Diplomatic Battles Before World War II -CH1

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THE GATHERING CLOUDS OF WAR GERMANY, JAPAN, AND ITALY ON THE WARPATH

There was an essential change in the balance and alignment of forces between the major imperialist powers in the early 1930s. Germany, Japan and Italy, ruled by ultra-reactionary fascist forces, warlords and monopolists openly sought to redraw the map of the world. They challenged the Anglo-Franco-American group of powers in a bid to dislodge them from their dominant positions. It is that struggle of the German, Japanese and Italian aggressors for world supremacy that led up to the outbreak of the Second World War. Lenin pointed out that " ’world domination’ is, to put it briefly, the substance of imperialist policy, of which imperialist war is the continuation”. ’

The land-grabbing plans of Germany, Japan and Italy were a formidable danger to many nations.

Hotbed of War in the Far East

 The first hotbed of another imperialist war was created by the Japanese militarists. Japan, one of the victor powers in the First World War, reaped a sizeable proportion of the spoils in the Far East and in the Pacific. The success, gained without an extra effort, moreover, whetted the expansionist ambitions of the country’s ruling elite and fostered the samurai spirit of the Japanese warlords. They dreamed of fresh conquests and of domination over the whole of East Asia and the Pacific.

The worst ever economic crisis which broke out in the capitalist world at the time exacerbated the contradictions between the imperialist powers. Japanese-American relations were extremely strained. Back in 1918, Lenin, 10speaking of the Japanese-American imperialist contradictions, pointed out that "the economic development of these countries has produced a vast amount of inflammable material which makes inevitable a desperate clash between them for domination of the Pacific Ocean and the surrounding territories". “2”

The U.S. ruling circles attached paramount importance to expanding and consolidating the American "invisible empire”. The U.S. home market could not absorb all the output of American industry which had greatly expanded to fulfil World War I orders. American monopolies were looking for more markets and more room for investment. The Washington system of treaties, concluded after World War I, anchored the American principle of "open doors" and "equal opportunities" in China. Big Business counted on the United States’ economic power enabling it to penetrate the vast Chinese market and capture dominant positions in it. The crisis whetted the appetites of American monopolies.

Japan’s increasing economic penetration of China and a prospect for American monopolies to be driven out of the Chinese market altogether in the event of China being overrun by Japan were a formidable challenge to the U.S. At the time, however, the United States strove to avoid an armed confrontation with Japan. Late in 1933, a well– informed American journalist Knickerboker pointed out in a conversation with the Press Department Chief of the Soviet Embassy in Berlin that American government sources thought a Japanese-American war inevitable. The U.S. was intensely preparing for that war and building up a powerful naval and air force. Meanwhile, its policy towards Japan was one of peace gestures to gain time. On the other hand, the U.S. government felt sure that Japan would first attack the USSR to capture the Soviet Far East so as to reinforce her rear, and only after that would she start her projected mammoth battle against the U.S. over the Pacific.”3”

Japan’s aggressive ambitions had likewise accentuated the Anglo-Japanese contradictions. British imperialism had penetrated the Far East, and China, in particular, when Japan was still no rival for it to fear. In the East, Britain was in possession of such major military and economic strongpoints as Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. Many big British commercial, industrial and financial companies, with assets 11adding up to 1,500 million dollars, were ruling the roost in China. Yet by the early 1930s, Japanese imperialists were treading on the heels of British colonialists. Japan had a larger force in the Far East than the British Empire which had its possessions and armed forces scattered in all continents.

The British foreign service, seeing no chance of success in an open confrontation with Japan, chose to seek an imperialist collusion with her, agreeable to a certain repartition of the spheres of influence in her favour in the Far East.

