scholarly journals International Situation in Europe and USSR’S Foreign Policy prior to and after the Outbreak of World War II

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Pavlo Kirpenko
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy

The article is devoted to the international situation in Europe and USSR’s foreign policy before and after the outbreak of World War II. The author states that from the very begin¬ning the fascist regime in Germany was favourably received by Stalin’s USSR. Hitler also claimed that the German government was ready to develop friendly relations with the Soviet Union. However, such a situation in the bilateral relations was short-lived. Seeking benevolence from Western European countries, Hitler assumed the role of an anti-communist crusader. With a view to strengthening the country’s security, countering Germany and fascism, Stalin gave up his ideological dogmas in line with the situation. Moscow came to vigorously support all politi¬cal forces, which were advocating closer relations with the USSR against fascism. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Stalin’s foreign policy suffered a total collapse, which was a devastating blow to the myth of his brilliance and sagacity. The glorification of fascism and the policy of its befriending came at a cost. Nearly 50 million Soviet citizens per¬ished in the war against the fascist Germany, of which 10 million were Ukrainian nationals. In Russia, both public officials and scholars still avoid the truth about the foreign policy activity of the Soviet leadership in 1939 and 1940s. In this regard, the Ukrainian histo¬rian and specialist in international relations, professor at Kyiv Pedagogical University Anatolii Trubaichuk was the first in the Soviet Union to tell the truth in his writings and lectures about the essence of the Soviet foreign policy before and after the beginning of World War II based on his profound scientific research. The author stresses that the search for full truth is to be continued. To that end, it is neces¬sary that all the archives in Russia be opened and access to documents relating to the period of World War II be provided. Keywords: World War II, foreign policy, Soviet Union, Stalin, Germany.

scholarly journals Some Aspects of Working Practices at the Department of State Protocol of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

2020 ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Yurii Lazuto
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy

Abstract. The article is devoted to the international situation in Europe and USSR’s foreign policy before and after the outbreak of World War II. The author states that from the very beginning the fascist regime in Germany was favourably received by Stalin’s USSR. Hitler also claimed that the German government was ready to develop friendly relations with the Soviet Union. However, such a situation in the bilateral relations was short-lived. Seeking benevolence from Western European countries, Hitler assumed the role of an anti-communist crusader. With a view to strengthening the country’s security, countering Germany and fascism, Stalin gave up his ideological dogmas in line with the situation. Moscow came to vigorously support all political forces, which were advocating closer relations with the USSR against fascism. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Stalin’s foreign policy suffered a total collapse, which was a devastating blow to the myth of his brilliance and sagacity. The glorification of fascism and the policy of its befriending came at a cost. Nearly 50 million Soviet citizens perished in the war against the fascist Germany, of which 10 million were Ukrainian nationals. In Russia, both public officials and scholars still avoid the truth about the foreign policy activity of the Soviet leadership in 1939 and 1940s. In this regard, the Ukrainian historian and specialist in international relations, professor at Kyiv Pedagogical University Anatolii Trubaichuk was the first in the Soviet Union to tell the truth in his writings and lectures about the essence of the Soviet foreign policy before and after the beginning of World War II based on his profound scientific research. The author stresses that the search for full truth is to be continued. To that end, it is necessary that all the archives in Russia be opened and access to documents relating to the period of World War II be provided. Keywords: World War II, foreign policy, Soviet Union, Stalin, Germany.

‘Mimicking’ the West? Russia's legitimization discourse from Georgia war to the annexation of Crimea

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-321
Author(s):  
Vasile Rotaru
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International System ◽  
World War ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
International Behavior ◽  
First Time

The 2008 Georgia war represented a turning point in Russian foreign policy. It was for the first time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union when Moscow invaded an independent country and for the first time when two members of the Council of Europe fought against each other. A premiere for Russian post-Soviet foreign policy was registered in 2014 too. The annexation of Crimea represented the first incorporation of foreign territories by Moscow since World War II. These two events generated the West's protest and blatantly contradict Russia's proclaimed foreign policy discourse centered around the respect for states' sovereignty and equality of actors in the international system. Starting from the assertion that the formulation of Russia's foreign policy is determined by the West's international behavior — Moscow looking whether to emulate or to find alternatives to it; the present paper will compare Russia's legitimization arguments for the 2008 war and the 2014 annexation of Crimea trying to assess how Moscow answers Western criticism and whether there is a continuity in Russian official legitimization narratives.

Italian Communism and Soviet Terror

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-63
Author(s):  
Richard Drake
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Before And After ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Relationship

The declassification of materials from the Russian archives has provided a good deal of new evidence about the relationship between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Soviet Union both before and after World War II. Two newly published collections of documents leave no doubt that, contrary to arguments made by supporters of the PCI, the Italian party was in fact strictly subservient to the dictates of Josif Stalin. The documents reveal the unsavory role of the PCI leader, Palmiro Togliatti, in the destruction of large sections of the Italian Communist movement and in the tragic fate of Italian prisoners of war who were held in the Soviet Union during and after World War II. Togliatti's legacy, as these documents make clear, was one of terror and the Stalinization of the PCI.

