p The minutes of the meetings held by the British government’s Foreign Policy Committee in those days furnished striking evidence to show that the British ruling circles still had no desire to conclude an effective agreement with the USSR to oppose aggression. While the Soviet government had every intention of reaching a concrete and effective agreement as soon as possible ^^74^^, Halifax tabled an entirely different set of proposals at a meeting of the Foreign Policy Committee on July 4, 1939. He brought two alternatives before it: 

p 1) to break off the negotiations, or 

p 2) to conclude a limited pact.

p Halifax suggested that the talks should not be broken off but he did not find it necessary to conclude a really effective pact with the USSR. To explain his position, he said that Britain’s main objective in the negotiations with the USSR was to prevent it from establishing any links with Germany.^^75^^

p The proposals made by Halifax revealed the full depth of the abyss between the positions of the USSR and Britain. While the Soviet Union was in favour of a comprehensive effective agreement, the British Foreign Secretary found it impossible to go beyond a "limited pact”, or, to be exact, beyond producing a mere scrap of paper.

p As to Halifax’s statement about what constituted the British government’s "main objective" in the negotiations with the USSR at the time, it is in need of some explanation. To this end, we must throw a glance back to recall the events of the 1920s. British and French diplomacy were 229 doing everything possible in those years to set up a united bloc of capitalist countries to oppose, in every way, including the force of arms, the world’s first socialist state. All those efforts proved futile largely because the Soviet government had succeeded in concluding the Rapallo Treaty with Germany in 1922 which made it impossible to create such a bloc and laid the ground for the two countries to build their extensive and mutually beneficial co-operation on until 1932. Soviet-German co-operation, which continued for a whole decade, was never forgotten by British and French imperialist quarters.

p Once the Nazis came to power in Germany, the alignment of forces in Europe changed substantially, although not in every respect. The hostility of Britain’s and France’s reactionary ruling establishment towards the world’s first socialist state did not subside in any way. But whereas in the 1920s they sought to draw Germany into their anti- Soviet bloc, now they were casting German fascism in the role of the major strike force in imperialism’s struggle against the Soviet Union.

p However, there was one particular circumstance which rather embarrassed both British and French statesmen in the summer of 1939: German imperialism, in making its plans for a war of aggression, intended to rout first its main opponent in the West, that is, France, and, only afterwards, to direct its war machine eastwards, against Russia, because it saw that to defeat her would bo far more difficult. By early July, the British and French governments had plenty of information that, having defeated Poland, Germany planned to move her troops against France, rather than against the USSR.

p Nor could London fail to draw certain conclusions from the fact that, in spite of all the attempts of the British government to reach agreement with Germany, the Nazis were avoiding it. In the meantime, it was receiving more and more information to indicate Berlin’s interest in a reconciliation with the USSR.

p Therefore, the British and the French governments were under no doubt any longer that they were running a huge risk by stalling the conclusion of a treaty with the USSR. They understood just as well that, should the Soviet government definitely find out that all of its attempts to come to agreement with Britain and France would end in failure, 230 it would have no reasonable option left beyond responding to Germany’s overtures and accepting a way of normalising relations with her, that is, reverting to what had come to be known as the policy of Rapallo.

p Chamberlain was, however, so much obsessed with his aspiration for an understanding with Nazi Germany that he was prepared to run any risk. At the same time, whenever the British government formulated yet another negative reply to Soviet proposals, the invariable question was: isn’t this reply the last straw that would break the Soviet leaders’ patience and won’t it lead to a revival of the Treaty of Rapallo? Therefore, the British government, reluctant to conclude any effective agreement with the USSR, found it necessary to "continue negotiations" so as to prevent a possible normalisation of relations between Germany and the USSR.

