Part of topic: World War II
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression treaty between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, signed on 23 August 1939. Officially it was a non-aggression treaty with a term of 10 years. But the true significance of the pact lay not in its public part.
The secret protocol
Attached to the treaty was a secret protocol, drawn up in two languages — German and Russian. The protocol came with a map on which lines marked the division of the spheres of influence between the two totalitarian states in Eastern Europe. The map bore the signatures of Stalin and Ribbentrop.
Under the protocol, the Soviet Union received a sphere of influence over Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, eastern Poland, and Bessarabia. These arrangements effectively became a plan for the division of Europe, which both sides began to carry out within a week — starting with the attack on Poland.
The “Golden September”: liberation or occupation
The execution of the secret protocol gave rise to a separate Soviet myth — of the “Golden September” of 1939, supposedly the liberation of Western Ukraine and Belarus. The chronology leaves no room for this version: on 1 September Nazi Germany attacked Poland, on 17 September Stalin’s USSR did; this was precisely how World War II began[4]. Germany took the west of Poland, the Soviet Union the east: Hitler and Stalin divided an independent state under the pact they had just signed[5].
So “liberation from the Polish lords” was in reality an attack on an independent state and its occupation, not a liberation[6]. And, crucially, the justification itself is recognizable. The thesis about “protecting the oppressed Russian-speaking population” word for word repeats the argumentation of Nazi Germany: what Hitler said in 1938 about the Sudetenland (Germans supposedly persecuted by the Czechs) later sounded verbatim with regard to Crimea and the Donbas[7]. One rhetorical template — “we are protecting our own” — twice served to cover the seizure of someone else’s territory.
Another layer of the same myth is the claim that in 1939 the USSR merely “returned what was its own”: the lands of Western Ukraine and Belarus, supposedly lost in the Soviet-Polish war. Dribnytsya dismantles it on the opponent’s own ground, in three moves. First, territorially it is false even by imperial logic: of the Ukrainian lands, only Volhynia had been part of the Russian Empire (after the late-eighteenth-century partitions of Poland), whereas Eastern Galicia had never belonged to Russia — from the first partition of Poland in 1772 until 1918 it was an Austrian province (the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria), and Russia held it only for a few months of military occupation in 1914—1915[22]. So there was nothing for the Soviet state to “return” in Galicia. Second, the USSR had nothing to claim as “its own” in the first place: it came into being only on 30 December 1922, and from the outset the Bolshevik leadership refused to recognize itself as the successor of the Russian Empire — it annulled the empire’s treaties and debts (the decree of 10 February 1918), among other things — so it had no legal grounds to demand “imperial” lands back[23]. Third, the very principle “conquered, therefore returned what was ours” leads to absurdity: if it holds, then Mongolia too is entitled to “return” Russia to itself, having once conquered its lands, and the Mongol invasion could then not be called aggression[24]. The logic of “returning what was ours” justifies any seizure — and for that very reason justifies nothing.
The partnership was not limited to the division of Poland. As early as 28 September 1939, under the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Border, the spheres of influence were reshuffled: Lithuania passed to the USSR, and in exchange the Lublin and part of the Warsaw voivodeship went to Germany[15]. An exchange of armaments was even discussed. The symbol of this cooperation was Brest: on 22 September 1939, as their troops withdrew to the demarcation line, General Heinz Guderian and Brigade Commander Semyon Krivoshein jointly took the salute from a shared rostrum as German and Soviet units marched past.
The southern act of the pact: Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina
The division under the secret protocol was not limited to Poland and the Baltics. Bessarabia — the lands between the Dniester and the Prut — was placed squarely in the Soviet sphere of influence by the protocol itself, and Moscow came for it in the summer of 1940. In June 1940, following a Soviet ultimatum, the Red Army occupied the whole of Bessarabia; in the video debate Dribnytsya calls this a direct execution of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and an occupation, not a “reunification”[17]. (Romania accepted the ultimatum on 28 June 1940.) Bessarabia was then partitioned: the south — Budzhak, today’s southern Odesa oblast — and the north (the Khotyn area) were joined to the Ukrainian SSR, while a separate republic was formed from the central part[17].
