SOVIET-AFGHANIAN NEGOTIATIONS ABOUT THE PASTURE CONVENTION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE “GREAT GAME” IN CENTRAL ASIA ON THE EVE OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (1935-1939)

Abstract

The results of the study of the new declassified documents of Russian archives lead to the conclusion that under the influence of “world politics” there were all directions of Afghanistan’s foreign policy. The history of Soviet-Afghan relations on the eve of the Second World War convincingly proves the fact that in the relations of Afghanistan with the Great Powers of that time there were no spheres of cooperation that would not be used by foreign states in the struggle for the “Afghan bridgehead”. A striking proof of this is the attempt of the Soviet government in the 1930s to coordinate the issue of grazing of Afghan herds on Turkmen pastures with a whole range of measures aimed at strengthening the positions of Germany and Japan in Afghanistan. Soviet diplomacy repeatedly asked Kabul about the pastoral convention to speed up the signing of the necessary Soviet treaties with Afghanistan. In 1936 the question of concluding a grazing convention was repeatedly raised during the negotiations on the extension of the Kabul Pact of 1931 (the Neutrality and Mutual Non-Aggression Treaty of 1931) and the conclusion of a general trade agreement with Afghanistan, through which the USSR sought to economically supplant German and Japanese goods from the market of Northern Afghanistan.