p At a British Cabinet meeting, Halifax pointed out that a rejection of Russia’s proposal could push her into German arms. Secretary for War Hore-Belisha, sharing this apprehension, added: "Although the idea might seem fantastic at the moment, the natural orientation suggested an arrangement" between Germany and Russia. The Secretary of State for Dominions M. MacDonald added that in the event of war it would be serious if Russia were neutral and supplying Germany with food and raw materials.^^76^^

p To forestall the breakdown of the negotiations with the USSR, which had virtually reached a dead end, Halifax speaking at a meeting of the British government’s Foreign Policy Committee on July 10, 1939, proposed consenting to political and military agreements being signed simultaneously and to open negotiations about the substance of the military agreement. Intimating that all he meant, however, was the idea of creating the conditions to enable " conversations for the sake of conversations" to be continued, Halifax remarked that "military conversations . .. would drag on”. Besides, the military agreement might well not have been very substantial in terms of its meaning. That was also the position of Chamberlain. The Minister for Co- ordination of Defence, Lord Chatfield, had to admit, however, that the Soviet government attached great importance to these military conversations, and wanted a detailed agreement to contain specific commitments for the parties to it.

p Rounding off the discussion, Halifax repeated: "When the 231 military conversations had begun no great progress would be made. The conversations would drag on.... In this way we should have gained time and made the best of a situation.” The Committee approved the diplomatic move projected by Halifax.^^77^^

p The French government did not, however, accept the course indicated by London. It told the British that there would be serious difficulties during the military conversations because it would be necessary to obtain Poland’s and Romania’s consent to the transit of Soviet troops through their territories.^^78^^

p The British government still considered breaking off the negotiations with the USSR. As early as June 8, Chamberlain confessed in a conversation with U.S. Ambassador Kennedy that he was not at all sure that he would "not call off" the negotiations with the USSR.^^79^^ Even in the conversation with Japanese Ambassador Shigemitsu late in June, Chamberlain did not conceal his "intimate desire to break off the conversations with the USSR". ^^80^^

p From early July onwards, the question of breaking off the conversations was repeatedly discussed at the meetings of the British government’s Foreign Policy Committee. On July 18 Halifax cynically declared that should the talks break down, "this would not cause him very great anxie- ty". ^^81^^

p The position of the British and French governments did condemn the Moscow talks to futility. The Soviet government was increasingly convinced that the British as well as the French government leaders in their footsteps had no real intention to bring the Moscow talks to a successful conclusion.

p Writing to the Soviet ambassadors in Britain and France on July 17, Molotov said that the British and French politicians were "resorting to all kinds of tricks and unworthy subterfuges". ^^82^^

p Considering the state of affairs at the conversations in liis letter of July 20 to the Foreign Office, British diplomat William Strang who had arrived in Moscow to help Ambassador Seeds with them, pointed out that the Soviet government’s distrust and suspicion regarding the British plans had not diminished. The fact, he wrote, that Britain had been raising difficulty after difficulty, had produced the Soviet government’s impression that British diplomacy was 232 not seriously seeking an agreement. As to an eventual breakdown of the conversations, Strang believed that an "indeterminate situation" would be better than a "final breakdown of the negotiations now”. He pointed out that Germany could avail herself of the breakdown of the negotiations to launch her aggression. Besides, the breakdown "might drive the Soviet Union into isolation or into composition with Germany”. Therefore, Strang suggested military conversations which would, however, produce "no immediate concrete results".^^83^^

p The announcement published in Moscow in July 21 about the opening trade negotiations between the USSR and Germany prompted the British and the French to give their consent on July 23 to the simultaneous entry into force of the political and military agreements. Two days later, they announced their consent lo start negotiations with a view to concerting the text of the military agreement.^^84^^

All that did not mean at all, however, that London had finally decided to take a step forward. British and French diplomacy were still conducting nothing but "conversations for the sake of conversations" with the USSR. In particular, they were to serve as a means of bringing pressure to bear on Germany to induce the Nazis to give their consent eventually to an Anglo-German imperialist deal.