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CHAPTER 13
Russia and the War

AT the start of June 1941 it was thought that Hitler's next target would be Suez, menaced now from Libya, Crete and Vichy-held Syria, where German infiltration was reported. To forestall this, on 9 June Free French and British troops entered Syria and Lebanon, advanced steadily against mild resistance and on 23 June took Damascus.

Meanwhile there was speculation about relations between Russia and Germany. The Russo–Japanese neutrality pact in mid-April 1941 was seen as Russia's effort to secure its eastern borders in apprehension of trouble from the west, and Churchill in a speech on 9 April¹ suggested that Hitler might suddenly turn from the Balkans to seize the Ukraine granary and the Caucasian oil fields. A good many newspapers² had reports and comments on German and Russian activity, such as troop movements and diplomatic coolnesses, with Russian inscrutability mentioned fairly often. There were also suggestions that it might all be a German screen for a sudden strike elsewhere. The Auckland Star on 14 June warned that the apparent inactivity of Germany in relation to Syria was suspicious: where the Germans were not obviously active they were sometimes most dangerous. As the Southland Times of 11 June remarked, these were difficult days for newspaper readers, with facts, rumours and propaganda jostling together on the cable pages. The New Zealand Herald of 16 June, commenting on a new flood of speculation, said: ‘Very wisely, people are no longer inclined to jump to the conclusion that the two thieves of East Europe are about to fall out…. people have reached the stage where only seeing is believing’. There was no suggestion that the USSR could be an ally useful to Britain; rather, its vulnerable resources were a danger. ‘The only sort of eastern war that could possibly help the Allies is a long-drawn-out campaign’, said the Press on 16 June, ‘and then it is quite obvious, it would

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be Russia, not the west, that would be in need of support. A Russia, master in its own house and immobilising many units of the German Army, may well be the best Great Britain can hope for in the east.’

On 22 June 1941, when the German lightning was loosed against Russia, New Zealand was probably less surprised than the Russians, caught unmobilised, their aircraft destroyed on the ground.³ Moscow reported Russian withdrawals and heavy German losses. These disasters were, of course, not explicit: Britain and the Commonwealth for a year had stood almost alone, losing heavily in the air, in the Atlantic, lately in Cyrenaica, Greece and Crete; any diversion, any respite, was heaven-sent. With little outside sympathy going to either Russia or Germany, John Gunther⁴ could broadcast from New York that this was probably the most popular war in history.⁵ New Zealand papers generally agreed that little could be expected of Russia militarily, and that Germany had attacked because it needed Russian resources for the decisive battle against Britain. Thereafter they differed in the details considered and in tone, ranging from an almost benign tolerance in the Evening Post to sharp scolding in the Auckland Star. Treaty-breaking, territory-grabbing Russia, said the Star, could now complain only that Germany had got its blow in first. Germany's large-scale expenditure of men and resources would help Britain, but it would be in the highest degree imprudent to pin faith on Russia, which has a poor record as an ally, and would, if victorious, spread the Communist plague throughout Europe. The best to be hoped for from the Russian–German conflict is that it will last long enough to exhaust them both.

The New Zealand Herald said that there could be no sympathy when thieves fell out and double-dealers came to blows. It was the British navy's blockade that had forced Germany to this colossal gamble which would give Britain well-earned and welcome respite. While Russia was in no sense Britain's ally, London and Moscow were joined in defence against the same aggressor; it was in Britain's interest to give the Soviet all possible support and German attempts to confuse the issue by talk of saving the world from Bolshevism should be rejected.

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The Press had little sympathy for the present rulers of Russia whose short-sighted opportunism had brought this disaster on themselves, but ‘a mad dog is not less dangerous because he bites someone who deserves to be bitten’, and Hitler's efforts to switch the war to a crusade against Bolshevism would be resisted. He had entered this new conflict to make use of his vast inactive army (260 divisions), to wrest from Russia sufficient booty to match the American supplies, in arms and materials, that could ultimately give Britain superiority. Meanwhile Russia's full engagement in the west would leave Japan with greater freedom in south-east Asia.

The Otago Daily Times wrote of Russia as a notoriously perfidious nation, doubting the worth of its enormous but ill-equipped forces; wrote of Hitler's idle armies, his need of resources, his need of quick success if this mid-summer adventure were not to turn, like Napoleon's, to dismal winter rout. Most observers, the Southland Times stated, believed that the Russian economy could not stand a war of endurance, but possibly the Red Army could be supported in a brief conflict, or could hold out long enough to deprive Hitler of the quick victory essential to his purpose. It speculated about Hess's⁶ journey to Scotland in April 1941 to ‘switch’ the war against Russia and saw Britain's reply in the Royal Air Force's massive raids of the last 11 days. British people were not likely to regard the Russians as their allies in a war of liberation, and it was ironic that the admirable Finns were now ranged with Germany against the nation that had basely attacked their freedom.

