Stalin’s Foreign Policy

1. Stalin’s Foreign Policy

2. How did Stalin’s Foreign Policy contribute to his maintenance of power

3. Stalin Aims • Pragmatic agreements with other states to end diplomatic isolation and defend the Soviet Union. • Modernize and industrialize for fear of a united alliance of Capitalist nations against the USSR and communism. • The improve and achieve security for the Soviet state • It’s not completely agreed upon by historians but some believe that it was to eventually encourage a worldwide revolution through the work of the Comintern by supporting Communist struggles abroad. However, this is countered by the fact that Stalin championed for “Socialism in One Country” before worldwide revolution.

4. Historians on Stalin’s aims Conquest Aim was simply to gain supreme power by crushing all other factions Tucker Aim was to 'prove himself a revolutionary hero of Lenin-like proportions' born out of a 'compulsive psychological need' Gill Wanted a total politicisation of all aspects of life, which weakened political control of the state and partya

5. Foreign Policy Collective Security Indecisive Period Nazi-Soviet Pact

6. Previously... Lenin and Trotsky saw the revolution on international terms and created the comintern to aid this process but there was no international revolution and the Western Democracies became very paranoid about communism. The USSR then entered into a period of isolationism

7. PHASE 1: COLLECTIVE SECURITY

8. What is Collective Security? Collective Security is an agreement between a number of countries that ensures security for those countries as it obliges them to act together against an aggressor.

9. Phase 1 Events • League of Nations: Joined in 1934 • Pacts • 1932-1933 non-aggression pact with France, Italy, Poland and others • 1935 defensive alliances with France and Czechoslovakia • Spanish Civil War : In 1936 with the outbreak of the spanish civil war Stalin sent tanks, planes and military advisors to the republicans

10. Historical Interpretations Soviet : collective security was definitely an act against Nazi aggression The collective security school: (Geoffry Roberts and Teddy Uldricks). the collective security was used by USSR to make a common cause with the other states in opposition to Hitler’s expansionist foreign policy German: (Tucker) Russia preferred cooperation with Germany. Stalin had the ambitious policy to lead to a mutually destructive war in order to expand territorially all along its borders Revisionist: (A.J.P. Taylor) Stalin took advantage of opportunities as that arised.

11. PHASE 2: THE INDECISIVE PERIOD

12. Phase 2 Events Munich Conference: The sudeten crisis played a major role the the USSR’s shift to the nazi alliance. Great Britain and France decided the best way to absolve the situation was to appease to hitler by allowing Germany to annex the Sudetenland. This decision was made at the munich conference and the USSR was not invited. Stalin did not agree with the appeasement of Hitler and felt suspicious that Great Britain and France were encouraging Hitler to expand eastwards towards Russia

13. Niall Ferguson, The war of the World: History’s Age of Hatred, Penguin (2006) “Litvinov explicitly told the British delegation to the League [of Nations] that, if the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia, the Czechoslovak-Soviet Pact would come into force and proposed a conference between Britain, France and the Soviet Union to show the German we mean business”

14. Phase 2 Events Eve of Invasion Stalin began comparing the proposals of Britain and France versus the proposals of Nazi Germany. With the rising tensions between the USSR and the democracies, Britain and France would not allow the Soviets to send troops into Poland and Romania to protect in case of a German invasion as they suspected Stalin had ambitions of dominating eastern europe. Eventually in August, Stalin made his decision and rejected a proposed military pact with Britain and France.

15. PHASE 3: THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT

16. The Nazi-Soviet Pact • Non-aggression pact agreed that neither would invade the other for the next 10 years and had a secret clause that agreed to partition Poland between Germany and the USSR as well as Soviet expansion into Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Finland. • The USSR gained eastern poland after the invasion • In the 1940 the NKVD executed about 20 000 polish prisoners of war in the Katyn Forest and later that year deported over 1 million Poles to Soviet labour camps.

17. Why did Stalin Sign the Pact • It bought the USSR enough time to properly prepare for a global war which Stalin had decided was inevitable at this point • By gaining the baltic states, the USSR had a buffer zone • Stalin hoped the war would exhaust Germany, France and Brtain which would allow the USSR to immerge Europe’s strongest power.

18. Historians on the Nazi-Soviet pact Allan Bullock “In the long run war between Germany and Russia was inevitable, so long as Hitler persisted in looking for Germany’s living-space in the east. [...] Stalin, on his side, was eager to avoid or at least postpone any clash with Germany as long as possible.” Isaac Deutscher In the beginning of the summer of 1939 he (Stalin) did not probably make up his mind yet. The best alternative for him was still his old plan to keep Russia out of the war. William Carr Stalin fully expected the capitalist powers to tear themselves to pieces in a long war leaving Russia at peace. Alexandr Nyekrich The conclusion of the Pact was, among others, dictated by the consideration that it might open the way for the outbreak of a conflict between the capitalist great powers... Stalin also needed a European war because, in spite of his boasts about the Red Army, the situation was very dangerous [...]The Soviet Union had to gain time to prepare for the 'great war'.

