Soviet Union in World War II - Pact With Adolf Hitler

Pact With Adolf Hitler

In August 1939, Stalin accepted Adolf Hitler's proposal to enter into a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, negotiated by the foreign ministers Vyacheslav Molotov for the Soviets and Joachim von Ribbentrop for the Germans. Officially a non-aggression treaty only, an appended secret protocol, also reached on August 23, 1939, divided the whole of eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. The USSR was promised an eastern part of Poland, then primarily populated by Ukrainians and Belarusians, in case of its dissolution, and Germany recognized Latvia, Estonia and Finland as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence, with Lithuania added in a second secret protocol in September 1939. Another clause of the treaty was that Bessarabia, then part of Romania, was to be joined to the Moldovan ASSR, and become the Moldovan SSR under control of Moscow.

The Pact was reached two days after the breakdown of Soviet military talks with British and French representatives in August 1939 over a potential Franco-Anglo-Soviet alliance. Political discussions had been suspended on August 2 when Molotov stated they could not be restarted until progress was made in military talks late in August, after the talks had stalled over guarantees of the Baltic states, while the military talks upon which Molotov insisted started on 11 August. At the same time, Germany—with whom the Soviets had started secret discussions since July 29 -- argued that it could offer the Soviets better terms than Britain and France, with Ribbentrop insisting, "there was no problem between the Baltic and the Black Sea that could not be solved between the two of us." German officials stated that, unlike Britain, Germany could permit the Soviets to continue their developments unmolested, and that "there is one common element in the ideology of Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union: opposition to the capitalist democracies of the West." By that time, Molotov obtained information regarding Anglo-German negotiations and a pessimistic report from the Soviet ambassador in France. After disagreement regarding Stalin's demand to move Red Army troops through Poland and Romania (which Poland and Romania opposed), on August 21, the Soviets proposed adjournment of military talks using the excuse that the absence of the senior Soviet personnel at the talks interfered with the autumn manoeuvres of the Soviet forces, though the primary reason was the progress being made in the Soviet-German negotiations. That same day, Stalin received assurance that Germany would approve secret protocols to the proposed non-aggression pact that would grant the Soviets land in Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and Romania, after which Stalin telegrammed Hitler that night that the Soviets were willing to sign the pact and that he would receive Ribbentrop on August 23. Regarding the larger issue of collective security, some historians state that one reason that Stalin decided to abandon the doctrine was the shaping of his views of France and Britain by their entry into the Munich Agreement and the subsequent failure to prevent German occupation of Czechoslovakia. Stalin also viewed the Pact as gaining time in an inevitable war with Hitler in order to reinforce the Soviet military and shifting Soviet borders westwards, which would be militarily beneficial in such a war.

Stalin and Ribbentrop spent most of the night of the Pact's signing trading friendly stories about world affairs and cracking jokes (a rarity for Ribbentrop) about England's weakness, and the pair even joked about how the Anti-Comintern Pact principally scared "British shopkeepers." They further traded toasts, with Stalin proposing a toast to Hitler's health and Ribbentrop proposing a toast to Stalin.