“In conditions of diplomatic isolation”: what role did the Genoa Conference play in the history of Soviet Russia

On April 10, 1922, an international conference on economic and financial issues began in Genoa (Italy), in which delegations from most European powers, Japan, the British dominions and the RSFSR took part.

According to historians, the main topic of the conference was actually defining the format of relations between the young Soviet state and the Western powers.

Although the conference participants failed to resolve the main contentious issues, the Rapallo Treaty between the RSFSR and Germany was signed within the framework of the conference, which became an important step towards overcoming the formal diplomatic isolation of Soviet Russia from the West.

Genoa Conference

According to historians, already at the beginning of 1922 it became clear that the Civil War in Russia was nearing its end, and the Bolsheviks were winning it.

However, none of the leading Western powers at that time formally recognized the Soviet government and did not maintain diplomatic relations with official Moscow.

Against this background, there was an acute problem of settling controversial issues in relations between Soviet Russia and European countries, as well as establishing diplomatic ties between Western states and the new Russian government.

“In the West, they realized that the Bolsheviks are serious and for a long time.

And that one way or another you will have to negotiate with them, despite the fact that earlier the Entente countries took an openly hostile position towards Soviet Russia.

In turn, the Bolsheviks, who sought diplomatic recognition, settlement of financial claims and the establishment of economic ties, also had a mutual interest in establishing relations.

The Genoa Conference, scheduled for the spring of 1922, was chosen as a platform to start discussing all these issues, ”Vitaly Zakharov, professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, told RT.

According to him, the conference was supposed to be the first large-scale event in which delegations from both the majority of the Western powers and Soviet Russia would take part, and this, in turn, created good opportunities for finding a compromise.

The formal initiator of the holding was Great Britain, which made a corresponding proposal at a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Entente in early 1922.

“The Genoa conference itself was conceived primarily as an economic one, it was not for nothing that, despite all the diplomatic surroundings, representatives of leading corporations and companies from Western Europe were invited there,” said Ruslan Kostyuk, professor at the Faculty of International Relations at St Petersburg University, in a conversation with RT.

As the expert noted, the organizers of the conference expected to achieve interaction between the states of Europe to restore the economy, primarily in its central and eastern parts.

And the key role in the discussions was given to the “Russian question”.

• Genoa Conference

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The Genoa Conference was officially attended by 29 states (including most of the Western European countries, the RSFSR and Japan), as well as five British dominions: Australia, India, Canada, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa.

The United States limited itself to sending its ambassador to Italy to the event as an observer.

Officially, the Soviet delegation was personally led by Vladimir Lenin, but the leader of the state did not go to Genoa - he was replaced by the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR Georgy Chicherin.

At the same time, the delegation of Soviet Russia also represented the interests of other independent Soviet republics that existed at that time.

According to historians, the Western powers wanted to use the economic resources of Soviet Russia to solve their post-war problems.

European leaders insisted on the recognition of the RSFSR debts, which at one time took the tsarist and Provisional governments, as well as on the return of enterprises nationalized by the Soviet government to foreign owners.

• Georgy Chicherin

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“Representatives of Soviet Russia put forward three key topics for discussion: diplomatic recognition of the new government, the economy and the reduction of armaments.

Our country was exhausted by the Civil War, it was necessary to build a new life, and therefore we needed security guarantees, ”Vladimir Vinokurov, professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told RT.

According to Vitaly Zakharov, in response to the claims of the Western powers about the debts of the former governments and the nationalization of foreign property, the Soviet authorities raised the issue of compensation for the destruction associated with the intervention of the Western powers during the Civil War.

Although this damage was greater than Russian debts, the delegation of the RSFSR proposed mutual repayment according to the "zero option".

“But the “zero option” did not pass.

Representatives of Western states started talking about the fact that Russian debts were officially confirmed by documents, but the claims of the RSFSR were not, ”said Zakharov.

End of diplomatic isolation

According to historians, the representatives of the West also did not accept the Soviet proposals related to international disarmament.

They, like mutual economic claims, were decided to be transferred to a new conference, the Hague, scheduled for the summer of 1922.

“While there was a debate in Genoa between the delegations of the Entente countries and Soviet Russia, in the nearby village of Rapallo, secret negotiations were held between our representatives and the German delegation,” said Vitaly Zakharov.

In his opinion, Moscow had better starting conditions for negotiations with Berlin than for negotiations with other Western countries.

“Germany was the losing side in the First World War, everything that was possible was taken away from it, it was humiliated, an economic crisis raged on its territory.

Therefore, she was in dire need of getting rid of at least part of the external claims.

Lenin subtly managed to notice a weak point in the united front of the Western countries, ”Zakharov emphasized.

On April 16, 1922, Georgy Chicherin from the Soviet side and German Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau from the German side signed an agreement that later became known as Rapalli.

The parties agreed to refrain from mutual repayment of military and non-military expenses.

Official Berlin renounced claims arising from the violation in Soviet Russia of the property rights of Germany as a state and the rights of individual German citizens, provided that Moscow would not satisfy similar claims of other countries.

The German government also declared its readiness to assist German firms in developing business ties with Soviet organizations.

In addition, according to Article 3 of the treaty, diplomatic and consular relations were established between Soviet Russia and Germany.

“The Treaty of Rapallo officially ended the international isolation of Soviet Russia,” Vladimir Vinokurov noted.

• Negotiations at the Genoa Conference

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According to Vitaly Zakharov, after the signing of the Rapallo Treaty, attempts at a diplomatic boycott of the RSFSR lost all meaning, since Moscow had official relations with a major European state.

“This began a period of recognition of Soviet Russia, and then the USSR, by other leading powers of the world,” Zakharov said.

The Genoese Conference officially closed on May 19, 1922.

The discussion of the topics raised at it continued on June 15 at the Hague Conference, but it did not bring any breakthroughs.

The Soviet authorities refused to recognize the right to restitution for the former owners, and Moscow agreed to discuss the issue of paying state debts only after resolving issues of obtaining loans to restore the war-torn economy.

When the negotiations reached an impasse, the Soviet delegation left them.

As a result, the Western powers adopted a resolution in which they called on their entrepreneurs not to take concessions in the RSFSR even on favorable terms.

However, in practice it was not observed.

“The 1922 conferences themselves did not lead to any breakthrough decisions in the economy, but for our country these events became an excellent example of successful actions in conditions of diplomatic isolation, the search for a weak link in the West to realize our state interests,” explained Ruslan Kostyuk .

Issues related to the debts of tsarist Russia were settled at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century.

In 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed an agreement with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to settle the state debt of pre-revolutionary Russia.

Official London undertook to pay compensation to its subjects who owned bonds of the Russian Empire through the sale of 5.5 tons of gold of Nicholas II, stored in one of the English banks.

Interstate disputes between the French Republic and the Russian Federation on the issue of pre-revolutionary Russian loans were liquidated by the signing of an agreement on May 27, 1997, according to which Paris and Moscow mutually renounced all financial debts that arose between them before May 9, 1945, and also assumed obligations refuse to support the claims of its citizens related to these debts.