Sweden, the USSR and the early Cold War 1944–47: declassified encrypted cables shed new light on Soviet diplomatic reporting about Sweden in the aftermath of World War II
In March 1946 the Soviet government decided to radically revise their policy towards Sweden. The Soviet demand, ever since November 1944, for the total extradition of the approximately 30,000 Baltic refugees in Sweden was suddenly dropped and a number of measures were taken by Moscow to accomplish a rapprochement between the two countries. On the basis of recently declassified Soviet encrypted diplomatic correspondence between the Soviet mission in Stockholm and the Soviet foreign ministry for the years 1944–1947, this article analyses the way in which the Soviet envoy to Sweden, Il'ia Chernyshev, represented Swedish affairs before his superiors in Moscow, and how these representations may have contributed to Moscow's decision to revise its policy towards Sweden.