IB History Consolidation and Maintenance: Stalin's Foreign Policy Notes

Foreign policy

Stalin’s Strategic Concerns in the 1930s: Fears of War and Isolation

1. USSR economically weak, lagging in industrialization vs. West
2. Rise of Fascism (Mussolini) and Nazism (Hitler) posed anti-communist threats
3. Japan’s aggression in Asia raised risk of a two-front war
4. 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact (Germany & Italy) explicitly targeted communism
5. Stalin saw need for military rearmament and diplomatic alliances
6. Domestic purges and foreign policy moves framed as responses to encirclement and hostility

The Spanish Civil War as a Test of Stalin’s Foreign Policy Strategy

1. Popular Front government appealed for help after fascist coup
2. Stalin hesitated, fearing provocation of Hitler and alienation of Britain/France
3. Faced pressure as sole communist leader in Europe
4. Intervention was limited but symbolic: fuel, tanks, aircraft, advisors
5. Support helped Republicans but was outmatched by Hitler and Mussolini’s backing of Franco

The “Moscow Gold” (1936)

1. Spain sent 510 tons of gold (world’s 4th largest reserve, worth ~$518m) to Moscow as payment for aid
2. Publicly presented as support, but effectively a transaction
3. Beevor: USSR inflated costs, charging ~$661m for its assistance
4. Created perception that the USSR profited from war, not acting ideologically
5. Loss of gold crippled Spain’s wartime finances and strained Soviet-Republican trust

The International Brigades and Soviet Influence

1. 32,000–35,000 volunteers from 50+ countries, organized by the Comintern
2. Symbol of international anti-fascist solidarity
3. Many were poorly trained and lacked combat experience
4. Travel arranged clandestinely via Paris and the Pyrenees due to intervention bans
5. Brigades used as tools of Soviet control, with loyalty to Stalin enforced
6. Trotskyists and dissenters purged within the ranks
7. Beevor: Spanish experience deepened Stalin’s paranoia and brutality, linking foreign intervention to domestic repression

The Failure of Collective Security

1. Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s initially sought collective security through alliances with Britain and France, spearheaded by Commissar Maxim Litvinov.
2. The USSR joined the League of Nations in 1934 and endorsed Popular Front strategies, but Western democracies remained reluctant to fully cooperate.
3. By 1939, Stalin's distrust of Britain and France had reached a peak, shaped by Western appeasement during the 1938 Munich Crisis, which excluded the USSR despite its alliance with Czechoslovakia.
4. Stalin interpreted this as a betrayal and a sign that Western democracies might prefer a Nazi-Soviet war.
5. Simultaneously, Stalin dismissed his pro-Western foreign minister, Maxim Litvinov, replacing him with Vyacheslav Molotov, a figure more open to negotiations with fascist regimes.

Nazi Soviet Pact