Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations

by Michael Jabara Carley

Overview

This deeply informed book traces the dramatic history of early Soviet-western relations after World War I. Michael Jabara Carley provides a lively exploration of the formative years of Soviet foreign policy making after the Bolshevik Revolution, especially focusing on Soviet relations with the West during the 1920s. Carley demonstrates beyond doubt that this seminal period—termed the “silent conflict” by one Soviet diplomat—launched the Cold War. He shows that Soviet-western relations, at best grudging and mistrustful, were almost always hostile. Concentrating on the major western powers—Germany, France, Great Britain, and the United States—the author also examines the ongoing political upheaval in China that began with the May Fourth Movement in 1919 as a critical influence on western-Soviet relations.

Carley draws on twenty-five years of research in recently declassified Soviet and western archives to present an authoritative history of the foreign policy of the Soviet state. From the earliest days of the Bolshevik Revolution, deeply anti-communist western powers attempted to overthrow the newly formed Soviet government. As the weaker party, Soviet Russia waged war when it had to, but it preferred negotiations and agreements with the West rather than armed confrontation. Equally embattled by internal struggles for power after the death of V. I. Lenin, the Soviet government was torn between its revolutionary ideals and the pragmatic need to come to terms with its capitalist adversaries. The West too had its ideologues and pragmatists. This illuminating window into the overt and covert struggle and ultimate standoff between the USSR and the West during the 1920s will be invaluable for all readers interested in the formative years of the Cold War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810896192
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/09/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	478
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Michael Jabara Carley, a historian of relations between the West and Soviet Union, is professor and head of history at the University of Montreal. His research on this subject includes years in Soviet and European archives. His books include Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil War, 1917–1919 and 1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: How It Began: Revolution, Intervention, Civil War, 1917–1921
Chapter 2: “We Must Trade and They Must Trade”: First Attempts at Peaceful Coexistence, 1921–1922
Chapter 3: Which Way Soviet Policy? Confusion and Incoherence, 1922–1923
Chapter 4: “Hedged in by Reservations”: Peaceful Coexistence in London and Paris, 1923–1924
Chapter 5: “Save the Family Silver”: Fearful Coexistence in Paris and Berlin, 1924–1925
Chapter 6: “Steady! Don’t Let Us Get Jumpy”: Revolution in China, 1924–1925
Chapter 7: Principles and Reprisals: Hostile Coexistence in London and Washington, 1925–1926
Chapter 8: “The Blind and the Lame”: Rapallo Reaffirmed,1925–1927
Chapter 9: Red Scare, War Scare: China and the Rupture of Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1925–1927
Chapter 10: “Colossal Misfortune”: Hostile Coexistence in Paris, 1925–1927
Chapter 11: “These Are Times of Quick Suspicions”: Sullen Coexistence, 1927–1930
Chapter 12: “Always a Trump in Our Game”: Rapallo Sustained, 1927–1930
Chapter 13: Conclusion: Sorting it Out
Selected Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

This superb book offers a compelling reinterpretation of the first decade of Soviet foreign policy, up to the late 1920s. Carley has thoroughly mined newly available Soviet archives on foreign policy while utilizing an extensive array of British, French, US, and other documents. The result is a lively, fresh analysis of Soviet foreign relations, mainly with the West, and ways Soviet relations with the West interacted with those in the East, especially in China. The author convincingly argues that the Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs pursued a goal of normalizing relations with other countries to bolster the security of the Soviet Union through trading and other relationships. At the same time, foreign affairs professionals had to deal with leaders of the Communist International, who sought to promote revolution wherever possible, as well as with other political leaders who often inflamed the international situation with extremist rhetoric intended mainly for use in domestic power struggles. Viewing this period as the first cold war, Carley emphasizes that Soviet-Western relations were hostile from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels and libraries.

Choice Reviews

Silent Conflict masterly unravels the intricate Soviet maneuvers aimed at breaking out of the diplomatic and economic isolation imposed on the Soviet Union in the wake of the revolution and the forsaken Western military intervention.. . .What further distinguishes Carley’s research is that it is not confined to Soviet bilateral relations but looks at Russia’s interactions with the Western world as a whole. There are exceptionally good insights into the hitherto neglected French angle, without which it would be nigh impossible to understand the Soviet failures to achieve collective security in the 1930s.

Europe-Asia Studies

[Silent Conflict is] a valuable contribution to the sprawling debate on the origins of the breakdown of the interwar system in Europe.

Diplomacy and Statecraft

Using hitherto unexplored Soviet archives as well as American, British, and French documents, Michael Jabara Carley has produced an original and arresting account of Soviet relations with these powers. Written for the general reader as well as for the specialist, his book throws fresh light both on Soviet policy making and on many highly contentious issues of the 1920s, such as the so-called Zinoviev letter.

