Historians do not write much about Western-Soviet relations in the 1920s; it was a dead period after the Russian Revolution and the Allied intervention in the Russian civil war.[1] And yet the first great crises of relations between France and Britain and the Soviet Union took place in the 1920s.[2] One usually thinks of this period as the 'Roaring Twenties', a time of prosperity, flappers, jazz and beautiful people. In international politics, it was a period of growing stability and reconciliation between France and Germany. The Locarno security accords, concluded in the autumn of 1925 by Britain, France and Germany, seemed to ensure the peace of Europe. Austen Chamberlain, Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann, the signatories of the accords, epitomised the 'spirit of Locarno', cooperation between old enemies. They represented the essence of European elegance, and they appeared to be working to create a peaceful, prosperous Europe. So powerful were the images surrounding these men that the three 'companions' won the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1926.

The brilliant images of Locarno covered grimmer stuff and harder realities. Memories of the millions of dead and wounded and the devastation of World War I lay just below the glittering surface. Although Stresemann, the German foreign minister, signed the Locarno accords, it was not to accept the outcome of the war but to reverse it and to restore Germany's power and place in Europe. France, though victorious, had suffered grievous loss of life and destruction of its most productive industrial areas. The foundations of French victory were weak. France was dependent on former British and American allies who did not share the French view of how European security should be organised. And France's most important pre-war ally, Russia, was gone and did not have a place at Locarno.

Revolution had come to Russia in 1917--shattering and destructive--and near-revolution soon followed in the rest of Europe. Bolsheviks, pre-war fringe socialists, governed in Moscow and Petrograd, and they proclaimed their intention to make a world socialist revolution. The new Soviet government annulled the Russian state debt, nationalised banks and industries, and withdrew from the war against Germany. These actions appalled the French and Allied governments who struck back by blockading Soviet Russia, supporting the internal anti-Bolshevik opposition, and sending troops to overthrow Soviet authority.

The governing elites of Europe and North America shuddered at the prospect of Bolshevik revolution in Europe and sought to eradicate it in Russia before the red 'bacillus' could spread. Until the war ended, Allied hands were tied, but once victory had been achieved, the French and British set their sights on the destruction of Russian Bolshevism. 'The Bolshevik question has ceased to be solely a Russian matter; it is an international problem', said the French foreign minister in November 1918. 'All our information ... indicates that the Soviet government intends to impose its doctrines and its methods on other nations and to establish everywhere a regime of anarchy, murder, and pillage ...'. It was a struggle of civilisation against barbarism and all free nations had to join in.[3] Strong language for diplomatic correspondence, but it indicated the deep fear and loathing which underlay French and Western attitudes toward Soviet Russia. In the spring of 1918 the Quai d'Orsay, the French foreign ministry, had snuffed out the foolish idea of cooperating with the Bolsheviks against the still dangerous German army. It tried to cut off Soviet access to foreign exchange to stop the spread of subversive propaganda in Europe. In October 1918 the French government rejected Soviet peace overtures and then in December sent troops to southern Russia to drive out the Bolsheviks. The generals were willing, but their troops were not. In a spectacular gesture of defiance sailors of the French Black Sea fleet, some 10 000 men, mutinied, refusing to fight the Bolsheviks.[4]

France withdrew from southern Russia, but this was not the end of the struggle. The French government resorted to a containment strategy, the cordon sanitaire, to build up a ring of anti-Bolshevik states on Russia's western frontier. In 1920 France condoned a Polish offensive in Belorussia and the Ukraine to throw back Russia's western frontiers and to destabilise the Soviet government in Moscow. Polish Marshal Jozef Pitsudski sent intermediaries to Paris to ask French premier, later president, Alexandre Millerand to turn a blind eye to a spring offensive against the Red Army. Poland counted on French arms support, and Millerand did not disappoint.[5] Pitsudski's offensive failed disastrously and led to a Red Army counter-offensive which in turn failed calamitously before Warsaw in August 1920. Polish survival was a near-run thing, but the French government still conjured up faint hopes of reversing Soviet power. The end came during the anti-Bolshevik rebellion at the Soviet fortress of Kronstadt in March 1921. The Quai d'Orsay connived with the British Foreign Office to re-supply the Kronstadt insurgents with victuals and medicines. Too little, too late, the Red Army soon crushed the rebellion.[6]

It was dangerous to fight the Bolsheviks openly, and the foreign intervention and civil war in Russia guttered out in 1921 after millions had died and the country had been ruined. There was little choice but to co-exist with Soviet Russia, though it was not so easy when Bolshevism was infectious and the Soviet government had erased billions in French pre-war investments. Already in 1920 pressure mounted for a resumption of trade with Russia. In an irony worth noting, a mined Soviet Russia needed to buy and borrow from Western capitalists in order to rebuild. Some French merchants wanted the business and lobbied the French government to lift the maritime blockade. They feared being left behind by American, British and German competitors.[7] In March 1920 Maksim M. Litvinov, deputy commissar for foreign affairs, told a French intermediary that the Soviet government wanted trade relations and would 'pay its debts' when war with Poland had ended. Just as importantly, Litvinov stressed that France, unlike Britain, should have an interest in a strong Russian state.[8]

The French government rejected Litvinov's plea for negotiations. But in 1921-22 circumstances changed. Soviet trade prospects became more attractive with the setting up of the New Economic Policy, or NEP, which allowed private initiative in a socialist economy. And Soviet officials noticed that business opposition to trade relations was breaking down. More than that, Soviet Russia appeared to some foreign businessmen like the new Eldorado. A 'gold mine', noted the French paper L'Information: 'Are we going to be the only ones to miss out?' In Berlin the Soviet polpredstvo, or embassy, observed that the centre Radical party was beginning to agitate for an end to the cordon sanitaire. But France faced a dilemma. We don't want to recognise the Soviet government, said Briand, then premier, but we would not mind trading with Russia.

The Soviet government also faced a dilemma. It wanted better economic and political relations with France, but recognised that being in a hurry would be self-defeating, for the French would play harder to get. The Soviet solution was a policy of Ermattungsstrategie, of wearing the French down and of isolating and ignoring them.[9] Gold will not jingle less in French pockets than in those of your competitors, observed Soviet commissar for foreign trade, Leonid B. Krasin, maliciously. French officials recognised the strategy: Get businessmen 'to bite' at attractive contract offers, but link them to the establishment of diplomatic relations. This was a dupe's game, thought the French government; and it was not going to play.[10]

Edouard Herriot, leader of the Radical party, and his lieutenant, Edouard Daladier, visited Soviet Russia in September-October 1922 in a much publicised trip.[11] Herriot was one of the first and most important proponents of a Franco-Soviet rapprochement--a position to which he held fast throughout the inter-war years, unlike the younger Daladier, who was premier and war minister in the 1930s and often opposed a Franco-Soviet alliance against Nazi Germany.

Soviet officials welcomed Herriot. He met at length with G. V. Chicherin, commissar for foreign affairs, external trade commissar Krasin, and various other commissars and officials from Narkomindel, the commissariat for foreign affairs. Herriot was blunt in his talks with Soviet officials:

The position of France is lamentable. As a result of the war, we find ourselves cheated on all sides. What a paradox--our country is portrayed as implacable and predatory at a time when it has demonstrated in reality the maximum moderation. England on two accounts twisted Germany's neck: it seized its [Germany's] colonies and seized and sank [sic] its fleet and is now content. Then it straightened its jacket and smiled ... And France, France was returned Alsace-Lorraine, it exploits the Saar coal mines, and only wants to be paid for the ruins created by the war ... [France] was too magnanimous to its enemy. The price of this magnanimity is that we are hated by everyone and Germany does not pay us. The reparations question will be resolved very simply. It will have two stages. First stage: Germany is too weak and cannot pay; second phase: Germany is too strong and will not pay. I am absolutely persuaded that in fifteen years Germany will fall upon us again.[12]

Herriot's premonition of danger, off only by a little, interested Soviet officials less than did trade and credit. In another familiar refrain heard during the interwar years--whenever a Franco-Soviet rapprochement was broached--deputy commissar Lev M. Karakhan observed that France and Soviet Russia had no opposing foreign policy interests and ought to improve relations. Herriot and Daladier agreed, but noted two obstacles in the way: the Soviet repudiation of tsarist bonds and the absence of rights to private property. Karakhan thought solutions could be found, and, in what became another familiar refrain, he noted that if the Soviet government was to satisfy French claims, it would require credits in exchange.[13] Security, debts and credits were recurring issues and insoluble problems. On his return to France Herriot wrote to Chicherin, marking his determination to bring about an improvement in Franco-Soviet relations.[14] Herriot also reported to the premier, Raymond Poincare, and to President Millerand, asking for a reconsideration of French policy toward Soviet Russia. Let's drop the 'political theories', the anti-communism, which served no French political or economic interest.[15]

The Soviet government was willing to offer encouragement, modifying its policy of Ermattungsstrategie in 1922 to send to Pards a trade representative, Matvei I. Skobelev, to facilitate trade relations. To this arrangement the Quai d'Orsay quietly agreed. Narkomindel also offered 'allowances' to Paris newspapers with the objective of promoting diplomatic and economic relations with France; it was hard currency, a sure indication of the cash-poor Soviet government's serious intent. The semi-official Paris daily Le Temps received the largest sum, 520 000 francs between August 1922 and January 1923. Among other beneficiaries of Soviet subsidies in the latter half of 1922 were Le Petit Parisien (55 000 francs), La Liberte (50 000 francs) and L'Eclair (60 000 francs). Individual journalists also benefited. And Radical politicians too: Le Petit Parisien published a series of articles by Herriot on his trip to Russia; the 'honoraria' for which covered his travel expenses. The campaign was hard going according to the Soviet report on expenditures: 'the success of the campaign provoked a bitter struggle in journalistic circles and intrigues against participating newspapers, which demanded constant, intense effort for the maintenance of gains made in their positions ...'. It is no secret to historians that the French press accepted bribes, but Le Temps? From the Bolsheviks? The semi-official mouthpiece of the Quai d'Orsay was one of the standard bearers of French anti-communism. No wonder the Soviet government had to dig so deep to pay Le Temps its fee. And still Narkomindel complained that 'inadequate resources' prevented it from achieving a 'fundamental change in the political direction of the right-wing press in relation to Russia'.[16]

Political circumstances also favoured change. France was increasingly at daggers drawn with Germany over reparations. The Germans would not pay, and the French tried to collect by sending troops into the Ruhr in early 1923. This made some French politicians think geopolitically and take up Herriot's position. Apart from the politicians, an important civil servant in the Quai d'Orsay joined in. The Ruhr crisis made it imperative 'to resume a policy of entente with Russia as soon as possible', said the political director, Emmanuel Peretti de la Rocca.[17] Not known for softness on communism, Peretti went to see Marshal Ferdinand Foch, who had, in the spring of 1918, favoured cooperation with the Bolsheviks against Germany. But not then, and Foch sent Peretti away. The political director persisted: 'An alliance with the Russian people is necessary to France', he said: 'We need a point of support in Europe which only the Russian land mass can offer us and with which we have no conflict of interest'.[18] This is just what Karakhan had told Herriot.

Peretti promoted this view throughout 1923, but Millerand, as president, blocked any change in policy. Millerand's anti-Bolshevism had not softened: 'The truth is', he said, 'that there is nothing to be done with anarchy and it is anarchy which has implanted itself in God-forsaken Russia'.[19] Poincare was more flexible, but his terms for agreement--formal Soviet recognition of all tsarist debts, resumption of interest payments and compensation to French nationals--were unacceptable in Moscow. Let's 'live and let live', said Chicherin, but don't ask us to give up first principles.[20]

In search of the ever elusive modus vivendi, Narkomindel was compelled to use go-betweens and unsavoury characters. These included one Semen Nikolaevich Rekhtzammer and the notorious Dimitrii Navashin. Rekhtzammer was known to the French police as a Soviet 'agent', but he was more like a well-paid lobbyist who had connections with the future premier Paul Painleve, with exiled Russian bankers and with French journalists. Henri Rollin, a correspondent for Le Temps, also appears to have been on the Soviet payroll. Another name which began to turn up in Soviet diplomatic correspondence was Senator Anatole de Monzie, who organised a parliamentary caucus to lobby for diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. He went to Moscow in the summer of 1923 to meet Chicherin and other Soviet officials.[21] French merchants also visited the Soviet Union, and invariably there were political as well as economic conversations duly reported back to Paris. The ways of Soviet diplomacy were necessarily imaginative, multi-faceted and convoluted. Perhaps, not surprisingly, the Quai d'Orsay and Narkomindel had corresponding files with virtually the same information in them, and the files sometimes included one another's official documents, snatched by intelligence agents or sympathisers. The two adversaries had no secrets from each other, or at least not many.

