IF peace was a tremendously urgent matter for Soviet Russia in 1917, it was far more urgent after four more years of desolating war and famine. It has been estimated that the damage inflicted on the material resources of Russia during these years amounted to not less than £4,000,000,000. The amount of human suffering inflicted on the Russian workers and peasants no man can estimate. Now they had to clear up the wreckage, put their economy on a working basis and with all speed transform the vast country from a wilderness of peasant economy into a modern industrial state.
They began this period with what has been called ‘The New Economic Policy’ to distinguish it from ‘War Communism’, the economy of state requisitioning of all resources for war purposes. It was regarded by many as Russia’s return to capitalism and the abandonment of socialism. By the Bolsheviks it was regarded as a strategic retreat in various departments of economy in order to accumulate reserves in the hands of the State for the purpose of launching large scale production in industry. Without a large scale industry it would be impossible to modernize its army equipment or socialize agriculture. These were recognized as essential conditions for self-preservation and the future socialist community. I remember with what glee Lenin announced to an international conference in 1922, the accumulation of the first 20,000,000 gold roubles for this purpose. Such was the internal situation of Soviet Russia at the time of the signing of the Rapallo Treaty.
The signing of this treaty created almost as much anger and bitterness in the ranks of the Allied Powers as the signing of the Soviet-Nazi Pact seventeen years later. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the Allied Powers had had repeated opportunities to make their own pacts with Soviet Russia prior to Rapallo and had turned down every offer. But they could do nothing about this new development for some time. They were too preoccupied with internal crises of their own. The postwar economic slump had set in. The people were weary of war and talk of war. Hence country followed country to make their own Rapallos with the Soviet Government. The latter seized every opportunity to make such agreements and paid exorbitant rates of interest for loans, high prices for machinery, locomotives, road transport, technicians, and all it could get to help in setting its house in order for the onward march to the new Russia.
Wherever Soviet representatives went they were regarded only as enemies with whom it was necessary temporarily to come to terms. Voikov, the Soviet ambassador to Poland, was assassinated at Geneva. Railway officials on the Manchurian railway were killed by Japanese. Arcos, the Russian commercial organization in London, was raided. The Soviet Mission in Shanghai was ransacked. Ultimatums from various governments were frequent. Relations between governments and the Soviets were broken off by foreign countries and only renewed after public pressure in those countries.
The Soviet Government refused to be provoked. At all costs it had to lengthen the ‘breathing space’. Circumstances were generally favourable. The countries bordering Soviet Russia were too exhausted by the Great War to venture on a new war which would fan the flames of class war at home. Even the most powerful states, such as Britain and France, were too war weary to undertake so distant and so great an adventure.
The entrance into formal diplomatic relations with capitalist governments did not mean for the Bolsheviks the abandonment of interest in the extension of the revolution. The burdens imposed upon Germany by the Peace Treaties of Versailles rapidly reduced German economy to a state of chaos. The German people soon reached such a stage of desperation as to make it appear an imminent possibility that they would turn to socialism as a way out. The generally ebbing tide of revolution appeared to be once more on the turn. Certain conditions which the Bolsheviks regard as the essential prerequisites of a successful social revolution on the Bolshevik model were, however, absent. There was no well developed and experienced party such as that which Lenin had built in Russia. There was a communist party but it was young and without leaders of the calibre of Lenin and his colleagues. The Russians, through the Communist International, tried to make up for this immaturity by sending men from their own ranks to help the German revolutionaries. Radek led these elements and functioned as the adviser of the German communists. The Political Bureau of the Russian Communist Party conferred with the leaders of the Communist International and directly with the German communist leaders. No effort was spared. Once again the perspective of a Soviet Germany appeared on the Russian horizon, and while the Soviet Foreign Office remained strictly formal in its relations with the German Government there is no doubt that the leaders of the Soviet Government who were leaders both of the Communist Party and the Communist International, were working overtime to aid the German Revolution.