Zara Steiner

Michael Jabara Carley has written a superb history of the first decade of Soviet foreign policy. Based on exhaustive work in the archives of Russia and western Europe, this lively yet erudite study will be of interest to scholars and general readers alike. Carley’s theme is that Soviet foreign policy was hamstrung by the conflicting and contradictory interests of, on the one hand, the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, which sought to ‘normalize’ Soviet Russia and strengthen its security by developing peaceful relationships such as trade, and on the other, the determination of the Communist International to foment revolution wherever it could. Nowhere is this theme better explored than in the matter of China, which Carley rightly retrieves from relative obscurity. While Comintern pressure meant that Soviet investment in the Chinese revolution grew from 12,000 roubles in 1923 to five million roubles in 1925, the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs was desperately trying to retain diplomatic relations with Great Britain, one of the first states with which Soviet Russia had established meaningful trading relations; in the 1920s there was no greater threat to British foreign investments than the riotous mix of nationalists and communists who threatened the elite tranquility of life in Shanghai. Marginalized in Politburo decision making, the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs could only look on helplessly as Britain broke off diplomatic relations. No wonder Foreign Commissar Chicherin joked toward the end of his life that the Comintern was ‘internal enemy no. 1.’ This book deserves the widest possible audience.

Geoffrey Swain

Michael Carley has produced a book rich in fascinating detail about lively personalities, an entire tapestry replete with diplomatic caricatures, highlighting those who executed one dimension of Soviet foreign policy after the revolution.. . .Carley has done all historians of the early Soviet system a great service by disentangling the troubled course of foreign policy in the 1920s and exposing almost all of what the Soviet archive can say about it. This will be the major reference point for understanding not only Soviet relations with the wider world, but the functional relationship between foreign policy and domestic political rivalries.

H-Diplo

Let it be said at once. What Michael Jabara Carley has produced here is indeed a fine and impressive work, one that fills an important gap in the literature. It is hard to think of anyone else who could have brought the experience, the insights, and the quality of analytical scrutiny that Carley has given to this subject.... Better than any other book I know Silent Conflictconvincingly recounts the history of the great events that dominated Soviet-Western relations in the thirteen years from 1917 to 1930. Carley’s unfailing grasp of detail, his marvelously succinct narrative, and his acute use of anecdotes to concentrate attention on the crucial turning points make this book a work of art.

Canadian Journal of History

[This] is the most comprehensive English-language account to date of the interactions between the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID) and its counterparts in Germany, FRance, Britain, and the United States in the years from 1921 to 1930.. . .This study as a whole will appeal to scholars with a special interest in diplomatic history. .. [and] anyone interested in early Soviet history.

The Historian

This is the definitive book on Soviet-western relations in the 1920s. No one has done more research in Soviet and western archives on this formative decade than Michael Jabara Carley, and it shows on every page of this fascinating book. While Carley focuses on Soviet diplomacy, the book also informs and illuminates our understanding of Western foreign policies. A must read for all students and scholars of the history of twentieth-century international relations.

Geoffrey Roberts

Every historian dealing with the Soviet Union of the 1920s––or with France, Britain, Germany, or the United States for that matter––should read and absorb the lessons of this work.

The Russian Review

Silent Conflict is a tour de force of historical scholarship. Carley has mined the appropriate archival sources in Russia, Great Britain, France, and the United States to produce a groundbreaking analysis of the Bolshevik regime's troubled relations with the western powers from the Revolution to the end of the 1920s. His careful assessment of the internal disputes between realists/pragmatists and ideological hard-liners in both camps will force historians to rethink their conclusions about this transformational period of what might be called the 'first Cold War.'

William R. Keylor

This superb book offers a compelling reinterpretation of the first decade of Soviet foreign policy, up to the late 1920s. Carley has thoroughly mined newly available Soviet archives on foreign policy while utilizing an extensive array of British, French, US, and other documents. The result is a lively, fresh analysis of Soviet foreign relations, mainly with the West, and ways Soviet relations with the West interacted with those in the East, especially in China. The author convincingly argues that the Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs pursued a goal of normalizing relations with other countries to bolster the security of the Soviet Union through trading and other relationships. At the same time, foreign affairs professionals had to deal with leaders of the Communist International, who sought to promote revolution wherever possible, as well as with other political leaders who often inflamed the international situation with extremist rhetoric intended mainly for use in domestic power struggles. Viewing this period as the first cold war, Carley emphasizes that Soviet-Western relations were hostile from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels and libraries.

Choice

This superb book offers a compelling reinterpretation of the first decade of Soviet foreign policy, up to the late 1920s. Carley has thoroughly mined newly available Soviet archives on foreign policy while utilizing an extensive array of British, French, US, and other documents. The result is a lively, fresh analysis of Soviet foreign relations, mainly with the West, and ways Soviet relations with the West interacted with those in the East, especially in China. The author convincingly argues that the Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs pursued a goal of normalizing relations with other countries to bolster the security of the Soviet Union through trading and other relationships. At the same time, foreign affairs professionals had to deal with leaders of the Communist International, who sought to promote revolution wherever possible, as well as with other political leaders who often inflamed the international situation with extremist rhetoric intended mainly for use in domestic power struggles. Viewing this period as the first cold war, Carley emphasizes that Soviet-Western relations were hostile from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels and libraries.

CHOICE