The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (1939)
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, formally the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was signed on August 23, 1939, between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
The pact is frequently portrayed online as proof that the USSR allied with or enabled Nazi Germany and therefore helped “start World War II.” This framing is misleading: it collapses several different issues (non-aggression, secret protocols, Poland, trade, and appeasement) into a single moral claim, while ignoring the broader diplomatic breakdown of European collective security in the 1930s.
The pact was a non-aggression treaty, not a mutual defense alliance. It created no shared command, no joint war plan, and no obligation to fight together. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum describes it as an “agreement of convenience between two bitter enemies.”
It did remove Hitler’s fear of a two-front war while Stalin gained time to rebuild the Red Army after the devastation of World War I, the Russian Civil War/Revolution of 1918-1921, foreign intervention, and prolonged economic and military dislocation that occurred.
Secret protocols and Poland
The pact included secret protocols that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. The text of the secret protocol itself explicitly discusses the “territorial and political rearrangement” of Poland and maps the boundary roughly along the Narew-Vistula-San river line.
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939; the USSR entered eastern Poland on September 17. Many people call this a “joint invasion,” and in outcome that is fair: the pact paved the way for both occupations.
Context matters without becoming an excuse: the Soviet entry occurred after Poland’s government fled and German forces had already shattered Polish defenses but the partition still followed from the pact’s framework and secret protocols.
Failed anti-fascist alignment and Soviet motives
Soviet policy in 1939 was shaped by the collapse of collective security and the failure of a firm anti-fascist front. Soviet leaders publicly justified the pact as a way to keep the USSR out of war and buy time. In Molotov’s ratification speech (Aug 31, 1939), he presented it as a pact that “averts the danger of a war” between Germany and the USSR.
By the time the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed, non-aggression pacts with Nazi Germany were already happening in mass. • 1934 – Germany and Poland sign a German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact • 1935 – Stalin proposes an “anti-fascist people’s front” and collective security arrangements with Britain and France; these efforts stall or are ignored • 1938 (September) -Britain signs the Anglo-German Non-Aggression Declaration • 1938 (December) - France signs the Franco-German Non-Aggression Pact • 1938 (September) -Britain and France sign the Munich Agreement, sacrificing Czechoslovakia in an explicit policy of appeasement and eastward deflection • 1939 (March) -Lithuania signs a non-aggression treaty with Germany • 1939 (May) - Denmark signs a non-aggression pact with Germany • 1939 (June) - Estonia signs a non-aggression pact with Germany • 1939 (July) - Latvia signs a non-aggression pact with Germany • 1939 (August) - The USSR signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Seen in sequence, the Soviet/German pact was late, not early, and occurred after Western powers had already legitimized bilateral dealings with Hitler while refusing to commit to a binding anti-fascist alliance with the USSR.
This context does not absolve the pact, but it decisively undermines the claim that the USSR acted uniquely or ideologically
Privately, Stalin also viewed the coming war as an opportunity for rival capitalist blocs to weaken each other. A well-documented quotation attributed to Stalin via Dimitrov’s notes has him saying the war was between capitalist groups and the USSR had “no objection” to them “weakening each other”
Trade and the “USSR supplied Hitler” claim
It’s true that German-Soviet economic cooperation expanded sharply after 1939, including major deliveries of raw materials under economic agreements. The text of the 1940 economic agreement specifies large scale Soviet deliveries of raw materials valued in the hundreds of millions of Reichsmarks.
1. Trade ≠ alliance. States can trade while anticipating conflict; economic exchange is not proof of shared ideology or co-planning.
2. This cuts across multiple powers. Germany traded broadly internationally before and during rearmament, including with Western firms and states; singling out Soviet trade alone is disingenuous.
A fair conclusion is: Soviet trade helped Germany materially, but it did not make the USSR a co-author of Nazi war aims and Germany ultimately used every partner opportunistically before turning on them.
In historical consensus, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was neither an ideological partnership nor a benign act of self-defense. It was a tactical effort by the Soviet leadership to delay a conflict they believed was coming, in an environment where collective security had failed. While it bought time for the USSR to build its defenses against fascist forces, it came at the price of working with them temporarily.
Last revised by RussianChiChi
