Ivan Maisky

Ivan Mikhailovich Maisky (; 19 January 1884 – 3 September 1975) was a Soviet diplomat, historian and politician who served as the Soviet Union's ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1932 to 1943, including much of the period of the Second World War.

Early career

Ivan Maisky was born Jan Lachowiecki in a nobleman's castle in Kirillov, near Nizhny Novgorod, where his father was working as a private tutor. His father was a Polish Jew who was a convert to Orthodox Christianity; his mother was Russian. He spent his childhood in Omsk, where his father worked as a military doctor.

Maisky's youth was very strongly influenced by the humanism of the Russian intelligentsia, and his favorite authors as a young man were William Shakespeare, Friedrich Schiller, Heinrich Heine and Lord Byron. Maisky's values were shaped by growing up in an atheist, bookish and intellectual family who read the works of Alexander Herzen and Nikolay Chernyshevsky. Like much of the Russian intelligentsia, the Maisky family were opposed to the social order of Imperial Russia and saw serving "the people" as the highest virtue.

In January 1922, Maisky moved to Moscow as head of the press department of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (Narkomindel), now headed by Chicherin and Litvinov, where he met Agnia Skripina, his third wife, but was later posted to Leningrad, where, in January 1924, he was appointed chief editor of the literary journal Zvezda. Under his editorship, the magazine was the only major publication in the Soviet Union not controlled by the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) to encourage 'proletarian' literature, and have a representative of their movement on its board, while tolerating a range of critical opinion. Maisky personally tried to adopt a middle position between RAPP and their main opponent, Aleksandr Voronsky.

The signing of the Soviet–Finnish Non-Aggression Pact in Helsinki on 21 January 1932. On the left the Finnish foreign minister Aarno Yrjö-Koskinen; on the right the Envoy of the Soviet Union in Helsinki Ivan Maisky.

Diplomatic career

In 1925, Maisky was appointed counselor at the Soviet embassy in London, where he served during the turbulence of the Zinoviev letter, and the General Strike, acting up as de facto ambassador with the sudden death of the ambassador, Leonid Krasin, until he was forced to leave when Britain severed diplomatic relations with the USSR in May 1927. He was counsellor at the Soviet embassy in Tokyo in 1927–29. In April 1929, he became the Soviet Envoy to Finland.

Arrival in London In October 1932 he returned to London as the official Soviet ambassador to the Court of St James's, as the post was titled. He held it until 1943. The First Five Year Plan had been launched in 1928 intended to make the Soviet Union industrially and hence militarily self-sufficient, and as such Maisky's duties in London were at first primarily economic. The British cabinet minister whom Maisky negotiated the most was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, who told Maisky that his nation was the "most unfriendly country in the world" from the British viewpoint and he was not inclined to grant British trade credits to permit the exports of British machinery to assist with the First Five Year Plan. Chamberlain came to detest Maisky, whom he saw as sly trickster who never said what he meant and never meant what he said. In a letter to his sister Ida on 19 November 1932, Chamberlain condemned Maisky as difficult and dishonest, feelings that he was to retain when became prime minister in 1937.

Maisky cultivated a close relationship with the left-wing British intelligentsia. Some of Maisky's close friends in London included the economist John Maynard Keynes, the writer H.G. Wells and the playwright George Bernard Shaw. Maisky took to cultivating the Canadian-born Media mogul Lord Beaverbrook. Maisky was deeply involved in the talks for the proposed "peace front" of 1939 that was intended to deter Germany from invading Poland. The slowness of the Chamberlain government in responding to the Soviet offers to have the Soviet Union take part in the "peace front" did much to undermine Maisky's standing in Moscow and gave the impression that Chamberlain was not serious about including the Soviet Union in the "peace front".

