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The period from September 1939 to late 1941 was crucial for Soviet foreign policy and coincided with the early stages of the Second World War, including the Great Patriotic War. In Stalin’s Great Game, Michael Jabara Carley unpacks the complexities of Soviet diplomacy during this time, addressing key issues such as the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, Soviet views on the fall of France and the Battle of Britain, efforts to remain neutral in Europe, Soviet relations with both Britain and Nazi Germany, and the formation of the Grand Alliance against the Axis powers. Drawing on extensive research from multilingual archives in France, Britain, the United States, and the USSR, Carley offers a comprehensive narrative that explores Soviet intelligence activities, especially of the “Cambridge Five” spy ring and Nazi Germany’s preparations for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The book also re-evaluates historiographical debates on Stalin’s interpretation of Soviet intelligence and Hitler’s intentions towards the USSR. The third volume in Carley’s trilogy on the origins and early conduct of the Second World War, Stalin’s Great Game provides a fresh re-examination of key events and interpretations by both Western and Soviet historians, introducing new ideas and perspectives on this critical period.

Au sortir de la Première Guerre mondiale, l’intervention antisoviétique fut avant tout motivée par l’étranglement de la contagion bolchevique. La France, comme treize autres puissances, à des degrés divers, y eut sa part. D’abord de manière indirecte en Sibérie, en cornaquant la légion tchèque, puis après la réouverture de la Mer Noire avec l’armistice de 1918, de manière directe, moyennant l’envoi de troupes françaises. Michael Jabara Carley montre, en nous immergeant dans les archives françaises, qu’il s’agissait alors de s’emparer de l’Ukraine et du Donbass, d’une part pour priver les bolcheviques de l’accès aux zones céréalières et minières afin de provoquer l’effondrement de ceux-ci et, d’autre part, de faire main basse sur cet immense réservoir de ressources à exporter vers la France à un prix fixé par celle-ci : en le « colonisant ». Ces plans initiaux durent constamment être revus à la baisse (jusqu’au fiasco final après les mutineries des soldats français) du fait d’un faisceau de variables sous-estimées lors de cette intervention : absence totale de soutien à celle-ci de la population russe ; troupes françaises récalcitrantes à se faire tuer en combattant des prolétaires russes afin de sauver les intérêts de la bourgeoisie française, après déjà plus de quatre années de boucherie à son service ; contamination galopante de ces troupes par le bolchevisme ; opinion publique française remontée contre cette intervention juste après la dévastation de la guerre mondiale ; absence de fiabilité des troupes alliées « russes blanches » et sans base populaire, au contraire de l’Armée rouge dévouée et disciplinée. « Il est arrivé ce qui devait arriver – l’échec complet d’une aventure ridicule. » Général P.-H. d’Anselme, commandant des troupes françaises et alliées en Russie méridionale en 1919, au général Berthelot.

In the spring of 1936, the Soviet effort to build an anti-Nazi alliance was failing. Stalin continued nevertheless to support diplomatic efforts to stop Nazi aggression in Europe. In Stalin’s Failed Alliance, the sequel to Stalin’s Gamble, Michael Jabara Carley continues his re-evaluation of European diplomacy during the critical events between May 1936 and August 1939. This narrative history examines the great crises of the pre-war period – the Spanish Civil War, Anschluss, and Munich accords – as well as both the last Soviet efforts to organize an anti-Nazi alliance in the spring–summer of 1939 and Moscow’s shocking volte-face, the signature of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Carley’s history traces the lead-up to the outbreak of war in Europe on 1 September 1939 and sheds light on the Soviet Union’s efforts to organize a defensive alliance against Nazi Germany, in effect rebuilding the anti-German Entente of the First World War. The author argues for the sincerity of Soviet overtures to the western European powers and that the non-aggression pact was a last-ditch response to the refusal of other states, especially Britain and France, to conclude an alliance with the USSR against Nazi Germany. Drawing on extensive archival research in Soviet and Western archival papers, Stalin’s Failed Alliance aims to see the European crisis of the 1930s through Soviet eyes.

