Great Britain and the Policy of Disregard

When in early 1925 the War Office in London undertook a review of possible threats to the security of the British Empire, it decided that the most serious danger confronting the Empire was posed by the Soviet Union. Soviet forces, it warned, were positioned along the southern rim of the USSR along the frontiers with Persia, Afghanistan, and China, and an incursion into Afghanistan would put the security of India at risk—a serious matter because India was the largest strategic liability in the British Empire, and the Afghan frontier was the weak point in India's defenses.^[37] The Foreign Office, however, doubted whether the Red Army was capable of offensive military operations, and Austen Chamberlain regarded a Russian threat to India to be at most one possible danger to the Empire at some point in the future. To make military preparations for a war against Russia in Asia, he warned, would only magnify Soviet fears of encirclement and lead to further threats against Britain.^[38]

Chamberlain's central purpose was to reorganize Europe into a new concert of powers in which Britain would hold the balance and over which London could preside from what he called "a semi-detached position." The prime prerequisite to this new concert, he thought, was reconciliation between France and Germany. One day Russia would reemerge as a major power, but Chamberlain did not think that day would come very soon. When it did come, however, he wanted Germany to have been already linked to the West and precluded from joining the USSR in an anti-Entente, anti-Versailles alliance. Chamberlain intended the containment of Soviet power to be a consequence of his reorganization of Europe, but it was not the immediate objective at which his policy was aimed. In his conception of European international relations, the Russian problem would be solved by the reconciliation of Germany, which was in turn based on maintaining the British Entente with France.^[39]

Chamberlain believed that the "great mass of information" assembled by British intelligence regarding Soviet/Comintern subversion in the British Empire justified severing diplomatic relations.^[40] However, he opposed a

break with the USSR, largely because it would disrupt the project on which he was most intent—the pacification of European international relations. Instead, on the advice of the Foreign Office, he recommended to the new Conservative Cabinet a policy of ignoring the Soviet Union as much as possible and for as long as possible. It was July 1925, seven months after coming to office, before the Cabinet thoroughly examined the general policy to be followed in relations with the USSR, and then it adopted a policy Chamberlain characterized as treating the Russians "as though they didn't exist" and keeping formal relations "as distant as possible." Toward the USSR the Conservative government adopted what has been aptly termed "a policy of disregard."^[41] This was not the policy of Lloyd George, who tried to tame the Bolsheviks with trade. Nor was it the policy of Curzon, who sought to menace them into timidity. Nor was it the policy of the die-hard intransigents within the Conservative Party leadership, who wanted to break off relations entirely. Rather, it was a policy that put Moscow in a holding pattern in November 1924 and kept it there while Britain arranged the security of Europe with Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy. It coincided with Berlin's strategy of procrastination and with the similar policy adopted by Herriot and Briand in Paris, both of which also left the NKID waiting, thereby nourishing Moscow's fears of isolation.

Through diplomatic channels and in the press, the Soviet government made clear to London that it wished to resume negotiations along the lines of the Anglo-Soviet Draft Treaty negotiated by the Labour government in the summer of 1924 and that it wanted to apply for credits from London banks.^[42] Chamberlain, however, refused either to recommend the treaty to Parliament or to renegotiate it, and he urged Churchill, now chancellor of the exchequer (1924-29), to advise the banks of the City to refuse credits to the USSR. In response to NKID efforts to initiate negotiations, Chamberlain made unspecified allegations of Soviet subversion against British interests in Asia (conducted, he charged, by Soviet diplomatic and trade representatives), demanded that the Soviet government take responsibility for the Comintern's statements and actions, and stated that only a change in Soviet policy regarding debts and propaganda would clear the way for improved relations.^[43] Soviet representatives in London complained that they were "kept at a distance and practically ignored by the British government."^[44]

