There were three distinct phases in Soviet foreign policy between the conclusion of the
Russian Civil War and the
Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939, determined in part by political struggles within the USSR, and in part by dynamic developments in international relations and the effect these had on Soviet security. greeted by German officers at
Brest-Litovsk, 8 January 1918 Lenin, once in power, believed the
October Revolution would ignite the world's socialists and lead to a "World Revolution." Lenin set up the
Communist International (Comintern) to
export revolution to the rest of Europe and Asia. Indeed, Lenin set out to "liberate" all of Asia from imperialist and capitalist control. The first stage not only was defeated in key attempts, but angered the other powers by its promise to overthrow capitalism.
World revolution The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in the
October Revolution of November 1917 but they could not stop the
Imperial German Army from advancing rapidly deep into Russia in
Operation Faustschlag. The Bolsheviks saw Russia as only the first step—they planned to incite revolutions against capitalism in every western country. The immediate threat was an unstoppable German attack. The Germans wanted to knock Russia out of the war so they could move their forces to the
Western Front in spring 1918 before the
American Expeditionary Force soldiers fully deployed. In early March 1918, after bitter internal debate, Russia agreed to harsh German peace terms at the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Moscow lost control of the
Baltic States,
Poland,
Ukraine, and other areas that before the war produced much of Russia's food supply, industrial base, coal, and communication links with Western Europe." Russia's allies Britain and France felt betrayed: "The treaty was the ultimate betrayal of the Allied cause and sowed the seeds for the Cold War. With Brest-Litovsk the spectre of German domination in Eastern Europe threatened to become reality, and the Allies now began to think seriously about military intervention [in Russia]." In 1918, Britain sent in money and some troops to support the
anti-Bolshevik White Army, as well as
pro-independence anti-Bolshevik movements on the periphery of the former Empire. France, Japan and the United States also sent forces to block German advances. In effect the Allies were assisting the various anti-Bolshevik forces of different nationalities and political leanings. The
Russian Civil War saw the uncoordinated resistance to the Bolsheviks from every direction. However, the Bolsheviks, operating a unified command from a central location, defeated all the opposition one by one and took full control of Russia, as well as conquering newly independent countries such as
Ukraine,
Georgia,
Armenia, and
Azerbaijan. The U.S. and France refused to deal with the Soviet regime because of its promise to support revolutions to overthrow governments everywhere. U.S. Secretary of State
Bainbridge Colby stated: :It is their [Bolshevik] understanding that the very existence of Bolshevism in Russia, the maintenance of their own rule, depends, and must continue to depend, upon the occurrence of revolutions in all other great civilized nations, including the United States, which will overthrow and destroy their governments and set up Bolshevist rule in their stead. They have made it quite plain that they intend to use every means, including, of course, diplomatic agencies, to promote such revolutionary movements in other countries. After Germany was defeated in November 1918 and Soviet Russia won the Civil War, the first priority for Moscow was instigating revolutions across Western Europe, above all Germany. It was the country that Lenin most admired and assumed to be most ready for revolution. Lenin also encouraged revolutions that failed in
Germany,
Bavaria and
Hungary from 1918 to 1920 – this support was solely political and economic, and the
Red Army did not participate in these revolutions. In 1920, the newly formed state of Poland expanded eastwards into the former Russian territories of Ukraine and Belarus. The Red Army
retaliated and invaded Poland, but was
defeated outside Warsaw in August 1920. Shortly afterwards, the Russian SFSR sued for peace, which was signed at the
Peace of Riga on 18 March 1921. Russia recompensed 30 million
roubles, as well as sizeable territory in Belarus and Ukraine, which would be later re-annexed in 1939 after the
German-Soviet Pact and subsequent
Invasion of Poland. Independent revolutions had failed to overthrow capitalism. Moscow pulled back from military action and set up the
Comintern, designed to foster local communist parties under Kremlin control.