French officials did not have the slightest doubt that the Soviet Union wanted better relations. Soviet overtures were repeated and exasperating, according to a briefing note for Millerand. Ces bandits de bolcheviks--swore one French diplomat--it was no pleasure to deal with them. But what choice was there? The Soviet Union was growing stronger: we have to have Russia with us, not against US.[22]

Such arguments were often heard in the corridors of power, but Millerand and Poincare were unwilling to listen, at least until after national elections in the spring of 1924. As often happened during the inter-war years, French elections affected Franco-Soviet relations--and the political calculations of Herriot's Cartel des gauches and Millerand's Bloc national. Even in 1922 Herriot calculated that public debate on a resumption of Franco-Soviet relations, leading to a debts settlement and increased trade, would be useful in winning political power.[23] Millerand's advisers made the same calculations. Poincare did not want to irritate traders and bondholders, but he did not want to negotiate with the Soviet Union, except on his terms. The Soviet government understood, and hoped for a break-through after elections.[24]

Understanding Poincare did not quiet discontents inside the Soviet government. Kh. G. Rakovsky, Soviet representative in London, commented in late November 1923 that French trade policy toward the Soviet Union, though ostensibly hands off, was really obstructive, for any Soviet assets in France were subject to seizure by dispossessed French or Russian emigre property holders. It was up to the courts to decide, said the French government, but everyone knew, or at all events it was widely known, that the French courts were hostile to the Soviet Union. Since no Soviet assets were safe from seizure, trade was difficult. The French government, Rakovsky complained, 'continued to deny us the most elementary [trade] guarantees'.[25]

Rakovsky's observations set off an argument in Moscow. Litvinov was fed up with the French and wanted to retaliate. 'There is not a single country in the world where we do not run up against the resistance of France to our interests ...'. Chicherin did not take it so badly: French hostility was merely a new phase of difficulty. Litvinov disagreed. It was not a new 'phase of difficulty', but the same 'old, continuous, uninterrupted' hostility.

From the time of the Genoa conference [in April-May 1922], French government policy has not changed one iota. With us there are flirtations and caressing words from various people without authority; we wait for the charity of French intermediaries, a few Radicals, and the tone of the French press changes only in a measure equal to the amount of our subsidies, but Poincare during all this time has not given us even one single smile and his position toward us remains unrelentingly hostile.

It was not a question of pre-judging the French or Poincare, said Litvinov--and he could not understand why Chicherin tried to find extenuating circumstances in unrelenting French hostility--it was rather a question of finding ways to mitigate this enmity. After the Genoa conference the Politburo had rejected a boycott of France, observed Litvinov, but this policy had not worked. With elections coming in France, we need to re-examine our policy in order to give support to 'our French "friends" ' They, and even some of our enemies, wanted to trade, but there were obstacles in the way. Traders had asked the French government for help. Poincare replied: 'Please, trade in the USSR, as much as you like, travel there, make your proposals, import and export your goods--I won't prevent you and I will even give you my blessing'. Litvinov observed that our 'friends' must be able to respond: 'true, you don't prevent us from trading, but to establish and develop trade relations, other countries must cooperate. And here the Soviet government does not consider these relations possible because of the continued hostility of the French government'. Instead we played into Poincare's hands by sending trade representatives to France, saving French traders the trouble of going to London or Berlin. But the deals did not materialise, not for political reasons but because the French proposals were not serious or not profitable. This weakened the position of would-be traders, whom Poincare had effectively disarmed. The only way to put a lever back in their hands was to cut off trade with France. We shall not lose much by doing so, and we shall make French traders hungry. Then they will put pressure on the French government and then perhaps French policy will change. Litvinov did not recommend 'a complete boycott of France', but he wanted to make a public demonstration by way of press interviews, the withdrawal of Soviet trade agents from France, and the holding up of business deals with French firms. Chicherin, Litvinov's titular superior, preferred a less aggressive approach but, as he said to Rakovsky, the differences between himself and Litvinov were only tactical.[26] The aim was the same: an improvement of relations with France.

Peretti would have liked to meet the Soviet government halfway and he asked the Czech foreign minister, Edvard Benes, to convey an interest to Moscow in receiving Soviet offers. Millerand did not like Peretti's initiative--any more than Litvinov liked it--and Peretti had to assure the president that he had not gone too far. The position remained unchanged: the Soviet Union could accept French terms, or there would be no deal.[27] This suited Litvinov, who had other priorities at the time and wanted to turn the tables on the French.

For the time being, international circumstances helped the Soviet government more than the French. In November--December 1923 British elections put the Labour party in a position to form a minority government, and Labour appeared disposed to extend de jure recognition to the Soviet Union. Italy also prepared to offer full diplomatic recognition. These developments startled Poincare, and served Peretti's agenda.[28] But in a relationship where there were few secrets, Litvinov knew this, and was in no hurry to rush negotiators to Paris. He wanted to increase Poincare's alarm, making him more amenable.[29] The main question was to know whether there were any real chances for agreement, and if not, whether a reply to the French would not spoil better opportunities for agreement with other countries, namely Britain. If a debts settlement could be achieved in London, it would force the French to soften their demands. But premature negotiations with the French, before they became more tractable, might stiffen the British position. On the other hand, Litvinov was not above publicising the French initiative to worry the British, and he did not wish entirely to discourage the French government.[30] Here was old-fashioned diplomacy worthy of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, and perhaps the French should have recognised Litvinov's fine hand.

There were differences between Chicherin and Litvinov on whether to focus negotiations in London, putting relations with France on a back burner, or whether to pursue negotiations with both countries with equal attention and resources. Although Chicherin was Litvinov's titular superior, they were more like co-commissars, sometimes seeking support in the Politburo or the Narkomindel Kollegiya for competing positions. In this case, Chicherin wanted to explore the French opening through Prague.[31] Although Litvinov was no francophobe, he preferred negotiating in London. We have no major colliding interests with France, noted Litvinov, which we cannot say about Britain. 'But the problem for us is that an agreement with France at the present time is only possible on crushing terms ... I think therefore that an agreement ... is something for the not so near future, the more so, because economically we can profit very little from it'. This did not mean the Soviet government should refuse to talk to the French; on the contrary, we should say we are ready to discuss any questions, but directly, without intermediaries. And the economic pressure should continue: if the Germans, for example, offer terms equal to those of the French, we should accept the German offer. Chicherin countered that if the French offered better terms, the Soviet government should accept them. Litvinov also thought that the Soviet government should continue its 'allowances' to French and other newspapers, though he hesitated over the 'the millions' it would cost.[32]

Circumstances temporarily played into Litvinov's hands. The minority Labour government extended de jure diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union in early February 1924, while Poincare still insisted on the full measure of French demands. The Quai d'Orsay reckoned the Soviet government to be the needy party, and that therefore it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Union came offering concessions. But neither Litvinov nor Chicherin was prepared to go hat in hand to Paris.[33]

Chicherin saw two motivations behind French interest in better relations with the Soviet Union: strategic and economic. Herriot and Painleve were driven primarily by the first and Monzie by the second consideration. Radicals wanted a political agreement first; 'centrists' like Monzie, connected to business and banking interests, wanted a debts settlement first to remove impediments to trade. Chicherin was a little contemptuous of Herriot's 'petty bourgeois Germanophobia'. Painleve's views were more 'intelligent' though not far from Herriot's, and came to this: on Russian debts and German reparations a compromise was necessary, but at least a little something had to be paid. Monzie's main interest was French economic expansion. Chicherin thought Monzie could be satisfied more easily than Herriot or Painleve: the Soviet people considered their country to be a defender of international justice and of the oppressed, and this ideology animated Soviet policy. It was hard to sympathise with Herriot's position while the Ruhr occupation victimised 'the German people', though if German militarism did raise its head again and threatened France, the Soviet Union would support the French.[34]

At first, events seemed to be moving in the right direction. Talks got underway in London, and in France the Cartel des gauches, the centre-left coalition led by Herriot, won spring elections. Millerand was forced to resign, and Herriot became premier in June 1924. He immediately turned to the question of recognition, though there was opposition from bondholders and dispossessed property owners. At the same time negotiations continued in London and led in August to a preliminary Anglo-Soviet agreement. But the Labour government fell a few weeks later, and new elections were called for the end of October. Herriot worried about the impact of a possible Tory victory on French plans to recognise the Soviet Union, and he feared the fall of his government.[35]

It was therefore time to get a move on, and Monzie, who headed a commission to study recognition, contacted Chicherin through an intermediary in September. Chicherin agreed to talks through Rakovsky in London. As in the British case, the Soviet government first wanted unconditional de jure recognition and then debts negotiations. 'If we were to begin with negotiations on debts, and if recognition were to depend on their results', Chicherin calculated, 'not only will there be no negotiations, but our relations with France will become worse than before'.[36] With Herriot's consent, Monzie met Rakovsky in Dover on 20 October to discuss the terms of French recognition and other related issues. Among these, the Soviet government sought immediate restitution of the so-called Bizerte fleet, Russian warships and freighters interned by France at the end of 1920. Monzie aired his views for a debts settlement based on Soviet concessions, and he asked for Soviet agreement to the naming of Jean Herbette as French ambassador in Moscow. Herbette was a French journalist, and had written some of the trial balloons in Le Temps for an opening of negotiations.[37] The available evidence does not indicate whether Herbette had been a beneficiary of Soviet 'allowances'.

The Soviet government was in as much of a hurry as the French, and for the same reason. The Tories looked likely to win the British elections, the more so because of the publication in the British press on 24 October of the so-called Zinoviev letter, an alleged Comintern directive to the British communist party. Rakovsky regarded the letter as a forgery--confirmed immediately by Litvinov--and part of a 'desperate, underground intrigue' directed against the Soviet presence in London and against French recognition. Some British newspapers accused the French of timing recognition, on the eve of elections, to influence the vote. Herriot denied it. Monzie and Rakovsky hurried recognition to prevent a Tory victory from blocking it.[38]

With the Tory electoral victory the brief period of improved Anglo-Soviet relations came to an end. The new British government returned to its more comfortable anti-communist line, and Narkomindel immediately changed its Western European focus from London to Paris. Krasin, the commissar for external trade, went to Paris as polpred. Chicherin was in a hurry to send him on his way; otherwise the Tories might gain an advantage in Paris. His worst koshmar was an Anglo-French anti-communist bloc. Chicherin also wanted strict orders given to Soviet personnel to avoid activities which could aggravate relations with France. The warning was all the more necessary since Chicherin and Krasin were unhappy with the people selected to staff the Paris polpredstvo.[39]

In early November Rakovsky went to Paris to take control of the embassy. While there he had talks with Monzie, Herbette and other politicians, officials and journalists. He urged the Soviet government to work for a rapprochement: we should not hide from the French that we have differences of policy, but we can also say that there are no major conflicts of interest between us and that we ought to be able to build a better relationship on that basis.[40]

This line was compatible with Herriot's. He told the Tory foreign secretary, Austen Chamberlain, in December 1924 that France had recognised the Soviet Union because it feared an isolated Russia would 'combine' with Germany[41]-not as candid a statement as Herriot had made to Chicherin in 1922, but he could not be so blunt with the British. The Tories were suspicious of the French and anxious to improve relations with Germany; unlike Herriot, they were not thinking in the long term about thwarting a German revanche.

