Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (23 page)

^{2
A. K. Pisiotis, ‘Images of Hate in the Art of War’, in D. Stites, ed.,}
Culture and
Entertainment in Wartime Russia (Indianapolis, 1995)’, 142–9.

^{3
A. V. Fateev,}
Obraz vraga v sovetskoi propagande: 1945–54
(Moscow, 1999); Kenez,

‘The Image of the Enemy in Stalinist Films’, in Norris and Torlone, ed.,
Insiders and
Outsiders, 106–7.

^{4
M. von Hagen, ‘From “Great Fatherland War” to the Second World War: New}
Perspectives and Future Prospects’, in I. Kershaw and M. Lewin, eds.,
Stalinism and
Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison (Cambridge, 1997), 237–5; R. Overy,
Why The

Allies Won
(London, 1985).

Perfidious Allies? 1941–45
47

struggle against the fascist foe. The Soviet relationship with the Allies
was much more complex than that with the Germans. It had to conform to the delicacies of wartime diplomacy but also buttress the growing emphasis on Soviet honour within the international community. After a brief era of alliance enthusiasm that roughly coincided with the German
advance on Moscow, the Soviet press spent much of the war carefully chiding the Allies for their passivity and pointing out that the USSR was doing the vast majority of the real fighting. This criticism of the Western powers played a key role in the construction of an image of the USSR as the leading moral and military force in the international community that emerged in the months after Stalingrad.

This chapter focuses on the diplomatic identity of the USSR in
wartime. It argues that certain aspects of Official Soviet Identity were extremely successful in shaping the thinking and behaviour of ordinary citizens in this period. Many Soviet citizens clearly identified with the rhetoric of Soviet moral authority and might. However, the war years were also plagued with rumours of allied diplomatic and military bad faith. In the absence of a clear official explanation for the allied failure to launch the Second Front in 1942–3, Soviet citizens deployed the tactic of
bricolage
and concluded that Britain and American were ‘perfidious allies’. The image of the Allies that circulated within the word-of-mouth network placed less credence in Soviet power and more credence in the idea that Britain and America were, in some sense, defrauding the USSR

OFFICIAL SOVIET IDENTITY AND THE IMAGE OF THE ALLIES 1941 –45

From the Invasion to December 1941

The outbreak of World War II threw the Soviet Union into an alliance
with the two greatest capitalist states in the world. Within hours of the German invasion, Winston Churchill expressed Britain’s support for the Soviet struggle against Nazi Germany. The relatively low profile accorded to Churchill’s declaration may well reflect the Soviet govern- ment’s discomfort at finding itself associated with such an unusual bedfellow.
^{5
Churchill had, after all, been a consistent opponent of the}
USSR. By July 1941, however, a new tone had been set. Stalin’s first

^{5
Krasnaia Zvezda}
, 24.06.1941, p. 1;
Pravda
, 24.06.1941, p. 1.

48
Being Soviet

statement of the war expressed his sincere thanks to the United King-
dom and the USA for their offers of support.
^{6
From June to December}
1941, the blossoming alliance between the USSR and Great Britain and the United States was the primary focus of Soviet international news.
^{7
Public lectures about the strength and unity of the Grand Alliance}
provided much needed reassurance as the Red Army scrambled to defend Moscow.
^{8
The visits of British Foreign Minister, Anthony}
Eden, and Roosevelt’s advisor, Harry Hopkins, received front-page coverage. Meanwhile Aleksei Toltoi and Il’ia Ehrenburg waxed lyrical about the ‘beautiful cities’ of Britain and the iron ‘will of the English people’.
^{9
Meanwhile press acquired a studied interest in the activities of}
British bombers who were razing German cities to the ground.
^10
The
Soviet film industry also captured the new wartime enthusiasm for their British allies. The wartime news films (
kinosborniki
) 3, 4, 5, 6, and 12 all included British reports from the Western Front in 1941–2.
^11
As

Pravda
noted on December 30, the German strategy of isolating the USSR had failed: ‘The USSR has not only ended up not isolated, but on the contrary has obtained new allies in the character of Great Britain and the USA . . . ’
¹²

This rapid transformation of circumstances led to an abandonment
of almost all references to the capitalism of the USSR’s alliance partners. An Arkhangel’sk
oblast’
lecturer was rebuked in March 1942 for speaking about class warfare in Britain and America.
^{13
The alliance}

had brought together a group of progressive states pursuing Enlighten-
ment values such as justice, civilization, and liberation.
^{14
The ‘freedom}
loving peoples’ were of ‘different social situations and different political outlooks’, but were united in their common task to extinguish Hitler-

^6
Pravda
, 03.07.41, p. 1.

^{7
It was the top international news story in}
Pravda
between July and December 1941. This data, as elsewhere, is based on a sampling of every 5th newspaper. July average of 0.37 pages, August 0.21, September 0.14, October 0.25.

