Transcription
You described quite well that that they value in-person meetings. Yes. So, like Chamberlain should have just gone to Moscow. Yeah. Get on a plane. Like, it, it's such a, uh, maybe it's a simplistic notion, but that could have changed the trajectory of human history right there. I really think it could have done. I think that was, I think that's, I think that's a much more grievous mistake than than than Munich. Why are leaders so hesitant to meet? I, I'm told now by a bunch of diplomats that, no, no, no, no, there's a process. You know, first, you have to have these diplomats meet and they have to draft a bunch of stuff. And I sometimes have the simplistic notion, like, why not, why not meet? Why not meet? Like, I think there is a human element there. Um, I, of course, especially when there's this force that is Hitler. Well, yes. And because we humans, we like to interact. Yeah. And and you like to see people in three dimensions. And you know, I'm sure it's why you always quite rightly insist on doing your podcast face to face, 'cause you want to get the cut of someone's jib and you want to be able to see them and you want to see the intonation in their expression and the whites of their eyes and all that kind of stuff. And that, that just does, does make a difference, of course, because, you know, we're fundamentally animals and we kind of, we, we want to be sizing people up and it's much easier to do that when you're a few feet away from each other than it is on a video screen or through the prism of someone else. Yeah.
But there's also just, you see the, the humanity in in others. It's so much easier. This, you see this social media. It's so much easier to talk about others when you're not with them. Yes. And and like military conflict is the extreme version of that. You can construct these narratives that they're not human, that they're evil, that they're, you can construct a communist ideology, all these, you can project onto them the worst possible, uh, version of what, of a human. But when you meet them, you're like, "Oh, they are just a person. They're just a person." Well, it's the world's great tragedy that that that it's only a few people that want to go to war and the vast majority want to live happily contented lives getting on with their neighbors. I mean, it has been ever thus. It's just, it is those few that kind of ruin it for everybody else.
But, but, but anyway, to go back to learning, um, back in August 1939, they go half-cocked. They're disrespectful to the Soviet Union as a result of that. Um, it gets nowhere. Had they been able to put on a really, really firm offer there and then to the Soviet Union, Soviet Union would have, would have probably come in. I mean, the big thing is, is that Soviet Union said, "This is a big stumbling block." The Soviet Union said, "Yeah, but we want to be able to march through Poland if we get threatened by Germany." Mhm. Both the British and the French just smell a massive rat there. They're basically saying, you know, if they agree to that, what they're, what they fear is that Soviet Union will just march into Poland and go, "Yeah, but you said we could," and take it. Which they unquestionably would have done, but it would have stopped the World War, probably. They're willing to appease Hitler. They're not willing to appease Stalin in that situation. Well, they're not willing to appease anybody by that stage. That's the point. Well, they appeased Hitler because they did the year before, but there now, there's a bottom line, you know, which is which is Poland, you know. So, it's changed. That's why. Right. But anyway, the bottom line is they don't, you know, there is a, there is a reluctance on the part of the French and the British to negotiate with the Soviet Union because they're communists, don't like them, don't trust them, worry about what they're going to do with Poland, and they're going to be, you know, jumping out of the fire into the kind of water, and it doesn't come off. And as a consequence of that, Soviet Union continue to pursue more hardly, you know, um, more, more vigorously the opportunities that the, um, that the Germans are offering, which is this split of Poland, 'cause Soviet Union wants that part of Poland back in its own sphere of influence, and it doesn't want to go to war just yet, and the agreement that they won't attack each other, essentially. Yeah.
Do you think Stalin actually believed that? No, he believed it in the same way that Hitler believed it, that it was a cynical kind of, you know, convenient bit of realpolitik for now. I mean, I, I think Soviet Union was as determined to get rid of the Nazis as the Nazis were determined to get rid of the Soviet Union. I think whoever fired first was not, not decided at that point. But I do think from the moment that Hitler takes power in 1943, a conflict between Soviet Union, Nazi Germany is inevitable. Yes. So, either direction, you think it's inevitable. Yeah. I think, I think there's, yeah, there's a huge amount of evidence for that. Stalin probably wanted it, what, like in '42, '43? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. And, you know, they're doing exercises and stuff and building out. He's not ready yet because he knows he's done the purges and he's got to get his, his army, you know, he's got to get his armed forces back into shape and all the rest of it. But, you know, so they have this incredibly cynical agreement, but at that point, you know, Hitler's hands are untied. You know, he no longer has to worry about about the threat from the Soviet Union. Um, he's got carte blanche to go into Poland, and he doesn't believe that France and Britain are going to go to war over Poland. He's wrong about that, obviously. But, but, but France and Britain, despite going to war with him, still do nothing. So, you know, he's got away with it.