful average of 0.02 pages per day in
Pravda
’s

international section.
^{34
The significance of the September 1940 Triple}

Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan was carefully downplayed. It
merely ‘formalized’ the conflict between two camps and demonstrated the importance of the Soviet ‘position of neutrality’.
^{35
The official press}

^28
Pravda
, 10.04.1940, p. 5; 16.05.1940, p. 1; 16.06.1940, p. 5.

^29
Pravda
, 08.03.1940, p. 5.

^30
Ogon¨ek
, 03.1940: 7–8, p. 1;
Pravda
, 06.10.1939, p. 1.

^31
Pravda
, 12.03.1940, p. 4.

^32
Overy,
Russia’s War
, 54.

^{33
See: Werth,}
Russia At War
, 84–5; Gorodetsky,
Grand Delusion
, 24–5.