It did not come to fruition. The spectre of Communism in Germany had alarmed the Allied Governments and stirred them also to desperate measures. They modified the burdens thrust upon Germany at Versailles and came to the rescue of German economy by advancing huge loans. The crisis passed and the threatened turning of the tide of revolution proved to be no more than a threat. The Bolsheviks now came to the conclusion that capitalism had passed into what they called a condition of ‘partial stability’ in which its economy showed signs of recovery from the effects of the war. There were varying estimates as to how long this phase would last. It was, however, clear that there were now no revolutionary situations waiting to be seized. Accordingly they turned to what they considered their next best course: they endeavoured to deepen their influence in the working class movement and among the colonial peoples.
The developments which accompanied the advent of the Labour Government in Britain provide an excellent illustration of how the Bolsheviks carried out this phase of their policy. The Labour Government of 1924 was expected by the workers of Britain to enter promptly into full diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia and establish most friendly relations between the two countries. Although their hopes were not fully realized, the recognition of Soviet Russia by the Labour Government opened wide the door to developments which profoundly influenced the British Labour Movement. A delegation from the British Trades Union Congress had already visited Russia and presented its report to the British Trade Union Movement. Now there was nothing to stop the Russians from accepting an invitation to send a delegation from their own Trade Unions to the British Trades Union Congress. That delegation came in 1924 and again in 1925. Out of the visits there was formed the Anglo-Russian Trade Union Unity Committee to assist the struggle of the workers in both countries and to effect the unity of the Trade Unions in a single International Federation of Trade Unions. A similar exchange of delegations took place between the Co-operative Movements of the two countries.
Some people, Sir Bernard Pares among them, accuse the Bolsheviks of putting forward a programme of immediate revolution to the British Trades Union Congress. (See Russia, Penguin Series.) They did nothing of the kind. World Revolution was not on the order of the day. A more limited programme was determined by circumstances beyond their control. The limited tasks consisted of winning sympathy for Soviet Russia, explaining the meaning of its struggle, uniting the working class organizations for common defensive actions, and attempting to deepen communist influence for the to-morrows when circumstances would again call for the storming of the citadels of capitalism. The method and the circumstances were not confined to Britain. Wherever the diplomatic doors were opened, for whatever reason, the same methods were applied.
The Soviet Foreign Office conducted its negotiations with Foreign Governments with great skill. Its primary aims were to stave off the coming of war in Europe, to extend trade contacts as widely as possible without regard to the political nature of other States, and to prevent the formation of a united bloc of the capitalist Powers for the renewal of the war of intervention. Its handling of the disarmament question and the World Economic Conference illustrate the manner in which the policy was applied.
The Bolsheviks shared the belief, universal among socialists, that a world disarmed is an impossibility so long as capitalism exists, and that no capitalist government dare stand for simultaneous total disarmament of the nations of the world. Regarding the Disarmament Conference with complete scepticism, they decided that the best way to make known their views to the world was to propose to the Disarmament Conference that the world should really disarm. Litvinov, who had succeeded Chitcherin, put forward the proposal at Geneva and met with the reception which he and his fellow Bolsheviks had anticipated. Derision, cynicism, denunciation, all were poured upon him. Having been completely defeated on the question of total disarmament, he tried the conference out with proposals for a simultaneous fifty per cent disarmament. Not even one per cent disarmament emerged from the conference, which talked and assembled and reassembled periodically until it faded away, to be followed by the most colossal armament race in history.
The World Economic Conference held in London in 1931 was unique. The whole world of capitalism was in the grip of the greatest economic crisis it had ever experienced. The conference was a fiasco. No general agreement was possible. The Soviet delegation alone came away from it with any concrete benefit, in that it negotiated separate trade agreements with a number of governments. These, however, were purely by-products of the conference.
