Sweden, the USSR and the early Cold War 1944–47: declassified encrypted cables shed new light on Soviet diplomatic reporting about Sweden in the aftermath of World War II

Abstract

In March 1946 the Soviet government decided to radically revise their policy towards Sweden. The Soviet demand, ever since November 1944, for the total extradition of the approximately 30,000 Baltic refugees in Sweden was suddenly dropped and a number of measures were taken by Moscow to accomplish a rapprochement between the two countries. On the basis of recently declassified Soviet encrypted diplomatic correspondence between the Soviet mission in Stockholm and the Soviet foreign ministry for the years 1944–1947, this article analyses the way in which the Soviet envoy to Sweden, Il'ia Chernyshev, represented Swedish affairs before his superiors in Moscow, and how these representations may have contributed to Moscow's decision to revise its policy towards Sweden.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank David Hamilton and two anonymous reviewers for valuable advice.

Notes

¹ George Kennan's long telegram was published in July 1947 under the title “The Sources of Soviet Conduct”, Foreign Affairs 25, no. 4, July (1947).

² Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi federatsii [The archive of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation] (hereafter given as AVPRF), (f)ond 059, (o)pis' 16, (p)apka 73, (d)elo 458, nr. 280, 281, 22 February 1946.

³ The Soviet Foreign Ministry, Narodnyi kommissariat innostrannykh del, (NKID), established in 1923 was renamed in March 1946 to Ministerstvo innostrannykh del (MID).

⁴ AVPRF, f. 0140, op. 31, d. 5, p. 133, l. 13, 1 March 1946.

⁵ AVPRF, f. 0140, op. 31, d. 5, p. 133, ll. 14–20, 30 March 1946.

⁶ AVPRF, f. 0140, op. 31, d. 5, p. 133, ll. 21–23, 31 March 1946.

⁷ Riksarkivet [The Swedish national archive] (hereafter given as RA.) Utrikesdepartementet [The Swedish foreign ministry] (hereafter given as UD.) HP 1 Er, nr. 666, 11 April 1946.

⁸ RA. UD. HP 1 Er, nr. 260, 15 April 1946.

⁹ “Priem shvedskogo poslannika S. Sederblioma”, AVPRF, f. 012, op. 6, p. 89, d. 349, l. 28, 18 May 1945. See also Söderblom's report in RA. UD. P 40 R, nr. 238, 18 May 1945.

¹⁰ See Söderblom's letter to Undén in RA. UD. HP 1 Er, nr. 260, 15 April 1946.

¹¹ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 74, d. 463, nr. 1748, 1749, 21 December 1946.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ This summary of Soviet-Swedish relations is built on the reports by the Swedish Minister in the USSR 1941–43, Vilhelm Assarsson and his presentation before the Swedish Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, RA. UD. HP 1 Er, 29 February 1944.

¹⁴ Assarsson distinguished three primary causes to the Soviet stance post Stalingrad. Firstly, the Soviets found it hard to accept and understand that Sweden, despite the weakening of Nazi Germany, kept making concessions to Berlin that in the eyes of the Soviets seemed unnecessary and even helped Berlin to prolong the war. Secondly, in December 1942, the Head of the Soviet tourist agency, Intourist, in Sweden, Vasilii Sidorenko was sentenced to ten years hard labour on charges of espionage and in February 1943, the Supreme Court, raised his sentence to twelve years. The Soviets demanded Sidorenko's immediate release at nearly all meetings with the Swedish Minister throughout 1943. Thirdly, Moscow was unhappy with Sweden's inability to convince the Finns to initiate peace negotiations. A peace agreement between the two was reached on 4 September 1944 – Sweden undoubtedly played a part in the talks between Helsinki and Moscow – but the Soviets would have preferred to redeploy forces from the Finnish to the German front way earlier than that.

¹⁵ On Kollontai and the expulsion of Assarsson, see Kumlin's letter in RA. UD. HP 1 Er, 26 January 1944. See also Wilhelm M. Carlgren, Svensk utrikespolitik 1939–1945, (Stockholm: Allmänna förlaget, 1973), 497–490.

¹⁶ Assarsson's presentation to Parliament.

