p Close co-operation of Italian and German fascists in the invasion of Spain accelerated the cobbling together of their aggressor bloc. "We must take up an active role,” Hitler said in a conversation with Italy’s Foreign Minister Ciano. "We must go over to the attack.” The Nazi Chancellor argued that there was no clash of interests between Germany and Italy: Germany must have a free hand in the East of Kurope and in the Baltic region, while any change in the balance of forces in the Mediterranean must be in Italy’s interest. He said the German government was successfully conducting negotiations on co-operation also with Japan and I’oland. The tactical field on which Germany and Italy could execute their manoeuvre in respect of the Western powers, Hitler stressed, was that of anti-Bolshevism.^^110^^

p A German-Italian agreement which started the so-called Berlin-Rome Axis was signed the day after that conversation, on October 25, 1936. The two aggressors agreed on measures they could take to help the Spanish rebels. The Nazis recognised Italy’s annexation of Ethiopia, while the Italians promised not to interfere in relations between Germany and Austria.

p The Nazi Reich attached tremendous importance also to strengthening its links with Japan since she could become 117 its major ally in the war both against the USSR and against the Western powers. German-Japanese talks had begun on Germany’s initiative back in 1035. Japan, which harboured the idea of a far-reaching expansion into the FarEastern and other areas of Asia was also interested in having allies. The Japanese military attache in the USSR Kasaliara, in his reports to the War Ministry, emphasised the need to "involve the Western neighbours and other states in the war against the USSR".^^112^^ Hostility towards the USSR was equally great in Nazi Germany and in militarist Japan. On January 12, 1936, the Soviet Ambassador to Germany, Y. 7. Surits, reported, with many facts to bear him out, that Germany and Japan, "treaty or no treaty . . . will join forces in a conflict against the USSR. So far as we are concerned, Japan and Germany are bound together by the lies of blood, by a community of interests and by the youscratch-my-back-and-I-scratch-yours principle".^^112^^ The rulers of Germany and Japan, however, feared they could provoke the displeasure of the Western powers by concluding an outright military alliance. To conceal the true purpose of the Gorman-Japanese collusion, the Nazis offered to call it "Anti-Comintern I’act”. The I’act was signed on November 25, 1936.

p Naturally, the name of the i’act misled nobody in the Soviet Union. It laid, in fact, the foundations of the military alliance of the aggressors in the coming war. A secret agreement was signed together with the Pact between Germany and Japan providing thai in the event of a conflict of one of its signatories with Ihe USSR, they "must immediately consider steps required for the defence of their common interests". ^^113^^

p The Gestapo chief Himmler, informing Hitler on January 31, 1937, about his negotiations with the Japanese military attache in Berlin General Oshima, pointed out that the object of the measures being worked out by German and Japanese representatives was to dismember Russia, starting from the Caucasus and the Ukraine. ^^114^^

p A bilateral Italian-Japanese treaty was concluded also on December 2, 1936, to form a bloc of three aggressor powers. The “Axis” became “Triangle”. The Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of Ihe USSH, 13. S. Stomonyakov, pointed out in a letter to the Soviet Ambassador in Tokyo M. M. Slavutsky that Japan had further strengthened her 118 links with Germany and Italy and, according to quite reliable sources, the Japanese government considered these relations to have "virtually assumed the character of an alliance”. "^^5^^

That was how an alliance of three aggressors was set up to try and redraw the map of the world by means of war. That alliance posed a tremendous danger to the USSR. At the same time it was directed against many other nations, both large and small. Without venturing to attack the USSR for the time being, the aggressors used that alliance for concerting their action against those states which they could rather hope to overpower.