Apart from stock generalities, the Dominion thought the new conflict ‘a very valuable interposition in this most critical year’, and that the possibilities were not easily calculable. The Evening Post on 23 June, warning that Hitler's chances against Britain in the next two years would be immensely improved by Russian supplies, said: ‘that automatically converts Russia into Britain's co-operator. Hitler himself has driven Russia and Britain together. Even if they were at opposite ends of the Socialist–Capitalist scale—which they are not, since Britain today is classless—these two countries would still find themselves aiming at the same immediate goal, national freedom, and therefore compelled to help each other…. The paramount fact is that Britain and Russia must pull together.’ Hitler's double somersault was aimed at the sympathies of anti-Communists in the British Empire and the United States, but ‘in this stark fight, anti-Communists and Communists should both forget yesterday and tomorrow; they should strike today.’

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The Post's editorial was the only one among the main dailies on that Monday, 23 June to reflect Churchill's broadcast made on the night of 22 June. He had opposed Communism for 25 years, and would take back no word of it now, but he spoke, in his own heavy but moving way, of homely, hard-working people in 10 000 Russian villages threatened by the hideous onslaught of the German war machine, ‘the dull, grim, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery pouring on like a swarm of crawling locusts’, under a sky full of German aircraft. He declared:

Any man or State who fights against Nazidom will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe…. It follows, therefore, that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people.⁷

By 24 June, most New Zealand papers were approving Churchill's lead. His ‘prompt and realistic’ statement should clarify the issues, said the Southland Times; it was probably his most sagacious utterance, said the Dominion. His qualities as statesman and orator were never more clearly revealed, said the Press, explaining that in view of Russia's past attacks on Finland and the Baltic states it was hardly surprising that some British papers and semi-official statements had at first assumed that Britain would be detached from the new conflict; but Churchill had grasped the essential reality, that ‘any State or man who fights against National Socialism is Great Britain's ally.’ Hitler's claim that he was the champion of Europe and civilisation against Bolshevism had served him in the past, but he should not be allowed to use the trick again. The Evening Post repeated the warning against anti-communist propaganda, while the New Zealand Herald attacked Bernard Shaw's rash statement that Britain and America could sit back and smile while Stalin smashed Germany;⁸ the British could not count on stubborn Russian resistance, could not relax, but must seize the opportunity to increase their own attacks. This ‘no slackening’ note was also sounded by the Otago Daily Times, the Evening Post and the Press. The Otago Daily Times accepted Churchill's principle: ‘any man or state that fought against Hitler was our ally, while those that fought for Hitlerism were our foes. Expediency in this hour of crisis would sanction no other approach to the task of ridding mankind of the evil that is rooted in Germany.’

The Auckland Star, however, was not pleased with Churchill. Recalling that he was reported to have said, ‘To save England, I'd pact with the Devil’, the Star suggested that either his sense of the dramatic had for once played him false, or he was contemplating

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such a pact. If Mr Churchill wished to evoke sympathy for the Russian people he should have pointed out that they are unhappy beyond all other peoples in that they have to suffer the hideous onslaught of the Nazis after having suffered for a generation the hideous onslaughts of the Communists. There is, in fact, little in the way of hardship, deprivation and oppression that the Nazis could impose on the Russian masses that they— all except the members of the privileged bureaucracy—have not already experienced at the hands of their own tyrannical gangsters.⁹

Britain and Russia were both fighting Nazi Germany, but this was all that they had in common. It would be exceedingly dangerous to British unity and to resistance in occupied countries to allow the false impression that there was anything else. Next day the Star continued its attack. Churchill had not consulted the Dominions before making his declaration, nor had Fraser or Menzies¹⁰ consulted their Parliaments before endorsing it.¹¹ New Zealand's Parliament and people should be fully consulted before any commitment which could involve their forces, and if there were any question of an alliance with Soviet Russia New Zealand's answer should be an emphatic ‘No’. Russia was now fighting for the preservation of the Stalin regime, Britain and the Dominions had no obligations to the Soviet and its shifty policies; there was need for the utmost caution in Britain's dealings with the Kremlin.¹²

With these editorial presentations it is useful to consider the directions that the press had received through the Director of Publicity. On 16 June, the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs gave the Dominion governments confidential information already issued to the press in Britain. In the event of war between Germany and Russia, hopes should not be raised of effective Soviet resistance, though Germany's long-term difficulties in trying to hold even part of Russia should be stressed. In no circumstances should Russia be called an ally, but merely another country attacked by Hitler despite treaty obligations, with which therefore Britain had a common interest against the aggressor. Any support for the USSR would be on account of that common interest, in no way implying ideological affinity. This advice was sent to editors on 18 June.¹³

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Whatever subtleties and withholdings there were in official counsels in Whitehall and Wellington on the degree of co-operation that should exist between Britain and Russia—whether they were allies or merely shared an enemy—these fine distinctions were not grasped by most New Zealand readers of newspapers. They read, on 25 and 28 June, of Roosevelt pledging all possible aid to Russia and of British military and economic missions going to Moscow to ‘coordinate the common war effort’.¹⁴ They read of Hugh Dalton¹⁵ saying that the British Labour party opposed communism but ‘today the Red Army and the Red Air Force are our comrades in arms, they and we are out on the same errand—to crush the German war machine….’¹⁶ As noted already, the term ‘ally’ had been used by the Press and the Otago Daily Times on 24 June; the Press, examining the inner conflict of the situation, repeated it on 26 June:

