This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchel. My conversation with Sean McMeakin, professor at Bard College, author of the new book, Stalin's War. This is a tour of the familiar territory in 1939 to 1948 from the point of view of Moscow. There are, however, puzzles. One of the puzzles

we've bypassed, but I want to come back because it's not all on FDR telling himself this will

work out. It's also Winston Churchill. Sean, who are the Chetniks? Who is Mikhailovich?

What does Churchill make of the presentation he's given by the BBC and other

Czechist agents in London that he should side with the wrong people in Yugoslavia?

Well, I do think Churchill at times during the war would put up at least a little bit more fight than Roosevelt did on some questions and strategy, but not in Yugoslavia.

I mean, this is definitely a good one to single out where I think Churchill really was hoodwinked.

Now, I mean, to be fair to Churchill, there was some evidence, and some of it was uncovered by British intelligence, the so-called Enigma Decrypts,

that Mikhailovich, who was this officer in the former Yugoslav army, who was the legity of

the Yugoslav government in exile in London, who led to Chetniks, this kind of group of rebels

who took to the hills and tried to resist the Nazis after the Germans invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941.

Now, Mikhailovich, like his kind of counterpart on the left, Braz or Tito, who was, of course, answering to Stalin,

at times during the war, would have to negotiate various kind of deals with either the Italian

occupying authorities or even once or twice with Serbs or indirectly with the Germans.

There were sometimes prisoner exchanges, weapons, and you could very easily weaponize this

information politically in order to smear someone as a collaborator. And that becomes the official

communist line on Mikhailovich, is that he's a collaborator.

It's a grotesque slander, of course.

I mean, his Chetniks resisted the Germans long before the partisans of Tito did because they had to have Soviet permission until the Germans invaded the Soviet Union.

The partisans were not even resisting.

Nor, of course, did they do as much damage that the Chetniks were much more effective, man for man, pound for pound. And in fact, in September 1943, there's this extraordinary moment where the Chetniks engaged the Germans directly. They actually inflict serious casualties. They blow up some bridges. And the BBC and all these other media organs actually give credit to the partisans for the

things the Chetniks actually did. And then there's this agent that's from Fisroy McLean. We don't really have time to explain exactly who he was, but he was someone who Churchill trusted and sent to Yugoslavia. And he just goes to Tito. He never meets with the Chetniks. He just listens to whatever Tito tells him and and he feeds this back to Churchill, and Churchill

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