A demand predating 1945:

Bases in the Straits

Behlül Özkan

The noisy Stalinist chorus that has for decades doggedly denied, despite the wealth of evidence, that the Soviet Union demanded territory and bases in the Straits from Turkey in 1945 has a relatively new lead soloist: the academic Behlül Özkan. Yet Özkan’s approach differs from the categorical denial adopted by Yalçın Küçük and many others. Whereas Küçük denies outright that the Soviet Union made demands for territory and bases, Özkan acknowledges that these issues were raised during the Molotov–Sarper talks. However, he describes them as conditions put forward in response to Turkey’s proposal for an alliance and therefore does not regard them as “demands”. He thus reaches the same denialist conclusion by redefining the diplomatic character of what occurred rather than denying it outright.

I shall base my discussion here on Özkan’s article “The 1945 Turkey-USSR crisis: The construction of a myth” (1945 Türkiye-SSCB krizi: Bir mitin inşası), published in the newspaper BirGün on 26 November 2017, in which he summarises his views on the subject.

In that article, Özkan sets out to refute the claim that the Soviet Union demanded territory and bases in the Straits from Turkey. According to him, no official written demand or diplomatic note was transmitted from Moscow to Ankara in 1945. Nor does he regard the conditions Molotov put forward in his meetings with Ambassador Selim Sarper as “demands”: Turkey had proposed an alliance, and Moscow had responded by stating its own conditions for that alliance orally. Thus, in Özkan’s words, “Molotov was not demanding territory or bases.”[1]

There is an element of truth in this interpretation: in June 1945, Turkey was not presented with a written Soviet ultimatum ordering it to cede territory and bases. Moreover, Ankara’s search for a new treaty and Turkish leaders’ initial assessments are important for understanding the diplomatic situation at the time. Yet it does not follow that Molotov made no demands for territory and bases. A condition attached to an alliance is also a demand put to the other party. Even in Özkan’s own account, the conditions Molotov listed included changing the eastern border in the Soviet Union’s favour and establishing a Soviet military presence in the Straits.

More importantly, the idea of a Soviet base in the Straits cannot be said to have originated either with the expiry of the friendship treaty in 1945 or with Turkey’s conduct during the Second World War. Written evidence of this idea dates from five years earlier: the counter-proposal submitted by Stalin’s government to Nazi Germany in November 1940.

Turkey on the agenda in Berlin

On 12-13 November 1940, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov met Hitler and German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in Berlin. Germany sought to draw the USSR into cooperation with the Tripartite Pact, comprising Germany, Italy and Japan, and to reach an agreement on the four powers’ spheres of influence. Turkey and the Straits were among the key issues in these negotiations. The German draft envisaged severing Turkey’s existing international ties and amending the Montreux Convention to grant Soviet warships preferential passage rights. However, it contained no provision for a Soviet base in the Straits.[2]

Vyacheslav Molotov, interpreter Gustav
Hilger and Adolf Hitler (Berlin, 1940)

No agreement was signed between the two sides during the Berlin talks. Yet the story did not end there. On 26 November 1940, Molotov conveyed the Soviet government’s reply to Germany’s ambassador in Moscow, Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg. Moscow stated that it was prepared to accept the proposed Four-Power Pact subject to certain conditions. One of these was the establishment of a base for Soviet land and naval forces near the Straits under a long-term lease. Moscow also sought a guarantee in the protocol concerning Turkey that such a base would be granted to light Soviet naval and land forces in the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.[3]

Moreover, the Soviet counter-proposal went further. It envisaged that, if Turkey refused to side with the four powers, Germany, Italy and the USSR would jointly determine and implement the necessary military and diplomatic measures and conclude a separate agreement on the matter. This proposal, which left open the possibility of military intervention, did not result in an agreement. However, it is undeniable that the Soviet government’s proposal included the option of exerting military pressure on Turkey.[3]

This document records not a plan for a base imposed on Stalin by Hitler, but the conditions the Soviet government put forward to Germany. Moreover, it predates the USSR’s entry into the war against Nazi Germany. It is therefore no longer possible to claim that the objective of securing a base in the Straits emerged only in 1945.

