Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS

Mogilev State University named after A.A. Kuleshov

Department of East Slavic and Russian History

COURSE WORK

Topic: Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s

Completed by a 4th year student

gr. A OZO of the Faculty of History

Azarenko D.M.

Scientific director

Associate Professor, Candidate of Historical Sciences

Vorobiev A.A.

MOGILEV – 2010

Introduction

I. FOREIGN POLICY OF THE USSR IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 1930S

1.1 USSR on the international scene in the early 1930s

1.2 Strengthening the international position of the USSR in the mid-1930s. Creation of a collective security system

II. FOREIGN POLICY OF THE USSR ON THE EVE OF THE WAR

2.1 Soviet-German relations

2.2 USSR foreign policy in the Far East

2.3 Foreign policy of the USSR on the eve of fascist aggression

Conclusion

List of used literature

1.1 USSR on the international scene in the early 1930s

Since the late 1920s, the situation in the world and the foreign policy of the USSR was largely affected by the impact of the global economic crisis, which became most pronounced in 1929-1933. This led to a significant reduction in industrial production in developed capitalist countries: in the USA it decreased by 46%, in Germany - 40%, in France - 31%, in England - 16%. The crisis was a consequence of the intensification of the processes of concentration and cyclical production in the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution that unfolded from the end of the 19th century.

Monopoly associations, which developed rapidly during the First World War and after it, largely determined the domestic and foreign policies of states. The struggle of monopolies for profit led to an even greater escalation of contradictions in relations between the states participating in this war. Relations between them were already strained by the unequal Versailles system of treaties, adopted as a result of Germany’s defeat in it.

Studying the features of the foreign policy of the USSR in the 30s. cannot be considered outside the context of the events that occurred in the world in the late 20s. XX century. Here, first of all, it should be said that in the first half of the 20s the economic blockade of Russia by capitalist countries was broken. In 1920, after the fall of Soviet power in the Baltic republics, the government of the RSFSR concluded peace treaties with the new governments of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, recognizing their independence and independence.

Since 1921 The establishment of trade relations between the RSFSR and England, Germany, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Italy, and Czechoslovakia began. The political negotiation process with England and France has reached a dead end. Taking advantage of the contradictions between the leading European powers and Germany, Soviet representatives in the town of Rapallo (near Genoa) concluded an agreement with it. The treaty resumed diplomatic and consular relations between the countries and thereby brought Russia out of diplomatic isolation.

In 1926, the Berlin Treaty of Friendship and Military Neutrality was concluded. Germany thus became the main trading and military partner of the USSR, which made significant adjustments to the nature of international relations in subsequent years. By 1924, Russia was de jure recognized in Europe by: Great Britain, France, Italy, Norway, Austria, Greece, Sweden, in Asia - Japan, China, in Latin America - Mexico and Uruguay. The US delayed recognition until 1933. Total for 1921-1925 Russia concluded 40 agreements and treaties. At the same time, Soviet-British and Soviet-French relations were unstable. In 1927, there was a break in diplomatic relations with England. In 1924, diplomatic and consular relations were established with China, and in 1925 with Japan.

The Soviet foreign policy concept in the late 1920s and early 1930s was built in accordance with two contradictory goals: preparing a world proletarian revolution and establishing peaceful relations with capitalist states. The task was set to turn the won peaceful respite into a lasting peace, to bring the country out of the state of foreign political and economic isolation, including by attracting foreign capital. The USSR sought to overcome the state of diplomatic isolation. However, the solution to this problem was made difficult by a number of factors, such as the rejection of the Soviet system and the Bolshevik slogan of world revolution by the Entente countries; claims against Russia for tsarist debts and discontent of the capitalist powers with the monopoly of foreign trade; as well as Russia’s course towards supporting revolutionary organizations in Europe and America and the national liberation movement in colonial countries.

From the late 20s - 30s. Soviet foreign policy was carried out in a complex and rapidly changing environment. It was determined by the main foreign policy principle of the hostility of the imperialist powers towards the USSR and the need to take advantage of their mutual contradictions. Such balance-of-power policies pushed the USSR first to form an alliance with Germany against the British threat, and then forced Soviet diplomacy to seek cooperation with England and France against the much more dangerous Third Reich.

In 1929, the capitalist world was shocked by the outbreak of an economic crisis. In the West, a catastrophic decline in production, wages and employment, and the general standard of living began. The number of officially registered unemployed people worldwide has exceeded 30 million. In the Soviet Union, many assumed that the "Great Depression" would usher in a new round of proletarian revolutions and lead to the rise of the national liberation movement. At the same time, the activities of Soviet diplomacy during the years of the economic crisis were very restrained and cautious. As People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, M. M. Litvinov, who replaced G. V. Chicherin in 1930, became increasingly famous.

In the context of the global economic crisis (1929-1933), in order to maintain foreign exchange earnings, the USSR government increased the export of its goods, reducing their prices to a minimum. The foreign trade policy of the USSR caused in 1930-1932. years, there was a sharp protest in many countries that accused the Soviet Union of dumping, that is, exporting goods to the world market at a price below their cost. In their opinion, this policy was ensured by the massive use of forced labor in the USSR and it was this policy that led to the economic crisis in the West.

In July 1930, the United States, hit by the crisis more than other countries, initiated the economic blockade of the USSR. They banned the import of Soviet goods and began to detain Soviet cargo. France, Belgium, Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, and England joined the blockade, despite the reluctance of the Labor government to aggravate relations with Moscow. Of the major countries, only Germany did not join the boycott. On the contrary, it sharply increased trade with the USSR, becoming its main trading partner.

At the same time, France came up with the initiative to “unite Europe” against the USSR (the “Pan-Europe” plan), that is, the creation of an anti-Soviet bloc of European states. Since the League of Nations did not support this initiative, the French government decided to push Poland, Romania and the Baltic states to put pressure on the USSR. Supplies of French weapons to these countries increased. Another reason for the increased hostility towards the USSR was the complete collectivization, accompanied by the closure of churches and the exile of peasants, mostly Christians. In February 1930, Pope Pius XI declared a “crusade” against the USSR. In Western Europe and the USA in February-March 1930, prayers, rallies and demonstrations took place against the persecution of religion and Christians in the USSR.

At this time, alarming news came from the Far Eastern borders of the USSR.

In 1929, the Soviet country was subjected to serious military provocation for the first time since the end of the Civil War. On July 10, detachments of Manchu troops and White Guards destroyed the Soviet consulate in Harbin; captured the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), which had been under joint Soviet-Chinese control since 1924; arrested the Soviet administration of the road (more than 200 people). At the same time, Manchu troops began shelling Soviet border outposts and populated areas. Attempts by the Soviet government to resolve the conflict through peaceful means were thwarted. On August 16, the Central Election Commission and the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution to sever diplomatic relations with China. The Soviet government created the Special Far Eastern Army under the command of V.K. Blucher (18.5 thousand soldiers and commanders), which in October-November 1929 expelled the interventionists from the Soviet regions of Primorye and Transbaikalia. On December 22, 1929, a Soviet-Chinese agreement was signed, according to which the previous situation on the CER was restored. However, a full-scale restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries occurred only in 1932.

In addition, at this time, taking advantage of the fact that the countries of Western Europe and the United States, as well as the Soviet Union, were largely occupied with their economic problems, Japan sent its troops into the territory of Manchuria on September 18, 1931. Japanese propaganda explained the aggression by the need to confront the “Bolshevik danger” in China. The USSR found itself alone in facing this threat, and therefore its policy consisted of a series of diplomatic protests, military countermeasures (troop movements to the border) and at the same time conciliatory actions, the purpose of which was to deprive Japan of a pretext for an attack.

The Soviet Union, which began to modernize its economy in a hostile environment, was actually forced to fight for survival. This strategy was expressed in the most clear form by J.V. Stalin in February 1931 at the First All-Union Conference of Socialist Industry Workers: “We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do this or we will be crushed.” Foreign policy during the period of accelerated modernization of the country was aimed at ensuring security for the reconstruction of the country's national economy and the creation of reliable Armed Forces capable of protecting the country from external threats.

According to the country's Constitution, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR had the highest powers in the field of foreign relations. General management of relations was entrusted to the government. In reality, foreign policy was directly supervised by the Politburo and its head. Day-to-day foreign policy activities were carried out by the People's Commissariat (Ministry) of Foreign Affairs, headed by G. V. Chicherin (1923-1930), M. M. Litvinov (1930-1939), V. M. Molotov (1939-1949). Foreign economic affairs in 1926-1930. headed by the People's Commissariat of Foreign and Domestic Trade (People's Commissar A. I. Mikoyan), later - the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade (A. P. Rosengolts in 1930-1937; E. D. Chvyalevv 1938; A. I. Mikoyan 1938-1949).

At the beginning of the first five-year plan, the USSR's foreign policy had to be conducted in the context of increasing interventionist sentiments in the imperialist countries. Striving for peaceful coexistence of states with different socio-political systems, the Soviet Union joined the “Briand-Kellogg Pact” signed in Paris by nine powers in August 1928 (the initiators were the French Foreign Minister and the US Secretary of State) on the renunciation of war as a means of external politics and was the first to put it into effect.

Thus, the foreign policy of the USSR with the countries of Western Europe, the USA, Japan and China in the early 1930s was significantly influenced by the global economic crisis, the cause of which many countries tended to consider the dumping policy of the USSR during foreign trade. As a consequence, numerous breaks in economic relations between Western European countries and the United States and the Soviet Union followed.

In turn, the beginning of the global economic crisis was initially regarded in the USSR, and especially in the Comintern, as a harbinger of a new stage in the long-awaited world proletarian revolution. However, capitalism once again demonstrated its resilience: the crisis was overcome. Largely due to increased government intervention in the economic and social life and the transfer of resources from colonial and dependent countries.

The general consequence of this contradictory policy of the USSR and Western countries was the aggravation of foreign policy relations between them. In other words, the main destabilizing factor in the world was the irreconcilability of capitalism and socialism, which worsened during the global economic crisis. The task of the leading capitalist states was to maintain their dominant positions in the world and satisfy the claims of their “disadvantaged” rivals, mainly at the expense of the Soviet Union. The USSR, in turn, set itself the goal of using capitalist contradictions to delay the war as long as possible and to prepare for it as best as possible.

1.2 Strengthening the international position of the USSR in the mid-1930s.Creation of a collective security system

At the turn of the 20-30s. a review of relations between the USSR and the USA begins. Both representative delegations of American senators and individual engineers come to the Soviet Union. With the help of the latter, large-scale construction is underway in the country. Thus, X. Cooper, who took part in the construction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station, was awarded the Order of Lenin. In the United States, the successes of the Soviet country are gradually being recognized.

By 1933, when F. Roosevelt replaced President Hoover in the White House, the question of diplomatic recognition of the USSR was a foregone conclusion. In the fall, the Senate voted by a majority to support the need to take appropriate steps in this direction. On October 10, 1933, President Roosevelt published his message addressed to M.I. Kalinin with a proposal to resume diplomatic contacts. It was decided to put an end to the "abnormal relations between the 125 million population of the United States and the 160 million population of Russia." In a response letter dated October 19, Kalinin informed the American president that the Soviet side had accepted the proposal. Diplomatic relations between the USSR and the USA were established on November 16, 1933. During Litvinov’s visit to Washington, which the world press regarded as the most an important event for many years. After the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the USA, Litvinov made a statement in which he noted that “the absence of relations for 16 years contributed to the accumulation in the United States of incorrect and false ideas about the situation in the USSR. Many people amused themselves by spreading the wildest fables about the Soviet Union.” The resumption of diplomatic contacts, according to the majority, meant that “one of the most important political and economic anomalies has been eliminated.”

In 1932, the international position of the USSR strengthened significantly. After lengthy negotiations, non-aggression treaties were signed with Latvia, Estonia, Finland, France and Poland. In the same year, the Soviet delegation spoke at the International Conference in Geneva with a proposal for general and complete disarmament.

The USSR delegation, led by People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M.M. Litvinov, put forward three proposals: a project for general and complete disarmament or partial disarmament, which provided for the complete destruction of the most aggressive types of weapons; a draft declaration on the definition of the attacking party (aggressor); turning the disarmament conference into a permanent “peace conference”. None of these proposals were supported by the Geneva conference. It completed its work in June 1934, having to its credit two main decisions - recognition of Germany’s right to “equality” in armaments and a plan for “quality disarmament” (“Macdonald Plan”), which provided for the maximum numbers of ground and air armed forces of only Europeans countries During the conference, two future initiators of a new world war - Japan and Germany - withdrew from the League of Nations.

In 1933, in the face of a growing military threat in Europe (after the Nazis came to power in Germany) and Asia (in connection with Japan’s aggression against China), the USSR became a party to the Convention on the Determination of the Aggressor and took the initiative to create a system of collective security in Europe and Asia. He signed acts defining the aggressor with Poland, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, as well as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. In September, a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Italy.

By the mid-30s, the Soviet Union had established diplomatic relations with most countries of the world. On September 18, 1934, it was admitted to the League of Nations, which testified to the growing authority of the USSR in the international arena. Rhetoric about world revolution and within the country is sharply reduced. The VII Congress of the Comintern, which worked in Moscow in July-August 1935, proclaimed a course towards the creation of a united anti-fascist popular front. Under these conditions, the Soviet Union changed the direction of its foreign policy. Believing that the system of non-aggression treaties was not enough, he directed efforts to create a system of collective security against aggression, primarily from Germany.

One of the initiatives was the proposal of Soviet diplomacy to conclude an “Eastern Pact”, which, in addition to the USSR, would include Poland, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Germany. It provided for the provision of military assistance to any country party to the pact that was subjected to aggression, no matter who the aggressor was, and was aimed at creating an obstacle to the outbreak of war, primarily from Germany.

In September 1934, Germany rejected its participation in the pact. Poland supported her. However, the Soviet Union managed to conclude mutual assistance pacts in the event of aggression with France and Czechoslovakia in May 1935. At the same time, both these countries entered into a mutual assistance agreement with each other. At the same time, the agreement with Czechoslovakia contained a significant clause, according to which the Soviet Union could provide assistance to its ally only with simultaneous assistance from France. With this clause, Czechoslovakia limited the possibility of receiving Soviet assistance in the event of an attack by an aggressor.

At the same time, it was proposed to conclude a Pacific Pact with the participation of the USSR, USA, England, Holland and Japan. The conclusion of the pact was aimed at containing Japanese aggression in the Pacific Ocean. The draft pact put forward by the USSR provided for its participants to be the USSR, the USA, China and Japan, i.e. powers with interests in the Pacific region. By mid-1937, negotiations had finally reached a dead end due to the US refusal to support not only the plan, but also the idea of its creation. In June 1937, F. Roosevelt declared that “there is no faith in pacts.” He considered a strong US Navy to be the only guarantee of security in the Pacific.

In response to the USSR's proposals to create collective security, the Western powers are pursuing a policy of bilateral agreements, which, according to the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. Litvinov, “do not always serve the goals of peace.”

In 1934, Germany concludes a non-aggression pact with Poland. In 1935, the Anglo-German naval agreement was signed... Revealing the aggressive plans of Poland, Germany, Japan, Finland, one of the heralds of Polish imperialism, V. Studnitsky, wrote at the beginning of 1935 in the book “The Political System of Europe and Poland” that “Together with Germany, Poland could agree to the Ukrainian experiment.” In addition to Ukraine, these powers could “tear off Crimea, Karelia, Transcaucasia and Turkestan from Russia.” It was also stipulated that “the Far East up to Lake Baikal should go to Japan.”

Thus, the creation of collective security in Europe was significantly reduced. The conclusion of the German-Polish non-aggression treaty actually excluded the signing of the Eastern Pact. In addition, France, Czechoslovakia and other European countries did not want to spoil relations with Germany and Poland for the sake of the USSR. The Soviet Union was forced to change its methods of finding allies in the fight against the aggressor.

A powerful blow to the collapse of Soviet initiatives was the agreement of the heads of the four powers - Germany, England, France and Italy, concluded in September 1938 in Munich, which led to the liquidation of independent Czechoslovakia and opened the way for fascist aggression in the East. On March 20, 1939, the Soviet Union announced its non-recognition of the inclusion of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the German Empire. The essence of the Munich agreement, the anti-Soviet orientation of the policies of the Western powers were revealed in the Report on the work of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to the XVIII Party Congress on March 6, 1939. The report of the Central Committee formulated the tasks in the field of foreign policy of the USSR:

1. Continue to pursue a policy of peace and strengthening business ties with all countries;

2. Be careful and not allow war provocateurs, who are accustomed to raking in the heat with the wrong hands, to drag the country into conflicts;

3. To strengthen in every possible way the combat power of our Red Army and the Red Navy;

4. Strengthen international ties of friendship with workers of all countries interested in peace and friendship between peoples.

On April 17, 1939, the Soviet Government presented England and France with a draft treaty of mutual assistance against aggression for a period of 5-10 years. However, an equal and effective mutual assistance pact could not be achieved.

The British and French could not resolve another cardinal issue - the passage of Soviet troops through the territory of Poland. On August 21, 1939, the Soviet side stated: “The Soviet mission believes that the USSR, which does not have a common border with Germany, can provide assistance to France, England, Poland and Romania only if its troops pass through Polish and Romanian territories, because there are no other ways to come into contact with the aggressor’s troops... This is a military axiom.”

The destructiveness of the actions of English politicians was expressed by the leader of the Liberal Party, Lloyd George; "Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Lord Halifax and Sir Simon do not want an alliance with Russia".

Thus, the obvious reluctance of England and France to reach an agreement with the USSR on collective security put it in conditions of complete isolation in front of the aggressor.

International situation sharply worsened in 1935. Nazi Germany, by a unilateral act, tore up the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, introduced universal conscription in March and announced the creation of military aviation. In June 1935, Great Britain and Germany entered into a naval agreement that allowed Germany, contrary to the Treaty of Versailles, to have a navy of up to one-third of the surface vessels and almost half of the submarines of the British fleet. On October 3, 1935, Italy attacked Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and occupied it in early May of the following year. On May 9, 1936, the creation of the Italian Empire was proclaimed in Rome. Of the major powers, only the USSR, which did not have diplomatic relations with Abyssinia, decisively came out in its defense. However, the Western powers blocked Soviet proposals to boycott the aggressor.

1936 brought a new aggravation of the international situation. On March 7, Nazi Germany abandoned the Locarno Agreements of 1925, according to which it had pledged to comply with the provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty regarding the demilitarization of the Rhineland, sent troops into its territory and reached the borders of France. The latter did not take advantage of the right under the Treaty of Versailles to force Germany to withdraw its troops. In September 1936, a Nazi party congress was held in Nuremberg, at which a four-year plan was announced to prepare Germany for a major war for “living space” for the Germans. On January 30, 1937, Hitler announced in the Reichstag that “Germany is withdrawing its signature from the Treaty of Versailles.” After this declaration, a new war in Europe became inevitable.

On October 25, 1936, inspired by impunity, the aggressors formalized the alliance of Germany and Italy under the name “Berlin-Rome Axis” with the Berlin Agreement. It recognized the seizure of Ethiopia by Italy and established common line behavior in relation to events in Spain, an agreement was recorded on the delimitation of spheres of “economic penetration” in the Balkans and in the Danube River basin. The formation of the “axis” marked the beginning of the formation of a bloc of fascist aggressors who were preparing the Second World War.

A continuation of this policy was the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 25, 1936 by Germany and Japan. The participants in this agreement pledged to inform each other about the activities of the revolutionary proletarian organization and to fight against it. Other states were encouraged to “take defensive measures” in the spirit of the agreement or to join the pact. The pact was aimed against the USSR, where the headquarters of the Comintern was located. In 1937, Fascist Italy joined it. The hatred that many people around the world felt for the Comintern explains why the fascist states of the 1930s were often seen as “a bulwark against Bolshevism.”

