DOCSLIB.ORG

Collective Security Or World Domination: the Soviet Union And

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Collective Security Or World Domination: the Soviet Union And Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2012 Collective security or world domination: the Soviet Union and Germany, 1917-1939 Mark Davis Kuss Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Kuss, Mark Davis, "Collective security or world domination: the Soviet Union and Germany, 1917-1939" (2012). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3175. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3175 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. COLLECTIVE SECURITY OR WORLD DOMINATION: THE SOVIET UNION AND GERMANY, 1917-1939 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Mark Davis Kuss B.A., University of New Orleans, 1978, 1982 J.D., Tulane University School of Law, 1982 M.A., University of New Orleans, 1987 May, 2012 DEDICATION To my wonderful family, Wendy, Mallory, Meredith, Myles and Mya, who put up with an absent Dad for too long a time driving to and from Baton Rouge and for believing that this dream could indeed come true. This degree truly belongs to them. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I did not make this journey alone. I know that I cannot thank everyone personally for the support I received along the way, but I must single out some for special recognition. First to my wonderful committee who put up with an old man chasing a dream from long distance. To Drs. Marchand, Lindenfeld, and the Political Science member, Dr. Clark, my heartfelt thanks. The dissertation defense was truly, as Dr. Lindenfeld told me, “A spirited discussion.” To the faculty and administration of my employer, Our Lady of Holy Cross College in New Orleans, Louisiana, who provided support and flexible scheduling so that I could attend classes. Special Thanks to Diana Schaubhut who provided quick and accurate interlibrary loan services with some esoteric requests in foreign languages. To Ms. Darleen in the History office, who each semester made sure that I was properly registered in the correct sections. To Jeannie, Thom and Laura Darling, who accommodated me on Thursdays during the Spring, 2007 semester and introduced me to “Grey’s Anatomy.” To Adam Heine, the IT genius who put the pieces together. Those who I did not specifically mention, you know who you are. Thank you. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………………ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………iii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………vi INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………….1 The German School (and Weinberg)…………………………………………….5 The Collective Security School…………………………………………………12 Innerworkings of the Nazi/Weimar Foreign Office…………………………….16 Constructing a Soviet Foreign Office…………………………………………...20 Cold War Shadows……………………………………………………………...21 CHAPTER ONE: DIPLOMACY IN THE MARXIST/LENINIST MIRROR………….30 Lenin’s Diplomacy……………………………………………………………….32 Chicherin…………………………………………………………………………36 The New Economic Policy………………………………………………………42 Diplomacy after Lenin’s Death………………………………………..................45 CHAPTER TWO: GERMANY’S GREAT EXPERIMENT: WEIMAR DEMOCRACY AND FOREIGN POLICY………………………………….58 1919 to Rapallo…………………………………………………………………..61 Rapallo…………………………………………………………………………...67 After Rapallo……………………………………………………………………..71 Germany and the West…………………………………………………………...77 Treaty of Berlin…………………………………………………………………..79 CHAPTER THREE: EVERYTHING CHANGES: HITLER IN POWER……………...85 Hitler’s Anti-Soviet Actions……………………………………………………..86 Diplomatic Responses from the Wilhelmstrasse………………………………...89 Soviet Reactions………………………………………………………………….91 Poland………………..…………………………………………………………103 Western Initiatives….….……………………………………………………….106 Soviet Pleas for Action…….…………………………………………………...118 Nazi reactions to the Franco-Soviet Pact……………………………………….119 Increasing Distrust of Nazi Intentions………………………………………….124 Official Recognition of the Nazi Danger……………………………………….126 CHAPTER FOUR: 1938: THE TEST OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY……………….137 CHAPTER FIVE: 1939: THE SHOE FALLS………………………………………….152 iv Collective Security Alive and Well After Munich……………………………..153 Soviet Relations with Britain and France………………………………………157 Soviet Proposals and Western Responses (or Non-Responses)………………...160 Nazi Shifts………………………………………………………………………185 Britain and France Act………………………………………………………….187 Nazi Diplomats under Pressure to Conclude a Pact with the USSR…………....191 Too Late for Britain and France…..…………………………………………....194 CONCLUSION…………………………..………………………………………….…201 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………208 VITA…..………………………………………………………………………………..216 v ABSTRACT Since the end of World War II, a rather consistent narrative has appeared regarding the origins of this terrible conflict: Hitler started it. The victorious western powers emerged as innocent victims in the titanic struggle while the USSR, once allied to both Hitler and the west, took on the role of principal villain during the Cold War. With the collapse of communism and the partial opening of Soviet archives, a re- assessment appeared, principally under the heading of the “Collective Security School.” As politically incorrect as it may seem, sober reflection indicates that the Soviet Union was actually the peacemaker in the inter-war period, while Britain and France engaged in a dangerous game of deception and underhandedness regarding the USSR. With all options exhausted, the Soviets