Transcripts For CSPAN2 World 20240705

All. Every saturday American History tv presents american ories and sunday, book tv brings the latest nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan2 from these Television Companies and more including comcast. Comcast is partnering with 1000 clearly centrist to create wifi enabled list so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. Comcast along with these Television Companies support cspan2 publicly listed in the subject in this revision, it is based on herbert hoover. Role in the proceedings and to some extent the famous magnum opus free and betrayed is definitely one of the main inspirations for the book. I do have to say though, that i do have tome say herbert hoovr had a version of his own world war ii revision that is actually in the news today. Elieve that. Ross dwight, bless his soul, has actually just put in a plug for my book very much in the mode of revisionism. In his New York Times column. Although i gather it is it is something of a subscriber only newsletter. I dont know whether its actually going to appear in the print edition or not. But the shtick that he is kind of pushing here by way of promoting my book and promoting World War Two revisionism, is that he says its a necessary and perhaps healthy correct move to the current blockbuster movie oppenheimer. Certain aspects of the film to do with anticommunism and various fun myths, shall we say, and in hollywood about the alleged lack of any communist influence in washington between about 1933 and 1950. Its rather curious. I mean, since we left off in 1933, that isnt actually a bad place to start. I wasnt originally planning on starting there, but we might as well. One of the first areas in which hoover kind of tussled with roosevelt over foreign policy, aside from on the campaign hustings, im talking about more like behind the scenes where there of corresponding and talking was actually over soviet recognition that is recognition of the soviet union itself which hoover of course along with the two republican president s preceding him actually i suppose all the way back to to some extent you might even say the Wilson Administration had refused to do. There were good reasons they had refused to do that. The bolsheviks were, of course, an outlaw regime. I mean, effectively kind of selfproclaimed outlaws who would annihilated private property, as they put it, rather charmingly, along with russias external debts, along with effectively almost all for corporate obligations, bonds, equities, stocks, they were all annihilated by decree. Us claims were not necessarily the largest in the world. France and france are actually more than a million are deposed bond holders and equity holders. More than a million citizens in france actually had essentially been wiped out by the bolshevik default of february 1918. The us holdings though, if you include it, also private holdings. Corporate holdings totaled somewhere over about 600 million, which had of course just gone poof in 1918. Now, hoover, among other things, he also warned roosevelt about soviet counterfeiting of us dollars in greenbacks, not to say misbehavior. Espionage generally speaking, an outlaw regime that proclaimed itself the enemy of all existing world governments. There was an Organization Called the common during the communist international, explicitly devoted to the overthrow of all existing world governments. It had various clauses, the famous 21 conditions of which perhaps the most notorious was the one stating that the communist parties were actually supposed to maintain shadow governments. Basically plotting to overthrow all the existing governments of the world, etc. There are very good reasons not to recognize the soviet union, to allow them to open up consulates, embassies that would permit, of course, espionage, spies, spying, also to place a kind of stamp of approval. You might say, of the soviet regime, which would also make it easier for the communist party in the various front organizations to recruit the socalled sympathizers, fellow travelers, etc. , etc. Everything that actually did happen, of course, between 1933 and 1938, all those warnings, of course, went to not roosevelt plowed right on ahead. He he would he sort of whittle down the 600 million claim on his own. It was actually i mean, the soviets barely even tried roosevelt just sort of unilaterally said, yeah, im going to knock it down to about 75 million. And then it went off. The soviet foreign minister issued a counter claim saying, well, yeah, but you you nationalized some of our property and retaliate asian and i think thats worth about 141 million. So lets just call it even stephen lets just sort of forget the whole thing and thats pretty much what they did. They forgot the whole thing. They buried it under the rug. The recognition problem was solved. Obviously in the soviets favor no debts had to be repaid. Now, its interesting to to contrast hoovers skepticism there about the intentions of the soviets with roosevelt, who had this. I mean, he was he was an optimist there. Theres something thats admirable there. But what he really thought and its amazing he made the same argument that lloyd george had made in 1921 regarding the original anglo soviet trade agreement, which, believe it or not, is actually still the legal basis for most of the looted art and antiquities cases related to deposed property. Ive actually consulted on a number of those. Its kind of an interesting story of its own. Lloyd george thought that by recognizing or even giving de facto recognition of the service, he would open up these wonderful trade opportunities and the british economy would boom and recover from the depression. And roosevelt thought the same thing. The phrase he used was all we need to do is break the ice. If we just break the ice, you know, all these trade opportunities will blossom and bloom. Now, it wasnt just that this was a kind of willful naivete. It was just vanishingly ignorant. The soviets had an inexhaustible appetite for American Capital and technology. The problem was they didnt have a lot of money to pay for it. Right. In fact, almost the entire soviet industrial boom of stalins first five year plan was effectively designed by American Capitalists and engineers. I mean, of the most famous stuff, magnetar kursk, the steel city, based on the prototype of u. S. Steel in gary, indiana, which, of course, i remember from the music man. Ive been thinking a lot about the music man since i got out. Gary, indiana. Gary, indiana. That was just one of dozens of u. S. Companies that had actually helped to design stalins blast furnaces, as is metallurgical facilities, the hydroelectric dams and all the rest. There was no lack of interest either on the part of American Capitalist, on the part of stalin and his commissars in the us investing in the soviet union. The problem, of course, was that