United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Russian Foreign Policy In The ’Twenties By AL MACKLING TN the period under observation, Russian foreign policy, guided by the professional Communist revolutionists, sought to enlarge the proletarian revolution throughout the world and yet maintain the hard won base of world proletarian revolution in Russia. Actually, ex¬ periences suffered in the years following the revolution (1917-1921) caused most emphasis to be placed on the defence of the isolated Com¬ munist country from further armed interven¬ tion by the Capitalist world powers about her. Revolution had come to Russia in October, 1917. It was not the proletarian revolution en¬ visaged by Marx. Rather, it was more of an agrarian revolution. The revolution was in gen¬ eral a spontaneous but divergent outpouring of discontent, manifested by the peasants, the soldiers, the small proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie against the corrupt feudalistic auto¬ cracy of the Tsarist regime. The Marxian revo¬ lutionaries including Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin had all at one time before the actual seizure of power and the wars of intervention, believed that the inevitable revolution in Russia should and would produce a bourgeoisie-democratic state in Russia and after a considerable period the proletarian revolution would take place. This followed the Marxian historic analysis: Feudalism—Capitalism—Communism. Trotsky was the first to deviate from purely Marxian theory when, as early as 1906, he fore¬ cast that the world revolution would begin in Russia but would survive only if a continuation of the revolution took place in Western Europe. Lenin and the Bolsheviks who assumed power in 1917 convinced themselves that the revolu¬ tion in Russia would not be just a transitory stage in the Marxian process but would be permanent and would grow with the help of the apparently imminent proletarian revolution in Germany, France and England. The Communist leaders of the revolution guided their party to power and the dictatorship Page of the proletariat in October, 1917, utilizing the chaotic political, economic and military situa¬ tion and the mass unrest of the oppressed classes in Russia. The new dictatorship of the proletariat was in reality the dictatorship of the proletariat, peasants, and soldiers by the Communist party, itself under the control of a small hard core of Marxian idealists headed by Lenin and Trotsky. This centralization of control was enhanced by the drastic measures necessarily taken to ward off defeat of the new government by the Capi¬ talist powers and their more dangerous allies within Russia itself. The leaders of the revolution in Russia, Lenin and Trotsky especially, were heralded not only as the leaders of the Russian revolution but were recognized as the leaders of a political party calling for world revolution. This dangerous doctrine frightened the imperial powers of the Western world and Japan; also, intervention in the internal struggle of Russia could bring handsome rewards through the seizure of valuable and strategic Russian terri¬ tories. The intervention failed mainly due to a lack of co-operation among the active supporters of intervention, war weariness and protests from the peoples in the Western countries and the surprising national ' support given to the new government by the people of Russia. When the last of the foreign powers had with¬ drawn their forces the Communist government led by Lenin controlled a poverty-stricken, war- ravaged and isolated country. The Communist government had capably led the new Red army to victory over the inter¬ ventionists but now it was faced with an almost insuperable task. The country was in a state of economic chaos, shorn of a good deal of terri¬ tory and Russian 1 speaking peoples and faced with hostile powers more than anxious to see her succumb through economic depression or external attack. 1- Ed Note: The term Russian here as elsewhere means the area and people over which suzerainty was exercised by the Empire of Tsar Nicholas II. Nineteen

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finished, others were jumping up and down on the strip to tamp it down, and Weller’s scoop- pot had resumed its flight between the pail and the floor. Another strip was lowered next to the first onto the new layer of tar and the men be¬ gan again their overlapping motions, always moving in a crouch, running from the knees, squeezing speed out of throbbing muscles. And then it was finished. Purple cheeks and red eyes were drawn slowly away from the heat of the floor, the bent, strained backs were slowly straightened, and the men stood up. Then they stared, and blinked, and silently left the boxcar. The kid followed them to the tar shack, bouncing the end of the long iron rod on the concrete floor of the car shop. ❖ “That’s one hell, there.” “A-a-ah, Schmidty, yer always complainin’ about somethin’,” Weller bawled at the old man who had spoken. “Why, don’t you take no pride in your work. You’ve got the best job in the world, and you’re still crabbin’.” “Maybe best job in world for young fella, Weller, but not for old fella,” Schmidty said quietly. “Me, I an old man, Weller—you an’ me, we both old men. I like to go some place else, get better job, but too old, me. I gotta stay here, that’s all. But it’s one hell.” “You just ain’t got ambition, Schmidty,” Weller said. “I got the best job in the shops, and I’m satisfied. I got all you guys workin’ for me, and I’m set. I’m plenty satisfied.” “Like HELL you satisfied!” Schmidty sudden¬ ly shouted at him. “You say that cause you know you can’t go somewhere else, same’s me. You stuck, Weller. That’s why you pretend you so satisfied with your job, you stuck. That’s why you strut around like big boss instead of little worker. You stuck.” Weller stood silently with a face like hoar¬ frost. His eyes slowly moistened and his shoul¬ ders sagged. And then he sank onto a tool box. Schmidty was sorry he said it, and he mumbled something and left the tar shack, the rest of the crew following him. Weller sat on his tool box, staring out the door. Then he turned to the kid. “Don’t listen to him, kid ... he ... he don’t know nothin’, anyhow.” The kid nodded, and picked up a stick and poked at a piece of tar that had hardened on his boot. Ghost Town The winds of time have swept each corner hare In this forgotten city of the past; The sun beats down on empty streets, and everywhere Is silence—broken at last By twittering sparrows nesting in a glade And a rustling in the grass Of wild animals who pass Unafraid. —Wilda Reynolds. Page Eighteen

