00:00:00​ so far we spent a lot of time looking at the events of the russian revolution looking

at the period between the two revolutions and how the communist and the soviet union was
established and then we moved on to look at the russian civil war and then we've spent a little
bit of time looking at the economy in the early days of this of this new state under lenin well in
this video we're going to look at the foreign policy and the kind of relations the soviet union had
with other foreign powers in the

00:00:35​ early days of its inception so we're going to talk specifically about the the the
common turn we're going to talk about the russo polish war the treaty of rapallo talk about the
influence that lenin's death had on um foreign policy and just generally on the soviet state in as
a whole and then the next few lessons we're going to move on to look at the at stalin's rise to
power okay so let's start by looking at the common term and this was established in march 1919
and it was primarily used to promote worldwide

00:01:10​ socialist revolution so don't forget lenin believed lenin believed in international
revolution so international revolution now you don't have to be you know a devout marxist
leninist or somebody who you know understands the very complex uh the complex political
theory behind leninism and marxist leninism to have to you know to have a grasp of the history
here but generally you know without getting too complicated uh lenin believed that the socialist
revolution a socialist state could not exist on its own within you know within a

00:01:55​ capitalist world it would have to it would the revolution would have to spread
abroad and become an international revolution and that's what the common tune was
established to do to try and spread socialism abroad and so lenny wanted to see communist
parties around the world who support the ussr so you know almost immediately at the
foundation at the it's the inception of the ussr there was that you know there was initial hostility
towards the towards the state from the rest of the world and obviously this

00:02:28​ this hostility grew as we move on and move into the you know following the
second world war and into the cold war so this is really if we're going to be talking about foreign
policy of the of the of the ussr we have to really center our understanding of the foreign policy
around the common term oopsie daisy so the first you know real issue that we start to face
when we're talking about the the the foreign policy in the early soviet union is the russo-polish
war and so the this was an attempt by the bolsheviks to

00:03:04​ to export the revolution into poland in 1920 again the there was the there was the
belief that a an international revolution should be it should be happening okay and so they
expected the polish working class to rise up just like they had done and support the bolsheviks
so they expected a a revolution to be similar in in other states however accord you know under
the according to you know the polish um the the polish people they saw this is another attempt
to russian expansion so the relationship between russia and

00:03:41​ poland have been you know relatively tense for for hundreds and hundreds of
years you have expansion um you know going dating back as early as as i have in the terrible
so they didn't see this as as as a way of um you know of the soviet union perceiving this as
we're helping the polish working class to rise up they saw it as russian expansionism again and
so this is what caused the tensions and so the failure along with the failure to expand socialism
into hungary and germany okay showed the strength that capitalism

00:04:18​ had around the world and so therefore the the common term had to continue to
work to promote revolution however their their initial attempts were less successful okay their
their initial attempts were not very successful now of course now of course they they would
eventually have success um in being you know in promoting socialism in places like china in
places like cuba in places like vietnam you know cambodia all these other areas but now when
we look at the um when we look at the history of china in in a separate module

00:05:00​ and when we look at and when we look at the foreign policy later on there is you
know a little bit of debate as to the extent to which the the common turn and the the ussr really
had influence over this over these uh revolutions uh specifically another foreign policy aim and
achievement that took place during this early period in the ussr was the treaty of rapalo and this
was a treaty signed between germany and russia in 1922. and both germany and russia had
been isolated from the international

00:05:31​ community germany with the uh with the treaty of versailles you know following
world war one so world war one so for those who you know for those who haven't studied um
germany and german history effectively the end of world war one uh they were forced to sign
the treaty of versailles the peace treaty and they were subject to quite harsh terms when it came
to when it came to the when it came to the treaty of versailles and in 1922 they were very
isolated from the international community and mu as as as the golden age of the

00:06:11​ weimar republic in germany took place in 24 to 28 um germany became became

a bit more prominent again on the international stage however at the time germany had really
only um you know you know positive relations with the ussr and of course the ussr was isolated
from the international community because of the fear of communism spreading so what were
the terms of this treaty of rapala well both nations promote promise to cooperate in quote in the
spirit of mutual goodwill in the meeting of economic needs of both

00:06:49​ countries you know that's relatively vague but it effectively means economic
supports you know economic cooperation economic cooperation moreover yes re-established
sorry diplomatic relations between russia and germany don't forget russia and germany were at
war in world war 1. they were enemies they were enemies in world war one and you know
between the end of world war one and 1922 russia had had its own problems in in in the in the
you know the revolutions and then the civil war germany as well had its own

