america and britain like "yeah, we hear you stalin. we know you're fighting a war of extermination. we've fought those too. on the winning side. you'll be aight, just give us idk 6 more months"

I've heard it said that a major impetus for D-day was the fear that the Soviets were going to win the war on their own, and the western Allies were terrified that if they didn't make it to Berlin first then all of Europe would get painted Red, permanently.

From Molotov Remembers ,

We asked for troops from out allies, proposed they send forces to our western front. But they didn't. they told us to shift our troops from the Caucases and they would provide protection for our oil fields. They also wanted to stand guard over Murmansk. And Roosevelt [ Wanted to establish air bases against Japan in the Soviet] Far East. He wanted to occupy certain parts of the Soviet Union instead of fighting. Afterward it wouldn't haven't been easy to get them out of there....

12-06-69

I knew them all, the capitalists, but Churchill was the strongest, the smartest among them. Of course he was 100 percent imperialist. But he admired Stalin.... Clever. He said "Let us establish our airfield at Murmansk, for you're in a difficult situation." "Yes," we said, "it's a hard time for us, so send these forces to the front. We'll guard Murmansk ourselves." He backed down after that.

04-10-72

We didn't let the Germans destroy our allies when Hitler was smashing them in the Ardennes. It was not to our advantage. In 1942 I took part in all the negotiations for a second front in Europe. From the first I didn't believe they would do it. I remained calm and realized this was a completely impossible operation for them. but our demand was politically necessary, and we had to press them for everything. I don't doubt that Stalin too believed they would not carry it out. But we had to demand it! For the sake of our people. They were waiting for some kind of Allied military aid. For us that piece of paper had vast political significance. It raised our spirits, and in those days this meant a lot.

Churchill flew to Moscow and insisted they couldn't open a second front in Europe in 1942. I saw that Stalin accepted this calmly. He understood it was impossible. But he needed that paper agreement. It was of great importance for the people, for politics, and for the future pressure on the Allies.

"To pressure them?" (Interviewer Felix Chuev asks Molotov)

of course. Well, if you can't help us with a second front, help us with arms, help us with aircraft. If they had opened the second front in 1942 or 1943 instead of 1944 it would have gone very hard for them, but it would have helped us immensely!

"Could they have done it in 1943"

Yes but they didn't! They started in Italy. Even this was helpful to us. In the end, we fought not for England but for socialism. That's the point. To expect help from them in defense of socialism? The Bolsheviks would have been idiots! But in order to pressure them, we said: What knaves! You say one thing but do another. This also put them in an embarrassing position in the eyes of their own people. For the people sensed that the Russians were fighting and they were not. Not only were the Allies not fighting, but they were writing and saying one thing while doing another, This unmasked them in the eyes of their people. Why are you cheating? This undermined faith in the imperialists. All of this was important to us.

I believed that my journey in 1942 [to London and Washington] and its results were a great victory for us. We knew they couldn't dare mount a second front, but we made them agree to it in writing. Stalin also instructed me to demand they draw off thirty to forty enemy divisions from the Russian front. When I met with Roosevelt I had to hide my astonishment when I told him that and he replied, "A legitimate, reasonable demand." He was probably thinking only of dollars and thought, "You'll have to come begging, anyway. Of course we have to help you, but it's our best interests that you fight a bit longer. And that's why we're ready to support you." He agreed without changes to the communique I drafted, saying that a second front would be opened in 1942. That disgraced him in the eyes of his own people. Most people are honest, and when the government promised on the people's behalf to open the second front, and then didn't,the people realized they couldn't trust such leaders. And such disappointment with the imperialists was to our benefit. All this had to be taken in consideration. I had no doubts on this score, and Stalin trusted them even less. Of course. But we reproved them! And rightly so.

Roosevelt believed in dollars. Not that he believed in nothing else, but he concidered America to be so rich, and we so poor and worn out, that we would surely come begging. "Then we'll kick their ass, but for now we have to help them keep going."

That's where they miscalculated. They weren't Marxists, and we were. They woke up only when half of Europe had passed from them. Then Churchill, of course, found himself in a quandary. To my mind, Churchill, as an imperialist, was the cleverest among them. He sensed that if we smashed the Germans, little by little feathers would fly in England. That's the way he felt. Nut Roosevelt thought, they will come groveling to us. A poor country with no industry, no bread -- they will come begging. They have nowhere else to go.

But we viewed the situation quite differently. All our people were prepared for sacrifice and struggle. We didn't believe in a second front, of course, but we had to try for it. We took them in: You can't? But you promised.... That was the way.

06-09-76

Churchill said as early as 1918 that Soviet power should be strangled in its infancy. But at our intimate dinners with Roosevelt in Tehran and Yalta, he said, "I get up in the morning and pray that Stalin is alive and well. Only Stalin can save the peace!" He was confident that Stalin would play that exceptional role which he had assumed in the war. His [Churchill's] cheeks were wet with tears. Either he was a great actor or he spoke sincerely. Not without reason did England lose a little more than 200,000 people while we had more than twenty million victims. That's why they needed us. That man hated us and tried to use is. But we used him, too. We made him work with us. Otherwise it would have been very hard for us.

06-16-77