Meanwhile, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, the home secretary (1924-29), conducted a campaign, both within the government and with the British public, calling for an end to relations with the USSR. Launched in May 1925, his campaign was soon joined by Lord Birkenhead, secretary of state for India (1924-28), who called the Soviet government "a band of mur-

derers and robbers" and who warned publicly that England would not always stand by helplessly while the USSR worked to destroy the British Empire. Chicherin in return called Birkenhead's statement "aggressive in the extreme, and [amounting] to a demand for the most hostile measures against us, beyond which there is only war." Chicherin's charge was supplemented in the Soviet press by descriptions of British intrigues aimed at organizing an anti-Soviet bloc. Joynson-Hicks, Birkenhead, and Churchill were the leading figures among the diehards, those within the Conservative Party who called for an end to relations with the USSR and for the adoption of an aggressive anti-Communist policy at home and abroad. Churchill, who referred to the Soviet government "as the dark conspirators of the Moscow Kremlin," promoted the idea of a worldwide diplomatic front against the USSR. That front could be formed in East Asia, he suggested, by a revival of the Anglo-Japanese alliance and through further economic penetration of China, and in Europe it could be achieved by "giving effect" to the Locarno Treaties.^[45] It was Churchill's policy position that came closest to what was represented in CPSU and ECCI resolutions as the primary objective of British foreign policy—to construct a hostile encirclement of the USSR.

Robert Hodgson, the British representative in Moscow, was a voice of moderation and conciliation. He criticized the government's policy of disregard; he made unauthorized attempts to improve relations with the Soviet government; he supported resumed negotiations along the lines of the Anglo-Soviet Draft Treaty; he advocated increased trade with the Soviet Union; he recommended that export credits be extended. Hodgson's efforts came very near to success in the late winter and spring of 1926, when for both economic and geopolitical reasons Chamberlain gave serious consideration to his recommendations. British industry was pressing the Foreign Office to open the Russian market to English goods; the Franco-Soviet debt-loan-trade negotiations in Paris seemed on the verge of success; and in Berlin, Germany concluded a political treaty with Moscow. In this situation, Chamberlain instructed the Foreign Office staff to prepare the materials necessary for reopening negotiations with Moscow.

These preparations were interrupted by Soviet involvement in the General Strike in Britain in May. The Red International of Trade Unions (Profintern) attempted to transfer strike funds collected by the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions to British strikers, and when the Trades Union Congress (TUC) rejected them, the funds were offered directly to striking British miners. Although Profintern made no effort to advise the miners in the practical matters of organizing their strike, the die-hard campaign against the "Red Menace" intensified and the prospective revi-

sion of Britain's Soviet policy was aborted. The best opportunity to achieve export credits and ambassadorial-level diplomatic relations with Britain that occurred during the era of "temporary capitalist stabilization" was thus spoiled, after which Anglo-Soviet relations deteriorated steadily.^[46] By December 1926, John D. Gregory, the expert on Soviet affairs at the Foreign Office, had come to see the merits of a quick and decisive break in relations, a sort of diplomatic surprise attack. An action such as this, one of "sudden and unexpected violence," he stated, would "cause a panic in the Bolshevik camp."^[47]

During the months following the General Strike, Chamberlain, with the support of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, fought a rearguard action against a mounting die-hard campaign to sever relations with Moscow. Although he argued that a break in relations would deprive British industry of Soviet orders for machinery, reasons of geopolitics and considerations of high policy were most central to his position. An overt display of British hostility toward the USSR would, Chamberlain maintained, evoke pro-Soviet sentiment in China and undermine the position of Britain there as well as that of the other China powers. In Europe, he thought, a break with the USSR would complicate Stresemann's efforts to balance Germany between Russia and the West. Because Germany played a key role in his vision of a pacified Europe, Chamberlain accepted Stresemann's efforts at diplomatic balance as necessary to German foreign policy. In the words of his accustomed metaphor, Chamberlain did not want to drive either China or Germany "into the arms of the Russians." Nevertheless, this consideration was not a sufficient reason for him to recommend improved relations with the USSR to the Cabinet. When Stresemann tried to promote diplomatic reconciliation between London and Moscow—in order to avoid the dilemma of having to opt either for the Soviet Union or for the Western entente in the event of crisis-Chamberlain and the Foreign Office made no response. On the other hand, Chamberlain did not urge the other Locarno powers to follow the British lead into policies of disregard. He welcomed improved relations among France, Germany, and Russia, he stated, because he believed that any rapprochement between Russia and the other powers of Europe could only contribute to European pacification.^[48] Chamberlain thereby assiduously avoided any appearance of initiating an anti-Soviet coalition.

