Foreign Policy (1927-35)

Soviet Foreign Policy 1927-35

With Stalin’s achievement of total control, two important developments took place with regard to the international position of the Soviet Union:

1. The Soviets achieved domination of the Comintern

2. Stalin reversed the policy of a ‘united front’ in the expansion of Communist power.

The Comintern

• Opposition had been generally allowed within the Comintern and the Soviet Communist Party until 1927-9.

• However, as the 1920s passed, dissenting voices encountered an increasingly difficult time.

• In the Comintern, as in the Party itself, the Right Opposition was to continue for two more years then the Left.

• Bukharin, the most important Rightist and President of the Comintern, attended the VI Congress of the Comintern in 1928.

• Although by this stage he was powerless before Stalin, he kept his position until 1929 when Molotov took over the role for a while before Dmitry Manuilsky was appointed to head the Comintern.

The VI Congress of the Comintern

• Stalin directed the VI Congress of the Comintern which declared that capitalism was preparing an assault on the Soviet Union.

• This was regarded as an effect of increasing contradictions and weaknesses in the ‘imperialist’ camp.

• All forms of bourgeois political activity were to be attacked under the slogan “class against class.”

• These bourgeois activities were regarded as comprising social democracy which subverted the proletariat from within, and fascism which sought to enslave it from without.

• The main enemy was identified as the Social Democrats.

Communism and Germany

• Most communist parties outside the USSR were tiny, only the German party being large enough to independently influence affairs.

• Furthermore, Germany was, since the ending of the ‘united front’ policy, the only state in which Communists could achieve anything concrete without direct Soviet help.

• The German republic was attacked by the Communists and Nazis who in the 1928 Reichstag elections won 54 seats and 13 seats respectively.

• Of the republic’s defenders, the Social Democrats were the strongest single party, and many of its important members wanted to ally with the Communists against the growth of Nazism.

The Attitude of the Communists

• German Communists took the anti-Social Democrat line of the VI Congress of the Comintern.

• They joined the Nazis and the rest of the extreme Right in 1929-30 to publicly condemn the Young Plan which required the payment of reparations.

• Opposed the Social Democrats’ overtures for better relations with the victorious powers of the First World War.

• March-April 1931 the Eleventh Plenum of the Comintern declared that the Social Democrats were the most active political party in preparation for a war against the Soviet Union.

• Communist leaders also supported the demand by Nazis and Nationalists for a referendum to remove the Prussian government which was the mainstay of the republic’s strength.

• Although there was a referendum, the proposal failed.

• The Communists won 89 seats and the Nazis 230 seats in the elections of July1932.

• Followed in a few months by co-operation by the two parties in the Berlin transport strike.

• The Social Democrats made a last attempt to persuade the Communists to ally with them in February 1933 to stop Hitler.

• However the party leaders believed that it was essential that the Nazis did take power: ‘Then in four weeks the whole working class will be united under the leadership of the Communist Party.’

• Following the March elections Hitler forced the passing of the Enabling Law which gave him total power for four years; time enough to implement “gleichschaltung” or “forcible co-ordination” to form the totalitarian state, and with it the destruction of the German Communist Party (KPD).

Analysing the Failure of German Communism

1. Trotsky’s view

Trotsky, the Social Democrats and others said that the rise of Hitler should be blamed on the Communists due to their refusal to ally with the Social Democrats and their co-operation with Hitler.

2. Franz Borkenau’s view

Borkenau says that had the Communists supported the Social Democrats, many Communist voters among the unemployed would have switched allegiance to the Nazis because really radical Communist voters would not support an alliance with the status quo. In the end the Communist Party was unable to mobilise all of its voters against the Prussian government, so Borkenau’s argument is on shaky ground.

3. The ‘Bolshevik’ view

On December 31 1933, ‘Bolshevik’, the Russian Party’s theoretical organ said ‘In Germany the proletarian revolution is nearer to realization than in any other country.’

Factors to be considered

• Even if the German Communists could have acted differently, Moscow was not willing to allow them to do so.
• The VI Congress’s anti-Social Democrats stance had a solid basis on which to work in that the two totalitarian parties found common ground in their hatred of liberal government and the laws that supported it.
• Thus the Communists’ policy is difficult to understand in that their stance was always risky in the extreme given that if the Weimar Republic fell then whichever totalitarian party was victorious, it would inevitably destroy the other and the Communists predicted that it would be the Nazis who would take power.

Moscow’s Interpretation

• In April 1933, Soviet spokesman Eugene Varga said that Hitler’s assumption of power had resulted from bourgeois terror at the rise of german Communism.

• The Soviets believed that “history” would sweep Hitler aside.

• Their inability to accept that Hitler could remain in power was an attempt to justify Comintern policy.

