The Domestic Context Of Soviet Foreign Policy

Seweryn Bialer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367291358
• eBook ISBN: 9781000315998
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This volume highlights those aspects of Soviet internal dynamics that influence foreign policy and international relationships. It reflects a growing awareness of the importance of internal factors as a critical determinant shaping the making and effectiveness of Soviet foreign policy.

Part 1
Culture and Ideology

1
Russian Nationalism

Adam Ulam

One hundred years ago Dostoyevsky wrote: “Every great people believes, and must believe if it intends to live long, that in it alone resides the salvation of the world; that it lives in order to stand at the head of the nations, … to lead them in a concordant choir toward the final goal preordained for them.”¹ This, to be sure, was meant in an existentialist rather than a literal sense: the great writer did not propose that Russia should conquer the world, but he wanted his countrymen to develop a new sense of national pride and to rid themselves of the perennial feeling of inferiority vis-à-vis “Europe.” Like many Russians, practically into our own day, he was envious of the British for their alleged superb self-confidence: “… lord or worker, every Englishman strives above all to be English in every facet of his activity, social or political, and even his love of mankind is expressed in a specifically English way.” Of what we would today call “consumer-oriented states,” Dostoyevsky’s tone was contemptuous: “Those prudent, honest, peaceful nations which eschew exorbitant ambitions, nations of traders and industrialists with their riches and tidiness … God be with them, but they will not amount to much, they represent mediocrity which is of no use to mankind.”

This was not a very original sentiment—statements similar to Dostoyevsky’s were at the time forthcoming from many thinkers and politicians throughout Europe. But the point is that while in the West this view became unfashionable after World War I (and is now extinct), in Russia it still provides the psychological underpinning of the official ideology. Marxism, the most internationalist of nineteenth century ideologies, has merged with Russian nationalism, their synthesis being Soviet Communism, which is internationalist in form and nationalist in essence. Consider the ritualistic phrases: the USSR is “the fatherland of socialism” or of “the world proletariat,” and the Russians “the leading nationality of the Soviet Union.” While Dostoyevsky would not approve because of his intensely religious mentality, he would in all likelihood be impressed by the achievement of the Communist rulers of his country. How skillfully they have harnessed a worldwide movement and ideology to the interests of their state, or, to be more blunt, to those of the Soviet power elite! How puny that Pan-Slavism in which many of Dostoyevsky’s contemporaries sought to find a surrogate of universalist appeal for Russian nationalism, when compared with the reality of the “camp of socialism” of today—the countries of East and Central Europe, and not merely those peopled by Slavs, are being led by Russia “in a concordant choir toward (mankind’s) final goal.” And as for other Communist movements, while it is no longer quite true that, as a perceptive French Socialist said: “They are neither on the left nor on the right, they are in the east,” the fact remains that with one huge and a few minor exceptions, they remain in various degrees dependent on Moscow. It has become fashionable to challenge this conclusion and talk about “Euro-communism.” Yet, while it is undeniable that the Italian, French, and other parties are no longer as slavishly obedient to the Kremlin as they were in Stalin’s time, they remain, let us say, deferential to their Soviet colleagues.

What has enabled Russian nationalism to transmute itself into Soviet Communism and as such to grip and exploit a worldwide movement? Suppose that following World War I militant Marxism had triumphed in Germany rather than in Russia. Could Berlin have controlled world Communism to the same extent that Moscow has? Most unlikely.

First, it is well to recognize certain peculiar characteristics of Russian nationalism before the Revolution. This nationalism contained many traits typical of the psychology of what might be called underprivileged nations, such as Poland or Ireland, which had to struggle for independent statehood or even for national survival. And yet, for most of the modern period, Russia was already a great power and territorially the world’s largest state. The feeling of vulnerability and constant threat to the national community has accompanied Russia’s almost continuous expansion. National security in the popular mind has become associated with the expansion of the state’s power and frontiers, perhaps a legacy of those distant days when old Russia lay open to frequent invasions both from east and west. The necessity of imperialism and of Russianization has been argued not only by spokesmen for the Right, but also by some leading representatives of the revolutionary tradition. The Decembrist Paul Pestel wanted Russia to be nationally homogeneous after tsarism had been overthrown; most of the non-Russians would have had to be assimilated and the Jews expelled. Few major figures in Russian history were as free of chauvinism as Alexander Herzen, yet even he held Kiev to be a Russian city and is on record as saying, “Sometime Constantinople will be Russia’s capital.”² Those Russian revolutionaries who, like Herzen, supported the Polish insurrection of 1863 soon found themselves isolated, denounced even by the most radical elements of the intelligentsia at home.

