in a general European war, he began pursuing a policy of collective security, trying to contain Nazi Germany via cooperation with the League of Nations and the Western Powers. The Soviet attitude towards the League of Nations and international peace had changed. In 1933–34 the Soviet Union was diplomatically recognized for the first time by Spain, the United States, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, and ultimately joined the League of Nations in September 1934. It is often argued that the change in Soviet foreign policy happened around 1933–34, and that it was triggered by Hitler's assumption of power. However, the Soviet turn towards the French Third Republic in 1932, discussed above, could also have been a part of the policy change. Hermann Rauschning in his 1940 book Hitler Speaks: A Series of Political Conversations With Adolf Hitler on His Real Aims 1934 records Adolf Hitler as speaking of an inescapable battle against both Pan-Slavism and Neo-Slavism. The authenticity of the book is controversial: some historians, such as Wolfgang Hänel, claim that the book is a fabrication, whereas others, such as Richard Steigmann-Gall, Ian Kershaw and Hugh Trevor-Roper, have avoided using it as a reference due to its questionable authenticity. Rauschning records Hitler as saying of the Slavs: Relations in the mid-1930s On May 2, 1935, France and the USSR signed a five-year Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance. France's ratification of the treaty provided one of the reasons why Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland on March 7, 1936. The 7th World Congress of the Comintern in 1935 officially endorsed the Popular Front strategy of forming broad alliances with parties willing to oppose fascism – Communist parties had started pursuing this policy from 1934. Also in 1935, at the 7th Congress of Soviets (in a study in contradiction), Molotov stressed the need for good relations with Berlin. On November 25, 1936, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan concluded the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Fascist Italy joined in 1937. Economically, the Soviet Union made repeated efforts to reestablish closer contacts with Germany in the mid-1930s. The Soviet Union chiefly sought to repay debts from earlier trade with raw materials, while Germany sought to rearm. The two countries signed a credit agreement in 1935. By 1936, crises in the supply of raw materials and foodstuffs forced Hitler to decree a Four Year Plan for rearmament "without regard to costs". However, despite those issues, Hitler rebuffed the Soviet