Page 147 - The Chief Culprit

108 y e Chief Culprit

Stalin knew that Great Britain and France had given their guarantees to Poland. But
how serious was their word? e French and British delegations let him know that it was
serious! If Hitler started a war against Poland, Great Britain and France would declare war
against Germany. is was exactly the information Stalin was waiting for. Hitler thought
that his invasion of Poland would go unpunished, like the entrance of German troops into
the Rhineland demilitarized zone, like the Anschluss (union) of Austria and Germany, like
the taking of Czechoslovakia. Stalin now knew that Hitler would be punished for invading
Poland. e key to the ignition of World War II fell into Stalin’s hands. It remained for Stalin
only to give Hitler the green light: Attack Poland, I will not act against you (but France and
England will declare war on you).
Half a century later, Soviet generals slowly started to admit that Stalin and the Red
Army opened the way for Hitler to invade Poland. Army General A. Mayorov: “In planning
the invasion of Poland, Germany feared most of all the Soviet Union, not England and not
France. at is precisely why fascist leaders hurried to conclude a pact about [the] invasion
with the USSR.” 5
e head of the GRU, Army General P. I. Ivashutin, expressed this sentiment more
clearly: “With this pact, Hitler untied his hands for aggression.” Simply stated, if Stalin had
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not signed a pact with Hitler, there would have been no invasion of Poland, and there would
have been no World War II.
If Stalin had wanted peace, in August 1939 he had many opportunities to avert war.
One of them was to follow the example of Britain and France and give a guarantee of safety
to Poland. Or, he could simply have drawn out his talks with Britain and France, which
would have served as a warning to Hitler: Invade Poland, but keep in mind that all of Europe
is against you, we are gathered here in Moscow talking about something, and all we have to
do is blockade Germany. But Stalin chose his own way. On August 12, 1939, the military
delegations of the USSR, Great Britain, and France began talks in Moscow. Stalin’s Marshal
Voroshilov openly conducted with France and Britain the talks on “containing Hitler’s ag-
gression in Europe.” Behind the scenes, however, things happened very differently: On
August 11—even before the talks got started—Stalin made a decision to start negotiating
with Germany for the partition of Poland. Stalin showed the world his willingness to stop
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Hitler’s aggression, but simultaneously (and even beforehand) offered the German dictator
a friendly and helping hand. us, Stalin safeguarded himself from failure, no matter what
happened. Britain, France, and Germany were clearly about to engage in a massive struggle.
Stalin kept up, openly or secretly, friendly relations with all the participants in this struggle
and at the same time incited them to act more and more aggressively.
On August 19, 1939, Stalin made a series of extremely important decisions, which had
consequences for the course of world history. On that day, Stalin decided to stop the talks
with Britain and France. On that same day, the German ambassador to Moscow, Friedrich
von der Schulenburg, received Stalin’s draft of the impending mutual agreement with the di-
rections that “the agreement will be in force only given the simultaneous signing of the special
protocol on points of interest to the Agreeing Parties, regarding foreign policy.” Hitler didn’t
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know that signing this agreement signified the start of World War II. Stalin did.
On that same day, August 19, according to Stalin’s orders the Soviet Union began a
mobilization of the Red Army. Earlier, Stalin had given firm approval of conducting a sudden
crushing operation to defeat the Japanese Sixth Army in Mongolia. On August 19, 1939,