True, should Britain have joined forces with other nations, they could have stood up against Japanese expansionism in that zone. The matter came before the League of Nations, too, but the British Government did not find it possible to resort to economic or other sanctions against Japan.”4”

There was, however, full unanimity between the governments of the U.S. and Britain on one point: both would have been pleased most to see Japanese aggression directed against the USSR rather than against China. British conservative quarters believed, the Soviet Ambassador I. M. Maisky wrote on March 10, 1933, that the capture of Manchuria by the Japanese could lead to a war between the USSR and Japan, and that, in their opinion, would have been a "real blessing of history".”5”

Now, with British secret archives of the prewar years available to historians, there is enough incontrovertible evidence on hand to bear out this account of British policy. Two most influential members of the British Government, Neville Chamberlain and John Simon, submitted a memorandum calling for improved relations with Japan, notably, for concluding a non-aggression pact with her. Their principal argument was this: "As regards Russia, anything that makes Japan feel more secure tends to encourage her in an aggressive attitude towards Russia". “6”

Influential reactionary circles of the United States were also hopeful of a conflict between Japan and the USSR. American imperialism was interested in such a war between the USSR and Japan anyway, because the U.S. craved for both the Soviet Union and Japan to be weakened.

The ruling circles of Britain and the United States had enough reason to expect an armed clash between Japan and 12the USSR. On course for aggression ever since 1931, the Japanese imperialists seized Northeast China (Manchuria), setting up a puppet state of Manzhou-Guo. Along with planning for continued aggression against China, the Japanese samurai coveted the Soviet Far East and the Mongolian People’s Republic. Japan had more than once rejected the Soviet proposals for concluding a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Japan.

Japan’s War Minister, General Araki energetically plumped for attacking the USSR. He told a conference of governors in 1933 that "in the pursuit of her national policy, Japan is bound to confront the Soviet Union" and that it was "necessary for Japan to take possession, by force of arms, of the territory of Primorye (Maritime Territory), Trans-Baikal and Siberia".”7” The British military attaché in Tokyo E. A. II. James said the position of the quarters represented by Araki was that "it is necessary to fight Russia sooner rather than later".”8” A Foreign Office Memorandum to the British Government in May 1933 also stated that "the Japanese Army concentrates its whole attention on a future war with Russia".”9” On June 2, Araki and his supporters got the Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, to decide that the Soviet Union was Japan’s "Enemy Number One”,”10” i.e., military preparations had to be made, first of all, for a war against the USSR. The German military attaché in the USSR, Hartmann, reported the same news to Berlin, referring to statements by the Japanese military attaché in Moscow, Kawabe. He wrote that "the Soviet Union is not desirous of war and is doing its best to avert it,” but the Japanese could start hostilities as early as the spring of 1934. »

Japan was making intense preparations for a war against the USSR. Manchuria and Korea which she had seized were turned into one vast bridgehead. The strength of the Kwangtung Army stationed in Manchuria was being increased, and military installations, roads, depots, barracks and airfields were being built. Following the seizure of Manchuria and part of North China in 1933, the Japanese Army General Staff specified and particularized its war plan (Plan “Otsu”); it called for 24 out of the 30 projected divisions to be provided for military operations against the Soviet Union. The opening one was to have seized Maritime Territory to be followed up by a strike at Lake Baikal area. “12”

The Soviet government was well aware of the danger looming across the Far Eastern border of the USSR. Ambassador William Bullitt, reporting to Washington about his conversation with J. V. Stalin arid K. Y. Voroshilov on December 20, 1933, wrote that, in discussing the situation in the Far East, the Soviet leaders voiced most serious apprehension over the possibility of a Japanese attack in the coming spring. “13” People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov declared on December 29, 1933, that the policy of Japan "is now the darkest storm-cloud on the international political horizon". “14”

Aggressive Designs of the Nazi Reich

A yet more dangerous hotbed of another imperialist world war appeared shortly in Central Europe with the rise of Nazi Germany. The German imperialists, notwithstanding their defeat in the First World War, had not desisted from their aggressive plans. Having outstripped her old rivals, Britain and France, in industrial development by the late 1920s, Germany set about rebuilding her military power in order not only to take revenge for the defeat, she had sustained, but redraw the map of Europe at her own discretion.

The National Socialist Party which had come to power in Germany openly declared its objective of establishing a "new order" in Europe and the world. The progressive press was perfectly right in describing the 30th of January 1933, when Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, as the "Black Day" for Europe. German monopolies backed up the Nazis who promised to restore the power of Germany, crush the revolutionary movement inside the country and open the way for German imperialism to grab foreign lands.

