From the outset, both states sought to overturn the new order that was established by the victors of World War I. Germany, laboring under onerous reparations and stung by the collective responsibility provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, was a defeated nation in constant turmoil.

[4] A variety of competing and contradictory theses exist, including: that the Soviet leadership actively sought another great war in Europe to further weaken the capitalist nations;[5] that the USSR pursued a purely defensive policy;[6] or that the USSR tried to avoid becoming entangled in a war, both because Soviet leaders did not feel that they had the military capabilities to conduct strategic operations at that time,[7] and to avoid, in paraphrasing Stalin's words to the 18th Party Congress on March 10, 1939, "pulling other nations' (the UK and France's) chestnuts out of the fire.

[19] Weimar Germany's army had been limited to 100,000 men by the Treaty of Versailles, which also forbade the Germans to have aircraft, tanks, submarines, heavy artillery, poison gas, anti-tank weapons or many anti-aircraft guns.

On July 19, 1920, Victor Kopp told the German Foreign Office that Soviet Russia wanted "a common frontier with Germany, south of Lithuania, approximately on a line with Białystok".

As Germany became less dependent on the Soviet Union, it became more unwilling to tolerate subversive Comintern interference:[3] in 1925, several members of Rote Hilfe, a Communist Party organization, were tried for treason in Leipzig in what was known as the Cheka Trial.

[39] The treaty was perceived as an imminent threat by Poland (which contributed to the success of the May Coup in Warsaw), and with caution by other European states regarding its possible effect upon Germany's obligations as a party to the Locarno Agreements.

Thus, in 1930 and 1931, a huge deluge of Soviet wheat at slave labour prices flooded unsuspecting world markets, where surpluses already prevailed, thereby causing poverty and distress to North American farmers.

[citation needed] Relying on the foreign affairs doctrine pursued by the Soviet leadership in the 1920s, in his report of the Central Committee to the Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (b) on June 27, 1930, Joseph Stalin welcomed the international destabilization and rise of political extremism among the capitalist powers.

Some Soviet mistrust arose during the Lausanne Conference of 1932, when it was rumored that German Chancellor Franz von Papen had offered French Prime Minister Édouard Herriot a military alliance.

They were relatively well-educated, and at first, class factors played a major role, giving way after 1933 to ethnic links to the dreaded Nazi German regime as the chief criterion.

However, as the Red Army was perceived as not strong enough, and the USSR sought to avoid becoming embroiled in a general European war, he began pursuing a policy of collective security, trying to contain Nazi Germany via cooperation with the League of Nations and the Western Powers.

In 1933–34 the Soviet Union was diplomatically recognized for the first time by Spain, the United States, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, and ultimately joined the League of Nations in September 1934.

But it will be only in order to return the more swiftly to our true aims.Historian Eric D. Weitz discussed the areas of collaboration between the regimes in which hundreds of German citizens, the majority of whom were Communists, had been handed over to the Gestapo from Stalin's administration.

[68] Litvinov's policy of containing Germany via collective security failed utterly with the conclusion of the Munich Agreement on September 29, 1938, when Britain and France favored self-determination of the Sudetenland Germans over Czechoslovakia's territorial integrity, disregarding the Soviet position.

[86][87] It is sometimes argued that Molotov continued the talks with Britain and France to stimulate the Germans into making an offer of a non-aggression treaty and that the triple alliance failed because of the Soviet determination to conclude a pact with Germany.

[98] Then, on August 3, German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop outlined a plan in which Germany and the Soviet Union would agree to nonintervention in each other's affairs and would renounce measures aimed at the other's vital interests[99] and that "there was no problem between the Baltic and the Black Sea that could not be solved between the two of us.

In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula, and San.

[118] The news of the Pact, which was announced by Pravda and Izvestia on August 24, was met with utter shock and surprise by government leaders and media worldwide, most of whom were aware of only the British-French-Soviet negotiations, which had taken place for months.

Von der Schulenburg reported to Berlin that attacks on the conduct of Germany in the Soviet press had ceased completely and the portrayal of events in the field of foreign politics largely coincided with the German point of view, while anti-German literature had been removed from the trade.

In an exchange of captured Polish territories in compliance with the terms of the protocol, already on September 17 the Red Army and Wehrmacht held a joint military parade in Brest; occupation of the city was then transferred by Germany to the Soviet troops.

[130] In a secret supplementary protocol to the treaty the spheres of interest outside Poland were renegotiated, and in exchange for some already captured portions of the Polish territory Germany acknowledged still independent Lithuania part of the Soviet zone.

On November 30, 1939, forces of the USSR under the command of Kliment Voroshilov attacked Finland in what became known as the Winter War, starting with the invasion of Finnish Karelia and bombing civilian boroughs of Helsinki.

After presiding over the disastrous start of the campaign, and a disproportionally heavy death toll of Red Army soldiers, Voroshilov was replaced by Semyon Timoshenko as the commander of the front on January 7, 1940 (and four months later as People's Commissar for Defense).

Finland ceded the Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia, part of Salla and Kalastajasaarento, and leased the Hanko naval base to the USSR, but remained a neutral state, albeit increasingly leaning toward Germany (see Interim Peace).

All three governments were presented with Stalin's ultimatums threatening with war, and had no other choice but to sign a so-called "Treaty of defence and mutual assistance" which permitted the Soviet Union to establish a number of military bases on their soil.

Shortly before midnight, Molotov presented Lithuania with a ten-hour ultimatum, demanding the replacement of the Lithuanian government with a pro-Soviet one and free access for additional Soviet troops, threatening the country with immediate occupation otherwise.

In September 1929, discontented with the reintroduction of coercive grain requisitions and collectivization of agriculture, several thousand Soviet peasants of German descent (mostly Mennonites) convened in Moscow, demanding exit visas to emigrate to Canada, provoking a significant political scandal in Germany, which soured Soviet-German relations.

[189] Some argue that the rapprochement could start as early as in 1935–1936, when Soviet trade representative in Berlin David Kandelaki made attempts at political negotiations on behalf of Stalin and Molotov, behind Litvinov's back.

[81][196] According to others, the first sign of a Soviet–German political détente was the conversation between Soviet ambassador Aleksey Merekalov and Ernst von Weizsäcker, State Secretary in the German Foreign Ministry, on April 17, 1939, when the former hinted at possible improvement of the relations.

[200] His point of view,[183] supported by Derek Watson[97] and Jonathan Haslam,[201] is that it was not until the end of July 1939 – August 1939 that the policy change occurred and that it was a consequence rather than a cause of the breakdown of the Anglo-Soviet-French triple alliance negotiations.