In Soviet historiography (A. Chubaryan, K. Gusev, S. Blinov, M. Trush, V. Popov) it was traditionally argued that the Soviet state, from the very moment of its inception, always pursued a peaceful foreign policy based on the principles of the peaceful existence of states with different social we are building. During the years of “Gorbachev’s perestroika”, this well-known postulate was sharply criticized in the works of many “foremen of perestroika” (P. Volobuev, A. Bovin, V. Sirotkin, V. Zhuravlev), who were closely supervised by its main “architect”, the Secretary of the Central Committee Mr. A.N. Yakovlev.

Indeed, this postulate of Soviet historiography was far from the truth, since until the mid-1920s. all the highest political leadership of the country, including V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin continued to fervently believe in the ideals of the world proletarian revolution. At the same time, as modern historians correctly pointed out (Yu. Zhukov, L. Nezhinsky, V. Shishkin), in general, the foreign policy of the Soviet state, while maintaining continuity with the imperial policy of Tsarist Russia in the implementation of the main geopolitical tasks, differed from it in its new character and methods carrying out. It was characterized by extreme ideologization of the foreign policy course, based on two basic principles formulated by V.I. Lenin in his three reports “War and Revolution”, “Report on Peace” and “On the Tasks of Soviet Power”, delivered by him in July - October 1917:

1) the principle of proletarian internationalism and

2) the principle of peaceful coexistence of the Soviet state with the world capitalist system.

In view of these circumstances, the foreign policy of the Soviet state almost always had a dualistic and contradictory character, because:

On the one hand, the Soviet diplomatic corps was forced to accept the general “rules of the game” that existed throughout the “civilized” world; A

On the other hand, the country's political leadership was forced to constantly pay special attention to the problems of the Comintern, which came into direct conflict with the Lenin-Stalin doctrine of peaceful coexistence of powers with different social systems.

According to a number of historians (Yu. Zhukov, V. Shishkin), this dualism of the Soviet foreign policy doctrine, so characteristic of the entire 1920s, was already partially transformed in the early 1930s, when, facing a real threat of the emergence of a new world war, the top political leadership of the USSR gave a clear preference to traditional diplomacy to the detriment of the Comintern course of fueling the fire of the world proletarian revolution and moved away from traditional revolutionary “Westernism” towards the so-called “national Bolshevism”.

2. Versailles-Washington system of international relations

On November 11, 1918, the First World War ended with the signing of the act of surrender of the armed forces of the Quadruple Alliance, marking the beginning of a new political redivision of the world, which was de jure enshrined in Paris Peace Conference, held in January - June 1919.

At this conference, in which representatives of 27 countries of the world took part, the tone was set by the so-called “Big Three”, which was represented by French Prime Minister J. Clemenceau, who became the chairman of this conference, British Prime Minister D. Lloyd George and US President V. Wilson. Representatives of neither the countries of the Quadruple Alliance (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey) nor Soviet Russia were invited to the conference.

After the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty with Germany (June 1919), the Entente countries signed similar treaties with the remaining members of this military-political bloc: the Saint-Germain Peace Treaty with Austria (September 1919), the Trianon Peace Treaty with Hungary (November 1919 ), the Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria (November 1919) and the Treaty of Sèvres with Turkey (June 1923). As a result of the signing of these intergovernmental acts in post-war Europe the Versailles system of international relations emerged, which existed until the official outbreak of World War II in September 1939. In accordance with the signed treaties:

The former German Empire returned to Denmark and France those territories that had been torn away from them during the Danish (1864) and Franco-Prussian (1870–1871) wars, that is, Schleswig, Holstein, Alsace and Lorraine.

The former Rhineland and the Ruhr metallurgical basin, which was the industrial heart of Germany, came under the joint control of the Anglo-French military administration, and the Saar coal basin, which went to France, came under the control of the League of Nations for fifteen years.

Germany committed itself to dissolving its General Staff, abolishing universal conscription and limiting the size of its armed forces to 100 thousand bayonets.

Germany was deprived of all its colonial possessions in Africa and Asia, which were transferred to the control of the Entente countries.

From the ethnic Polish lands that were part of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires, a sovereign Polish state was recreated, to which Germany transferred part of the German ethnic lands - Upper Silesia and Eastern Pomerania.

A sovereign Czechoslovak state was created on the territory of Moravia, Bohemia, Slovakia and the Sudetenland, which were part of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires.

