ABSTRACT
On August 23, 1939, two Junkers aeroplanes landed in Moscow from Berlin. Seventeen days later Poland was partitioned between Germany and Russia, Soviet troops moving in when Warsaw fell to the Germans. Nor was the American Government in a position to exert great influence, since it was unable to offer Russia any guarantees for her future security in return for an agreement on her part to apply the principle of self-determination to the countries on her borders. Allied policy after the first world war had been animated by the doctrine of the cordon sanitaire, the desire to create west of Russia a series of buffer states which would limit Russian influence, or Communist influence, in Europe. The American aim seemed to be to clarify Russia's enigmatic position towards the war in the Pacific, for which the people wanted air bases in Siberia, and towards the reconstitution of Europe in accordance with the will of the peoples involved.
