Foreign Office Attitudes to the Soviet Union 1941-45
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10072902 |
|---|---|
| Authors | G R Ross (Council on Foreign Relations, corresponding author), Graham Ross (Graham Ross is a Lecturer in International Relations at Leeds University. He is the author of “Operation Bracelet: Churchill in Moscow, 1942” in Vol. 2 of D. Dilks (ed.), Retreat From Power (London 1981). He is currently working on two books: The Great Powers and the European State System 1914-45 and The Foreign Office and the Kremlin: Documents on Anglo-Soviet Relations 1941-45) |
| Year | 1981 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 521-540 |
| Publication date | 1981-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/002200948101600308 |
| OpenAlex | W374731792 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
This article is in no sense an attempt to summarize the course of Anglo-Soviet relations during the second world war. It seeks rather to trace the evolution of assumptions within the Foreign Office about two problems in particular what was the best way to handle the Russians and what were their post-war aims? The main source is the large number of minutes and memoranda written by officials and by the Foreign Secretary at the time. This has the benefit of showing what a fairly small group thought and was prepared to put on the record, while avoiding too much reliance on hindsight. Sir E.L. Woodward in his five volume history of British Foreign Policy during the Second World War uses some of this material. But limitations of space meant that he had to concentrate on the substance of British policy rather than the thinking behind it and he tends in any case to be discreet about differences of view and emphasis between individuals. There was never, of course, a monolithic Foreign Office view of the problem, nor did London and the Moscow Embassy always see eye to eye, especially when Cripps was Ambassador. But the evidence shows certain consistent assumptions. Soviet suspicions could only be allayed by a policy of cautious reasonableness that gave the Russians as little cause as possible for legitimate complaint. Such a policy might take some time to work, but the hope was that it would have a cumulative effect which would make postwar collaboration possible if not easy. As for Soviet aims, it was obvious that she would seek a degree of influence in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The problem was how much and of what kind? If the Soviet Union was interested mainly in security
Complaint · Foreign policy · Hindsight bias · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Soviet union · Space (punctuation) · TRACE (psycholinguistics) · World War II · Computer Science · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,09 |
| Citation span | 1982 - 2018 (37) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |