The Genealogy of Soviet Foreign Policy

From the world-revolution diplomacy of 1917, when the commissar promised to issue a few proclamations and shut up shop, to the Sinatra Doctrine of 1989: a century of Soviet foreign policy in four parallel lines - the succession of foreign ministers, the official lines and doctrines, the politics of revolution and bloc, and the turning points of treaties and crises. Click a node to open the person, term, event or document.

1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 Foreign ministers Lines & doctrines Revolution & bloc Turning points I shall issue a few revolutionary proclamations to the peoples and then shut up shop: if world revolution was imminent, diplomacy was a stopgapTrotsky:thecommissarwhodeclareddiplomacyover1917–1918 Secret treaties published and renounced, peace without annexations or indemnities: the true addressee was peoples, not statesThediplomacyof worldrevolution1917–1921 The revolutionary state's first peace, signed to survive: reality's first amendment to waiting for world revolutionThe TreatyofBrest-Litovsk1918.03 An erudite of noble birth who laid the groundwork of working diplomacy, returning the revolutionary state to the international systemChicherin:architectof Rapallo1918–1930 While the commissariat negotiated with states, the Comintern backed their overthrow: the dual structure of Soviet foreign policy begins hereTheCominternfounded:twodiplomacies1919 As revolution was delayed, trade treaties and concessions made coexistence with the capitalist world a working practice, later cited as precedent for peaceful coexistenceCoexistencein embryo:thediplomacyof thebreathingspace1921– The two outcasts of Versailles, Soviet Russia and Germany, establish relations: the first breach in isolationRapallo:theoutcastsshake hands1922.04 With the Soviet state's preservation put before revolution's spread, diplomacy moved from revolution's auxiliary to the centre of state policySocialismin onecountry:thediplomacyof stateinterest1924– Peace is indivisible: he led entry into the League (1934) and anti-fascist alignment, the Soviet most trusted in the WestLitvinov:the face ofcollectivesecurity1930–1939 Against Nazi Germany, containment through alliance with the Western democracies; Munich destroyed its credibilityThecollectivesecurityline1933–1939 Abandoning the social-fascism line for anti-fascist alliance: a sign of bloc politics subordinated to state diplomacyTheComintern's7thCongress:the popularfront1935 Installed with Litvinov's dismissal, he signed the pact with Germany; the name of Soviet diplomacy in war and early Cold WarMolotov:the ironnyet1939–1949 · 1953–1956 A bargain built on collective security's bankruptcy; its secret partition of Eastern Europe became, half a century on, the Baltic movements' legal caseTheNazi-Sovietpact andits secretprotocols1939.08 The headquarters of world revolution closed by its own hand for the Allied alliance: state diplomacy's complete primacy on displayTheCominterndissolved1943 Victory brought half of Europe as a sphere and a permanent Security Council seat: the asset and burden of the next half-centuryYalta andPotsdam: asuperpoweris born1945 The early Cold War's official world-picture: an imperialist camp against an anti-imperialist campThetwo-campsdoctrine(Zhdanov)1947–1953 The bloc's answer to the Marshall Plan; among its first official acts was the excommunication of TitoTheCominform:discipliningthe bloc1947–1956 The first proof that a socialist state could refuse Moscow's leadership and surviveTheTito-Stalinsplit: thebloc'sfirst crack1948 The prosecutor of the purge trials took over the UN rostrum's Cold War rhetoric: diplomacy in the image of the courtroom summationVyshinsky:theprosecutoras foreignminister1949–1953 A military alliance answering West Germany's NATO entry; the bloc's bond, and in Hungary and Czechoslovakia its instrument of disciplineThe WarsawPact1955 The 20th Congress discarded the thesis of inevitable war, though coexistence kept its rider: a form of class strugglePeacefulcoexistence:war is notfatallyinevitable1956–1985 The professional of crisis management and arms control; his tenure was Soviet diplomacy's continuity itselfGromyko:twenty-eightyears of MrNyet1957–1985 The break with a China that damned coexistence as revisionism ended the single centre of world communismTheSino-Sovietsplit: thebloc breaksin two1956–1969 Thirteen days at the nuclear threshold, opening the road to the hotline, arms control and detenteThe Cubanmissilecrisis1962.10 The official logic that justified crushing the Prague Spring: the camp's interest stands above any member's sovereigntyTheBrezhnevDoctrine:limitedsovereignty1968–1989 Postwar borders recognised at the price of human rights clauses; that third basket became the lever of East European dissentTheHelsinkiFinal Act:detente'ssummit1975.08 The doctrine applied beyond the bloc bought a ten-year war of attrition, a second Cold War and isolationTheinvasion ofAfghanistan:detente'sbankruptcy1979.12 The appointment of a Georgian party boss with no diplomatic experience was itself the declaration of a new lineShevardnadze:theministerwho managedthe retreat1985–1990 In the nuclear age human survival outranks any class interest: the class-struggle rider on coexistence erasedThe NewThinking:from classstruggle touniversalvalues1985–1991 The summa of the New Thinking, declaring freedom of choice a principle without exceptions; read the full translationThe UNaddress:500,000troops cut1988.12 The first real nuclear cuts, the Afghan withdrawal, and the Cold War's end confirmed at MaltaFrom theINF Treatyto Malta:the ColdWar ends1987–1989 Named from spokesman Gerasimov's joke: Eastern Europe would do it my way - the Brezhnev Doctrine's official burialThe SinatraDoctrine:my way1989 The Soviet army stayed in barracks and the bloc vanished in months; the Warsaw Pact formally dissolved in 1991Therevolutionsof 1989:the blocdissolves1989
succession · split · merger influence antagonism suppression