The Soviet offer of 18 April 1939 to have the Soviet Union join the "peace front" only received a British reply on 6 May 1939. Despite his concerns about Chamberlain, Maisky believed that British public opinion would ultimately force Chamberlain to make an alliance with the Soviet Union as he noted in a dispatch on 10 May 1939 that a recent public poll showed that 87% of the British people wanted an alliance with Moscow. On 17 May 1939, Vansittart met with Maisky to offer Anglo-Soviet staff talks. On 19 May 1939, Maisky met again with Vansittart to tell him that he received word from Molotov that Moscow would only accept a full military alliance with Britain and France, and the offer of staff talks was insufficient. Maisky had drawn Chamberlain's ire at this time due to a report from MI5 that Maisky was in contact with anti-appeasement British journalists and leaking to them information that it was the British government which was stalling about forming an Anglo-French-Soviet alliance intended to deter Germany from invading Poland.

During the debates in the House of Commons in May 1939, Chamberlain continued to insist upon his opposition to an alliance with the Soviet Union as he maintained that the most Britain would do was to open staff talks with the Soviets and would only sign an alliance if Germany invaded Poland. Maisky had intensely briefed Churchill on the geopolitics of Eastern Europe and during the debates in the House of Commons on 20 May 1939 and again on 21 May, Churchill was described as inflicting a series of savage verbal blows on Chamberlain and his ministers over the issue. Churchill argued that Chamberlain's approach was completely backward as signing an alliance only after Germany invaded Poland was defeating the entire purpose of deterrence diplomacy, which was to prevent Germany from invading Poland at all. Churchill argued that the better eastern alliance partner for Britain was the Soviet Union, which had a larger military, a larger industrial base and a greater population than Poland.

The debates in the House of Commons influenced British public opinion and Chamberlain was increasingly forced to accept that Britain would have to open talks with the Soviet Union for an alliance. On 21 May 1939, Maisky told Halifax that the aim of the peace front was to prevent the Danzig crisis from ending in war. Maisky stated that best way of achieving that aim was "by organising such a combination of forces that Germany would not dare to attack". Maisky maintained: "Herr Hitler is not a fool and would never enter upon a war which he was bound to lose...The only thing he understands is force". Maisky believed that the stalling over the "peace front" was because the British government did want "to burn its bridges to Hitler and Mussolini".

The talks for an Anglo-French-Soviet "peace front" to deter Germany from invading Poland as the Danzig crisis continued to heat up proved to very difficult . A major problem turned out to the issue of the Baltic states and the Soviet definition of "indirect aggression", which to British ears sounded very much like a proposal for Soviet interference in the internal affairs of the Baltic states. On 12 June 1939, Maisky met with Halifax where the two clashed over the definition of "indirect aggression", though Maisky's account of the meeting was far more positive than Halifax's. On 23 June 1939, Maisky had a difficult meeting with Halifax who accused Molotov of "absolute inflexibility". Maisky in turn stated the Soviet government should not have stated its "irreducible minimum" before opening the talks as he accused the British of demanding too many concessions.

Maisky also wanted the proposed "peace front" to protect the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania regardless of whether those states wanted it or not. Maisky used as a parallel the Monroe declaration that the United States would not permit European states to conquer Latin America, saying that just as the United States did not consult the Latin American states, that the same principle should apply to the states of Eastern Europe Maisky ended by saying that protecting Poland was not enough for his government. Maisky advised that Halifax should fly to Moscow to personally see Molotov, a suggestion that Halifax rejected.

On 10 July 1939, Maisky reported to Moscow that he did not feel that Chamberlain was serious about including the Soviet Union in the "peace front" and still had hopes of resolving the Danzig crisis by working out a Munich-type deal under which the Free City of Danzig would "go home to the Reich". In support of this thesis, Maisky noted that Chamberlain had refused to include anti-appeasement Conservative MPs like Churchill and Eden in the cabinet. Maisky reported that Chamberlain "intensely dislikes and fears Churchill", the British politician most open to including the Soviet Union in the projected "peace front".