The Nazis intended to start carrying out their aggressive designs by setting up a strike force in Central Europe in the shape of a Nazi Reich with a population of 90–100 million of people of the so-called Aryan origin. "Austria belongs to this nucleus”, Hitler argued in 1932. "This goes without saying. But it comprises, besides, Bohemia and Moravia, as well as the Western regions of Poland... The Baltic states are part of this nucleus also.” The population of Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Baltic states, except the 14Germans residing there and the "elements fit for Germanisation”, was to have been destroyed or evicted. Nature is cruel, Hitler maintained, and if the Nazis can, without the slightest pity, send the cream of the German nation into the crucible of war, they can, with even greater reason, "destroy millions of people of an inferior race".”15”

The Nazis planned to subject a whole system of vassal states to this Nazi Reich and create a "thousand-year empire" with the German "race of masters" dominating them all. That was to have been followed up, according to the Nazi plans, by a full-scale expansion into other continents. Their ultimate goal was world supremacy.”16”

When the Nazi chancellor set out his programme before the German army chiefs, on February 3, 1933, he announced his plan to strengthen the Wehrmacht to the utmost so as to achieve "political might”. That "political might" was to be used, Hitler declared, for: "Winning more living space in the East and its ruthless Germanisation".”17”

The German Nazis saw a cruel and merciless total war as the way to establish their world domination.”18” “War”, Hitler said, "is the most natural and the most common thing. War is ever, war is everywhere. There is no beginning, no peaceful end. War is life... So / want war." “19”

The ambitions of the Nazi Reich in foreign affairs were based on the aggressive aspirations of German imperialism, militarism, landed aristocracy and big monopolies, which had been harbored ever since the days of Bismarck, but the Nazis imparted a particularly sinister character to them.”20”

Having drawn their own conclusion from Germany’s bitter experience in World War I, the Nazis decided to advance towards their goals step by step, crush their adversaries one by one, starting with the weakest. A possibility of yet another war on two fronts at once—in the East and in the West—looked like a dreadful nightmare to them. "The mistake of confronting England, France and Russia should not, of course, be repeated”, “21” von Ribbentrop said.

The Nazis made full use of their diplomatic service to disunite the possible adversaries and collude with some of them against others. They intended to abide by those treaties and agreements for just as long as they found that to be of benefit to themselves. "Why mustn’t I conclude treaties in good faith today so as to break them in cold blood 15tomorrow?"“22”—Hitler declared. The "threat of Bolshevism" was another argument the Nazis played up trying to set the nations of Europe apart. Hostility towards to USSR was, the Nazis hoped, to have assured them the sympathy of the reactionary forces of all capitalist countries.

The Nazis considered the routing of the USSR and seizure of Soviet lands to be their major task, but they realised how complex it was. "Soviet Russia”, Hitler said, "is a difficult task, I can hardly begin with it." “23”

A feverish German arms build-up ensued. The Nazis coined the motto "guns before butter”. The magnates of German industry blessed that policy. In April 1933 the Imperial Federation of German Industries submitted to Hitler a plan for industrial reorganisation to prepare for war.

In October 1933 Germany walked out of the Geneva Disarmament Conference, thereby showing to the entire world that she was on the warpath, and made no bones about it. At the same time, the Nazis announced their withdrawal from the League of Nations as it, too, could have been a certain hindrance to their plans for total aggression.

There was an alliance of aggressors in the making, setting out to carve the world up and bring it under their own domination. They had fascism as their ideological weapon— an undisguised terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialistic elements of Big Business.

The world situation as it shaped up came under scrutiny at the 17th Congress of the CPSU(B) in January-February 1934. The policies of Japan and Germany, with extreme reactionaries, fascists and warlords in power, made it absolutely clear, as the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) stated in its Report to the Congress, that "there are frantic preparations under way for a repartition of the world and redivision of the spheres of influence”, for a new imperialist war. "Once again, just like in 1914”, it was pointed out at the Congress, "the parties of bellicose imperialism, the parties of war and revenge, are coming to the fore.” The danger of fascism was especially emphasised. The Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) pointed out: " Chauvinism and preparation for war as basic elements of foreign policy, and the taming of the working class and a reign of terror in home policy as an indispensable means of 16strengthening the rear of the future war fronts—that is what preoccupies most the present-day imperialist politicians.” That applied to German imperialism, first and foremost.”24”

So it was demonstrated at the Congress that imperialism as a social and economic system was breeding another world war and that fascism was playing a special role in engineering it. "Fascism is war" was the conclusion the Communists made under those particular circumstances.

