Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Central and Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union, Volume IV

661.00/12–1950

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Ambassador to the Soviet Union ( Kirk ) Temporarily in Washington

secret

[Washington,] December 19, 1950.

I saw the President today between 10 minutes of 12 and 10 minutes after. A brief summary of the conversation follows:

After the usual greetings, I made the following initial point: the situation with the Soviet Union is ticklish and while I did not believe the Soviets would march immediately, yet there are certain possibilities which might cause them to move; such as:

(a) Action on the part of the Western world which would force the Soviets to go to war. As an example, let us say, declaration of war against Red China with bombing of Chinese cities. Such an eventuality, I thought, would cause the Russians to implement their treaty with the Peking government, signed last February.

(b) At the other end of the scale, the Soviets might move if our forces in Korea were completely eliminated and we lost our trained, experienced officers and men with the resultant severe weakening of the U.S. military potential. Under such unhappy circumstances the Soviets would very likely feel that they must move and move now.

In between these two possibilities, I felt that the Soviets were gaining so much by bleeding the United States, in particular, and the Western world in general, through the war in Korea, that it would not be to their immediate advantage to move against us. (The President agreed with these views.)

The President asked my feelings about possible Soviet moves in Europe, mentioning GDR forces attacking West Germany, or Bulgarian and Hungarian attacks on Tito.

My reply to the first was that since our own armed forces were involved, such an attack could not succeed without Red Army aid—which would mean World War III.

As to the second, I felt such was a possibility but not a probability, although not overlooking Kremlin dislike of Tito.

The President asked about the general state of health of Mr. Stalin. I summarized my impression of the interview I had with Mr. Stalin in August 1949.¹ Briefly, that Stalin was in full possession of his faculties, alert mentally, and gave the impression of a vigorous man. He shows his years (70) but is in no sense failing in his faculties.² I went on to say that Stalin was the dictator absolute of the Soviet Union, He embodies all the loyalty formerly given the Czar in the temporal field and, since religion has been abolished in the Soviet Union, he has some of the attributes of the Deity. In other words, he is adored and looked up to by the peoples across the whole vast empire. The President asked if I thought Mr. Stalin dictated every decision, and I replied that policy lines were always laid by Mr. Stalin but the Polit Bureau implemented his policies, as necessary. As to a probable successor, I said that should Mr. Stalin die in the next few years, my guess would be Molotov. If, on the other hand, Stalin lived for 10 or 15 years more that, making due allowance for changes in the situation in that interval of time, I would suppose Malenkov would be the most likely successor. Malenkov is already Secretary General of the Party, Minister of the Interior, and has many strings in his hand.³

The President asked about the state of public opinion in the Soviet Union and I replied that loyalty to the regime was universal, that although by education the power to think was being developed, yet in that system of government, with secret police, etc., everywhere, there was little likelihood of any dissension, unless, in the event of war, there were serious reverses suffered by the Soviet armies. On the other hand, undoubtedly there are tensions and strains in the Body Politic, which I hope we might find some means to exploit.

We then touched on the military potential and I gave my view to the effect that the size of the country was of itself a tremendous advantage to them from the point of view of resisting attack. On the other hand, the vast distances in Russia were a handicap to the Soviets, as they have no road net in the ordinary sense of the word, and are confined to single track and inefficient railroads. However, I went on to say the matter of mass was a very serious one from a military point of view because the Russians had so many more men under arms, so many tanks, so many airplanes, so much artillery, that Western forces had to be specially equipped to deal with the vast numbers which would be flung against them.

From here I went on to say that the Soviets only understood military power when dealing with foreign nations—that to be effective with them one had to be strong. The President said that was what he was trying to do and had been trying to do ever since 1945. We agreed that our troubles with the Soviet Union stemmed from the disbandment of our immense military forces in middle Europe in 1945. I pointed out that historically the Soviets in their own writings, and in accounts by others of their difficulties, had felt their own voice in international affairs had always been weak when their military strength was weak, such as after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1917–18.

We then touched on the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union and I pointed out that although it might take ten Russian workmen to do what one American could accomplish with a good machine tool, nevertheless in Russia they had the ten men. I said it was my belief that conditions for the masses of the people in the Soviet Union had been constantly improved in matters such as food, some consumer goods, electrification, etc. Further, that although the use of the word “free” in our sense of the word would not be understood in the Soviet Union, nevertheless, the Soviet people did feel that they had gained a great deal of freedom under the Soviet regime and that in general there was, if not contentment, at least a feeling that things were better.

In conclusion, I said in my judgment the only way to deal with the Soviets was to be strong, to be firm and to be consistent. In terms of strength, I said in my view we did not need to match them man for man, gun for gun, and tank for tank, but that we must be so strong as to make the Soviets pause and give careful consideration to the risk that they would run in engaging in a general war with the Western world.

I said Stalin was wise and canny, he had created a cohesive nation and had benefitted the people greatly; therefore, I inclined to the belief he would not start a war he could not win. On the other hand, there was the danger that Stalin, flattered by his advisors, might, like Hitler, be persuaded to seek world domination while still alive. My measure of the likelihood of war being commenced by the Soviet Union was perhaps best expressed by the ratio of 3 to 2, against.

The President said he would like to see me again before I went back to Moscow.

Alan G. Kirk

1. For information concerning the interview between Ambassador Krik and Generalissimo Stalin held on August 15, 1949, see Foreign Relations, 1949, vol. v, pp. 646 and 651.
2. A greeting had been sent to Stalin for his 70th birthday on December 21, 1949; ibid., p. 686. The Department had informed the Embassy in telegram 341 on November 16, 1950, not printed, that it did not contemplate sending a greeting this year. The custom had apparently been a wartime innovation, and as Stalin was not technically the Head of State the Department saw no reason to continue the practice. (711.11–TR/11–650)
3. Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov held many offices in the Communist Party and the Government of the Soviet Union, but he had not been the director of a single ministry.