Seventy-seven years ago, to the day, on August 23, 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was concluded between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. In the future, there were different interpretations of this event and the document. Many "patriots" accused the Soviet leadership of a crime against humanity along with Nazi Germany. Other reckless people equated fascism and communism ... Let's try to figure out how it all really happened.

Reasons for signing the pact

Any event in world history has its own structure: prerequisites, causes, reason, course of events and outcomes.

The reasons for signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact were complex. The first was in non-compliance by the great powers with their obligations to other states. So, in 1935, the USSR, France and Czechoslovakia signed a tripartite security treaty: if an aggressor country attacks one of these countries, two others had to come to the rescue.

In 1938, England and France (France, bypassing the previous agreement) signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in Munich, according to which Hitler pledged not to attack these countries, and they, in turn, would not interfere with his attack on the Soviet Union. In addition, England and France gave the actual consent of Germany to the partition of Czechoslovakia.

That is, catch, yes, a moment? France made an alliance with the USSR and Czechoslovakia with one hand, and with the other hand shook hands with Hitler, giving the go-ahead to his actions. Here it is worth saying, for the sake of justice, that this whole story should not be considered as an attempt to unleash some kind of discord. This is history, and it needs to be known. The then French government went to the agreement, which then eventually “throws” its own people, allowing the occupation of their country by the Nazis.

What happened seems all the more unthinkable because France was the most powerful power on the continent. Her army was both larger than the German one and better equipped. At least until Hitler partitioned Czechoslovakia. The army of this small country was the second after the French. Having captured Czechoslovakia, Hitler gained access to factories that produced the most modern weapons in Europe: machine guns, tanks, cars, military equipment. It was after the capture of Czechoslovakia that the Nazi army became what our grandfathers and great-grandfathers remember - almost invincible.

Thus, the first reason for signing the pact was the bad faith of the great powers that gave Hitler the go-ahead for his actions.

The second reason : consisted in Poland's unwillingness to let Soviet troops through its territory so that they would protect its territory from the Nazis. At the Moscow meeting in July 1939, where the military representatives of England and France were present, Poland made it clear that it was not going to comply with the previously concluded agreements and would itself oppose the aggressor if necessary.

Thus, the Soviet Union found itself in an extremely difficult situation: Hitler's possessions are getting closer to its own borders, and the great powers silently condone the aggressor. At the same time, the Soviet leadership was well aware of the danger of Nazi Germany: Hitler more than once spoke directly about his plans. In general, he is probably the most honest politician in history ...

Under these conditions, Soviet diplomacy blundered both Britain and France, and Germany itself. It signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact on 23 August.

Significance of the pact

Firstly, the USSR solved the urgent problem peacefully, and not by military means, as the future allies in the anti-Hitler coalition hoped. They thought that the USSR would stop Germany by starting hostilities. But that did not happen.

Secondly, the Soviet Union created an advantageous advantage for itself: it moved the border as a minimum to the Curzon line, as a maximum, after September 17, 1939 - another 200 km to the west. In the context of the impending imminent war, this was of the utmost importance.

Thirdly, the USSR “pushed” this war away from its borders for two years. In conditions when each state then behaved exclusively in its own interests, the Soviet leadership acted not only correctly, but in the only possible way competently.

Fourthly, the Soviet Union delayed the war at the expense of Germany - the future enemy. Because the. Germany, almost until March 1941, supplied the USSR with machine tools and all the necessary equipment.

Fifth, although Poland could no longer be saved from the impending catastrophe, the Baltic countries escaped Hitler's occupation for two years.

All accusations against the USSR are simply groundless. As a rule, people who say this (that communism is the same as that the USSR committed a crime with this pact, etc.) do not speak about France and England for some reason. In fact, by the end of August 1939, the Soviet Union was the only country in Europe that had not made a pact with Hitler or bowed to him. And this is the direct merit of the Soviet leadership.

Many also say that Stalin and Hitler almost kissed and seemed to love each other very much ... In my opinion, those who say this are not completely healthy at all, extrapolating their problems in their personal lives to history. There was no love between the Soviet leadership and Hitler by itself. There was a pragmatic goal: to delay the inevitable war at any cost, and the border to the West. For the sake of this goal, the USSR strictly observed its part of the agreements. Even when the Nazis went beyond the border stipulated in the pact after September 17, 1939, in a number of places the Soviet army was forced to put the "partners" in place by force.

