Abstract
At the moment of Hitler’s accession to power in January 1933 the Rapallo relationship between Soviet Russia and Germany was still largely intact. Over the next 12 months, however, a decade of political, military and economic co-operation between the two states was liquidated. Military co-operation was terminated, trade began to plummet, and in December 1933 the USSR embarked on an anti-German policy of ‘collective security’ — a quest for a grand alliance of states to contain Nazi aggression and expansionism. In pursuit of this quest the USSR joined the League of Nations in September 1934, participated in negotiations for a regional defence agreement in Eastern Europe and, in May 1935, signed mutual assistance pacts with France and Czechoslovakia. All of these Soviet actions were directed against Germany. Germany, the USSR’s most important ally in the capitalist world in the 1920s, had become the object of Soviet encirclement and confrontation.
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Notes and References
J. Degras (ed.), Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, vol. 3, 1933–1941 (Oxford, 1953), p. 56.
Soviet foreign policy archives. Cited by I. F. Maksimychev, Diplomatiya Mira protiv Diplomatii Voiny: Ocherk Sovetsko-Germanskikh Diplomaticheskikh Otnoshenii v 1933–1939(Moscow, 1981), p. 28. See also: Documents on German Foreign Policy(hereafter DGFP), series C, vol. 1, docs 6, 10 and 29.
E. H. Carr, The Twilight of Comintern, 1930–1935(London, 1982), p. 95 and Maksimychev, Diplomatiya Mira, p. 25.
See Dokumenty Vneshnei Politiki SSSR(hereafter DVPS), vol. 16, docs 51, 54 and 424 and DGFP, series C, vol. 1, docs 41, 43 and 73 and vol. 2, doc. 127.
DVPS, vol. 16, doc. 54. Cited by J. Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–1939(London, 1984), p. 7.
DGFP, series C, vol. 1, doc. 73.
Soviet foreign policy archives. Cited by Maksimychev, Diplomatiya Mira, p. 41.
Soviet foreign policy archives. Cited by ibid., pp. 41–2.
X.J. Eudin and R. M. Slusser (eds), Soviet Foreign Policy 1928–1934: Documents and Materials, vol. 2 (Pennsylvania, 1967), doc. 97.
For Soviet statements on the Hugenberg Memorandum see Degras, Soviet Documents, pp. 21–3. For Soviet protests: DVPS, vol. 16, doc. 189 and DGFP, series C, vol. 1, doc. 331. On Hugenberg’s resignation: DGFP, series C, vol. 1, doc. 338.
Soviet foreign policy archives. Cited by Maksimychev, Diplomatiya Mira, p. 42. This was the first Soviet diplomatic document in which it was stated that Germany was preparing for war against the USSR, according to A. A. Akhtamzyan, ‘Voenno Sotrudnichestvo SSSR i Germanii’, Novaya i Noveishaya Istoriya, no. 5 (1990), 24.
Soviet-German military co-operation was ended by Moscow in June 1933, the ostensible reason being that the continuation of such cooperation was incompatible with Soviet participation in international discussions on disarmament. See DGFP, series C, vol. 1, docs 284, 339, 409, 439, 460 and 470 and series C, vol. 2, doc. 47.
Eudin and Slusser, Soviet Foreign Policy 1928–34, doc. 103.
See G. Roberts, The Unholy Alliance: Stalin’s Pact with Hitler(London, 1989), pp. 40–3, 59–60.
Ibid., pp. 60–2.
Istoriya Vtoroi Mirovoi Voiny 1939–1945, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1973), p. 283; V. Ya. Sipols, Vneshnyaya Politika Sovetskogo Souza 1933–1935(Moscow, 1980), p. 150; and DVPS, vol. 16, n. 321, pp. 876–7, for the text of the politburo proposals. Appendix 1 of Roberts, Unholy Alliancecontains an English translation.
On the USSR and the League see I. Plettenberg, ‘The Soviet Union and the League of Nations’, in The League of Nations in Retrospect(New York, 1983)
and S. Dullin, ‘Les diplomates soviétiques à la Société des Nations’, Relations Internationales, no. 75 (autumn 1993).