they kept defaulting on their debt, so they had very little money to pay for it because communism had impoverished the country. So it was kind of based on a false premise, Wishful Thinking and all the rest. And of course, none of these brilliant trade opportunities surfaced. What happened instead, of course, was soviet agents penetrated u. S. Aerospace and pretty much every single major Aviation Factory in the United States. It was a whole team of spies led by a guy called stanislav shemenski, codenamed black mario. I dont know why they gave him a french codename, but they did. And the story i tell in the book is part one of how this all got going in the thirties. It also gave the stamp of approval, as i pointed out, to the communist party of usa. A membership explodes from 33000 to 80000. Thats the simple mathematical answer to the question of how communist influence in the government expanded so much in the 1930s. Just suddenly there are a lot of communists in there everywhere, particularly in washington. So you had communist influence at state to the treasury, most famously with Harry Dexter White in the case of the treasury. And of course, alger hiss and many others at the state department. You also had, again, this this whole team of about 30 soviet spies, you know, working in u. S. Universities, aviation plants. Whats amazing is, is that theres a kind of a postscript to the story, and ill come back to it once we get there chronologically, but eventually really wants to lend Lease Program got going in 1941 the soviet era they didnt actually have to spy anymore. They could just go to any American Factory they wanted and say, give me that, give me that. And it was done. It was given to them. Technology, trade, secrets, actual products, finished products, inputs, whatever they wanted it all goes back to 1933. Now, of course, it didnt all happen at once. It emerged by kind of fits in stages. But roosevelt had a lot to do with this. Roosevelt actually sacked the first Us Ambassador, william bullitt, who was by no means a conserve it of anticommunist. But you know, hed become a little bit skeptical about, you know, the great terror and the mass terror going on. And he showed trials and so on, and it began to be a little bit critical in his dispatches. And so roosevelt, of course, sacked him and replaced him by joseph davies, the most famous for the mission in moscow, but also famous for those of us with an interest in the soviet art laundering business. Husband of Marjorie Merriweather post heiress to the post breakfast cereal fortune whose take from those very lucrative moscow years now graces the walls of the Hillwood Museum outside washington, d. C. She got to buy up all the soviet artwork on the cheap in exchange, i suppose for her husband saying really nice things about stalin to roosevelt and to stalin himself, whom he said was a greater leaders and peter the great, catherine the great and all of them put together. Youre greater even than lenin, he said. That was our ambassador to stalin during the great terror years. Roosevelt also on the advice of, well, soviet agents, along with some their wealth, purged the state department of stalin phobes, and he actually even broke apart of the library of the Eastern European division, where they had assembled all this material on the soviet union because people wanted to learn about what was actually happening there, getting soviet newspapers, journals gone to the winds, virtual book burning. So by the late 1930s to say there was soviet influence in washington would be a considerable understatement. But back to the main story, which is the war. So revision ism, im always called a revisionist. Everyone calls me revisionist. You know what ive decided im just going to embrace the term i dont mind. Fine. Im a revision. Thats what i like to do is revise understanding. Ive never quite understood the idea that youre supposed to write a book in order to just say the same things that everybody else said. If you find new information or if you come up with a new twist or a new interpretation on something, then why not share . Start the conversation, keep it going. So the usual conversation about the war, of course, it all starts with we have, of course, you know, hitler and these revisionist moves. Thats a different kind of revisionism on the european map. That word itself actually comes up in the diplomatic literature on the war. Youve probably heard the idea that the socalled axis powers, they were revisionists. That is, they wanted to revise this, whether it was the washing ten framework or just the general system of the league of nations. The idea of nonaggression, the kellogg, brion pact, etc. They were revisionists. Curiously, of course italy. Its supposedly been on the winning side of the first world war, but youd been supposedly cheated out of her winnings by the greeks and the serbs and other powers. The germans, of course, had lost and been truncated, as have the hungarians, bulgarians and others. But the germans were of course, a more important power. And then, of course, japan also on the victorious side, curiously, but not really happy with the way shed been treated in the postwar period. Now, supposedly, according to the traditional literature, and ive read it, you know, im no ill give it its due the soviet union i guess was not a revisionist power. The soviet union, we are told, was interested in collective security. And in fact it was because of the benighted anticommunist prejudice of the western democracies, of people like Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain of the british conservatives, not the french, quite as much because they at least tried to come to terms with the soviets more than the british did, or like those roosevelt critics in washington that everyone thought that the soviets were no good. And thats why collective security failed. Well, there are a couple of problems with that argument to begin with. Stalin didnt believe in collective security. He didnt use the word, didnt talk about it. He wrote this big book in 1938. Usually called the short course, this kind of bible of communism, the updated version of marxism, leninism, according to stalin, circa 1938, the word collective security does not appear in that book. Now its true he did have a kind of a front man, Foreign Affairs commissar maxim levine off, who every so often would make these noises about standing up to hitler himself, being jewish. He had good motivation to do so, and he was kind of a useful front man for that purpose. But in fact, it went off, was demoted from the european desk in 1937. Not a lot of people know this. He wasnt actually running stalins european policy. Now, in addition to this, the problem when it came to Something Like lets say the czechoslovak crisis, which led to the notorious munich agreement of 1938, was it the idea that the soviet union was going to enter a collective