Anglo-Soviet Agreement

The Anglo-Soviet Agreement was a formal military alliance that was signed by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany on July 12, 1941, shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Both powers pledged to assist each other and not to make a separate peace with Germany.[1] The military alliance was to be valid until the end of World War II. The two founding principles of the agreement of a commitment of mutual assistance and renunciation of a separate peace formed the basis of the later Declaration by United Nations.

Winston Churchill with Joseph Stalin and his interpreter at the 1945 Yalta Conference

Background

The Soviet Union and the Third Reich had signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression pact between the two nations, on 23 August 1939. A secret part of the agreement defined the areas of Eastern Europe that fell into their respective spheres of influence. In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland; the USSR invaded Poland from the east and the new border remained static.

On 22 June 1941 Germany began an attack along the whole length of its border with the USSR from the Baltic states to Ukraine. The Soviet forces were unprepared and the attacks paralysed the Soviet command system and German forces advanced rapidly into Soviet territories.

Agreement

The agreement was signed on 12 July 1941 by Sir Stafford Cripps, British Ambassador to the Soviet Union[lower-alpha 1] and Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs[lower-alpha 2], and it did not require ratification.[2]

Text

The agreement contained two brief clauses:

(1) The two Governments mutually undertake to render each other assistance and support of all kinds in the present war against Hitlerite Germany.
(2) They further undertake that during this war they will neither negotiate nor conclude an armistice or treaty of peace except by mutual agreement.

Subsequent events

The Arctic convoys from Britain to the Soviet Union began the following month as did the joint Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran which opened up a supply route to the USSR. Rezā Shāh was removed from power and the new Shah, Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, signed a Tripartite Treaty Alliance with Britain and the Soviet Union in January 1942, to aid in the allied war effort in a non-military way.

The agreement was broadened to include a political alliance by the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942.[3]

Reactions

According to Lynn Davis, the United States perceived the agreement to mean that the Soviet Union intended to support the postwar re-establishment of independence of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.[4]

See also

Notes
  1. As "His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics."
  2. as "The Deputy President of the Council of People's Commissars and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics"

References
  1. Chubarov, Alexander. Russia's Bitter Path to Modernity: A History of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras, pg. 119
  2. Anglo-Soviet Agreement BBC radio broadcast 13 July 1941
  3. Slusser, Robert M.; Triska, Jan F. (1959). A Calendar of Soviet Treaties 1917-1957. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 144.
  4. Davis, Lynn Etheridge (1974). The Cold War Begins: Soviet-American Conflict Over East Europe. Princeton University Press. pp. 11–37. JSTOR j.ctt13x0xjw.
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