Plans for a “Crusade” Against the USSR

Nazi Germany’s expansionist ambitions were an enormous danger to the people of all European nations. So it was a matter of vital concern for them to curb the fascist aggressors and thwart their man-hating plans. The ruling circles of the Western powers held different views, however.

The course of events in Europe and in the world largely depended on the position of Britain. The British Empire, just like many other nations, was in danger of attack by the Nazi Reich. Had Britain been resolved to resist aggression together with the Soviet Union, France and other countries, the aggressive action by the Nazi powers could have been checked and peace safeguarded. But it was not the peace-keeping, but their own far-reaching imperialist plans that were uppermost in the minds of the reactionary politicians who ruled Britain at the time.

Fascism by itself did not worry the City tycoons. On the contrary, the British reactionaries hailed the fascist dictatorships in Italy and Germany. They saw those regimes as props to shore up capitalism and barriers to stem the rising tide of revolutionary struggle of the working class in Europe. At the same time, the British ruling circles hoped to use Hitler Germany as a weapon to fight the USSR with. Their basic principle was that "if Britain is to live Bolshevism must die!"“25” So the ruling circles of Britain regarded Hitler Germany, above all, as a potential class ally in action against the Soviet Union rather than as a dangerous imperialist rival. The British government looked for an accommodation with the Nazi Reich in the hope of stabilising the situation in Western Europe by making some concessions to it, and canalizing German aggression eastward, against the USSR.

That is to say that the reactionary ruling circles of 17Britain were the inking, first and foremost, not of how to resist fascist aggression, hut of how to stop the wheel of history, check the worsening general crisis of capitalism and prevent progressive social change gaining ground in the world and, above all, destroy the first socialist state.

British imperialism’s policy on the "legitimacy of wars" did not differ from Hitler’s and Mussolini’s views. References to this issue in British historical literature usually mention Maurice Hankey who had been the British Government’s secretary for 20 years (1919–1938) and, therefore, embodies the continuity of its policies. Hankey said that war was "the right and proper process by which things move in this world”. And it would be naive to expect, he pointed out, that imperialism could pursue an un-imperialist policy. “26”-”27”

Describing the position of Britain’s ruling circles, the Soviet Embassy in London reported to Moscow on April 25, 1933, that in recent months they had increasingly "tended to galvanise the idea of creating an anti-Soviet front. These trends were arising . .. from the triumph of Hitlerism in Germany and the mounting aggressiveness of Japan in the Far East”. Britain’s policy was to "pound her fist in the Russian issue". That was the policy of setting up a "holy alliance" by which to smash the Soviet Union.

It was rightfully pointed out in the Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU (Bolsheviks) to the Seventeenth Party Congress in January 1934 that invectives in Britain against the USSR could not be considered accidental.

The Nazis, intent on removing all obstacles to Germany’s rearmament and to the preparations for war, encouraged British reactionaries in their hope that their aggressive designs were against the East alone.

A. Rosenberg, one of the ringleaders of nazism, told the British government in May 1933 that Germany was agreeable to relinquish her claims in the West but demanded that in return she should be given the right to rearm, to annex Austria and “adjust” her frontiers with Czechoslovakia and Poland to Germany’s advantage, and to capture the Baltic states. Rosenberg pointed out that Germany would eventually direct her forces against the USSR.

Germany’s Minister of the Economy A. Hugenberg produced a memorandum at the economic conference in London in June 1933 outlining an explicit demand for Germany 18to be given some "living space" in the East, partly at the expense of the USSR. A letter from the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, dated Juno 27, 1933, regarding that unprecedented document, pointed out that "the German government is prepared to join a military coalition against us ... and demands only two things in exchange—the freedom to rearm and compensation at the expense of the USSR. The German government found that the present moment with the possibility of Japan attacking us still not ruled out and with relations with Britain still very strained ... is propitious enough for it to offer its services for the struggle against us.” It is clear from the foregoing that Germany’s plans included "a war against us and that the present situation is no more than a temporary breathing space.” “28”

The policy of the British ruling circles in seeking an anti-Soviet collusion with the Nazis was abundantly demonstrated by the talks which went on between Britain, France, Germany and Italy to conclude a "pact of understanding and co-operation" (Four Power Pact). The Four Power Pact had been proposed by the Italian fascist leader Mussolini in order to make Italy—on a par with Britain, France and Germany—a full member of the European four-power directorate. At the same time, the Italian fascists expected to compel a revision of the treaties of the Versailles system which arose from the First World War, undermine the positions of France in Europe and, above all, her links with the countries of Southeast Europe and transform the Danubian and the Balkan countries into Italy’s "sphere of influence".

