p On April 17, 1939, the Soviet Union turned to Britain and France with concrete far-reach!rig proposals. It called for Britain, France and the USSR to conclude an agreement of mutual assistance; for the Three Powers to afford assistance to the countries of Fastern Furope, bordering on the USSR, in the event of aggression against them.

p In accordance with the Soviet proposals, the Three Powers were to have discussed and fixed the size and form of military aid, within the shortest time-limits, which each of them was going to give to the victim of aggression, that is, to conclude a military convention. The treaty of mutual assistance and military convention were to have been signed for a term of 5-10 years simultaneously. They were to have been banned from concluding a separate peace with the aggressor in the eventuality of an armed conflict.^^45^^ As he handed these proposals to British Ambassador Seeds, the Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs stressed the importance of both agreements, political and military, being signed simultaneously.

These proposals presented a clear programme for the establishment of a reliable peace-keeping front in Furope, based on close co-operation with the USSR, Britain and France. Those were the proposals which the Soviet government persisted to get implemented in the course of the subsequent Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations. To have put them into effect would have meant raising a dependable barrier in the aggressors’ way.