In an effort to comply with such ideas, fascist Germany, together with Italy, participated in 8 interventions against Republican Spain since 1936. In February 1936, the government of the Popular Front, created on the initiative of the Communist Party, came to power in this country as a result of the elections. In July of the same year, a military-fascist rebellion broke out in the country, led by General Francisco Franco, who relied on the “Spanish Phalanx” (a right-wing political party in Spain founded in 1933) and most of the army (up to 100 thousand people). The rebels were openly supported by the fascist powers. The League of Nations rejected the Republican government's demand for collective action against the aggressors. Military equipment, weapons, as well as officers and military instructors were sent from Germany and Italy to help the rebels. When this was not enough, regular troops began to arrive: from Germany - more than 50 thousand (Condor Legion), from Italy - about 200 thousand. The legal basis for the appearance of these, only formally volunteer, interventionist troops was the recognition of Germany on November 18, 1937 and Italy under the Franco regime. During the war in Spain, the term “fifth column” was born, denoting enemy secret agents and their accomplices used to weaken the rear of the armed forces of the republic.

During the ensuing civil war, the Spanish Republicans were assisted by communists and socialists from many countries. The Soviet Union, responding to the request of the legitimate Spanish government, supplied the Republicans with weapons and military equipment (airplanes, tanks, armored vehicles, torpedo boats, artillery guns, machine guns, rifles, cartridges, shells, aerial bombs). About 3 thousand Soviet volunteers (military advisers, pilots, tank crews, sailors and other specialists) fought against the Phalangists in the ranks of international brigades, which included more than 50 thousand people from 64 countries. The main military advisers in the Spanish Republic were Y. K. Berzin, G. M. Stern, K. M. Kachanov.

England, France and other Western powers pursued a policy of “non-intervention” in the national revolutionary war. Since September 1936, the International Committee for Non-Interference in Spanish Affairs, consisting of representatives of 27 European countries, has been working in London. However, as it soon became clear, it actually began to serve as a screen to cover up the German-Italian intervention in Spain. The Soviet representative on the committee, I.M. Maisky, fought to stop aid to the rebels from Germany, Italy, and Portugal, which was provided with the complicity of England, France and the actual connivance of the United States. In October 1936, the USSR government stated that since the non-intervention agreement had “ceased to actually exist”, it considered it necessary to “return to the Spanish government the rights and ability to purchase weapons outside Spain.” Thanks to the efforts of the Soviet Union, in September 1937 it was possible to conclude an agreement on measures to combat piracy by submarines of the fascist powers. However, the policy of aiding aggression paralyzed the work of the Committee on Non-Intervention, which largely predetermined the fall of Republican Spain.

Strengthening its position in the Far East, the USSR in March 1936 concluded a mutual assistance agreement with the Mongolian People's Republic. He was a warning to the Japanese militarists. However, continuing further expansion in the Far East, Japan attacked China on July 7, 1937, occupied its northern regions, and captured Shanghai, Beijing and other important centers. Under these conditions, the Soviet Union, having signed a non-aggression pact with China on August 21, 1937, provided it with a large loan on preferential terms and supplied it with aircraft, weapons, and fuel.

Thus, by the end of 1937, the USSR's efforts to organize a system of collective security had not achieved their goals. It was also not possible to use the opportunity to create a broad popular front for a joint struggle against fascism and war.

The foreign policy activities of the USSR in the first half of the 1930s were built not only on the basis of internal tasks, but also depending on the state and development of international relations.

Events in the world have shown that the Soviet Union actually does not have strong and reliable allies in both the West and the East. In the current situation, the greatest danger for Stalin was the possibility of collusion Western states with Hitler. Soviet diplomacy sought, on the one hand, to implement a plan for collective security in Europe, to prevent the creation of a broad united anti-Soviet front, to maintain maximum caution and not succumb to enemy provocations, and on the other, to take all necessary measures to strengthen the country's defense.

Despite all the differences in approaches to tactics in foreign policy, the general trend of international development in the early 30s. was correctly defined by the Soviet leadership: the aggravation of the international situation, the growing forces of revanchism and war, the movement of the world towards a new war. In the foreign policy of the USSR during this period, there was active activity aimed at combating fascist aggression, creating a system of collective security in Europe, and developing international relations based on a policy of peaceful coexistence. The implementation of this line of foreign policy was the establishment in 1933-1935. diplomatic relations of the USSR with Spain, Uruguay, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Albania, Belgium, Luxembourg and Colombia, which for more than 25 years did not recognize our country. A special place in the international events of these years is occupied by the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the USA in November 1933. All this testified to the strengthening of the international authority of the USSR and created more favorable conditions for intensifying its foreign policy activities, which at that time were primarily aimed at creating a collective security system in order to prevent a world war, for which the USSR was not yet ready and sought to delay its onset for as long as possible.

II. FOREIGN POLICY OF THE USSR ON THE EVE OF THE WAR

2.1 Soviet-German relations

By the end of the 30s. Germany's expansion in Europe unfolded with particular force. On March 12, 1938, German troops invaded Austria and carried out its annexation to the Reich (Anschluss). Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschning was arrested and remained in concentration camps until his release in May 1945. Having captured Austria, Hitler began to prepare the way for the liquidation and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

In 1933, with Hitler coming to power in Germany, on the initiative of the Soviet side, military relations between the Red Army and the Reichswehr were severed. The fascist authorities, for their part, declared the Soviet-German trade agreement of May 2, 1932 invalid. As a result, exports to Germany decreased by 44% in the first half of 1933 alone. During 1933, the Soviet embassy in Berlin sent 217 notes to the German Foreign Ministry, protesting against various anti-Soviet actions of the fascists - illegal arrests, searches, etc. Preparation for an aggressive war was elevated to the rank of German state policy. “Nothing will scare me. No so-called norms of international law, no treaties will keep me from taking advantage of the advantage presented to me. The coming war will be unheard of bloody and cruel,” said Hitler.

Despite the changes taking place in Germany, the USSR sought to maintain civilized relations with this state. Stalin announced this from the rostrum of the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in January 1934. However, in 1935-1936. Soviet-German ties are gradually weakening. Not the least role was played by Hitler’s statements that “Germany will only be complete when Europe becomes Germany. No European state now has complete borders."

In the fall of 1937, a real “consular war” broke out between Germany and the USSR, as a result of which 5 German consulates out of 7 were closed in the USSR, and 2 Soviet consulates out of 4 were closed in Germany. A year before, in November 1936, after After 15 months of negotiations between Germany and Japan, the Anti-Comintern Pact was concluded.

The signatories pledged to fight the Comintern. In the event of war between one of the contracting powers and the USSR, the other country pledged not to provide any assistance to the Soviet Union. In November 1937, Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact. This is how the “Berlin-Rome-Tokyo triangle” arose, aimed at fighting the communist movement within each country and in the international arena. For Hitler, however, this was just the beginning. The main task that he formulated was the desire to “transform the continent into a single space where we and only we will rule. And we will take the burden of this struggle on our shoulders. It will open the door for us to long dominion over the world."

On September 30, 1938, Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini and Daladier signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed the German army to enter the territory of Czechoslovakia on October 1 and complete the occupation of its Sudetenland, populated mainly by Germans, by October 10. The Czechoslovak government capitulated, submitting to the joint dictates of Berlin, London, Rome and Paris. This shameful deal was the pinnacle of the short-sighted policy of “appeasement” of the aggressor. The word "Munich" has since become a symbol of betrayal and capitulation of Western states to fascism. The Soviet Union did not provide assistance to Czechoslovakia, since when the treaty between the countries was signed in 1935, a clause was included in the text according to which obligations of mutual support could only apply if “assistance to the party - the victim of the attack - is provided by France.” Soviet Ambassador in Great Britain, I. M. Maisky noted that England and France “washed their hands,” and the leaders of Czechoslovakia did not dare to rely on the USSR in these conditions. They chose to capitulate, losing their border fortifications, factories and factories, buildings and warehouses, institutions and organizations located in the Sudetenland. The Czech population of these areas fled in panic, leaving behind all their property.

At the beginning of 1939, Soviet-German relations were virtually frozen. In an effort to overcome the foreign policy isolation of the USSR, Stalin was forced in the spring of 1939. begin a diplomatic game to determine Hitler's immediate plans. The fascist dictator said among his circle of close people that he would not shy away from an alliance with Russia. Moreover, he stated that “this alliance is the main trump card that I will save until the end of the game. This may be the most decisive game of my life."

In April 1939, the Soviet leadership turned to Great Britain and France with a proposal to conclude a Tripartite Pact of Mutual Assistance with them, a corresponding military convention and provide guarantees of independence to all powers bordering the USSR from the Baltic to the Black Sea. London and Paris did their best to delay the start of negotiations on a military alliance, which Moscow insisted on. Molotov was called upon to carry out the Soviet line in the intricacies of world politics. On May 3, 1939, while remaining Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, he replaced M. M. Litvinov, a Jew by nationality and a clearly unsuitable figure for a possible Soviet-German dialogue, as the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

At the end of May, the British and French governments made their choice in favor of negotiations on political issues with the USSR. However, their true goal was not so much to achieve specific agreements as to counter the possible normalization of relations between Germany and the USSR. The British Prime Minister stated that he would “rather resign than sign an alliance with the Soviets,” which would provide for immediate British and French aid to the Soviet Union if the latter found itself at war with Germany. Molotov's negotiations with British and French diplomatic representatives in Moscow in June - July 1939 were unsuccessful. Western partners did not want to commit themselves to guaranteeing the independence of the powers bordering the USSR from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

Considering it advisable to “continue to support negotiations for some time” to calm public opinion, the French and British governments agreed to continue negotiations on concluding simultaneously a political and military agreement with the USSR. However, their military missions, which arrived in Moscow on August 12, consisted of minor persons who did not have the authority to conclude it. During the negotiations, the Soviet side proposed a plan providing for joint actions of the armed forces of the three countries in all possible cases aggression in Europe. Requested in this regard, the Polish government refused to accept the proposal to allow Soviet troops to pass through its territory in the event of a German attack. Negotiations have reached a dead end. Their failure contributed to Germany's outbreak of World War II.

Moscow’s cessation of Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations is also largely explained by its receipt by this time of a specific proposal from Germany to “renew the political line that was beneficial to both states over the past centuries.” It was confirmed by Hitler in a personal telegram to Stalin dated August 21, 1939. Germany clearly feared the successful completion of the Moscow Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations. For the first time, the German Foreign Minister J. Ribbentrop spoke about the possibility of normalizing relations with the Soviet Union on May 25, 1939. And on July 26, the Soviet Charge d'Affaires of Germany G. A. Astakhov was informed of the readiness of the German side “to actually prove the possibility of reaching agreement on any issues, give any guarantees." Published Soviet diplomatic documents made it possible to establish that the Soviet leadership gave consent to negotiations with Germany on August 3-4, the final decision in favor of concluding a pact was made on August 19-21.

Discussing the emerging situation with members of the Politburo on August 19, 1939, Stalin resolved a difficult dilemma: “If we conclude a mutual assistance agreement with France and England, then Germany will abandon Poland and begin to seek a “modus vivendi” with the Western powers. War will be prevented, but in the future events may take on a dangerous character for the USSR. If we accept Germany's proposal to conclude a non-aggression pact with it, it will, of course, attack Poland, and the intervention of France and England in this war will become inevitable. Under these conditions, we will have many chances to stay away from the conflict, and we can hope for our profitable entry into the war.”

He was clearly impressed by the second scenario, which opened up, among other things, “a wide field of activity for the development of the world revolution.” Therefore, Stalin concluded, “it is in the interests of the USSR, the Motherland of the working people, that war breaks out between the Reich and the capitalist Anglo-French bloc. Everything must be done to ensure that this war lasts as long as possible in order to exhaust the two sides. It is for this reason that we must agree to conclude the pact proposed by Germany and work to ensure that this war, once declared, lasts as long as possible." Stalin's conclusion was fully consistent with the secret French-Polish protocol signed on May 19, 1939, according to which France pledged to provide immediate military assistance to Poland in the event of aggression, as well as with the mutual assistance agreement concluded between England and Poland on August 25 of the same year.

Since the end of July, Soviet-German contacts have been resumed at various levels. Having learned about the departure of the Anglo-French military mission to the USSR and about the start of negotiations in Moscow, the German leadership made it clear to Stalin and Molotov (the latter replaced M. M. Litvinov as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in May 1939) that it wanted to conclude a deal beneficial for the Soviet Union. Union agreement. Convinced of the futility of negotiations with the Anglo-French military mission, the Soviet leadership on the evening of August 19 agreed to the arrival of German Foreign Minister I. Ribbentrop in Moscow. On the same day, a trade and credit agreement was signed in Berlin, providing for the provision of a 200 million loan to the USSR for five years at 4.5% per annum. The agreement of August 19 became turning point in the development of Soviet-German economic and political ties. Economic agreements between the two countries dated February 11, 1940 and January 10, 1941 provided for the further development of relations.

On August 23, 1939, I. Ribbentrop arrived in Moscow. On the night of August 24, the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact was signed and published the next day for a period of 10 years. Both contracting parties committed themselves to refrain from any violence and aggressive actions against each other. In the event of disputes or conflicts between the USSR and Germany, both powers were to resolve them “exclusively peacefully through a friendly exchange of views.” When finalizing the Soviet draft treaty, Stalin rejected Ribbentrop's formulation of “German-Soviet friendship.” The peculiarity of the signed treaty was that it came into force immediately, and not after its ratification.

The content of the non-aggression pact did not diverge from the norms of international law and the treaty practice of states adopted for such settlements. However, both at the conclusion of the treaty and during the process of its ratification (August 31, 1939), the fact was hidden that simultaneously with the treaty a secret additional protocol was signed, which contained the delimitation of the “spheres of interest” of the Soviet Union and Germany and was, from a legal point of view, in contradictions with the sovereignty and independence of a number of third countries. Thus, Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Bessarabia found themselves in the Soviet sphere of influence; in German - Lithuania.

The secret additional protocol to the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty has long been the subject of heated controversy. In the USSR, until 1989, its existence was denied - the Soviet side either declared the text a fake, or referred to the absence of the original protocol in both German and Soviet archives. Changes in this regard became possible only during the work of the commission of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR on the political and legal assessment of the treaty on August 23, 1939. In December 1989, the Second Congress of People's Deputies adopted a resolution in which it condemned the fact of concluding a secret additional protocol and other secret agreements with Germany. This recognized that the secret protocols were legally untenable and invalid from the moment of their signing.

The decision of the Soviet government to conclude a non-aggression pact with Germany was forced under those circumstances, but quite natural and justified, since it was not possible to achieve the creation of an effective Anglo-French-Soviet coalition. Much also says that if Moscow had not agreed to Ribbentrop’s visit to the USSR, then, in all likelihood, Goering’s trip to England, about which an agreement had already been reached between London and Berlin, would have taken place. British Prime Minister N. Chamberlain said at a government meeting in August 1939: “If Great Britain leaves Mr. Hitler alone in his sphere (Eastern Europe), then he will leave us alone.” Thus, the goal of England and France in the current situation was the desire to stay away from the brewing Second World War.

The policy of “appeasement of the aggressor” pursued by the leaders of Western states gave Hitler a free hand in Europe. In turn, Stalin, by signing the non-aggression pact and the secret additional protocol to it, quite deliberately provided Germany with the opportunity to attack Poland. On September 1, 1939, without a declaration of war, on the orders of the Fuhrer, the Wehrmacht began to implement the Weiss plan (White Plan). World War II has begun.

On September 28, 1939, in Moscow, Molotov and Ribbentrop signed another document. It was a treaty of friendship and border, which, like the non-aggression pact, was accompanied by a secret additional protocol. In accordance with it, the territory of the Lithuanian state was included in the sphere of interests of the USSR, and Germany received in return the Lublin and part of the Warsaw voivodeship. Thus, already in the fall of 1939, the spheres of state interests of the Soviet Union and Germany were clearly defined.

The question arises: was the conclusion of a non-aggression treaty with Germany the best option for solving the problems facing the Soviet government during this period?

The USSR was faced with a dilemma: either come to an agreement with England and France and create a system of collective security in Europe, or conclude a pact with Germany, or remain alone. There are different points of view among historians on this matter.

Some experts consider concluding a treaty with Germany as the worst option, compare it with Munich, and argue that the pact with Germany provoked the Second World War. Another point of view comes down to an attempt to compare the conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact with the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, to consider it as an example of the use of compromise, the ability to use inter-imperialist contradictions.

What prompted Germany to enter into an alliance with the USSR? For Hitler, this was a tactical step: he needed to guarantee the unhindered capture of Poland and further expand military operations. The Soviet side, by signing the agreement, sought, on the one hand, to ensure the security of the USSR on the eve of Germany’s war against Poland by limiting the advance of German troops and Germany’s refusal to use the Baltic states for anti-Soviet purposes, on the other hand, to secure the Far Eastern borders of the USSR from Japanese attack. By concluding a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939, when hostilities were taking place in the Far East, the USSR avoided a war on two fronts.

In addition, the signing of this agreement gave the Soviet Union a number of other positive aspects:

The Soviet Union demonstrated to the Western powers its independent foreign policy;

The threat of a Soviet-German armed conflict was moving away, which made it possible to strengthen the country's defense capability;

Japan, counting on joint actions with Germany against the USSR, was forced to reorient its aggressive plans;

According to the trade and credit agreement of August 19, 1939, the USSR received the necessary industrial equipment and military materials worth 400 million marks.

Historians also note the negative aspects of the conclusion of the Soviet-German treaty:

The anti-fascist front of the communist, social democratic and liberal bourgeois parties has been weakened. The authority of the Soviet country among the democratic public was significantly undermined;

Supplies of Soviet raw materials and food strengthened Germany's strategic power;

By signing secret protocols hidden from the people and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Soviet leadership entered into a criminal conspiracy with the fascists for territorial robbery.

In general, this pact did not make it possible to create a united anti-Soviet front in Europe. Thus, by concluding a pact, the USSR delayed the start of hostilities for a while and moved its borders away from the vital centers of the country. But there is also no doubt that the USSR used the delay it received less effectively than its pact partner.

In addition, as further developments showed, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact largely predetermined the victorious outcome of the Great Patriotic War. The opinion of the famous translator V.N. Pavlov seems justified, who believed that if the USSR had not had two additional years of preparation to repel aggression, the German armies, having launched an offensive from the Baltic bridgehead, could have occupied Moscow within a week. “And it is unknown how this first strike would have ended; perhaps we would have had to carry out Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Novosibirsk defensive operations.” At the same time, the post-war publication of the secret protocol, in which the statesmen who signed it actually decided the fate of third countries without their participation, caused fair condemnation of these figures in the USSR and other countries of the world.

2.2 USSR foreign policy in the Far East

Simultaneously with the deterioration of the situation in Europe, the situation in the Far East continued to deteriorate. Japan tried to create a vast springboard for the conquest of China and the territories of a number of other states. Japan's position towards the USSR became increasingly aggressive and belligerent.

At the beginning of 1936, in the context of an increased threat of attack on the Mongolian People's Republic (MPR), the question arose of concluding an agreement between the governments of Mongolia and the USSR. As a result, already on March 12, a Soviet-Mongolian protocol on mutual assistance for a period of 10 years was signed in Ulan Bator, which replaced the agreement of 1934. In accordance with the agreement, Soviet troops were stationed on the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic.

Wanting to test the “strength” of the Soviet borders, Japan on July 29, 1938, with several hundred soldiers, attacked the USSR border post on the Bezymyannaya Hill. Units of the regular troops of the Red Army came to the aid of our border guards and knocked out the Japanese who had broken through the border. A few days later, Japan repeated its maneuver, capturing a number of important points in the area of Lake Khasan (Far East). At the beginning of August 1938, the troops of the Far Eastern Front (commanded by Marshal V.K. Blucher) fought with the enemy, during which the Japanese government proposed to begin negotiations. On August 11, hostilities between Soviet and Japanese troops ceased. The casualties of the Japanese troops during the battles at Lake Khasan amounted to 500 people killed and 900 wounded. The losses in this two-week conflict on the part of the Red Army were more significant: 792 people were killed, died from wounds and missing and over 3 thousand people were wounded and sick.

