Churchill and Stalin: Documents from the British Archives, 1940-1953

Politically, they were poles apart: one, the son of a British aristocrat, parliamentary democrat, free-trading capitalist and embodiment of imperial Britain at its zenith; the other, the son of a Georgian cobbler, a proletarian agitator who rose through the ranks of the Bolshevik Party to become the totalitarian head of the world's first Communist Power. For the bulk of their professional lives, Churchill and Stalin remained political adversaries. But for four years, from 1941-45, they were allies, brought together by the inexhaustible ambitions of Hitler's Germany. As two thirds of the triumvirate that made up the 'Big Three', the British-Soviet and particularly the Churchill-Stalin relationship – as documented in this collection – lay at the heart of the United Nations' war against the Axis Powers.

Churchill's attitude towards the Soviet Union had appeared to come full circle by the time of Stalin's death in 1953. He was a proponent of Britain's intervention against the Reds in the Russian civil war and in 1946 at Fulton, he publicly declared the emergence of a 'Cold War' between East and West. It is tempting, therefore, to regard Churchill's support for Stalin and the Soviet Union during the Second World War as an aberration or, at best, an alliance of convenience, dictated purely by circumstance and short-term advantage. Churchill was indeed a classic Realpolitiker - Alliances, military force and the 'balance of power', not ideologies, were the principal concepts which underpinned his view of international politics. Churchill's remark that if Hitler had invaded Hell, he would at least have made 'a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons' was indication enough of the Prime Minister's determination to have any ally in the British crusade against Nazi Germany. Yet it is an oversimplification to portray Churchill's wartime support for the Soviet Union as merely a knee-jerk reaction to Hitler's offensive in June 1941.

Certainly few had better anti-Bolshevik credentials than Churchill. Philosophically, the Communist creed represented the very antithesis to Churchill's values: monarchical stability versus revolutionary upheaval; parliamentary democracy against dictatorship of the proletariat; and free-trade capitalism to collectivist and state control. As Secretary of State for War in 1919, he had thrown himself with vigour into military operations against the fledgling Communist state. He had then come close to resigning from Cabinet over the government's support for the British-Soviet trade agreement of 1920. Almost from its inception, Lenin's government was subjected to the full force of Churchillian rhetoric, the Englishman condemning the 'foul baboonery of Bolshevism' as 'a pestilence more destructive of life than the Black Death or the Spotted Typhus'.

But coupled with his anti-Communism was a profound respect for the military potential of Russia. Churchill was, for example, one of the few western statesmen who had studied seriously the Russian war effort during the 1914-17 campaigns, describing Russia's operations against the Austro-German armies on the Eastern front as 'a prodigy no less astounding than the magnitude of her collapse thereafter'. As the Nazi menace loomed ever greater, Churchill argued vociferously but in vain for an understanding with the Soviet Union to curtail Hitler's expansion and he criticised severely the Chamberlain government for allowing the tripartite alliance negotiations in 1939 (with Paris and Moscow) to fail. Despite widespread western distaste over the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the subsequent division of Poland, Churchill was prepared publicly to justify the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland as essential for Soviet security.

The outbreak of war and the collapse of the Western front nine months later made it all the more imperative that the Soviet Union be brought in against the Axis. Though, as these documents show, Churchill's warnings to Stalin about the dangers of German hegemony and Nazi intentions towards Soviet Russia remained unheeded, the British Prime Minister never doubted the importance of persuading Stalin to join the anti-Hitler coalition. In the end, of course, it was the Führer himself, with the German attack upon Soviet Russia in June 1941, who brought Stalin into the Allied camp. And though some in the West regarded Stalin's regime equally – if not more – repugnant than Hitler's, and were content to sit back and watch the two dictators' forces exhaust each other, Churchill recalled that he 'had not the slightest doubt where our duty and our policy lay'. In a public broadcast on the first evening after the attack, Churchill declared that, though he would 'unsay no word' that he had spoken about Communism, this was a war against native Russia, and the 'cause of any Russian fighting for his hearth and home is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe'.

Though political and strategic circumstances had brought Britain and Russia closer together, Churchill was keen to cement his personal relations with the man at the top of the Soviet regime. The cultivation of such contacts accorded with the British Prime Minister's general attitude towards international affairs and coalition warfare, where, he felt, close relations and goodwill between great statesmen could ameliorate political difficulties between Powers. 'Churchill hoped that he had established a genuine personal relationship with Stalin', noted A.J.P. Taylor, 'He was probably wrong'. The charge is harsh. Stalin, for example, regarded Churchill's visit to Moscow in August 1942, as a useful opportunity to 'understand each other'. The fact that they had now met personally and had 'got to know each other' had 'great significance', the Marshal suggested. Churchill too, argued that there always remained – even when relations cooled as the war neared its end – genuine advantage in a face to face encounter with Stalin. If only they could dine together once a week, the Prime Minister opined, 'there would be no trouble at all'. The notorious 'percentages agreement' during Churchill's visit to Moscow in October 1944, which divided up south-east Europe into spheres of influence, epitomised Churchill's preference for settling international matters on a senior, personal and informal basis.