American relief and Russian famine of 1921 Under
Herbert Hoover, very large scale food relief was distributed to Europe after the war through the
American Relief Administration. In 1921, to ease the devastating famine in Russia that was triggered by the Soviet government's
war communism policies, the ARA's director in Europe,
Walter Lyman Brown, began negotiating with the
Russian People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs,
Maxim Litvinov, in
Riga,
Latvia (at that time not yet annexed by the USSR). An agreement was reached on 21 August 1921, and an additional implementation agreement was signed by Brown and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade
Leonid Krasin on 30 December 1921. The U.S. Congress appropriated $20,000,000 for relief under the
Russian Famine Relief Act of late 1921. Hoover strongly detested Bolshevism, and felt the American aid would demonstrate the superiority of Western capitalism and thus help contain the spread of communism. At its peak, the ARA employed 300 Americans, more than 120,000 Russians and fed 10.5 million people daily. Its Russian operations were headed by Col.
William N. Haskell. The Medical Division of the ARA functioned from November 1921 to June 1923 and helped overcome the
typhus epidemic then ravaging Russia. The ARA's famine relief operations ran in parallel with much smaller
Mennonite, Jewish and
Quaker famine relief operations in Russia. The ARA's operations in Russia were shut down on 15 June 1923, after it was discovered that Russia under Lenin renewed the export of grain.
Success in Central Asia and the Caucasus Lenin's plans failed, although Russia did manage to conquer the Central Asian and Caucasian domains that had been part of the
Russian Empire. The revolutionary stage ended after the Soviet defeat in the
Battle of Warsaw during the
Soviet-Polish War of 1920–21. As Europe's revolutions were crushed and revolutionary zeal dwindled, the Bolsheviks shifted their ideological focus from the
world revolution and building socialism around the globe to building socialism inside the Soviet Union, while keeping some of the rhetoric and operations of the Comintern continuing. In the mid-1920s, a policy of peaceful co-existence began to emerge, with Soviet diplomats attempting to end the country's isolation, and concluding bilateral arrangements with capitalist governments. An agreement was reached with Germany, Europe's other pariah, in the
Treaty of Rapallo in 1922. At the same time the Rapallo treaty was signed it set up a secret system for hosting large-scale training and research facilities for the
German army and air force, despite the strict prohibitions on Germany in the
Treaty of Versailles. These facilities operated until 1933 and then in 1939–1941. The Soviet Union finalized a treaty of friendship with
Afghanistan, which had gained full independence following the
Third Anglo-Afghan War. The Afghan king,
Amanullah Khan, wrote to Moscow stressing his desire for permanent friendly relations; Lenin replied congratulating him and the Afghans for their defense. The Soviets saw possibilities in an alliance with Afghanistan against the United Kingdom, such as using it as a base for a revolutionary advance towards
British-controlled India. The treaty of friendship was finalized in 1921.
Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), (1919–1943), was an international organization of
communist parties. It was headed by
Grigory Zinoviev (1919–26) and based in the
Kremlin; it reported to Lenin and later Stalin. Lenin envisioned the national branches not as political parties, but "as a centralized quasi-religious, and quasi-military movement devoted to the revolution and to service of the Soviet state." Commentators compared it to the
Jesuit order, with its
vow of obedience. It coordinated the different parties internationally and issued orders that they obeyed. The Comintern resolved at its
Second Congress to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state". That policy was soon dropped by 1921 because it interfered with the decision to seek friendly relations with capitalistic nations. The new economic policy at home required trade with the West and bank credits if possible. The main obstacle was Moscow's refusal to honor Tsarist-era debts. The Comintern was officially dissolved by Stalin in 1943 to avoid antagonizing its new allies against Germany, the United States and Great Britain.
