The Liberation of Northern Norway in Stalin's Post-War Strategy

摘要

In the fall of 1944, during the stage of the preparation of the Soviet offensive in the Arctic, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union prepared several memoranda with the proposal to revise not only the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 in favor of the USSR, but also to install several Soviet military bases on the territory of Northern Norway, all the way up to Tromso. Negotiations on this issue continued until 6 August 1945, when they were suddenly terminated. After 10 days, on 16 August 1945, the Soviet side not only renounced its claims to Svalbard and Bear Island, but also organized an urgent withdrawal of its troops from Norwegian territory. On 25 September 1945, all Soviet troops left Norway. What was the reason for such a rapid change in the behavior on the Soviet side? The hasty withdrawal of Soviet troops was associated with more favorable conditions that could be obtained by Stalin in the course of the post-war world order than the acquisition of military bases in the Arctic. Subsequent events showed that in exchange for the withdrawal of troops from Norway, Moscow received a number of very important concessions in Europe. In addition, Norway declared the Northern border pro-vince of Eastern Finnmark a demilitarized zone. This policy of the Soviet Union toward Norway at the end of the war largely deter-mined the choice of the Norwegian government in favor of joining the NATO bloc in 1949 - an event that led to a new round of escalation of the Cold War in the Arctic.