Soviet Policy in the Chinese Eastern Railway Conflict, 1929

One of the most important events in the history of international relations in the first half of the 20th century was a conflict on the CER 1929. Among the unexplored issues of the history of this conflict remains the problem of evaluation of Soviet policy by the left political parties. The conflict on the CER had a special significance for the headed by Stalin Bolshevik party, representing the interests of the Russian state and struggling with other political forces for world leadership. The conflict on the CER occurred at the time when the contradictions between Bolshevik slogans and real practice, between Stalinists and their rivals in the struggle for leadership in the communist movement escalated. Due to the established Stalinist monopoly within the leadership of the Bolshevik Party and the Comintern, which was under the control of Moscow, in 1929 there was no conflict of opinion. However, the Bolsheviks followed attentively the discussions that had taken place throughout the world between various political forces of communist and socialist orientation. The closest ally of the CPSU(b.) was the CCP. The Chinese working in the Comintern were among the ideologists of the Bolshevik policy towards the CER. But inside the Communist Party of China there was no unity on the issue of the Soviet policy on the CER. It is not by chance that following the results of the Soviet-Chinese conflict of 1929, the most consistent supporters of the Bolsheviks, like the opponents of I.V. Stalin, were removed from the leadership of the CCP. Among the major opposition of politicians to the Soviet leadership, the closest in their political views to I.V. Stalin was L.D. Trotsky who among the few communist leaders almost fully supported Soviet policy. Communist parties and groups have ambiguously evaluated the Soviet policy on the Conflict on the CER. In general, Stalin's policy was supported by War  van Overstraeten, William Gallacher, or Pollitt. Most known communists, such as Robert Louzon, Heinrich Brandler or Hugo Urbahns, did not support Soviet policy. The split over the evaluation of Soviet politics occurred among the Communists of all European countries. But in general, communist parties and groups in Europe in 1929 were unanimous in their opinion on the inadmissibility of using military force to resolve the Conflict on the CER. Unlike the Communists, the socialists of the whole world, including the Russian Social Democrats, unambiguously assessed the policy of the USSR on the CER. And only non-Marxist left-wing forces, like the majority of right-wing bourgeois organizations in the West, supported the Bolsheviks in their policy of forcibly returning control over the CER. Despite the fact that inside the world communist and socialist movement there were different views and assessments of the policy of the Bolsheviks. The Soviet-Comintern propaganda declared all Marxists who did not recognize as the leader I.V. Stalin the main culprits of all the foreign policy problems of the Soviet Union

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