Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/16498: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State

Kuibyshev (Moscow), November 9, 1941—11 p.m.
[Received November 9—7:15 p.m.]

1901. For the President, the Secretary and Under Secretary. In the course of a lengthy conversation last night with Dekanosov, who is probably more in Stalin’s confidence than any one else in the Government, he made the following observations.

1.
If the Soviet forces can hold Leningrad and Moscow for another 30 days the Germans will be unable to take either city during the winter.
2.
German pressure has relaxed in some areas and increased in others during the past week.
3.
The Germans are now encountering serious transport difficulties due to the length of the campaign and weather conditions.
4.
German prisoners under 17 years of age have recently been taken.
5.
The Soviet Government is faced with a serious food problem this winter.
6.
German seizures of grain in the Ukraine are considerably less than the Germans expected but substantially more than the Soviet Government believed they would be able to obtain.
7.
The Soviet armies are suffering from a severe shortage of material and the officers of the army are counting heavily on American material and are evidencing some impatience.
8.
Soviet losses in manpower have been severe even for Russia, but great reserves exist which are now being drawn upon to create new armies which, however, will be limited by shortage of material.
9.
German losses in manpower have been more severe than the Russian in relation to their respective reserves.
10.
German plane losses have been serious. Insofar as concerns other material and equipment the German losses have not been serious in relation to the amount at their disposal.
11.
Soviet war industry has been severely crippled with production at the present time at a very low ebb. The Government, however, is constantly moving factories to the East and in many cases has been successful in having them back in production within 3 months or less.
12.
A large amount of war material has been withdrawn from the Soviet forces in the Far East and sent to the front. Also a substantial number of troops. But the forces left in the Far East are believed to be adequate to conduct a stubborn defense against any Japanese attack which may materialize. Dekanosov also expressed considerable bitterness at the failure of Great Britain to create a diversion, pointing out that the war is now in its fifth month and that [Page 657] the entire brunt is still being borne by the Soviet armies.29 He remarked that the British have sent more experts than material and that some of these experts had poorly concealed the fact that they are primarily interested in obtaining information that would be of advantage to Great Britain commercially after the war.

The general trend of Dekanosov’s remarks left no doubt in my mind, however, that the Soviet Government is determined to carry on the war to the bitter end no matter what the cost may be.

Steinhardt
  1. Ambassador Steinhardt had already reported in telegram No. 1845, October 28, 1941, that the British Ambassador “expressed the view that the British Government had gravely blundered in not sending two divisions to Murmansk or to Rostov and that this lost ground could no longer be recovered as Soviet confidence in Britain had been severely shaken.” It was because of this that Sir Stafford Cripps “ascribed the Soviet unwillingness to furnish any information or to cooperate” with British representatives. (740.0011 European War 1939/16213)↩