Program Information

On the 23rd of August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a non-aggression treaty defining their mutual spheres of influence in eastern Europe. Not surprisingly, within 10 days, the world was at war.

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Transcript

Lead: On the 23rd of August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a non-aggression treaty defining their mutual spheres of influence in eastern Europe. Not surprisingly, within 10 days, the world was at war.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The pact, which obviously had been in preparation for months, was signed within days of being proposed by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. To say that it shocked the diplomatic world would be an understatement but, in retrospect, it made perfect sense. From Hitler’s point of view, not having to worry about an eastern front war with his bitter ideological antagonist meant that his armies would face only England and France, should they finally call his hand in the game of bluster and bluff he had been playing. Germany had absorbed Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia in previous months, and the Treaty meant easy pickings should the two giant signatories turn their attention to Poland.

Stalin also worried about a two-front war against Germany and Japan, should the latter complete its conquest of China and have need of other territory to claim in the east. Therefore when Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, affixed his name to the Treaty, he also signed a Secret Protocol--not revealed until 1945 and not discussed in the Soviet Bloc until the late 1980s. This secret agreement divided Poland, should hostilities break out, and defined the spheres of influence of the Soviet Union in such a way as to doom Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and part of Romania to annexation by Russia.

The Pact was embarrassing. Many leftist admirers of the Soviet Union were horrified and began to turn their ideological sympathies away from communism. Naturally, it was useless as a permanent protection for Stalin. It lasted less than two years. As soon as Hitler dispatched France and concluded that a cross-channel invasion of Britain was impossible, he broke the Pact and invaded Russia in 1941.

When the Secret Protocol began to be debated in the 1980s, it became the basis for demands for independence by the Baltic States and other eastern European countries in the twilight of the Soviet Union.

Research by Rasa Verseckaite, at the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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