Editing Soviet Union (section)

=== Foreign relations ===
{{Main|Foreign relations of the Soviet Union}}
[[File:Soekarno and Voroshilov.jpg|thumb|[[Sukarno]] and [[Voroshilov]] in a state meeting on 1958]]
[[File:Soviet stamp 1974 for friendship between USSR and India 4k.jpg|thumb|upright|Soviet [[Postage stamps and postal history of Russia#Soviet Union|stamps]] 1974 for friendship between the USSR and [[India]]]]
[[File:President Ford informally concludes the Vladivostok Summit - NARA - 7062568.jpg|thumb|[[Gerald Ford]], [[Andrei Gromyko]], [[Leonid Brezhnev]] and [[Henry Kissinger]] speaking informally at the [[Vladivostok Summit]] in 1974]]
[[File:RIAN archive 330109 Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George Bush.jpg|thumb|Mikhail Gorbachev and [[George H. W. Bush]] signing bilateral documents during Gorbachev's official visit to the United States in 1990]]
During his rule, Stalin always made the final policy decisions. Otherwise, Soviet foreign policy was set by the commission on the Foreign Policy of the Central Committee of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]], or by the party's highest body the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]]. Operations were handled by the separate [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union)|Ministry of Foreign Affairs]]. It was known as the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (or Narkomindel), until 1946. The most influential spokesmen were [[Georgy Chicherin]], [[Maxim Litvinov]], [[Vyacheslav Molotov]], [[Andrey Vyshinsky]], and [[Andrei Gromyko]]. Intellectuals were based in the [[Moscow State Institute of International Relations]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Ulam |first=Adam B. |author-link=Adam Ulam |title=Expansion and coexistence: the history of Soviet foreign policy, 1917–73 |date=1974}}</ref>
* Comintern (1919–1943), or [[Communist International]], was an international communist organization based in the Kremlin that advocated [[world communism]]. The Comintern intended to 'struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state'.<ref>{{cite book |first=Harold Henry |last=Fisher |title=The Communist Revolution: An Outline of Strategy and Tactics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b2umAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA13 |year=1955 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |page=13}}</ref> It was abolished as a conciliatory measure toward Britain and the United States.<ref>Duncan Hallas, ''The Comintern: The History of the Third International'' (1985).</ref>
* [[Comecon]], the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ({{langx|ru|Совет Экономической Взаимопомощи}}, {{translit|ru|Sovet Ekonomicheskoy Vzaimopomoshchi}}, {{lang|ru|СЭВ}}, {{translit|ru|SEV}}) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under Soviet control that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with several communist states elsewhere in the world. Moscow was concerned about the [[Marshall Plan]], and Comecon was meant to prevent countries in the Soviets' sphere of influence from moving towards that of the Americans and Southeast Asia. Comecon was the Eastern Bloc's reply to the formation in Western Europe of the Organization for European Economic Co-Operation (OEEC),<ref>"Germany (East)", Library of Congress Country Study, [http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/germany_east/gx_appnb.html Appendix B: The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501075842/http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/germany_east/gx_appnb.html |date=1 May 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Michael C. |last=Kaser |title=Comecon: Integration problems of the planned economies |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=1967 |page=}}</ref>
* The [[Warsaw Pact]] was a [[collective defence]] alliance formed in 1955 among the USSR and its [[satellite state]]s in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.<ref name="Reinalda-2009">{{cite book |first=Bob |last=Reinalda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ln19AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA369 |title=Routledge History of International Organizations: From 1815 to the Present Day |year=2009 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-134-02405-6 |page=369 |access-date=1 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101212444/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ln19AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA369 |archive-date=1 January 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Amos |last=Yoder |url=https://archive.org/details/communismintrans00yode |title=Communism in Transition: The End of the Soviet Empires |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-8448-1738-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/communismintrans00yode/page/58 58] |access-date=1 January 2016 |url-access=registration}}</ref> The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Comecon, the regional economic organization for the [[socialist state]]s of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of [[West Germany]] into [[NATO]].{{sfn|Crump|2015|p=}}<ref name="Reinalda-2009" /> Although nominally a "defensive" alliance, the Pact's primary function was to safeguard the [[Soviet Empire|Soviet Union's hegemony]] over its [[Soviet Bloc|Eastern European]] satellites, with the Pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/warsaw-pact-ends |title=Warsaw Pact ends |website=HISTORY|date=13 November 2009 }}</ref><ref name="Reinalda-2009" />{{sfn|Crump|2015|pp=1, 17}}
* The [[Cominform]] (1947–1956), informally the Communist Information Bureau and officially the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties, was the first official agency of the international Marxist-Leninist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. Its role was to coordinate actions between Marxist-Leninist parties under Soviet direction. Stalin used it to order Western European communist parties to abandon their exclusively parliamentarian line and instead concentrate on politically impeding the operations of the [[Marshall Plan]], the U.S. program of rebuilding Europe after the war and developing its economy.<ref>Michał Jerzy Zacharias, "The Beginnings of the Cominform: The Policy of the Soviet Union towards European Communist Parties in Connection with the Political Initiatives of the United States of America in 1947." ''Acta Poloniae Historica'' 78 (1998): 161–200. {{ISSN|0001-6829}}</ref> It also coordinated international aid to Marxist-Leninist insurgents during the Greek Civil War in 1947–1949.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Nikos |last=Marantzidis |title=The Greek Civil War (1944–1949) and the International Communist System |journal=[[Journal of Cold War Studies]] |volume=15 |number=4 |date=2013 |pages=25–54 |doi=10.1162/JCWS_a_00394}}</ref> It expelled Yugoslavia in 1948 after [[Josip Broz Tito]] insisted on an independent program. Its newspaper, ''For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy!'', promoted Stalin's positions. The Cominform's concentration on Europe meant a deemphasis on world revolution in Soviet foreign policy. By enunciating a uniform ideology, it allowed the constituent parties to focus on personalities rather than issues.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Heinz |last=Timmermann |title=The cominform effects on Soviet foreign policy |journal=[[Studies in Comparative Communism]] |volume=18 |number=1 |date=1985 |pages=3–23 |doi=10.1016/0039-3592(85)90053-5}}</ref>