Of course, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact did not reduce the number of losses of our people in the fight against Nazism, about which. But the pact may have played a key role in the preservation of the Soviet and our people. Because if in 1941 the border passed through the territory of the Union, it is not known how everything would have ended.

Text of the pact

NON-AGGRESSION PACT BETWEEN GERMANY AND THE USSR.

USSR Government and Government Germany , guided by the desire to strengthen the cause of peace between the USSR and Germany and proceeding from the main provisions of the neutrality treaty concluded between the USSR and Germany in April 1926, came to the following agreement:

1. Both Contracting Parties undertake to refrain from any violence, from any aggressive action and any attack against each other, either separately or jointly with other powers.

2. If one of the Contracting Parties becomes the object of hostilities by a third power, the other Contracting Party will not support that power in any form.

3. The Governments of both Contracting Parties shall remain in future contact with each other for consultation, in order to inform each other of matters affecting their common interests.

4. None of the Contracting Parties will participate in any grouping of powers which is directly or indirectly directed against the other side.

5. In the event of disputes or conflicts between the Contracting Parties on issues of one kind or another, both parties will resolve these disputes and conflicts exclusively by peaceful means through a friendly exchange of opinions or, if necessary, by creating commissions to resolve the conflict.

6. This treaty is concluded for a period of ten years, so long as one of the Contracting Parties does not denounce it one year before the expiration of the term, the term of the treaty will be considered automatically extended for another five years.

7. This treaty is subject to ratification as soon as possible. The exchange of instruments of ratification is to take place in Berlin. The agreement comes into force immediately after its signing.

SECRET ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL

On the occasion of the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the undersigned representatives of both Parties discussed in strictly confidential conversations the question of delimiting their spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. These conversations led to an agreement as follows:

1. In the event of territorial and political transformations in the areas belonging to the Baltic states (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern border of Lithuania will be the line separating the spheres of influence of Germany and the USSR. In this regard, Lithuania's interest in the Vilna area is recognized by both Parties.

2. In the event of territorial and political transformations in the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the USSR will be delimited approximately along the lines of the Narew, Vistula and San rivers.

The question of whether it is desirable in the interests of both Parties to preserve the independence of the Polish state and the boundaries of such a state will be finally decided only by the course of future political events.

In any case, both Governments will resolve this issue by friendly agreement.

3. With regard to South-Eastern Europe, the Soviet side indicated its interest in Bessarabia. The German side has clearly stated its complete political disinterest in these territories.

4. This protocol is considered by both Parties as strictly secret.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is an agreement between Germany and the USSR, which provided for a peace treaty between these states, a non-aggression pact if one of the countries goes to war with other countries. The treaty was signed on August 23, 1939. From the side of the USSR, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V. M. Molotov signed. From Germany - I. von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

However, a protocol on the division of Europe between Germany and the USSR was attached to this agreement. This treaty, to put it mildly, surprised the rest of the world. First of all, the USSR and Germany sought to divide Poland.

The Western world did not want peace with the USSR and did not want to provide the Union in the future. This forced Stalin to look for new allies. And he saw such a person in Hitler, who was also looking for allies.

The signing of the treaty lasted three hours and ended favorably for both parties, especially for Germany, which later took advantage of this peace when it invaded France. Then Stalin insisted on additional agreements, which no one should know about.

In total, the contract consisted of seven small parts, and two of them were purely technical. The meeting eventually ended with a banquet.

From a legal point of view, the pact was a typical non-aggression pact. And the additional protocol was considered non-legal.

Estimates of this agreement are very different in many ways.

Effects

Germany began World War II with an attack on September 1 of the same year against Poland, which subsequently led to the loss of independence of Poland, as well as Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

Thanks to this treaty, the USSR achieved the following results:

The Soviet Union regained the territories that were previously lost by the Russian Empire. This is quite a big achievement, since territories are the main priority of any state.

It also managed to extend the peace with Germany for two years, and did not allow the USSR to find itself between two fires. A war on two fronts would be disastrous for the Union.

The pact did not allow Germany to conclude an agreement with France, England, whose forces would be sent to the USSR.

The USSR was able to successfully confront Japan during the conflict at Khalkhin Gol, since all military resources were concentrated in this region.

Germany also secured itself for two years without the threat of war on two fronts. This gave her the strength to carry out brilliant operations on the Western Front before the attack on the USSR.

Stalin understood that this agreement only allowed to postpone the war for several years, he understood that clashes with Germany in the future could not be avoided. However, he understood that this would allow the USSR to wage war in the East of the country. He knew that there were also disadvantages in this - the authority was greatly undermined, especially among countries with an anti-Hitler mood. However, there were more pluses.