Another issue in the "peace front" talks was the Soviet demand that France and Britain sign a military convention first, to be followed by an alliance. In July 1939, it was announced that an Anglo-French military mission under Admiral Sir Reginald Plunket-Drax-Ernle-Erle and General Joseph Doumenc would go to Moscow to negotiate the military convention. The military mission was to travel to Leningrad on a slow merchant ship which moved at only 13 knots per hour, the SS City of Exeter, after Lord Halifax vetoed sending the military mission on a Royal Navy cruiser or a destroyer as he felt it would be too much of a provocation to Germany to send a British warship into the Baltic Sea. When Maisky asked to meet Admiral Drax, Halifax told Drax that he should only meet Maisky "if you can bear it". When Maisky asked Drax why he was taking a slow-moving ship instead of an airplane to Moscow, Drax claimed that a ship was needed because of all the excess baggage he was taking with him to Moscow, a claim that Maisky did not believe.

Maisky wrote in a report to Moscow: "I could not believe my ears. Europe is beginning to burn under our feet, and the Anglo-French military mission are going to Moscow on a slow freighter. Staggering. Chamberlain is still up to his tricks. He does not need a tripartite pact, he needs negotiations on a pact, in order to sell more dearly this card to Hitler". Despite his concerns about the "slow boat to Russia" as the City of Exeter came to be known, Maisky still felt confident as he wrote: "Slowly, but irrepressibly, with zigzags, setbacks, failures, Anglo-Soviet relations are improving. From the Metro-Vickers affair, we have come to the journey of the military mission to Moscow!"

Maisky believed that the anti-appeasement politicians such as Churchill would eventually rally public opinion and force Chamberlain to forge a "peace front" with the Soviet Union. He was privately critical of the decision of his government to sign the non-aggression pact with Germany on 23 August 1939. Maisky believed that both Stalin and Molotov were too impatient for an agreement to keep the Soviet Union out of another world war, and should have given Churchill more time. Maisky was privately confused by the volte-face represented by the non-aggression pact with Germany as he wrote in his diary: "Our policy obviously represents a kind of sudden reversal, the reasoning behind which is for the present still not entirely clear to me".

World War Two

After the outbreak of World War II, Maisky dealt with a number of crises including intense British hostility towards the Soviets as a result of the Winter War with Finland. During the Winter War, Maisky worked to prevent Anglo-Soviet relations from being stressed too much. Maisky was taken greatly by surprise by the swift German conquest of Poland as he expected the Poles to last much longer. In a dispatch to Moscow, Maisky wrote in French "La Pologne est foutue!" ("Poland is fucked!"). Maisky compared Anglo-Soviet relations to a "taut string", saying the more tensions placed on the string, the more likely it will break.

Maisky reported the Winter War was the most serious source of stress and "the sooner this situation is brought to a satisfactory conclusion, the better the chances Anglo-Soviet relations can survive the present crisis". Maisky met with Butler to tell him: "It's essential that those who are responsible for the big decisions keep cool heads". In February 1940, Butler told Maisky that his government wanted to "save Finland", but not to the extent of going to war with the Soviet Union. Maisky wanted to "localise" the Winter War, and objected to Butler's plans for British military aid to Finland, which he felt would achieve the precise opposite. In response, Molotov ordered Maisky to inform Butler that the Soviet Union was open to talks with Finland and would not invade either Sweden or Norway provided that those states remained neutral.

A passionate Anglophile who enjoyed his posting in London, Maisky was reprimanded by Molotov in April 1940 for having "gone too native" with the complaint being made that he liked the British too much.

Maisky reported to Moscow in the summer of 1940 that British morale was holding well and that: "There growing [here] a stubborn will, a cold British hatred and determination to fight to the end". In July 1940, Churchill told Maisky at a meeting at 10 Downing Street: "The fate of Paris does not await London". However, Maisky reported "the danger is very great" that Germany might still win the war. In private, Maisky shared Churchill's belief that if the Reich defeated Britain, then Germany would turn east and invade the Soviet Union, which led to hope that Britain would still somehow win the war.