¹⁷ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 12, p. 28, d. 172, nr. 264, 24 January 1944 (Boheman) and AVPRF, f. 059, op. 12, p. 28, d. 172, nr 361, 4 February 1944 (Wallenberg).

¹⁸ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 12, p. 49, d. 306, nr. 3383 (10 October 1944) and nr. 3465 (18 October 1944).

¹⁹ In his address before the Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Assarsson noted that ‘should the border with Finland be regulated in accordance with the border of 1940, and should Russia reestablish the dominance over the Baltic states, there is in my opinion no reason to believe that Moscow should have any aspirations for Swedish, Norwegian or Danish territory’.

²⁰ On Soviet intelligence on the refugees, see the undated NKGB memo reprinted in Lev F. Sotskov, Pribalitka i geopolitika 1935–1945 gg. Rassekrechennye dokumenty sluzhby vneshnei razvedki Rossiiskoi Federatsii, (Moskva: Ripol klassik, 2010), 443–456. The exodus of Balts has been addressed by Wilhelm M. Carlgren, Sverige och Baltikum, (Stockholm: Publica, 1993), and Carl Göran Andrae, Sverige och den stora flykten från Estland 1943–1944, (Uppsala: Kungl. Gustav Adolfs akademien för svensk folkkultur, 2004).

²¹ “Memo on the Baltic refugees in Sweden”, RA. UD. P 40 R, 30 November 1945.

²² Mark Elliot, “The Soviet repatriation campaign”, in The Refugee Experience, ed. Wsevolod W. Isajiw et al. (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 1992), 341–359, 341. On the concept of ‘displaced persons’, see Anna Holian, Between National Socialism and Soviet Communism; Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany, (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2011).

²³ “Vår baltiska fara”, Ny dag, 16 November 1944.

²⁴ RA. UA. P 40 R, 20 January 1944.

²⁵ Curt Ekholm, Balt och tyskutlämningen 1945–1946, del 1: ankomsten och interneringen, (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1984), 39–42.

²⁶ When asked by the Head of the UD's Department for Trade, Rolf Sohlman, whether the halt to negotiations on trade and credit had any connection to the issue of the Baltic refugees, Chernyshev answered that ‘the conditions of the proposed credit were unacceptable’ and that the refugee issue ‘had made a very negative impression, both on our citizens, but also the workers of Sweden’, AVPRF, f. 059, op 15, p. 66, d. 386, nr. 132, 19 January 1945. On Swedish requests for protection and cultural initiatives, see for example RA. UD. HP 80 Ea, 22 January 1945, nr. 33 and RA. UD. HP 80 Ea, 23 January 1945, nr. 31.

²⁷ See for example RA. UD. P 40 R, nr. 238, 18 May 1945 and RA. UD. P 40 R, nr. 392, 11 August 1945.

²⁸ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 15, p. 67, d. 388, nr. 1489, 1490, 21 June 1945.

²⁹ Elliot, “The Soviet repatriation campaign”, 341–343.

³⁰ An encrypted cable or cipher cable is a coded message. Soviet ciphers were ‘double-encrypted’, i.e. words and phrases were first represented through series of numbers and then again encrypted through additives of random groups of numbers from a so-called one-time pad used by both sender and receiver.

³¹ Johan Matz, “Cables in Cipher, the Raoul Wallenberg Case and Swedish-Soviet Diplomatic Communication 1944–1947”, Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 38, issue 3, 2013. On Soviet encrypted cables, see also Robert L. Benson, The Venona Story. (Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History.National Security Agency.) http://www.nsa.gov/about/ files/ cryptologic_heritage/publications/coldwar/venona_story.pdf (accessed 15 February 2014).

³² Vladimir O. Pechatnov and C. Earl Edmondson, “The Russian Perspective”, in Debating the Origins of the Cold War; American and Russian Perspectives, ed. Ralph B. Levering et al. (Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), 100.

