Survival and Consolidation. The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia 1918-1921 by Richard K. DeboReview by: Brian PearceThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 71, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 345-346Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211255 .

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REVIEWS 345

between ideology, internal SPD activitv and foreign policy, themes often dealt with separately but rarely synthesized or encompassed in one work.

Thus there is an interesting section on Menshevik influence over the way the SPD understood the Russian situation. Another part deals with the views of the Independent Socialists (USPD) and relations between the rival Inter- nationals (the Second, Third and Two-and-a-Half). Running alongside these is an analysis of the simultaneous attraction and repulsion exercised by Russia on foreign-policy concerns. To run with Russia could both satisfy the clamour of the left for closer links with 'actual socialism' and act as a counterpoise to the victors of World War One. But too close a collaboration was dangerous too. It could encourage the growth of the KPD, was likely to bear little fruit given the backwardness of the Russian economy, and above all to anger the Western powers. Given the parlous state of the German economy and military weak- ness, the SPD dared not go too far in this direction either.

In the end all these problems were resolved, but all too horrifically, by Hitler's concentration camps (which welcomed social democrats and Com- munists alike) and the Second World War.

Edinburgh DONNY GLUCKSTEIN

Debo, Richard K. Survival and Consolidation. The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia i9i8-1921. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, Kingston, London and Buffalo, I992. xiii + 502pp. Bibliography. Notes. Index. ?42.00.

THIS sequel to Revolution and Survival (I979) is both more and less than its subtitle claims. It is a study of the foreign relations of Soviet Russia in the period concluded by the trade agreements with Britain and Germany and the treaties with Turkey and Persia. Only to a limited extent can it be seen as a study of that state's foreign policy. This is because of the inaccessibility of many of the relevant papers. Consequently, Professor Debo sometimes has to speculate, adding something like: 'Probably, but no substantiating evidence is currently available' (p. 350). For example, commenting on Lenin's statement that 'the conclusion of peace with Poland encountered great resistance here at first, just as had been the case with the Brest-Litovsk Treaty' (p. 279), he notes: 'It is difficult ... to compare the two, for much of the earlier battle had been fought in public, while this one was conducted behind locked doors' (p. 280) - with no record known as yet.

He has, however, made thorough use of the public records of this country, France and Germany, and some of the most interesting passages in his book trace, on the basis of actual evidence, the processes whereby policy decisions were made in London, Paris and Berlin.

One of the major themes of the book is the key position accorded to Germany in the Bolsheviks' strategy. Even the trade negotiations with Britain in I920-2I appear as partly intended to exert pressure on Germany to sign a commercial agreement. (One is reminded of the 'parallel' political negotia- tions in I 939.) As Debo shows, though, it was by no means always necessary for Moscow to use great skill in 'playing off' one capitalist state against

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346 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

another. The Bolsheviks' adversaries were so disunited in aim and so mutually hostile that they did much of the Soviet diplomats' work for them. But the diplomats would not have found their task easy without the valour and skill of the Red Army. On the conquest of the Crimea Debo notes: 'With Soviet Russia in control of the Black Sea coast, all the commercial transactions proposed could be realised' (p. 288).

We are shown how Lloyd-George's so-called softness on the Soviets was dictated, in part, by his view that a White restoration would be the greater evil from Britain's standpoint. 'The Allies should prevent Russia from becoming Imperial again. He himself feared that more than he feared Bolshevism' (P. 79).

A striking contrast is revealed between Lenin's success in subordinating to Soviet Russia's 'higher interest' the ambitions of the local Communists in the Baltic countries and his failure to control the Caucasians, headed by Ordzho- nikidze and Stalin, who continued to pursue a 'forward' policy in Persia after this had been disavowed by their leader, and also invaded and sovietized Georgia against his intentions.

So valuable a work as this deserves better editorial care than it has received. It is not only that there are too many misprints. A number of solecisms and slips of the pen have been left uncorrected. For example, 'divisiveness' is frequently written where 'dividedness' is meant; Paleologue's policy towards Soviet Russia is said to have been 'archly aggressive', 'atamen' is used as the plural of 'ataman', Dorpat and Tartu are mentioned without any indication that these are two names for the same town. A sharper-eyed editor might also have brought to the author's attention some apparently contradictory state- ments. Thus, on page 323 a source's reliability is criticized: 'In 1920 it is difficult to imagine Lenin and Chicherin using the term "faithful ally" to describe Soviet Russia's relationship to any bourgeois government', although, on page 3I4, we have read Lenin's reply ('of course') to the question whether he might make an alliance with one capitalist state against another. Again, it is stated that 'Soviet authorities in Azerbaidzhan provided Kuchuk Khan with a wide variety of assistance but ... would not support him militarily' (p. I87), whereas, on page 368 the (correct) information is given that the government of Soviet Azerbaidzhan 'sent their own troops into northern Persia and suppor- ted local revolutionaries. . .'.

The only map provided is an outline map of 'Russia I9I8', showing principal towns, which does not even extend eastward of the Yenisei, though Debo has a chapter on the Far Eastern Republic. London BRIAN PEARCE

Stites, Richard. The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia. Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, i86o-si3o. New edition with Afterword. Princeton Uni- versity Press, Princeton, New Jersey, I99I. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. ?19.95: $49.50 (paperback).

RICHARD STITES'S book is now well-established as the classic work on the women's liberation movement in Russia and it is no wonder that Princeton

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