Bolshevik Foreign Policy 1918-1928

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Bolshevik Foreign Policy 1918-1928
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Armistice with Germany, 1917-1918

• Nov. 20, 1917 When the power of the council is
  firmly established throughout the country, the
  council will, without delay, make a formal offer
  of an armistice to all the belligerents, enemy
  and ally.
• Dec. 16, 1917 The armistice shall begin on
  December 17th at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and
  continue until January 14th.
• Negotiations at Brest-Litovsk make little headway
  since Trotsky does not want to concede territory
  and hopes socialist revolutions will overthrow
  German government
• March 1918 Germans resume advance into Russia and
  Lenin realizes that he must make concessions of
  territory since Russian army has collapsed
• Russia forced to give up large amounts of
  territory
• This treaty is overruled by the Treaty of
  Versailles (to which Russia is not invited)

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Comintern 1919

• The Comintern (Communist International, also
  known as the Third International) was an
  international Communist organisation founded in
  Moscow in March 1919
• The International intended to fight "by all
  available means, including armed force, for the
  overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and
  for the creation of an international Soviet
  republic as a transition stage to the complete
  abolition of the State.
• Adopts 21 conditions for membership including
• Every organisation that wishes to affiliate to
  the Communist International must regularly and
  methodically remove reformists and centrists from
  every responsible post in the labour movement
  (party organisations, editorial boards, trade
  unions, parliamentary factions, co-operatives,
  local government) and replace them with tested
  communists
• The communist parties of those countries in
  which the communists can carry out their work
  legally must from time to time undertake purges
  (re-registration) of the membership of their
  party organisations in order to cleanse the party
  systematically of the petty-bourgeois elements
  within it

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Allied Intervention

• Various allied governments send troops into
  Russia in 1918 and establish blockade
• Soviets annul Russian state debt, and confiscate
  private property held by foreign nationals

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Treaty of Versailles, 1919

• Bolsheviks not invited to Paris
• Create new ethnic countries in former Russian
  territory (Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia
  and Lithuania, Poland and gives territory to
  Romania)

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War with Poland following its rebirth in March
1919 (eastern borders are not defined)
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Polish Advance, June 1920
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Russian Advance, August 1920
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Treaty of Rapallo, 1922

• Signed with Germany another pariah state
• Each renounced all territorial and financial
  claims against the other
• Also agreed to normalise diplomatic relations and
  to "co-operate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in
  meeting the economic needs of both countries
• The treaty ended the diplomatic isolation of both
  countries

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Soviet Pragmatism

• the Bolsheviks recognized that they must buy and
  borrow in the West to build their socialist
  society, they needed capitalist goods to rebuild
  and they had to borrow the capitalist's money to
  trade (Lenins pragmatism)
• Gradually establish relations with various
  Western governments but continue to pursue
  revolutions