Chapter 7 Soviet foreign policy

Thinking historically 7.1

1 Describe Lenin’s foreign policy.

2 Identify and explain the foreign policy directions favoured by Trotsky and Bukharin in the
early 1920s.

3 Discuss what was meant by Stalin in the doctrine of ‘socialism in one country’.

4 Explain how the foreign policy ideas of Stalin, Trotsky and Bukharin were linked to their
ideological beliefs about the Soviet state.

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Chapter 7 Soviet foreign policy

5 Explain why the Western nations were so suspicious of the Soviet Union and reluctant to
cooperate with it throughout the inter-war period.

6
a. Explain what the Comintern was.

b. Using the internet, research and briefly summarise the Twenty-One Conditions
issued by the Comintern in 1920.

c. Discuss how the existence of this organisation came to work against the interests of
the Soviet Union.

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Chapter 7 Soviet foreign policy

7
a. Explain what the Popular Front was.

b. Discuss why it was unsuccessful.

8
a. Explain how the Soviet Union contributed to the adoption of the policy of
appeasement.

b. Assess the role of the Soviet Union in bringing about the war between Germany and
Britain and France over Poland in 1939.

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Chapter 7 Soviet foreign policy

9
a. Explain what the Ezhovschina was.

b. Discuss why it occurred.

c. Describe its victims.

d. Analyse its consequences.

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Chapter 7 Soviet foreign policy

10 Evaluate the importance of ideology in determining the course of the Soviet foreign
policy in the inter-war period.

11 Discuss how Soviet foreign policy was linked to internal social, political and economic
developments in the Soviet Union.

12 Rather than being positive and active, Soviet foreign policy in this period can be viewed
as negative and reactive. In other words, it was the actions and attitudes of other
countries that determined the direction of Soviet diplomacy.
Summarise the arguments for and against this interpretation.

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Chapter 7 Soviet foreign policy

13
a. Discuss in detail the different attitudes to diplomacy and international relations that
were held by Chicherin, Litvinov and Molotov.

b. Explain how influential each of these men were in determining the course of the
Soviet Union’s dealings with other nations in the inter-war years.

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