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Soviet Foreign Policy under Stalin - Coggle Diagram
Soviet Foreign Policy under Stalin
1917
Bolshevik Revolution
Isolaton
1919-20 soviet russia is not invited to negociate peace treaties
not allowed to join LoN
1920 - 1925 troops withdrawn from Russia and European states place restrictions in order to create a cordon sanitaire
Relations with Germany
1922 Treaty of Rapallo with Germany
Secret German military training and arms manufacture in the Soviet Union
Germany provided economic assistance and established trade links
1930 Treaty of Berlin continued the Treaty of Rapallo
Diplomatic tensions 1920s
1924 the USSR was able to establish diplomatic links with all major states except USA
1926 the five-year neutrality pact between USSR and Germany was signed
Breaking diplomatic relations with Britain and France
1927-28 USSR tried to sign neutrality pacts with France but were rejected
Great depression
1929 - Crash of Wall Street
Capitalist countries were keen on trading with the USSR as it was the only market unaffected
November 1932 - Franco-Soviet non-agression pact signed
Russia had similar pacts with Poland, Finland and three Baltic Republics to safeguard from German expansionism.
Nazi threat
Germany leaves World disarmament conference and LoN
Relation with USSR worsened
Stalin cancelled all military co-operation with Germany and took up French offers of joint military assistance.
November 1933, the US asked the USSR to establish diplomatic relations.
1934 Stalin joined the LoN
Soviet Union Collective security
December 1933- Litinov (Soviet comissar of foreign affairs) argued that the best defence layed in approaching Britain, France and USA
1934- Soviet Union and France began to draft a treaty of mutual protectionism (discussed the possibility of involving Nazi
Germany to guarantee the secirity and independece of succesor states and the three Baltic Repiblics.
This did not happen as eastern European states distrusted the motives of the USSR)
September 1934- Soviet Union attended its first League of Nations and made efforts to strengthen the League’s ‘collective’ security role
Search for anti fascist alliance
1935, Stalin ordered the Comintern to seek for popular fronts to join the anti-fascist struggle.
May 1935, France signed a treaty with the USSR to protect Czechoslovakia from Nazi Germany, but didn't make any military promises.
1936, Stalin's policy was focused on on achieving an anti-Nazi alliance with UK and France, but the UK refused and saw appeasement with Nazi Germany to stop the spread of communism.
November 1936, Japan signed the anti-comintern pact with Germany, which lead to Stalin fearing a two-front attack.
August 1937, the USSR signed a treaty with China and would send military aid to the Guomindang.
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, August 1939
September 1938, the Soviet
Union offered to act on the Franco-Soviet Pact of 1 935,
Designed to protect
Czechoslovakia.
France not prepared to act without Britain, Britain refused to become involved.
Poland refused Red Army to cross Polish territory.
Britain, France and Italy, Munich 29 September 1938, Czechoslovakia should hand over Sudetenland to Germany.
March 1 939, Nazi Germany invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia,
Britain and Fran ce once again refusing to take a ny action.
Britain, France and USSR 'guarantee' Poland against Nazi
aggression.
Stalin had become increasi ngly suspicious
May 1939 Litvinov replaced as commissar for foreign affairs by Molotov, instructed to pursue new
diplomatic policy.
23 August 1 939, announced Molotov and von Ribbentrop, Germany's foreign minister, had signed a non-aggression pact.
Germany was to have western Poland, while USSR got eastern Poland, Finland, three Baltic republics and part of Romania (Bessarabia) that had been part of Tsarist Russia.
September 1 939, Germany invaded ' its' part of Poland.
3 September Britain and France declared war on Germany
Soviet motives and historical debate
J. P. Taylor’s (The Origins of the Second World War) many (such as G. Roberts) argued Stalin’s policy, as Litvinov, was genuine. ‘Collective security’ historians argue that even after the Munich Crisis, Stalin still hoped for an alliance with Britain and France. Only when he came to the conclusion that France and Britain were encouraging Germany ‘to go east’ approach of western democracies downgraded. This new non-agression pact was designed to buy Soviet Union time to rearm but still there were hopes that negotiation might succeed
Opposing views (germanist view) are of R. Tucker who argued that the approach to the West was a facade to mantain the Treaty of Rapallo with Germany. They believe negotiations with the West were just a ploy to put pressure on Nazi Germany to sign an agreement with the USSR
A third group of historians stress the importance of ‘internal politics’ in understanding the two different strands of foreign policy. J. Haslam and C. Kennedy-Pipe pointed the genuine differences which existed between pro-Western Litvinov (English wife) and Molotov, who placed his faith in the independent strength of the USSR and the fact that Stalin wavered between these two options
G. Roberts pointed out, recent Soviet archives show infrequent Soviet contacts with Nazi Germany and that the lack of iniciative from the West to pct with Russia left Stalin no other choice but to establish an isolationist policy and buy time with a temporary insurance deal with Germany. This was especially necessary as the Red Army after Manchuria, was in no state to fight.