RUSSIA AND ITALY AGAINST HITLER
THE BOLSHEVIK-FASCIST RAPPROCHEMENT OF THE 1930s
by
Joseph Calvitt Clarke III
Greenwood Press, 1991
http://users.ju.edu/jclarke/wizzu.html
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Soon after the start of the Second World War
in 1939, Augosto Rosso, the last of Italy's prewar representatives in Moscow,
tried to explain to Rome why the Soviets had allied with the Nazis, their
potential enemies. Militarily unprepared, he argued, Moscow hoped to unleash
an exhausting war that would spur the Comintern's revolutionary goals. Rosso
closed, "I . . . hold this opinion because if I found myself in the shoes of a
Politburo member I would not reason otherwise."(1)
Clearly, in nailing down an argument, Rosso's closing was a weak bit of pot
metal, easily bent or broken in the attempt to hammer it home. But what else
could he say? Given the lack of dependable information, untainted by Moscow's
public propaganda needs, his alternative was to say that Soviet policy was
irrational or, at least, inexplicable.
Explanations such as this do not long satisfy ministers back home. A critical
part of an ambassador's charge is to take the best information available and
draw from it rational conclusions usable to his government. In Stalin's
Russia, with the impossibility of forming useful personal relationships with
Soviet leaders, an ambassador's job was particularly difficult.
The problems confronting today's historians of the Soviet Union have little
changed from those faced by Ambassador Rosso. How many have lamented, "Until
the Soviet archives are opened. . . ." Until then, the historian can do little
more than what Rosso did: work to gather the best information available (even
if incomplete and riddled with rumor); attempt to examine it dispassionately;
and try to draw credible conclusions based on the assumption that the Kremlin
operated on the same data in a rational, self-serving way--self-serving at
least by the lights of its own perceptions. Recognizing that Stalin was always
the final arbiter of policy, the historian must be presumptuous enough to sit
himself in Stalin's seat and to conclude, "This is what Stalin thought because
if I were he, I could do no other."
The bulk of my research comes from the embassy and consular reports now
preserved in the Foreign Ministry Archives in Rome. On the whole, these files
covering the years 1924 to 1941 have hardly been touched in the effort to
understand Stalin's Russia. This is an undeserved slight, for therein lies a
wealth of information compiled and delivered by a long list of outstanding
observers on all aspects of Soviet foreign and domestic policy events and
conditions. Although many of these reports do little more than emphasize
themes already illuminated elsewhere--the importance, however, of confirmation
should not be underestimated--also lurking in the archives are valuable new
insights and twists.
Of course, in relying primarily on the Italian perspective in defining the
USSR, I have ended up saying a great deal about Italy as well. And beyond
that, the complex of relations developing in the 1930s between the fascist
Royal Kingdom and the bolshevik Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was played
out against the backdrop of the many important events of Europe's interwar
diplomacy.
Relations between the Soviet Union and Italy from the time of formal
diplomatic recognition in 1924 were substantive, active, varied, and generally
reflected prewar traditions. For the most part, both the communist and fascist
ideocracies felt the other's revolutionary militancy to be rather benign. It
would have been alarmist beyond belief for Stalin to have feared anything
emanating from Italy, and, for his part, Mussolini had had little trouble in
rounding up Italy's communists. Ideology, therefore, played no significant
role in Italo-Soviet relations, except for those times when, for other
reasons, relations already were strained--and that was infrequent until after
1936. Only then did each wield the ideological club to bludgeon the other
unmercifully. Fascism and communism rationalized rather than initiated policy.
Practical politics took on new urgency with Hitler's rise to power in Germany
in January 1933—an event which ultimately overturned all previous European
diplomatic conditions and possibilities. Buffeted by the forces the Führer
unleashed, both the Italians and Soviets sought ways to contain the threat of
a resurgent Germany. Both came to reject at least parts of their
anti-Versailles revisionism and began to support the status quo, at least in
so far as it could block German expansion in directions harmful to themselves.
In economic, political, ideological, and military matters, each turned to the
other for support, especially in Southeast Europe, where their self-interested
cooperation and competition met head on.
I maintain that the Soviets were pushing, and the Italians for a brief while
were not unwilling, to put Germany "in a straitjacket of peace" through a
complex and interlocking alliance system, binding Rome, Moscow, Paris, and the
capitals of the Little and Balkan ententes "in a chain of agreements designed
to girdle Europe".(2) In many ways, Rome was the key, because only through the
Italians, if at all, could the defeated and anti-Versailles Budapest and
Vienna be brought to cooperate with the satisfied and strongly
anti-revisionist Belgrade, Bucharest, and Prague. And Italy's help was most
important in bringing Sofia to cooperate with Ankara, Athens, Belgrade, and
Bucharest.
Further, Italy was the one power both willing and geographically able to stop
Nazi aggression with its first step in Austria. Italy's successful defense of
that country in the summer of 1934 seemed to vindicate Soviet policy. That
Italy's role in collective security--all be it outside of the League of
Nations--and collective security itself ultimately were dashed on the rocks of
the Italo-Abyssinian War of 1935 and 1936 was not for want of effort by the
Soviet pilots.(3)
Despite the important roles that both the Soviet Union and Royal Italy played
in great power diplomacy in the 1930s, with only one exception, no work until
now has dealt directly and comprehensively with their government-to-government
relationship.(4)
A brief word about organization. Part I
attempts to describe the background of the move toward serious cooperation in
1933 and 1934. The Introduction builds a foundation to the story by
demonstrating how little ideology and dictators changed the basic conundrums
facing the two states.
