The Orchestration of the Second World War. Who started the

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International Affairs

http://interaffairs.ru

"The Orchestration of the Second World War. Who started the war and when."

The Moscow Foundation for Historical Perspective, Published by "Veche", 2009

Natalya Narochnitskaya, Valentin Falin, and others

Январь, 2014


Online Publication International Affairs

«Concert of Great Powers» on the Eve of Key Events

Natalia NarochnitskayaPolitician, historian and diplomat, director of the Institute of Democracyand Cooperation (the Paris office), director of the Foundation of Historical Perspective, Doctor of Philosophy

Part I

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As the pivotal point of the XX centuryhistory World War II is the traditionaltheme of heated debates among histo-rians and political scientists. Havingspread beyond the academic confinesover the recent years the polemic in itscurrent shape warrants not only histo-rians' efforts aimed at unearthing factsand analyzing documents, but alsobroader criticism of the intellectualparadigms and philosophy underlyingthe Western interpretations of the1930ies-1940ies events and data.

In today's Europe, for whose freedom,dignity, and right to peace Russiansand the Red Army once cheered in theliberated European cities payed atremendous price, the Soviet Union isunabashedly portrayed as a totalitarianmonster perhaps more immoral thanthe Nazi Reich. Breaching the interna-tional law and the UN Charter, the Eu-ropean Parliament referred to the KurilIslands as a territory occupied by Rus-sia. The Parliamentary Assembly ofthe Council of Europe called for con-demning “the crimes committed bycommunist totalitarian regimes”, and,in June 2009 the OSCE ParliamentaryAssembly passed a resolution equating“Stalin's totalitarianism” and Hitler'sracist regime. Upholding the campaignof rewriting the past, the media aredisseminating the ahistorical thesisthat Nazism and communism are in-distinguishable. The view would havebeen inconceivable even in the ColdWar epoch when, quite reasonably, theWestern academic community and po-

litical establishment equally used toregard the two phenomena as oppo-sites.

In the latest round of revisionism, theAugust 23, 1939 Soviet-German Pactis - contrary to the historical logic -widely criticized as nearly the maincause of World War II. We are wit-nessing a massive falsification of his-tory based on deliberatemisinterpretation of documents anddistortion of facts. Extrapolating thecurrent trend one should expect that ina decade or two Western history text-books will teach that World War IIwas a conflict between two democra-cies – the US and Great Britain – andtwo totalitarian monsters. The conceptis floated by the media and persist-ently promoted in the European parlia-mentary circles that the Soviet Unionwas a criminal state and must finallyface trial. While the Western mediamounted a vociferous campaign of al-legations of the Soviet Union's respon-sibility for World War II on the 70thanniversary of the Soviet-GermanPact, the 70th anniversary of the noto-rious Munich Agreement somehow at-tracted practically no attention in theWest.

Yet, it was the Munich Agreement thatset in motion the process of redefiningborders in Europe, and, logically, itssigning should be regarded as thestarting point of the German expan-sion. It is also a serious question whythe occupation of Albany by Italy, thefighting in North Africa, and Japan's

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aggression against China, where thedeath toll had reached millions by thetime of the German invasion of Polandconventionally counted as the firstepisode of World War II, are not bebracketed with it.

The signing of the Munich Treaty be-tween the Western democracies andNazi Germany allowed Hitler to giveCzechoslovakia, a sovereign Europeancountry, an ultimatum, to annex a partof its territory, and eventually to parti-tion it. At the time, the European pow-ers were secretly discussing theongoing overhaul of borders in Eu-rope, Germany's anticipated militaryescapades and territorial gains, and thejoint response options in the cases ofGermany's attacks against variouscountries. Importantly, for the mostpart the talks revolved around Ger-many's eastward expansion, whichshows that from the outset the MunichAgreement had the primary objectiveto channel Hitler's aggression in thecorresponding direction. The processwhich began with ultimatums and sub-sequent deployment of troops in Eu-rope could not but escalate intofighting as it did in September, 1939.There is a profound reason why theWest avoids interpreting the occupa-tion and partition of Czechoslovakiaby Germany as the beginning of WorldWar II. Recognizing the fact wouldhighlight the responsibility of thecountries which sanctioned Germany'ssteps. This is also the explanation be-hind the paradox that Czechoslovakia,

abandoned by its allies and overrun byFascist Germany as the result of theMunich Agreement, is not regarded asa victim of fascist aggression to thesame extent as Poland.

The role that Poland – the countrynow posing as an innocent victim ofpredatory partition perpetrated byHitler and Stalin - had played in thewhole Munich Agreement story cer-tainly deserves a sober reassessment.A year before being partitioned by itsmore powerful neighbors, Poland hadacted as a minor accomplice in thepartition of another sovereign country.Documentary evidence suggests thatWarsaw was deeply upset about notbeing invited to join the MunichAgreement as the fifth signatory. Fac-ing the “discrimination”, it promptlyput a claim to Cieszyn Silesia and thusbecame Berlin's accomplice in carvingup Czechoslovakia, the first victim ofHitler expansion.

Poland's ambitions neither were re-jected by Western powers in 1938 norhave been condemned ever since. Asfor Warsaw, the general impression isthat even nowadays it sees no reasonsto feel embarrassed at how it acted. In2005, Pawel Wieczorkiewicz, arenown Polish historian, openly ex-pressed regrets that Poland's seriousattempts to reach an agreement withHitler met with no success and it didnot rout the hated Russia jointly withGermany. The author's belief thatPoland's contribution to the fascistcause could affect the outcome of

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World War II to such an extent canonly be attributed to grotesque na-tional self-esteem: he fantasizes thatPoland could play a role in Germany'splans nearly as important as Italy did,and that German and Polish troopscould eventually parade togetherthrough the defeated Moscow with A.Hitler and E. Rydz-Śmigły at thehelm1.

Some 20 years ago the publication of atext of the sort in a Polish officialmedia outlet would have shocked theWest no less than than Ahmadinejad'srecent statement concerning Israel.These days, Europe's desire to avoidcrediting Russia for its sacrifices andadmitting its own treacherousnessseems to outweigh any other consider-ations. To these end, any sins can bepardoned, be it sorrow at the missedchance to ally Hitler or dreams about aPoland spanning from one sea to an-other to which – as many dreamed inthe country - Hitler could dish outUkraine, Lithuania, and Slovakia.Wieczorkiewicz is sincerely convincedthat carving West Belarus and a part ofUkraine out of the USSR, tearing Vil-nius out of Lithuania, and amputatingCieszyn Silesia from Czechoslovakiawere acts of historical justice.

Historical documents convincinglydemonstrate that Hitler's aggressionagainst Poland, carefully planned bythe German command already inMarch 1939, when the USSR was ne-gotiating not with Berlin, but withLondon and Paris, grew out of the

Munich Agreement. It de facto pro-grammed the developments in Europe,Hitler's eastward expansion, and theisolation of the Soviet Union. Memo-ries of the details are suppressed in theWest, but the deal between the Euro-pean powers and Hitler cynically pre-scribed the victim of the aggressionnon-resistance and even forbade it towithdraw assets and industrial capaci-ties from the territories passed underGerman control. The Munich Agree-ment not only ruined the post-Ver-sailles system of internationalrelations but also became a prologueto conquests and a total territorialoverhaul in Europe which could notbut get practically all countries drawninto ferocious fighting. Long beforethe signing of the Molotov-RibbentropPact the Western signatories to theMunich Agreement dismantled thesystem of France's alliances in EastEurope, the treaties between theUSSR, France and Czechoslovakia,and the alliance between France andPoland, as well as scrapped the LittleEntente. The League of Nations wasrendered practically non-existent, andthe main result was the geopoliticalcornering and immobilization of theUSSR. Obviously, this must have beenthe key objective pursued by GreatBritain.

After the death of J. Pilsudski's,Poland's foreign politics was directedby J. Beck who did a lot for the coun-try's rapprochement with Germany.The equal distancing from the USSR

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and Germany, which was proclaimedas Poland's official position, turned outto be illusory. Angered by not beingallowed to joint the Munich Treaty,Poland gave the desperate Prague anultimatum and demanded CieszynSilesia, into which the Polish armygloriously marched on October 2.After that, Hungary chose to act in asimilar manner and put claims to mostof Slovakia and to Transcarpathia.Poland's ambition to reorganize “thethird Europe” automatically lured itinto complicity with Hitler.

Moreover, immediately following theAnschluss Poland quite predictablyexerted pressure on Lithuania which,like large parts of Belarus andUkraine, it used to regard as its ownbackyard since the the Union ofLublin. The ultimatum issued follow-ing the March 11, 1938 incident at theborder between Poland and Lithuaniaincluded an open threat to use force incase Warsaw's demands were not ful-filled. Lithuania was central toPoland's plan for ”the third Europe”and “the Baltic Entente”, which weresupposed to materialize via a “volun-tary” unification. Berlin clearly in-tended to get Warsaw involved in therealization of its own agenda, but let-ting Poland gain control over Lithua-nia independently was not part of theGerman plan. Lithuania was used as abait in Berlin's game with Poland – itwas promised to Warsaw as a compen-sation for ceding the Polish Corridorto Germany.

While Berlin was bracing for theseizure of Prague, London attemptedto save face and, jointly with Paris, de-manded from Germany guarantees forthe post-Munich Czechoslovakia. Therequest was turned down. Londonsaw that – in full accord with its plans- the epicenter of the global drama wasdrifting to East Europe. Hitler was de-ceiving Poland, as for him temporarilyencouraging Warsaw's ambitions was away of making the allies more activein dealing with Czechoslovakia and at-tracting new players to its the parti-tion. Broader internationalinvolvement served to legitimizeHitler's own gains and to show to theinternational community that any op-position to the partition was useless.

What could Poland hope for? It is al-most unbelievable that there could beany illusions concerning Germany'sreal intentions. Berlin would havenever confirmed Poland's wider west-ern frontiers, and in any case Polandshould have been alarmed by the factthat regaining Danzig was one of Ger-many's priorities. In the long run, therewas no chance of Germany's recogniz-ing Polish interests in Lithuania. Nev-ertheless, Poland remained blinded bythe foreign-politics doctrine of J. Pil-sudski, who was crowned with theStephen Bathory wreath for a militaryoffensive targeting Moscow, and moti-vated by hatred towards Russia. As aresult, it clearly lacked political real-ism. Warsaw was too unwilling to facethe truth that Berlin's interest in a part-

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nership with it was cynical and short-living, even though Hitler openlyspoke about Poles as canon fodder –he said every Polish division wouldsave a German division in the conflictwith the USSR.

Deeply discontent with the MunichAgreement, Moscow was warnedabout the far-reaching dire conse-quences of the implementation ofChamberlain's concept and of Poland'ssteps that had actually made it morevulnerable to the German aggression.Documents show that Moscow madeno secret of its search for the optionsof emergency response, and, more-over, attempted to alert its Westerncounterparts. Italian Ambassador toMoscow was reminded on September22, 1939 that Poland, the countryclaiming a relatively small peace ofCzechoslovakia where several dozenthousands of Poles resided, seemedoblivious to the fact that millions ofUkrainians, Germans, Belorussians,Jews, and others inhabited its border-lands. Moreover, its Danzig corridorwas regarded by Hitler as a territorythat had to belong to Germany. Thequestions were: could Warsaw hopethat, just out of affinity for Beck, Ger-many, inspired by its success inCzechoslovakia, would bypass Polandin its quest for global dominance andwas Poland prepared to face futurethreats alone?2

Poland's foreign-politics thinking wasdominated by radical nationalistlegacy and downright Russohobia

since the epoch of J. Pilsudski. Havingtaken advantage of the chaos intowhich Russia was plunged as the re-sult of the 1917 Revolution and theCivil War, Poland seized West Belarusand West Ukraine, the territories of theRussian Empire it continues referringto as “East Poland” even nowadays.Somehow, the West never regarded thepartition of Belarus and Ukraine as acrime. Pilsudski dreamed of Polandwith the 1794 borders and, quite possi-bly, of a deeper incursion into Russiaakin to that of 1612. He was openlyupset about the configuration ofPoland's eastern border, which hadbeen charted so as to coincide with theCurzon line. Though Great Britain andFrance traditionally sought to rely on apowerful anti-Russian Poland in therelations with Russia, in 1919 Poland'sexcessive ambitions and its euphoriacaused by the difficulties confrontingRussia even cast a shadow over War-saw's partnership with the Entente.Critics of the Molotov-RibbentropPact typically ignore the fact that notonly in the epoch of the Revolutionand the Civil War in Russia, butthroughout the entire post-Versaillesperiod between the two World WarsPoland invariably took a markedlyanti-Russian position.

Polish Foreign Minister J. Beck, a fol-lower of J. Pilsudski, was markedlypro-German. His attempts to convinceHitler that Poland would be instru-mental in Germany's expanding east-wards and especially in conquering

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Ukraine continued until his own coun-try came under German attack. Judg-ing by what can be found in archives,no later than by the spring of 1939even the British authors of the MunichAgreement were fully aware thatPoland would be among the targets ofHitler's eastward aggression. Never-theless, till the very last moment War-saw resisted any multilateral deals thatdid not a priori exclude Moscow. It re-mained under the illusion that Berlinwould reward it for loyalty and readi-ness to cooperate by allowing it tokeep Danzig, if not by letting it seizeUkraine and gain access to the BlackSea.

Even a sketchy but sufficiently broadsurvey of the 1930-1939 global devel-opments convincingly demonstratesthat a World War – a conflict unprece-dented in terms of aspirations, fatali-ties, and the territorial scope - wasunderway in the epoch. What was theposition of the great “democracies”over the situation, given that the Warand the redistribution of the world onthe scale unseen before clearly com-menced before the signing of theMolotov-Ribbentrop Pact? Listedbelow are the milestones of theprocess to which, for some reason, theWestern democracies did not chose toreact by intervening or at least andcondemning and isolating the aggres-sors.

The redistribution of the world in theFar East took over 35 mln lives,mostly of the Chinese nationals who

had been fighting the Kwantung Armysince 1931. At that time Japan occu-pied a territory comparable in size tothat of France. Japan also took theRehe province and invaded Chaharand Hebei with the connivance of theinternational community.

In 1935 Italy launched an aggressionin North Africa and attacked Ethiopia,where it used chemical warfare againstcivilian population. While the Leagueof Nations proposed sanctions, GreatBritain and France limited their reac-tions to symbolic gestures and eventurned down the option of imposing anoil embargo which could make Italyface serious problems. The BritishCabinet cynically chose to appease theaggressor to prevent what it termed atilt of the balance of forces in Europe.Though Mussolini's aggression under-mined the Kellogg–Briand Pact whichserved as the basis of the European se-curity system, US President Roosevelthurriedly declared neutrality and thusgave carte blanche not only to Italyand Japan, but also to Germany. Ger-many made a military demarche in theRhineland and withdrew from the Lo-carno Treaties, thus indicating that itregarded the signing of the treaty be-tween France and the Soviet Union asa hostile step. V.M. Falin's interpreta-tion of Berlin's message is that Ger-many showed it would not allow tomaintain the status quo in Europe incase the West extended guarantees toMoscow. The message was heard –undisguised efforts ensued to encour-

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age Germany's expansion east. Declas-sifying the archives of the Soviet intel-ligence service and Foreign Ministrywe could suggest that the West alsodeclassify, for example, the secret doc-uments pertaining to the Four-PowerPact signed by Germany, France,Great Britain, and Italy in July, 1933.Though France did not ratify the Pactdue to widespread public opposition toit, the signing gave Hitler the status ofa legitimate partner in European poli-tics and introduced him to the circle of“the recognized”. This was a step to-wards the Munich Treaty.

The Anschluss, sanctioned by Westerndemocracies, as well as the partitionand occupation of Czechoslovakia,were direct consequences of the strat-egy explained by Lloyd George: itspoint was to divert Japan and Ger-many from Great Britain and to keepthe USSR under permanent pressure.Lloyd George's plan was to give Japanfull freedom to act against the USSRat its own discretion, to let it prolongthe border between Korea andManchuria all the way to the ArcticOcean and even to annex the easternpart of Siberia. As for Germany, theidea was to greenlight its advancementto the east and thus to provide it with apotential for the much-needed expan-sion3.

Japan also had reasons to believe thatthe US, Great Britain, and Francewould not intervene. After Germanyand Italy pledged to support it in casethe USSR sided with China, Japan

started putting into practice the TanakaMemorandum. The document was ac-cessed by the Soviet leadership al-ready in 1928. Japanese forces killed200,000 people – roughly 50% of thepopulation - in Nanjin, and on thewhole China lost 35 mln lives as theresult of the Japanese aggression.Nevertheless, the conventional view inthe West is that the World War beganonly in 1939 when Poland came underattack and Great Britain stepped in.

Thus, Europe persistently “appeased”Hitler and made no efforts to stop Italywhich invaded Albania in April, 1939and incorporated it on April 7, comingcloser to the realization of the marenostre concept of encircling theMediterranean Sea.

British Foreign Secretary Sir JohnSimon secretly met with Hitler inBerlin on March 25-26, 1935. Arecord of the talks was obtained by theSoviet intelligence service. It was pub-lished for the first time in 1997. Hitlermade it clear that any cooperationwith the Bolshevist regime which hecalled "a vessel of plague bacilli” wasout of question for Germany and saidthat Germans were afraid of help fromRussians more than of a French attack.He also stated that of all Europeancountries Russia was the one mostlikely to launch an aggression. The de-parture from the Treaty of Rapallo andthe absence of continuity between itand the future 1939 Pact between Ger-many and the Soviet Union are obvi-ous. It was Simon who suggested

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treating the USSR exclusively as ageopolitical phenomenon and said thatthe threat posed by communism had tobe perceived as an internal rather thaninternational issue.

Yet, the key message delivered toHitler by Simon dealt with a differentissue – the West blessed the An-schluss. When Ribbentrop askedSimon about the British position overAustria, the latter replied directly thatthe British government could not feelas concerned over Austria as, for ex-ample, over Belgium, the countrywhich was much closer to GreatBritain. Delighted, Hitler thanked theBritish cabinet for its loyal position onthe Saar plebiscite and other pertinentissues. He meant the 1935 conferencein Stresa (Italy) at which Germany'smilitary build-up in breach of theTreaty of Versailles was discussed andGreat Britain turned down the optionof imposing sanctions in the case ofnew violations4.

What were the objectives of the US,the country now presented as thegreatest contributor to the liberation ofEurope and an unselfish champion ofthe universal values of freedom anddemocracy?

The US acted in exactly the same wayas in 1914-1917. Generally, its planfor the war on the horizon was to re-main expectant either till Germany andthe USSR got exhausted or till struc-tural geopolitical transformationscommenced. The report of the Soviet

intelligence service describing the USposition was accompanied by a com-plete record of Roosevelt's September29, 1937 talk to his Administration.Prior to the presentation it had beendiscussed with S. Baldwin's envoyRunciman. The discussion mainly re-volved around the possible US neu-trality in the coming war. Eventually,Roosevelt formulated his position asfollows: the US would do what it mustin case a conflict erupts betweendemocracies and fascism, but wouldremain neutral if a war is triggered byGermany or the USSR. Europeancountries and the US would interveneonly in case the USSR faced a threatof territorial character from Ger-many5. The approach almost repli-cates the strategy behind the USneutrality during World War I: the USintended to intervene only when oneof the conflicting sides achieved domi-nance over most of Eurasia. In thelight of the thesis, one can easilyimagine how upset Washington had tobe about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pactwhich temporarily shifted Hitler's pri-orities. Anglo-Saxons clearly hopedthat Germany and the USSR wouldbleed each other and planned to inter-vene only in case Germany started toprevail and came close to controllingthe entire Eurasia.

It might seem that Hitler's plans toconquer Lebensraum in the east andthe Anglo-Saxon doctrine of creating astratum of dependent East-Europeancountries in the space between Ger-

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many and Russia – from the Baltic tothe Black Sea – were conflictinggeopolitical visions. Nevertheless, it iswell-known that Great Britain and theUS implicitly but actively encouragedHitler in his eastbound expansionistaspirations. It is still widely held thatGreat Britain meant to appease Hitler,but the view is entirely at odds withreality. The scenario most unfavorablefrom the Anglo-Saxon perspectivewould have been Germany's sufficingwith the Munich deal and the An-schluss which had been endorsed by“the democratic community”.

First, members of this community hadalready inflicted disgrace on them-selves by sacrificing Czechoslovakia.Secondly, the result would have beenthe concentration of the German po-tential within a unified statehood.Such revision of the Versaillesarrangement would have been hard tocontest as the territories were not con-quered by Germany in 1914-1918 butused to be parts of Germany and Aus-tria-Hungary before World War I.

What London sought was by no meansto appease Hitler but to encourage hiseastbound aspirations and thus todelay the war between Germany andGreat Britain. The Anglo-Saxon ex-pectations that Hitler would be over-taken by his unchecked ambitions wasquite reasonable. The fascist aggres-sion directed eastwards provided apretext for intervention which, underan appropriate combination of circum-stances, could make it possible to

complete geopolitical projects involv-ing not only the countries attacked buta much wider area as well. Britishmedia and political circles discussedHitler's claims to Ukraine as his nextstep.

In fact, Poland's politics on the eve ofthe war was profoundly self-defeating.Based on historical documents, thoseof the pro-Polish authors whose aca-demic integrity can be trusted admitthat Poland's tendency towards rap-prochement with Germany undercutthe system of international relations inEurope and that the Polish leadership,hypnotized by the prospects for terri-torial gains at the expense of its neigh-bor, openly cooperated with NaziGermany6. Already in January, 1939Polish Foreign Minister J. Beck statedfollowing the talks with Berlin thatfull unity of interests with respect tothe Soviet Union had been achieved.Later the Soviet intelligence servicereported that negotiations betweenRibbentrop and Polish envoys tookplace during which Poland indicated itwas ready to join the Anti-CominternPact in case Hitler supported its claimsto Ukraine and to the access to theBlack Sea7. Obviously, the cost of theissue was what Poland would get forscrapping its proclaimed politics ofmaintaining equal distances from Ger-many and the USSR. According to theinformation available to Litvinov,Poland denied that such possibility ex-isted during the talks with Italian for-eign minister and Mussolini's

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son-in-law Gian Galeazzo Ciano whofailed to offer Warsaw a commensu-rate bonus8.

However, the Anglo-Saxon strategybecame more than obvious, and thiswas enough to put it in serious jeop-ardy. Aware of the situation, GreatBritain was – just several days earlierthan the USSR – ready to seal its owndeal with Hitler. For the purpose, H.Goring was to meet Halifax and otherproponents of the Munich-style ap-peasement politics of the Chamberlainvariety who became active again in thesummer of 1939.