A more telling detail lies elsewhere. Northern Bukovina was not mentioned in the secret protocol at all — it did not fall within the agreed Soviet sphere of influence. Stalin decided to take it anyway[18]: a vivid example of how Moscow overstepped even its own arrangements with Berlin the moment it saw an opportunity. Germany, which had acknowledged a Soviet “interest” only in Bessarabia, regarded this step as going beyond what had been agreed.
Here it is worth separating two closely related things that are easy to confuse. The Moldavian ASSR existed before 1940 not in Bessarabia but on the left bank of the Dniester — on the territory of today’s Transnistria — and formed part of the Ukrainian SSR[19]. Only on 2 August 1940, after the annexation of Bessarabia, was the union-level Moldavian SSR created from most of that autonomy plus the annexed Bessarabia. And Bessarabia itself had changed hands before, too: in March 1918, when the Russian Empire had already collapsed, it was taken by Romanian troops[20], and the regional parliament — the Sfatul Țării — proclaimed the union of Bessarabia with Romania (27 March / 9 April 1918). So the lands the USSR in 1940 presented as a “return of its own” had in fact changed statehood several times within a single lifetime.
The Baltics: the mechanics of the 1940 annexation
The secret protocol placed Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the Soviet sphere of influence — but Moscow dressed up the formal absorption as a series of “voluntary” steps. Soviet troops had been stationed in these countries since the autumn of 1939: after the pact, Estonia (28 September), Latvia (5 October), and Lithuania (10 October) signed “mutual assistance pacts” under pressure, allowing Soviet military bases to be placed on their territory. In the summer of 1940, with the troops already inside, Moscow moved to seize power: the local governments were coerced into agreeing to the entry of an additional contingent, after which “so-called elections” were held and the legitimate governments went into emigration[28].
A telling detail of the mechanics is who was actually running the process. The elections to the puppet “people’s” parliaments were not called by the Baltic governments themselves. In Estonia the election decree was signed on 5 July 1940; when the president asked the reason for such haste, Prime Minister Johannes Vares (a poet known by the pen name Barbarus) referred to a direct instruction from Andrei Zhdanov — Stalin’s emissary in charge of the Sovietization of Estonia[29]. In other words, the order for “elections” on the territory of a formally independent state was given by a representative of the USSR.
(In the debate Dribnytsya mentions that on 7 November 1940 the president of Estonia, Konstantin Päts, reviewed a parade of Soviet-Estonian troops in Tallinn. This particular detail is mistaken: Päts had already been removed by the Soviet authorities in the summer and deported to Ufa on 30 July 1940, so he could not have reviewed a parade in November. This does not change the substance — the annexation was carried out precisely through such a simulation of “legitimacy” under the control of Soviet troops and the NKVD.)
Postwar treaties superseded the pact
A favorite reproach of Russian propaganda runs: “since you condemned the pact, then return the lands obtained under it.” Dribnytsya answers on legal grounds: the territorial outcome of the 1939 pact was long ago superseded by later, already legitimate border treaties. Western Ukraine: the border along the “Curzon Line” was recognized as early as 27 July 1944 by the pro-Soviet Polish Committee of National Liberation (the Lublin Committee), and the formal Soviet-Polish border treaty was signed on 16 August 1945[25]. (Dribnytsya calls this “the 1944 treaty with the new Polish government of the PPR”; to be precise: the People’s Republic of Poland as a state came into being only in 1952, so what is meant is the PKWN’s 1944 consent and the 1945 treaty.) The Soviet-Romanian border — that is, the belonging of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR — was fixed by the Paris Peace Treaty with Romania of 10 February 1947[25].
The earliest to cross out the border pact, though, was the USSR itself — while the war was still on. On 30 July 1941, a few weeks after the German attack, the Sikorski–Mayski agreement between the Soviet Union and the Polish government-in-exile was signed in London: in its very first point the Soviet government recognized the Soviet-German treaties of 1939 “as to territorial changes in Poland as having lost their validity.” Dribnytsia recalls this little-known episode: once things got hot for Stalin after 22 June 1941, he himself, voluntarily, renounced the 1939 border — while negotiating with the very Polish government whose statehood the USSR had until then declared non-existent (the agreement also proclaimed an “amnesty” for Poles in the Soviet camps and allowed the formation of General Anders’ Polish army)[30]. So it was not some later “unfriendly” state that annulled the 1939 changes, but the very author of the partition — the moment it became advantageous to him.