At the beginning of 1939, the Japanese government was headed by K. Hiranuma, who represented fascist-minded groups in the ruling circles of Japan. Military leaders from the country of the “rising sun” publicly made threats against the USSR, instilling in public opinion the idea of the weakness of the Soviet troops. At the beginning of May 1939, the Japanese general staff received instructions from the emperor to begin military operations against the Mongolian People's Republic in the area of the Khalkhin Gol River. V. M. Molotov warned the Japanese ambassador to the USSR that “we will defend the border of the Mongolian People’s Republic, by virtue of the mutual assistance agreement concluded between them, as resolutely as we defend our own border.”

In early June 1939, after armed violations of the borders of the Mongolian People's Republic by Japanese troops, it became clear that Japan's goal was to seize part of the territory of Mongolia. The deputy commander of the troops of the Belarusian Military District, G. K. Zhukov, was summoned to Moscow. He received instructions from the People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov to take command of the Soviet units on the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic. Having assessed the situation on the spot, Zhukov came to the conclusion that the forces of the 57th Special Corps, which numbered only 5.5 thousand people by the end of May, could not solve the task of defeating the Japanese. Soviet troops were reinforced with aviation, tanks, and artillery. Their number at the end of hostilities was 57 thousand people. At the beginning of July, Soviet troops defeated the Japanese on Mount Bayin-Tsagan. On August 20, a decisive offensive by units of the Red Army began, which in September ended with the complete defeat of the 6th Japanese Army, which invaded the Mongolian People's Republic.

The news of the conclusion of a non-aggression treaty between the USSR and Germany had a demoralizing effect on Japan. This was a violation of the Anti-Comintern Pact and caused an acute crisis in the ruling circles. The Hiranuma government, which based its policy on cooperation with Germany, resigned.

The losses of the Red Army during the fierce battles amounted to about 8 thousand people. There were 16 thousand people wounded and sick. The losses of Japanese troops exceeded 60 thousand people killed, wounded and captured, 660 aircraft, as well as a significant amount of other military equipment.

In Japan, which found itself in international isolation, voices increasingly began to be heard in favor of normalizing relations with the Soviet Union. In December 1939, negotiations were held between the two countries to expand trade relations. An agreement was signed to extend for one year the fishing treaty that had been in force since 1928. On December 31, a Soviet-Japanese agreement was concluded regarding Japan's final payment for the Chinese Eastern Railway.

However, the establishment of economic ties did not mean Japan's abandonment of aggressive plans. In March 1940, the General Staff prepared and approved by the Emperor a plan for an attack on the USSR with the aim of capturing Soviet Primorye.

Under these conditions, Moscow turned out to be interested in normalizing relations with its Far Eastern neighbor. After difficult negotiations, on April 12, 1941, Japanese Foreign Minister I. Matsuoka was received in the Kremlin by Stalin. On April 13, a neutrality pact was signed between the USSR and Japan. The key provision of this agreement was that “in the event that one of the contracting parties becomes the object of hostilities on the part of one or more third powers, the other contracting party will remain neutral during the entire conflict.” The contract was concluded for 5 years. He did not relieve the Soviet leadership of fears about a possible fight on two fronts, but still significantly improved the position of the USSR on both the eastern and western borders.

2.3 Foreign policy of the USSR on the eve of fascist aggression

On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland. On September 3, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. The Second World War began. The Polish army was unable to provide sufficient resistance to the German troops and retreated to the east. On September 17, units of the Red Army entered the territory of Poland and occupied Western Ukrainian and Western Belarusian lands. Poland ceased to exist as an independent state. On September 28, the Soviet-German Treaty “On Friendship and Borders” was signed, according to which the western border of the USSR ran along the Western Bug and Narev rivers. The agreement was accompanied by a secret additional protocol, which stated that the document signed on August 23, 1939 was amended “in such a way that the territory of the Lithuanian state is included in the sphere of interests of the USSR, since, on the other hand, the Lublin Voivodeship and parts of the Warsaw Voivodeship are included in the sphere of interests of Germany.”

During the campaign in the name of the liberation of “half-blooded Ukrainians and Belarusians,” Soviet troops captured 450 thousand Polish military personnel, including 18.8 thousand officers. The fate of many of them turned out to be tragic. By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee on March 5, 1940, 21,857 officers and other arrested Poles were shot. (This was due to hostility towards the “White Poles”, who fiercely and mercilessly destroyed captured Red Army soldiers during and after the Soviet-Polish war of 1920. As noted in the note of People’s Commissar G.V. Chicherin dated September 9, 1921, out of 130 thousand Russian prisoners in Poland 60 thousand died) The “Katyn Affair” became a kind of “retaliatory crime” of the Stalinist regime, which deepened the contradictions with the neighboring people.

After the “liberation campaign” to the west of Ukraine and Belarus, the gaze of the Soviet government was directed in the north-west direction from Moscow. In October 1939, the Finnish government was asked to push back the Soviet-Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus by several tens of kilometers and lease the territory at the entrance to the Gulf of Finland to the Soviet Union to ensure the defense of Leningrad. After these proposals were rejected, the Soviet leadership started the war. The “Maynila incident” was used as a pretext - the shelling of the Soviet border territory near the village of Maynila on the Karelian Isthmus on November 26, 1939, which the Finns declared a provocation of Moscow. The military operations that began on November 30 were considered by the Soviet side as the end of the fight against the “Finnish White Guard.” Many Western countries did not find the USSR's position convincing. In December, the Soviet Union as an "aggressor" was expelled from the League of Nations.

Suffering heavy losses, units of the Red Army in February 1940 broke through the Finnish fortification system (Mannerheim Line) and began an attack on Helsinki. On March 12, the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty was concluded. According to the agreement, a significant territory on the Karelian Isthmus was transferred to the USSR, and the Hanko Peninsula was leased. On March 31, 1940, after all these events, a new, twelfth Karelo-Finnish Union Republic was formed within the USSR. Its government was headed by the famous figure of the Comintern O. V. Kuusinen.

In June 1940, the Soviet government accused Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia of violating the mutual assistance pacts concluded in September-October 1939, and sent its troops into their territories. Pro-Soviet governments were formed in all three countries, and soon, with the support of the local population, the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian SSRs were proclaimed, which were incorporated into the USSR in August 1940.

At the end of June 1940, the USSR demanded that the Romanian government withdraw troops from Bessarabia, occupied in 1918, as well as from Northern Bukovina, populated mainly by Ukrainians. Bessarabia was annexed to the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which was transformed into the sixteenth Soviet Union Republic. Northern Bukovina became part of Ukraine.

Germany, which had been at war with Great Britain and France since September 1939, under the influence of rapid success in Poland, focused on expanding its “living space” at the expense of Western countries. On April 9, 1940, Hitler's troops invaded Denmark and Norway, on May 10 - into Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, then, as a result of the blitzkrieg (lightning war), they defeated France, which capitulated on June 24. From June 10, Italy participated in the war on the German side. Germany's losses turned out to be insignificant: 27 thousand killed in the campaign against France, according to German analysts, were quite tolerable, “given the enormity of achieved success" The economies of the occupied countries were put at the service of the Reich.

Events of 1939-1940 turned out to be far from Stalin's forecasts. His biggest miscalculation was that the countries neighboring Germany offered unexpectedly weak resistance to aggression. Essentially, a grueling “fight” between capitalist countries did not happen. Germany's potential as a result of the blitzkriegs was not only not weakened, but also increased significantly. However, despite this, Germany's resources turned out to be insufficient to successfully complete the war with England. Hitler succumbed to the temptation to first increase them by conquering the USSR, and then achieve colonial rule over all of Europe.

In July 1940, the German General Staff began developing a specific plan for the war against the USSR, and already on December 18, Hitler approved a directive according to which the armed forces were ordered to “defeat Soviet Russia in a short-term campaign even before the war against England is over (Barbarossa option ")". According to “optimistic” forecasts, the campaign could be successfully completed in 1.5-2 months, according to “more cautious” ones in 4-5. In any case, the war was planned under the absolute condition of its mandatory end before the onset of winter 1941.

Hitler's guidelines left no doubt that the stake was on the destruction of the USSR and a radical reduction in its population through death from starvation and forced eviction beyond the Volga-Arkhangelsk line. First of all, the destruction of Russians as a people was envisaged.

The inevitability of war with Germany was clearly realized by the top leadership of the USSR and the overwhelming majority Soviet people. Among them there were definitely people who saw in the impending war the possibility of victories for the next “Bolshevik revolutions.” For some, the upcoming events seemed even simpler. L. 3. Mehlis, head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, said at the XVIII Party Congress that the task set by Stalin in the event of war should be understood as follows: “Transfer military operations to enemy territory, fulfill your international responsibilities and increase the number of Soviet republics.” . Stalin, who took the post of Chairman of the Government on May 5, 1941, was aware of the unpreparedness of the Armed Forces to participate in a modern war. Hoping that until Germany had dealt with England, it would not dare to attack the USSR, he chose the tactic of delaying the start of the war in every possible way in order to complete technical rearmament and increase the size of the army.

Unfortunately, the highest military command of the Red Army at that time had not yet realized and fully appreciated the fundamental changes that had occurred thanks to the Wehrmacht in military operational art. Proof of this is the statement of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR S.K. Timoshenko at a meeting of the senior leadership of the Red Army, held from December 23 to 31, 1940: “In the sense of strategic creativity, the experience of the war in Europe, perhaps, does not provide anything new.” Molotov later made an equally interesting admission: “We knew that war was on the doorstep, not far off, that we were weaker than Germany, that we would have to retreat. The whole question was where we would have to retreat - to Smolensk or to Moscow, we discussed this before the war.”

Stalin was truly afraid of the impending war with Germany. He tried by all means to delay its beginning. This goal was pursued to a certain extent by the supplies of oil, wheat and raw materials to Germany from the USSR in 1940-1941. But by doing this, Stalin only strengthened the potential enemy and helped him prepare for the campaign to the East.

Ten days after Molotov returned from Berlin, the Soviet government outlined its position on the issue of concluding a pact of four states (Germany, Italy, Japan and the USSR) on political cooperation and mutual economic assistance. On November 25, 1940, in the Kremlin, Molotov announced to Schulenberg that the USSR was ready to accept the draft pact of the four powers on political cooperation and mutual economic assistance, subject to the withdrawal of German troops from Finland, the conclusion of a mutual assistance pact between the Soviet Union and Bulgaria, and recognition of its territorial aspirations south of Batumi and Baku in the direction of the Persian Gulf, the provision of naval and land bases to the USSR in the Bosporus and Dardanelles, Japan's refusal of coal and oil concessions in Northern Sakhalin. All these proposals were to be formalized in the form of five secret additional protocols to the Pact of Four. Moscow was eagerly awaiting an answer. Time passed, and the Nazi government remained silent. Berlin's response never arrived.

Thus, despite all the efforts made by I.V. Stalin took measures to delay the start of the war with Nazi Germany - the war began suddenly. And here lies one of the main miscalculations in the foreign policy of the USSR at that time - no one could have imagined that Germany, before launching an attack on Great Britain, would choose a different vector of its aggression - the east, and would unleash its armed forces on the Soviet Union.

However, despite all the miscalculations in foreign policy, it is worth noting that it was thanks to it that the Soviet Union managed to push back the threat of war for itself for almost two years, during which the USSR managed to resolve a number of territorial issues both in the western direction and in the Far East, which must be thought had a positive impact on the final outcome of World War II.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we will try to briefly formulate the answer to the question: Did the foreign policy of the USSR in the 30s provide security of the country? The answers to this question are mixed. If previously the entire foreign policy of the USSR of this period was assessed as error-free, today we encounter judgments that are completely opposite. The facts of that period indicate that the foreign policy activities of the USSR in the 30s. was of a contradictory nature, the methods of its implementation in the first and second half of the 30s. differed from each other, which was explained by the specific situation, its changes, the desire to delay the war at any cost, which inevitably led to mistakes and miscalculations. As a result, many tasks related to ensuring the country's security could not be fully resolved.

The second, but very important issue that requires its own explanation is Soviet-German relations associated not only with the signing of the 1939 treaty itself, but also with subsequent events, right up to Germany’s treacherous attack on the USSR.

In this regard, the trip of the head of the Soviet government V.M. Molotov to Germany in November 1940 was of fundamental importance. This trip became a sensation that immediately spread throughout the world. Molotov's mission still attracts public attention and arouses increased interest among researchers, who interpret and evaluate it in different ways. This interest is not accidental, because Soviet materials from Molotov’s negotiations with Reich Chancellor Hitler, Reich Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, conversations with the German Ambassador to the USSR Schulenberg, Reich Marshal Goering, and Hitler’s deputy Hess are important for understanding the relationship between the two states on the eve of the war between them.

Molotov's visit to the capital of the "Third Reich" took place against the background tragic events World War II, the flames of which were fanned by Hitler. The "Third Reich" established its dominance over a large part of Europe. By November 1940, the Wehrmacht occupied Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Denmark and Norway. Germany threatened to land an expeditionary force on the British Isles. German troops were also in Finland and Romania.

The negotiations revealed the hidden political and diplomatic rivalry between the two states. Hitler's rejection of proposals for the withdrawal of German troops from Finland testified to Berlin's firmness in carrying out its plans. Essentially, none of the issues discussed were resolved or settled.

The negotiations exposed the harsh reality and true intentions of Germany. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was not ready for the great trials and great war that was approaching its borders.

What were the reasons that determined the behavior of Hitler and his diplomacy, the nature of the negotiations and such a rapid loss of interest in Molotov’s mission?

There were many of them. But still, the main circumstance was the decision made by the Reich Chancellor to start a war against the Soviet Union. On July 31, 1940, Hitler officially informed the senior generals about the upcoming military campaign. On this day, an entry appeared in the diary of the Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, Colonel General F. Halder: “The beginning (of the military campaign) was May 1941. The duration of the entire operation was five months.” The General Staff hastily began to develop a strategic plan for waging war against the USSR. The planning was based on the requirement for the fastest, lightning-fast defeat of the armed forces of the Soviet Union. On December 18, 1940, Hitler signed Directive No. 21 of the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces (OKW) on an attack on the USSR and gave it the code name “Barbarossa”.

The result of these preparations was the events that occurred on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. And here, as it seems, lies the main miscalculation of the USSR’s foreign policy in the 1930s. All diplomacy could not completely prevent the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union, although it was able to push this event back by almost two years, which ultimately determined the outcome of the war in favor of the Soviet Union.

List of used literature

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In the late 1920s - early 1930s. The international situation has changed markedly. The economic crisis of 1929 entailed serious internal political changes in all states of the capitalist system. In countries such as England, France, etc., forces came to power that sought to carry out broad internal changes of a democratic nature. In Italy and Germany, anti-democratic, i.e. fascist regimes. These regimes became the instigators of new military conflicts.

The formation of hotbeds of international tension gradually took place. In connection with these events in 1933, the USSR government set new goals in its foreign policy:

· complete refusal to participate in international conflicts, especially those that acquired a military character;

· recognition of the possibility of cooperation with Western democratic countries. This was necessary to deter aggression from Germany and Japan;

· the struggle for the creation of a collective security system in Europe and the Far East.

Already in the first half of the 1930s. The Soviet Union strengthened its position in the international arena. At the end of 1933, diplomatic relations were established between the USSR and the USA.

ical connections.

In September 1934, the Soviet Union was admitted to the League of Nations and became a permanent member of its Council. In 1935, mutual assistance agreements were signed between the USSR and France, and soon Czechoslovakia, in the event of any aggression against them in Europe.

In the summer of 1935, at the VII Congress of the Comintern, a decision was made to create a left bloc with European social democracy. The policy pursued by the Western powers towards Germany, Japan and Italy did not bring positive results. International tension gradually increased.

In 1935, Germany began to send its troops into the Rhineland, while Italy attacked Ethiopia. In 1936, an agreement was signed between Germany and Japan; this document was directed against the Soviet Union.

In 1937, Japan, with the support of Germany, begins military operations against China.

In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria and threatened Czechoslovakia. The government of the Soviet Union offers its assistance and advances 30 divisions, aircraft and tanks to the western border. But the government of E. Benes refuses this help and, at the request of A. Hitler, gives the Sudetenland to Germany.

In the Far East, Japan captured most of China and gradually approached the borders of the USSR. In the summer of 1938, a military conflict occurred on the territory of the USSR near Lake Khasan. In May 1939, the Japanese army invaded Mongolia. The Red Army, commanded by G.K. Zhukov, defeated the Japanese near the Khalkhin Gol River.

In 1939, the USSR government was well aware that the German army was preparing to attack Poland. On August 23, 1939, a Soviet-German non-aggression treaty was signed in Moscow, which came into force from the moment of signing and was designed for 10 years. On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland. On September 3 of the same year, Great Britain and France (allies of Poland) declared war on Germany. This is how the Second World War began. In March 1940, a Soviet-Finnish agreement was signed, according to which the USSR received the entire Karelian Isthmus.

In the summer of 1940, Romania ceded Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union. As a result, large territories with a population of 14 million people were included in the USSR.

A study of the foreign policy relations of the USSR in the 1930s, analysis and assessment of the “friends” and “enemies” of the state in those years. Consideration of the non-aggression pact and the Soviet-German treaty of 1939. The war with Finland, determining its role and significance for the country.

INTRODUCTION

In the history of Soviet diplomacy there have been and remain problems that, for a number of reasons, have not received adequate coverage in domestic historiography. In particular, issues related to the formulation and implementation of foreign policy priorities of the Soviet leadership in the 1930s remain insufficiently studied. The attention of most researchers is drawn to the problem of Soviet-German relations in the 20-30s, as well as to the tense international situation that developed on the eve of the Second World War. Quite strong when assessing the actions of Soviet diplomacy in the 30s. is the influence of cliches of the Cold War period, such as “the machinations of the Comintern,” “the intrigues of Stalin and Hitler,” “conspiracy with the aggressor,” etc. The works of L.N. that appeared in the last decade. Nezhinsky, L.A. Bezymensky, S.Z. Sluch, Z.S. Belousova, G.A. Bodyugov allow us to take a fresh look at the mechanisms of foreign policy decision-making by the Soviet leadership in relation to the “capitalist encirclement.”

Conditions for the emergence of the Soviet state within the framework of the world and civil wars, the active participation in this process of a significant number foreign countries, and the features of the Bolshevik ideology with priority in setting goals for global aspirations, largely determined the goals and means of the USSR’s foreign policy in the 20-30s. On the one hand, being a product of the world revolutionary crisis, Soviet Russia was oriented toward resolving world problems, which was manifested in the idea of a “world socialist revolution.” This line is most clearly visible in the active support and leadership of the Soviet leaders of the international communist organization - the Comintern. On the other hand, the USSR was the heir Russian Empire with its obvious national and state interests, the protection of which was the natural function of any state. The implementation of this function was part of the task of the political system of the USSR. Naturally, the greatest place in determining the means and methods of solving it belonged to the foreign policy department - the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID). It is also natural that state interests and goals arising from the ideas of the “world revolution” lay on different planes, often contradicting each other. Therefore, the foreign policy of the USSR turns out to be internally contradictory: the “Comintern” and “Nikidov” lines are in a state of almost constant struggle. The purpose of this course work is to examine the foreign policy of the USSR in the 1930s. Objectives of this course work:

1. Consider the foreign policy relations of the USSR in the 1930s.

2. Consider the “friends” and “enemies” of the USSR in the 30s.

3. Consider the non-aggression pact and the Soviet-German treaty of 1939.

4. Consider the war with Finland and determine its significance for the country.

1. Orientationforeign policyconnections of the young Soviet state1930 - Xgg.

Studying the features of the foreign policy of the USSR in the 30s. cannot be considered outside the context of the late 20s. XX century. In the first half of the 20s, the economic blockade of Russia by capitalist countries was broken. In 1920, after the fall of Soviet power in the Baltic republics, the government of the RSFSR concluded peace treaties with the new governments of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, recognizing their independence and autonomy. Since 1921, the establishment of trade relations between the RSFSR and England, Germany, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Italy, and Czechoslovakia began. The political negotiation process with England and France has reached a dead end. Taking advantage of the contradictions between the leading European powers and Germany, Soviet representatives in the town of Rapallo (near Genoa) concluded an agreement with it. The treaty resumed diplomatic and consular relations between the countries and thereby brought Russia out of diplomatic isolation.

