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  Selected Secret Documents from Soviet Foreign Policy Documents Archives - 1919 to 1941

Concentrated on 1st and  2nd WW Correspondence and Meetings related to Turkey, Balkans and Iran, with some additions from Afghanistan and India.

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Telegram of the plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in France

Z. Suritsa to the peopleʹs commissary of foreign affairs

May 24, 1939 out of line. Top secret

According to Mandell, the general staff, especially Gamelin *, is now the most important pusher of the military alliance agreement with usʹ21. They have now found unexpected support in general Weygand, who returned from his trip with the same mood. Turkey and conversations with ismet made a huge impression on him. Ismet told him, in particular, that the greatest mistake and threat for all those who fear communism would be if the Soviet army would remain on the sidelines and would not be drawn into common cooperation. ʺthen communism would have become a real threat.ʺ Mandell says that these arguments made a great impression on Lebrun. Weygandʹs confidence in the need for military cooperation with us was further strengthened when he got acquainted with the ʺdeplorableʺ state of the Romanian army. Weygand bluntly stated that it would not be possible to save Romania without Soviet help. Mandel said approximately the same thing to the chief of the British general staff. Mandel believes that, having provided guarantees to Romania and Poland, chamberlain ʺcan no longer accept any conditions that the USSR will condition its assistance to.ʺ Mandell is therefore confident that our project * will be fully accepted. He foresees more attempts to narrow it down, but with our persistence they will be overcome. At the same time, he attaches great importance to the position that Turkey will take. Chamberlain cannot risk breaking the Anglo‐Turkish agreement

Maurice Rothschild **, who returned from America, told Mandell that Roosevelt, in his conversation with him, was very restrained and with a ʺnoticeable reserveʺ about the value of cooperation with the USSR and almost warned against ʺunnecessary illusions.ʺ Mandell asked me if there was any cooling in our relations with America.

Surits\ avp rf, f 059. On 1, p. 302, d 2090. L 45‐46