POLAND’S PLACE IN RAPALLO POLITICS IN 1922–1926

Abstract

The article aims to establish to what extent the Polish factor determined the nature of relations between Russia and Germany in the period from the Rapallo to the Berlin treaty, influenced the dynamics of Soviet-German cooperation within the framework of the Rapallo policy in the context of the Versailles system of international relations. Due to Poland’s role in the Versailles system, it acted as the most obvious element of the post-war international order, against which the anti-Versailles politics of Russia and Germany was directed. The anti-Polish elements of the policy of Moscow and Berlin strengthened Rapallo’s course in relations between them. But at the same time, the Polish factor was of tactical importance within the framework of the Rapallo policy. He was used, like Rapallo in general, as a tool in the policy of Moscow and Berlin in relation to the leading countries of the West. After all, it was on their position that the achievement of the strategic goal of the foreign policy of the USSR and Germany – the revision of the Treaty of Versailles – depended. The Rapallo policy was assigned the role of a factor that would facilitate concessions from Western countries in this direction, including at the expense of Poland.