WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE
Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signing Stalin-Hitler non-agression pact. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (standing, second from right)
On August 24, 1939, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, a chief henchman of Joseph Stalin, met in Moscow to sign a non-aggression pact between fascist Germany and the Soviet Union.
The agreement paved the way for Germany to wage war in Europe under the most favorable conditions for the Nazis, avoiding the prospect of a two-front war against both the USSR in the east and Britain and France in the west, as Hitler prepared to attack and destroy Poland.
In addition to the public non-aggression pledge, the contents of the Pact included a secret division of Poland and the Baltic countries between Nazi Germany and the USSR. Germany was to receive western Poland and Lithuania, while the USSR seized eastern Poland, eastern Lithuania, and all of Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.
The most significant aspect of the treaty was the Kremlin’s complete contempt and indifference toward international working-class opinion. During the negotiations, Stalin toasted Hitler, saying: “I know how much the German people love their Führer.” Stalin did not seek the release of imprisoned German Communists, including KPD leader Ernst Thälmann, who were killed in Nazi death camps.
Following the line from the Kremlin, the Communist Parties of France and Britain adopted an official policy of neutrality towards the fascist regime, the embodiment of anti-working-class reaction. Repulsed by the counterrevolutionary actions of the Kremlin bureaucracy, thousands of Communist Party members in country after country denounced the Stalinists and renounced their party membership.
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