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No. 4

Eastern Europe

Foreign and Commonwealth Office April 1992

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

HISTORICAL BRANCH

Occasional Papers

No. 4 April 1992 CONTENTS

Papers presented at the Seminar held by the Editors of Documents on British Policy Overseas in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

on 8 January 1992

Page

The Quest for a Modus Vivendi: The Danubian Satellites in Anglo-Soviet Relations 1945-6 3-20 Dr Keith Hamilton

Response to Dr Hamilton's paper Sir Edward Tomkins

21-25

Eastern Europe 1945-6: The Allied Control Commissions in Bulgaria 26-28 Malcolm Mackintosh

British Policy in Eastern Europe in the global context 29-32 Gillian Bennett

Disaster-Management: the DBPO on Eastern Europe 33-35 Professor Norman Stone

Personalities in Diplomacy: Eastern Europe 1945-6 36-45 Dr Ann Lane

Note on Contributors 46

DBPO: Volumes published and in preparation 47

Copies of this pamphlet will be deposited with the National Libraries

FCO Historical Branch, Library and Records Department,

Clive House, Petty France, London SW! H 9HD

Crown Copyright

FOREWORD

On 8 January 1992 a seminar was held in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to mark the publication of the two latest volumes in the Documents on British Policy Overseas series.

The afternoon sessions were devoted to a volume on Korea 1950-1 and are published in a separate issue (No. 5) of this series of Occasional Papers. This issue contains the proceedings of the morning sessions which were concerned with the volume on Eastern Europe 1945-6.

The two main papers, by Keith Hamilton, Joint Editor of the Eastern European volume, and Sir Edward Tomkins, were followed by comments by Malcolm Mackintosh, Gillian Bennett, Assistant Editor of this volume, and Professor Norman Stone. Ann Lane has contributed an additional piece on British statesmen and diplomats featured in the volume.

I should like to thank the outside participants, the FCO's Historians and other officials who took part in the seminar.

Richard Bone Library and Records Department April 1992

THE QUEST FOR A MODUS VIVENDI: THE DANUBIAN SATELLITES IN ANGLO-SOVIET RELATIONS, 1945-6

Keith A Hamilton

Thirty years ago Professsor WN Medlicott, the distinguished historian and one-time editor of the Documents on British Foreign Policy, challenged conventional wisdom on the principles underlying British diplomacy. In a paper on Britain and Europe in the nineteenth century he questioned the validity of Eyre Crowe's oft-cited assertion that it had `become almost an historical truism to identify England's secular policy with the maintenance of [the balance of power]'. Medlicott argued that in this instance Crowe's dialectic was flawed and that history revealed that a more constant wish of British governments had been to achieve a modus vivendi with their European

neighbours, opposing them only in so far as they seriously menaced Britain's interests. 1 The successful endeavours of Lansdowne and Grey in the early years of this century to secure accords with France and Russia, Britain's two principal imperial rivals in Africa and Asia, offered obvious examples of such conduct. And, as Professor Medlicott was later to demonstrate in a pioneering essay on appeasement, the 1930s provided yet another in the shape of Britain's search for an understanding with Germany. 2 Only when it had become plain that it was impossible to reconcile Britain's interests with Hitler's methods and objectives had the British quest for a modus vivendi with Germany given way to policies explicitly designed to deter and ultimately counter Nazi aggression in Europe. The tradition survived the Second World War and the emergence of a victorious, expansive and potentially threatening, Russia. In May 1944 the inter-departmental Post-Hostilities Planning Sub-Committee recommended that Britain should not `oppose any reasonable demands of the U. S. S. R. where they do not conflict with our vital strategic interests'. 3 Moreover, the documents published in the latest

volume of DBPO on Eastern Europe4 seem to lend credence to the view that in the immediate aftermath of the war Ernest Bevin and his officials

1WN Medlicott, `La Grande-Bretagne et 1'Europe' in L'Europe du XIXe et du XXe Siecle (1870-1914), vol. I, eds. M Beloff, P Renouvin, F Schnabel and F Valsecchi (Milan, 1962), pp. 574-5. 2WN Medlicott, Britain and Germany: the Search for Agreement, 1930-37 (London, 1969). 3H Thomas, Armed Truce. The Beginnrings of the Cold War, 1945-46 (London, 1987), p. 209. 4 Documents on British Policy Overseas (hereafter cited as DBPO), Series I, Volume VI, Eastern Europe, 1945-1946 (HMSO, 1991). The other volumes in Series I cited in this paper are Volume I, The Conference at Potsdam, 1945 (HMSO, 1984); Volume II, Conferences and Conversations, 1945. " London, Washington and Moscow (HMSO, 1985); Volume III, Britain and America: Negotiation of the the United States Loan, 1945 (HMSO, 1986).

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tended to put conciliation and co-operation before confrontation and containment in their approach to the Soviet Union.

'Ehe perpetuation of Big-Three co-operation had obvious advantages from the British point of view. It would, as Sir Orme Sargent, Deputy Under- Secretary, argued in his memorandum, `Stocktaking after VI: -Day', give Britain a position in the world which it might otherwise find difficult to assert and maintain, and there would be less likelihood of its interests being ignored by the Soviet Union and the United States. 5 This seemed evident, not only in the handling of defeated Germany, but also in Allied dealings

with three of the former enemy satellites, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Each of these countries had figured in the so-called percentage agreement that Churchill and Eden had negotiated with their Soviet counterparts at Moscow in October 1944. The British had thereby reserved to themselves a 20% share of influence in Bulgaria and Hungary and a 10% share in Romania. 6 Quite what these percentages might mean in practice was never clearly specified. Nevertheless, this informal and essentially verbal accord implied that while Britain accepted Soviet preeminence in the Danubian basin, it was not prepared to disinterest itself in the region. Domination was not equated with exclusivity and, when interpreted in this sense, the arrangement did not necessarily conflict with the kind of three-power

collaboration which Ivan Maisky, the Soviet Ambassador in London, had

posed in 1943 as a distinct alternative to a division of the world into great- power spheres of influence.? Yet by the spring of 1945 the Red Army was already in occupation of most of Eastern Europe and the Soviet authorities seemed determined to deny Britain and the United States anything more than a nominal voice in the administration of the Danubian satellites. Soviet-sponsored regimes had been established in Bucharest and Sofia, and the government in Budapest existed only on Soviet sufferance. Admittedly,

at first sight, Britain would appear to have had few practical interests in South-Eastern Europe. The only substantial British investment there was in Romanian oil, and British alarm over Soviet endeavours to impose their

economic system upon the satellites resulted more from the presumed political, than the commercial and financial, consequences of their being

5 DBPO, Series I, Volume I, No. 102. 6 Albert Resis, `The Churchill-Stalin secret "Percentages" Agreement on the Balkans, Moscow, October 1944' in American Historical Review, vol. 83 (1978), pp. 368-387; KGM Ross, `The Moscow Conference of October 1944 (Tolstoy)' in British Political and Military Strategy in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe in 1944, eds. W Deakin, E Barker, J Chadwick (London, 1988), pp. 67-77; PGH Holdich, `A Policy of Percentages? British Policy in the Balkans after the Moscow Conference of October 1944' in International History Review, vol. 9 (1987), pp. 28-47. 7E Barker, British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War (London, 1976), p. 135.

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drawn into the Soviet orbit. British policy towards the lesser Axis powers would, however, be incomprehensible without reference to Britain's moral, strategic and power-political interests in their future development.

It is hardly necessary to recall Gladstone's outrage over the `Bulgarian Horrors' in order to demonstrate that the British were accustomed to assuming a high moral stance on Balkan issues. Attlee and Bevin may not have had to pay as much attention to the non-conformist conscience as their nineteenth-century predecessors, but they could not afford to neglect the liberal predilections of the Americans and what John Balfour, the British Minister at Washington, termed their faith in `the magic of large words'. 8 The Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe, which had committed the principal Allies to the holding of free elections and the establishment of representative governments in the satellites, was taken seriously in London. 9 British diplomats may sometimes have doubted the capacity of the peoples involved to sustain democratic institutions and have questioned whether genuinely free elections were a practical aspiration. Yalta remained, however, both a liberal yardstick with which to measure their achievements and justify their ends, and a cause behind which to rally American and Commonwealth support. In addition, Britain had obvious strategic interests in the southern Balkans. True, the Post-Hostilities Planning Sub-Committee had not listed Eastern Europe amongst Britain's vital strategic interests. But its list had included the protection of Middle Eastern oil, the Mediterranean and vital sea communications. 10 Hence the British desire for

a preponderant position in Greece and opposition to Soviet aspirations with regard to the Turkish straits. Hence also Britain's concern over the political fate of Bulgaria. Eden had been reluctant to accede to any accord which might leave the Soviet Union dominant there. I l And in July 1945 Sargent,

while conceding that for the moment Britain might have to abandon Romania and Hungary as beyond its reach, placed Bulgaria amongst the six Central and East European countries on which Britain `must take a stand in the immediate future'. 12

Sargent was anxious to ensure that the new situation in Europe should not be allowed to crystallise, leaving Stalin with an `ideological Lebensraum' from which the Soviet Union might extend its influence towards the south and west. Britain, he argued, would have `to take the offensive in

8 DBPO, Series I, Volume III, No. 3. 9 Sir Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (Abridged edition, HMSO, 1962), pp. 491-2. 10 Thomas, op. cit. 11 Barker, British Policy in South-East Europe, p. 143. 12 DBPO, Series I, Volume I, No. 102.

challenging communist penetration in as many of the Eastern countries of Europe as possible'. But Sargent was concerned with far more than the military threat that the Soviet Union might pose to the security of British interests. His memorandum was in large part an examination of Britain's

role and status in international politics at the time of the Potsdam Conference, and it was Britain's status as a European great power that Sargent feared would be injured by any recognition of Soviet `exclusive interests' in certain parts of Europe. It would, he contended, `appear in the

eyes of the world as a cynical abandonment of the small nations whose interests we are pledged to defend; and for ourselves it would represent the

abdication of our right as a Great Power to be concerned with the whole of Europe, and not merely in those parts in which we have a special interest'.

Ironically, at a moment when the European states system was about to be

superseded by a global one in which the very term `great power' would lose

much of its original meaning, Sargent gave this classical definition of great

power responsibilities as a reason why Britain could not acquiesce in the

establishment of an exclusive Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

Britain's status and the future of Allied collaboration was in his eyes dependent on its non-exclusion from lands which had already fallen under Soviet control and in which Britain had no military presence. 13

Sargent's prescription was plain-speaking to the Russians, and at Potsdam

both the British and American delegations made it abundantly clear that

they were not prepared to abandon the lesser Axis powers. Prior to the Conference, the Foreign Office had favoured proposing the conclusion of

peace treaties with the satellites as a way of compelling the Russians to

reveal their ultimate objectives. The Russians would then have to say

whether they intended to continue their military occupation, and it was

presumed that once normal diplomatic relations had been established Britain would be in a better position to advance its commercial and

economic interests. But American objections to concluding peace treaties

with Soviet-backed puppet governments led the British to forego this course. Instead, they supported the United States in pressing for full participation in the Allied Control Commissions (ACCs), the bodies established to

supervise the imposition of the armistice terms, and their procedures were revised in order to take account of the interests and responsibilities of all three major Allies. 14 A Soviet note of 12 July, which, though it referred specifically to Hungary, was taken at Potsdam `as a basis' for ACCs

elsewhere, proposed, among other things, that Commissions should meet at regular intervals and that directives on `questions of principle' should be

13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., No. 224.