turned to Hitler, making the attack on Poland easier. In this dissertation, I present documentary evidence of Soviet intensions and western duplicity. The Soviets did not seek to divert a conflict; they did not want war in any manner. The USSR was undergoing massive internal upheaval in economic, social, political, and military spheres. Soviet leaders could not risk an open contest for fear of losing the bigger prize: the Soviet Revolution. Soviet diplomacy pursued a consistent path of collective security until western intransigence became too great. The Nazi-Soviet Non –Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939, far from being a goal of Soviet policy, was simply a last resort. vi INTRODUCTION Historians, like contemporary observers, have never fully understood why, in August, 1939, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with its avowed enemy, Nazi Germany. Some have asserted that the pact represented the outlines of a Moscow-Berlin axis bent on world domination between Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler; others concluded that the Soviet dictator finally gave up on the policy of collective security and turned to the only nation willing to align with the Soviet Union. This work will argue that the Nazi-Soviet pact, with its secret protocols, was Stalin’s last resort to slow down the advance of German aggression in Eastern Europe and buy time for the Soviet Union substantively to oppose the coming conflict with Hitler. By late August 1939 Western policy became clear regarding alignment with the USSR. With the horrors of collectivization, man-made famine, and widespread purges revolutionizing the USSR, Stalin could ill-afford the outbreak of a general war involving the Soviet Union. Stalin and the foreign policy leadership of the Soviet Union favored collective security, that is, pacts of non-aggression and mutual assistance with any and all nations opposed to Nazi Germany. When this policy failed to produce results, the pact of 1939 became a reality. In this work, I concentrate on the substance and shifts in diplomatic relations between Germany and Russia between 1917 and most of 1939 until the conclusion of the Non-Aggression Pact in August, 1939. The purpose of this presentation is to analyze the tension between Marxist world revolutionary theory and Realpolitik in the USSR as well as to contribute to the “collective security” debate begun by A.J.P. Taylor and refined by Geoffrey Roberts and Robert Tucker. This work will argue that collective security was a substantive component of Soviet foreign policy until late August 1939. “The case for collective security rests on the claim that regulated, 1 institutionalized balancing predicated on the notion of all against one provides more stability than unregulated, self-help balancing predicated on the notion of each for his own. Under collective security, states agree to abide by certain norms and rules to maintain stability and, when necessary, band together to stop aggression. Stability—the absence of major war—is the product of cooperation.”1 This controversy centers on the motives of Stalin and the Soviet Foreign Office as to whether Stalin genuinely sought peace and stability in Europe or whether his entire foreign policy program was a ruse to attract Nazi Germany into a substantive alliance for the division of Europe. Central to this argument is an analysis of how this shift in political authority in central and Eastern Europe toward a powerful Soviet Union altered the diplomatic history of what could have become a formidable Nazi-Soviet alliance. Stalin, Maxim Litvinov and Viacheslav Molotov supported the idea of collective security separate from the limitations of Marxist theory. Stalin particularly understood
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Empire and English Nationalismn
    Nations and Nationalism 12 (1), 2006, 1–13. r ASEN 2006 Empire and English nationalismn KRISHAN KUMAR Department of Sociology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA Empire and nation: foes or friends? It is more than pious tribute to the great scholar whom we commemorate today that makes me begin with Ernest Gellner. For Gellner’s influential thinking on nationalism, and specifically of its modernity, is central to the question I wish to consider, the relation between nation and empire, and between imperial and national identity. For Gellner, as for many other commentators, nation and empire were and are antithetical. The great empires of the past belonged to the species of the ‘agro-literate’ society, whose central fact is that ‘almost everything in it militates against the definition of political units in terms of cultural bound- aries’ (Gellner 1983: 11; see also Gellner 1998: 14–24). Power and culture go their separate ways. The political form of empire encloses a vastly differ- entiated and internally hierarchical society in which the cosmopolitan culture of the rulers differs sharply from the myriad local cultures of the subordinate strata. Modern empires, such as the Soviet empire, continue this pattern of disjuncture between the dominant culture of the elites and the national or ethnic cultures of the constituent parts. Nationalism, argues Gellner, closes the gap. It insists that the only legitimate political unit is one in which rulers and ruled share the same culture. Its ideal is one state, one culture. Or, to put it another way, its ideal is the national or the ‘nation-state’, since it conceives of the nation essentially in terms of a shared culture linking all members.
