Franco-Soviet pacts

Between 1926 and 1937, the Soviet Union concluded a number of nonaggression treaties, including one with France on November 19, 1932. Three years later, on May 15, 1935, the two nations took the even bolder step of concluding a new pact, which did not merely guarantee mutual nonaggression, but gave a mutual pledge of military assistance in case of invasion by another country. For Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, this was the first time he had promised to risk communist blood to aid a capitalist country. For the government of France, the pact was not only a bulwark against the expansionist aggression of Nazi Germany, it was also a means of placating left-leaning French workers. Moreover, the treaty put France's leaders in a position to rally these same workers to war not just to defend capitalist France, but the communist Soviet Union as well. Stalin effectively abrogated both Franco-Soviet pacts by concluding the German-Soviet Non- Aggression Pact on August 23, 1939. When Germany invaded France in 1940, Stalin did not honor the 1935 Franco-Soviet pact.