In 1926, the Berlin Treaty of Friendship and Military Neutrality was concluded. Germany thus became the main trading and military partner of the USSR, which made significant adjustments to the nature of international relations in subsequent years. By 1924, Russia was recognized in Europe by: Great Britain, France, Italy, Norway, Austria, Greece, Sweden, in Asia - Japan, China, in Latin America - Mexico and Uruguay. The US delayed recognition until 1933. Total for 1921-1925 Russia concluded 40 agreements and treaties. At the same time, Soviet-British and Soviet-French relations were unstable. In 1927, diplomatic relations with England were broken. In 1924, diplomatic and consular relations were established with China, and in 1925 with Japan.

Russia managed to conclude a series of equal treaties with the countries of the East. In 1921, the Soviet-Iranian treaty, the Soviet-Afghan treaty and the treaty with Turkey were concluded. At the end of the 1920s. With the primary development of Soviet-German relations, the efforts of Soviet diplomacy were aimed at expanding contacts with other countries. In 1929, diplomatic relations with England were restored. 1933 was the year of recognition of the USSR by the United States of America, in 1933-1935 - by Czechoslovakia, the Spanish Republic, Romania, etc. Relations with China also worsened, where an armed conflict broke out on the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) in 1929. Thus, at this stage, priority in foreign policy was given to the “Comintern” direction.

2. The main “friends” and “enemies” of the USSR at 30- egg.XX century

Let us dwell on the reasons that influenced foreign policy in the 30s. Firstly, it was influenced by the fact that the USSR began to turn into a totalitarian state, in which the foundations of a command-administrative system were laid. To justify the inevitability of emergency measures within the country, the Stalinist leadership begins to whip up “military anxiety” among the Soviet people and constantly talks about the military danger to the USSR. In the 1930s In the foreign policy activities of the Stalinist leadership, political priorities finally triumphed over economic ones. Secondly, the global economic crisis that erupted in 1929 not only awakened hopes for a world revolution, but also led to the strengthening of fascism, as well as its rise to power in a number of countries. This circumstance has seriously changed the balance of power in the international arena, led to the emergence of hotbeds of tension in Europe and Asia, and made the struggle for the creation of a collective security system especially urgent. Soviet diplomacy had to do everything possible to avoid the USSR's involvement in a military conflict and secure its borders. It continued to strive to prevent the rapprochement of imperialist states on an anti-Soviet basis and, in case of favorable conditions, to increase territories, primarily at the expense of border states. Thirdly, from the second half of the 1930s. we can talk about a change in the policy of the Comintern. If in the first half of this decade, the leaders of the Third International tried with all their might to kindle the fire of the world revolution, then after the VII Congress of the Comintern (July - August 1935), they, realizing the real threat of fascism, focused on creating anti-fascist fronts within each country.

Until the beginning of the 30s. Germany remained the main political and economic partner of the USSR in Europe. It was there that the main flow of Soviet exports went, and equipment for Soviet industry. German exports to the USSR stimulated the restoration of German heavy industry. In 1931, Berlin provided the USSR with a long-term loan of 300 million marks to finance imports from Germany. Germany's share of the Soviet Union's imports increased from 23.7% in 1930 to 46.5% in 1932. In 1931-1932. The USSR occupied first place in German exports of cars (in 1932, 43% of all exported German cars were sold to the USSR).

With the advent of the new Reich Chancellor A. Hitler in Germany, who proclaimed a course of uncompromising anti-communism in domestic and foreign policy, the policy of cooperation between the USSR and Germany was completed. The Soviet side in a short time had to develop a different strategy for Soviet-German relations than before. It was necessary to determine the line of conduct of the Comintern and the entire Soviet people in relation to the Nazi government. The correlation between pragmatic (diplomatic) and ideological (communist) dominants did not allow, on the one hand, to openly recognize the new regime of power as hostile to the USSR at the official level, and, on the other hand, to immediately abandon the formula of social fascism, thereby recognizing the Comintern’s strategy in the struggle “for voices and souls of German workers." Time was needed to prepare for a change in the strategy and tactics of Soviet diplomacy. Preparations for ensuring a new course by creating an information space favorable for this were entrusted by the Soviet leadership to the communist press. The NKID did not stand aside. People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M.M. Litvinov personally demanded from the Politburo that all notes of protest from the Soviet side to the German government be published in Pravda and Izvestia. This largely explains the daily interest of the central Soviet press in the events taking place in Germany during the period under review.

In 1930-1931 Soviet-French relations sharply deteriorate. The French government accused the USSR of interfering in the country's internal affairs and financing subversive communist activities. It was alleged that Moscow was using official missions to transmit funds and instructions to the communists. The Parisian authorities arrested the property of the Soviet trade mission in 1930, and the government introduced restrictions on the import of Soviet goods. At the end of 1931, relations began to improve. This was caused primarily by the fact that the USSR sharply reduced material assistance to the PCF, as well as the deterioration of the international situation in Europe. A manifestation of the improvement in Soviet-French relations was the conclusion of a non-aggression pact in November 1932.

Since Germany began to be seen as a potential enemy of the USSR, it was especially important that diplomatic relations with the United States were established in 1933. The USSR tried to create a system of collective security in Europe. He was admitted to the League of Nations and concluded military-political agreements with France and Czechoslovakia. The Soviet government expressed its readiness to conclude more serious agreements with England and France to curb the aggressor. The USSR understood the threat of war looming on the world and its unpreparedness for it. Therefore, there is no doubt about the sincerity of his efforts. At the same time, Western countries connived with Germany in the remilitarization of the Rhineland, its participation in the Spanish Civil War, which ended in the victory of fascism, in the Anschluss of Austria and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. At the end of the 30s. The USSR was forced to pay serious attention to the situation that was developing near its borders. For him there was a real threat of war on two fronts. A bloc of aggressive states was emerging in the world, concluding the Anti-Comintern Pact among themselves. With the leading states of this pact, Germany and Italy, England and France signed the Munich Agreement. The USSR continued to negotiate with Western democracies to conclude a military agreement, but in August 1939 it became clear that it would not be reached.

This was especially noticeable in the difference in positions on the issue of attitudes towards the civil war that broke out in 1936 in Spain. In the second half of the 1930s. Dramatic events unfolded in Spain. After the Popular Front won the elections in February 1936, right-wing forces led by General Franco rebelled. Fascist states (Germany, Italy) actively helped the rebels. At first, the Soviet Union agreed with this policy and tried to stop the intervention of Italy and Germany in this conflict, but, convinced of the ineffectiveness of this activity, it began to provide significant economic and political military assistance to the Republicans, including sending regular troops under the guise of volunteers. In addition to Soviet volunteers, international brigades formed by the Comintern from anti-fascists from 54 countries fought on the side of the republican government. However, the forces were still unequal. After the withdrawal of international units from Spain, the republican government fell.

In fact, despite the seemingly internal nature of the Spanish conflict, the first clash between the USSR and Nazi Germany took place here (the former provided assistance to the Republicans, the latter, together with Italy, to the rebellious General Franco). The remaining members of the League of Nations refused to intervene in the “internal conflict,” which could not but raise doubts about their readiness to participate in any measures to curb aggression from the Soviet Union. If we add to this the defeat of the Republicans in the Spanish conflict, then the reasons for the beginning of a revision of the USSR’s position on the issue of choosing a side in the flaring up world conflict will become clear.

There was a real threat of an imbalance of power in Europe and a world war. European diplomacy did not oppose this. She pursued a policy of appeasing the aggressor, i.e. tried, through concessions to Germany, to turn it into a reliable partner in international affairs, and also sought to use Germany as a counterweight to the foreign policy of the USSR, hoping that Germany’s predatory aspirations would be directed to the East. The culmination of the policy of appeasement was the agreement in Munich (September 1938), which was attended by the heads of government of Germany, Italy, England and France. The most significant result of this meeting was the decision to annex the Sudetenland - an industrialized region of Czechoslovakia - to Germany. This was the maximum possible concession on the part of England and France to Germany, but it only whetted Hitler's appetites. After Munich, relations between England and France and Germany began to cool, and attempts were made to establish cooperation with the USSR.

Important events took place in the Far East. In July 1937, Japan began large-scale aggression against China. As a result of fighting for two years, the Japanese army captured the main industrial and agricultural areas of China. In August 1937, the USSR and China concluded a non-aggression pact, after which the Soviet Union undertook massive military supplies to China. Soviet instructors and volunteer pilots took part in the battles on the side of the Chinese army. Until 1939, the USSR provided active support to China, but after the conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939, assistance was sharply reduced, and after the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese treaty of April 13, 1941, it ceased almost completely.

In 1938, on the Soviet-Manchurian border in the area of Lake Khasan (commander of Soviet troops V.K. Blyukher) and in 1939 on the Manchurian-Mongolian border in the area of the Khalkhin Gol River (commander of Soviet troops G.K. Zhukov) occurred armed clashes between units of the Red Army and the Japanese Kwantung Army. The reasons for these clashes were the growing tension between the two countries and the desire of each side to strengthen and improve their border line. At the same time, neither side managed to achieve a significant advantage, although the Red Army in both cases somewhat improved its position on the border.

The growth of German aggression in Europe in the spring of 1939 nevertheless forced England and France to negotiate with the USSR. In April 1939, experts from the three countries first began to consider draft mutual assistance agreements in connection with the planned German aggression.

The positions of the negotiators were very far from each other, as each side sought to gain unilateral advantages (Western countries - to force the USSR to field significantly more armed forces in the event of hostilities, and the Soviet Union - to increase its political influence in Poland, Romania and the Baltic states) . In addition, none of the partners wanted to take on an unambiguous obligation to enter the war in the event of hostilities breaking out against one of the possible allies. It was felt that the interlocutors were conducting “negotiations for the sake of negotiations.” Part of the explanation for this position was found after the end of the Second World War, when it became known that simultaneously with these negotiations, the governments of England and France were trying to establish contacts with Germany and conclude an agreement with it. As for the Soviet side, here too, since May 1939, priorities have changed: on May 3, a supporter of the coalition with democratic countries, M.M., was dismissed. Litvinov. His place was taken by V.M. Molotov, who considered an alliance with Germany necessary.

3. Non-Aggression Pact and the Soviet-German Treatythief "About friendship andborder" 1939G.

Considering the foreign policy of the USSR in the 30s. twentieth century, the greatest attention must be paid to the development of diplomatic relations with Germany, which is justified primarily with the emergence in historical science of opinions about the preventive nature of the war of 1941-1945. from Germany.

Almost simultaneously with the start of negotiations with England and France, in the spring of 1939, Soviet diplomats began cautiously probing German positions regarding a possible rapprochement. This met with a favorable attitude from Berlin, which realized that it had exhausted all possibilities of concessions from the West and decided to continue to undermine the international security system with the help of the East. Germany was particularly active in further improving relations with the USSR. On August 19, 1939, the Soviet Union was granted a long-term loan of 200 million marks at a symbolic interest. The German government expressed its readiness to delimit the spheres of interests of Germany and the USSR in Eastern Europe, and also guaranteed the cessation of military actions against the Soviet Union by Japan. At the same time, Germany and the USSR continued to maintain close economic ties. From August 1939 to June 1941, the Soviet Union placed large orders in Germany for the manufacture and supply of military equipment, machine tools and industrial equipment. In turn, Germany ordered agricultural products, timber, petroleum products, industrial raw materials and non-ferrous metals from the USSR.

During secret preliminary negotiations between Germany and the Soviet Union, agreements were reached that led to the signing in Moscow on August 23, 1939 by German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.M. Molotov non-aggression pact, a non-aggression treaty for a period of 10 years. The treaty contained secret articles that delimited the “spheres of interest” of Germany and the USSR in Eastern Europe. According to these articles, most of Poland was recognized as a German sphere of influence, and the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Lithuania fell into this sphere after Ribbentrop's next visit to Moscow on September 28, 1939, Eastern Poland, Finland, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (part of Romania ) - sphere of interests of the USSR. Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which were part of Poland under the Riga Peace Treaty of 1920, were supposed to pass to the USSR after the German military invasion of Poland.

The contracting parties agreed on non-interference in the event of a conflict between one of them and a “third power”. The conclusion of the Soviet-German Pact led to the cessation of all diplomatic contacts between England, France and the USSR, and the recall of the British and French military delegations from Moscow.

The treaty had far-reaching consequences for the fate of all of Europe and the world. Undoubtedly, he accelerated the start of the Second World War, as he provided Hitler with freedom of action in Poland and even moral support for the USSR. With the help of Germany, the Soviet Union hoped to return the territories taken from it under the Treaty of Riga (March 1921). Thus, by signing this agreement, the Soviet side sought not only to protect itself in case of war, but also to expand its territory.

Thus, when German troops captured Warsaw and crossed the line specified in the secret protocol (along the Narew, Vistula and San rivers), on September 17 the Red Army entered the territory Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. She was given the order to “cross the border and take under her protection the lives and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.” It was ordered to be loyal to Polish military personnel and government officials if they did not offer armed resistance. Aviation was prohibited from bombing populated areas. The Red Army did not encounter serious resistance here, since the main military forces of Poland were defeated by Hitler in the first days of September. The Polish command gave the order “not to engage in battles with the Soviets, to continue fighting with the Germans,” so many units and formations surrendered. The further fate of most of them was tragic. The Soviet authorities interned a significant part of the military personnel, and deported the civilian population to the eastern regions of the USSR (Siberia, Kazakhstan). By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, adopted on March 5, 1940, 21,857 officers and other arrested Poles were shot in Katyn without trial.

The campaign lasted 12 days. During this time, units of the Red Army advanced 250 - 350 km westward, annexing territories with a population of about 12 million people. We can talk about the restoration of historical justice, since these were primordially Russian lands, for which the Polish gentry had to fight for centuries. The local population generally warmly welcomed the Soviet troops, seeing them as liberators from the Polish genocide. But Ukrainian nationalists led by S. Bandera began to put up fierce resistance. In October 1939, elections to the people's assemblies were held here. These authorities immediately proclaimed Soviet power and turned to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR with a request to accept Western Ukraine and Western Belarus into the Soviet Union.

On September 28, in Moscow, representatives of the USSR and Germany signed an agreement “On Friendship and Borders”. Secret protocols and maps were attached to the agreement, according to which 48.6% of the territory of the former Poland passed to Germany, and 51.4% to the USSR. According to the agreement, the western border of the Soviet Union now ran along the so-called Curzon Line, which at one time was recognized by England, France, the USA and Poland. But if the non-aggression pact (August 23, 1939) can be justified by specific circumstances, then the signing of this treaty was actually a conspiracy with the aggressor and did not reflect the will of the Soviet people. Having received freedom of action in the Baltic states, the Stalinist leadership attempted to Sovietize it, both through diplomatic and military measures. The governments of these countries were asked to conclude mutual assistance pacts, which were signed on September 28 with Estonia, on October 5 with Latvia and on October 10 with Lithuania. As a result, the Soviet Union received the right to station its troops in the Baltic republics and create naval and air force bases on their territories. The parties pledged to provide each other with all kinds of assistance, including military assistance, in the event of an attack or threat thereof. The clauses of the agreements were beneficial not only for the USSR. Lithuania, for example, received the territory of Vilna and the Vilna region with a population of about half a million people, of which Lithuanians accounted for no more than 20%. At the same time, trade agreements were signed on the supply of raw materials from the USSR, which compensated for the loss of ties with the West during the World War.

4. "N"the famous war with Finland

Having secured his rear in the East, on October 9, 1939, Hitler signed a directive on preparations for an attack on France, and ten days later he approved a plan for the strategic deployment of the German army to conduct offensive operations in the West (Plan Gelb). The spread of the fire of World War forced, in turn, I.V. Stalin to think about the security of the northwestern borders of the USSR (the border with Finland passed in close proximity to Leningrad). In addition, he was not averse to implementing the agreements set out in the secret protocol to the agreement of August 23, 1939, on possible territorial and political changes in Finland. In October, the Soviet government proposed that Finland lease the Hanko Peninsula to the USSR to establish a Soviet military base on it and exchange territories on the coast of the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland for lands in Eastern Karelia. The Finnish side refused.

The concentration of Soviet troops began near the border with Finland. On November 26, 1939, in the area of the village of Mainila, several Soviet soldiers were killed and wounded in training shooting. The Soviet side, using this incident, accused Finland of aggression and demanded that troops be withdrawn 20-25 kilometers from Leningrad. The refusal of the Finnish government served as a reason for the USSR to unilaterally denounce the 1932 non-aggression treaty with Finland on November 28, 1939. On the morning of November 30, troops of the Leningrad Military District invaded the territory of Finland. The next day, in the village of Terijoki, a “people’s government” of the Finnish Democratic Republic (FDR) was formed, headed by O.V. Kuusinen. Despite the fact that Soviet troops managed to reach the heavily fortified “Mannerheim Line” in early December 1939, they were never able to break through it. Only after almost two months of thorough training of the troops of the Northwestern Front under the command of Army Commander 1st Rank S.K. Tymoshenko, they broke the stubborn resistance of the Finnish army and reached the approaches to Vyborg. On March 12, 1940, a Soviet-Finnish peace treaty was signed, according to which the border on the Karelian Isthmus was moved away from Leningrad by 120-130 kilometers. Several islands in the Gulf of Finland, the Finnish part of the Sredny and Rybachy peninsulas in the Barents Sea went to the USSR, and the Hanko Peninsula was leased for a period of 30 years.

This war was not popular among the Soviet people, as it had a pronounced aggressive character. Famous poet A.T. Tvardovsky called it “an unknown war.” The losses of the Soviet Armed Forces amounted to almost 126.9 thousand killed, missing, died from wounds and illnesses, as well as 248 thousand wounded, shell-shocked and frostbitten. Finland lost 48.2 thousand people killed and 43 thousand wounded. Politically, this war caused serious damage to the international prestige of the Soviet Union. By decision of the League of Nations for aggression against Finland in December 1939, the USSR was expelled from this organization and found itself in international isolation.

Conclusion

Researchers who study the history of Soviet-German relations have to take into account, firstly, the emergence of new documents that shed light on this problem. In particular, in the collection of documents “The fascist sword was forged in the USSR” it is convincingly proven that in the 20s. The Soviet leadership helped Germany create its own armed forces in circumvention of the Treaty of Versailles. Secondly, we have to take into account the influence of Western historiography, which places the main blame for the outbreak of the Second World War either on the USSR or on A. Hitler and J.V. Stalin at the same time.

Similar views are expressed, in particular, in the recently published works of N. Werth, in which the entire foreign policy of the USSR in the 30s. presented from the angle of destabilization of the situation in Europe and connivance with the aggressor, and especially the work of V. Suvorov “Icebreaker”, which has a characteristic subtitle “Who started the Second World War?” and its content leads to a clear answer to this question. These two circumstances influenced the work of M.I. Semiryagi. G.L. Rozanova, L.A. Nameless. O.A. Rzhemevsky, A.M. Samsonova, A.O. Chubaryan and other researchers, devoted to the analysis of the foreign policy of the USSR on the eve of the Second World War. Noteworthy are the studies of V. Petrov, A. Dongarov, on the circumstances of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, V. Abarinov on the tragedy in Katyn, V.A. Parsadonova, about the relationship between the USSR and the territories that were ceded to it under the Soviet-German Pact of 1939. It is this pact and the policies of the USSR after its conclusion that require a balanced analysis of researchers not on the basis of ideology, but on the basis of an objective study of the facts and steps taken by all subjects of international relations. At the turn of the 20-30s. The same radical changes occurred in the foreign policy of the USSR as within the country. The leadership of the NKID and the Comintern completely changed, which was given the main task of ensuring favorable conditions for building socialism in the USSR. It was necessary to prevent the threat of the USSR being drawn into international conflicts, as well as to make maximum use of the benefits of economic cooperation with developed Western countries. In connection with the change in priorities in foreign policy, the activities of the Comintern were viewed as secondary in comparison with the activities of the NKID, headed by M.M. Litvinov, known for his sympathies for Western democracies. But subsequently, the activities of the USSR in the diplomatic arena in the mid-30s received the name “collective security policy.” Its effectiveness in preventing the threat of world war was highly assessed by official Soviet historiography and is questioned in modern literature.