Fear and detestation of Communism on social and religious grounds are deep rooted in the democracies—far more deep rooted than fear and detestation of Fascism, National Socialism and their variants.¹⁷ For this reason and also because Russia, since the outbreak of war, has been guilty of numerous acts of unprovoked aggression, the democracies are embarrassed by their new ally…. [They] must remain resolute, cool and realistic. To deny that the situation… involves them in a conflict of ideas and loyalties would be foolish. But … this is the dilemma the German Government sought to create and will exploit ruthlessly. It is necessary to lay hold of one all-important truth, which is that a swift German victory over Russia will be a military and economic disaster to the democracies. By the iron logic of war, Russia is our ally and must be enabled to hold out.

Two days later the same paper, discussing the political difficulties inherent in the ‘involuntary alliance’, could see that Russian attacks on German bases in Finland during the past few days were self-defence of the same order as was the British attack on Syria. Deploring that Britain should be at war with Finland, lately so heroic, the

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leader added ‘Russia's departure in 1939 and 1940 from her previous policy of non-aggression was the result, not of a revival of Russian imperialism, but of fear of Germany and a desire to improve her strategic frontiers.’¹⁸

The idea that although sharing an enemy Britain and Russia were not allies was officially ended by the Anglo–Soviet agreement of 12 July 1941, for mutual assistance of all kinds in the war and for no separate peace. Nash, as Acting Prime Minister, welcomed it, saying that New Zealand had been consulted in the arrangement and that at this stage any obstacle to making common cause against the aggressor would be absurd; Hitler had succeeded by isolating his victims, striking them down singly in a series of victories that would have been impossible in the face of a collective peace system. Now other threatened nations might be encouraged to band together with Russia and the British Commonwealth.¹⁹

The treaty had no immediate relevance for New Zealand, though a few local Russophiles advocated establishing trade and diplomatic connections with Russia. It was the logical development of Churchill's declaration on 22 June. The New Zealand Herald, repeating his ‘any man or State who fights against Nazism [sic] will have our aid’, said that the treaty put on Britain no more obligation than was already freely assumed without asking any return by Churchill, and was overwhelmingly endorsed by the Empire. Opposition to Communism was no barrier to helping Russia against the common enemy. As a precedent, in 1914 most people repudiated the principles of Tsarist autocracy and loathed the system by which it was maintained, yet Britain and Russia fought as allies. Now, with an equally great difference in beliefs, they had combined in something less than a formal alliance against Hitler's Germany; to have done anything else would have cleared the way for Nazi world domination.²⁰

The Press explained that the pact had little practical significance for distance and lack of surpluses made material assistance impractical; at present there could be only diplomatic and technical collaboration. Its real importance was that ‘finally and unequivocally, it proclaims Britain and Russia to be allies, thereby removing the excuse for fruitless and dangerous controversy over the propriety of aiding a country which is nominally Communistic in political and economic structure.’ The real obstacle to closer relations was not political creeds but Russia's aggression against Poland: if Russia would recognise

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the right of Poland to self-determination, the front against Hitlerism would acquire a unity it did not then possess.²¹ The Evening Post was much warmer. The pact was an event to be heavily underlined, ‘an object lesson on a tremendous scale of how two opposed “ideologies” act when confronted with the common danger of extinction.’ Self-preservation was imperative, with qualities of immediacy above all other laws: ‘different peoples with different ideas now fight the same fight for freedom.’²²

The critical Auckland Star, pointing to the treaty's limited scope, was thankful for the absence of pretence and high-sounding preamble about long-standing friendship, fundamental identity of purpose, and joining hands to build a better world. It added, that until three weeks ago the Soviet was far more friendly with Germany than with Britain. The Star suggested raising volunteer forces, to fight in Russia, from those in Britain and the Dominions who had long professed keenness to help the Soviet; some in New Zealand had told military service appeal boards that they would take up arms only for such a purpose. The government might well consider helping them on their way. ‘As a gesture it would not be without value and the financial commitment would be small. It might turn out to be nil, for local Communist bellicosity is usually most impressive on paper.’²³

New Zealanders also read news from overseas. The cable news in the Auckland Star on 21 July included a Sydney item in which Federal Attorney-General W. M. Hughes, a strong anti-Communist, gave ‘stinging rebuke to people who would sooner be beaten by Hitler than saved by Russia’. Mr Hughes said:

A small section mainly composed of ‘the nicest people’ view the pact between Russia and Britain with grave concern. They see in Russia the menacing shape of Communism, and, gathering their robes about them, hasten to pass by on the other side. In their eyes it is better that Nazi-ism should win the war than that the Soviet armies should help to save us…. God save us from such narrow-minded, futile and treacherous counsels. I welcome an alliance with this great Power. I hail it with unbounded satisfaction. After Greece and Crete, Germany, as all the world knows, was preparing to attack Suez, the gateway to India, Australia and the Far East. The battle for Suez was to be the signal for an assault on Singapore by the other partner in the Axis. Then Germany swung her mighty war machine against Russia. We must make

