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This article endeavors to delineate the conceptual landscape occupied by the notions of prospective multipolarity within the strategic discourse of Soviet diplomacy during the latter phases of the Great Patriotic War. Particular emphasis is placed on the intellectual contributions of two prominent Soviet diplomats, M.M. Litvinov and I.M. Maisky. The author substantiates these insights by drawing upon both published and archival source materials, including the diaries and records maintained by officials within the Soviet Foreign Office, as well as documents emanating from the "Litvinov commission."While the diplomatic theories formulated by Litvinov and Maisky during the years 1943–1945 have been subject to analysis by Russian and international scholars, the majority of extant scholarship has traditionally focused on the content and nuances of their perspectives on specific international "questions." Departing from this convention, this article adopts a methodological approach that seeks to explore the underlying conceptual foundations upon which the ideas of Litvinov and Maisky were constructed. Additionally, the essay introduces a novel dimension by surveying the viewpoints of other Soviet diplomats (S.A. Lozovskii, B.E. Shtein, Ia.Z. Surits, E.V. Tarle), who have garnered relatively less scholarly attention.Of paramount interest is the manner in which Litvinov and Maisky envisaged the post-World War II international landscape, albeit without explicitly employing the term "multipolarity." The article addresses critical questions, such as their perception of the global scenario following WWII, their consideration of the inevitability of Soviet-American bipolarity, and the factors and circumstances that influenced their conceptualizations. The contemporary resurgence of discussions surrounding the trajectory of multipolarity in the twenty-first century underscores the pertinence of this historical inquiry.The article's key conclusion posits that the conceptual framework embraced by Soviet diplomats during 1943–1945 was not centered on notions of bipolarity or an imminent Cold War. While acknowledging the potential escalation of tensions between the USSR and Western nations led by the USA and Great Britain, they favored collaboration among the principal powers of the antiHitlerite coalition, grounded in an implicit understanding of their respective "spheres of influence." Although Soviet Foreign Office officials did not discount the possibility of the formation of a united Anglo-American front against the USSR, they believed that Soviet diplomacy should actively work to prevent such an outcome by capitalizing on the fissures between Washington and London.

The consolidation of the Soviet state in 1922 and the activities of Soviet diplomacy in the key international forums had a direct impact on the strategic situation in Europe. The eventual strengthening of Soviet Russia/the USSR was both a threat and an opportunity for France as one of the leading European powers of that period, which had obligations and interests in Central and Eastern Europe. The author aims to identify the main approaches of French diplomats and the military to a set of issues related to the possible development of Soviet Russia in 1922 and its place in the European balance of power. The study is based on a wide range of primary sources from the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs of France, the National Archives of France, the Historical Service of the Ministry of the Armed Forces of the Fifth Republic, as well as on recently published French diplomatic and military documents. The author concludes that the French elites had a rather ambiguous attitude towards the process and the first results of political consolidation and socio-economic development of the Soviet state. On the one hand, the formation of the USSR was an obvious manifestation of the growing Soviet power that somewhat diminished the hopes of French officials for the imminent fall of the Bolsheviks. At the same time, diplomats and the military both in Paris and on-site were often skeptical about the prospects for the development of the Soviet economy, noting the catastrophic consequences of hunger, economic and financial ruin. Moderate optimism about the opportunity to intensify trade and economic contacts with Soviet Russia as its economy recovers coexisted with pronounced pessimism. The French assessments of the military potential of the Soviet state were marked by the same ambivalence. The acknowledgement of the current limited capabilities of the Red Army and the Red Fleet was accompanied by the growing recognition that the basis of the military power of the Soviet state had not been undermined. All this could help Moscow improve its international stance in the future, which would inevitably affect the balance of power in Europe. Under these circumstances, the French elites debated the prospects for the 'normalization' of the Bolshevik regime and its incorporation into the Versailles order. The author argues that all these contradictory attitudes, views and assessments that surfaced in 1922 to a large extent predetermined the overall direction and specific content of the French policy towards the USSR in the following years.