Stalin: Socialism in one country Trotsky argued for the continuation of the revolutionary process, in terms of his theory of
permanent revolution. After Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky lost the power struggle to Stalin and
Nikolai Bukharin. Trotsky was sent into exile in 1929 and in 1940 was assassinated on Stalin's orders. Stalin's main policy was
socialism in one country. He focused on modernization of the Soviet Union, developing manufacturing, building infrastructure and improving agriculture. Expansion and wars were no longer on the agenda. The Kremlin-sponsored
united front policy, with foreign Communist parties taking the lead in education and national liberation movements. The goal was
opposition to fascism, especially the
Nazi variety. The high point of the United Front was the partnership in
China between the
Chinese Communist Party and the
nationalist Kuomintang. The
United Front policy in China effectively crashed to ruin in 1927, when Kuomintang leader
Chiang Kai-shek massacred the native Communists and expelled all of his Soviet advisors, notably
Mikhail Borodin. A
short war erupted in 1929 as the Soviets successfully fought to keep control of the
Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria. After defeating all his opponents from both the left (led by Trotsky and
Grigory Zinoviev) and the right (led by Bukharin), Stalin was in full charge. He began the wholesale
collectivization of Soviet agriculture, accompanied by a massive program of
planned industrialization.
Respectability and normal relations After 1921 the main foreign-policy goals were for the
major powers to treat the Soviet state as a normal country, and to open trade relations and diplomatic recognition. There was no more crusading for world revolution: the Communist Party leadership began to recognize that international revolution would not come and that Soviet Russia would have to reach some form of temporary accommodation with the "bourgeois" capitalist countries.
Georgy Chicherin served as Soviet Russia's
People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (foreign minister) from 1918 to 1930. He worked against the
League of Nations and attempted to lure the German
Weimar Republic into an alliance with Moscow, an effort aided by his close personal friendship with the
German Ambassador to Moscow,
Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau (in office: 1922–1928). Diplomatic tensions fed into the war scare of 1927. The League made several efforts to develop better relations with Russia, but these attempts were always rebuffed: the Soviets regarded the League as simply an alliance of hostile, capitalist powers. The USSR did not seek admission to the League of Nations until 1934, when it joined with French backing. It was expelled from the League in 1939 following the
Soviet invasion of Finland.
Rapallo Treaty 1922 The
Genoa Conference of 1922 brought the Soviet Union and Germany for the first time into negotiations with the major European powers. The conference broke down when France insisted that Germany pay more in
reparations, and demanded that Moscow start paying off the Tsarist-era debts that it had repudiated. Soviet Russia and Germany were both pariah countries, deeply distrusted. The solution for the Soviets and the Weimar Germans was to get together at the nearby resort city of
Rapallo,
Italy, where they quickly negotiated the
1922 Treaty of Rapallo. In a friendly agreement, they made a clean break with the past, repudiating all old financial and territorial obligations and agreeing to normalize diplomatic and economic relations. Secretly, the two sides established elaborate
military cooperation, while publicly denying it. This enabled Germany to rebuild its army and air force secretly at sites in the Soviet Union, in violation of the 1919
Treaty of Versailles.
Great Britain Trade and recognition At the direction of the Comintern, by 1937, 10% of
Communist Party of Great Britain members were operating secretly inside the
British Labour Party, campaigning to change its policy on affiliation and to engineer a
Popular Front. The Labour leadership fought back and became bitter enemies of Communism. When Labour came to power in the
1945 UK general election, it was increasingly hostile to the Soviet Union and supported the United States.
Zinoviev letter Four days before the
British general election in 1924 the London
Daily Mail newspaper published the
Zinoviev letter. This document, purportedly a directive from
Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the
Communist International in Moscow, to the
Communist Party of Great Britain, ordered it to engage in seditious activities. It predicted that the resumption of diplomatic relations (by a
Labour government) would hasten the radicalization of the
British working class. This would have constituted a significant interference in
British politics, and as a result, it was deeply offensive to British voters, turning them against the Labour Party. The letter seemed authentic at the time, but historians now agree it was a forgery. The letter aided the
Conservative Party under
Stanley Baldwin, by hastening the collapse of the
Liberal Party vote that produced a Conservative landslide against
Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Party.
A. J. P. Taylor argued that the most important impact was on the psychology of Labourites, who for years afterward blamed their defeat on foul play, thereby misunderstanding the political forces at work and postponing necessary reforms in the Labour Party.