On the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, several sovereign state entities were created - Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia.

The former provinces of the Ottoman Empire - Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia - formally gained independence and came under the control of France and England.

One of the most important results of the Paris Peace Conference was the creation of the League of Nations, according to the charter of which it was supposed to guarantee peace and tranquility to all peoples of the world and contribute to the development of their prosperity and cooperation.

According to a number of modern liberal authors (K. Gadzhiev), the creation of the League of Nations was the first step in the formation of an international legal space and the emergence of a fundamentally new philosophy of international relations. It became the first permanent international organization that was called upon to resolve world economic problems, issues related to disarmament and ensuring collective security in Europe and other regions of the world, etc.

According to their opponents (S. Kara-Murza, Yu. Zhukov, N. Narochnitskaya), such an assessment of the League of Nations is a clear exaggeration, and one can hardly talk seriously about the formation of a new philosophy of international relations in principle.

Initially, the statute of the League of Nations was signed by 44 states of the world, among which the European powers and the British dominions dominated. The United States, having refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, initially did not join this organization. In addition, Germany and Soviet Russia found themselves outside the framework of the League of Nations. Thus, according to historians (R. Lyakhov, N. Kleimenov, A. Sidorov), under the auspices of the League of Nations, a new world order was formed that met the interests, first of all, of the two great world powers - England and France. It was precisely because of this circumstance that the League of Nations was powerless in resolving most international conflicts, which ultimately led to a new world war.

The most important proof of the imperfection of the Versailles system of international relations was the actual artificial self-isolation of the United States, since President Woodrow Wilson, who was one of the architects of this system, failed to break the resistance of supporters of the Monroe Doctrine in the US Senate (March 1920). Under these conditions, the governments of England, France and the USA tried to reconcile their positions at the Washington Conference, which took place in November 1921 - February 1922. During this conference, the Wilson administration managed to achieve a number of concessions from its former Entente allies. In particular:

1) the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902 was annulled and a new agreement was concluded between England, France, Japan and the United States on the joint defense of island possessions in the Pacific Ocean;

2) an agreement was signed “On the limitation of naval armaments of the naval fleets of England, France, Japan and the USA”;

3) a multilateral agreement was concluded on the Chinese issue, according to which the principle of “open doors” was introduced on Chinese territory.

Created in 1919-1922. The Versailles-Washington system of international relations fixed the balance of power between the great world powers that emerged as a result of the First World War. As many scientists rightly note (N. Kleimenova, A. Sidorov, V. Katasonov, R. Lyakhova), the entire subsequent course of world events immediately demonstrated all the instability and fragility, and most importantly, the fragility of the new system of international relations, which consolidated the actual split of the world into the vanquished and winners. In addition, the most important elements of instability of the new world order, especially on the territory of the European continent, were:

1) exclusion from the number of potential partners of two weakened but very influential European powers - Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany;

2) the new state-political map of Europe did not always coincide with the ethnic map of the continent itself, in particular, in the so-called “German question”, since the de jure division of the single German nation took place between Germany itself, France, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

It is no coincidence that at the Paris Peace Conference, when signing the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, Marshal F. Foch stated extremely frankly that “ Today we signed a truce agreement for 20 years.” That is, in other words, the new system of international relations initially programmed a new bloodbath on a global scale.

In January 1922, at the Cannes Conference of the Entente countries, a plan was adopted to hold a major international forum in the Italian city of Genoa, in which Soviet Russia and all the powers of the former Quadruple Alliance - Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey - were invited to participate for the first time.

3. Diplomatic recognition of the Soviet state and the international situation in 1921–1929.

During the Civil War, Soviet Russia signed several international agreements to establish diplomatic relations with a number of young European and Asian states, which were of fundamental importance for the Bolsheviks. Among the “first signs” that recognized Soviet Russia de jure were the former British colony of Afghanistan (May 1919) and the former Russian provinces that received the status of sovereign states from the Bolsheviks: Estonia (February 1920), Latvia (June 1920 .), Lithuania (August 1920) and Finland (October 1920). A little later, Soviet diplomacy achieved new tangible successes on the world stage, signing agreements on good neighborliness and cooperation with Persia (February 1921), Turkey (March 1921) and Mongolia (November 1921). A number of modern authors (O. Dzhagaeva, N. Shabelnikova) reasonably believe that the Soviet-Mongolian treaty de facto meant the establishment of a Soviet protectorate over Mongolia and the first experience of “exporting the proletarian revolution” outside the RSFSR, since the troops of the 5th Army of the Red Army were under the command of I.P. Uborevich, introduced into the territory of Mongolia, openly supported the “Mongolian revolution” and seriously strengthened the regime of its leader Sukhbaatar.