³³ Pechatnov and Edmondson, “The Russian Perspective”, 89–90. Sweden's quest for a credit and trade agreement with the USSR should be seen as following from this prospect of a major post-war recession in the west. See Birgit Karlsson, Handelspolitik eller politisk handling; Sveriges handel med öststaterna 1946–1952, (Göteborg: Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen vid Göteborgs universitet, 1992), 66; Örjan Appelqvist, Världsintressets advokat; Gunnar Myrdal och den svenska efterkrigsplaneringen 1944–1945, Forskningsprogrammet Sverige under kalla kriget, arbetsrapport nr. 2 (Stockholm: historiska institutionen, 1997).

³⁴ Vojtech Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 19. Pechatnov and Edmondson, “The Russian Perspective”, 124.

³⁵ Pechatnov and Edmondson, “The Russian Experience”, 118–119.

³⁶ See for example, Pechatnov and Edmondson, “The Russian Experience”, 120; Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, Stalin's Cold War, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 89–93 and Peter G. Boyle, American-Soviet Relations, (Routledge: London, 1993), 54–70.

³⁷ On Sweden's policy on various matters involving postwar relations with the USSR, see Ekholm, Balt och tyskutlämningen 1945–1946; Wilhelm Agrell, Den stora lögnen, (Stockholm: Ordfronts förlag, 1991); Karlsson, Handelspolitik eller politisk handling; Appelqvist, Världsintressets advokat and Robert Dalsjö, “The Hidden Rationality of Sweden's Policy of Neutrality during the Cold War”, Cold War History, DOI:10.1080/14682745.2013.765865.

³⁸ On the lack of access to Soviet material, see Ulf Bjereld, Alf W. Johansson and Karl Molin, Sveriges säkerhet och världens fred, (Stockholm: Santérus, 2008), 37.

³⁹ Bo Petersson, Med Moskvas ögon; bedömningar av svensk utrikespolitik under Stalin och Chrusjtjov, (Smedjebacken: Arena, 1994), 40–47.

⁴⁰ On imperial overstretch, see Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) and Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, (New York: Random House, 1998).

⁴¹ This excessive use of the encrypted means of communication was seen as problematic by the Soviet leadership. In a circular cable in mid-1945, deputy foreign minister Andrei Vyshinskii complained about length of the cables, as well as the fact that many of them addressed issues of that could equally well have been sent via regular diplomatic mail. Vyshinskii's cable was intercepted and decrypted by the US Army's Signal Intelligence Service, the so-called Venona project, and is available online at http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1945/28jul_cipher_correspondence.pdf. See also Matz, “Cables in Cipher”, 355.

⁴² AVPRF, f. 012, op. 7, p. 119, d. 473, ll. 2–3, 16 February 1946, quoted in Petersson, Med Moskvas ögon, 43.

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 15, p. 67, d. 388, nr. 1314, 3 June 1945.

⁴⁵ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 458, nr. 66, 16 January 1946, nr. 73, 17 January 1946, nr. 100, 20 January 1946 and (talk with Gyllenkrok) AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 458, nr. 88–90, 19 January 1946.

⁴⁶ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 458, nr. 161–163, 29 January 1946.

⁴⁷ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 459, nr. 525, 526, 21 April 1946.

⁴⁸ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 460, nr. 637, 18 May 1946 and nr. 651 (date unknown).

⁴⁹ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 460, nr. 740, 6 June 1946.

⁵⁰ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 460, nr. 775, 14 June 1946.

⁵¹ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 461, nr. 927, 13 July 1946.

⁵² AVPRF, f. 012, p. 87, d. 307, ll. 1–3, quoted in Petersson, Med Moskvas ögon, 20.

⁵³ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 15, p. 67, d. 388, nr. 1316, 1317, 3 June 1945.

⁵⁴ On the Bosch affair, see Birgit Karlsson, “Ekonomiska aspekter på Raoul Wallenberg fallet, in the Eliasson Commissions's report Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, SOU 2003:18 (Stockholm: Elanders gotab, 2003), 654–648.

⁵⁵ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 15, p. 67, d. 390, nr. 2294, 2295, 4 November 1945.

⁵⁶ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 458, nr. 205–207, 7 February 1946.

⁵⁷ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 459, nr. 378–382, 12 March 1946.

⁵⁸ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 460, nr. 643–646, 19 May 1946.

⁵⁹ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 461, nr. 904–906, 10 July 1946.