Security Agreement on behalf of czechoslovakia, slightly problem. Mattick the soviet union did not border czechoslovakia, nor and i do want to emphasize this again did the soviet union border germany in the 1930s . So the idea of the soviets being able to aid czechoslovakia in any way they would have required for soviet troops to transit either poland or romania. The same problem had come up again in the summer of 1939, when the french and british said this notoriously ill fated mission to moscow. The last gasp effort of collective security. And were told, quite bluntly and in fact, you know, helpfully by the soviets, if you want us to do anything against germany, were going to have to invade poland and romania first. So did you ask them, do we have your permission in their permission to invade poland and romania and the french and the british that kind of look around . You know, were not really sure. And so we said, well, you didnt do your homework, please ask. And the french believe it, they actually did go and they asked the polish government, you know, can we get permission for stalin to invade you . And they were told, no, we dont want stalin and the red army to invade polish. So theres not entirely the soviets fault, but in fact, they had no way of actually aiding czechoslovakia in 1938, even if they wanted. Yeah, they could have mobilized some troops near the border. And so on. But of course this is all based on a false premise. In the same way roosevelts recognition policy was based on a false premise, it was that the soviets saw the world the same way that the western democracies did, that he cared about collective security or the territorial integrity of czechoslovakia or Something Like that. Of course not. I mean, as he put it at one point, yes, czechoslovakia. And we at the time being, we share common enemies, that is all. In fact, the soviet risk bonds to munich. Its quite interesting. Weve all been told about munich ad nauseam. Every time a tv talking head waxes, gop litical rally. Oh, munich, munich minute we have to stand up to aggression. Munich, munich, munich. We cannot have appeasement. How did the soviets respond to munich . They cackle old. I mean, pretty much literally. You can actually hear the cackling in the prov, the headline about how poland is digging a grave for her own independence in poland. Munich. Interesting. Everyone forgets this part to. But in fact poland after nazi germany, Adolph Hitler made their claim is on the sedate land because of the german population there. Poland also made her own push into czech territory, along with hungary and they carved up czechoslovakia together, poland in nazi germany, everyone forgets this too, who actually effectively allied between 1934 and 1939, the soviets and this is stalin. Hes already kind of thinking ahead. He realizes that by setting a precedent, by overturning the territorial integrity of czechoslovakia, also encouraging polish aggression and getting the poles to rather foolishly team up alongside nazi germany and in helping to erase the boundaries of a neighbor state. Were digging a grave for polands independence. In fact, you can start to see as early as 1938 the idea of a polish partition, and it starts to show up, not in germany, but in soviet theoretic journals and then in izvestia and finally in pravda and then in hints and conversations between soviet diplomats, you had stalins youre not living off. He was a front man of no great significance. People like vacuum can people like stalins envoys who were answering to him personally, they all Start Talking about partitioning poland and theyre talking explicitly about doing so with the germans. The other thing you begin to see in the winter of 1938 to 1939, again when stalin was allegedly, oh, hes being betrayed by the western democracies because they didnt trust him. Hes already negotiating behind the scenes with German Government officials, bureaucrats, even to some extent industrialists. The soviets have already presented the germans with a military Technology Wish List 18 pages long. Of all, the german German Military hardware, they have their eyes on, they want to import. So the pressure for what would eventually become the socalled molotovribbentrop pact form more formally moscow pact. Initially, it actually came far more from the soviet side. So did the initial move and this one is a doozy. If youre not if youre not familiar with the story. When stalin decided he wanted to get a little bit more serious about about this pact, first, though, i do have to briefly talk about poor poland. So if we look at the map here, this is a little bit of an amalgam of a couple of things going on at once, going to the invasion of poland, the various partition pls and the maps. Now pand, remember, had just enlarged herself and shed also fought a war against the soviets in 1920, and she gained some territory then. And this is part of the reason why chamberlain, when he issue his famous british soalled guarantee of polands terror, not her territorial integrity, t her independence, its ambiguous in part because he doesnt want to necessarily cognize polands recent gains as legitimate. Also, his polical coalition is fragile. He doesnt know if the french will go along. Theres a lot of ink spilled on this very subjt. Whats not usually mentioned is that the soviets not only did not endorse chamberlainpolish guarantee, they explicitly and expressly repudiated as loudly as possible, not just privately, where they told the british, no, we dont back your guarantee and we want nothing to do with it. They even issued a press denial of rumors that they were planning to aid poland in any way whatsoever. They said no completely untrue. We have no such plans. Stalin, of course, did not see polands borders as legitimate. He was a revisionist. Remember that word . He had plans to revise polands borders, not to give chamberlain his due. He was a difficult position. But and heres where i actually im going to bring hoover back into the story. One of the themes that hoover was already harping on in this period, because he had met with chamberlain, he shared a certain, shall we say, skeptical worldview vis a be stalin and the soviets with chamberlain. Chamberlain himself, part of the reason why he was allegedly, again, the appeaser or soft on hitler was he was concerned about stalin in his own territorial ambitions in Eastern Europe, particularly vis a vis poland and romania. He talked about that explicitly on numerous occasions. The problem with chamberlains policy in 1939, though, and hoover was one of the first to actually make this argument peter hitchens, among others, has also recently made it be tailor made a similar case more than a half century ago was that by extending this guarantee to poland, he effectively ripped up any chance of an agreement between poland and germany. Its a little bit delicate to talk about, particularly because