Hitler believed that if the West was not smart enough to unite with him, then it would be better to unite with the USSR, and together they would fight against Western Europe, and soon inflict a crushing defeat on it. This he said in his speech before the signing of the pact. And then he intended to turn his gaze to the USSR in order to smash it. Hitler's main goal in the USSR was Ukraine. He said that Ukraine would not allow Germany to starve to death, as it was in the First World War, he believed that this was a serious reason for the defeat.

Also, the signing of the pact was followed by the outbreak of war with Finland, and the exclusion of the USSR from the League of Nations, and hence the undermining of authority in the international arena.

Many historians believe that the signing of the pact is the beginning of World War II, this is the main reason for the start of the war.

France and England reacted very sharply. They were dissatisfied with the supply of oil from the USSR to Germany. England was planning an attack on oil pipeline communications, which would mean a blow to the Caucasus - the place where oil was produced.

Modern Russian historiography is supported by the opinion that in this way (by signing the treaty) the USSR did not want war with Germany.

But some historians believed that in this way Hitler wanted to secure a further invasion of Europe, in order to create a single Soviet state on its territory. Stalin saw in Hitler a reliable ally in the struggle against the countries of the capitalist world.

Mussolini fully approved the signing of the pact.

The USSR throughout its post-war existence categorically denied the existence of a secret protocol on the division of Poland. Now many Russian historians consider the pact a necessary measure, they consider it a retreat from Nazism. And despite this agreement, the USSR was still actively preparing for an offensive against the Nazis.

In 2015, V. Putin approved the signing of the pact for meetings with A. Merkel, who called it a mistake.

Secret Protocols That Didn't Actually Exist

75 years ago, in August 1939, a non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, better known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was signed in Moscow. This agreement at one time, especially during perestroika, was overgrown with a number of anti-Soviet myths, most of which have already been rejected by serious historians today. Most researchers are sure that it was a completely normal contract, in which there was nothing unusual for that time.

The pact was not at all a fatal mistake in "conspiracy with Hitler", but became a real success of domestic diplomacy, thanks to The USSR avoided a war on two fronts. After all, it was during the days of the signing of the treaty that the Soviet-Japanese battle raged in Mongolia, on the Khalkhin Gol River (it ended only on August 31).

After the signing of the Soviet-German pact, the Japanese government was literally shocked by the news from Moscow. Such a diplomatic move by Hitler was regarded in Tokyo as betrayal. This largely predetermined the fact that after the start of the Great Patriotic War, Japan did not dare to open its front against our country in the Far East.

Another important consequence of the pact is the Soviet border moved far to the West. During the treacherous attack of Hitler, this circumstance played its own, and an important role. Despite the rapid advance of the German troops, achieved due to the huge superiority in military equipment, our country then received those days and hours for mobilization, which were simply worth their weight in gold. And in the end, the Nazis were stopped and defeated in the battle near Moscow ...

Obviously, the treaty with Nazi Germany was a forced matter for us. It is known that in the 1930s all attempts by Soviet diplomacy to create a system of "collective security" in Europe by concluding agreements on military-political cooperation with Britain and France were unsuccessful. Moreover, it was seen that the rulers of Great Britain and France, who already had their non-aggression pacts with Germany, did everything to direct the German war machine to the East, to make the Soviet Union the object of Hitler's aggression. Under these conditions, as the Russian Line website rightly notes, it was pointless to count on someone's help from the outside:

“It was about preparing for an inevitable war, since Hitler's anti-Soviet and, more importantly, anti-Slavic rhetoric was on everyone's lips. It was difficult to count on "eternal peace" with a politician who assigned the status of "subhuman" to all Slavic peoples. In addition, Stalin had no doubt that in the event of German aggression, they would have to fight on two fronts, since Japan has long been in full combat readiness. Therefore, the meaning of signing a peace treaty was, first of all, to use even the slightest opportunity for a respite, to prevent the possibility of a war on two fronts and to secure the country's borders by pushing them to the West.

Poland has been in very difficult relations with Nazi Germany all these years. Open anti-Soviet(and deeper anti-Russian) the direction of its foreign policy was not in doubt in the Kremlin. Exactly Piłsudski was the first European ruler to conclude an agreement with Hitler on non-aggression - shortly after the Nazis came to power, in 1934 (pact Lipsky-Neurath).

