The Origins of the Nazi-Soviet Pact
Contextualizing a highly controversial and misunderstood diplomatic action
One of the most frequent ways that Stalin is slandered in bourgeois circles is through the consistent references to the so-called “Nazi-Soviet collaboration” manifested in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The claims regarding Stalin as being a shrewd and manipulative politician that masterminded the executions of the opposition leaders like Bukharin, Zinoviev, etc., are somehow combined with a description of Stalin’s evident naivety and idiocy in believing that he could somehow collaborate with Hitler and the Nazi forces to achieve some particular purpose. This purpose is only qualified to justify the equations of Stalin with Hitler. At first glance, there appears to be some merit to it. After all, was Stalin so idiotic as to believe that the highly anti-communist Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler who had championed the implementation of the settler colonial Lebensraum ideology and Generalplan Ost extermination program in the eastern nations such as Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and the other Soviet states, could ever be his “friend?” It seems like a glaring oversight, one highly uncharacteristic for the Soviet leaders. And in that sense, it is, as it is a distortion of history. To understand the reasons for a Nazi-Soviet pact, we must examine the Soviet attitude towards the Nazis and the decisions that led to Vyacheslav Molotov’s fateful meeting with Joachim von Ribbentrop.
The Soviet Attitude towards Nazi Germany and the Formation of the Pact
Even from the beginning, far before the breakout of World War 2 on the European theater, the Soviet view of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party was one of clear antagonism. On August 2nd, 1935, Bulgarian Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov gave a speech titled The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Fight for the Unity of the Working Class Against fascism1. The speech’s opening involved a careful class analysis of the fascist ideology and system of governance, and in the beginning, Comrade Dimitrov said as follows:2
The most reactionary variety of fascism is the German type of fascism. It has the effrontery to call itself National-Socialism, though having nothing in common with Socialism. Hitler fascism is not only bourgeois nationalism, it is bestial chauvinism. It is a government system of political banditry, a system of provocation and torture practised upon the working class and the revolutionary elements of the peasantry, the petit bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. It is medieval barbarity and bestiality, it is unbridled aggression in relation to other nations and countries. German fascism is acting as the spearhead of international counter-revolution, as the chief incendiary of imperialist war, as the initiator of a crusade against the Soviet Union, the great fatherland of the toilers of the whole world.
Thus, the view of the fascist menace to the west was one of complete antagonism. Dimitrov’s incredibly popular speech, along with other writings from other prominent members of the Comintern (Communist International) like Clara Zetkin, became the defining class analysis of fascism. The Soviet antagonism with Nazi Germany, in the beginning, was apparent. This then begs the question of what the reason for signing a pact with their enemy was, to begin with.
One of the main reasons why the Nazi-Soviet pact was so shocking to the world was because Stalin had been, for the half-year period prior, negotiating with British and French representatives to form an anti-Nazi Anglo-Soviet-French alliance.3 The purpose of this alliance could be summed up as being deterrence; these states both sought to prevent a potential invasion of Poland by the Nazis.4 This alliance was short-lived; Stalin accurately predicted the future invasion of Poland by Hitler’s expansion and demanded rapid and aggressive militarization of France and Britain alongside the Soviets and free access to move troops through Romania and Poland to combat the Nazis. Poland and Romania, being fascist dictatorships at the time, strongly refused to accept these terms, and Britain and France made no moves to militarize, instead choosing to stand aside and hope that Hitler and the Nazi high command would accept their bluff.5
Stalin, a man highly distrustful of the various capitalist and fascist nations surrounding the USSR, strongly believed that Hitler would not choose to fall for this bluff and also believed that once the Nazi army had launched their invasion of Eastern Europe, Britain and France would not be, judging from their previous behavior, in any hurry to rush to the aid of the Soviets, who were their geopolitical and ideological rivals.6 Stalin ended the Anglo-Soviet-French pact as he recognized it wasn’t achieving anything reliable, but now being in an isolated position on the world stage and recognizing the imminent threat of the settler colonial lebensraum plan as described by Hitler in Mein Kampf, action had to be taken immediately, even if only to establish temporary Soviet security for a few years.