A Last Note

• Even though the Nazis destroyed the German Communists, they declared their desire for good relations with Moscow, and in May 1933 ratified the renewal of the 1926 neutrality treaty with the Soviets (this had been pending since 1931).

• By the end of 1933 Moscow felt it necessary to publicly refer to the Nazis’ persistence in using the anti-Soviet propaganda line of Mein Kampf.

Maxim Litvinov

Maxim Litvinov became foreign commissar in 1930, having gradually assumed more and more responsibility while assistant to foreign minister Chicherin who became ill in the late 1920’s.

The League of Nations Disarmament Conference 1927

Litvinov attended the League Disarmament Conference at the end of 1927. The First Congress of the Comintern described the League as a ‘Holy Alliance of the bourgeoisie for the suppression of the proletarian revolution.’ Litvinov presented a convention for immediate disarmament also emphasising that the aim was not to limit armaments. Some powers had refused to risk disarmament because the Soviet Union would refuse to carry it out. Litvinov wanted to undermine their stance for propaganda purposes so that it could be claimed that the capitalist states were trying to avoid disarmament. Two years later the same motive lay behind the Soviet offer to join in pan-European discussions because ‘By taking part...the Soviet Union will wreck the plans for the secret elaboration of anti-Soviet projects.’

The Litvinov Protocol and the Kellog-Briand Pact

The American and French foreign secretaries presented the Kellog-Briand Pact for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. Moscow saw an opportunity to use it by means of the Litvinov Protocol signed in Moscow in February 1929. The result was that without waiting for all the ratifications of the Pact, the Protocol had the effect of bringing it into operation on a regional basis. The USSR, Poland, Romania, Latvia and Estonia signed, with Lithuania, Turkey, Persia and Danzig signing a few months later.

The 1932 Non-aggression Treaties

Non-aggression treaties were signed with Poland, the Baltic States, Finland and France. Disagreements over Romania’s annexation of Bessarabia prevented them and the Soviets reaching a similar agreement.

The Basis of Soviet Foreign Policy

Soviet foreign policy at this time was based on mobilising the anti-Versailles powers against Britain and France. It was never assumed that long-term rapport would be possible with one group or that there would be war with the other. This policy was emphasised by public trials held during the First Five Year Plan in which the defendants were accused of plotting with Britain and France. When Labour returned to power in 1929, the USSR resumed relations with Britain.

US-Soviet Relations

Introduction

At the end of 1933 the USA recognised the Soviet Union. This did not change Soviet foreign policy but became significant once the Soviet volte-face had taken place in 1934-5. Soviet debt repudiation and confiscation had soured relations between America and the USSR. Even worse was the issue of propaganda inside the US. Although there was an absence of diplomatic relations US commercial and other contacts continued. For example, the American Relief Administration’s work during the 1921-22 famine while Hoover was president. Of the other American states, only Mexico and Uruguay recognised the USSR, though the former broke off relations in 1930. However if the US gave recognition, it was clear that many Latin American states would too.

The Negotiations

Contacts were made by the Soviets and Americans in London at the end of the 1933 World Economic Conference. It was through these talks that recognition was to come. William Bullitt, who had been Wilson’s envoy in 1919 talked to Litvinov during the London Conference and made a visit to Moscow a few weeks later. In November, Litvinov was sent to Washington in response to President Roosevelt’s invitation. Diplomatic relations were established that same month.

The Terms and Results

• Both sides agreed not use hostile propaganda against the other
• The USSR recognised the legal and religious rights of US citizens in the country
• The USSR dropped its claims over US intervention in Siberia. This emphasised the Soviets main reason for wanting US recognition: fear of Japanese ambitions in the Pacific
• A trade agreement was signed in 1935
• Debt negotiations failed

Soviet Foreign Policy in the Far East

Before the Manchurian Incident in 1931, Britain had been seen as the main potential enemy. Stalin felt that Japan would fight on Britain’s side if war came with America. However, there was little concern about any threat from British imperialism. It was hoped to harm British interests through Soviet partnership with the Kuomintang in China, though this came to nothing.

The Chinese Eastern Railway

The Chinese Eastern Railway through Manchuria was Moscow’s chief asset there. The railway was seized in May 1929 by Marshall Chang Hsueh-Liang, the ruler of Manchuria under nominal Nationalist suzerainty. Diplomatic relations between the USSR and China were severed in July. In November the railway was recaptured by a Soviet military expedition led by General Bliukhev who had been Moscow’s adviser to the Kuomintang armies.

The Japanese Invasion of Manchuria

In September 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria and captured the whole province including the area of the railway. The League of Nations did nothing. The Soviets, realising that an attack on the Japanese would result in war, decided to accept negotiations to sell the railway to Japan, the final agreement being reached in 1935. The USSR had previously re-established relations with China in December 1932 because of this threat from Japan.