In 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Maisky was responsible for the normalisation of relations with the Western Allies. Maisky wrote in his diary that in the immediate aftermath of Operation Barbarossa that Stalin expected Britain to ally with Germany, writing that the Kremlin "believed that the British fleet was steaming up the North Sea for joint attack with Hitler on Leningrad and Kronstadt." It also normalised relations between the Soviet Union and the Polish government-in-exile and allowed for hundreds of thousands of Poles to be released from Soviet prisoner of war camps.

In the summer of 1941, Maisky learned via a German Communist émigré living in London, Jürgen Kuczynski, that another German Communist émigré, Klaus Fuchs, was engaged in the British Tube Alloys atomic bomb project. Kuczynski told Maisky that Fuchs would almost certainly spy for the Soviet Union if he was asked to do so, which led Maisky to decide to recruit him as a spy. As Maisky greatly disliked the NKVD rezident at the London embassy, Ivan Chichayev, he decided to leave the recruitment to the GRU rezident Ivan Sklyarov, who in turn assigned the task to his secretary, Semyon Kremer.

In August 1941, when Kuczynski visited the embassy, he was met by Maisky who introduced him to Kremer and told him to ensure that Kremer met Fuchs in an inconspicuous place where neither the agents of MI5 nor the Special Branch of Scotland Yard would be likely to notice the meeting. Maisky later wrote: "I am quite clear that Fuchs never came to the embassy. We agreed via Dr. Kuczynski how and where to meet, and did so on a quiet street in west London at night. I took great care in preparing for the meeting and kept checking for surveillance on my way there". On 8 August 1941, Kremer met with Fuchs, who agreed immediately to share the secrets of the Tube Alloys project with the GRU, saying that he felt it was a moral necessity for the Soviet Union to have an atomic bomb.

On 16 October 1941, a new government was formed in Tokyo with the prime minister being General Hideki Tojo, a Japanese ultra-nationalist whose appointment as prime minister was taken at the time as presaging war, but against whom was an open question. There were two schools of thought in the Japanese government, the "strike north" school of thought which favored having Japan invade the Soviet Union, a prospect made enticing by the fact that the Soviets were fully engaged against the German invasion, and the "strike south" school of thought, which favored taking advantage of the fact that the British were engaged against Germany to seize the British colonies in Asia. Tojo had long served in the Kwantung Army which occupied Manchuria and was known to be a Russophobe. Maisky believed that Tojo belonged to the "strike north" school of thought. As such, Maisky met with the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden on 17 October 1941, strongly urging the British government to issue a statement warning against a Japanese invasion of Siberia. Maisky also urged Eden to continue with their build-up of forces in Asia meant to deter the Japanese from "striking south", arguing that the build-up of forces in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong together with the dispatch of a Royal Navy battle-squadron to Singapore were helpful to the Soviet Union as a means of deterring Japan.

During these years in London, he reassured Joseph Stalin that Britain had no interest in signing a separate peace with Germany.

In July 1943, Maisky was recalled to Moscow 'for consultations'. That was, in fact, the end of his career as a diplomat. Maxim Litvinov was recalled to Moscow at the same time. Both men were awarded the rank of Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, but in Maisky's case particularly the title meant almost nothing. It is unclear why Stalin recalled them. Various theories are set out in J Holroyd-Doveton's biography of Maxim Litvinov. The official reason, announced by Molotov, was that their recall was necessitated by the need for their advice in Moscow. There was a dearth in the Soviet government of men who would have the breadth of knowledge and experience which would qualify them to advise Stalin on his relations with the US and Britain. Maisky believed they were recalled because of Churchill's letter of 5 May 1943 informing Stalin of the postponement of the Second Front until the spring of 1944. Maisky's wife agreed, as she told Jock Balfour's wife that her husband was recalled because Maisky failed to obtain a Second Front.