While the Anglo-Soviet-French anti-Nazi pact had been falling apart over the French and British delegates’ incompetence and appeasement strategies,7 Hitler, who had been trying to disrupt the pact’s strength by making increasingly promising offers of “friendship” and “safety” to Soviet Ambassador Georgii Astakhov, offers that Stalin had so far ignored. Nevertheless, Stalin was now in a position in which he was forced to consider them, and had Molotov sign the pact with the Nazis, a pact that involved the division of Poland and the recognition that the Baltic States were within the Soviet sphere instead of the Nazi sphere, a necessity in the mind of the Red Army for the fortification of Leningrad, a significant industrial power.8 Ultimately, historian Geoffrey Roberts characterized Stalin’s psychology surrounding the Nazi-Soviet pact as follows:9
Far from plotting war in 1939, Stalin feared that he and his regime would become the chief victims of a major military conflict. Ultimately, that is why he gambled on a pact with Hitler; it was no guarantee of peace and security, but it did offer the best chance of keeping the Soviet Union out of the coming war. No doubt like everyone else Stalin expected that if Britain and France did declare war on Germany there would be a prolonged conflict, a war of attrition – one which would provide some time and space for the Soviet Union to strengthen its defences. But he was far too cautious to gamble everything on a simple repeat of the First World War.
The Immediate Aftermath of the Nazi-Soviet Pact
What was the attitude Stalin had towards the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact? While the Nazi-Soviet pact, as we will see, was the best possible option that could be done in an otherwise unfortunate situation. But Stalin’s attitude regarding the pact was one of vast disappointment. In a meeting with Dimitrov, Molotov, and Andrei Zhdanov on September 7th, 1939, Stalin remarked to Dimitrov that “we would have preferred an agreement with the so-called democratic countries, hence we entered negotiations with them, but Britain and France wanted us to be their hired hand… and without pay.”10 This attitude reflects the unfortunate failure that characterized the Anglo-Soviet-French pact. The lack of French and British military support effectively stranded the Soviet Union against the large Nazi empire.
The invasion of Poland is often used opportunistically by anticommunists and Polish nationalists to castigate the entire Soviet Union as being “just as bad” as the Nazis. Aside from this being a transparent ploy to justify fascism either through the standard Eastern European “double genocide” theory or to play defense for the fascist Sanation government, it also abandons historical context entirely. When the Red Army crossed over into Poland on September 17th, 1939, the territories it occupied were not actually historically Polish, but the western regions of Belarus and Ukraine, seized by the Polish government in the Soviet-Polish war of 1919.11 This territory had been seized by the Polish and incorporated into the country following the Treaty of Riga in 1921, but within these territories, Poles only constituted a small minority, and the Soviet government under Lenin had never truly recognized this loss.12 However, this issue had taken a backseat to the more pressing issues of the war, and surprisingly, the division of Poland had never actually been a pressing deliberation of the Nazi-Soviet pact. Following the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact on August 23rd, the main focus of deliberation of what Soviet spheres of control the Nazis would respect concerned the Baltics.13 Up until the conference with Dimitrov, Molotov, and Zhdanov, the attitude of the Soviet government towards Poland was not necessarily antagonistic. Stalin was indecisive initially, choosing to base his actions on the Polish military response to the Nazi invasion instead.14 In fact, Kliment Voroshilov, the Soviet Defense Commissar, had suggested previously in an interview the possibility that the Soviets would actually ship military aid to the Sanation government to defend against a Nazi invasion, a suggestion that, given its publicized nature, must have been approved by the Soviet leadership.15 What changed? Soviet attitude towards World War 2.
Stalin’s attitude towards World War 2 following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact began to shift from a belief in a popular front between the Soviets and the bourgeois-democratic states like Britain and France in combatting the Nazis to the view that, similar to World War 1, this was merely an inter-imperialist war, where various imperialist powers squabbled over territory and that the working class should oppose taking a side. The Germans had been resoundingly dismantling the Polish military, and in an attempt to deter Soviet involvement against the Nazi invasion of Poland, Ribbentrop sent a telegraph on September 3rd to a German Diplomat reading:16
…See if the Soviet Union does not consider it desirable for Russian forces to move at the proper time against Polish forces in the Russian sphere of interest and, for their part, to occupy this territory. In our estimation this would not only be a relief for us, but also, in the sense of the Moscow agreements, in the Soviet interest as well.
Stalin, too, by September 7th, had reached a similar conclusion. Following the logic that this was simply an inter-imperialist war, Stalin suggested to Dimitrov that:17
…[Poland] is a fascist state, oppressing the Ukrainians, Belorussians and so forth. The annihilation of that state under current conditions would mean one fewer bourgeois fascist state to contend with! What would be the harm if as a result of the rout of Poland we were to extend the socialist system onto new territories and populations?