To begin with, Mussolini concerted his proposal with the Nazis. On March 14, 1933, he communicated his draft pact to Berlin and on the following day received a blessing from Germany’s Foreign Minister von Neurath who called this proposal an "inspired conception".”29” That position of Germany was quite understandable. Such an act was to elevate a "vanquished and injured" Germany to a status of equality with Britain and France.”30”

Mussolini’s proposal called for revising the peace treaties and for Germany to be granted the right to rearm. Eventually, Germany hoped to use the Four Power Pact in order to carry out her aggressive plans in the East.

Mussolini handed the draft Four Power Pact he had 19concerted with Hitler to Prime Minister of Britain R. MacDonald who arrived in Rome on March 18 for talks with the Italian government. The British government gave its full backing to that proposal.

The four-power talks ended on July 15, 1933, in the signing of a Four Power Pact in Rome.

The full danger of the plans behind the Four Power Pact was perfectly clear to the Soviet Union. Izvestia wrote on March 30, 1933, that the USSR could not stand by watching with indifference the "attempts at setting up a so– called ’four-power concert’ arrogating the right to decide the destinies of the nations”. During his meeting with the German Ambassador in Moscow von Dirksen on April 3, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. M. Litvinov pointed out that it was quite natural for the states outside the pact to view it negatively.”31” The Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign affairs N. N. Krestinsky declared on June 4, 1933, in a conversation with the Italian Ambassador B. Attolico that "since the four powers concluding this pact have very many points of divergence, it naturally seems that the only point they do not diverge on is their common hostility for communism. The failure to invite us to join in discussing this pact confirms that it is objectively directed against us." “32”

The plans of British imperialism, connected with the conclusion of the Four Power Pact, was demonstrated best of all by yet another rumpus stage-managed in Britain as part of an anti-Soviet campaign during the negotiations about the pact. Back in October 1932 the British government terminated its trade agreement with the USSR and on April 19, 1933, imposed an embargo on the import of all major Soviet export goods into Britain. That amounted, in point of fact, to declaring a trade war on the Soviet Union. At the same time the British Foreign Secretary John Simon declared that the Soviet trade delegation in London was divested of its right of diplomatic immunity. The Soviet Embassy in London had every reason to qualify those acts of the British government as an attempt to pursue a "big stick" policy with regard to the USSR.”33” The British government’s position came under criticism even in a number of British newspapers. The Daily Herald, for example, described the government’s action as a cynical political game without precedent in history.”34”

The signing of the Four Power Pact brought fortii sonic serious misgivings not only in the USSR but in a number of other countries which could be an object of the four– power deal. That applied, above all, to the countries of Eastern Europe, including the allies of France. In France, too, incidentally, the pact came up against strong opposition. For example, in a memorandum of March 18, 1933, the French Foreign Ministry expressed its apprehension lest the pact should torpedo the League of Nations, destroy the whole system of France’s alliances with a number of small nations and also cause her to lose her leading role in Europe since the decisions of the four-power "European directorate" would most often be directed against the interests of France because "Great Britain, Italy and Germany are interested in limiting France’s role in Europe." “35”

The plotting of the Four Power Pact aroused extreme anxiety of the small nations of Europe. They realised, A. V. Lunacharsky, member of the Soviet delegation to the Disarmament Conference, pointed out, that in the event of the four powers uniting, they "will be shared between cruel shepherds like a flock of sheep".”36” Even the French press noted that to conclude the pact would mean that France was ignoring the interests of her East European allies. Opposing this "holy alliance" of the Great Powers, the French newspaper Le Journal wrote that before cutting off the left leg of Poland, the right arm of Czechoslovakia and both legs of Romania and the limbs of Yugoslavia, it is necessary, at least, as custom would have it, to seek the patients’ consent for it. The Four Power Pact came to be quite rightfully called a "pact of butchers".

The serious apprehension of a number of countries over the Four Power Pact stopped it from ever coming into force. The French government did not find it possible to bring it before parliament for ratification.

