It is worth recalling, as we consider the prospect of a German attack on Czechoslovakia, the Soviet reaction to a somewhat similar challenge to the Versailles system, the remilitarization of the Rhineland in March 1936. At that time, U.S. Ambassador William Bullitt had asked Litvinov if he hoped that the French would send troops into the Rhineland, and Litvinov had replied “that he did not as that would mean immediate war.” In the meantime, in the direct aftermath of the Anschluss, Litvinov communicated to London, Paris, Prague, and Washington – and published in the Soviet press – a Soviet offer “to participate in collective actions … to stop the further development of aggression and to remove the growing dangers of a new worldwide carnage. [Moscow] is ready to enter at once into discussion of practical measures [toward that end] with other powers in the League of Nations or outside of it.”

In the wake of the Anschluss the prospect of war had obviously moved closer to the Soviet frontier, and adjustments in Soviet policy seemed to be in order. The Soviet minister in Prague, Sergei Aleksandrovskii, was summoned home to report on circumstances in Czechoslovakia. He had a meeting in the Kremlin with Stalin, Commissar of Defense Voroshilov, Commissar of Foreign Affairs Litvinov, and two of Stalin's closest associates, Viacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich, and he was authorized to assure President Beneš of the assistance of the Soviet army and air force.