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a supreme effort to take the utmost advantage of this Heaven-sent opportunity to strike at Germany…. If we let this chance slip, we may not get another.²⁴

At the end of July a treaty was signed which attempted to unite the USSR and the Polish government-in-exile against Germany. It did not define borders but the USSR recognised that the territorial changes of 1939 had lost validity, while the Poles repudiated any agreement with a third power directed against Russia. The two governments established diplomatic relations and agreed to aid each other in the war. New Zealand papers approved, some even seeing post-war value in it, but the Auckland Star reminded that pacts had become as cheap as tram tickets.²⁵

Only New Zealand's Russophiles had even brief hopes that the Red Army would hurl back the invaders. The majority, though dismayed, were scarcely surprised by the swiftness of the German advance, smashing to the Baltic, to Leningrad, across the Ukraine, and towards Moscow. Reports asserted that these gains were won against very heavy German losses, and made much of Russia's ‘scorched earth’ policy. Meanwhile the nightly bombings of Britain had eased, while reverses in Libya early in June heightened thankfulness that Russia was draining off pressure. Russia, absorbing the enemy, causing heavy losses and denying resources, obviously at enormous cost, became admirable. Moreover, it was rightly realised that Hitler wanted Russian supplies, notably of grain and oil, to achieve the conquest of Britain; Russia's survival became vital. Stories and pictures of Russians burning the harvest, slaughtering cattle and horses, destroying industrial plants and blowing up their much-valued great dam on the Dnieper, roused grateful respect, even in those who normally regarded Russia with suspicion and hostility.

‘If the Russian armies are destroyed in the present campaign— an outcome which is not wildly improbable … the Axis and its partners will be supreme from the coast of France to Behring Strait’, said the Press gloomily on 2 July, adding: ‘Only the Russian armies, and behind those armies the dogged patriotism of the Russian people stand between Hitler and conquests on a scale which would make the conquests of Caesar and Jenghis Khan and Napoleon seem relatively insignificant.’ ‘Today it is the Russians who say of the Germans: “They shall not pass”’, wrote the Evening Post on 11 July. ‘No opinions about Russia's yesterday, and no dread of Russia's

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tomorrow, need prevent the sincere wishes of freedom-lovers going forth to the Russia of today, standing like a giant dam against the surging might of the German flood.’ Faith rather than calculation inspired hope that somehow Russian suppleness would defeat the German thrusts and that Russia would fill the military role vacated by France.

Smolensk, Kiev, Odessa: their battles lasted long enough for their names to become familiar. After six weeks of war, the Press stated that from the fog of claims and counter-claims one undisputed fact emerged: on every important sector of their front Russian armies were counter-attacking. Also, Hitler's propaganda offensive, his anti-communist crusade, had failed. In Whitehall and in the United States some reactionaries and isolationists had tried to separate their interests from Russia's, and some Catholics had threatened the alliance with the wrath of God, but these were ‘only the sputters of a damp squib’.²⁶ Its news-versifier, Whim-Wham (Allan Curnow),²⁷ wrote:

The Blitz hangs fire, the Armoured Cars and Tanks

That should have sped

To Moscow halt before a Traffic Sign,

The Sign that said:

“Road closed. No Fascist Vermin past this Line!”

The Light shows Red.²⁸

Towards the end of August, when Russian forces retreated across the Dnieper, leaving, it was claimed, most of the Ukraine ‘a desert’, The Times was quoted as saying that Russia was now bearing the main weight of the war, making voluntary sacrifices for the common cause of a type almost unknown in history. The scorched earth policy meant desolation over tens of thousands of square miles, homelessness and misery for hundreds of thousands of souls, inconceivable immolation of stored wealth and the fruits of painfully won progress. ‘Though our own lot has been hard, we have not yet been called on to make such sacrifices. It must be our aim to repay them by every means in our power.’ Russia's resistance was more tenacious than anything achieved in land warfare during the past two years. ‘Her cause is our own. She can count on the undivided sympathy of the whole British people in the dark and dangerous period through which she is passing. This sympathy must be expressed in deeds,

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not words. We must afford her support in every field in which she stands in need.’²⁹

When, early in September, the Germans struck at Leningrad, threatening to turn it into rubble, the New Zealand Herald threw away all reserve in praising the start of that remarkable siege:

Paris, a city not as populous as Leningrad, shrank back from the ordeal and opened its gates … the former Slav capital of Russia is not shrinking at becoming Golgotha…. Once again the world is enrapt at Russian resolution, Russian determination, Russian doggedness. First they throw in that altar to industry … the Dnieper dam. Now they stake their ‘city of light’, all the social and cultural advances so painfully made, and the shrine and home of Lenin's revolution—Leningrad.³⁰

A little later, on 22 September, the Herald recalled that at the beginning of the war it was widely thought that if Stalin could hold out for three months he would have conferred inestimable benefit on the Allied cause. Now, although buffeted and bruised the Red armies have not been broken…. Their dogged spirit has earned the gratitude and admiration of the whole world…. But admiration and gratitude are not enough. In Britain and America, public opinion demands that the Red Armies be given more material support…. Apart from any higher motives, simple self-interest dictates ‘all aid to the Soviet’.

