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 Canada |  Soviet Union |
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Canada and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or Soviet Union) had diplomatic relations from 1923 to 1927 and from 1941 until the USSR's dissolution in 1991. The relationship was often tense, owing to the Cold War and Canada's membership in NATO.
Early Canada-Soviet relations proved to be tumultuous. Canada had participated in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, [1] and in general mirrored the hostility towards the Soviet Union demonstrated from Washington and London. Canadian authorities suspected Soviet involvement in Canadian labour disturbances such as the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. Nevertheless, Canada adhered to the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement of 1921, which meant de facto recognition of the Soviet Union. Two years later, the Soviet Union sent its first trade representative to Canada. [2] Relations were severed after the Arcos Affair in 1927. [3] Limited relations were restored in 1929. [4]
The Canadian government suspected Soviet involvement in the Regina Riot of 1935, while Canada was the subject of unflattering propaganda in the Soviet Union, and subject to the popular front policy. Besides this, Canada had limited powers over her own foreign affairs until the Statute of Westminster 1931.
Shortly after the Soviet Union joined the Second World War, diplomatic relations were restored. The German invasion of the Soviet Union forced the Soviets and the Western Allies to work together. In late August and early September 1941, a Canadian-led Expeditionary Force evacuated about 2,000 Soviet miners in the course of the Operation Gauntlet from Spitsbergen and shipped them to Archangelsk. [5] The Soviet Union's first ambassador to Canada was Georgy Zarubin. He arrived in Canada in 1944. [6] During the Second World War, aid and arms were relayed through Canada and Alaska to the Soviets, and relations improved considerably.
However, the wartime relationship ended abruptly with the Gouzenko Affair in 1945 and 1946. Igor Gouzenko was a clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa who defected to Canada with evidence of Soviet spying in the West. This was combined with the general East-West tension leading up to the early Cold War, led Canada back to an anti-Soviet stance. By 1947 Canadian foreign policy analysts were advocating the creation of a Western Alliance outside of the United Nations. Soon after in 1949, Canada joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In 1950 Canada joined with the United Nations forces in the Korean War against the Soviet-allied North. Once the Soviet Union acquired the nuclear bomb, it became obvious that any Soviet attack on the US would go through Canadian airspace. This led to the construction of a series of linked radar stations across Canada, including the Distant Early Warning Line, and Canada's entry in the North American Aerospace Defense agreement (NORAD) with the US.
After the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Canada hoped tensions would ease, and then Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester Pearson traveled to the Soviet Union for talks with Nikita Khrushchev in 1955, the first NATO foreign minister to do so. However, tension arose again over the Hungarian Revolution and Suez Crisis in 1956. In 1962 the Tory Prime Minister John Diefenbaker caused a crisis of his own by refusing to put Canadian forces on alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and by agreeing to acquire nuclear-equipped interceptor aircraft and Bomarc missiles from the US to use against Soviet bombers.
After Pierre Trudeau came to power in Canada, Canadian policy changed dramatically. Trudeau was more sympathetic to socialist nations than other heads of government. Trudeau wanted to lessen Canada's reliance on the United States by forging closer ties with other countries and breaking out of the Cold War straitjacket. During a trip to the Soviet Union in 1971, he identified the United States as a bigger threat to Canada than the remote Soviet Union. The Americans, he said, are "a danger to our national identity from a cultural, economic and perhaps even military point of view." Near the end of his tenure, when he believed that tension between the US and Soviet Union was on the rise, he launched a peace mission to Moscow which the Americans did not approve of. Tensions between the US and the Soviet Union eased soon afterwards.
The government of Progressive Conservative Brian Mulroney cast a much more critical eye on the Soviet Union, despite the changes produced in that country by Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost reforms. As late as January 1989, foreign minister Joe Clark still identified the Soviets as a threat to the West, by May however, he spoke approvingly of Gorbachev's reforms. Canada's changed position was fully shown in November 1989, when Prime Minister Mulroney visited the Soviet Union, accompanied by more than 200 representatives of Canadian business. Numerous agreements were signed during the visit, the most important of which was a Political Declaration calling for Canadian-Soviet cooperation in such areas as the environment, the Arctic, terrorism, and the drug trade. Canadian-Soviet relations were now on friendly terms, until January 1991, when Gorbachev cracked down on independence-seeking Lithuania and Latvia, prompting Canada to suspend credit and technical aid to the Soviet Union. During the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt new foreign affairs minister Barbara McDougall, evoked much criticism by indicating that Canada could work with the plotters, a position that was particularly embarrassing when Gorbachev was quickly returned to office.
As the Soviet Union fell apart, Canada moved speedily to establish full relations with Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It acted even before the United States, and in December 1991, Canada was the first Western country to recognize the independence of Ukraine, due to its large population of Ukrainian immigrants. With Gorbachev's resignation that month, the Soviet Union ceased to exist, prompting Canada to recognize Russia as an independent state.