Personal relations between the two men were certainly good, and Churchill himself was attracted by Stalin's 'crude wit … lucid conversation, phenomenal memory, negotiating skill, and fulsome hospitality'. But however genial their meetings may have been, they could not compensate for the serious political differences which began to open up between East and West. The Churchill-Stalin correspondence, which the Prime Minister had hoped would develop as a channel for intimate, top-level consultations had quickly descended into 'a vehicle of recrimination', over the lack of an effective second front, the suspension of the Arctic convoys and, finally, difficulties over eastern Europe. Although the tête á tête encounters remained thoroughly agreeable, they became less effective at bridging the ever-widening schism. As Britain's economic resources and military effort struggled to match those of its two soon-to-be-Superpower allies, Churchill's ability to influence decision-making in the Grand Alliance waned. At the Tehran conference in late 1943, Churchill found it difficult to counter US-Soviet bilateralism, as 'The Big Three' began to resemble what Sir Alexander Cadogan later coined 'The Big Two and a Half'. Increasingly ineffective, Churchill's methods came under attack from his own side, Eden criticising his Prime Minister at Potsdam, for example, for being 'again under Stalin's spell'.

Building a personal relationship with Stalin was perhaps particularly important in view of the Prime Minister's reputation as an anti-Soviet critic. In fact, Churchill's stock in the Kremlin may have been higher than he supposed. Stalin had distrusted the appeasers in Chamberlain's government believing, with some justification, that they preferred a settlement with Hitler to an alliance with the Soviet Union. Churchill's qualifications as an anti-Hitlerite, by contrast, were unquestionable, and were recognised by Stalin himself long before 1941 when he described Churchill as 'an old war horse' to whom the British would turn in the event of a great crisis.

But however impressed Stalin may have been by the British Prime Minister's determination to crush Nazi Germany and by his drive, energy and political ruthlessness (which afforded Churchill a dictatorial mandate that rivalled his Soviet counterpart in the Kremlin), Stalin never forgot what he believed to be the anti-Soviet proclivities of the West, nor could he at heart rely upon Churchill not to return to type once Hitler was gone. On their first meeting in August 1942, Churchill had admitted that he 'was not friendly to you [Stalin] after the last war' and asked if he was forgiven. Stalin's reply that it was 'for God to forgive' hardly exercised the ghosts of the past. When the raison d'être that had bound together the Grand Alliance – the German danger – began to wane, the Churchill-Stalin relationship was not strong enough to overcome the ensuing political difficulties. Though Churchill always personally trusted Stalin to honour and deliver agreements they made, this confidence was never reciprocated. Perhaps because of Churchill's earlier incarnation, the Soviet leader always remained doubtful about the Prime Minister's long-term attitude towards his country. Indeed, his distrust of the British – ironically in view of postwar developments – was far greater than that of the Americans. The difference between Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin once remarked, was that 'whilst both needed watching, Roosevelt would take a rouble out of your pocket, whereas Churchill would even take a copeck'.

If Stalin was far too hidebound by the Bolsheviks' atavistic fear of Western capitalism ever to co-operate sincerely with the Anglo-Saxon Powers after the war, Churchill's speech at Fulton, Missouri suggested that he too had reverted to type. But this is a misleading interpretation. Whilst Churchill condemned at Fulton the 'expansive and proselytising tendencies' of Soviet Communism, he also expressed his admiration and regard 'for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin'. This was sincere enough. Churchill had for some time come to regard Stalin, however erroneously, as a conservative in the Kremlin who could control the worst excesses of other Bolshevik ideologues. Provided the West met Soviet Russia with resolution and determination, rather than division and weakness, Churchill felt that there was every chance of striking a reasonable bargain with the Generalissimo. Though out of office, Churchill continued to stress his belief that a 'parley at the summit' of Eastern and Western governments would be the most effective way to dispel Cold War tensions (nominalising the practice of 'summit diplomacy' in the process). Even if Churchill had been in government, however, it is unlikely that a face to face encounter with Stalin could have overcome the sclerotic divisions which now ran through Europe. By the time Churchill had returned to power, Stalin himself – now ill and seized by paranoia – had in any case only a little more than a year to live. Their relationship had run its course. Against Hitler, the Churchill-Stalin relationship had proved a valuable asset, but against the challenges of the postwar world it had proved not nearly as effective. It helped win the war, but it could never have won the peace.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Mrs. Tessa Stirling's staff at the Historical and Records section of the Cabinet Office for providing Cabinet Office material to supplement the Foreign Office papers in this collection. Particular thanks are also due to Mr. Allen Packwood, Acting Keeper of the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, and his staff for providing copies of relevant documents from the Churchill Papers.

The bulk of these documents are Crown Copyright, but we are grateful to Curtis Brown and Winston S. Churchill for their permission to reproduce document nos. 75 and 78 and to the 2nd Viscount Montgomery for permission to reproduce document no. 77. We are also grateful to Atlantic Syndication for their permission to use the David Low illustration on the front cover.