==== Early policies (1919–1939) ====
{{further|International relations (1919–1939)#Soviet Union}}
[[File:1987 CPA 5896.jpg|thumb|upright|1987 Soviet stamp]]
The Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and changed directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates, and he frequently changed positions.<ref>Ulam, ''Expansion and Coexistence'' (1974) pp. 111–179.</ref>

During the country's early period, it was assumed that Communist revolutions would break out soon in every major industrial country, and it was the Russian responsibility to assist them. The [[Comintern]] was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—the [[Hungarian Soviet Republic]]—lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help.

By 1921, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin realized that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became the duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with the [[Treaty of Rapallo, 1922|Treaty of Rapallo]] that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time, the two countries secretly set up training programs for the illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in the USSR.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor=1986524 |title=Rapallo Reexamined: A New Look at Germany's Secret Military Collaboration with Russia in 1922 |journal=Military Affairs |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=109–117 |last1=Mueller |first1=Gordon H. |year=1976 |doi=10.2307/1986524}}</ref>

Moscow eventually stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. The United Kingdom dismissed the warnings of [[Winston Churchill]] and a few others about a continuing Marxist-Leninist threat, and opened trade relations and ''de facto'' diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the pre-war Tsarist debts, but it was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] came to power in 1924.<ref>Christine A. White, ''British and American Commercial Relations with Soviet Russia, 1918–1924'' (UNC Press Books, 2017).</ref> All the other countries followed suit in opening trade relations. [[Henry Ford]] opened large-scale business relations with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping that it would lead to long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the USSR, a decision backed by the public opinion and especially by US business interests that expected an opening of a new profitable market.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor=42860014 |title=American Business and the Recognition of the Soviet Union |journal=Social Science Quarterly]] |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=349–368 |last1=Wilson |first1=J. H. |year=1971}}</ref>

