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 End of collective security Via Molotov's return Diplomacy of new thinking Through the pact and the war The break over peaceful coexistence The bloc dissolves Survival first Coexistence put to the test Into détente The lesson of Afghanistan 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