Overview of Foreign Policy of the USSR under Stalin

1931-1934

In this period the USSR finished a set of neutrality or non-aggression pacts with some of its neighbors. Perhaps the most important were with Poland and France in 1932. These pacts showed USSR's wish for peace, balance and international acceptance. They demonstrated to be a lively preparation for the realignment of Soviet foreign policy that was begun by events in the Far East.

The Japanese invasion on China in 1931 and then founding of puppet state Manchukuo which located Far Eastern Border were a highly alarming improving for Stalin. It made further Japanese invasion into Siberia seem an obvious possibility. The absence of an exact French and British reply to the Manchurian crisis made Stalin suspect of the West's aims. A conspiracy of imperialist powers seemed more reasonable to Stalin as a statement of Western movements than simple weakness or inability. Stalin soon continued relations with Chiang Kai Shek, and military power in the Soviet Far East was continuously increased.

The situation was also changing in Europe. The fall of rational politics in Germany as the economic crisis got worse was not at first the catastrophe it later happened for Stalin. The Soviet comment of events in Germany was that the polarization in politics could only finally help to a reinforcement of the KPD and that the Nazis’ short-lived achievement would foretell some type of left-wing revolution. Therefore the KPD was commanded to attack the middle ground of German politics, classifying the SPD social fascists. Stalin was not the only one to underrate the power of Hitler and the Nazis. After a year of complicated signals from Berlin, it became clear in the Kremlin that the German contact was no longer to be trusted. Although economic ties continued, the secret military solidarity was ended by Hitler, the KPD was ruined, the tone of the Nazi media was obviously anti-Soviet, and the expansionist goals of Hitler's foreign policy were clearly discussed.

Stalin was anxious at this breakdown in the USSR’s international status. Therefore Stalin began to change his foreign policy towards some form of compromise with those capitalist powers which also felt threatened by a reviving Germany in Europe and Japanese attacks in the Far East. The first clear sign of this change was the softening of tone to the League of Nations which the USSR joined on September 18, 1934. After this, the policy of collective security was followed by the Soviet powers and especially by Litvinov.

1934-1939

Although the political relations with Nazi Germany were very bad, economic relations exist between the two nations. For example, on March 20, 1934, another important trade agreement was signed. In 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1939, when Soviet and German officials held their ordinary economic meetings, the Soviet side might suggest an opportunity to improve political relations. These suggestions were rejected by the Germans. However, it is clear that Stalin was willing to secretly prosecute the Nazis while publicly advocating collective security. A final decision on the way to go was made later, while the defense capability of the Soviet Union continued to increase. Stalin moved westward in 1935, when the USSR signed the mutual assistance pacts with France and Czechoslovakia. In view of the political geography of Eastern Europe, it was rather mysterious how the USSR should actually burden Germany in an international crisis: the illusion of having a counterweight seemed sufficient for the French and for the Soviet Union indeed an advance.

The agreements contained a clause clarifying that the USSR should act only at the request of the French. In line with this diplomatic reorientation, the Comintern also changed its tactics and instructed its puppet communists to support the Popular Front's policy of cooperating with every political party that was anti-fascist. From 1934 to 1939, however, Stalin hardly benefited from his new policy. Again and again the British and French decided not to stand up to the aggressive movements of Italy, Japan or Germany, the three powers that had created the AntiComintern Pact until 1937, which was clearly directed against the USSR. It is not the right place to analyze the appeasement policy, but it is not hard to imagine what conclusions will be drawn in Moscow when Italy took over Ethiopia, Japan occupied more China, and Hitler re-established the Rhineland in 1936. 1938. Was this a Willful attempt by Britain and France to force the aggressive states against Russia, as the Soviet press constantly asserted? Stalin was able to accept otherwise, for four soviet proposals for an international conference between March and September 1938 had simply been ignored by Great Britain and France.

The Munich Agreement of October 1938 was almost the last straw for Stalin, because he had assured the French during the summer crisis, the support of the Soviets. But the French ignored their allies in the USSR and followed the British leadership in handing over the Sudetenland to Hitler. The Soviet Union was again excluded from European decision-making, although it was in the league and had concluded treaties despite mutual support with France and Czechoslovakia. The USSR had no common border with Czechoslovakia, and Stalin had recently cleaned the Red Army officer corps, which made it unlikely that Soviet intervention would be effective. However, this did not change the fact that unlike Great Britain and France, the USSR could publicly present itself as the only power ready to stand up to Nazi aggression. Whether this was a bluff or not, all we know is that the bluff has never been called. The USSR had also managed to obtain considerable propaganda salaries from the Spanish Civil War. Why did Stalin involve the USSR in this war, which was so far from the borders of the Soviet Union? There are multiple possibilities. He may have wished:

• create a Soviet satellite in Spain;
• Preserve the democratically elected republican government;
• prove his belief in collective security by helping to thwart fascist aggression; or
• show that the USSR is now an international force to be reckoned with.

The first two seem to be the most unlikely, but a combination of the others can provide an acceptable explanation. Although the USSR signed the Non-Intervention Agreement, large amounts of military aid were sent to the Republic, but never enough to guarantee the Republican victory. Perhaps Stalin showed his usual caution by testing the resolve of Britain and France, who were ready to step aside and let the republic take their chances without them. What else has Stalin taken from the Spanish episode besides the propaganda value? An unexpected bonus was the gold reserves of the Spanish government.

