During World War II, Johnson strictly followed the Soviet line. After the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, he opposed the war although Britain was at war against Germany, and he was accused of spreading defeatist propaganda. However, after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he supported the war although his MI5 file reports that it was still judged "undesirable for the Dean of Canterbury to be allowed to lecture to troops".