As many historians correctly noted (T. Connor, L. Nezhinsky, I. Hormach, Yu. Prokopov), the main task of the Soviet diplomatic corps, which in March 1918 was headed by the new People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Valentinovich Chicherin, was the destruction of the “sanitary cordon”, created in 1918 on the initiative of French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and the French and English ministers of war Marshal Ferdinand Foch and Winston Churchill, and the restoration of diplomatic and trade relations with the leading countries of Western Europe and the USA. The Soviet political leadership was absolutely confident that the task of quickly restoring the unity of the world economic system, destroyed during the First World War and the Russian proletarian revolution, would sooner or later force the governments of the leading capitalist powers to establish diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia and restore the previous level of foreign trade cooperation with her. It is no coincidence that already in January 1920, the Supreme Council of the Entente adopted a resolution that allowed the implementation of foreign trade operations between the RSFSR, allied and neutral powers, which de facto meant the lifting of the economic blockade. And already in November 1920, after the adoption of the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR “On the General Economic and Legal Conditions of Concessions,” a number of American businessmen (A. Hammer, V. Vanderlin), came into direct contact with the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, including V. .AND. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky, began negotiations on the creation of joint concession enterprises.

The first gap, which marked the beginning of broad diplomatic recognition of Soviet Russia by the leading world powers, was made in March 1921 by the signing of a Soviet-British trade agreement in London, which meant the actual recognition of Soviet Russia by the most powerful and influential power of the world at that time - the British Empire . The very fact of signing this agreement, Soviet diplomacy was indebted to Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who, during a bitter struggle with Foreign Minister J. Curzon, War Minister W. Churchill and Finance Minister N. Chamberlain, managed to gain the upper hand. In May 1921, a similar trade agreement was concluded with Weimar Germany, which also meant the actual diplomatic recognition of Soviet Russia by this defeated, but still very influential European power. And soon similar agreements were signed with Austria, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Norway and Denmark.

After the signing of these agreements in October 1921, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin, on behalf of the Soviet government, proposed to the governments of all world powers to convene an international conference to restore the unity of the world economic system, resolve all mutual claims and sign a peace treaty between Soviet Russia and Western countries. Having discussed this initiative of the Soviet side, the conference of the Supreme Council of the Entente accepted this proposal and set a date for a new conference in Genoa.

In April - May 1922, the famous Genoa International Conference took place, in which plenipotentiary representatives of 29 world powers took part, including Great Britain (D. Lloyd George, J. Curzon), France (L. Barthou, C. Barrer), Italy (L. Facta) and Germany (W. Rathenau). The Soviet delegation at this conference, which included L.B. Krasin, Kh.G. Rakovsky, V.V. Borovsky, L.M. Karakhan, A.G. Shlyapnikov and M.M. Litvinov (Valakh), was supposed to head V.I. Lenin, however, for reasons of personal safety of the head of the Soviet government, it was headed by People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin.

At the very beginning of the conference G.V. Chicherin made a report in which he stated that in the current historical conditions it is vital to restore the unity of the world economic system, based on the principles of complete equality and recognition of Soviet Russia by all the leading powers of the world. The leaders of all European states, on behalf of the head of the British delegation, D. Lloyd George, presented the so-called "London Memorandum of Experts" which contained a whole list of conditions unacceptable to her. In particular, they demanded from the Soviet side:

Recognize the external debt of the creditor countries of the Tsarist and Provisional Governments in the amount of 18 billion gold rubles;

Pay a huge compensation penalty for all industrial enterprises and banks with foreign authorized capital nationalized by the Soviet government.

In addition, the leaders of the Western powers demanded that the leadership of Soviet Russia abolish the foreign trade monopoly and provide Western banks and corporations with the right of free access to the Russian financial, raw materials, agricultural and industrial markets.

The Soviet side agreed to recognize and compensate the European powers for all financial and material damage suffered by them in 1914–1920, but subject to similar recognition and compensation by the European powers and the United States for the damage they inflicted on Soviet Russia during the Civil War and foreign intervention in in the amount of 39 billion gold rubles. In addition, the head of the Soviet delegation G.V. Chicherin proposed that the leaders of the Western powers accept the Soviet program of general arms reduction and prohibition of the most barbaric methods of warfare, as well as ensure equal and broad economic cooperation between Soviet Russia and Western countries on the basis of long-term and large financial loans.

