What Stalin said about Hiroshima

The text below is taken from the record of the meeting of Stalin and W. Averell Harriman, the U.S. Ambassador to the USSR. Full declassified document is available here. The text was published in Russian by Sergey Oboguev in his blog. Thanks to Sergey for the interesting find.

Conversation. 8:20, Moscow, August 8, 1945.

TOP SECRET

Present: W. A. Harriman, American Ambassador

        George F. Kennan, Minister Counselor

        Generalissimus Stalin

        V. M. Molotov, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs

        Mr. Pavlov, Soviet interpreter

...

The Ambassador asked what he thought of the effects of the news of the atomic bomb would have on the Japanese.

The Generalissimus replied that he thought the Japanese were at present looking for a pretext to replace the present government with one which would be qualified to undertake a surrender. The atomic bomb might give them this pretext.

The Ambassador observed that it was a good thing we had invented this and not the Germans. For long, he said, no one had dared think it would be a success. It was only a few days before the President had told Stalin about it in Berlin that we had learned definitely that it would work succesfully.

The Generalissimus replied that Soviet scientists said that it was a very difficult problem to work out.

The Ambassador said that if the Allies could keep it and apply it for peaceful purposes it would be a great thing.

The Generalissimus agreed and said that would mean the end of the war and aggressors. But the secret would have to be well kept.

The Ambassador said that it could have great importance for peaceful purposes.

The Generalissimus replied, "unquestionably". He added that Soviet scientists had also tried to do it but had not succeeded. They had found one laboratory in Germany where the Germans had evidently been working on the same problem but Russians could not find that they had come to any results. If they had found it, Hitler would never have surrendered. England, too, had gotten nowhere with these researches although they had excellent physicists.

The Ambassador explained that the English had pooled their knowledge with us since 1941. But it had taken enormous installations to conduct the experiments and to achieve final results.

The Generalissimus remarked that this had been very expensive.

...

The World War That Never Happened: US Occupies USSR

A little follow-up to the yesterday's article which mentioned two US plans of nuclear attacks on the USSR. Earlier this year the amazing Strange Maps blog published this article: The World War That Never Happened: US Occupies USSR:

On 27 October 1951, the US magazine Collier’s devoted an entire 130-page issue to the theme of “Russia’s Defeat and Occupation, 1952-1960; Preview of the War We Do Not Want.” The cover showed an American soldier in a helmet emblazoned with US and UN insignia, reading MP (Military Police) Occupation Forces.

...

In the introduction, Collier’s proclaimed that it had chosen this theme: “To warn the evil masters of the Russian people that their conspiracy to enslave humanity is the dark, downhill road to World War III; to sound a powerful call for reason and understanding between the peoples of East and West — before it’s too late; to demonstrate that if the war we do not want is forced upon us, we will win.”

Another recent article at Strange Maps is here: World War II: If Maps Could Fight. Have a look at this funny story :).

June 19 in Russian history

1739: Captain Martin Shpanberg arrived to Japan. On the orders of the empress Anna he had to get acquainted with the Japan's political system and establish trade between Japan and Russia.

1799: Joint Russian-Austrian army led by Alexander Suvorov defeats the French army lead by McDonald. The French lost 16,000 people out of 33,000-35,000. The allies lost 6,000 people out of 30,000. (See also April 28)

1799: Russian-American company was founded by Grigory Shelikhov and Nikolay Rezanov. This trading company was one of the most successful Russian enterprises of the time. It was granted a trade monopoly in Russian America and a large part of the profit went to the emperor. The company failed to attract a sufficient number of settlers to Alaska, but its first manager, Alexander Baranov, a unique and gifted personality, established good contacts with some of the native American tribes and guaranteed a stable flow of furs to Russia. In 1867, when Alaska was sold to the US government, the company ceased the activity. In 1804-1840 the RAC organized for Russia 25 geographical expeditions, 15 of which were circumnavigational expeditions, including the famous voyage of Ivan Kruzenshtern and Yuri Lisyansky. (See also March 13)

1901: Death of brigadier general of the US Union army John Basil Turchin. Ivan Vasilyevich Turchaninov was born in Russia in 1822. After the Crimean war (1853-1856) he was offered to continue the military service in the General Staff, but he was so disappointed with the military reform and the peace treaty which he thought was shameful, that he left with his wife to Germany and France and then to the USA. Three years later he wrote to his friend Alexander Herzen, who lived in London: "My disappointment is frustrating. I don't see a trace of the real freedom here. This republic is the paradise for the rich, they are really independent here. The worst crimes are justified here by money and profit. As for me, I am deeply grateful to America for one thing: she helped me to get rid of the aristocratic prejudices and brought me down to the level of a mere mortal, I am not afraid of any job now." He became an engineer. When the Civil War began, he joined the Union army as a volunteer and soon became a colonel. In 1862, his troops sacked a town and he was relieved of command and sent under the martial court. He denied all accusations besides presence of his wife in the army. Indeed, she followed him and there was one occasion when she led the troops to the attack when Turchin was ill. However, even before the court was over, he was appointed a brigadier general. In 1864 he resigned. He wrote a book on the art of war which was used later in the US army, but by the end of his life he fell into poverty and had to earn money as a street violinist. In 1901, he died in poverty.

