<P> Hand - in - hand with the promotion of Popular Fronts, Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs between 1930 and 1939, aimed at closer alliances with Western governments, and placed ever greater emphasis on collective security . The new policy led to the Soviet Union joining the League of Nations in 1934 and the subsequent non-aggression pacts with France and Czechoslovakia . In the League the Soviets were active in demanding action against imperialist aggression, a particular danger to them after the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which eventually resulted in the Soviet - Japanese Battle of Khalkhin Gol . </P> <P> Ignoring the agreement it signed to avoid involvement in the Spanish Civil War, the USSR sent arms and troops and organized volunteers to fight for the republican government . Communist forces systematically killed their old enemies the Spanish anarchists, even though they were on the same Republican side . The Spanish government sent its entire treasury to Moscow for safekeeping, but it was never returned . </P> <P> The Munich Agreement of 1938, the first stage in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, gave rise to Soviet fears that they were likely to be abandoned in a possible war with Germany . In the face of continually dragging and seemingly hopeless negotiations with Britain and France, a new cynicism and hardness entered Soviet foreign relations when Litvinov was replaced by Vyacheslav Molotov in May 1939 . </P> <P> In 1937 - 38, Stalin took total personal control of the party, by purging and executing tens of thousands of high - level and mid-level party officials, especially the old Bolsheviks who had joined before 1917 . The entire diplomatic service was downsized; many consular offices abroad were closed, and restrictions were placed on the activities and movements of foreign diplomats in the USSR . About a third of all foreign ministry officials were shot or imprisoned, including 62 of the 100 most senior officials . Key ambassadorial posts abroad, such as those in Tokyo, Warsaw, Washington, Bucharest, and Budapest, were vacant . </P>

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