The leaders of the Western powers sharply rejected this approach to solving this problem, and the work of the Genoa Conference actually reached a dead end. Although even on the eve of its convening, two main groupings clearly emerged within the bloc of bourgeois states:

1) Anglo-Italian, which was represented by Prime Ministers D. Lloyd George and L. Facta, and

2) Franco-Belgian-Japanese, where the first violin was played by two French diplomats L. Barthou and C. Barrer, who were secretly but very actively supported by the American ambassador in Rome R. Child.

The first group, with certain concessions from the Soviet side, was ready to compromise with the RSFSR by partially refusing to receive “royal debts” and replacing restitution with the creation of joint concessions on Soviet territory, but the second group took an irreconcilable position and refused to discuss any initiatives of the Soviet side without its consent for full payment of the “royal debts” and compensation for nationalized property and banking assets. As a result, the work of the Genoa Conference ended in complete failure, although the very fact of the participation of the Soviet delegation in the conference became a landmark event in international relations of that time. As modern authors (V. Katasonov) quite rightly noted, the Genoa Conference itself de facto became a milestone event in the process of preparing a new world war, behind which stood the financial business tycoons of Europe and America, including B. Baruch, D. Morgan, E. Melon, D. Rockefeller and others.

The work of the Hague International Conference, which was convened in June 1922 to solve the same set of international and interstate problems, ended with a similar result. Representatives of the same participating states, except Weimar Germany, took part in the new conference. This time the Soviet delegation was headed by Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M.M. Litvinov; The delegations of many bourgeois powers were headed not by diplomats, but by representatives of big business and business circles. In particular, the British cabinet was represented by the Minister for Foreign Trade F. Lloyd-Grim and the former director of the board of the Russian-Asian Bank L. Urquhart, the French side was represented by the director of the Bureau for the Protection of Private Property of French Citizens in Russia Ch. Alphand, etc. Representatives of the Western The powers again refused to discuss any issues about loans and the restoration of trade relations with the RSFSR until the problem of “royal debts” was resolved and the return of their property and assets to all owners of nationalized enterprises and companies.

At the same time, the European voyage of Soviet diplomacy was not useless and, in the end, ended in a major diplomatic victory, which had far-reaching consequences. In April 1922 in a small town Rapallo, located on the outskirts of Genoa, German Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin signed Soviet-German treaty, under the terms of which:

Diplomatic and consular relations were established between the two powers;

Germany recognized the nationalization of German state and private property in the RSFSR and renounced any claims on the condition that the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR refused to satisfy similar claims of other European states;

A new mutually beneficial trade and economic agreement was signed, based on the principles of complete equality and partnership of both parties.

According to most historians (K. Gusev, V. Popov, K. Gadzhiev, L. Nezhinsky), the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo not only became a major victory for young Soviet diplomacy, but also opened up a broad path for diplomatic recognition of the USSR by the leading world powers. However, this assessment is guilty of obvious exaggeration, as was clearly shown by the work of the Lausanne Conference (November 1922 - July 1923), where the pressing issues of the Black Sea straits and freedom of merchant shipping were discussed. The project of the Soviet delegation, the main provisions of which were formulated by V.I. Lenin, provided for the restoration “the rights of the Turkish people to their territory and waters”, closure of the Black Sea straits "for all military and armed vessels and military aircraft" and complete freedom of merchant shipping.

The general position of the Entente states, on the contrary, provided for free passage through the Black Sea straits of all military ships in both peace and war. Moreover, the head of the British delegation, Foreign Minister John Curzon, demanded the urgent demilitarization of the straits and the establishment of international control over them. As a result, the work of the conference came to a complete standstill, and a break was announced. In April 1923, the heads of all diplomatic missions left Lausanne and returned to the negotiating table only three weeks later. At the second stage of the conference, the heads of the diplomatic missions of the Western powers took the path of direct discrimination against the Soviet delegation: they did not notify its head, permanent representative V.V. Vorovsky about the resumption of the conference, and when he finally arrived in Lausanne, he was not even allowed to the negotiating table.