Maisky led a number of commissions planning possible Soviet strategies for ending the war and for the immediate post-war world. Maisky's commission focused particularly on the dismemberment of Germany, heavy reparations (including forced labor), severe punishment of war criminals, and long-term Soviet occupation. He also recommended maintaining a "viable Poland," albeit with significantly modified borders. In terms of post-war planning, Maisky envisioned a Europe with "one strong land power, the USSR, and only one strong sea power, Britain." His concerns about what he perceived as American ideological hostility led him to see Britain as a more viable long-term partner because he believed they would be more conservative going into the post-war world. He anticipated a struggle between the two, which would push Britain closer to the Soviet Union.

Unlike Litvinov and Gromyko, who also participated in the commission, Maisky foresaw the greatest danger to the Soviet Union would be US technology plus Chinese human numbers spearheaded against the USSR. The possibility of a war between Communist China and the Soviet Union might have seemed an attractive proposition to the US and her allies.

Maisky joined Soviet delegations to the conferences in Yalta and Potsdam.

Arrest and release

After the Potsdam conference, Maisky was relieved of responsibility for reparations, and not given another assignment until March 1946, when he was made part of a team drawing up a diplomatic dictionary. At his own request, he was admitted to the Soviet Academy of Sciences to concentrate on studying history. He was sacked from the foreign ministry in January 1947, and was arrested on 19 February 1953, during the anti-semitic purge that peaked with the announcement of the so-called Doctors' plot. In custody, fearing that he might be tortured, he 'confessed' to having been recruited as a spy while he was stationed in Tokyo, and had then been recruited by Winston Churchill to spy for the UK.

He was saved from the threat of execution by Stalin's death, in March, when Lavrentiy Beria seized back control of the Ministry of State Security (MGB) and renounced the Doctors' plot as a fabrication. But when Maisky was brought in front of MGB General Pytor Fedotov, who had been instructed to investigate Maisky's unlawful arrest, he feared a trap, refused to believe that Stalin was dead, and persisted with his story that he had been a spy. He did not back down until he had been put in a rest home, reunited with his wife, and shown film of Stalin's funeral.

After a face to face meeting with Beria, Maisky was appointed Chairman of the Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries – seemingly as part of a manoeuvre by Beria to wrest control of foreign policy from Molotov, who had regained his former position as foreign minister, and whose antagonism to Maisky was well known. As a result, Maisky was rearrested after Beria's fall from office in June 1953. This time, he refused to confess, and at his trial, in June 1955, was sentenced to the comparatively light term of six years in exile. He was very soon granted clemency, and was released on 22 July 1955, when the new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, was due to meet Anthony Eden in Geneva.

Later years

After his release, Maisky went back to work in the Academy of Sciences, and was allowed to publish four volumes of memoirs. In 1960 he was fully rehabilitated. In 1966 Maisky signed the so-called "Letter of 25" Soviet writers, scientists and cultural figures, addressed to Leonid Brezhnev and expressing opposition to a possible rehabilitation of Stalin.

However he remained loyal to Leonid Brezhnev and refused to have any sympathy with the dissidents of the late Soviet period. When, in 1968, Maxim Litvinov's grandson Pavel Litvinov with fellow students demonstrated against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Maisky telephoned Maxim Litvinov's daughter Tanya who confirmed that it was true. Maisky was so shocked that he refused to have any further contact with the Litvinovs.

Works

Social and Economic Planning in the USSR. (Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, 1935) Soviet Foreign Policy. (Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, 1936) Economic Development of the USSR and Soviet Foreign Policy. (Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, 1936) Progress within the USSR and the Present International Situation. (Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, 1937) Soviet Youth: Its Training and Opportunities. (Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, 1938) Soviet–Polish Relations. (Soviet War News, 1943) Before the Storm. (Hutchinson, 1944) Journey into the Past. (Hutchinson, 1962) Who Helped Hitler? (Hutchinson, 1964) Spanish Notebooks. (Hutchinson, 1966) Memoirs of A Soviet Ambassador: The War, 1939-1943. (Hutchinson, 1967) The Munich Drama. (Novosti, 1978) The Maisky Diaries: The Wartime Revelations of Stalin's Ambassador in London. (Yale University Press, 2016) The Complete Maisky Diaries. (in three volumes) (Yale University Press, 2017)