The Munich Agreement and the con-duct of the “democratic countries” leftthe USSR convinced that synchroniz-ing its politics with that of the Anglo-Saxon world made absolutely nosense. The fact was recognized in a re-port even by Litvinov, a Soviet politi-cian often and not groundlesslyassociated with the Anglo-Saxonlobby in the USSR. Under Litvinov,the Soviet foreign politics more thanjust drifted from the Treaty of Rapalloto the positions of the anti-Germancamp, which was a natural evolutiongiven Hitler's ascension to power. TheUSSR joined the League of Nationsand demonstrated with utmost claritythe will to reach a collective securityagreement with the West. Litvinov'sreport was issued at the time of theMunich Agreement, and the coinci-dence did not remain unnoticed in theWest. Italian Ambassador A. Rossisaid in the fall of 1938 that Litvinov's

speech contained a recognition of thefailure of the collective security policypursued over the recent years andshowed that in the future the USSRwould not feel responsible for the de-velopments in Europe and would steera course based on its particular inter-ests and ideals.

Well-known historical facts and newanalysis of the epoch's political con-text altogether lead to the inescapableconclusion: the West's practice of pro-tracted negotiations and its delayingtactic were meant, among other things,to divert the attention of the USSRfrom autonomous solutions and to pre-clude its coexistence with Germany.The talks concerning a joint declara-tion to be issued by Great Britain,France, the USSR, and Poland went onfor months! Poland was the slowestplayer in the process, and GreatBritain's position kept fluctuating frominstilling hopes to reneging on itspledges. London persistently avoidedincluding in the text any references toits own commitments or guarantees.

An account of Soviet envoy I.M.Maisky's conversation with BritishPermanent Under-Secretary for For-eign Affairs A. Cadogan vividly illus-trates the situation. Cadogan startedconvincing Maisky that London wasabout to adopt a declaration condemn-ing the coming German aggression.Maisky listened mistrustfully, know-ing Great Britain's tendency to avoidclear commitments, especially thoseconcerning Europe, as well as its tradi-

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tion of benefiting from conflicts be-tween other countries. Moreover,Maisky was aware of the British gov-ernment's aversion to the very idea ofguaranteeing borders in Central andEast Europe, and was not inclined tobelieve that Chamberlain would con-sent to real obligations. When Cado-gan asked what made Maisky grin, hereplied that the new plan - in case itreally existed – would be tantamountto a revolution in the British foreignpolitics. Cadogan shrugged his shoul-ders in response and said it would in-deed be a revolution and that was thereason why it was taking so long tomake the decision9. Then he looked athis watch and told Maisky that theBritish government was in the processof deciding at that very moment. Asmany times before, no decision actu-ally materialized.

The Soviet Union invariably includedin the text the statement that GreatBritain, France, and the USSR wouldprovide all types of assistance, includ-ing military assistance, to East Euro-pean countries situated between theBaltic and the Black Seas and border-ing the USSR in case they face aggres-sion10, but no British draft containedany guarantees to the Baltic countrieslocated along the Soviet Union's west-ern frontier. All pertinent historicaldocuments – both previously pub-lished and made available recently –prove the above. In response to theSoviet offer as of April 17 Halifax toldMaisky again that Great Britain would

insist on the Soviet Union's unilateralguarantees to Poland and Romania. Asbefore, he invoked the opinions ofPoland and Romania. Speaking of theBritish and French guarantees to theBaltic republics, Halifax alleged that,first, they did not want them for fearthat Germany could be provoked, and,secondly, that offering the British andFrench guarantees to the Baltic coun-tries would provide additional argu-ments to the Nazi propaganda whichwas fostering among the German pop-ulation phobias about being encircledby enemies.

The Soviet envoy's reply was that theBritish formula lacked mutual charac-ter: the USSR was supposed to helpGreat Britain and France in case theygot involved in a war over Poland andRomania, but they were not burdenedwith symmetric obligations. While theverbal exchanges continued, TheTimes launched a new campaign insupport of resuming the attempts toreach an agreement with Germany andItaly. Maisky reported that the Britishgovernment was clearly reverting tothe Munich policy and proponents ofappeasing Germany were growing in-creasingly active11.

Eventually, all the endeavors to exactanything serious from Western part-ners produced no result, and the USSRwas compelled to sign the notoriousAugust 21, 1939 Soviet-German Pact.

Were the developments and the out-come as unexpected for the Western

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powers as currently described? Defi-nitely, not. Already in September,1938, Italian Ambassador to the USSRreported to Italy's Foreign Ministryfollowing a conversation with DeputyPeople's Commissar for Foreign Af-fairs V. Potemkin that the Soviet lead-ership was deeply disappointed at thesituation, anticipated Hitler's attack onPoland following the partition ofCzechoslovakia, and deemed a changeof course inevitable. He opined thatthe USSR would have to abandon at-tempts to cooperate with Westerndemocracies and switch to defensivepolitics of relative isolation12. Atten-tion should be paid to the fact that thecoming shift from the search for aform of agreement with Great Britainand France to a neutrality pact withGermany was characterized by theWestern diplomat as the transition to“defensive politics”.

On a number of occasions, both Litvi-nov and Molotov registered their dis-pleasure at London's politics with theBritish Ambassador to Moscow. Afterthe Munich Agreement, the USSR hadall the reasons to feel free from anyobligations13 and the West had toknow that the Soviet Union was leftwith limited options. Keeping alive theSoviet leadership's illusory hope that acollective security agreement could bereached was Great Britain's strategicobjective which it pursued relying onPoland in the process.

The tradition of falsifying the histori-cal meaning of World War II begins

with German historian E. Nolte whoseviews sparked controversy andprotests in the ranks of the Western ac-ademic community in the 1970ies.Nolte's anti-liberal views which ledhim to an indirect justification of therise of fascism in Europe and of theGerman expansion continue to makehim a politically incorrect figure. Nev-ertheless, his concept alleviating theWest's sense of guilt for the sin of fas-cism became the cornerstone of histor-ical revisionism in the studies ofWorld War II.

The revisionism culminated in histreatise The European Civil War,1917–1945, where he argued that theinternational relations in the period oftime between the two World Warsshould be interpreted as a clash of twoideologies challenging civilization andWorld War II – as a European civilwar allegedly started by the Sovietsrather than as a consequence of thequest for territorial domination and re-distribution of the post-Versaillesworld. Though Nolte readily ignoresgenerally acknowledged facts or re-arranges them to fit into his scheme, itis a historical fact that the decision toattack Poland was made by Berlin onSeptember 1, 1939. There is no doubtthat the Soviet leadership knew aboutit. Moreover, upon the signing of theMunich Agreement few people in theWest were oblivious to the total isola-tion of the USSR. Therefore, the ideathat the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pactcaused the aggression against Poland

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is absolutely ahistorical.

Nolte calls the “Hitler-Stalin Pact” a“European prelude” to World War II.Analyzing the text of the secret proto-col on the spheres of influence, Nolteheavily criticizes its section statingthat only future political developmentswill show whether the existence of anindependent Poland is desirable for theUSSR and Germany and in what bor-ders. It is noteworthy that the phrase isalmost identical to that from the 1890notes of German Chancellor vonBulow concerning Germany's plans ina future war against the Russian Em-pire. The impression is that the planswere fully reproduced by Hitler, andeven the current NATO expansionseems to follow the Kaiser-epochblueprint: efforts are envisaged topush Russia away from the Baltic andBlack Seas and thus to undermine itspositions in global politics. Bismarckleft a remark on the note saying sucheccentric sketches should be expressedin writing14.

The above plan for Poland reflectedthe continuity of Berlin's thinking. VonBulow also believed that the decisionabout restoring Poland in any formand incorporating the Baltic provinceshad to be suspended as Russia, routedand pushed to the east, would be amore comfortable neighbor than thereincarnated Poland. Its pro-Germanpoliticians who schemed so eagerlyagainst Russia on the eve of WorldWar I and against the USSR on the eveof World War II should have known

Germany's actual perspective on theircountry.

Poland, a country at the interface be-tween two rival geopolitical giants,largely owed its historical drama to itsown perpetual hostility towards Rus-sia. The materials in the present bookconfirm what has been known frompreviously published archive docu-ments: “Poland remained opposed tomultilateral combinations against Ger-many”15. Information was leaked tothe press after an Anglo-French meet-ing attended by Bonnet, Chamberlain,and Halifax that “any projects ofcountering Germany are mainly ob-structed by Poland. Poland is afraid toabandon the politics of balancing be-tween the Soviet Union and Germanywhich Colonel Beck has been imple-menting so far. Fearing Germany,Poland does not dare to join the decla-ration against aggression”16.

Archive materials which have beenmade available to researchers recentlyleave no doubts concerning Poland'sposition: it not only deliberately andpersistently avoided integration intoany fronts involving the USSR, butalso eyed Ukrainian and Lithuanianterritories. The latter circumstancemade it seek partnership with Ger-many to jointly seize Ukraine17.

Thus, the general political tendency inthe 1930ies was the emergence of thefollowing camps with conflicting in-terests: the Western powers led byGreat Britain, Germany and other

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counties with fascist regimes, and theUSSR. An overhaul of Europe was im-minent, and all countries, especiallythose of East Europe, hurriedly soughtsolutions, probed into opportunities tocapitalize on existing rivalries, andhoped to put into practice their histori-cal aspirations.

The seizure of Prague by Hitler andthe declaration of independence by thepuppet Slovakia, as well as the prewarMarch 14-15, 1939 political crisisseemed to force Great Britain to prom-ise some kind of guarantees, and theone given to Poland later evolved intoa mutual aid agreement. The develop-ment was explainable considering theoverall strategy to gain control overthe Baltic Sea – Black Sea line. If a se-quence of achievements in the east in-crementally diverted Hitler'saggression from the West and moti-vated him to attack the USSR (theBaltic countries would have been read-ily sacrificed), the guarantees given toPoland could provide Great Britainwith a pretext for an intervention inEast Europe (for the sake of its “pro-tection” ) and for tearing it out of thespheres of influence of both Germanyand the USSR, the two countries thatwould have been exhausted in a con-flict of unprecedented proportions.

The Soviet offer to sign a multilateralagreement involving the Baltic re-publics was turned down by the West.These republics - with semi-fascistregimes, practically non-existent par-liamentarism, and reputations in Eu-

rope not much better than that ofHitler's Germany – vehemently op-posed the idea. In April, 1939 Ger-many started developing Fall Weiss, aplan for a military aggression againstPoland. Its details including the dead-line – September 1 – were known inMoscow.

Informed about all the secret negotia-tions, the Soviet leadership graduallycame to the conclusion that waitingany longer would make Germany'seastward advancement fast and irre-versible. At the moment it would havetaken a close-knit international coali-tion that would have given guaranteesto the countries along Germany's bor-ders and to Europe's strategic centersto arrest Berlin's expansionism. How-ever, Moscow's offer to create such acoalition was rejected, and a Germanaggression during which the West wasgoing to watch the annihilation ofRussia “till structural geopoliticaltransformations commenced” waslooming on the horizon. This approachwas outlined by Roosevelt in a talk tohis Administration presenting the USposition over a potential war betweenGermany and the USSR without theinvolvement of the West. What werethe structural transformations thatawaited the USSR in case Germanychose it as the first target?

Under the hypothetical scenario Ger-many would have quickly bled theRed Army, which was unprepared andseverely weakened by Stalin's politicalrepressions, and forced the USSR to

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retreat to the territories east of theVolga River and the Urals, leaving theoil-rich Caucasus and the Black Sea.In line with its geopolitical tradition,Great Britain would probably havelocked the Mediterranean Straits andhelped Poland in the regions of theBaltic and the Northern Seas. Havinglured Hitler into a deep incursion intothe Soviet territory during the initialphase of the process and in no wayhelping Russians, the Anglo-Saxonswould have never allowed Germany todominate Eurasia. They would haveattacked him on Russia's territory fromthe West while also making sure thatRussia was forever expelled from EastEurope, as well as from the Baltic andthe Black Sea regions. A major con-flict would have also erupted in theFar East attacked by Japan. The Japan-ese aggression would probably havemet with the US resistance, as pre-scribed by the US school of geopoliti-cal thought. Similarly, US forceslanded in Vladivostok in 1919 - duringthe Civil War in Russia - to debarJapan from the Trans-Baikal region.Great Britain and the US would havetaken advantage of Russia's tragic cir-cumstances to leave it irreversiblylandlocked. As a result, the USSR asthe country sacrificed to debilitateHitler's Germany would have endedup localized in the tundra and wouldhave seen its history forever fall intodecline.

Quite obviously, contours of the samegeopolitical strategy aimed at exerting

pressure on Russia - though in com-pletely different forms – can be dis-cerned in the late XX – early XXIcenturies. Currently we are witnessinga new attempt to lock Russia inland,deep in north-eastern Eurasia.

Moscow knew that Hitler also plannedan aggression against the West. Hisdetailed plans for not only conqueringbut also fully subduing both the Eastand the West were in fact an open se-cret. The question was – where wouldHitler's first strike be directed?

The choice confronting Warsaw,which had maneuvered itself into ahopeless situation, was limited to twooptions: to do nothing at all or to try toachieve limited gains by selling itsloyalty to one of the sides. Since, asthroughout many centuries in the past,it dreamed of the territories belongingto Ukraine and Lithuania, bargainingwith Germany had to be Poland'schoice, which determined its future.

What can be said of Stalin's readinessto buy time on the eve of the comingwar against his own country at theprice of not opposing Hitler's plansconcerning Poland, the country whichvolunteered to help Germany seizeUkraine? Did he intend to seize theopportunity to regain the territories ofthe Russian Empire lost because of the1917 Revolution? In terms of its prag-matism – or, perhaps, cynicism – hisposition in no way differed from thatof Lord Simon who confided to Hitlerthat Great Britain would not be con-

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cerned over Austria to the same extentas over Belgium. How was Moscow toreact to the West's reluctance to guar-antee in the framework of a collectivesecurity pact not only the the bordersof Poland, but also those of the Balticcountries, thus practically providingHitler with an avenue for an aggres-sion against the USSR?

As for the Baltic states, they wereeager to avoid integration into anti-German coalitions and, as the USenvoy to Lithuania wrote to the USDepartment of State, “were very anx-ious not to be mentioned as guaran-teed states in agreements betweengroups of other powers and that theywere, therefore, not pleased by thesuggestion made recently by the So-viet Commissar for Foreign Affairs tothe effect that Great Britain guaranteethe boundaries of those states on theBaltic bordering on the Soviet Union”.The representative of Lithuania ex-pressed hope that “the Western Powersand the Soviet Union would arrive atsome formula covering the situation inEastern Europe without mentioning byname any of the states in this region”.He also indicated to the US diplomathow Great Britain's already extendedguarantee to Poland could be inter-preted so as to include Lithuania:“...since under the agreement withGreat Britain, Poland has the right todetermine when Polish independenceis threatened...The Poles must...regardan attack by Germany on Lithuania asa move to encircle Poland” 18.

With E. Nolte's blessing, the West iscalling the Soviet-German Pact “a pactof war and partition” allegedly unpar-alleled in the XIX-XX century Euro-pean history19. The idea is laughablefrom a historian's perspective. Fromthe Peace of Westphalia to Dayton, inthe epochs of empires and – no less -“democracies” countries used bilateralor multilateral treaties to prescribeborders to others, and a vast majorityof secret diplomatic transactions re-volve around this theme.

In Tilsit, Napoleon unsuccessfully at-tempted to convince Alexander I to an-nihilate Prussia. The Congress ofVienna appended to Switzerland anumber of strategic mountain passesto preclude the strengthening of anumber of countries. V.I. Lenin de-scribed the Berlin Congress laconi-cally: “Robbing Turkey”. In 1908,Austria – with the consent of otherpowers – annexed Bosnia. In a secret1905 agreement between US PresidentRoosevelt and Japanese Prime Minis-ter T. Katsura, Japan renounced ag-gressive intentions concerning thePhillipines, which became the USbackyard, and got the right to occupyKorea as the reward. In Versailles, thevictorious Anglo-Saxon part of the En-tente upholding Wilson's concepts ofself-determination and “democracy”,partitioned Austria-Hungary, pre-scribed borders to several Europeannations, and ruled which of them wereentitled to statehood and which – likethe Macedonians – were not. It forced

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some nations to change sovereigns(Galicia) and bracketed others – Serbs,Croats, and Slovenians – without ask-ing them how they felt about thearrangement. In the 1993 foreword tothe 1913 Carnegie Foundation report,G. Kennan called for arranging andenforcing a new territorial status quoacross the Balkans tailored to theWest's needs. The plan actually mate-rialized as the result of the DaytonAgreement.

Hitler's geopolitical agenda was iden-tical to that pan-Germanists formu-lated on the eve of World War I.Germany's eastern frontier along theVolga River was the dream of Berlinintellectuals in 1914, and at that timethey challenged not a country with acommunist ideology allegedly spread-ing a civil war across Europe, but theChristian Russia.

The 1939 Soviet-German Pact didalter the priorities and timetable ofHitler's attacks in a way less accept-able to the West. What is more impor-tant, having “only” changed thetimetable, it also affected fundamen-tally the post-war configuration anddebarred the Anglo-Saxon world fromentering East Europe both during theearly phase of the war and after it.Thus, the West's hope to withdrawEast Europe from the orbit of theUSSR was dashed.

This is the reason why the 1939 Molo-tov-Ribbentrop Pact constitutes theworst failure of the British strategy in

the XX century, and will always belambasted by the West.

For Great Britain, the least costly op-tion was to get involved in the warafter Hitler would have attacked theSoviet Union's Ukraine via the Balticregion. For the West, the Baltic re-publics were less important than the“anti-Soviet” Poland, which was cen-tral to Entente's plans since the signingof the Versailles Treaty. Great Britainplanned to come to the rescue ofPoland, as it actually did in 1939. Lon-don, however, expected Germany's at-tack against Poland to be a part of abroader eastward aggression and pro-jected that in the process Germanywould to get bogged down in a hope-less war with the USSR. The develop-ments would have provided to GreatBritain an opportunity to preserveWest Europe at a lower cost and to in-tervene in East Europe under the pre-text of protecting it.

In his Diplomacy, a fundamental trea-tise, in which a historian with highlyindividual perceptions and a scrupu-lous and erudite scholar collided, H.Kissinger does allege that Russiaplayed a key role in unleashing bothwars. Nevertheless, the chapter dedi-cated to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pactappears to disprove his own statementand displays the author's mixture of ireand admiration. Kissinger cites Hitlerwho said on August 11, 1939 thateverything he was doing targeted Rus-sia, and if the West lacked the intelli-gence to realize the fact he would have

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to strike a deal with Russia and routthe West, and then use all the re-sources thus accumulated against theSoviet Union. Kissinger contends thatthe statement reflected Hitler's actualpriorities: what he wanted from GreatBritain was non-intervention, while hedreamed to carve Lebensraum out ofthe USSR. Thus, the Soviet diplomacyshould be credited with serious suc-cess achieved under extremely press-ing circumstances: it compelled Hitlerto subject his priorities to a temporaryoverhaul. This is exactly howKissinger assesses the Pact, describingit as diplomatic artwork20.

Kissinger regrets Great Britain's fail-ure, suggesting as the explanation thatin the framework of the order set byVersailles it had to abide by strict legaland moral regards. However, the obvi-ous truth is that neither the talk aboutadherence to the Versailles principlesafter the aforementioned Strese con-ference, nor references to GreatBritain's morality after the Anschlussand the Munich Agreement make anysense. Kissinger recognizes that GreatBritain's restraint in what concernedthe Baltic republics was interpreted bythe Soviet Union as an invitation to at-tack it bypassing Poland.

In fact, in the epoch even Britishpoliticians regarded Stalin's course asa natural outgrowth of Russia's histori-cal rights and as an equally natural re-action to the circumstancesconfronting the Soviet Union. On Oc-tober 4, 1939 Halifax commented on

the events of the fall of 1939 and thedeployment of the Red Amy forces inWest Belarus by saying that, his reluc-tance to advocate the Soviet policynotwithstanding, the USSR wouldhave never taken the step if Germanyhad not invaded Poland without de-claring war. Moreover, he admittedthat the Soviet Union no more thanjust shifted its frontier to the locationrecommended by Curzon at the Ver-sailles Conference21. On October 10,the same view was expressed byChurchill.

The pervert expansionist ambitionsjustified by the semi-pagan Nazismwere largely rooted in the Versailleshumiliation and the partition of Ger-many by the Anglo-Saxons, a politicsto which the USSR in no way con-tributed. As for the phenomenon of theeconomic recovery in Hitler's Ger-many, British authors should admitthat – fully in accord with the Anglo-Saxon strategy - their country playedthe key role in absolving Berlin of theeconomic constraints of Versailles andthe post-war reparations. This waswhy Churchill castigated the Britishpolitics in the period between the twowars.

What London feared most was theforming of a stable German-Sovietmodus vivendi, especially since -mostly on the cultural level - a certainbrand of Russophilia was widespreadin the German society in the 1920ies.A ghost of the 1922 Rapallo Treaty be-tween the Weimar Republic and the

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Soviet Russia never stopped disturb-ing British geopolitical strategists. Thetruth is that the Soviet Union's rela-tions with Ratenau, who looked foropportunities to evade the interna-tional isolation regardless of the ideo-logical differences with potentialpartners, have nothing to do with themythical “kinship” between Stalin toHitler invented by biased Western au-thors of deeply ahistorical writings.The unfounded concept of the identityof communism and fascism draws thecriticism from serious Western schol-ars as well22.

When the war was already raging onthree continents in the summer of1939, the USSR – like any self-suffi-cient power – was implementing amulti-vector international politics fo-

cused on its own security in the omi-nous and rapidly evolving political at-mosphere. The Soviet leadership anddiplomacy additionally won two yearsto prepare their country for the immi-nent war. Moreover, Moscow expectedthat the intensification of its contactswith Germany in August, 1939 wouldrevitalize its negotiations with thedemocratic countries. ParadoxicallyMoscow's August, 1939 deals withBerlin actually forced Great Britain,France, and the US to take the positionof the Soviet Union into account intheir international-politics decision-making and, in the longer run, led tothe formation of the anti-Hitler coali-tion after the involvement of theUSSR in the war.

1. Rzeczpospolita. 2005. 28 wrz. 2. Declassified document from the archive of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service3. See: V.M. Falin. The second Front: Conflicting Interests in the Anti-Hitler Coalition. Moscow, Centrpoligraf, 20004. Readings in Russian Foreign Intelligence Service History, v. 6, 1933-1944. International Relations, 1997, p. 463-464, 4675. Ibid., p. 4686. S. Sluch. Hitler, Stalin and the Genesis of the Fourth Partition of Poland. In: East Europe Between Stalin and Hitler, 1939-1941.

P. 917. Readings in Russian Foreign Intelligence Service History, p. 289-2908. Russian Federation Foreign Politics Archive, F. 06, Folder 1, p. 4; D. 34, p. 42-469. Russian Federation Foreign Politics Archive, F. 06, Folder 5, D. 35, p. 79-81. Published in Foreign Politics Documents, 1939.

Moscow, 199210. From the text of the Soviet proposal as of April 17, 193911. Russian Federation Foreign Politics Archive, F. 059, Op. 1. Folder 5, D. 300, p. 183-186. Published in Foreign Politics Docu

ments, Book 112. Declassified document from the archive of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service13. Russian Federation Foreign Politics Archive. Molotov, List 1(b), Ordering No. 2, Folder 27, p. 16-1714. Die geheime Papiere F. von Holsteins. 3 Ausgabe. B.3 Briefwechsel. Göttingen: Musterschmidt-Verlag, 1961. S. 213— 21615. Ambassador Gzhibowski to Litvinov. The USSR Struggling for Peace on the Eve of World War II. September 1938-August 1939.

