Stalin approved these ideas of Dimitrov without much modification. Dimitrov was proving a fertile source of ideas for allowing the USSR and Europe’s communist parties to adapt to fast-changing political and military realities. Stalin failed to come up with novel ideas of his own. Nevertheless such changes as were made to foreign policy had to have his personal permission; and while giving Dimitrov his head in the Comintern, he and Litvinov had other fish to fry. Stalin did not limit the USSR’s initiatives in international relations to contacts with left-of-centre parties. He also wanted reconciliation with the French government of Gaston Doumergue. Steadily the Soviet leadership was edging its way to a policy founded on treaties of ‘collective security’. With this in mind, Stalin permitted his diplomats to apply for and secure the USSR’s entry into the League of Nations in September 1934. Not only France but also Czechoslovakia and Romania were the object of Soviet overtures.12 Stalin was aided by the general fear of a Germany resurgent under Hitler. The existence of the Third Reich scared these states, and all of them were considering surmounting their fundamental distaste for dealing with the USSR. The Red Army’s potential as an anti-Nazi force in eastern and central Europe made negotiations with the Kremlin more attractive than at any time since the October Revolution.
There was much disagreement among observers about Stalin’s purposes. To some it seemed that he was steadily moving towards a more traditional Russian agenda in foreign policy. The particular treaties and alliances did not matter for them: such things always changed in each generation. But the idea was gaining currency that Stalin had abandoned the internationalist objective of Leninism and wished for the USSR’s recognition as a great power with no interest in the overturning of the world political and economic system. Others accepted this as true but qualified the judgement. To them it seemed obvious that both the geopolitical position of the Soviet Union and Stalin’s personal preference dictated an inclination towards rapprochement with Germany at the expense of good relations with the United Kingdom and France. Yet such an analysis was challenged by those who felt that Stalin lacked the mental preparation to be anything else than reactive as a global statesman.
They underestimated his thoughtful adaptiveness and the extent of his break with Marxism–Leninism. Equally clearly he was eager to avoid the mistakes made under Lenin’s leadership. He told guests at a dinner party attended by Georgi Dimitrov that Lenin had been wrong to call for a European civil war during the Great War.13 He also set about studying the history of international relations, and much scholarly research on this was published at his instigation in Moscow in the 1930s. While thrusting this information into the frame of his worldview, he retained a readiness to keep Soviet foreign policy flexible. Lenin had come to power with this attitude. Stalin had been impressed and sought to emulate him. Just as Lenin had confronted and survived the deadly diplomatic trial of strength with Germany in 1917–18, Stalin was determined to prove his mettle in the contests of the 1930s. As the threats in Europe and Asia grew, he wanted to be intellectually prepared. Without such knowledge, he knew, he could be caught out of his depth; and he had no desire to put himself as an innocent into the arms of the People’s Commissariat of External Affairs or of the Communist International.
Civil war had broken out in Spain in July 1936 when the fascist general Francisco Franco revolted against the Republican coalition government of Diego Barrio (who derived authority from a popular front). Franco appealed for assistance from Germany and Italy. Both complied, and Hitler’s Luftwaffe was given experience in bombing towns and villages. Meanwhile France and the United Kingdom, while sympathising with the elected government, maintained a position of neutrality. The Spanish government rallied all the forces it could on the political left. Spain’s communists in particular stood by it.