^{8
Inf. Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Obshchestvenno-Politicheskikh Dvizhenii i Formir-}
ovanii Arkhangel’skoi Oblasti, henceforth, GAOPDiFAO f. 834, op. 2, d. 69, l. 36.

^9
Pravda
, 01.08.41, p. 1; 29.12.41, p. 1;
Krasnaia Zvezda
, 09.07.1941, p. 3;

07.11.1941, p. 4.

^10
Ogon¨ek
, 09.1941: 8–9, p. 8.

^{11
Drobashenko and Kenez, ‘Film Propaganda in the Soviet Union, 1941–1945:}
Two Views’, in Short, ed.,
Film and Radio Propaganda in World War II
(London, 1983), 106.

^12
Pravda
, 30.12.41, p. 1.

^{13
Inf. GAOPDiFAO f. 296, l, d. 308, l. 8.}

^14
Pravda
, 30.12.41 p, 1; 14.07.41 p, 1.

Perfidious Allies? 1941–45
49

ism.
^{15
This new narrative harked back to Official Soviet Identity during}
the Popular Front era. However, what was distinctive was the impor- tance that Britain and, after December 1941, America played in this version of Sovietness. This image of the USSR, at the heart of an alliance of progressive states, remained a central plank of Official Soviet Identity until late 1947.

From January 1942 to Tehran (November 1943)

In late 1941 the USSR was on the brink of defeat. By the Tehran
Conference it was on the road to victory. The Soviet counter-attack at Moscow marked a turning point in the Great Patriotic War. Although the German forces advanced deep into their southern flank in the summer of 1942, the Red Army was never again in danger of collapse, as it had been in November 1941. The official image of Soviet identity, in relation to the Allies, underwent a significant transformation during the shift from potential collapse to successful advance. In 1941 the Allies had been a source of affirmation and security to the USSR. By late 1943 they provided the foil for official claims that the Soviet Union was the moral and military leader within the anti-Hitler coalition.

The Anglo-Soviet-American Alliance remained, above all, a union of
progressive forces. As Stalin’s November 1942 speech in celebration of the Revolution stated, the fascist programme of ‘racial hatred, leader- ship of the chosen nation, and slavery . . . ’ stood in stark contrast to the Anglo-Soviet-American vision of ‘destruction of racial exclusivity, equality of the nations . . . restoration of their sovereign rights... and reestablishment of democratic freedoms’. There were differences amongst the Allies but they were not insurmountable. As Stalin himself admitted, ‘It would be laughable to deny the differences in ideology and in social construction . . . But does this preclude the possibility and the usefulness of the collaboration of the members of this coalition against the common enemy? . . . No.’
¹⁶

The progressive nature of the Alliance did not, however, preclude the
possibility of tensions between the freedom-loving states. The question of a Second Front in Continental Europe dominated the Soviet rela- tionship with the Western powers in this period. As
Ogon¨ek
pointed out

^15
Pravda
, 31.10.41, p. 4.

^16
Pravda
, 07.11.42, p. 1. See also his May Day speech:
Pravda
, 01.05.42, p. 1.

50
Being Soviet

in September 1941 the ‘problem of two fronts’ would eventually lead to
the ‘exhaustion’ of the German armies.
^{17
During the early months of}
the war, the Soviet press merely stated this fact, without explicitly exhorting the Allies to action. However, the various drafts of a speech to the First Antifascist Meeting of Youth, in September 1941, demon- strate that even at this stage, the Second Front was moving to the centre of the Soviet–Allied relationship. Successive drafts of the section addressed to British youth placed greater and greater emphasis on the importance of a Second Front in mainland Europe for the final defeat of Germany.
¹⁸

Over the course of 1942–3 the Soviet press turned the Second Front
into the defining issue within the Grand Alliance relationship. The call in 1942 for the total defeat of Germany that year was based on the assumption that the Allies would play their part and invade Europe in the next twelve months. In February 1942 Stalin addressed the question of Anglo-American inactivity directly for the first time stating that, ‘At the moment the Red Army and the German Fascist Army are fighting one on one.’
^{19
By April}
Pravda
’s international section regularly includ- ed details of demands within the allied countries for the commencement of operations in Europe.
^{20
The need for a Second Front also appeared}
within other popular media such as Korneichuk’s 1942 play
Guerillas of

the Ukrainian Steppes
.
^{21
Molotov arrived in London and Washington in}

May–June 1942 speaking only four words of English: ‘yes’, ‘no’, and
‘Second Front’.
^{22
When Churchill and Roosevelt signed agreements}
committing them to a European invasion that year, they were greeted with rapturous enthusiasm inside the USSR. The arrival of American troops in Britain was cited as a ‘clear demonstration of the forthcoming Second Front’, whilst the urgency of its creation was repeated ad infinitum in the Soviet press.
²³