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Diplomatic History: the Soviet Approach

A Review Article

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

C. E. Black
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Extract

The three-volume Soviet History of Diplomacy, published during the recent war, can properly claim to be the first attempt to survey the whole range of the diplomatic history of Europe from the Marxist point of view as it is currently understood in the Soviet Union. The problems which Soviet scholars have faced in rewriting history on the basis of the Marxist interpretation have been many, and a solution acceptable to the Communist party of the Soviet Union was reached only after considerable experimentation. While the broad lines of the interpretation had indeed been sketched by Marx and Engels, its practical application was a subject of long controversy. After an initial period during which historical research in the traditional sense was for various reasons largely neglected, a school of literal economic materialists was founded in the early 1920s by M. N. Pokrovskij (1868-1932), and its work found expression in the journals Krasnyj arkhiv and Istorik-marksist.

Type
Review article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , October 1948 , pp. 276 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1948

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References

1 Istorija diplomatii, ed. V. P. Potëmkin (Moscow 1941-45). There is a French translation published by the Librairie de Médicis (Paris, 1946-47), and an English translationis in preparation by Hutchinson (London).

2 See, for instance, Tompkins, S. R., “Trends in Communist Historical Thought,” Slavonic and East European Review, XII (1934-35), 294–319 Google Scholar; Florovsky, A., “Historical Studies in Soviet Russia,” Slavonic and East European Review XII (1934-35), 457-69Google Scholar; and Sumner, B. H., “Soviet History,” Slavonic and East European Review, XVI (1937-38), 601–615, Google Scholar, and XVII (1938-39), 151-61.

3 The resources of the Krasnyj arkhiv are described by Rubinchek, L. S. in “The Red Archives,” American Slavic and East European Review, VI, Nos. 18–19 (December, 1947), 159-71.Google Scholar

4 The following volumes of the Meždunarodnye otnošenija v epokhu imperializma have appeared to date: first series (1878-1900), no volumes published; second series (1900-13), Vols. XVIII-XX (Moscow, 1938-40), covering the period from May 14, 1911, to October 17, 1912; third series (1914-17), Vols. I-X (Moscow, 1931-38), covering the period from January 14, 1914, to April 13, 1916.

5 These are described by Professor Tarle in “Novaja istorija v rabotakh sovetskikh istorikov,” Dvadsat’ pjat let istoričeskoj nauki v SSSR, ed. V. P. Volgin (Moscow, 1942),pp. 236-48.

6 Averbukh, R. A., Carskaja intervencija v bor'be s vengerskoj revoljuciej 1848-1849 gg. (Moscow, 1935).Google Scholar

7 Malkin, M. M., Graždanskaja vojna v SŠA i carskaja Rossija (Moscow-Leningrad, 1939).Google Scholar

8 Skazkin, S., Konec avstro-russko-germanskogo sojuza (Moscow, 1928), Vol. I,Google Scholar covering the years 1879-84.

9 Romanov, B. A., Rossija v Mančžurii, 1892-1906 (Leningrad, 1928)Google Scholar; Avarin, B., Imperialism v Mančžurii (Moscow, 1934).Google Scholar

10 Notovič, F.I., Diplomatičeskaja bor'ba v gody pervoj mirovoj vojny (Moscow, 1947), Vol. I, covering the years 1914-15.Google Scholar

11 Hill, David J., A History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe (New York, 1905-14),Google Scholar covering the period 30 B.C. to 1775; Émile Bourgeois, Manuel historique de politique étrangère (rev. ed.; Paris, 1919-27), which covers the years 1610-1919.

12 Stalin and Molotov, “On the Teaching of Civic History in the Schools of the U.S.S.R.,” Izvestia, Nos. 113-5361 (May 16, 1934), tr. in Slavonic and East European Review, XII (1934-35), 204-5.

13 Istorija Diplomatii, I, 14.

14 See the review by Zakharov, S. in Bolshevik, No. 3 (February, 1946), 63–72 Google Scholar; and by Tarle, E. in New Times, No. 4 (February 15, 1946), 10–13 Google Scholar

15 Istorija Diplomatii, I, 15-88.

16 Ibid., I, 89-166.

17 Ibid., I, 167-295.

18 Ibid., I, 296-528.

19 See the review by Elkin, B.in Slavonic and East European Review, XXV, No. 65 (April, 1947), 569-78.Google Scholar

20 Such evidence has been collected, however, for limited aspects of the subject, as in New Data for V. I. Lenin's “Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism” ed. E. Varga and L. Mendelsohn (New York, 1940). In this connection Langer, W. L., “A Critique of Imperialism,” Foreign Affairs, XIV (1935-36), 102-19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, should be consulted.

21 The as yet inconclusive evidence on this subject has been summarized recently in Namier, L. B., Diplomatic Prelude, 1938-1939 (London, 1948).Google Scholar

22 Istorija Diplomatii, III, 701-64.