The Policy of the Bolshevik Leadership towards Germany (1918-1919)

• Main Author: E. N. Yemelyanova
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Tsentr nauchnykh i obrazovatelnykh proektov 2018-04-01
• Series: Научный диалог
• Subjects: foreign policy; international relationships; russia; germany; political parties; comintern; social democracy; communist movement; the bolsheviks
• Online Access: https://www.nauka-dialog.ru/jour/article/view/779
• ISSN: 2225-756X; 2227-1295

The Bolshevik policy toward Germany, the relationship between the Communist Party of Soviet Russia and the German Social Democracy, which came to power as a result of the First World War is analyzed in the article. The issue of the geopolitical interests and ideological orientations of the Bolshevik leadership and the German socialists is considered, and disagreements between various currents in Marxism on internal and foreign policy issues are examined. The problem of the dualism of the policy of the CPSU (b) in the first years of power, the contradiction between the theoretical attitudes to the "world revolution" and the practical need of the Soviet state for carrying out a "policy of peaceful coexistence" is raised, and the strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks are analyzed at a time when their government turned out the emerging Versailles system of international relations. The activity of the Communist International on the expansion of political influence in the world and the search for allies for Soviet Russia are traced. The topicality of the problem under investigation is conditioned by the need to develop long-standing historical ties between the Russian and German states, to study the mechanisms for establishing good-neighborly relations and the desirability of improving them at the present stage. The author concludes that, despite theoretical differences, the national interests of Germany and Russia forced both Marxist parties to converge, which ultimately contributed to the conclusion of the Rapallo Treaty and the transition to political and economic cooperation between the two countries.