The article aims to explore the interplay between economic and strategic reasons, which influenced the oil policy of the French government and business in the 1920s. The author demonstrates the heterogeneity and complexity of this policy the diverse nature of motives and interests behind the different attempts to acquire access to the oil. The French case throws some new light on the role of the "oil factor" in international relations and Great Powers' politics. The article comprehensively deals with the topics often divided between different fields strategic studies, international political economy, diplomatic history. The author uses French archives to place Paris' oil policy into the broader context of the French strategy and diplomacy in the first decade after WWI. Additional documents from the British and Russian archives help understand essential aspects of the Anglo-French and FrancoSoviet interactions around the "oil question." After underlying the new strategic importance of oil, which became evident during WWI, and describing the oil dependence of France from the Anglo-American trusts ("Standard Oil" and "Royal Dutch-Shell"), the author traces the three key aims of the French oil policy. First, to diversify the supplies; second, to acquire control or direct access to the oil sources; and, finally, to consolidate the French business interests with the mediation of the state authorities. French actions in these three directions were interlinked, and they mirrored a specific situation of power and weakness of France after WWI. The article concludes that the strategic and economic reasons were interwoven inside the French oil policy. Though the French authorities perceived the growing strategic importance of oil sharply, they were not prepared to follow the clear étatist economic policy and did not try to make a radical change of the established rules of oil policy both inside the Third Republic and in the relations with "Standard Oil" and "Royal Dutch-Shell."

The paper examines how military and political leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain assessed in the first post-war years and in the face of emerging bipolar world order the lessons of World War II, how the latter influenced their strategic planning and forecasts with the emergence of nuclear weapons. The author outlines the key features of this period (1945–1949), including still fresh memories of the unprecedented destruction and losses of the past war, the US 'nuclear monopoly', and the absence of a system for nuclear deterrence. The paper provides a systematic comparison of lessons from the past war, learnt by the Soviet, the US and British establishment, identifies similarities and differences between them. The author concludes that WWII was perceived by the political and military leaders of that time as a model of the eventual 'great war' in the future, which almost certainly would be 'total' and 'global' in scope and would demand both thorough preparations during the peacetime and the militarization of civil life. Indeed, the experience of WWII had greatly influenced the strategic and operational planning in the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in 1945–1949. Moscow prepared to face the potential aggression on its Western borders or in the Far East in order to avoid the mistakes of 1941. In Washington the decisionmakers acknowledged the Soviet superiority in conventional weapons and didn't exclude the possibility that the Soviet Army could quickly establish control over the Western Europe and that the US military would have to retake it in a 'new Operation Overlord'. The pessimistic outlook of the 'defense of the Rhine' was also shared in London, and the British military planned to evacuate the troops to the British Isles ('shadow of Dunkirk') and to focus on strategic bombing of the USSR and its allies. Even the appearance of nuclear weapons, that would dramatically alter the strategic context in the following years, played a relatively minor role in 1945–1949. The author concludes that the shadow of World War II and its lessons had a long-lasting effect on the post-war international relations.

The central question of the article - how the long-term consequences of the First World War influenced the French foreign policy in relation to Germany in the 1920s. Basing on the archival and published French diplomatic sources the author analyses the French political course after 1918 and after 1945 in the comparative way with the attention to the elements of continuity and change in the Paris' conception relating to the over-Rhine neighbor.

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The article aims at defining the key estimates made by the British political leadership in relation to the Washington conference, held in 1921–1922. Four documents, taken from the UK National Archives and published for the first time, formed the "skeleton" of the research. A commentary is attached to each document. The author also used other archival materials and published diplomatic evidence to reconstruct the context of the British estimates. The author concludes that the perception of the Washington conference's results made by the political leadership of the UK and the Foreign Office correlates with the ideas that dominated in the historiography. The conference was seen mainly as a success, enabling London to achieve interconnected aims, i.e. to lessen Anglo-American tensions, to escape the naval armaments race, and to redistribute resources and money for financial and economic reconstruction. However, it would be misleading to see the Washington conference as the date of the birth of Pax Anglo-Americana, or to superimpose the realities of the post-1945 era on the interwar period. The decisions of 1921–1922 did not preclude the Anglo-American struggle for supremacy, and British leaders were not prepared to become the U.S. junior partners, as it would happen later.