ABSTRACT
Moscow's acceptance of a treaty with Nazi Germany, which called itself a non-aggression pact and was in fact an aggression pact directed against Poland and the Baltic states, was an act of foreign policy by the government of a Great Power. The Soviet government had its reasons. One was that it had no confidence in MM. Daladier and Chamberlain. In China the Soviet-Nazi pact did not substantially affect communist policy. This was partly because Mao Tse-tung enjoyed considerable autonomy from Moscow, and partly because Japan, not Germany, was the enemy. It was in the Balkans that the Soviet-Nazi alliance broke down. The last Soviet success was the annexation of Bessarabia from Roumania in June 1940. It was followed by deportations of Bessarabian Roumanians into the interior of Russia, and by the formation, from about two-thirds of Bessarabian territory, of a Moldavian S.S.R.
