Post on 15-Jan-2016
THE ROAD TO WAR
THE ROAD TO WAR
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
New Focus
Growing Nazi threat
Turn to West
The “Popular Front”
Maxim Litvinov, Foreign Commissar, 1930-1939
“Bolshevism unmasked”
Main goal = restrain Nazis but avoid war
THE ROAD TO WAR
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
Appeasement
Britain & France make concessions to Hitler
Munich Agreement - 1938
Soviet isolation
The Anschluss: Nazi troops enter Austria, March 1938
“What, no seat for me?”Germans take Sudetenland, 1938
THE ROAD TO WAR
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
Problems in the Far East
Japanese aggression in China (Manchukuo)
Fighting on Mongolian border
Threat of 2-front war
THE ROAD TO WAR
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT
Litvinov replaced by Molotov
Germans & Soviets sign Non-Aggression Pact, August 1939
German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop & Molotov sign pact
Also contains Secret Protocol including territorial divisions
Vyacheslav Molotov
THE ROAD TO WAR
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT
Shocked much of world
Caused loss of support for Soviets
THE ROAD TO WAR
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT
Economic collaboration
Germans did not follow through with obligations
Soviet supplies getting ready for shipment to Germany
THE ROAD TO WAR
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT
Soviet benefits
• territory in Poland (western Belorussia & Ukraine
• Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)
THE ROAD TO WAR
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY
THE WINTER WAR, 1939-1940
Finns resist Soviet demands
inflict heavy damage & casualties on Soviets
convinced Germans of Soviet military weakness