poles are so proud of their history, of defiance and of fighting and they dont like to be remind it did that until roughly january to march of 39. They were effectively allied to nazi germany or at the very least negotiating on a very friendly basis with nazi germany. But in fact, chamberlains guarantee is a little bit like throwing a, you know, a great big wrench in the works. It not just accelerate hitlers own plans with his own designs on poland. It also and this is the delicate part, convinced the poles that they had a security guarantee from britain, which they didnt really have. If you read the fine print, i actually did a column in this last year when i was talking about what i consider the great tragedy of the ukraine war, talking about the various nato and u. S. Guarantees, promises, suggestions towards ukraine. Hmm. Poland certainly thought she had an agreement whereby britain and france would come to her aid in 1939. Did they . They invade germany. Did they send massive amounts of arms to poland in september 1939 . Did they flood poland with weapons whether for free on aid, on spec credit, lendlease no, almost nothing of the kind. Now back to stalin here. So stalin, after this guarantee, explicitly repudiates it. I want nothing to do with this guarantee. Oh, yeah. And then he says, you know what . This living off. Im kind of sick of this guy is hes jewish and the nazis dont like , so he fires him and he orders molotov. His actual name is scriabin. Molotov is its like a, you know, one of the pseudonyms, you know, stalin was steel, molotov was hammer hammer. And steel. Hammer and steel. They used to sign deathly ice together during the chair. Its very charming, charming nicknames. Molotov. He tells molotov sichel. The , thats what he does. He fires all the from the soviet Foreign Ministry. Now, i cant guarantee that every last type as secretary janitor was actually fired who might have had jewish origins, but publicly, unofficially, he sacked the soviet Foreign Ministry of. This is his way of telling hitler. I want to deal. Hitler gets the message immediately. He literally tells goebbels, okay, tell all your newspapers to stop attacking the soviets and the communists for the time being. So the initial move is stalins. Now, of course, stalin has a leverage. Heres the really strange part about all this, and im going to bring up a couple of these poland maps. If you actually look at the lines, you will see that they dont all necessarily line up in exactly the way that you think. I, i often do this with my students with the alleged the socalled the sykespicot agreement of 1916 that everyone says they leave out the russians and so on. If they say, oh, this is like the bop, the map of the modern middle east. I superimpose the maps and i say, hmm, i dont see much resemble its there. So same problem here. The maps, the lines, they dont necessarily line up. You hear a lot of talk about the kurds online. This is one the british favored after the war, which the poles had actually revised in their war with the soviets in 1920, which later on gets revised further. We also have the original partition lines as agreed by molotov and rip and trump and hitler and stalin. And theres actually some haggling over the phone between hitler and stalin over things like baltic ports. At the last minute, the soviet zone was larger than the german one. The soviets are included central poland, you know, including warsaw. The soviets did not get a slice of eastern poland as the western press often put it. Stalin got far more in the deal. In fact, part of the original deal was that stalin was supposed to have lithuania. The problem in the end, of course, was that because the german troops and i think i might need the other map for this, because the german troops eventually crossed they crossed the demarcation lines because the soviets were so dilatory in invading poland. Eventually they had toartered aw and the germans got central warsaw in exchange for lithuania. But that in and of itself is an interesting story because after all, the soviets invaded poland as they would soon invade six other countries between 1939, 1941. Now a couple of years ago, this wasnt actually from my book, it was related to my book, but i did an op ed in the wall street journal pointing out some of the consequences of. The soviet japanese neutrality pact, its relation to pearl harbor and other events in the pacific, which ill get to shortly, the soviet, the russian, now Foreign Ministry was not amused. They denounced me by name on the 4th of july. I was after the tweet congratulating americans on their national holiday. They denounced comrade mcmeekin, for his nefarious book. They told me that the soviet union was a peace loving empire and had no designs in other countries. Was great, was the very first kind of counter tweet there was . Yeah. Then who took sakhalin on the islands . Santa claus. I thought that was a pretty good retort. That wasnt mine. It was someone else. But so the soviets were slamming the amazing. They maintain this pretense even as theyre planning to carve up Eastern Europe with. It was a brilliant ruse when you really think about it, they just proclaim neutrality. And the germans were actually kind of annoyed about this, as you might imagine. They keep asking the soviets when are you going to invade . We have this agreement. Theres a partition line, theres a map. Our militaries have established communication. Weve got comm links. When are you going to invade . And molotov kept saying, well, we do not want to do anything which might prejudice our cause or promote the unity of our opponents. Think about that phrase and promote the unity of our opponents. They did not want britain and france to declare war on the soviet union, who was also invading poland. So the soviets, they dithered, they delayed, and they actually made this quite explicit to the germans. This wonderful, cynical they could be when they wanted to. They actually said, okay, tell us when warsaw has fallen. Thats when we will know poland has ceased to exist. That is when we will invade. And whats remarkable is they actually did just that, only they did it on faulty intelligence. They were told warsaw fell on september 16th and thats why they invaded on september 17th. It turned out warsaw held out for actually more than two weeks after that. So it was actually faulty intel. The poles were very brave, but in the end they were kind of doomed, not least because the polish government had tried to flee the german invasion, mostly coming from about five different prongs, but not from this one. Not from that one. And so they had started to flee in this direction and they found themselves directly in the path now of the soviet advance. Now the soviet method of declaring war, making war. I mean, it really did. Theres a sort of elegance to the vast cynicism of it that i almost have to admire. Theyre going