Nixon's Grand Design

Worldview ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-11
Author(s):  
Donald Brandon
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Pearl Harbor ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Grand Design

For a generation now, America has played a significant role in world affairs. Until Pearl Harbor a reluctant belligerent in World War II, this country was also slow to respond to the challenge of the Soviet Union in the immediate aftermath of that gigantic conflict. But for almost twenty-five years American Presidents have been more or less guided by the policy of “containment.” Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson all introduced variations on the multiple themes of the policy adopted by Harry Truman. Yet each concluded that the world situation allowed no reasonable alternative to an activist American foreign policy in most areas of the globe.

scholarly journals Svetlana Suveică, Loialitate în perioada extremelor: funcționarii publici din Basarabia în perioada celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial (1939-1945) / Loyalties in the Age of Extremes: Local Officials in Bessarabia during World War II (1939–1945)

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-95
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Low Rank ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
World War ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Local Officials

The article discusses the issue of loyalty in the Southeast European region of Bessarabia (today Republic of Moldova), which during World War II switched its political status from Romania to the USSR and back several times (1940, 1941, and 1944). This bottom-up analysis, drawing on an anextensive documentary basis from different archives, provides a new bottom-up perspective, which focuses on local public institutions and their employees. It reveals that, despite the fact that both regimes acknowledged the role of the bearers of vernacular knowledge about the society and entrusted them with daily administrative issues, the authorities constantly treated local public employees with mistrust and suspected them of “betrayal”. Whereas questioning their loyalty with regard to their activity during the previous regime, no standard criteria of loyalty assessment were applied; it was fragile and had a situational character. When one regime left and another came, the great majority of high-ranking public officials, such as heads of districts and mayors (heads of local Soviets, in the case of the Soviet Union), left Bessarabia together with the army and administration, in order to avoid repression and annihilation. In contrast, the low-rank employees (secretaries, accountants, as well as priests and teachers) stayed in the region, their decision to remain being guided by personal and family interests rather than by political or other convictions.

Incremental Activism in Soviet Third World Policy: The Role of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee

Slavic Review ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 614-630
Author(s):  
Jan S. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Control Unit ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy

Historically, leaders of the Soviet Union have shown extraordinary faith in the power of bureaucratic reorganization to solve political problems. The 1985-1987 restaffing and restructuring of the foreign policy establishment indicate that Mikhail Gorbachev shares this faith. In the first sixteen months of his leadership, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs replaced its minister, two first deputy ministers, seven deputy ministers, a third of all Soviet ambassadors, and created four new departments. In addition, important changes were made in the central party apparat, affecting three of the CPSU Central Committee departments: The International Information Department was abolished. The Propaganda Department gained added prominence in international affairs with the appointment of a new chief, Aleksandr Iakovlev, who began playing a conspicuous role as Gorbachev's advisor at international conferences even before his elevation to the Politburo in January 1987. Of great significance for the Soviet foreign policy establishment as a whole, the International Department (ID) was given new leadership, a new arms control unit, and expanded missions.

The “Skeleton Key” — American Foreign Policy, European Unity, and German Rearmament, 1949–54

1986 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 369-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
World War ◽  
Spanish American War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
European Unity

An older colleague recently observed to me that today we stand further removed in time from the end of World War II than Americans at the beginning of that conflict were from the Spanish American War. To those Americans of 1939, he said, the war with Spain seemed almost antediluvian, while to us World War II lives vividly in memory, and its consequences still shape our lives. As a student of modern American foreign policy, I found my colleague's observation particularly appropriate. American and Soviet soldiers still face each other in the middle of Germany, and Europe remains divided along the lines roughly set by the liberating armies. Yet could we now be facing major changes? Will an agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons in Europe, and glasnost in the Soviet Union transform this environment? Will the postwar division of Europe come to an end? What will be the consequences for the United States?

scholarly journals A Continent Divided

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvio Pons
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
European Countries ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Policy Objectives

After World War II, tensions between European countries were never far from the surface. The Soviet Union was the most dominant of these powers, yet Joseph Stalin’s postwar vision to control Eastern Europe was not always realized. His foreign policy objectives were shifted and shaped by leaders from smaller countries who actively made demands in their own interests.

Was There a Soviet Policy for Evacuating the Jews?: The Case of the Annexed Territories

Slavic Review ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben-Cion Pinchuk
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Population ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Baltic

As a result of the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, eastern Poland, Bessarabia, and Northern Bucovina in 1939-40, the Soviet Union was left with the largest Jewish population in Europe. Given this large population, the fact that the Soviet Union had the greatest number of Jews who survived World War II has aroused the interest of researchers and drawn attention to the role of Soviet policy in the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. Some of the reasons for the survival of Jews in Soviet-annexed territories seem obvious. In contrast to other European countries, only part of the USSR was occupiéd by German armies. Therefore, Jews could find refuge in the unoccupied regions. This simple and generally sufficient explanation is not the only one which has been offered, however. Some Western scholars have argued that the Soviet government had a specific policy designed to rescue Jews from the danger of annihilation. Soviet propaganda, particularly that aimed at Western audiences, maintained that millions of Jews owed their lives to Soviet rescue operations during the Holocaust.

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