SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1917-1991
A Retrospective
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T h e Cum m ings C enter for Russian and East European Studies
T h e Cum mings C enter Series
Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1991
A R etrospective
Gabriel G orodetsky, Editor
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THE CUMMINGS CENTER
FOR RUSSIAN AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY
The Cummings Center is Tel Aviv University’s main framework for research,
study, documentation and publication relating to the history and current affairs
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include Fundamentalism and Secularism in the Muslim Republics of the Soviet
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THE CUMMINGS CENTER SERIES
The titles published in this series are the product of original research by the
Center’s faculty, research staff and associated fellows. The Cummings Center
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of interest to scholars in the fields of history and political science.
Managing Editor - Deena Leventer
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
1917-1991
A Retrospective
Edited by
GABRIEL GORODETSKY
| J Routledge
Taylor &. Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1994 by
FRANK CASS AND CO. LTD.
Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0 X 1 4 4RN
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Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
Copyright © 1994
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-91:
Retrospective
I. Gorodetsky, Gabriel
327.47
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Soviet foreign policy, 1917-1991: a retrospective / edited by Gabriel
Gorodetsky
p.cm.
1. Soviet Union — Foreign relations. I. Gorodetsky, Gabriel, 1945—
DK266.45.S68 1993
93-30 555
327.47'009'04-dc20
CIP
ISBN 13: 978-0-714-64506-3 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-714-64112-6 (pbk)
All rights reserved. No part o f this publication may be reproduced
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Typeset by University Publishing Projects, Tel Aviv, Israel
Contents
Introduction
1
Part One
THE GENESIS OF SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
1. The NEP in Foreign Policy: The Genoa Conference
and the Treaty of Rapallo
Carole Fink
2. G. V. Chicherin: A Historical Perspective
Richard K. Debo
11
21
3- The Formulation o f Soviet Foreign Policy —
Ideology and Realpolitik
Gabriel Gorodetsky
30
4. The Foreign Policy of the Soviet Ukraine and Its
Domestic Implications, 1919-1923
Francis Conte
45
5. Litvinov, Stalin and the Road Not Taken
Jo n ath an Haslarn
55
Part Two
THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE GRAND ALLIANCE
6. Soviet Security Policy in the 1930s
Teddy J. Uldricks
65
7. The Secret Protocols of 1939 as a Problem of Soviet
Historiography
Lev Bezymensky
75
8. Poland between East and West — The Politics
of a Government-in-Exile
Anita J. Prazmowska
86
9- The Soviet Union and the Grand Alliance: The Internal
Dimension of Foreign Policy
Aleksei Filitov
97
Part Three
THE COLD WAR
10. Soviet Foreign Policy and the Origins of the Cold War
105
M ikhail Narinsky
11. British Policy towards the Soviet Union 1945-1948
111
Martin Kitchen
12. The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East
135
B ru ce R. Kuniholm
13. The Problematics of the Soviet-Israeli Relationship
146
Yaacov R o’i
14. Gorbachev and the Reunification of Germany:
Personal Recollections
158
A natolii C herniaev
15. On the Road to German Reunification: The View
from Moscow
170
Vyacheslav D ashichev
Part Four
CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY
16. Politics and Morality in Soviet Foreign Policy
183
A lexan der Tchoubarian
17. International Affairs at the End of the Cold War
187
Igor Lebedev
18. From Cold War to New World Order
192
Viktor Kuvaldin
19. Moscow and the Gulf War: The Policies of a Collapsing
Superpower
198
C arol R. Saivetz
20. Domestic Aspects of Soviet Foreign Policy
209
A lexan der Dallin
Notes on Contributors
217
Index
221
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1917-1991
A Retrospective
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Introduction
Since Russia’s emergence as a major power in the eighteenth century,
the Western world has been reluctant to accept it as an integral part of
Europe. This rebuff, embedded in a deep-rooted Russophobic tradi­
tion, was heightened by the Bolshevik Revolution. In 1839 the Marquis
de Custine returned from Russia appalled, preaching to the Europeans
that the Russians were no more than “Chinese masquerading as
Europeans”. Two centuries later Churchill referred to the Soviet Union
as “an enigma wrapped in a mystery”. Earlier on he had applied less
flattering metaphors to the Russians, comparing them to “crocodiles”
and a “plague of baboons”. The continuity in the Western perception
of Russia was conspicuous in Churchill’s choice of the “Iron Curtain”,
a mere paraphrase of the “cordon sanitaire” with which Lord Curzon
had hoped to isolate Western civilization from the Bolshevik “plague”
during the Civil War.