Moreover, the inviolability of postwar borders in Europe was confirmed by the Helsinki Final Act of the CSCE on 1 August 1975, signed by all European states (except Albania), the USSR, the USA, and Canada; after the collapse of the Union, Ukraine and Russia took on the corresponding commitments to the inviolability of borders[26]. So today’s borders rest not on a criminal pact but on a whole series of treaties concluded after the war.
The mirror example shows how selectively Moscow uses this logic. Under the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, Japan renounced the Kuril Islands and southern Sakhalin — but the text does not specify to which state these territories pass (the USSR did not sign the treaty at all)[27]. The situation is symmetrical to the Polish or Romanian one, yet the parties behave differently: Japan demands the return of the islands at the state level, whereas neither Poland nor Romania advances any territorial claims at the state level — “return” is spoken of only by marginal right-wing forces in the Polish Sejm, which get no further than a few votes[27].
Economic collaboration: how the USSR fed the Reich
The pact was no passive “non-aggression” — behind it stood active economic collaboration, without which Germany could not have waged war for two years. In 1939—1941 the Soviet Union delivered to it about a million tonnes of grain (by actual deliveries — up to 1.5 million) and about 900 thousand tonnes of oil and petroleum products, as well as millions of tonnes of cotton, phosphates, manganese, chrome and iron ore, scrap metal, timber, and platinum[12]. The significance of these deliveries was strategic: Germany had almost no oil of its own and relied on synthetic fuel made from coal, so Soviet crude supplied a scarce volume critical to its fuel reserves.
The main point, though, is that this trade broke through the British naval blockade. Soviet territory opened up for the Reich an overland transit corridor for raw materials from Romania, Iran, and Afghanistan — bypassing the British fleet. By some estimates, the USSR provided over half (at times up to 70%) of Germany’s overseas imports — precisely those the blockade would otherwise have cut off — and up to 70% of its imports of strategic metals: chrome, manganese, platinum[13]. Total trade turnover in 1939—1941 reached approximately 1 billion Reichsmarks. The trade was mutual: in return Germany supplied machinery, machine tools, and technologies the USSR lacked, down to military samples — an unfinished heavy cruiser and blueprints of the latest ships and aircraft.
Why Stalin chose Hitler over the West
In 1939 Stalin had a choice: a security agreement with the Western democracies or an alliance with Hitler. He chose Hitler — and not by chance. On Britain and France’s part there was no particular desire to reach an agreement: they sent low-ranking delegations to the talks, which arrived by a slow steamer, while on the Soviet side the negotiations were conducted sluggishly by Voroshilov. Hitler, on the other hand, offered through Ribbentrop concrete terms — the division of Central and Eastern Europe and cooperation. This was cold realpolitik: neither London nor Paris could or would offer Stalin other countries as a sphere of influence, whereas Berlin did[14].
”Munich came first”: examining the argument
A common argument of Kremlin propaganda holds that the Western powers themselves handed Czechoslovakia over to Hitler at Munich in 1938, so the pact was merely a forced response. This is a manipulation that equates things of different natures. The Munich Agreement was a mistaken attempt at appeasement — a concession to avoid a great war. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a treaty for the division of Europe between two dictatorships[1]: the Munich deal did not lead to the outbreak of the war, while the pact led to it directly[2].
Stalin’s contribution to Hitler’s rise to power began even earlier. Before the Reichstag elections German communists and social democrats traditionally went together, but on Stalin’s personal order the communists went separately — the social democrats were declared “lackeys of capitalism.” The split of the left-wing electorate gave Hitler his chance, and he took it[3].
The reaction of Soviet society
For Soviet people the pact came as a shock. For years official propaganda had portrayed Nazism as the chief enemy and cultivated hatred of fascism. And suddenly — a treaty of friendship with that very enemy.
Yet the people were silent. In a totalitarian state open protest was impossible. As Pushkin wrote in “Boris Godunov” — “the people are silent.” This formula precisely describes the reaction of Soviet society.
