Lenin's approach to foreign affairs

Question 1

Which troops were ports in Murmansk (Arctic) and Archangel (White Sea) occupied by?

Answer 1

British
French
US

Question 2

What were the French and British troops alarmed by?

Answer 2

The Comitern and spread of revolution in Germany and Central Europe

Question 3

What is the Comitern?

Answer 3

Communist international body set up in Moscow in March 1919 to organise worldwide revolution

Question 4

Why did the French take lead in an international campaign against the Reds?

Answer 4

Lenin refused to pay back any foreign debt (1918) and many financers in France had heavily invested in tsarist Russia

Question 5

Name 3 interventions in the Baltic States

Answer 5

• April 1918 Japanese troops occupied far-eastern port pf Vladivostok
• French established major land base around the Black Sea port of Odessa
• 1918 British warships entered Russian Baltic waters and the Black Sea

Question 6

What year was the war against Poland?

Answer 6

1920

Question 7

What happened when the Red Army marched into Poland?

Answer 7

Poles saw the invasion as traditional Russian aggression and drove the Red Army back across the border

Question 8

What was Lenin’s realistic/pragmatic approach to foreign affairs based on?

Answer 8

• The defeat to Poland in 1920
• The level of foreign intervention during the civil war
• The failure of community revolutions around the world (Germany & Hungary)

Question 9

What did Lenin’s approach to foreign policy show?

Answer 9

• The time was not right for world revolution
• Capitalist nations were still too strong
• Had to adjust foreign policies

Question 10

Which country was the last to leave Russia and in what year?

Answer 10

Japan, 1922

Question 11

1 failure of the attacks by interventionists

Answer 11

Uncoordinated, little cooperation between interventionists

Question 12

What year were French and US troops recalled?

Answer 12

End of 1919

Question 13

2 general failures of the interventionists

Answer 13

• No concerted attempt was ever made to unseat the Bolshevik regime
• After a token display of aggression, foreign troops began to withdraw

Question 14

When was the Treaty of Rapallo signed?

Answer 14

April 1922

Question 15

What did the Treaty of Rapallo entail?

Answer 15

Russia would provide German forces with military training grounds and resources, and in return Russia would gain special trading rights in Germany

Question 16

What year was the Treaty of Berlin signed?

Answer 16

1926

Question 17

What did the Treaty of Berlin confirm?

Answer 17

The main terms of the Rapallo treaty

Question 18

Who was the 1924 Anglo-Soviet agreement between?

Answer 18

Britain and the Soviet Union

Question 19

What did the Anglo-Soviet treaty entail?

Answer 19

Britain would provide the soviet with a £30million loan in return for the Soviet Union paying compensation for British financial assets

Question 20

Date of the Zinoviev Letter

Answer 20

25th October 1924

Question 21

What is the 1921 British Communist Party?

Answer 21

Subservient to the Comitern, which provided the bulk of its funds

Question 22

Who are the White Russian emigres?

Answer 22

Anti-Bolsheviks who fled from Russia during the years following the 1917 October Revolution

Question 23

Why were there foreign interventions?

Answer 23

• Resentment from Russian withdrawal from war
• To recover supplies
• Fear of Bolshevism
• Anger at Bolshevik writing off Russian debt
• To support the Whites

Question 24

Who were the interventionists?

Answer 24

Britain, France, Japan, USA, Italy, Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Romania

Question 25

What does ‘pariah’ mean?

Answer 25

Outcast

Question 26

Who was the Zinoviev Letter addressed to?

Answer 26

British Communist Party

Question 27

What did the Zinoviev Letter urge BCP members to do?

Answer 27

Infiltrate the Labour Party and use it to bring down the British State in an armed insurrection

Question 28

Who did the Zinoviev Letter provide ammunition for?

Answer 28

Those in Britain who thought the Labour government and revolutionary Russia were far too close for Britain’s good.