THE OUTER WORLD AND THE SOVIETS 263
the organ of the Quai d'Orsay, recently declared that German
relief for Germans settled in Russia was hampered by the
desire to maintain an entente with Moscow. (Mais cette solltci-
tude pour cette population gennanique etait jusqtfid genee par
sa volonte d* entente avec Moscou?) This single sentence from the
Temps gives a correct description of Germany's policy with
regard to her kinsmen in Russia. During all the years which
have passed since Rapallo considerations of the fate of German
settlers along the Volga, in the Ukraine and elsewhere, any
readiness to render assistance to starving men, women and
children in the forests of the north and in the famine districts
of the south, have played second fiddle to the political factor
which dictated co-operation with the Soviets. The result was
that even when German influence at Moscow was greatest, the
German populations in Soviet Russia had to perish miserably.
Neither official German policy nor a great part of the German
public—excepting, of course, the relief organizations—ever
took the slightest interest in the fate of the Germans in Russia,
apart from the return of the 6,000 colonists who made their
way to Moscow and thence to Germany. After Rapallo Germany
sacrificed her own flesh and blood to her friendship with the
Soviet State, and not a single energetic attempt was made to
save the lives of these people. The fact is that Soviet-German
relations during this period were determined solely by the
two factors previously mentioned—the economic and the
political; and that apart from certain charitable endeavours no
attention was paid to the weal and woe of the Germans in
Russia.
Then the new regime came into power in Germany. The
National Socialist campaign had made the destruction of
Conununism in Germany its primary endeavour. To what
change in Soviet-German relations did the revolution lead?
The Temps of July 21,1933, answered this question as follows:
"To-day the German Government no longer considers itself
bound by such considerations [ie. friendship between Russia