1953: Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenbergs who were sentenced to the capital punishment for espionage for the USSR. All this story is still very unclear and I'd rather not re-tell it, it is too well known. Anyway, what I would like to say is that I take this story as a serious argument in favor of the abolition of the capital punishment.

March 13 in Russian history

1807: Death of Nikolay Rezanov, Russian diplomat, merchant, on of the founders of the Russian-American Company, an initiator of the first Russian circumnavigational expedition. He was born in 1764 and was a talented boy. At the age of 14, he spoke 5 languages. Since 1791 till 1793 he works as the secretary of the poet and politician Gavriil Derzhavin. Since 1797 he works in the Senate. He gets married in 1794, but in 1802 his wifed died. In August 1803, he leaves St.Petersburg with the expedition of Ivan Kruzenshtern, visits Japan and goes to Alaska. In Sitka, he meets a unique man, the governor of Russian America, merchant Alexander Baranov. Lack of food in the Russian colonies in Alaska makes the colonists to search for the supplies in the south. In spring of 1806, Rezanov on the ship Juno comes to el presidio Hierba Buena, later known as San Francisco, to sign trading contracts with the Spanish colonists. The Spanish king prohibited the colonists to trade with foreigners, but here a really romantic story begins. Rezanov meets 15 years old donna Maria de la Concepcion Marcella Arguello (or simply Conchita), the daughter of the commander of the fort don Jose Dario Arguello. She fell in love with him and he love her, too. Don Jose also liked the Russian traveler and he did his best to help him. Rezanov offered Conchita to become his wife and she agreed. They engaged, but he had his duties. In June 1806, Juno leaves California with food supplies for Alaska. Rezanov must return to St.Petersburg and then he would return to Conchita. In Alaska, Rezanov get pneumonia, but continues his way back home. In Krasnoyarsk, his weakened heart fails and he dies. Conchita was waiting for him for thirty years. She heard of his death, but did not believe the rumours. At last, in 1849 she becomes a nun in a Dominican monastery. She died in 1857, when she was 67 years old. In Alasks, near Sitka, there is an island named by Rezanov after his bride -- Arguello.

In 1978, poet Andrei Voznesensky and musician Alexander Rybnikov created a musical "Juno and Avos", based on these events. The musical is still very popular in Russia.

1887: An attempt of assassination of Alexander III fails. 15 minutes before the emperor's carriage goes enters the scene, six people with three bombs are detained. A month and a half later, the five organizers of the plot were sentenced to death. One of them was Alexander Ulyanov, brother of Vladimir Ulyanov, aka Lenin. Alexander III, having read the revolutionary program of the terrorists, notes: "This is not even a madman's writing, but a creation of a complete idiot".

1930: The last unemployment office in Moscow is closed. USSR becomes the first country of the world without unemployment.

1964: A Soviet trial in Leningrad sentences the great Russian poet Joseph Brodsky to 5 years of exile for "parasitism".

March 2 in Russian history

Today's Day in Russian history will be unusual. It will be a collection of the events all over the world which happened on this day in 1960s, which afffected the lives of many people in the USSR and defined our mindsets for two-three decades

1964: The Beatles start filming The Hard Day's Night. The movie was not shown in the USSR, but the music became widely known and loved.

1965: USA begin operation "Rolling Thunder" in Northern Vietnam. The "American militarists and imperialists" became a cliché of the Soviet propaganda. Not without a reason, but by that time we already knew that the propaganda lies. Even in the cases when they were saying truth, we didn't believe them. For example, when we saw photos of poor districts of New York, we thought something like: "Ha, you won't cheat me anymore!" or "What they don't tell us is that their welfare payments are larger than our salary!" I sometimes think that if the Soviets didn't lie to their own citizens, USSR could have lasted much longer.

1968: Syd Barrett leaves Pink Floyd. Oh, we really loved PF. The Wall and the Dark Side of the Moon were the favourite albums of the intellectual wannabes. The sound of helicopter rolling from the speakers standing on a window-sill filled the yards. We knew a lot of legends about Syd Barrett, but as it turned out, none of them was even close to the reality.

1969: The incident on the Damansky (Zhenbao) island, when 30 Chinese soldiers crossed the border and killed a group of Soviet border guards. In the 1970s the war with China seemed inevitable. We sang humorous songs about Chinese paratroopers, told anecdotes about the Chinese crossing the border "in small groups, from 1 to 2 million men" and were reluctantly preparing to leave the dangerous cities to a village to wait till the war ends.

1970: Alexander Tvardovsky was forced to resign from the post of the editor-in-chief of the Novy Mir literary magazine. Tvardovsky was a writer and a poet. In 1962, he published "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Solzhenitsyn in Novy Mir and turned the magazine into the favourite reading of the Soviet intelligentsia. His resignation became another symbol of the end of the liberalization of 1960s.

And, of course, I can't forget this anniversary: in 1859, a boy named Sholom Rabinovich, was born in Pereyaslav, near Kiev. 25 years later he grows into Sholom-Aleichem, one of the greatest authors writing in Yiddish. He was often called "the Jewish Mark Twain", which says a lot about his style and writings. In 1905, after pogroms, he was forced to emigrate. He spent his last years in Geneva and New York, where he at last met Mark Twain, who said that he thinks of himself as of the American Sholom-Aleichem.