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The Non-Aggression Pact of Aug. 23 followed. Said Molotov: "As the negotiations had shown that the conclusion of a pact of mutual assistance [with Great Britain and France] could not be expected, we could not but explore other possibilities of insuring peace and eliminating the danger of war between Germany and the U. S. S. R. If the British and French Governments refused to reckon with this, that is their affair. It is our duty to think of the interests of the Soviet people, the interests of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics."
In the Book. Implicit in every move in Russia's foreign policy is the search for security. Joseph Stalin knows that Russia is weak internally, has the longest, most vulnerable frontier of any major power. Like Alexander I, he knows that Russia's fertile lands and docile people must always be a temptation to any master of Western Europe. The treaty with Germany was designed to give him time to prepare for the attack promised in Mein Kampf.
But Stalin and Molotov doubtless counted on a longer war, possibly on the socialization of Europe in the process. When France collapsed, it was time to readjust the balance of power, if possible; at least to readjust Russia's defenses. So Russia marched.
Molotov's right-hand man in the Foreign Office is 40-year-old Alexei Vassiltchenko, who few years ago was Stalin's clean-up man. In the evenings he plays a card game called "Preference" with his boss and listens to his long-winded, quasi-scientific dissertations on foreign policy. Vassiltchenko is Molotov's file man (Molotov cannot go half an hour without consulting a file), and one of his files is labeled Bessarabia and The Straits. In the view of the Russian Foreign Office, Bessarabia, the Dardanelles and the Bosporus are parts of the same objective.
Last week Turkey was worried by a German White Book involving her in an alleged Allied plot to bomb the Baku oilfields, more worried by the fact that the Russian press seemed inclined to believe Germany's story. Turkey expected a quick showdown on The Straits, with Germany conniving or otherwise occupied. Putting up a brave front, Foreign Minister Sükrü Saracoglu, who may soon lose his job on Molotov's demand, entertained patrons of the Karpitch Restaurant in Ankara by kicking up his heels in his famous acrobatic zeybek folk dance, with which he used to delight the late Kamal Atatürk.
Although the brightest spotlight played on Bessarabia and The Straits, Stalin and Molotov watched other performances in war's many-ringed circus last week. In the Baltic the Red Fleet finished intensive war games, perhaps designed to help persuade Finland to let the U. S. S. R. fortify the Åland Islands, which would weaken Germany in the Baltic. In the Far East, against Japan, Russia needs more than Soviet-dominated Outer Mongolia and Sinkiang for security against Japan; she needs a strong China, which Britain would also like to see. And across the Himalayas lies India, all but cut off from the mother country and having her troubles last week. Russia would not like Japan or Germany to take India.