Moreover, at the beginning of May 1923, the British Foreign Minister J. Curzon sent a brazen ultimatum to the Soviet government, in which he demanded:

1) pay compensation to the British crown for the arrest and execution of a number of members of the anti-Soviet sabotage group P. Dux;

2) stop subversive activities and anti-British propaganda in India, Persia and Afghanistan and immediately recall Soviet permanent representatives from Kabul and Tehran;

3) release British fishing trawlers arrested by Moscow for illegal fishing in Soviet territorial waters, etc.

If the Soviet government refused to accept this ultimatum, the British minister threatened to sever all relations with the USSR. Naturally, the “ultimatum of J. Curzon,” immediately published throughout the international press, sharply aggravated the confrontation between Moscow and London, and in Lausanne itself, in the wake of anti-Soviet hysteria, Permanent Representative V.V. Vorovsky. Two weeks later, under the influence of external circumstances, including a powerful anti-war movement in Britain itself, both sides went to “peace peace” and settled the incident that threatened to sharply aggravate the entire international situation.

The work of the Lausanne Conference itself ended with the conclusion of a peace treaty between the Entente countries and Turkey and the signing of 17 international conventions, including “On the regime of the Black Sea straits,” which was not ratified by the Soviet side due to the lack of “appropriate security conditions for the USSR” in this document, i.e. e. the presence of demilitarization of the Black Sea straits zone and free passage through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles not only of all trade, but also of any military vessels of all states of the world.

In the first half of 1924, skillfully taking advantage of the change of governments in a number of major European powers, primarily in Great Britain and France, where the “left governments” of R. MacDonald and E. Herriot came to power, Soviet diplomats H.G. Rakovsky, L.B. Krasin, M.M. Litvinov and A.A. Ioffe signed a number of important agreements on diplomatic recognition of the USSR by leading European states, including England, Italy, France, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria and Greece. In addition, in 1924–1925. The USSR established diplomatic relations with a number of large Asian and Latin American states, including Japan, China, Mexico and the United Kingdom of Hejas (Saudi Arabia).

Thus, by the beginning of 1925, the Soviet Union had established diplomatic relations with almost all the leading powers of the world, which, of course, became the clearest proof of its increased authority in the international arena. The only major power that refused to de jure recognize the Soviet Union and establish diplomatic relations with it was the United States of America, whose government continued to pursue a futile policy of economic blockade of our country.

In December 1925, the famous agreements were signed between Germany and the former Entente countries in London Locarno Agreements, which became an important step in the formation of a new system of collective security in Europe for the leading Western powers, since they closed the problem of Germany’s western borders with Belgium and France. Although at the same time, the Locarno Agreements left open the question of Germany’s eastern borders with Poland and Czechoslovakia, on whose territory there were entire enclaves of ethnic Germans: Upper Silesia, Eastern Pomerania and the Sudetenland.

The main document of these agreements was the so-called Rhine Pact- a general guarantee agreement between Weimar Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Great Britain, under the cover of which London and Paris tried to put together an anti-Soviet bloc with the participation of Germany. That is why the eastern German borders were not subject to the “Locarno guarantees” system. This pact provided for the maintenance of the territorial status quo (including the demilitarized Rhineland) and the inviolability of the German-French and German-Belgian borders, as defined by the Treaty of Versailles, as well as the obligation of Germany, France and Belgium not to attack each other and to resolve all arising disputes through arbitration or court decisions. The Rhine Pact came into force after Germany became a full member of the League of Nations in September 1926 and received a permanent seat as a Great Power on its Council.

According to a number of scientists (V. Turok, A. Chelyshev, M. Ponomarev), The Locarno (London) Agreements had far-reaching consequences because they:

France's international position was actually weakened due to the fact that its main and traditional competitor on the European continent became an equal partner in the international arena;

Strengthened the position of Great Britain, which continued to pursue the traditional policy of “balance of power” in Europe;

They laid the foundation for the “policy of appeasement” of the former countries participating in the Quadruple Alliance and became another attempt by “Western democracies” to create a “cordon sanitaire” around the USSR.

Thanks to the efforts of Soviet diplomats, in particular, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin and Berlin permanent representative N.N. Krestinsky, who held a whole round of confidential negotiations with the head of German diplomacy G. Stresemann, in April 1926 in Berlin the Soviet-German Treaty “On Neutrality and Non-Aggression” was signed for a period of five years. According to the terms of the Berlin Treaty:

The inviolability of the main provisions of the Treaty of Rapallo was confirmed;

The beginning was laid for more active cooperation between the two powers in the scientific, technical and military spheres;

The position of the German side as a kind of mediator in relations between the USSR and the West was strengthened.

