Indeed, in Mein Kampf, published in the 1920s, he had made it very clear that he despised it as “Russia ruled by the Jews” ( Russland unter Judenherrschaft), because it was the fruit of the Russian Revolution, the handiwork of Bolsheviks, who were supposedly nothing but a bunch of Jews. Moscow was eager to conclude such a treaty because the Soviet leaders knew only too well that, sooner or later, Hitler intended to attack and destroy their state. The protagonist of this Soviet approach to the Western powers was the minister of foreign affairs, Maxim Litvinov. This proposed arrangement was intended to counter Nazi Germany, which, under Hitler’s dictatorial leadership, had been behaving more and more aggressively, and it was likely to involve some other countries, including Poland and Czechoslovakia, that had reason to fear German ambitions. In a remarkable book, 1939 : The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II, the Canadian historian Michael Jabara Carley describes how, at the end of the 1930s, the Soviet Union repeatedly tried, but finally failed, to conclude a pact of mutual security, in other words a defensive alliance, with Britain and France. Photograph Source: Cartoon in the Evening Standard depicting Hitler greeting Stalin after the invasion of Poland – Fair Use
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