Nor have the Russians been unanimous about their own destiny
and identity. From the early 1830s the Russian intelligentsia pursued a
fierce debate over the road which Russia should follow to surmount
her political, social and economic backwardness. The debate has
accompanied each twist in Russian history. Originally the Westernizers
identified Russia as an integral part of European civilization, while the
Slavophiles valued the unique features of a way of life which derives
from Russia’s position between West and East. The contemporary
variation on the controversy is expressed by the liberal reformers, who
look towards the West, and the nationalists who favour the establish­
ment of a unique Eurasian entity. The reopening of the age-old
dialogue on the nature of Russian nationalism and the place of Russia
in world affairs reflects the search for a new identity.
On both the Western and Russian sides vindictiveness, resentment
and suspicions have shaped perceptions which in turn have generated
antagonistic policies. Russia has long been regarded as a cancerous
element within the European community despite its military efforts in
the First World War, its attempts to form a united resistance to Nazism,
and its major role in the reshaping of postwar Europe. The Cold War
ultimately cast a long shadow over Russia’s contribution to the final
victory over Nazism in Europe. This in turn encouraged isolationist
and xenophobic tendencies in Moscow, fuelling Stalin’s pathological
suspicion of Western intentions.
The dismemberment of the Soviet Empire finds Russia once again
1
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1917-1991
at a crossroad. In its feeble state, troubled by internal havoc, instability
and econom ic hardship, Russia is once again being forced to forfeit its
connection to Europe. The move towards a united Europe continues
with vigour and there is a clear sense of relief now that the menace
from the East has been lifted. For a while it seemed that Russia’s claim
to membership in Europe might disturb the tranquillity of the
European Home. The undeniable departure of Russia as a dynamic
force from the European scene is welcomed, as long as Russian
domestic chaos does not spill beyond its borders. In its present
weakness Russia is once again being ostracized and left out in the
cold.
For historians the dissolution of the Soviet Union permits an overall
view of Soviet foreign policy. They are now in a position to explore
archival sources which have been entirely inaccessible, and to
examine topics which have been highly politicized in the past. For the
Russian scholar, the historical journey cannot be divorced from the
dynamics of the present reshaping of Russia. While it is commonly
acknowledged that historical precedents cannot serve as a yardstick
for forecasting the future, the search for a new identity relies heavily
on the legacy of the past. Allusion to the past, whether the Communist
or the Imperial one, is a means to reestablish Russia’s international
stature. In the best Russian tradition, further assisted by a diehard and
less appealing communist practice, Russian historians still feel
politically responsible and committed to their past history.
In the sphere of East-West relations the historical lessons are
indispensable for the reevaluation of the perceptions and prejudices
which have underlain the policies pursued. More than in any other
field of history, both Russian and Western students of Soviet foreign
affairs have been bound in differing degrees by political dispositions.
The emergence of a new Russia provides a unique opportunity to shed
biases and examine controversial historical precedents in a temperate
fashion.
It was the need to put this historical experience into perspective
which brought together leading Russian and Western historians in
Moscow to sum up their research, identify contentious issues and
ponder whether indeed past experience has any relevance for the
emergence of a new Russia. While the present collection does not
pretend to encompass the whole range of issues relating to the course
of seventy years of Soviet foreign policy, it does address the crucial
ones pertaining to the Soviet Union’s relations with the West.
The mere opening of archival sources is not a sufficient guarantee
o f a proper re-examination of Soviet foreign policy. The encounter
with the Russian scholars confirmed the need to set common
2
INTRODUCTION
paradigms in view of the basic discrepancy in methodology and con­
ceptual outlook. Setting up a common platform for collaboration will
facilitate future joint investigation with Russian scholars, whose prox­
imity to and familiarity with the archival sources and acquaintance
with the environment which they investigate are valuable assets.