This is a chapter from a draft manuscript of some 2000pp. in English being prepared for publication on relations between the USSR and various European powers, large and small, and the United States in the lead-up to World War II and then beyond until 1942. The author discovers and illustrates social and cultural aspects of diplomatic activities. The topic is Soviet relations with Nazi Germany and Poland in 1933. The larger context is the origins and unfolding of World War II, a subject of importance both intrinsically and politically in relations between the Russian Federation and the western powers. President Vladimir Putin has himself taken an interest in these questions, insisting on an honest, frank historical treatment of that period. How did the USSR and in particular the Narkomindel react to Adolf Hitler’s assumption of power in Germany at the end of January 1933? What additional information do the Russian archives contribute to our knowledge of the origins of the war? The methodology is that of a historical narrative based on archival research, especially in the AVPRF in Moscow. The objective is to explore the policies of the Narkomindel, and in particular the personal views of its leaders, M. M. Litvinov, N. N. Krestinskii, and B. S. Stomoniakov, on the interconnected issues of Soviet relations with Germany and Poland. Let’s call it an histoire des mentalités. 1933 was a year of transition in Soviet relations with the outside world moving from the so-called Rapallo policy of correct relations with Germany to a new policy of collective security and mutual assistance against Nazi Germany. In this chapter one can follow the evolution of ideas in the Narkomindel in reaction to Hitler’s rise to power: from immediate anxiety to a growing conviction that Rapallo was dead and that the USSR had to form stronger relationships in the west and with Poland. This may surprise some readers who think that the Soviet preference, or at least Stalin’s, was always a German orientation. As for Poland, in what may also surprise some readers, and especially many Poles, the Narkomindel sought better relations with Poland to counter the Nazi danger. It was the Polish government which did not want them, preferring a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany (January 1934). Could Poles and Russians ever bury the hatchet after centuries of animosity? In a tragedy amongst many, they could not do so.

This article is about the Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations in 1939 for an alliance against Nazi Germany and about how the British government later tried to represent those negotiations to public opinion. The first part of the essay presents the Soviet point of view on the negotiations and how the British and French governments, though mainly the British, reacted to Soviet alliance proposals. It is a fresh representation of the Soviet perspective from published and unpublished Russian language sources. The second part of the essay focuses on how the British sought to represent the abortive negotiations through a white paper, placing the blame for failure on the Soviet Union. France opposed publication because, however carefully prepared, the white paper showed that the Soviet side had made serious alliance proposals with precise, reciprocal undertakings which the British government was reticent to entertain. The French were all the more annoyed because the white paper omitted to underline that they had been more receptive to Soviet proposals. The trilingual, multi-archival evidence presented in the first part of the essay effectively supports the French perception of the white paper and more generally of the failed tripartite negotiations.

Der Sammelband behandelt die rechtliche und historische Bedeutung des Potsdamer Abkommens, das festlegt, wie die Alliierten ihre durch Debellation des Dritten Reiches erworbene oberste Regierungsgewalt über Deutschland wahrzunehmen gedachten. Die Intention war die Schaffung eines demokratischen Deutschland, von dem hinfort keine Gefahr für den Weltfrieden ausgehen sollte. Zu den Hindernissen ihrer Verwirklichung gehört der Ausbruch des Kalten Kriegs, der das brisante Patt von Ost und West erzeugte, das Europa eine seiner längsten Friedenszeiten eintrug. Dazu gehört zudem das westdeutsche Gegenprogramm, das die Verbindlichkeit des Abkommens für Deutschland leugnet und ihm die Behauptung des Fortbestands des Deutschen Reiches über den 8.5.1945 und die Identität der BRD mit diesem entgegensetzt. Beide Widerstände fanden in der Aufnahme der BRD in das westliche Bündnis zusammen, durch die sich die BRD in der von den Nationalsozialisten angestrebten Koalition sah und Hoffnungen auf eine Revision der Niederlage hegte, denen der «2+4-Vertrag» ein vorläufiges Ende setzt.

Der Sammelband gibt eine Antwort auf die in Politik und Wissenschaft verbreitete Totalitarismustheorie, die den deutsch-sowjetischen Nichtangriffsvertrag vom 23.8.1939 als Verständigung zweier wesensverwandter Diktaturen über die Aufteilung Europas und der Welt interpretiert. Die Beiträge erhellen den tatsächlichen Charakter des Vertrags, die deutschen und die sowjetischen Motive für seinen Abschluss sowie seine Bedeutung für die militärische Niederringung des Dritten Reiches und damit für die europäische Nachkriegsordnung. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit gilt dabei dem Scheitern der sowjetischen Bemühungen um die Schaffung einer britisch-französisch-sowjetischen Allianz gegen die Achsenmächte und den Auswirkungen des Vertrages auf die Organisationen des antifaschistischen Widerstands.

Au moment où l’Allemagne nazie prépare la guerre, les négociations entre la France, la Grande-Bretagne et l’URSS constituent la dernière chance de stopper l’agression hitlérienne. Pourtant, les gouvernements français et britannique se traîne les pieds. Finalement, les pourparlers entre les trois pays échouent et en août 1939, l’URSS signe un pacte de non-agression avec l’Allemagne. Le récit poignant que fait Michael Carley de ces négociations souvent secrètes n’est pas un belle histoire. La narration fascinante d’un jeu diplomatique très complexe, mettant en scène des personnalités souvent troublantes, repose sur des recherches de longue haleine menées par l’auteur dans les archives françaises, britanniques et soviétiques, accessibles au public depuis peu. En faisant de 1939 un moment fort de la guerre froide amorcée après la Révolution bolchevique de 1917 et en montrant comment l’anticommunisme fut la cause majeure de l’échec de l’alliance contre Hitler, Michael Carley remet en cause les interprétations généralement admises sur les origines de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.