From the History of Soviet-Polish Relations in the Early 1920s: the Problem of “Transit to Persia”

Abstract

For the first time in Russian historiography, the discussion that flared up soon after the conclusion of the Riga Peace Treaty in the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and the People’s Commissariat of Trade on the possibility of granting Poland the right to transit trade with Persia and other countries of the East. It is noted that the head of the People’s Commissariat of Trade L.B. Krasin criticized the position of the plenipotentiary representative of the RSFSR in Warsaw L.L. Obolensky, who considered it possible to grant Poland the right of transit to the East and the most favored nation treatment in trade on reciprocity terms in order to strengthen Moscow’s position in the Polish-Soviet negotiations. It is shown that the People’s Commissariat for Trade did not consider such cooperation to be equivalent, since, according to L.B. Krasin, Poland needed more transit through the Soviet republics than the Soviet state needed transit through Poland. In the course of the study, it was found that the People’s Commissariat of Trade allowed such a situation only if Poland would additionally make political concessions, the nature of which had not yet been clear at that time. It is traced in the article how, as a result of the discussion, the line of the People’s Commissariat for Trade won and in fact the Soviet leadership adhered to it until mid-1923. The relevance and novelty of the research is due to the introduction into scientific circulation of archival materials declassified in the post-Soviet era and for the first time introduced into scientific circulation, which allow discovering new vicissitudes of Polish-Soviet relations, including the organization of transit trade.