The Encyclopedic Dictionary's statement is also the exact opposite of the comments of Alexander A. Troyanovsky, first Soviet Ambassador to the United States (1934-1939), in his book Why the United States Wages War Against Hitlerite Germany, published in Moscow in 1942:
The idea of international struggle against aggression was not alien to the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Stimson made attempts to carry out a collective action against aggression in connection with the Far East events in 1931-1932. [ . . . ] President Roosevelt did not miss any occasion to state his position for peace, against employing force in international relations. One day before the conclusion of the Munich agreement of September 29, 1938 which led to a violent dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, the President of the United States in a message to the U.S.S.R. Government, suggested that our peace-loving country influence the fascist aggressors and impel them to give up the [policy] of “employing force” with regard to Czechoslovakia (pages 56-57).
Soviet collaboration with the Nazis began to break down seriously only toward the end of 1940 when the Soviets, rejecting a German proposal that the Soviet Union focus its expansion only southward toward the Indian Ocean, tried unsuccessfully to obtain German recognition of Soviet hegemony in Finland and Bulgaria, with Soviet bases on the Turkish Straits as well as in the area south of Batum and Baku (the Middle East). Yet, in spite of Nazi-Soviet differences in these negotiations, the U.S.S.R. in January 1941 made a new economic agreement with Germany, increasing still further Soviet exports of important raw materials to Germany for the conduct of the war. The Soviet Union gave recognition to the aggression of Nazi Germany by breaking diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia in 1941 and, subsequent to the German occupations, also broke relations with Greece, Norway, and Belgium.
In contrast, the United States and the United Kingdom made their attitude toward Nazi aggression clear by establishing working relations with the Free French and maintaining diplomatic relations with the governments-in-exile of other occupied countries.
In March 1941 the United States on two occasions warned the U.S.S.R. that it had received authentic information that Nazi Germany planned to attack the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Churchill warned Stalin to the same effect in late April. But the U.S.S.R. had just shown its continued solidarity with Hitler by signing, on April 13, 1941, a neutrality pact with the Japanese partner of the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis, thus clearing the way for Pearl Harbor.
It was only when Hitler attacked his Soviet ally in June 1941 that the U.S.S.R. sought Western cooperation in resisting Nazi Germany. In spite of the Soviet record of collaboration with Hitler, the Western powers immediately acceded to Soviet requests for assistance. On the very day following the German attack on the U.S.S.R., the Acting Secretary of State of the United States stated publicly that “any defense against Hitlerism, any rallying of the forces opposing Hitlerism, from whatever source these forces may spring, will hasten the eventual downfall of the present German leaders, and will therefore redound to the benefit of our own defense and security.” Less than 6 months later the United States was fighting Germany as an ally of the Soviet Union.
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