Moscow, Politizdat, 1971. P. 26516. Document from Secret TASS bulletin, March 23, 1939. Declassified document from the archive of the Russian Foreign Intelli

gence Service17. V.Ya. Sipols. Diplomatic Secrets. Moscow, Russian History Institute of the Russian Academy of Science. 1997. P. 3918. The Charge in Lithuania (Guffler) — to the Secretary of State // Foreign Relations of the United States: The Soviet Union,

1933—1939. Wash., D.C.: The GPO, 1952. P. 936. 19. Nolte E. Der Europäische Bürgerkrieg, 1917—1945: Nationalsozialismus und Bolschevismus. B.: Propiläen, 1997. S. 310 —311. 20. Kissinger H. Diplomacy. M.: Ladomir, 1997. P. 298, 302.21. Russian Federation Foreign Politics Archive, F. 7, Folder 4, ind.N.19, p. 27, p. 25.22. F-X. Coquin. “Europe”. Jan- Fev. 2006; Narotchnitskaia N. Que reste-t-il de notre victoire? Russie-Occident: le malentendu. P.:

Editions des Syrtes, 2008.


Online Publication International Affairs

Runup to the Soviet-GermanNon-Aggression Pact

Valentin FalinAmbassador Extraordinary andPlenipotentiary, doctor of historical Sciences

Part II

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The official London recanted an oldsin in October, 1998 — it was admit-ted that on the eve of the capitulationof Nazi Germany the British govern-ment's military planners instructed byW. Churchill prepared an offensiveagainst the Soviet Union. The objec-tive of the operation which was giventhe name Unthinkable was "to imposeupon Russia the will of the UnitedStates and the British Empire”. It hadto be accomplished via a defeat ofRussia in a total war. The aggressionwas to be launched on July 1, 1945jointly by the forces of the US, GreatBritain, the British dominions, the Pol-ish expeditions corps, and 10 Wehrma-cht divisions. Subsequently thenumber of German divisions couldhave increased to 40.

Great Britain was bracing for a seriouscampaign: Churchill was convincedthat the situation made it possible toput into practice his country's cen-turies-old intention to strangulate thecountry of “Russian barbarians”.The British Prime Minister hoped thatthe USSR, exhausted by the war withGermany, would not be able to repelthe new and unprecedentedly powerfulattack.

I will not dwell on the reasons due towhich «the fathers of democracy» and«the proponents of human rights»failed to immediately transform WorldWar II into World War III. A more im-portant aspect of the theme is whetherLondon's intention to step over all ex-isting moral barriers was a sponta-

neous reaction to the European devel-opments' evading its control or a mani-festation of the fundamental nature ofa spook having no eternal friends orenemies and knowing no command-ments - Christian or any other — butits own selfishness.

Let us examine the British strategyand tactics at the pivotal points of theXX century history. As for the EasternHemisphere, the British connection —either on the scenario level or at thephase of its execution - could be dis-cerned nearly in every crisis. Unfortu-nately, the era of undosed opennessabout the past political transactionshas not yet dawned in London. Other-wise, countless revelations — aboutLondon's fraternizing with Tokyo in1900-1933, Great Britain's Balkan in-volvement that sparked World War I,and the fostering of extremism in Ger-many and Italy to which we oweWorld War II - could await us in addi-tion to the story about Unthinkable.But silence is not necessarily a virtue,especially since the seeds of war havea tendency to retain vitality throughoutepochs.

Those prepared to analyze the courseof World War II on the systemic levelwould hardly find the story of Un-thinkable surprising. In 1941-1945,Churchill considered betraying Russia,formally an ally of Great Britain, morethan once. During the initial phase ofRussia's involvement in World War II,it was widely believed that Russia washopeless and Great Britain was eager

to partake in the process of redistribut-ing its possessions. Later Churchill be-came keenly interested in prolongingthe war with the goal of bleeding Rus-sia to the extent that it would not beable to secure a place for itself amongthe winners.

It is noteworthy how Churchill inter-preted the July 12, 1941 Soviet-Britishagreement. A couple of months afterits signing, the British Prime Ministerleft his government colleagues puz-zled by saying that a separate peacewas an open option. At the pivotal mo-ment of the war when the battle overMoscow was raging, Churchill choseto elaborate further: he said the publicstatements that negotiations withHitler were out of question did notmean the same applied to Germanytaken under control by its army, andthe form of governance in Germanyby the time it would be too weak to re-sist and would want to negotiate wasimpossible to predict. In October,1942, three weeks before the RedArmy launched a counter-attack atStalingrad, the British leader said theRussian barbarians should be stoppedas far east as possible. Obviously, themission was left to the German army.

London adhered to the strategy till thevery Nazi capitulation and — notwithout success — made efforts in1941-1944 to convince the US to actaccordingly. The cost of the Anglo-Saxon world's «flexible» approach toits obligations and of the gap betweenits proclamations and workings was at

least a 2-2.5 years prolongation of thewar in Europe and the loss of millionsof lives. Unthinkable stemmed natu-rally from the perfidy of the world's«democracies».

Let us depart from the chronologicalorder of events. Evidently due to thelack of supervision, a fragment of theprotocol on the military aspects of therelations with Russia, which summa-rized the talks held by the US andBritish leaders and the countries' high-ranking military officers in Quebec,became widely known. As it followsfrom the text, On August 20, 1943 theadmirals and generals discussedwhether Germany would help the USand British forces to land in its terri-tory to repel the Russians. In QuebecUS President Roosevelt and BritishPrime Minister Churchill approved theRankin plan — that of an alliance be-tween the Western democracies andthe Wehrmacht – aimed at arrestingthe Soviet Union's advancement to-wards East Europe somewhere at itsremote outskirts. The long-awaitedsecond front was thus to become dou-ble-edged. It should be noted for clar-ity that the Battle of Kursk — thebloodiest campaign over the entire his-tory which undermined the Nazi Ger-many's ability to put up furtherresistance — ended on August 23.

Why was July 1 set as the key date inUnthinkable? Judging by documentaryevidence, in the spring of 1945 the USand British projection-makers ex-pected the Wehrmacht to sustain re-

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sistance against the Red Army for atleast another six months. The plan wasto stage a coup in Germany during theperiod and thus to ensure the material-ization of the Rankin plan. Accordingto the scheme, the US and GreatBritain were to gain control over notonly Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yu-goslavia, Albania, and Greece, but alsoBulgaria, Romania, the Baltic re-publics, and Poland, and thus to estab-lish a barrier between the “Russianbarbarians” and the “shining heightsof democracy”.

One might ask: what is the point ofunearthing the stories of the Britishtreacherousness and mischief? A viewof the tragic past that lacks coherenceand breadth would make it impossibleto grasp the continuity of political doc-trines and historical developments.London and Washington are explain-ably reluctant to open unlimited accessto their archives. Constantly pledgingallegiance to their virtual democracy,they do have a lot to hide. Yet, thetruth about the actual roles played byvarious countries in the XX century —as well as those played currently - isimpossible to conceal.

A bold comparison would be appropri-ate in the context. An attempt can bemade to identify conceptual parallelsbetween World War I and World WarII, as well as between the respectiveCold Wars that followed them.

Great Britain's political course mightappear to hopelessly lack logic — to

the point of absurdity - to some, orpragmatic — to the point of downrightimmorality — to others. The impres-sion is, however, false in both cases.The fundamentals of the British strat-egy which used to exert a definitiveinfluence over the European and par-tially the global affairs until the mid-dle of the XX century originated froma single center, and in many caseswere authored by just one individual.War Secretary W. Churchill jointlywith Foreign Secretary E. Greyschemed to arrange for an armed con-flict between Germany and Austria onone side and Russia and Serbia on theother, which later evolved into a WorldWar. Churchill also masterminded theDardanelles Campaign (February,1915 — January, 1916) which wasaimed at blocking the Black Seastraits, while promising to RussianTsar Nicholas II that the decisionsconcerning the straits would be left toRussia. Moreover, Great Britain and— following the lead - France neverstopped seeking out opportunities toinfringe upon Russia's security in theregions adjacent to its borders. Ger-many was an enemy of Russia, and itsflirting with the separatist movementsin Georgia and the anti-Russian forcesin the Baltic region, Poland, Belarus,and Ukraine was explainable. How-ever, the truth is that the «democra-cies» were no less active makinginroads into the Caucasus and CentralAsia.

Another example is the fall of monar-

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chy in Russia. The abdication ofNicholas II from power was not re-garded as an alarming event by theWest. What really mattered to it wasthat Russian soldiers continued to sac-rifice their lives to the allied cause atthe Western front. For the West, thepolitical transformation in Russia wasperfectly acceptable — gone with theRussian Tsar were the allies' obliga-tions to St. Petersburg. Russia's sink-ing into chaos opened opportunities toaccomplish the Crimean War-era ob-jectives in Europe and Asia. The Octo-ber, 1917 Revolution in Russia, fromthis standpoint, provided a timely pre-text for recasting the West's ordinaryimperial aspirations into a disguisedform of a protective mission under-taken in the name of saving the Euro-pean civilization from communism.

French President G. Clemenceau andBritish War Secretary W. Churchillwere the first to anathematize the post-imperial communist Russia. The latterdemanded to tame the revolution bywar and to insulate West Europe fromSoviet Russia with a barrier of coun-tries vehemently hating Bolshevism.The Entente Supreme Council decidedto launch an intervention in Russia,and a convention on dividing thecountry into spheres of influence wasconfirmed on December 23. GreatBritain was to exercise control overthe Caucasus, the Cossack provincesin the Kuban and the Don regions, andthe Caspian zone. France was to su-pervise Belarus, Ukraine, and the

Crimea. The US, formally not a partyto the deal, did get a license forSiberia and the Far East.

Also in December, the Anglo-Saxonsgot in touch with Austria over creatinga bloc comprising the Entente and theQuadruple Union (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey) at theexpense of Russia and against it. Thismust have been the “democracies'” re-sponse to Russia's November, 21,1917 call for peace. In the meantime,Soviet attempts to convince neutralcountries to act as mediators producedno result.

St. Petersburg warned that in case theEntente's de facto boycott made it im-possible to reach an agreement on thepost-war configuration, Russia wouldhave to act independently. The Sovietshad no intention to hurt the interests ofRussia's former allies, though. At theBrest-Litovsk negotiations betweenGermany and Russia, which openedon December 3, Soviet delegates es-tablished as one of the truce condi-tions that German forced disengagedat the Eastern front would not be dis-patched to the Western one.

Having endured all the hardships ofthe XX century, we realize that re-liance on decency and common senseat the final phases of both World Warswas a tribute to illusory hopes. Neitherthe lengthy odes to peace contained inthe Charter of the League of Nationsand that of the UN nor the legacy ofvarious dreamers (post-Versailles

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Briand and post-Yalta Roosevelt weregroundlessly counted as such) definedthe world's subsequent trajectory. AMay 19, 1945 US Department of Statememo said that if there was anythingtruly inevitable, it was a war betweenthe US and Russia, which thus had tobe started as soon as possible. In 1946,the Truman Administration decided ir-reversibly — for itself and others alike— that the very existence of the SovietUnion was incompatible with the USsecurity regardless of the contours ofRussia's current politics, and headedfor new rounds of hellish adventurism.

Why was the imperialist establishmentso outraged by the change of the so-cioeconomic system in a particularcountry? The Soviets called for a fairpeace without annexations and contri-butions, for curbing militarism, andfor recognizing the right of all nations— large and small alike — to self-de-termination and free cooperation withothers. The decrees on the nationaliza-tion of internationally held assets andon the state monopoly in internationaltrade were passed much later. The so-cial transition in Russia did not yet de-generate into fratricide. The electionof a new Patriarch by the church twocenturies since the elimination of pa-triarchy as an institution by Peter Iseemed to promise harmonization ofthe secular and religious sides of lifein the country. Due to obvious re-source limitations, Russia's foreignpolitics could not be expected to takean aggressive turn. Its army was dis-

banded, and workers and peasantswere returning to their fields and fac-tories.

Lloyd George and W. Wilson must becredited with attempting to cool thethe ardor of G. Clemenceau, F. Foch,R. Lansing, and W. Churchill. TheBritish Prime Minister told his part-ners that, however upsetting the factmight appear to them, the Bolsheviksevidently led the majority of the popu-lation, and the truth could no be ig-nored. The US President expresseddoubts that the US and British troopswould be successful in Russia, citingthe population's fears to see the inter-vention reinstate the hated old order ofthings, which only strengthened thepositions of the Bolsheviks.

In late January, 1919 Wilson suggestedthat the alliance open negotiationswith V.I. Lenin, but the idea met withClemenceau's resistance. Nevertheless,the US President addressed all thewarring factions in Russia with a callto delegate their representatives to aconference charged with the task ofpacifying the country. The Soviet ofPeople's Commissars said it was readyto open talks with the Entente and rep-resentatives of the White Movementimmediately, but the Whites refused toparticipate. The conference which wasto convene at the Princes’ Islandsnever took place as the result.

In March, 1919, member of the USdelegation to the Paris Peace Confer-ence William Bullitt arrived at

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Moscow with the blessing of Wilsonand Lloyd George. His talks with V.I.Lenin and G.V. Chicherin produced asettlement plan which — along withcomplete freeze of armed hostilitiesacross the country — called for apeace discussion based on the follow-ing principles: all de facto govern-ments on the territory of the RussianEmpire and Finland were to be pre-served and had to recognize the finan-cial obligations of the former Empireto other countries and their nationals;the economic blockade of Russia wasto be lifted; the Soviet Republic andother countries were to exchange en-voys; and amnesty was to be grantedto all political prisoners. The Sovietside insisted on two additional provi-sions: one requiring an immediatewithdrawal of foreign forces fromRussia and another — the terminationof financial assistance to anti-Sovietmovements. Bullitt's mission was dis-avowed by Paris. Wilson imposed aban on publishing the text of theagreement reached, and Lloyd Georgedenied having anything to do with thetalks.

Were the maneuvers of Wilson andLloyd George attributable to themuch-touted idealism and realism thatdid prevail to a limited extent overstaunch conservatism or to the hope tosense an alternative way of partition-ing Russia, this time by temporarilycharging various «field commanders»with running parts of its territory?Chances are we will never know as

some thoughts were never recorded onpaper.

The 1917 Revolution's program ofstopping violence, liberating nations,and making social and inter-ethnic jus-tice the basis of the coexistence ofpeoples was perceived by the West asa «barbarian challenge» capable ofspreading like a pandemic. Discus-sions over the reaction of the “democ-racies'” invariably ended with thesame demand to extinguish the heresy,preferably along with its carrier, thatis, Russia. Clemenceau wanted «a san-itary cordon» to curb the «disease».Enemies of the enemy were readilyembraced as friends — a patternwhich re-emerged in 1941-1945.

In 1917-1919, the policies of the En-tente and Germany with respect toRussia complemented each other. For-mer antagonists were equally inter-ested in the disintegration of Russia.In any case, “the democracies” voicedno concerns over the territorial in-tegrity of their nominal ally when —during the run-up to the October, 1917Revolution — Germany involvedPoland and the Baltic countries incarving pieces out of Russia. Steppingover Russia's national interests be-came the norm after the 1917 Revolu-tion in St. Petersburg. The oversizedGerman ambitions, the British arro-gance, and the French eagerness toavenge the 1870-1871 defeat led theotherwise diverging forces to act inconcert. There is an obvious analogybetween the situation and «the democ-

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racies»' failed attempts to secure a dealwith «the better brand of Germans”during World War II1.

Berlin's claims to territories it had noright to are reflected in the records ofthe Brest talks. The sketches left bythe “proponents of a better future forRussia” are not so well-known. Thepeace program (known as the FourteenPoints) submitted by W. Wilson to theUS Congress on January 8, 1918 rec-ognized Russia's right to independentpolitics and original forms of develop-ment (point 6). The comments madeby Colonel E.M. House, a co-author ofthe program, leave no doubts as tohow the realization of the right was ac-tually perceived by the US Adminis-tration. The partition of the formerEmpire and the creation of a numberof dependent countries was seen as theoptimal solution to the Russian prob-lem, a patronage over “the democraticforces” — clearly, not the Soviets —being the way to promote it.

The US Department of State suppliedto its Paris Conference delegation amap showing Russia in its «tailored»borders. Moscow was entitled to retainCentral Russian Upland but was tolose the Baltic region, Belarus,Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia,and Siberia. Wilson, House, and Lans-ing thus authored the first (unfortu-nately, not the last) US guidelinesclearly indicating that Washingtonwanted Russia proper to shrink in theinterests of the US primacy.

At the early phase of the process, thework was to be done mainly with thehands of soldiers for hire armed andfinancially supported by «the democ-racies». On December 10, 1917 USSecretary of State Lansing recom-mended in a memo submitted to W.Wilson installing a military dictator-ship in Russia. The US President's in-struction was to immediately andsecretly make support available toKaledin's movement, and to blameeverything on Great Britain andFrance — the countries known to haveurged the Cossacks to fight the Soviets- in case any information about thetransactions surfaced.

In addition to Kaledin, Dutov, andother Cossack leaders, the Westcourted Russian army chief com-mander Dukhonin, Gens. Alekseevand Shcherbachev (the latter com-manded joint Russian-Romanianforces), and Polish Officers Corpsleader Jozef Dowbor-Musnicki. A lotwas also expected by Western powersfrom the Ukrainian Rada, which com-bined the benefits of the Western spon-sorship with the support it extractedfrom Germany.

The only principle upheld by the mot-ley bunch was that whoever was thestrongest was right, thus proving M.Weber's concept that civilized sav-agery is the worst form of savageryever. Examples illustrate the synchro-nization of activities within this com-munity of haters of Russia.

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The annexation-oriented endeavorstargeting Russia's periphery werementioned above. Attempts to seizethe territories of Russia proper fol-lowed shortly. On February 18, 1918Germany launched an offensive alongthe entire front line from the Baltic tothe Black Sea. The aggression contin-ued despite the ratification of the BrestPeace Agreement (March 15, 1918) bythe Fourth Congress of the Soviets. St.Petersburg asked Washington whetherRussia could count on the support ofthe US, Great Britain, and France incase German activity continued. At thesame time, Russia probed into the re-action of its former allies to Japan'splans (OKed by Berlin) to seize Vladi-vostok and the Chinese East Railroad.All of Russia's appeals remained unan-swered. France did check whether theUS would provide any assistance toRussia to help to fight Germany. Lans-ing wrote that there was absolutelynothing to discuss.

The logic of the Entente was that themore troubles Russia ran into the moreintense pressure on it had to be ex-erted. London was bracing for an in-tervention into Russia's northernregions, and Washington was aware ofthe intention. Sadly, Murmansk SovietChairman Yur'ev was helping to putthe plan into practice. Instructed byTrotsky he entered into an «oral agree-ment» with Great Britain about thelanding of the «friendly» foreignforces in Murmansk. To make thingsmore serious, “the democrats” were

also going to dispatch 15,000 soldiersto Arkhangelsk. The German attack atthe western front forced Great Britainand France to suspend the operation.Nevertheless, already on June 3 theEntente Council decided to invade theKola Peninsula and the region of themouth of the Northern Dvina. British(28,000), US, French, and Italian (over13,000) soldiers were to fulfill themission.

The March-June lull was marked withencouraging Japan to occupy the So-viet Far East. On April 5, 1918 theJapanese army took Vladivostok. TheUS and Great Britain promptly putclaims to a share of the region's exten-sive resources. The Soviet govern-ment's protests were of courseignored. But that was not all yet. OnMarch 16, a day after the ratificationof the the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, USambassador to Russia Francis calledthe counter-revolutionary forces tojointly overthrow the Soviet rule. Theywere promised immediate assistance,predictably for fighting Germany.Who was to become the winner andwho — the loser?

Let us take a look at the ArmisticeTreaty signed in the Compiègne For-est. Historians routinely pay no atten-tion to its clauses which reflected thewinners' plans to convert Germanyinto a bastion against the Russian Bol-shevism (the thesis belonged to BritishSecretary of War Lord Milner). Ger-man forces were to be withdrawn fromall areas in France, Belgium, Austria-

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Hungary, Romania, Turkey, and EastAfrica, as well as from Alsace andLorraine and the left bank of the RhineRiver. Yet, they were supposed toleave Russia only when the allies de-cided based on an assessment of thesituation in the country that it wastime to. In the meantime the allieswere given unobstructed access toRussia's German-occupied territoriesto be able to verify German compli-ance with their instructions.

Let us compare the Brest and theArmistice (Compiègne) agreements. Itis hard to say which was more offen-sive from Russia's standpoint, but onething is clear: despite his efforts totake a role in the game against Russia,German minister Matthias Erzbergeralso failed to negotiate decent termsfor his country. Berlin did, however,manage to put Finland, Lithuania,Latvia, and Estonia on the anti-Soviettrack. Germany was tolerated only aslong as it helped to an extent to isolateRussia from Europe — the WeimarRepublic did its best to remain mod-est.

Finally the Entente mastermindedAvalov's campaign against St. Peters-burg. The German forces stationed inthe Baltic region in accord with Article433 of the Versailles Treaty were of-fered a central role in the venture, butBerlin found the courage to refuse toparticipate. As a punishment, Germanforces were thrown out of Lithuania,Latvia, and Estonia. The «democra-cies»' disappointment with the Weimar

Republic became almost irreversiblein April, 1922. The Rapallo Treatybroke the isolation of Soviet Russia.Moreover, it openly and clearly cast ina legal form the philosophy of the So-viets' October, 1917 Decree on Peacewhich called for coexistence of coun-tries without privileges.

To Washington, London, and Paris,what Germany had done was sacri-lege. Enormous sums of money werespent and so many lives — sacrificedto do away with Russia. Overall, some320,000 — 330,000 Entente soldiersbesieged Russia in 1922. The interven-tion forces in the Far East countedover 150,000 soldiers, plus some130,000 in the Caucasus and over40,000 — in Russia's northern regions.The forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary in Belarus and Ukraine in thespring of 1918 — winter of 1919 num-bered almost one million. On top ofother concerns, the West's prestige suf-fered a severe blow.

The story of Poland deserves particu-lar attention. Restored on the day ofthe German capitulation in Com-piègne, the country led by Pilsudskiimmediately earned the reputation of aEuropean trouble-maker. The encour-agement of the Polish extremism bythe «democracies» had cost Lithuaniathe Vilnius region and Germany — thecoal-rich Upper Silesia. Importantly,both episodes constituted milestonesin the demise of the configuration de-fined by the Versailles, but let us focuson how the West worked to turn

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Poland's rusty spears against its per-petual foe — Russia.

The West altogether launched three in-terventions against the Soviet Repub-lic. During the first one, the mainforce was the army led by Kolchakwho was — with Washington's bless-ing — proclaimed «the supreme rulerof Russia». The campaign was a spec-tacular failure. The second interven-tion, which Churchill called anexpedition of 14 powers, continuedfrom July, 1919 till February, 1920.The key role was given to Gen.Denikin. He was to be supported bythe countries bordering Russia, butPoland happened to be the only one toexpress enthusiasm. Again, the ven-ture produced no results. During thethird attack, which took place in April-November, 1920, the main force wasthe Polish army jointly with Wrangel'sWhite Army.