to do the same thing against japan in august 1945. So they call in the polish. They informed him they informed him that his nation no longer exists. So his diplomatic immunity has expired. So he is under arrest. And meanwhile, because your state no longer exists, we will be going on a Protection Mission to protect beleaguered ukrainians and below russians. And its interesting, they maintain this pretense throughout the fall as they start mass deportations from poland into the soviet interior and all the gulag camps that poland doesnt exist. So it was not a war. So war crimes could not actually be committed. However, every so they kind of give the game away when they talk about the special legal category of former members of the polish government or former members of the polish army, who of course they take special interest in because they might be the kernel of a potential resistance. And so they keep very, very special files on all those people. And were going to hear more about them shortly. So they begin the mass deportation missions. They kind of have this this rather me, the cynicism that stalin was capable. So remember, living off the jewish foreign minister front man who he had sacked as an olive branch to hitler. He put levine off in charge of the commission of establishing the bona fides of ethnic german mass who the soviets would now expel to nazi germany, even as, of course this the nazi germans are kind of encouraging , shall we say, to migrate outwards into the soviet union. So there are various kind of like ethnic swaps and all kinds of very cynical deals going on behind the scenes. The soviet are putting their polish prisoners in the end, more than a million of them to work, building roads. They put the they put to work in forestry. The whole kind of panoply of the soviet system, those poles, including tens of thousands, only hundreds of thousands of polish , get to experience those delights for themselves inside the vastness of the soviet union. Now, stalin had he done pretty well here . Its kind of amazing that he got away with this. It wasnt just that there was no withdrawal of the ambassador. Something were talking about with manchuria recently, with with just as his talk, there was no real retaliation from britain and france. In fact, his was even endorsed by winston churchill. And i think i am allowed to say that because this is not a Churchill Society event. Churchill actually endorsed it. And in fact, he encouraged further soviet moves in the baltic and in finland. He encouraged them as a counterweight to germany, for which he was praised and thanked personally by the soviet ambassador, even minsky. Thats quite interesting. You know, by the station what it was, it was a period where, again, the phony youve heard about the phony war as the germans called the french, have to all together. I love the phrase, though the Schitts Creek youre the sitting on my war now usually were told again this is pause in the war and its part of the reason why, particularly in britain, a lot of reviews. I mean, they lost their minds over the section of my book. When i talk about finland, i dont know why youre not allowed to talk about finland or something. In britain, its like theres a law. I dont understand it, but this is the time when stalin really, you might say, revealed his his kind of his true colors, because hitler actually more or less stopped for a while, at least his acts of armed aggression. Yes, theyre rounding up many poles. A lot of , obviously dont they dont have death camps yet. This is fall 39. But there are a lot of summary executions. I mean, theres a lot of horrible stuff going on in poland and theyre hunting down renegade poles, the soviets and the germans, theyre just mirroring like theyre theyre theyre putting pressure on romania. Youve got to turn over all of your poles. I mean, theyre really hideous partners. That punch cartoon really was tremendous, you know, hitler and stalin, and theyre sort of carving europe together. But for the time being, hitler actually kind of went dormant. Were stalin started making moves against the three baltic states, threatening, according to germany, we have a right to occupy by you, he tells them. And then finland, he was kind of shocked when the finns, of course, resisted his shall we call them, advances . And this is the issue which does kind of thrust, as some of you know, hitler back into the public limelight, at least briefly, with this finnish relief committee. But a couple of things about the finnish war. I think, that are worthy of mention the. Soviets, of course, cook up a very fine pretext. They make up some story that everyone knows is false. They invade finland. Its their attempt at blitzkrieg only. Theyre not very good at it. You know, their bombers arent very accurate. They bomb a lot stuff by mistake. The casualties are, you know, damaging, but not as as lethal or deadly as they were with the very marked and the took a dive bombers. Most of all, of course you know they bludgeon in the snows of these famous stories of of the finnish ski snipe was running circles around them and kind of cutting into the ice and sinking soviet tanks. The casualties really are horrendous. I actually saw this one report of a soviet doctor who said he was he was treating 400 wounded patients a day in the hospitals of leningrad. It was turning into not just a military possible, but kind of a Public Relations catastrophe for the soviets, in fact. And everyone forgets this, too. They actually were the main story that winter. The soviets were actually ejected from the league of nations, something that had not happened to nazi germany, italy or japan as the league secretary, rather, caustically observed, those axis nations at least had the decency to resign from the league before committing blatant acts, armed aggression. The soviets were the reverse of the toast of the town. Everyone was condemning them. The germans were still allied to them. The german public, though, was clearly on the finnish side of italians. The hungarians there all whole hog going for the finnish cause. Hoovers raising money. Hes getting under roosevelts skin. Even roosevelt comes around and issues a kind of denunciation of stalin. But that was partly because hoover was getting under his skin. And the issue was becoming a political liability for him. These stories are coming out really remarkable. Some of them had to do with that new innovation in war making, which becomes more famous a little later on the eastern front. But it started in finland. Those were the terror battalions. They would actually arm nkvd troops, a special unit of nkvd troops with machine guns to stand behind the men. So if they refused to advance or they came back, they would shoot them. Theyd be shot by their own side. These stories pour out of finland, my own personal favorite. They also have this new hideous innovation, although it went back