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“Russia suffered a temporary ‘eclipse’ in the early period because of: political isolation, ma¬ terial weakening due to loss of territory, in¬ dustry and prestige. In addition to internal havoc, Russia had lost considerable territories which included cities of great industrial im¬ portance, as well as all but a fraction of her Baltic coastline—territories lost contained some 28 millions of people distributed between a newly enfranchised Finland, Esthonia and Latvia, a resurrected Poland and Lithuania and an aggrandized Roumania.” ’ Having decided that the revolution was per¬ manent in Russia and that the revolution must spread throughout the world from Russia, the leaders of the revolution found themselves with a complex problem. If the international policies of the Communist party expressed by the Com¬ intern or the Illrd International were too mili¬ tant it would cause the distrust, fear and open hostility of the Capitalist powers to grow and further weaken the revolution in Russia. The leaders realized that Russia needed time and peace from external attack in order that recon¬ struction along socialist lines might take place. At first the new government abandoned entirely the old Tsarist diplomacy and international treaties since they believed the world revolution would very soon be a reality. “The Bolsheviks at first regarded their manoeuvres in the diplomatic field as temporary half measures. They still expected upheaval in the west. The Comintern was the main lever of their foreign policy; diplomacy was a poor auxiliary.” 1 2 3 As the realization of an early world revolu¬ tion became less likely the Soviet leaders sup- lemented Comintern activity with the more familiar methods of international diplomacy seeking to prevent coalition of the hostile Capi¬ talist powers against her. “The defeat of World Revolution necessarily obliged Moscow to defend the sovereignty of the Soviet State in an anarchic world of sovereign¬ ties in which all others were ‘bourgeois’ and therefore actually or potentially anti-Soviet.” 4 1. Max Beloff, The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1929-1941, (London, Oxford University Press, 1947), Vol. I, 1929-1936, p. 2. 2. The Illrd International founded in 1919 in Moscow was from the outset dominated by the Bolshevik Party and its declared objective was to work for the spread of Com¬ munism throughout the world. Comintern, (short for The Communist International). 3. Deutscher, Stalin, (Oxford University Press. 1949), p. 390. 4. Frederick L. Schuman, Soviet Politics at Home and Abroad, (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1946), p. 224. In order that Soviet foreign policy might be effective in forestalling any concerted action by the Western Capitalist powers against her, it became increasingly necessary to ‘play down’ the role of the Comintern, or the International in its sponsorship of world revolution and to use these agencies as supplements to the main Russian foreign policies. Domestic policies were relaxed during the early period with the enunci¬ ation of Lenin’s New Economic Policy in 1921, which the ruling party frankly realized to be a necessary backward step and a postponement of further socialization and collectivization in order that the country might resume a more healthy economic condition in the shortest pos¬ sible time. The Soviet leaders realized that if their country was attacked again their situation would be hopeless if the economy of the coun¬ try was in a state of chaos and the people did not have the will to fight. During the 1920‘s Soviet diplomacy was di¬ rected by Chicherin and his aide, Maxim Lit¬ vinov who succeeded as Commisar for Foreign Affairs on July 25, 1930. After the dark days of 1919 and 1920 had passed and with them, many of the highest hopes for an early world revolution, Chicherin in 1920 expressed the de¬ sire of the Soviet Union to re-establish friendly relations and a resumption of trade with the Western powers. “Seeing that in America and in many other countries the workers have not conquered the powers of Government and are not even con¬ vinced of the necessity of their co nquest, the Russian Soviet Government deems it necessary to establish and faithfully to maintain peace¬ able and friendly relations with the existing Governments of those countries.” 3 After protracted negotiations Chicherin’s ef¬ forts began to bear fruit with the signing of an Anglo-Soviet agreement implying de facto recognition of the Russian Government. The agreement provided for an immediate resump¬ tion of trade, repatriation of war prisoners, mutual abstention from hostile acts and propa¬ ganda, and a postponement of a settlement of financial claims. On May 6, 1921 a German- Russian trade agreement was signed. Trade agreements with Norway, Austria and Italy fol¬ lowed on September 2, December 7, and Decem¬ ber 26, respectively. Common interests of the 5. Quoted by Frederick L. Schuman, Op. Cit., p. 189. Page Twenty