STALIN’s FOREIGN POLICY The War Inside for War Outside USSR Foreign Policy: 1917-1939 It is very difficult to judge Stalin’s foreign policy as a whole in simple terms of successes and failures. Therefore, this presentation will address each part of the Foreign Policy chronologically or thematically and attempt to judge each case as favorable or unfavorable to the Soviet Union. In Russia at present there is growing support for the view that the Stalin years (1929-53) were the best experienced by Russia in the 20th century. The present Russian government has had to ask the US and the EU for food aid, while the western world feared the expansion of communist power during the last years of Stalin. The Korean war (1950-3) appeared to add credence to this view. The Soviet Union was only a regional power when Stalin became leader in 1929 but, when he died in 1953, it had become a world power, soon to be a superpower. Does this mean that Stalin was brilliantly successful in foreign affairs? Yet the state he built up collapsed in 1991 and today Russia is again only a regional power. So Russia has gone full circle. May one trace this fiasco back to Stalin, or is it the fault of his inept successors? To answer these questions, we need to examine the purpose of foreign policy and criteria for its success or failure.

THE ISOLATION OF RUSSIA: 1917-1921 Soviet Union diplomatically isolated after Bolshevik revolution Not involved in international initiatives Global outcast I. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Allied countries of the West cut off their links with Russia. They were angry with the Communists for withdrawing from WWI, and several of them sent their armies to help fight the Communists in the Civil War of 1918-1921. II. Russia was not invited to participate in the negotiations that produced the Treaty of Versailles in Paris and, also, was not invited to join the newly created League of Nations. III. Russia has, thus, become an outcast in the world.

COMFORT IN ISOLATION USSR fine with isolation Commitment to worldwide revolution The Comintern I. At first, the Communists did not mind being isolated in this way. Lenin thought that Communist revolutions would soon sweep away hostile capitalist governments in Europe and the USA. Then the world would be united in communism and Russia’s isolation would end. II. To help bring about this world revolution, the USSR leadership set up the Comintern. Led by Grigori Zinoviev, the aim of the Comintern was to help communists abroad organize strikes, rebellions and protests by sending them advisers and by providing them with money.

THE END OF ISOLATION Failure of Comintern Desperate need of foreign aid Treaty of Rapallo/Treaty of Berlin Links with the world I. The Comintern did not succeed in starting a world revolution. Strikes and uprisings took place in many countries in the early 1920s, but all failed. Gradually, Lenin gave up the idea. II. The USSR in the early 1920s was in desperate need of foreign help to rebuild her damaged economy. So, Russia began establishing links with the rest of the world. Trade agreements with neighboring countries helped Russian trade to recover. III. In 1922, the USSR signed the Treaty of Rapallo with Germany, giving the USSR its first post-war ally. The treaty created trade links between the two countries but also arranged secretly for German armed forces to do military training and to manufacture armaments in Russia. In 1926, the USSR signed the Treaty of Berlin with Germany, which reaffirmed the agreement of the Treaty of Rapallo, but also pledged neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for the next five years. Occasioned by Soviet fears of Germany's rapprochement with the United Kingdom and France in the 1925 Locarno Treaties, the pact reaffirmed on paper the German-Soviet diplomatic understanding reached in the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo. IV. By 1929, the USSR had links with every major nation in the world other than the USA. This did not mean that the USSR was on friendly terms with these countries. Stalin was very suspicious of the capitalist countries.

STALIN’S SUSPICION Fear of foreign intervention I. Stalin greatly feared that the capitalist countries would attack the USSR and that the USSR must be rapidly industrialized to be able to protect itself.

We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us. - Stalin

SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY Original Foreign Policy Ignoring Communism Abroad Policy of self-protection Industrialization the key I. The original approach of Stalin to foreign policy was linked to his belief in socialism in one country. In line with this policy, the internal concerns of the USSR was put ahead of foreign policy concerns. In practice, this meant securing the revolution in Russia (consolidating their position) and ignoring the Communist cause abroad (international revolution was “suspended indefinitely”) => in long-term, USSR could “turn power outwards, at time of own choosing”. III. Policy was in direct conflict with Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution belief and his commitment to the global communist cause. IV. As we know, the means to secure the revolution and the USSR would be to rapidly industrialize the country as focused on in the 5-Year Plans. •Basically self-protection