The lack of separation between traditional diplomatic activity and the innovative moves of the Comintern was indicated by the fact that quite often Soviet diplomatic representatives abroad were at the same time officials of the Comintern. G. S. Agabekov, a top GPU official and a diplomatic resident in the Near East, related that "in 1926, the Soviet consul in Meshed (Persia) was also a representative of the Third International, just as in 1924^25 the Soviet plenipotentiary in Afghanistan (Stark) was also the Comintern's secret representative in Afghanistan and the northern provinces of India."36
In the 1920s the Soviet Union concentrated its attention on three countries: Germany, England, and China.
Excellent relations with Germany had developed in the realm of traditional diplomacy; at the same time, the German Communist party gained support, while relations on a third level (economic) continued to develop and strengthen. Economic relations were not limited to trade; they also included the all-around technical aid that Germany accorded to the Soviet Union. More than 2,000 German engineers and technicians arrived in the Soviet Union after the signing of the Rapallo treaty.37 They actively assisted in renewing Soviet industry. German—Soviet military cooperation was provided for in a secret clause of the Rapallo treaty. The Treaty of Versailles prohibited the German army, 100,000 strong, from having modern armaments, particularly aircraft and tanks. By the middle of 1923, Junkers was able to build airplanes in Fili, near Moscow. In 1924 a center for training German pilots was opened in Lipetsk. Russian and German chemists experimented together to produce poison gases. Krupp built artillery factories in Soviet Central Asia.38 Reports of German—Soviet military collaboration were published in due course and denied by both Soviets and Germans, but they were fully confirmed by documents found in the German archives after World War II. Again the question arises, which of the two sides won in the process of this cooperation? General von Seeckt was able to rebuild the German army, getting around the Versailles treaty, and he was able to arm it with the latest weaponry, built and tested on Soviet territory. The Red Army certainly profited: military men received training in Germany, industry obtained modern technology. However, since Stalin eventually exterminated all the officers and generals who had been in Germany or had had dealings with German officers, it could be said that only the German side profited.
Robert Conquest suggests, not without reason, that at the time of the Shakhty trial, the inclusion of German engineers among the accused was explained by the fact that in 1927 German technical aid had become predominant and the number of German engineers and technicians had grown too great. It was decided to teach them a lesson. The Shakhty trial implicated three German engineers, but thirty-two others were arrested at the same time. The very number of those arrested indicates the numerical significance of German personnel in the Soviet Union. After the trial, the Soviet government turned to the Americans for technical aid. In mid-1929 the Soviet Union had technical agreements with twenty-seven German firms and fifteen American firms. By the end of 1929, forty American firms were cooperating with the Soviet Union.39
After Great Britain's recognition of the Soviet Union, Anglo—Soviet relations were normalized, but Moscow regarded England as its principal adversary, particularly in Asia (Afghanistan and China). In 1924 the Soviet Union tried to take advantage of the fact that for the first time in British history the Labour party won at the polls. It was the newly formed Labour government that recognized the Soviet Union. An attempt was made to turn the British Communist party into a mass organization and to penetrate the trade unions. But in October 1924 the Labour party was defeated. One of the principal causes of this defeat was a document which the English press published as "Zinoviev's Secret Letter." The controversy surrounding the authenticity of this letter, which gave directives to English Communists, is still going on. Even if the letter was a fake, it contains nothing that Zinoviev could not have written. The directive that particularly roused the indignation of English public opinion (to conduct an operation to undermine the army) was one of the twenty-one conditions necessary for all Communist parties for admission to the Comintern. During the general strike in 1926, a collection was taken up in the Soviet Union for use by English strikers. An Anglo—Russian trade union committee was created.