6

issued `only after agreement... with the English and American

representatives'. 15 The Soviet Government may have regarded these concessions as no more than a formality. The Russians had, after all, been

effectively excluded from the administration of Italy after its capitulation in 1943.16 Nevertheless, the British Commissioners in Bucharest and Sofia

were instructed to explain to their Russian colleagues that the Soviet note clearly implied `genuinely tripartite control'. 17

With this end in view the British supported American proposals, which included provision for the appointment of British and American vice- chairmen, the representation of all three powers on the staff and all component sections of the Commissions, and the establishment of sections specifically to liaise with local administrations. Bevin also assumed that the functions of the Commissions could be extended. He admitted that there would probably be little value in trying to draw within their competence major questions such as the formation of new governments since Moscow

would never allow its representatives so much discretion. But he reckoned that they might be able to bring such matters as public security, control of demonstrations and censorship within the mandate of the ACCs. This

seemed particularly appropriate in the case of Bulgaria where communist penetration of the police and militia threatened to thwart the holding of truly free elections. In any event Bevin thought it necessary that all three posts keep each other fully informed of each other's actions. The

achievements of one Commissioner could then serve as a precedent elsewhere. 18

During August and September some progress was made towards placing the ACCs on a new footing, and British Commissioners reported on the goodwill displayed by their Soviet counterparts. The Russians remained, however, very firmly in command. General Vinogradov, the deputy chairman of the ACC at Bucharest, insisted that the Potsdam accords only obliged him to seek the opinions of his British and American colleagues, rather than their agreement, before issuing an important directive to the Romanian

authorities: `after all', he continued, `we were three soldiers together and on being given an instruction by our Marshal of Soviet Union we would

15 Ibid., No. 518. 16 E Barker, `British Policy towards Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, 1944-1946' in Communist Power in Europe 1944-49, ed. M McCauley (London, 1977), pp. 201-3; A Arcidiacono, `The Dress Rehearsal: the Foreign Office and the Control of Italy, 1943-44' in Historical journal, vol. 29 (1985). 17 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 11. 18 Ibid.

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accordingly salute and comply in good Red Army fashion'. ' On another occasion, when General Oxley, the British Commissioner in Bulgaria, attempted to tour the south-western part of' the country he was, despite his having informed the Soviet High Command of his intentions, summarily ejected from the region by Soviet soldiers. As one Soviet general put it. `Bulgaria was occupied by Russian troops and there were too many British

and American officers ROAMING ahout'. 2' And although by December William Houstoun-Boswall, the British Political Representative in Sofia, felt

able to report that as a result of AC, C meetings matters such a freedom of' movement, the strength of missions and the clearance of aircraft had greatly improved, he had to admit that the Russians still controlled the country. They framed policy and issued directives without ever consulting their British colleagues on the Commission. 2' British and United States efforts to broaden the basis of Allied control may none the less have encouraged the Russians to press for earlier elections not only in Bulgaria, but also in Hungary. This at least, was the opinion of Dr Bela Zsedenyi, the President

of the provisional Hungarian National Assembly. On 18 August he told Alvary Gascoigne, the British Political Representative in Budapest, that if `elections were held now with Russian troops in the country and with the

present lack of Anglo-Saxon participation in control it would he impossible

to prevent them from being rigged'. 22

Soviet efforts to establish administrations which had at least a semblance -of popular support may also be regarded as a response to British and American threats to withhold recognition from governments which did not satisfy their requirements. At Potsdam it had been agreed that each of the Big Three would examine separately `in the near future, in the light of the conditions then prevailing, the establishment of diplomatic relations' with ex-satellite governments `to the extent possible prior to the conclusion of peace treaties' with them. The Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) had been asked to prepare such treaties, and it was stipulated that after their

conclusion with `recognised democratic governments' the Allies would support their application for membership of the United Nations. 23 Moreover, in the aftermath of the Conference Bevin continued to insist

that Britain could not resume full diplomatic relations with any of the governments of the former satellites as it was unable to consider them `as

representative or democratic within the meaning of the Potsdam

19 Ibid., ii. 20 Ibid., iii. 21 II id. 22. Ibid., No. 7, note 3. 23 Woodward, pp. 558-9.

8

decisions'. 24 As he told the Commons on 20 August, the British Government had the impression that `one kind of totalitarianism [was] being replaced by

another'. 25

Non-recognition was, however, a weapon of debatable value. From Bulgaria, where elections were scheduled for 26 August, and where a patently unfair electoral law seemed bound to result in a substantial victory for the left-orientated Fatherland Front, Houstoun-Boswall questioned whether anything could be achieved by Britain refusing to recognise the resulting government. The Soviet Union had already decided to re-establish full diplomatic relations, and he feared that henceforth the Anglo-Saxon

powers would occupy an even lower position at Sofia than before. In

addition the local militia and Front supporters were already waging a terrorist campaign against their opponents, and Houstoun-Boswall warned Sir Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent Under-Secretary, `it is idle to suppose that, given Bulgarian political history and the congenital incapacity

of the Bulgarians to make genuinely democratic institutions work, a genuinely democratic structure can be maintained in this country for any length of time. They are a people of violence and so likely to remain. ' He

nevertheless admitted that the Bulgarians were sensitive about their relations with the outside world, that they tended to attach an exaggerated importance to appearances, and that a British refusal to maintain anything more than a charge d'affaires at Sofia would give them `a well-merited shock'. Cadogan had doubts about adopting such a course. Whatever the current situation might be, he thought that it was bound to alter after the conclusion of a peace treaty and that then a properly staffed legation would demonstrate to the `more sensible and respectable' Bulgarians that Britain had not lost interest in them, and could be `a channel through which a knowledge of Western ideas could percolate'. He thought it a `foregone

conclusion' that the Russian representative at Sofia would continue to have

a `pre-eminent position' there, but he considered this situation by no means 26 unprecedented and one acceptable to Britain.

The only alternatives to exerting direct pressure upon the Bulgarians were for Britain and the United States to work through the ACC at Sofia, or to appeal to the Soviet Government to support the postponement of the elections. But effective power in the ACC remained in Soviet hands and Bevin was reluctant to risk being snubbed by the Russians, who might claim that the Allies had no locus standi for dictating to the Bulgarians. It was, he

24 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 5. 25 Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, House of Commons, vol. 413, cols. 291-3. 26 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 5. iii.

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insisted, `particularly important that we should choose our ground very carefully before challenging the Soviet Government on the fundamental problem with which we are faced throughout the Balkan countries'. 27 He

was equally circumspect in his dealing with Romania, where King Michael and opposition leaders were seeking the overthrow of the Soviet-hacked government of Dr. Petru Groza. 28 Obnoxious though Groza's regime undoubtedly was, Bevin was not prepared to assume the responsibility for

advising individuals to engage in actions from whose consequences Britain

could not protect them. Far less caution was exhibited by the State Department, and in the early part of August its political and military representatives at Bucharest encouraged hing Michael to press for Groza's

resignation. When Groza refused to resign, the hing appealed to the Allies for their help as defined under the Yalta agreement and the Potsdam

communique. But the Russians stood firmly behind the Government they had foisted on Romania, and the net effect of the episode was simply to diminish further the authority of the King. 29 Meanwhile the United States

representatives at Sofia took their cue from their counterparts in Bucharest

and, with the support of their British colleagues, called for a special meeting

of the ACC to discuss the Bulgarian elections. Nevertheless, it was only on t`he evening of the 24th, after it had been made clear to Moscow that there

would be no question of Britain and the United States recognising a Bulgarian government based on the results of the impending elections, that the Bulgarians, on Soviet advice, agreed to their postponement. 30

This success in Sofia encouraged British diplomats to hope for greater Allied co-operation within the ACCs. 31 But recent events in Bulgaria and Romania had also highlighted both the failure of Britain and the United States to co-ordinate their policies in the Balkans, and the desirability of some kind of Anglo-Soviet understanding. 32 The British had not been privy to American intentions in Romania, and Bevin was more than a little irritated when the State Department, having failed to follow through its intervention there, indicated that Britain should decide the next move. 33 No less worrying from the Foreign Office's point of view was the way in

which the United States seemed ready to adopt a softer approach to Bulgaria. Bevin wanted to ensure that Bulgarian electoral irregularities

27 Ibid., No. 9, note 8. 28 Ibid., No. 6. 29 Ibid., i, ii. 30 Ibid., No. 9. 31 Ibid., No. 17. 32 DBPO, Series I, Volume II, Nos. 9 and 26; DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 9. i. 33 Ibid., No. 6. ii.

10

should not simply be `more effectively camouflaged', and he resented such `gushing messages' as that in which James Byrnes, the United States Secretary of State, congratulated the Bulgarian Government on `a

constructive act worthy of the self-respecting democratic traditions of the Bulgarian people'. He was likewise critical of the American decision to receive an unofficial Bulgarian representative in Washington. 34 Meanwhile, he inclined towards the opinion of Houstoun-Boswall that until Britain and Russia had discussed openly their aims and intentions in the region there could be `little hope of any genuine, lasting and harmonious co-operation'. 35 Anxious to discuss the fate of the Danubian states with Byrnes, who was coming to London for the first meeting of the C FM in mid-September, he telegraphed to Balfour on 23 August that the time had come when Britain

and the United States would have to face up to the question of whether or not they were prepared to acquiesce in the greater part of Eastern Europe `remaining definitely in the Russian sphere of influence'. He thought it

necessary to decide what they wanted and how far they would go to achieve it. `We ought also', he added, `to consider what inducements,

economic and cultural, we can offer these countries to look West rather than East. Having thus cleared our minds we should then be in a position to have frank discussions with the Russians. '36

Further consideration was given to these issues in an unsigned Foreign Office memorandum of 2 September, an earlier draft of which was prepared by William Hayter of the Southern Department. It argued that the Yalta declaration was unlikely to succeed, that even without Soviet interference

some form of autocracy or oligarchy was almost certain in the Danubian lands, and that Russian and communist influence was ready on the spot to exploit these local dictatorships in the interests of `Soviet expansionist policy'. And in order to avert the loss of half of Europe to Western democracy, an outcome which would have `incalculable effects on the

position of Great Britain in Europe', its author proposed that the British Government should seek `to promote a self-denying ordinance prohibiting Great Power interference in the Danubian area' in return for a withdrawal of British forces from Greece and Italy. 37 Few in the Foreign Office thought that such an arrangement would work. It would have meant leaving the field open to Soviet subversion, and it was in any case far from likely that the Red Army would be withdrawn from the region. Thomas Brimelow,

who was then in the Northern Department, thought that the Russians were

34 Ibid., No. 9. i; Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1945, Europe, vol. IV, pp. 312- 3. 35 FO 371/48130, R 149225/21/7, Sofia No. 253,25 Aug. 1945. 36 DBPO, Series I, Volume II, No. 9. 37 Ibid., No. 19.

determined to maintain their hold on South-Eastern Europe and that they would brook no British interference in what they considered their `sphere of' influence'. In addition lie feared that if Britain were to pursue an active policy of its own in Eastern Europe, it would have to reckon with Soviet intervention in its own sphere of interest, and that this was a game that Britain would lose. `The Russian organisation for suppressing trouble makers in the Danube countries is', he observed, `more ruthless than ours, and our organisation for making trouble is not as well organised and disciplined as the Communist Parties in Greece & Italy. ' Indeed, lie thought the only satisfactory alternative to acquiescing in the present situation was for Britain to continue to withhold recognition of the governments of the ex- enemy satellites and to refuse to conclude peace treaties with them. If Britain were to have any hope of changing the situation in Eastern Europe,

then in Brimelow's opinion it lay in persuading the Russians to withdraw, 38 followed by `cautious propaganda'.

