Correspondent’s Questions

October 3, 1942

The Moscow correspondent of the American News Agency Associated Press, Mr. Henry Cassidy, addressed to J. V. Stalin, as Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the U.S.S.R., a letter in which he asked for an answer, either verbally or in writing, to three questions of interest to the American public. In reply J. V. Stalin sent Mr. Cassidy the following letter:

Dear Mr. Cassidy,

Owing to pressure of work and consequent inability to grant you an interview, I shall confine myself to a brief written answer to your questions.

(1) Question: What place does the possibility of a Second Front occupy in Soviet estimates of the current situation? Answer: A very important place: one might say a place of first-rate importance.

(2) Question: To what extent is Allied aid to the Soviet Union proving effective, and what could be done to amplify and improve this aid?

Answer: As compared with the aid which the Soviet Union is giving to the Allies by drawing upon itself the main forces of the German-fascist armies, the aid of the Allies to the Soviet Union has so far been little effective. In order to amplify and improve this aid only one thing is required: that the Allies fulfil their obligations completely and on time.

(3) Question: What remains of the Soviet capacity for resistance?

Answer: I think that the Soviet capacity for resisting the German brigands is in strength not a whit less, if not greater, than the capacity of fascist Germany, or of any other aggressive Power, to secure for itself world domination. October 3, 1942

With respects

(Signed) J. Stalin