United States In the 1920s, the
Republican administrations in Washington refused to recognize the Soviet régime. However, some American businesses, led by
Henry Ford, opened close relations. The Soviets greatly admired American technology and welcomed help in achieving the ambitious industrial goals of Stalin's
First Five-Year Plan of 1928–1932. Ford built modern factories and trained Soviet engineers. President
Franklin Roosevelt recognized the USSR in 1933, in the expectation that trade would soar and help the US out of its economic depression. That goal did not materialize, but Roosevelt maintained good relations with Moscow until his death in 1945.
Attack on social democratic parties In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin insisted on a policy of fighting against non-communist socialist movements everywhere. This new radical phase was paralleled by the formulation of a new doctrine in the International, that of the so-called
Third Period, an ultra-left switch in policy, which argued that
social democracy, whatever shape it took, was a form of
social fascism, socialist in theory but
fascist in practice. All foreign Communist parties – increasingly agents of Soviet policy – were to concentrate their efforts in a struggle against their rivals in the working-class movement, ignoring the threat of real fascism. There were to be no united fronts against a greater enemy.
Battling social democracy in Germany 1927–1932 In Germany, Stalin gave a high priority to an anti-capitalist revolution in Germany. His
Communist Party of Germany (KPD) split the working-class vote with the moderate
Social Democratic Party. The SPD was the historic social democratic party in Germany, and tempered its Marxism to drop revolutionary goals and instead focus on systematic improvement of the condition of the working-class. This approach ran contrary to the goals and beliefs of the KPD which considered such short term concessions for the working that served only to delay the revolution. In the
Reichstag, the KPD sought to overthrow the Weimar government, which was historically controlled by a moderate coalition of liberals, Catholics, and the social democrats. As the
Nazi Party grew rapidly throughout the early 1930s, winning support among the
Protestant working class and financial capitalists, this system became increasingly undermined by political extremists. There was some fighting between the KPD and the Nazis in Germany's industrial cities. However, after The Communist International's abrupt
ultra-left turn in its
Third Period from 1928, the KPD regarded the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) as its main adversary and adopted the position that the SPD was the main fascist party in Germany. This was based on the theory of
social fascism that had been proclaimed by
Joseph Stalin and that was supported by the Comintern during the late 1920s and early 1930s, which held that
social democracy was a variant of fascism. Consequently, the KPD held that it was "the only anti-fascist party" in Germany and stated that "fighting fascism means fighting the SPD just as much as it means fighting
Hitler and the parties of
Brüning." In KPD and Soviet usage,
fascism was primarily viewed as the final stage of capitalism rather than a specific group or movement such as the
Italian Fascists or the German
Nazis and, based on this theory, the term was applied quite broadly. In 1929, the KPD's banned public
May Day rally in Berlin was broken up by police;
33 people were killed in the clash and subsequent rioting. The RFB was then banned as extremist by the governing Social Democrats. During the Third Period, the KPD viewed the Nazi Party ambiguously. On one hand, the KPD considered the Nazi Party to be one of the fascist parties. On the other hand, the KPD sought to appeal to the
Strasserite-wing of the Nazi movement by using nationalist slogans. In 1931, the KPD had united with the Nazis, whom they referred to as "working people's comrades", in
an unsuccessful attempt to bring down the SPD state government of Prussia by means of a referendum. In the usage of the Soviet Union, and of the Comintern and its affiliated parties in this period, including the KPD, the epithet
fascist was used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually any anti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion. The formation of
Antifaschistische Aktion in 1932 indicated a shift away from the Third Period policies, as fascism came to be recognised as a more serious threat (the two red flags on its logo symbolized Communists in unity with socialists), leading up to the 1934 and 1935 adoption of a
popular front policy of anti-fascist unity with non-Communist groups. In October 1931, a coalition of right-wing and far-right parties established the
Harzburg Front, which opposed the government of the
Centre Party's Heinrich Brüning. In response, the SPD and affiliated group established the
Iron Front to defend
liberal democracy and the constitution of the
Weimar Republic.
