Sabine Dullin.  Des hommes d'influences.  Les ambassadeurs de Staline en Europe, 1930-1939.  Paris: Payot, 2001.  383 pp. 22.11 €.

 Historical debate over Soviet foreign policy during the inter-war years goes on and on without resolution.  It has long been driven, and to some degree still is, by imperatives of the Cold War.  A. J. P. Taylor, the great British historian of the mid-20^th century, commented in 1981 that detached study of Soviet foreign policy was unlikely in his lifetime.  "Most of my historical colleagues," he said, "are so corrupted and blinded by their obsession with the Cold War that it is quite impossible for them to see clearly or to speak honestly about Soviet policies."  And he said the same was true of their Soviet counterparts.1  But the Cold War is over, or at least appears to be over for now.  Hence, we should be able to get to the bottom of those questions that divided Taylor's generation and still divide the present cohort of historians concerned with Soviet foreign policy.

Colleagues who know the work of French historian Sabine Dullin have anticipated that she might at last resolve the main issues because of her impressive research in Soviet archives.  Did Soviet diplomats pursue constructive policies aimed at trade and political accommodation with western capitalism?  Did they really believe in "collective security" against Nazi Germany during the 1930s?  Did the Soviet government want an anti-Nazi tripartite alliance with France and Britain in 1939?  Or, was it all a front for the conniving red dictator I. V. Stalin, who preferred an "alliance" with the fascist dictator Hitler?  Was Stalin a pragmatist, or did he conspire to spread world revolution?  And who was Maksim M. Litvinov, the Soviet commissar for foreign affairs during the 1930s: was he a "tool" of Stalin, as the late Adam Ulam called him, or was he "a Russian Talleyrand", as European contemporaries saw him, fighting for the immutable interests of the Russian state?2

Thus it should be with great anticipation that readers open Dullin's book, moving from chapter to chapter, looking for the answers to longstanding issues.  They will discover an institutional study of Soviet foreign policy rather than a narrative of the 1930s.  Dullin wants to know how the Narkomindel (the commissariat for foreign affairs) worked, and how it related to other Soviet government agencies, the Politburo, and to Stalin himself.  Who made foreign policy?  Was it as it seemed to be?

At the beginning of the 1930s the Narkomindel functioned much as any government ministry might function, fighting for the policies it thought best served the interests of the Soviet state.  One of its main competitors was the Commissariat for External Trade which wanted to trade in the west, based on the lowest price and best terms of credit, exclusive of political issues.  The Narkomindel, and Litvinov in particular, saw trade as an instrument of foreign policy: it was the foundation of good or at least tolerable political relations.  In the mid-1930s the Soviet government debated over whether to continue to trade with Nazi Germany because it was where the best business could be done, or with France where the Soviet Union had negotiated a mutual assistance pact in 1935 and wanted to reinforce it.

This internal debate was nothing new.  It had always been Soviet policy to trade with anyone or any state as long as the contract was advantageous.  In an unfriendly world surrounded by hostile states, Soviet policy could not be any other way.  Ideology did not matter because it could not matter, for otherwise Soviet Russia could never break down its isolation.  Although the Soviet Union did not want integration with the western world in the 1920s; it did seek to trade and to establish at least correct relations.  "Accept us as we are," said Soviet diplomats, "and we will accept you as you are."

These policies continued into the 1930s, but were complicated by Hitler's rise to power.  Soviet-German relations quickly deteriorated.  Trade continued, but the Soviet government turned to France and Britain in hopes of forming an anti-Nazi coalition of states.  Litvinov, no "tool" as it turns out, Pace Ulam, was the architect of this policy, which was supported by Stalin and his Politburo.  Litvinov was not always unopposed in his pursuits, but he was good at bureaucratic manoeuvre, and if at first he did not succeed, he would come back again until he obtained what he wanted.  And he had some successes to build his credibility.  The Soviet Union entered the League of Nations in 1934, and Franco-Soviet and Anglo-Soviet relations improved in the mid-1930s.

But as soon as the relationships with France and Britain were tested, they failed.  In 1935-1936 the French and British governments backed away from improving relations.  In 1936 the Rhineland Crisis (March), the victory of the Popular Front in France (May), and the outbreak of the Spanish civil war (July) all damaged Anglo-Franco-Soviet relations.  It became harder going.  As Dullin notes, Litvinov had to fight against the increasing scepticism of his colleagues about British and French determination to oppose Hitler.  Litvinov's credibility at home decreased in direct proportion to the increasing strength of Anglo-French appeasement of Nazi Germany. 

