A little more than a decade has passed since Keith Neilson published his magisterial Britain and the Last Tsar: The Russian Factor in British Policy, 1894–1917 (Oxford University Press); he has now continued the story of Anglo-Russian relations, picking up the threads in 1919 and following through to the outbreak of war in 1939. He has thus succeeded in producing an almost continuous narrative of the twists and turns in British policy toward Russia covering more than four decades—a period that includes the outbreak of two world wars, the revolutionary transformation of the Russian state from tsarist autocracy to soviet socialism, and the creation of the League of Nations. The task that Neilson has undertaken is a daunting one indeed—and made more so by his determination to rely primarily upon his own comprehensive studies of British archival sources (both public and private). Taken together, these two books thereby represent an extremely ambitious undertaking in the writing of diplomatic history. This new book, which is grounded in both meticulous research and a mastery of the secondary sources, is careful and judicious in its arguments. It is an authoritative work that is unlikely to be surpassed.

Neilson begins by arguing that Russia under the Soviets ceased to be one of the focal points of British foreign policy; in fact, there were no formal diplomatic relations between the former allies from 1918 to 1924 and then again from 1927 to 1929. Although there were relations of various kinds, the 1920s were relatively insignificant in Anglo-Soviet relations apart from outbursts of ideologically charged political disputes such as that generated by the Zinoviev letter affair of 1924. Accordingly, the fourteen years between 1919 and 1933 is covered in forty-six pages, while the period from 1933 to 1939 receives 229, and Neilson's analysis of the 1920s relies largely on the secondary literature rather than on his own archival research. It is at the point that Japan seriously threatened British interests in the far east and that Germany under Hitler embarked on its revisionist program in Europe that his detailed analysis of Anglo-Soviet relations really begins.

Neilson argues that the Japanese threat posed a dilemma for the British, who had been more concerned with the Soviet threat to their position in India, where they had faced years of propaganda campaigns and the activities of the Comintern. When the Soviets recognized the threat posed by Nazi Germany and adopted the principle of collective security—signified by membership in the League of Nations—most British policy makers were suspicious that this was a cynical ploy. While some argued that the force of circumstances must draw the former allies together again, years of suspicion had to be overcome before changing strategic circumstances enabled the advocates of a rapprochement to be taken seriously. Moreover, the British were first inclined to satisfy Germany's legitimate demands for equality and to limit and control its rearmament rather than to accept the Soviet position that Hitler could be controlled only by force. And this point was reinforced when the Soviets decided to make the Spanish Civil War the occasion for engaging in precisely the kind of ideological struggle that the British aimed to prevent. Finally, Stalin's purges of his military leadership led the British to believe that the Soviets would be of limited use against Germany, and thus their value as allies was correspondingly reduced.

When Neville Chamberlain seized control of foreign policy after becoming prime minister in May 1937, he imposed his view that Britain should avoid dividing Europe into the armed camps that he believed had produced the First World War and that Britain should retain a “free hand” by remaining aloof from alliances. Simultaneously, those Foreign Office advocates of an alignment with the Soviets were reduced in numbers and influence. When the crisis over the Sudetenland erupted, no one who counted in Britain believed in either the capacity or the sincerity of Soviet promises to support Czechoslovakia. It was only when Hitler occupied the rump of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 that Chamberlain's delusion that he could accommodate him was dispelled. He then turned back to the Soviets (along with the Poles, Yugoslavs, Turks, Greeks, and Romanians) to determine the extent to which they would cooperate in opposing further German aggression in the east. But the nascent Anglo-Soviet alliance failed—according to Neilson—because Poland and the Baltic states would never consent to being “guaranteed” by the Soviets, because the British believed that the Soviet concept of “indirect aggression” would lead to a Red Army advance into Poland and the Baltic states (or lead those states to join the German camp) and because the British would not accept the Soviet concept of a triple alliance (with France) in which Moscow would determine the casus foederis—and thus the decision to issue unilateral guarantees to Poland and Romania, which would keep decisions of war and peace in British hands.

Neilson goes further still: he doubts that an Anglo-Soviet alliance would have stopped Hitler from invading Poland, and he sees no convincing evidence that the Soviets would have carried out their obligations had an alliance been formed. Thus, his work contradicts those historians—most notably Michael J. Carley—who argue that Britain failed to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union prior to 1941 because of the anti-Communist prejudices of its foreign policy–making elite. Instead, he argues that there was a diversity of opinion among this elite, that their policy prescriptions varied with the context in which particular episodes occurred, and that they were more often than not realists who carefully considered the strategic dilemmas confronting Britain. This is, in fact, the great strength of Neilson's approach. Because he does not assume that policy simply came from “above,” springing from the politically and ideologically charged brains of the politicians, he has carefully dissected the “official mind” of British diplomacy. His sketches of the personalities and attitudes of those such as Orme Sargent, Ralph Wigram, and Laurence Collier are deft and convincing. Also valuable are his insights into the differences among the various ministries and departments involved in formulating policy. Altogether, this is a convincing narrative and an important contribution to our understanding of British foreign policy in the 1930s.