It should, however, be taken into account that the policy of collective security depends on the position of all parties involved in its development. It is important to determine the level of interest of these parties in creating such a system in Europe. The USSR understood the threat of war looming on the world and its unpreparedness for it at that time. Therefore, there is no doubt about the sincerity of his efforts. Moreover, without the connivance of Germany on the part of Western countries, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the war in Spain and the victory of fascism in it, the Anschluss of Austria and the occupation of Czechoslovakia would have been impossible. The USSR's calls to curb the aggressor in the League of Nations can be considered as demagoguery, but one cannot help but notice the formation of a bloc of aggressive states based on the Anti-Comintern Pact and the signing of the Munich Agreement.

Given the collapse of its diplomatic activities, the USSR was forced to pay attention to the situation that was developing near its borders. The situation on the Far Eastern borders became boring to correct militarily in battles with Japan on Lake Khasan and in the Khalkin-Gol region; the threat that loomed from the West had to be resolved diplomatically, first in negotiations with Western democracies, and then with the country that posed a direct threat THE USSR. The circumstances that led to the conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty, as well as its impact on international relations, are well known today, and one can hardly expect any new documents on these issues. Their interpretation depends on the position taken by the researcher in characterizing Soviet foreign policy. Opinions on this issue differ radically among different researchers, and they are based on political likes and dislikes, rather than an objective analysis of the facts.

The European foreign policy of the USSR went through three stages in the 30s: before the arrival of the Nazis in Germany, there was a predominantly pro-German orientation; from 1933 to 1939 the “pro-democratic” line prevailed: orientation towards an alliance with England and France, attempts to create a system of collective security; from 1939 to 1941 The pro-German line again prevailed, which attracted Stalin with the opportunity to significantly expand the territory of the USSR by dividing Europe into “spheres of influence.”

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#history of Russia #history #society #CCSR #1930 #crisis

1. VIII Congress and the new course of the Comintern in 1935–1939.

At the end of October 1929, with the so-called “stock market crash” in the USA, the entire world capitalism entered into another systemic crisis - the “Great Depression” of 1929–1933, which in its negative results and consequences surpassed all previous crises of capitalism. According to the estimates of most experts (N. Sivachev, E. Yazkov, P. Grinin, S. Moshensky, G. Zinn, K. Romer), the “Great Depression” not only ruined and brought tens of millions of people to the brink of survival and set back the level of industrial production decades ago, but also contributed to the sharp radicalization of the broad public masses and the growth of both left-radical (communist) and right-wing extremist (fascist) sentiments and parties. Of course, this crisis could not but affect the policy of the Comintern, which continued to be considered by the entire Soviet political leadership as the main headquarters for the preparation of the world proletarian revolution.

The new radical turn in the policy of the Comintern, which occurred in the summer of 1935, was directly related to A. Hitler’s recent rise to power and the sharply increased threat of a new world war. Back in July 1934, the leader of the Bulgarian communists and member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern Georgiy Dimitrov sent to I.V. Stalin, a letter in which he invited him to radically revise the previous political course of the Comintern, aimed at splitting the “united front” of all left parties and trade unions. In particular, in connection with the incredibly increased threat from German Nazism, which came to power in January 1933, G. Dimitrov proposed:

1) stop the previous policy of discrediting European social democracy, declared the left wing of European fascism, and

2) make every effort to revive the “united front” tactics, which could become a reliable barrier to the Nazis coming to power in other European countries.

A heated discussion on this issue was completed at the VIII Congress of the Comintern, which took place in Moscow in July - August 1935. The main report “The offensive of fascism and the tasks of the Comintern in the struggle for the unity of the working class against fascism” was made by Georgy Dimitrov, who paid special attention to a number of important circumstances:

Fascism is an open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary and chauvinistic circles of financial and industrial capital of the leading bourgeois world powers;

It is urgently necessary to revive the “united front” tactics of all workers and communist parties, whose main task should not be the organization of the revolutionary process in Europe, but the creation of a united front of the struggle against European fascism;

The unity of the working class should become the basis for creating the broadest possible anti-fascist movement and the formation on the basis of this movement of “popular front” governments from representatives of all proletarian and petty-bourgeois parties.

Based on the results of their work, the delegates of the VIII Congress elected a new Executive Committee (ECCI) and its Presidium, which included I.V. Stalin, D.Z. Manuilsky and M.A. Moskvin (Trilisser), who, as the former head of the Foreign Department (foreign intelligence) and deputy chairman of the OGPU of the USSR, became the curator of the special agencies of the ECCI. In addition, a fundamental decision was made to transfer the leadership of the Comintern from the Presidium to the Secretariat of the ECCI, which included General Secretary G. Dimitrov, V. Pick, O. Kuusinen, P. Tolyatti, A. Marti, K. Gottwald and D.Z. . Manuilsky.

In domestic historiography during the era of “Gorbachev’s perestroika”, several authors (F. Firsov, I. Krivoguz), fulfilling the direct social order of the then main party ideologists A.N. Yakovlev and V.A. Medvedev, tried to blame I.V. Stalin and his closest associates in the Politburo is that they in every possible way opposed the approval of the new course of the Comintern. As the latest research by a number of modern historians (Yu. Zhukov, Yu. Emelyanov) has shown, I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov, A.A. Zhdanov and other members of the country's top political leadership not only supported this course, but were also its initiators. The real opponents of the new course of the Comintern were completely different characters, in particular, B. Kuhn, V.G. Knorin and especially I.A. Pyatnitsky (Tarshis), who since 1921, being the right hand of G.E. Zinoviev, and then N.I. Bukharin, as the permanent secretary of the ECCI, was still the most active supporter of the ideas of the world proletarian revolution.

2. German Nazism is the brainchild of world oligarchic capital

At the end of Gorbachev’s perestroika, a rather weak and deceitful little book by Yu.L. was published. Dyakov and T.S. Bushueva “The fascist sword was forged in the USSR” (1992), the title of which spoke for itself. All serious and insightful scientists (S. Kara-Murza, V. Katasonov, Yu. Zhukov, R. Epperson) have long and well known that the initiative to unleash the Second World War did not belong to the “possessed Fuhrer”, who supposedly by chance found himself in chapter Nazi Germany. This war became the main project of the world financial, primarily the Anglo-Saxon oligarchy, which, relying on institutions such as the Federal backup system The United States and the Bank of England, immediately after the end of the First World War, began preparing for the next armed conflict on a global scale. The plan for a new world war was directed precisely against the USSR. Important milestones of this “operation” were the “Dawes Plan” (1924) and the “Young Plan” (1930), the creation of the Bank for International Settlements (1930), Germany’s termination of reparation payments under the Paris Peace Treaty and the tacit consent of the former Entente countries with this decision , as well as powerful injections of foreign investment and loans into the economy of the Third Reich and its militarization. Key figures in the behind-the-scenes operation of the Anglo-American financial tycoons were the Rockefeller and Morgan families, as well as the director of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman, and the director of the Reichsbank and the German Minister of Economics, Hjalmar Schacht. The very strategic plan of the Rockefellers and Morgans was to economically subjugate the entire European continent, and with the help of Germany, pumped up with foreign loans and investments, to deal a crushing blow to the USSR, returning its territory to the fold of the world capitalist system as a colony.

In this whole scenario, the head of the Bank of England, M. Norman, played important role an intermediary between American financial capital and the political and business circles of Germany, and the head of the Reichsbank, J. Schacht, was put in the role of organizer of the war economy of Nazi Germany. The functions of covering the behind-the-scenes operation of the real owners of money were performed by prominent politicians such as F.D. Roosevelt, N. Chamberlain and W. Churchill, and in Germany itself, along with J. Schacht, A. Hitler became the main executor of these grandiose plans. It is noteworthy that a number of historians assess the role of J. Schacht in governing Germany during the Second World War even higher than the role of A. Hitler.

The Dawes Plan, adopted in 1924 on the initiative of Anglo-American bankers, bypassing their French colleagues, provided for a significant weakening of the reparation burden of Germany and providing it with financial assistance from the United States and England in the form of long-term loans to restore its economy and supposedly subsequent restoration of payments reparations in full. Only according to this plan in 1924–1929. Berlin received about $4 billion from Washington and London, which at current exchange rates is equivalent to an astronomical sum of several hundred billion dollars. As a result, by 1929 Weimar Germany had reached second place in the world in terms of industrial production, surpassing even Great Britain.

In the 1930s the process of pumping the German economy with Anglo-Saxon capital continued at an accelerated pace. In accordance with the new “Jung Plan,” the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was created in Basel, Switzerland, in 1930, through which American companies began to buy German assets. The German oil refining industry and the production of synthetic gasoline de facto became owned by the American corporation Standard Oil, owned by J. Rockefeller. The core of the chemical industry of Weimar Germany was the company "Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie", which completely came under the control of P.D. Morgana. A third of all shares of the famous aircraft manufacturing company Focke-Wulf belonged to the American company International Telephone & Telegraph, and the core of the entire German radio and electrical industry was the Siemens, Osram, Allgemeine Elektricitats-Gesellschaft concerns, which came under control the American company General Electric, which were also part of the Morgan financial empire. Finally, 100% of the shares of the Volkswagen automobile concern were controlled by the American automobile corporation Ford.

Thus, by the time A. Hitler came to power, all strategically important sectors of German industry were under the complete control of American financial capital - oil refining and production of combustible materials, the chemical, automobile and aviation industries, electrical engineering and radio instrument making, a significant part of mechanical engineering, etc. , almost 280 companies and concerns in total. In addition, leading German banks - Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Donat Bank and a number of others - came under the control of American capital.

In October 1930, the chairman of the Reichsbank, J. Schacht, traveled across the ocean, where he discussed with his American colleagues the details of the plan to bring A. Hitler to power. Among his interlocutors were US Treasury Secretary E. Mellon, J. Rockefeller (National City Bank), A. DuPont (DuPont), P. Bush (Brown Brothers Harriman), W.R. Hearst (“Hearst Corporation”), D. Kennedy (“Merchandise Mart”) and other tycoons of American business. After his candidacy and the plan for his political “promotion” were finally approved at a secret meeting of bankers, J. Schacht returned to Germany and throughout 1931–1932. intensively worked on German bankers and industrialists, obtaining from them the full support of the “possessed Fuhrer.” And such support was soon received: in November 1932, seventeen of the largest German oligarchs, led by K. Schröder, who was the head of the industry trade union of private bank owners (“Frachgruppe Privatbankiers”), sent a letter to President P. Hindenburg demanding the appointment of A. Hitler the new German Reich Chancellor.

After the Nazis came to power, Germany's financial, credit, trade and economic relations with the Anglo-Saxon world reached a qualitatively new level. In May 1933, J. Schacht makes another visit to the USA, where he meets with the new president F.D. Roosevelt and the largest bankers and signs an agreement to receive American loans totaling $1 billion. And in June, he makes a similar trip to London, where he negotiates with M. Norman and receives a loan of $2 billion and agreement to suspend payments for servicing and repayment of English loans previously received by Berlin.

A number of modern historians and economists (Yu. Zhukov, Yu. Emelyanov, V. Katasonov) reasonably believe that an important reason for such accommodating American and British bankers was that the USSR in 1932 successfully completed the first five-year plan, which, unexpectedly for the West, led to a sharp strengthening of its economic positions, and the prospects for the economic strangulation of the USSR practically disappeared, so they relied on a “big war” and the unbridled militarization of Germany began.

“New Economic Deal” by F.D. Roosevelt soon began to falter, and in 1937 the United States again found itself in the depths of an economic depression, and in 1939 the utilization of all industrial capacities of American corporations was only 33%. Assessing the situation at that time, one of Roosevelt’s closest advisors, P. Tugwell, cynically wrote that “in 1939 the government could not achieve any success... The fog could only be cleared by the mighty wind of war; any other measures that were in Roosevelt’s power would have brought no results.”

A special role in the preparation of a new world war was played by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the main initiators of the creation of which were D.P. Morgan, M. Norman, J. Schacht, V. Funk, E. Puhl and other American and European bankers. The founders of the BIS, who signed its charter, were the Central Banks of England, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, as well as a number of private banks. However, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which actively participated in the creation of the BIS, became one of its founders for political reasons. From the United States, the BIS charter was signed by three private banks of the Morgan empire - First National City Bank of New York, J.P. Morgan & Co and First National City Bank of Chicago. The first president of the BIS was the Rockefeller protege G. McGarrah (1930–1933), and then he was replaced by the Morgan protege L. Fraser (1934–1940).

Quite a lot has been written about how the BIS worked in the interests of the Third Reich, including in the famous work of the American journalist Charles Higham “Trade with the Enemy” (1985). What is noteworthy is that already during the war years, when the BIS was under complete control of the Nazis, its president was the American banker T.H. McKittrick, in the Swiss “banking offshore” there was complete mutual understanding and intense joint work between representatives of the warring parties. Moreover, during the war, it was the BIS that became the place where all the looted gold flowed, including from Nazi concentration camps, amounting to an astronomical amount of $380 million.

Finally, a few words about J. Schacht, who was a key figure in the management of the German economy and the plenipotentiary of Anglo-American capital in Nazi Germany. In 1945, he was brought to trial at the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, but was acquitted and got away unscathed. Moreover, as if nothing had happened, he soon returned to the banking sector and founded the banking house “Schacht GmbH” in Düsseldorf, which once again helps to understand who really prepared the Second World War, and is now trying to rewrite it and replay its results.

3. The USSR’s struggle to create a system of collective security in Europe

In 1931, the Soviet diplomatic corps began a series of complex international negotiations with a number of border states, which ended with the signing of non-aggression pacts with Finland (January 1932), Latvia (February 1932), Estonia (May 1932) and Poland (July 1932).

Meanwhile, the whole world began to slowly but surely creep into a new world war.

In September 1931, militaristic Japan, where real power was in the hands of the military elite led by the Chief of the General Staff, Prince Kotohito, began aggression against sovereign China. Soon, having occupied Manchuria, she created on its territory the puppet state of Manchukuo, headed by the supreme ruler and later Emperor Pu Yi (1932-1945), which then became an excellent military springboard for unleashing a full-scale Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) .

In November 1932, in the wake of an acute socio-economic crisis, following the results of free parliamentary elections, the National Socialist Workers' Party (NSDAP) came to power in Weimar Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, who in January 1933 became the new Chancellor of Germany. Less than six months after the Nazis came to power, on July 15, 1933, in Rome, the heads of government of Great Britain (R. MacDonald), France (E. Daladier), Italy (B. Mussolini) and Germany (A. Hitler) signed this called the “Pact of Consent and Cooperation”, which de facto meant a radical revision of the very foundations of the Versailles system of international relations, since if the leaders of the Weimar Republic London and Paris were always kept on a “short leash”, then under A. Hitler Nazi Germany again entered a narrow circle great powers, with whom they began to talk as an equal.

A. Hitler’s rise to power became a turning point in the entire world history, because he:

a) visibly showed the collapse of the entire Versailles-Washington system of international relations, created by the governments of England, France and the USA for the sake of their own selfish interests;

b) became a real verdict on the principles of European liberal democracy and to all of capitalism, in the ideological storehouses of which the ideology of German Nazism and European fascism matured;

c) radically changed the situation in the international arena, since one of the largest world powers was headed by a political party of the newest type, on whose banners the slogans of revanchism, Nazism and racism were inscribed;

d) meant the complete collapse of the previous “Trotskyist-Zinovievite” policy of the Comintern, aimed at destroying the “united front” of all left-wing political parties and trade unions, since, in the event of the creation of a “single bloc” of communists and social democrats, A. Hitler’s party would never failed to obtain a mandate to form a government.

Already in October 1933 The Nazi political leadership clearly defined its foreign policy course, because it:

Refused to ratify the Pact of Rome,

Avoided participation in the international disarmament conference;

Announced Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations.

Nevertheless, the governments of the leading Western powers, primarily England, France and the USA, continued the traditional course of “pacification” of Germany, which ultimately led to a new world war.

The Soviet political leadership took a completely different position on this extremely important issue. In the context of the rapid growth of the fascist threat, the USSR came up with the idea of creating a system of collective security in Europe and actively supported the proposal of the French Foreign Minister Louis Barth to create an “Eastern Locarno”, which was supposed to complement the system of the “Rhine Guarantee Pact” (1925). However, due to the selfish position taken by the leadership of England (R. Macdonald) and especially Poland (J. Pilsudski), the signing of the new pact was disrupted, which, of course, met the interests of Nazi Germany.

In November 1933, after the new US Administration, headed by Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, came to power, diplomatic relations were established between the USSR and the USA. And in September 1934, thanks to the active support of the French government, the Soviet Union was admitted to the League of Nations. However, after the murder in Marseilles of the Minister of Foreign Affairs L. Bartu, who became a victim of the German special services, which, according to historians (V. Volkov, I. Mussky), carried out the special operation “Teutonic Sword”, the situation in Paris partly changed and the new French leadership of the “left” Democrats" led by Prime Minister P. Flandin and Foreign Minister P. Laval abandoned the previous idea of concluding a pan-European "Eastern European Regional Pact" and headed towards creating a Franco-English-Italian anti-German alliance and concluding a separate treaty with the USSR.

In March 1935, the Nazi leadership, in violation of the articles of the Versailles Peace Treaty, restored universal conscription and sent its troops into the demilitarized Saar region. The French government of socialist Pierre Flandin sounded the “universal” alarm, and in April 1935, a conference on the “German question” was held in the Italian city of Strese, the participants of which sharply condemned Germany’s violation of the articles of the Treaty of Versailles. Oddly enough, the head of the Italian government, Benito Mussolini, took a particularly tough position on this issue, and supported his French colleague.

Quite unexpectedly for them, not privy to the behind-the-scenes origins of German Nazism, the British government of S. Baldwin came out on the side of fascist Germany, which in June 1935 signed with A. Hitler a sensational Anglo-German treaty on naval armaments, which de facto destroyed the Versailles peace treaty, as it enabled the German government to begin a large-scale program of building submarines and surface warships. Thus, the united anti-German front was completely destroyed, and the Nazi leadership finally gained the long-awaited free hand.

In this situation, the Soviet diplomatic corps, guided by common sense and clear guidelines of the Politburo of the Central Committee, continued to persistently pursue a policy to create a system of collective security in Europe. In May 1935, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR M.M. Litvinov signed a Soviet-French treaty on mutual assistance between the two countries. And in July 1935, a similar Soviet-Czechoslovak agreement was signed in Prague. However, another Soviet proposal to create a universal system of collective security in Europe did not find support in the governments of other European powers.

Meanwhile, the situation on the world stage began to deteriorate sharply. Visible proof of this fact was a number of major world events that became a direct prologue to a new world war.

1) In March 1935, in flagrant violation of one of the main articles of the Treaty of Versailles, A. Hitler passed through the Reichstag the “Law on the Construction of the Wehrmacht”, according to which universal conscription was restored in Germany, and to replace the 100,000th “mercenary “The Reichswehr received a full-fledged 500,000-strong Wehrmacht with its own separate Supreme Command (OKW) and a revived General Staff, headed by Colonel General W. Fritsch and Artillery General L. Beck.

2) In October 1935, the Italian army under the overall command of the Chief of the General Staff, Marshal P. Badoglio, launched a full-scale invasion of the territory of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), which ended with the capture of Addis Ababa and the strengthening of the positions of fascist Italy in this strategically important region.

3) In March 1936, again in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Agreements (1925), A. Hitler authorized the entry of German troops into the territory of the demilitarized Rhineland, where the famous Ruhr region was located - the industrial heart of all of what was then Germany.

4) In July 1936, after the republican government of the popular front led by X. Giral Pereira came to power in Spain, the highest generals of the Spanish army, led by generals X. Sanjurjo and F. Franco, rebelled against the legitimate government in Madrid and, having received a solid support from A. Hitler and B. Mussolini, unleashed a full-scale civil war in the country (1936-1939), which ended with the defeat of the Republicans and the establishment of the pro-fascist dictatorship of Caudillo F. Franco.