At the beginning of 1927, there was a sharp deterioration in the international situation, which began with "Chamberlain's note" addressed to the Soviet government, which was distinguished by an unheard of rude and unprecedented tone in diplomatic practice. In fact, it became the final chord in a whole series of hostile actions of the British government of S. Baldwin since his new coming to power in 1924, in which Foreign Minister O. Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer W. Churchill, and Secretary of State for India F. Smith, Colonial Secretary L. Emery and Aviation Minister S. Hore.

As all subsequent events showed, the “Chamberlain Note” was a “home preparation” for the implementation of the conservatives’ long-planned severance of relations with the USSR, which began with the famous forgery called “Zinoviev’s Letter to the English Workers”, or “Letter of the Comintern” (1924), followed by The leader of the British Conservatives, Stanley Baldwin, was standing there. In May 1927, the British government organized a police raid on the headquarters of the All-Russian Joint Stock Company Arcos and the Soviet Trade Delegation, which was accompanied by an illegal search and the theft of a number of important documents. In a note of protest, the Soviet government qualified these provocative actions of the British side as a flagrant violation of the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement of 1921, according to which the London headquarters of the Soviet trade delegation enjoyed diplomatic immunity. In a response note, O. Chamberlain announced his country’s unilateral termination of the 1921 trade agreement and the severance of diplomatic relations with the USSR.

As a result of all these events, the situation on the European continent became so tense that already in December 1927, speaking at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), I.V. Stalin directly stated that “the period of peaceful coexistence of European states is becoming a thing of the past” and the situation on the world stage is exactly reminiscent of the one that developed on the European continent after the fatal shot in Sarajevo in June 1914.

The Soviet political leadership, fully aware of the complexity of the situation that had arisen, gave clear instructions to the NKID of the USSR, which now, due to the serious illness of People's Commissar G.V. Chicherin was de facto headed by his first deputy Maxim Maksimovich Litvinov, which is necessary in the near future:

Dramatically intensify work to split the united anti-Soviet front;

To exclude the emergence of any slightest reason for the outbreak of aggression by the Western powers against the USSR;

Prepare for signing non-aggression pacts between the USSR and all neighboring powers, primarily Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Finland.

In August 1928, in Paris, on the initiative of French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, 15 world powers signed the famous "Kellogg-Briand Pact" which contained important international legal norms, including two main postulates of the “new world order”:

1) a fundamental rejection of war as a means of national policy;

2) resolving all conflict situations only through peaceful diplomatic means.

At the same time, an invitation to join this pact was sent to the capitals of 48 powers, including Moscow, where this very idea was treated ambiguously. In particular, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin categorically objected to joining the “Paris Pact”, about which he twice notified the Politburo of the Central Committee, while his first deputy M.M. Litvinov and especially N.I. Bukharin, on the contrary, actively supported this initiative. As a result, at the end of August 1928, on behalf of the Politburo of the Central Committee, the Collegium of the NKID of the USSR decided on the need “now let us state quite clearly and unequivocally that we are ready to join the pact,” because the “interested in a respite, we should not neglect even the most insignificant guarantee against war.”

A little later, the Soviet Union significantly expanded the scope of the “Paris Pact” by signing the so-called “M.M. Protocol” in February - April 1929 with a number of border states - Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Turkey and Persia. Litvinov”, which provided for the renunciation of the use of force in resolving all territorial disputes that might arise between the USSR and its neighbors.

In the summer of 1929, a major Soviet-Chinese armed conflict arose in the CER region, which led to the actual severance of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Kuomintang China. Soon, having suffered a series of tangible military defeats in battles with the Special Far Eastern Army (commander V.K. Blucher) and the Amur Military Flotilla (command of the fleet Ya.I. Ozolin), and also facing a real threat of aggression from Japan, the Nanjing government of Chiang Kai-shek was forced was to sign the so-called “Khabarovsk Protocol” (December 1929) and actually restore diplomatic relations with Moscow.