Whatever attraction an Anglo-Soviet self-denying ordinance may have had, it was hardly practical politics when the Soviet Union was tightening its grip

upon its weaker European neighbours. `In general', a Foreign Office briefing

paper stated, `we wish them to emerge as independent states, and we should seek to abolish existing Allied control because "Allied" means "Russian". '39 Bevin was only reflecting the scepticism of his officials when he told Byrnes, `we must be prepared to exchange one set of crooks for

another'. 40 For his part, Byrnes was evidently determined to dig in his heels

over Bulgaria and Romania, and this and Molotov's refusal to yield to American demands was responsible for much of the bickering which so marred the London meeting of the CFM. Moreover, Molotov's request for

a Soviet trusteeship in Tripolitania served to reinforce British suspicions that Soviet designs might extend well beyond the confines of Eastern Europe. Molotov appeared determined to contest Britain's predominance in

the Mediterranean, 41 and the effect of this was to reinvigorate the Foreign Offce's interest in those countries, such as Bulgaria, from which the Russians might launch such a challenge.

Others present at the conference still thought that the Russians, though determined to resist any interference with themselves in Eastern Europe,

wanted to preserve three-power unity. 42 Frank Roberts, the British Minister

38 Ibid., No. 14. 39 Ibid., No. 39. 40 Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin. Foreign Secretary, 1945-1951 (Oxford, 1985), p. 134. 41 Piers Dixon, Double Diploma. The Life of Sir Pierson Dixon (London, 1975), pp. 189 and 193. 42 DBPFO, Series I, Volume II, No. 164.

12

at Moscow, likewise stressed that they continued `to preach the virtues of Big Three collaboration'. But Roberts, who made every effort to understand and explain Soviet suspicions of the West, also maintained that the Russians were determined `to take advantage of the present world situation to safeguard [their] vital interests and incidentally to pocket whatever may be going before the general world situation crystallises'. Moreover, whilst he urged upon Bevin the importance of achieving an understanding with Russia based on a clarification of British and Soviet interests, he insisted that such an accord would involve a `recognition of Soviet vital interests, more especially in the Balkans'. 43 This, however, was the root of the problem for although Roberts did not advocate Britain

approving or condoning undemocratic procedures, he thought that there was no more than a chance of the British being able thereby to improve their position in Eastern Europe. An Anglo-Soviet modus vivendi would, it seemed, have to be based upon Britain's acceptance of Russian pre-eminence in an exclusive sphere of influence in the east. That too was implicit in a report of the joint Intelligence sub-Committee (JIC) of 18 October which, in

seeking to explain the deterioration of relations between the Soviet Union

and its Western Allies, listed first the `Russian insistence, in the face of British and American opposition, on treating Eastern Europe as their exclusive sphere of influence regardless of the interests of their Allies. ' The JIC, like Roberts, assumed that if the British Government showed clearly where it stood, and that there were limits to its forebearance, it might hope to create a more `solid foundation' for Anglo-Soviet relations. 44 Yet, as Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, the British Ambassador at Moscow, noted in the following month, the Soviet Government still wanted collaboration to be

resumed on its own terms, and that meant the exclusion of British and American interests from Eastern Europe. 45

There were, of course, instances during the autumn of 1945 when the British Government was given cause to hope that the Soviet stance on the satellites was weakening. In October municipal elections in Hungary resulted in a striking victory for the moderate Smallholders Party and left Bevin under the impression that the forthcoming general elections would be held under similarly fair conditions. 46 Gascoigne was less optimistic. He learned that the Russians were demanding that all parties should join in presenting a common electoral list, and he predicted that if the Smallholders refused the Russians would `tighten the screw economically',

43 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 30. 44 Ibid., No. 41. 45 Ibid., No. 49, note 7. 46 Ibid., Nos. 7. iii and 42.

13

that they might `possibly arrange for further widespread outbreaks of unrest', and that the communists might try to stage an armed coup. He therefore cautioned Bevin against accepting an unoflicial Hungarian representative in London as `it might be unwise to count our democratic chickens before they are hatched'. In the event, elections held on 4 November appeared to conform with democratic principles, the Smallholders won 57°"o of the votes polled, and Bevin agreed to receive a Hungarian representative. 47 But Gascoigne was convinced that the Soviet authorities were seeking to use the Communist Party to impose their political will upon Hungary, especially as they appeared determined to do all they could to secure control of the police. They seemed equally set upon taking advantage of their military occupation of the country in order to ensure their economic pre-eminence there as elsewhere in Eastern Europe. A Soviet-Hungarian economic agreement of August 1945, which mirrored one already concluded with Romania, provided for Russian participation in almost every sphere of the Hungarian economy and militated against the British wish to treat all the Danubian countries as a single economic unit. Yet Bevin was at first

reluctant to accept either Gascoigne's gloomy assessment of the implications

of the agreement, or his advice that Britain and the United States should seek to prevent its ratification by putting direct pressure upon the Russians. Whilst Bevin insisted that Britain must maintain its rights, he argued that the British attitude `must be helpful and no pinpricks'. And in a minute of 10 October he questioned whether Gascoigne was `not too prejudiced and looking all the time for the nigger in the wood pile which [was] probably not there'. 48

A detailed analysis of the Soviet-Hungarian accord revealed that Gascoigne's apprehension was far from exaggerated. In the words of an official of the Southern Department, the Hungarian economy would be

made to work `for the exclusive benefit of the U. S. S. R. and there would be

no substantial volume of trade with any western country which [was] not itself drawn into the Russian orbit'. 40 But the Russians refused to discuss

the agreement in the ACC at Budapest, and Bevin was in no position to

offer the Hungarians a substitute for it, whether in the form of trade or credit. The Hungarians were in any case unlikely to resist Soviet demands

which, according to one account, were backed by a threat to "`gut" one third of all factories in Hungary', and in December the treaty was finally

ratified by the Supreme National Council. 50 Yet Bevin was still insisting

47 Ibid., Nos. 42. i and 51. 48 Ibid., No. 44, note 1; cf. DB. PO, Series I, Volume II, No. 27. 49 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 44. 50 Ibid., notes 1,2 and 3.

14

that the British Government `must guard against Hungarian attempts to play us off against the Russians'. 51 Even in Romania, where British

petroleum interests suffered directly as the result of the price-fixing policies of the Groza Government, 52 he was reluctant to do anything that might be

construed as an anti-Soviet move. He was keen to assure the Russians that Britain had no wish to see the restoration there of a pre-war type of government or the establishment of one unfriendly to Russia. 53 The

repressive measures taken by Romanian troops against demonstrators in Bucharest on 8 and 12 November occasioned British protests, but Bevin

was still perturbed lest the British secret service should have done anything to provoke the disturbances. 54

Bevin was none the less aware that the prospects for achieving the kind of three-power co-operation that the Foreign Office had originally envisaged were rapidly receding. `Instead of world co-operation', he noted in a memorandum of 8 November, `we are rapidly drifting into spheres of influence or what can be better described as three great Monroes. ' He thought the Russians to be set upon creating `a vast area under Russian

control from Lubeck to Port Arthur', and that they were attempting to incorporate the `whole life of the communities concerned there.. .

into the Russian complete economy'. He had, however, no new solution to offer to this situation apart from support for the United Nations Organisation, the maintenance of the security of the British Commonwealth `on the same terms as other countries are maintaining theirs', and the frank discussions

with the Americans and Russians that British statesmen and diplomats had long recommended. `The prospect at the moment', he wrote, `is not healthy

and not encouraging and I cannot believe we shall make any real progress until the three of us bluntly and unequivocally ask each other to put on the table clearly and straightforwardly what our real policy is and which road we intend to follow. '55 In the meantime the Foreign Office was preparing to pursue a new course. Evidently with the possibility of a fresh Soviet

challenge to British interests in the eastern Mediterranean in mind, Sargent informed Houstoun-Boswall on 26 November: `We are trying to put a limit

on Russian expansion in the Middle East and in fact to build up a kind of "Monroe" system in that area. ' This did not mean Britain could wash its hands of the Danubian satellites. On the contrary, the creation of a Monroe system in the Middle East implied a revival of British interest in

51 Ibid., iii. 52 Ibid., No. 56. 53 Ibid., No. 37. 54 Ibid., No. 56. 55 DBPO, Series I, Volume III, No. 99.

15

Bulgaria, and in his letter to Houstoun-Boswall Sargent echoed his own earlier ruminations on the strategic significance of that country. `If Bulgaria remains a Russian satellite', he contended, `it will always be in the power of the Soviet Government to use Bulgaria in order to keep Turkey and Greece perpetually on tenterhooks, and it will be impossible for us to restore confidence in these two countries. ' Greece and Turkey might then be frightened into leaving the British orbit and moving into the Soviet one with disastrous effects upon Britain's position in the eastern Mediterranean. It was therefore of `vital importance' that Bulgaria should be `an independent buffer State' and that Britain should recover her position there. 56

Similar conclusions with regard to the dangers inherent in Soviet policies in

the Balkans were arrived at by the American press proprietor, Mark Ethridge, who, at Byrnes' behest, undertook a personal fact-finding mission to Bulgaria and Romania. He reported that the strong position the Russians were establishing for themselves in these two countries would `doubtless bear on Greece, Turkey and the Straits, and could be converted without great effort into a springboard for aggression in the Eastern Mediterranean region'. 57 It was, however, far from obvious how this process might be halted. Sargent and others within the Foreign Office thought that it would be in Britain's interests to sign a peace treaty with Bulgaria or, at any rate, establish normal diplomatic relations with Sofia. They were also ready to acquiesce in the blatantly fraudulent elections which took place in Bulgaria on 18 November which resulted in the Fatherland Front receiving 75.7% of the votes polled. 58 `To send a country to Coventry is justified', Sargent observed, `only if it forces the country in question to behave itself better in future. If on the other hand it merely hardens the country's heart

and drives it to seek friends elsewhere then the policy defeats its own purpose, and as far as Great Britain and Bulgaria are concerned is definitely harmful to British long term interests. ' Britain, he argued, should challenge whenever possible the Russian claim to dominate Bulgaria, but

not do so in a way that would drive Bulgaria into Russian arms. 59 This was all very well, but, as Houstoun-Boswall replied on 5 December, nothing that the British had so far done had tended to drive the Bulgarians in this direction. To make peace with the `present "stooge" Government would', he concluded, `not only profoundly discourage the vast mass of the population but would inevitably throw the Bulgarians into the arms of

56 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 63. 57 Ibid., No. 36. ii; cf. FRUS 1945, vol. V, pp. 633-37. 58 Ibid., No. 63. i. 59 Ibid., No. 63.

