ABSTRACT
The rise of Hitler in Germany had provoked Stalin to change his foreign policy. In the years prior to Hitler's rise, the Comintern chose to dissociate itself from the German social democrats, arguing that social democracy was objectively a kind of ‘social fascism’. Throughout Europe, social democrats and communists often disagreed more violently amongst themselves than they did with their right-wing opponents. However, when Hitler came to power and so openly expressed an interest in acquiring Lebensraum for the German people in the east, Stalin changed Comintern policy, advocating instead the creation of ‘popular fronts’ which would bring together progressive and left-wing movements of different persuasions. Nevertheless, in spite of this, there is evidence that throughout the 1930s, Stalin was interested in coming to some agreement with Hitler. It has been argued, for example, that Stalin had long wished to see a war between the Western imperial powers, and sought an agreement with Germany to encourage that possibility (Tucker 1992: 232). Although after the Munich conference in 1938, he continued to explore the possibility of an anti-Hitler collective security pact with Britain and France, he suspected that the Western governments had similar motives to his own: Western appeasement of Hitler was designed to turn Hitler's attention to the east.