Even before the start of the conflict on the CER, in the spring of 1929, the British government of S. Baldwin, faced with major economic difficulties caused by both the beginning of the first systemic crisis of capitalism (the “Great Depression”) and the severance of trade relations with Moscow, made an attempt to restore economic ties with the USSR, but without restoring diplomatic relations with it. This attempt was unsuccessful, since the Soviet government firmly stated that it was ready to broadly develop Anglo-Soviet trade relations and resolve all mutual claims, but only after the restoration of full diplomatic relations. The unyielding position of the Soviet side, as well as the powerful pressure of public opinion in Great Britain itself, prompted the new Labor government of R. Macdonald in October 1929 to restore diplomatic relations with the USSR without any preconditions.

4. The birth and activities of the Comintern in 1919–1929.

As you know, back in April 1917, in the famous “April Theses” V.I. Lenin first set the task of creating a new Third (Communist) International, which, having united in its ranks the most militant detachment of workers and communist parties, was supposed to replace the corrupt Second International, which had become a collection of reformist and petty-bourgeois parties and de facto ceased to exist with the beginning of First World War. According to the plan of the Bolshevik leader, this Comintern was to become the leading headquarters for the preparation and implementation of the world proletarian revolution, for the sake of which the Bolsheviks, in fact, were striving for power in Russia itself.

In March 1919, the Founding Congress of the Third International (Comintern) took place in Moscow, in which 52 delegates took part, representing mainly the communist parties of those quasi-state formations that arose on the ruins of the Russian Empire. The focus of the Congress delegates' attention was Lenin's famous tome "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", in which the leader of the world proletariat quite rightly proved the class essence of any "pure" democracy and confidently defended the idea of ​​a "state of the dictatorship of the proletariat" as the only possible form of proletarian democracy in the conditions transition period from capitalism to communism. As a result of the discussion of this work, the program theses of the Comintern were adopted, which proclaimed the main goals and objectives of the world communist movement: the overthrow of capitalism, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the creation of a world Republic of Soviets. In addition, to manage the daily work of the Comintern, its Executive Committee (ECCI) was formed, consisting of the Bureau and Secretariat of the ECCI, although the personal composition of these structures was not approved.

In July 1920, the Second Congress of the Comintern took place in Moscow, the delegates of which were already 217 plenipotentiary representatives of left-wing political parties from 37 countries of the world. This time, the focus of attention of the Congress delegates was Lenin’s new tome “The Infantile Disease of “Leftism” in Communism,” which was devoted to the analysis of international and national features and aspects of the Russian proletarian revolution of 1917. The fact is that during this period in a number of large European Communist parties created in the wake of revolutionary euphoria, radical and openly leftist interpretations of the Russian revolutionary experience and hasty attempts to transfer this experience to the national soil of their states became widespread. V.I. himself Lenin, extremely concerned about this circumstance, warned the communist parties of all European states against the “infantile disease of leftism in communism” and emphasized that only some aspects of the October Revolution were of international significance.

Another serious problem discussed at this forum was the problem of the purity of the ranks of the Comintern, since many workers and social democratic parties of the old Socialist International (1889), about the political bankruptcy of which V.I. Lenin wrote back in 1914 in his famous article “The Collapse of the Second International.”

According to many modern authors (A. Vatlin, F. Firsov, K. Mackenzie), all the leaders of the Bolsheviks (V.I. Lenin, L.D. Trotsky, G.E. Zinoviev, N.I. Bukharin) were seriously afraid of “ erosion" of the Comintern and its transformation from the "combat headquarters of the world proletarian revolution" into another amorphous structure, incapable of leading this world-historical process. Therefore, the delegates of the Congress, having discussed Lenin’s report “On the situation in the world and the tasks of the Comintern,” 1) decided that the immediate historical task of the Comintern is the creation of a single national communist party in each country and 2) accepted the so-called “21 conditions” for the entry of these communist parties into the Comintern, where the main program and other guidelines for them were stipulated: the construction of all parties on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism, the rejection of the social democratic program, the purge of party ranks from all “reformists” and “centrists”, etc. In addition, at this Congress there were its program, charter were adopted and the ECCI consisting of 33 people and the ECCI Bureau consisting of 5 people were elected: G.E. Zinoviev (chairman), N.I. Bukharin, M.V. Kobetsky, A. Radnyansky and V. Koenen.