a long time to the pull it look. The political commissar in every unit and these political commissars were, shall we say, not really a hated by their men or by the officers. So the story that goes round that the finns, by the way, the soviet troops had all been told that if they were captured by the finns, there would be subjected to the most savage bestial tortures and be dismembered and, you know, instead theyre given like blankets and, you know, warm food and like hot tea and hot chocolate and theyre a little bewildered by this. They dont understand why the soviet propaganda hasnt really come to fruition. And so anyway, so the story goes around that a couple of finnish soldiers are captured and, you know, they they look in, they say like, well, so youre going to shoot us now, right . And the finnish guy says hes a soldier, says, no, were not going to shoot you. And he says, well, what about him . You know, the political commissar, you going to shoot him . And they said, no, were not going to shoot him either. And then they said, then can we shoot him, please . So these stories are coming out of finland and its becoming a big liability for stalin. Its not just Public Relations liability, but in fact, if look at the map, the soviet are, you know, theyre failing in finland. But more seriously there is the possibility and again, this is what the brits got really upset about in my book. I dont know why this upsets them so much. Its what they did. Im just reminding them about it. But so you see that winter the british started to think they were going to end up at war with the soviet union, which was the primary aggressor of the winter of 1930 940. You know, everyone is lining up behind finland and the soviets, you know, theyre frankly, theyre kind of bad news. And so it turns out that because the british they also have concerns about soviet propaganda designs on the empire. And so but they actually start wargaming the possibile d because it occurs to them that both and stalin are dependent on petroleum for their war machines and a whole lot of that petroleum, in fact, Something Like 32 of the germans petroleum is actually coming from soviet sources. Nearly all of it from the caucasus. And thats where the soviets are getting the vast majority of their own oil. And so they actually start surveil, lying and talking a little too loudly about the possibility of bombing baku and now it just so happens that these rumors start gathering steam in february 1940, just as hoovers getting under roosevelts skin with this finnish relief committee. And if stalin is, you know, in this paranoid rage because the british and the french are arming the poles, people forget how much a role the poles played in the war, even after poland was extinguished because shes fighting in the rf battle of britain. You know, she has units in the allied armies. There is a special echelon of polish troops and theres a lot of chatter of the landing troops in finland in the first week of march, 1940. And this is when stalin calls in the Us Ambassador there and he actually consults with a number of american geologists and Petroleum Engineers about what might happen if there were a sustained bombing raid on those derricks outside baku. And hes basically told there would be a great conflict which would take months and months to put out. And it was in this kind of fear and paranoia. And this is the part everyone, what they say is, oh, well, mcmeekin posits a counterfactual britain and france might have gone to war with the soviet union. If you do not actually said this in the New York Times today. So im not just making this up, but the british are much bigger on this point. They say im not as Sean Mcmeekin is that it would have turned out well for the allies. The point of the book is not whether or not it would have turned out well for the allies. The point is, what stalin did. Stalin saw that they were plotting to go to war with him. He was afraid about the fifth column of tens of thousands of polish military officers in his camps. And so we ordered what we now call the cotton massacre. This is the kind of man he was. He retaliates against humiliate and the possibility of allied military intervention against him in which the poles might be a fifth column by rounding up 15,000 polish military officers are about 8000 other polish elites, government bureaucrats, etc. And having them murdered in cold blood. And we have all the documents, we have all the files, the only surprising thing is that they didnt match their quota. They were supposed to kill 25,000. They only got. 21,892. But there were tens of thousands more poles in particular, who were also rounded up in a new mass deportation, including the women and, children. This was all stalins way of, i suppose, his demons over the finnish war. What probably lingered a little bit too long on finland because we havent even approached barbarossa yet. So just very briefly, well role for stalins next moves. Everyone forgets about this too. In the invasion of the baltic countries, he had amazing timing when it came to Public Relations. So you remember how he waited till there was news of the fall of warsaw before invade poland . He waited literally until the day paris fell in june 1940. And you probably remember the headlines, or maybe you remember the movie casablanca. It was a big story, you know, the fall of paris. So thats when he decided to occupy the three baltic countries and threaten romania again with the same deal, you know, effectively say, you know, we will take your territory. Theres nothing you can do about it. So he moves into romania and this is when really his deal with hitler started to sour the part about the story. Again, which nearly all of the reviewers missed. I thought the single cool list and most revealing document that i found was actually in the bulgarian archives, and it was the moment that basically hitler decided to invade the soviet union this december 1940, the month after. A lot of people forget this story to molotov had traveled to berlin for a great summit with hitler and molotov and stalin presented their ultimatum to nazi germany. Hm. Interesting of an ultimatum to nazi germany. Well, basically what had happened was they had they touched up the old the socalled anti comintern pact of 1936, because it was now politically inconvenient, because stalin was allied to hitler. So instead of an anti comintern pact, it was now a tripartite pact which was devoted to destroying anglo saxon imperialism, which is to say the United States and britain, the us under roosevelt, already perceived as on britains side, which effectively she now wasnt all but name, at least with the basis for destroyers deal. Were not quite to the lendlease act yet, though. Thats kind of in gestation. And so hitler basically said, well, look, you know, well update it further. Well have a for power pact and you can have own sphere of