socialism in one country. He focused modernization of the Soviet Union, developing manufacturing, building infrastructure and improving agriculture. Expansion and wars were no longer on the agenda. The Kremlin-sponsored the united front policy, with foreign Communist parties taking the lead in education and national liberation movements. The goal was opposition to fascism, especially the Nazi variety. The high point of the United Front was the partnership in China between the Chinese Communist Party and the nationalist Kuomintang. The United Front policy in China effectively crashed to ruin in 1927, when Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek massacred the native Communists and expelled all of his Soviet advisors, notably Mikhail Borodin. A short war erupted in 1929 as the Soviets successfully fought to keep control of the Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria. After defeating all his opponents from both the left (led by Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev) and the right (led by Bukharin), Stalin was in full charge. He began the wholesale collectivization of Soviet agriculture, accompanied by a massive program of planned industrialization. Respectability and normal relations After 1921 the main foreign policy goal was to be treated as a normal country by the major powers, and open trade relations and diplomatic recognition. There was no more crusading for world revolution, which the Communist Party leadership began to recognize would not come and that Soviet Russia would have to reach some form of temporary accommodation with the "bourgeois" capitalist countries. The first breakthrough came in 1921 with the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement that signified the de facto recognition of the Soviet state. The United States refused recognition until 1933, however, Henry Ford and other capitalists invested heavily in the Soviet Union, bringing along modern management techniques and new industrial technology. Georgy Chicherin was Soviet foreign minister, from 1918 to 1930. He worked against the League of Nations and attempted to lure the Weimar Republic into an alliance with Moscow, an effort aided by his close personal friendship with German Ambassador Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau. The League made several efforts to develop better relations with Russia but were always rebuffed because the Soviets regarded the League as simply an alliance of hostile, capitalist powers. The USSR did not seek admission to the League of Nations until 1934, when it joined with French backing. Rapallo Treaty 1922 The Genoa Conference of 1922 brought the Soviet Union and Germany for the first time into negotiations with the