Even prior to the declaration ofPoland's independence a Paris-based«Polish National Committee» handedover to its patrons a memorandum de-manding control over Kamenetsk-Podolsk, Brest-Litovsk, and Kovno(Kaunas) for Gen. Galler's army whichwas being urgently formed in France.The document stated that the occupa-tion would ensure the security ofPoland's eastern frontier and provide abase for the allies' future operations inRussia.

When the bid was under the examina-tion of the allies, French foreign min-

ister Pichon suggested playing abroader game and setting the bordersthe Polish Kingdom had prior to itsfirst partition in 1772 as the basis forthe future territorial arrangement. De-spite the US and British objections —the two countries generally espousedthe idea of ethnicity-based borders —French President Clemenceau pushedfor a 1772 Poland, the legacy ofNapoleon's epoch. The dispute endedwith the worst possible option — thequestion about Poland's eastern fron-tier — and, consequently, Russia'swestern one — was left open.

Due to pragmatic regards, the “democ-racies” were forced to draw the Cur-zon Line (December 12, 1919) whichwas to guarantee the future of thenewly independent Ukraine and Be-larus.

When Denikin lost, the US and Franceresorted to the reserve called Poland,simply because of having no better op-tions at their disposal. PreparingPoland for the role began in the springof 1919 when the US, Great Britain,and France supplied 1,500 canons and10 mln shells, 2,800 machine-guns,400,000 rifles, 576 mln cartridges,some 700 planes2, 200 armored vehi-cles, cars, communications equipment,medications, and 3 mln sets of uni-form to the Polish army. Interestingly,the arsenals of the defeated Germanywere used to arm «the free Poland».Warsaw got 1,200 machine-guns, 360canons for 30 heavy artillery divi-sions, and 1,100 canons for 63 field

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artillery divisions from German stock-piles.

Guidelines for the Polish offensivewere mostly developed by French mil-itary planners. Galler's army of 70,000received hands-on training during theseizure of Mensk on August 8, 1919and in numerous border incidents. Thecreeping aggression escalated in thesummer of 1919, but officially April25, 1920 is regarded as the startingdate of the Soviet-Polish war. On theday, Pilsudski declared “the restorationof Poland's historical borders”. OnMay 7, 1920 the Polish army seizedKyiv. Pilsudski was dreaming of a pa-rade in Moscow.

Red Army's counterstrike forced thePolish army to flee, and Pilsudski'shope never came true. The Polish ag-gression was accompanied by violenceagainst the civilian population, espe-cially in the Jewish settlements in Be-larus and Ukraine3. Later Polandbecame notorious for the inhumantreatment of POWs.

«Democracies» did all they could —from threatening Moscow with a newintervention to attempts to «appease»it - to save their puppet. While GreatBritain was distracting Moscow withtalks about setting the Curzon Line asthe border between Russia and Polandin case the Red Army would not goany further, France acted assertively.Paris organized massive supply ofweapons and munitions to the Polisharmy via Germany, and French offi-

cers practically took over as its com-manders. The result was “the Vistulamiracle” when the Russian forces hadto roll back to their starting positions.

Marshal F. Foch, the author of the«miracle», urged the Western politicalestablishment to mobilize an army of 2mln to fight Russia. The plan was tosynchronize the West's offensive withthe Japanese onslaught in the east. Itfactored into the situation that at thetime Japan retained control over exten-sive Russian territories in the Far East.Frightened, the Soviet leadershipagreed to sign the March 18, 1921peace treaty in Riga which leftUkraine and Belarus ruthlessly parti-tioned for over 18 years.

“The Vistula miracle” which Pilsudskiowed to France became his guidingstar for years to come. In May, 1926he became Poland's de facto dictator«accountable only to God and his-tory». The Polish leader's emotionalswings were endless. He demanded torecognize Poland's great power statusequal to that of Great Britain andFrance as well as its right of veto inEast European if not in Central Euro-pean affairs. Poland's ambitions com-plicated the situation at the 1925Locarno Conference which furthercontributed to the ills of the configura-tion which had been created by theVersailles Treaty and was to ensureprosperity in the West and freedom forpolitical and military adventurism inthe east.

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French Foreign Minister A. Briand didmake an attempt to advocate the invio-lability of the established Europeanborders but promptly dropped thetheme at the face of the German andBritish disapproval. Quasi-compro-mises were somehow reached con-cerning Germany's borders withPoland and with Czechoslovakia. Itwas proposed to submit the correspon-ding disputes for arbitration, whileLithuania and the Soviet Union werenot found to deserve even such honor.The Weimar Republic's chief diplomatG. Stresemann voiced the conclusionthat the cornerstone of the Versaillessystem had been blown up in Locarno.He hoped Germany would “regain”territories in the east in addition torestoring Germany's sovereignty overthe Rhine province.

British Foreign Office chief N. Cham-berlain was a lot more far-sighted. Hediscerned in the set of the LocarnoTreaties the contours of a new «hollyalliance» within which Germanywould serve as the bastion of the Eu-ropean civilization. At the same time,Lord Balfour introduced the term«appeasement».

Poland was highly sensitive to theBritish call for anti-Russian solidarity.The Locarno Conference demon-strated that — as many had already re-alized — the Grand Entente was amatter of the past and the Little En-tente was experiencing serious diffi-culties. Alternative military-politicalcombinations were emerging, and

Warsaw had to be alert to make theright choice in the process of lookingfor a new patron. Was it going to beLondon or the increasingly assertiveBerlin? Pilsudski made up his mind inthe late 1933-early 1934.

In April, 1927 A. Briand who waslooking for a way to give the reputa-tion of France a face lift proposed tooutlaw wars and to codify the «peaceforever» concept in a treaty betweenFrance and the US. Washington in-sisted on making the agreement multi-lateral. On August 27, 1928 theKellogg–Briand Pact (also called thePact of Paris) was signed by 15 coun-tries.

Moscow was not allowed to take partin editing the text of the Pact. G.V.Chicherin said this was indicative ofthe plan to create a new instrument forthe isolation of the USSR and thestruggle against it. No doubt, he hadserious reasons for the assessment.

Great Britain and, of course, Polandopposed the Soviet Union's joining thePact, alleging that condemning warand rejecting it as an instrument of in-ternational politics could not be madeuniversal and applicable in the casesof countries lacking broad recognitionand unable to ensure order and secu-rity on their territories. France was un-decided, but the US favored invitingthe USSR to join. The eventual com-promise was that there would be noSoviet envoy at the signing ceremony,but on the signing date the French Em-

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bassy in Moscow would offer the So-viet Union to join the Pact.

In the longer run, the Kellogg–BriandPact was joined by 63 countries, butthe breadth of the consensus could notoffset the treaties' fundamental short-comings. Essentially, what the interna-tional community got at the outlet ofthe process was a declaration of inten-tions. Being aware of the fact, Briandshortly thereafter suggested establish-ing a federative European Union (akinto what much later materialized in theform of the OCSE) as a permanent in-stitution with executive powers. TheFrench politician expected it to under-take the task of resolving social con-flicts, preventing revolutionaryoutbreaks, and overcoming economichardships based on the functioning ofthe free market. Great Britain andSpain opposed the idea, and theWeimar Republic set the universalequality as a precondition for its in-volvement.

When the authors of the LocarnoTreaties - A. Briand, N. Chamberlain,and G. Stresemann were awarded theNobel Prize for Peace, in fact a de-layed-action mine was presented as aguarantee of the future security. Essen-tially, nothing changed, and the greatpowers remained obsessed with theidea of suppressing on the worldwidescale the heresy of Bolshevism, whilethe latter term was used indiscrimi-nately.

Readers can easily guess what connec-

tion existed between the pledges togive Germany back the control overterritories in the east, London's sever-ing the diplomatic relations withMoscow in 1927, and Great Britain'sattempts to put together a new anti-So-viet alliance comprising Germany,France, Poland, Japan, and the US.“Democracies” turned the disarma-ment talks in Geneva into a waste oftime, and neutralized any effortsaimed at arresting the negative dynam-ics generated by the Locarno Treaties.

It must be clear in the context howoutraged the «civilizers» had to be bythe signing of the Soviet-German Neu-trality Pact on April 24, 1926. Accord-ing to the agreement, (1) the relationsbetween the two countries had to bebased on the Rapallo Treaty; (2) eitherof the sides was to remain neutral incase the other came under an unpro-voked attack; and (3) neither of thetwo countries would join any coali-tions pursuing the objective of the eco-nomic and financial isolation of theother.

Furthermore, earlier than the Kellogg–Briand Pact was ratified Moscowmanaged to convince the Baltic Re-publics, Romania, and even Poland tosign the so-called Litvinov Protocolestablishing that war was not a methodof resolving international disputes.Subsequently the USSR reachedagreements with Lithuania, Czecho-slovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, andTurkey on the definition of what con-stituted «an aggression».

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At the same time, Great Britain wasreiterating that as an empire it couldnot possibly be aggressive.

The above Soviet politics was an inte-gral element of the implementation ofthe Soviet Union's program of creatinga system of indivisible internationalsecurity. The gap between the buildupof arsenals and the state of the clearlyinsufficient international regulationwas widening ominously. The end ofWorld War I did not lessen the threatposed by militarism whose manifesta-tions were not limited to subversiveactivity and raids targeting the USSR.The next global redistribution thatloomed ahead could not be describedas an opposition between the twocamps — of those who won and thosewho lost World War I — or in terms ofroutine civilizational rhetoric. Theprocess clearly had a profound geopo-litical dimension.

Germany in its Weimar edition had nointention to cater to the tastes of theexemplary «democracies». Wheneverit got a chance to and occasionallywith serious success, it skilfully ex-ploited the weaknesses of those whosaw themselves as global teachers.The 1922 Treaty of Rapallo and the1926 Treaty of Berlin can be cited asinstances of the practice. Besides,London, Paris, and Washington had toview with some concern the instabilityof Germany's leadership - the countryheld 14 parliamentary elections over14 years (twice the normal number ac-cording to the German constitution)

and had been led by 14 Chancellors.There was no certainty as to which po-litical force in Germany to invest in,and it took a firm hand to suppress thechaos.

The US was eying the Nazi already in1922. T. Smith, an aide to the US mili-tary attache, mentioned the Nazileader's bravado in his report - the fu-ture Fuhrer indicated that instead ofwaiting to clash with communists theWest could charge him and hisbrethren with the mission to rid theworld of them. Washington listened at-tentively, and soon the Nazi started toreceive funding from the US in addi-tion to that from sources in Switzer-land. E. Hanfstaengl was introduced toHitler's inner circle to make sure themoney was not wasted. A son of aGerman father and an Americanmother and a Harvard graduate, hewas no stranger to the US centers ofpolitical decision-making. After WorldWar I Hanfstaengl returned to Ger-many and started establishing connec-tions among the Munich aristocracyand cultural elite. Subsequently hehelped the Nazi to make it to the par-lors of his acquaintances.

The cultivation of Hitler, which wasHanfstaengl's job, was not fruitless.The process was to an extent de-scribed in Mein Kampf written by theNazi leader in 1924. The Americanfriend's money helped to turn the ob-scure Völkischer Beobachter into a na-tional-level Nazi party outlet.Hanfstaengl was generously rewarded

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for his service — he became theparty's foreign press-secretary and thechief of the foreign press departmentin the headquarters of Hitler's deputy.Hanfstaengl organized Hitler's meetingwith the Churchills some six monthsbefore his boss became the GermanChancellor4.

Hanfstaengl fled Germany in 1937. Alegend says he was worried over hissafety and simply chose to disappear.Or had Hitler changed his courseagainst the will of those who were di-recting him – did a former friend turna foe? Or did the Center decide thatHanfstaengl's mission had been ac-complished? Serious conclusions stemfrom the fact that at the final phase ofhis career Roosevelt's university peerHanfstaengl served as an adviser to theUS President.

Let us draw the intermediate bottom-line. It was not all of a sudden and notwithout serious financial support thatthe Nazi movement rose in Germanyand its leader ascended to power in thecountry. The fact that the Weimar Re-public sank into oblivion and its placewas taken by the Third Reich cannotbe explained solely by the public dis-content with the weak rule of the Ger-man oligarchic capital and aristocraticoffshoots or by the global financialcrisis.

The late 1920ies were marked withgrowing tensions. «The breath of thecoming war is felt everywhere», saidthe declaration presented by the Soviet

delegation at the meeting of theLeague of Nations' preparatory com-mission on disarmament on November30, 1927.

British conservatives and the US ad-ministration were arranging for an on-slaught on Soviet Russia. France,Germany, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Ro-mania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and rem-nants of the Denikin, Wrangel, andCossack forces were supposed to getinvolved in it in the west, and Japanjointly with Chiang Kai-shek - in theeast.

The plan was undercut by the dis-agreements in the ranks of imperialpowers. London severed the diplo-matic relations with Moscow, butCanada was the only country to do thesame. Germany was gladly acceptingpayments for the job to be done in thefuture. By 1930 Germany managed toattract some $28-30 bn in foreign in-vestments to rebuild and modernize itseconomy, and poured a considerablepart of the amount into its military-in-dustrial sector. However, the new gen-eration of Germans was not going toallow to exploit itself, as the story ofthe US-instigated seizure of theKVZhD (The Chinese Eastern Rail-way) in 1928 clearly showed. Detailsof the event will be discussed below.

The unprecedentedly severe economiccrisis which erupted in the late 1929rocked the foundations of the entireimperialist system. Washington, Lon-don, and Paris attempted to overcome

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problems by sacrificing other nationsto predators. The US found itself at theepicenter of the crisis and saw its in-dustrial output drop by 46.2% and theGDP - shrink by a factor of two. Over17 million people in the US lost theirjobs. The industrial output shrank by40.6% in Germany, 36.7% in Japan,and roughly a third in France. Thenumbers of unemployed grew by 7.5mln in Germany and about 3 mln inJapan. Great Britain was affected bythe crisis to a lesser extent - its indus-trial output decreased by a quarter.

The developments in the global poli-tics were also taking a threateningturn. For the first time since the CivilWar, the US saw its political systemjeopardized. Conspirators simplylacked accord to realize their plans —otherwise the White House could besubdued by the military, and the globalconsequences of the coup could be un-predictable.

Interestingly, the crisis was attributedto Moscow's intrigues and to Sovietdamping made possible by the ex-ploitation of forced labor in the USSR.Vatican called for a crusade againstthe Soviet Union under the pretext thatreligion was persecuted by the com-munist regime. A military dictatorshipin the US, if it inherited Hoover'stechniques, would have probably at-tacked right away, causing the satel-lites of the US to recklessly join theoffensive. The plan of partitioningRussia was developed in detail underthe Hoover Administration.

Let us return to the KVZhD (the Chi-nese Eastern Railway) story. The partof the drama that unfolded behind thecurtain really deserves attention.Washington and London instigated theseizure of the railroad and the arrest ofthe Soviet personnel by Chiang Kai-shek. The US intended to bail out therailroad after its being operated forsome time by «a neutral commission»and to create a foothold along the2,500 km-long Soviet border (Stim-son's plan). Japan, though, decidedthat the US was going to rip the bene-fits of it efforts. Since the late XIXcentury Tokyo strove to turn Chinainto a sphere of its exclusive influ-ence.

Stimson's plan thus clashed withTanaka's one. The latter was imple-mented in 1931. Later US Secretary ofState Stimson knowledgeably trackedthe evolution that led to World War IIfrom the railroad near Mukden.

Great Britain had no objections to a“neutral” control over the railroadtaken away from the Soviets. The ap-proach was typically British: agree-ment in a form combined with therejection of the essence.

London preferred to see Japanstrengthen its positions rather than seethe US gain a foothold in the region. Itshould be noted that the rivalry be-tween Great Britain and the US wasthe key factor in international politicsin 1939-1940. This rivalry evolvedinto a downright conflict during the

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crisis. Great Britain managed to out-race the US in international trade andto curb the US influence in Europeand the Middle Est.

Due to economic and other regards,Berlin tended to avoid damaging itsrelations with the USSR. At the sametime, Germany made it clear thatunder any circumstances it would ad-here to its strategy aimed at regainingthe global power status and, among itsother benefits, at securing access to theAsian periphery as an equal. Chancel-lors H. Muller (1928-1930), and H.Bruning (1930-1932) who hoped tocombine Germany's growing aspira-tions with an acceptable internationalstatus were already giving way to vonPapen, Ludendorff, and Hitler. Chan-cellor Schleicher (1932-1933) wasplaying into the hands of the abovethree politicians who needed no argu-ments to get involved in banishing thenew heresy and its carrier — that is,communism and Russia, the countrywhich by its very existence createdproblems for the nations believing intheir manifest destiny.

Chamberlain proclaimed that makingRussia disappear was necessary forGreat Britain's survival. Lord Lloyd,an insider of the circle which gener-ated Great Britain's political doctrines,described their essence as diverting theaggressiveness of Germany and Japanfrom Great Britain and making theUSSR face a permanent threat. He saidGreat Britain would give Japan fullfreedom of maneuver in acting against

the USSR, let it expand the border be-tween Korea and Manchuria to theArctic Ocean, and let it annex the east-ern part of Siberia. As for Germany,the plan was to let it expand to theeast.

Lloyd said the above in 1934, and thestatement requires substantial correc-tions. By the time Japan de facto hadthe freedom of maneuver, and the roadto the east was open to Germany, Lon-don and Washington competed incourting actual and potential aggres-sors. German foreign minister G. Stre-semann said that nowhere did thepolitics of Berlin in the post-Versaillesperiod find as much understanding asin the US.

What was the ideological essence ofGermany's «renovated» politics in themid-1920ies? Nazi politics differedfrom that of the respectable grands byits deliberately radical appeal. «Ger-many cannot realize its potentialwithin the four walls of the the Reich»- contrary to what you might expect,the phrase does not belong to Hitler.Its author was Minister of Justice E.Koch-Weser. President of the Reichs-bank and chief Nazi financier J.Schacht also demanded the return ofGermany's former colonies. The Ober-burgermeister of Cologne K. Adenauerwrote that the Reich was too small forits population and the German nationneeded more space and, consequently,needed colonies.

What earned the US G. Stresemann's

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gratitude? Most of the credits ex-tended to Germany — legally or se-cretly — came from overseas. It wasthanks to Washington's efforts that theReich got rid of the burden of repara-tions. This was the objective ofDawes's (1924) and Young's (1928)plans, as well as of Hoover's morato-rium (1932). «The sinews of war areinfinite money» - it does not matterwhether Hoover and the Secretaries ofState in his Administration knew thisphrase, which was attributed to Cic-ero. Clearly, they acted in accord withthe wisdom. To endure the crusade,the horse needed good horse-shoesand a decisive and fearless rider5.

It is unlikely that the US Administra-tion will admit researchers to the doc-uments the US confiscated at Hitler'slast headquarters in Thuringia. Thematerials showing how and whymankind ended up being confrontedwith the nightmare of World War IIcan be a source of major embarrass-ment to Washington. A lot can belearned from them about the US flirtwith the Nazi in 1922 and on, as wellas about the reasons due to whichWashington — in the settings of aglobal economic crisis — was helpingHitler become German Chancellor.

These days a knowledgeable scholarwould hardly have any doubts that vis-ibly or implicitly US envoys had to beamong those who attended the meet-ing in Cologne, organized by bankerSchroeder, during which control overGermany was handed over to the Na-

tional Socialist German Workers'Party. Was Hanfstaengl around?Someone had the impression that J.F.Dulles was spotted on premises. Thiscould be explainable — he worked forthe law firm co—owned bySchroeder's father who settled down inthe US before World War I and be-came an influential figure in the Amer-ican financial world.

In the future, researches will find outwho played the leading role in dis-mantling the Weimar Republic — USoligarchs jointly with their Germanpeers or the US government. In anycase, those who fostered Hitler clearlyhad to be fully aware that there wouldbe a war at the end of the road.

Why was it that the fundamental tran-sition in Germany's development tookplace in 1931-1932 and «the cherrytrees started to bloom» in Japan at thetime?6

A record of the July 7, 1931 govern-ment meeting in Tokyo said that thefulfillment of the five-year plan in theUSSR presented a serious threat toJapan and stated that as a result the«problem of Mongolia andManchuria» had to be addressed ur-gently.

In Germany, the Nazi garnered 37.4%of the vote in the 1932 elections.Schleicher, in collusion with Hitler,disbanded the parliament shortlythereafter, expecting that the NaziParty would win the race during thesnap elections to be held amidst the

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devastating crisis. Instead, some 2 mlnvoters turned away from Hitler's partyon November 6, 1932 as the politicalpreferences of the population wererapidly drifting towards the left. OnNovember 19, 1932 owners of over160 major German banks and manu-facturing companies responded to thesituation by submitting a memoran-dum to President Hindenburg in whichthey recommended to institute «a dic-tatorial government» with Hitler as itshead.

Reactionary forces in Europe and theUS were alarmed by the outcome ofthe November, 1932 elections in theUS. Extreme rightist H. Hoover lostthe presidential race to F. Rooseveltwho promised a new course in the do-mestic and foreign politics. What wasgoing to be new? Roosevelt's oppo-nents felt they had to get their jobdone urgently and make the new USPresident face accomplished facts. Theprocesses in Asia were already evolv-ing in the «desired» direction, and Eu-rope's turn was coming.

On September 18, 1931 Tokyo wrotethe first line in the history of WorldWar II. A Japanese force numberingjust 14,000 soldiers attacked the bar-racks of the Chinese army in Mukden.Launching the mission, Japan thusprobed into the situation, and the con-clusions it drew were optimistic. Chi-ang Kai-shek ordered the army not toresist and asked the population toavoid panic and to exercise restraint.

Japan's forecasts concerning the reac-tion of the US, Great Britain, andFrance proved absolutely adequate —the countries were not going to takeany practical steps to help China andonly called (both sides, oddly enough)to abide by the Charter of the Leagueof Nations, the Kellogg–Briand Pact,and the Nine-Power Treaty7.

As a parallel process, various «com-missions» were established whichbowed to Tokyo and twisted the armsof Nanjing. Efforts were made to com-pel China to recognize Japan's «spe-cial rights» in north-east Chinaconsidering the threat that emanatedfrom the border of north Manchuria.Moreover, the rights were to be recog-nized gratefully as Japan was thushelping Chiang Kai-shek's regimefight the «Red peril».

Actually, “the Nine-Power Treaty”came to the minds of the “democra-cies” only after Japan attacked a sub-urb of Shanghai on January 28, 1932.Washington proposed to declare theregion adjacent to Shanghai, where USmonopolies had vested interests, aneutral zone. Tokyo rejected “the com-promise”.

Great Britain advocated the Japanesecause in the League of Nations. Whenthe Litton report (published in Octo-ber, 1932) was discussed, Britain'sForeign Secretary Simon brushed offall charges against Japan. As long asthe Japanese aggression did not spreadtoo far to the south, Japan could rely

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on Great Britain for protection indiplomatic affairs. The 1902 Anglo-Japanese Treaty, which mainly tar-geted Russia, expired in 1921, but itsspirit lived on past the date. As dis-cussed below, its echo was going to beheard more than once in the future.

