Ribbentrop-Molotov pact

Non-aggression treaty signed by Germany and the USSR on 23 August 1939. The pact is named after the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Russian foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, working under German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin respectively. Under the terms of the treaty both countries agreed to remain neutral and to refrain from acts of aggression against each other if either went to war. Secret clauses allowed for the partition of Poland - Hitler was to acquire western Poland, Stalin the eastern part. On 1 September 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. The pact ended when Hitler invaded Russia on 22 June 1941 during World War II.

Nazi aims The two sides had their own reasons for the pact. The Nazis wanted to ensure that their planned takeover of Poland would not be opposed by the USSR. Hitler did not want to ally himself to his ideological enemy in the long term; he simply wanted to buy himself time as he pursued his policy of Lebensraum, a theory that he had developed for the expansion of Germany into Eastern Europe. Hitler always intended to attack the USSR eventually, but with a Nazi-Soviet pact Germany was able to operate in a controlled environment in Europe, safe in the knowledge that the USSR would not interfere with their expansion plans or war with France and the UK.

Soviet aims The USSR was able to fulfil some of its goals as well. Offended by the negative attitude of the Allies towards the USSR Stalin was able to strike fear into the UK and France. Stalin felt no reason to help the British or French in their increasingly dangerous struggle with Hitler. The British and French had provided help in 1920 for the Tsarist ‘Whites’ during the Russian civil war (1918-21) to try to overthrow the Soviet Bolshevik regime. Although the USSR was eventually allowed into the League of Nations in 1934, they never felt fully accepted or trusted by the western nations. Stalin negotiated with the UK and France in the summer of 1939, but the British and French would not accept Soviet demands to annex the Baltic States or to be allowed to send troops into Poland if Germany attacked the Poles. Stalin felt abandoned by the British and French and, aware that the German policy of Lebensraum threatened Soviet territory, he concluded that the USSR would be better off negotiating a pact with Germany than waiting for the UK and France to accept his terms.

Reaction to the Nazi-Soviet pact The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was a pact of convenience that suited both sides at the time. It was an unexpected product of a specific moment in history when two nations were able to offer each other something that they could not obtain elsewhere, while still maintaining mutual dislike and distrust. However, the pact shocked the world. The idea that the strongly anticommunist German Nazis and the equally strongly anti-Nazi Soviet communists would sign what amounted to an alliance was totally unexpected. The USSR was diplomatically isolated by the world's other major powers, the UK, France, and the USA. Many politicians in the UK and France had been prepared to pursue a policy of appeasement of Hitler because he was so vehemently against communism. The Soviets were feared in the UK and France as a threat to democracy and capitalism. A pact of cooperation between Germany and the USSR overturned the certainties of Europe and threatened the balance between the European powers.