“Pursued by a Bear”: British Estimates of Soviet Military Strength and Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1922-1939

Abstract

Prior to 1914, imperial Russia was one of the great powers of Europe. After 1917, the armed might of Soviet Russia was an uncertain quantity. This had serious repercussions for Britain in the inter-war period. If the Soviet Union were a negligible military quantity, then Britain would have to pay greater attention to the balance of power on the continent, since France alone could not check the might of a rearmed Germany. If the Soviet Union were strong, fears for the continent might be eased, but Britain would have to continue to consider such pre-1914 concerns as the defence both of India and the rest of Britain’s Asian empire against the Soviet Union. In both cases, an accurate estimation of Soviet military strength was crucial to the formation of British policy. The period from 1922 to 1939 divides into two periods. From 1922 to about 1934, the Soviet Union avoided European politics, but posed a threat to Britain’s imperial holdings. Fortunately for Britain, during this period Soviet military power was slight, although it is likely that British military authorities exaggerated it in the scramble to obtain funding. In the period from 1934 to 1939, the Soviet Union was a major player in European politics. From 1934 to about 1937, the British viewed the Soviet Union as a military power, leading some to think that an Anglo-Franco-Soviet alliance was the way to deter Germany’s expansion. However, the purges in the Red Army in 1937 made the British feel that Soviet military strength had declined, making the appeasement of Germany the best course of action. Only in mid-May 1939 did the British begin to have confidence in Soviet military strength again. The Anglo-Soviet negotiations of 1939 did not fail because the British had no confidence in Soviet military strength; rather, they failed for political reasons.