Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (26 page)

^{67
Krasnaia Zvezda}
, 08.06.1944, p. 3.

^68
Ogon¨ek
, 06.1944: 23, p. 15.

58
Being Soviet

ted that ‘The history of war does not know a similar undertaking in
breadth of intention, grandiosity of scale and mastery of execution.’
^{69
The Soviet press also paid an unprecedented amount of attention to the}
personal aspect of the war, showing allied soldiers in military action and making a rare concession to the idea that British families, as well as Soviet ones, were mourning their dead sons and husbands.
^{70
In late}
June,
Ogon¨ek
published a cartoon of Hitler looking both East and West through a pair of periscopes in total despair.
^{71
The period after}

Normandy was the high point of talk about unity and collaboration
within the Grand Alliance and also the high point of hope-filled discussions about the post-war world.

However, the post-Normandy era was also the period in which the
Soviet press began to talk most transparently about disagreements within the alliance. Poland was the primary sphere of tension. The Soviet denunciation of the Warsaw Uprising as a ‘tragic political game’ further soured relations between the Great Powers.
Pravda
published Churchill’s comments that he had not ‘found a resolution to these problems’, and Roosevelt’s confession that he had ‘concerns’ over Poland.
^{72
Even more damning were warnings that German indus-}
trialists were seeking support from British and American banks to secure their post-war future.
^{73
The Soviet press also maintained its}
assault on certain American publications and politicians, as well as British and Catholic reactionaries in the allied states.
⁷⁴

However, the spirit of the era remained one of collaboration and
unity. The Soviet press was at pains to point out that, despite these substantive differences, the alliance partners were more united than at any previous time during the war. As Stalin observed in November 1944, ‘There are of course disagreements . . . There are disagreements even amongst people of one and the same party . . . But they are as a rule decided almost every time in the spirit of unity and agreed action of the three Great Powers.’
^{75
In its review of the year since Tehran,}
Pravda
observed that, ‘The practice of life has shown that in the conditions of

^69
Pravda
, 14.06.44, p. 1.

^70
Ogon¨ek
, 06.1944: 28–9, p. 7; 31.08.1944: 30, p. 5.

^71
Ogon¨ek
, 06.1944: 20, p. 18.

^72
Pravda
, 16.08.44, p. 4; 28.10.44, p. 4.

^73
Pravda
, 08.04.45, p. 4; 19.04.45, p. 4; 21.04.45, p. 4.

^{74
Krasnaia Zvezda}
, 10.01.1945, p. 4;
Pravda
, 03.08.44, p. 4; 04.03.45, p. 4;

07.01.45, p. 4.

^75
Pravda
, 07.11.44, p. 2.

Perfidious Allies? 1941–45
59

good will and striving towards mutual understanding, there are no
insurmountable disagreements between the Allies.’
^{76
The Crimean Con-}
ference, in February 1945, provided another great testimony to the ‘unity’ of the Great Powers which was no longer of a ‘general strategic’ but also ‘concrete operative character’.
^{77
The hope of post-war collabor-}
ation, rather than the presence of reactionaries overseas, was what characterized the Grand Alliance as the war drew to its close.
⁷⁸

Even in the post-Normandy period, however, the Soviet press
continued to make it clear that the USSR was the moral and military head of the Grand Alliance. After a brief burst of enthusiasm in June 1944, official discussions of the battle in the West reverted to the previous bloodless and strategic, rather than heroic narratives. After ordering a number of newsreels concerning the Normandy landings, Soviet cinema officials decided not to screen them, much to the Americans’ disappointment.
^{79
The Soviet–German Front remained the epicentre of}
the conflict.
Pravda
reported that the first opinion poll in liberated Paris had found that 61 per cent felt the USSR was doing the most to fight Hitler, 29 per cent the USA and 12 per cent Britain.
^{80
The Soviet press}
began to fixate, as it had during 1942, on the relative number of German divisions confronting the alliance partners. Stalin himself signalled a return to this alliance accountancy in November 1944 when he noted that there were 75 German divisions in the West and 200 in the East.
^81
A
Krasnaia Zvezda
interview with some French pilots fighting in the USSR noted that they preferred to fight on the Eastern Front because they were ‘not interested in parades’ but in a real strug- gle.
^{82
In early 1945, ten out of fourteen consecutive ‘International}
Reviews’,
Pravda
’s authoritative weekly summary of world news, stated in their lead story that the vast majority of the fighting was going on in the East.
^{83
The German forces in the West were undertrained and}
undergunned.
^{84
On 11 April Il’ia Ehrenburg took this}
f step too far in

^76
Pravda
, 01.12.44, p. 4.
^77
Ogon¨ek
, 28.02.1945: 8, p. 3.