Nationalism in this peculiar, partly defensive, and partly aggressive form has thus been the strongest element in Russian political culture, permeating the radical as well as the liberal and conservative camps. This situation seemed to be drastically altered with the entrance of Marxism on the political scene. Disciples of the new ideology were bound to heed its founder’s words that workers have no country. Officially and no doubt sincerely both major branches of the Russian Social Democratic Party adhered to internationalism and condemned Great Russian chauvinism as it affected both domestic and foreign policy. And yet, a perceptive observer wrote of the father of Russian Marxism: “In his heart he ([Georgi] Plekhanov) has remained an unflinching patriot…. He sees Russia as the giant socialist state of the future and will not concede a foot of her soil.”³ This could not have been said of Plekhanov’s pupil and protagonist, Lenin, who characterized tsarist Russia as “the prison house of nations” and who, before the Revolution, was a staunch advocate of every nationality’s right to self-determination up to and including full separation from the socialist Russia of the future. By the same token it is grotesquely incorrect to present Lenin, as in Solzhenitsyn’s Lenin in Zurich, as militantly anti-Russian. Whatever his convictions, the logic of his views on power and centralization would, after the Revolution, make him the father of that Soviet nationalism which under Stalin would become mainly Russian in context.

The Bolsheviks’ nationality policy served them well during the civil war and during the first years of the Soviet regime. Yet it became clear very early that Communism represented what might be called political assimilation and that whatever the ethnic composition of the party leadership at the time, the psychological meaning of this assimilation implied, even in those earliest and most internationally oriented years of Soviet power, a degree of Russianization. The struggle for power and against foreign intervention made it easy to rationalize departures from strict Marxist orthodoxy. If the policy of “all land to the peasants” could be excused by the circumstances of the moment, then why not appeal in a moment of danger to good old-fashioned nationalism? Already when the Brest-Litovsk negotiations broke down, Lenin’s government proclaimed in a broadside that “the Socialist Fatherland was in danger.” Later, during the Soviet-Polish war, more uninhibited language was used. In 1920 a Communist journal spoke in tones reminiscent of 1863 when it contrasted “the perfidious Jesuitism of the Poles” with “the open and honest nature” of the Russians.⁴ As it emerged in 1921 the Soviet state claimed to be the legitimate heir to all the territories, except ethnic Poland and Finland, which composed the tsar’s empire.

The crucial step in the final emergence of Soviet nationalism and in its symbiosis with world Communism was marked by Stalin’s concept of “Socialism in one country.” The security and power of the Soviet Union were proclaimed to be the first priority and obligation not only for the Soviets, but also for foreign Communists. And another step in the Russianization of the concept of Soviet nationalism was taken when a whispering campaign during Stalin’s struggle against the New Opposition stressed the predominantly Jewish character of the leadership of the latter.

Most of the studies of Soviet foreign policy of the early and middle 1920s emphasize that it was organized along two parallel lines: the policy of the Comintern designed to foment revolutions and that of the Narkomindel attuned to the state interests of the USSR. From the beginning each line slanted toward the other, and they finally merged by the end of the decade. The Comintern’s policy was heavily oriented toward attacking Britain’s imperial interests. To be sure this reflected the ideological-tactical precepts of Lenin: Britain is the linchpin of the world’s capitalist system and colonialism is its Achilles heel. But as one studies Soviet moves in regard to India, southern China, Afghanistan, or Turkey, one is forcibly reminded of the nineteenth century imperialist rivalry between the tsar and Great Britain. For all of the Comintern’s alliance with the Kuomintang, the Soviet government hastened to reclaim its imperial predecessor’s rights and properties in Manchuria, negotiating over them with the local warlord. One of the most cherished ambitions of Russian nationalists had been to unite within their state all of the territories inhabited by the East Slavs. The persistence of these aspirations under the Soviets was demonstrated by the fact that the Comintern’s branch in the southeastern portion of the interwar Polish state was named the Communist Party of Western Ukraine and was organizationally separate from the corresponding Polish body.

