Many could directly say: “Who cares about Rapallo now?” And it is clear that the idea of a “new Rapallo” now, in April 2022, looks like an absolute utopia. That is true. But nevertheless, the topic of “breaking through diplomatic isolation” is now becoming as relevant as ever. And history a hundred years later brings us back to these questions, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Oleg Barabanov.
April 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the Genoa Diplomatic Conference and the Treaty of Rapallo between Soviet Russia and Germany. In the official narrative of Soviet history, Genoa and Rapallo became the most important symbols of a breakthrough in the diplomatic isolation of the young Soviet republic and the first post-civil war treaty between the RSFSR and a major Western state. In many ways, official Soviet-Western diplomatic history began with these events. Yes, of course, at the dawn of the existence of the RSFSR, the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany was already in force, there was a German embassy in Soviet Moscow (and the German ambassador had been killed in the summer of 1918). However, there had also been a civil war and a foreign intervention in Soviet Russia, and the situation changed.
As a result, the symbolism of Genoa and Rapallo in the Soviet historical concept was of a decisive nature, in contrast to the Brest peace, which Lenin called a foul peace. Attention to the Genoa Conference in Soviet historiography especially intensified in the post-Stalin era. This was explained by the fact that the Soviet delegation in Genoa included practically none of the Stalinist team of “iron commissars”, and some of its members were later repressed. In addition, the Rapallo treaty laid the foundation for close military cooperation between the USSR and Weimar Germany, which was largely secret, non-public. This significant assistance from the Soviet Union to restore and re-equip the then German army, the Reichswehr, could, of course, pose uncomfortable questions in the context of the further evolution of the Reichswehr into the Wehrmacht already in Hitler’s times. In addition, during the Great Terror of 1937, it was precisely the accusations of links with German generals that served as the key formal basis for the Tukhachevsky case and the trial of top military brass in June 1937.
After the death of Stalin, the debunking of the cult of personality and the rehabilitation of the repressed persons, the situation changed. Therefore, special attention to Genoa at that time was closely connected with the switching of official accents in Soviet historiography to the activities of the “Leninist Guard”, the first Bolsheviks and figures of the early Soviet period. The Genoa Conference was well suited for these purposes. As a result, its content was saturated with extremely important symbolism for the Soviet narrative. This symbolism of Genoa and Rapallo in the late Soviet period partly began to take on a mythological character; feature films were made about the conference, and literary descriptions appeared. As a result, in a series of centenary Soviet anniversaries launched by the anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917, the anniversary of Genoa and Rapallo occupies an important place in the context of the historical memory of those events, as a reminder of the symbol of a breakthrough in diplomatic isolation.
The Genoa Conference was held from April 10 to May 19, 1922. The representatives of about 30 states took part in it. Its main topic was the discussion of economic and financial issues related to post-war reconstruction and development in Europe. One of the countries participating in the conference was Soviet Russia. The delegation of the RSFSR, under a separate agreement, included representatives of other Soviet republics (the USSR as a state had not yet been formed by that time, it would only come into being in December 1922). The formal chairman of the Soviet delegation was Vladimir Lenin, but he did not go to Genoa, and the real leader was the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR Georgy Chicherin. The delegation of the RSFSR included other well-known diplomats and political figures of the early Soviet period: Vatslav Vorovsky, Maxim Litvinov, Jan Rudzutak, Leonid Krasin, Christian Rakovsky, Adolf Ioffe and others.
One of the goals pursued by the Western countries, when they invited Soviet Russia to the conference, was the desire to achieve recognition of the tsarist debts from the RSFSR, as well as compensation for nationalised foreign property. Thus, in fact, the very mythologised “breakthrough of diplomatic isolation” was by no means explained only by the increased international power of Soviet Russia, which was emphasised in its official narrative. There were also much more prosaic and not always pleasant reasons. The initiator of inviting the RSFSR to the conference was British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who believed that the formal involvement of Soviet Russia in the diplomatic discussion could be more useful in achieving the above goals of compensation. In this matter, he encountered initial opposition from the French government, which insisted on maintaining isolation and advocating that there was nothing to talk about with the Bolsheviks. The British position eventually prevailed, and the RSFSR was invited. However, this part of the Genoa Conference ended in nothing. The question of compensation hung in the air. And a certain recognition of the tsarist debts on the part of Russia only came much later, already in the Yeltsin-Chernomyrdin times.
But in the context of the Soviet narrative, the Genoa Conference was important not in itself, but primarily because during the conference the RSFSR signed a separate treaty with Germany. This happened on April 16, 1922 in the city of Rapallo on the Ligurian Riviera, not far from Genoa. Incidentally, in the interest of clarity, this agreement was signed at the Imperiale Hotel, which, at least according to the modern administrative division of Italy, does not belong to the city of Rapallo, but to the neighbouring resort town of Santa Margherita Ligure. Italian purists love to point this out. But the term “Treaty of Rapallo” has stuck in diplomatic history despite these topographical nuances.
Defeated in World War I, Germany was also invited to a major multilateral diplomatic conference for the first time since the peace treaties were signed. The goals of this were also transparent: to ensure that Germany paid reparations for the First World War. Lloyd George, as in the case of Soviet Russia, believed that Berlin’s equal participation in the conference would serve these goals to a greater extent. The French did not agree here at first and believed that an additional discussion of German reparations undermined the foundations of the Versailles peace treaty. However, as in the case of the RSFSR, no consensus on the German question was reached at the Genoa Conference.
In this context, Germany and the RSFSR were in Genoa under similar and extremely uncomfortable positions. Rogue states were invited to a common table just to demand money. It is clear that this objectively contributed to their rapprochement at the conference. As a result, the Rapallo treaty was signed. In it, the parties agreed, first of all, on the rejection of mutual financial claims following the results of the First World War and the Revolution in Russia. Against the background of severe external pressure on both countries, the financial issues were quite understandable and really laid new foundations for post-war international relations, from scratch, from the abandonment of previous monetary demands. Also in Rapallo, the most favoured nation treatment in bilateral trade was agreed upon, and diplomatic relations were fully restored. Immediately after Rapallo, joint projects were sharply intensified between the countries. For example, one of them was the opening in May 1922 of the first international air passenger line in the RSFSR along the Moscow- Königsberg route. Flights were carried out by the joint Russian-German company Deruluft. The aforementioned military and military-technical cooperation began to develop most intensively after Rapallo. The factories and training grounds created over the next few years on the territory of the USSR made it possible for Germany to rearm its army (including tanks), which was prohibited by the Versailles Peace Treaty. For the Soviet Union, this was an opportunity to test German industrial technology, which, to an important extent, laid the foundation for the Soviet defence industry. And most importantly, a breakthrough in ending diplomatic isolation had really come. Following Germany, in the coming years, the RSFSR and the USSR were officially recognised by more and more states.
What is the historical significance of Rapallo now? In the very recent “pre-February” conditions, this would have been just another memorial anniversary, important both for Soviet nostalgia and for historical memory between Russia and Germany. As far as is known, last year projects to hold joint commemorative conferences on this date were discussed between the two countries’ historians. Now, of course, everything has changed. Many could directly say: “Who cares about Rapallo now?” And it is clear that the idea of a “new Rapallo” now, in April 2022, looks like an absolute utopia. That is true. But nevertheless, the topic of “breaking through diplomatic isolation” is now becoming as relevant as ever. And history a hundred years later brings us back to these questions. This justifies special attention being paid to historical examples in this particular situation, hence the need for reviving the memory of the Rapallo Treaty.