Looking at the global developmentsbeyond the narrowly national perspec-tive one would easily identify the Ger-man and Italian borrowings from theJapanese experience. There was thesame tendency to benefit from the dis-cord in the ranks of great powers andfrom their readiness to sacrifice the in-terests of others, the same League ofNations boycott, and the same invoca-tions of the ghostly threat posed by theleft. The “civilizers” hid behind thetalk about non-intervention when fas-cists destroyed the Republic in Spainwhile an embargo was imposed on thesupply of military aid to the republi-cans. In contrast, Japan had no prob-lems buying arms from the US andGreat Britain in the process of its in-cursion into China.

A lengthy examination of Tokyo's pol-itics in the XX century should illumi-nate the interconnections betweenvarious phenomena, especially sincethe key roles on the European and theFar Eastern political scenes were inmany cases played by the same actors.Unfortunately, a lot of lessons have re-mained unlearned. Summarizing theexperiences of his eventful politicalpast, E. Daladier admitted in 1963 thatideological issues oftentimes over-

shadowed strategic imperatives. Trulyspeaking, they did as a general rulerather than oftentimes, and not onlybefore but also after World War II.

So, On January 4, 1933 Hitler was leftin charge of the Weimar Republic. Hereceived from President Hindenburgthe mandate to form a “national con-centration” government (speaking inthe terms of K. Adenauer). On Febru-ary 28 the Order of the Reich Presi-dent for the Protection of People andState - the first in a series of decreeseliminating the constitutional civilrights - saw the light of day in Ger-many. A month later the parliamentsupported by the party of the centergave Hitler extraordinary powers. OnJuly 14 the imperial government pro-claimed the NSDAP the only stateparty and disbanded all others alongwith trade unions.

Listed below are just some of themilestones on the way from “whereGermany stopped 600 years ago” to“the politics of the future – the politicsof expansion” (Mein Kampf). Hitlerwrote that not provinces but geopoliti-cal categories, not national minoritiesbut continents, not defeating theenemy, but annihilating it, not allies,but satellites, not a shift of borders butan overhaul of statehood across theworld, not a peace treaty but a deathsentence had to be the goals of a greatwar.

The question is: was there anythingthat the “democracies” were unaware

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of? Didn't they realize where themoney from US and British banks andtheir German divisions land? Could itbe that Vickers, Imperial Chemical In-dustries, Standard Oil, DuPont andother grands had no idea why Ger-many was keenly interested in theiradvanced technologies? Let us not benaïve and buy that the explanationcould be Germany's skill in creatingfifth columns and – as Hitler said – de-stroying the enemy from within, mak-ing it defeat itself with its own hands.The truth is that social instincts simplysuppressed common sense.

Judging by the available data, the USleadership was more active than theBritish one in paving the Nazi's way topower. Still, there is one more perti-nent circumstance. The crisis ate awayat Washington's potential to dominatethe world. W. Wilson's business plan –the US should finance the whole worldand, as the one who gives money,learn to control the world – was ren-dered temporarily inapplicable. Roo-sevelt's new course emphasizingself-sufficiency in economy and de-fense largely grew out of opportunismdisguised as rationality or isolation-ism.

Great Britain promptly entered thegame and – in an attempt to be aheadof the developments – started modern-izing the Versailles configuration.Mussolini is widely believed to be theauthor of the “pact of the four”.Though, he did sketch the fist “planfor the cooperation in European and

non-European affairs, including thecolonial ones”, it essentially reflectedthe views shaped by discussions withLondon of the political tendencies inthe US, the empowerment of ultra-rad-icals in Germany, and the conflict inthe Far East. One must be hopelesslynaïve to believe that British PrimeMinister MacDonald and Foreign Sec-retary Simon could come to Romewithout preliminary discussions. Atstake was a regrouping of forces and acorrection of the contours of the post-Versailles world. Predictably, thethemes at the British-Italian summitwere the revision of the treaties im-posed after World War I on Germany,Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, theequal rights for Germany in the arma-ments sphere, and, above all, the quar-tet's right to influence other countries.

The Weimar Republic spent some 15years attempting to get rid of the Ver-sailles legacy. Less than two monthsafter Hitler's becoming the GermanChancellor, Germany was granted thegreat power status and invited to runEurope on pars with Great Britain,France, and Italy.

Reporting to the House of Commonson March 23, 1933, Simon justifiedthe military-political alliance withGermany and Italy by saying thatpeaceful corrections of particular Ver-sailles Treaty clauses were better thanexplicit violations. What causes did hemean? Along with the equal right toarmaments, Germany got the right torevise “in a legal way” all former reg-

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ulations. The statement that signato-ries to the Pact would seek agreementover disputed issues changed little.What really mattered were the recog-nition of the faulty character of the1919-1920 redistribution of the worldand the de facto sanctioning of theNazi revanchism.

Under public pressure, by the signingdate (June 7, 1933) the text was deco-rated with references to the Charter ofthe League of Nations, the LocarnoTreaties, and the Kellogg–Briand Pact.References to Austria, Hungary, andBulgaria were dropped as was the pas-sage concerning the influence overother countries. Germany's equal rightto armament was linked to the devel-opment of a system of security for allnations.

Thus repackaged, the Pact was sup-ported by the US. Washington de-scribed it as sending a positivemessage, but the verbiage did not alle-viate the concerns of the Little Ententecountries and Poland. Nevertheless,the Pact was signed on July 15.Though France was one of the signa-tories, its National Assembly neverratified it.

The latter fact had no chilling effecton Berlin, and it went ahead with itsplans with London's full understand-ing. Exactly two months later, on Sep-tember 15, Germany demanded in theform of an ultimatum fully equalrights to armaments, and in four moreweeks Berlin withdrew from the

Geneva Disarmament Conference andthe League of Nations. Hitler said thedecision was a matter of honor and anexpression of opposition to attempts totreat Germans as a second-grade na-tion.

The “democrats” were somewhat con-fused by the demonstrative characterof the moves – they would prefer theadvancement towards the commongoal to be a less noisy process. Lon-don and the rightist groups in Francewere responsive to the Nazi lure – theoffer to resolve bilateral disputespeacefully, and any other – at Russia'sexpense. Replying to the questionabout Berlin's approach to the USSR,which was asked by US diplomat H.Davis, Nazi foreign politicsspokesman A. Rosenberg said in April,1933 that Germany's view of certainother countries would depend on theAnglo-Saxon countries' view of Ger-many. The reason why the themeswere interlocking can to an extent beunderstood based on Hitler's conversa-tion with Rauschning. The Nazi leaderdid not rule out a deal with Polandagainst Russia, but added that SovietRussia was a big piece that was noteasy to swallow, and it was not goingto be the one he would start with.

In May, 1933 A. Rosenberg informedGreat Britain about his chief's “grandplan” that Bismarck commented on bysaying that Warsaw would soon realizethat France had abandoned it, and thatPoland would then have to surrenderthe Danzig corridor in return for ac-

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cess to the Danzig seaport and a com-pensation in the form of potential terri-torial gains in Ukraine. When aCanadian interviewer remarked thatthe Soviet Union would oppose suchcompensation, Bismarck replied thatGermany would paralyze the USSR byfocusing on it the hatred of the wholeworld. Bismarck clearly forgot the tes-tament left by his powerful grandfa-ther.

Speaking at the June, 1933 Interna-tional Economic and Financial Confer-ence in London, German Minister forEconomy, Agriculture and FoodHugenberg called the Western powersto jointly put an end to revolutions anddomestic chaos which allegedly spreadfrom Russia. He demanded to returncolonies to Germany and to give “thenation lacking land” new territorieswhich the “energetic race” would in-habit. At the time Berlin was toutingits “peaceful” politics as it had to courtits partners in “the pact of the four” –and Hugenberg was called off fromthe Conference for his uninvited can-dor.

According to “the pact of the four”Poland got a secondary role as afriendly third-party country. Of course,its hopes related to France eventuallyfailed. In April, 1933 Poland offeredFrance to discuss reacting harshly toGermany's re-armament initiative, butthe offer was ignored. Pilsudski startedthinking which partner to opt for. Heclearly liked Hitler's aggressive style,listened attentively to German prom-

ises to abide strictly by existingtreaties, and instructed his trustees –foreign minister J. Beck and ambassa-dor to Berlin J. Lipsky to open a longand markedly emotional dialog withBerlin and to pretend that some sort ofconsensus was reached.

The USSR and the US abandoned thegloomy rhetoric concerning the 1933-1934 developments and restored thediplomatic ties. On November 16Moscow and Washington exchangednotes expressing the hope that the rela-tions between the two countries wouldrevert to normalcy and that they wouldcooperate to safeguard peace. Bewareof unwarranted optimism.

The disintegration of the Big Ententeas the result of Great Britain's mis-treating France, a chill in the relationswith Poland, and the surging Germannationalism had a sobering effect on anumber of French politicians. AFrench-Soviet non-aggression pactwas signed on November 29, 1932.The need to strengthen security bredinterest in a model of joint response toGermany's preparations for a war. InDecember, 1933 Moscow proposedFrance and Poland a regional agree-ment on mutual defense against Ger-man aggression. Belgium,Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Es-tonia, and Finland were invited to par-ticipate. In addition to mutualprotection, the agreement includedmutual diplomatic, moral, and materialsupport in the case of a German attack,which, however, was not explicitly

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mentioned in the text.

The USSR and France continued pro-moting the idea of an eastern pactthroughout 1934. L. Barthou's ideawas that it could unite the USSR, Ger-many, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Esto-nia, Finland, and Czechoslovakia.France, while not being signatory tothe pact, was was supposed to be itsguarantor. Moscow accepted Barthou'sconcept as the basis for the deal. Adraft plan was compiled jointly andlinked to the Soviet-French MutualAssistance Treaty which had to beconcluded at the same time.

Germany refused to join under thepretext that it feared Soviet aggressionand that the pact would help to encir-cle it. Following Germany's reaction,Poland also rejected the pact. Londonhad expressed opposition to it evenearlier.

Clausewitz once said that the mainhuman mistake is to be more con-cerned over current problems thanover those of the future. Definitely,this was the mistake made by Poland.US ambassador to Moscow Bullittwrote in June, 1934 to US Secretary ofState Cordell Hull that Pilsudski's re-fusal to sign the Eastern Pact was dueto the anticipation of a war betweenthe USSR and Japan: the Polish leaderwanted to preserve full freedom of ac-tion in the east in the hope to restorePoland's past grandeur.

The struggle against the Eastern Pactunited Warsaw, Berlin, and Tokyo. Pil-

sudski and Hitler reached agreementson the Anschluss and the partition ofCzechoslovakia, as well as on joint ac-tion against the USSR in the case ofcomplications in the Far East, whichwere expected to occur. In its practicalaspects, the Lipsky – Neurath declara-tion (1934) was markedly anti-Russ-ian, which could not but delight GreatBritain. Since the Eastern Pact wasgoing to materialize anyhow, on July,27, 1934 Germany and Poland agreedto create a military alliance jointlywith Japan and to make an attempt toattract Hungary, Romania, the Balticrepublics, and Finland to it.

Poland was blinded by the notion thatan armed conflict between the USSRand Japan was imminent and that itwould erupt no later than in the springof 1935. As Austrian ambassador toPrague F. Marek wrote, Poland wasunder the impression that – with theactive involvement of Japan and a cer-tain contribution to the process fromGermany - Ukraine would eventuallybe torn out of the Soviet Union. Thepolitical flirt between Warsaw andTokyo was paralleled by a buildup ofthe military-technical cooperation be-tween Poland and Japan and the coor-dination of their intelligenceactivities8.

The May, 1934 Soviet proposal totransform the disarmament conferenceinto a permanent forum authorized torender timely assistance to endangeredcountries met with roughly as muchsuccess as the one concerning the

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Eastern Pact. France and a number ofless influential countries expressed in-terest, but it was short-living. GreatBritain opposed the idea entirely. USSecretary of State C. Hull told the So-viet envoy he could not clearly say“Yes” or “No” due to Washington'sgeneral reservations concerning inte-gration into international organiza-tions.

The assassination of L. Barthou (Octo-ber 9, 1934) weakened the Soviet-French ties which seemed to hold apromise of tighter European security.New French foreign minister P. Lavaldemonstrated “continuity” of theFrench course in foreign politics. OnDecember 5, 1934 he did sign anagreement by which France and theUSSR pledged not to open negotia-tions with countries invited to join theEastern Pact (especially those whichremained undecided concerning theirparticipation) in case the talks couldpotentially hinder its preparation orthat of related treaties. The deal wassupposed to strengthen the understand-ing and further build trust betweenMoscow and Paris. A week laterCzechoslovakia joined the agreementand the prospects of signing Soviet-French and Soviet-Czechoslovakianmutual assistance treaties became a re-ality.

In September, 1934 the Soviet Unionjoined the League of Nations, whichwas a major contribution to the causeof the European collective security.Since the moment, it became much

more difficult for haters of Russia tomute the voice of Moscow since theUSSR had the status of a permanentmember of the League Council.

The Soviet-French Mutual AssistanceTreaty did materialize on May 2, 1935.The two countries assumed the obliga-tion to help and support each other inthe case of an aggression launched byany European country against either ofthem or attempts to infringe upon theirterritorial integrity and political inde-pendence. The Soviet-Czechoslova-kian treaty signed two weeks laterestablished a similar framework.Czechoslovakia's foreign minister Ed-vard Benes made the readiness ofFrance to rise to the defense of the vic-tim of aggression a precondition forthe enactment of his country's treatywith the Soviet Union.

It became clear in the not-so-distantfuture that the efficiency of interna-tional treaties depends not the crispi-ness of their wording but on thereadiness of signatories to abide bytheir terms. For Laval, France'streaties with the Soviet Union andCzechoslovakia were instruments ofpressure on Germany rather than prac-tical guidance. He indicated to Beckthat the point of the treaties was togain additional advantages in the ne-gotiations with Berlin and to preventthe Soviet-German rapprochement.With this tactic in mind, Laval avoideda military convention without whichthe mutual assistance treaties were infact formalities.

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In the meantime, the “Western front”grew active. On January 13, 1935 thepopulation of Saarland demanded inte-gration into Germany. Laval stated onthe eve of the referendum that Francehad no preferences concerning its out-come. Great Britain and Italy helpedsway the balance in Germany's favor.Predictably, the Saar precedentboosted the Nazi expansionist claims.For example, The VölkischerBeobachter demanded a referendum inMemel which it called ”East Saar-land”.

“Democracies” stubbornly pretendednot to notice the connection betweenthe Nazi Lebensraum concept andGermany's open re-armament. By theearly 1935 its regular army alreadycounted 480,000 servicemen (whilethe threshold set by the VersaillesTreaty was 100,000). Soviet warningshad no effects – in February, 1935Great Britain and France notifiedBerlin they were ready – with someimitation of rigor - to waive the mili-tary obligations imposed on Berlin bythe Versailles Treaty.

On March 16 the German foreign min-istry handed over to the British,French, Polish, and Italian ambassa-dors the text of the “act on the restora-tion of the forces of nationalself-defense”. Conscription was rein-stated in Germany and its planned 12corps and 36 divisions were pro-claimed “a peace-time army”. EvenLaval was shocked by the Nazi pushi-ness and showed enough courage to

submit a collective protest bid to theLeague of Nations. Later, in April,Great Britain unsuccessfully tried toblock the passing of any anti-Nazi res-olutions, and the League of Nationsdid interpret the March 16 GermanAct as a violation of the existing regu-lations. Berlin responded by sayingthe League of Nations had no right tojudicial powers over Germany.

The British Foreign Office criticizedBerlin very slightly for the lack of tactand volunteered mediation. Britishconservative media commented on theofficial course with remarkable candor– coercive measures with respect toGermany were unacceptable, Locarnowas a mistake, and east Locarno – amistake of even greater proportions.

Talking to Simon (March 24-26, 1935)Hitler tried to convince the British vis-itor that national socialism was theonly force capable of safeguardingGermany as well as the entire Europeagainst the worst – that is, Bolshevist– catastrophe. Hitler held that the re-armament of Germany was necessaryfor the undertaking and, judging byavailable records, Simon voiced noobjections.

On May 21, 1935 Hitler rolled out arevised version of his “peace pro-gram”. Condemning mutual assistancepacts on the whole and the Soviet-French treaty in particular, he ex-pressed willingness to signnon-aggression pacts with all of Ger-many's neighbors except for Lithuania.

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Hitler leveled charges of violating theVersailles treaty against basically allother countries and proposed “moraldisarmament” as the basis of settlingthe disputes over the status of Germanpopulations outside of Germany. TheConscription Act was published toprove that Germany's stance in foreignpolitics was cooperative. Within a yearthe number of its troops was to reach700,000, its parks of tanks and planes– 3,000 and 2,000 vehicles respec-tively, and the number of canons in theGerman army – 3,500.

S. Baldwin who succeeded MacDon-ald as Great Britain's Prime Ministerand S. Hoare who took over the coun-try's Foreign Office after Simon deci-sively went ahead with theappeasement of Hitler. A naval con-vention was signed on June 18, 1935which legalized the Nazi access tonavigation. The German navy was al-lowed 35% of the tonnage of theBritish one for ships and 45% - forsubmarines. Moreover, Germany gotfull control over the Baltic Sea. Itsnavy practically rose to the level of theFrench one in terms of its composi-tion.

There was another no less importantcircumstance. While Berlin had toplay solo in the arms race till the mid-dle of 1935, now Great Britain was ac-tively helping it to accelerate thedemise of the Versailles system andpush the world to the brink of disaster.

Mussolini was not going to lag behind

his German colleague. Planning theseizure of Ethiopia, he secured in ad-vance the consent of London and Parisas well as Washington's tolerance tothe venture. The starting phase of theoperation was similar to that of theJapanese incursion into China. In De-cember, 1934 Italians attacked anEthiopian group in the Ual-Ual oasislocated deep in the country's territoryand started concentrating forces alongits border. The Ethiopian governmentasked the League of Nations to takemeasures to stop the aggressor. TheLeague formed a “committee of five”,then a “committee of eighteen”, butthe sanctions it imposed as the resultwere largely illusory. Italy was not af-fected by the League of Nations' armssupply restrictions as the country wasalready heavily armed. Rather, the sidehit by the sanctions was Ethiopia. Italyowed its major vulnerability to the de-pendence on oil import, but only 10countries – the USSR, Romania, Hol-land, and Iraq among them – agreed tostop supplying fuel to it. London dideverything possible to make theprocess of imposing sanctions maxi-mally protracted, while British and UScompanies were actually raising thevolumes of oil export to Italy.

Overall, the story was not much differ-ent from that of the commissionswhich made decision-making last in-definitely during the developments inManchuria. Washington received intel-ligence reports about the coming occu-pation of Ethiopia already in 1934, but

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in December US Secretary of StateHull instructed Washington's envoy toAddis-Abeba to avoid any steps thatmight encourage the Ethiopian gov-ernment to seek the US mediation. InAugust, 1935 – when serious prob-lems loomed on the horizon in Europe,Asia, and Africa – the US Congresspassed a “neutrality bill” that Roo-sevelt enacted literally on the eve ofthe Italian invasion of Ethiopia. ThusWashington absolved itself of anymoral or political need to join theregime of anti-Italian sanctions(should they be imposed) or otherwiseexpress solidarity with the victim ofaggression.

Japan learned the lessons from theItalian campaign against Ethiopia.“Democracies” watched idly whenfascists used chemical warfare to sup-press the resistance with which theymet in the country. The absence of re-action made Tokyo feel that it wassafe to do the same, eventually Japandid so 530 times, as well as resorted tobacteriological warfare. Nevertheless,the developments were invariably in-terpreted as “expeditions”, “inci-dents”, etc. but never as real wars, andthe Hague and Geneva conventionswere never invoked. “No rules” actu-ally meant “no bans”, but it is tillwidely held that chemical and bacteri-ological warfare had never been usedduring World War II.

Reference data on fatalities duringWorld War II paint a strange picture.China had lost some 20 mln people

prior to September 1, 1939 set as thebeginning of World War II by the“democracies”. Overall, China's deathtoll as the result of the Japanese ag-gression reached 30-35 mln. Very ap-proximately, the loss of life inEthiopia due to the Italian aggressionis estimated at 500,000 – 600,000.Franco's mutiny organized by Ger-many and Italy and the subsequent in-tervention against Spain launched bythe two countries cost 1,500,000 lives.Nevertheless, the crimes against hu-manity are hardly even mentioned inchronicles. Millions of people per-ished unnoticed, and Austria, Ethiopia,Czechoslovakia, and Albania simplydisappeared from the map of theworld. Apologists of the appeasementpolitics prefer to describe all of theabove as coincidences in the processof explaining the origin of World WarII.

The appeasement has several faces. Itcan materialize in the form of the en-forcement of peace on unfair terms, inthe practice of concessions to the ag-gressor, or – in the framework of amonumentally cynical scenario – inreorienting accomplices or even oppo-nents to make them target rival coun-tries. The latter version is based on theconcept that one's enemy's enemy is afriend. The disposition in internationalpolitics in the mid-1930ies was clear:the concepts of indivisible commonsecurity and collective efforts aimed atachieving it were banished from thepolitical reality in the clash with the

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socioeconomic dogmas and imperialambitions of “democracies”. Regionalconflicts and local tensions weremerging to form a global catastrophe.

In that epoch Germany's military eliteembraced the Nazi expansionist doc-trine and pledged allegiance to Hitler.The country's economy, science, andeducation underwent broad militariza-tion, and its foreign politics switchedto the military track. German Secre-tary of State for Foreign Affairs vonBulow and his camp did what theycould to arrest the drift in the “eastern”politics. As professor I. Fleischauerwrote, “unfortunately, the struggleended with the death of Bulow and theadvent of Ribbentrop to Wilhelm-strasse. On Trinity Day of 1936, theold foreign ministry died together withBulow”9.

Hitler annulled the Locarno Treaties inMarch, 1936 and ordered the Germanarmy to march into the demilitarizedRhine zone. The army numbered justsome 30,000, and only three battalionscrossed the Rhine River to march inAachen, Trier, and Saarbrucken. TheNazi leadership must have endured se-rious stress over the first 48 hours notbeing sure if Germany would get awaywith what it had done. Europe waswatching and no reaction followed(German Reich and World War II, v. 1,p. 603).

There were more than enough reasonsto start analyzing the situation. The ar-guments behind Berlin's decision to

depart from the Locarno Treatiessounded alarming: allegedly, Francetook a step unfriendly to Germany bysigning a pact with the USSR. Trans-lated into the language of politicaltransactions, the above meant thatGermany's response to attempts tomaintain status quo in the east wouldbe to violate the status quo in the west.