The propaganda about-face
Propaganda performed a swift about-face. Whereas Nazism had previously been condemned as absolute evil, after the signing of the pact Vyacheslav Molotov declared at the official level: “Nazism is an ideology. How can one fight an ideology?” This phrase captured the cynicism of the Stalinist regime, which turned ideological principles into an instrument of the current political conjuncture.
The “preventive strike”: why it does not exonerate Hitler
A separate — and opposite — myth is promoted by Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezun) and Mark Solonin: namely, that the USSR was itself preparing to attack Germany, so the Wehrmacht’s strike on 22 June 1941 was preventive, a forced act of self-defense. Here a precise distinction is needed between two things that propaganda deliberately merges: the fact of Soviet preparation for an offensive and the motive of the German attack.
That Stalin was preparing an offensive in the summer of 1941 is by now an almost undisputed thesis. It was put forward as early as the late 1980s by the defector intelligence officer Rezun (under the pseudonym “Viktor Suvorov”) in the book “Icebreaker,” analyzing indirect data[9]. It was later confirmed by academic — and, what is more, Russian — scholarship: Mikhail Meltyukhov in his work “Stalin’s Missed Chance” (2000) analyzed the available documents minute by minute, and Aleksandr Gogun in the book “The Mistake of 1941” (Kherson, 2021) sums up: the dispute has narrowed only to the approximate date of the planned Soviet strike — 6 or 15 July 1941[10].
But it does not follow from this that the German attack was “preventive.” A preventive strike is a strike to forestall an enemy whose plans you know. But German intelligence did not know the Soviet plans: the references to a “Soviet threat” in the German note were merely a justification for its own aggression — the Germans in fact guessed at random, and at the Nuremberg trial they were unable to substantiate their claims with documents[8]. The chronology adds the decisive touch: Hitler signed the “Barbarossa” directive (a plan for an aggressive war against the USSR) on 18 December 1940 — that is, earlier than the Soviet offensive plan was drawn up[11]. Both dictatorships were preparing to attack each other, but Germany took the decision to attack independently and in advance, without any knowledge of the Soviet preparations. That is why the thesis of a “preventive war” is not a justification but yet another substitution: Stalin’s real preparation for an offensive does not turn Hitler’s attack into self-defense.
Forty years of denial: Soviet historiography and the secret protocol
The cynicism of the regime is seen most clearly in how, for decades, Soviet historical scholarship handled the secret protocol itself. The non-aggression treaty Soviet historians acknowledged — every newspaper had printed it in 1939. But the existence of the secret protocol they denied right up to the end of the USSR: under pressure from the party, they maintained that there had been no secret arrangements to divide Europe at all[21].
They had to deny it against long-known documents. Photocopies of the protocol from the captured German Foreign Office archive had surfaced back in the postwar years, and in 1948 the U.S. State Department published them in the collection Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939—1941; Moscow responded with the pamphlet “Falsifiers of History” (1948) and stuck to the “forgery” version. Only the collapse of the Union settled the matter: it was then that the original of the secret protocol in Russian was found in the Soviet archives[21] — the very one whose existence had been officially denied. This was not an isolated case of “hushing up the inconvenient” but a systematic substitution of facts at the state level: by the same pattern, Soviet historiography until the collapse of the USSR attributed the Katyn massacre of 1940 to the Germans as well.
Condemnation — and Putin’s revisionism
At the end of the USSR’s existence the pact received an official legal assessment. Under Gorbachev a commission headed by Aleksandr Yakovlev confirmed the existence of the secret protocol, and on 24 December 1989 the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR condemned it, declaring the secret arrangements with Germany legally void from the very moment of signing. The Soviet original of the protocol itself was declassified only after the collapse of the Union, in 1992[16].
Under Putin a reverse movement began — a justification of the collaboration with Nazi Germany. In 2019—2020 Putin publicly defended the pact (notably in a programmatic article in The National Interest in June 2020), effectively equating it with the Munich Agreement, while a draft law to repeal the 1989 condemnation was introduced in the State Duma. The historical assessment that the Russian political establishment itself had adopted in the late 1980s was, within a single generation, rolled back for the needs of present-day propaganda.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact remains one of the most telling examples of collusion between two totalitarian regimes, one that directly led to the outbreak of World War II and to the tragedy of millions of people in Eastern Europe.
