On the other hand, from 1927 onwards a number of German pilots were trained by the Soviets for military purposes. There were fluctuations, but in 1932 the British Ambassador in Berlin reported that the Reichswehr had close technical liaison with the Red Army. Just as the Fascist Dictator of Italy had, almost from his accession to power, been the first to make a trade agreement with Soviet Russia, so now the relations between Nazi Germany and the vast Soviet State appeared to be unprejudiced by public ideological controversy.