Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev is not a general, like the young Stalin or Brezhnev, but only the first secretary of the party Central Committee, who also took the post of chairman of the Union Council of Ministers in the 50s, took up the solution of almost any issue, invariably considering himself an indisputable authority. But with regard to the regime of the Black Sea straits, his position was fundamentally different from that held by the Russian Empire, and then by the USSR, but almost completely coincides with the one to which the modern Russian Federation passed.
Having come to power, Khrushchev very quickly forgot that even in the post-war period, the USSR insisted on the demilitarization of the entire Black Sea water area and on changing, or rather a supplement, the notorious Montreux Convention of 1936. Such forgetfulness of the Soviet leader has a long enough prehistory, and Voennoye Obozreniye has already considered this convention in a modern context.
From Montreux to Potsdam
After World War II, the USSR with good reason hoped for the conclusion of a special Soviet-Turkish agreement on the straits. It proposed to introduce a regime of non-admission to the Black Sea through the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus, the warships of the non-Black Sea countries. A broader option was also proposed - the inclusion of this rule in the Convention itself, which, we recall, allowed a short-term stay of such ships in the Black Sea.
As you know, in view of the somewhat strange position of Turkey for a neutral country, the submarines of the fascist powers - Germany and Italy - entered the Black Sea water area almost without hindrance until the liberation of the Crimea in 1944. This, of course, contributed a lot to many defeats of the Soviet troops, and not only in the Crimea, but also in the Ukrainian Black Sea region and even in the northern Caucasus. Turkey's special "pouring" policy in those years directly stemmed from the Turkish-German Treaty on Friendship, signed in Ankara just a few days before Germany's attack on the USSR - June 18, 1941.
Three years later, when things were already moving towards final victory in the Great Patriotic War, the USSR denounced the indefinite Soviet-Turkish treaty "On Friendship and Neutrality" of December 17, 1925. This happened on March 19, 1945 and, as noted in the accompanying note of the Soviet government, was associated with the anti-Soviet and pro-German policy of Turkey during the war. Ankara feared the loss of its special status in relation to the straits, and already in April 1945 initiated consultations on the conclusion of a new treaty, similar to the Montreux Convention.
Just a month later, the victorious countries were offered an updated draft agreement, which, in the event of foreign aggression against the USSR, would guarantee the free passage of Soviet troops, including the Air Force and the Navy, through Turkish territory. including through the straits and the Sea of Marmara. On June 7, Turkish Ambassador to Moscow S. Sarper received a counter offer from the head of the USSR People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs V. M. Molotov - Moscow proposed introducing a regime of exclusively Soviet-Turkish control in the strait region.
At the same time, it was assumed that a permanent naval base of the USSR would be located either on the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara or at the junction of this sea with the Bosphorus Strait. By June 22, 1945, Turkey rejected the Soviet proposals, which was officially supported by the United States and Great Britain, and only France, despite the pressure from Washington and London, refused to respond to the situation. However, in London and Washington then they preferred not to pay attention to any French claims to independence.
At a meeting of the Potsdam Conference on July 22, 1945, Molotov, outlining the urgency of the problem of the Black Sea Straits for the USSR, noted: “Therefore, we have repeatedly declared to our allies that the USSR cannot consider the Montreux Convention to be correct. It is about revising it and providing the USSR with a naval base in the straits. "The next day, Stalin briefly but very harshly stated to Turkey:" A small state, owning the straits and supported by Britain, holds a large state by the throat and does not give it a passage ".
But the British and Americans challenged the Soviet line of reasoning. Although under pressure from Stalin and Molotov, the Protocol of the Conference of August 1, 1945, nevertheless stated: “The Convention on the Straits concluded in Montreux must be revised as not meeting the conditions of the present time. We agreed that as a next step, this issue will be the subject of direct negotiations between each of the three governments and the Turkish government.”
Characteristically, prior to this, the Soviet leadership required considerable efforts to highlight in the conference materials a separate section XVI - "Black Sea Straits". But the planned talks never materialized due to obstruction by Washington, London and Ankara.
The Straits: Exceptional Control
The position of the USSR became tougher: on August 7, 1946, the USSR turned to Turkey with a note in which it put forward a number of demands on the Black Sea Straits as "leading to the closed sea, control over which should be exercised exclusively by the Black Sea powers."