Any revisionist approach requires the transcendence of biases and
political beliefs. Bidding farewell to a familiar and congenial past with
a smile, as Bezymensky astutely comments, can be an agonizing task.
For instance, the attempts made by the Gorbachev administration to
deny the existence o f the Secret Protocols of the Ribbentrop-Molotov
Pact in the Soviet archives manifest the need for a continuous dialogue
which will maintain the momentum of reviewing Soviet history.
New facets of Soviet foreign policy should be explored, particularly
the domestic aspects, as is pointed out by Alexander Dallin. Dallin sets
the agenda for further study of the process of foreign policy decision
making and the need to investigate institutional rivalry over matters of
foreign policy. The neglect of these aspects has led to the total
bankruptcy of Sovietology in its attempts to understand the workings
of Soviet foreign policy.
Although Russian historians are no longer fettered by official
diktats, their historical approach to the subject matter is under­
standably governed by their individual and collective attitudes to the
colossal changes now sweeping Russia. They are once again joining
hands with politicians in a search for clues and moral lessons in the
past which can be applied to the future course of the country. A
disturbing tendency is the attempt to erase the entire Soviet experience
from the collective Russian memory and then pick up the threads back
in 1914, dismantling the legacy, history and traditions of almost an
entire century.
A number of historians feel compelled to come to terms with the
Soviet legacy. The formulation of policy must be based, as Igor
Lebedev observes, on a continuity which is grounded in constant
geopolitical, national and psychological conditions. As is evident from
most of the chapters in this volume, the Russian Federation will find it
exceedingly difficult to dissociate itself from the communist legacy,
just as the Bolshevik Revolution failed to sever its ties with the Tsarist
heritage. Lebedev calls for a dispassionate reassessment of Soviet
foreign policy, which will help to reconstruct Russia’s identity on the
basis of past legacy and establish its corresponding responsibilities.
This is essential for the stability of the entire world. Others like
Alexander Tchoubarian, apply a new blend of ethics and morality as
the main criterion for passing historical judgment. The application of
morality and ethics to the search for a new foreign policy seems to
3
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1917-1991
Tchoubarian the best means of bridging the gap between science and
politics.
A major historical debate, which had a direct political influence on
the formulation of policy towards the Soviet Union, involved the
evaluation of the nature and aims of Soviet foreign policy. Up to the
very collapse of the Soviet empire, historians and politicians continued
to haggle over the issue of whether the dual policy was based
predominantly on ideology or realpolitik. The first decade of the
Bolshevik Revolution is now recognized as a dramatic epoch in which
ideology and statesmanship clashed in a still relatively pluralistic
environment. The majority of the historians writing in this volume
agree that from the beginning Soviet foreign policy was characterized
by a gradual but consistent retreat away from unbending hostility to
the capitalist regimes and towards peaceful coexistence based on
mutual expediency.
The subsequent string of “breathing spaces”, though clad in
revolutionary jargon, brought about a steady erosion of the ideological
component of Soviet foreign policy. In her case study Carole Fink
presents the Genoa Conference in 1922 as a daring attempt to
negotiate a compromise through the acceptance of ideological
differences and the search for accommodation. Ironically, Genoa
turned out to be a model of failure of a genuine search for peaceful
coexistence. A neat assessment of M oscow’s dilemmas in the 1930s
leads Teddy Uldricks to the similar conclusion that Soviet foreign
policy was indeed motivated primarily by a genuine and desperate
search for security.
Richard Debo and Uldricks agree that a review of the initial stages
of Soviet foreign policy is essential for detecting missed opportunities
in the 1930s, such as the establishment of a common front against
Nazism which might have created a solid basis for the Grand Alliance,
thus averting the Cold War. The Cold War increasingly emerges as a
prolonged process of mutual errors of judgment, most of which
derived from the often irrational suspicions prevailing not only in
Moscow but also among Western academics and politicians alike. The
deterioration of relations in the wake of the Second World War, as
Mikhail Narinsky argues on the basis of Soviet archival material, rested
on earlier suspicions and mistrust, and led to a situation in which
military means becam e the sole language of diplomacy.
