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Foreign Relations and the Attitudes of Foreign Powers:

Bolshevik relations with foreign powers:

Internal

  • 1922 – USSR named – control of Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Transcaucasia
    • Different nationalities

External

  • Communism = world revolution, ‘domino effect’ – foreign policy is difficult
  • Trotsky and Lenin believe in permanent revolution, Stalin = ‘socialism in one country’
  • Set up Comintern – Communist cells in other countries to encourage a revolution
    • Give money, supporting ideas and occasional visits
    • Causes suspicion of Communism and USSR in other countries

Great Britain

  • Involvement in civil war against Reds = not very effective – anti Communism and world revolution
    • Recognise Kolchak as leader, not Communists
  • Relations improve after NEP – 1921
    • Apr 1921 – Anglo-Soviet trade deal – won’t interfere with others’ politics
  • Britain still suspicious due to Zinoviev letter
    • Apparently, a letter from Zinoviev to Labour government saying radicalisation of workforce will be hastened by Labour, denied by Zinoviev – led to fall of Labour from power
      • Probably fake, published in right-wing ‘Daily Mail’
    • 1926-1927 – relations break down – more suspicions
      • General strike – government thought Communists were behind it
      • 1926 – end of A-S trade deal
      • Apr 1927 – GB convince China to attack Soviet embassy in Beijing
      • Jun 1927 – GB spies bomb Leningrad, break into Soviet trade offices

Germany

  • 1922 – Rapallo Treaty
    • Allies estranged Soviet Union and Germany – both met up and agreed treaty
    • Drop wartime claims against each other, econ cooperation, establish diplomatic relations
    • Trading partners, normalisation of relations
    • Lasted 10 years

 

BOLSHEVIK CONSOLIDATION OF POWER – 1917-1924

How?

  • Pragmatic decisions to ensure survival
    • Decree on Land
    • Decree on Worker Control
    • Decree for National Minorities – right for self-determination
    • Abolition of titles and ranks
    • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
    • War Communism
    • NEP
  • Ruthless methods and terror
    • Cheka – GPU – Felix Dzerzhinsky
    • Rebellions crushed
    • Banning Kadets, Mens and SRs
    • Class warfare
    • Red Terror
    • Social repression during NEP
      • Strict censorship – Glavlit
      • Challenging the church – Union of the Militant Godless
      • 1922 – SR show trials – 11 leaders executed
    • Staying in sole, central control
      • No CA
      • Exploited weaknesses of opposition
        • PG failed to suppress Oct Rev
        • Didn’t think Bols would survive – lack of armed uprising
        • 1917 – SRs and Mens walk out of 2nd ARCS
        • 1918 – SRs resign from Sovnarkom
        • Lost Civil War
      • Defeated Whites in Civil War
      • State control – Gosplan, Vesenkha, Food Commissariat
      • Centralised party control
      • 1922 – banned factions
    • Greatness of leaders
      • Lenin – simple orator, propaganda, controversial decrees, leader, explored Marxist ideas
      • Trotsky – good orator, chairman of PS, Red Army, MRC troika leader, propaganda
    • Civil War
      • Won it
      • Use of Tsarist officers
      • Good, disciplined Red Army – benefitted them later
      • Propaganda use
    • Control of the economy
      • 1917-1918 – State capitalism
      • 1918-1921 – War Communism
        • Grain requisitioning – control peasants
        • Nationalising industries – ensure state control
      • 1921-1924 – NEP
        • Flexibility of ideology to restore economy
        • Punished Nepmen
      • Dealing with rebellions
        • Concessions after Kronstadt (and Tambov)

STALIN’S RISE TO POWER:

  • Lenin dies 21 Jan 1924

Why Lenin was concerned about Stalin:

  • Lots of power concentrated in his hands
    • 1917-1924 – Commissar for Nationalities
    • Mar 1919 – Orgburo member, May 1919 – Leader
    • Mar 1919 – Politburo member, May 1922 – General Secretary (leader)
  • Abused his power
    • G. Georgian Mens accused him of betraying Georgia – he threatened Bols to toughen control there
    • One of Stalin’s henchmen struck a local leader
  • Rudeness
    • Rude to Lenin’s wife Krupskaya – after she refused to let him visit
    • Wrote about this in testament

Lenin’s testament

  • Stalin = powerful but doesn’t know how to use it, rude, should be replaced
  • Trotsky = ‘outstanding ability’, ‘most capable man in the present CC’, ‘excessive self-assurance’, Menshevik links
  • Bukharin = ‘favourite’, possibly not fully Marxist
  • Kamenev/Zinoviev = Blames them for Oct Rev publishing despite success
  • Stalin painted himself as Lenin’s disciple in his funeral – would carry on his ideas, pallbearer
  • Stalin convinces Trotsky he cannot arrive in time – uses it defame Trotsky
  • Cult of Leninism – Lenin embalmed, shrine, brain sliced into pieces, so scientists could study genius
    • Memorabilia emerged – statues of Lenin, Petrograd -> Leningrad
    • Lenin didn’t want this; Trotsky didn’t like it either – but disagreeing would defame him

LENIN SUMMARY:

