LETTERS
to keep Germany in check. Of course, a pact with Germany as a means of keeping the Soviet Union out of a European war was always an option, but what government in that situation would not keep at least two diplomatic irons in the fire?
The Soviet intervention in Spain must be seen within that context. Stalin wanted a government in Spain which would form a bloc with Britain and France against Ger- many. That is why he attacked those to his left — the anarchists and radical socialists — who wanted to turn the civil war into a revolutionary war for a socialist republic. Stalin's secret police conducted a war with- in the war, smashing the radicals, demoral- ising thousands of republican fighters, and thus leaving the Republic at the mercy of Franco. Like many other observers, Sir Alfred reads more into Stalin's actions than was actually the case. His withdrawal from the civil war was not part of clearing the decks for the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but the result of a miscalculation. He wanted neither Franco nor the radical left to win, but the middle ground necessary for the success of his policy — a strong social base for a pro-Western government that could defeat Franco — no longer existed.
Paul Flewers
London WC1
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