How about this account? Any good? Poles refused to endorse the collective security arrangement, because they did not want to provoke the German invasion. Irony.
That Stalin pursued a policy of collective security against Germany is well known. What is not so well known, is that Stalin proposed a preventative strike with France and Britain against Germany. Kliment Voroshilov along with Boris Shaposhnikov had drawn up plans to allow 120 infantry divisions, 9,500 tanks, 5,000 artillery pieces and 5,500 bombers and aircraft against Germany.[26] A precondition was that the Red Army would be allowed to move through Poland in order to reach Germany. Jozef Beck, the Polish foreign minister, refused on the basis that he feared that such an action would provoke an invasion from the Germans, the main concern being that most of the fighting would occur on Polish territory. In addition, the British and French believed that the plan would ultimately lead to Soviet domination of Baltic States, Poland and Romania.[27]
[26] Michael Carley, ”Fiascso: The Anglo-Franco-Soviet Alliance That Never Was” The International History Review Vol 42, Issue 4 (2019) 701-728, 703.
