p The plan for Three-Power military co-operation, worked out in every detail by the Soviet side, was set out at the Anglo-Franco-Soviet military talks on August 15 by B. M. Shaposhnikov, Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army. He announced that the USSR was prepared to field 136 divisions, 5,000 heavy guns, 9,000-10,000 tanks and 5,000-5,500 combat aircraft against the aggressor.

p In the report he presented, Shaposhnikov suggested three versions of joint action by the armed forces of the USSR, Britain and France in the subsequent variations of aggressive action by Germany: aggressors’ attack on Britain and France; attack on Poland and Romania; and attack on the USSR through the Baltic region.^^129^^

p Doumenc cabled to Paris after the session that the Soviet representatives had set out plans of "very effective assistance they are determined to afford us”. Tn another cable, ho reported the Soviet Union’s willingness to undertake offensive action in support of France should the main strike be directed against her. "In short,” he wrote, "we have to 246 acknowledge a clearly expressed desire not to stay out, but, just on the contrary, to act in earnest." ^^13^^°

p Referring to the Soviet proposals, a member of the French delegation, General Beaufre, pointed out: "It would have been difficult to be more concrete and more clear. . . The contrast between this programme . . . and the confused abstractions of the Franco-English project is amazing, and it shows the gap between the two conceptions. .. The Soviet arguments carried weight. . . Our position was false." ^^131^^

p The plan of military co-operation set forth by Shaposhnikov attested to the Soviet government’s earnest intentions. In the event of war being started by the Nazi aggressors, the Soviet Union was prepared to act together with Britain and France in a determined operation to defeat the aggressor within the shortest space of time and with the least casualties. The main thing, however, was that should the Soviet-proposed agreement have been concluded, the aggressor would not have ventured to go to war.

The proposals of the Soviet government conclusively disprove the allegations circulated in the West to the effect that Moscow was dreaming of a war between the two groups of imperialist powers. Such contentions had nothing to do with the real state of things. The Soviet government realised perfectly well that neither Poland, nor France, nor both, would have been in a position, without Soviet aid, to stand up against the onslaught of Nazi Germany. Nor did it have any doubt that, having routed those two countries, the Nazis would throw their full strength against the USSR. As slated earlier on, it was in the spring of 1939 that the Soviet government received information that the Nazis were planning to crush Poland already in that year, to defeat France in 1940, and, then, launch a war against the USSR. That alone made it clear that the Soviet Union had to, and did strive to forestall Germany’s attack on Poland and France for the sake of its own security: tho defeat of those two countries was, in effect, sure to make it impossible to prevent the Nazi Reich’s subsequent attack on the USSR. And, conversely, had the Nazis been stopped from overrunning Poland and France, there woidd have been less danger of Germany attacking the Soviet Union.

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p There was, however, no reply either on August Ifi or Hi, or 17 to the Soviet delegation’s question about the passage 247 of Soviet troops through the territory of Poland and Romania. Thereupon, the conversations were adjourned until August 21, on a motion from Drax. The only thing thatmeant was that the governments of Britain and France, far from being in any hurry to bring off the talks, were holding them up advisedly. The Soviet government, naturally, could not see the situation thus created as anything but a sign of the utter futility of the talks.

Should the governments of Britain and France have really wanted to arrive at an agreement with the USSR, they should have settled the issue of Soviet-Polish military cooperation with the government of Poland even before the Moscow talks started. When, however, the matter arose in its full dramatic meaning in Moscow, the British and the French ought, it would seem, to have taken most urgent steps to get it settled. Since, however, what the governments of Britain and France were preoccupied with was not to conclude an agreement with the USSR but just to drag the talks on as long as possible, they were in no hurry to turn to the Polish government, still less get it to agree to military co-operation with the USSR. Incidentally, while they did, after all, establish some contact with the Polish government at long last, they never so much as addressed the government of Romania.