16

Russia with the result that Turkey and Greece would for several generations be entirely at the latter's mercy'. 60

This was a forcible rejoinder, but it did nothing to alter Foreign Office thinking. After all, the policy of non-recognition had so far achieved little in the Danubian satellites. `Only a year ago', wrote the British Ambassador at Ankara, `we had hopes of retaining some influence in the Balkans, indicated by varying percentages which were assigned to our control in different

countries.... Today percentage of control which we retain is (except in Greece) precisely nil. '61 Clearly a reassessment of Britain's position was required, and the impending Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference led to a review of tactics. A briefing paper of 12 December thus argued that by

refusing to recognise the existing governments Britain and the United States

were simply harming their relations with the Soviet Union and achieving little else. The alternative was to accept the `inescapable fact' that there was no chance of a material reorganisation of the Bulgarian and Romanian

governments in the present circumstances and to work for the gradual creation over a long period of conditions that might later make possible the eventual reemergence of representative government. The first of these conditions must be the withdrawal of Soviet troops, and that could be more easily achieved once peace treaties had been negotiated and when the onus would be on the Soviet Government to show why their occupation should continue. 62

Bevin agreed with this line of argument. He was later to tell the Cabinet that for some time past he had doubted whether it would be practicable to maintain the uncompromising attitude which the United States had first

adopted in this matter at Potsdam. The `more practical policy', he

observed, `would be to develop our contacts with those countries by the appointment of Consuls, the establishment of air services and the opening up of commercial relations'. 63 Agreement at Moscow was, however,

ultimately dependent on the readiness of Byrnes to retreat from the former American position and accept a facesaving formula. As a result it was settled that American and British diplomatic recognition would follow the reconstitution of the governments in Bucharest and Sofia so as to include

representatives of opposition parties, the despatch of a tripartite advisory commission to Romania and the holding of elections there. 64 But these measures did little either to promote democracy or diminish Soviet

60 Ibid., note 9. 61 DBPO, Series I, Volume II, No. 278. 62 Ibid., No. 281. 63 Ibid., No. 361.64 Ibid., No. 356.

17

influence in the satellites. After securing Western recognition in February 1940 Groza proceeded to terrorise and split the opposition parties so that the elections in November resulted in their gaining no more than 1O /O of the seats in parliament. Likewise in Bulgaria, where the opposition refused to be bullied into accepting unconditional participation in the Government,

elections which gave the communists their first clear parliamentary majority, were again marred by intimidation, obstruction and trickery, and Western

recognition was delayed until the conclusion of peace treaties in February 1947. Representative government in Hungary was in the meanwhile progressively eroded by the salami tactics of local communists and the demands of' the Soviet authorities. 65

By then the Danubian satellites had ceased to figure large in Anglo-Soviet

relations. Other issues, such as the presence of the Red Army in northern Iran and Soviet claims upon Turkey, were more worrying to diplomats,

soldiers and statesmen who were uncertain as to whether, when and where the Soviet Union might embark on another expansive phase. A

, JI(: report

of 1 March 1946 argued that the Russians were set upon creating and consolidating round their frontiers `a "belt" of satellite states with Governments subservient to their policy', and would use `all weapons, short of a major war' both to frustrate any attempts to undermine this `belt' and to extend it to areas they believed it `strategically necessary to dominate'. 66 Then in April the Chiefs of Staff, who had long taken a pessimistic view of Anglo-Soviet relations, concluded that recent developments made `it appear that Russia is our most probable potential enemy, far more dangerous than a revived Germany'. 67 Given such assessments of Soviet strength and intentions it was hardly surprising that in the spring of 1946 British diplomats were as much concerned with balancing and containing Soviet

power as with achieving a new accord embracing South-Eastern Europe. Moreover, it had long since become apparent that if a modus vivendi were to be achieved with the Soviet Union it would have to include the acceptance of an exclusive Soviet sphere of influence. In the last of three despatches in

which he analysed Soviet policies towards the \Vest Roberts wrote on 18 March 1946 that Anglo-Soviet relations `could probably be most solidly established on the basis of zones of influence in which we each left the other free from interference or criticism within specified areas'. 68

In retrospect it is difficult to imagine how Big Three collaboration could have been revived on any other basis. The Soviet military preeminence in

65 Stephen Kertesz, Between Russia and the it'est: Hungary and the Illusions of Peacemaking 1945-1947 (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1986), pp. 32-27. 66 DBP(), Series I, Volume VI, No 78. 67 Ibid., No. 90.68 Ibid., No. 83.

18

East-Central Europe, the ideological gulf that separated the emerging communist regimes of the region from Western capitalism and social democracy, and the reluctance of Britain and the United States to admit Russia to a say in the administration of either Italy or Greece, seemed to ensure that if there were to be a European settlement it must be based on a division of the continent into well-defined spheres of influence. Nevertheless, Bevin and his officials had been reluctant to acquiesce in Britain's exclusion from any part of Eastern Europe. On 8 November, the same day on which he drafted his `Three Monroes' memorandum, Bevin

told the Polish Foreign Minister that he `would not tolerate the prevention of our association with Poland by an iron curtain drawn down by Russia'. 69 A fortnight later Sargent was still speculating on how recent developments in Bulgaria might be reversed and the country effectively turned into a neutral buffer state. Moreover, despite the emphasis which the Foreign Secretary and British diplomats placed upon plain speaking to the Russians, it is far from clear how world cooperation through the United Nations, Bevin's alternative to the `three great Monroes', might have been applied to the Danubian satellites. He was quite prepared to accept the notion of security areas which each of the Big Three would be responsible for

policing, and he was only too ready to assure Moscow, that he had no wish to see governments in Eastern Europe that might be unfriendly to the Soviet Union. At the same time the British Government had continued to insist on the application of the principles enunciated at Yalta and, in their effort to uphold these and maintain the goodwill of the United States, British diplomats had found themselves supporting the individual and sometimes ill-considered initiatives of their American colleagues.

The truth of the matter was that the British were responding to developments in South-Eastern Europe with which they were ill-equipped to

cope. Had they pressed at Potsdam for the early conclusion of peace treaties with the lesser Axis powers the situation might have been clarified: subsequent events would seem to suggest that it would not have been improved. But while the revised machinery of the Control Commissions

preserved a facade of Allied unity, it left the British with few opportunities to do more than moderate the excesses of governments which were either beholden to, or reluctant to oppose, local Soviet commanders. Bevin had

anticipated that Britain might eventually be able to expand its influence in

the satellites through publicity and increased trade. This, however, was a forlorn hope at a time when press freedoms were being curtailed and when Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania were about to be transformed into Soviet

economic dependencies. There was, as John Coulson of the Economic

69 Ibid., No. 52.70 Ibid., Appendix 1, pp. 363-78.

19

Relations Department remarked in a paper of' 12 March 1946, `no striking panacea' which could be applied to Eastern Europe. The Russians were too near and the memory of their overwhelming strength too recent. Governments of the area could not be expected to take any step that might displease Moscow, and this made it essential that any British counteraction be unobtrusive and of a rather generalised character. `The best we can do', he concluded, `is to hold the door openor to hold enough doors open--for the Eastern Europeans to catch frequent glimpses of a more attractive and prosperous world in the West and be encouraged, when the occasion offers, to pass through. '70 For the time being, as the pursuit of a modus vivendi merged with preparation for Cold War, the British had to reconcile themselves to the Danubian satellites and much else in Eastern Europe falling within what amounted to an exclusive Soviet sphere of influence.

20

RESPONSE TO DR HAMILTON'S PAPER

Sir Edward Tomkins

Dr Hamilton's paper gives a graphic picture of the difficulties which the American and British representatives on the Allied Control Commissions in the liberated countries in Eastern Europe were having with their Soviet

opposite numbers.

He suggests that HMG wanted to make a deal with the Soviet Government and the documents lend some support to this theory. Certainly it would have been a useful way of defending our interests in Eastern Europe. But judged against the background of the much wider picture of Soviet attitudes and behaviour in the rest of the world and as seen from the angle of the British Embassy in Moscow, it seems doubtful whether such an arrangement was ever a practical proposition.

For some time before the end of the war, at Yalta and even earlier, the so- called Big Three had been giving a lot of thought to the question of the organisation of the world after the war. The most urgent problem was the future of Germany, but there was also the question of the Italian Peace Treaty, the fate of the Italian Colonies, Peace Treaties with the ex- satellites of Germany and the problems of Poland and Austria.

Even more important was the question of how to prevent the outbreak of another world war and there had been considerable discussion about the replacement of the League of Nations by a body capable of ensuring the maintenance of peace and security in the world. By the time the war ended agreement had been reached on the setting up of such a body, to be known as the United Nations Organisation, and the provisions of the charter by

which it was to be governed. These included a Security Council with powers to recommend peaceful solutions to international disputes and to impose them, by coercive measures including the use of force, if necessary, in the event of such disputes becoming a threat to international peace and security. To this end a Military Security Committee was set up which was to be responsible for the planning and execution of any military action decided by the Security Council.

In the lengthy discussions leading to the establishment of the UNO, the Soviet representatives had insisted that all decisions of substance, i. e. decisions of a non-procedural nature, taken by the Security Council

required the unanimous agreement of the permanent members. This

21

reflected the principle enunciated by Stalin on various occasions, and notably when the voting procedures of the Security Council were approved by him at the Potsdam Conference, that if the Big Three were agreed, anything was possible, whereas if they disagreed, nothing could be achieved. At the end of the war all thinking was dominated by the determination to prevent the resurgence of an aggressive Germany and therefore the maintenance of three-power unity posed no problems for us---it was a major aim of British policy and it appeared to be the indispensable guarantee for the future control of Germany. Public opinion was sympathetic to the Soviet Union and there was widespread hope that that country would play a full

part in post-war reconstruction and in the organisation of a new world. But

of course there was a major difference in view between the Soviet Union

and its Western Allies as to the meaning of Big-Three unity. For the Russians it meant a sort of Great Power directorate; for the Western

powers it was a guarantee against trouble, as envisaged in the Charter of the United Nations Organisation.

This posed a dilemma for the Western Powers for it soon became apparent that Soviet intentions in various parts of the world were anything but

conducive to Great Power unity. They started showing interest in the control of the Dardanelles, in the former Italian colonies, in warm water ports in the Far East, and in some of the Japanese islands. They adopted disquieting attitudes in regard to Persian Azerbaijan and in parts of Northern Turkey which had once belonged to Tsarist Russia. Poland and the Baltic States were question marks as was the island of Bornholm in the Baltic. The question was how far was it reasonable for the Western Powers

to go for the sake of Great Power unity. To agree to everything the Soviet Union wanted would be to let it get away with murder, but to resist could lead to a world divided into exclusive and antagonistic power blocs.

The dilemma was clear enough; but it was difficult to resolve because of the diverging national interests of Britain and America and differing

assessments of Soviet intentions. The Americans, for instance, did not share Churchill's fears about Soviet policy and actions in Europe. They did not foresee, at the time, the problems which arose in 1947 and 1948 and they imagined that the situation in Europe would be such that they would be

able to get their troops home in two years or so. Their main aim was to get the Soviet Union into the war against Japan and they were anxious not to cause antagonism on matters they regarded as secondary. On many questions they adopted positions, in the Allied Control Councils in Germany

and also in Eastern Europe, which differed from our own and this had the effect of encouraging Soviet intransigence.