5) In November 1936, the German-Japanese alliance treaty was signed, marking the beginning of the famous “Anti-Comintern Pact”, which became not only a direct challenge to the USSR, but also to the entire Versailles-Washington system of international relations, since de facto it meant the creation of a military alliance between Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan.

6) In July 1937, after the pro-fascist government of Fumimaro Konoe came to power, militaristic Japan, with the support of Nazi Germany, unleashed full-scale hostilities in China, marking the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), which became the trigger for World War II.

7) In November 1937, fascist Italy became a full member of the Anti-Comintern Pact, which immediately announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations and continued to create a full-fledged military alliance with Germany, the logical conclusion of which was the so-called “Pact of Steel”, signed by A. Hitler and B. Mussolini in May 1939

8) In March 1938, with the active support of B. Mussolini and the tacit consent of the Western powers, the Anschluss of Austria took place, the territory of which was completely included in the Third Reich. This brazen annexation of the sovereign Austrian state, which completely violated the Treaty of Saint-Germain (1919) and the Geneva Conventions (1922), was a direct consequence of the “policy of appeasement of the aggressor”, which was actively pursued by the British cabinet. Back in November 1937, one of the leaders of the Conservative Party, Lord E. Halifax, during a personal audience with A. Hitler on behalf of the British government, gave the go-ahead for the “acquisition” of Austrian lands. And already in February 1938, British Prime Minister N. Chamberlain, speaking in the English Parliament, directly stated that “We must not deceive, much less encourage, small weak states by promising them protection from the League of Nations.” As a result, in early March 1938, after A. Hitler’s “ultimatum” to the Austrian Prime Minister K. Schuschnigg, he resigned, and the leader of the Austrian Nazis A. Seyss-Inquart formed a new cabinet, which included two prominent members of the NSDAP - the Minister of Security E. Kaltenbrunner and Minister of Justice G. Huber, who was the son-in-law of the President of the Nazi Reichstag, Reichsmarshal G. Goering. And already on March 13, 1938 - on the day of the ceremonial arrival in Vienna of A. Hitler himself and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the OKW, Field Marshal W. Keitel, the law “On the reunification of Austria with the German Empire” was promulgated, according to which Austria was declared “one of the lands of the German Empire” and from now on began to be called “Ostmark”.

4. The Munich Agreement and its consequences in 1938–1939.

In this explosive situation, the government of the Soviet Union repeatedly called on the governments of the leading world powers to provide a worthy rebuff to the aggressor and to stop the vicious policy of “appeasing the aggressor” pursued by London and Paris. However, all his calls remained “a voice crying in the wilderness,” which further whetted the appetites in Berlin, Rome and Tokyo.

In May 1938, A. Hitler approved a plan for a military operation against Czechoslovakia, codenamed “Grun”, and in the Sudetenland, whose population consisted mainly of ethnic Germans, mass actions of civil disobedience began, led by local fascists led by A. Henlein. In this situation, Czechoslovak President Eduard Benes announced partial mobilization in the country and appealed to the French government with a request to fulfill its allied duty. However, the government of E. Daladier, completely in the wake of the British policy of “appeasing the aggressor,” evaded fulfilling its obligations under the Treaty of Paris of 1935. Moreover, in early September 1938, the President of the Privy Council, Lord W. Runciman, who participated as a mediator in the “resolution” of the first Sudeten crisis, actually forced President E. Benes to make concessions to the Sudeten separatists, thereby de facto signing the death warrant of Czechoslovakia.

Before the London “peacemaker” had time to return home, an armed rebellion of local Nazis broke out on the territory of the Sudetenland, which was openly supported by Berlin, which directly stated that “for the sake of protecting its half-brothers” it would stop at nothing, even before war. On September 14, 1938, Prime Minister N. Chamberlain notified A. Hitler of his readiness “to save the world” to visit him at any time, and the very next day in the Bavarian Alps he agreed to transfer the Sudetenland to the Third Reich. On September 18, intergovernmental consultations between N. Chamberlain and E. Daladier were held in London, on the basis of which the British and French envoys in Prague achieved actual capitulation from the Milan Goggi cabinet.

On September 21–22, a general strike took place in Czechoslovakia, which led to the fall of the government of M. Goji and the creation of a new cabinet headed by General J. Syrov. On the same day, the Soviet permanent representative to the League of Nations announced the need for urgent measures in support of Czechoslovakia and condemnation of German aggression against a sovereign state. And the First Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.P. Potemkin, in a conversation with the Czechoslovak Ambassador Z. Fierlinger, gave a positive answer to his direct question about “The government of the USSR, in the event of a German attack on Czechoslovakia, could provide assistance to it without waiting for the decision of the Council of the League of Nations.”

On September 23, President E. Benes announced a general mobilization in the country. In response to this act, German and Polish troops were put on high alert and moved to the Czechoslovak border. On September 27, at an audience with the British and French ambassadors, A. Hitler warned the “guarantors” of the Versailles system for the last time that the German “action” against Czechoslovakia would begin in the near future, and therefore invited them, without wasting time, to hold new negotiations to clarify the “details of the agreement "on the Sudeten issue. On September 29-30, 1938, a meeting of the heads of government of Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany took place in Munich, during which Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler signed the criminal Munich Agreement on the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, which became the culmination of the British “policy of appeasement.” aggressor."

Only after the signing of the Munich Treaty were the representatives of Czechoslovakia V. Maetny and H. Masaryk familiarized with its text, who, under pressure from N. Chamberlain and E. Daladier, endorsed this agreement, and President E. Benes, without the consent of the National Assembly, accepted it for execution. On September 30, 1938, Wehrmacht troops were introduced into the territory of the Sudetenland, and Polish troops entered the territory of the Teshen region. All these events caused an internal crisis in Czechoslovakia itself: on October 5, President E. Beneš resigned, and two days later, under pressure from Berlin, the new government of R. Beran decided to grant autonomy to Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia, where Hungarian troops were introduced in November 1938 troops.

In January 1939, the Pravda newspaper published an article by the First Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.P. Potemkin “The International Situation of the Second Imperialist War,” which contained new aspects of Soviet foreign policy doctrine. These new aspects were based on the fact that the Second World War had already become a reality, since in the second half of the 1930s. A number of military actions were undertaken by a number of world powers that radically changed the situation in the world. These events divided all the leading bourgeois powers into aggressors - Germany, Italy and Japan and those who connive with it - England, France and the USA. And although de facto this connivance causes direct damage to the interests of the Western powers themselves, it is “a completely conscious policy aimed at a clash between the aggressors and the USSR, which is the stronghold of social progress in the modern world.”

In confirmation of these words, at the beginning of March 1939, in violation of all its international obligations, including under the Munich Treaty, Berlin provoked the disintegration of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus, and on March 15, with the consent of the new president E. Hach, German troops completely occupied the entire territory of the Czech Republic, which became part of the Third Reich as the Bohemian and Moravian protectorates. Then, in March 1939, Lithuania yielded to the German ultimatum and gave Berlin Klaipeda (Memel), which before the First World War belonged to Germany, but was transferred to Lithuania under the Treaty of Versailles.

On the same day, the USSR government turned to the leadership of England, France, Romania and Poland with a proposal to convene an international conference to resolve the crisis in Europe. However, due to the position taken by the British government, such a conference could not be convened again.

After these events, the highest political leadership of Nazi Germany began direct preparations for war against pan-Poland, and in March 1939, German Foreign Minister J. Ribbentrop openly presented territorial claims to the Polish leadership, and the German General Staff, led by Colonel General W. Halder hastily began to finalize the plan for a military operation against Poland, codenamed “Weiss”.

In April 1939, A. Hitler approved the final version of the Weiss plan, which provided for a lightning strike on the enemy from three main strategic directions. At the same time, the German leadership notified the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs J. Beck, who was de facto head of government F. Slava-Skladkowski, about the termination of the Polish-German Declaration of Non-Aggression, signed in 1934.

In May 1939, First Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.P. Potemkin, who arrived on an official visit to Warsaw, once again proposed that the Polish leadership immediately conclude a Soviet-Polish pact of mutual assistance in the fight against the aggressor and declared the USSR’s readiness to act as a guarantor of the inviolability of Polish borders. Both of these proposals from the Soviet side were rejected by the Polish government. By the way, these facts eloquently indicate that Germany’s attack on Poland would have occurred regardless of whether the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact had been signed or not. Therefore, all attempts by our home-grown anti-Stalinists (G. Rozanov, M. Semiryaga, S. Mironenko) to assign equal responsibility with Germany for the outbreak of World War II to the Soviet Union are simply blasphemous.

Meanwhile, the political leadership of the USSR continued to persistently fight for the creation of a system of collective security in Europe. In March and April 1939, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR M.M. Litvinov proposed three times to the leadership of England, France, Romania, Turkey and Poland immediately begin negotiations on the creation of a single anti-fascist bloc. In particular, he proposed that the governments of England and France sign a package of tripartite agreements, which provided for the conclusion of an alliance of mutual assistance and a special military convention specifying the extent and nature of this assistance. The call of the Soviet government again remained unanswered.

5. Soviet-Japanese armed conflicts in the Far East and Mongolia in 1938–1939.

According to Soviet and Russian historians (D. Bakaev, V. Ezhakov, A. Koshkin), the plan for waging war against the USSR began to be developed by the Japanese Ministry of the Army, headed by Marshal S. Araki, in October 1931, when the Japanese government approved the “Basic provisions of the operational plan for the war against Russia.” Then a number of similar plans were born in the bowels of the Japanese military department, until in April 1938 another such plan called “State Defense Policy” was approved by the new Minister of War H. Sugiyama. Since the occupation of Manchuria, the Japanese military, actively incited and supplied with strategic raw materials by the powers of Western “democracy”, including Great Britain and the USA, constantly staged provocations on the Soviet-Korean border, and in the first half of 1938 alone, more than 120 cases of violation of Soviet borders and 40 cases of Japanese aircraft invading Soviet airspace.

In connection with the intensification of Japanese provocations and the real threat of a full-scale military conflict, by the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee in early July 1938, the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army was transformed into the Far Eastern Front, which was headed by Marshal V.K. Blucher. At the same time, border outposts were organized at two dominant heights in the area of Lake Khasan - the border hills Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya, which immediately recorded the fact of the accumulation of Japanese troops on the Soviet border.

On July 29, 1938, border provocations were replaced by a full-scale invasion of the troops of the 19th Infantry Division of the Kwantung Army of General K. Ueda, who, with the forces of two rifle regiments, attacked the forward lines of the Soviet border outposts and occupied the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya hills. The situation became so critical that two days later the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, Marshal K.E. Voroshilov gave the order to bring the troops of the 1st Red Banner Far Eastern (Coastal) Army (divisional commander K.P. Podlas) and the Pacific Fleet (flagship 2nd rank N.G. Kuznetsov) to full combat readiness, and I.V. Stalin in a personal conversation with V.K. Blucher sharply criticized the commander-in-chief on the high frequency for his complacency. The very next day, according to a report from the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, Army Commissar L.Z. Mehlis Marshal V.K. Blucher was removed from front command and soon arrested, and corps commander G.M. was appointed the new commander-in-chief. Stern. On August 6, by his order, units and formations of the 32nd and 40th rifle divisions with the active support of front-line aviation under the command of brigade commander P.V. Rychagov inflicted a crushing defeat on the Japanese invaders and drove them out of the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya hills. And already on August 10, 1938, the Japanese ambassador M. Shigemitsu proposed to begin peace negotiations, as a result of which the border between the USSR and Japanese possessions in Korea and Manchuria was established on the basis of the old Russian-Chinese border agreement of 1886.

Contrary to popular belief, the events at Lake Khasan were not a simple border conflict. On the contrary, according to the testimony of a number of modern Russian historians (A. Koshkin), these were quite large military operations, where for the first time in the entire period of Soviet-Japanese border incidents, strategic troops were involved.

An even larger-scale military conflict between the USSR and Japan occurred on the territory of Mongolia in the area of the border river Khalkhin Gol. The background to this conflict was as follows: in the summer of 1935, after a series of armed clashes on the Mongol-Manchu border, negotiations began between representatives of Mongolia and Manchukuo on the demarcation of the border, but by the fall they reached a dead end. Then, in March 1936, the “Protocol on Mutual Assistance” was signed between the USSR and the Mongolian People’s Republic, according to which units and formations of the 57th Special Corps of the Red Army were deployed on the territory of Mongolia, which was initially headed by division commander I.S. Konev, and then division commander N.V. Feklenko.

Until the beginning of 1939, the situation on the Mongol-Manchu border remained relatively calm, but after the new Japanese government of General K. Hiranuma came to power, the situation sharply worsened, and in May 1939, active combat operations, including the use of combat aircraft and heavy artillery. In this situation, the General Staff of the Red Army deployed the 1st Army Group on the basis of the 57th Separate Corps, which was headed by corps commander G.K. Zhukov. At the same time, the commander of the 1st Separate Red Banner Army, commander of the 2nd rank G.M., urgently arrived in the area of the armed conflict. Stern, who took upon himself the overall coordination of the actions of the troops of the Red Army and the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army, led by Marshal X. Choibalsan.

Throughout June, active air battles took place in the area of confrontation, as a result of which Soviet aviation, led by corps commander V.Ya. Smushkevich still managed to gain the upper hand and gain air supremacy. In July 1939, the main battles took place in the area of Mount Bayan-Tsagan, where the Japanese group of Major General I. Kobayashi was completely defeated during the “Bayan-Tsagan Massacre”. At the same time, the Soviet-Mongolian troops managed to repel all attempts by another Japanese group, Lieutenant General M. Yasuoka, to cross Khalkhin Gol. Since mid-July, there was relative calm along the entire line of confrontation, only positional battles took place, an increased concentration of troops was carried out and new plans for a military operation were being developed. As a result, by mid-August the balance of forces turned out to be as follows: the 1st Army Group of the Red Army (G.K. Zhukov) included 57 thousand bayonets and sabers, almost 850 tanks and armored vehicles and 580 aircraft, and the 6th Japanese Army (R. Ogisu) - 75 thousand bayonets and sabers, 180 tanks and armored vehicles and 700 aircraft.

Japanese staff officers, naively convinced of the operational superiority of their troops, planned a new offensive against the right flank of the Soviet-Mongolian group on August 24. However, on August 20, after powerful artillery bombardment, Soviet tank and mechanized units, with the active support of front-line aviation, completely unexpectedly went on the offensive and by the end of August 26, they surrounded and destroyed the 28th, 64th and 72nd infantry regiments of the 7th and 23rd enemy infantry divisions. Repeated attempts by the Japanese command to carry out counterattacks and release the grouping of their troops in the Khalkhin Gol area ended in complete failure, and by the end of August 31, the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic was completely cleared of Japanese troops. The Japanese generals still hoped for revenge, and in the first half of September a real air battle unfolded in the skies of Mongolia, in which the Soviet aces gained the upper hand.

The military defeat of the Japanese army on the Khalkhin Gol River and the simultaneous signing of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact led to a government crisis and the resignation of the cabinet of General H. Kiichiro. The new Japanese government of General N. Abe, who was a categorical opponent of the military alliance with A. Hitler and B. Mussolini, announced on September 4, 1939 that it did not intend to interfere in any form in the military conflict in Europe. And on September 15, 1939, a trilateral Soviet-Mongolian-Japanese agreement to eliminate the conflict was signed in Moscow, which ultimately led to the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese “neutrality pact”, signed by Foreign Minister I. Matsuoka during his visit to Moscow April 13, 1941 Thus, in the traditional confrontation between Japanese generals and admirals, the “maritime party” won, which always advocated careful expansion into Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, and The Soviet Union removed the threat of a possible war on two fronts.

It is noteworthy that when active hostilities began on the Khalkhin Gol River, and absolutely fruitless consultations on the issue of Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations were going on between Moscow, London and Paris for the third month, in July 1939, Japanese Foreign Minister H. Arita and the British Ambassador R. Craig signed an agreement under which Great Britain recognized all Japanese conquests in China, thus providing direct diplomatic support for Japanese aggression against Mongolia and its ally the USSR. At the same time, the Administration of President F.D. Roosevelt extended the trade agreement with Japan, under which the Tokyo government purchased trucks for the Kwantung Army, machine tools for aircraft factories and strategic materials, including rolled steel, gasoline and other petroleum products, from the United States.

6. Soviet-German Treaty of 1939 and its assessment in historiography

At the beginning of April 1939, the German General Staff, under the leadership of Colonel General W. Halder, completed the development of a plan for waging war against Poland, codenamed “Weiss”. According to a number of historians (V. Sipols, V. Falin), initially Nazi Germany was not interested in turning this conflict into a pan-European, much less a new world war. Therefore, the German diplomatic corps, whose new head instead of Baron K. Neurath was appointed I. Ribbentrop, began to show particular activity in relation to both England and the USSR, trying to maintain their neutrality in the event of a war with Poland.

Since A. Hitler had not yet made the final decision to start a war against the Soviet Union, he directly pointed out to I. Ribbentrop the need to stage the “era of a new Rapallo” in German-Soviet relations and to pursue a policy of balance and economic cooperation towards Moscow. In April - June 1939, the German government, represented by K. Schnurre, B. Stumm, F. Schulenburg and other prominent ministers and diplomats, repeatedly tried to persuade the Soviet political leadership to closer trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. However, I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov and K.E. Voroshilov, without reacting to these proposals from the German side, still hoped to reach an agreement with England and France on concluding an alliance treaty.

In particular, on April 17, 1939, the Soviet government again proposed that London and Paris conclude a tripartite treaty and a military convention on mutual assistance in the event that one of the parties is subjected to aggression by other states. Moreover, according to a number of historians (V. Sipols), the head of the Soviet government V.M. Molotov, who in May 1939 simultaneously took over the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, despite all his exceptional employment, held about twenty working meetings with the British and French ambassadors regarding the signing of a trilateral alliance treaty. However, all attempts to reach some kind of compromise were unsuccessful.

In this regard, we would like to especially draw attention to a number of fundamentally important circumstances.

1) All attempts by a number of foreign and Russian authors (R. Edmonds, D. Volkogonov, R. Medvedev) to connect the resignation of M.M. Litvinov and the appointment of V.M. Molotov to the post of People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, which occurred in early May 1939, with a sharp change in the foreign policy course of the USSR towards Germany, do not have the slightest basis. Moreover, as many historians correctly noted (V. Sipols, Yu. Zhukov), the appointment of the head of the Soviet government V.M. Molotov to the post of head of the foreign policy department was supposed to increase the level of the expected Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations and significantly speed up the signing of the treaty that could actually prevent the threat of a new world war.

2) The statements of a number of home-grown anti-Stalinists (M. Semiryaga, V. Dashichev, M. Kulish, L. Bezymensky) about the equal historical responsibility of the USSR and Nazi Germany for the outbreak of the Second World War not only do not have any documentary basis, but are simply blasphemous and immoral its essence.

At the beginning of August 1939, in connection with the final stage of preparation for the Polish military campaign, German diplomats sharply intensified their work to establish closer contacts with the leadership of the USSR. However, the Soviet side avoided German proposals in every possible way, continuing to search for ways to conclude a military alliance with England and France. On August 12, 1939, in Moscow, long-awaited negotiations finally began between representatives of three military departments, in which the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, Marshal K.E., took part. Voroshilov, Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, 1st Rank Army Commander B.M. Shaposhnikov, First Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.P. Potemkin, representative of the British defense department Admiral R. Drake and member of the Supreme Military Council of France General J. Doumenc. Not a single round of trilateral negotiations, which took place over ten days, brought the desired result, since the authorized but absolutely powerless representatives of the two great powers did not have the right to sign any specific military agreements.

Our anti-Stalinists needed to somehow justify their Western partners, and the famous liberal journalist L.A. Bezymensky, in his last book “Hitler and Stalin before the fight” (2000), gave personal instructions to I.V. Stalin's People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov, which allegedly visibly says that the Soviet leader from the very beginning was determined to disrupt the Moscow negotiations. However, it is well known that on August 17 and 20, 1939, the head of the French military mission, General J. Doumenc, directly wrote in his secret coded messages from Moscow to Paris: “There is no doubt that the USSR wants to conclude a military pact and does not want us to turn this pact into an empty piece of paper that has no specific meaning. But failure of the negotiations is inevitable if Poland does not change its position.”

