The Impact of the Great Purges on the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs

Abstract

We must finally understand that of all precious capital in the world, the most precious capital, the most decisive capital is human beings, cadres. We must understand that in our present condition cadres decide everything. If we have good and plentiful cadres in industry, in agriculture, in transport, in the Army, our country will be invincible. If we have no such cadres we will limp with both legs.Joseph StalinDescartes argued that the initial operation in the solution of any complex problem must be its subdivision into a series of smaller, less intricate, and therefore, hopefully, more tractable problems. Following that strategy, this study will examine one particular aspect of the purges—the destruction of the Soviet diplomatic corps—in an attempt to shed more light on the general nature of the purges and to assess the relationship, if any, between the purges and the evolution of Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s. The central tasks, then, are to describe the impact of the "Great Terror" on the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and its embassies, and to evaluate the significance of these developments for both domestic politics and foreign relations of the USSR.