There were good political and economic reasons for better Franco-Soviet relations, but no sooner had the French recognised the Soviet government than events went wrong. The Cartel of Radicals and Socialists weakened after the elections. The new government could not cope with the stresses caused by the end of the Ruhr crisis and by grave financial difficulties. The value of the franc crashed in the spring of 1924 and the French had to rely on American bankers to stabilise it. This made Herriot cautious in his opening to Moscow, since both the British and American governments might object to it. And the Tory electoral victory encouraged the French right, which in December 1924 began to whip up anti-communist fears, in spite of continuing Soviet press 'allowances'. Communist street demonstrations during the procession of Socialist Jean Jaures's remains to the Pantheon, and the return from Moscow of the French renegade and communist sympathiser, Captain Jacques Sadoul, the day before the arrival of Krasin, stoked up right-wing hysteria. The Soviet government celebrated the opening of its polpredstvo in Paris by raising the red flag and playing the Internationale. This was too much for the anti-communist press. 'Communist Peril' once again became a leader in newspapers of the right. The least incident can set off a panic, warned Rakovsky, not least of all in Herriot.42

In December 1924 Herriot told Krasin that if the Soviet government pressed him too hard to make concessions, his government could fall.[43] Krasin reported to Moscow that the suddenly rotten political atmosphere would not lead to a quick settlement of Franco-Soviet differences. It would be better to wait before starting negotiations, Monzie told Krasin, until hostile public opinion had quietened down. Herriot publicly denied that there was any communist danger in France. He even told the US ambassador in Paris that he had ordered his secret police chief to pick a fight with communists 'in order to calm public opinion'. But the police could not find a communist meeting to raid. Herriot was not going to make the same mistake as the Labour government in London, and rush into negotiations with the Soviet Union.[44]

So while Herriot told Krasin that his government was shaky because of communist street demonstrations, he showed a brave face to the Americans and British. US Ambassador Myron Herrick reported a few days later that the right and even some of Herriot's own supporters did not share the view that French communists were harmless.[45] And Aime de Fleuriau, the new French ambassador in London, told a Foreign Office official that 'the French ... now bitterly regretted their recent recognition of the Soviet government. There had been an outcry all over France against the Soviets and their open instigation of communist revolution in France'.[46]

A delay in negotiations also suited Litvinov in view of the risk of failure. But there were other difficulties. Monzie and Krasin did not get along, and during the negotiations over recognition Monzie had indicated his distaste for Krasin as Soviet ambassador in Paris. Krasin reciprocated, complaining repeatedly about Monzie, an unprincipled scoundrel, whose main interest was his own political ambitions. Monzie preferred grandiose international schemes to a more practical, business-like approach. Krasin thought the most effective way to improve Franco-Soviet relations was to develop profitable trade links before dealing with the debts question. This would lessen anti-communist animosities, as would higher payments to the French press. Bribe the bastards, was essentially Krasin's attitude: 'we should increase our expenditures five or ten fold ...'. From the Soviet point of view French politics were corrupt: positions could be bought if the price was right. Litvinov scrupled at the expense, but Krasin thought if one was in for a penny, one might as well be in for a pound.[47]

The bad start to Franco-Soviet relations led to recriminations between Narkomindel and the Paris polpredstvo. Oil was thrown on the fire by Krasin's counsellor, Aleksandr G. Shlyapnikov, a veteran Bolshevik oppositionist of the type Stalin liked to send abroad in the 1920s before he discovered he could have them shot in the 1930s. Shlyapnikov sent a letter to the Politburo on 24 December with mere copies to Chicherin and Litvinov. This lack of respect for channels would have been enough to anger Litvinov, but Shlyapnikov did not leave it there. Monzie was running circles around our diplomats in Moscow, he said; they seemed to think the senator was 'a rising star' who could serve Soviet interests. We ought not to give him such credit. And as a remedy to the bad situation in Paris, Shlyapnikov proposed buying one of the big Paris dailies. Le Journal looked like a fine prospect.[48]

Chicherin was irritated both by the situation in Paris and by Shlyapnikov. Nor did he like Shlyapnikov's accusation that Narkomindel was Monzie's patsy. Of course, there was little that could be done about the 'fatal coincidence' between the Jaures funeral demonstration and Krasin's arrival in Paris, said Chicherin, 'but the French ask themselves, why it is that there is no one [i.e. no Soviet officials] in the Paris polpredstvo who speaks French, and naturally they [the French] reply: because they came only to work for the Comintern'. Nor was it wise to invite a local communist orchestra to play the Internationale during the raising of the red flag over the polpredtsvo. It seemed to underline Soviet ties with the Comintern, noted Chicherin, though 'we repeatedly deny them'. The result was that French hatred of Moscow had flared up again. How could this have happened, Chicherin asked Krasin facetiously, and what do you propose to do about it? It was all well and good to say, develop economic relations, but this was a long-term solution with many difficulties. What are we going to do now to improve relations with France?[49]

Litvinov saw no easy remedies. On Monzie, he thought the Soviet government should deal with him and handle him carefully, for now; later it could try secretly to get rid of him. As for buying Le Journal, Shlyapnikov's proposal 'smelled of millions'; we need to find out just how much it would cost.[50] Litvinov also warned Krasin to be careful in the embassy's dealings with French communists. 'Communists of all countries have a tendency ... to advertise their extraordinary knowledge of our affairs and intentions. You must restrain our French friends from such demonstrations. Everywhere and by every means we earnestly proclaim the absence of ties between the Soviet government and the Comintern, but foreign communists ... call out from rooftops their intimate proximity to the Soviet government and especially to Narkomindel'. Be careful, said Litvinov, even with personal friends; let's not needlessly provoke the French press.[51]

Krasin did not appreciate Chicherin's sarcasm or Litvinov's professorial lecturing; he knew as well as they did the importance of avoiding provocations and the inadequacies of his staff. He went through the whole list of Narkomindel complaints, the most important of which was the ugly turn in the French political atmosphere. The polpredstvo had had nothing to do with the Jaures demonstration and Sadoul's return to Paris. The British had poured their gold into the press campaign, Krasin added, and the abortive communist uprising in Reval, Estonia (in early December 1924) had not helped. 'Local people [in Paris] reason more or less as follows: the communist party and the Third International appear to be the most disciplined organisations in the entire world ... To assert in these circumstances that the communist party in some place like Estonia dared on its own initiative ... to undertake an armed uprising at the very moment when the Soviet Union was sending its ambassador to France is quite simply impossible ...'. Stop any pedestrian on the street and you will get the same answer. And on and on he went, though he noted that the French right-wing press could always find a pretext for attacking the Soviet Union. 'We shouldn't beat the hens drinking water', said Krasin, 'while in some other place water is breaking through the dam'.

Litvinov calmed Krasin's temper, but he was sceptical of agreement with the French, who would pile on more demands if the Soviet government made concessions. And in a tribute to Soviet intelligence operatives, Litvinov referred, as proof, to Fleuriau's statement to the Foreign Office that French recognition had been a mistake. Krasin stressed that the Soviet government would have to offer some hope of a settlement of the tsarist bonds if there was to be a shift in French opinion. Litvinov conceded that concessions were necessary, though he remained dubious of success.[52]

While Litvinov was conciliatory with Krasin, he made no concessions to Shlyapnikov. He and Chicherin asked for the recall of Shlyapnikov and Boris Mikhailovich Volin, the first secretary in Paris. They complained that none of their recommendations for staffing of the Paris polpredstvo, beyond typists and clerks, had been accepted by the Central Committee. Against our protests, Volin was posted to Paris even though the French had identified him as a Comintern agent. No one in Paris (excepting Krasin) had the faintest idea of how to conduct themselves. Narkomindel's worst expectations had come to pass. Instead of rapprochement, relations with France had worsened. It was true that the conjuncture of circumstances was unlucky, but we cannot blame everything on Austen Chamberlain; the fact is we have not helped ourselves. And all this in 'one of the most important strategic and fighting points of our diplomacy'.[53]

While the Politburo considered recall, the feuding continued. Shlyapnikov complained directly to the Politburo and Litvinov rejoined in a letter dripping with sarcasm. Shlyapnikov 'sucked' ideas and theories 'out of his thumb'. Even before his nomination to Paris, Shlyapnikov considered Narkomindel to be an insidious institution sunken in the ooze of opportunism. So from Paris he set out to put things right. He entered into shabby polemics, 'suffused with obscenities, scenarios, perversion of the ideas and proposals of his opponents ... He required the directives ... of the NKID for the purpose of working in exactly the opposite direction'. Litvinov rarely missed an opportunity to launch some new invective. If the Soviet government expected to achieve anything in France, Shlyapnikov had to go, and he did in April 1925.[54] Volin followed in May, but here it was the Quai d'Orsay, not Narkomindel, who obtained his recall, for a public indiscretion at a meeting commemorating the death of the Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen. Litvinov wanted the propagandists out of Paris, as did Chicherin, who could not resist a parting shot: 'On the face of the Earth there were other cities besides Paris and the international resonance of this fact was completely underestimated in the public statement made by the secretary of our embassy ... The Japanese press has now trumpeted about Volin's speech. All our international relations suffer, when in one place such a deviation from correct [diplomatic] relations occurs ...'.[55]

While Narkomindel tried to solve its difficulties in the Paris polpredtsvo, Jean Herbette went to Moscow as French ambassador. He arrived in Moscow in January 1925 and met with Chicherin, Litvinov and Krasin and other Soviet officials. They discussed a debts settlement in exchange for French credits and a cessation of Comintern propaganda and subversive activities. Herbette reported that Soviet officials were anxious for better relations, but were concerned by the anti-communist press campaign in Paris and doubtful of the prospects of improved relations. The commotion would quiet down, said Herbette: in the meantime, the Soviet government should take care to control the Comintern; its activities prompted mistrust against anything associated with Soviet Russia. Herbette said a debts settlement was vital, but Chicherin replied that no settlement was possible without credits in return. Herbette remained optimistic: he had come to Moscow, he said, to work for better relations.[56]

Soviet officials were sceptical. Will France cease its hostility?, asked Litvinov. And if we make concessions to France, what concessions will we obtain in return? The Soviet government was divided: some favoured making concessions (read Chicherin); others doubted whether it was worth the sacrifice (read Litvinov), and that France would only find other pretexts for continued hostility.[57] In response to these early discussions, Herriot replied both to Herbette and to Krasin that his government was up against opposition on all sides, and that concessions to the Soviet Union would bring him down.[58]

Behind a debts settlement and an end to Comintern subversion lay a more important issue for Herbette--traditional French security concerns against Germany. Here again was the view of Herriot, Painleve and Peretti. France had to demonstrate to Moscow that it foresaw a 'legitimate' Soviet role in Europe and that it did not seek to exclude Russia from European affairs. 'This is exactly my view', Herriot scribbled on Herbette's report.[59]

Quai d'Orsay officials did not share their minister's view of Franco-Soviet relations. Even before Herriot fell in April 1925 the Quai d'Orsay's European bureau challenged Herbette's policy recommendations. The ambassador was going too far: France could not pursue a Soviet rapprochement without provoking Polish, Romanian or British objections--especially British: the Tory return to power, the new government's refusal to ratify the Anglo-Soviet treaty negotiated by Labour, and British concerns about Soviet propaganda, dictated prudence. Still, Quai d'Orsay officials conceded that French recognition of the Soviet Union had advantages since it disrupted Soviet-German relations. In these circumstances France should maintain a reserved attitude toward the Soviet Union, neither overly cordial nor excessively hostile.[60] Herbette knew he was receiving a sceptical hearing, and he joked at a diplomatic dinner in May that the Quai d'Orsay considered him to be a Bolshevik. The only question in Moscow was whether he would get a party card.[61]

In the course of the spring and summer of 1925 Franco-Soviet discussions moved slowly forward. The recall of Shlyapnikov and Volin put one problem out of the way, and Litvinov wanted to get moving on negotiations.[62] For the next several months Krasin worked to obtain restitution of the Bizerte fleet, which Herriot had promised, but then retracted, claiming opposition on his right.[63] After Herriot fell from power, Painlevo became premier while Briand returned as foreign minister. Briand brought with him Philippe Berthelot, the former secretary general of the Quai d'Orsay. Berthelot had been a powerful civil servant, virtually foreign minister, before Poincare got rid of him in 1922 on trumped up charges of influence peddling. After the Bolshevik seizure of power Berthelot had sabotaged a movement toward cooperation with the Bolsheviks against Germany, and both Krasin and Litvinov were afraid he might do it again. 'Reaction in Europe, and everywhere', was growing stronger, warned Krasin, and preparing a new anti-communist offensive.[64]

Krasin lobbied Painleve, among others, for the return of the Bizerte fleet. He also proposed to Moscow a debts settlement based on 10 centimes to the paper franc, about what the tsarist bonds were then worth on the Paris Bourse. But Krasin was still being sent from Peter to Paul and back again. The situation is the same, he complained: net s kern razgovarivat', the French government would not negotiate. Be careful, Chicherin advised: don't alienate any allies, given 'the unparalleled intricacy of our position in France'.[65]

Meanwhile the Soviet government continued to pay off the Paris press, receiving little in return. 'We consider it necessary', Litvinov told Krasin, 'to inform the Politburo about the absolutely unsatisfactory conduct of the big newspaper' (i.e. Le Temps). Its headlines condemned the Soviet Union, though there might be a kind word on the back page. 'If the music does not change', we will have to cut them off. Try paying at the end of the month, advised Litvinov, to make sure they conduct themselves 'decently'.[66] Krasin advised that he had done as Litvinov had instructed, but still the situation was unsatisfactory. The 'big newspaper' continued to be antagonistic, 'although representatives of the paper, in unabashed naivete, attempt to convince us that these hostile articles are in truth conditioned by a friendly disposition toward us, because only in this way can the newspaper preserve its authority among its readers ...'. Other newspapers were willing to publish positive articles on page two or three, said Krasin, but without any commitment to changing their lead editorials.[67] Chicherin, a cautious diplomat, noted that cutting off subsidies might make matters worse. Krasin argued that 'the big newspaper' pursued from first page to last a 'determined, conscious, well thought out, deeply hostile line toward us', and that the other Paris papers were hardly better. 'I am personally not by any means a proponent of stinginess', Krasin observed; 'on the contrary, as you know, I would sooner favour generosity. When the stakes are high, a grudging hand loses ... But here I am disgusted by the impudence of these gentlemen, who demand tribute for absolutely nothing in return ...'. Litvinov was torn between paying and not paying. 'Not one government pays as generously as we do, but we certainly cannot agree to pay for abuse ...'.[68]

French government policy drifted between casual interest in Soviet overtures and hostile acts which would have confirmed the worst Soviet suspicions. On 10 July Briand signalled Herbette that Soviet fears of a 'Holy alliance against Bolshevism' were 'a morbid exaggeration'; on 31 July Briand authorised discussions with the British to organise an Anglo-Franco-American embargo against Soviet oil exports. In another tribute to Soviet informants, Krasin heard of these intrigues almost immediately.[69]

Krasin nevertheless still tried to obtain release of the Bizerte fleet. Litvinov could not figure out what was going on. From Paris there were assurances that the fleet would be returned, but when Litvinov mentioned it to Herbette, he responded with 'an ironic smile', indicating his scepticism.[70] Krasin considered the French position on the fleet to be the measure of its willingness to improve relations. He was also prepared to make an offer on the debt, about 10-12%. A small sum, he admitted, but better than nothing.