The treaty with China, signed in 1924, provided for the preservation of the Soviet Union's rights to the Chinese Eastern Railway (the part of the main Trans-Siberian rail line, built by the tsarist government in 1903, that passed through Manchuria for a distance of 1,481 kilometers, with a 240- kilometer spur to Harbin) and for the Soviet Union to maintain a protectorate over Outer Mongolia, which had declared itself a people's republic. At the same time, the Soviet Union supplied aid to the Chinese nationalist party, the Kuomintang, led by Sun Yat-sen. Soviet military advisers, directed by Galen-Blyukher, were operating in China. The tiny Chinese Communist party, acting under orders from Moscow, joined the Kuomintang. Soviet policy in China became one of the major themes of the controversy between Stalin and Trotsky. Trotsky insisted on the necessity of stirring up the revolutionary struggle in China, under the leadership of the Communist party; Stalin defended the policy of supporting the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek, who led the party after Sun Yat-sen's death. Stalin and Bukharin believed that the Kuomintang played an "objectively progressive role." Chiang cooperated with Moscow but did not want the Communists in his party. In 1926 the Communists were expelled from the Kuomintang and arrested. In April 1927 Chiang Kai-shek organized a massacre of Communists in Shanghai. Soon after, Stalin, hoping to exonerate himself, sent Neumann and Lominadze to Canton. He termed the failure of the Cantonese insurrection a "victorious rear-guard battle."
The Soviet Union's foreign policy for this period was guided by three central precepts: (1) the Soviet Union was the most important factor of world revolution and thus its strengthening, combined with an equivalent strengthening of the world revolutionary movement for the sake of Soviet interests, was the revolutionary task of Communist parties in other countries; (2) conflict between the Soviet Union and the capitalist countries was inevitable, and the revolutionary movement in the capitalist countries was a reserve force that could help Moscow; (3) the nature of capitalist countries was such that subversive revolutionary activity conducted against them did not exclude the possibility of carrying on normal diplomatic and trade relations with them.
The full extent of Western economic and technological aid to the Soviet Union will not be known until the Soviet archives are opened up. The Western firms that collaborated with Moscow have concealed the information almost as carefully as their Soviet partners. Nevertheless, the American historian Anthony Sutton has come to the conclusion, on the basis of German and English archives, that 95 percent of Soviet industrial enterprises received Western aid in the form of machines, technology, and direct technical aid.40
The Soviet Union made skillful use of the competition among capitalist firms. "In the realm of technical assistance," wrote Economicheskaya zhizn (Economic life), "we have neither an English, nor a German, nor an American orientation. We maintain a Soviet orientation. ... When we need to modernize our oil, automobile or tractor industries, we turn to the United States because it is the leading country in these industries. When we speak about chemistry, we approach Germany."41 It was also able to turn for help to Germany, England, and the United States, even though Germany and England recognized the Soviet Union in 1924, while U.S. recognition did not come until 1933. The capitalist firms, who were competing bitterly with each other, rushed to offer their services: they gained concessions, supplied the latest equipment and technology, sent engineers and technicians, and took on Soviet trainees. The myth about a "blockade," "economic isolation," and the hostile attitude of the capitalist "sharks" toward "the socialist homeland" falls apart in the face of the facts. In the 1920s only aid from the West permitted the Soviet authorities to restore the economy rapidly, including transportation, all branches of industry, and the extraction of useful minerals. This aid was given in spite of the Soviet government's policy, which put all sorts of obstacles in the way of the capitalist firms and ended the concessions as soon as Soviet specialists had assimilated Western technology. The capitalist firms were always in a weak position; they had never before encountered a partner as powerful as a government, and they were thirsty for profits. Along with the Comintern and pro-Communist organizations, these firms played the role of organizers of public opinion in favor of the Soviet Union. When Standard Oil decided to build an oil refinery in Batum, a top public relations expert was sent to persuade public opinion that a socialist country was a state like any other. Without knowing a word of Russian, this representative of Rockefeller's knew everything after several days: The Russians (he always talked about the Russians, not the Soviets) are okay! That's why the United States ought to recognize the Soviet Union and extend credit to it.42