    [Show full text]
  • UNION NOW with BRITAIN, by Clarence K. Streit. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1941
    Louisiana Law Review Volume 4 | Number 1 November 1941 UNION NOW WITH BRITAIN, by Clarence K. Streit. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1941. Pp. xv, 240. Jefferson B. Fordham Repository Citation Jefferson B. Fordham, UNION NOW WITH BRITAIN, by Clarence K. Streit. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1941. Pp. xv, 240., 4 La. L. Rev. (1941) Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev/vol4/iss1/27 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at LSU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Louisiana Law Review by an authorized editor of LSU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Book Reviews UNION Now WITH BRITAIN, by Clarence K. Streit. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1941. Pp. xv, 240. Mr. Streit developed his idea of a federal union of national states before the war broke out. In 1939 he articulated it in Union Now, wherein he proposed that initially the union should be composed of fifteen democracies, namely, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Eire, Finland, France, Holland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the Union of South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Hitler has forced a revision of this scheme by overrunning five of the eight non-Englishspeaking countries in this group and isolating the remaining three. The present volume accordingly urges United States union now with the other Englishspeaking democracies. A common language, a predominantly common racial strain, and a common legal, political and cultural heritage are cohesive ele- ments that strongly favor the present lineup over the original plan.
    [Show full text]
  • The Secret Dossier of Finnish Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim: on the Diplomatic Prelude of World War II Toomas VARRAK* Abstract Introduction
    The Secret Dossier of Finnish Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim: On the Diplomatic Prelude of World War II Toomas VARRAK* Abstract Introduction In addition to oral tradition, the knowledge The standard historical presentation and understanding of history is based on of WWII can be epitomised as a written sources. Therefore it is highly significant narrative about a clash between when research is able to introduce hitherto good and evil in which victory is unknown material that can shed new light on inveterate truths. This was the case with the rightfully won by the good. That study “Finland at the Epicentre of the Storm” standard was cast into serious doubt by Finnish historian Erkki Hautamäki. The in 2005 by Finnish historian Erkki study dealt with the diplomatic prelude to Hautamäki, whose research was based World War II, and was based on a secret dossier on documents originating from secret by Marshal C. G. E. Mannerheim. The dossier was transferred to President J. K. Paasikivi dossier S-32 of Finnish Marshal, 1 after the war, and then disappeared from Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim. The public eye. Fortunately, its main items were documents of the dossier originated either copied or a synopsis was made on the from the two different sources. First, request of the Marshal by his long-time trustee, they represented the documents of Vilho Tahvanaine. On the basis of these copies, Hautamäki was able to propose an entirely new German officials, including a personal view of the diplomatic manoeuvring which led letter by Reichsmarschall Hermann to the outbreak of WW II.