Moscow and the Chinese Communists

Moscow and the Chinese Communists were still hostile to Chiang Kai-shek’s government which had ended its alliance with the USSR. The first Communist leader, Ch’en Tu-hsiu was held responsible for the failure of 1927, and was replaced by Li Li-san who was also purged in due course, being recalled to Moscow in 1930. He was replaced by Mao Tse-tung, who with Chu Teh led the ‘Long March’ in which the Communists moved 6,000 miles to Yenan in Shensi province to escape from the Nationalist drive to destroy them. This migration brought them to the borders of Soviet controlled Mongolia. Chiang-Kai-shek hoped to force them over the border but Mao and Stalin had other plans. The Comintern line had shifted during the Long March, and in 1935 the Chinese Communists had halted to hold a conference in Szechuan to repeat the new Comintern line for home consumption and to demand a united front against Japan. In Europe this was known as the ‘Popular Front’.

France

In December 1933, Litvinov made a public distinction between capitalist states using their foreign policies as a criterion.

He differentiated three groups:

1. “Actively aggressive” powers

2. “Passively indifferent” powers

3. “Actively indifferent” powers

He also made it clear that Moscow was worried about the possibilities of Nazi ambitions in Eastern Europe.

The First Popular Front Agreement 1934

On February 6^th, following the Stavisky financial scandal, the Communists and extreme Right co-operated in a riot to overthrow Daladier’s government. Then, six days later, the Communists joined with the socialist trade unions in a strike against the Right, though this alliance was qualified by Maurice Thorez, the Communist leader in the Party paper “Humanite” in April, saying that a marriage between Communists and Socialists ‘is fundamentally alien to the spirit of Bolshevism.’ He was summoned to Moscow that same month to receive new orders. When he returned, he called for the same “marriage” he had rejected earlier; the French Socialists duly accepted. A pact was signed in July. It was the first Popular Front agreement. When, in November, Thorez proposed a Popular Front Government, the Socialists were less keen.

The Franco-Soviet Pact 1935

There was a meeting in May 1934 in Geneva between Litvinov and Barthou of France. There had already been proposals for a Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact, and Barthou also suggested that the USSR join the League of Nations. Litvinov and Barthou had hoped to include most of the Eastern European countries but they refused so France and the USSR went ahead without them. The pact was signed in May and provided mutual aid and assistance in the event of a third power launching an attack.

The Soviet-Czech Pact 1935

This was signed in the same month as the Franco-Soviet Pact, but this time, mutual assistance was only available if France aided the country that was attacked.

Subsequent Developments in France

Stalin gave support without any reservations to ‘the policy of national defence followed by France so as to maintain her armed forces on the level necessary to maintain security’. Following the agreement with the Socialists and the Moscow-approved defensive stand taken by the Communists, the latter made large gains in local elections in late May and June. Genuinely Leftist Socialists were surprised and shocked when Thorez extended co-operation to the Socialist-Radicals as well as the Socialists. It seemed that Communists everywhere had put the defence of the Soviet Union and the support of any government resisting the Nazis before revolution because of the growing threat from Hitler’s Germany.

The VII Congress of the Comintern

This was to be the last Congress of the Comintern, and the French United Front agreement was the test run for its newly adopted policy. The Popular Front was proclaimed which meant Communist co-operation with any group, whether Socialist or on the Right, who were resisting Nazism or Japanese militarism. The Seventh Congress was the first congress at which a complete display of unanimity was achieved, because, it was completely under Stalin’s control.

Stalin’s Policy

It was clear that the policy of 1928-34 in which the USSR avoided international entanglements was no longer viable. Three strands in Stalin’s foreign policy can be clearly defined from this time:

1. Recognition of the danger from Nazism

2. That gains could be made by a call to resist “war and fascism”.

3. Stalin ended the “go-it-alone” policy which had been in place between 1928-34

It is uncertain whether Stalin seriously wanted to align with the British and French against Nazi Germany. General Krivitsky, the Soviet intelligence chief said Stalin never took the Popular Front seriously; rather he saw it merely as something he could barter in a trade-off with Hitler. The Soviets aligned with groups of “capitalist” powers simply from considerations of power and expediency. Thus the pro-Versailles stance in operation from 1934 was not based on any sense of ideological compatibility with Britain and France. Stalin seems to have misjudged their relative strengths on the one hand, and Germany on the other. The same is true of his stance regarding Hitler’s hatred of, and designs on the Soviet Union.

Stalin and the Popular Front

Although it would be fair to say that Stalin expected little from relations with Britain and France, it does seem that he hoped to create or strengthen these alliances. Public statements from Moscow during this period led to many using the Nazi danger as an excuse for the horrendous excesses perpetrated on Stalin’s orders during the 1930’s. In the end, few Popular Front agreements or governments were formed, and none of them ever formed a direct bridge to Moscow. On the other hand, the psychological effects of the policy were far reaching.