STALIN’S GEOPOLITICS AND BORDER POLICY 1944: FROM THE HEART OF ASIA (IN FULL SECRECY) TO THE BALTIC SEA

In October 1944, Churchill presented to Stalin a proposal for division of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, unaware that at the same time the Soviet Union annexed the Tuva People’s Republic. This state was reduced to a subordinate entity within the USSR. Declassified documents, released fifty years later, revealed that the Soviet leadership had coordinated its pre-World War II expansionist policies in both the Baltic-Black Sea region and in centre of Asia. Motivated by Churchill’s proposal, Stalin swiftly adjusted his geopolitical strategy in negotiations with Finland, adding territorial reconfigurations within the Soviet Union. Some territories of the Karelo-Finnish and Estonian SSR’s were rapidly transferred to the Leningrad oblast. Ironically, Molotov, one of the architects of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, would later conclude his career by signing the agreement about transfer of Soviet territory (part of Tuva) to Mongolia, a gesture aimed at preserving Soviet-Chinese relations in 1958.