Ivan Mikhailovich Maisky

Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maisky outlines the increasingly difficult conditions and huge losses on the Soviet front in the war against Germany, exacerbated by Stalin's 'scorched earth' tactics. He states that under such circumstances collaboration between Britain and the USSR is necessary. With this, he stresses the importance of Britain's 'Tanks for Russia' scheme, for which the Soviet people are grateful. He declares that the war effort must now be concentrated in the East and insists the world depends on 'tanks, more tanks and yet more tanks'.

In September 1941 Maisky received a warm welcome at the tank factory he visited in the Midlands to take delivery of the first tank (named after comrade Stalin) off the production line. In the war on the Eastern Front, known in the USSR as 'The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union', the Red Army was ill prepared for Germany's invasion, weakened as it was by Stalin's purges. More than 20 million Soviets died during World War II, about half of the total fatalities for the entire war.