Antifaschistische Aktion was formed partly as a counter-move to the SPD's establishment of the Iron Front, However, from the mid-1930s, the term
anti-fascist became ubiquitous in Soviet, Comintern, and KPD usage, as Communists who had been attacking democratic rivals were now told to change tack and engage in coalitions with them against the fascist threat. According to George Stein, a secret major military collaboration between Russia and Germany began in the early 1920s. Both sides benefitted from operational activities at the bases of Lipetsk, Kazan, and Torski. When Hitler and his Nazis came to power in 1933, the collaboration ended because Stalin feared the dangerous expansionist policy of the Nazis and neither he nor Hitler would risk further cooperation. Instead Stalin ordered Germans to cooperate with the SPD, but Hitler quickly suppressed both. With the KPD destroyed, a few leaders managed to escape into exile in Moscow, some of whom would be executed and others become leaders of East Germany in 1945. Simultaneously in Germany, the Nazis completely destroyed the SPD, imprisoning its leaders or forcing them into exile as well. According to historian
Eric D. Weitz, 60% of German exiles in the Soviet Union had been liquidated during the Stalinist terror and a higher proportion of the KPD Politburo membership had died in the Soviet Union than in Nazi Germany. Weitz also noted that hundreds of German citizens, most of them Communists, were handed over to the Gestapo by Stalin's administration.
Popular fronts (1933–1939) Communists and parties on the left were increasingly threatened by the growth of the Nazi movement. Hitler came to power in January 1933 and rapidly consolidated his control over Germany, destroyed the communist and socialist movements in Germany, and rejected the restraints imposed by the Versailles treaty. Stalin in 1934 reversed his decision in 1928 to attack socialists, and introduced his new plan: the "popular front." It was a coalition of anti-fascist parties usually organized by the local communists acting under instructions from the Comintern. The new policy was to work with all parties on the left and center in a multiparty coalition against fascism and Nazi Germany in particular. The new slogan was: "The People's Front Against Fascism and War". Under this policy, Communist Parties were instructed to form broad alliances with all anti-fascist parties with the aim of both securing social advance at home and a military alliance with the USSR to isolate the fascist dictatorships. The "Popular Fronts" thus formed proved to be successful in only a few countries, and only for a few years each, forming the government in
France,
Chile and
Spain, and also China. It was not a political success elsewhere. The Popular Front approach played a major role in
Resistance movements in
France and other countries conquered by Germany after 1939. After the war it played a major role in French and Italian politics. with Polish foreign minister
Józef Beck in Moscow, February 1934 Hand-in-hand with the promotion of Popular Fronts,
Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs between 1930 and 1939, aimed at closer alliances with Western governments, and placed ever greater emphasis on
collective security. The new policy led to the Soviet Union joining the
League of Nations in 1934 and the subsequent non-aggression pacts with France and Czechoslovakia. In the League the Soviets were active in demanding action against imperialist aggression, a particular danger to them after the 1931
Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which eventually resulted in the Soviet-Japanese
Battle of Khalkhin Gol. Ignoring the agreement it signed to avoid involvement in the
Spanish Civil War, the USSR sent arms and troops and organized volunteers to fight for the
republican government. Communist forces systematically killed their old enemies the
Spanish anarchists, even though they were on the same Republican side. The Spanish government sent its entire treasury to Moscow for safekeeping, but it was never returned. The
Munich Agreement of 1938, the first stage in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, gave rise to Soviet fears that they were likely to be abandoned in a possible war with Germany. In the face of continually dragging and seemingly hopeless negotiations with Britain and France, a new cynicism and hardness entered Soviet foreign relations when Litvinov was replaced by
Vyacheslav Molotov in May 1939.
