This essay seeks to give a critical account of the USSRs international relations in the period
between the two World Wars. The essay covers such concepts of the foreign policy as
proletarian internationalism, peaceful coexistence, balance of power and collective security,
and international agreements determined by them: The Genoa Conference, Rapallo Treaty,
Manchuria crises, Munich pact and MolotovRibbentrop Pact. The emphasis is made on the
international relations being governed by the perspective of the future war.
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Critically assess the international relations of the USSR during the inter-war
period.
The foreign policy of the Soviet state, while maintaining continuity in implementation
of the geopolitical goals innate to the politics of the Russian Empire, differed in its character
and methods. During the interwar years the Soviets were to pursue both proletarian
The first policy of the proletarian internationalism, suggested mutual help between
the workers of the whole world in their difficult struggle for the overthrow of capitalism
(Lenin, 1922). It was based on Bolsheviks believe in the upcoming socialist revolution on
the global scale. In order to develop the policy the Comintern was established in 1919 in
Moscow. It consisted of about 70 communist and socialist parties in Europe and Asia. From
the day it was established Soviet Russia used the Comintern to meddle in the internal affairs
Second - policy of the peaceful coexistence with the capitalistic system - was defined
by the Soviets ambition to mark their positions on the international stage and brake out of the
political and economical isolation, while securing their borders. This meant acknowledging
the possibility of peaceful cooperation, and developing economic relations with the West. As
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(Stalin, 1952.)
The western policy towards the Soviet Union was not any less inconsistent. On one
hand the ruling classes of capitalist Europe remained implacably hostile to the USSR and all
it stood for (Saull, 2007) and therefore striving to stifle a new political entity by means of
political isolation and economic suffocation. On the other hand, the world leading powers
were aimed to compensate for the financial losses that accrued to countries after the October
revolution. This conditioned a gradual change from non-recognition of the USSR to the
desire for the establishment of political relations in order to open Russia, to facilitate the
The USSR managed to put an end to the political isolation in 1924 with first London,
shortely followed by France and Italy, establishing dimplomatic relations with Moscow. This
was greately conditioned by the economic crisis having broken out in the 1920s -1930s that
urged the European bourgeoisie to take steps toward the resumption of trade relations with
Russia, that was doing impressively well, demonstrating zero unemployment while engaged
in massive ultra-rapid industrialization under its new Five-Year Plans ( Hobsbawm, 1996).
Inter-capitalist divisions, the legacy of the war, protracted since the Versailles only
escalated the situation, which the Soviet Union took the full advantage of. Indeed:
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economic relations
(Saull, 2007)
It was these divisions that handicapped the negotiations of The Genoa Conference.
The opening session of the Genoa Conference was held on 10 April 1922. The
Entente powers invited the Soviet Union to take part in the Conference in order to regulate
two unresolved questions regarding economical claims against Russia: repayment of war and
foreigners. In the course of the conference there occurred a visible division between western
powers. The negotiations ran into the sand due to mutual unwillingness to compromise.
France unsurprisingly took a very firm position on the debts question, while Britain was not
ready to openly go against it. De facto the conference was scuttled by the uncompromising
The blame for the Genoa failure, however, should not be shifted utterly on the western
Litvinov and Chicherin. Their intention was to split the coalition of creditors by dividing
among themselves the bourgeois countries in order to attain the best possible economic
agreements (Jacobson, 1994). According to Lenin the goal of international politics of the
proletarian state during the period of coexisting with capitalist countries was every
encouragement and taking advantage of dissent and hatred among the capitalists to make
placing of the final nail in the coffin of the imperialism easier. "The fundamental rule" of
Soviet foreign policy - "until the final victory of socialism on the world scale " - should
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be "the use of enmity between the capitalist countries, pitting them against each other."
Lenin expressed the hope that the "beasts of capitalism" , who won the World War will fight
each other till there is nothing left but tails (Lenin, 1960-70).
Meanwhile, USSR not only prevented European countries from imposing upon
Soviet Russia a settlement based on capitalist principles but also developed its closest
diplomatic relations with one of them and signed an separate agreement on debts and
recognition the Rapallo treaty, signed between Russia and Germany in May 1923.