Matters came to a head at the end of August. Briand called in Krasin to apologise for an incident in which Krasin and his family had been abused by anti-communist hooligans. The Bizerte fleet came up, Briand linking it to a debts settlement. The French public would oppose restitution of the fleet without Soviet compensation. Krasin protested at the linking of the two issues, but repeated what he had already said to Painleve and Monzie, that the Soviet government was prepared to make a concrete offer to settle the tsarist debt. Krasin ran through his proposals with Briand, who seemed willing to accept them as a basis of discussion. The next day he saw Berthelot, who wanted to slow things down. Give me a straight answer, Krasin told Berthelot, yes or no, will you release the fleet? Berthelot avoided a definite reply. Krasin had no illusions: ministers did not last long in their posts because of government instability, and they feared 'putting their foot in it' and looking foolish in the press. They all hedge and leave escape routes to save face. And no French government would win laurels for a debts agreement where the offer was only 10 or 15 centimes per franc.[71]

Krasin did not want to connect debts with the release of the Bizerte fleet, but he did just that on 1 September, handing over to Berthelot a formal proposal for settlement. It was a low offer and based in large measure on Russian assets in France, including the so-called Brest-Litovsk gold, reparations paid to Germany in 1918 by the Soviet government, but taken over by the Allies after the end of the war. In exchange, Krasin asked for trade credits. The finance ministry rejected the Soviet offer out of hand, among other reasons on the grounds that it was too low, that credits were impossible, and that the Brest-Litovsk gold was being held as a credit against the Russian war debt.[72] In fact, the French government knew that no credits meant no deal, that Russian assets in France had been looted, and that the Brest-Litovsk gold had been divided up between France and Britain in tenebrous circumstances. It was a case, as British Treasury officials sometimes admitted, of getting the Russian gold quickly, while deceiving former allies in the process, lest Britain 'fail to get any part of the spoil'. Publicity should be avoided, as one clerk admitted: 'Stone-walling seems ... the right policy ... We have had the gold and used it and possession is 9/10ths (or more) of the law'.[73] The finance ministry rebuff was not the only reason for the flat rejection of Krasin's proposal. Berthelot gave as others high politics (raisons de haute convenance de politique etrangere) and the need to mitigate the anxieties of 'certain powers', unnamed but including Romania. There was an abortive attempt at face-saving, an exchange of letters on the fleet and debts, but even here the French tried to change the wording after Krasin had signed his letters and departed for Moscow.[74]

Litvinov thought these negotiations had been a dupe's game and that the Bizerte fleet should be written off. We are going to have to put more on the table, Litvinov conceded, but even then France might not be drawn out of a potential anti-Soviet coalition. The Soviet delegation in Paris should not move too quickly. 'We must force the French to abandon their maximum demands', said Litvinov, 'and come part way to meeting us'.[75]

In spite of pessimism in Moscow, there was a turn for the better in the autumn of 1925. General good feelings about the Locarno accords seemed to rub off on Franco-Soviet relations. The Soviet government kept up the pressure for a settlement, and Chicherin publicly challenged the French to cease their 'dilatory tactics' and negotiate.[76] Rakovsky went to Paris, replacing Krasin, who returned to London. Litvinov instructed Rakovsky to try to take advantage of the favourable circumstances to move forward. In November it was agreed to start formal political and economic negotiations. Berthelot was friendly with Rakovsky and blamed the failure of the Krasin proposals on the finance ministry. If finance takes over the debt negotiations, said Berthelot, it will be 'a colossal misfortune ... for we are dealing above all with a political question'.

Unlike Krasin, Rakovsky was more positive about Monzie. This was just as well since they would soon be facing each other across the negotiating table. And he thought it would do more harm than good to continue bribes to the French press. While Rakovsky made his first rounds, the Locamo accords were concluded and the Painleve government collapsed on 22 November. Let's not take Locarno too tragically, Rakovsky advised; it would only demonstrate our weakness. And let's be careful not to put a foot wrong on the boggy ground of French politics. According to Paris police, he meant what he said. A notice was circulated in the polpredstvo: 'To all comrades', anyone caught in contact with French communists will immediately be sent home.[77]

Chicherin visited Paris in November and December 1925 and had discussions with Briand and Berthelot among others. The conversations were friendly and wide ranging. Are you serious about a debts settlement?, asked Berthelot. If we were not serious, replied Chicherin, we would not begin discussions since failure would only make relations worse. And he repeated a joke he had heard from a French interlocutor, which had its serious side: 'We recognise our debts, but we do not pay; you do not recognise your debts, but you are ready to pay'. The French were not paying their debts either, though they had paid one to the United States in 1920, with Brest-Litovsk gold. Chicherin concluded that if discussions had previously gone wrong, the fault lay on the French side. Berthelot admitted that negotiations had not been well handled.[78]

A Franco-Soviet conference began in February 1926. As preparations were made for the conference, Herbette sent good advice to Paris. Most Western information on the Soviet Union, he said, was false or tendentious. 'The Soviet regime is depicted as a sort of irrational organisation of rogues ... incompetent ... corrupt and hopelessly divided. Perhaps this system of denigration has for a time served certain electoral, financial or diplomatic interests'. French diplomacy could not 'retain its freedom of action if the French public is continually excited against Russia by spurious reports or by erroneous analysis, since the French government will be inhibited in its relations with the USSR by domestic political campaigns'.[79] Herbette urged the government to reach a settlement with the Soviet Union. 'If others reproach us later for having allowed a new war and a new invasion to be prepared because we could not find the necessary solutions to settle the Russian debt and because we did not anticipate inevitable future changes in Eastern Europe, what responsibility will we bear?' [80]

Herbette's reflections, like those of Herriot, Painleve and Peretti before him, have an eerie quality, as portents of the 1930s debate, but few French officials or politicians listened when it might have counted. French policy towards the Soviet Union could not escape domestic political considerations. In 1925-27 the Rift rebellion in Morocco, the general strike movement in Britain, the nationalist revolution in China, and French communist agitation in the army led to a growing anti-communist agitation. And the Bloc national's determination to split the Cartel des gauches led to further exploitation of the Red bogey. The right branded Socialists as revolutionaries and pseudo-communists, and it invited Radicals not to be duped, and to join the Bloc national.

As everyone expected, Franco-Soviet negotiations were slow and hard going. The focus was on finding a settlement for tsarist bonds, some nine billions being held by French citizens, in exchange for trade credits. By July progress had been made. The Soviet government was willing to pay 60 million gold francs a year for up to 62 years in exchange for $250 million in credits over three years. French negotiators were enthusiastic about Soviet annuities, but not about French credits. This too had an eerie quality: in the 1930s France was always keener to receive than to give support to putative allies. The French were in no rush to conclude an agreement in that summer of 1926. Governments changed every few months, then every few weeks, then in July a new Herriot government lasted only two days. A financial crisis caused the franc to plummet. In Britain the Tory government was infuriated by trifling Soviet support for an abortive British general strike. It only took a trifle to make the die-hards mad, and naturally the French anti-communist press was quick to support them. Chicherin saw the French right turn, and thought it better to accept slow negotiations than no negotiations at all.[81]

With all the political instability in Paris Rakovsky tried to persuade Monzie to sign a protocol marking the progress of negotiations. If we cannot put points of agreement on paper now, Rakovsky argued, in the autumn we may lose any gains. A dramatic meeting occurred on 18 July between French and Soviet delegates, recorded by a secret chronicler of the Franco-Soviet conference, Semen B. Chlenov, secretary-general of the Soviet delegation. The meeting took place the day after the Briand government fell. Chlenov waited outside a conference room at the Quai d' Orsay while Monzie and several French officials argued over the draft of a joint protocol. When he was finally invited to join the meeting, Chlenov noted that his interlocutors looked glum. We can't do anything, the French said: 'with the fall of the cabinet, everything has changed ... we have to wait until the new government is formed. Otherwise the delegation will be disavowed'. Monzie complained to Chlenov that Rakovsky was putting on too much pressure and this could force him to resign. 'Chlenov, give us 75 millions', Monzie pleaded, 'and we can conclude a deal'. Not a chance, replied Chlenov. When it came to credits, Monzie said there was no way the government would agree to $225 million; no way, replied Chlenov, his government would accept less. Querelle de marchands, certainly, after which the conversation turned to speculation on the next finance minister. 'If it's Poincare ... well, you know Poincare, said Monzie.[82]

On 23 July, after a week of uncertainty, the old Soviet nemesis, Poincare, formed a government. He took the finance portfolio, in view of the monetary crisis, giving finance officials a stronger hand in Franco-Soviet negotiations. This was the 'colossal misfortune' Berthelot had feared. Narkomindel received reports that the British were trying to scuttle the Paris negotiations. As a result, the NKID Kollegiya recommended speedy signature of a protocol on debts and credits.[83] But it was too late.

In October 1926 Poincare took control over the Soviet negotiations. Until that time discussions had focused on a settlement of bondholders' claims and trade credits. Poincare sent instructions to Briand that state to state war debts and the claims of dispossessed industrialists also had to be settled before there could be an agreement. The French government knew, however, that to raise either of these issues would block a settlement since Soviet officials would press counter-claims with respect to war debts and would refuse to indemnify French industrialists.[84] In mid-October Monzie admitted to Rakovsky that the Quai d'Orsay had wanted to put off a debts agreement because of fear of irritating the British and Americans. Time is working against us, Rakovsky thought: Anglo-Soviet relations were worsening, and if we failed to obtain a debt settlement with France, it could lead to the building of an anti-Soviet front. Monzie tried to obtain approval for a letter to Rakovsky defining differences rather than points of agreement--unlike the previous summer's efforts-but even here Poincare said no.[85]

French stalling prompted a Soviet review of the negotiations. A special commission set up to examine the negotiations recommended virtually starting again. Litvinov instructed Rakovsky to delay while the commission in Moscow deliberated further. From Soviet intelligence sources reading Herbette's correspondence, Litvinov knew Herbette was saying that the Soviet government was desperate for an agreement, and that Monzie, who favoured a temporary delay, was possibly trying 'to blackmail us'. If so, fine, said Litvinov: 'This is exactly what we need'. And Litvinov went further:

The commission's conclusions would have delighted us a year or two ago, for it is doubtful whether anyone here could have thought that the receiving of trade credits for five to seven years could justify the payment of a percentage of the old debts over a period of 50-60 years. Personally I always considered and still consider that linkage of recognition of any kind whatever of the old debts with commercial credits, even with a rotational extension of these credits over an extended period, is for us unprofitable. The resolution of these questions is found exclusively on the political level. We are confronted by the question of whether we are forced by the political situation to make those material sacrifices which the agreement requires of us.