In July 1921, in conditions of a significant decline in the European revolutionary process and the transition to a new economic policy within the country, the Third Congress of the Comintern was held in Moscow, which made a number of fundamental adjustments to the work of the combat headquarters of the world proletarian revolution. In particular, the delegates of this forum, having heeded Lenin’s thesis “about the madness” of those political radicals who expected to receive “help in the form of a lasting proletarian revolution in Europe” in the shortest possible time, criticized the new “leftist bends” of a number of European communist parties and home-grown Bolsheviks. In particular, V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky, polemicizing with one of the leaders of the “workers’ opposition” A.M. Kollontai, called on all delegates of the Congress in the new historical conditions to go to "closer alliance with social democratic parties and reformist trade unions" their countries.

Moreover, at the next IV Congress of the Comintern, which took place in November 1922, V.I. Lenin, in his report “Five Years of the Russian Revolution and Prospects for the World Revolution,” practically substantiated the theoretical position about the need for all communist parties not only to be able to advance during a period of upsurge, but to learn to retreat in the ebb of the revolutionary wave and, using the example of the Soviet NEP, showed how to use the temporary retreat to prepare a new attack on capitalism. According to many modern authors (F. Firsov, I. Krivoguz), the decisions of the III and IV Congresses of the Comintern laid the foundations of that powerful international labor movement, which in the 1930s. will be embodied in the “united front” movement of all left and workers' parties and trade unions in many countries of Southern and Western Europe.

At the beginning of 1923, the French army, in violation of several articles of the Versailles Peace Treaty, occupied the Ruhr region, which was under the joint administration of the Anglo-French civil administration. This foreign policy action of the French government of Raymond Poincaré caused a sharp aggravation of the political situation in Germany itself, where another revolutionary situation arose, during which the radical wing of the KPD, led by Ernst Thälmann, tried to seize state power. This attempt at “red revenge” for the defeat in the November Revolution of 1918 was unsuccessful and ended in a new defeat of the German proletariat and its leaders.

In June 1924, the V Congress of the Comintern took place in Moscow, at which the “united front” tactics were again confirmed. However, in new historical conditions, the previous course towards creating a united front of all workers, communist and socialist parties began to be considered as a forced tactical maneuver, and not as a long-term political course of the Comintern. Moreover, at this Congress, the head of the Executive Committee of the Comintern G.E. Zinoviev first declared European social democracy as the “left wing of European fascism,” which inevitably led to a split in the European labor movement. Finally, it was this Congress that marked the beginning of the notorious “Bolshevization” of all communist parties, which began to blindly copy the basic principles of the organizational structure and program guidelines of the RCP (b) itself.

After the end of this Congress, for more than three years, there was an extremely sharp internal party struggle within the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the result of which was the complete defeat of the “united opposition” in the person of L.D. Trotsky, L.B. Kamenev and G.E. Zinoviev, who personified the most radical left flank within the CPSU(b), which was still delirious with the ideas of the world proletarian revolution. Even before the defeat of this opposition, in July 1926 G.E. Zinoviev was removed from his post as head of the Executive Committee of the Comintern and replaced by N.I. Bukharin, who at that time was a member of the ruling “duumvirate” and firmly believed in the possibility of “building socialism in one single country.”

The internal party struggle within the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks took place against the backdrop of a sharp aggravation of the entire international situation caused by the fact that the British government of S. Baldwin, under the pretext of the Soviet side providing assistance to the Communist Party of China (Mao Zedong) in the fight against the regime of Chiang Kai-shek, broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR . It is no coincidence that already in December 1927 I.V. Stalin, in his “Report of the Central Committee” at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, stated that “Europe has entered a new period of revolutionary upsurge,” which was the reason for another radical revision of the previous tactical course of the Comintern.

In the summer of 1928, the VI Congress of the Comintern was held in Moscow, at which the onset of a general crisis of capitalism and a new stage of revolutionary battles for socialism was announced. In connection with this circumstance, the capitulatory “right deviation”, which professes opportunist attitudes incompatible with the general line of the CPSU(b), was declared the main danger in the workers’ and communist movement. Therefore, the new ECCI leadership:

1) authorized the strict centralization of the leadership of all communist parties of bourgeois states, which have now become simply sections of the Comintern;

2) aimed all communist parties at an irreconcilable struggle against the main hostile political forces: reactionary fascism and social democracy, which has become a “fig leaf” of the most right-wing bourgeois forces.

The new course of the Comintern was finally consolidated in July 1929 at the X Plenum of the ECCI, which actually put a “fat end” to the previous tactics of the “united front” of all left, workers and communist parties. From now on, the main enemy of the entire working class became European social democracy, which was labeled contemptuously as “social fascists.”