Xu Longbin

(№.3,2015)

Abstract:After the 18 th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, the Soviet Union shifted its foreign policy from combating the German invasion to "joint combat against Germany" and "self-protection". Germany intended to prevent the Soviet Union from forging an anti-German alliance with Britain and France by promising to gratify the Soviet Union's demand for its sphere of influence at its western borders. With no result yielded from its negotiationswith Britain and France, the Soviet Union eventually signed a non-aggression treaty attached with a protocol which identified both countries' spheres of influence. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland from the west. Afterwards, the Soviet Union sent troops into Poland under the banner of protecting western Ukraine and Belarus (formerly the Russian territories that now belong to Poland) from German invasion. The Soviet Union proposed to adjust the division of spheres of influence originally agreed with Germany so that the part of Polish territory to be included into the Soviet Union matched the part that the Soviet Union claimed to protect when sending troops into Poland. After bargaining, the two sides finally reached an adjusted agreement. In October 1940, Germany invited the Soviet Union to negotiate the division of general spheres of influence. During the negotiation, Germany attempted to divert the Soviet Union's attention to the Indian Ocean, whereas the Soviet Union insisted that the general spheres of influence be negotiated only after the issue was settled as to the sphere of influence concerning the security of the Soviet Union's western borders. The fruitless negotiation, nevertheless, deepened both parties' understanding of and precaution against each other. Afterwards, Germany accelerated its preparation to invade the Soviet Union who also intensified its preparation for the battle against Germany.

Keywords: The Soviet Union; Germany; sphere of influence; negotiation