22

In this scenario Eastern Europe did not figure prominently. Soviet policy in

this area was a function of Soviet policy towards Germany. For the Soviet Union the prime aim was the elimination of any renewal of the German threat. For them, as for us, the unity of the Great Powers was a guarantee. But they pursued in addition a policy of drastic denazification, total demilitarization and massive demands for reparations which would in effect destroy the industrial base of the country. Underlying this policy was the intention to eliminate the German ruling classes and the creation of an economic climate which would favour social unrest and left wing political orientations. Allied to this was the creation of a glacis of states in Eastern

and Central Europe, friendly to the Soviet Union which would make impossible a repetition of the experiences of 1939-45.

Beyond these aims (and the documents assembled in Series I, Volume VI do not show this, since they only cover the period 1945-6) lay the ultimate Soviet objective in Germany, which was the take-over of East Germany and from there the establishment in West Germany of a regime favourable to the Soviet Union-perhaps not necessarily a Communist regime, at least at first, but definitely a neutral and disarmed Germany.

What the documents do show, however, in the shape of a series of telegrams and despatches from Moscow, was that Anglo-Soviet relations began to deteriorate very soon after the end of the war and got steadily worse as the months went by. The Soviet press and propaganda became

more and more strident in their denunciations of the machinations of British

policy, particularly in Europe. At the same time Soviet policy towards Iran, Greece and especially Turkey took an increasingly anti-British turn. The Soviet Government began to take an unwanted interest in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East generally, in a manner which had negative implications for our imperial lines of communication and for our oil supplies. Soviet anti-colonial attitudes and the active encouragement of National Liberation movements in dependent territories were clearly directed towards the weakening of our position in the Far East and in Africa.

It was difficult at the time to see what lay behind this onslaught. Britain,

alone among the Western powers, seemed to be singled out as the target of Soviet attacks. There were no corresponding attacks on the US at that time, though they developed later. But with hindsight it seems clear that the real cause of this hostility was the realization that the main obstacle to the attainment of Soviet aims in Europe was Britain herself and the fact

that British and Soviet policy were diametrically opposed.

23

What the Russians wanted was to secure the fruits of their victory, to exploit the disorganisation of Europe before order was restored, so as to bring about a radical political realignment. To the Russians the circumstances must have seemed favourable to such a change; the war had left Europe devastated economically and materially. Politically, it was deeply divided. Food was scarce; morale was low, neutralism and pacifism flourished, allied to anti-German feeling. The Soviet Union was popular and for many the Soviet system was regarded as a model to be imitated. In France and in Italy the Communists were the strongest political party, which exercised a dominant role in the trade unions.

Seen in this perspective, Great Britain must have been regarded as the adversary to be overcome if Soviet ends were to be attained. Her prestige was great, she was the moral leader of the western world, the home of democracy, the cradle of capitalism. She had a Labour government which represented a pole of attraction for progressive opinion in Europe and therefore a counter to communism.

Britain stood for the political and economic restoration of Europe, and the re-establishment of democratic order. Her policy was to help France to regain her traditional place in Europe; to bring Germany back, eventually, into the community of nations, with a decentralised federal structure and a democratic government; and in the meantime to restore the German

economy so that it could, under Allied control, contribute to the rebuilding of Europe.

All this was totally contrary to Soviet ideas and intentions. They saw in it a reversion to the traditional policy of balance of power, and as an attempt to create a western bloc, based on German industry, enjoying American

support and aligned against the Soviet Union. In Soviet eyes such a development implied the reinforcement of capitalism in Western Europe

which would not only form a barrier against communism but, according to the Marxist analysis, would inevitably result, because of the internal

contradictions of the capitalist system, in a renewed attack on the Soviet Union.

Great Britain appeared, therefore, not only as an adversary to be undermined by all possible means but as a potential threat. As things turned out the ideological reasoning proved to be unfounded but at the time it determined Soviet policy of which one of the first priorities was to strengthen the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe.

24

In these circumstances there was very little hope of concessions on Eastern Europe from the Soviet side. We had very little leverage and our difficulties

were increased by differences in the interpretation of the language of the treaties, which in fact concealed more fundamental disagreements. Stalin, for instance, claimed at Potsdam that `if a Government is not fascist, it is democratic! ' and so all discussion of what constituted `responsible and democratic government' as prescribed by the treaties, was fruitless. It soon became clear that the Yalta declaration on liberated Europe meant nothing to the Soviet side.

Our own position was weak; our economic and financial situation was parlous in the extreme. We had an enormous task of reconstruction ahead of us. We had a new government which was embarking on a policy of reform of unprecedented scope. We had a new Foreign Secretary, with little experience of the job. We were trying to convert the Empire into a commonwealth of independent nations, which posed a number of very difficult questions. The grant of independence to India had deprived us of the use of the Indian Army which had been one of the mainstays of the Empire. We had problems in Malaya with communist insurgency. And we were trying to preserve our vital links with the US in spite of the fact that our respective national interest and priorities did not always coincide.

All in all, one must conclude, that a deal on Eastern Europe could only be

achieved at a price that we were not prepared to pay. And even then, it is far from certain that such a deal was even on the cards.

25

EASTERN EUROPE 1945-6: THE ALLIED CONTROL COMNESSION IN BULGARIA

Malcolm Mackintosh

The Allied Control Commissions set up to direct the affairs of the ex-enemy countries which had surrendered to the Allied Powers in the final year of the Second World War came into existence following decisions made at wartime meetings between the Allied leaders, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin, initially at the Teheran Conference in 1943. The composition and chairmanships of the Commissions depended largely

on the geographical location of the country concerned and how and by

whom it had been occupied or liberated during the war. Thus, Romania

and Bulgaria, which were occupied by the Soviet Army in August-September 1944, found themselves under Control Commissions dominated by the Soviet Union, and chaired by Soviet Marshals or Generals, assisted by small military and political missions from Britain and the United States.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that two major factors dominated

the work of these Commissions: the determination of the Soviet Union to ensure that Romania and Bulgaria became Communist states obedient solely to Soviet requirements, and the total lack of precedents for either side in the Allied camp in working together. Inter-Allied military co- operation had been minimal during the war, and political liaison between

our governments had been unproductive and extremely difficult. The first

priority of the Soviet authorities in the Control Commission in Bulgaria (in

which I served as a liaison officer with the Red Army from November 1944

to September 1946) was to accede to the military demands of the Soviet Army. This included sealing off that Army in Bulgaria: the Thirty-Seventh,

commanded by Colonel-General SS Biryuzov, from members of the Western missions, and issuing orders to these missions on movements and flights to and from Italy, for example, with little notice and in a very peremptory style. Politically, the Soviet element of the Control Commission-also under the command of General Biryuzov-was guided by their interpretation of the so-called `percentage agreement' between Churchill and Stalin (to which the United States government had never acceded) on the division of authority and power in the ex-enemy countries of the Balkan peninsula as well as Yugoslavia and Greece, and of the Yalta

agreement of February 1945, to which they clung in the most rigid way throughout the existence of the Allied Commission.

26

Restrictions on the movement of Western personnel were imposed at an early stage after the formal installation of the Control Commission in November 1944. In December, the head of the British Military Mission, Major-General WH Oxley, and other members of the Mission were arrested by Soviet troops, and orders were given that travel would be limited to Commission-approved journeys outside the capital, Sofia, and then only with a `military pass' and a precise route and timetable agreed with the Soviet authorities. Well before the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, the Soviet government set about establishing a regime in Bulgaria dominated by the Bulgarian Communist Party, to whose leadership

returned the former Secretary-General of the Comintern and central figure in the Nazi `Reichstag Fire Trial' in Berlin in 1934, Georgi Dirnitrov, in 1945. The process of bringing the Communist Party to power began in

earnest in January 1945 with the attempt to arrest the pro-Western leader

of the Bulgarian Agrarian Party (also called Georgi Dimitrov, usually known by his initials of `G M Dimitrov' or `GEMETO' in Bulgarian, to distinguish him from his Communist namesake). He escaped from house arrest one Sunday in January and sought refuge in my billet in Sofia, and was taken

under American protection by Ambassador Maynard Barnes, the head of the American Political Mission, and subsequently emigrated to the United States. On 1/2 February 1945, the Bulgarian authorities tried and executed all 103 members of the wartime government, including those who had voted against joining the Axis in 1941 and against declaring war on Britain, the United States and other Allied powers. The Bulgarian

authorities, supported by the Soviet element in the Control Commission,

used tactics of intimidation, arrest and murder against political opponents and rivals throughout this period. Many of the latter resisted with great courage, like the Agrarian Nikola Petkov, and paid for it with their lives.

During the years of the Allied Control Commission in Bulgaria the British

and American Military Missions protested vigorously against these tactics of

repression and against the single-minded Soviet intention to set up a Communist government in that country. Their best efforts, however, had little success, and in the last resort, the Russians acted as if the Western

missions hardly existed, apart from adhering to the niceties of diplomatic formality at meetings of the Commission and at functions. On only one occasion, according to my personal recollections, were the Russians taken

aback by an unexpected intervention-in this case, by Stalin himself. By

mid-August 1945, the process of bringing the Bulgarian Communist Party to

power in the country had reached the stage at which General Biryuzov

agreed to the Party's `request' to hold one-Party elections throughout Bulgaria. The heads of the Western missions protested at meetings of the Commission right up to the small hours of the morning of the elections

27

without success-until Stalin telephoned from Moscow and ordered their immediate cancellation. Biryuzov and his colleagues were shaken to the core: one officer who had taken the call actually fainted. But Stalin's orders were obeyed, and jubilant Bulgarians took to the streets convinced that the Western powers had forced the Soviets to give in. Opposition newspapers began to appear, and non-Communist politicians were allowed to engage in

open political activity for some months-and into 1946. But a year later,

these political leaders began to disappear, the press was silenced, and a full-

scale Communist purge of Agrarian and Democratic Party members was resumed. In October 1946, one-Party elections were held: with most opposition leaders behind bars-or worse. No one can explain precisely the reason for Stalin's unexpected decision in 1945: it is said by some analysts that Western, particularly American, pressure did persuade the Soviet leader to relent or change his tactics. But it is undeniable that the intervening year gave the Bulgarian Communist Party-and their Soviet backers-an opportunity to identify the potential strength of the opposition and its leaders, and to silence them effectively before the Party officially assumed power as the government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. Fortunately for the Bulgarian people, as well as for the West, the People's Republic had a time-limit on its existence: forty-four years later it came to an end, and the people of Bulgaria were able to embark on a new course in deciding their own fate and their position in the Councils of Europe and the world.

28

BRITISH POLICY IN EASTERN EUROPE IN THE GLOBAL CONTEXT

Gillian Bennett

When the Editor, Margaret Pelly, and I began work in selecting documents for this volume, we had recently edited four other volumes covering the same period in 1945-6: Volume II, on the Council of Foreign Ministers, Attlee's visit to Washington in November 1945 and the Moscow Conference

of December 1945; Volume III, on the negotiation of the US loan in the autumn of 1945; Volume IV, on aspects of Anglo-American relations 1945-6;

and Volume V, on Germany and Western Europe in the second half of 1945. We were therefore acutely conscious of the global context in which relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were set. We knew

that, in a sense, the foundations of Volume VI had already been laid for us.

From Volume III we had learned that the successful negotiation of the US loan dominated British foreign policy in the last quarter of 1945 and in 1946 until the loan finally got through Congress in July. There was not an issue which was untouched by the awareness that the Americans had to be humoured to make sure that the money would be forthcoming. US Secretary of State James Byrnes and his officials equally let few

opportunities pass for using their leverage. On topics ranging from relations with Argentina to air route concessions Ernest Bevin and his colleagues were informed that unless they followed a certain course of action it would be very difficult to persuade `the American people' to lend money to Britain.

While the loan negotiations must be regarded as a constant backdrop to the Eastern European scene, it must also be remembered that the issue which dominated Anglo-Soviet relations in this period was not Eastern Europe but

the future of Germany. The determination to reduce Germany to industrial,

military and economic impotence was the central plank of Soviet policy at this time, and it was the negotiations in the Control Council for Germany

which were the focus of Great Power dialogue. In this forum the British

negotiators often found themselves at a disadvantage: the American team frequently took the Russian part in an argument, and the French were obstructive on any issue which implied any form of centralised administration in Germany. While Bevin was determined that the Germans

should be made to `pay the price' for the War, he and the British Government also realised that the total destruction of German industry

would be disastrous for Europe as a whole. They could be hard on the

29

German people, but they could not condemn them to starvation and anarchy: equally, the British were in no position to feed them. The Germans had to be left in a state which enabled them to survive: the division of Germany was at this stage definitely regarded as temporary.

Despite this divergence of policy between the British and Soviet Governments, Bevin was always conscious in the negotiations on Germany

that it was both a political necessity and a duty to be scrupulously fair

towards the Russians. Even their most outrageous claims for reparation were treated seriously, despite the evidence of their complete depredation

of their own Zone. At this stage the US Government was also determined

to try and keep the wartime rapport with `Uncle Joe' going as far as possible. And despite some differences of opinion and some lack of support from the American negotiators, British policy was still linked very closely to that of the United States.

The pressure of the loan negotiations, combined with the sense of `special

relationship' which was certainly felt by the British Government in the aftermath of the War, meant that British policy tended to defer to US

wishes in every arena, including Eastern Europe. In the Balkans, we looked

to the Americans for joint action against the more outrageous Soviet

encroachments, but were usually disappointed; the case of Romania, where King Michael's demand for the resignation of the Communist-dominated Groza government was directly inspired by the US representative who then backed off and declined to join in British support for the King, was fairly

typical. It is true to say that Bevin regarded the Danubian States and to

some extent the Balkans as areas where Soviet `influence' was to some extent legitimised and in any case unstoppable without a strong American lead.

Bevin's own interest in Central and Eastern Europe was much more closely focused on two other areas: Poland and Greece. The records show that

since becoming Secretary of State in July the Foreign Secretary had

acquired a masterly grasp of the whole spectrum of foreign policy issues. He

was interested in everything and always had a strong `line to take', dominated by a firm intention to do what was morally right. The records also show, however, that Poland attracted his particular sympathies. This

was partly a hangover from the War: Churchill had made explicit promises to Mikolajczyk and others that they would not be left alone at the mercy of Soviet policy, and that pledges to repatriate the Polish armed forces under British command would be met. Bevin clearly regarded these promises as binding on him.

30

However, he was also clearly determined to try to make the new Polish

communist-dominated government fulfil the pledges made at Potsdam about free elections, free press and free political association. In addition to exerting strong diplomatic pressure through the new British Ambassador, Cavendish-Bentinck, Bevin kept up a barrage of minutes regarding forging

new cultural and trade links with Poland, and bringing British views to the Polish people through, for example, the publications of English language

newspapers in Poland.

Anglo-Polish relations in the second half of 1945 were marked by frustration

and disappointment on both sides. The British Ambassador reported that in

the post-war geographical and political situation Soviet dominance in Poland was inevitable, and that the Bierut Government was determined to

stay in power, by force if necessary. On that basis, the British Ambassador

sought to establish a working relationship with the Communists.

Unable to exercise any decisive influence over the Polish Government, Bevin found that in the areas where he felt he should be able to accomplish something--such as in repatriating, under satisfactory conditions, the Polish

armed forces who had served under British command---he was equally reduced to impotence by obstructionism on the Polish side and to some extent by red tape on the British. Despite months of high-level discussion

and correspondence most Anglo-Polish issues were little further advanced by

the end of 1945 than they had been at the end of hostilities.

Relations with Greece were equally frustrating, for different reasons. Greece was quite different from the rest of Central and Eastern Europe in

that it was occupied by British troops, and under the "percentage

agreement" with Churchill in 1944 Stalin had agreed to leave Greece

alone as being in the British sphere of interest. In the second half of 1945 Greece was in an almost permanent state of political crisis, government following government with the Regent vainly trying to hold the ring and King George of the Hellenes fulminating in England against delays in holding a plebiscite he was sure would restore him to the throne.

Bevin's policy towards Greece, as expressed in (sometimes hilarious)

correspondence with the Ambassador, Sir Reginald Leeper, was ambivalent and sometimes contradictory, as his ambassador pointed out. On the one hand Bevin informed the Regent that he had no intention of interfering in Greek politics and that the Greeks must choose their own government and get on with it. On the other, he expected any new Greek Government to respect his wishes regarding economic, electoral, constitutional and legal

reform. His instructions to Leeper alternated between ultimata and threats to wash his hands of the Greeks altogether. Against this background was the

31

constant fear that the Soviet Union, not perhaps directly but through the intermediary of Yugoslavia or Bulgaria, might encroach on Greece's

northern borders. The documents reflect Bevin's ambivalence, and also represent some humorous light relief against the almost unrelieved gloom of the picture in the rest of Eastern Europe: conjuring up, for example, the interesting picture of Hector McNeil going to the Regent's villa at midnight to implore him in Bevin's name to withdraw his resignation, and of the Regent's sobbing acquiescence.

The documents in Volume VI present a picture of the slow but seemingly inevitable drawing down of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe. It might seem that opportunities were lost to reverse the trend or for Bevin to take a firmer line. It certainly did seem to some of the people in those countries that they were being abandoned by the West and their wartime hopes betrayed. But the agreements reached at Potsdam, however flawed, were still regarded by the British Government as the rules by which they must abide. They were conscious of the Soviet Union's great sacrifices in the War, and of the need to maintain a good relationship with the United States above all. Britain had been left bankrupt and exhausted by the War,

and the new Labour Government were embarking on an ambitious programme of domestic reform which dominated their counsels. Against this background, Ernest Bevin and the British Government could only choose what appeared then-and now-as the only realistic way forward.

32

DISASTER-MANAGEMENT: THE DBPO ON EASTERN EUROPE

Norman Stone

The British are very good at disaster-management-none better. In 1945,

they were quite close to disaster. True, they had won a world war, but

victory had almost bankrupted them. They depended upon American help (I remember my own portion of that, as a very small boy: chocolate-drops) and there was no certainty that it would continue. Their empire, one- quarter of the world's land surface, was splitting apart, because the consensus of rulers and ruled had, in a mysterious way, gone. By 1945, it

carried on, in India and Palestine, only because the elements which contended for succession could not agree; they were, in fact, close to civil war. Inside Great Britain, there was a social revolution; in July 1945, a radical Labour Party was land-swept into power, and it promised an end to the old ways. Resources which, in former times, would have gone into the

maintenance of empire now had to go into housing and welfare; a former

trade union boss, Ernest Bevin, occupied Palmerston's chair at the Foreign Office. In 1945, as the crowds gathered outside Buckingham Palace to cheer Churchill for V(ictory in)E(urope) day, there was a moment when even very wise commentators, for instance George Orwell, imagined that the country could go on being a world power. That moment did not last for long; soon, the problems were coming in, thick and fast, so much so that you could almost call the Cold War `the War of British Succession'.

British responsibilities far exceeded British power and continued to do so until, in March 1947, with `the Truman Doctrine', the Americans at last

agreed to take over some of the burdens. The whole problem is very well- illustrated by this present volume of Foreign Office documents. It concerns Eastern and Central Europe, from the end of the European war until April 1946, when the Cold War was getting under way. The volume consists of diplomatic reports, Foreign Office assessments, instructions to ambassadors, military and economic considerations. The language of these documents is

often extremely elegant and shrewd: with severe competition, the prize goes to Frank Roberts, reporting from Moscow. The editing work has been

carried out superlatively well: volumes of this kind may sometimes appear to be dryasdust scholarship. This one, however, I read in the same way as I

read The Count of Montecristo in my late teens: without stopping, over nearly twenty-four hours. I have no claim, therefore, to be an impartial critic.

By 1947-8, most of Eastern Europe had passed under Stalinist control, and a nightmare period followed for these countries. Was there anything that

33

the British might have done to stop this? Should they and the Americans have tried to appease Stalin, giving him reparations from the Ruhr and a real say in the future of western Germany or Japan, or should they have

resisted? In 1945-6 these alternatives were not as clear-cut as they later

appeared to be. At Yalta, early in 1945, the Allies had presented a united front. Inter-Allied arrangements had been made for a sharing of responsibilities. There would be Allied Control Councils in all liberated

countries. In theory, this meant co-operation and the arrangement of free

elections. The Yalta Declaration provided for these. Again, in the latter

stages of the war, coalition governments of the anti-Fascist Resistance were set up with non-Communists in this and that ministry. So the forms of post- war democracy, with Allied supervision, were present.

British observers on the spot in Bucharest, Budapest, Belgrade and Warsaw

could therefore talk to non-Communist politicians, and sit upon inter-Allied

commissions. In practice, they were nearly powerless. There was, in most countries, a Red Army garrison which was quite capable simply of lifting

opponents off to Siberia in the name of anti-Fascism. The secret police was in Communist hands, and so was the censorship, the ordinary police, and the distribution of land. The Allied Control Commissions had Soviet

chairmen who had power over agendas and the calling of meetings. On the spot in Central Europe, non-Communists were quite easily isolated and divided; even when they won substantial majorities of the vote in free

elections, as in Hungary in November 1945, they were ineffective. In Poland, there was not even a free election, the Communists (several of them not even Polish, but Russian) spreading terror. On Poland, the reports of Cavendish-Bentinck, later Duke of Portland, show the acuteness with which British observers saw through the whole process. It was a very grubby business. Warsaw was in ruins; Poles, British allies from beginning to end, were being humiliated and defrauded and there was very little that the British could do to defend them. Non-Communists in governments were in

an almost ridiculous position with piles of meaningless paper to work through, from inadequate offices, and to no point. Already by March 1946 it

was clear that the Soviet Union was imposing an `Iron Curtain', and it was in that month that Churchill made his famous speech at Fulton, Missouri.

The volume ends in April 1946, with a clear assumption that Cold War was under way, with a hot war, possibly, following. There is one curious document, by the Foreign Office economic staff, in April 1946, assessing the likely future power of the USSR. It assumes (with only faint qualification) that the Soviet planned economy will be brilliantly successful, drawing level

with the American economy by 1960, and overtaking it by 1980. Such were the assumptions of the age. With hindsight, people have claimed that the

34

British and the Americans should have done more to resist the Communist

take-over in Central Europe. Leszek Kolakowski says that, at the very least, the West should not have conferred `legitimacy' upon the take-over, by entering upon treaties, however well-meant. Both of these things may he

correct. However, there is a great deal to this story which, inevitably,

remains mysterious until we have access to the archives of Moscow. That

cannot, now, be long delayed. And when, as the result, we come to a fully-

rounded account of the Cold War, the editors of this magnificent volume of British documents will deserve a place high up in the list of acknowledgements.

