I thank the Russian people for this confidence!
To the health of the Russian people!
Soviet foreign policy can be considered in several contexts. To begin with, there is the Marxist-Leninist ideology. True, Marxism did not provide any explicit guidance for the foreign relations of a Communist state. In fact, it preached a world revolution that would eliminate foreign policy altogether. That Lenin and his associates had to conduct international rela-
tions after their advent to power represented, in Marxist terms, one of several major paradoxes of their position. Not surprisingly, they assumed for months and even for a few years the imminence of a revolution that would destroy the entire capitalist world system. The alternative appeared to be their own immediate destruction by the capitalists. When neither happened, the Soviet leadership, in foreign relations as in home affairs, proceeded to adapt ideology to circumstances. Marxism supplied the goal of world revolution, although the time of that revolution could no longer be predicted with exactitude. Marxism, especially as developed by Lenin, with such key concepts as finance capitalism and imperialism, provided also the framework within which the Soviet leadership sought to understand and interpret the world.
However, when Lenin and his associates seized power in Petrograd, they inherited an international position and interests that had nothing in common with Marxism. The Bolsheviks did their best to break the ties with tsarist Russia, repudiating treaties and debts and publishing secret diplomatic documents. Still, they could not entirely divest the country of its past or separate the communist from the noncommunist aspects of their new role in the world. In fact, as the Soviet regime developed and after Soviet Russia explicitly became the center of Communist interest following the inauguration of the First Five-Year Plan, Soviet foreign policy evolved, in the opinion of many observers, in the direction of traditionalism and nationalism, acquiring a pronounced 'Russian' character. Or, to make a different emphasis and suggest yet another context for Soviet foreign relations, the U.S.S.R. can be analyzed simply as a gigantic modern state, and its foreign policy as a product of such considerations of
When Trotsky became commissar of war in 1918, his assistant, George Chicherin, replaced him as commissar of foreign affairs. Chicherin was to occupy that position until 1930; because of Chicherin's ill health, however, his eventual successor, Maxim Litvinov, directed the commissariat from 1928. Chicherin was of gentry origin and for many years of Men-
shevik, rather than Bolshevik, affiliation. In fact, he never entered the narrow circle of Communist leaders. Nevertheless, because of his ability and special qualifications for the post - Chicherin had originally begun his career in the tsarist diplomatic service and was a fine linguist with an excellent knowledge of the international scene - he was entrusted for over a decade with the handling of Soviet foreign policy, although, to be sure, he worked under the close supervision of Lenin, Stalin, and the Politburo. As mentioned previously, positions of real power in the Soviet system have been at the top of the Party hierarchy, not in any of the commissariats.
One of Chicherin's main tasks was to obtain recognition for the Soviet Union and to stabilize its position in the world. In spite of transitory successes in Hungary and Bavaria, Communist revolutions had failed outside Soviet borders. On the other hand, with the defeat of the White movement and the end of Allied intervention, the Bolshevik regime appeared to be firmly entrenched in Russia. 'Coexistence' became a reality, and both sides sought a suitable modus vivendi. Yet the Soviet Union supported the Third or Communist International - called the Comintern - established in 1919 with Zinoviev as chairman, and it refused to pay tsarist debts or compensate foreigners for their confiscated property, demanding in its turn huge reparations for Allied intervention. In particular the Comintern, composed of Communist parties scattered throughout the world, who were bent on subversion and revolution and were clearly directed from the Soviet Union in Soviet interests, constituted a persistent obstacle to normal diplomatic relations. Most other states, on their side, looked at Soviet Russia with undisguised hostility and suspicion.
The Soviet Union managed to break out of isolation in the spring of 1922. A Soviet delegation attended then for the first time an international economic conference, held in Genoa. Although the conference itself produced no important results, bogging down on the above-mentioned issues of debts and reparations, among others, Soviet representatives used the occasion to reach an agreement with Germany. The Treaty of Rapallo of April 16, 1922, supplemented later by a commercial agreement, established economic co-operation between the Soviet Union and Germany and even led to some political and military ties. It lasted until after Hitler's advent to power. While the Treaty of Rapallo produced surprise and indignation in many quarters, its rationale v/as clear enough and, as in the case of most other Soviet agreements, it had nothing to do with the mutual sympathy or antipathy of the signatories: both Soviet Russia and Germany were outcasts in the post-Versailles world, and they joined hands naturally for mutual advantage.
Early in 1924 Great Britain formally recognized the Soviet Union; it was followed by France, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Mexico, and China before the end of the year. In 1925 Japan established normal relations with the U.S.S.R., evacuating at last the Russian part of the island of Sakhalin, although retaining certain oil, coal, and timber concessions there. The recognition of Soviet Russia by many states marked simply their acceptance of the existence of the Bolshevik regime, accompanied sometimes by hopes of improving trade relations, rather than any real change in their attitude toward the U.S.S.R. Lloyd George's remark on trading even with cannibals has often been quoted. Moreover, other countries, including notably the United States and most Slavic states of eastern Europe, continued to ignore the Soviet Union and refuse it recognition. Still, all in all, Chicherin succeeded in bringing Soviet Russia into the diplomatic community of nations.
That the course of Soviet foreign policy could be tortuous and even paradoxical became clear in the case of China. There Stalin chose to support the Kuomintang, the nationalist movement of Sun Yat-sen and Sun's successor Chiang Kai-shek, sending hundreds of military specialists to help the Nationalists and directing the Chinese Communists to follow 'united front' tactics. For a time Communist infiltration appeared successful, and Soviet position and prestige stood high in China. But in 1927 as soon as Chiang Kai-shek had assured himself of victory in the struggle for the control of the country, he turned against the Communists, massacring them in Shanghai and evicting Soviet advisers. When the Chinese Communists, on orders from Moscow, retaliated with a rebellion in Canton, they were bloodily crushed. Yet, although defeated in China, the Soviet Union managed to establish control over Outer Mongolia after several changes of fortune. Also, in the mid-twenties it concluded useful treaties of neutrality and friendship with Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan. It should be added that the Bolshevik regime renounced the concessions and special rights obtained by the tsarist government in such Asiatic countries as China and Persia. But it held on to the Chinese Eastern Railway, weathering a conflict over it with the Chinese in 1929.
Chicherin's efforts in the '20's to obtain recognition for his country and to stabilize Soviet diplomatic relations developed into a more ambitious
policy in the '30's. Devised apparently by Stalin and the Politburo and executed by Maxim Litvinov, who served as commissar for foreign affairs from 1930 until 1939, the new approach aimed at closer alliances with