Degras, Soviet Documents, pp. 48–61.
Ibid., p. 57
J. Stalin, Works, vol. 13 (Moscow, 1955), pp. 308–9.
Cited by V. Sipols, Diplomatic Battles Before World War II(Moscow, 1982), p. 44.
Ibid., pp. 44–5; Haslam, The Soviet Union, 1933–9, p. 36; and, for the text of the Polish-German agreement: Official Documents Concerning Polish-German and Polish-Soviet Relations 1933–1939(London, 1940), doc. 10.
Cited by Maksimychev, Diplomatiya Mira, p. 71.
Dokumenty i Materialy po Istorii Sovetsko-Polskikh Otnoshenii, vol. 6, doc. 106.
DVPS, vol. 17, docs 94 and 95; DGFP, series C, vol. 2, docs 362 and 364.
DVPS, vol. 17, docs 126 and 139.
On the negotiations for an Eastern Locarno see L. Radice, Prelude to Appeasement: East Central European Diplomacy in the Early 1930s(New York, 1981). The Soviet role in the negotiations is dealt with by Roberts, Unholy Allianceand Haslam, The Soviet Union, 1933–9.
A detailed documentary account of the Soviet view of the Eastern Pact and its stance in the negotiations is contained in ‘Documents: The Struggle for Collective Security in Europe’, International Affairs(Moscow), June, July, August and October 1963. On the proposed pact and its role in the Soviet conception of collective security, see Litvinov’s interview with a French journalist in June 1934 in Degras, Soviet Documents,pp. 83–5 and R. Craig Nation, Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917–1991(Ithaca, NY, 1992), ch. 3.
On the German attitude to the Eastern Pact see Radice, Prelude to Appeasement.
DVPS,vol.18, doc. 148.
See Roberts, Unholy Alliance,pp. 68–70.
Soviet foreign policy archives. Cited by Sipols, Vneshnyaya Politika Sovetskogo Souza, 1933–1935,p. 277. Litvinov’s reference here to Poland and Japan is indicative that Moscow’s fear of an attack on the USSR was not limited to Germany. Indeed, Rolf Ahmann has argued that one of the keys to understanding Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s is apprehension about the emergence of a German-Polish-Japanese combination directed against the USSR. See his ‘Soviet Foreign Policy and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939: An Enigma Reassessed’, Storia delle relazioni Internazionali,no. 2 (1989).
Stalin’s retrospective assessment of the pact is also worth noting at this point. In December 1944 he reportedly told de Gaulle: ‘When we concluded the Franco-Soviet agreement of 1935 not everything was clear. Later on we realised that Laval and his colleagues did not trust us as allies. In signing the agreement with us they wanted to tie us down and to prevent us from allying with Germany. For our part, we Russians did not completely trust the French and this mutual distrust destroyed the pact.’ Frantsuzskiye Otnosheniya vo vremya Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny, 1941–1945(Moscow 1959), doc. 197. This reference was brought to my attention by N. Jordon, The Popular Front and Central Europe(Cambridge, 1992), pp. 259–60.
Degras, Soviet Documents,pp. 111–12.
Ibid., pp. 124–6. Tukhachevsky’s article was personally edited by Stalin. See Izvestiya Tsk KPSS,no. 1 (1990), pp. 161–9.
On the Comintern see G. Roberts, ‘Collective Security and the Origins of the People’s Front’ in J. Fyrth (ed.), Britain, Fascism and the Popular Front(London, 1985);
J. Haslam, ‘The Comintern and the Origins of the Popular Front’, Historical Journal,no. 3 (1979);
E. J. Hobsbawn, ‘The Moscow Line and International Communist Policy’ in C. Wrigley (ed.), Warfare, Diplomacy and Politics(London, 1986); and Carr, History of Soviet Russia.The main speeches at the 7th Congress are reproduced in Report of the Seventh World Congress(London, 1936).
DGFP,series C, vol. 4, docs 78 and 95.
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© 1995 Geoffrey Roberts
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Roberts, G. (1995). From Co-operation to Confrontation: The End of Rapallo and the Turn to Collective Security, 1933–1935. In: The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24124-8_2
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