p It was a matter of particular concern to Soviet diplomacy to resolve the problems of Northeast Europe, to ensure peace and security in that region because the capture of the Baltic states by the Nazi Reich or the establishment of German domination over them by any other means was bound to spell the most immediate danger to the Soviet Union.

p Until 1917, the Baltic states had formed part of Russia. Following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Soviet government was established also in the Baltic states but it was brought down through foreign armed intervention (German, above all). The Soviet government agreed in 1920 to conclude peace treaties with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and to recognise them on the understanding that they would allow no foreign military presence on their ter- ritory. ^^94^^ The USSR had unfailingly attached tremendous importance ever since to having this provision of the peace treaties complied with.

p The Soviet Union put forward a series of most important 44 specific proposals which, once carried out, could have ensured the maintenance of peace in Eastern Europe, including the Baltic slates. The general idea behind all of them was to unite and rally the forces of East European nations under threat of aggression from Hitler Germany. "The organisers of anti-Soviet intervention”, Izvestia pointed out on October 15, 1933, "have always regarded the Baltic states as springboards for attacking the Soviet Union. The present trumpeters of German nazism are looking at them in exactly the same way... That is why the Soviet Union cannot, of course, remain indifferent in the face of intensified Nazi activities in the Baltic states."

p In a conversation with the Latvian Minister in Moscow, on December 11, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs stressed that the USSR was very closely watching the course of events in the Baltic states and that in all international negotiations Soviet diplomats kept those states in mind, and that the Soviet Union would "always do its best to act in common with them”. The Minister expressed his gratitude for the Soviet stand.^^95^^

p The USSR attached no less importance to preserving the independence and inviolability of Poland and preventing German aggression against her. Had the aggressive plans of Hitler Germany in relation to the Baltic states and Poland been thwarted and had those states become parties to a collective security system to oppose German aggression, no Nazi forces would ever have gained an access to the Soviet borders.

p Realising the sharply intensified danger across Poland’s Western frontiers upon the advent of Nazis to power in Germany, the Polish government also began to show interest in a certain improvement of relations with the USSR in 1933. True, by the end of 1933, the Nazis were reported to be seeking an amicable agreement with Poland’s reactionaries headed by Pilsudski, so as to make it harder for all the nations of Europe, threatened by aggression from the Nazi Reich, to unite and rally together.

p On December 14, 1933, the USSR informed Poland of its proposal to publish a joint Soviet-Polish declaration stating their adamant determination to safeguard and defend peace in Eastern Europe. In the event of a threat to the Baltic slates, the USSR and Poland, under that draft declaration, undertook to consider the situation.^^96^^

p Since the USSR and Poland wore two largest nations of Eastern Europe, the publication of such a declaration would lias’e had tremendous positive importance for peace in this region. The idea behind the Soviet proposal was to give the Baltic states under a threat of German aggression a sense of confidence in their own strength and stiffen their resistance to German expansionism; to reduce the force of Germany’s pressure on the Baltic states; lay a material base for negotiations between representatives of Poland and the USSR about co-operation in promoting peace. Although Germany was not mentioned in the Soviet proposal, it did imply action against the threat to the Baltic states from the Nazi Reich. Should Poland have accepted the Soviet proposal, that would have been a warning to Germany and would have deterred her acts of aggression against the Baltic states.^^97^^

p True, the Polish government announced that it was not opposed, in principle, to considering the Soviet proposal,^^98^^ but it was not its intention to put it into practice. The Polish reactionary ruling quarters did not want any co- operation with the USSR. While planning to create a "Greater Poland”, they had chosen to co-operate with the Nazi Reich and other aggressors in the hope that they could carry out their plans of aggrandizement, above all, at the expense of the Soviet Union.

p The Nazis decided to exploit the mood of Polish governing circles to further their own interests. Above all, they strove to prevent the projected rallying of the nations of Europe in opposition to the expansionist ambitions of German imperialism. The Nazis told the Poles that they were prepared to pledge non-aggression and broached the subject of co-operation between Germany and Poland in seizing some of Soviet land and sharing the Baltic states between them. The Polish rulers were delighted by the offer. Pilsudski, talking to Hitler’s emissary Rauschning on December 11, 1933, suggested an alliance between Germany and Poland, pointing to the inevitable prospect of war between them and the USSR. "

p A German-Polish declaration of friendship and non- aggression was published on January 26, 1934.

p By that declaration the Nazis, with Pilsudski’s men aiding them, raised serious obstacles in the way of establishing a front to defend peace in Europe and drove a wedge 46 between the nations objectively interested in resisting Nazi aggression. Poland had virtually broken with the bloc of nations created by Krance in the 1920s and was actually becoming an element of the aggressive bloc of fascist powers. The declaration gave rise to the closest ever co-operation between Poland and Germany.

p All the assurances of the Nazis to the effect that they had no aggressive plans whatsoever against Poland were perfidious in their character, of course. Poland still remained among the first few countries the Nazis planned to include in the German "living space”. It was for that reason, as evidenced by the documents of the German Ministry for Foreign Affairs then published, that the Nazis decided to limit themselves to signing a joint German-Polish declaration rather than a non-aggression pact as was usually done in such cases. The Nazis acted on the assumption that the declaration would subsequently be easier to break than a treaty. At the same time, the declaration avoided the question of Germany recognising the existing German-Polish frontier and contained nothing beyond an obligation to resolve all issues in dispute without resort to force. Soon after the declaration was signed, Hitler told his closest associates that "all the agreements with Poland are tranSitOry" 100

p Referring to the lessons of German-Polish relations, the Foreign Minister of Romania, Gafencu subsequently remarked with good reason that Hitler’s assurances, when he gave them, "bound the assured, not himself".^^101^^

p What claimed attention, besides, was the absence of a provision, common to agreements of this kind, that in the event of an attack by one of the parties to the declaration against a third state, the other party had the right to consider it null and void. That meant, for instance, that in the event of a German attack on Austria, Poland was to keep out.

p Following the publication of the Polish-German declaration of non-aggression, the Polish government no longer found it necessary to conduct any negotiations with the USSR about co-operation in opposing German aggression. On February 3, 1934, it informed the Soviet government that it considered the issue of a Soviet-Polish declaration to have lapsed.^^102^^

Representatives of the Polish government asserted in 47 their foreign policy statements that they adhered to art “even-handed” approach in relations with Poland’s two great neighbours—Germany and the USSR. In actual fact, however, such statements were no more than diplomatic cover for the actual course of Polish foreign policy, that is, the course towards closer dealings with Hitler Germany on an anti-Soviet ground.