Alliance with France By 1935, Moscow and Paris identified
Nazi Germany as the main military, diplomatic, ideological, and economic threat. Germany could probably defeat each one separately in a war, but would avoid a
two-front war against both of them simultaneously. The solution, therefore, was a military alliance. It was pursued by
Louis Barthou, the French foreign minister, but he was assassinated in October 1934 and his successor,
Pierre Laval, was more inclined to Germany. However, after the declaration of
German rearmament in March 1935 the French government forced the reluctant Laval to conclude a treaty. Written in 1935, it took effect in 1936. Both Paris and Moscow hoped other countries would join in and
Czechoslovakia to sign treaties with both France and the Soviet Union. Prague wanted to use the USSR as a counterweight against the growing strength of Nazi Germany. Poland might make a good partner too, but it refused to join in. The military provisions were practically useless because of multiple conditions and the requirement that the United Kingdom and
Fascist Italy approve any action. The effectiveness was undermined even further by the French government's insistent refusal to accept a military convention stipulating the way in which the two armies would coordinate actions in the event of war with Germany. The result was a symbolic pact of friendship and mutual assistance of little consequence other than raising the prestige of both parties. The Treaty marked a large scale shift in Soviet policy in the Comintern from a pro-revisionist stance against the
Treaty of Versailles to a more western-oriented foreign policy as championed by
Maxim Litvinov. Hitler justified the
remilitarization of the Rhineland by the ratification of the treaty in the French parliament, claiming that he felt threatened by the pact. However, after 1936, the French lost interest, and all parties in Europe realized the treaty was effectively a dead letter. The
appeasement policies of the prime ministers of Britain and France,
Neville Chamberlain and
Édouard Daladier were widely held because they seemed to promise what Chamberlain called "peace for our time." However, by early 1939 it was clear that it further encouraged Nazi aggression. The Soviet Union was not invited to the critical
Munich conference in late September 1938, where Britain, France, and Italy appeased Hitler by giving in to his demands to take over the
Sudetenland, a largely German-speaking area of Western Czechoslovakia. Distrust was high in all directions. Leaders in London and Paris felt that Stalin wanted to see a major war between the capitalist nations Germany on the one hand, and Britain and France on the other, in order to advance the prospects of a working-class revolution in Europe. Meanwhile, Stalin felt the Western Powers were plotting to embroil Germany and Russia in war in order to preserve bourgeois capitalism. After Hitler took over all of Czechoslovakia in 1939, proving appeasement was a disaster, Britain and France tried to involve the Soviet Union and a real military alliance. Their attempts were futile because Poland refused to allow any Soviet troops on its soil.
Diplomats purged In 1937–1938, Stalin took total personal control of the party, by purging and executing tens of thousands of high-level and mid-level party officials, especially the
Old Bolsheviks who had joined before 1917. The entire diplomatic service was downsized; many consular offices abroad were closed, and restrictions were placed on the activities and movements of foreign diplomats in the USSR. About a third of all foreign ministry officials were shot or imprisoned, including 62 of the 100 most senior officials. Key ambassadorial posts abroad, such as those in
Tokyo,
Warsaw,
Washington,
Bucharest, and
Budapest, were vacant.
Non-Aggression Pact with Germany (1939–1941) In 1938–1939, the Soviet Union attempted to form strong military alliances with Germany's enemies, including Poland, France, and Great Britain, but they all refused. In an effort to build up the Soviet military, Stalin made a non-aggression pact with Hitler, along with a secret protocol, and the two countries
invaded and partitioned Poland. The Soviet Union additionally
invaded and annexed the
Baltic states, as well as attacking Finland in the
Winter War, for which the USSR was expelled from the League of Nations. Soon after the pact,
Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Stalin's
invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact since it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence that had been agreed with the Axis. The German-Soviet pact provided for large sales of Russian grain and oil to Germany, while Germany would share its military technology with the Soviet Union. The ensuing
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact astonished the world and signaled the war would start very soon. French historian
François Furet says, "The pact signed in Moscow by Ribbentrop and Molotov on 23 August 1939 inaugurated the alliance between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was presented as an alliance and not just a nonaggression pact." Other historians dispute the characterization of this treaty as an "alliance," because Hitler secretly intended to
invade the USSR in the future. ==World War II==