p The aggressive plans, being harboured by Germany, Japan and Italy, were, indisputably, a tremendous danger to the USSR. The oft-repeated statements by German Nazis and Japanese militarists that they considered the destruction of the Soviet state to be their overriding objective were well known.

p The Soviet government, considering the mounting danger of war, was taking additional measures to build up national defences. The growing Soviet defence strength was,, undoubtedly, the major factor which had deterred the aggressors for a time from action against the USSR.

p At the same time, the Soviet Union was prepared to make the utmost contribution towards action to avert aggression and keep the peace. Should Britain and France have displayed a real desire to co-operate with the USSR, that would have been fully reciprocated by the Soviet government to stem the tide of German aggression.

p Naturally, the Soviet government could not fail to take into account the bitter experience of earlier years, above all, of the immediately preceding developments when the governments of Britain and France had openly set course towards an imperialist deal with Hitler and Mussolini, in Munich and afterwards. For the foreign policies of Britain and France in those years betrayed their reluctance to cooperate with the USSR in the struggle against aggression. It was clear that they had no objection to German and Japanese aggression, provided it was against the Soviet Union, not against them.

p Nevertheless, the Soviet government still earnestly tried in the spring and summer of 1939 Lo come to terms with Britain and France on a collective peace-keeping front so as, by joint efforts, to curb the Nazi aggressors and prevent them starting war. There was a hope that the increasingly aggressive policy of the Nazis and the mounting pressure from the mass of the people in Britain and France, worried as they were by the threat of war, could eventually force a change in the position of the British and French governments. But, as this book will yet show, the British and French ruling circles had brought the negotiations just started with the USSR to a deadlock, having thus cleared the way for the Nazi Reich to trigger off the war.

p That was demonstrated by the very opening of SovietBritish contacts in March 1939.

p Two days after the German troops had been moved into Czechoslovakia, it was learned in London that the Nazis were hard at work to establish their economic and political domination of Romania. The matter was treated as urgent at a British Cabinet meeting on March 18. There was the apprehension that this might lead to Germany establishing her domination of Europe and to German troops reaching the Mediterranean with the result that Britain might be reduced to the status of a second-rate power. Should the Romanian agricultural prodiicts and oil have fallen into Germany’s hands, Britain’s attempts to impose a blockade on the Reich in the event of war would have been futile. The British Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, Lord Chatfield, admitted that Britain was not in a position to prevent German domination of Romania. But with Poland and the USSR ready to take part in agreement, the situation would have been entirely different. In such a case, Britain should have joined forces with them in resisting German aggression. The government confined itself, however, to deciding to inquire about the position of the governments of the USSR, Poland, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Greece and Romania, and also to reach an understanding witli France on eventual action.^^8^^

On the same day the British Ambassador in Moscow, W. Seeds, asked the Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Litvinov, about the position the Soviet Union would take in the event of German aggression against Romania. The Soviet government decided to take the opportunity to 209 raise the question of collective action to oppose aggression as a matter of the utmost gravity. A few hours later Seeds was in possession of the Soviet government’s proposal for the immediate international conference to be called by the USSR, Britain, France, Poland, Romania and Turkey.^^9^^