ABSTRACT
The Soviet government's diplomatic isolation and military weakness in the years following the October Revolution forced it to rely heavily on propaganda and diplomatic maneuvering to achieve its foreign policy goals: a prime example of this was Soviet Russia's determined efforts to establish formal diplomatic relations with China between 1917 and 1924, Beginning in early 1918 the Soviet government repeatedly denounced secret diplomacy, condemned the imperialist powers' poor treatment of China, and promised to treat China as an equal. The Bolsheviks' real aspirations were quickly revealed to Chinese officials once Sino-Soviet negotiations began, however, as Soviet officials emphatically denied that any such promises had ever been made.