Related persons
- Vitaliy Dribnytsya — Historian, author of the 'Vox Veritatis' channel
References
- [1] paraphrase
Беда в том, что Гитлер со Сталиным подписали договор о разделе Европы.
Back to text - [2] paraphrase
Мюнхенский сговор не привёл к началу войны, а пакт Молотова-Риббентропа непосредственно привёл к началу Второй мировой войны.
Back to text - [3] paraphrase
Социалисты и коммунисты всегда шли на выборы вместе, а здесь поступила личная команда Сталина, чтобы коммунисты шли отдельно от социалистов, потому что социалисты якобы приспешники капитализма. Это дало шанс, и Гитлер использовал этот шанс — он пришёл к власти.
Back to text - [4] summary
И нацистская Германия, и сталинский Советский Союз в 1939 году напали на Польшу: нацистская Германия — 1 сентября, сталинский Советский Союз — 17 сентября. С этого началась Вторая мировая война.
Back to text - [5] paraphrase
На западную часть Польши пошла нацистская Германия, на восточную — Советский Союз: Гитлер и Сталин подписали пакт Молотова-Риббентропа и поделили независимую Польшу.
Back to text - [6] summary
«Освободили Западную Украину и Западную Беларусь от польских панов» — на самом деле это нападение на независимое государство и оккупация чужого государства, а не освобождение.
Back to text - [7] summary
Аргумент о защите притесняемого русскоязычного населения полностью повторяет аргументацию нацистской Германии: то, что Гитлер говорил в 1938 году про Судетскую область (немцев якобы преследуют в Чехословакии), — те же доводы используются сегодня для Крыма и Донбасса.
Back to text - [8] summary
Це не був превентивний удар: німецька розвідка не знала про те, що Радянський Союз готувався напасти. Те, що німці написали (через посла Шуленбурга, який передав ноту Молотову) про нібито радянську підготовку, — це лише виправдання власного нападу; насправді даних про це вони не мали і просто випадково вгадали.
Back to text - [9] summary
Дискусію про підготовку радянського нападу започаткував ще наприкінці 1980-х радянський розвідник-перебіжчик Володимир Резун (псевдонім Віктор Суворов) книжкою «Ледокол»: спираючись на непрямі дані з відкритого доступу, він дійшов висновку, що Сталін готувався напасти на нацистську Німеччину.
Back to text - [10] summary
Олександр Гогун у книжці «Ошибка 1941» (Херсон, 2021) на сторінці 107 цитує висновок російського історика Михайла Мельтюхова з праці «Упущенный шанс Сталина» (2000): якщо до 2000 року сперечалися, чи готував Сталін напад на Німеччину в 1941 році, то тепер полеміка лишилася тільки про приблизні строки — 6 чи 15 липня 1941 року; нанести удар планували, та з не зовсім з'ясованих причин напад відклали.
Back to text - [11] summary
Кожна країна готувалася до агресії щодо іншої, але розвідки давали протилежні дані. План радянського наступу, за Мельтюховим і Гогуном, був написаний приблизно за дев'ять місяців до подій — а ще раніше від нього був написаний німецький план «Барбаросса» про агресивну війну.
Back to text - [12] summary
За два роки співробітництва, 39-й-41-й рік, Радянський Союз поставив в Німеччині поди мільйон тонн зерна і бобових, близько 900 000 тонн нафти і нафтопродуктів, тому що Німеччина практично не мала власних покладів нафти і працювала на штучному бензині, який робиться з кам'яного вугілля. Мільйони тонн обсяги бавовни, фосфатів, марганцевої, хромової, залізної руди, металобрухту, лісу, платини і так дальше.
Back to text - [13] paraphrase
Історики загальний обсяг торгівлі за 39-й-41-й рік десь приблизно 1 млрд марок. Це набагато більше, ніж торгівля була в попередні періоди. Фактично Радянський Союз допоміг Німеччині обійти британські санкції. Порядка 50, може навіть більше відсотків імпорту Німеччини йшло саме з Радянського Союзу. Не тільки Радянський Союз постачав продукцію нацистській Німеччині, але нацистська Німеччина постачала машини, устаткування, технології, яких в Радянському Союзі не було.
