740.0011 European War 1939/13334: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:15 p.m.]
1384. General report. The Soviet military communiqués for July 19th and 20th report no important change on the several fronts confining themselves largely to brief references to “fierce” and “intense” battles in the Pskov, Polotsk-Nevel, Smolensk and Novograd-Volynsk sectors. An air raid alarm this forenoon again passed without the appearance over Moscow of German planes.84
Ukases dated July 19 announce the appointment of Stalin as Commissar for Defense and Marshal Timoshenko’s appointment as Assistant Commissar for Defense. A ukase dated July 20th announces the reassembly of the Commissariats for Internal Affairs and State [Page 632] Security into a single Commissariat for Internal Affairs with Beriya as Commissar and Merkulov as Assistant Commissar. Sunday’s newspapers announced the conclusion of an agreement between the U. S. S. R. and the Czechoslovakian Republic in London85 providing for the exchange of Ministers, mutual assistance and the organization on Soviet territory of Czechoslovak forces to operate under the Soviet Supreme Military Command.
Gavrilovitch,86 the Yugoslav Minister, has returned to Moscow and apparently has resumed his functions.
For some time past the Soviet press has devoted considerable space to American news especially that reflecting American sympathy for the Soviet Union in its struggle against Germany, and Lozovski87 frequently refers to the United States in his press conferences.
- The Ambassador later reported that the first German air attack on Moscow began the same evening about 10 o’clock and lasted until about 4 o’clock the next morning, causing extensive damage.↩
- Signed on July 18, 1941; for text, see British and Foreign State Papers, vol. cxliv, p. 754.↩
- Milan Gavrilovich.↩
- Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky, Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.↩