Moreover, the same German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop conducted repeated and quite successful negotiations with Warsaw on allied relations. And before him, he repeatedly visited Poland Hermann Göring and many other Nazi generals and diplomats, and the Polish minister and de facto head of state Jozef Beck went on a date personally to Hitler to express his deep respect to him. Finally, together with the Nazis, the Poles after the Munich Agreement participated in the division of Czechoslovakia...

All this was done only in order to put together a military alliance against Soviet Russia. It must be said that even today there are leaders in Poland who bitterly regret that such an alliance did not work out. One of them, a certain professor Vechorkevich, in 2005, on the pages of the well-known Polish newspaper "Zhech Pospolita", dreamily talked about how useful the tandem of Nazi Germany and Poland would be:

“We could find our place on the side of the Reich, almost the same as Italy, and certainly better than Hungary or Romania. As a result, we would be in Moscow, where Adolf Hitler, together with our marshal Rydz-Smigly, would take the parade of the victorious Polish-German troops.

However, in his cannibalistic plans, Hitler did not mean any "great Poland" at all, and all the tricks with the Polish leadership were needed only in order to lull the vigilance of the Poles. All this was perfectly seen in the West, and did not prevent the Nazis from fooling Poland's head - only in order to over the corpse of defeated Poland, Hitler rushed further east, on the lands of the Soviet Union. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact completely destroyed all these Jesuit plans. And this, albeit with a creak, is recognized today even by many Western historians ...

A much more intriguing situation develops around the annex to the pact, some secret protocols, where, in a rather cynical form, the spheres of influence between Germany and the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe were allegedly stipulated - they say that the Baltic states, eastern Poland and Finland were to go to the USSR, everything else was transferred to Hitler. As the Russian Line website notes on this occasion:

"During the collapse of the Soviet Union no document was not exaggerated in the Soviet perestroika press in the same way as this secret additional protocol to the Non-Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939. Publications of this document (according to a copy - the original, as it turned out, was "securely" Gorbachev) contributed not only to inciting nationalism and Russophobia in the western outskirts of the USSR (Western Ukraine, the Baltic states), but also planted in the minds of compatriots the idea that was popular at that time - that the Soviet Empire was a real “evil empire”, that the USSR and the Third Reich were twin brothers , and that Adolf Hitler attacked his "closest friend and associate" I.V. Stalin solely by accidental misunderstanding.

The intelligentsia was especially strongly hypnotized - they “gave a directive”, as the “hero” of that troubled time Kashpirovsky put it, so powerful that even such a patriotic poet as Igor Talkov sang from the stage spellbound: “CPSU - SS!” ...

Today there are serious grounds to assert that this secret protocol did not actually exist, it is a crude fake, which was made after the Second World War to discredit the Soviet Union. On this occasion, back in 2007, a former high-ranking officer of the KGB of the USSR gave a detailed interview to the Pravda newspaper. V.A. Sidak, who has been studying the authenticity of the "secret protocols" for years. The interview was called "Examination of the "secret protocols" to the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" does not confirm the fact of their existence and authenticity." Here it is with a few abbreviations:

"- Valentin Antonovich, you have already shared your analysis of published documents and their interpretations relating to the secret protocol, which, according to the now generally accepted version, accompanied the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and was signed simultaneously with the pact on August 23, 1939. I will not in vain intrigue the reader and I will say right away that you question its authenticity.

- You're right. In September 1999, in connection with the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, I had a chance to delve into this problem very thoroughly - I tried to comprehend it, first of all and mainly from the point of view of the results of the work of the commission of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR on the political and legal assessment of the German-Soviet non-aggression pacts.

I had the most direct relation to the work of this commission. A painstaking analysis of the materials that were available to me for research gives reason to doubt the authenticity of the secret additional protocol to the Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and the USSR, other secret Soviet-German documents found in the archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU and officially published in 1993 in the journal "New and Recent History"...

- When did the secret protocol first become the subject of public attention? Tell me, please, his very strange story.

- For the first time a photocopy of the secret protocol was published in 1946 in the provincial American newspaper "San Louis Post Dispatch". A copy was allegedly secretly made at the end of the war when microfilming documents of the German diplomatic service by one of the employees of the secretariat I. Ribbentrop by last name von Lesh. Hidden in Thuringia, in May 1945, under unclear circumstances, he handed over a box of microfilms to servicemen of the British occupation forces.

Those, in turn, shared the find with the American allies, from whom the text of the protocol allegedly got into the American press for the first time. During the Nuremberg trials, the lawyer I. Ribbentrop Alfred Seidl tried to include in the number of evidence the text of the "secret additional protocol to the Soviet-German non-aggression pact of 1939."