The rapprochement between Poland and Nazi Germany was yet another factor essentially influencing the alignment of forces in Europe. Germany’s Propaganda Minister Goebbels, who was in Geneva in April 1933 at the Disarmement Conference, proposed the following terms for a settlement of German-Polish relations to Poland’s Foreign Minister J. Beck: Poland would cede the so-called corridor, that is, the Polish Maritime strip, to Germany while getting an outlet to the sea at the expense of Lithuania and 21Latvia. Thereupon, the two countries would go to war against the USSR and, with the Ukraine captured, Poland would also obtain an outlet to the Black Sea, including Odessa.”37” The talks on these questions were continued during another Goebbels-Beck meeting in September.

Being well informed of the aggressive intentions of Polish reactionaries under Pilsudski, the Nazis decided to use them in their own interests, making Poland their “ally” for a while. By whetting the appetites of Polish imperialist elements, the Nazis were trying to convince them that, together, they would be in a position to overpower the USSR. Although Poland herself was in danger of being overpowered by Nazi aggressors who were dreaming of seizing her territory and exterminating her population, Poland’s governing quarters would not give up their own plans for grabbing foreign lands. The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International stated that "German imperialism has found an ally in Europe—fascist Poland, which is also striving to extend its territory at the expense of Czechoslovakia, the Baltic countries and the Soviet Union.”38”

The Polish ruling quarters wanted to time the realisation of their plans for capturnig more of Soviet land to coincide with a Japanese invasion of the USSR. The Chief of the Eastern Department of Poland’s Foreign Ministry T. Schaetzel said in a conversation with the Bulgarian Charge d’ Affaires in July 1934 that Poland "expects that should a war break out in the Far East, Russia will be crushed, and then Poland will include Kiev and some of the Ukraine within her borders."“39” The Polish Ambassador to Japan did not even find it necessary to conceal that he had received a lot of money from his government to work towards pushing Japan into a war against the USSR so that this war could be "used by Poland and Germany for an offensive against the Ukraine".”40” The British Foreign Office had some information to the effect that Poland’s policy was "to divide \ Russia into a group of separate states independent of Mos- cow". “41” The governments and, more particularly, the military quarters of Poland and Japan established the closest ever co-operation against the Soviet Union.

The People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. M. Litvinov, speaking with American diplomat W. Bullitt, spelled out the apprehensions the Soviet Union had on that account. The People’s Commissar pointed out that the Soviet 22government considered "an attack by Japan so probable" that it was giving serious attention to the question of her possible allies. Reporting his conversation with the People’s Commissar, Bullitt wrote to Washington that Litvinov "knew that conversations had taken place between Germany and Poland looking forward toward an eventual attack on the Soviet Union if the Soviet Union should become embroiled in a long war with Japan; that he feared that a war with Japan might drag on for years and that after a couple of j years Germany and Poland combined might attack the So- ! viet Union”. “42”

Even the British Embassy in Tokyo found it necessary to communicate to London that the Polish and Romanian diplomatic representatives in Japan "are openly saying . . . that they would welcome a clash between Russia and Japan". “43”

Yet another grave danger to the Soviet Union arose from the possibility of Hitler’s influence spreading to the Baltic countries and those countries being turned into a bridgehead for attacking the USSR. Litvinov pointed out on April 10, 1933, that the Soviet government would not be likely to view with indifference a "redrawing of the frontiers of the Baltic states”. "Polish expansion in the Baltic countries is just as unwelcome for us as Germany”,”44” he said in a conversation with the French Ambassador Francois Dejean.

The Soviet Union had to fear an act of aggression from Finland, too, in the event of a war with Germany, Poland and Japan. Litvinov wrote that, in all probability, " Germany will be looking for a way to give vent to the military energy she is building up in the direction of the Baltic countries, the USSR. . .” In that case, she "can well count on support, at least, from Japan, Poland and Finland." “45”

The ruling circles of Finland maintained an extremely hostile and aggressive stand with regard to the USSR. They were planning to capture Soviet Karelia. This was no secret to foreign diplomats in close contact with the ruling elements of Finland. The Polish Minister in Helsinki F. Charwat communicated to Warsaw on December 29, 1933, that Finland’s policy was "aggressive against Russia...”. Char- j wat called Finland the "most bellicose state in Europe".”46” ; The Latvian Minister in Finland, in his turn, informed Riga on June 16, 1934: "The Karelian issue has gripped the minds of Finnish activists. These elements are impatiently 23waiting for Russia to come into conflict with any of the Great Powers, first with Poland and now with Germany or Japan, in order to carry out their programme. This movement ... may one day serve as the spark that will set the powder keg alight."“47” The former President of Finland P. Svinhufvud said that "any enemy of Russia must always be a friend of Finland".”48” So the Finnish ruling quarters went on by that guideline.