    [Show full text]
  • The Historical Legacy for Contemporary Russian Foreign Policy
    CHAPTER 1 The Historical Legacy for Contemporary Russian Foreign Policy o other country in the world is a global power simply by virtue of geogra- N phy.1 The growth of Russia from an isolated, backward East Slavic principal- ity into a continental Eurasian empire meant that Russian foreign policy had to engage with many of the world’s principal centers of power. A Russian official trying to chart the country’s foreign policy in the 18th century, for instance, would have to be concerned simultaneously about the position and actions of the Manchu Empire in China, the Persian and Ottoman Empires (and their respec- tive vassals and subordinate allies), as well as all of the Great Powers in Europe, including Austria, Prussia, France, Britain, Holland, and Sweden. This geographic reality laid the basis for a Russian tradition of a “multivector” foreign policy, with leaders, at different points, emphasizing the importance of rela- tions with different parts of the world. For instance, during the 17th century, fully half of the departments of the Posolskii Prikaz—the Ambassadors’ Office—of the Muscovite state dealt with Russia’s neighbors to the south and east; in the next cen- tury, three out of the four departments of the College of International Affairs (the successor agency in the imperial government) covered different regions of Europe.2 Russian history thus bequeaths to the current government a variety of options in terms of how to frame the country’s international orientation. To some extent, the choices open to Russia today are rooted in the legacies of past decisions.
    [Show full text]
  • Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War *
    SLIGHTLY REVISED 27.VII.2009 CHAPTER NINE CAUGHT IN A CLEFT STICK : SOVIET DIPLOMACY AND THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR * MICHAEL JABARA CARLEY The late British historian John Erickson wrote that the Spanish Civil War put the Soviet government into a cleft stick; caught between helping the Spanish Republic against a military, fascist uprising and alienating a new found, but milquetoast French ally. 1 The mutiny in Spain was directed against the recently elected centre-left coalition, the Popular Front, which included Spanish communists. It should have been normal for the Soviet Union to want to help workers and communists fighting against a right- wing, fascist mutiny. France too had just elected a Popular Front government, but the French coalition was fragile. Its most conservative element, the Radical party, was unwilling to get involved in Spain for fear of inflaming domestic political tensions or risking civil war. The British Conservative government also took a dim view of active involvement in the civil war and of Soviet intervention to support the Spanish Republicans, even if they were the legitimately elected, legal government. Most British Conservatives had a special aversion for the Soviet Union, and saw its involvement in Spain as a threat to spread communism into Western Europe. The Soviet government did not have the leisure to consider the Spanish problem outside the larger issue of its security in Europe. In January 1933 Adolf Hitler had taken power in Germany. The Soviet government immediately saw the danger even if the Soviet Union had maintained good or tolerable relations with the Weimar Republic during the 1920s.
    [Show full text]
  • Market There Is Room for Diversity. in Stalin's Utopia There Was Not. Today Hollywood Still Produces Mostly Bad Films, And
    Book Reviews market there is room for diversity. In Stalin’s utopia there was not. Today Hollywood still produces mostly bad ªlms, and a few great ones, while the Crimea is no longer in Russia. ✣✣✣ Alexander O. Chubaryan and Harold Shukman, eds., Stalin and the Soviet-Finnish War, 1939–1940. London: Frank Cass, 2002. 301 pp. $80.00. Reviewed by Valur Ingimundarson, University of Iceland This book is an English translation of the verbatim record of a high-level meeting in Moscow on 14–17 April 1940 regarding the performance of the Red Army in the So- viet-Finnish War of 1939–1940 (or the Winter War, as the Finns call it). Together with key Soviet Politburo members, such as Josif Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Kliment Voroshilov, the participants consisted of Soviet army commanders who had taken part in the campaign. The tone of the meeting was unexpectedly self-critical, and it is clear from the minutes that the Soviet ofªcials genuinely wanted to learn from mistakes made in the war. Although Stalin and his associates were not about to accept any responsibility for these mistakes, they did not gloss over the Red Army’s deªciencies in combat readiness. To be sure, the Stalin cult was not wholly absent from the meeting. As one participant put it, “Each soldier went to ªght with the great name of Comrade Stalin on his lips, the name that was the great banner of victory, in- spired heroism, and was a great example of how one should love our homeland and struggle for it” (p.