In October, 1936 Berlin and Romesigned a secret protocol on the interac-tion between the two countries. Amonth later, Germany concluded theAnti-Comintern Pact with Japan. ThePact's secret addendum set the SovietUnion as the target of the two coun-tries' aggressive intentions. In the caseof war or a threat of war between ei-ther of them and the USSR, the otherone was to avoid any measures thatmight benefit the Soviet Union. It wasalso decided that Germany and Japanwould not sign any political treatieswith Moscow that might contradict thespirit of the Pact. Italy and Hungaryjoined the Pact in November, 1937,Franco's Spain and Manchukuo – in1939, and Bulgaria, Finland, Romania,Denmark, Slovakia, and Croatia – in1941. The 1939 Pact of Steel and the1940 Tripartite Pact put the finishingtouches on the picture of the block-forming process among the World WarII aggressors.

British Prime Minister Baldwin admit-ted in 1936 that in case an armed con-flict erupted Great Britain couldprobably rout Germany with Russia'shelp, but the tentative result would

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have been the Bolshevizaion of Ger-many. He preferred a course premisedin the assumption that the quest for ex-pansion would drive Germany east,since that would be the only directionopen to it, and as long as the Bolshe-vist regime continued to exist in Rus-sia, the expansion could not bepeaceful (British Foreign Office mem-orandum, February 17, 1935). To in-duce the realization of the scenario,Great Britain lavishly praised Hitlerand generously dispensed hints indi-cating where Germany could conquerthe desired Lebensraum.

Visiting Berlin in 1937, British For-eign Office chief Lord Halifaxthanked Hitler for his having done thegreat work of banishing communismfrom his own country and thus pre-venting it from spreading over WestEurope. Thus Germany was entitled tothe status of a bastion in the struggleagainst communism. A kind of basicunderstanding was emerging betweenGreat Britain and Germany. Halifaxbelieved that France and Italy did nothave to stay out of the process and thatthe four powers – and no other coun-tries – were to maintain control overthe situation.

For Hitler, one of the prerequisites forthe “understanding” was the annullingof France's and Czechoslovakia'streaties with the USSR. He said whathis British partners must have beenhappy to hear – that Soviet Russiawas the only country which stood tobenefit from a general conflict. In his

turn, Halifax said that London wasaware of the need to adapt to new cir-cumstances, to correct past mistakes,and – as an addition - to alter some el-ements of the current reality. Hestressed that in the world which wasnot static no types of changes in thesurrounding reality had to be rejectedfrom the outset. Contrary to the Britishtradition, Halifax did not leave hiscounterpart searching for hiddenmeaning in the statements made andsaid that sooner or later changes de-sired by Germany - specifically, thoseconcerning Danzig, Austria, andCzechoslovakia - would take place inthe European order, and that GreatBritain only hoped that the changeswould be delivered by peaceful evolu-tion.

The conclusions were obvious – Ger-many had to promptly grab what wasoffered to it. The buildup of its mightwould then open new opportunities.Hitler was not prone to self-deceptionand realized that any single failurecould render his entire snap-offensivestrategy, which required maximal mo-bilization, totally inefficient. A failureat the start could easily become a pro-logue to demise. On November 5,1939 Hitler called a meeting with Hor-ing, military minister Blomberg, for-eign minister Neurath, and the armycommanders. Whereas the require-ment formulated in his August, 1936note to the four-year plan was to putGermany in shape for a war with anyadversary by 1940, this time he stated

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that the Lebensraum problem had tobe solved by 1943-1945. Taking Aus-tria and Czechoslovakia were the firststeps as well as an opportunity toprobe into the extent of Great Britain'stolerance and of the interest of“democracies” in forming a world-wide anti-Soviet alliance.

Germany annexed Austria on March12, 1938. Two days earlier Chamber-lain's top adviser H. Wilson confidedto Berlin that the closure of the prob-lem of Austria would not prevent Lon-don from steering the course aimed ataccord with Germany and Italy. Headded that the interests of the USSRwere safe to ignore as some day theregime running the country would fall.France's impulsive reaction to the An-schluss was immediately neutralizedby Great Britain. In a speech deliveredat the House of Commons Chamber-lain condemned those whose talkedabout using force and put obstacles inthe way of diplomacy. The Britishgovernment was unprepared to assumeany obligations concerning the regionswhere the interests of Great Britainwere not affected to the same extent asin Belgium or France.

Italy, which was not too happy withthe Anschluss, also had to be givensomething to let it benefit from theBritish generosity. On April 16, 1938Chamberlain and Mussolini signed afriendship and cooperation treatywhich legitimized the occupation ofEthiopia. At the same time, Franco gotfrom the Prime Minister the status of a

side in a war for his forces, and theSpanish Republic was doomed aftersuch recognition.

No doubt, Germany was not the kindof a country comfortable to deal with.Nevertheless, its uncompromising hos-tility to the Soviet Union was a morethan sufficient compensation for theproblems that might arise, and all that“democracies” had to do was to guidetheir partner in accord with their owninterests.

In November, 1937 Great Britain andFrance agreed to sacrifice Czechoslo-vakia to Hitler. To justify GreatBritain's inaction Chamberlain simplysaid that a brief inspection of the mapwould show that neither it nor Francecould do anything to preserve Czecho-slovakia in case Hitler dared to launchan aggression against it, and that wasthe reason why he also advised Franceagainst extending guarantees toCzechoslovakia.

What Chamberlain was pushing forwas a solution acceptable for all coun-tries except for Russia. His statementin the House of Commons was a re-sponse to the Soviet Union's recentproposal to call a conference involvingthe USSR, Great Britain, France, theUS, and Czechoslovakia with the aimof forming a broad alliance opposingthe Nazi plan to dominate the world.Moscow's readiness to abide by itsmilitary obligations to Czechoslovakiawas perceived by London as a chal-lenge. The British Prime Minister said

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it would be a disaster if Czechoslova-kia survived thanks to the Soviet assis-tance.

Initially Prague and Paris appeared re-sponsive to the Soviet initiative, buttheir enthusiasm evaporated as soon asthey were forced to chose between theUSSR and Great Britain. Great Britainalso rejected the US initiative to or-ganize a global conference that wassupposed “to purge” global problemsand set the rules of peaceful interna-tional cooperation, simply becauseLondon regarded any US meddlingwith European affairs as unacceptable.Similarly, the US ignored the Sovietinvitation to join the efforts meant tosave Czechoslovakia: as Secretary ofSate Hull wrote later, Washington leftthe offer unanswered to avoid upset-ting Moscow with a formal refusal.

B. Selovsky, the author of a funda-mental treatise titled “The MunichAgreement” wrote that the Westernpowers were driven by anti-Sovietisminstead of the principles of interna-tional law. Great Britain was deter-mined to bar the “semi-Asian” Russiafrom Europe10.

Warsaw's position on the eve of theAnschluss and the Munich Agreementwas markedly extremist. Polish for-eign minister J. Beck linked Ger-many's claim to Austria with thePolish plan to “appropriate” Lithuania.The messages – from Beck to Horing(January, 1938) and from Horing toambassador Lipsky - constitute mate-

rial evidence of the collusion. In antic-ipation of Soviet counter-measures,the Nazi leadership proposed to reachan agreement on the Polish-Germanmilitary cooperation against Russia.On March 17 Lipsky was instructed toinform Horing that Warsaw was readyto take Germany's interests into ac-count in the context of “the potentialaction”. It was meant that Polish andGerman forces would be dispatched tothe corresponding parts of Lithuaniasimultaneously. A Soviet warningmade the two countries call off the ag-gression against Lithuania. As an actof revenge, Poland started putting to-gether an anti-Soviet alliance (involv-ing the Soviet Union's westernneighbors, Yugoslavia, and Greece).The mission of the alliance was to im-pede Russia's assistance to Czechoslo-vakia and France in the case of theirconflict with Germany.

It followed from the words of Polishambassador to Paris Lukaszewicz(during a conversation with the USambassador on September 25, 1938)that Warsaw and Berlin had discussedsynchronously attacking Czechoslova-kia in case it did not give in to politi-cal pressure. Under the circumstances,the Polish troops would have been de-ployed not only to the Tesin enclave,but also to Slovakia, and would haveformed a common front with Hungary.In fact, Poland was creating a serioustrap for itself. France's obligations toPoland could not outweigh its obliga-tions to Czechoslovakia, and from the

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strategic standpoint the partition of thelatter made Poland's situation hope-less11.

The Munich Treaty was charted with-out the Czechoslovakian governmentand was signed by Germany, GreatBritain, France, and Italy on Septem-ber 29. By all means, it was an exem-plary case of dictate. The Treatyestablished that the dispatch of Ger-man troops to the regions with pre-dominantly German population wouldbegin on October 1 and altogether takea week. Additional agreements definedthe process of separating fromCzechoslovakia the regions compactlyinhabited by the Polish and Hungarianminorities.

On September 3, 1938 a British-Ger-man declaration formalized the agree-ments “symbolizing the wish of bothnations to never again fight eachother”. London and Berlin pledged torely on consultations to examine is-sues of bilateral importance and ex-pressed the determination to continueworking towards the elimination ofsources of discord and thus to promotepeace in Europe.

Germany also promised to Francepeace and stability of borders, as wellas bilateral consultations in the case ofcomplications in international politics.J. Bonnet and J. Ribbentrop signed adeclaration containing the full set ofexpressions of friendliness on Decem-ber 6, 1938. Ribbentrop said the resultwas the total elimination of the threat

of a French-Russian alliance. Bonnetconcluded that from the moment theGerman politics would be entirely fo-cused on countering Bolshevism andthat Germany expressed the will toeastward expansion. That was pre-dictable considering that Paris de-clared to Berlin in the process ofpreparing the declaration that Francewould not take any interest in easternand south-eastern affairs.

It is almost forgotten these days thatChamberlain and Daladier offeredHitler and Mussolini during talks inMunich to freeze “the Civil War” inSpain and to jointly convince the con-flicting sides to reach compromise.The idea met with the Nazi resistanceand the German foreign ministry said“the civil war” in Spain should con-tinue until the establishment of an au-thoritarian rule of a military kind.Such outcome was regarded as favor-able by Germany and Italy on the eveof a broader European conflict. TheNazi intervention in Spain was meantto ensure the supply of resources tothe German military-industrial com-plex. Germany controlled over 70Spanish mining companies by the fallof 1939. The fighting in Spain pro-vided Germany with ample opportuni-ties to test its new armaments in theconditions of real combat and its mili-tary personnel – to gain the practicalexperience of using and servicing thenew weaponry. Germany and Italy in-vested some 1.5-2 bn marks in Franco,and Italy lost about 50,000 servicemen

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in Spain.

The “democracies” certainly had thepotential to stop the aggression, jointlywith the USSR or without it. Whatthey had no intention to do was pre-vent the aggression against the USSR.“Democracies” lacked the loyalty toprinciples and the firmness that itwould have taken to counter the rise offascism. London was so eager tomake Hitler and Mussolini compliantthat occasionally it even lied about theposition of France while speakingfrom is name. Relaying a Frenchwarning to Hitler on September 27,1938 H. Wilson used the phrase “ac-tive hostile action” instead of the orig-inal “active attack”. Even the softenedversion made Hitler listen to his com-manders' recommendations and acceptMussolini's proposal to hold a four-lat-eral meeting in Munich, though ini-tially the Nazi leader was going toignore the plan.

When Chamberlain arrived at the con-clusion that defeating Germanyquickly would be impossible and aprotracted war with it would pose alethal danger to Great Britain due tothe social unrest it could generate, hemade securing a deal with Hitler thesole basis of his strategy. On Septem-ber 1, 1938 H. Wilson told Germanenvoy T. Kordt that it would not be aproblem to ignore the opinions ofFrance and Czechoslovakia in caseGreat Britain and Germany reachedunderstanding bilaterally. Wilson saidthat the settlement of the Czechoslova-

kian crisis would open opportunitiesfor the economic expansion intoSouth-East Europe. In his September13, 1938 letter to King George VI,Chamberlain emphasized that Ger-many and Great Britain could serve asEurope's two pillars of peace and twobastions in the struggle against com-munism.

After the signing of the MunichAgreement, the leaders of GreatBritain and France, as well as a num-ber of politicians in Washington, hadan illusion that sacrificing Ethiopia,Spain, Austria, and finally Czechoslo-vakia had produced the desired result.Former US President H. Hoover, forexample, was open about his beliefthat West Europe would not have toworry about the aggressiveness of theThird Reich if its expansion, “natu-rally” oriented east, went unob-structed. The remaining task was topersuade Berlin to adopt the same vi-sion.

Initially, the strategy seemed to work.The Nazi leadership was activelyprobing into Poland's readiness totransform the cooperation organized inthe process of the Anschluss, the parti-tion of Czechoslovakia, and the paral-lel transactions with Japan into afull-scale military alliance hostile tothe USSR. Poland had no fundamentalobjections to heading east. Their pre-condition for supporting the venturewas that Germany's anti-Bolshevist of-fensive had to by-pass Poland and bechanneled, for example, via the Baltic

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region or Romania. It was clear fromthe dialog between the Polish foreignministry and the Romanian govern-ment that indeed Germany had seriousreasons to connect to Bucharest.

The impression created duringRibbentrop's October 24, 1938 meet-ing with Polish ambassador Lipskyand January 6 and 26, 1939 talks withBeck in Warsaw was that Polandwould side with Berlin in Germany'sconflict with the Soviet Union. A dif-ferent picture emerged when Germanysized the remnants of Czechoslovakiaon March 15 without revealing to itsPolish partners the plan to disregardthe territorial prescriptions of the Mu-nich deal.

Warsaw was not too happy that Lon-don and Paris did not even commenton Berlin's new aggressive step. Nordid Washington voice any concern,even if there was any. US Under-Sec-retary of State A. Berly remarked thatthe US President – like many in GreatBritain – perhaps hoped that the Ger-man expansion east would ease the sit-uation for Great Britain and France.Ambassador Bullitt stressed theBritish and French post-Munich ten-dency to help the situation evolve intoa war between Germany and theUSSR, by the end of which the“democracies” could attack Germanyand make it capitulate. Churchill madea stronger statement – he said the warhad already began but did not elabo-rate who was fighting and againstwhom.

Hitler planned in 1937 that most of thefighting leading to Germany's con-quest of the desired Lebensraumwould take place in 1943-1945. Laterhe set 1942 as the crucial period oftime. Japan regarded 1946 – the yearby which the US was going to with-draw from its bases at the Philippines -as the optimal time to gain controlover Indonesia, the Philippines, andother South Asian and Pacific regionterritories. For Nazi leaders, not onlyeconomic calculations but no less theWestern powers' indecisiveness andwillingness to compromise providedarguments in favor of accelerating theimplementation of the expansionistplans. Neither materially nor psycho-logically, the “democracies” seemedready to clash with the aggressors.

The idea that by the fall of 1938 Hitlerwas ready to introduce a radicalchange into his strategic plans andseize France before embarking uponthe mission of his life – the annihila-tion of Russia – appears dubious. InJune, 1939 Horing mentioned toBritish ambassador Henderson that ifLondon waited for at least 10 days toextend guarantees to Poland, the situa-tion would have taken a completelydifferent turn. Hitler said the same toCiano on August 12, 1939, as did R.Hess to Simon upon landing not quitesuccessfully in Scotland. According toHess, Poland was getting increasinglyready to accept Germany's terms in thedispute over Danzig and the corridor,but its position changed under the

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British influence.

In the political and legal senses, theSoviet Union found itself in the situa-tion it used to be in prior to the signingof the Rapallo Treaties. Paris froze itsMutual Assistance Treaty with theUSSR. The Soviet Union's relationswith Germany were in disrepair. Com-ing under attack from the east or fromthe west the Soviet Union would haveno allies at all and be left facing majoruncertainty as to the positions of vari-ous countries in the situation of war,not diplomatic intrigues. There werenumerous indications that the USSRwas the next country on Germany's listof targets.

Ribbentrop could see the involvementof Japan in a full-scale military al-liance with Germany as a potential re-ward for severing the relations withthe Soviet Union. However, also in1938 a group of “old school” Germandiplomats looked deeper into the bene-fits Germany could draw from reviv-ing the diplomatic game withMoscow. It is still unclear who floatedthe rather unexpected idea to normal-ize the relations with Soviet Russia in-stead of antagonizing it. It could beGermany's hyperactive ambassador toMoscow Schulenburg, the so-called“Russian faction” in the German for-eign ministry, or some other player orgroup of players. Some guessworkeven points to Horing as the master-mind behind the alternative approach.

Some influence from the upper levels

of the German hierarchy had to factorinto the situation in the process of re-solving the disagreement between theReich's diplomatic and economic deci-sion-making centers when the packageof economic offers to Moscow wascomplied. In any case, on December22, 1938 the Soviet trade mission inBerlin received the proposal to sign aninter-governmental agreement bywhich a credit in the amount of 200mln marks was to be extended to theUSSR to import German industry'sproducts in return for Soviet commod-ity supplied over the coming twoyears.

On January 11, 1939 Soviet envoy A.Merekalov informed the German for-eign ministry that the Soviet Unionwas ready to open negotiations and in-vited German representatives toMoscow for discussions. Literally nextday - during the New Year reception -Hitler treated the Soviet envoy withparticular attention, and rumors startedafter the episode that the Soviet-Ger-man relations were about to see a re-covery. In reality, Hitler's gesture andthe credit offer were a warning to Lon-don, Paris, and Warsaw that wasmeant to bring back to life the ghost ofRapallo and to make the three capitalsmore receptive to Germany's demands.In any case, this is how the situationwas seen by British experts, judgingby a special dossier from the archiveof the British Foreign Office.

The intrigue continued for a couple ofweeks. German foreign ministry ad-

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viser K. Schnurre requested a Sovietentry visa and even got on a train toMoscow, but was taken off it on theway not to anger Poland whichRibbentrop was courting quite suc-cessfully, as Hitler, Horing, Hess, andMoltke believed. A lull ensued and ittranspired that the steps aimed at re-viving the relations with the USSRwere meant to improve Germany'sstanding in the context of the relationswith other countries which were hos-tile to Moscow.

A myth is frequently reproduced invarious publications that the startingpoint of the Soviet-German dialog wasStalin's address to the XVIII partycongress (March 10, 1939) duringwhich he spoke about pursuing thepolicy of peace and economic cooper-ations with all countries and about ex-ercising caution and not allowingprovocateurs to drag the USSR intoconflicts. This is a total legend. Thestatements hardly drew the attention ofthe German embassy to Moscow orthe German foreign ministry.

It should be noted that Stalin said inthe same address: “The war whichcrept unnoticed into the lives of na-tions has already drawn 500 mln peo-ple into its orbit and spread over theenormous territory from Tianjin,Shanghai, and Canton (Guangzhou)across Ethiopia to Gibraltar. The newimperialist war is an accomplishedfact... we are witnessing an undis-guised redistribution of the world andthe spheres of influence”. Stalin pro-

ceeded to remark that “the non-aggres-sive democracies with their forcescombined are certainly stronger thanthe fascist countries in the economicand military sense”. The whole ad-dress examined without taking its ele-ments out of the general context leavesno doubts as to which side the USSRwas at.

Great Britain was the first to react tothe address delivered by Stalin. OnMarch 18, 1939 Halifax talked toMaisky and British ambassador Seeds- to Litvinov about the pressure ex-erted by Germany on Romania andasked whether the USSR was going totake any measures in the case of aGerman aggression. Protracted talksbetween Great Britain and the SovietUnion – and later between GreatBritain, the Soviet Union, and France– commenced.

German leaders played “the Sovietcard” again after Great Britain pre-empted J. Beck's maneuver which heprobably had discussed ahead withBerlin – he intended to say during avisit to London that Poland no longertrusted Great Britain and France andwould switch to Germany as the part-ner. On March 30, 1939 – prior toBeck's arrival – Chamberlain's govern-ment published a unilateral statementthat protection would be offered toPoland in the case of an attack againstit. A week later the statement wasbeefed up and became a Mutual Assis-tance Treaty between Great Britainand Poland which was to be invoked

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whenever the independence of eitherof the sides was threatened directly orindirectly. Later London extendedsimilar guarantees to Romania andGreece.

The British government's explanationof London's unusual decisiveness wasthat it sought not to protect particularcountries that might be confrontedwith the German threat but to preventGermany from dominating the conti-nent and thus gaining the power tojeopardize Great Britain's security.Permanent Under-Secretary of Statefor Foreign Affairs A. Cadogan admit-ted three decades later that Chamber-lain assumed serious obligations andthere could be no room for lingeringdoubts or lack of decisiveness in thecase of a German aggression againstPoland. Cadogan described the guar-antees as a horrible game since GreatBritain – like France – was not goingto actually fight over Poland.

British military planners projected thatPoland would be able to endure a Ger-man attack without Russia's help onlyfor a limited period of time. In theirview, a treaty with Russia was the bestway to prevent a war, while unsuc-cessful negotiations with the SovietUnion could entail a rapprochementbetween Russia and Germany. ForChamberlain, however, ideological re-gards outweighed military ones.

Hitler responded to Great Britain'snew roadmap with the order to bracefor an invasion of Poland. On April 3,

Keitel instructed the armed forces tostart implementing Fall Weiss so as tobe able to launch the offensive anytime starting September 1, 1939. Tendays later, Hitler confirmed the finalversion of the plan. It envisaged themaximal isolation of Poland to limitthe war to fighting across its territory.The deepening domestic crisis inFrance and the resulting British re-straint were regarded as factors mak-ing the above task easier to fulfill.Germany believed that Russia's inter-vention, even if it were possible, wasnot going to help Poland as it wouldhave led to its being destroyed by Bol-shevism. The positions of Finland andthe Baltic republics were expected todepend entirely on Germany's militarydemands. While Berlin viewed Romeas a reliable ally, it had strong reserva-tions concerning Hungary in this re-gard.

It should be noted that as of April 11Hitler regarded the USSR as anenemy. Nevertheless, by mid-AprilGerman diplomats were instructed toseize every opportunity to imitate anew Rapallo phase in the relations be-tween Germany and Russia. A situa-tion in which this could be doneemerged shortly. A. Merekalov sub-mitted a protest to the German foreignministry over the obstacles put by theGerman command in the way ofSkoda's manufacturing the productsordered by the Soviet Union in April –June, 1938. Prior to the incident, onMarch 18, 1939, the Soviet Union

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made it clear that it did not recognizethe non-existence of the Czechoslova-kian statehood and regarded the Ger-man occupation and everything thatfollowed it as an aggression, the vio-lation of stability in Central Europe,and a major cause for concern.

State Secretary E. Weizsacker receivedthe Soviet envoy on April 17.Merekalov did not provide in his re-port to Moscow details of what hadbeen said by the German official, but,as it follows from the German accountof the conversation, Weizsackershowed that the economic terms andthe political climate were interdepen-dent. He indicated that the SovietUnion would not manage to haveequally good relations at the sametime with Germany and Great Britainon which he blamed the tensions inEurope.

A month later German foreign min-istry adviser K. Schnurre notified So-viet envoy G. Astakhov (Merekalovwas dismissed by the time) that Berlinwould look “positively” into the possi-bility of keeping the 1935 trade treatybetween the USSR and Czechoslova-kia in effect “on the territory of theBohemian and Moravian protec-torate”. Germany rose the contactsover the matter to a higher level onMay 20. Ambassador Schulenburgasked to be received by Soviet diplo-macy chief V. Molotov. Molotovspoke to the visitor harshly andcharged Germany with using eco-nomic leverage in a dishonest game.