Here the Herald, like many British newspapers and speakers, especially from August onwards, mingled its salutation to Russian doggedness with pleas for assistance to maintain it. From the start, Stalin and Maisky,³¹ the ambassador in London, had urged Britain to open a second front.³²

The Auckland Star, its tone cooler than the Herald's but without the hostility of two months before, counselled against such importunings. Hitler's progress in three months was impressive; without deprecating Russia's resistance to date or discounting the probability that it would continue, all British people must wonder where the

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Nazis would be in another three months, for the Russian campaign was but a means towards destruction of the British Empire. It was natural to ask why Britain did not do more to help Russia in this extremity and in London there were public demands that the government should act to lighten the pressure on Russia. This advocacy overlooked the enormous demand for weapons from Britain's own forces, nor was there shipping enough for a landing in Europe. Britain's fight, to be effective, must be in North Africa. The recapture of Cyrenaica and the occupation of Tripoli would be far from Russia but would have far-reaching consequences.³³

Norway, Dunkirk, Greece: these could not be risked again. But air raids were intensified; a Royal Air Force wing, with a few New Zealanders in it, went to Russia³⁴ and British munitions, plus some from America, were sent both through the Persian Gulf and Iran and in convoys beset by ice and the Norway-based enemy to Archangel and Murmansk. There were public assurances, such as September's ‘tank week’ when all tanks made went to Russia, that all possible aid was being given but, as the Press said on 3 October: ‘the obvious facts of the situation are against any optimistic view of the extent to which Russia can be helped with vital war supplies in the near future.’ The initial difficulty was in transport; as well, American production was only beginning, and Britain needed all its own tanks.

It was hardly a substitute that, late in July, the ‘V for Victory’ campaign had been launched to quicken fighting hearts in enemy countries, to check collaboration and to worry garrison troops. ‘V’s were scrawled on walls and the morse signal, … –, splendidly presented in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, was tapped and whistled. Said Churchill on 19 July: ‘The V sign is a symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories and a portent of the fate awaiting Nazi tyranny. As long as the people of Europe continue to refuse all collaboration with the invader it is certain that his cause will perish and that Europe will be liberated.’³⁵ Goebbels promptly adopted the ‘V’ as a sign of belief in German victory.³⁶ In New Zealand it was just another slogan, appearing on cars, on official desks, in advertisements and offices, and Truth complained of ‘Beethovenish fatuity while Russia staggers’.³⁷

As German forces struck deeper, British opinion grew restless over Russia's bearing the brunt alone. This was particularly sharp among

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working-class voices. There was agitation against some members of the British government suspected of being so clouded by anti-Russian prejudice that they could not bring themselves to help Russia enough to keep her in the fight as a serviceable ally, men such as Lieutenant-Colonel Moore-Brabazon,³⁸ Minister of Aircraft Production, who had hoped that the German and Russian armies would exterminate each other.³⁹

In general, New Zealand papers, while noting this uneasiness,⁴⁰ saw the importance of Russia as a fighting ally, but accepted the restraints of distance; a second front was impossible.⁴¹ The likelihood of Russian reverses setting Japan off on further adventures was not forgotten.⁴² The New Zealand correspondent of September's Round Table said that expectation that a major Russian defeat would send Japan grabbing for spoils had caused New Zealand to draw closer to America.

It is generally recognised that the fate of peace in the Pacific area may be decided by the battles raging for Leningrad, Moscow and the Ukraine. Indeed, with the local press filled with news from the Nazi–Soviet war and also with news of the ‘Far Eastern’ situation, it is significant that the vast majority of readers seem primarily interested in the war news from the Russian front. Consciously or unconsciously New Zealanders seem to have a good grasp of the factors which may ultimately govern the issue of peace or war in the Pacific area, and the maximum aid to Russia is strongly supported by nearly all sections of the community.⁴³

Apart from newspapers, what reaction was there to Russia's entry? The executives of several trade union bodies passed resolutions of support for Russia, while pledging full co-operation with their own government. The Wellington Trades and Labour Council also called on the workers of Germany and Italy to make common cause with workers in all other countries for the overthrow of the German and Italian dictators.⁴⁴ Longburn freezing workers, solemnly endorsing

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the utterances of Winston Churchill, sought all possible help for Russia, whose defeat would bring dire consequences to the working people of the whole world.⁴⁵ A few unions, such as the Canterbury Clothing Workers', whose president, John Roberts, was an ardent non-communist supporter of aid to Russia, sent fraternal greetings to their Russian counterparts and received replies.⁴⁶ The Canterbury Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants proposed diplomatic and trade relations, and declared solidarity with Russian workers.⁴⁷ Wellington university students in an annual meeting carried with acclaim an expression of solidarity with the Soviet Union in its titanic struggle, and sent a telegram of salutation to heroic Leningrad and its student defenders. Leningrad University expressed deepest gratitude for this solidarity and confidence in victory.⁴⁸