The Stalinist purges (1936-1938) only made matters worse.  One did not know who would be next, and yet potential victims had to carry on with their jobs, hoping to escape.  Many did not: Litvinov's closest colleagues and friends were victims.  The heretofore close-knit team of Soviet diplomats was broken up, observes Dullin.  The ability of the Narkomindel to propose policy to the government was impaired, until 1939 when foreign policy was made by Stalin alone, and the Narkomindel became merely a policy executor.

All of these ideas Dullin lays out with evidence from Soviet archives.  Her research is deep, her approach interesting, her evidence illuminating.  But those readers looking for resolution of nagging questions about Stalin's personal foreign policy may be disappointed.  And the conspiracy theorists looking for proof that Stalin sought to deceive the west with collective security while he negotiated with Hitler and planned world revolution, will be the most disappointed of all.

If this book is fascinating to read, it is also perplexing.  Dullin's evidence demonstrates that the Soviet government did support collective security and did seek closer relations with France and Britain.  It was only the weak Anglo-French response to the Nazi menace, which broke up the foreign policy consensus in Moscow (in 1936) and led to Litvinov's declining influence and ultimately to his dismissal in May 1939.  And yet Dullin still holds unpersuasively to the idea that Stalin and members of his inner circle preferred a German option, the "normalization" of German-Soviet relations (e.g., p. 172).  For this line of argument, contrary to the other, she can find no new evidence--not one directive, letter, or telegram, not one--for all her prodigious research in Moscow archives.  Thus, the author is obliged to say that "it is probable" or this is "probably" what happened (pp. 172, 313), or to use other forms of conditional language.

            For example, at the end of 1936 the Soviet government agreed to investigate the possibility of better economic and political relations with Germany, not coincidently, at the same time the French and British governments were pursuing similar explorations.  The main Soviet interlocutor was D. V. Kandelaki, a Soviet trade representative in Berlin.  In 1994 Geoffrey Roberts wrote an important article on the "Kandelaki Affair" in which he made use of the same key document produced by Dullin, a draft of instructions for Kandelaki authorizing negotiations in Berlin.3  Roberts concluded that this was a mere trial balloon quickly burst by the Germans, which was not further pursued.  Dullin, without any new evidence to add, sees the same document as proof of a major Soviet initiative and for the German direction in Soviet policy (pp. 172-73).  This was at the same time that Stalin decided to support the Spanish Republican government against the Franco rebellion, backed by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy (pp. 164-65).

            A related issue is that of Franco-Soviet staff talks to strengthen the 1935 mutual assistance pact.  In 1936 Soviet representatives pressed the French for staff discussions, which the French government repeatedly rejected.  Dullin in her examination of this issue scarcely mentions French disinterest and duplicity; instead, she stresses a lack of enthusiasm from certain "leading comrades" for military contacts at the end of 1936.  Did these "leading comrades" lack enthusiasm because they preferred the German option (even as they planned to support Republican Spain); because they did not want to undermine the Kandelaki démarche; because they did not trust the French; or because they knew the French general staff was hostile to contacts?  Dullin does not know, and the evidence does not yet provide the answers.  But preliminary Franco-Soviet military contacts did take place in the first months of 1937.  In February 1937 the Soviet ambassador in Paris, V. P. Potemkin, read to Léon Blum, the French premier, a letter from Stalin warmly supporting a Franco-Soviet "military alliance".4  And Dullin notes Soviet subsidies (or "allowances") to the French press (end of 1936-beginning of 1937) to "push the French government into entering military negotiations with the USSR" (p. 214).  Did Stalin's right arm not know what his left was doing?  Did Potemkin invent the letter which he read to Blum in February?  Was it wrongly reported in the French record?  It does not seem likely.

            In September 1938 the Munich crisis erupted.  Controversy still swirls around what the Soviet government was willing to do to support Czechoslovakia, though there is no controversy about what the French and British intended to do.  They intended to do nothing.  Unfortunately, Dullin addresses this subject only in passing, misinterpreting Litvinov's private and public statements to the effect that if France honoured its commitments to defend Czechoslovakia against Nazi aggression, the Soviet Union would do the same.  And yet she reports that on 21 September the Soviet ambassador in Prague, S. S. Aleksandrovskii, conveyed this very message to the Czechoslovak government.  Was this a Stalinist ruse?  Did the Soviet government really mean what it said?  Apparently it did, for on the previous day, the Politburo approved the statement given to the Czech government by Aleksandrovskii.5 Dullin does not report the Politburo decision, which she may have failed to uncover (through no fault of her own, given the partial opening of Soviet archives).  But would the Politburo have acted on so important an issue without Stalin's approval?  In 1938 it would have been unthinkable.

