The Soviet-Polish rapprochement of 1933-1934

The story of Soviet-Polish relations between the first and second world wars is a singularly frustrating one. Starting with war in 1920, it ended in war in 1939. A rapprochement which began between the USSR and Poland in 1933 was the most promising period of those futile years, but is was so soon eclipsed by the German-Polish rapprochement of 1934 that it has received little attention from historians. Surprisingly, in going over the Soviet press of this period, one finds that the rapprochement with Poland was a tangible, repeatedly stressed phenomenon, with a fairly definitive beginning in mid-1933 and an alternately rocky and smooth course extending through much of 1934. That course is the subject of this thesis.