Did this resemble new opportunism? Did Stalin view the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact as a cheap opportunistic way to recover lost territory? Not necessarily. The western territories of Ukraine and Belarus were a serious security threat to the safety of the USSR. Stalin believed that the non-Soviet Ukrainian and Belarussian nationalists could collaborate with the Nazis against the USSR and influence their Soviet counterparts. Already beginning in 1938, the Nazis, in collaboration with Ukrainian nationalists, had begun a propaganda campaign to call for a reunified independent Ukraine.18 Therefore, such anti-Soviet subversion would only speak to furthering the Nazi interest. Therefore the Soviet invasion of Poland illustrated the obvious strategic benefit of shifting the Soviet defense west and preventing further German expansion. Ironically, while the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was viewed with great shock by the soon-to-be allied forces, the Soviet invasion of Poland was actually viewed positively by liberal commentators. For example, in a radio broadcast delivered on October 1st, 1939, Winston Churchill stated:19
Russia had pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland instead of as invaders. But that the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace… It cannot be in accordance with the interest or the safety of Russia that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan States and subjugate the Slavonic peoples of south-eastern Europe.
Judging by Ribbentrop’s suggestion of the eastern Polish territories being controlled by the USSR only two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland began, it was clear that the Polish military stood little to no chance of successfully repelling the Nazis. This, therefore, begs the question, would you rather have control over a given territory be handed to the Nazis or to the Soviets. There is only one right answer to this question, with all other answers by default engaging in the double-genocide theory so common among fascist groups such as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists to justify their anti-Sovietism and Nazi collaboration.
Another thing to emphasize is that according to the orthodox view of the Nazi-Soviet pact, the reason behind the Anglo-Soviet-French pact was secondary, and an "alliance" with the Nazis was what Stalin had always preferred.20 However, Stalin's true thoughts on the matter were recorded and contradicted this official narrative. Dimitrov had also recorded Stalin’s thoughts, saying that he preferred the popular front to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and that he was forced into signing the Nazi-Soviet pact because the French and British had "wanted us for farmhands and at no cost!"21 The refusal of the British and French to actually make any changes to their appeasement strategy and their disbelief that there would actually be a Nazi invasion of Poland22 was what led to the Soviets being forced into a position in which signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and invading Poland was necessary.
Concluding Remarks
Contrary to the contemporary ideas that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact represented some fascist-adjacent political line that characterized Stalin’s ideology, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact presents itself as a strategic decision to maintain Soviet neutrality and effectively buy time for the Soviets to build their defenses against the Nazis. Despite public claims of desiring neutrality, Stalin was very much aware of Hitler’s plans for German colonization of all the nations to Germany’s east and did not doubt that if he had the chance, Hitler would immediately move to implement them.23 Therefore, the institution of the third five-year plan, a plan almost entirely dedicated to militarization, was launched in 1938 and continued up until 1941, when the Nazi invasion began. Various actions taken by Stalin, such as the invasion of Finland in the Winter War, were done for the express purpose of fortifying the defenses of Leningrad,24 and Stalin was key in pushing forward the complete mechanization of the red army from horses to tanks and planes, a decision that was made after witnessing the complete overrun of France by the German blitzkrieg strategy.25 All these facts considered provide the correct analysis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It was neither an action that demonstrated the (to use a poor descriptor) "evil" that defined Stalin and his team, nor was it an outstanding maneuver of diplomacy and statecraft performed by Molotov and Stalin. More simply, it was a necessary gambit to buy time to bolster the USSR's defenses and alliances. Without it, the USSR would be in a position where it charged ahead into a war, ill-equipped and alone militarily, against a highly industrialized and genocidal opponent intent on wiping out every Soviet proletarian. Our world would look incredibly different if this scenario were a reality.
Dimitrov, Georgi Mihajlov. The Fascist Offensive: Unity of the Working Class. Paris: Foreign languages press, 2020.
Roberts, Geoffrey. Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1941-1947. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
Roberts, Geoffrey. “The Soviet Decision for a Pact with Nazi Germany.” Soviet Studies 44, no. 1 (1992): 57–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668139208411994.
Dimitrov, “The Fascist Offensive,” 1.
Ibid., 4.
Roberts, “Stalin’s Wars,” 30.
Ibid., 31.
Ibid., 32.
Ibid.
Ibid., 31.
Ibid., 33.
Ibid., 35.
Roberts, “The Soviet Decision For a Pact with Nazi Germany,” 73.
Roberts, “Stalin’s Wars,” 37.
Ibid.
Roberts, “The Soviet Decision for a Pact with Nazi Germany,” 73.
Ibid., 72.
Ibid.
Ibid., 73-74.
Roberts, “Stalin’s Wars,” 36.
Ibid., 38.
Ibid.
Roberts, “The Soviet Decision for a Pact with Nazi Germany,” 74.
Roberts, “Stalin’s Wars,” 37.
Ibid., 32.
Ibid.
Ibid., 47.
Ibid., 54.