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  Selected Secret Documents from Soviet Foreign Policy Documents Archives - 1919 to 1941

Concentrated on 1st and  2nd WW Correspondence and Meetings related to Turkey, Balkans and Iran, with some additions from Afghanistan and India.

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From: telegrams of the plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in the kingdom of Bulgaria Lavrishchev to the peopleʹs commissioner for foreign affairs of the USSRV. M. Molotov

November 30, 1940

Top secret highly important out of turn

Popov conveyed in oral and written form the response of the Bulgarian government as follows: “the foreign policy of Bulgaria has always been inspired by friendship for the Soviet Union, and there was no case that Bulgaria acted against the interests of the latter. Something more: Bulgaria rejected attempts, accompanied by seductive promises, made by some of the concord powers after the world war in order to push Bulgaria against Soviet Russia. On the other hand, the Bulgarian foreign policy was guided by peacefulness and was never violated. The Bulgarian people have suffered many victims in a series of wars for their unification and have suffered so many losses in the conclusion of peace and so much suffering in recent years that it is the duty of each Bulgarian government to protect its people from any step that would cause them new trials.

............

Bulgaria has national interests in western Thrace, but she does not intend to implement them by force of arms. She considers these interests to be so fair in all respects that she can count on the support of all those who strive for a just settlement of relations between peoples in the future. Bulgaria is sincerely glad that it has the assurances of the Soviet government on this issue, which were conveyed through its envoy in Sofia on July 6 this year.

The government thanks for the information on Turkeyʹs intentions to provide armed resistance to the penetration of Bulgaria to the south. He knows these intentions, but they do not pose an immediate threat to Bulgaria, since sheʹs not going south with a gun. On the other hand, we have the most categorical assurances from the Turks (we received such assurances very recently, almost simultaneously with the Soviet proposal) that military preparations in Thrace are only of a defensive nature. Given this position, there can hardly be any doubt that Turkey may feel an immediate threat as a result of the signing of a mutual assistance pact between the Soviet Union and Bulgaria, since the Turks would probably have remained convinced that it was directed against them, and we fear lest the danger of a clash, which we want to avoid and which, we have no doubt, the Soviet Union, does not want, might increase with the current tension. It would be difficult for the Bulgarian people, whose peacefulness the government takes into account, and for the Bulgarian parliament, it would be difficult to understand and accept the obligations providing for Bulgariaʹs intervention in resolving such a big issue as the question of the straits, which are not covered by the interests of our small country.

...........

Lavrishchev

Avp rf, f. 059, on. 1, p. 331, d. 2272, l. 192‐199.