United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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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

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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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United States and Russia to remove Japanese forces from Eastern Siberia aided the Soviet cause in the Far East. Secretary Hughes of the United States of America ilicited from Baron Shidehara a statement pledging evacuation, non intervention and respect for Russian territorial integrity. The end of October, 1922 saw the com¬ pletion of evacuation of Japanese troops from Vladivostok. In November of the same year the Far Eastern Republic set up by Russia as a buffer zone against Japan joined the Soviet Union. On May 1, 1925 Japanese forces with¬ drew from Northern Sakhalin. At Genoa in April, 1922, Chicherin produced a rapprochement between Russia and Germany. By the Treaty of Rapallo, signed on April 16 by Chicherin and Walter Rathenau, the Soviet Government was given de jure recognition from the German Republic, a mutual cancellation of all financial claims, and a regulation of German- Soviet trade on the basis of the most-favored- nation clause. By this treaty both Russia and Germany enhanced their bargainin g power in Western European power politics. Attempts at financial settlement at the conference met with failure. Against Allied claims of £13 billion against Russia for Tsarist and Kerensky debts and confiscated property, Chicherin pressed Soviet counter claims for £60 billion for dam¬ ages suffered by unlawful intervention. At Lausanne in late 1922 a conference was begun to settle the control of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. During the course of the negotiations Vaslov Vorovsky, a Soviet delegate, was as¬ sassinated by a Russian emigre of Swiss descent, but the conference ignored the incident and the Swiss courts acquitted him. On July 24, 1923 the Straits Convention signed at Lausanne de¬ militarized the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, but limited foreign naval forces permitted to enter the Black Set. The Russian government approved the settlement and became a member of the Straits Commission. During the long and protracted negotiations carried out by Chicherin and Litvinov, positive gains were made for more friendly relations with the Western powers. De jure recognition was granted by many states during 1934: Britain, February 1; Italy, February 7; Norway, Febru¬ ary 13; Austria, February 20; Greece, March 8; Sweden, March 15; China, May 31; Denmark, June 18; Mexico, August 1; France, October 28 and Japan, January 20, 1925. The United States, alone among the great world powers refused to formally recognize the new Soviet regime but for all intents and purposes Chicherin had broken the isolation of Russia and it was once more a recognized member of the family of nations. 1 Soviet diplomacy was determined in large measure upon the fears of a renewal of Western intervention. Marxian theorists believed that the Capitalist powers could not remain long at peace especially with a Socialist neighbour. Added to this fear was the realization of the inadequacy and, in many cases, frank injustice perpetrated by the Versailles Treaty that the Russian government as well as the United States refused to sanction. There was little doubt in Russian political strategists’ opinion about the likelihood of a further war and that it could be directed against Russia. Russian strategy there¬ fore had to resolve upon the establishment of mutual defence agreements to remain neutral in any new major conflict. Russia feared the domination of Europe by any single power or group of powers and sought to overcome this through systems of mutual alliances whereby she could safely remain neutral until the op¬ portune moment when her entrance on one side would tilt the scales and be of great bargaining power to her. “Russia sought to counteract the domination of the Continent by a single military power.” 2 Despite the fact that similar interests and parallel actions may be traced between the Soviet Union and the United States the latter remained openly hostile to the government of the Soviet Union, refusing recognition until 1933. American distrust and fear of Japanese aggrandizement at the expense of Russia caused the United States of America to further the re-establishment of the Soviet position in East¬ ern Siberia. Both the Soviet Union and the United States denounced the Versailles Treaty. The United States was the first to break the anti-Soviet group and argue for the respect of Russian territorial integrity, refusing to recog¬ nize the Baltic States and maintaining that Russia’s boundaries should include the whole of the former Empire with the exception of Fin¬ land, ethnic Poland and Armenia. The United 1. Frederick L. Schuman, Op. Cit., p. 191. 2. Deutscher, Op. Cit., p. 390. Page Twenty-one