The Origins of Detente
The Genoa Conference and Soviet-Western Relations, 1921–1922

An account of the failure of the 1922 Genoa Conference to resolve East–West differences.

Stephen White (Author)

9780521526173, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 June 2002

272 pages
21.7 x 14 x 2.3 cm, 0.382 kg

The Genoa Conference of April-May 1922 saw the first serious and sustained attempt to negotiate a modus vivendi between the newly established Soviet government in Moscow and the western capitalist countries that surrounded it. Drawing upon a wide range of archival and other sources, many of them unfamiliar or previously unexplored for this purpose, this study traces the evolution of Soviet-Western relations from the Revolution up to the autumn of 1921, when the proposal for a conference first began to emerge, and then considers in more detail the course of preconference diplomacy and the proceedings of the conference itself, up to the early summer of 1922. In his final chapter Dr White argues that the failure to resolve East-West differences at Genoa was attributable to a variety of circumstances, but above all to a failure of political will.

Preface
List of abbreviations
Technical note
1. Europe and Russia after the war
2. Approaching the Russian problem
3. From Cannes to Boulogne
4. Diplomatic preliminaries
5. Soviet Russia and Genoa
6. The conference opens
7. Rapallo
8. Closing stages
9. Genoa and after
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]