  • Leadership and organisational abilities
  • Strong personality – pushed ideas through Politburo
  • Persuasive in arguments
  • Good orator – could express ideas simply
  • Spent a lot of time in gov – up to 16 hrs a day before last major stroke
    • Did not seek personal gain, unlike other Bols leaders
    • Lived simply with Krupskaya – slept in office room in Kremlin
  • Politics dominated over personal friendships – e.g. Martov cast out after Menshevik
  • Ruthless and cruel – hanging of 100 kulaks, extermination of clergy in Shuya, but left this to others
  • Managed to keep party united, dominated party
  • Tactical, tremendous political skill

Key points

  • April Thesis – shocking agenda, opposition in party, only credible opp to PG
  • October Revolution – pressured CC to do it despite opp e.g. Kamenev and Zinoviev
  • No socialist coalition – one-party state, forced this through other Bols
  • Treaty of B-L, Red Army – needed peace to survive, promises, army hierarchy and old officers returned despite opposition
  • NEP – Concession to restore economy and prevent rebellion

Comintern:
Comintern (the Communist International) was an international communist organisation that aimed to promote Marxism and spread proletariat revolution around the world. Delegates attended congresses from as far afield as the USA, Australia and Japan.

Comintern Congress:

Founding Congress of the Communist International, Moscow, March 1919

Key Issues:

Lenin promoted the soviet system as the best way of spreading Marxism.

Outlook of delegates:

Positive. Despite the Civil War and the suppression of the Spartacist uprising in Germany, delegates were convinced world-wide communist revolution was imminent.

Comintern Congress:

Second Comintern Congress, Petrograd July-August 1920

Key issues:

Lenin’s ‘21 Conditions’: the requirements that must be met to become a member of the Comintern.

Outlook of delegates:

Mixed. Some parties broke away from the Comintern because of the 21 conditions. But Bolsheviks victory in the Civil War looked certain.

Comintern Congress:

Third Comintern Congress, Moscow, June – July 1921

Key Issues: The recovery of the bourgeoisie in countries like Poland and Germany.

Outlook of delegates: Disappointed. Expected revolutions had turned instead into support for bourgeoise democracies. Germany was ruled by the ‘bourgeois-democratic’ Weimar Republic. Bolshevik Russia was left alone in a capitalise world.

Scope of foreign interventions:

The main areas of intervention were:

North Russia – British and French forces; the British navy patrolling in the Baltic Sea; Australian, Canadian and Italian forces at Archangel’s; 11,000 Estonian troops in the War of Independence.

The Far East – 11,000 American troops at Vladivostok; also 2000 Chinese troops, and a small force; substantial Japanese forced invading eastern Siberia

Southern Russia, Ukraine, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea – French and British naval forces; Turkish troops active in Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan)

Central Siberia – sections of the Trans-Siberian railway controlled by the Czech Legion

After the Third Comintern Congress, the focus of the Bolshevik leadership shifted away from the world revolution to concentrate instead on rebuilding the economy in Russia.

 

The Russo-Polish War:

In the wake of the Bolshevik takeover in Russia, Lenin had fully expected a proletariat revolution to break out in Poland, in accordance with Marxist theory. When that failed to occur, his plans for the future of communism in Russia were undermined.

Bolshevik Russia faced attacks by non- Russian forces as well as White forces urging the Civil War.

Poland emerged as an independent country by the end of ww1 in November 1918.

The new borders of Poland were contested, and both Poland and Russia hoped to gain more territory.

The first conflicts between Polish and Bolshevik forces occurred in February 1919.

In May 1920, the Poles allied with the Ukrainians to take Kiev from the Bolsheviks.

A Red Army counterattack pushed the Polish army all the way back to area, where the Poles mounted a successful defence and he was settled into a stalemate.

Peace terms were agreed in October and formalised by the Treaty of Raga in March 1921.

The Rapallo Treaty:

Although other countries disapproved of the Bolsheviks, once revolution seemed less likely to spread in Europe. There was interest in opening trade deals with Russia.  For example, Britain decided to reopen discussions about trade in 1920.

Both Bolshevik Russia and Weimar Germany had been excluded from the League of Nations after the end of ww1.

However, in 1922 the Soviet Union’s deputy commissar for foreign affairs, Georgy Chicherin, was invited to an important international economic conference held in Genova.

Chicherin and representatives from Weimar Germany then held talks in nearby Rapallo, leading to the Rapallo Treaty in April 1922.

Key articles of the Rapallo Treaty:

Russia and Germany agreed to waive any claims for compensation arising from ww1 (Articles 1 and 2)

Formal diplomatic relations reopened (Article 3)

‘Mutual goodwill’ was stressed in commercial and economic relations (Article 4 and 5)

There was also a secret treaty allowing Germany to carry out military training on Russian territory.

Zinoviev Letter:

International recognition and the repercussions of the Zinoviev letter:

Britain had granted diplomatic recognition to Russia in November 1920 and opened the way for trade agreements, but Russia remained isolated.

In 1923, a Labour government was formed in Britain, which aroused strong opposition from much of the British establishment who loathed socialism. The Zinoviev letter, published in October 1924, was a forgery promoted by right-wingers that was designed to reduce votes for the Labour Party in the British general election.

The letter was supposed to be from the chairman of the Comintern, Zinoviev, to one of the leaders of the Labour Party.

The letter called for trade deals and also said it was time to organise a revolution in Britain. The idea was that British people would not vote Labour once they heard how the Soviet Union was giving orders to the Labour government.

The impact of the letter on the election was small, but it did damage relations between Britain and the Soviet Union, contributing in part to Russia’s continued diplomatic isolation.