^78
Pravda
, devoted two and a half times as much space per month to stories about post-war collaboration than to ‘reactionaries’ in the West. (Average 0.045 pages to collaboration, 0.02 to reactionaries from July 1944 to April 1945.)

^{79
D. J. Parks,}
Culture, Conflict and Coexistence: American-Soviet Cultural Relations
,

1917–1958
(London, 1983), 96.

^80
Pravda
, 04.10.44, p. 4.

^81
Pravda
, 07.11.44, p. 1.

^{82
Krasnaia Zvezda}
, 05.11.1944, p. 3.

^83
Pravda
, 21.01.45 to 22.04.45, p. 4.

^84
Ogon¨ek
, 10.1944: 38, p. 5;
Pravda
, 24.08.44, p. 4.

60
Being Soviet

his article ‘That’s Enough!’ He talked of the German soldiers giving
themselves up with ‘fanatical enthusiasm’ and ranted that in contrast ‘we did not take Koningsberg by telephone’.
^{85
Ehrenburg was rebuked by}
none other than G. F. Alexandrov, the head of Agitprop, for ‘over- simplifying’. Alexandrov agreed that the Germans were moving troops eastwards, but argued that this was a sign of German, rather than allied, duplicity.
^{86
These mollifying sentiments did not stop the Soviet press}
reporting that the Western Front was being left ‘without serious defence’ right up to the end of the war.
^{87
As the war drew to a close, the Red Army}
was once again presented as the force bearing the majority of the burden in the common anti-Hitler cause.

The endless stories about how the fighting was fiercest on the Soviet
Front placed the USSR at the centre of the anti-Hitler coalition. It was not merely a member amongst equals, but the driving force of the Grand Alliance. The Soviet Union was performing a great service in the interests of the whole of humanity. During the last months of the war,
Pravda
ran headlines such as ‘The Great Liberating Mission of the

Red Army’ or ‘The Great Historical Service of the Soviet people’.
⁸⁸

Their heroic actions provoked the thanks of the global population to
the Soviet state and the Red Army. The liberated peoples of Eastern Europe expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the Red Army in a litany of thanks that was typical of the Soviet press throughout the Stalin era.
^{89
However, whereas previously the Soviet people had expressed}
their appreciation to Stalin and the party leadership, now the people of the world were offering their thanks to the population of the USSR.
^{90
Citizens of the Soviet Union had acquired a new dignity, as their}
state had acquired a new identity. The USSR had become a liberator state, and its population had become a liberator people. The Great Powers were united in the common cause, but the Allies could not be equals within this narrative of Soviet global moral and military exceptionalism.

^{85
Krasnaia Zvezda}
, 11.04.1945.

^{86
Krasnaia Zvezda}
, 15.04.1945, p. 2.

^87
Ogon¨ek
, 04.1945: 15–16, p. 7.

^88
Pravda
, 20.11.44, p. 1; 21.04.45, p. 1.

^89
Pravda
, 23.01.45, p. 4; 11.04.45, p. 4.

^90
Brooks,
Thank You, Comrade Stalin!
, 200–10.

Perfidious Allies? 1941–45
61

THE GRAND ALLIANCE IN THE SOVIET COLLECTIVE IMAGINATION

On 22 June 1941 the rumour network was proved right and the official
press proved wrong. Only eight days before, TASS had clearly stated that the friendship between the USSR and Nazi Germany was secure: the word-of-mouth network had been warning of an impending inva- sion for months. The invasion of the USSR was the decisive moment in the lives of a Soviet generation: as Professor D. Karpov of Moscow State University put it, it was the moment at which ‘all our histories turned’.
^{91
It was also a hugely significant moment in terms of the}
relationship between Soviet citizens and the official press. The flood of fresh information and the volte face of the Nazi–Soviet Pact had forced Soviet citizens to rely even more heavily on the ‘tactics of the habitat’ after 1939. The outbreak of war reaffirmed this drift. At least one respondent to HIP claimed that ‘When the war started it was impossible for us to believe. I started to cry and I was profoundly shocked.’
^{92
Most Soviet citizens did not experience June 1941 as an}
epiphany. However, it set the tone for the war years, when rumour, as well as the official press, played a vital role in informing Soviet citizens about international affairs.