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As the struggle against German fascism came to an end, Stalin was confident that communists would come to power in much of Western Europe. When Charles de Gaulle visited Moscow in 1944, Stalin got very drunk and teased him by asking, "Are you going to arrest ((the French Communist leader Maurice)) Thorez?" Thorez was living in Moscow at the time, but he was planning to return to Paris after the defeat of the Germans. Stalin signed a Franco-Soviet treaty during De Gaulle's visit, but he didn't attach much importance to it. "When Thorez arrives on the scene," he told us, "then the real work starts." At that time the Communist Party in France was large and powerful enough to have real political influence. It also had arms caches from the war.
Later, there was a similar situation in Italy. Palmiro Togliatti, the Italian Communist leader, was ready to start an armed insurrection. Stalin restrained Togliatti. He warned that an insurrection would be crushed by the American forces there.
Still, we had our hopes. Just as Russia came out of the First World War, made the revolution and established Soviet power, so after the catastrophe of World War II, Europe too might become Soviet. Everyone would take the path from capitalism to socialism. Stalin was convinced that postwar Germany would stage a revolution and create a proletarian state. Stalin wasn't the only one who incorrectly predicted this. All of us believed it. We had the same hopes for France and Italy.
But events did not develop in our favor. The powerful economy of the U.S. prevented the devastated economies of the European countries from reaching the flash point of revolutionary explosion. Things did not happen the way we expected in accordance with Marxist-Leninist theory. Unfortunately, all these countries stayed capitalist, and we ended up being disappointed. We concentrated on the consolidation of the gains of socialism in the fraternal countries of Eastern Europe.
In 1948, after the victory of the proletariat and the overthrow of the reactionary leadership in Czechoslovakia, Stalin was vacationing in the Crimea. Klement Gottwald, the Czechoslovak President, and his wife came for a visit. Stalin phoned and asked if I could come to the Crimea as soon as possible. "Gottwald is here and says he can't get along without you. He absolutely demands that you come." This was Stalin's idea of humor.
The next day I flew to Yalta. We met over meals. By then Stalin could not resist forcing liquor on people to get them drunk. Gottwald already had a fondness for drink, so Stalin didn't have to work very hard at getting him drunk. I remember Gottwald saying, "Comrade Stalin, why are your people stealing our technical secrets? They steal everything they can. We can see what's happening. It's an insult to us. We have no secrets from you. If you need some new technology or advanced designs, just say so and we'll give them to you. That would be much better. We are fully prepared to become part of the Soviet Union. I am asking you, Comrade Stalin: let's sign a treaty adding Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union."
Stalin stopped him right there. "Well, anything is possible," he said vaguely. But in fact he categorically rejected the idea of Czechoslovakia's joining the Soviet Union. I think he was right to do that.