861.00 Party, All Union Communist/213: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kirk) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 14—1:52 p.m.]
105. My 99, March 11, 4 p.m. The Moscow Pravda for March 13 devotes its editorial to praise of Stalin’s analysis of the international situation and selects for special emphasis those portions of his remarks which characterize the so-called policy of nonintervention and neutrality of the western democracies as an attempt to involve other countries and in particular the Soviet Union in war with the aggressor nations in conformity with the principle, divide and rule. The editorial specially mentions the alleged attempts of the bourgeois press of England, France and the United States to magnify the Ukrainian question in the hope of turning Germany to the east. The editorial states that this suspicious uproar raised by the European and American bourgeois press around the nonexistent Ukrainian problem clearly has as its aim the poisoning of the atmosphere of Soviet relations and adds that the disappointment of the provocateurs of war at the failure of Germany to pursue this course is a sight for the gods. The editorial likewise states that this was not the first disappointment of the provocateurs, since the last year the European and American bourgeois press were writing of the inevitability of a Soviet-Japanese war in the near future. The editorial continues with statements in regard to the strength of the Soviet Union, its ability to defend itself, and its fidelity to the cause of peace, and concludes that “precisely for this reason, under the conditions of the Second Imperialist War which has already begun, the Soviet state must display unceasing vigilance and caution and not permit the provocateurs to draw it into the torrent of war”.
Members of the German Embassy here have expressed satisfaction at the tone of Stalin’s reference to the international situation and in particular to his denunciation of attempts to poison Soviet-German relations and to provoke a war between the two countries for which [Page 745] there was no foundation; and have even offered the opinion that there was a possibility that if these remarks were presented in the proper manner and by the proper officials in Berlin to Hitler an amelioration in the political situation between the Soviet Union and Germany might be developed.