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Account for the changing nature of Soviet foreign policy in the years between 1917 and 1941. Soviet foreign policy changed many times in the period between 1917 and 1941, partly for ideological reasons and partly for practical ones. Immediately following the Revolution, the Bolsheviks largely ignored foreign policy, believing that revolutions would soon sweep Europe. By the time it became clear this would not take place, Russia’s new leaders were preoccupied with the Civil War. It was only when the war had been won that they turned their thoughts to forging better relations with their neighbours, in the hope of maintaining the peace and fostering trade and investment. This was not an easy task, since Western governments were reluctant to recognise the USSR. To mollify international opinion, the Bolsheviks toned down their revolutionary rhetoric, then proceeded to sign a series of international agreements – a policy known as the ‘United Front’. These agreements included the Treaty of Rapallo (1922), which re-established diplomatic relations with Germany, and the Treaty of Berlin (1926), under which Russia and Germany promised to remain neutral in the event of an attack on the other by a third power. By the late 1920s, relations with Germany had begun to sour, and both nations looked elsewhere for allies. The policy had also failed to end Russia’s diplomatic isolation, so Stalin set the nation in a new direction, renewing support for Marxist revolutionary movements around the world (ironically, the very policy he had attacked during his rise to power). This ideological shift mirrored the hardening of domestic policy, as Stalin introduced the policies of collectivization and central planning. Communist parties were now ordered to end all cooperation with other leftist groups, whom they branded ‘social fascists’. The result was disastrous. The German Communist Party directed its opposition to the Social Democrats rather than the Nazis, allowing the Nazis to become the largest party in Germany. Within four years, Hitler had become leader and the Communist Party was banned. Stalin now realised his mistake, and switched his foreign policy yet again. He immediately began seeking better relations with the Western nations, in the hope of ending Russia’s diplomatic isolation. In consequence, the United States recognised Russia for the first time since the Revolution (1933), and the USSR joined the League of Nations (1934). Stalin also signed treaties of alliance with France and Czechoslovakia in 1935, and ordered the various international communist parties to form a ‘Popular Front’ with all anti-fascist groups in Europe. Unfortunately, Stalin’s attempts to woo Britain and France into an alliance against Germany failed. Both nations stood by while Germany reoccupied the Rhineland, then invaded Austria in 1938. When Hitler began making demands on Czechoslovakia, Stalin tried to get France to make a stand – enforcing Russia’s 1935 treaty to defend Czechoslovakia. However, France was not willing to contemplate a war with Germany at that stage. At the Munich Conference in 1938, France and Britain gave Hitler what he wanted – control of the border regions of Czechoslovakia. The first hint of Stalin's intentions came in April 1939, when he replaced the proWestern Litvinov with Molotov as foreign minister. The Germans responded by offering Russia large tracts of land in Eastern Europe in return for Russian neutrality in their coming war with Poland. For Stalin, this was an attractive proposition, since it gave him breathing space to build up his forces and recover from the purge of the Red Army. It also gave him a buffer zone against future German aggression. When Britain and France were unable to make an acceptable counter offer, Stalin decided they were not serious about an alliance. In August 1939, he accepted the German offer and signed a ten-year Non-Aggression Pact (the so-called ‘Nazi-Soviet Pact’). The Pact contained a secret protocol which divided Poland into Russian and German sectors and ceded Finland, Estonia and Bessarabia to Russia. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Two and a half weeks later – once the Polish army had been defeated – the Red Army did likewise. Germany and Russia formally agreed to partition Poland and eliminate it as a state. Even before the ink had dried on the pact, and before the blood had dried in the streets of Warsaw, Stalin began preparing for the attack he knew would come. This time, though, he was without allies. The best he could hope for was to lull Hitler into believing Russia was no threat to him, thereby delaying for as long as possible the inevitable attack on the USSR. And so by 1941, Russian foreign policy had chopped and changed many times – from the mild pragmatism of the ‘united front’, to the ideology-driven war against the ‘social fascists’, to the desperate pragmatism of the ‘popular front’, to the cynicism of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. It was this inconsistency, more than anything, which isolated the USSR during the period, and which left it vulnerable to an attack by its greatest enemy, Nazi Germany.