Litvinov was convinced that the French would not come to terms, and that therefore there was no risk in maintaining previous policy, however unfavourable from an economic point of view.[86]

The larger political questions remained: would economic sacrifices secure for the Soviet Union the disruption of an anti-Soviet bloc; would it end Soviet political isolation; would it lessen the possibility of war? But none of these questions had been discussed with the French, Litvinov pointed out, so that we have agreed to large economic sacrifices which in no way guarantee any political advantages, though it was for this reason that economic concessions were contemplated. Even on purely economic grounds a debts settlement was a pig in a poke: 60 millions a year, and maybe Western confidence in us will grow, maybe we can obtain guaranteed loans and credits, and maybe we can obtain better interest rates. But who knows for sure?[87]

In Britain the political situation worsened week by week. The Tory government was spoiling for a fight, and looking for a reason to break off diplomatic relations. China was the main bone of contention; a nationalist-communist revolution appeared ready to sweep the country and sweep away important British economic interests. Krasin died in November 1926, and the London polpredstvo could only watch with growing disquiet as the situation deteriorated. It urged the Soviet government to conclude an agreement with France as soon as possible in order to lesson the danger in Britain.[88] After backing and filling, the Soviet government decided to offer the French a non-aggression pact. Rakovsky raised the issue in Paris in March. We need to settle the debts first, replied Briand.[89]

This was a polite evasion. The Quai d'Orsay was in no hurry to continue negotiations to signal that it was the Soviet Union, not France, which really needed a deal. Then the Soviet government might be persuaded to lower its demands. And there were other reasons for refusing to conclude an agreement. The Quai d'Orsay was still concerned not to offend the British or Polish governments, and Comintern support for the revolutionary movement in China continued to aggravate French right-wing opinion. There was one meeting of the French and Soviet delegations in March, the last as it turned out. Briand advised Herbette in April 1927 that any political agreement with the Soviet government was out of the question.[90]

Briand's instructions should be no surprise. In April 1927 Britain and France were seething with anti-communist agitation in the press and in government circles. In February Francois Coty, the right-wing perfume mogul and owner of the influential anti-communist daily Le Figaro, had lunch with Chamberlain in London to discuss the organisation of an anti-Soviet front. Chamberlain was open-minded, and Coty launched a trial balloon in Le Figaro. Even Briand appeared interested.[91] At the same time the revolution in China started to go wrong, and this further encouraged the right. In April Albert Sarraut, the French interior minister, trumpeted the alarm in a widely publicised speech. 'Le communisme, voila l'ennemi!", he declared. In May the Chamber of Deputies debated the lifting of parliamentary immunity of communist deputies so they could be prosecuted for subversive activities. In May, too, the word 'elections' began to turn up in the press and in Soviet and French calculations concerning the debt negotiations. A settlement would help the left in national elections in 1928; worsening relations would help the right. On 29 May a political cartoon appeared in the Paris daily L'Oeuvre which depicted Poincare discussing with interior minister Sarraut the celebrated 1919 poster of a bloodthirsty Bolshevik clenching a knife in his teeth. 'Hm, do you think it will work again?', read the caption. Poincare must have thought so because earlier in May his officials had raised the problem of 'elections' as an impediment, among others, to a Franco-Soviet agreement. Rakovsky also heard of it.[92]

Chicherin was to go to Paris for political talks with Briand and Poincare, among others. Finance official Jean-Jacques Bizot asked rhetorically what would happen if Chicherin agreed to all French demands? Answer: we will put two more obstacles in the way (read: war debts and the indemnification of private property).[93] While Chicherin was in Paris, the British government broke off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

Monzie and Rakovsky continued to negotiate. Rumours circulated that an agreement was near, which the French finance ministry formally denied.[94] In fact, it was almost true. In May Rakovsky published an interview saying so, which infuriated Poincare. Rakovsky is trying to win over French bondholders, Poincare complained. He called in the owner of the anti-Red daily Le Matin, Maurice Bunau-Varilla, to ask him to rebut Rakovsky's claims. 'A comedy which has lasted long enough', duly ran Le Matin's leader a few days later.[95] There was still movement forward, and Labonne thought an 'agreement ... virtually concluded on the question of debts'. Monzie and a majority of his colleagues agreed to submit a draft agreement for a debts settlement to the Soviet delegation. Only the finance delegates dissented. Once again the French could put nothing on paper. Quai d'Orsay officials reported that the finance ministry 'was doing everything possible ... to drag things out'. Negotiations were to be 'dampened down'.[96]

Chicherin met Poincare on 24 May. Negotiations were unlikely to succeed, advised the premier; it would be best to drag out negotiations or informally suspend them. Poincare complained about Rakovsky's press statements since bondholders might conclude that the failure of negotiations was the French government's fault. Then Poincare launched into a 'rude, prolonged diatribe against the revolutionary communist policies of the Soviet government, against its interference in the internal affairs of other countries ... He said that public opinion in France is becoming more irritable, that the French would never tolerate the interference of a foreign government in its affairs ... The situation has not gone as far as in England, but it could come to that ...'. Herriot, Painleve and others confirmed to Chicherin the seriousness of the situation. Anti-communist agitation was pre-electoral campaigning, said one politician; and it was bound to get worse. The situation is far more serious than two years ago, observed the Le Temps journalist Rollin: 'be careful and don't give your enemies a pretext to attack you'. Chicherin met some French communists, criticising them for their imprudent politics. Stop claiming the authority of the Soviet government, Chicherin demanded.[97]

During the summer of 1927 the anti-communist press campaign built in intensity. Poincare gave written instructions to Monzie not to acknowledge new concessions from Rakovsky and to press the new demands on war debts and compensation for nationalised property. In spite of Poincare's instructions, Monzie and the Quai d'Orsay civil servant Labonne attempted to go in exactly the opposite direction. On 22 June Labonne met Chlenov and explained Poincare's position. Then Labonne asked whether the Soviet government wanted to sign a debts settlement, or to break off negotiations. Would credits be included in the agreement? asked Chlenov. Labonne replied in the affirmative, indicating that he was pushing the idea. 'If the Soviet side wanted an agreement on these terms, it could be done'.[98]

Labonne saw Rakovsky a few days later: French opinion was shifting to the right. Elections were coming, and Poincare wanted to take from the left its 'only trump' in foreign policy. To deliver the finishing stroke, he had to prevent an agreement with the Soviet Union. A debts agreement could change the direction of events, but without it the future boded ill. 'Franco-Soviet relations now hang only by a string', Labonne warned.[99]

In July Rakovsky met frequently with Monzie, sometimes long into the night. Monzie confirmed Labonne's pessimistic assessment. What about Herriot?, asked Rakovsky. 'Spineless', replied Monzie, who was not his friend. When will you have a proposal?, asked Rakovsky. It's coming, Monzie kept promising. Bizot accused Monzie of 'clandestine demarches' with the Soviet ambassador. We could find ourselves, he complained, faced with a fair accompli. This was Monzie's strategy. Finance strategy was to keep talking to Labonne in order to 'moderate Monzie'.[100] If Bizot pinned his hopes on Labonne, he had picked the wrong man.

On 23 July Rakovsky saw Poincare to hear a reprise of the May meeting with Chicherin. Poincare said there would be no credits for the Soviet Union until there were better political relations, and this could not occur until there was an end to Comintern support for French communists. It was another demand because Poincare was still not sure he had killed the negotiations.

And for good reason: later that same day Monzie and Labonne proposed to Rakovsky $60 million in credits over five years, a long way from the $225 million proposed by the Soviet government, but still an offer flying in the face of Poincare According to a Quai d'Orsay note, Monzie told Rakovsky that this was the maximum French concession, that the French government's acceptance even of this proposal was 'highly problematic' and that 'it would be very desirable for the USSR to give immediately its formal approval [to the proposal], failing which we fear a rapid rupture of Franco-Soviet relations'. Rakovsky replied that the offer was derisory. The 60 millions could be expanded later, said Monzie, but not now: any allusion to such intentions in 'the present mood of hostility' in France would provoke a 'storm of protest'. When Rakovsky asked whether the credits would be tied to war debts and expropriated property, 'Monzie and Labonne declared that they will take on themselves the elimination of such links'. The French negotiators declined to put their proposals to Rakovsky on paper; these would have to come from the Soviet side. Monzie hoped that when Rakovsky returned from consultations in Moscow in August, he could give unambiguous approval to the French credit proposal, which was the only way to overcome opposition in Paris. Briand may have hoped also, since he knew about Monzie's offer and did nothing to prevent it. But someone in the Quai d'Orsay, trying to stop Monzie, sent the proposal to Poincare. We have not yet heard the reaction, Labonne told Herbette: 'If it should be as negative as the mood of the bureaux of the rue de Rivoli [i.e. the finance ministry], we will be in desperate straits'.[101]

While Rakovsky was in Moscow Labonne lobbied other Soviet officials. He repeated his arguments that a rapid agreement was essential before it ran up against elections. Right and left were girding for battle, and the right intended to make the 'struggle against communism' its main platform. But if the Soviet government accepted Monzie's proposals now, Poincare would be hard put to reject them, otherwise he could be demolished in the elections.[102] The Soviet government took Monzie's proposals seriously. Chicherin quickly organised a small commission to consider the new offer, which he supposed came from the French government. He was also willing to make other concessions, proposing a circular to all Soviet diplomatic and commercial posts stressing the importance of non-interference in the domestic politics of other countries.[103]

Rakovsky returned to Paris on 17 August. He immediately saw Monzie and Labonne, who asked whether the Soviet government had accepted their proposals. Rakovsky explained the new Soviet position: 60 million gold francs per annum to pay off the tsarist debt and $120 million in credits, double what Monzie had proposed, but down from the original $225 million. Monzie and Labonne replied that the $60 million was 'the maximum of the maximum', that even this offer would be difficult to promote, that Poincare 'dreams of only one thing, in what manner he can break up the conference'. Monzie and Labonne calculated on relying on the Quai d'Orsay and in particular on Briand, and on the threat of Monzie's resignation, to advance their position. Don't put these new proposals in writing, Labonne warned, it would provide Poincare with a pretext to scuttle negotiations. Rakovsky thought the French offer was not the last, and that Labonne was simply manoeuvring to promote his own proposal.[104]

It was not clear at that moment, but the negotiations were doomed. Rakovsky made what proved to be a fatal gaffe by signing a Trotskyist opposition declaration in Moscow on 10 August stating that the Soviet government should encourage desertion among Western armies waging war on the Soviet Union.[105] French anti-communists-and those opposed to a Franco-Soviet agreement--pounced on Rakovsky's signature like starving predators. Rakovsky went to see the political director of the Quai d'Orsay, Jean de Beaumarchais, the day after his return to Paris. Rakovsky said he had further proposals to make to the French government, but Beaumarchais replied frigidly, wanting instead to discuss Rakovsky's endorsement of military desertion. After Rakovsky outlined the new Soviet proposals, including a non-aggression pact, Beaumarchais commented that the Soviet government would do better to call a halt to communist propaganda in France. 'A la guerre, comme a la guerre', replied Rakovsky, in wartime all governments use such tactics. A reasonable reply, and true, but no one was listening in the anti-communist frenzy which erupted in Paris in that August of 1927.[106]

Labonne told Rakovsky that this meeting was a serious mistake and could sabotage negotiations. The Soviet proposals 'were immediately transmitted to the other side of the water [i.e. the Seine, to the rue de Rivoli]. You can imagine the effect ...', Labonne advised Monzie: we've been sabotaged by Poincare and his officials. The council of ministers was worked up and indignant. Politics had 'devoured' the negotiations. To Chlenov Labonne said that Rakovsky's meeting with Beaumarchais had put him in a bind. The finance ministry had criticised Labonne and Monzie for offering credits without authorisation.[107]

The last act of the Franco-Soviet negotiations played itself out in September. At the end of August Chicherin disapproved of Rakovsky's endorsement of the Soviet opposition's declaration of 10 August. On 23 August there were violent street demonstrations in Paris after the execution in the United States of anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. On 4 September a right-wing press campaign began, aiming at the expulsion of Rakovsky and the breaking of diplomatic relations with the USSR. Briand thought that Narkomindel's disapproval of Rakovsky's gaffe had closed the incident. But after Briand had left for League of Nations meetings in Geneva, the French cabinet decided to ask for Rakovsky's recall. Briand heard about it through the press, and threatened to resign. Poincare tried to conciliate Briand on the matter of the press leak, but on the main issue, Rakovsky's recall, he was adamant.[108]

Monzie, who was on holiday, read the rumours of Rakovsky's recall and publicly disagreed with Poincare, endorsing Rakovsky and implicitly threatening to publish 'the possibilities of an agreement which in principle had been achieved'.[109] Publicity of this nature was exactly what finance officials preferred to avoid, but which now erupted. Narkomindel did not want the publicity either; it wanted to avoid a 'polemic' with the Quai d'Orsay. 'In the present extraordinarily strained circumstances', Chicherin noted, polemics could lead to 'serious consequences'. But to remain silent was also impossible.[110] Press communiques on the state of negotiations began to fly back and forth: Litvinov said the two sides were close to agreement on debts; the French falsely denied it. Rakovsky confronted Monzie at his apartment accusing him of deceit. The ensuing heated argument drew a huddle of curious neighbours outside Monzie's door. I was trying to head off Poincare, Monzie replied, which caused a row on the rue de Rivoli.[111]

