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Soviet Union [USSR] Foreign Policy, 1928-39
Soviet foreign policy underwent a series of changes during the
first decade of Stalin's rule. Soon after assuming control of the
party, Stalin oversaw a radicalization of Soviet foreign policy
that complemented his strenuous domestic policies. To heighten the
urgency of his demands for modernization, Stalin portrayed the
Western powers, particularly France, as warmongers eager to attack
the Soviet Union. The diplomatic isolation practiced by the Soviet
Union in the early 1930s seemed ideologically justified by the
Great Depression; world capitalism appeared destined for
destruction. To aid the triumph of communism, Stalin resolved to
weaken the moderate social democrats of Europe, the communists'
rivals for working-class support. Conversely, the Comintern ordered
the Communist Party of Germany to aid the anti-Soviet National
Socialist German Workers' Party (the Nazi Party) in its bid for
power in the hopes that a Nazi regime would exacerbate social
tensions and produce conditions that would lead to a communist
revolution in Germany. Stalin thus shares responsibility for
Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and its tragic consequences for the
Soviet Union and the rest of the world.
The dynamics of Soviet foreign relations changed drastically
after Stalin recognized the danger posed by Nazi Germany. From 1934
through 1937, the Soviet Union tried to restrain German militarism
by building coalitions hostile to fascism. In the international
communist movement, the Comintern adopted the
popular front (see Glossary) policy of cooperation with
socialists and liberals
against fascism, thus reversing its line of the early 1930s. In
1934 the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations, where Maksim M.
Litvinov, the commissar of foreign affairs, advocated disarmament
and collective security against fascist aggression. In 1935 the
Soviet Union concluded defensive military alliances with France and
Czechoslovakia, and from 1936 to 1939 it gave assistance to
antifascists in the Spanish Civil War. The menace of fascist
militarism to the Soviet Union increased when Germany and Japan
(itself a threat to Soviet Far Eastern territory in the 1930s)
signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936. But the West proved
unwilling to counter German provocative behavior, and after France
and Britain acquiesced to Hitler's demands for Czechoslovak
territory at Munich in 1938, Stalin abandoned his efforts to forge
a collective security agreement with the West.
Convinced now that the West would not fight Hitler, Stalin
decided to come to an understanding with Germany. Signaling a shift
in foreign policy, Viacheslav Molotov, Stalin's loyal assistant,
replaced Litvinov (who was Jewish) as commissar of foreign affairs
in May 1939. Hitler, who had decided to attack Poland despite the
guarantees of Britain and France to defend that country, soon
responded to the changed Soviet stance. While Britain and France
dilatorily attempted to induce the Soviet Union to join them in
pledging to protect Poland, the Soviet Union and Germany engaged in
intensive negotiations. The product of the talks between the former
ideological foes--the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of August 23,
1939--shocked the world. The open provisions of the agreement
pledged absolute neutrality in the event one of the parties should
become involved in war, while a secret protocol partitioned Poland
between the parties and assigned Romanian territory as well as
Estonia and Latvia (and later Lithuania) to the Soviet sphere of
influence. With his eastern flank thus secured, Hitler began the
German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939; Britain and France
declared war on Germany two days later. World War II had begun.
Data as of May 1989
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