⁶⁰ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 74, d. 462, nr. 1284, 1285. See also Karlsson, 46.

⁶¹ AVPRF, f. 0140, op. 31, d. 5, p. 133, ll. 21–23, 31 March 1946.

⁶² AVPRF, f. 059, op. 15, p. 67, d. 388, nr. 1316, 1317, 3 June 1945.

⁶³ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 458, nr. 205–207, 7 February 1946.

⁶⁴ See for example, Chernyshev's report from the Parliamentary debate on the Balts in November 1945 in AVPRF, f. 06, op. 7, p. 52, d. 852, l. 202, quoted in Petersson, Med Moskvas ögon, 23. On Undén's posture to the issue of the extradition, see Yngve Möller, Östen Undén, en biografi, (Stockholm: Norstedts, 1986), 240–262.

⁶⁵ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 460, nr. 853, 29 June 1946.

⁶⁶ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 18, p. 54, d. 350, nr. 136–140, 30 January 1947.

⁶⁷ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 18, p. 54, d. 350, nr. 136–140, 30 January 1947.

⁶⁸ The USSR demanded their extradition inter alia in January 1945. See ‘Priem shvedskogo poslannika S. Sederblioma’, in AVPRF, f. 0140, op. 30, p. 129, 26 January 1945.

⁶⁹ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 460, nr. 859, 1 July 1946.

⁷⁰ On the Granovskii case, see Statens utlänningskommission, hemliga arkivet, vol. f 4:7. Kassavalvsdossier 237 and Granovskii's book; I was an NKVD Agent (New York: The Devin Adair Company, 1962).

⁷¹ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 463, nr 1583–1585, 19 November 1946 (Westman). The report from the talk with Erlander, marked with the highest priority (vnie ocheredi), was sent on 23 November in two ciphers: AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 463, nr. 1610 and nr. 1611–1613.

⁷² AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 463, nr. 1617–1621. 24 November 1946.

⁷³ Matz, “Cables in Cipher”, 357–359.

⁷⁴ Alastair Kocho-Williams, “The Soviet diplomatic corps and Stalin's purges”, The Slavonic and East European Review 86, no. 1, January 2008, 90–110.

⁷⁵ Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity, 19.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 18–19.

⁷⁷ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 458, nr. 212–213, 27 January 1946.

⁷⁸ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 458, nr. 144–146, 27 January 1946.

⁷⁹ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 459, nr. 318, 319, 1 March 1946.

⁸⁰ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 460, nr. 853, 29 June 1946.

⁸¹ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 460, nr. 859, 1 July 1946.

⁸² See for example AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 459, nr. 542, 27 April 1946 AVPRF, f. 059 op. 16, p. 73, d. 460, nr. 611, 13 May 1946 and AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p.73, d. 461, nr. 1050, 29 August 1946.

⁸³ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p. 73, d. 462, nr, 1318–1320, 26 September 1946.

⁸⁴ AVPRF, f. 059, op. 16, p 73, d. 461, nr. 982–984, 26 July 1946.

⁸⁵ Sven Grafström, Anteckningar 1945–1954, (Stockholm: Kungliga samfundet för utgivande av handskrifter rörande Skandinaviens historia, 1989), 691. Swedish views on Chernyshev differed. In a talk with Dekanozov, Boheman was reported to have said that he considered Chernyshev to be a ‘very intelligent and educated Soviet diplomat’. “Priem shvedskogo poslannika v Parizhe Bochemana”, AVPRF, f. 012, op. 7, p. 96, d. 5, l. 136, 6 July 1946.

Additional information

Funding

Generous funding for this article has been provided by the Swedish government's grant for independent research on Raoul Wallenberg.

Notes on contributors

Johan Matz

Dr Johan Matz was awarded a PhD in 2001 by the Department of Government, Uppsala University. He was Secretary to the Commission on the Swedish handling of the Raoul Wallenberg case (the Eliasson Commission) (SOU 2003:18) and Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Swedish Parliament (2003–2011). He is currently a researcher at the Centre for Russian Studies, University of Uppsala (2011-). In 2012, Matz was granted access to Soviet encrypted cables between the Soviet Legation in Stockholm and the Soviet Foreign Ministry for the years 1944–47.