Martin Kitchen offers a survey of Labour’s attitude towards the
Soviet Union against the background of the looming Cold War. He
shows how Bevin, aware of the limitations of British policy in the
wake of the Second World War, moulded a sober and realistic
relationship with Moscow, demolishing many relics of the past. But by
4
INTRODUCTION
1947 the USA had taken the lead from the British in confronting the
Russians with great power politics. East-West relations were further
aggravated by the Americans’ conviction of ideological superiority.
Indeed, Bruce Kuniholm clearly depicts how Soviet-American rivalry
in the Near East superseded the earlier Anglo-Soviet one. Unlike Teddy
Uldricks, he believes that while American policy in the region was
predominantly dictated by genuine security concerns and aimed at
containing the Russians, that of Moscow was expansionist and in
flagrant violation of international codes of behaviour.
From a different perspective, Prazmowska relates how the Polish
issue came to dominate the meeting at Yalta which symbolizes the
“great betrayal” and the emergence of the Cold War. This
phenomenon should be viewed in the context of the strategic and
military policies pursued by Poland in 1941-43. She contends that the
Poles sought to exert disproportional influence, pursuing an illusory
conviction that Britain and the United States would prevent the Soviets
from taking control of Poland in the event of victory over Germany.
The twentieth century is commonly regarded as the age of “mass
participation”. Modern governments, sustained by the powerful
bureaucratic edifice of civil administration, are compelled to seek
legitimization through multiple channels of popular consent. And yet it
is hard to deny the prominent role played by the towering figures of
this century. Their leadership, often forged by crisis, underlines the
supremacy of personality and circumstances.
The absence of archival sources and inside knowledge has diverted
historians towards ideology and power politics; in a society where
personal contact and back-room politics were and remain a major
feature, the human dimension has been ignored. As Alexander Dallin
observes, the mechanism o f policy making and the relative weight of
its executors remain practically unknown. Because of the heavily
censored and hagiographic nature of the portraits drawn in the Soviet
Union, it was hardly possible to visualize prominent diplomats such as
Rakovsky, Maiskii, Krestinskii, Ioffe, Litvinov and Molotov as mortals.
Their faces, so far distinguished only by their general contours, have
suddenly com e to life. Their personal habits, inner thoughts and
entourages are brought into focus. Such changes call for striking reevaluations of the decision-making process.
For many years historians have been blindly clinging to the
obsolete totalitarian model of Friederich and Arendt. Besides making a
crude and superficial comparison between the Nazi and the Soviet
systems, aimed at discrediting the Soviet Union during the Cold War,
the model did little to enrich our knowledge of Soviet policy.
Sovietologists were often led to produce a subjective evaluation of the
5
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1917-1991
motives behind Soviet foreign policy. More often than not such an
approach was dictated entirely by preconceived ideas divorced from
reality. One of the outstanding features of this collection is the attempt
to view the decision-making process through the eyes of leaders and
practitioners rather than focusing on ideological, social or econom ic
factors.
Richard Debo, for example, reveals the significance of the intimate
friendship between Chicherin and Brockdorff-Rantzau. Their relation­
ship, cultivated in nocturnal sessions at Chicherin’s flat in the Com­
missariat, and nourished by a shared interest in music, literature and
culture, transcended national interests or ideological persuasions.
These personal insights bring to mind Chicherin’s preface to his
scholarly book on Mozart written in 1931, in which he defied the
newly established practice of alluding to Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Stalin. “Mozart,” he wrote as an introductory note, “remained through­
out my life my best friend and comrade...standing high above world
history, beyond its drifts and influence.”
The complexities of the decision-making process and the colourful
figures behind it are illuminated in Haslam’s study. Soviet foreign
policy in the crucial late 1930s and in the aftermath of the Second
World War is presented as a bone of contention among Litvinov,
Molotov and Stalin, rather than the product of a lacklustre hierarchy
devoid of any personal initiative. These observations are corroborated
by Filitov, who provides further evidence from the Soviet archives on
dissent in Moscow over issues such as the outbreak of the war in the
Pacific and Roosevelt’s proposal for setting up a Supreme War Council.
