After the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Germany began to intervene in Romania and the Balkans, while Italy began making moves against Yugoslavia and Greece.
On September 27, 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed a military alliance, the Tripartite Pact. Although it contained a proviso that the relations of the signatories with the USSR would not be affected, the Soviet government correctly interpreted the pact as a step toward widening the war.
In the midst of these difficulties and complications, Stalin had a chance to rejoice. On August 20, 1940, his agents finally succeeded in killing his mortal enemy, Trotsky. They had pursued the exiled revolutionary for years, killing one of his secretaries, Erwin Wolf, in Spain in 1937; then his older son, Leon Sedov, in 1938; and finally, Trotsky himself. His murderer, Ramon Mercader, drove an iceax into Trotsky's head. Stalin rejoiced over the way his rival was killed—like a mad dog—as much as over the fact of his death. On August 24, 1940, Pravda celebrated the event in characteristic fashion: an editorial entitled "Death of an International Spy."
Mercader, who was sentenced to twenty years in prison, refused to name those who had guided his hand. He was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. (He was fated to receive his Hero's gold star more than twenty years later in Moscow—not from Stalin or Beria, who would no longer be on the scene, but from someone with Politburo authorization. At that time Mercader would change his name to Lopez and apply for membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but his application would be rejected on formal grounds, the real reason being that the post-Stalin Soviet leaders would prefer not to be further associated with Trotsky's assassin. Despite everything, these leaders sometimes do consider the judgment of history. The rejected Mercader-Lopez, in anger, would tear the gold star from his chest. Nevertheless, to the end of his days he remained a member of the fraternal Spanish Communist party.)
In autumn 1940 the Axis powers intensified their moves into Southeastern Europe, threatening British as well as Soviet interests. Hungary and Romania were by then virtual satellites of Germany, German military influence in Bulgaria was increasing, and at the end of October Italy invaded Greece.
Under these circumstances, in the late autumn of 1940 Britain again tried to open talks with the Soviet Union, but the attempt failed. Moscow's attitude toward Britain and the United States had undergone a certain change: it was evident that Britain would not capitulate to Germany and was waging war more and more stubbornly; it was also evident that the expansion of Germany and Italy into the Balkans was a direct threat to the security of the USSR. The Soviet leadership chose to adopt a more active approach, lest it find itself completely isolated. The stupid Soviet press campaign against U.S. entry into the war was stopped. On August 6, 1940, a Soviet—U.S. trade agreement was renewed. At the end of January 1941 the United States made a conciliatory gesture, lifting a "moral embargo" that had been in effect since December 1939, when because of the Soviet attack on Finland the U.S. government advised American companies not to trade with the Soviet Union. In March 1941 Congress rejected an amendment seeking to exclude the USSR from aid under the lend-lease program. But matters did not reach the point of rapprochement with Britain and the United States, primarily because the Soviet Union continued to respect scrupulously its agreements with Germany and wished not to give Hitler any pretext for violating those agreements. Fear of provoking Germany was the key to Soviet policy in this period.
In 1940 and 1941 the Soviet Union conscientiously abided by the terms of its agreement to supply Germany with strategic raw materials, in particular oil and grain. In this way the Soviet Union contributed significantly to the German preparations for war against—the Soviet Union itself.
Soviet—German economic relations had been defined by the agreements of August 19, 1939, and February 10, 1940. Germany needed strategic raw materials. At the beginning of World War II the German economy depended to a great extent on imports, such as tin (90 percent imported), rubber (over 85 percent), raw materials for textiles (approximately 70 percent), bauxite (99 percent).133
During the seventeen months from the Stalin-Hitler pact to the German invasion, the Soviet Union supplied Germany with 865,000 tons of oil, 140,000 tons of manganese ore, 14,000 tons of copper, 3,000 tons of nickel, 101,000 tons of raw cotton, over 1 million tons of lumber, 11,000 tons of flax, 26,000 tons of chrome ore, 15,000 tons of asbestos, 184,000 tons of phosphates, 2,736 kilograms of platinum, and 1,462,000 tons of grain.134
The Soviet side honored its commitments with exceptional care and punctuality. The last train of goods crossed the Soviet border heading for Germany a few hours before the German attack in the early hours of June 22, 1941.
It was not only through direct Soviet deliveries that Germany received assistance in building up its military might; deliveries from other countries were also able to reach Germany through Soviet territory. Under the Soviet— German agreement the USSR purchased strategic raw materials in Germany's behalf in the Far East, the Middle East, Latin America, and so on. The Soviet Union also bought nonferrous metals for Germany. Great quantities of rubber, bought by Japan, moved over the Trans-Siberian Railway to Germany, which urgently needed them, since it had reserves sufficient only for two months. On one occasion in 1941 the Soviet government went to the extreme of making up one entire freight train loaded with rubber for Germany. Graphite from Madagascar, tungsten and rubber from French Indochina, crude oil, dairy products, fats, soybeans—all these products reached Germany by Soviet rail. The Germans assessed the Soviet economic aid and the USSR's role as an intermediary as "of the utmost importance."135 It is entirely possible that without this help Germany would not have been able to go to war against the USSR. Hitler was to a considerable extent justified in telling his council of war on August 22, 1939, that Germany had nothing to fear from a blockade, in the event of war, because the East would provide everything it needed.
In return the Soviet Union was supposed to receive weapons from Germany for the Soviet navy, including fully equipped cruisers and other armaments. Germany actually did provide the cruiser Lutsev, equipment for submarines, artillery systems, and so on. The Lutsev, delivered to Kronstadt in June 1940 at a price of 100 million Reichsmarks, was not completely finished or equipped. Part of its equipment was never delivered. Germany also agreed to send advisers to the USSR to train the Lutsev crew.136
Germany did not completely fulfill its commitments under the economic agreements. At the time of Germany's invasion of the USSR it still owed 229 million Reichsmarks' worth of goods. The Nazis got the best of the deal. They obtained substantial economic aid which helped them prepare their attacks on France and the Balkans and, after that, on their supplier, the Soviet Union.
The Soviet government's assistance was not confined merely to supplying strategic materials to Germany. Some six weeks after the Stalin—Hitler pact, at the beginning of October 1939, the Soviet government proposed that the Germans build a naval base for themselves thirty-five miles northwest of Murmansk, for fueling and repairing its submarines and warships. The Germans used "Basis Nord," as it was called, during their campaign in Norway, abandoning it only in September 1940, when they had no more use for it. Admiral Raeder, commander-in-chief of the German navy, sent a letter thanking the Soviet government, which replied that it was glad to have been of service.
German auxiliary cruisers, involved in operations against the British, were allowed to take on fuel and food at Murmansk. For this Admiral Raeder and the German government expressed their thanks to the Soviet naval command. 137 Admiral Kuznetsov, commissar of the Soviet navy, promised to respond to these thanks "not with empty words but with deeds. "138