The Politburo decision was taken the day before the Czechoslovak capitulation to Hitler's demands for the cession of the Sudetenland (on 21 September).  One might argue that the Politburo knew that Britain and France were going to capitulate anyway, and thus it did not matter what they promised, if contingent on French respect for their treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia.  But at the time no one knew what was going to happen next, and there was every chance that the situation could spin out of control.  What appears remarkable in view of Soviet cynicism over Anglo-French weakness toward Nazi Germany, is that the Soviet Union stayed in the game so long.6  So where does this leave the Stalin conspiracy theorists?  "Without evidence" is the only plausible reply.

Dullin scarcely deals with the Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations in 1939.  She focuses on the sacking of Litvinov on 3 May and concludes that the evidence "appears" to support the "traditional" view that this was a Soviet sign of interest in negotiations with Hitler (p. 302).  But again she provides no new evidence and little old evidence to support her position.  The sacking of Litvinov, she says, was the culmination of a long-term process of concentration of power in Stalin's hands.  Litvinov was too independent-minded, and not "loyal' enough to keep his job.  This was also contemporary speculation.

Dullin says that the immediate circumstances of Litvinov's sacking related to a row at a meeting in the Kremlin on 21 April between Litvinov, I. M. Maiskii, the Soviet ambassador in London, V. M. Molotov, and Stalin over a perceived diplomatic gaff by Maiskii in Helsinki on his way to Moscow (pp. 317-18).  Dullin's source for this information indicates that the subject of the meeting was not Finland, but rather the negotiations with France and Britain for an anti-Nazi alliance.  And here may have been the short-term reason for Litvinov's sacking.  On 17 April he had, with Stalin's assent, offered a formal political and military alliance to France and Britain.  The British and French governments rejected the Soviet proposals: the British contemptuously; the French, more politely.  But Litvinov was still willing to negotiate and to offer concessions, and this may have been the camel breaking straw for Stalin, who brought in Molotov, his right arm, to carry on the negotiations.  There had been enough coddling of Britain and France.

Dullin neglects to mention Molotov's immediate assurances to the French and British and other countries (in May) that Soviet policy had not changed as a result of Litvinov's dismissal, nor does she devote much attention to the extensive negotiations conducted by Molotov on Litvinov's proposals which continued until August.  She also gives short shrift to the Soviet-German discussions leading up to the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact in August 1939.  She quotes a few lines from the Soviet chargé d'affaires in Berlin--who had only the authority to convey information--to support the "traditional" position and she pays little attention to the large body of evidence at her disposal, which undermines it.  All this gives the impression of an author impatient to complete her book, for she deals with the important years 1938-1939 far too hastily.  The main focus of the author's work is on 1930-1937 with excursions into the later period.

            Whatever the lacunae, Dullin has produced a fascinating look at Soviet foreign policy-making in the 1930s.  Those readers hoping for the answers to eternal questions will not find them, but they will find a wealth of information uncovered in Soviet archives indispensable to understanding the role of the Soviet Union in the lead-up to the Second World War.

Michael Jabara Carley                                                                        University of Akron

Endnotes

1 A. J. P. Taylor, 1939 Revisited  (London, 1981), p. 11.

2 Adam Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1967  (New York, 1967), p. 144; and A. M. Kollontai, Diplomaticheskie dnevniki, 1922-1940, 2 vols. (Moscow, 2001), II, p. 435.

3  Geoffrey Roberts, "A Soviet Bid for Coexistence with Nazi Germany, 1935-1937: The Kandelaki Affair," International History Review, vol. XVI, no. 3 (August 1994), pp. 466-490.

4 Journal of General Victor-Henri Schweisguth, Papiers Schweisguth, 351 AP/3, Paris, Archives nationales.

5 G. Adibekov, et al. (eds.), Politbiuro TsK RKP(b)-VKP(b), Evropa: Resheniia "osoboi papka", 1923-1939 (Moscow, 2001), p. 363.

6 Zara Steiner, "The Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and the Czechoslovakian Crisis in 1938: New Material from the Soviet Archives," Historical Journal, vol. 42, no. 3 (1999), pp. 751-79.

7 Z. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov: revoliustioner, diplomat, chelovek  (Moscow, 1989), p. 362.  The English translation of Litvinov is missing the key sentence: "Discussed was the question of negotiations with the English and French" (cf., Moscow, 1990, p. 294).