(Jacobson, 1994), (Saull, 2007). This inter alia implied mutual hands-off attitude regarding
Until the Nazi party was elected to power in Germany in 1933 the international
relations of the USSR pursued, by and large, the policy of Rapallo (Deutscher, 1967). In
the following 1923, 1924 Russia was reaping the fruits of Rapallo, widening the breaches
in the cordon sanitaire; Britain, Italy, Austria, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Deutschland,
France, China, Mexico resumed diplomatic relations with Russia. The SovietJapanese Basic
In the spirit of Rapallo in 1926 the pact of neutrality was signed and then prolonged in
1933. Economic and military technological cooperation between the two countries
expanded significantly starting the mid-1920s. These included import of German goods to
Russia and German military technicians carrying out experiments on Russian territory,
something they were forbidden to do in Germany by the Versailles treaty. The reason for the
cooperation was pursuing the strategy of collective security, the Russian-German relation
with the west against Russia (Deutscher, 1967). That peace was - as Jean Giraudoux pet it -
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an interval between two wars was an axiom to Stalin and his both domestic and foreign
polices were first and foremost governed by the overriding necessity to get the country in
Stalin, from an interview with Roy Howard (1936): "There is, in my opinion, two
centres of the danger of war. The first is located in the Far East, Japan... The second area of
focus is Germany. It is hard to say which one is of most threatening, but both exist and
operate ... At the moment the most active is the Far East flashpoint. Perhaps, however, the
At the end of 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria, with its 30 million Chinese
population. Soviet-Japanese border, before only sea border, was now extended on the
continent - a land area from Vladivostok to Chita. Almost immediately there was placed a
powerful Japanese military base. As soon as in 1932, many analysts expected a clash between
In November 1933 the U.S. established, at last, diplomatic relations with the Soviet
Union, and in September 1934 with the help from Britain and France the USSR joined the
League of Nations.
In 1935 the Japanese forced the USSR to give the CEL up to the puppet state of
Manchukuo. In the late '30s Japan directly and immediately attacked the USSR.
Large-scale military conflicts, actual military operations took place in several areas,
the Russian troops meeting the assaults each time. In the future, the question was just that: the
threat of Japan occupying Vladivostok from the north. Khalkhin-Gol was an extremely
important geopolitical and military-strategic point of the Baikal area: a strong position that
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would allow the Japanese to cut off the Soviet Far East. The militarized Japanese
Japan and Germany against the USSR. A year later the agreement was joined by Italy. "Anti-
Comintern Pact" meant that for the three aliens saw the Soviet Union as their main common
opponent.
USSR at that time had a cooperation agreement with France (May 2, 1935) and the
exact same agreement with Czechoslovakia. All the future efforts of Soviet diplomacy to
With Nazi party having seized the power, USSR's politics underwent changes. In
foreign policy there was a visible distinction from the laissez faire view on international
conflicts. In June 1933 USSR announced the termination of cooperation with Germany. By
the end of the year national-socialist regime in Germany reached its final shape, but it was
not before the VII Comintern congress took place, when the radical change,
considered arguably by many to be controversial, was made public and fascism was
Later the same year the USSR loudly denounced Italian for unprovoked aggression in
Ethiopia; in 1936 USSR supported The Republican government of Spain in their fight against
General Franco. The Civil War ended with the victory of Franco's rebels. The latter received
political and military support from Germany and Italy, while France, Britain and USA
remained neutral, carrying out the appeasement policy. This abetment of the aggressor
culminated in the signing of the Munich Agreement in September, 1938 according to which
Britain and France agreed to give Germany control of the Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.
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Munich moment1
Signed on September 30, 1938, the Munich pact effectively opened the gates to a German
expansion to the east and united the entire Europe under Reich. Later, Winston Churchill said:
England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame and will
get war.
(Deutscher, 1967). This called for yet another change in Soviet foreign policy. The USSR
abandoned the strategy of collective security, which was treacherously betrayed by France
and Britain. More, in December 1938 Germany and France signed a nonaggression pact. In
such conditions Soviet administration had to consider securing their western borders. So, Soviet
administration went into rapprochement with German, entente with the main enemy (Cutler,
1987).
In the beginning of the 1939 the last attempt at establishing collective security system
ended in deadlock.
On August 14, 1939, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop contacted the
Soviets about his willingness to come to an agreement. On the 23 August 1939 German
Over the years Molotov - Ribbentrop pact has been often attributed with the qualities
frustration over the biggest failure of British and French diplomacy that changed schedule
and configuration of the World War Two. The Soviet administration and Stalin were guilty of
short-sightedness and gross miscalculation but were driven by the national interests (Saull,
1
- from the magazine The Times, Great Britain
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2007). The pact was in fact very much according the the overriding goal of the USSRs
foreign policy in the inter-war period and that was to get ready for the war.
Bibliography
2. Richard Saull, The Cold War and After (London, Pluto Press, 2007)
3. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes (New York, Vintage Books, 1996)
4. Jon Jacobson, When the Soviet Union entered world politics (University of California
Press, 1994)
5. V. Falin and dr. N. Narochnitskaya, Score of the Second World War. Who and when
started the war (Moscow, Veche ,2009)
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9. Interview Between J. Stalin and Roy Howard, Red Star Press Ltd. (London,
1978)
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm 14/12/2011
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