In the spring of 1937 rumors of an imminent agreement between the USSR and Germany circulated in Western foreign ministries and the Western press. The Soviet Union issued a formal denial of these rumors, but only in April 1937, two months after Hitler's categorical rejection of the Soviet proposals.55
In March 1938 Germany annexed Austria. On September 30, 1938, the Munich agreement was signed, under which Great Britain and France acceded to the separation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia and its incorporation in Germany. The Munich agreement, however, was aimed not only at Czechoslovakia but also at the Soviet Union. After Munich and the Anglo—German declaration of nonaggression an analogous Franco—German declaration soon followed.56 Moscow's nervousness increased when a pro- Nazi puppet government was established in the Transcarpathian Ukraine, a former part of the Russian empire which had gone to Czechoslovakia but was now detached from that country. Rumors spread that the Germans were reviving one of their old projects, a formally independent, German vassal state in the Ukraine.
Under these conditions Stalin decided to resort once again to his favorite tactic, the double-cross. In his report to the Eighteenth Party Congress on March 10, 1939, he warned Great Britain and France that their "nonintervention" policy was bound to fail and hinted at a possible reversal of Soviet foreign policy.57
Several months later, on August 23, after the signing of the Soviet- German nonagression pact, during an evening reception to celebrate the occasion, Molotov "raised his glass to toast Stalin, commenting that it was Stalin with his speech in March 1939, which had been correctly understood in Germany, who achieved the turnabout in political relations [between the USSR and Germany]."58 A week after that celebration Molotov told the deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR that it had been Stalin who at the Eighteenth Party Congress had predicted an agreement between the USSR and Germany. "It is evident now," Molotov added, "that in Germany on the whole they understood this statement of Comrade Stalin's correctly and drew practical conclusions from it. (Laughter.).. .The historical foresight of Comrade Stalin was brilliantly confirmed. (Stormy applause in honor of Comrade Stalin.)"59
Five days after Stalin's speech Germany occupied Czechoslovakia and installed on its territory the German protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia and an "independent" Slovakia under the tutelage of the Third Reich. These events radically changed political opinion in Britain. In response to new German pressure on Poland (demands for the annexation of Danzig and the Polish corridor), Britain adopted a "policy of guarantees." From March to May 1939 Britain gave commitments of direct military aid to Poland, Romania, Greece, and Turkey in the event of unprovoked aggression.60 The draft was reintroduced in Britain for the first time since World War I. Chamberlain's government asked the Soviet Union to clarify what its policy would be in the event that Poland and Romania were threatened with aggression.61 At the same time, Chamberlain began to probe the possibility of an agreement with the Germans that would guarantee British security.62 The Soviet Union, for its part, began to play its own kind of double game. In mid-April 1939 it initiated talks with Britain and France on the question of a military alliance. On the other hand, energetic soundings were resumed in Berlin on the possibility of a broad political agreement between the USSR and Germany against Britain and France.
On April 15 the British government urged the USSR to declare publicly that in the event of aggression against any European neighbor of the USSR, as long as that country itself resisted the aggression, it could count on Soviet assistance.63 On April 17 the Soviet Union proposed a mutual assistance pact to England and France, to last from five to ten years, with guarantees of assistance to any Eastern European country bordering on the Soviet Union between the Baltic and Black seas that fell victim to aggression. The Soviet proposal provided for the signing of a military convention.64 Ten days before this, however, Peter Kleist, a German Foreign Ministry official, heard Georgy Astakhov, the Soviet сЬа^ё d'affaires in Berlin, say that it made no sense for Germany and the USSR to engage in ideological warfare when they could coordinate their policies.65 And on the same day that the Soviet proposal was delivered to Britain, Aleksei Merekalov, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, told Weizsaecker, the German deputy foreign minister, that the Soviet Union would like to have normal relations with Germany, relations that "might become better and better, " and that ideological differences should not be an obstacle.66
On May 3 Maxim Litvinov, who during the 1930s had come to symbolize the policy of collective security, was dismissed as commissar of foreign affairs. The dismissal of this Jew, who had often been a target of Nazi propaganda, and his replacement by Molotov produced a very favorable impression in Berlin. A German diplomatic courier stressed that Molotov's appointment "apparently guarantees that Soviet foreign policy will be conducted in strict accordance with the conceptions of Stalin."67
On May 5 Astakhov was informed that armaments which the Soviet Union had ordered from the Skoda factories in German-occupied Czechoslovakia would be delivered.
During May, the exchange of proposals and further discussion through diplomatic channels continued between England and France, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union, on the other. The essential point for the USSR was a guarantee that the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) would not somehow fall to the Germans and that, in the event of war with Germany, Soviet troops would be allowed to pass through Polish and Romanian territory unimpeded. This meant, in effect, that the Soviet Union was asking England and France's approval for the annexation of the Baltic nations. The governments of Poland and Romania rejected the request for free passage of Soviet troops on their territory because they feared, not without reason, that this would result in irreversible social and political changes.
On May 20, in the midst of these negotiations with England and France, Molotov called in the German ambassador, Schulenburg. The ambassador was amazed by one of Molotov's remarks: that both governments should seriously think about ways of placing their relations on a better political foundation.68 In Berlin this statement was seen as a very promising opening, but a decision was made to wait until Molotov became more explicit. The Nazis suspected the Soviet government of using the German government's willingness to improve relations as a way of pressuring Britain and France into making greater concessions. In one of his memorandums to Hitler, the German foreign minister noted, however, that the USSR no longer aggressively promoted world revolution and that a gradual normalization of German—Soviet relations was possible.69 The German Foreign Ministry began an intensive study of the prospects of a German—Soviet rapprochement and its possible effects on Germany's alliance with Japan and Italy. During June and July, Stalin and Hitler refrained from any decisive moves. At the same time intensive Soviet—German trade talks continued.
At the end of May 1939 the Far East became the scene of major battles between Japanese forces, on one side, and Soviet Mongolian troops, on the other. The deterioration of Soviet—Japanese relations increased the Soviet government's anxiety and its fear of being drawn into a war on two fronts, west and east.