The Communist party, of course, found the whole situation transformed. Overnight, the imperialist war became a holy war. ‘This is the decisive moment in world history,’ declared the national secretariat on 23 June. Since defeat of Russia would mean the triumph of capitalist barbarism, while Russian success would mean a new era of socialism, speedy Russian victory was now the primary aim. Despite confidence in the USSR's mighty forces and the solidarity of workers everywhere, including Germany, there must be no complacency or inactivity. Communists should no longer oppose military measures for the defeat of Germany; they should also demand a full military alliance with the Soviet; they should maintain a resolute and vigilant struggle against the pro-Nazis and capitulators of the imperialist camp, who might still try to switch the war, and they should demand an end to prosecutions, the release of political prisoners and return of the People's Voice.⁴⁹

New Zealand Communists now turned from what the Standard of 24 June had dubbed their ‘senseless activities’, and called for unstinted effort on all sides, for production committees throughout industry to improve efficiency,⁵⁰ and for collaboration between the party and the New Zealand Labour movement. Production committees increased, not solely in response to comradely pressure, achieving useful low-key improvement, but did not become a salient feature of industry; collaboration proposals were firmly rebuffed.

A joint declaration by the national executives of the Labour party and the Federation of Labour in October⁵¹ called for redoubled efforts

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in field, factory and workshop as the only way to give maximum assistance to Russia in its magnificent fight against Hitlerism.

We unhesitatingly extend the same measure of assistance to the people of Soviet Russia as to the other nations that have been attacked by Hitler….

We are convinced that the most effective way to help Russia is by assisting to the maximum the New Zealand Government's war effort…. The whole resources of the British Commonwealth are pooled to defeat Nazism.

Assistance to Russia or to any other country can only be achieved by co-ordinated effort on the part of the fighting forces plus the efforts of the workers in field, factory and workshop….

We endorse the statement made to the British Trade Union representative by M. Maisky, Soviet Ambassador in the United Kingdom, and also the message from the Moscow Women's Conference that the best way to help Soviet Russia is to work harder and produce more in every sphere of economic activity.

The only way to assist Soviet Russia is to help to build up and fully equip our New Zealand forces, to increase the production of goods and services in New Zealand; and to do everything in our power to bring the country's war effort up to the highest possible level.

New Zealanders could help Soviet Russia, Great Britain, the other Dominions and themselves by working harder at their everyday jobs, to produce more food, more wool, coal and timber, ‘more of all kinds of useful commodities’, and make more use of ships by turning them round more quickly.

All this was directing pro-Russian fervour into existing channels, making help to Russia part of broadly increased effort, not a new and special target. Official Labour went on to stress that its approval of Russia's fighting valour did not extend to local Communists. Suggestions for common action with the New Zealand Communist party had been carefully considered but rejected. For two years the British Commonwealth had borne the brunt of a titanic struggle, all sections working together with the sole exception of the Communist party. In September 1939 that party had declared resistance to Hitlerism; a little later, without consulting the rank and file, it had declared the war ‘imperialist’, thereafter using every means to obstruct and weaken the war effort, unmoved by the sufferings of the British people. When Russia was attacked, this policy was reversed, again without consulting the rank and file. The Communist party had thus shown ‘its irresponsible and unstable character’, while, unlike the Labour movement, its policy was not determined by democratic methods or with reference to the needs and purposes of the people of New Zealand. The Labour movement concluded that no

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useful purpose could be served by collaboration or association in any way with the Communist party or its subsidiary organisations.

The statement has been quoted fully because it explains clearly the distinction held right through New Zealand between goodwill towards fighting Russia and distaste both for the Stalin regime and for local Communists in their new-found zeal for the war, distaste expressed with equal force by a trade union leader such as Arthur Cook,⁵² and a Presbyterian such as the Rev Gladstone Hughes.⁵³ Although the Trades Council of Auckland, followed by those of Gisborne and New Plymouth, disapproved of the Labour statement,⁵⁴ the statement was confirmed strongly by the Federation of Labour's conference in April 1942 where Angus McLagan said to local Communists ‘Get into the war effort and show us that you are sincere, and after you have shown us we might take up a different attitude towards you.’⁵⁵

Despite these snubs, the New Zealand Communist party did its best to associate itself with Labour at large in the war effort. In November 1941 it advocated a united Labour movement, full support of the Anglo–Russian alliance, and the uniting of Pacific peoples against aggression; real intensification of New Zealand's war effort, with an end to inefficiency and waste in production, plus fullest democratic rights for the people, democracy within the armed forces and maintenance of the best possible living standards for workers and farmers.⁵⁶ In May 1942, an enlarged session of the National Committee again resolved to stiffen the war effort by strengthening the labour movement. The working class should establish fraternal relations with other working people, particularly the farmers, wholehearted support going to their demands for higher guaranteed prices, along with increasing effort to win the support of trade unionists. Success for Labour in the coming election was a prominent aim, to provide the most favourable conditions for the growth of a wide people's movement, for working class unity and political understanding, and acceleration of a total war effort.⁵⁷

Enthusiasm for Russia's resistance caused a number of non-Communists to join the new Society for Closer Relations with Russia.