Back to text - [14] summary
З боку Англії і Франції не було особливого бажання укладати з Радянським Союзом безпекові угоди. Делегації мали низький рівень посланців, ішли тихохідним кораблем. Ці переговори вів посіпака Сталіна Ворошилов, і вони йшли не шатко, не валко. І коли Гітлер запропонував через Ріббентропа конкретні умови — умови поділу Східної, Центральної Європи та співпрацю, — Сталін пішов саме на цей союз. Ні Англія, ні Франція не могли йому запропонувати поділ якихось країн.
Back to text - [15] summary
Литву, якщо я не помиляюся, зміняли на Люблінське воєводство. Люблінське воєводство відійшло Німеччині, а Литва відійшла Радянському Союзу. Йшлося навіть про те, що Радянський Союз і Німеччина будуть обмінюватися озброєннями. Ми пам'ятаємо цей парад в Бресті, коли Німеччина, захопивши Брест-Литовський, вивільнила його для окупаційних радянських військ.
Back to text - [16] summary
Ще за часів Горбачова було відкрите і знайдений оригінал цього пакту Рібентропа-Молотова і додатку до нього — радянський додаток, оригінал. І пакт засудили. Зараз пішов за часів Путіна зворотній рух, коли йде виправдання оцієї співпраці Радянського Союзу з нацистською Німеччиною.
Back to text - [17] summary
Оккупированный советской властью в 1940 году, в июне сорокового года, вместе с Северной Бессарабией и Северной Буковиной. Это было исполнение пакта Рибентропа-Молотова 23 августа тридцать девятого года о разделе сфер влияния в Европе. Бессарабия вся попала под контроль Советского Союза. Часть отдали Украине.
Back to text - [18] verbatim quote
Вот северная Буковина нигде не упоминалась, но Сталин решил её забрать.
Back to text - [19] paraphrase
Молдавская автономная социалистическая республика была создана на территории нынешнего Приднестровья до сорокового года. Она была в составе Украины.
Back to text - [20] summary
В марте месяце восемнадцатого года румынские войска вернули себе Бессарабию — от Российской империи, которая распалась в 1917-м.
Back to text - [21] summary
До 91 года советские историки не признавали наличие секретного протокола к пакту Молотова-Риббентропа. Все знали, что он есть, потому что была известна немецкая фотокопия ещё с послевоенного периода, 46 или 47 года. А советские историки под давлением партии говорили, что договор, конечно, был — он был напечатан во всех газетах в 39 году, — а секретного протокола не было. Когда распался Советский Союз, нашли оригинал секретного протокола на русском языке.
Back to text - [22] summary
А когда эти земли Западной Украины принадлежали советской России? Российской империи принадлежала только Волынь, а Восточная Галиция никогда не принадлежала — эта территория была австро-венгерская. Как это «вернули своё»?
Back to text - [23] summary
Советский Союз создан в двадцать втором году. Каким образом он мог претендовать на землю Российской империи, если Ленин и ленинское руководство неоднократно заявляли, что они не имеют отношения к Российской империи и не собираются выполнять никаких её договоров? И это не агрессия со стороны Советского Союза, это «возвращение своего»?
Back to text - [24] summary
Если завоевание — это «возвращение своего», то и Монголия имеет право вернуть себе территории современной России: когда-то монголы завоевали эти земли. И вы не будете расценивать монгольское вторжение на территорию России как агрессию? Где ошибка в моей логике? Если Россия завоёвывает чужие территории — это не завоевание, это «возвращение своего»?
Back to text - [25] paraphrase
По результатам второй мировой войны, в сорок четвёртом году, с новым польским правительством ПНР был подписан договор о признании границ. То есть договор 44 года перекрывает по юридической практике договор 39. С румынским правительством, подписанный в сорок седьмом году, этот договор тоже о признании границ.
Back to text - [26] paraphrase
Дальше есть 75 год — хельсинкское соглашение, где все страны Европы, в том числе Советский Союз, а после его развала и Украина, и Россия подписали договор о незыблемости границ.
Back to text - [27] summary
Южные Курилы и Южный Сахалин — в Сан-Францисском договоре не написано даже, какой стране эти территории отойдут. В договоре написано, что отторгается территория, но не написано, кому передаётся. Японцы абсолютно справедливо требуют возврата тех территорий, причём на государственном уровне; а от нас ни Польша, ни Румыния на государственном уровне не требует.
