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Another possibility is that the Germans, having once got the Russians involved in war against the Allies, would, while nominally helping them, actually encourage the disintegration of the Soviet Union with a view to penetrating its more valuable regions, such as the Ukraine, and permanently establishing themselves there. This, however, would involve the breakdown of the present Moscow regime and a period of chaps in the regions not controlled by the Germans, which might give the Allies a chance to intervene in Eastern Europe and would, in any case, create embarrassing problems for Germany and throw a great strain on her resoucees.
5.
If, then, the probable result of a state of war between the Allies and the Soviet Union would be to strengthen the dependence of the latter upon Germany, though without great advantage to Germany, at least in the political and economic sphere, can it be said that, conversely, the continued absence of such a state of war would loosen the bonds between the two countries? As far as German action is concerned, this does not seem likely, for, so long as she is faced with the Allies in the west, it is to Germany's interest to avoid any action which would cut her off from such help as she can draw from the Soviet Union, and to do all she can to strengthen her relations with that country, even if her ultimate object is to dominate and control ar even to disintegrate it, rather than to work with it as an equal partner. feel able to ask a good deal of the Russians; they are actually in extremis, she can hardly afford to risk an actual break with them, so long as she is fighting other enemies.
6.
She may
but unless
It is perhaps conceivable, on the other hand, that if the Germans press the Russians too hard, the latter, provided always that the Finnish conflict had first been ended, might contemplate a change of policy and a rapprochement with the Allies. This, however, would be a very difficult manoeuvre for them to execute, so long as a German army was massed on their western border; and the price which the Allies would have to pay for it in Poland and Finland and in the loss of reputation in the neutral world, would probably be greater than they would think worth paying for the very doubtful advantage of Soviet friendship.
On the "hole, therefore, it seems unlikely that a continuance of the present state of things, in which there is economic and to some extent political collaboration between Germany and the Soviet Union, but no actual alliance, will open the way to an ultimate breach between them. So long as Germany is at war with the Allies, it is not worth the Germans' while to quarrel with the Russians, and we cannot make it worth the Russians' while to quarrel with the Germans: so the two robbers will probably continue to hang together until they both hang separately. If the French are right, their collaboration is in any case becoming closer; and if the Allies find themselves at war with the Soviet Union it will be because of that closer collaboration.
Foreign Office,
31st January, 1940.
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