On August 21, 1939, the last meeting of Soviet, British and French representatives took place, which again ended without result. In this critical situation, the Soviet political leadership had to choose another alternative: to sign those most important agreements with Germany, which were announced by its ambassador Count F. Schulenburg on August 15, 1939.

On the same day, F. Schulenburg handed over to the Soviet leadership a telegram from A. Hitler addressed to I.V. Stalin, in which he agreed to accept the Soviet draft “Non-Aggression Pact” and asked urgently, before August 23, to receive the Imperial Foreign Minister I. Ribbentrop in Moscow to sign all the necessary documents.

On the evening of August 21, 1939, Berlin received the consent of the Soviet side for I. Ribbentrop’s visit to Moscow, and on the evening of August 23, 1939, negotiations took place between I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov and I. Ribbentrop, during which the famous "Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union", which entered world diplomacy as the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact”. In addition, since the time of “Gorbachev’s perestroika,” the postulate began to be intensively drummed into broad public opinion that, as annexes to this pact, a certain “secret protocol” was signed, which delimited the spheres of influence of the two countries in the Baltic states, Finland and Poland. And although, starting from the same “ever-memorable times”, the well-known liberal public - A.N. Yakovlev, Yu.S. Pivovarov, S.V. Mironenko, N.K. Svanidze and Co. are constantly trying to sprinkle ashes on their heads and prove the immorality and criminality of these protocols; a number of then Soviet historians (V. Sipols, O. Rzheshevsky) stated that the “Non-Aggression Pact” without possible secret protocols to it was simple a piece of paper, the signing of which lost all meaning. In addition, we should not forget that, by legally laying claim to the eastern regions of Poland and the Baltic states, the Soviet Union was simply restoring historical justice and regaining those primordially Russian lands that had been torn away from Russia in times of difficult times.

1) It is important to understand that in August 1939 it was not about the division of Poland, Europe or the world between the USSR and Germany, but about where, after the inevitable collapse of Poland, A. Hitler would move his hordes - to the east or to the west. You can treat I.V. however you like. Stalin and his domestic policy, but one cannot help but admit that, being driven into a corner, he made the only right choice. Moreover, he outmaneuvered the arrogant and self-confident British, multiple winners of various diplomatic battles, and, by concluding this agreement, allowed London and Paris to fully taste the bitter fruits of their policy of “appeasing the aggressor.”

2) The first attempt to blame the USSR for starting World War II was made at the very beginning of the Cold War, when in 1946 in the provincial American newspaper “St. Louis Post-Dispatch" published copies of the "secret protocols" on the division of spheres of influence between the USSR and the Third Reich, which allegedly constituted an annex to the Soviet-German "Non-Aggression Pact" on August 23, 1939. These "protocols" themselves were also allegedly withdrawn on microfilms by an employee of the office of the Imperial Foreign Office K. Lesch and transferred by him to the English Lieutenant Colonel R. Thomson somewhere in Thuringia. Moreover, during the Nuremberg trials, J. Ribbentrop’s lawyer A. Seidl tried to include the text of these same “protocols” as evidence, but the international tribunal questioned their reliability and evidentiary value. Subsequently, in his memoirs, A. Seidl himself admitted that “I still don’t know who gave me these sheets, but it says a lot that they played along with me on the American side, namely on the part of the US prosecution or the American secret service.”

Then the Soviet Union famously repulsed the first attack of all overseas hawks and liberals, publishing in 1948 a small but very detailed brochure “Falsifiers of History.” Nevertheless, the West stubbornly continued to assert that these protocols were authentic, and all the “experts” there were not at all embarrassed by the astonishing fact that the official interstate treaty between the USSR and the Third Reich, the then head of the Soviet government and orthodox Bolshevik V.M. For some reason Molotov signed in Latin script.

The second, and this time successful, attempt to accuse the USSR of starting the Second World War was made already in December 1989 in the extremely false report “On the political and legal assessment of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty of August 23, 1939,” with which The 2nd Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR was addressed by the then member of the Politburo and Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, a well-known ideologist of “Gorbachev's perestroika” and agent of influence A.N. Yakovlev. Referring to the mythical “Protocol for the transfer of documents to the archives of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, signed by two employees of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs N.I. Smirnov and B.F. Podtserob, allegedly accidentally discovered in the Ministry of Defense archives by the then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR A.G. Kovalev, he de facto recognized the existence of secret protocols on the division of spheres of influence between the USSR and the Third Reich, which became integral part"Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact".

Every historian must master the method of chronological analysis, and if from this position we approach the assessment of “sources” according to “secret protocols,” then we will be faced with the amazing fact that it is simply impossible to establish the time of origin of many events. For example,

a) the question has not been clarified when the Western allies managed to seize the microfilms of A. Lesch from the office of the Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since in May 1945 there were only Soviet troops in Berlin, and the whole story of their mysterious transfer to the English Lieutenant Colonel R. Thomson in the territory Thuringia is known only from the lips of a personal friend of the Assistant Secretary General, Comrade. A.S. Chernyaev of the famous “perestroika” journalist L.A. Bezymensky;

b) when and in connection with what high-ranking officials of the central apparatus of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs B.F. Podtserob and N.I. Smirnov drew up an act of acceptance and transfer of a package of documents that included these same “secret protocols”;

c) when two meetings of the Deputy Commission on the political and legal assessment of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty of 1939, headed by Mr. A.N., were held. Yakovlev, and when the members of this commission approved a draft resolution of the Congress of People's Deputies on this issue;

d) when Mr. A.N. Yakovlev received from his accomplice Mr. A.G. Kovalev “Official Note” N.I. Smirnov and B.F. Podtseroba, and when the examinations of these documents, to which A.N. referred, were carried out. Yakovlev in his report to the Second Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR;

e) finally, who gave direct instructions for the publication of the texts of these protocols in the academic journals “Questions of History” and “New and Contemporary History”, etc.

Thus, many events related to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact cannot, in principle, be dated, and therefore cannot be considered reliable or even probable.

August 30, 1939 V.M. Molotov, speaking at the Supreme Soviet of the USSR with a report on the ratification of the Non-Aggression Treaty, directly stated that this treaty between the USSR and Germany was the result of the impasse in which the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations found themselves, which had been going on fruitlessly over the past few months.

In modern historical science, there are diametrically opposed assessments of the Soviet-German Pact, which are largely dictated by the political views of most authors, especially liberal ones.

Most unbiased scientists (A. Taylor, A. Yakushevsky, O. Rzheshevsky, V. Sipols, Yu. Emelyanov) rightly believe that this The pact was extremely important because it allowed the Soviet Union:

delay your entry into the war with Germany by almost two years and prepare for it much better;

Remove the threat of the emergence of a united anti-Soviet front of the imperialist powers, the contours of which were clearly outlined even with the signing of the Munich Treaty;

Significantly push back its border on the western borders, which allowed the Soviet leadership, during heavy border battles, to build a new system of governing the country in the context of the outbreak of a full-scale war with Nazi Germany;

Stabilize the situation on the Far Eastern borders, where the Japanese aggressors stopped fighting on the Soviet and Mongolian borders;

To prevent the threat of a simultaneous war on two fronts, since Germany, having violated the key articles of the Anti-Comintern Pact, seriously damaged its relations with Japan, etc.

Their opponents from the liberal camp, actively nurtured during the years of “Gorbachev’s perestroika” by the Yakovlev apparatus in the CPSU Central Committee (M. Semiryaga, V. Dashichev, M. Kulish), not particularly bothering themselves with an analysis of the facts or any arguments, a priori, they evaluate this pact extremely negatively, which, in their opinion:

Became the main cause of the Second World War;

Visibly showed the identity of the two bloodiest regimes in the history of mankind - Hitlerism and Stalinism;

He shamelessly destroyed the “virgin” statehood of peace-loving Poland and the democratic Baltic states, etc.

This cohort of paid “specialists” cannot even answer such a simple question: what share of the blame for the outbreak of World War II in this case lies with the governments of Estonia and Latvia, whose foreign ministers K. Selter and V. Muntres were on June 7, 1939 ., while in Berlin, signed similar non-aggression pacts with I. Ribbentrop.

7. The German-Polish War and the Liberation Campaign of the Red Army in September 1939

According to what is generally accepted in Anglo-Saxon, European and Soviet historiography, on September 1, 1939, the Second World War began with the attack of the German armed forces on Poland. During the first week of fighting, Wehrmacht troops under the general leadership of Colonel General V. Brauchitsch broke through the weak defenses of the Polish army and by the end of September 6 approached the outskirts of Warsaw. On the same day, the Polish government, led by Prime Minister F. Slava-Skłodowski, shamefully fled from the capital of the state to Lublin, and the headquarters of the commander-in-chief of the Polish troops, Marshal T. Rydz-Smigly, was moved to Brest.

After the start of the war, the Soviet government, unlike the governments of Great Britain (N. Chamberlain) and France (E. Daladier), which declared war on Nazi Germany, declared its neutrality. It is known for certain that the German leadership sent four diplomatic notes to Moscow on September 3-12, 1939, in which they insisted on the USSR entering the war against Poland. But until September 15, the Soviet political leadership avoided making such a serious decision.

Only on September 16, 1939, when G. Guderian’s tank army surrounded the main forces of the Polish troops near Lublin, the highest political leadership of the USSR gave the order to bring the troops of the western military districts to full combat readiness. On the morning of September 17, the troops of the Belorussian (commander of the 2nd rank M.P. Kovalev) and Kiev (commander of the 1st rank S.K. Timoshenko) Special Military Districts, transformed, respectively, into the Belorussian and Ukrainian fronts, crossed the state border of Poland and began to rapidly advance in the direction of Lvov, Brest and Bialystok, encountering virtually no resistance from the Polish troops, who received an extremely clear directive from Marshal T. Rydz-Smigly "Don't fight the Soviets." Insignificant organized resistance to the Red Army units in the Tarnopol area was provided only by parts of the Polish guard corps, the Polish gendarmerie and detachments of Polish militias, but the local Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Jewish population, having tasted all the delights of Polish domination, were quite loyal to the Soviet troops, and in a number of places , having created armed detachments, itself fought against Polish military units.

At the same time, within the German Wehrmacht there was an auxiliary (sabotage) unit - the “Military Department of Nationalists”, or the “Ukrainian Legion”, formed from Galician Ukrainians led by Colonel R.K. Sushko. The OUN detachments, of course, were unable to exert any influence on the course of the Polish campaign of the Wehrmacht, since, as K. Pankivsky, a participant in those events, wrote, “the rapid advance of the Germans and the even greater performance of the Soviets did not allow time for the plans of the rebels to unfold, so that only in some places on the Dniester and in Galicia it came to protests.”

On September 23, 1939, Soviet troops with the forces of the 3rd (corps commander V.I. Kuznetsov), 11th (divisional commander N.V. Medvedev) and 4th (divisional commander V.I. Chuikov) combined arms armies of the Belorussian Front and the 5th 1st (divisional commander I.G. Sovetnikov), 6th (corps commander F.I. Golikov) and 12th (2nd rank commander I.V. Tyulenev) combined arms armies of the Ukrainian Front, having lost about 2,600 people killed and wounded, reached the “Curzon Line” and took control of the entire territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which soon became part of the USSR. Thus, the territory of our country has increased by more than 200 thousand square kilometers, and its population has increased by 13 million people.

Even before the end of the Polish campaign, on September 20–21, 1939, Soviet-German negotiations took place in Lvov, at which a demarcation line was established between German and Soviet troops, which, after the ratification of the Soviet-German Treaty “On Friendship and Border,” became the state border of the Third Reich and USSR. The head of the Soviet government V.M. Molotov, when ratifying this treaty at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 30, 1939, absolutely correctly stated: “The ruling circles of Poland boasted a lot about the “strength” of their state and the “power” of their army. However, a short blow to Poland from first the German army and then the Red Army was enough for nothing to remain of this ugly brainchild of the Treaty of Versailles, which lived off the oppression of non-Polish nationalities.”

In October 1939, on the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, elections of plenipotentiary representatives to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus took place, which on October 27-29, 1939, at their plenary sessions held in Lvov and Bialystok, unanimously adopted the declaration “On the entry Western Ukraine into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic" and "On the entry of Western Belarus into the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic." And already on November 1, 1939, the extraordinary V session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the laws of the USSR “On the inclusion of Western Ukraine into the USSR with its reunification with the Ukrainian SSR” and “On the inclusion of Western Belarus into the USSR with its reunification with the Belarusian SSR.” After these territories became part of the USSR, six new regions were formed on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR: Lviv (Lvov), Drogobych (Drogobych), Stanislav (Stanislav), Ternopil (Ternopil), Rivne (Rovno) and Volyn (Lutsk), and on the territory of the BSSR - two new regions - Bialystok (Bialystok) and Brest (Brest).

Historians and politicians have ambivalent assessments of the act of annexing Western Ukraine and Western Belarus to the USSR. But, for example, W. Churchill, who at that time held the post of First Lord of the Admiralty, said in his radio speech on October 1, 1939: “The fact that the Russian armies had to stand on this line was absolutely necessary for the security of Russia against the Nazi threat. Be that as it may, this line exists, and an Eastern Front has been created, which Nazi Germany will not dare attack." Many modern authors hold a similar opinion, believing that the annexation of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus to the USSR was the result of the military-political situation that had developed at that time, to which the entire political leadership of the USSR at that time found itself hostage. Under those conditions, it was simply impossible to refuse to annex these territories, including Galicia.

However, as shown historical experience, the annexation of this center of Ukrainian nationalism turned out to be fatal for the USSR, after the collapse of which it was Western Ukrainian nationalism in its most disgusting forms, like rust, that would completely “eat away” a significant part of independent Ukraine. But even on the eve of the First World War, in February 1914, one of the most insightful Russian statesmen, former Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire P.N. Durnovo, in his famous note addressed to Nicholas II, directly wrote: “It is clearly unprofitable for us, in the name of the idea of national sentimentalism, to annex to our Fatherland a region that has lost all living connection with it. After all, for an insignificant handful of Galicians who are Russian in spirit, how many Poles and Ukrainized Uniates will we get? The so-called Ukrainian or Mazepa movement is not scary in our country now, but it should not be allowed to grow, increasing the number of restless Ukrainian elements, since in this movement there is an undoubted germ of extremely dangerous Little Russian separatism, with favorable conditions which can reach completely unexpected sizes.”

The question of the final assignment of these lands to the USSR was first raised at the Tehran Conference in November - December 1943, when, during the discussion of the Polish question, the proposal of British Prime Minister W. Churchill was accepted that Poland’s claims to Ukrainian and Belarusian lands would be satisfied at the expense of the ethnic Polish lands - Silesia and Pomerania, as well as parts of East Prussia, which were part of the Third Reich. The notorious “Curzon Line” was to become the new Soviet-Polish border, either in “Option A” (with Soviet Lvov) or in “Option B” (with Polish Lvov), which was proposed as such at the Versailles Peace Congress in June 1919. In January 1944, the Soviet government announced its readiness to base the post-war Soviet-Polish border on “Option A,” which was finally approved in February 1945 at the Crimean (Yalta) Conference of the Heads of the Three Allied Powers. And de jure this issue will be resolved on August 16, 1945 with the signing of the Soviet-Polish border treaty.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the so-called Transcarpathian Rus' also became part of the Ukrainian SSR, which in June 1919, according to the Treaty of Saint-Germain, became part of Czechoslovakia. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by German troops, Hungarian troops allied with Germany were brought into the territory of Transcarpathia in March 1939, who established a bloody occupation regime here, mercilessly persecuting all ethnic Rusyns. Only in October 1944 were these lands liberated by Soviet troops, and the creation of a sovereign state entity was proclaimed here - Transcarpathian Ukraine, headed by the government of the People's Rada headed by I.I. Turyanitsa. This state entity existed only until June 1945, when the First Congress of People's Committees of Transcarpathian Ukraine adopted a resolution “On reunification with Soviet Ukraine.” At the same time, a Soviet-Czechoslovak agreement was signed in Moscow on the entry of Transcarpathian Ukraine into the Ukrainian SSR. In January 1946, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Transcarpathian region of the Ukrainian SSR was formed here, the administrative center of which was the city of Uzhgorod. Thus, within the framework of the Ukrainian SSR, through the efforts of the Soviet political leadership and, above all, personally I.V. Stalin, all the original “Ukrainian” lands of historical Rus' were united.

In Russian historiography, there are completely different assessments of the USSR’s participation in the war against lordly Poland.

Some authors (Yu. Zhukov, Yu. Emelyanov, V. Falin, N. Narochnitskaya) are convinced not only of the legitimacy of the Liberation (Polish) campaign of the Red Army, but also rightly believe that in the then historical and foreign policy conditions the Soviet Union was obliged to act in a similar way . In addition, while recognizing the very fact of the USSR's entry into World War II, they argue that it entered this war as a third force acting in its own national and geopolitical interests.

Other historians (M. Meltyukhov, V. Parsadanova, S. Mironenko) are confident that the Stalinist leadership committed a serious violation of international legal norms, therefore the Treaty “On Friendship and Border” between the USSR and Germany cannot be justified either politically or ideologically or from a moral point of view.

Immediately after the ratification of the Soviet-German treaty, the USSR concluded mutual assistance agreements with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, according to which these states provided the USSR with their territory for the deployment of Soviet military bases.

In conclusion, we would like to draw attention to two fundamental points.

1) The existing version of the beginning of World War II on September 1, 1939, born exclusively in the West, was too easily and thoughtlessly accepted by post-war Soviet and then modern Russian historiography, although still in “ Short course History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks),” published in 1938, directly stated that the Second World War had already become a reality. In Asian historiography, the beginning of World War II is traditionally dated to July 15, 1937, that is, the beginning of Japan's large-scale aggression against sovereign China. This has its own inexorable logic, since throughout the world the day of the end of World War II is associated not with the surrender of Germany on May 8-9, 1945, but precisely with the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945.

2) Why exactly during the years of “Gorbachev’s perestroika” the second attempt to accuse the USSR of equal responsibility for the outbreak of World War II was crowned with success. The secret little box here opens incredibly simply: behind all this dirty anti-Soviet and then anti-Russian fuss, there was the well-known “architect” of Gorbachev’s perestroika and the old “agent of influence” Mr. A.N. Yakovlev, who, while still an intern at Columbia University in 1958, together with his friend, future KGB general O.D. Kalugin was recruited by American intelligence.

Setting a course for creating a system of collective security in Europe, in January 1932 the Soviet Union concluded a non-aggression pact with Finland, which was extended for another ten years in 1934. In 1935, the political leadership of Finland, whose president was the right-wing conservative E. Svinhufvud, declared its neutrality, but, as many historians correctly noted (M. Meltyukhov, V. Sipols, A. Dongarov), this neutrality almost immediately revealed a strong pro-German taste.

Beginning in April 1938, the Soviet side repeatedly proposed that the Finnish political leadership consider the issue of mutual exchange of territories in Karelia. In particular, it was discussed that the Finnish side would transfer the so-called Karelian Isthmus and the Vyborg region of Finland with an area of 2760 square meters to the USSR. km., which were vitally necessary for the USSR to ensure the security of Leningrad, and the Soviet side compensates for this loss with a significantly larger territory of 5530 square meters. km. in the northern part of Soviet Karelia. However, almost the entire top leadership of Finland, including the new President K. Kyösti and Prime Minister A. Kajander, with the exception of the Chairman of the Defense Committee, Marshal K.G. Mannerheim, categorically rejected any proposals from the Soviet side in this regard.

In the summer of 1939, at a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army, the plan of military actions against Finland prepared by the General Staff (commander of the 1st rank B.M. Shaposhnikov) was considered, during the discussion of which I.V. Stalin sharply criticized him and gave instructions to develop a new plan for waging war against Finland to the command of the Leningrad Military District, which in January 1939 was headed by Army Commander 2nd Rank K.A. Meretskov.