This is the provision of the USSR with a permanent naval base south of Istanbul on the Bosphorus or near the Bosphorus; preventing the presence of warships of non-Black Sea countries in the Dardanelles, adjacent from the south to the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus; the closure by Turkey of its communications, air and water spaces for aggressors in the event of foreign aggression against the USSR; the passage of the armed forces of the USSR, including from neighboring Iran and Bulgaria, through Turkey in the event of such an aggression.
The note was rejected by Ankara; it was officially opposed by the US State Department, as well as the British Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defense. The Turkish side agreed only with the aforementioned last paragraph of the Soviet note, which repeated the Turkish proposal put forward in May 1945, but Moscow did not accept this position of Ankara. And then there was Churchill's Fulton speech, who did not fail to mention the claims of the USSR: "Turkey and Persia are deeply concerned and concerned about the claims that are being made against them and the pressure to which they are subjected from the Moscow government …"
After the start of the Cold War, the Kremlin, for obvious reasons, continued to make attempts to legally and politically “transform” the Black Sea into the internal sea of the USSR and Turkey. It was possible to achieve that in 1948 the position of the USSR on the straits was officially supported by Albania, Bulgaria and Romania. But Ankara, with the support of Washington and London, and soon also West Germany, regularly rejected all Soviet proposals.
In parallel, starting in 1947, tensions grew on the land and sea borders between the USSR and Turkey. And in the autumn of the same year, already within the framework of the notorious Truman Doctrine, the United States began to provide ever-growing military-technical assistance to Turkey. Since 1948, US military bases and reconnaissance facilities began to be created there, and most of them were located near the land borders of Turkey with the USSR and Bulgaria. And in February 1952 Turkey officially joined NATO.
Divorce and new approaches
At the same time, the anti-Turkish campaign in the Soviet media was growing, economic ties were actually suspended, and ambassadors were mutually recalled "for consultations" in their foreign ministries. Since the end of the 40s, the USSR has strengthened its support for the Kurdish, Armenian rebels in Turkey and the military units of the Turkish Communist Party. Since the spring of 1953, the USSR planned to introduce a comprehensive boycott of Turkey, but … it happened on March 5, 1953 … And on the issue of the straits, the decisive word passed to the new party leader - Nikita Khrushchev.
By May 30, 1953, the Soviet Foreign Ministry, on direct instructions from the CPSU Central Committee, had prepared a truly unique note to the Turkish government. It declared Moscow's refusal of any claims to this country, which did not hide its almost hostile position: "… The Soviet government considers it possible to ensure the security of the USSR from the Straits on the basis of the Montreux Convention, the conditions of which are equally acceptable for both the USSR and Turkey Thus, the Soviet government declares that the USSR has no territorial claims against Turkey."
The fact that Khrushchev was personally the initiator of such a line follows from his commentary on the aforementioned issues at the plenum of the party Central Committee in June 1957, when, as the Soviet media reported, “the anti-party group of Molotov, Kaganovich, Malenkov and Shepilov, who joined them, was defeated” …
This commentary is also unique in its own way, and not at all because it is tongue-tied in Khrushchev's way, the main thing is that it is very specific: “… Great Patriotic War and before … - author's note), but no - let's write a Note and they will immediately give the Dardanelles back. But there are no such fools. They wrote a special note that we were terminating the friendship agreement, and spat in the face of the Turks. It's stupid, and we lost our friendly (it turns out … - author's note) Turkey."
Subsequently, even during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962, Moscow feared "pressure" on Ankara over the Straits and the Montreux Convention. This, as the Kremlin feared, could provoke an increase in the military presence of the United States and, in general, NATO in the Black Sea region. At the same time, NATO ships, including Turkey, in the following years violated the military conditions of the Montreux Convention at least 30 times.
However, if Moscow and its Balkan allies reacted to this, it was only through diplomatic channels. However, Romania, where they really do not like to be listed in the ranks of the Balkan countries, practically did not react at all. Why be surprised if even membership in the Warsaw Treaty Organization in Bucharest was not hiding, considered a heavy burden.