Berlin decided to exercise restraintuntil Russians send a signal, butMoscow did not, and Berlin had totake the next step.

On May 30 E. Weizsacker invited As-takhov and said that the German for-eign ministry had contacted the SovietUnion on Hitler's order and actedunder his supervision. He said Russiais confronted with a broad choice inthe German political store – from nor-malization of the relations to hostility.He wrote in his diary that Germanywas making unilateral offers but Rus-sians were mistrustful. The same day,Schulenburg was given the newscheme of “playing the Russian card”- the starting point was a request togrant the Soviet trade mission inPrague the status of a division of theBerlin one. Since the situation bred anumber of fundamental questions, theSoviet request was submitted to theGerman foreign minister and the nor-malization of the relations was linkedto the evidence of mutual interest.

In May – June, 1939 Italian foreignminister G. Ciano took the role of amediator between Germany and theUSSR. His first move was to cast ashadow over London's sincerity – hesaid Great Britain would be deliber-ately delaying progress in the talkswith the USSR until it was late, norshould the Soviet Union be rushing tojoin the coalition. Ciano expressed fullsupport for Schulenburg's plan to re-build the relations with the SovietUnion and recommended (1) to help

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improve the relations between Japanand the USSR and put an end to bor-der conflicts between them; (2) to pro-pose to Moscow a non-aggression pactand joint guarantees of the independ-ence of the Baltic republics; (3) toreach a broad trade agreement.

On June 28 Schulenburg asked to bereceived by Molotov to share the im-pressions from his trip to Berlin. Hespoke at length about Germany's hav-ing no “evil intentions” and, in partic-ular, mentioned that it had notannulled the Berlin Treaty on Neutral-ity. Schulenburg stressed that the Ger-man government wanted not only tonormalize but even to improve the re-lations with the Soviet Union and re-marked that he made the statement onRibbentrop's order and that, moreover,it had been approved by Hitler. Havingreported to Berlin, Schulenburg re-ceived the reply that enough had al-ready been said and was instructed toabstain from further political discus-sions.

A pause ensued and lasted for about amonth. In politics, pauses are neverquite real – Berlin remained active inJuly and on. It discussed a military al-liance with Japan and Italy as well astalked to Great Britain about the bal-ance of regional and global interests.Ribbentrop offered Warsaw to form aGerman-Polish alliance to “jointlysuppress Soviet Russia” and to tearUkraine out of it for subsequent divi-sion between the two countries.Poland was hesitant as Chamberlain

and Halifax urged it to seek a peacefulsolution to the Danzig and corridorproblems while also warning it againstforging excessively close ties withBerlin.

It was a tangled web – London wastalking to Japan and Germany, Franceand Poland, Greece and Turkey, theUS and Russians. Berlin was engagedin arm—wrestling with Great Britain,playing hide-and-seek with Poland,and looking for a way to attract Japanwithout adapting its plans too much tothose of Tokyo. Washington was enig-matic. Moscow was trying to realizewho stood where in its relations withGreat Britain and France, was deeplymistrustful of Germany with all of itspromises, and was half-involved in awar with Japan. What could the out-come be?

In May-August, 1939, importantevents took place at the Khalkhyn Golwhere tens of thousands of soldierssupported by aircrafts and tanksclashed and the number of fatalitiesexceeded that during the fascist occu-pation of Poland. The developments inthe region were watched carefully andanalyzed with an eye to future strate-gic planning by the aggressors and theappeasers alike.

On June 7, 1939 German ambassadorto Tokyo E. Ott sent a message toWeizsacker saying that an instructionwas sent on June 5 to ambassador Os-hima (Japan's ambassador to Berlin)according to which Japan should be

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ready to automatically enter any warstarted by Germany, provided thatRussia would be Germany's enemy init. Japan expected Germany to assumesymmetric obligations. Soviet spyRichard Sorge reported to Moscow onJune 24 that Japan would automati-cally enter a war against the SovietUnion in case one breaks out betweenthe USSR and Germany, as well aswould automatically enter a war be-tween Germany and Italy on one sideand Great Britain, France, and theUSSR on the other. In case Germanyand Italy start a war against GreatBritain and France in which the USSRwould not be involved, Japan wouldbe the ally of Germany and Italy butwill decide on engaging the Britishand French forces depending on thesituation. Japan would, however, enterthe war immediately in case the inter-ests of the trilateral alliance necessi-tated its involvement.

Judging by available documents, theconcept of automatism was seen as apotential problem in Berlin. The inter-pretation of the Khalkhyn Gol eventswas up to Tokyo – it was free to eithercontinue presenting them as “an inci-dent” or to go further and turn the So-viet aid to Mongolia into casus bellifor Germany. Besides, Berlin's assess-ment of the Japanese military potentialwas fairly critical. On the other hand,it was a test for the Anti-CominternPact. Hitler decided to make Tokyoface accomplished facts and adapt toBerlin's strategy.

Coincidences in time – even fatal ones– are possible. However, the July 24,1939 joint British-Japanese statementknown as the Arita - Craigie Agree-ment was by no means one of them.

When fighting was raging at theKhalkhyn Gol, its outcome still unpre-dictable, and talks between the USSR,Great Britain, and France about creat-ing a barrier in the way of aggressionwere underway, London blessedTokyo's expansionist politics. TheArita - Craigie Agreement read: “TheBritish Government fully recognizethe actual situation in China, wherehostilities on a large scale are inprogress and note that, as long as thatstate of affairs continues to exist, theJapanese forces in China have specialrequirements for the purpose of safe-guarding their own security and main-taining public order in the regionsunder their control, and they have totake the necessary steps in order tosuppress or remove any such acts orcauses as will obstruct them or benefittheir enemy. The British Government,therefore, will refrain from all acts andmeasures which will interfere with theJapanese forces in attaining theirabove mentioned objects”.

It was a strange agreement, and notonly in form. London sided entirelywith Japan in the process of its aggres-sion against China. Or did Craigie ex-press reservations and Arita respondwith some pledges? Nothing of thekind is mentioned in the text of theagreement. Could there have been a

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secret addendum to it? The truth willbecame known in 2017-2020.

Later, books were written about the“special requirements” of the Japaneseforces in China and the “necessarysteps” they took. The following re-mark should be made in the presentcontext. The “full recognition of theactual situation in China” was tanta-mount to the recognition of China'sborders as defined by Japan. It was apossible interpretation of the agree-ment that Great Britain acceptedJapan's version of the Khalkhin Gol”incident”, by which Mongolian per-sonnel supported by the Red Armytook a part of China's territory ratherthan the Kwantung Army invadedMongolia.

The absence of official British reac-tion to the May 11, 1939 Japanese at-tack against Mongolian bordercheckpoint in the region of Lake BuirNuur combined with the Britishagents' attempts to instigate a rebellionin Xinjiang, the province via whichmost of the Soviet aid to China wasdelivered, as well as the ambiguousposition taken by the US Departmentof State, altogether left a negative im-pression. Clearly, Tokyo was offeredto turn north and thus to make theDrang nach Osten option more attrac-tive from Hitler's standpoint.

The pause in July was marked withmeetings and contacts between thetrustees of the British and Germanleaderships. A scandal erupted after

revelations in the press about the talksNazi special envoy K. Wohltat heldwith British foreign trade minister R.Hudson and Prime Minister's adviserH. Wilson. Wohltat was presented withan extensive program of cooperationin the political, economic, and militaryspheres, which had been approved byChamberlain. The Prime Ministereven offered to meet with Wohltat per-sonally, but the German envoy said hewas not authorized to.

Great Britain proposed that the BritishCommonwealth and Germany bothpledge non-aggressions and pursuepolicies based on non-intervention ineach other's affairs. In the militarysphere, London was interested toknow with greater precision the cur-rent parameters of the arms race. Theeconomic cooperation could encom-pass the formation of an internationalcolonial zone in Africa, the opening ofaccess to commodity supplies andsales markets to the German industry,the resolution of the international in-debtedness problem, and the financialassistance to Germany's “sanation” ofEast and South-East Europe. Hudsonpromised Germany “an internationalloan” totaling 1 bn British pounds.

The objective set was to reach anagreement between Great Britain andGermany over all significant issues bywhich Great Britain would be ab-solved of all obligations to Poland andRomania.

Wilson assured his counterpart that

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London was ready to consider other is-sues of interest to Germany. He addedthat Hitler's consent to negotiationswould be regarded as a sign of restor-ing trust.

London's insincerity in dealing notonly with the USSR, but also withFrance, the US, and Poland is morethan obvious. No common British-German politics materialized. Hitlerthought that the situation was not ripeyet and blew a remarkable chance forthe third time. In November, 1937Halifax was pushing him towards theidea of “a general settlement”. In Sep-tember, 1938 Chamberlain proposed ahistorical alliance of the two empires.Wilson's summer, 1939 offer was sup-ported by the conservative majority inthe House of Commons.

Let us restore the chronology of theevents which is truly informative. OnJuly 8-21 H. Wilson, R. Hudson, andinfluential conservative G. Ball werescheming with Woltat in the hope thatBerlin's positive answer would followshortly. On July 23 Halifax notifiedSoviet envoy Maisky of the readinessto open military negotiations withoutwaiting for the outcome of the politi-cal talks and promised that the Britishdelegation would be able to go toMoscow within 7-10 days. In 10 daysthere was still no response from Berlinconcerning Wilson's “program”. Toearn a delay, the British delegationboarded on a freight-and-passengerliner which was technically the slow-est means of getting to the negotiating

table in Moscow. To free Berlin fromthe need to engage in guesswork, onAugust 3 Wilson invited ambassadorG. Dirkson to his office to continuesynchronizing the British and Germanpositions.

The ambassador reported to Berlinthat, as it followed from Wilson'swords, for Great Britain the recentstrengthening of the ties with othercountries – the USSR, Poland, and Ro-mania – only served as a reserve in-strument for a fundamentalreconciliation with Germany. The am-bassador gathered that the ties wouldbecome unimportant as soon as thetruly serious objective – reaching anagreement between Great Britain andGermany – was accomplished, andthat, potentially, Italy and Francecould be drawn into the process aswell.

The report left Hitler convinced that –owing to Great Britain's non-interven-tion - the conflict between Germanyand Poland was not going to yield amajor war. Nevertheless, he made anuntypical move in a further effort toavoid problems. On August 11 Hitlersummoned High Commissioner of theLeague of Nations in the Free City ofDanzig, C. Burckhardt and asked hima favor – to explain to the West themeaning of what was happening.Hitler said: “Everything I undertake isdirected against Russia. If the West istoo stupid and too blind to compre-hend this, I will be forced to reach anunderstanding with the Russians, turn

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and strike the West, and then aftertheir defeat turn back against the So-viet Union with my collected strength.I need Ukraine and with that no onecan starve us out as they did in the lastwar”.

Newspapermen managed to learnabout Burckhardt's visit to Hitler andhis mission was depreciated. Why didHitler need Burckhardt? The answeris still unclear. Anyhow, the messageBurckhardt was to deliver to the Westwas timed to coincide with the open-ing of the trilateral military talks inMoscow. Hitler obviously sought toprovide London with additional argu-ments that could strengthen its inten-tion to avoid deals with Moscow thatwould be in any sense binding.

On August 12-13 Hitler was waiting tosee what would come out of Burck-hardt's mission. He ran out of pa-tience on April 14 and notified Horing,field marshal Brauchitsch, and admiralRaeder of the decision to attackPoland at most within two weeks.

The Soviet leadership received enoughinformation to be aware of the currentconspiring and political games. A re-port about Hitler's December, 1936meeting with the Wehrmacht top com-manders during which it was said thatPoland was going to be routed prior tothe invasion of the Soviet Union madeit to Stalin's desk in just a couple ofdays. It took the Kremlin 10 days tolearn about the April 3, 1939 decisionto activate Fall Weiss. It would be an

overstatement to say that the Sovietdictator knew everything or almosteverything, and it was even less truethat Stalin's judgments used to bebased entirely on facts. Like mostrulers with unlimited and uncheckedpower, oftentimes he acted contrary towhat facts suggested.

The lull that ensued after Ribbentrop,as he described it, sent Stalin off witha flea in his ear on June 28, ended onJuly 24 when G. Astakhov was invitedto the German foreign ministry to getfamiliarized with Berlin's view of thepotential phases of a transformationsin the relations between Germany andthe USSR. Schnurre told that the chiefof the German diplomacy saw theprocess as follows: first, successfultalks on trade and credits, then the nor-malization in the spheres of culturalinteractions, the press, etc, and finally– political rapprochement. The Ger-man side was worried over Molotov'stendency to avoid exchanging opin-ions with Schulenburg and the Sovietenvoy's in Berlin not answering Weiz-sacker's questions which were of inter-est to Hitler. Schnurre suggested that ifMoscow was unprepared for ex-changes on the highest level, perhaps,officials of a lower rank could try tobreak the stalemate.

Ribbentrop summoned Astakhov onAugust 2. He maintained during themeeting that there were no unresolv-able disputes between Germany andthe USSR concerning the territorystretching from the Black Sea to the

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Baltic Sea, that there was enoughspace for both countries, and that, ac-cordingly, there had to be no contra-diction between their interests. As forPoland, Ribbentrop said Germany waswatching the developments attentivelyand coldly, but provocations would bepunished within a week. The Germanminister hinted that understandingwith Moscow was desirable on the eveof any turn of the events. He also re-marked that he had his own point ofview on the relations between theUSSR and Japan and did not exclude amodus vivendi between them.

The Soviet envoy was invited to theGerman foreign ministry again on Au-gust 3. On the order of the minister, K.Schnurre made additions and correc-tions to yesterday's conversation. If theSoviet side wants to improve the rela-tions, would it delineate the range ofissues it would like to touch upon inthe process of exchanging opinions?The German side said it was ready todo the same and asked who – from theSoviet side – was authorized to openthe dialog. It was indicated that Ger-many would like the exchange ofopinions to take place in Berlin sinceHitler was personally supervising thisdirection of political activity. Finally,Ribbentrop was to leave for his sum-mer residence shortly and hoped thatat least Moscow would confirm that itwas ready to open negotiations.

It was indicative of Berlin's impa-tience that Schulenburg was instructedto ask to be received by Molotov im-

mediately and to reproduce whatRibbentrop said to Astakhov. Themeeting took place on August 3. Ac-cording to the ambassador's report,Molotov appeared freer than usual butdemonstrated no desire to make realefforts aimed at rapprochement. Re-sponding to the ambassador's call tostop thinking of the past and to lookinto the possibilities that were still un-tapped, Molotov said that to do so ex-planations would have to be obtainedconcerning three issues: the Anti-Comintern Pact, Germany's supportfor Japan's aggression, and the at-tempts to push the USSR out of the in-ternational community. On August 4,Schulenburg sent a message to theGerman foreign ministry saying thatthe USSR was aiming for an agree-ment with Great Britain and France.

It should be noted that Astakhov re-ceived no instructions from Moscowprior to his contacts with Ribbentrop,Weizsacker, and Schnurre. Molotovonly told his envoy that the right tacticwas to listen to the counterparts' state-ments and to promise to relay them toMoscow. Three cases are known inwhich rather diffusely worded instruc-tions concerning the improvement ofthe relations between the USSR andGermany were sent to the Soviet mis-sion. Astakhov was told on August 4that the continuation of the exchangewas desirable but a lot would dependon the outcome of the Berlin talks ontrade and credits as far as the issues in-voked by Ribbentrop were concerned.

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On August 4, Schnurre mentioned forthe first time the secret protocols.Molotov immediately warned As-takhov that the offer of a secret proto-col accompanying the signing of atrade deal was deemed inappropriate.Moscow considered it “uncomfort-able” to create an impression that atrade agreement was concluded to im-prove the political relations. From itsperspective, the move would be unlog-ical and premature.

Molotov sent another message in re-sponse to Astakhov's paper in whichthe diplomat pointed to the risks posedby German perfidy and also laid outhis vision of what issues could be ofinterest to Berlin in the framework ofthe dialog: “We are interested in thelist of issues presented in your paperas of August 8. Discussing themwould take preparations and certainintermediate steps on the way from thetrade and credits agreement to otherthemes. We prefer to hold talks onthese themes in Moscow”.

Berlin could not imagine that officialsdealing with a realm of politics as im-portant as the standoff between twodictatorial states could make contactswithout a sanction obtained from thehigher level of the hierarchy. As-takhov's counterparts were convincedthat whatever Astakhov said followedMoscow's blueprints. Instead, theyshould have wondered why A.Merekalov - the only diplomat in theSoviet mission who officially had theright to speak without referring to au-

thorizations - dropped out of the raceat its very initial phase.

Documents show that the SovietUnion's spring and summer 1939 at-tempts to build a coalition of states op-posing the aggressors were a waste oftime. Given a minimal amount of goodwill, it should have been possible toreach an agreement with the “democ-racies” within a relatively short periodof time. However, as H. Ickes, Secre-tary of the Interior in Roosevelt's Ad-ministration, wrote in his dairy, GreatBritain hoped it would manage tomake Russia and Germany clash whileremaining unaffected by the conflict.The British government needed a pre-tense that talks with Moscow were un-derway to preclude a rapprochementbetween the USSR and Germany.

Chamberlain's government turneddown the arguments of its army, navy,and air force commanders in favor offorming – jointly with the USSR - aserious front against the aggression.The Prime Minister was an uncompro-mising opponent of an alliance withthe Soviets and said he would ratherresign than endorse it. The consensusamong the conservatives was that talkswith Moscow had to be kept alive fora period of time and that Great Britainhad to move on from exchangingnotes to round-table discussions withthe USSR to keep up the pretense thatprogress in the relations with it wasmade. Both Great Britain and Francepreferred to limit the interactions withthe Soviet Union to the ambassadorial

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level. The Soviet invitation to Halifaxto take part in the negotiations person-ally was declined by Chamberlain whosaid his visiting Moscow would be “ahumiliation”.

British ambassador W. Seeds assistedby W. Strang was given the task oftaking as much time as possible andcreating the impression that Londonwas interested in reaching an agree-ment. On July 4 the British govern-ment confirmed that the objective ofthe negotiations with the USSR was toprevent it from establishing any tieswith Germany. Halifax projected at thegovernment meeting over the proce-dure of the “technical” military talkswith Moscow that they would not be amajor success. He explained that thenegotiations would be long and thatthe obligations each side would exactfrom the other would be of purely gen-eral character. Thus, in his view, GreatBritain was to get the most out of thesituation that could not be avoided.The aforementioned J. Simon, theChancellor of the Exchequer, ex-pressed the view even more cynically:he said Great Britain needed full free-dom of maneuver to be able to tell theUSSR it did not have to get involvedin the war because it disagreed withthe Russian interpretation of facts. Inother words, if the plan to outsmartRussians failed and some agreementhad to be signed, its formulationwould be maximally indefinite. Theconclusion to be drawn from Simon'sstatement was that in the framework of

the British model of the alliance Lon-don could, for example, avoid declar-ing war on Germany in the case of itsaggression against Poland and merelywatch the Soviet Union get confrontedwith all the hardships of the armedconflict.

What options were open to Moscow atthe face of Chamberlain's political in-trigues? What posture was it to adopt,knowing about the instructions givenfrom the outset to Admiral Drax whocame to Moscow for military talksafter a long and deliberately slow jour-ney by ship and an extensive tour ofLeningrad museums? The instructionwas that the British government hadno intention to assume any specificand binding obligations and that themilitary agreement had to be wordedin a maximally general fashion. Hali-fax told Drax to take as much time aspossible. Practically, this meant mak-ing sure that the talks produced no re-sult till September or early November,when natural conditions would renderHitler's program unsustainable regard-less of the response of the countriesopposing Germany12.

The war was about to break out. OnAugust 7 the Soviet leadership re-ceived a report saying that the deploy-ment of the German forces and theconcentration of resources for an at-tack against Poland would be com-pleted by August 15-20 and anoffensive would be likely starting Au-gust 25. A day or two later the sameinformation became available to Great

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Britain. The sinister warnings previ-ously given to London by German em-bassy adviser T. Kordt and by Italianofficials were materializing, and thetime when games could be played wasover.

According to Drax, he realized on hisvery first day in Moscow that the So-viets were keenly interested in anagreement with Great Britain. Chief ofheadquarters B. Shaposhnikov said atthe August 15 meeting of the threedelegations that the USSR was readyto confront the aggressor in Europewith 136 divisions, 5,000 heavycanons, 9,000-10,000 tanks, and5,000-5,500 aircrafts. Drax sent amessage to London saying the USSRwas not going to employ the defensivetactic the British negotiating team wasinstructed to prescribe to it, but ratherintended to attack in the case of war.Head of the French delegation Gen. J.Doumenc reported to Paris that theSoviet negotiators presented a plan ofhighly efficient support they weregoing to provide. In its turn, theFrench foreign ministry recommendedPrime Minister E. Daladier to set theSoviet support, which it regarded asnecessary, as the prerequisite for theBritish and French guarantees toPoland.

Why was it that a day before theabove estimates - quite positive to theuninitiated – Drax confided to his col-leagues that he felt their mission wasover? The answer is simple – the“democracies” neither planned to di-

rectly engage Germany nor botheredto get in touch with Poland over itspotential cooperation with the USSRand the opening of the Vilnius corridorin the north and the Galician one inthe south, which the Red Army neededto engage the aggressor. A break tillAugust 21 was declared on Drax'ssuggestion to let Great Britain andFrance discuss the military interac-tions theme with Poland.

On August 19, Gen. F. Musse andBritish military envoy to Warsawspent three hours in a polemic withPolish chief of staff Stakhevitz whokept swearing at the Soviet Union andStalin and obviously had nothing elseto say. The account of the conversa-tion led the French foreign ministry topresent Beck with an ultimatum. Afterthat, in the afternoon of August 23,Warsaw authorized chief of the Frenchmilitary mission in Moscow Gen. J.Doumenc to tell K. Voroshilov Polandrealized that the cooperation betweenPoland and the USSR on terms to bespecified in finer detail was not ruledout (or was possible) in the case of aGerman aggression. The messagereached the French Embassy inMoscow in the morning of August 24when the Non-Aggression Pact be-tween the USSR and Germany had al-ready been signed.

What could be the algorithm of coor-dination between the three countriesunder the purely hypothetic scenariothat Poland assessed the situationsoberly and accepted the Soviet

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Union's offer of help?

Soviet military planners intended toconfront the aggressor with a powerfulgroup of forces, roughly at the level of70-100% of what could be contributedby Great Britain and France. Thearmies of the three countries had to becombat-ready 15-16 days after thedeclaration of mobilization. What ifGreat Britain sent no forces whatso-ever and avoided engaging the aggres-sor for 1-3 months?

Suppose that Great Britain and Francefailed to avoid specifying in the agree-ment text the numbers of militaryforces as well as the regions andtimetables of their dispatch. Howwould they be fulfilling the obliga-tions considering that they never tookany measures to prepare for the mis-sion? No operative and strategic plan-ning of the interaction with the RedArmy accompanied the Moscow nego-tiations – the “democracies” did notrule out the possibility of fighting a“strange war” in the east parallel to anarmed conflict between the SovietUnion and Germany. Did London andParis have any difficulty grasping thatin the summer of 1939 Hitler's top pri-ority was to prevent the three countriesfrom forming a military alliance ratherthan to sign a non-aggression pactwith the USSR? Hitler used to say thathe would be able to rout Poland with-out risking to trigger a conflict withthe West as long as Great Britain andFrance had no treaty with Moscow.Launching the offensive in the east he

even had no ready operative plans fora campaign in the west.