    [Show full text]
  • American‑Russian Relations in the Times of the American Civil War (1861‑1865)
    Studies into the History of Russia and Central-Eastern Europe ■ XLVIII Hanna Marczewska‑Zagdańska Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences American‑Russian relations in the times of the American Civil War (1861‑1865) Outline: The 1860s were marked by an exceptional affection and friendship in the bilateral relations between the United States, a young American republic, and the long‑established tsarist Russia. This phenomenon, which had never occurred with such intensity before or since, inspired Russian and American researchers and politicians to organize The Tsar and the President: Alexander II and Abraham Lincoln, Liberator and Emancipator exhibition which was displayed, inter alia, in Moscow in 2011. The following article analyses (on the basis of numerous source materials from the period) the reasons of this mutual amity and trust, as well as their military and eco‑ nomic cooperation—both internal (the Civil War in the U.S., the January Uprising in the Russian Empire), and external (the rivalry with Great Britain and France, and political calculations in the search for suitable alliances)—in the period of world power rivalry for global spheres of influence. Keywords: President Lincoln, Tsar Aleksander II, US Civil War, Russian Empire, Polish Insurrection of 1863, Russian Fleet, United States – Foreign Relations – Russia, Russia – Foreign Relations – United States, 19th Century Diplomatic History. On February 22, 2011, the seat of the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow saw the unveiling of an exhibition under the surprising and intriguing title “The Tsar and the President: Alexander II and Abraham Lincoln, Liberator and Emancipator”. Conceived on the initiative of the American‑Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation and already displayed in the United States in 2008‑2009, the exhibition attracted a large number of visitors and enthusiasts.
    [Show full text]
  • The Buildup of the German War Economy: the Importance of the Nazi-Soviet Economic Agreements of 1939 and 1940 by Samantha Carl I
    The Buildup of the German War Economy: The Importance of the Nazi-Soviet Economic Agreements of 1939 and 1940 By Samantha Carl INTRODUCTION German-Soviet relations in the early half of the twentieth century have been marked by periods of rapprochement followed by increasing tensions. After World War I, where the nations fought on opposite sides, Germany and the Soviet Union focused on their respective domestic problems and tensions began to ease. During the 1920s, Germany and the Soviet Union moved toward normal relations with the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.(1) Tensions were once again apparent after 1933, when Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany. Using propaganda and anti-Bolshevik rhetoric, Hitler depicted the Soviet Union as Germany's true enemy.(2) Despite the animosity between the two nations, the benefits of trade enabled them to maintain economic relations throughout the inter-war period. It was this very relationship that paved the way for the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 and the subsequent outbreak of World War II. Nazi-Soviet relations on the eve of the war were vital to the war movement of each respective nation. In essence, the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact on August 23, 1939 allowed Germany to augment its war effort while diminishing the Soviet fear of a German invasion.(3) The betterment of relations was a carefully planned program in which Hitler sought to achieve two important goals. First, he sought to prevent a two-front war from developing upon the invasion of Poland. Second, he sought to gain valuable raw materials that were necessary for the war movement.(4) The only way to meet these goals was to pursue the completion of two pacts with the Soviet Union: an economic agreement as well as a political one.
    [Show full text]
  • Ukraine in World War II
    Ukraine in World War II. — Kyiv, Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, 2015. — 28 p., ill. Ukrainians in the World War II. Facts, figures, persons. A complex pattern of world confrontation in our land and Ukrainians on the all fronts of the global conflict. Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance Address: 16, Lypska str., Kyiv, 01021, Ukraine. Phone: +38 (044) 253-15-63 Fax: +38 (044) 254-05-85 Е-mail: [email protected] www.memory.gov.ua Printed by ПП «Друк щоденно» 251 Zelena str. Lviv Order N30-04-2015/2в 30.04.2015 © UINR, texts and design, 2015. UKRAINIAN INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL REMEMBRANCE www.memory.gov.ua UKRAINE IN WORLD WAR II Reference book The 70th anniversary of victory over Nazism in World War II Kyiv, 2015 Victims and heroes VICTIMS AND HEROES Ukrainians – the Heroes of Second World War During the Second World War, Ukraine lost more people than the combined losses Ivan Kozhedub Peter Dmytruk Nicholas Oresko of Great Britain, Canada, Poland, the USA and France. The total Ukrainian losses during the war is an estimated 8-10 million lives. The number of Ukrainian victims Soviet fighter pilot. The most Canadian military pilot. Master Sergeant U.S. Army. effective Allied ace. Had 64 air He was shot down and For a daring attack on the can be compared to the modern population of Austria. victories. Awarded the Hero joined the French enemy’s fortified position of the Soviet Union three Resistance. Saved civilians in Germany, he was awarded times. from German repression. the highest American The Ukrainians in the Transcarpathia were the first during the interwar period, who Awarded the Cross of War.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bolshevil{S and the Chinese Revolution 1919-1927 Chinese Worlds
