Iosif Stalin, On The Grand Alliance and the Need for a Second Front. October 3, 1942
Henry C. Cassidy, Moscow correspondent of the United States Associated Press, addressed the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR Joseph Stalin with a request to reply orally or in writing to three questions which interest the American public. Stalin replied with the following letter:
Dear Mr. Cassidy:
Owing to pressure of work and the 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 fulfill their obligations fully and on time.
3. Question: What remains the Soviet capacity for resistance?
Answer: I think that the Soviet capacity of resisting the German brigands is in strength not less, if not greater, than the capacity of fascist Germany or of any other aggressive power to secure for itself world domination.
With respect,
(Signed) J. Stalin
Source: Soviet War Documents: USSR Information Bulletin Special Supplement (Washington: Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1943), p. 32.