The Impact of the Far Eastern Crisis upon Soviet Policy in Europe: 1932

Abstract

The main link between the Far Eastern crisis and events in Europe was the problem of France. The French Government had, indeed, initialled a non-aggression pact with the USSR in the summer of 1931, but it had then refused to progress any further. Soviet diplomats spoke in private of the French move as merely “a manoeuvre” prompted temporarily by the crisis over the Austro-German customs union.¹ In the Soviet press Paris was still stigmatised as “one of the most important centres of European reaction”² Existing suspicions about French intentions had been deepened by Laval’s attempts to secure a rapprochement with Germany at Soviet expense, and on top of this came the Manchurian crisis and simultaneous evidence of French support of Japan.