35

PERSONALITIES IN DIPLOMACY: EASTERN EUROPE 1945-6

Ann Lane

During the course of the Potsdam Conference, Britain had been in the throes of a General Election. To the surprise of many it was the Labour leader, Clement Attlee, and not Winston Churchill, who returned to Berlin for the final days of the Conference as the British Prime Minister. Although there were significant ideological differences between Conservative and Labour politicians Attlee's views on foreign affairs, and those of his Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, were notably consistent with those of their predecessors. Both had been ministers in the wartime Coalition Government and the current line in foreign policy was one in which they had acquiesced. Clement Attlee (1883-1967), whom one official subsequently described as `an outstanding manager of an often difficult team', a man lacking even the slightest trace of `personal vanity or conceit', ' was unlike his predecessor in having a relative disinterest in foreign affairs. He returned from Potsdam with a jaundiced view of the Russians whom he dismissed as `ideological imperialists', 2 but tended to leave the making of foreign policy to his highly capable, but idiosyncratic Foreign Secretary.

Ernest Bevin (1881-1951) believed, as a matter of principle, that British foreign policy should not be determined by ideological sympathies or socialist solidarity. Rather, he saw it as a matter of national interests which he considered unchanging regardless of the political complexion of the government of the day. Consequently, on taking over from Anthony Eden, Bevin resisted pressure from the left wing of the Labour Party to alter greatly the personnel in the most senior Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service posts. He came to office with few illusions. Shortly after the Potsdam Conference he commented that the Russians, having carried out two five year plans and won the war, were returning to their `original Lenin idea' and `any hope of a new style diplomacy of "cards on the table, face

upwards, was inconceivable"'. 3

I John Colville, Fringes of Power, Downing Street Diaries, 1941 April 1955, vol. II (London, 1987), p. 262. 2JW Pickersgill and DF Forster, The Mackenzie King Record, vol. III, 1945-1946 (Toronto, 1970), p 71. 3 David Dilks (ed), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938-1945 (London, 1971), p 785; H Thomas, Armed Truce (London, 1988), pp. 295-96.

36

Bevin's determination for continuity was underlined by retention of the Permanent Under Secretary, Sir Alexander Cadogan (1884-1968), who had been in office since 1938 and who in 1945, was expecting to retire after what would appear today as an unusually lengthy tenure as the senior official in the Foreign Office. Cadogan, described as dry, resourceful and able, exuded confidence and was known Ihr his dislike of planning. He had

served in neither the Soviet Union nor the United States but he was very conscious of' the ideological threat posed by the former in hast and Central Europe and of the danger of leaving `the first open to the peculiar methods of cultivation employed by the Soviet Government'. 4

In January 1946, Cadogan was appointed Britain's first Permanent Representative to the United Nations and was succeeded as PUS by his deputy, Sir Orme Sargent (1884-1962). 5 Known to his contemporaries as `holey' and described by Lord Vansittart as `a philosopher strayed into Whitehall', 6 Sargent spent the greater part of his career in the Foreign Office where he steadfastly resisted all attempts to post him abroad. In 1935 he had, as head of the Central Department, joined in advocating an understanding with Nazi Germany as a more constructive course to `the alternatives of negation and despair'-an argument remarkably similar to that used by proponents of an agreement with Soviet Russia in 1945.7 But following the failure of British attempts to conciliate Hitler, Sargent emerged as an opponent of subsequent attempts at `appeasement' and appears to have approached the handling of Stalin in a similar frame of mind. In his paper `Stocktaking After V-E Day', 8 circulated in July 1945, he argued that `Britain should take the offensive in challenging Communist

penetration... in Eastern Europe'. He explained this as necessary because to do otherwise, `would appear in the eyes of the world as a cynical abandonment of the small nations whose interests we are pledged to defend. ' But he was not unrealistic in his assessment of what Britain might hope to achieve in Eastern Europe: at the London Council of Foreign Ministers in September, he urged co-ordination of Anglo-American policy in

4 Documents on British Policy Overseas (hereafter cited as DBPO), Series I, Volume II, Conferences and Conversations 1945: London, Washington and Moscow (HMSO, 1989) No. 19. The other volumes in Series I cited in this essay are Volume I, The Potsdam Conference 1945, (HMSO, 1984) and Volume VI, Eastern Europe 1915-46 (HMSO, 1991). 5 Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin. Foreign Secretary 1945-51 (London, 1983), p. 164. 6 Robert Vansittart, The Mist Procession (London, 1958), p. 399. 7WN Medlicott, `Britain and Germany: the search for agreement 1930-37' in David Dilks, (Ed. ), Retreat from Power. Studies in British Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century, vol. I, 1906- 39 (London, 1981), pp. 90-91. 8 DBPO, Series I, Volume I, No. 102.

37

the region and the joint avoidance of `promises, express or implied, to the peoples of these areas which it might be found could not be carried out. '9

Initially, Bevin appointed Philip Noel-Baker (1889-1982), MP for Derbyshire since 1936, as his Minister of State. A fervent and consistent supporter of the League of Nations, Noel-Baker published a series of works in the 1920s which stressed the importance of the rule of law in international relations. 10 Attlee's choice for the position, he was well respected within the Labour Party. However, during his tenure as Bevin's deputy at the Foreign Office, which came to an end in October 1946, he

proved unable to exert much influence on policy. Il He was supported by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Clydesider, Hector McNeil (1907-1955), a journalist by training who had been elected MP for Greenock in 1941. McNeil was close to Bevin personally and knew his mind. In mid-November 1945 McNeil headed the British Mission to Greece where he displayed much pessimism about Greek politicians whom he considered unlikely to `agree about anything' because they have `no backing and are scared out of their wits'. But his stout handling of the difficulties confronting him in Athens so impressed the British Ambassador, Sir Rex Leeper, that the latter wrote to Bevin: `He was in a strange land

among very strange people at a very strange time. His quick grasp of essentials, his initiative and resourcefulness saved the position at a critical moment. He will not tell you these things himself but I think you should know them'. 12

Principal Private Secretary to Bevin was Pierson (Bob) Dixon (1904-1965) a popular official, described as having a clear and logical mind combined with a keen appreciation of human values. 13 He was also a personal friend

of Anthony Eden and as such is owed much of the credit for the smooth transition between the two administrations.

Policy towards Eastern Europe was implemented within the Foreign Office largely by the relevant geographical departments, consulting certain specialist departments, most notably those dealing with economic issues (Economic Relations Department) and refugees. Bevin placed some weight on the possibility that an increase of trade might be used to secure a

9 Lynn Etheridge Davis, The Cold War Begins: Soviet-American Conflict over Eastern Europe (Princeton, New Jersey, 1974), p. 314. 10 Agnes Headlam-Morley, Russell Bryant and Anna Cienciala, Sir James Headlam-Morky. A Memoir of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (London, 1972), p. 198. 11 Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin. Foreign Secretary (London, 1983), p. 78. 12 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 62, note 2. 13 Piers Dixon, Double Diploma: The Life of Sir Pierson Dixon (London, 1975), p. 20.

38

relaxation of many of the restrictions on movement in the Russian sphere. The exploration of economics as a weapon of diplomacy in this regard , vas conducted primarily by John Coulson (h. 1909), then head of Economic Relations Department. During the autumn of 1945 and spring of 1946, Coulson produced a series of thoughtful papers on the subject, which are notable for the emphasis they place on the constraints on Britain in

attempting to pursue a forward policy in Eastern Europe, both in terms of the Soviet occupation and as a result of its own economic weakness. In . March 1946, he summed up his views in a memorandum in which he wrote:

The fact must be faced that, in present circumstances, there is no striking panacea which can he applied to Eastern Europe. The Russians are too near. The memory of their overwhelming physical strength is too recent and we cannot expect.. . that the Governments

will take any step which they have been told is displeasing to Moscow. There is at present no way of getting round this and it

makes it essential that any counter-action by ourselves must be

unobtrusive and of a rather generalised character. 14

Much of the burden of handling the highly sensitive issues surrounding the

refugees in the British occupied zones of Central and Southern Europe, fell

to Sir George Rendel (1889-1979) who was the UK Representative on the European Regional Commission of UNRRA15 as well as the Superintending Under Secretary of the Refugee, Prisoners of War and Supply and Relief departments. His earlier postings included a spell as head

of Eastern Department and Ambassador to the Yugoslav Government-in- Exile as well as being Minister in Sofia between 1938 and 1941 when he

narrowly escaped being killed by a bomb planted in his staff's luggage at an Istanbul hotel. 16

It was the Northern Department which took the lead in Soviet affairs, as well as in those pertaining to Poland and Czechoslovakia; the ex-enemy satellites, together with Yugoslavia and Greece were the responsibility of the Southern Department. In the summer of 1945, both departments were superintended by Sir Orme Sargent.

Northern Department was headed by Christopher Warner (1895-1957)

who had been appointed to the Foreign Office in 1920. His knowledge of Middle Eastern languages had served him well in a succession of postings in

14 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, Appendix I. 15 United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. 16 Elisabeth Barker, British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War (London, 1976), p. 61.

39

the Near East, but he had no personal knowledge of the Soviet Union. By April 1946, however, he had concluded that:

Russian aggressiveness threatens British interests all over the world. The Soviet Government are carrying out an intensive campaign to weaken, depreciate and harry this country in every possible way.

Perceiving a direct threat to British social democracy he argued that Britain

must now address herself primarily, if not exclusively, to its own defence. 17

Thomas Brimelow (b. 1915), the official handling Russian affairs at this time, had returned in June 1945 from a three-year posting to Moscow. He

numbered Riga among his pre-war postings, was a Russian speaker-a rarity in the Office in 1945 and, even more unusually, he possessed a grasp of Marxist-Leninist theory. His view of Soviet foreign policy might be

characterised by his argument that it was based `directly on a hard-hearted

calculation of interest and balance of forces' and that `ideological arguments [were] used chiefly to justify the taking of every opportunity of reaping political advantage'. 18 To convey this thought on the eve of the London Council of Foreign Ministers, he used the following nautical metaphor:

When the boat leans over to the side of Great Britain, the Russians

sit down heavily and clumsily on their own bulwark; but their aim is

only to make it lean their way, not to overturn it. 19

During the autumn of 1945 he argued strongly against the views of the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee that far from being cowed by American

monopoly of the atomic bomb, the Russians were showing by their continued and increasing obduracy that they were unconvinced that the West would use this weaponry in order to impose their will regarding the postwar settlement. 20

Until January 1946, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr (1882-1951) remained in Moscow as Ambassador where he had been since 1942. Ever optimistic about the future of Anglo-Soviet relations, he wrote just a few days before

the opening of the London Council of Foreign Ministers that he considered Russia to be on the defensive in Europe and that he perceived `a certain

17 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 88. 181bid., No. 84, notes 4 and 10. 19 Ibid., No. 16. 20 Ibid., No. 49.