Thus, the policy of disregard was one that neither broke off relations with Moscow nor negotiated a debt settlement and guaranteed loans. The policy was inherently unstable largely because Chamberlain shared a common set of beliefs with his chief critics, the diehards. Together they paid disproportionate attention to the revolutionary statements issuing from

the Comintern and were impressed by the evidence of propaganda and subversion reported by British intelligence and security services. Both exaggerated the ideological motivations behind Soviet policy and were deeply suspicious of the NKID's campaign for normal relations. They ignored the pragmatic purposes behind Soviet policy—the real need for a period of peace in which to construct socialism and the equally real need for foreign credits with which to finance trade and promote economic development. Both made "honoring debts" and "ending propaganda" the center of British policy toward the Soviet Union. From the time the Conservatives entered office in November 1924, Chamberlain and the diehards regarded the USSR from a common policy perspective. Eventually, in May 1927, Chamberlain would yield to their determination, and to the advice of the Foreign Office, and suspend diplomatic and commercial relations with Moscow.

Until that time the "dual policy" characterized Soviet relations with Britain. That policy was conducted through a "united front" alliance of the Soviet and the British trade union movements as well as through the newly established but faltering diplomatic channels. That "united front" was embodied in the Anglo-Russian Joint Advisory Council (ARJAC), formed in April 1925 and presided over by Mikhail Tomskii, president of the Soviet Central Council of Trade Unions and a member of the Politburo.^[49] Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, and Stalin all supported the "united front" with the TUC as the means of creating a mass revolutionary movement in England. There was a diversity of opinion among them, however, about the ultimate direction in which the "united front" would take that movement.

That disagreement was latent in the contrasting attitudes adopted by Stalin and Trotsky in the spring of 1926. Stalin viewed "united fronts" as a means of organizing the working class of England and of other European states against "new imperialist wars" in general and against wars of intervention against the USSR in particular They were a deterrent against aggression. If attacked, he stated, "we shall take all measures to unleash the revolutionary lion in every country on earth. The leaders of the capitalist countries must realize that we have some experience in such matters."^[50] Trotsky, on the other hand, saw the "united front" in Britain in terms of class rather than of national relations. In Where is Britain Going? (1926) he cautioned that the alliance with the TUC could strengthen the collaborationist right and center leadership of the British labor movement, hamper the development of the British Communist Party, and leave the working class unprepared for what he saw as the developing social crisis and class conflict there.^[51]

The General Strike in May brought this divergence among the Bolsheviks into the open. Although Zinoviev had stated, in his report to the Sixth ECCI Plenum in February 1926, that Britain had replaced Germany as the most likely candidate for proletarian revolution in Europe,^[52] no one among the CPSU leadership was prepared for the General Strike. This may explain in part why their reaction to it was so counterproductive. Profintern support for British strikers destroyed the Soviet's best opportunity to improve relations with the second Baldwin government, and it gave new inspiration to the campaign of the diehards without ensuring the victory of the strikers. Trotsky, who had allied himself with Zinoviev and Kamenev in a "new" or "united" Opposition at the time of the Central Committee meeting in April, attacked the Stalin-Bukharin leadership for transforming the "united front" into an alliance with trade union bureaucrats for the purpose of getting the CPGB to fulfill the diplomatic interests of the Soviet state.^[53]

Stalin responded in a series of statements made at sessions of the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the ECCI during the period from June to December. He anticipated many of Trotsky's criticisms and justified the purposes of the "united front" completely in terms of interstate relations. In summary, he stated that, at a time when capitalism was in a phase of "temporary stabilization," when socialism was under construction in one country, and when the USSR was economically and militarily vulnerable, both the national security and the economic development of Russia depended ultimately on the united efforts of the working class in Britain and elsewhere to oppose anti-Soviet tendencies within their countries. The task of the ARJAC, he stated in June, was "to organize a broad movement of the working class against new imperialist wars in general, and against intervention in our country by (especially) the most powerful of the European imperialist powers, by Britain in particular."^[54] In effect, mobilizing the proletariat of England was supposed to do what the Red Army and the NKID together were not capable of-counteracting the growing hostility of the diehards and preventing the most powerful imperialist nation of Europe from intervening in either the Russian or the Chinese revolutions.