Extra detail: Stalin and international relations Flashcards
Where in the USSR did the German Army carry out military developments?
- The Junkers aircraft factory at Fili (near Moscow)
- Training school for pilots in Lipetsk (Ukraine)
- Facility for practicing tank warfare at Kazan
- Secret joint facility for developing poison gas weapons at Samara
When did the USSR establish diplomatic relations with the US?
1933
Who were the ‘Riga Watchers’?
American foreign policy experts who used Riga (Latvia) as a ‘listening post’ to observe developments inside Russia
What gave Maksim Litvinov credibility with Western diplomats?
His long experience of the West and his polished social background
What finalised the agreement to re-open formal diplomatic relations with the US?
Litvinov visited Washington in November 1933
When did Hitler publicly announce German rearmament?
March 1935
When did German forces occupy and remilitarise the Rhineland?
March 1936
What the German remilitarisation of the Rhineland show Stalin?
That France would continue to be weak in the face of fascism, it weakened his faith in the value of the Franco-Soviet Pact (1935)
What happened to Soviet personnel who returned from the Spanish Civil War?
They were repressed, likely because Stalin was scared of revolutionary idealism which he couldn’t control
What was the response to the Spanish Civil War in the USSR?
Propaganda went into overdrive in support of the ‘anti-fascist crusade’, there was a mass rally in Leningrad in 1937
How did Stalin know the USSR was facing dangerous threats to its security by 1938?
Secret intelligence reports from Germany said that Hitler told his general in Nov 1937 to prepare for a war of aggression and territorial expansion against Czechoslovakia and Poland
How much military power did the war between Japan and the USSR involve?
100,000+ troops
1000 tanks and aircraft
What gave Hitler complete control of Western Europe?
The quick defeat of France in June 1940
When did the British and French make guarantees to Poland?
March 1939
When did the Polish-German non-aggression pact of 1934 end?
April 1939
