Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
RAPALLO-Treaty
April 16, 1922
a victory for Leninist Soviet diplomacy
The Treaty of Rapallo thwarted the Entente's attempt to forge a capitalist united front against Soviet Russia. The plans to reconstruct Europe at the expense of the defeated countries and Soviet Russia had been foiled.
Soviet diplomacy won this victory because it relied on Lenin:
"One must know how to take advantage of the contradictions and antagonisms between the imperialists."
"If we had not adhered to this rule, we would all have been hanging from different trees long ago for the amusement of the capitalists."
* * *
The Comintern (SH) supports and defends all the foreign policy treaties which Lenin's and Stalin's Soviet Union had concluded with the capitalist world in general and with the German imperialists in particular.
The Comintern (SH) opposes and at the same time condemns all foreign policy treaties that both Russian tsarism, Soviet social imperialism and present-day Russian imperialism concluded with the imperialist world in general and with imperialist Germany in particular.
One were treaties in the service of communism, were treaties for the benefit of the liberation of the peoples from capitalism.
The other were and are treaties in the service of imperialism, were and are treaties of capitalist bondage of the peoples.
[ [ Text of the document ] ]
Treaty between Soviet Russia and Germany,
signed at Rapallo on 16 April 1922.
The German Government, represented by Dr Walther Rathenau, Minister of State, and the Government of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, represented by M. Tchitcherin, People's Commissary, have agreed upon the following provisions:
Article 1.
The two Governments are agreed that the arrangements arrived at between the German Reich and the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, with regard to questions dating from the period of war between Germany and Russia, shall be definitely settled upon the following basis:
[a] The German Reich and the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic mutually agree to waive their claims for compensation for expenditure incurred on account of the war, and also for war damages, that is to say, any damages which may have been suffered by them and by their nationals in war zones on account of military measures, including all requisitions in enemy country. Both Parties likewise agree to forgo compensation for any civilian damages, which may have been suffered by the nationals of the one Party on account of so-called exceptional war measures or on account of emergency measures carried out by the other Party.
