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notable withdrawal, but the government was pressingforward with renewed energy in its policy of all-roundstrengthening of the military, naval, and economicdefences of the Far Eastern region. A frontier disputethat led to a pitched battle in 1938 showed that Moscowdid not intend to retreat farther. The doubling of theTrans-Siberian, the start on the construction of a secondrail connexion with the West running far in the rear ofthe Amur frontier, intensive colonization and industrialand mining development—these and other measures havegone far towards solidifying the Pacific base of theU.S.S.R.At the same time, on the western side of Manchuria,Soviet policy towards Outer Mongolia was firm anddecided. The Anti-Comintern pact between Japan andGermany, signed in 1936, seemed to be directed towardsan encirclement of the Union, and the opening of thefull-scale Japanese invasion of China within the GreatWall in 1937 led to an increased Japanese hold on InnerMongolia. Japan must not be allowed to extend herpower to Outer Mongolia and be in a position to threatenthe whole of the Soviet Far East by cutting its neck alongthe Trans-Siberian somewhat east of Lake Baikal (seemap 2).Outer Mongolia, after three years of blood-curdlingphantasmagoria, had developed after 1921, as before thewar, within the Russian not the Chinese orbit, eventhough the formula of Chinese sovereignty over it "asan integral part of the Republic of China " was acknowledgedby Moscow. In fact, a Mongolian People'sRepublic was set up (1924) under Soviet control. TheSoviet determination not to let slip this strategic keywas publicly shown in 1936 by the announcement of aclose guarantee alliance. The guarantee was effective.In the summer of 1939 the disputed frontier betweenOuter Mongolia and Manchuria caused several months'large-scale operations between the Red Army and theJapanese which ended in the discomfiture of the latterwith admittedly heavy losses (and with the discovery ofthe present Marshal Zhukov as a first-class tank general).Hostilities, however, remained localized, and the Soviet-312