| ID | 099057 |
| Title Proper | Only the USSR has… clean hands |
| Other Title Information | the soviet perspective on the failure of collective security and the collapse of Czechoslovakia, 1934-1938 (Part 2) |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Carley, Michael Jabara |
| Publication | 2010. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | The second part of this two part essay focuses on the Czechoslovak crisis in 1938, based on papers from the Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii in Moscow and the recently published journals of Soviet ambassador in London, Ivan M. Maiskii. The essay is also grounded in British, French, and Romanian archives, and the standard document collections, including the American and German series. The Soviet Union did all that it could do, given Anglo-French abdication, to help the Czechoslovak goverment defend its independance against Nazi Germany. The British and French portrayed a manipulative Soviet Union, seeking to abandon treaty commitments to Czechoslovakia, while at the same time they fled from obligations to Prague and projected their own evasions onto Moscow. In spite of everything, the Czechoslovak president, Edvard Bene, might have held the fate of his country in his own hands. Would he do "something crazy", would Czechoslovakia fight alone at the outset, hoping that public opinion would force France and Great Britain into war? Tragically, Bene would not bid va banque and indeed was complicit in the Anglo-French abandonment of his country. By its reckoning, the Soviet Union escaped the crisis with "clean hands", though a clear conscience was no consolation in Moscow, where the government had to contemplate the ruin of collective security and its own isolation in Europe. |
| `In' analytical Note | Diplomacy and Statecraft Vol. 21, No. 3; Sep 2010: p.368 - 396 |
| Journal Source | Diplomacy and Statecraft Vol. 21, No. 3; Sep 2010: p.368 - 396 |
| Key Words | USSR ; Czechoslovak Crisis ; Ivan M Maiskii ; Moscow ; Great Britain ; Soviet Union |