120 USSR—HER LIFE AND HER PEOPLE
rejected these proposals, and it now seems fairly clear that
foreign influence had an important part in causing the
Finnish Government to reject them As a result the
USSR declared war a war which continued for three
months By this time Soviet troops had broken through
the Mannerheim Line and occupied Viborg In March
1940 the war was ended by a Peace Treaty, which left
Finland as an independent State, but provided for a revision
of the frontier north of Leningrad to meet the Soviet desire
for greater security in the approaches to Leningrad
Many people at the time imagined that the Soviet-
German Agreement represented a more or less permanent
alliance between the two Governments At the time of
the Finnish war help was sent from London and Pans to
the Finns, and there were many people both in London
and Pans who thought we ought to go to war with USSR
But when, in the autumn of 1940, Hitler tried to extend
the agreement, the Soviet Government refused > and when
Germany started her descent into the Balkans in the early
part of 1941, the USSR openly showed its disapproval,
and in Apnl made a Friendship Pact with the new Govern-
ment of Yugoslavia, which had been set up to resist Ger-
many Meanwhile, to secure her eastern frontier from
attack, the Soviet Government made a Pact of Neutrality
with Japan, while at the same time (despite Japanese pres-
sure to stop it) continuing the support she was giving to
China in the shape of military supplies
Finally, in the small hours of June 22nd, 1941, without
warning and without a formal declaration of war, Hitler
launched his attack on a thousand-mile front across the
frontiers of U S S R Some weeks before, Hess, Hitler's
deputy, had flown by air to this country on his sensational
mission As has since been admitted in statements from
German sources, he carried proposals that this country
should make peace with Germany and co-operate with her
in what he chose to call " a Crusade against Communism,"
to smash the USSR, eliminate her from Europe and
enslave or annihilate her people But on the evening of