And still Labonne angled for a deal. He met many times with Chlenov in mid-September, urging the Soviet delegation to accept the 60 and 60 formula. Rakovsky's gaffe was not serious, said Labonne, it was only a pretext to launch a campaign against the Soviet Union. If it had not been this pretext, it would have been another. Now no one was interested in the conference, debts or credits. 'Everything was subordinated to considerations of electoral politics, the campaign had already begun and pre-election passions were rising ... the war against communism is the main platform'. Labonne thought the dynamics might still be changed, if the Soviet government sweetened its offers by paying the first annuity of 60 million gold francs. The gesture would cause a sensation on the Bourse; the atmosphere would be transformed and the press campaign stopped dead in its tracks. If you make the gesture, said Labonne, you can count on six votes against five in the cabinet, though he did not include two other likely hostile votes.[112]

Narkomindel paid attention. The offer of 'jingling gold' might have a calming effect on the press campaign, or it might not, Litvinov thought: we should not risk the money. But he agreed to put 30 millions in escrow in a French bank, to be made payable on condition of an agreement on credits.[113] Bizot knew it was Labonne's idea, and he was not happy. 'It was to put a knife to the throat of the government ...' Developments are shaping up, wrote Bizot, into a 'moral disaster'. 'The Soviets will publish that they are negotiating credits ... We are going to find ourselves faced immediately with this refusal [to continue negotiations]'.[114] Only the delicacy of the situation and the need to avoid a scandal must have saved the mutinous Labonne's job. The expulsion of Rakovsky offered a better way out, and on 27 September the French government officially requested his recall. As Bizot put it trenchantly, 'if Rakovsky is recalled = the business will be settled'.[115]

Apart from electoral politics and the anti-communist campaign, the finance ministry would not endorse, organise or guarantee trade credits to the Soviet Union under any circumstances, even if finance officials considered Soviet offers for a debt settlement to be acceptable. Moreover, the mere discussion of '"credits' ... could not fail to have a considerable [favourable] influence on the domestic and international situation of the USSR'.[116] The manoeuvring over Rakovsky's recall went on for another fortnight, but his fate was sealed the day he signed the opposition declaration in Moscow on 10 August. The crisis ended quietly when in mid-October Rakovsky left Paris unceremoniously by car early on a Sunday morning.

The results of this crisis had long-lasting effects. Poincare's plans worked out, and a centre-right coalition won the elections in 1928. But Franco-Soviet relations were in a shambles, and remained hostile. Herbette, who for nearly three years had promoted a rapprochement, turned his jacket in the late summer of 1927, railing against Soviet perfidy, propaganda and money for French communists. What had happened to Herbette? Narkomindel wanted to know. The ambassador had seen the writing on the wall in Paris, and adjusted to it, according to Rakovsky.[117] Herbette lingered on in Moscow until 1931 in an increasingly bitter relationship with Narkomindel. How bad relations had become was typified by major confrontations between Herbette and Chicherin in the spring of 1928. In April they had a dangerous argument. Herbette had the temerity to criticise the Soviet press for its harsh treatment of France and to accuse the Soviet Union of planning aggression against its neighbours. Chicherin tried to keep his composure, but failed. 'I expressed my indignation ... France is armed to the teeth ...'; we are only providing for our defence. 'But if you don't like that', Chicherin added, 'may I refer you to what the Spartan Leonidas said to the Persians [at Thermopyles] when they demanded his arms. "Come take them", he said'. 'I was struck', Herbette commented sanctimoniously, 'by the intensity of [Chicherin's] anger'.[118] And Chicherin, more than Litvinov, had been willing to go a long way to achieve agreement with France, ignoring endless setbacks and hostile French policies. But not any more.

Relations between France and the Soviet Union did not improve until 1932 when Herriot was again premier and his government approved the non-aggression pact which Rakovsky had formally proposed in 1927. Anti-communism and electoral politics took precedence over the French national interest of securing a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. But 'so long as the Anglo-French Entente remains solid', Berthelot observed, the French government did not need to fear a rupture with Moscow.[119] And of course the bondholders' interests, about which the French government professed so much concern, were sacrificed without remorse by Poincare and finance ministry officials. It was more important, by their lights, to deny any gain in prestige or creditworthiness to the Soviet Union. Basically the first and second Poincare governments pursued the same, hard anti-Soviet line.

In late October 1927 Herriot, as minister of education, met his Soviet counterpart, A. V. Lunarcharsky, in Paris after the dust of the Rakovsky affair had settled. They reviewed the major points of the crisis. Rakovsky's signature on the opposition declaration had been blown out of all proportion, said Herriot, it was a trifling matter and of no danger to France. But the Soviet side had to move away from its assumptions about a European war against it. Then minor irritants would lose their capacity for harm. And Rakovsky had been too careless, said Herriot: 'he had to understand that in Europe he was surrounded by enemies and that he had to be ten times more careful than any other ambassador ...'. The Soviet Union should be more concerned about keeping the European 'democratic parties' in power. The victory of the right 'would undoubtedly mean the danger of war'. The victory of the democratic parties gave the Soviet Union more room for manoeuvre. And yet the French communist party and the Soviet communist party itself could not tell a friend from an enemy and were often more critical of the socialists than of the right. People ask me, said Herriot, is there any point in making concessions to communists?[120]

There is something to be said for Herriot's foresight, though in Moscow it was equally pertinent to ask whether there was any point in making concessions to the West. Take us like we are, said Chicherin, and we will accept you the way you are. The Soviet government offered better or at least businesslike relations, first to Britain, then to France. There was no soft sentimentality here: Soviet security and economic interests dictated pragmatic policies, and sometimes even important concessions.

What a contrast the pragmatists Chicherin, Litvinov, Krasin and Rakovsky made to the French ideologues who rejected Soviet concessions. The French government had a lesson to teach the communists: play by our rules, honour your debts, indemnify nationalised property owners and renounce the October Revolution. Or we will punish you. This was the line of Millerand, Bizot and Leger, among many others. Not least of these was Poincare, much admired in his time and by many historians afterward. Determined to defeat the left and consolidate the power of the centre-right, he was ready to exploit the anti-communist fear of the French upper and middle classes.

Historians tend not to see anti-communism in the 'Roaring Twenties'; it is hidden under the more common images of flappers and jazz, transient economic prosperity and the deceptive stability of Locarno. But anti-communism was hot and virulent, and it burned away at Western-Soviet efforts to achieve better relations. This mattered in the 1930s when attempts at reconciliation and cooperation resumed, and failed yet again. We know the penultimate consequences. Herriot's early koshmar turned to the reality of French military debacle in 1940 and the near victory of Nazism. The popular and orthodox image of the Soviet ideologue threatening murder and revolution and the moderate, reasonable West defending itself against communist aggression does not hold up in this story of diplomacy in the 1920s. The reality was more complicated and rather different from the West's cold war stereotypes.