    The Bolshevil{s and the Chinese Revolution 1919-1927 Chinese Worlds Chinese Worlds publishes high-quality scholarship, research monographs, and source collections on Chinese history and society from 1900 into the next century. "Worlds" signals the ethnic, cultural, and political multiformity and regional diversity of China, the cycles of unity and division through which China's modern history has passed, and recent research trends toward regional studies and local issues. It also signals that Chineseness is not contained within territorial borders ­ overseas Chinese communities in all countries and regions are also "Chinese worlds". The editors see them as part of a political, economic, social, and cultural continuum that spans the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, South­ East Asia, and the world. The focus of Chinese Worlds is on modern politics and society and history. It includes both history in its broader sweep and specialist monographs on Chinese politics, anthropology, political economy, sociology, education, and the social­ science aspects of culture and religions. The Literary Field of New Fourth Artny Twentieth-Century China Communist Resistance along the Edited by Michel Hockx Yangtze and the Huai, 1938-1941 Gregor Benton Chinese Business in Malaysia Accumulation, Ascendance, A Road is Made Accommodation Communism in Shanghai 1920-1927 Edmund Terence Gomez Steve Smith Internal and International Migration The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Chinese Perspectives Revolution 1919-1927 Edited by Frank N Pieke and Hein Mallee
    [Show full text]
  • CF-130--Chapter 13
    166 13. On the Future of the “Post-Soviet Region” Dmitrii E. Furman* Contradictory trends and events appearing after the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union five years ago present analysts with a weighty challenge in attempting to anticipate the political future of the former Soviet region. Will the new states solidify their independent status, or will they tend towards convergence, cooperation, and even reunification? The decision of Russia’s State Duma to denounce the Belovezhsky Agreements and make new agreements on the “extended integration” of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus strongly contrasts with the Russian president’s assignment of nearly independent status to Chechnya.1 These apparently contradictory actions demonstrate the indefinite political borders and instability of the post-Soviet region. Neither in Russia, nor in the other countries of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), is there yet a sense of “naturalness” or stability in the present political situation. In almost every republic, separatist movements, and some self-proclaimed (i.e., “illegal”) states have emerged. Meanwhile, all manner of integrationist ideas and initiatives are proposed simultaneously. It could take decades for the region to assume a stable form, and there is no guarantee that by then all of the present states will still exist. In 1989–1991, anti-Soviet feelings were on the rise. Politicians, publicists, and scholars strove to harness these feelings and express them in compelling terms. At that time, while various “anti-imperial” thoughts and phrases filled newspapers and magazines, nobody was concerned with consistency or logic. The idea of sovereignty for the republics was presented side by side with the idea of ethnic minorities’ rights to independence from Russia.
    [Show full text]
  • The Polish "Sickness" and Franco-Soviet Relations, 1934-1939
    THE POLISH "SICKNESS" AND FRANCO-SOVIET RELATIONS, 1934-1939 Shawnessy Yevonne Johnson B.A. Honours, Carleton University, 1995 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of History O Shawnessy Yevonne Johnson 1997 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY October 1997 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or by other means, without permission of the author. National Library Biblloth&que nationale 191 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acqutsitiomt Bibliographic Services se~ces+bliographiques The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive pennettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distnbute or sell reproduire, priter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/filrn, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains ownerstup of the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis, ~eithirthe droit d'auteur qui protege cette thtse. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent itre imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorkation. APPROVAL Name: Shawnessy Yevonne Johnson L Degree: Master of Arts (History) Title of Thesis: The Polish "Sickness" and Franco-Soviet Relations, 1934-1939 Examining Committee: Chair: Dr. Ian Dyck Dr. ~icdard&, Debb Se ior Supervisor &ed& of History ~r=tin Kitchen Professor of History pr.
    [Show full text]