On August 9 Ribbentrop passed toItalian ambassador Attolico a reply toMussolini's letter by which he in-formed Germany that Italy was unpre-pared for war. The reply containingHitler's creed in a condensed formsaid:

● The decision to attack Polandwas irreversible;

● The conflict in Poland would re-main local as Great Britain and Francewould not dare to take action againstthe axis countries;

● In case they did support Polandmilitarily, the axis would hardly everget a better chance to score with them;

● Due to the superiority of theaxis, the war – even in case it grewwider in scope – would still be short.

The exchange of opinions betweenGermany and the Soviet Union be-came a reality on August 15, but at thetime in the form of a dialog rather thanof negotiations. Moscow remained un-decided despite the ample evidenceshowing that Great Britain and Francewere not ready to confront the aggres-sor jointly with the USSR. Moreover,it followed from the correspondenceintercepted by the Soviet intelligenceservice that the West was bearing inmind a replay of the Munich Agree-ment – a deal excluding the USSR andhostile to it in character.

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Like H. Wilson, British ambassador toBerlin H. Henderson worked tirelesslyin the name of the Anglo-German ac-cord. Swiss, Swedish, and US envoysdutifully contributed to the cause. Ac-cording to Burckhardt's papers, on Au-gust 11 Hitler said he was ready tomeet a British politician of “the Hali-fax format” immediately and pointedto Marshal Ironside as a potential ne-gotiating partner. The Nazi leaderasked Burckhardt to relay the informa-tion to London.

It must be admitted that the SovietUnion's dropping the role of Ger-many's adversary – regardless of thereasons behind it – made Poland amuch easier target for Hitler. At thesame time, the notion that Hitlerwould become an angel if there wasno Soviet-German Non-AggressionPact is simply ridiculous. The impres-sion the trilateral talks in Moscowwere supposed to create for the rest ofthe world was that of total uncertainty.Both Hitler and Chamberlain em-ployed the delaying tactic with days orweeks at stake. Each of them had hisown reasons to favor uncertainty. TheBritish Prime Minister hoped thatroads would become impenetrable inthe fall and thus London would get achance to settle its “family dispute”with Berlin.

Hitler had his own motivations to becontent with the British delaying tac-tic. The endless trilateral talks made itimpossible for Great Britain, France,and the USSR to take efficient meas-

ures at the crucial opening phase ofthe armed conflict. If debates inMoscow lasted till September 1, bythe key date the three powers wouldhave been armed with a plan requiring15-16 days to ready their forces forcombat. Later the negotiators who evi-dently forgot that the events were un-folding in the fast-paced XX centurywere surprised to realize that the col-lapse of Poland took only 17-18 days.

Furthermore, the “democracies'” sign-ing the military convention with theUSSR and even Great Britain's declar-ing war on Germany would not havemade the western part of the conflictany less “strange”. In any case, GreatBritain and France would not havebeen eager to seriously engage theGerman forces and those would beequally willing to avoid fighting in thewest. The Soviet Union would havefaced a totally different reality. In-spired by the easy victory the Germanarmy would have reached a bordermuch less suited for the Soviet de-fense than the one from which Russiahad been attacked by Pilsudski in1921 and would be attacked by theNazi in 1941.

As a part of the realization of FallWeiss, Germany was to gain controlover the territories of Lithuania andLatvia “up to the borders of formerCourland”. Hitler confirmed duringthe May 23 meeting with army com-manders that he was determined “toresolve the Baltic problem”. A legalpretext for the offensive was formu-

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lated in advance – Germany's non-ag-gression pacts with Estonia andLithuania included a secret clause bywhich the two republics had to imple-ment “security measures” against theSoviet Union as agreed with Berlinand advised by it. The Estonian andLithuanian governments stated in thepacts that the USSR was the onlycountry posing a military threat andthat the politics of real neutrality madethem seek protection against it. Ac-cordingly, Germany was supposed tohelp them in the cases where their ownpotentials were insufficient. The statedobjective was to prevent the Baltic re-gion from being converted into afoothold for an offensive lunched byother countries and to make arrange-ments for the region's republics tocounter attempts to encircle them untilthe German forces arrived13.

Consequently, for the Soviet Unionentering into an alliance with GreatBritain, France, and Poland wouldhave entailed problems bred not onlyby its own insufficient readiness tofight Germany, but also by the abovearrangements.

Suppose Hitler did not take furtherrisks and the German forces stoppedby the Soviet border. It would never-theless be likely that Japan would in-tensify its efforts to put into practicethe plan of synchronizing the aggres-sion against the Soviet Union in theeast with that in the west. Quite possi-bly, extremists would have managed totame the influence of Japan's foreign

minister H. Arita, an opponent of anoverly aggressive anti-Soviet course,over the country's foreign politics, andto induce a shift in the views of thenaval command which so far used tofocus on the southern direction.Japan's motivation would not havebeen limited to avenging the KhalkhinGol defeat. Documentary evidencesuggests that gaining control overChina was regarded by Japanesestrategists as an intermediate step inthe fight with the USSR. Tokyo wasactively trying to get both GreatBritain and the US involved in theanti-Soviet venture. On June 30, 1939Roosevelt told Soviet envoy Umanskythat Japan offered him to share the nat-ural riches of Siberia – from the Pa-cific coast almost to Lake Baikal - as aprogram for the future.

Even the signing of the Soviet-Ger-man Non-Aggression Pact did not putthe final dot in the story of the ap-peasement. Great Britain was going tomake the Soviet Union face new prob-lems. Chamberlain said at the August26 governmental meeting that if GreatBritain did leave Hitler alone in hissphere (East Europe), he would leaveit alone as well. It was a matter of theprice to pay, principles notwithstand-ing.

The Soviet leader's priority was toavoid facing the aggressor – or twoaggressors – alone and to delay themoment of the final reckoning. His1937-1938 repressions left the RedArmy with an acute shortage of skilled

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commanders. Three of the country'sfive marshals, 11 deputy commissarsof defense, 75 of the 80 members ofthe Supreme Military Council, 14 ofthe 16 army commanders, 60 of the 67corps commanders, 136 of the 199 di-vision commanders, and 221 of the397 brigade commanders had been ex-ecuted. As a result, there was almostnobody left to lead the army.

In the early August Moscow was al-ready weighing the option of some-thing similar to the 1926 Berlin Treatyas an alternative to inconclusivelyworded deals with Great Britain andFrance. It is probably true that the ver-biage at the Moscow talks reflected toan extent the negotiators' lack of con-fidence in the sincerity of partners andthe ability of their countries' leaders toproduce an actual result. The imitationof activity was meant to impress Ger-many, the fourth player invisibly pres-ent at the negotiating table.

What would have happened in caseStalin turned down Hitler's persistentrequests to urgently receive Ribben-trop in Moscow? Hitler's letter washanded over to Molotov by Schulen-burg at 3 pm on August 21, 1939. TheGerman ambassador had Stalin's replyby 5 pm the same day. One can onlyguess why afterwards it took some 9hours to deliver the 14 lines of the textfrom Stalin's letter to Berlin. Was thedelay induced deliberately and if itwas, by whom?

No later than on August 22 Hitler was

informed that Goring had been invitedto meet Chamberlain and Halifax. Thechief of the British intelligence waspersonally charged with organizing thecontact so as to avoid publicity. OnAugust 23 London played the trumpcard - it offered to hold a four-lateralsummit where all disputes could besettled without Poland and the USSR.The offer delivered via an unofficialchannel was backed by a messagefrom Chamberlain in which he liter-ally begged Hitler not to take irre-versible steps.

A Lockheed-12a of the British secretservice which was to deliver Goring toa secret meeting with Chamberlainand Hitler's personal Junkers whichwas made available to Ribbentrop tofly to Moscow waited at the Tempel-hof airport starting August 21. The fu-ture course - that of Europe and thewhole world – depended on which ofthe two planes was to take off.

Naturally, there was no guarantee thatthe sides would reach an agreementduring the talks in Moscow. En routeto Moscow, Ribbentrop's plane cameunder fire from the Soviet air defensenear Velikiye Luki but remained un-harmed. Critics of the Pact shouldadmit that the decision to attackPoland was made and the date for theoffensive (initially August 26) was setby Berlin prior to Ribbentrop's meet-ing with Stalin and Molotov and to thesigning of the Non-Aggression Pactwith all of its addenda. The wide-spread errors in the chronology of the

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story are not random – they are intro-duced deliberately and replicated inquantities to ensure the acceptance ofthe distorted version of the events.

Was the Soviet Union choosing thesmaller of the two evils in 1939? Atleast after the talks between Gen.Musse and Stachiewicz the Moscowtalks obviously stood no chance.Could the prolongation of the 1926Berlin Treaty do instead of the Non-Aggression Pact? Theoretically, itcould, though there is nothing wrongwith the new treaty by which signato-ries agree that there should be no placefor violence in their relations.

Definitely, Moscow's position couldbe more moral if there was a clause inthe August 23 Treaty saying the signa-tories would be no longer bound bythe obligations assumed in case one ofthem launched an aggression against athird-party country. In that epoch,however, treaties without likewise pro-visions – such as, for example, theSeptember 30, 1938 Anglo-Germandeclaration were routine and were notregarded as immoral.

The Bolsheviks' 1917 revelationsabout various state secrets caused ashock across the world, but that is amatter of the past. Secret addenda(protocols, additional clauses, letters)to international treaties remain ordi-nary practice. Polish, Lithuanian, andEstonian treaties with Germany, not tomention the Italian and Japanese ones,exemplify the trend. It was also

planned that the convention on mutualaid between Great Britain, France, andthe USSR would include a protocolnot open to the public.

Therefore, neither in terms of themethod using which it was compiled,nor in terms of its content the secretprotocol to the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact constituted a depar-ture from the international law. TheAct passed by the 1988 USSR Con-gress of People's Deputies described itas “a breach of Lenin's principles inthe Soviet international politics”, butthat's something completely different.

Generally, defining spheres of influ-ence is not necessarily an oppressiveact. It can be interpreted as setting aborder crossing which renders the en-tire package of agreements invalid.Strictly speaking, taking Lithuania,Latvia, and Estonia out of the sphereof German supervision as it was donein August-September, 1939 did not in-fringe upon their independence. Thetransformations which took place in1940 could not be predicted at thetime the protocols were compiled andhad nothing to do with them.

Reconstructing the course of Ribben-trop's August 23-24 negotiations withStalin and Molotov is an uphill task.At the moment, the best work on thesubject belongs to Prof. IngeborgFleischhauer, but a lot is still to bedone. The widespread approach basedon rethinking history in line with thecurrently dominant political philoso-

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phy is clearly unproductive. In thepast, leveling criticism at the ideologi-cal opponents used to be an end in it-self. On might think that things havechanged these days, but “democrats”still prefer to keep archives sealed.Obviously, the documents stored inthem can be a source of major embar-rassment even decades after they werewritten.

An unbiased scholar can draw certainconclusions from Molotov's August31, 1939 speech at the session of theUSSR Supreme Soviet. The chief ofthe Soviet diplomacy said: “The deci-sion to sign the Non-Aggression Pactwith Germany was made after the mil-itary talks with Great Britain andFrance ended in a stalemate. Since thetalks showed that there was no hope ofsigning a mutual assistance pact, wehad no other choice but to look intoother possibilities of maintainingpeace and eliminating the threat ofwar between Germany and theUSSR”. Molotov's interpretation ofthe August 23 deal was that the USSRwas under no obligation to get in-volved in a war against Germany onGreat Britain's side or against GreatBritain on Germany's side.

From the standpoint of the practice ofthe international relations, it is ratheruntypical to explain opting for onepartner by another one's shortcomingsor the feasibility of a particular act –by the failure to reach an optimalagreement on a different track. Was itMolotov's problem with self-expres-

sion or was it a message to Londonand Paris saying they had to changetheir attitudes to get another type ofresults?

It usually evades observers that theUSSR still tried to keep the dialogwith London and Paris alive after thesigning of the Pact with Germany.Molotov said to French ambassadorNadjiar: “The non-aggression treatywith Germany is not incompatiblewith an alliance based on mutual aidbetween Great Britain, France, and theUSSR”, but Moscow's signals urgingthe “democracies” not to burn thebridges remained unheard. Londonand Paris demonstratively ignoredtheir former negotiating partner whilethe British conservatives' consensus-searching with the Nazi clearly gath-ered momentum.

Hitler responded to the British call notto take irreversible steps with an offer,passed via Henderson, to form a blocon the following terms:

● Germany was to get back Danzigand the Polish corridor;

● Germany was to guaranteePoland's new borders;

● An agreement on former Germancolonies had to be reached;

● Germany's western borders hadto be regarded as inviolable;

● The arms race had to be curbed.

In return, Berlin would have promisedto protect the British Empire against

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any external threats.

The above is a curious mixture ofBerlin's claims to Poland aired in Oc-tober, 1938-January, 1939, and theBritish ideas fed to Hitler via Wilsonin July-August, 1939. Hitler added anote to the proposal indicating thatGreat Britain's declaring “a demon-strative war” for the sake of prestigewould not be a major problem pro-vided that the key aspects of the futurereconciliation were agreed in advance.

Hitler contacted Mussolini upon meet-ing Henderson. The discussion withthe Italian dictator left him in a goodmood and at 3:02 p.m. he ordered toactivate Fall Weiss. The offensiveagainst Poland was to be launched atsunrise on August 26, but things didnot go as planned. The Italian embassyinformed Berlin that Rome was notready for a war. At 5:30 pm the Frenchambassador in Berlin issued the warn-ing that his country would fulfill itsobligations to Poland. At about 6:00pm BBC broadcast that the Anglo-Pol-ish alliance treaty was enacted. At themoment Hitler was unaware that theinformation about Italy's not joiningthe attack against Poland was passedto London and Paris earlier than toBerlin.

German chief of staff Gen. Halderwrote in his diary that Hitler was con-fused and there was some hope to getthe demands declined by Poland ful-filled via negotiations with GreatBritain. In the meantime, Keitel was

ordered to stop the dispatch of theGerman forces to the positions speci-fied by Fall Weiss and to present themovement of the troops as exercise.

On August 26 Hitler sent an offer of afull alliance to London with Swedishcitizen Birger Dahlerus. The idea wasthat London could help Germany toregain Danzig and the Polish corridorand Germany could pledge not to sup-port any countries – Italy, Japan, or theUSSR – in their activities hostile toGreat Britain. In the past, Wilson usedthe possibility of Great Britain's an-nulling the guarantees it had extendedto Poland and other European coun-tries to lure Hitler. Now the Nazileader put at stake all his promises toRome and Tokyo, as well as the Pactwith Moscow which had just beeninked. The mediator delivered thereply on the night of August 28. TheBritish side expressed interest in find-ing a solution but supplied no detailsconcerning its form and content. OnAugust 27 Chamberlain told the gov-ernment he made it clear to Dahlerus:there was a chance Poland wouldagree to part with Danzig, though thePrime Minister had not consulted War-saw.

At 10:30 pm ambassador Hendersontold Hitler that the British Prime Min-ister shared Hitler's wish to makefriendship the basis of the relations be-tween Great Britain and Germany andwas ready to accept his August 25offer with some additions whichwould have to be discussed. The talks

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could be organized promptly and witha sincere wish to reach an agreementprovided that Germany and Polandsettled their dispute peacefully. Hand-ing the letter over to Chamberlain,Henderson said that the Prime Minis-ter could bring his policy to comple-tion, but only provided that Hitler wasopen to cooperation. Hitler listenedinattentively. Several hours earlier hemade up his mind that the invasion ofPoland would take place on September1. Henderson maintained at the August26 meeting of the British governmentthat the real worth of London's guar-antees to Poland was that they made itpossible for Warsaw to settle the dis-pute with Berlin. On August 30 –when Germany had dispatched 46 di-visions to the starting positions for anoffensive against Poland – Halifaxsaid the concentration of troops wasno argument against further talks withthe German government.

Washington concluded already in lateJuly that Chamberlain's plans madethe alliance between Russia, GreatBritain, and France – the idea Roo-sevelt seemed to like, judging by hisspoken message to Molotov – totallyimpossible. Washington knew no lessthan Great Britain about the rap-prochement between the USSR andGermany. In any case, it was the firstto learn about the secret protocols inthe framework of the August Non-Ag-gression Pact. Having received the in-formation about the division of thespheres of influence from H. Her-

warth, an employee of the Germanembassy to Moscow, the US Presidentsent addresses to the King of Italy(August 23), Hitler (August 24 and26), and Poland (August 25). The con-tent of the addresses had a lot in com-mon with the US arguments invoked ayear earlier to promote the Munichdeal. On September 1 Roosevelt calledHitler to fight with moderation, pre-serving the lives of the civilian popu-lation.

The information about Hitler's impres-sion from the outbursts of the US ac-tivity still has not surfaced. Quitepossibly, they convinced Hitler to goeasy on Great Britain and France dur-ing the initial phase of the war(Hitler's Directive #2 of September 3,1939).

On September 2 Wilson told the Ger-man embassy on the Prime Minister'sorder that Germany could get what itwanted in case it stopped the attackagainst Poland. Then London wasready to forget about the past and opennegotiations. Chamberlain did not planto use force against Germany. Theeconomic pressure was supposed tomake Berlin revert to the forming ofthe “new Europe” with Great Britainand Germany as its pillars. In the No-vember 5, 1939 letter to Roosevelt,Chamberlain expressed his confidencethat the war would be over soon, andnot because Germany would be de-feated but because Berlin would real-ize the economic costs of war.

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London's attempts to talk to Hitler didnot stop him. What the Nazi leaderneeded was not a political success buta military triumph, and the Leben-sraum could only be conquered. Forthat, Hitler had to seize the initiative.Perhaps, Great Britain could expect tobe treated better than others as “aracially close nation”.

It was not easy for Chamberlain andHalifax to admit that both their ownpolitics and the entire British post-World War I strategy had crashed.Under pressure from the House ofCommons, the Prime Minister de-clared war on Germany. The same wasimmediately done by Paris. Thus theconflict between Germany and Polandwas evolving into a world war.

Japan received the first trustworthy re-port about the reset of the Soviet-Ger-man relations in the evening of August21 during a phone conversation be-tween Ribbentrop and ambassador Os-hima. The Japanese leadership, whichascribed the highest priority to itstreaties with Germany, was reallyshocked. The whole Anti-Cominternarchitecture was jeopardized, andTokyo's trust in the partnership withGermany was undermined. Hiranuma'sgovernment resigned and Japan's mas-sive aggression against the USSR waspostponed indefinitely. On September16 Japan officially notified the USSRthat its military offensive in Mongoliawas frozen.

N. Starikov discerns a certain synchro-

nism between the above date and Sep-tember 17 – the date when the Sovietforces entered West Ukraine and Be-larus14. Arguments can indeed befound to support the view. Moscow isknown to have declined several timesand under various pretexts to dispatchits troops to the separation line as sug-gested by Germany (on September 3,8, and 14). Soviet representativesstressed that the involvement of theRed Army forces was motivated bypolitical, not military regards15.

The latter circumstance was important.During the week critical in terms ofthe future relations – September 17–24– Roosevelt and Secretary of StateHull made up their minds not to regardthe crossing of the eastern Polish bor-der defined by the 1921 Peace Treatyof Riga by the Soviet forces as an actof war. Due to long-term considera-tions, the arms and military suppliesembargo required by the law on neu-trality was not imposed on the SovietUnion. Starting with September 5 suchsanctions were imposed on Germany(on paper) and formally on GreatBritain and France (suspended orders).

It took London and Paris a while toformulate their interpretation of thePolish border crossing by the RedArmy in 1922. The correction of theAugust 23 delineation of the spheresof influence, which was carried out ina rush, helped them to come up with amore balanced judgment on the issue.The new secret protocol dated Septem-ber 28 set the border to coincide with

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the Curzon Line charted in December,1919 by the Entente Supreme Councilas Poland's eastern frontier.

Having ratified at 11:55 pm the So-viet-German Non-Aggression Pact,the USSR avoided being drawn into atotal disaster. The new military-politi-cal landscape, however, also promised

no good news to Moscow even in themid-term. The residual freedom ofmaneuver evaporated before it couldgenerate seizable benefits, and theonly practical result left to the SovietUnion was the delay which it neededdesperately to get prepared for the im-minent war.

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References1. US Secretary of State C. Hull's testament is to remember that Russians with their heroic struggle

saved the allies from a disgraceful separate peace with Germany that could become a prologue tothree decades of war. “Since no particular event or date were referred to in the statement, apparently the idea of a separate deal was in the air and did not materialize solely due to the stability of the Nazi “new order” and the failure of the attempts on Hitler's life.”

2. Only US pilots served in the Kosciuszko Escadrille under the command of Cedric Fauntleroy.3. N. Starikov. Who Forced Hitler to Attack Stalin. Peter Publishers, 2008, p. 235-236 (in Russian).4. The information supplied in E. Hanfstaengl's Hitler, My Friend and Hitler: The Missing Years is

confirmed by other sources.5. Chancellor Papen dispensed favors to Herriot for the waiver of the reparations with the possibil

ity of concluding “an anti-communist treaty”, the cooperation between the army staffs, the creation of the customs union, etc.

6. In September, 1930 a group of Japanese military officers formed a secret “Cherry Bloom Society”. Its members and patrons aimed for the military dictatorship in Japan and the broadening of the aggression which at its initial phase targeted China. The coup they planned to organize on March 12, 1931 became unnecessary due to the advent of the new government in which key posts were held by Gen. Minami and his supporters linked to the extremists.

7. The Treaty signed on January 6, 1922 by the US, Great Britain, Japan, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, and China obliged the signatories to respect the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of China provided that equal opportunities in the spheres of trade and industry were opened in the country to all nations.

8. For details, see: S.V. Morozov, On Japan's Role in Hitler's and Pilsudski's Eastern Plans. An abridged version was published in International Life, Issues 1-2, 2007.

9. Ingeborg Fleischhauer. Der Pakt: Hitler, Stalin Und Die Initiative Der Deutschen Diplomatie 1938-1939

10. Celowski В. Das Muenchener Abkommen. Stuttgart. 1958. S. 3211. S.V. Morozov outlines significant details of the Polish position in “Relations Between Poland

and Czechoslovakia in 1933-1939”. Moscow State University Publishers, Moscow, 2004.12. The above information about London's approach to the negotiations with the USSR is bor

rowed from: the protocols of meetings of the British government and the documents obtained by the Soviet intelligence service.

13. Ingeborg Fleischhauer. Der Pakt: Hitler, Stalin Und Die Initiative Der Deutschen Diplomatie 1938-1939

14. N. Starikov. Ibid., p. 2294-29515. One of the formulations was: “Due to the advancement of the German army, we are forced to

state that Poland is collapsing and the USSR has to come to the rescue of the Belorussians and Ukrainians threatened by Germany”. The version left Ribbentrop outraged.

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