Back to text - [28] paraphrase
Принудили местное правительство подписать договор о том, что на территории этих стран будет размещён контингент советских войск. В сороковом году советские войска захватили власть, провели так называемые выборы летом 40-го года, официальное правительство покинуло территорию государства, перебралось в эмиграцию.
Back to text - [29] paraphrase
Пятого июля президент подписал соответствующий указ о проведении выборов. Причиной такой спешки премьер сослался на соответствующее указание, данное Ждановым. Премьер-министр был вынужден под давлением Жданова это сделать — какое право Жданов имел давать указания на чужой территории?
Back to text - [30] summary
Мало кто вспоминает договор Майского-Сикорского, который отменяет все изменения границы 39 года. Товарищ Сталин, когда пригорела задница, в конце июля вдруг подписывает договор с несуществующим правительством несуществующей страны и признаёт все изменения 39 года несущественными.
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Sources
- book (2000) Упущенный шанс Сталина. Советский Союз и борьба за Европу: 1939—1941 (документы, факты, суждения) — М.: Вече A study by a Russian academic historian that analyzed the documents of 1939—1941 available at the time minute by minute. Its conclusion: the Soviet invasion was planned for the summer of 1941. An independent (Russian) corroboration of the thesis that a Soviet offensive was being prepared — as opposed to the popular writing of Suvorov-Rezun.
- book (2021) Ошибка 1941 — Херсон: ОЛДІ-ПЛЮС A book by the historian O. Gogun (476 pp.), timed to the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Soviet-German war; it draws on Meltyukhov's work. It shows that the dispute has come down only to the approximate date of the planned Soviet attack, while the very fact that an offensive was being prepared is no longer debated. Published in a small print run (300 copies).
- book (1999) Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933—1941 — Westport, CT: Praeger Academic monograph on Soviet economic aid to Nazi Germany from Hitler's rise to Operation Barbarossa; details grain, oil and strategic-raw-material deliveries and the USSR's role in circumventing the British blockade.
- document Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939—1941: Foreign Office Memorandum (Schnurre), February 26, 1940 Primary German document on the 11 Feb 1940 trade agreement: Soviet deliveries (grain, oil, cotton, phosphates, chrome and iron ore) worth ~500 million Reichsmarks in the first year, plus transit rights through the USSR to Romania, Iran and Afghanistan — bypassing the British blockade.
- web (2003) Бессарабія — Енциклопедія історії України, т. 1: А—В. Kyiv: Naukova Dumka Academic entry ('Bessarabia') by the Institute of History of Ukraine on the historical region between the Dniester and the Prut: its 1918 union with Romania, Romania's acceptance of the Soviet ultimatum on 28 June 1940, and the partition of Bessarabia between the Ukrainian SSR (the Khotyn, Akkerman and Izmail areas) and the newly created Moldavian SSR (in Ukrainian).
- web (2010) Молдавська АРСР — Енциклопедія історії України, т. 7: Мі—О. Kyiv: Naukova Dumka Academic entry ('Moldavian ASSR') on the Moldavian Autonomous SSR, established on 12 October 1924 on the left bank of the Dniester (today's Transnistria) within the Ukrainian SSR, and dissolved on 2 August 1940, when most of the autonomy plus the annexed Bessarabia were merged into the union-level Moldavian SSR (in Ukrainian).
- document (1948) Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939—1941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office A U.S. State Department collection of documents (21 January 1948), compiled from captured microfilms of the German Foreign Office archive; it was the first to publish the photocopies of the secret protocol widely. This very publication refuted years of Soviet denial of the protocol, to which Stalin responded with the pamphlet 'Falsifiers of History' (1948).
- document (1941) Polish-Soviet Agreement (the Sikorski–Mayski agreement), London, 30 July 1941 A diplomatic document on the Soviet-Polish agreement of 30 July 1941: point 1 — the Government of the USSR recognizes the Soviet-German treaties of 1939 as to territorial changes in Poland as having lost their validity; it also provides for an 'amnesty' for Polish citizens in the USSR and the formation of a Polish army on Soviet soil (the Anders Army). A primary source for the claim that the 1939 border was de facto annulled by the USSR itself.