00:07:33​ revolution in 1918 and had to um deal with the the sort of very early stages of the
weimar republic where it was um under great threat from both outside influences as well as
extremism within within the country the third policy was that russia offered germany military
access now this is something that's very important because in the treaty of versailles germany
was had its military stripped so the treaty of versailles germany germany had its military stripped
military stripped and this resulted in you know a limited

00:08:19​ access of only a hundred thousand troops um there was um a term within the
treaty of versailles that the german military couldn't have any tanks or any planes only seven
battleships no submarines all these kind of things that um if you studied this at gcse you'd be
very familiar with and so so this is why russia offered military access so it would it would it would
you know be a sort of a mutual recognition of of military access and then the fourth the fourth
point was that there would be special trading rights that were allowed

00:08:51​ between the states again this was also in you know economic cooperation
economic cooperation now what's very important is that this this sort of economic cooperation
and the the the multilateral trading uh you know sorry bilateral trading um arrangement that was
that was established by the treaty of rapala would you know would ordinarily be in in almost like
a stark contrast to the the ideas of the socialist and the communist state however lenin lenin
recognized that you know trade and and and um

00:09:34​ influence with other with the international world on the international stage was
important because it was a means to spread communism and so the treaty of power was signed
and then was reim was turned into became the treaty of berlin in 1926. moving on now let's
have a look at the uh the xenoverse letter now this was a a very um a very interesting
controversy within the soviet union and so the soviet regime and great britain had signed a trade
agreement the anglo-soviet trade agreement in march 1921

00:10:14​ again again lenin and this this idea of bilateral trading so bilateral trade
agreements bilateral trade agreement bilateral just simply means between two parties unilateral
is you know on one's own and then multilateral is between more than two parties so so this was
signed in march 1921 and the communist party of great britain had been founded in 1920 1921
okay however on october the 25th 1924 the daily mail in great britain published a letter allegedly
written by uh zenoviv okay who was the head of the common tune

00:11:03​ we've talked about xenoverse i can't pronounce his name uh we've talked about
him uh in an earlier lesson okay and he was the head of the common term and we're going to
talk about him as well later when we talk about stalin's rise to power and the letter that was
published allegedly urged the communist party of great britain to influence and infiltrate the
labour party of great britain in order to extend leninism into britain so the extent to which we
have a communist party or a socialist party in

00:11:36​ this country today is very limited especially within you know mainstream politics
there there isn't really any any need to focus on on a communist or a socialist party however at
the time the communist party of great britain was you know didn't have much you know political
power and influence within you know within westminster or whatever but was was still relatively
uh more prominent than it is today and so there was plans to try and gain more power and more
influence by infiltrating the labour party which
00:12:10​ was still a very big powerful party as it still is today and to try and expand
leninism into great britain and so this was seen you know as you know as a as a as a as a tragic
as not as a tragedy as a this was seen as i can't i can't think of the word this was seen as quite
a controversial as that's the word the controversial uh within the british public and the letter
reinforced the view that the british labour party was too closely uh linked to russia so these were
allegations of or you know of

00:12:47​ this letter being circulated however even allegations of these letters of this letter
you know forced people to believe that that the labour party the labour party labor party was too
closely linked was too close to the ussr this was the problem and this is why it was the
controversy this was it was a scandal and it also made anglo-soviet relations a lot more hostile
towards the soviet regime because um you know they saw it as an infiltration of of of ideas that
they you know they they rejected effectively

00:13:30​ so before we finish we're going to just move on and look a little bit at the death of
vladimir lenin this is less you know this is less about the foreign policy specifically but there's
you know it's i wanted to fit this in at the end of this chapter before we move on to looking at the
rise of startling so lenin died in january 1924 okay and lenin's legacy is is a very controversial in
nature okay so despite promising piece of land and bread uh lennon had led russia into a civil
war and his policies had led to a famine

00:14:06​ okay that's quite a um you know that's quite a brazen statement that you know
i've written there and you could also argue the nep was also very unpopular within the
communist party because it was a capulet a capitalist compromise and so was a lot of the
foreign policy was was also capitalist compromising so ultimately lenin's legacy has been seen
in two different in two different lives he has a very positive legacy in terms uh you know within
socialist circles um in terms of being able to bring about

00:14:42​ the russian revolution and winning the russian civil war however if we look at his
domestic policies people would argue for and against his um his his new economic his new
economic plan as well as the policies that you know that ultimately led to the russian civil war
however what happened with the death of lenin was that the communist party had a power
vacuum so there was a power vacuum that existed and really the question that we're going to
be answering in the next few lessons is who filled that power vacuum and how

00:15:23​ they managed to fill this power vacuum okay spoiler alert it's it's it's joseph stalin
but what were the what were the internal political struggles that were taking place following the
death of lenin so that's what's going to be in the next couple of lessons