1. I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its support of my research. Special thanks are due to my wife, Irina Borisovna Syrtsova, who taught me to appreciate Moscow, and thanks also to George Bolotenko, Sergei Listikov and Lyudmilla Selivanova, who introduced me to Russian archives and assisted me in my research.
2. See also, inter alia, Michael J. Carley, 'Five Kopecks for Five Kopecks: Franco-Soviet Trade Negotiations, 1928-1939', Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique, XXXIII, 1, January--March 1992, pp. 23-57; Michael J. Carley, 'Down a Blind Alley: Anglo-Franco-Soviet Relations, 1920-39', Canadian Journal of History, XXIX, 1, April 1994, pp. 147-172; Michael J. Carley & R. K. Debo, 'Always in Need of Credit: The USSR and Franco-German Economic Cooperation, 1926-1929', French Historical Studies, 20, 3, Summer 1997, pp. 315-356; Michael J. Carley, 'Prelude to Defeat: Franco-Soviet Relations, 1919-1939', in Joel Blatt (ed.), The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments (Providence, RI, 1998), pp. 171-203; V. A. Shishkin, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i strany Zapada v 1917-1923 gg. (Moscow, 1969); V. A. Shishkin, Tsena priznaniya: SSSR i strany Zapada v poiskakh kompromissa (1924-1929gg.) (Moscow, 1991); Timothy E. O'Connor, The Engineer of Revolution: L. B. Krasin and the Bolsheviks, 1870-1926 (Boulder, 1992), and Jon Jacobson, When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics (Berkeley, CA, 1994).
3. Stephen Pichon, French foreign minister, to Paul Dutasta, French minister in Berne, 14 November 1918, Ministere des Affaires etrangeres, Paris (hereafter MAE), ancienne serie Z-Europe, 1918-1940, followed by the geographical subheading, volume and folio numbers, thus Z-Russie/ 1144, ff. 282-283.
4. Michael J. Carley, Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil War, 1917-1919 (Montreal and Kingston, Ontario, 1983), passim.
5. Untitled note by E. Petit, Millerand's chef du cabinet, nd [but March 1920]; B. V. Savinkov to Petit [?], 28 January 1920, and enclosed untitled, confidential note, Archives nationales, Paris (hereafter AN). Papiers Millerand, 470AP/63; also Michael J. Carley, 'The Politics of Anti-Bolshevism: The French Government and the Russo-Polish War, December 1919 to May 1920', Historical Journal, 19, 1, March 1976, p. 172; and Michael J. Carley, 'Anti-Bolshevism in French Foreign Policy: The Crisis in Poland in 1920', International History Review, 2, 3, July 1980, pp. 410-431.
6. Jacket no. N3377/4/38, 16 March 1921, Public Record Office, London, Foreign Office (hereafter PRO FO) 371 6847; various papers in Jacket no. N2962/2/38, 7 March 1921, PRO FO 371 6845; and Philippe Berthelot, secretary-general, ,Quai d'Orsay (in London), to Aristide Briand, French foreign minister, no. 190, 8 March 1921, MAE Z-Russie/97, f. 194.
7. Auguste Isaac, commerce minister, to Millerand, 29 March 1920, MAE Z-Russie/514, ff. 39-40.
8. M. A. Mikhailov, agent of the French trading firm SOCIFROS (Copenhagen), to SOCIFROS, Paris, 2 March 1920, MAE Z-Russie/69, ff. 83-91; and Henri Martin, French minister in Copenhagen, nos 109-112, 13 March 1920, ibid., ff. 106-109.
9. 'France's Russian Policy', (from the Soviet polpredstvo in Berlin), not signed (ns), 15 April 1921, Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow (hereafter AVPRF), fond 04, opis' 42, delo 53579, papka 259, listy 1-12 (hereafter f., o., d., p., 1.).
10. 'Note de M. [Fernand] Grenard pour le directeur des Affaires politiques', 22 July 1922, MAE Z-Russie/582, ff. 256-260; 'Note sur les relations commerciales entre la Russie sovietique et les citoyens francais', Sous-direction d'Europe (hereafter Europe), 25 August 1921, MAE, ancienne serie C--Relations commerciales (hereafter RC), 1920-40, Russie/2044 (not paginated); and 'Declaration of the official representative of the RSFSR in Great Britain L. B. Krasin ...', September 1921, Kommissiya po izdaniyu diplomaticheskikh dokumentov, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR (hereafter DVP), 23 volumes (Moscow, 1959-) IV, pp. 384-385.
11. N. N. Krestinsky, Soviet polpred in Berlin, to Litvinov, no. 545, 8 May 1922, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53620, p. 259, 1. 41.
12. 'Report of the director of the department for the Anglo-Saxon and Romance countries to comrade Veinshtein', S. Bronsky, 22 September 1922, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53619, p. 259, 11. 23-25; and Chicherin to L. D. Trotsky, commissar for war, 9 October 1922, ibid., 1. 45.
13. 'Resume of comrade Karakhan's first conversation with Herriot and Daladier on 20 September 1922', AVPRF, f. 136, o. 5, d. 35, p. 102, 11. 9-13.
14. Herriot to Chicherin, 26 October 1922, DVP, V, p. 667; the original in French is in AVPRF, f. 136, o. 5, d. 34, p. 102, 1. 51.
15. Herriot (from Moscow) to Poincare and Millerand, 2 October 1922, AN Papiers Millerand, 470AP/70.
16. Untitled report, strictly secret, ns, nd (but early 1923), AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53620, p. 259, 11. 56-58 (cf. 'A.s. propagande russe vis-a-vis des milieux dirigeants europeens et notamment francais', no. 16108 SCR-2/11 [Ministere de la Guerre], 6 December 1922, AN F7 13491); and Jean-Noel Jeanneney, L'Argent cache (Paris, 1981), passim.
17. 'Conversations avec Peretti et [Rene] Sicard [chief, Bureau du controle des erangers]', by Alfred Vignon, Millerand's deputy secretary-general, 5 January 1923, MAE Papiers Millerand/70, f. 13.
18. 'France-Russie', Vignon, 22 February 1923, MAE Papiers Millerand/70, f. 31; and 'De l'opportunite d'une representation economique officielle en Russie sovietique', MAE, 23 February 1923, ibid., ff. 42-49 (Peretti's handwritten minute is on f. 49).
19. Millerand to Aime de Fleuriau, French minister in Peking, 25 April 1923, AN Papiers Millerand, 470AP/69; 'Envoi de M. [Paul Francois] de Chevilly ... extrait des Izvestia ...', 27 August 1923, quoting a French businessman, Antoine Semidei, MAE Z-Russie/82, f. 87; 'Conversation avec Peretti, Russie', Vignon, 10 October 1923, MAE Papiers Millerand/70, f. 144; 'Conversation avec Peretti, France-Soviets', Vignon, 22 December 1923, ibid., f. 197; and 'France-Soviets', Vignon, 29 December 1923, ibid., ff. 210-212.
20. Poincare to Fernand Couget, French minister in Prague, nos 26-35; and elsewhere, secret, 31 January 1924, MAE Z-Russie/353, ff. 104-108; 'Report of a conversation with Czech foreign minister Eduard Benes', by K. K. Yurenev, Soviet representative in Prague, 3 January 1924, DVP, VII, pp. 11-13; 'Interview of People's commissar for foreign affairs, G. V. Chicherin, with the correspondent of the French newspaper Temps, [Henri] Rollin', 26 January 1924, ibid., pp. 46-49.
21. 'Juifs russes suspects: Reichzamer [sic]', P. 5432. U., Prefecture de police, 11 October 1921, AN F7 13490; and 'Russes bolchevistes: Rechtzammer [sic]', P. 5571. U., Prefecture de police, 21 November 1921, ibid.; Krestinsky to Chicherin, no. 1143, 31 October 1922, AVPRF, f. 04, d. 53620, p. 259, 1. 50; and Michael J. Carley, 'From Revolution to Dissolution: The Quai d'Orsay, the Banque Russo-Asiatique and the Chinese Eastern Railway, 1917-1926', International History Review, XII, 4, November 1990, passim.
22. 'Note h consulter', ns, nd (but December 1923), MAE Papiers Millerand/70, ff. 213-217; and 'La France et les Soviets', P. 9028.U., Prefecture de police, 17 January 1924, AN F7 13493.
23. Joseph Wielowieyski, Polish counsellor in Paris, to Jules Laroche, deputy political director, which covered a note, strictement confidentiel, 6 October 1922, MAE Z-Russie/350, ff. 37-38; 'Note pour le President du Conseil', Europe, ns, 3 December 1923, MAE Z-Russie/424, ff. 146-147; and 'Le Paiement des rentes tosses et la responsabilite du Bloc National', Armand Charpentier, Ere Nouvelle, 27 February 1924, ibid., f. 162.
24. 'Note h consulter', ns, nd (but December 1923), MAE Papiers Millerand/70, ff. 213-217; and Note by Jacques Seydoux, sous directeur des Relations commerciales, 19 January 1924, MAE RC Russie/2090.
25. Rakovsky to Litvinov, no. 29, 28 November 1923, Rossiiskii Tsentr Khraneniya i Izucheniya Dokumentov Noveishei Istorii, Moscow (hereafter RTsKhIDNI), f. 359, o. 1, d. 6, 11. 44-46.
26. Litvinov to I. V. Stalin, no. 899, 4 December 1923, RTsKhIDNI, f. 359, o. 1, d. 8, 11. 58-63; and Chicherin to Rakovsky, no. 29, 13 December 1923, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 4, d. 327, p. 23, 11. 185-186.
27. 'France-Soviets', ns (but Vignon), 29 December 1923, AN Papiers Millerand/70, ff. 210-212.
28. 'Conversation avec Peretti, reconnaissance des Soviets', ns (but Vignon), 24 November 1923, AN Papiers Millerand/70. f. 168.
29. Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 900, secret, 5 December 1923, RTsKhIDNI, f. 359, o. 1, d. 8, 1. 64.
30. Litvinov to Stalin, no. 943, 24 December 1923, RTsKhIDNI, f. 359, o. 1, d. 8, 1. 65; and Litvinov to Politburo, NKID [Narkomindel] kollegiya, and Krasin, no. 016, 7 January 1924, ibid. 11. 66-67.
31. Chicherin to Stalin, no. 53/CHS, 28 February 1924. AVPRF, f. 04, o. 4, d. 157, p. 27, 11. 21-24; and Chicherin to I. I. Arens (roving NKID official), no. 18, 5 February 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53675, p. 261, 11. 11-12.
32. Litvinov to NKID kollegiya, nn, 25 February 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 4, d. 177, p. 28, 11. 7-15; Chicherin to NKID kollegiya, nn, 'very urgent, I ask you to read this morning', 24 February 1924, ibid., 11. 1-6; Chicherin to Politburo, no. 144/CHS, 25 February 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 4, d. 157, p. 27, 11. 1-6; and 'Agence Rosta du 26 fevrier 1924', MAE Z-Russie/353, f. 185.
33. Poincare to Fernand Couget, French minister in Prague, nos. 26-35; and elsewhere, 31 January 1924, MAE Z-Russie/353, ff. 104-108; and 'Visite de M. [V. A.] Maklakoff a M. Peretti', 5 January 1924, ibid., f. 67.
34. Chicherin to Rakovsky, nn, 24 March 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53670, p. 261, 11. 1-6.
35. Untitled memorandum, ns, but a Soviet informant in Paris, 9 October 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53675, p. 261, 11. 22-23.
36. Chicherin to A. A. Ioffe (London), no. 1, 27 September 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o.42, d. 53671, p. 261, 1. 2; Monzie (Paris) to Chicherin (in French, in Monzie's hand), 10 October 1924, ibid., 1. 13; Chicherin to Politburo, no. 1290/CHS, very secret, 14 October 1924, AVPRF, f. 136, o. 7, d. 67, p. 103, 1. 4.
37. Rakovsky to Litvinov, no. 4, very secret, 20 October 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53670, p. 261, 11. 11-18; Monzie to Rakovsky (in French), 22 October 1924, ibid., 1. 35; Rakovsky to Litvinov, no. 6, very secret, 29 October 1924, ibid., 11. 26-33; Monzie to Rakovsky (in French), nd, ibid., 1. 34; Chicherin to Politburo, no. 1332/ChS, 26 October 1924, AVPRF, f. 136, o. 7, d. 67, p. 103, 1. 7; and 'Communication telephonique,' Eirik Labonne, chef adjoint, cabinet du ministre, 29 October 1924, MAE Z-Russie/356, ff. 205-206.
38. Rakovsky to Litvinov, no. 25 October 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53670, p. 261, 11. 21-25; Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 266, immediate, 26 October 1924, RTsKhIDNI, f. 353, o. 1, d. 5, 1. 142; Chicherin to Politburo, no. 1326/ChS, 25 October 1924, AVPRF, f. 136, o. 7, d. 67, p. 103, 1. 6; Auguste de Saint-Aulaire, French ambassador in London, no. 611, 30 October 1924 (and Herriot's minute), MAE Z-Russie/356, f. 208, and Herriot to Saint-Aulaire, no. 902, 31 October 1924, ibid., f. 224.
39. Chicherin to Politburo, no. 1423/CHS, 21 November 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 4, d. 157, p. 27, 11. 191-194; and Chicherin to Politburo, no. 1408/CHS, 18 November 1924, AVPRF, f. 136, o. 7, d. 67, p. 103, 11. 15-16.
40. 'For a note to comrade Litvinov', Rakovsky, secret, 21 November 1924, RTsKhIDNI, f. 353, o. 1, d. 6, II. 302-308; and Rakovsky to Litvinov, no. 7, very secret, 9 November 1924, RTsKhIDNI, f. 353, o. 1, d. 8, 11. 76-92.
41. 'Memorandum of conversation between [foreign secretary] Austen Chamberlain and Herriot at the Quai d'Orsay, 5 December 1924', N9233/44/38, PRO FO 371 10471.
42. 'From Rakovsky' s letter [to Litvinov]', no. 17, very secret, 19 December 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53670, p. 261, 11. 59-60.
43. Krasin to Narkomindel, 20 December 1924, DVP, VII, pp. 580-583; cf., Austen Chamberlain's minute, 19 December 1924, N9371/108/38, PRO FO 371 10480.
44. Krasin to Chicherin, 7 December 1924, DVP, VII, pp. 568-571; and Myron Herrick to Secretary of State, no. 613, 30 December 1924, 751.61/34, National Archives, Washington DC [NA], M[icrofilm]-569/ [reel] 3.
45. Herrick, no. 4733, 7 January 1925, 751.61/36, NA M-569/3.
46. 'Monsieur de Fleuriau, conversation', by Sir Eyre Crowe, permanent under-secretary, 15 December 1924, N9296/44/38, PRO FO 371 10471.
47. Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0588, secret, 13 December 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53678, p. 261, 11. 18-20; and Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 1, secret, 6 December 1924, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 104, p. 105, 11. 1-8; Krasin to Narkomindel, no. 05/9, 7 December 1924, ibid., 11. 9-14; Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 3, secret, 9 December 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53676, p. 261, 11. 18-25.
48. Shlyapnikov to Politburo, extremely secret, 24 December 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53677, p. 261, 11. 30-36.
49. Chicherin to Krasin, no. 4, 16 December 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53677, p. 261, 11. 23-24; and Chicherin to Rakovsky (copy to Krasin), no. 97, 26 December 1924, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53678, p. 261, 11. 36-37; and Chicherin to Stalin, 30 December 1924, AVPRF, f. 136, o. 7, d. 67, p. 103, 11. 26-27.
50. Litvinov to Politburo, no. 630, extremely secret, 31 December 1924, RTsKhIDNI, f. 359, o. 1, d. 8, 11. 97-100.
51. Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0621, secret, 27 December 1924, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 102, p. 105, 11. 13-15.
52. Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 9, very secret, 1 January 1925, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53697, p. 262, 11. 1-14; Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0022, secret, 10 January 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 95, p. 105, 11. 5-8; Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0272, secret, 11 April 1925, ibid., 11. 56-61; and Litvinov to NKID kollegiya, 'For French discussions, draft proposals', secret, 13 April 1925, ibid., 11. 64-66.
53. Chicherin/Litvinov to Politburo, no. 0049 secret, 20 January 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 97, p. 105, 11. 8-10.