The inside story is further unravelled in Anatolii Cherniaev’s per­
sonal reminiscences of the negotiations between Kohl and Gorbachev
which led to the reunification of Germany. The proliferation of sources
only sharpens controversies and unfolds the intricacy of events for
which, in the past, Western historians provided simplified answers and
Soviet historians produced dull and dogmatic interpretations. Thus,
while Cherniaev credits Gorbachev with a well-orchestrated move
towards reunification, Dashichev’s eye-witness report depicts the
tremendous pressure which forced Gorbachev to concede step by
step. Such a discrepancy signals the opening of a diversified and
genuine historical dialogue. There is potential for a similar exchange
between Viktor Kuvaldin and Carol Saivetz. In Kuvaldin’s review of the
emergence of “new thinking” in foreign policy his inside information
On the Gulf War adds colour to Carole Saivetz’s interpretation, which
derives from more conventional Western tools.
Another feature which deserves renewed attention is the role
played by the various national and ethnic groups in the conduct of
6
INTRODUCTION
Soviet foreign policy. The axiomatic recognition of the Soviet Union as
an indivisible entity led most observers to play down regional and
autonomous interests within the various Republics. However,
nationalist undercurrents have persisted since the 1920s and are clearly
demonstrated by the emergence of an autonomous Ukrainian foreign
policy, with distinct attributes, geared towards integration into the
emerging bloc of Central European states. The extent to which the
Ukraine, under the guidance of Khristian Rakovsky, attempted to
assert econom ic and political independence from the Russians in the
1920s is the subject of a pioneering study by Conte. Yaacov Ro’i shows
that it was not global politics but anti-Semitism on the one hand and
the activities of Soviet Jewry on the other which were the major factors
determining the Soviet demeanour in the Middle East.
I am particularly grateful to Prof. Alexander Oganovich
Tchoubarian, Director of the Institute of General History of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, for the fruitful collaboration in the mounting of
the Moscow conference on the history of Soviet foreign policy in 1992.
The research papers presented at the conference served as the
backbone of this collection. A special debt of gratitude is owed to Mrs.
Deena Leventer for her devotion in the organizational work of the
conference and for the meticulous care she and Mrs. Beryl Belsky
invested in the editorial work.
Gabriel Gorodetsky
Tel Aviv
July 1993
7
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Part One
THE GENESIS OF SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
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1
The NEP in Foreign Policy:
The Genoa Conference and the
Treaty of Rapallo
CAROLE FINK
One of the most significant events in the early history of SovietWestern relations took place at the Genoa Conference of 1922. Con­
vened by the Supreme Allied Council to re-establish ties between
Soviet Russia and the West, this 34-nation summit conference lasted six
weeks but produced no agreement. After only one week, the Soviet
and German delegates signed a separate treaty at Rapallo; and after the
dismal follow-up conference to Genoa that summer at the Hague,
Moscow and the West were perhaps even further apart than before.
Historians of the Genoa Conference have long debated whether
both sides were sincere, realistic, or even capable o f establishing
peace between Soviet Russia and the capitalist world. They have
investigated leadership of both sides, their ideological, political and
financial structures, and their economic, social, and cultural situations
in 1921-22.1 The unprecedented availability and magnitude of
captured German documents, plus the archival sources of North
America, Europe and Japan facilitated in producing a balanced
multinational perspective. Even with the help of only the printed
Soviet sources, it is possible to examine one of the initial and critical
episodes in Soviet-Western relations.
The tides of revolution and counter-revolution had ebbed in 1921,
and both sides were casting about for alternatives to military and
ideological confrontation. Four years after the October Revolution,
Soviet Russia, faced at home with internal dissent and a collapsed
econom y and abroad with diplomatic ostracism and the repression of
revolutionary movements, called for a truce with the bourgeois
capitalist world. Great Britain was pressed by its own financial,
11
GENESIS OF SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
political, and social problems. Convinced of the futility of further
efforts to overthrow or exclude the Soviet regime, and intent on re­
vising what it considered an unsatisfactory postwar peace structure,
Britain was the first major power to respond to Moscow’s overtures.