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Both countries competed in the sport of ice hockey such as the 1972 Summit Series and its sequel in 1974. The Soviet Union competed in the Rendez-vous '87 against the NHL All-star team only to win Game 2 5-3. The Punch-up in Piestany was a bench-clearing brawl between the Canadian and Soviet national junior teams during the final game of the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Piešťany, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), on January 4, 1987.
Finlandization is the process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighboring country refrain from opposing the former's foreign policy rules, while allowing it to keep its nominal independence and its own political system. The term means "to become like Finland", referring to the influence of the Soviet Union on Finland's policies during the Cold War.
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. Between his non-consecutive terms as prime minister, he served as the leader of the Opposition from 1979 to 1980.
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviet embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, and a lieutenant of the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). He defected on September 5, 1945, three days after the end of World War II, with 109 documents on the USSR's espionage activities in the West. In response, Canada's Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, called a royal commission to investigate espionage in Canada.
Détente is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The diplomacy term originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce tensions.
During the Cold War, Canada was one of the western powers playing a central role in the major alliances. It was an ally of the United States, but there were several foreign policy differences between the two countries over the course of the Cold War. Canada's peacekeeping role during the Cold War has played a major role in its positive global image. The country served in every UN peacekeeping effort from its inception in 1948 until 1989. This resulted in Canada provided the greatest amount of UN peacekeepers during the Cold War.
The Gouzenko Affair was the name given to events in Canada surrounding the defection of Igor Gouzenko, a GRU cipher clerk stationed at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, from the Soviet Union in 1945 and his allegations regarding the existence of a Soviet spy ring of Canadian communists. Gouzenko's defection and revelations are considered by historians to have marked the beginning of the Cold War in Canada, as well as potentially setting the stage for the "Red Scare" of the 1950s.
Relations between the Soviet Unionand Japan between the Communist takeover in 1917 and the collapse of Communism in 1991 tended to be hostile. Japan had sent troops to counter the Bolshevik presence in Russia's Far East during the Russian Civil War, and both countries had been in opposite camps during World War II and the Cold War. In addition, territorial conflicts over the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin were a constant source of tension. These, with a number of smaller conflicts, prevented both countries from signing a peace treaty after World War II, and even today matters remain unresolved.
Sergei M. Plekhanov is a Canadian political scientist who is Associate Professor of Politics at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The Malta Summit was a meeting between United States President George H. W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2–3, 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It followed a meeting that included Ronald Reagan in New York in December 1988. During the summit, Bush and Gorbachev declared an end to the Cold War, although whether it was truly such is a matter of debate. News reports of the time referred to the Malta Summit as one of the most important since World War II, when British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed on a post-war plan for Europe at the Yalta Conference.
Jack Foust Matlock Jr. is an American former ambassador, career Foreign Service Officer, teacher, historian, and linguist. He was a specialist in Soviet affairs during some of the most tumultuous years of the Cold War, and served as the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991.
Relations between the Soviet Union and the United States were fully established in 1933 as the succeeding bilateral ties to those between the Russian Empire and the United States, which lasted from 1776 until 1917; they were also the predecessor to the current bilateral ties between the Russian Federation and the United States that began in 1992 after the end of the Cold War.
Igor Korchilov is a top-level Russian-English conference interpreter who worked with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev from 1987 to 1990, a period that covered the Cold War era.
Diplomatic relations between Canada and Ukraine were formally established in 1991, following Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union. However, the two countries' relationship dates back further, due to the long history of Ukrainian immigration to Canada.
Canada has various ties to the countries of Latin America. This includes the bilateral ties between Canada and the individual Latin American states, plurilateral ties between Canada and any group of those states, or multilateral relations through groups like the Organization of American States (OAS).
Canada and Russia have longstanding bilateral relations. As vast northern countries, Canada and Russia share some interests and cooperative policies. However, the open and democratic political system of Canada contrasts with the closed Russian system, as was the case during the communist era of the Soviet Union (USSR).
Canada has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since its inception in 1949.
John Gelder Horler Halstead was a Canadian diplomat and academic.
Slovakia–Turkey relations are the foreign relations between Slovakia and Turkey. In 1993, Turkey was one of the first states to formally recognize both the Slovakia and Czech Republic as separate, and sovereign states after the dissolution. Diplomatic relations and the Turkish Embassy in Bratislava were established on January 4, 1993. Slovakia has an embassy in Ankara and a consulate-general in Istanbul. Before the 1990s split, Turkey held close but also tense relations with Czechoslovakia, specifically during the Cold War due to NATO and the rest of Europe pushing and supporting anti-communist sentiment and approach for its members, such as Turkey, towards Eastern Bloc countries of which Czechoslovakia was a part of.
The foreign policies of Canada and its predecessor colonies were under British control until the 20th century. This included wars with the United States in 1775-1783 and 1812–1815. Economic ties with the U.S. were always close. Political tensions arose in the 19th century from anti-British sentiment in the U.S. in the 1860s. Boundary issues caused diplomatic disputes resolved in the 1840s over the Maine boundary and in the early 20th century over the Alaska boundary. There is ongoing discussion regarding the Arctic. Canada-US relations have been friendly in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Foreign relations between France and the Soviet Union officially began on 28 October, 1924.
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