Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1944, Europe, Volume IV

861.00/6–2944: Telegram

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

Moscow, June 29, 1944—4 p.m.
[Received July 1—12:15 a.m.]

2348. Academician and Vice Commissar for Foreign Affairs A. Y. Vyshinski delivered a 2% hour lecture in the Moscow Hall of Unions on June 23 entitled “the Soviet State and Three Years of the Patriotic War”.⁹⁰ The lecture was well attended with a large delegation of younger officers of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs present.

The content of Vyshinski’s lecture followed the lines taken in many ideological articles in the Soviet press during the war. Stressing above all the wisdom and correctness of Stalin’s leadership it attributed Soviet success to the new unique and highly effective Soviet political and economic system and a similar lecture given by Vyshinski during the recent Moscow scientific congress was published in the press and summary is being forwarded by despatch. Herein are presented only a few highlights of the address as heard by a member of the Embassy staff.

The lecture was a more aggressive presentation of Stalinist ideology than any that has recently come to the attention of the Embassy. Intended for internal consumption it reflects the aggressive self confidence engendered by success and at the same time perhaps indicates a feeling on the part of Soviet leaders that it is sound psychology for them to justify by reference to successes achieved the hardships which their people have undergone.

Vyshinski was very emphatic in the historical part of his lecture about the importance of state organization in establishing the rule of the Proletariat. He stressed the idea that the Soviet State is the body organized to defend the interests of the Proletariat just as in other countries the state is the agent of the bourgeoisie. He ridiculed political thinkers who regarded the state as the representative of the “common” or “public” interest. The success of the revolution in Russia was only assured he maintained by liquidating opposition. Here the state played a decisive role. Bukharin’s⁹¹ alleged idea that Socialist industry could co-exist peacefully with capitalist agriculture Vyshinski discussed in detail as one of the treasonable anti-Proletarian dangers overcome by the state under Stalin’s leadership.

In discussing the twin principles of coercion and persuasion which he said guided the Soviet State Vyshinski remarked in passing that while coercion in the Soviet State was applied against the minority the opposite was the case in the capitalist countries. The Soviet State had many unique positive qualities also. For example it furnished guidance and help to the masses and provided them with unique educational and cultural opportunities. This was in contrast to the bourgeois conception of the limited sphere of state functions.

The sections of the speech which aroused most interest and enthusiasm among the audience were those dealing with foreign affairs especially with Soviet victories. Here the lecturer displayed great confidence, satisfaction and optimism. He stated that we were now in the last year and possibly the last six months of the war. The war had brought not only hardships but cause for pride. Comparing the liquidation of the Kulaks⁹² with the fate that awaited Germany he stated that the same sort of Stalinist blow would be struck Germany as had rendered the Kulaks incapable of further resistance. Vyshinski said that the Soviets while taken by surprise by the Germans’ treacherous attack had always known that they would have to fight Germany. “The future belongs to us” he stated at one point. He also said that the Russians intended to march to Berlin the heart of Germany.

Vyshinski did not devote as much attention to the Allies in this lecture as in his previous lecture as repeated in the Soviet press. However he spoke with great satisfaction of the increased recognition accorded the Soviet State by other countries during the war. Listing some of the countries which had recently sent reports to Moscow he jokingly remarked that the Soviets now had as guests most of the flags of the world.

The Anglo-Soviet-American coalition Vyshinski described as the mightiest in history and expressed the opinion that this coalition had been created largely as the result of the Soviet achievements. He listed various ways in which the Soviets were linked with their Allies including the Lend-Lease Agreement about which he spoke with evident satisfaction and the Anglo-Soviet treaty which he jokingly remarked guaranteed “at least 20 years of friendship”. He declared that these and other developments showed the realization of other governments that cooperation with the Soviet Union was necessary. He expressed confidence that cooperation would be worked out in other fields and dwelt at some length on international air cooperation, he made some friendly remarks about the Allied invasion of France quoting Stalin’s statement praising its scope and skill.

With the exception of his reference to Germany Vyshinski’s lecture contained almost nothing on the European countries. However in discussing the merits of the collective farm system he pointed out that in his travels in Italy and the Mediterranean area he had seen backward, small-scale, tractorless agriculture, the existence of which was due to the social system prevailing in those areas.

Vyshinski concluded his lecture by bringing the spotlight back from relations with the Allies to Soviet achievements. His clever parody and refutation of a recent Goebbels article about the dangers of the “Bolshevik” and of the acquisition by the Russian people of modern technique brought enthusiastic laughter and applause from the audience whose interest appeared to lag during the theoretical parts of the lecture.

Harriman

90. A brief statement in praise of the valiant efforts of the Soviet Union in the war by Secretary of State Hull on the third anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet Union is printed in Department of State Bulletin, June 24, 1944, p. 573.
91. Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin, an outstanding Communist theoretician and writer, a former editor of Pravda and Izvestiya, who had been tried and executed in 1938. See Foreign Relations, The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 527–528, 532–533, 545–546.
92. The most well-to-do class of peasants opposed to collectivization of agriculture and other policies of the Soviet Government, and deliberately liquidated as a class after 1929.