Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, sometimes called the Hitler-Stalin pact, was a non-aggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It was signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939 by the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Background
The European balance of power established at the end of World War I eroded step by step from the Abyssinia crisis (1935) to the Munich Agreement (1938). The dissolution of Czechoslovakia signalled a new period of instability as Nazi-Germany and the Soviet Union aspired to regain territories and provinces lost in the aftermath of World War I. The Soviet Union was not interested in maintaining the status quo and encouraged conflict between capitalist countries in order to enhance the spread of Communism.Seen from a Soviet perspective, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a much needed response to the deterioration in the European security situation in the latter half of the 1930s as Nazi-Germany, aligned with Fascist Italy in the Axis Powers, aimed to reverse the disadvantageous Treaty of Versailles after World War I.
Britain and France, notional guarantors of the territorial status quo, stood by until Germany's March 1939 destruction of Czechoslovakia, maintaining a policy of "non-intervention" while Germany and Italy supported the victorious rebels in their destruction of the centre-left Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39.
For its part, the Soviet Union was not interested in maintaining a status quo which it also saw as disadvantageous to its interests, deriving as it did from the period of Soviet weakness immediately following the 1917 October Revolution and Russian Civil War. Soviet leaders adopted the position that conflict between what they characterised as rival imperialist countries was not only an inevitable consequence of Capitalism but would enhance conditions for the spread of Communism.
During 1938 the Soviet government offered to defend Czechoslovakia in the event of German invasion, but the Czech government was persuaded by Britain and France to give in to Germany's territorial demands, despite a Franco-Czechoslovak alliance dating back to 1924. The experience from the Spanish Civil War, showed that Soviet offers of support usually lead to situations, when pro-Soviet factions attempt to seize power in non-communist countries.
Franco-British negotiations with the Soviet Union
Negotiations between the Soviet Union and France/Britain for a military alliance against Germany stalled, mainly due to mutual suspicions. The Soviet Union sought guarantees for support against German aggression and recognition of the right of the Soviet Union to interfere against "a change of policy favourable to an aggressor" in the countries along the western Soviet border. Although none of the affected countries had formally asked for protection by the Soviet Union, the Soviets announced "guarantees for the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Turkey and Greece".The British and French feared that this would allow Soviet intervention in neighbouring countries' internal affairs in the absence of an immediate German threat.
With Germany now demanding territorial concessions from Poland in the face of Polish opposition, the threat of war was increasing. But although telegrams were exchanged as early as April, the military missions sent (by boat) by the western powers did not arrive in Moscow until August 11.
A more fundamental sticking-point was the question of Poland, lying mid-way between Germany and the Soviet Union: The Polish government feared rightly that the Soviet government sought to annex the former Russian provinces incorporated in Poland in 1920 - areas characterised by the Soviets as irredenta ("Western Ukraine" and "Western Belarus") on the grounds of the ethnic identity between their majority populations and those of the two westernmost Soviet republics.
The Polish government therefore refused to allow the Soviet military to enter Poland as an ally in the event of war - a situation that left the Soviets without any possibility of confronting the Germans before Poland was invaded. However, when the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939, the Polish army and society looked forward for their help in the struggle against the Nazis.
Three weeks into August, the negotiations ground to a halt with each side doubting the other's motives, the Soviets suspecting that they were being led into a conflict limited to themselves and Germany.
German negotiations with the Soviet Union
In an attempt to prepare for reappeasement with Nazis, Soviet's First Secretary Joseph Stalin had already in April opened for negotiations and improved relations with Germany by replacing the Jewish Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov with Molotov.Litvinov was not credible enough to lead Soviet Union towards agreement with Nazi Germany and could have been perceived as an advocate of an alliance with the Western democracies against the Fascist powers. Stalin obviously intended for Molotov program of provoking the war between Germany and Western countries.
It was expected, that autumn rains in Poland would make tanks useless, so the agreement must have been concluded as fast as possible. Otherwise, the war could have been avoided.
Concluding a German-Soviet trade agreement, Molotov on August 19 proposed also an additional protocol "covering the points in which the High Contracting Parties are interested in the field of foreign policy".
The pact was announced as a non-aggression pact, but in a secret appendix Eastern Europe was divided into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia were apportioned to the Soviet sphere. Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement", the areas east of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San going to the Soviet Union while Germany would occupy the west.
Effects
On September 1, barely a week after the pact had been signed, the partition of Poland commenced with Germany's invasion. The Soviet Union invaded from the east on September 17 (see also: Partitions of Poland).The pact caused consternation in the west, both among governments which had most feared such an outcome, and even more so to supporters of communism, many of whom found Soviet dealings with their Nazi ideological enemy incomprehensible. A famous cartoon by David Low from the London Evening Standard of 20 September 1939 has Hitler and Stalin bowing to each other over the corpse of Poland, with Hitler saying "The scum of the Earth, I believe?" and Stalin saying "The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?".
On September 28th 1939, the three Baltic States were given no choice but to sign a so-called Pact of defence and mutual assistance, which permitted the Soviet Union to station troops in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The same day a supplementary German-Soviet protocol had transferred most of Lithuania from the envisaged German to the Soviet sphere of interest
Finland resisted similar claims and was invaded by the Soviet Union on November 30. After more than three months of heavy fighting and losses in the ensuing Winter War, the Soviet Union gave up its intended occupation of Finland, in exchange for approximately 10% of Finland's territory, most of which still held by the Finnish army.
Aftermath
In June 1940, after the Wehrmacht's swift victories and occupation of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, it was time for Bessarabia and the three Baltic states to suffer occupation, and soon annexation, by the Soviet Union. On the occupied territories Soviets started campaign of terror, much worse then conteporary Nazi terror. Milions of people has been deported to work camps in the far north, on the ground of belonging to the group of people, that Soviet wanted to persecute.Thereafter, German-Soviet relations began to cool as a clash between Nazi-Germany and the Soviet Union seemed increasingly unavoidable. By early 1941, the German and Soviet empires shared a common border running through what is now Poland and the Czech Republic.
Germany ended the pact of August 1939 by invading the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in what was called Operation Barbarossa. The territories gained by the Soviets due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact were lost in a matter of weeks, but Soviets executed all prisoners that were contained in the prisons, before the advance of German army. The invasion was the pretext to start a campaign of terror that eventually led to the Holocaust.
Soviet propaganda pointed out, that the Soviets' earlier territorial acquisitions may have contributed to preventing a German conquest of the Soviet Union. Others say, that Poland and Baltic countries played important barrier between Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and only destroying the barrier by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact let the war to begin.