Editing Eastern Pact (section)

== Retrospective ==

=== Logic of the Eastern Pact ===
Although the Eastern Pact was specifically aimed against German aggression in Europe, Germany was invited into the Eastern Pact as requested by the British. If Germany wasn't invited, she could've validly claimed that she was being encircled. Although Nazi propaganda used that argument anyway, Germany wasn't being encircled since she was allowed to participate in the pact. Had Germany joined and adhered to the Eastern Pact she would be protected from attacks on the same basis as all the other signing countries. Her non-adherence to the pact was a big hindrance to the British to whom Germany's participation was a perquisite for their of the Eastern Pact.

=== Polish Position ===
Polish-Soviet relations were messy from the start. Even though the two countries signed a non-aggression pact in 1932 and Poland was seemingly starting to recognize the German threat, its policy was becoming more and more anti-Soviet as time passed. Nominally Poland adhered to a '''Policy of Equilibrium'''. Although it didn't participate in any explicit anti-Soviet agreements, its non-aggression pact with Germany in January 1934 contained a secret article which forbade Poland from signing “any agreements without the prior permission of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs”.<ref>Library of the President of the Russian Federation, https://www.prlib.ru/en/item/1296676</ref> Poland had no similar secret agreements with the Soviet Union. Moreover, Poland sabotaged the ratification of the Eastern Pact<ref name=":0" /> <ref>Library of the President of the Russian Federation, https://www.prlib.ru/en/node/1297148</ref> even though it was persuaded by France, her most important ally. Even Laval put pressure on Beck (the Polish foreign minister) to make his position clearer.<ref name=":1" /> Looking at the Polish position logically, signing the Eastern Pact wouldn't be in contradiction with the policy of equilibrium since, as was mentioned above, Germany was also invited. Because of that the treaty wasn't biased towards either side (at least on paper).

=== War-revolution nexus ===
Laval’s refusal to engage in healthy relations with the Soviet Union wasn’t specific to Laval. It was based in the idea that a European war would bring communism to Europe. This theory is the so-called "war-revolution nexus", a talking point of most appeasers. One might say that the war-revolution nexus was a exonerated position given our hindsight of the end of World War 2 and the creation of the Eastern Bloc. Ironically though, World War 2 played out in the context of the appeasement policy being implemented to its maximum. In other words, the war-revolution nexus was realized exactly in the context of the "naïve" Anglo-French policy that was supposed to prevent it; a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ of sorts.