Chapter 1 discusses the working out in 1929 through 1930 of the tripartite
Italo-Soviet-German cooperation directed against France. The flight of an
Italian air wing to Odessa in 1929 was significant as a tangible example, a
case study, of the flirtations between the two states and presaged the more
extensive military contacts to take place in 1933 through 1935. Given the
political importance that the Soviets attached to any agreement in any field,
a discussion of economic relations is especially appropriate. Although in
terms of world totals their trade was not terribly important, in specific
areas such as oil and naval construction, it took on economic and even greater
political significance.
Chapter 2 describes the Italian and Soviet responses to Hitler's rise to
power. Clearly, although both Rome and Moscow wished to see continued their
tripartite cooperation with Berlin, Hitler was determined to move against
Italy's influence in Austria and the USSR in the East. Hitler was a strong
rope potentially binding Rome and Moscow together. The chapter closes with a
discussion of the ideas on fascism of Ernst Henri, a popular Soviet publicist
of the 1930s.
The most significant of Italy's diplomatic initiatives before the
Italo-Abyssinian War was Mussolini's Four Power Pact negotiated and signed in
the first half of 1933. A legitimate and realistic attempt to tie up the loose
ends left over from the Great War, its potential was undermined from the start
by France and its allies. Portending the Kremlin's concern five years later
over its exclusion from the Munich Conference, Chapter 3 describes how even
this weakened pact threatened the Soviet Union with the prospect of isolation
in the face of a hostile Germany bound to France, Britain, and Italy.
The USSR was in a difficult spot. Part II describes Moscow's attempt to break
out of its isolation. The process toward cooperation with Italy culminated
with collective security's practical success in Austria in the summer of 1934.
Rapprochement was a matter of linkage; to be successful it had to cover many
areas of national and international life. To clear the decks of encumbrances,
the matter of competing ideologies had to be dealt with. Chapter 4 makes clear
that for neither the fascists nor the communists was ideology an insuperable
obstacle. In Chapter 5 the economic rapprochement, especially the accord of
May 6, 1933, cleared the way for the political talks described in Chapter 6.
Those negotiations culminated with the Pact of Friendship, Neutrality, and
Nonaggression of September 2, 1933 described in Chapter 7. Much of this
drawing together took place in the arena of the extensive military contacts
between the two states. As Chapter 8 shows, they were important not only as a
public symbol of the significance of their diplomatic rapprochement, but also
because of the implied the possibility of military coordination to back up
their political collaboration.
Chapter 9 looks beyond bilateral Italo-Soviet relations to view that "straight
jacket of peace" being strapped together to keep Germany subdued. Collective
security seemingly had its one grand triumph in Austria, and Soviet policy to
include Italy as an important component of that scheme appeared completely
justified. Then what happened? Why did Italy within two short years throw over
its old policy to join with Germany against the Soviet Union? The Epilogue
tries to explain this turn of events.
Any author of a work such as this would be
remiss not to thank the many friends, family, and colleagues without whose
support it could never have been completed. While many have read parts of my
manuscript at its various stages, Clifford Foust, George L. Yaney, John Lampe,
George O. Kent, and Jon T. Sumida all of the University of Maryland; William
I. Shorrock and Jeanette E. Tuve of Cleveland State University; James
Sadkovich of the General Motors Engineering & Management Institute; James
Burgwyn of West Chester University; George Rhyne of Dickinson College; and
Karen Carroll and Martha and Michael Moreno deserve special thanks. I am also
indebted to Dr. Enrico Serra and his assistants in the Historical Archives at
the Foreign Ministry in Rome for their kindness and assistance. And lastly,
the many unsung workers at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and the
National Library in Rome, made possible my research. Of course, I alone am
responsible for any mistakes of fact or interpretation.
NOTES
1. Italy. Ministero degli Affari Esteri. Commissione per la pubblicazione dei
documenti diplomatici, I documenti diplomatici italiani (hereinafter
abbreviated as DDI) (Rome: Istituto poligrafico dello stato, 1953-86),
9th (series), (vol.) 2: no. 207.
2. For this phrase, picked up from a British newspaper, see Grandi to Rome,
9/5/33: Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Direzione Generale degli Affari
Politici, URSS. (Rome). (hereafter
abbreviated as MAE AP URSS) b(usta) 10 f(oglio) 1.
3. I am using the term, "collective security", as I think the Soviets might
have in their private councils in the first half of the decade. For them, the
League of Nations was but a tool, perhaps useful, in containing German
aggression against the Soviet Union. This was the extent of their
international altruism. The key was protection of the USSR--whether that
protection was received within the League or through some other mechanism of
collective action was unimportant, and both fell under the general rubric of
"collective security".
4. See Mario Toscano, Designs in Diplomacy: Pages from European Diplomatic
History in the Twentieth Century, trans. and ed. George A. Carbone
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), pp. 48-304, which deal with the
period from 1939 to 1943. The slight volume by Carlo Lozzi,
Mussolini-Stalin: Storia delle relazioni italo-sovietiche prima e durante il
fascismo (Milan: Domus, 1983), makes no pretense of being other than a
popular work.