However, the International Tribunal questioned its probative value. Subsequently, in his memoirs, A. Seidl admitted: “I still don't know, who gave me these sheets. However, a lot says that I played along from the American side, namely from the prosecution of the United States or the American secret service. The state archives of the USA, the FRG and Great Britain keep photocopies from this notorious "box" of the Ribbentrop official. Other copies before 1989 did not exist at all.

– However, in today's Russia they refer to other sources. Or I'm wrong?

- No, you are not mistaken. Here I must recall the events connected with the First and Second Congresses of People's Deputies of the USSR. At the suggestion of the leaders of the Baltic separatism, a group of Russian politicians set the task of legalizing the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. He was especially active here. A.N. Yakovlev. And it is far from accidental that he was elected chairman of the commission for the political and legal evaluation of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact, created at the First Congress of People's Deputies. Whether this commission was able to make objective decisions is evidenced by its composition: it included Y. Afanasiev, V. Landsbergis, V. Korotich and a number of other "people's deputies" with the same political and moral image.

In addition, the work of the commission took place against the backdrop of a powerful propaganda campaign. At the same time, work was carried out to "documentary support" of the commission's pre-planned conclusions. Through the efforts of the right hand E. Shevardnadze- first deputy minister A.G. Kovaleva was, for example, published in Izvestia and in the Bulletin of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs a notorious copy of the transfer act in April 1946 of a number of secret materials by one employee of the secretariat V.M. Molotov (Smirnov) to another ( Podcerobu).

The memo of two Foreign Ministry officials was widely used as an indirect indication of the existence in the USSR of the original secret additional protocol to the Soviet-German treaty of August 23, 1939. Then, with her help, at the II Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR A.N. Yakovlev broke the desperate resistance of the most cautious or frankly distrustful deputies, in particular the Kharkov worker L. Sukhova.

– But the same original should have been kept in Germany. And in Germany there were no forces that would be interested in hiding it.

– Through official diplomatic channels, the Soviet side twice applied to the Office of the Federal Chancellor of Germany G. Kolya with a request to conduct a thorough check of the German archives to find the original secret protocol. The German authorities were able to provide only the long-known "copies" and once again confirmed that they did not have the originals of these documents ... In his speech at the congress A.N. Yakovlev invited the deputies to recognize “at the level of modern knowledge” copies of the secret protocol as reliable, since subsequent events allegedly developed ... exactly “according to the protocol”. Argument, to be sure, reinforced concrete!

So no originals?

- Not so simple. During the work of the commission in one of the departments of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not without the participation of Yakovlev and his team, a typewritten text of a secret additional protocol and other applications, certified by a certain employee of the USSR Council of People's Commissars, was "accidentally" discovered. V. Panin. In 1992, they were published in the official two-volume edition of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the title Documents of the Foreign Policy of the USSR. 1939". However, when later, while working on a treaty with Lithuania, the Russian Foreign Ministry needed the originals of the secret annexes to the Soviet-German treaties, the archives of the President of the Russian Federation of diplomats sent to a journal publication.

- What is it like?!

- At the end of 1992, the famous "fighter for historical truth" D. Volkogonov announced at a press conference about the discovery of originals in Russia, and already at the beginning of 1993, the texts of Soviet-German documents of 1939-1941, including the secret additional protocol on the delimitation of the spheres of interests of Germany and the USSR, signed by V.M. Molotov and I. Ribbentrop on August 23, 1939. At first it was presented as a triumph for the adherents of "historical truth". However, soon the hype around the supposedly discovered original secret protocols subsided, as if they had not existed at all. From the press it became known that the originals of these documents are still kept "under conditions of a particularly strict regime."

- And why, when preparing an agreement between the Russian Federation and Lithuania, it was necessary to refer to a secret protocol?

- The Republic of Lithuania (not the Lithuanian SSR, because it entered the Union only in the summer of 1940) in fact participated in the partition of Poland. Withdrawn to Lithuania in 1939 vilenskaya region with the current capital of Vilnius, which previously belonged to the Polish state.

- It turns out, the Baltic was not a victim of the Soviet-German agreements. But, preparing for a meeting with you, I drew attention to the fact that the behavior of the Polish state in the late 30s of the last century was permeated not with peacefulness, but with aggressiveness. On the one hand, in 1938, the Poles sang ditties that “led by Rydz-Smigly, we will march to the Rhine.”