19. After the Pact • The USSR invaded Finland in november 1939 after their demands for territory were rejected. The red army outnumbered the finnish army and yet they still performed poorly as consequence of the purges eliminating many of the best officers. The USSR was expelled from the league from nations for their actions • As a result of the non aggression pact, Stalin worried less about having to fight a war on both fronts and with the japanese abandoning their ambitions of expanding into the USSR, they signed a nonaggression pact in april 1941

20. From Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred, Penguin, 2006 “Beginning on the night of February 10th, 1940, the NKVD unleashed a campaign of terror against suspected ‘anti-Soviet’ elements. The targets identified … were ‘those frequently travelling abroad, involved in overseas correspondence or coming into contact with representatives of foreign states; Esperantists; philatelists; those working with the Red Cross; … priests and active members of religious congregations; the nobility, landowners, wealthy merchants, bankers, industrialists, hotel [owners] and restaurant owners.’

21. World War II • Both russian and british spies warned that Hitler was about to invade however, Stalin continued to take avoid any counter-measures for fear of provoking an attack • june of 1941: Barbarossa was three pronged, consisting of one group heading towards Leningrad, one group towards Moscow and one to Ukraine and Caucasus. • Although the the red army increased from 940 000 in 1936 to 5 million in 1941, the lack of leadership resulted in 750 000 soldiers being captured three weeks into the invasion. • Hitler lead his troops with an effective encirclement strategy • the war slowed significantly and it became clear the victor would be whoever survived the longest. • The german economy was unprepared for this and Russia; economic resources proved greater in the end. In 1944 the germans were finally driven out and the russians continued to push all the way to Berlin by April

22. Historiography Collective-security approach: (Soviet historians, A.J.P. Taylor, Jonathan Haslam, Geoffrey Roberts) Stalin’s foreign policy attempted to uphold the principles of collective security against Hitler, and reluctantly moved towards signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact because Britain and France deliberately appeased Hitler, undermined the League of Nations, and delayed signing a triple alliance in 1939 to deter Nazi Germany. After the Munich Agreement in 1938, Stalin viewed the League of Nations as a spent force, and became deeply mistrustful of the aims of the appeasers, whom, he felt, were happy as long as Hitler moved east US historians:(William Langer, S. Everett Gleason, Robert Tucker...this view was deeply colored by the Cold War) The Nazi-Soviet Pact was ”Stalin’s blank cheque” to Hitler, which virtually guaranteed that war would start in 1939. Stalin’s support for collective security was a cynical ploy to mask an underlying desire for a Nazi-Soviet pact German school: They think Stalin had significant responsibility for the outbreak of the war. Soviet foreign policy during the 1930’s desired a reconstruction of the close Soviet-German relationship, established by the co-operative Soviet-German Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, and broken off by Hitler in 1933. This interpretation regard the Soviet Union as giving Hitler the ”green light” for aggression in 1939

23. Historian Debate P.H.M. Bell: The Soviet Union’s incredible lack of preparation for the German attack in June 1941 must raise doubts about whether such a plan of a Soviet attack on the Western capitalist democracies, with Hitler acting as Stalin’s unwitting agent ever existed Ernst Topitsch: The view of Hitler as being the leading character [...] has been exaggerated and requires modification. Stalin was the key figure in the outbreak of war and the key victor of the war Stalin was the only leader in Europe with clear aims Stalin set out to start a European war in 1939 between what he saw as aggressive and non- aggressive capitalist states, which left the Soviet Union in a neutral position and well placed to reap a rich reward VS

24. Lead to the Cold War • Stalin was aware of the massive damage the war had done to the USSR. 20-25 million soviets died, 137 000 tractors were destroyed, 65 000 km of railroad destroyed, 4.7 million homes demolished • The USSR’s alliance with the USA and Great Britain after the defeat of their mutual enemies became one of tense suspicion. • Potsdam treaty breached with Stalin’s blockade of Berlin from 1948 to 1949. • Stalin also retained his troops in Iran post war, demanded territory from turkey and had joint control of the straits of the dardanelles • The western democracies gt the impression that the hostile USSR was an aggressive threat for an international communist revolution

25. Lead to the Cold War • On Stalin’s side, he was worried that his former allies would turn against the USSR • The USA successfully tested and used atomic bombs and suddenly cut off the Lend-Lease and implimented the Marshall Plan • From this perspective, Stalin’s actions do not come off as those of hostility but rather as a response to this, creating a buffer zone. Further, the Berlin blockade was a result of Stalin’s fear of german reunification who if united with the western powers would present a huge threat to the USSR.

26. Stalin (1945) “This war is not in the past. Whoever occupies a territory imposes his own social systems. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army has the power to do so. It cannot be otherwise.

27. Winston Churchill did admit that the USSR had the “need to be secure on her western frontiers” but referred to the USSR’s “expansive, proselytizing tendencies” as an “Iron Curtain” to describe how the USSR and its satellite states blocking itself off from contact with the rest of europe returning to its pre-war state of isolationism.