761.94/877: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 22—7:15 a.m.]
58. Litvinov said to me today that he feared the Japanese elections might have resulted in an increase in the strength of the Seiyukai which would strengthen the hands of the Japanese militarists. He asserted, however, that even if the militarists should be strengthened he had no fear of an early Japanese attack on the Soviet Union.
He stated that all the Soviet Government’s reports from Manchuria indicated that the Japanese were having great difficulty in controlling the native population; that the resistance to the Japanese in [Page 65] North China was much greater than anticipated; that the Japanese financial situation was more grave than it appeared to be; that in addition to the Emperor, his closest advisers, the leading businessmen, the navy and at least half the officers of the army were opposed to war on the Soviet Union at the present time. He added that he anticipated Japanese refusal of the Soviet proposal that there should be a neutral member on the border commission to be set up by Japan, Manchukuo and the Soviet Union. He said that if this proposal should be rejected he would be ready to accept the Japanese proposal for a mixed commission consisting of the Soviet Union on one side and Japan and Manchukuo on the other.
Litvinov said that he as well as all the British and French statesmen with whom he had talked had been delighted by the defeat of the proposed American neutrality legislation because they felt that the proposed legislation would have prevented the United States from giving support to England, France and the Soviet Union in case of war with Germany. He made no further reference to the United States and did not bring up Soviet-American relations.
He said that he had just received word that both Eden and Flandin would attend the League meeting on the coordination of sanctions at Geneva on March 2d contrary to their statements to him that they would not attend. He stated that he was uncertain whether or not he would go because he felt that there was nothing important to discuss. He said “sanctions are dead” and added that in view of recent Italian successes he considered it beyond the realm of possibility that the League could make any compromise proposal similar to the Hoare-Laval proposal.92 He commented further that no one today would be ready to take the moral onus of proposing a reward to the aggressor after the wave of indignation which had greeted the Hoare-Laval proposal.
In this connection it seems pertinent to add that when I saw Attolico, the Italian Ambassador to Germany, on my way through Berlin on February 12th he said to me that he had been in Rome recently and that he felt the moment was approaching when it might be appropriate for the President of the United States to propose mediation along the lines of the Hoare-Laval proposal with certain modifications in favor of Italy. As Attolico spent considerable time with Mussolini in January and as he went on to elaborate his remark most seriously I derived the impression that Mussolini may be deluded enough to hope that he can persuade the President to rush in where the successors of Hoare and Laval now fear to tread.
- For the Anglo-French proposal, see Foreign Relations, 1935, vol. i, pp. 699–723, passim; it was arranged between the French Premier, Pierre Laval, and the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare.↩