These examples illustrate how the Soviet Government applied in this period the principles outlined in the previous chapter. Relations between the Soviet State and the foreign Powers of Europe, Britain especially, were dominated by one over-riding feature which was swiftly passing away. From the days of intervention the Allied Powers had never ceased in their efforts to secure a united bloc of states against the Soviets. The League of Nations itself had been formed by them for this purpose, as well as to combat rival empires. Mr. Lloyd George, head of the British Government at the time and probably the most important person at the Versailles Conference, made known his views in unmistakable terms to his colleagues when he said in his memorandum to that body in March, 1919: ‘If we are to offer Europe an alternative to Bolshevism, we must make the League of Nations into something which will be both a safeguard to those nations who are prepared for fair dealing with their neighbours, and a menace to those who would trespass on the rights of their neighbours whether they are imperialist empires or imperialist Bolsheviks.’ Clemenceau’s views are well known. He coined the phrase ‘Cordon Sanitaire’ to signify the string of small states on the frontiers of Russia. That also was to be a safeguard against Bolshevism. The idea of Russia being represented in the League in this period was quite unacceptable to the leaders of Britain. It was equally outside the range of possibility for the Soviet Government to consider the whole organization as anything other than an instrument for fastening Versailles upon Europe and the main centre for mobilizing anti-Soviet forces.
At the same time Germany, the defeated Power in the war of 1914-18, was at first thrust outside the Western group of Powers. She was not invited into the League of Nations but treated as a pariah Power along with Russia although for different reasons. She was the defeated Power and had to pay for her sins. The punishment inflicted on her thrust her into friendly relations with the Soviet Government despite the hatred of her ruling class for everything which might come within the category of Bolshevism. Hence Rapallo. This punishment also nearly produced a German Soviet Republic, and the Allies were forced to rush to the aid of German capitalism to stave off such a consummation of their shortsightedness. This course in its turn brought its own nemesis, in that the restoration of German economy brought with it a revival of the ambitions of the German ruling class. Although they were prepared to be a bulwark against the spread of revolution they were equally determined to throw off the fetters of Versailles and assert once more their place in the sun of world power.
Hitler became the banner-bearer of German imperialist restoration. The Hitler Party of National Socialism knew that Bolshevism arises from within the frontiers of every country, and with the savagery of desperation the Nazis battered down every party and organization which by its nature could play an oppositional role to their projects and their power. This they did under the banner of an international fight against Bolshevism.
The ruling class everywhere hailed the new force with satisfaction. They saw it as the spearhead of the longed for combination which would put Soviet Russia on its back. Even Mr. Lloyd George did not foresee the coming war between Britain and Germany. He saw Nazi Germany as the bulwark against Bolshevism, and warned the Powers against any attempt to overthrow the Nazis. On 22nd September, 1933, he said: ‘If the Powers succeeded in overthrowing Nazism in Germany, what would follow? Not a Conservative, Socialist, or Liberal regime, but extreme Communism. Surely that could not be their objective. . . . He would entreat the Government to proceed cautiously.’ (The Times, 23rd September, 1933.)
There was little reason to doubt what the British Government would do. It appeared to them that the eyes of Nazism were turned Eastward, and this was not a cause of dissatisfaction.
The European situation had thus completely changed. It appeared to the Bolsheviks that the period characterized by the Rapallo Treaty was at an end. War seemed to be on the doorstep of Soviet Russia as the press of the world took up the Nazi cry for the Ukraine. In the Tar East, too, the situation had changed. The first shots of the second world war had already been fired two years earlier. The Japanese had marched into Manchuria, and Russian and Japanese troops were in constant conflict in ‘frontier incidents’. Japan had emerged as a challenger for world power. The period of aggression had begun. Germany had ceased to be the fellow traveller of Soviet Russia against common foes. It was rattling its sword and beating its drums as the militant challenger to Bolshevism and calling for the dismemberment of Soviet Russia. The Bolsheviks regarded it as useless if not fatal to face the new period with the policy of a period now dead. A new situation demanded a new policy and this they quickly evolved.
Next: 5. Collective Security