The Bolsheviks’ policy concerning national frontiers was not grounded in Marxist theory. Aimed at achieving short-term goals, it often contradicted the Marxist ideology and, pragmatically, strove to secure and broaden their political power. Consequently, such an attitude to international affairs went against the dogmas formulated by the “Founding Fathers” of Marxism. According to these dogmas, the revolution was to continue and spread all around the world, thus making national frontiers obsolete. In the transition period, before the frontiers were actually rendered obsolete, the Bolsheviks were to maintain relations with capitalist states in order to prevent them from forming an anti-Soviet political alliance and, additionally, to provoke internal social conflicts in these states, hoping to prompt the coming of the revolution. Despite the above-described long-term strategic goals, the Bolsheviks (even early on, just after the October Revolution) were mainly concerned with their own territorial expansion. Their real goals were to secure maximum territory for their state and to avoid precedent-setting concessions even in minor cases. Thus, this study analyses the Bolsheviks’ territorial policies and the way they contradicted the theory of the revolution.
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