The Politburo, shocked by Hitler’s success in Germany, took steps to increase Soviet security. One such improvement was achieved that same year when the USA announced its decision to give diplomatic recognition to the USSR. This suited the interests of American business abroad. Having spent years enhancing Soviet influence in Europe, Stalin had acquired a window on to the New World.7
Meanwhile the Red Army was reinforced in the Far East in case Tokyo should try to use its Manchurian quasi-colony as the base for an invasion of the USSR. Stalin had not forgotten about the Japanese incursions into eastern Siberia before the Bolsheviks won the Civil War in Russia. As regards Germany, there was greater room for manoeuvre. People’s Commissar of External Affairs Maxim Litvinov argued that rapprochement with all Europe’s anti-fascist parties and the formation of popular fronts were essential for Soviet interests. This had the support of Georgi Dimitrov, who had been released from a German prison in February 1934 and given political asylum in the USSR. Dimitrov objected to the official characterisation of the leaders and members of other socialist parties as ‘social-fascists’.8 Although the ideas originated with Litvinov and Dimitrov, sanction had to come from the Politburo and in particular from Stalin. France was recognised as the country in Europe which needed to be pulled into the Soviet embrace. Like the USSR, France felt threatened by Hitler’s foreign policy; it was reasonable for Stalin to assume that a reconciliation between the USSR and France would suit both governments.
Stalin also accepted advice from Litvinov to adopt a policy of ‘collective security’. At the Seventeenth Party Congress in January 1934 he expressed satisfaction at the improvement in diplomatic relations with France and Poland. Although he denied this implied a reversal of the USSR’s antagonism to the Treaty of Versailles, he objected to the stated anti-Soviet pretensions of Nazi leaders and offered no olive branch to Germany. His hopes at that time lay with the USA (and even in Japan, which he thought could be induced into co-operating with the USSR). ‘We stand’, said Stalin,
for peace and for the cause of peace. But we’re not afraid of threats and we’re ready to respond blow for blow to warmongers. Anyone wanting peace and seeking businesslike links with us will always have our support. But those who are trying to attack our country will receive crushing retaliation to teach them in future not to push their pigs’ snouts into our Soviet garden patch.
That’s what our foreign policy is about.9
But he omitted to say how these aims could be achieved. What was clear was that Soviet leaders were seeking a way out of their isolation.
The formation of popular fronts would involve communist support for anti-fascist coalition governments. At last the threat from Nazi Germany was recognised as being of a unique order. Dimitrov argued that the Comintern had to be reorganised to deal with this. In October he argued that the Comintern was over-centralised. Communist parties abroad, he wrote to Stalin, should be given the latitude to react autonomously to national conditions.10 This did not mean that the foreign communist parties would have a choice about whether to set up popular fronts. They were peremptorily told to set them up.11 Dimitrov was writing about secondary matters; he wanted the parties to handle day-to-day affairs without constantly referring them upwards. He was hoping for pies in the sky. While calling for independence for these parties, he did not break the chains of their continued subjection.
