The President of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Stalin) to Prime Minister Churchill and Mr. Averell Harriman 21
As the result of an exchange of views in Moscow which took place on the 12th August of this year, I ascertained that the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr. Churchill, considered that the organization of a second front in Europe in 1942 to be impossible.
As is well known, the organization of a second front in Europe in 1942 was pre-decided during the sojourn of Molotov in London, and it found expression in the agreed Anglo-Soviet communiqué published on the 12th June last.
It is also known that the organization of a second front in Europe had as its object the withdrawal of German forces from the Eastern front to the West, and the creation in the West of a serious base of resistance to the German-Fascist forces and the affording of relief by this means to the situation of the Soviet forces on the Soviet-German front in 1942.
It will be easily understood that the Soviet Command built their plan of summer and autumn operations calculating on the creation of a second front in Europe in 1942.
It is easy to grasp that the refusal of the Government of Great Britain to create a second front in 1942 in Europe inflicts a moral blow to the whole of the Soviet public opinion, which calculates on the creation of a second front, and that it complicates the situation of the Red Army at the front and prejudices the plan of the Soviet Command.
I am not referring to the fact that the difficulties arising for the Red Army as the result of the refusal to create a second front in 1942 will undoubtedly have to deteriorate the military situation of England and all the remaining Allies.
It appears to me and my colleagues that the most favourable conditions exist in 1942 for the creation of a second front in Europe, inasmuch as almost all the forces of the German army, and the best forces to boot, have been withdrawn to the Eastern front, leaving in Europe an inconsiderable amount of forces and these of inferior quality. It is unknown whether the year of 1943 will offer conditions for the creation of a second front as favourable as 1942. We are of the opinion, therefore, that it is particularly in 1942 that the creation of a second front in Europe is possible and should be effected. I [Page 622] was, however, unfortunately unsuccessful in convincing Mr. Prime Minister of Great Britain hereof, while Mr. Harriman, the representative of the President of the United States, fully supported Mr. Prime Minister in the negotiations held in Moscow.
- Copy obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y.↩