A former British diplomat acknowledges Britain’s World War II debt to the Soviet Union. From Ian Proud at strategic-culture.org:
Western media reporting of Victory Day in Moscow invariably lacks historical context and is usually offensive.
Western media reporting of Victory Day in Moscow invariably lacks historical context and is usually offensive. Whatever the state of our relations today, Britain and the Soviet Union were allies during the World War II / The Great Patriotic War. Dismissing the solemnity of the occasion is absurd. Despite the obvious conflict between our nations today, we should avoid the risk of airbrushing history.
If you visit the British Ambassador’s Residence in Moscow, directly across the river from the Grand Kremlin Palace, you might get a chance to see ‘Churchill’s bathroom’. Just off the main reception rooms on the first floor, it was specially fitted out for the Prime Minister’s two visits to Moscow during the war, in August 1942 and October 1944. There he’d sit, in a large bathtub, smoking his cigars and drinking whiskey, staring out the window and contemplating what to discuss with Josef Stalin.
Of the Prime Minister’s relations with Stalin, the American Churchill museum notes: ‘They never fully trusted each other. They had acrimonious differences. And, as a life-long anti-Bolshevik, Churchill harboured few illusions about Soviet post-war intentions. Nevertheless.. Churchill’s relationship with Stalin had the marks of respect. Churchill was fond of Stalin and enjoyed their interplay.’
Sir Alec Cadogan, Permanent Secretary at the UK Foreign Office, who accompanied Churchill on the visit, recalled their visits in vivid detail, including the amusing tale of a drunken banquet at the Kremlin involving Stalin, Churchill and Molotov. In terms of the substance, he said ‘I think the two great men really made contact and got on terms, Certainly, Winston was impressed, and I think that feeling was reciprocated…. Anyhow, conditions have been established in which messages exchanged between the two will mean twice as much, or more, than they did before’.