In fact it would be difficult at any stage to point to a single case where the policy of the Comintern ran counter to the interests of the Soviet state or for that matter to the age-long aspirations of old Russia. The accoutrements of the Socialist Fatherland concealed but imperfectly the traditional figure of Mother Russia. Foreign Communists were required to be and soon became Soviet nationalists. Said Stalin: “He is a revolutionary, who without a reservation, unconditionally, openly … is ready to protect and defend the USSR. … He who thinks to defend the world revolutionary movement apart and against the USSR is going against the revolution and will certainly slide into the camp of the enemies of the revolution.”⁵

By the end of the 1920s, the relationship between the national interest of the Soviet Union and activities of world Communists was thus defined, even if not fully articulated publicly: the primary task of foreign Communism was not to advance the cause of world revolution, but to defend and support the USSR. In turn, the latter (or more properly its ruler) saw the first priority of its foreign policy as the defense of the territorial integrity and of the sociopolitical system of the Soviet state. As interpreted in the late 1920s and early 1930s, this implied the preservation of European peace, for Stalin and his associates did not believe that Russia could afford to be dragged into a general European war at a time when it embarked on an ambitious program of rapid industrialization and collectivization. By 1932 Stalin’s analysis of the world situation was already different from the prevailing Soviet view following the end of the civil war. From both the ideological and state interest points of view, the Soviet leaders expected and hoped that the “inherent contradictions” of capitalism would erupt into another imperialist war. General peace had been seen as a danger to the Soviet state, for the capitalists might settle their differences in order to launch a joint offensive against the homeland of Communism. Any step toward restoration of international stability was thus viewed as a potential threat. The League of Nations was a “league of imperialist robbers.” The Dawes Plan, by contributing economic stabilization in Europe, was aimed against Communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular. Weak and isolated, the USSR welcomed any sign of internal or interstate conflict in the capitalist camp and feared and opposed any step that would shore up the system damaged by World War I or assuage the national passions aroused by the war and by the settlement of Versailles.

By 1930 this somewhat primitive analysis was supplanted by a more sober and realistic appraisal of the realities of the world situation. The Soviet regime, in the midst of a life and death struggle to conquer its peasantry, had a stake in avoiding the kind of international chaos that would lead to war. But while Soviet nationalism was now in complete ascendance as the guiding principle of Soviet-Comintern policies, ideological considerations still colored Stalin’s perceptions as to what policies the interest of the Soviet state required. It was difficult for Moscow to see that it had a vital stake in the preservation of the Weimar Republic. Hitler, it was thought, was a lesser evil than a victory of conservative and center forces in Germany might be. The latter might effect a final reconciliation of German nationalism with France and Britain, while the National Socialists, quite apart from their anti-Western tendencies, could not conceivably retain power very long; their collapse, after they had destroyed what remained of democratic institutions in their country, would almost inevitably clear the path for the Communists. Even when the character and aspirations of National Socialism became better understood, and there was no thought of the Nazi-Soviet pact, Moscow refused to throw its full weight on the side of the Western democracies. What is known as the collective security or, almost equally fatuously, the Litvinov period of Soviet foreign policy was not designed to mount a crusade against Hitler, but simply to prevent any accommodation he might make with Britain and France. Soviet national interest, Stalin believed, required a stalemate, whether in peace or war, between Germany and the West and would suf...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Contributors
• Acronyms
• Part 1. Culture and Ideology
• Part 2. Politics and Society
• Part 3. Economics
• Part 4. Eastern Europe
• Part 5. Domestic Context: An Overview