But immediately after the signing of the Munich Agreement, Warsaw presented an ultimatum to Prague, demanding the Cieszyn region from Czechoslovakia. Its capture was viewed by Poland as a national triumph. On the other hand, in the same 1938, a Polish military intelligence report stated that “ the dismemberment of Russia is at the heart of Polish policy in the east... The main goal is to weaken and defeat Russia.” Poland was ready to cooperate in the division of the USSR with anyone. The documents state that at a meeting of the German and Polish foreign ministers in early 1939, the head of Polish diplomacy "Mr. Beck made no secret of the fact that Poland lays claim to Soviet Ukraine and access to the Black Sea.

Apparently, the whole of Europe was ready for the redistribution of borders at that time, because they were sure there that in that atmosphere there should be all sorts of secret protocols. And yet, the very possibility of falsifying documents of this level does not fit well with me.

- Do you remember the story? Stalin's non-existent speech at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on August 19, 1939. Then, at the Politburo, Stalin allegedly delivered a speech saying that “we can prevent a world war, but we will not do this, since the war between the Reich and the Entente is beneficial to us” ...

- In the 14th volume of Stalin's Works there is his "Response to the editor of Pravda" about the lies of the Gavas agency. Is this the case? Then tell us a little more.

– This story has been thoroughly studied by scientists from the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences S.Z. case in the first issue of the journal "Otechestvennaya istory" for 2004 published a reasoned article " Stalin's speech, which was not". The author convincingly proves that there was not only a Stalinist speech, but also the Politburo meeting itself with a similar agenda.

Meanwhile, it is precisely on this fake that the slander is based to a large extent, as if the USSR and Stalin were the initiators of the war with Germany. Or, supposedly, somewhere else in the Urals, a suitcase with “the personal archive of V.I. Lenin”, about the existence of which the former head of its secretariat E. Stasova"warned the comrades from the Central Committee" in the early 60s. And after all, some ubiquitous one will certainly find it G. Ryabov or E. Radzinsky It's time to stop feeding society with various surrogates of historical truth - memoirs of some translators, security guards, drivers, close and distant relatives of the great people of the past.

“But then I would like to ask: why do you question the authenticity of the copies of the secret protocol that the researchers have at their disposal?

- It is probably unnecessary to give all the arguments that gradually, step by step, led me to this conclusion. But I'll tell you about some. In a photocopy of the Russian text of the secret additional protocol from the collection von Lesha, now stored in the Political Archives of the German Foreign Ministry, the phrase “ both parties” (this is clearly seen in the photographs published in the American and English press). In the text of the “original” stored in the archive of the President of the Russian Federation, the phrase “ both parties." Knowing the care with which such documents are prepared, I almost completely rule out the accidental error due to the negligence of a typist or typesetter of a printing house. Further.

In certified V. Panin typewritten copies completely different wording other typewritten intervals, there are differences in the spelling of the names of geographical objects, and several details characteristic of the German copy are missing. About such "trifles" as the signature of V.M. Molotov in Latin on a number of documents, I don’t even mention it.

In addition to these circumstances, which are difficult to explain from the point of view of the procedure for drawing up and signing important foreign policy documents, there are a host of other inconsistencies according to the same texts of secret appendices published in various publications ... What are these incomprehensible references to “ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR” in documents dated 1939, when, as is known, there were not ministries, but people's commissariats?

Why in the German texts of documents the surname of V.M. Molotov is written then “W. Moloto w”, then “W. Moloto v"? Why is it written in Russian in the "original" trust protocol dated September 28, 1939 " for the German Government”, while the copy from the archives of Germany indicates “ for the German government"? In the original of the secret additional protocol to the Treaty of Friendship and Border of September 28, 1939, there is only the date of signing the document, and in the copy there is also the place where the agreement was concluded ...

Ideologist of Gorbachev's perestroika A.N Yakovlev hung noodles on the ears of the people's deputies of the USSR when he claimed that "handwriting, phototechnical and lexical examination of copies, maps and other documents, the correspondence of subsequent events to the content of the protocol confirm the fact of its existence and signing." They don't confirm anything! Any competent lawyer, any forensic expert will immediately substantively and convincingly prove that the authenticity of a document from a copy (especially from a photocopy!) cannot be established.

Such types of expert research are carried out exclusively on the original documents: only they have evidentiary value in court and other legal instances. Otherwise, many of today's embezzlers would have long been sitting not in their cozy offices, but in prison cells.