The so-called activist wing of the Finnish bourgeoisie (Lapuans and others) counted on the implementation of Japan’s and Germany’s aggressive plans against the USSR creating the conditions for carrying out a programme for a "Greater Finland”. On January 11, 1934, Litvinov wrote, with reference to that issue, that "the Lapuans would have Finland extend all the way up to the Urals... and the craziest of them would see the frontier of Finnish lands stretching as far as Altai. Lapuans and activists are pinning great hopes on Japan as well . .. Finland is the most anti-Soviet of all the Baltic states."“49” The former Prime Minister V. Tanner also admitted in a conversation with the Soviet Minister B. Y. Stein that in the event of war in the Far East, the USSR must consider the possibility of a " repetition of the Karelian venture of 1922”. No wonder, therefore, that the Japanese aggressors devoted a great deal of attention to Finland. So, the Japanese Charge d’Affaires in Finland pointed out during a meeting with Soviet Minister B. Y. Stein that the Japanese mission in Finland existed at the demand of the country’s military circles to meet "the contingency of a Japanese-Soviet war".”50”

Considering that Finland’s position in respect to the USSR was growing increasingly hostile, the Soviet government found it necessary to draw the attention of the Finnish government to the abnormal situation shaping up. B. S. Stomonyakov told the Finnish Minister in Moscow A. Yrjo-Koskinen on January 15, 1934, that fairly wide circles arid influential organisations in Finland were engaged in aggressive activities against the USSR. These circles, he said, are out to create "Greater Finland" by annexing some of Soviet land. Some of them are "proposing to annex Eastern Karelia and Ingermanland to Finland" while others are circulating maps of a "Greater Finland" with borders stretching as far as the Urals.”51” On his arrival in Helsinki in September, Yrjo-Koskinen could not fail to admit in a 24conversation with B. Y. Stein that the ambition to have Karelia and Ingermanland incorporated in Finland at the time of a possible Soviet-Japanese conflict had "become a common judgement in Finland."“52”

For all the verbal peaceful assurance of the Finnish government, the aggressive trends in the behaviour of Finland’s ruling establishment with regard to the USSR, far from declining, were showing themselves up afresh. Under the circumstances, Litvinov stated in a conversation with the Finnish Minister: "In no country is the press conducting so systematic a campaign of hostility against us as it does in Finland. In no country is there such an open propaganda drive on about an attack against the USSR and a seizure of some of its territory, as in Finland." “53”

Describing the state of Soviet-Finnish relations, the British Minister in Helsinki G. Grant-Watson pointed out that the Soviet Union had recognised the independence of Finland at its own free will, and turned over to her a vast area in the North which had never before formed part of the Grand Duchy of Finland. "Acting in a generous fashion, they doubtless expected to enjoy goodneighbourly relations with Finland, but in this they have been disappointed."“54”

The German Minister in Finland W. von Bliicher also reported to Berlin on many occasions that the Soviet Union was honestly striving for friendly relations with Finland, but to no avail. Pronouncements of vehement hostility against the USSR are being made in Finland time and again.”55”

That was how the clouds of war were gathering over the Eastern and Western Soviet borders. Japanese and German imperialists, bent on aggression and war, were turning their eyes to the Soviet lands. The other imperialist powers had enough individuals who were prepared to bless them for a "holy war" against the Soviet state. In certain smaller countries, adjacent to the USSR, there were some influential forces that were ready to join the German and Japanese aggressors in the event of such a war. The Soviet Union—the world’s only socialist country at the time—was in a hostile encirclement of capitalist states. It had to rely on its own forces, first and foremost, to defend its socialist gains, its freedom and independence.

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SOVIET ACTION FOR PEACE AND FOR THE PREVENTION OF WAR