From an oral condition to a written proposal in 1945

Five years later, as the Second World War drew to a close, the international balance of power had, of course, changed radically. Nazi Germany had fought to the bitter end and been defeated, while Stalin’s government had taken its place among the victors. Moscow was now discussing the Straits question with Turkey and its wartime allies. The diplomatic contexts of 1940 and 1945 were undoubtedly different; yet the Soviet Union’s objective of securing a military base in the Straits is evident in both years.

Özkan emphasises that the exchanges between Molotov and Sarper in June 1945 did not result in a written demand. The limits of this argument need to be made clear: the fact that Turkey was not presented with a written diplomatic note does not mean that no conditions were put forward during the talks. At Potsdam in July 1945, Molotov himself stated, when explaining the Soviet government’s position, that it had made the resolution of the border and Straits questions a condition for an alliance with Turkey. Churchill also noted at the three-power summit that the issues of changing the eastern border and establishing a Soviet base in the Straits had been raised during Molotov’s talks with the Turkish ambassador. Churchill regarded these as conditions for an alliance rather than a separate ultimatum addressed to Turkey, but objected to their substance.[4]

A session of the Potsdam Conference

Moreover, we have the Soviet Union’s written proposal presented at Potsdam on 22 July 1945. The text envisaged abolishing the Montreux regime, having Turkey and the USSR jointly determine a new regime for the Straits, and establishing Soviet military bases in the Straits in addition to Turkish military bases.[5] This was not an ultimatum sent to Ankara, but a written proposal submitted by the Soviet delegation to the Potsdam Conference. Thus, the statement that “Ankara was not presented with a written Soviet ultimatum” is correct; however, it does not follow that the Soviet government never put an official proposal for the establishment of bases in writing. This latter claim is untenable in light of the Potsdam document.

Two periods, one strategic objective

I have previously discussed on this blog Molotov’s interviews with Chuyev, Khrushchev’s memoirs and the account in official Soviet history of the demands withdrawn in 1953.[6] These sources shed light on the 1945 debate over territory and the Straits from different angles. The 1940 diplomatic document adds a new and decisive dimension: it shows that the objective of establishing a Soviet military presence in the Straits did not originate with Stalin’s government in the post-war period.

We must also avoid jumping to the wrong conclusion. The 1940 document does not show that Kars and Ardahan were also demanded at that time. Nor does it, on its own, prove that a single plan was implemented continuously between 1940 and 1945, with its details unchanged. What it does establish is more concrete and significant enough in its own right: in its negotiations with Nazi Germany in 1940, Stalin’s government demanded a Soviet base in the Straits and made this one of its conditions for accepting the pact. In 1945, this time as one of the victors of the war, it put forward the same demand for a military base once again.

Thus, explaining the 1945 diplomatic initiative solely as an attempt to adapt the expired friendship treaty to new circumstances leaves out the most important part of the historical picture. The treaty whose renewal was under discussion is one thing; the objective of establishing another state’s military base in the Straits is another. The latter long predates the negotiations over renewing the treaty.

Sources and previous posts:

[1] Behlül Özkan, "1945 Türkiye-SSCB krizi: Bir mitin inşası (The 1945 Turkey–USSR crisis: The construction of a myth)", BirGün, 26 November 2017 (in Turkish).

[2] Nazi–Soviet Relations, 1939–1941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office, Chapter VI, record of the meeting of 13 November 1940 and the German draft treaty: https://www.ibiblio.org/pha/nsr/nsr-06.html

[3] Ibid., Schulenburg’s telegram of 26 November 1940, pp. 258–259: https://www.ibiblio.org/pha/nsr/nsr-06.html

[4] Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), Potsdam Conference, record of the meeting of 22 July 1945: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945Berlinv02/d710a-65

[5] FRUS, "Proposal by the Soviet Delegation: The Black Sea Straits", 22 July 1945: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945Berlinv02/d1369

[6] My earlier posts: Crashing into the hard truth while trying to turn history on its head; Molotov Speaks: territorial and Straits base demands on Turkey in 1945; What do Khrushchev’s memoirs tell us?; The Kremlin’s mid-1970s “diplomatic” manoeuvre; Stalin looking at the map.