40

relaxation in the Soviet grasp over east and central Europe' to the advantage of 'Western Democratic influence'. "

Clark Kerr's deputy was Frank Roberts b. 190T. Roberts had served at the Paris and Cairo Embassies before returning to London in 1937. He was posted to Moscow in 1945, thereby arriving at a crucial juncture in Anglo- Soviet relations. Roberts was convinced that Soviet fears of Britain and the United States were genuine and, like Clark Kerr, believed that the Russians still sought, above all, to retain Big Three co-operation. Writing in September 1945, he felt that it would be better `frankly to reach agreement with the Russians upon our respective interests in Europe than to let matters continue to drift'. `'`-' In his detailed assessment of the meýning and implications of Soviet policies and propaganda, transmitted to London during `larch 1946 in a series of despatches which have since been

compared with George Kennan's celebrated `Long Telegram', he argued that the manner of the Soviet Union's attack on Britain indicated a profound fear of Britain's inherent strength. Unlike Brii-nelow, he put emphasis on the role of ideology in the making of Soviet foreign policy, leading him to speculate whether it might

even he asked whether the world is not now faced with the danger of a modern equivalent of the religious wars of the 16th century, in

which Soviet communism will struggle with Western social democracy

and the American version of capitalism for domination of the world. 23

The frustrations of postings to East European capitals were everywhere manifest. However Britain's first postwar Ambassador to Poland, Victor Cavendish-Bentinck (1897-1990), made known his own view that

representing HMG in war-torn Warsaw was much more amusing and interesting than chairing the joint Intelligence Sub-Committee for which he had been responsible for much of the war. 24 Cavendish-Bentinck was no stranger to Poland having served there in the 1920s, and used his private aeroplane not only as `a peering machine' to ensure that he was well- informed but also to visit the estates of land-owners whom he had known in

earlier times. 25 He was preceded there by Robert (Robin) Hankey (b. 1905), son of the former Cabinet Secretary, Lord Hankey, and formerly head of Northern Department. Hankey, too, was a Polish speaker who had been in Warsaw during the 1930s. His initial impressions on returning to

21 Ibid., No. 17. 22 Ibid., No. 30. 23 Ibid., No. 80. 24 Ibid., No. 4. iv. 25 Thomas, p. 347.

41

Poland, often considered the `touchstone' of Anglo-Soviet relations, were summed up in his statement to Northern Department that the `Russians

control nearly everything'; a few days earlier he had conveyed the atmosphere of oppression which would make the execution of British policy so difficult when writing about the moderate deputy Prime Minister, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk who he said spoke `in such a whisper in his office

26 that one can hardly hear what he says'.

Philip Nichols (1894-1962), British Ambassador in Prague, considered Czechoslovakia to stand out from its neighbours in terms of political maturity and its links with the West. 27 His optimism led him to report at the end of November 1945 that despite the fact that a Soviet alliance would remain the cornerstone of Czechoslovak foreign policy, it was most unlikely that the Communists would be able to prevent the `re-

establishment of a genuinely democratic parliamentary system' following

elections to be held in the spring of 1946.

Head of Southern Department during the latter half of 1945 was William Hayter (b. 1906) who had just returned from a wartime posting in Washington. One of the Department's principal concerns during this period was, of course, the peace treaties for the ex-enemy satellites. During 1945, Britain withheld recognition of the provisional governments set up after the liberation, pending the holding of elections. However, political representatives were posted to each of the capitals and Britain participated in the Allied Control Commissions.

In Bulgaria, William Houstoun-Boswall (1892-1960) favoured a hard line in dealing with the Russians. Of the Bulgarian elections in November, he wrote that the Government had created `such an unwholesome atmosphere of fear that they could quite afford to conform with all external rituals of democracy'. He disagreed with Southern Department that Britain should work for an early conclusion of the peace treaties with the ex-enemy satellites, owing to his firm conviction that the Russians would eventually back-down in the face of renewed Anglo-American pressure. 28

Similar arguments were advanced by the political representative in Bucharest, John Le Rougetel (1894-1975). No stranger to East Central Europe, Le Rougetel had served in the Embassies in Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest before the war. By November 1945, he too had become firmly

26 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, Nos. 4 and 9. 27 Ibid., No. 65. 28 Ibid., No. 63.

42

convinced that Britain should call the Soviet blufff 'as the Russians are not prepared to break with us about the regime'. 29 He was outspoken in his

condemnation of' the ACC, the meetings of which he considered to he not up to even the minimum requirements stipulated in the Potsdam protocol. Of his Soviet colleague, General Susaikov, he said that `he had two heads,

one in the Allied Control Commission and one in the Military High Command', drily adding that this was `merely another point of Soviet

technique'. 30

Britain's political representative in Budapest was Alvary Gascoigne (1893- 1970), whose experience of diplomacy stretched over thirty-five years during

which he could list a previous posting to the Hungarian capital. His impression of the effectiveness of the ACCs was similar to that of his

colleagues in Bucharest and Sofia: the `Russians', he wrote, `formulate

policy.. . and carry this out without any prior reference to American or British

representations'. 3 1

Within Southern Department, Yugoslav affairs were handled by John Colville (1915-1987) who returned to the Foreign Office in October 1945

after wartime service in the RAF and a secondment to the Treasury. It

was, he later wrote, part of his job to `compose in flowery prose indignant despatches to our Ambassador in Belgrade instructing him to complain, in

the name of His Majesty's Government, of the tyrant's behaviour. As

exercises in composition they were enjoyable; as protests they were ineffective'. 32 He had been preceded by John Addis (1914-1983). Before leaving at the end of August 1945 to take up the appointment of Assistant Private Secretary to Attlee, Addis produced `an informal ephemeral minute' for his successor on what was to prove one of the thorniest legacies of this

period, the question of repatriation of Yugoslavs from the British zones. 33

In Belgrade, Sir Ralph Stevenson (1895-1977), formerly Ambassador Extraordinaire and Plenipotentiary to the Yugoslav Government-in-Exile in Cairo, had been accredited to the United Provisional Government in March 1945. Halifax's PPS during 1940, Stevenson had enjoyed a spell as Ambassador to Montevideo before his posting to Cairo in August 1943. He

never displayed excessive sympathy for the Royalist politicians and when the elections of November 1945 confirmed Tito's provisional government in

29 Ibid., No. 66. i. 30 Ibid., No. 56. ii. 31 Ibid., No. 56.11i. 32 Colville, p. 267. 33 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 26.

43

power he argued firmly that the Yugoslavs had probably got the government the majority of the population wanted. 34

Sir Reginald (Rex) Leeper (1888-1968), wartime Ambassador to the Greek Government-in-Exile since 1943, had gone to Athens following the liberation in October 1944. An Australian by birth, he had held a series of posts in Eastern Europe and the Near East. 1945 was a disappointing and trying year in Anglo-Greek relations; these frustrations are reflected in Leeper's telegrams which reveal an understanding of and sympathy for the Greek people, but was less enthusiastic about their governments. Writing to Bevin at the end of the year he wearily commented that `it is difficult to achieve anything stable with people who find stability boring'. Nevertheless, he contended that the Greeks as a nation were capable of producing far

more able politicians, if only Britain could assist them now to get onto their feet. 35

Without exception, postings to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the summer of 1945 obliged British diplomats to work under very difficult

circumstances. Establishing missions in countries recently ravaged by war, and where newly formed governments were sometimes far from welcoming, could present serious practical problems. Alvary Gascoigne had to take a house in the country because the Hungarian Government would not provide him with one in town, and in a letter to Hayter of 24 October, he

complained that while whole Hungarian Ministries were comfortably ensconced in luxurious accommodation, he had `for two months been

struggling to secure some permits for food supplies and coal'. 36 He

recommended that the usual favours showered on foreign diplomats in London should be withheld from the recently appointed Hungarian

representative to Britain.

Diplomatic business was also hampered by difficulties in transport and communications. In a background letter to Christopher Warner, Robin Hankey explained that in Warsaw it was `virtually impossible to get appointments' adding that `for five days we tried in vain to get on to the Ministry of Posts and Telegraph so that I could see the Minister. We

always got the wrong number or the girl said she could not find out what the number was! '37 Moreover, information-gathering was severely restricted since discussion with individuals opposed to the regime was hazardous at

34 Ibid., No. 68. 35 Ibid., No. 72. 36 DBPO, Series I, Volume VI, No. 51, note 6. 37 Ibid., No. 4.

44

best. The facilities for disseminating information were equally great, a matter of particular concern to the Foreign Office since cultural relations were regarded as `one, if not the most powerful, of the means at our disposal for countering Russian influence in Czechoslovakia and the other Danubian countries'. At the end of August, Orme Sargent reflected `It now looks as though the Communists will take concerted measures in these countries to thwart our efforts and those of the Americans in this direction,

unless we act vigorously and promptly. '38

These problems greatly enhanced the value of such information as diplomats were able to glean. They also encouraged conjecture and speculation when it came to assessing Soviet policies and intentions. With

only limited access to emerging political elites and with few opportunities to

engage in negotiation, Britain's representatives in Eastern Europe could in

the -end do little more than monitor the imposition of Soviet authority upon

the region and reflect upon the irrelevance of the principles enunciated at Yalta and at Potsdam.

38 DBPO, Series I, Volume II, No. 19, note 5.

45

NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

Sir Edward Tomkins

Malcolm Mackintosh

HM Diplomatic Service 1939-75

Allied Control Commission, Bulgaria 1944-46

Professor Norman Stone

Richard Bone

Hr Keith Hamilton

Gillian Bennett

Dr Ann Lane

Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford

Head of Library and Records Department, FCO

Editor, DBPO, FCO

Formerly Assistant Editor, DBPO, FCO

Assistant Editor, DBPO, FCO

46

DOCUMENTS ON BRITISH POLICY OVERSEAS

This collection of documents from the archives of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is published by authorization of Her Majesty's Government. The Editors have been accorded the customary freedom in the selection and arrangement of documents.

Published SERIES 1 (1945--1950)

Volume I The Conference at Potsdam, July August 1945.

Volume II Conferences and Conversations 1945: London, Washington and Moscow.

Volume III Britain and America: Negotiation of the United States loan, August December 1945.

Volume IV Britain and America: Atomic Energy, Bases and Food, December 1945 July 1946.

Volume V Germany and Western Europe, August-December 1945.

Volume VI Eastern Europe, August 1945-April 1946.

In preparation

Volume VII The United Nations, 1946-1947.

SERIES II (1950-1955) Published

Volume I The Schuman Plan, the Council of Europe and Western European Integration, May 1950-December 1952.

Volume II The London Conferences, January June 1950.

Volume III German Rearmament, September-December 1950.

Volume IV Korea, June 1950 April 1951.

In preparation

Volume V Germany and European Security, 1952-1954.

Volume VI The Middle East, 1951-1953.

Free lists of Titles (state subject/s) are available from Her Majesty's Stationery Office, HMSO Books, 51 Nine Elms Lane, London SW8 5DR.

47

FCO HISTORICAL BRANCH

OCCASIONAL PAPERS

No. 1

Valid Evidence

No. 2

Meeting of Editors of Diplomatic Documents

No. 3

Germany rejoins the Club

No. 4

Eastern Europe

No. 5

Korea

Foreign and Commonwealth Office