And in this story, it is also noteworthy that, according to the “democrats”, the graphological examination of the texts of documents and the signature of V.M. Molotov was allegedly carried out by the employees of the MUR in defiance of the specialists of the KGB Research Institute, who refused, despite the pressure of the chairman of the commission A.N. . Yakovlev, to recognize the authenticity of the materials based on photocopies. By the way, the well-known political scientist V. Nikonov, the grandson of Molotov, also doubts the authenticity of the secret protocols, referring both to the materials of F. Chuev and his own conversations with his grandfather.

– Maybe the quality of foreign publications is higher?

– Frankly speaking, such publications as the most popular publications among Western researchers, such as the British Blue Book of War, the French Yellow Book, the 1948 and 1949-1964 editions of the US State Department, published, respectively, under the archives of the German Foreign Ministry" and "Documents of German Foreign Policy 1918–1945: From the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry" or, for example, the documents of the "Avalon Project of the Yale Law School" to be considered primary sources with all desire it is forbidden.

When the same diplomatic document (Non-Aggression Pact) is translated in the text by three different terms (Past, Treaty, Agreement), then this speaks, at a minimum, of non-professional translation.

What is this, one asks, for the official translation of the secret additional protocol, in which, according to the State Department version, an entire preambular paragraph is missing, and in the text of the Non-Aggression Pact omitted article IV?! Take as a primary source the London edition of the Diaries and Maps, popular with Polish researchers, by the former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Yana Shembeka just not serious.

- Why?

“He died in November 1945, before the secret protocol was first publicly discussed. Meanwhile, supposedly scientific research is based on these dubious sources. So, to a large extent, it is on them that the work of the assistant of the Ural State University named after V.I. Gorky A.A. Pronina titled "Soviet-German Agreements of 1939. Origins and Consequences".

It is worth noting that the work was done by the author for a funded Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation, grant No. BE 934)"International Historical Journal". In 1997, by order of the then Minister of General and Vocational Education of the Russian Federation Kinelev this study was awarded ... the medal "For the best scientific student work."

It is posted on the Internet, and today negligent students are writing off test papers from it with might and main. Probably, the ex-minister gave such an honorary award to the author for his game of giveaway with the notorious Suvorov-Rezun, the author of "Icebreaker" and "Day-M". True, now, having become a candidate of historical sciences, Pronin specializes in the problem of the participation of Jews in the culture of Russia.

- Valentin Antonovich, sometimes one gets the impression that the so-called secret protocol did not contain any serious new information. Before meeting you, I leafed through the Pravda binder for 1939. Let's take the number for September 29th. On the first page are printed the official message "To the conclusion of the German-Soviet treaty of friendship and the border between the USSR and Germany", this German-Soviet treaty itself, "Statement of the Soviet and German governments of September 28, 1939".

And below them in bold petite in parentheses: "(See the map indicated in Article 1 of the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and the Border between the USSR and Germany on page 2)". I open the second and page (strip, as journalists say). In the left corner is a letter from V.M. Molotov to the German Foreign Minister I. Ribbentrop (remarkable detail.

It is indicated: “In present. time in Moscow”, as if instead of an address). And below it, three-sevenths of the width of a newspaper page, is a map with a bold broken line. Signed below: " The border of mutual state interests of the USSR and Germany on the territory of the former Polish state».

- The same demarcation map, only with I.V.'s autographs. Stalin and I. Ribbentrop, A.N. Yakovlev at one time, as they say, finished off many subjectively honest, but not very literate and inquisitive people's deputies. This card never kept any secret, it was not an annex to the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" of August 23, 1939, but was an integral and integral part of another foreign policy document - the Treaty of Friendship and Border between Germany and the USSR of September 28, 1939, signed after the fall of Poland.

It's time to understand that some Western countries, their special services, as well as the yellow press, greedy for sensationalism, have historical truth, its specific details are not needed. All that is needed is the humiliation of our country, the debunking of the decisive role of the Soviet Union in achieving victory over fascism.

Soviet foreign policy intelligence obtained, more than once, documentary evidence that about 40 years ago, the United States and a number of other NATO countries set and have been successfully implementing the following task since then: by any means to achieve recognition of the Soviet Union as an aggressor state, the "genuine initiator" of the outbreak of the Second World War, at least an active accomplice of Hitler in the implementation of his expansionist plans and aspirations in Europe and the world.

The implementation of the plans and plans of the West almost forty years ago is going well. To illustrate, I will quote the statement of the NATO Secretary General J. Robertson December 14, 2002: “By inviting seven countries of Central and Eastern Europe to NATO, the alliance achieved its biggest victory in half a century. He crossed out the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the Yalta Agreements.