At the same time, the entire top political leadership of the country still did not lose hope for a peaceful resolution of the border problem between the two countries. In particular, on October 12, 1939, I.V. personally took part in negotiations with the Finnish delegation, headed by J. Paasikivi. Stalin and V.M. Molotov. During the negotiations, the Soviet side once again proposed to the Finnish delegation an exchange of territories in the Leningrad region and in the north of Soviet Karelia. The highest political leadership of Finland, especially Foreign Minister H. Erkko, counting on the support of London, Berlin and Paris, again rejected this proposal and recalled its delegation to the negotiations with the USSR. At the same time, at the direction of the Finnish government, the Finnish military department, headed by General G. Nykkenen, accelerated the construction of the famous “Mannerheim Line” from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga, the construction of which had begun back in 1927.

And at the same time, on October 14, 1939, the military leadership of Finland began conducting the largest military maneuvers in the entire country, in which the entire regular army and reservists took part, and the entire local population was urgently withdrawn from the border areas of the country.

The Soviet military leadership began to implement similar measures on the other side of the border. In particular, at the end of October 1939, the commander of the Leningrad Military District, Army Commander 2nd Rank K.A. Meretskov introduced the People's Commissar of Defense to Marshal K.E. Voroshilov “Operation Plan against Finland”, according to which the district troops, in cooperation with the Red Banner Baltic Fleet (flagship of the 2nd rank V.F. Tributs) were supposed to simultaneously strike enemy troops from the Karelian, Vidlitsa, Murmansk, Kandalaksha, Kem and Rebolsk directions . The grouping of Soviet troops, which was supposed to be involved in the upcoming war with Finland, consisted of the 7th, 8th, 9th and 14th combined arms armies.

At the beginning of November, at the initiative of the Soviet side, negotiations with the Finnish delegation, headed by Finance Minister V. Tanner, resumed. They immediately reached an impasse, since the Finnish parliament - Eduskanta and the Finnish government refused to consider and approve any agreements with the Soviet Union on the territorial issue.

On November 26, 1939, the Soviet government announced in an official note that the Finnish military had shelled the Soviet border territory near the village of Mainila and demanded that Helsinki withdraw its military units from the border territory throughout the Karelian Isthmus. In a response note, the Finnish side, declaring its non-involvement in the shelling, invited the Soviet side, on the basis of the Convention on Border Commissioners, signed in 1928, to create a joint commission to investigate this incident.

In Soviet historical science during the period of “Gorbachev’s perestroika”, a number of then historians (M. Semiryaga, G. Kumanev, A. Dongarov, B. Sokolov), referring to Khrushchev’s memoirs, unequivocally stated that this border incident was the result of a “vile provocation”, arranged on the personal instructions of I.V. Stalin. However, as a number of their opponents correctly noted (V. Sipols, A. Noskov, V. Baryshnikov), no serious documentary evidence has yet been found that would confirm or refute this point of view. Moreover, according to a number of historians (S. Volkov), the development of events at the end of November 1939 casts doubt on the fact that it was the Soviet side that initiated this provocation.

On November 29, 1939, the Soviet government announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Finland, and on November 30, the Soviet-Finnish war began, which received other sonorous names in historical literature, including the “winter war” and the “unfamous war.”

In historical science, there are two points of view regarding the goals that the Soviet political leadership set for itself when starting the war with Finland.

One group of historians (M. Semiryaga, B. Sokolov) argues that it was about the conquest and Sovietization of Finland and the inclusion of its entire territory into the USSR. The main argument of supporters of this version is the fact that immediately after the start of the war on December 1, 1939, a pro-Soviet Finnish government was created in the Finnish town of Terijoka, headed by a member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, Otto Vilhelmovich Kuusinen. It immediately signed an agreement with the Soviet government on providing military assistance in the fight against the Finnish fascist military and the bourgeoisie.

Another group of historians (A. Noskov, V. Baryshnikov, A. Shubin) argues that the main objective of this war was to force Helsinki to a constructive compromise and resume negotiations, which were vital for Moscow. That is, in the famous words of A. Clausewitz, this war became a continuation of politics, but by other, non-diplomatic means. In addition, we should not forget that relatively local means were attracted to participate in this war: the troops of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet and the Leningrad Military District.

According to Russian military historians, the operational deployment of Soviet troops and military equipment on the Karelian Isthmus, which became the main theater of military operations of the two opposing armies, took place in extreme haste and under the strong impression of the Red Army Liberation Campaign in Poland, in which the Soviet army suffered very few losses . The grouping of Soviet troops intended to wage war with Finland consisted of four combined arms armies. The 7th Army (commander V.F. Yakovlev) was located on the Karelian Isthmus, the 8th Army (divisional commander I.N. Khabarov) - on the northern coast of Lake Ladoga, the 9th Army (corps commander V.P. Dukhanov) - in Kandalaksha area and the 14th Army (divisional commander V.A. Frolov) - in Petsamo.

The Finnish command concentrated three groups of troops on the Soviet-Finnish border - on the “Mannerheim Line” the Isthmus Army under the command of General H. Esterman, north of Lake Ladoga - the IV Army Corps of General J. Heiskanen and in the Petsamo-Kuhmo area the Northern Finland operational group of General V. Tuompo.

At the beginning of December 1939, the advance of the troops of the 7th Army, commander of the 2nd rank V.F. Yakovleva, who was to play a major role in the military conflict with Finland, developed quite successfully. Soon, the opposing side, having strengthened its grouping of troops on the Karelian Isthmus, switched to active sabotage and guerrilla methods of fighting in the rear of the Soviet troops, and created powerful centers of resistance on the flanks. In the most difficult offensive battles that lasted until the end of December 1939, in the face of powerful enemy defenses and extremely difficult climatic conditions, Soviet troops, suffering huge losses in manpower and equipment, were unable to break through the well-fortified “Mannerheim Line.”

Meanwhile, the political leadership of Finland, having received a refusal from the Soviet side to its proposal to resume negotiations, turned to the League of Nations for help. On December 12, 1939, a special committee of the League of Nations appealed to both conflicting parties to stop hostilities and sit down at the negotiating table. The Soviet side refused to fulfill this wish, declaring that the Soviet Union was not at war with Finland, but was only providing support to the democratic government of O.V. Kuusinen will provide all possible assistance in the fight against the former anti-people regime. Having negatively assessed such a reaction of the USSR to its proposal for a truce, on December 14, 1939, the leadership of the League of Nations decided to expel it from this international organization.

At the beginning of January 1940, Soviet troops received orders to switch to strategic defense. At the same time, the Leningrad Military District was transformed into the North-Western Front, which was headed by Army Commander 1st Rank S.K. Tymoshenko. In addition, instead of the ongoing army operation, a front-line offensive operation was planned, in which the main role was to be played by the troops of the 7th and 13th combined arms armies, led by army commanders K.A. Meretskov and V.D. Grendel.

On February 11, 1940, the troops of the North-Western Front launched a new offensive, as a result of which, at the cost of huge losses, they managed to occupy the first defensive line of the “Mannerheim Line” and force the Finnish troops to retreat to new lines of their defense. At the end of February 1940, Soviet troops took the second defensive line of the “Mannerheim Line” and rushed to Vyborg. On March 4, 1940, units and formations of the 7th Combined Arms Army captured the Vyborg fortified area and, cutting off the Helsinki-Vyborg highway, surrounded a large group of Finnish troops.

In the current situation, which became threatening for the Finnish side, the new political leadership of Finland, in particular Prime Minister M. Ryti and Foreign Minister J. Paasikivi, were forced to order an end to resistance and sit down at the negotiating table, which ended on March 12 1940 signing Moscow Peace Treaty. Under the terms of this agreement:

The entire Karelian Isthmus and the Vyborg region of Finland went to the USSR;

The USSR received a long-term lease of naval bases on the Hanko Peninsula, which were of strategic importance in the eastern part of the Baltic Sea;

A number of areas in the northern part of Karelia (Kuolajärvi) were transferred to Finland, which became territorial compensation for the loss of Vyborg and the Karelian Isthmus.

According to official data, the Soviet side lost 48,475 killed and 158,865 wounded and frostbite in this war, and the losses of the Finnish side amounted to about 26,000 killed and about 40,000 wounded. Although the issue of losses on both sides is still the subject of heated scientific debate and is examined in detail in the works of a number of modern authors (M. Semiryaga, A. Noskov, P. Aptekar).

According to most historians, the entire course of the Soviet-Finnish war had a serious impact on the development of military-political events throughout the European continent, since it really showed a huge imbalance of military power in favor of Nazi Germany. Moreover, after the brilliant “blitzkrieg” in France, A. Hitler proposed to the military leadership of the Wehrmacht in the fall of 1940 to start a war against the USSR. However, Field Marshal W. Keitel and Colonel General A. Jodl were able to convince the Fuhrer to abandon such a hasty step.

The results of the war with Finland significantly influenced the Soviet political leadership, which was forced to make important personnel changes in the leadership of the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense. In May 1940, by decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Marshal S.K. was appointed new People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR. Timoshenko, and Army General K.A. became the new chief of the General Staff of the Red Army. Meretskov.

9. USSR on the eve of the war (June 1940 - June 1941)

At the end of June 1940, by mutual agreement between the Soviet and Romanian governments, the territories of Bessarabia (Chisinau) and Northern Bukovina (Chernivtsi), which became part of the Moldavian and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republics, became part of the USSR.

In July 1940, after the occupation of the entire territory of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France by Wehrmacht troops, a real threat arose of the spread of German influence into the Baltic states. In these explosive conditions, the Soviet political leadership took a series of decisive steps, as a result of which, at the end of July 1940, Soviet power was proclaimed in the territories of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. At the beginning of August 1940, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decided to incorporate the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian Soviet Socialist Republics into the USSR.

In September 1940, Germany, Italy and Japan signed the so-called “Berlin Pact” on the delimitation of spheres of influence in Europe and Asia. At the same time, Berlin decided to test the waters regarding the future plans of the Soviet political leadership. For this purpose, in October 1940, German Foreign Minister I. Ribbentrop handed over to I.V. Stalin received a message in which he proposed sending the head of the Soviet government and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.M. to Berlin on an official visit. Molotov for “coordination of long-term political goals and delimitation of spheres of interest on a global scale.” On October 22, Berlin received a positive response to its proposal from Moscow, and on November 10, 1940, the Soviet delegation led by V.M. Molotov arrived in the capital of Nazi Germany.

In the evening of the same day, a meeting took place with V.M. Molotov with A. Hitler, during which the German Chancellor invited the Soviet Union, along with Germany, Italy and Japan, to take part in the division of spheres of influence in the world. In particular, it was stated that Germany’s sphere of vital interests remained practically the entire territory of Western and Central Europe, Italy should focus its efforts on the Mediterranean region, Japan on the Far East and the islands of Oceania, and the Soviet Union could turn its attention to the south, targeting Iran, India, the Persian Gulf and other strategic areas of this vast region. Having informed I.V. Stalin about his conversation with A. Hitler, V.M. Molotov received instructions from Moscow not to force the development of events, but to clarify in more detail issues related to the development of the situation on the European continent.

On November 13, 1940, during new meetings held with A. Hitler and I. Ribbentrop, the German side again raised the issue of delimiting spheres of influence in the world, but V.M. Molotov again avoided a direct answer and turned the conversation to problems of European security and trade and economic relations between the USSR and Germany. Having received assurances of “sincere friendship and partnership,” the Soviet delegation left Berlin without resolving a single key issue in bilateral relations. The very nature of the negotiations that took place left no doubt that the question of the outbreak of an inevitable war between the USSR and Germany was only a matter of time.

In an effort to secure its vast Far Eastern borders, the Soviet political leadership in the spring of 1941 achieved the signing of an extremely important neutrality treaty with militaristic Japan. Having occupied all of Northern Indochina by that time, the Tokyo government of F. Konoe expanded its expansion in a southern direction, and due to this circumstance, it did not want to be prematurely drawn into a new war with the USSR due to allied obligations with Germany and Italy. In addition, the Japanese military was extremely indignant that Berlin in August 1939, without coordinating its possible steps towards the USSR, violating the Anti-Comintern Pact, agreed to conclude the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

For this reason, Tokyo was very willing to accept the Soviet proposal to sign a Soviet-Japanese neutrality treaty, which was concluded on April 13, 1941 after difficult negotiations between the head of the Soviet government and the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov with Japanese Foreign Minister E. Matsuoka. The validity period of this treaty was set for five years from the date of its ratification with the possibility of extension for the same period in the absence of a statement from one of the parties to denounce the treaty one year before its expiration.

Three weeks after these events, on May 6, 1941, a significant strengthening of I.V.’s positions took place. Stalin in the highest echelons of power, since at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR he was appointed chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and the former head of the Soviet government, People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov was moved to the position of one of his 15 deputies.

"New Course" of Soviet diplomacy. In 1933, in the context of a new alignment of political forces in Europe, associated primarily with the coming to power of fascism in Germany, a significant turn occurred in Soviet foreign policy, expressed, among other things, in a departure from the perception of all “imperialist” states as real enemies , ready at any moment to start a war against the USSR. At the end of 1933, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, developed a detailed plan for creating a system of collective security in Europe. From this moment until 193.9, Soviet foreign policy acquired a clear anti-German orientation. And its main priority is the desire for an alliance with democratic countries in order to isolate Germany and Japan. This course was largely connected with the activities of the new People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. M. Litvinov.
The first successes in the implementation of the new foreign policy plans of the USSR were the establishment of diplomatic relations with the USA in November 1933 and the admission of the USSR to the League of Nations in 1934, where it immediately became a permanent member of its Council. This meant the country's formal return to the world community as a great power. It is fundamentally important that the USSR’s admission to the League of Nations took place on its own terms: all disputes, primarily regarding the tsarist debts, were resolved in its favor.
In May 1935, an agreement was concluded between the USSR and France on mutual assistance in the event of a possible attack by any aggressor. But the mutual obligations assumed were in fact ineffective, since the treaty was not accompanied by any military agreements. Following this, a mutual assistance treaty was signed with Czechoslovakia.
In 1935, the USSR condemned the introduction of universal conscription in Germany and the Italian attack on Ethiopia. And after the introduction of German troops into the demilitarized Rhineland, the Soviet Union proposed that the League of Nations take collective measures to effectively suppress violations of international obligations. But his voice was not heard.
Comintern: course towards creating a united anti-fascist front. To implement its foreign policy plans, the USSR actively used the Comintern. Until 1933, Stalin considered the main task of the Comintern to be organizing support for his domestic political course in the international arena. The greatest criticism of Stalin's methods came from world social democracy. Therefore, Stalin declared the main enemy of communists in all countries to be social democrats, regarding them as accomplices of fascism. These Comintern guidelines led in practice to a split in the anti-fascist forces, which greatly facilitated the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany.
In 1933, along with the revision of the Soviet foreign policy course, the basic guidelines of the Comintern also changed. The development of a new strategic line was led by Georgiy Dimitrov, the hero and winner of the Leipzig trial against the communists initiated by the fascists.
The new tactics were approved by the VII Congress of the Comintern, held in the summer of 1935 in Moscow. The main task of the communists was now proclaimed to be the creation of a united anti-fascist front to prevent world war. To this end, the communists had to organize cooperation with all forces from the social democrats to the liberals.
At the same time, the creation of an anti-fascist front and broad anti-war actions were closely linked with the struggle “for the peace and security of the Soviet Union.” The Congress warned that in the event of an attack on the USSR, the Communists would call on the working people "by all means and at any cost to promote the victory of the Red Army over the armies of the imperialists."
The first attempt to put the new tactics of the Comintern into practice was made in 1936 in Spain.
USSR and the war in Spain. In July 1936 in Spain, General Franco led a fascist revolt against the republican government. Italy and Germany provided the Spanish fascists with significant material and technical assistance. England and France proclaimed a policy of “non-intervention”. This position caused outrage on the left. Thousands of volunteers from around the world flocked to Spain.
Soviet diplomacy found itself in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, open material and military support for Republican Spain threatened the USSR with new accusations of exporting the revolution, and therefore the disruption of any attempts at rapprochement with Western countries. On the other hand, leaving the left forces of Spain and its voluntary defenders without support inevitably threatened with the loss of influence of the CPSU (b) in the international communist movement and the growth of sympathy for the “Trotskyists,” whose positions in Spain were quite strong. Stalin could not allow this. Therefore, although with a certain delay, on October 14, the USSR openly declared its support for the Spanish Republic. Soviet military equipment, two thousand advisers, including those on the fight not against fascism, but against Trotskyism, as well as a significant number of volunteers from among military specialists, were sent to Spain. However, this was clearly not enough.
Events in Spain clearly showed the need for united efforts in the fight against the growing strength of fascism. But democratic states were still weighing which regime was more dangerous for democracy - fascist or communist.
Munich Agreement. Meanwhile, the fascist powers carried out new territorial conquests. In mid-May 1938, German troops concentrated on the border with Czechoslovakia. The USSR was bound to Czechoslovakia by a mutual assistance treaty, which, however, contained a significant clause, according to which the Soviet Union could provide military assistance to Czechoslovakia only if France took similar measures. The Soviet leadership, nevertheless, was ready to provide assistance to Czechoslovakia even without France, but on condition that it itself asked the Soviet Union for this. However, Czechoslovakia still hoped for help from its Western allies.
In September, when the situation became tense, the leaders of England and France arrived in Munich for negotiations with Germany and Italy. Neither Czechoslovakia nor the USSR were allowed to attend the “conference”. The Munich Agreement finally consolidated the course of the Western powers to “pacify” the fascist aggressors, satisfying Germany’s claims to secede the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was ready to provide assistance to Czechoslovakia, guided by the Charter of the League of Nations. To do this, it was necessary for Czechoslovakia to apply to the Council of the League of Nations with a corresponding request. But the ruling circles of Czechoslovakia did not do this.
The USSR's hopes for the possibility of creating a system of collective security were finally dispelled after the signing of the Anglo-German declaration in September 1938, and the Franco-German declaration in December of the same year, which were essentially non-aggression pacts. In these documents, the contracting parties declared their desire to “never again wage war against each other” and to resolve all issues through consultations.
The Soviet Union, trying to protect itself from a possible military conflict, began searching for a new foreign policy line.
Far Eastern policy of the USSR. Despite the obvious complexity of European foreign policy, the situation on the western borders of the USSR was relatively calm. At the same time, on its Far Eastern borders, turbulent diplomatic and political conflicts resulted in direct military clashes, changing the political map of the region.
The first military conflict occurred in the summer - autumn of 1929 in Northern Manchuria. The stumbling block was the CER. According to the 1924 agreement between the USSR and the Beijing government of China, the railway came under joint Soviet-Chinese management. But by the end of the 20s. the Chinese administration was almost completely pushed aside by Soviet specialists, and the road itself and the units serving it actually became the property of the Soviet Union. This situation became possible due to the extremely unstable political situation in China. But in 1928, the government of Chiang Kai-shek came to power and began to pursue a policy of unifying all Chinese territories. It tried to forcefully regain the positions it had lost on the Chinese Eastern Railway. An armed conflict arose. Soviet troops defeated the Chinese border detachments that had begun hostilities on Chinese territory.
At this time, in the Far East, in the person of Japan, the world community received a powerful source of inciting a military threat. Having captured Manchuria in 1931, Japan created a direct military threat to the Far Eastern borders of the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Eastern Railway, which belonged to the USSR, ended up on territory controlled by Japan. The Japanese threat forced the USSR and China to restore diplomatic relations. In November 1936, Germany and Japan signed the so-called Anti-Comintern Pact, which was then joined by Italy and Spain. In July 1937, Japan began large-scale aggression against China. In such a situation, the USSR and China moved towards mutual rapprochement. In August 1937, a non-aggression pact was concluded between them. After the signing of the treaty, the Soviet Union began to provide China with significant technical and material assistance. Soviet instructors and volunteers from the Air Force pilots fought on the side of the Chinese army.
In the summer of 1938, separate armed clashes began between Japanese and Soviet troops on the Soviet-Manchurian border. A fierce battle took place in August 1938 in the area of Lake Khasan, near Vladivostok. On the Japanese side, this was the first reconnaissance in force. It showed that it was unlikely to be possible to take the Soviet borders at once.
Danilov A.A., Kosulina L.G.
Russian history. XX century: Textbook. book For 9th grade. general education institutions