More important, the three years of the war gave him additional insights into the attitude of his ally, France, and his collective security partner Britain. From a Soviet point of view, it was obvious that these two powers would be taking rather severe risks to their respective strategic positions rather than acting effectively against Italy or Germany. Unfortunately for the USSR and unlike Hitler, Stalin could not fully benefit from the military experience gained in the war, as he murdered a number of the officers who had served in Spain and ignored the lessons the Germans had learned so well.

Thus, at the time of the occupation of the body of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Stalin, apart from a certain success of the propaganda, had absolutely nothing to show for his collective security. Worse, Nazi Germany, now immeasurably stronger than 1933, had not been able to accommodate. As a sign of the dangerous position of the USSR, in 1938 and 1939 Japan had made very strong attacks on the Soviet Far East. The USSR won the battle for Lake Khasan in 1938 and Khalkin-Gol in 1939, causing the Japanese to think about every possible adventure in the region. Despite a neutrality agreement with Japan in April 1941 Stalin could not be sure of its Far East border until the end of 1941, when his brilliant agent Richard Sorge told him in Tokyo that the Japanese had other plans. Despite the isolation and ignorance of 1938 and early 1939, Stalin suddenly found himself in an extraordinary position to be wooed by the two European blocs of power. The last moments of collective security policy took place between March and August 1939. This began with another failed proposal by the Soviet Union for an international conference that continued when an Anglo-French military delegation unsuccessfully tried to negotiate the way to a joint agreement with the USSR and ended up with the 'bomb' of the Nazi-Soviet pact on the 23rd of August. Why did Stalin decide to become an ally of Hitler and not Britain and France? A key factor must have been the total lack of resolution that these two powers have demonstrated over the past six years.

Was it in any way credible that one of them would be Poland's guarantee for Poland in the face of increasing German pressure? Neither Hitler nor Stalin believed it. To Stalin's great but temporary happiness, his attempts to improve Soviet German relations had suddenly borne fruit. Hitler was anxious to prevent all Anglo-French moves to include the USSR in a military pact, and he planned to attack Poland on 1 September. Ribbentrop made Stalin an offer that could not be denied. The Soviet-German trade agreement of 18 August was soon followed by the non-aggression pact of 23 August. The secret sections of this pact essentially stated the USSR in eastern Poland, the three Baltic states and Bessarabia. The treaty has also postponed the likelihood of war with Germany for some time. All that Britain and France could have offered was the possibility of a war with Germany in the near future and probably on the same side as the old enemy Poland. Stalin had learned in 1938 the value of the mutual aid pacts with the French. What other decision could he make under the circumstances?

23 August 1939 to 22 June 1941

Over the next 20 months, Hitler expanded his control of most of Europe through military power,economic penetration, and alliance. In early summer 1941 he was ready to launch his long-held attack on his temporary ally, the USSR. How had Stalin used his time? Extensive deliveries of grain, oil and other important strategic materials had been sent to Germany under the trade agreements between the two governments, but the Germans had only sporadically sided with the agreement. On September 17, the Red Army occupied its assigned zone in Poland. Between November 1939 and March 1940, Finland was ceded to the USSR, and by the end of 1940, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had been incorporated.

The USSR had gained a lot, but it had lost the moral superiority it had falsely claimed since 1917, and had now demonstrated Soviet imperialism, which after 1945 was so pronounced in Eastern Europe, the war against Finland, and a rapid restructuring program was in the Act implemented. It is clear that Stalin expected and fought a war with Germany, but during this time he did everything he could to appease Hitler. Although there were some difficult positions in the Balkans between Stalin and Hitler, the USSR agreed to join the Tripartite Pact, linking them to Japan, Italy and Germany in a vague but grandiose plan that promised Stalin profits in Central Asia. Supplies of strategic material to Germany lasted until a few hours before the German attack on the USSR.

It seemed as if Stalin was trying desperately not to apologize to the Germans for an attack, though there is no doubt that Stalin received highly classified information about German plans. It is still a mystery why Stalin, who trusted no one and murdered millions, could not accept that Hitler would attack him if he did. Perhaps even dictators tend to wishful thinking, and certainly there was no one in Stalin's court who could risk his career and his life by contradicting him. On June 22, 1941, after twenty years of fear of intervention by the Foreiu, the 'first workers state of the world' was again attacked by a coalition of imperialist powers, led this time by Nazi Germany. The catastrophe with which Operation Barbarossa began came within a few weeks and a few kilometers before the destruction of the Soviet Union, and probably even Stalin himself, but here one can neither categorize the terrible suffering of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War nor negotiate the emergence of the Soviet Union USSR as a superpower after 1945.

Conclusion

How can we detect the achievement or unsucces of Soviet foreign policy in the interwar period? If the main aim of the Soviet leadership had been to refrain being attacked it had faile by June 1941. But much of the maneuvering of the Narkomindel within the whole interwar period had been from a status of powerlessness. The USSR could seldom influence world events and actually was often disregarded at key moments, while being seen as valuable at other times. Indeed the Soviet Union provided real advantage from its economic relationship with Germany during the period and that the secret military connections had been useful. The non-aggression pact with Hitler had also given Stalin an opportunity to enlarge his borders.

Probably this union had given Stalin a breathing aria, but one is called to ask if the time eraned was used completely. Paradoxically, it was Stalin who must take the obligation both for the disaster which almost crushed the USSR in 1941 and for main win which could not have been won without the industrial foundation created in the 1930s. For Stalin the lesson was clear. The Soviet Union had to be economically and militarily powerful before it could survive and play an important role in world affairs.