influence, but, you know, we should talk about terms a little bit. And stalin said, okay, here my terms. You take german troops out of romania, german troops out of finland. You allow us to invade and occupy bulgaria and the turkish ottoman straits, and you give us suckle and anchor islands. Those were stalins terms. Hitler didnt like the deal didnt like the terms, didnt like the tone, didnt like stalin acting like he was a big boss man when it was the german armies doing most of the work against more serious opponents. And the soviets were riding along in the slipstream and acting like, you know, puffed up bodybuilders. And so hitler had one of his temper tantrums and he pretty much laid it all out to the well get this on the 3rd of december, 1940. If youre keeping score. So now the story we normally hear. Oh, well, yes, yes. Stalin was bad, but after all, barbaros is such a shock to the system this unprovoked act of aggression that obviously there was no possible policy choice in london or washington other than mortgaging the entire american economy. And what remained of britains war effort to bail out and save stalin and enable soviet survival and then aggression, i guess ive never understood this particular argument. If you actually look at the balance of forces in 1941, the soviets had the germans massively outnumbered in every possible category of war materiel. They had been preparing. Theyd been on a war footing to some extent since 1928. The third fiveyear plan was absolutely staggering as far as their air power, as far as the number of tanks, even to some extent the quality of the tanks, the t34, the famous soviet tank, was, of course, based on the christie suspension designed by an american engineer, a lot of other things were reverse engineered from the germans or the italians. But the point is they had lots of it. Look at this front alone. This is the ukrainian front. The southwest front. Okay. Got 64 divisions, 24 of which are mechanized, 85 aviation regiments. In the First Six Months of 1941. And i discovered this myself in the files of the soviet ministry of airdrome construction. The soviets built hundred and 51 new what they called airdromes or airbases. All of those 251 199 call it 79. 5 , not quite 80 , but very close. Were built in frontier districts abutting the german reich. Within a few minutes, flying distance of the german reich, which with they of course, now shared a long border. So stalin and hitler are both preparing for war against each other. Theres no doubt about that. The only real doubt is about people have these interesting arguments about stalins intentions. You know when did he plan to make the move . Did he plan to did hitler preemptive . Was he going to preempt hitler . Just going to you one small detail all of the relatively familiar story of barbarossa, which begins on june 22nd, 1941. You notice a lot of black here. Thats the german and their allies. We forget they had allies. People forget that to the germans, of course, invaded alongside slovakia hungary. Finland, they had from italy and spain. The soviets just going to show you a very brief i should be using the clicker here because it would probably make a little bit more sense. But so we had, in the end, words, whereas lublin ive completely gone blind on my map. Were supposed to have a powerful strike in the direction. Oh, yeah, okay. So lublin is up here. Okay. Right here on the map. You see this . This is the centerpiece of all the soviet war gaming and documents they were expecting the war would break out, possibly with the german attack, possibly with the border. And so they didnt know how. No one knew how they would respond. And with remember that massive amount of armor and force that they had on the southwestern front, a powerful strike in the direction of lublin, that is to invade poland. And then eventually, of course, they would reach east prussia and berlin. And that was what stalin actually ordered. You might have seen that Robert Duvall movie. You might have heard the oh, stalin collapsed in a drunken stupor and was panicked and bloody blah, blah, blah. No, i mean, stalin was at all of the meetings and what he was ordering was attack. That was a soviet war plan. It was attack, it was attack, it was counterattack. It was counter. It didnt go well. Okay. To put it mildly, the germans were just better at this stuff than the soviets were, and because they struck first, because stalin had foolishly put all of his new armor and particularly all those war planes he had put a lot of them in those bases right next to the frontier. The vast bulk of the soviet air force was wiped out within hours along with as the germans pushed along, they pushed into the baltic, they pushed along here, they pushed into ukraine along with. And people forget this part too. A huge chunk of soviet war industry and Industrial Production capacity. The baltic alone, they lost the entire complex for red army, red army boot construction, army supply uniforms, everything, all that they had to get from the americans. They lost 60 of their aluminum supply. The soviets didnt just use aluminum as production of war planes like everyone did in regular airplanes in the 1940s. They used them to produce all of their tanks, too. They couldnt a tank without aluminum. Why they get the aluminum . Thats where roosevelt comes in. So roosevelt immediately opened the spigots flood of the soviet union with massive amounts of lendlease aid initially see secretly without informing the public that the soviets had been made eligible for lendlease, they actually issued instructions to steinhart through ambassador moscow. Not to talk publicly about lendlease because they were doing it secretly, because they knew the public was actually opposed to it. They knew that because they did Public Opinion surveys which showed the public was strongly opposed to the policy, and then they did it anyway and helped the billion dollar credit line. They doubled it to two. By the end of the war. It was around 11 or 12 billion, which if you translated into current dollars, lets just say youre up in the trillions with room to spare. So they sent the soviets the famous spam. Some people have heard of the spammer. The two sunk a pork millions and millions of packets of the dehydrated borscht. Actually, they had a special recipe for the soviets. They actually retooled the entire American Meat packing industry to stalins needs. 