Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 37. (1984)
ORDE, Anne: France and the Genoa Conference of 1922
326 Anne Orde of capitalism was provided by the famine in the Volga region in 1921: the allied governments proposed to make the provision of relief conditional on the admission into Russia of a commission of enquiry and the recognition by the Soviet government of its predecessors’ debts. In reply the Soviet Politburo on 28 October offered to meet the claims of small holders of Tsarist bonds and to recognise state loans concluded before 1914 if special facilities were provided to enable it to do so. The western powers in turn must conclude peace with the Soviet government and grant full recognition. The note ended with a call for an international conference. Another possible approach was the idea of a consortium to be formed by bankers and industrialists from Britain, France, Germany and the United States to promote the reconstruction of central and eastern Europe. This idea was discussed by Lloyd George in the first half of December 1921 with Rathenau, the German industrialist who was shortly to become Minister for Foreign Affairs, with Loucheur, the French Minister for Liberated Regions, and with Krasin, the Soviet trade representative in London3). With the Cabinet’s consent Lloyd George proposed to Briand, the French Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, at a series of meetings in London between 19 and 22 December, a combination of the consortium idea with an international economic conference and a fresh consideration of German questions. Briand for his part proposed an Anglo-French alliance4). The consortium was discussed further in Paris at the end of the month, with Italian, Belgian and Japanese financial delegates joining in: German participation in the scheme was to be justified by earmarking for reparation half the profits taken by Germany5). Finally at the meeting of the Supreme Council at Cannes on 6 January 1922 the package was approved in a resolution calling for an economic and financial conference to be summoned in February or early March with representatives of all European countries, including Russia and the ex-enemy powers, as an essential step towards the economic reconstruction of central and eastern Europe. The stronger countries must make a united effort to remedy the paralysis of the European economy by, in particular, removing obstacles in the way of trade, providing substantial credits for the weaker countries, and securing the co-operation of all in restoring normal prosperity. The resolution then, without mentioning Russia by name, listed six fundamental conditions for success in the effort. Nations could not dictate to each other the principles on which they were to regulate their systems of property ownership, internal 3) David Felix Walther Rathenau and the Weimar Republic (Baltimore 1971) 112-116; Anne Orde Great Britain and International Security 1920—26 (London 1978) 12; White Britain and the Bolshevik Revolution 60. 4) Public Record Office London: CAB 23/27, C 93 (21), 16 December 1921 (documents in the Public Record Office are hereafter cited as PRO with class, volume, and document number); Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939 ed. E. L. Woodward and R. D’O. Butler and others Series 1 (hereafter cited as DBFP 1) volume 15 (London 1967) no. 105-111. 5) DBFP 1/15 no. 112-17.