The Anglo-Soviet trade agreement of 16 March 1921 signalled the end
of outright antagonism and the search for a new basis of East-West
diplomacy.2
Both sides were wary of the risks and the costs. Both were led by
charismatic, forceful, yet flexible leaders, V. I. Lenin and David Lloyd
George, who were flanked at home by vocal opponents on the left
and the right. The world’s first socialist state and leader of the
Comintern, which had repudiated traditional Great Power diplomacy,
was about to make overtures to the class enemy. Britain, burdened by
imperial responsibilities, heavily in debt to the United States, and
bound to European peace treaties, was about to deal with its sworn
global opponent.3
In 1921, Moscow launched the New Economic Policy and offered
concessions to foreign capitalists. Seeking trade and loans, Lenin in­
troduced a series of legal and political reforms to attract Western
businessmen and to facilitate Russia’s recovery. In the wake of crop
failures, famine and epidemics, the Soviet state also appealed for direct
aid from the West. Lenin and Georgii Chicherin, the People’s
Commissar of Foreign Affairs, formulated a policy of peaceful
coexistence which included renouncing armed conflict, exploring
specific areas of accommodation and establishing a basis for peaceful
competition with the capitalist world.4
Russians and Westerners have written extensively during the past
seven decades on the origins and meaning of the term “coexistence”.5
Some scholars date it back to Brest-Litovsk, and to Lenin’s willingness
to compromise in order to gain his ends. Seemingly inconsistent with a
professed revolutionary regime and with its need and commitment to
destabilize Western imperialism, Lenin’s policy of coexistence
ostensibly stopped the insurrectionist clock, or at least slowed it
down.6
A precise analysis of this complex policy must await the opening of
Soviet archives. In the meantime, one can at least assert the following:
coexistence was aimed at winning breathing space and possible
econom ic benefits for the still-precarious Soviet regime. It was a means
of promoting trade, credits, diplomatic agreements and the cause of
general disarmament. In addition, it served as a valuable propaganda
weapon to impress Western liberals and pacifists and to silence rightwing enemies. Indeed, it was an effective tool for balancing Soviet
foreign policy between the moderates in the Narkomindel and the
12
NEP IN FOREIGN POLICY
ideologues of the Third International.7
Peaceful coexistence also had political significance for Lenin in
1922. It seems likely that the selective pursuit of friendly contacts with
the West was aimed as much at cementing his personal leadership as
preserving the Soviet state. Still attempting to hold the reins of power,
the ailing Soviet leader applied the diplomacy of coexistence as a
brake against his political rivals. His goal was apparently to dismantle
war communism and restructure the military forces, as well as to
promote administrative and economic reform.8
The West responded to Lenin’s overtures with a predictable mixture
of fear and political pragmatism. The opponents of the revolution
insisted on drawing a clear distinction between the Russian people
and the Bolshevik regime; between humanitarian assistance and direct
political contacts. The United States, the first to provide massive aid
through Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration, managed its
resources independently of Moscow and its former European allies.
France, representing over a million dispossessed Russian bondholders,
urged a united front of Western capitalists to impose stiff conditions in
return for renewed economic ties with Moscow. Lloyd George was the
spokesman for the capitalists, workers, and moderate leftist opinion,
advocating a complete detente with Lenin’s Russia, including political
ties. Thus the Western camp lined up behind three positions. The
proponents of pre-revolutionary Russia, who viewed the Soviet state
as a ruined land pitted with menace for all but the most ruthless or
witless entrepreneurs, supported Washington. Those governments
obliged by their electorate to demonstrate a modicum of interest in the
fate of a former pillar of the European system — without jeopardizing
basic capitalist principles — adhered to France. Those states per­
suaded of the necessity of compromise and conciliation backed Great
Britain.9
Chicherin took the platform on 28 October 1921 to propose the
convocation of an international conference which would discuss
“opening an opportunity for private initiative and capital to cooperate
with the power of the workers in the exploitation of Russia’s natural
resources”.10 Moscow offered to assume the tsarist debts in return for
Allied credits and d e ju r e recognition. It stressed its readiness to rejoin
the international community, “not as a supplicant, but as an equal”.
The Allied response came in January 1922 when the Supreme
Council convoked an “urgent” economic and financial conference to
meet in Genoa in April. The heads of government of every major state,
including Soviet Russia and Germany, were invited. Lloyd George
prevailed on the Council to adopt a series of resolutions. The first was
a ringing formula for coexistence: “Nations can claim no right to
13