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At its inaugural meeting on 22 July 1941 in Wellington, chaired by W. E. Barnard, the Speaker of the House and president of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, representatives of cultural groups and business and professional people were addressed by H. Atmore,⁵⁸ Independent member for Nelson, who had taken a leading part in its formation. A provisional executive was set up, comprising, besides Atmore and Barnard, Mrs C. Stewart,⁵⁹ Mrs J. H. Stables,⁶⁰ Rev P. Paris, Rev W. S. Rollings⁶¹ and C. G. Scrimgeour.⁶² It was to organise other branches into a country-wide body, publicising various aspects of Russian affairs, improving morale and widening support for the Anglo–Russian alliance through the promotion of cultural, diplomatic and economic relations. A letter to Nash as Acting Prime Minister suggested diplomatic relations and trade with Russia, and the offer of any surplus goods not needed by Britain or the Commonwealth.⁶³

That sympathetic interest in Russia now extended far beyond the usual dedicated supporters was made clear by the Society's reception. Early in August 1941, with Smolensk and Kiev still holding out, Wellington's Town Hall was filled for its first public meeting. The Red Flag was unfurled, the Internationale was played on the grand organ, after the National Anthem, and the meeting sent its greetings and admiration to the people of Russia in their magnificent struggle. A Professor of Education, W. H. Gould, spoke of the need to offset Hitler's anti-Bolshevik crusade, Percy Paris denied that Russians were godless, claiming rather that they were deeply and incurably religious and were now saying to the so-called religious nations. ‘You show me your faith and I will show you my works’. Scrimgeour said that Russia was Britain's greatest ally, without whom thousands more New Zealanders might already have been killed or captured. Atmore criticised criticism based on ignorance, and suggested that in the work of the Society, as in other social fields, New Zealand might lead the world.⁶⁴

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At Christchurch on 20 August the Civic Theatre was so crammed that an overflow meeting was arranged in the adjacent Council Chambers. The Mayor presided over speeches from Atmore, John Roberts, the local union leader who had visited Russia in 1939, and Winston Rhodes,⁶⁵ a leftist university lecturer. Greetings and admiration were sent to Russia, and the New Zealand government was asked to initiate diplomatic and trade relations.⁶⁶ On 8 September in Dunedin the new gospel was received by an enthusiastic meeting of about 2000.⁶⁷

New Zealand was not, however, swept off its feet. At Auckland, an Aid to Russia Committee which sprang up at the end of June was denied access to halls. At the same time the Rationalist Society, which for years had held Sunday evening lectures and discussions in the Strand Theatre, was turned from this meeting place on City Council instructions.⁶⁸ The decision of the Mayor and town clerk in refusing the Town Hall to the Aid to Russia Committee was dubiously upheld in a Council meeting, the Mayor using his casting vote after a councillor who had spoken for granting it had left early.⁶⁹ The protests of the groups concerned were reinforced by the New Zealand Freedom Association. Its president, R. M. Algie, said that he found himself identified with people whose views he regularly opposed, but his Association fought consistently for free speech, not only for itself but for anyone prepared to exercise it within the law, as an inalienable British right.⁷⁰ The Auckland Star, though far from Russophile, also reproved: ‘It would appear that the hall was refused because half the council disapproved of what they believed the speakers intended to say. That can scarcely be defended.’⁷¹ On Sunday 24 August, in the Domain, some 3000–4000 people heard Aid to Russia speakers from Labour organisations and the Communist party, plus John A. Lee, speaking in front of the Red Flag, flanked by the Union Jack and the New Zealand Ensign.⁷² Meanwhile it was decided that the Aid to Russia Committee would again apply for the Town Hall, under the auspices of the more acceptable national Society for Closer Relations with Russia.⁷³ On 4 September, while fighting flared at Leningrad, 3000 Aucklanders met in the Town

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Hall. They heard Professor W. A. Sewell⁷⁴ read Maisky's thanks for the message from Wellington's meeting, then point out that while Churchill welcomed Russia as an ally, there were those to whom victory for Bolshevism was worse than victory for Nazism, those who hoped that Germany and Russia would destroy each other, and others who grudgingly accepted Russia's aid. He himself believed that while Russia lacked democratic traditions, it had organisations and human qualities making for a future with a creative ideal, and he hoped that New Zealand and Russia, despite imperfections on both sides, could help each other towards a better social order. Atmore explained Russia's course since 1917; Dr Alexander Hodge, a prominent Baptist, and Rev Percy Paris explained that there was much religion in Russia: Roy Stanley,⁷⁵ unionist and Communist, explained that the purges of 1937 had got rid of the Fifth Column in Russia and urged that the truth about Russia should be spread, that there should be closer trade and diplomatic relations and a definite western front. Contributions for expenses totalled £111.⁷⁶