13 of pork production by 1943, 90 pounds million of butter. You know that margarine we used to be told, was healthy . That all started in the war because roosevelt was sending the butter to stalin americans were told, you can make do with margarine. We need for the convalesce scenes of wounded soviet soldiers, 90 pounds million of butter, aluminum ball bearings, industrial inputs, trucks. Everyones heard of the trucks . Yes. They had 60 trucks shipped in initially through iran, eventually also through vladivostok. By the time of stalin grad famous battle. I have a letter from a german general writing home to his wife. You know, he said that more than half of the vehicles and all the armored units are american manufactured. Of course, the parts, all the rest of it, almost single handedly war industry and the food packing industry, even crab. I was amazing then what soviet fishermen fish out the king crab of the u. S. Northwest. They made the same argument. Its really important for the convalescence of wounded soldiers. People flooded congress with complaints about all this. Hopkins didnt care. Roosevelt didnt care. Now, i dont have a lot of time left. So very briefly, i have to cover the entirety of the pacific war between 1931 and 1945, just to kind of skip ahead of the story a little bit. There was initially a little bit of a delicate problem regarding the war on the pacific, namely, of course, you know, after pearl harbor, i did mention i got in trouble with the russian government because i talked about the soviet japanese neutrality pact april 30th, 1941. The express purpose of which was to cause japan, of course, to turn her attentions south and lock horns with the anglo saxon powers instead of with the soviets. And this pact was still in effect up to august 1945. More on that in a moment. One of the order aspects of this pact was that while the u. S. Was at war with japan between 1941 and 1945, u. S. Also shipping 8. 2 for 4 million metric ts of raw Material Petroleum foodstuffs, boots, bullets etc. , to the soviet far east through japanese territorial waters and japan seem to mind macarthur minded. He was kind of about it. Japan didnt mind though, except for one occasion when they said, yeah, i guess its nice that the americans are wasting all of their weapons and arms and food and fuel and everything on the soviets who are our friends. But, you know, lets stop this ship just to make sure. And you know what . Roosevelts response to that was. He said, you know what . So we wont have further problems. Lets just raise up the hammer and sickle on all those liberty ships. We just gave the ships to stalin the us Still Service them. They still paid for everything they up the hammer and sickle and thats how they shipped 8. 244 million tons. They also flew. 7995 war planes across alaska to the soviet far east and the soviets took delivery of them, not of the soviet union, not even in nome. Nome was too close to the soviet union for comfort. He didnt trust american pilots that close to the soviet union. So they also took over fairbanks, alaska. They took over the whole town. They bought up all the perfume room. Apparently, they didnt have deodorant. The soviet union, all those macho male pilots. They all bought up all the perfume they took over fairbanks, alaska, and it was actually through those alaskan war planes. Thats actually where some of the most notorious Technology Transfer happened involving enriched uranium and some other sensitive materials which were sent to stalin, again, free of charge during the war. But so long story short, stalins policy in europe, it didnt work out perfectly, in part because, again, hitlers armies were so formidable that in the end, while he was hoping hitler and the western powers would destroy each other instead, hitler nearly destroyed him in the pacific. It worked like a charm. For four years, the us and britain wore down to the point where by the summer of 1945, japan had transferred about a million troops from manchuria back to the home islands. Of course, raining down bombs upon japan firebombs, incinerating japanese industry in japan was for all intents and purposes, beaten, except for, of course, the Unconditional Surrender policy, which is one of the major things that hoover objected to. And he actually did. Truman gave him at least a polite ear on this, whereas roosevelt not truman, however, and this is something i talk a great deal about in the book, and im going to have to do a very potted version of it now. Although truman listened to hoovers arguments that he should not mortgaged the future of northern asia to communism by selling out everything to the soviets, despite the fact that roosevelts already promised the soviets they could have sakhalin and probably manchuria, and even at yalta he promised them korea as well, or at least a northern part of korea in exchange for a promise to enter the war against japan. Three months after the war in europe was over and not a moment sooner, truman said, you know what . I think in the ive got an ace in the hole. The ace in the hole, of course, was in alamogordo, new mexico, a subject of a recent blockbuster film that was the atomic bomb. So what he thought in the end, he excluded stalin from the potsdam declaration, he kind of cut stalin out at potsdam because he hoped and he thought that he could maintain roosevelts policy of Unconditional Surrender, get it with the atomic bomb, and keep the soviets out of war, which was an interesting idea, which was rather dramatically undermined by the fact that the us was continuing to ship 8. 244 million tons of war material to the soviet far east to equip stalins far eastern armies. So those armies, of course, receiving you had to move up the timetable. He had them all the time. You know, he got intel about the us program. He knew about fat boy, he knew about all the details. And so he realized that the us was going to try to end the war or sometime in early august. Fat boy was originally supposed to take flight in august first, but because of adverse weather they had to delay it until august 6th. So stalin moved up his timetable by a week, then two weeks and two and a half weeks. Finally, on the night of august 8th to ninth, this is after hiroshima, but before nagasaki, molotov called in the japanese ambassador and gave him the molotov treatment in order to prevent the destruction of japan. He said, we have decided to invade you. That was interesting about this was japan had actually come to the soviets begging, captain han for mediation to end the war. The us had just dropped the bomb on hiroshima. The soviets said, you know what, we do have an atrocity pact with you, but we want manchuria and we want sakhalin and we want the corrals, and we want korea and oh by the way, we want hokkaido to. And so they invaded and it was kind of a race, not just because the japanese were trying negotiate, surrender terms with the americans but because the soviets were not, you know, too big place manchuria. In the end, they actually had to push on well into september and they kept going and they finally stopped of all places, although they did stop in korea, of course, at the famous 38th parallel, they also stopped here on hokkaido island, or they never invaded. And the reason was because, unlike roosevelt when truman was asked by stalin, can i have hokkaido . Truman said, no. And so im going to wrap things up there