54. Litvinov to Politburo, no. 0168, secret, 28 February 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 97, p. 105, 11. 15-16; Litvinov to Stalin, no. 0285, secret, 13 April 1925, ibid., 1. 19; Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0272, secret, 11 April 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 95, p. 105, 11. 56-61, Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0299, secret, 17 April 1925, ibid., 1. 69a; and Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0273, personal, 11 April 1925, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53712, p. 264, 1.38.
55. Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 23, 26 April 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 104, p. 105, 11. 116-121; Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0365, secret, 16 May 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 95, p. 105, 11. 85-88; and Chicherin to Krasin, no. 17, 29 May 1925, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53712, p. 264, 1. 74.
56. 'Record of a conversation of the people's commissar for foreign affairs with the French ambassador to the USSR, Herbette', Chicherin, 11 January 1925, DVP, VIII, pp. 39-45; and Herbette, nos 2-7, 12 January 1925, MAE Z-Russie/357, ff. 124-129.
57. 'Record of a conversation of the deputy commissar for foreign affairs with the French ambassador in the USSR Herbette', Litvinov, 26 January 1925, DVP, VIII, pp. 99-102; and Herbette, nos 97-107, 26 January 1925, MAE Z-Russie/357, ff. 180-190.
58. Herriot to Herbette, nos 18-20, 25 January 1925, MAE Z-Russie/357, ff. 175-177; Krasin to Narkomindel, 16 March 1925, DVP, VIII, pp. 183-186; and Krasin to Narkomindel, 23 March 1925, ibid., pp. 189-191.
59. Herbette, no. 35, 26 March 1925, MAE Z-Russie/141, ff. 54-58; see also Herbette to Philippe Berthelot, secretary-general, Quai d'Orsay, 25 September 1925, ibid., ff. 123-128.
60. 'Note pour M. le President du conseil', Europe, 28 March 1925, MAE Z-Russie/358, ff. 43-49.
61. Excerpt from D. T. Florinsky's journal (Florinsky was head of protocol), 2 May 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 96, p. 105, 1. 88.
62. Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0272, secret, 11 April 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 95, p. 105, 11. 56-61.
63. 'From a conversation with the French ambassador', no. 232/CHS, Chicherin, 20 February 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 96. p. 105, 1. 56.
64. Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 23, 26 April 1925, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53698, p. 262, II 1-7; and excerpt from Litvinov's journal reporting a meeting with Herbette, 29 April 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 95, p. 105, 11. 72-74. Cf. Carley, Revolution and Intervention, pp. 33-55.
65. Krasin, report no. 23, secret, 26 April 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 104, p. 105, 11. 116-121; Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 26, secret, 17 May 1925, AVPRF, ibid., 11. 150-162; and Chicherin to Yakov Kh. Davtyan, Soviet counsellor in Paris, no. 1, 12 June 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 102, p. 105, 1. 53.
66. Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0319, secret, 2 May 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 97, p. 105, 11. 23-24.
67. Krasin to Litvinov, no. 0140, secret, 10 May 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 104, p. 105, 11. 146-148; and Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 26, secret, 17 May 1925, ibid., 11. 150-162.
68. Chicherin to Krasin, no. 26, very secret, 31 July, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53712, p. 264, 11. 90-92; Krasin to Chicherin and Litvinov, no. 0215, 7 August 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 104, p. 105, 11. 267-271; Litvinov to Davtyan, no. 0566, secret, 25 September 1925, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53714, p. 264, 11. 23-24; and Litvinov to Davtyan, no. 0598, secret, 3 October 1925, ibid., 11. 25-27.
69. Briand to Herbette, no. 238; and elsewhere, 10 July 1925, MAE Z-Russie/358, f. 138; Berthelot to Fleuriau, nos 1045-1053, 31 July 1925, MAE RC, Petroles de Russie/100, ff. 100-105; 'Note pour M. Berthelot', RC, ns, 24 September 1925, with Berthelot's minute, ibid., f. 123; Fleuriau to FO, 2 August 1925, N4491/1247/38, PRO FO 371 11023; Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 37, very secret, 29 July 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 104, p. 105, 11. 233-238; and Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 39, very secret, 30 July 1925, ibid., 11. 252-256.
70. Litvinov to Krasin, no. 0459, secret, 22 August 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 102, p. 105, 11. 54-55.
71. Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 42, very secret, 13 August 1925, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53699, p. 262, 11. 72-77; Krasin to Litvinov, report no. 43, very secret, 22 August 1925, ibid., 11. 78-84; Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 44, very secret, 29 August 1925, ibid., 11. 85-90.
72. Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 45, very secret, 1 September 1925, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53699, p. 262, 11. 91-97; 'Avant-Project relatif au reglement des dettes remis par M. Krassine a M. Berthelot', 1 September 1925, Ministere des finances, Paris (hereafter MF) B32011; 'Note pour le Ministre', no. 7395, Clement Moret, directeur du Mouvement general des fonds, 2 September 1925, ibid.; and Joseph Caillaux, minister of finances, to Briand, no. 7627, 12 September 1925, ibid.
73. 'Chancellor of the Exchequer', B. P. Blackett, 22 September 1920, PRO Treasury (hereafter T) 160 777/F815/1; and S. D. Waley's minute, 9 October 1924, PRO T 160 777/F815/3.
74. Krasin to Narkomindel, report no. 45, very secret, 1 September 1925, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53699, p. 262, 11. 91-97; untitled note by Berthelot, 1 September 1925, MAE Z-Russie/428, f. 12: Rene Massigli (French official in Geneva) to MAE, Paris, no. 63, 5 September 1925, ibid., f. 29; and 'Dettes russes et flotte Wrangel', Berthelot, 5 September 1925, ibid., f. 32.
75. Litvinov to Davtyan, no. 0524, secret, 12 September 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 102, p. 105, 11. 58-59; Litvinov to Davtyan, no. 0543, 19 September 1925, ibid., 11. 60-63; Litvinov to NKID kollegiya, no. 0547, very secret, 21 September 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 97, p. 105, 1. 36.
76. Pierre de Margerie, French ambassador in Berlin, no. 120[8], 6 October 1926, enclosing the text of a Chicherin interview in the Berliner Tageblatt, MAE Z-Russie/141, ff. 140-145.
77. Excerpt from Rakovsky's journal, no. 113/D, very secret, nd (end of October 1925), AVPRF, f. 136, d. 104, p. 105, 11. 305-311; Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 0748, secret, 14 November 1925, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53713, p. 264, 11. 2-4; Rakovsky to Litvinov, no. 1, 19 November 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 104, p. 105, 11. 315-317; Rakovsky to Narkomindel, no. 0326, very secret, 23 November 1925, ibid., 11. 330-335; and 'Ambassade de l'URSS, un ordre de Rakowsky', A. 9.584, Prefecture de police, 21 November 1925, AN F7 13495.
78. Untitled memorandum, E. Rowe-Dutton, Treasury official, 27 November 1921, PRO T 160 777/F815/2; and 'Paris discussions of comrades Chicherin and Rakovsky', very secret, 23 November 1925, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 104, p. 105, 11. 339-350.
79. Herbette, no. 20, 28 January 1926, MAE Z-Russie/1168, ff. 328-330.
80. Herbette to Eirik Labonne, secretary-general of the French delegation to the Franco-Soviet conference, 24 March 1926, Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, Paris (hereafter FNSP) Papiers Anatole de Monzie/1. The papers in this collection are not the originals, but are old, faded copies of which some are partially illegible.
81. Chicherin to Rakovsky, no. 14, 18 June 1926, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53772, p. 262, 11. 145-146.
82. Excerpt from the journal of I. I. Arens, no. 12, 25 June 1926, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53772, p. 262, 1. 159; excerpt from Rakovsky's journal, no. 0358, very secret, July, 1926, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 215, p. 113, 11. 337-338; excerpt from Rakovsky' s journal, no. 7, 'Meetings with Caillaux, Briand, de Monzie and Berthelot', very secret, 15-18 July 1926, ibid., 11. 357-371; untitled memorandum, Chlenov, very secret, 18 July, 1926, 18h.00, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53775, p. 266, 11. 25-27; 'Projet de proces-verbal prepare par M. Rakowsky et discute avec M. de Monzie', 17 July 1926, FNSP, Papiers Monzie/1 (there are various drafts of the protocol in AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53775, p. 266).
83. Excerpt from Arens' journal, no. 12, 25 June, 1926, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53772, p. 262, 1. 159, Rakovsky to Stalin, no. 1099/CHS, 24 July 1926, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53775, p. 266, 1,23, and extract from NKID kollegiya protocol no. 79, 24 July, 1926, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53773, p. 266, 1. 158.
84. 'Note pour M. Berthelot', Seydoux, directeur adjoint des Affaires politiques, 25 October 1926, MAE Z-Russie/488; Poincare to Briand, no. 11904, 6 November 1926, ibid.; Briand to Poincare, no. 3040, 9 November 1926 MF B32013; Poincare to Monzie, no. 12097, 13 November 1926, ibid., 'Section financiere, 9^e seance', 2 March 1926, MF B32014; and Herbette, nos 255-256, 7 March 1926, MAE Z-Russie/487.
85. Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 3086, secret, 18 November 1926, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53774, p. 266, 11. 14-16; 'Conversation with de Monzie, 16 October', very secret, Rakovsky, 16 October 1926, ibid., 1. 26; and Rakovsky's journal, no. 3, very secret, 12 November 1926, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 215, p. 113, 11. 435-440; 'Extract from Rakovsky's letter to Litvinov, no. 4, 16 November 1926', AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53774, p. 266 11. 59-61; Poincare to Briand, no. 12672, 30 November 1926, FNSP, Papiers de Monzie/1; and Labonne to Herbette, 9 December 1926, ibid.
86. Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 3086, secret, 18 November 1926, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53774, p. 266, 11. 14-16; Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 3150, secret, 4 December 1926, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 212, p. 112, 1. 94; Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 3195, secret, 18 December 1926, ibid., 1. 95; and Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 3234, secret, 29 December 1926, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 213, p. 112, 11. 64-65.
87. Litvinov to Stalin, no. 3014, 4 January 1927, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 303, p. 117, 11. 1-3; Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 3022, secret, 8 January 1927, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53821, p. 269, 11. 5-7; and Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 3042, secret, 15 January 1927, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 304, p. 117, 11. 4-6.
88. A. P. Rozengol'ts, Soviet charge in London, to Litvinov, no. 52/s, very secret, 21 January 1927, AVPRF, f. 069, o. 11, d. 2, p. 30, 11. 1-3; and Rozengol'ts to Litvinov, no. 155/s, very secret, 25 March 1927, ibid., 11. 90-98.
89. 'Extract of Rakovsky to Litvinov, no. 6, very secret, 24 March 1927', AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53821, p. 269, 1. 25.
90. 'Note pour le secretaire general', Alexis Leger, directeur politique, 17 February 1927, MAE Z-Russie/359, ff. 126-127; and 'Note de M. [Charles] Corbin [sous-directeur, Europe]', 26 February 1927, MAE Z-Russie/489; and Briand to Herbette, nos. 237-239, 10 April 1927, MAE Z-Russie/359, ff. 134-136.
91. Walford Selby, FO, to Eric Phipps, British charge d'affaires in Paris, 21 February 1927, PRO FO 800 260, ff. 238-248; Phipps to Selby, 7 March 1927, ibid., ff. 281-282; and various papers in F5018/2/10, PRO FO 371 12406.
92. Gustave Tery, 'Agiter afin de s'en servir', L'Oeuvre, 1 May 1927; Jean Pilot, 'Distinction necessaire', L'Oeuvre, 27 May 1927; Bizot's personal notes, 7 May 1927, MF B32013; Rakovsky to Litvinov, 7 May 1927, DVP, X, pp. 188-191; and Rakovsky to Litvinov, no. 14, 13 May, very secret, 13 May 1927, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53821, p. 269 11. 52-55.
93. Bizot's untitled, handwritten notes, 13 May 1927, MF B32013; Litvinov to Rakovsky, no. 3286, secret, 16 April 1927, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 304, p. 117, 1. 12; and Litvinov to Chicherin (San Rafael), no. 3297, secret, 22 April 1927, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53821, p. 269, 11. 40-42.
94. Untitled note, 11 April 1927, FNSP, Papiers de Monzie/2.
95. 'Une interview de M. Rakowski, la question des dettes russes et les ouvertures de nouveaux credits', Paris-Soir, 4 May 1927, MF B32013; untitled note, Bizot, 6 May 1927, ibid.; Poincare to Briand, no. 4833^bis, 6 May 1927, ibid.; and Stephane Lauzanne, 'Une comedie qui a assez dure c'est celle des negociations franco-sovietiques', Le Matin, 9 May 1927.
96. 'Rapport au President du conseil, Ministre des Finances', no. 5338, Moret, approved by Poincare, 19 May 1927, MF B32013; and 'Negociations franco-sovietiques', Europe, ns, 20 May 1927, MAE Z-Russie/489.
97. 'From a conversation with Poincare on 24 May 1927', very secret, Chicherin, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53821, p. 269 II. 65-69; 'Discussions with [Alfred] Margaine, [Victor] Dalbiez, and [Henri] Rollin', very secret, Rakovsky, 24 May 1927, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 305, p. 117, 11. 55-57; 'From Chicherin's conversations with Painleve and Herriot 25 May 1927', ibid., 11. 68-71; and "Conversations with various people on 24-26 May', very secret, Chicherin, ibid., 11. 72-76.
98. 'Record of a conversation of Chlenov with Labonne 22 June 1927', Chlenov, 2 July 1927, AVPRF, f. 04, o. 42, d. 53821, p. 269 11. 71-72.
99. 'Dnevnik', 26 June 1927, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 306, p. 117, 11. 169-172.
100. 'Recu la visite de M. Labonne', Bizot, 19 July 1927, MF B32013.
101. Untitled MAE note, ns, vu par M. Berthelot, 20 July 1927, MAE Z-Russie/490; Rakovsky to Chicherin, no. 26, very secret, 22 July 1927, AVPRF, f. 136, d. 306, p. 117, 11. 200-209; Rakovsky to Chicherin, no. 27, very secret, 23 July 1927, ibid., 11. 196-199; Rakovsky to Chicherin, 24 July 1927, DVP, X, pp. 343-344; Labonne to Herbette, 3 August 1927, FNSP, Papiers de Monzie/II.
102. Evgenii A. Preobrazhensky, member of the Soviet delegation in Paris, to Chicherin, no. 2, 5 August 1927, AVPRF,