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin ordered Marxist-Leninist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-Marxist political parties, labour unions or other organizations on the left, which they labelled [[social fascists]]. In the usage of the Soviet Union, and of the Comintern and its affiliated parties in this period, the epithet ''[[Fascist (insult)|fascist]]'' was used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually any [[anti-Soviet]] or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion.<ref>{{cite book |last=Richter |first=Michael |year=2006 |chapter=Die doppelte Diktatur: Erfahrungen mit Diktatur in der DDR und Auswirkungen auf das Verhältnis zur Diktatur heute |language=de |trans-chapter=The double dictatorship: Experiences with dictatorship in the GDR and effects on the relationship to dictatorship today |title=Lasten diktatorischer Vergangenheit – Herausforderungen demokratischer Gegenwart |trans-title=Burdens of a dictatorial past – challenges of a democratic present |editor1-last=Besier |editor1-first=Gerhard |editor2-last=Stoklosa |editor2-first=Katarzyna |publisher=LIT Verlag |pages=195–208 |isbn=978-3-8258-8789-6}}</ref> Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with the [[Popular Front]] program that called on all Marxist parties to join with all [[anti-Fascist]] political, labour, and organizational forces that were opposed to [[fascism]], especially of the [[Nazi]] variety.<ref>Chris Ward, ''Stalin's Russia'' (2nd ed. 1999) pp. 148–188.</ref><ref>Barbara Jelavich, ''St.Petersburg and Moscow: Czarist and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1814–1974'' (1974) pp. 342–346.</ref>

The rapid growth of power in Nazi Germany encouraged both Paris and Moscow to form a military alliance, and the [[Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance]] was signed in May 1935. A firm believer in collective security, Stalin's foreign minister [[Maxim Litvinov]] worked very hard to form a closer relationship with France and Britain.<ref>Haslam, Jonathan (1984). ''The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–1939''. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 52–53. {{ISBN|978-0-333-30050-3}}</ref>

In 1939, half a year after the [[Munich Agreement]], the USSR attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance with France and Britain.<ref>{{cite book |first=Louise Grace |last=Shaw |title=The British Political Elite and the Soviet Union, 1937–1939 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iAmDj-U-1fAC&pg=PA103 |year=2003 |page=103 |publisher=[[Psychology Press]] |isbn=978-0-7146-5398-3 |access-date=17 September 2019 |archive-date=17 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617200516/https://books.google.com/books?id=iAmDj-U-1fAC&pg=PA103 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Adolf Hitler]] proposed a better deal, which would give the USSR control over much of Eastern Europe through the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]]. In September, Germany invaded Poland, and the USSR also invaded later that month, resulting in the partition of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of [[World War II]].<ref>D.C. Watt, ''How War Came: the Immediate Origins of the Second World War 1938–1939'' (1989).</ref>

==== World War II (1939–1945) ====
{{Main|Causes of World War II|Diplomatic history of World War II#Soviet Union}}
Up until his death in 1953, [[Joseph Stalin]] controlled all foreign relations of the Soviet Union during the [[interwar period]]. Despite the increasing build-up of [[Nazi Germany|Germany]]'s war machine and the outbreak of the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]], the Soviet Union did not cooperate with any other nation, choosing to follow its own path.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beloff |first=Max |title=The Foreign Policy Of Soviet Russia (1929–1941), Volume Two |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1949 |page=2}}</ref> However, after [[Operation Barbarossa]], the Soviet Union's priorities changed. Despite previous conflict with the [[United Kingdom]], [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] dropped his post war border demands.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.e-ir.info/2011/11/23/the-evolution-of-stalins-foreign-policy-during-word-war-two/ |website=E-International Relations |title=The Evolution of Stalin's Foreign Policy during World War Two |last=Strachan |first=Frederick |date=23 November 2011 |access-date=12 February 2022 |archive-date=13 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213005104/https://www.e-ir.info/2011/11/23/the-evolution-of-stalins-foreign-policy-during-word-war-two/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Cold War (1945–1991) ====
{{Main|Origins of the Cold War|Cold War}}
The [[Cold War]] was a period of [[geopolitical]] tension between the [[United States]] and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the [[Western Bloc]] and the [[Eastern Bloc]], which began following [[World War II]] in 1945. The term ''[[Cold war (general term)|cold war]]'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two [[superpowers]], but they each supported major regional conflicts known as [[proxy war]]s. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary [[Allies of World War II|alliance]] and [[Allied-occupied Germany|victory]] against [[Nazi Germany]] in 1945. Aside from the [[Nuclear arms race|nuclear arsenal development]] and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as [[psychological warfare]], propaganda campaigns, [[Cold War espionage|espionage]], far-reaching [[Economic sanctions|embargoes]], rivalry at [[Politics and sports|sports events]] and technological competitions such as the [[Space Race]].