Branches of the Society for Closer Relations with Russia were established in many centres, large and small, including places such as Karapiro, Waihi, Seacliff, Gisborne and Te Aroha,⁷⁷ and some sustained their activity. After the first enthusiasm, meetings were much smaller; they were not rallies, but routine lectures and discussions on various aspects of Russian life.⁷⁸ By March 1942, in Hastings and its district there were 60 members; on 19 February, 30 people, despite heavy rain, came to a lecture and discussions on the constitution of the USSR, and on 2 March ‘a fair number’ heard the headmaster of Havelock North school speak on education in Russia, while the chairman of the Town Board presided.⁷⁹ The Society also produced pamphlets: for instance, How the Soviet People Live and Work by Margaret Jordan, a Lancashire mill girl who had spent eight years in Russia during the Thirties. This pamphlet, its 16 pages introduced by ‘Uncle Scrim’, was the third ‘and most informative’ up to mid-October 1941.⁸⁰

Although the Society for Closer Relations with Russia included a number of respected citizens, besides its more notorious intellectuals and unionists, it was eyed askance by the establishment. For

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instance, the Wellington City Council turned down a request by the Thorndon branch to show a Russian film at a theatre on the evening of Sunday 12 October 1941. Councillor W. Appleton⁸¹ thought that the Russian film (which none of the Council had seen) was being used for propaganda. The Society could have the hall for lecture purposes, but propaganda was another matter. Though Russia was Britain's friend today, they had to look further ahead: he was also against the showing of pictures on Sunday. Councillor R. A. Wright⁸² agreed with him.

What is this society? Who are these people? Russia today is our ally and we are in sympathy with the fight Russia is making, but there is an element in the community that seems to be using the fact that Russia is our ally for other purposes altogether, and they have to be watched very closely…. Let them run the picture in the ordinary way and if it is a good picture people will go to see it. We want to be extremely cautious in what we are doing. We know nothing about the picture and nothing about the people who are running the organisation.

Here the signatories to the letter were named, and Councillor Wright conceded that one, a well known Justice of the Peace, seemed to be all right. Councillor J. D. Sievwright⁸³ objected to pictures on Sunday but said, ‘I am in favour of Russia. Russia has turned over; Russia is capitalistic. They are paying the working man in Russia today according to the quality of his work.’ Councillor R. H. Nimmo's suggestion of a preview was not taken up, and in the end it was decided that a ‘March of Time’ film could be shown. The voting was 7:7, and the Mayor gave his casting vote for showing it.⁸⁴ It would take the American invasion to bring New Zealand to any general acceptance of films on Sunday.

The trade unionist Aid to Russia Committee which aroused the free speech issue at Auckland had counterparts in Wellington and a few other places, but John Roberts of Canterbury, who proposed such committees in about 16 districts, was disappointed by the response, save among the miners of the West Coast.⁸⁵ In November 1941 the Federation of Labour appealed for money to provide an

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ambulance in Russia, but contributions were modest: by the end of March 1942 they totalled only £277 2s.⁸⁶

The Catholic Church's hostility to the new alliance matched Communist party enthusiasm. Catholic pages had held many attacks on the villainy and duplicity of godless Russia and the fatuity or worse of those insufficiently aware thereof, such as the British government.⁸⁷ Zealandia, on 3 July 1941, could not allow the ugly facts of past years to be forgotten in Churchill's flights of rhetoric. The Church agreed with all forms of government and all civil institutions ‘provided that they safeguard the rights of God and the Christian conscience’, but Russia for 24 years had sought to root out religion of every kind and all emotions and traditions in which human hearts had hitherto and everywhere found inspiration; ‘the immense driving energy of the State is used to kill the soul of freedom and make man an animal and a slave.’ The late Holy Father Pius XI had stressed in 1936 that ‘The first peril, the greatest and the most general, is certainly Communism in all its forms.’ Russian people were in fact more to be pitied than damned, because they had endured a terrorism beside which the infamies of Ivan the Terrible paled into insignificance.

If then our political spokesmen have it in mind so to aid Russia in its combat as to place this tyranny firmer in the saddle, then we deserve and shall receive the censure of future generations. To aid Soviet Russia even against our common foe is to invite the curse of God upon ourselves.

To those who say that Germany's victory over Russia would mean our defeat, we would reply that it is better to go down in honour because of our allegiance to God than to stand victorious in the world after selling ourselves to the devil.⁸⁸

A further article said: ‘the lies, perfidy and persecution of the Nazis should in no wise blind us to the greater crimes of Bolshevist Russia. … What virtue is to be denied Hitler and bestowed on the bloodthirsty Georgian bandit who loved the Russian peasantry so intensely as to put to death over 800 000 of them and starve by deliberate famine another 3 000 000? How can any wise leader forget these things? How shall we? Why should we?’⁸⁹

Other pages in the same issue described the wretched lives of Russian women, denied the consolations of religion, the security of permanent marriage, the joy of caring for their own children, ‘forced

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to pass their lives in the monotonous grind of a factory where the constant beat, beat, beat of machinery can spell madness to those temperamentally unsuited for it.’ Abortions were common and children were often abandoned to the cold charity of the State, or to the streets, where for crimes such as robbery 12-year-olds met the same punishments, even death, as hardened criminals.