The Origins of the Franco-Soviet Pact, 1933–35

Abstract

Germany’s departure from the League of Nations, announced on the 14 October 1933, had a traumatic effect on the French. After wavering for so long between the alternatives of conciliation or confrontation, the French Government was finally propelled into action. On the 20 October Paul-Boncour, the French Foreign Minister, approached polpred Dovgalevsky with the suggestion of a “mutual assistance pact”, should the situation in Germany continue.¹ But the French were not prepared to pay too high a price. As Léger, the Quai d’Orsay’s secretary-general, made clear barely a week later, there could be no question of France acting in concert with the Russians in the Far East, for fear of provoking a Japanese attack on Indochina, let alone a French commitment to support the USSR in the event of war with Japan.² This was something the Russians had long dreamed of, and a prize for which they were apparently willing to trade revolutionary nationalism in Asia.³