2K - The state of international relations by 1923: the position of the USA and Russia in world affairs
Learn why the international order remained unstable by 1923 despite peace treaties and the League of Nations. Examine American and Soviet influence, continuing border disputes, and the causes and consequences of the occupation of the Ruhr.
The United States and Soviet Russia outside the settlement
The United States and Soviet Russia stood outside important parts of the post-war order without being irrelevant to it. Their positions were different: the United States was economically powerful and chose limited commitments, while Soviet Russia was recovering from civil war and faced political suspicion and diplomatic exclusion.
American non-membership deprived the League of a major potential source of authority, military support and economic leverage. The failed American guarantee also left France less secure. Yet European states owed large war debts to the United States, and American trade and capital remained central to recovery. Washington generally treated those debts as obligations to be repaid, while European debtors linked their ability to pay to German reparations. This connected financial questions that the governments did not agree to treat as one political problem.
American participation in the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–1922 demonstrates selective engagement. Agreements limited major naval construction and addressed Pacific security concerns. The United States could reject the League while supporting international agreements in areas it considered important. Its position therefore constrained European security cooperation without eliminating American influence.
Soviet Russia's new government repudiated tsarist debts and encouraged international communist movements, increasing western distrust. Allied intervention during the civil war had strengthened Soviet suspicion in return. The Bolsheviks consolidated power, and the Soviet Union was established in December 1922. Several former imperial border territories remained independent, limiting Russia's former reach but not destroying its Great Power potential.
At Genoa in 1922, efforts to reconcile economic recovery, debts and claims failed to produce a broad settlement with Russia. Germany and Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Rapallo on 16 April, restoring diplomatic relations and waiving mutual claims. Cooperation helped both escape isolation and created western fears that excluded powers might combine against the settlement. The treaty did not amount to a general offensive alliance; later secret military cooperation should be distinguished from its published diplomatic terms.
The Office of the Historian's account of Soviet recognition confirms the United States' continuing non-recognition through this period. Diplomatic exclusion and practical commercial contact could coexist.
Borders that remained contested
The peace treaties did not settle every frontier peacefully or make all national claims compatible. In Eastern Europe, war and local action continued after the armistices. The Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921 ended with the Treaty of Riga, placing substantial Ukrainian and Belarusian populations inside Poland. Poland gained a frontier that it considered strategically important, while Soviet leaders and minority populations had reasons to contest the outcome.
Vilna, now Vilnius, remained a dispute between Poland and Lithuania. Polish forces took control in 1920 through an operation presented as a local action, and the area was incorporated into Poland in 1922. International recognition of the frontier in 1923 did not secure Lithuanian acceptance. This illustrates the difference between a decision recognised by major powers and a settlement accepted by both neighbouring states.
Upper Silesia combined a national dispute with competition over industry. The 1921 plebiscite did not produce an uncontested solution: voting patterns varied within the territory and armed uprisings intensified the conflict. League involvement helped secure division, with Poland receiving an important share of the industrial area. The outcome demonstrates some capacity for international mediation, but also the difficulty of turning a regional vote into a universally acceptable frontier.
Disputes continued elsewhere. The Greek-Turkish war overturned the Sèvres settlement and produced Lausanne in 1923. Lithuania seized the Memel territory in January 1923; its status required further negotiation. In August 1923 Mussolini used the killing of an Italian boundary commission in the Greek-Albanian border area to demand compensation from Greece and occupied Corfu. The settlement was handled through the Conference of Ambassadors with League involvement, and Italy withdrew after payment. The episode exposed the difficulty of restraining a major power determined to use force.
These cases should not all receive the same verdict. Some produced mediated settlements, some left grievances and some rewarded coercion. The common problem was that nationalist, economic and strategic claims overlapped, while the institutions responsible for settlement lacked uniform support. Stability requires more than a line printed on a map.
Why France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr
The occupation of the Ruhr grew from a dispute over German reparations and a deeper conflict about security. The Ruhr was a major coal and industrial region in western Germany. Control over its production appeared to offer France and Belgium a way to obtain deliveries directly when they believed German promises had failed.
The 1921 reparations schedule required payments and deliveries that Germany increasingly struggled or resisted to meet. German governments sought relief, pointing to economic and financial difficulties. French leaders feared that claims of inability concealed an intention to evade the treaty. Both issues mattered: real economic weakness did not exclude political resistance, and suspicion of evasion did not remove genuine payment problems.
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