- In conclusion, it is customary to talk about the lessons that should be learned from history.

“The haters of our country cannot be stopped by any of the most convincing arguments. They have a different interest. I admit that they know as well as we do the dubious nature of their arguments.

But it is not permissible to play along with them. And then, in their desire to "bring to life" the presumptuous politicians of the Baltic countries (including the Kaliningrad problem, which is extremely urgent today), some Russian deputies are trying to "benefit" from the fact that the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR recognized the Soviet-German non-aggression pact and the secret additional protocol to it legally untenable and invalid from the moment of signing.

Let's, they say, admit our "wrongness" in the issue of concluding a pact with Germany, and let Lithuania spin, as if in a frying pan, with the problem of the Vilna region that was previously part of Poland, as well as about the territorial affiliation of others received as a result of being part of USSR territories. The lightness of both the idea itself and the argumentation given in this case is obvious.

The idea of ​​“sole succession” of Russia from the USSR, brought to the point of absurdity, which is propagated by a number of patriotic Russian politicians, inevitably leads to a legal dead end. Ultimately it is not Russia that needs to be called for actions of “public repentance” today. It is not she who owns the territories that went to the Soviet Union as a result of the "criminal conspiracy of two dictators."

And if the leaders of the Baltic States, Ukraine, Moldavia and Belarus nevertheless consider it necessary and possible for themselves to embark on this slippery path leading nowhere, they are at least obliged to the peoples of their countries to do this, relying, in particular, not on idle conjectures of falsifiers of history, but on declassified and officially published documents from Russian archives, the authenticity of which must be established reliably.

It's time to put an end to this mysterious story with secret protocols. If they really exist, make them public in strict accordance with the procedure for publishing foreign policy acts of the Russian state, determined by law, and at the same time bear full responsibility for this step.

If there are reasonable doubts (and, in my opinion, there are more than enough of them), it is necessary to involve the authority of the deputies of the Russian parliament and the experience of truly respected and politically unbiased specialists in various fields to determine the authenticity of the materials and clarify all the circumstances associated with their birth "...

And here is a commentary on this interview given by a well-known former employee of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, a military historian Arsen Martirosyan:

“As you can see, the opinion that the secret protocols, especially the very first of them - the one dated August 23, 1939 - fake, more than justified. No less justified is the opinion that the German participants in the negotiations made rough notes regarding the oral agreements discussed in the Kremlin. And on their basis, either at the very end of the war or immediately after it, they concocted the “secret additional protocol” of August 23, 1939 and its other no less falsified “brothers” and began to pass them off as “secret protocols” that determined the “spheres of influence” two powers, allegedly “sawed up Eastern Europe.

Although the talks were about "spheres of interest." That is exactly what happened. Let's not forget who was the first to get hold of the microfilm archives of the Third Reich Foreign Ministry. That's right, Anglo-Americans. And what kind of bastard it is - hardly needs to be explained. It must not be forgotten that the same Yankees only had two valuable agents in the German embassy in Moscow. And the Yankees knew more or less exactly the content of the non-aggression pact, and those oral agreements that later began to pass off as a "secret additional protocol." Moreover, the first draft records of these oral agreements fell into the hands of them before the outbreak of World War II.

I draw attention to the fact that Hitler, in his speech of June 22, 1941, oddly enough, confirmed that there were only certain agreements. After all, throughout this speech he used the expression “Moscow agreements” or simply “agreements reached”, but not the signed “secret additional protocol” of August 23, 1939! But when the war was already over, then the West faced an urgent need falsifications in order to discredit the USSR and make it the culprit of the war. Why?! Yes, for a very simple reason. The treaty symbolized not only the depth of the failure of Western policy in the first half of the 20th century, primarily British policy.

First of all, the non-aggression pact frustrated the purposefully implemented intention of the West to cynically expose the Soviet Union to the blow of Nazi Germany already at the very end of the 30s, in order to then break into Eastern Europe on the “shoulders” of the latter and realize their geopolitical goals there - to establish their own domination! Furthermore. The treaty dramatically changed not only the pre-war and even post-war configuration in Europe, but, above all, the timetable of the war, putting the West in a situation where it was forced to defend itself, and not dream of establishing its dominance in Eastern Europe at the expense of causing foreign hands of damage to the USSR.

As a result, Great Britain, as well as France, which obediently followed in the wake of its policy, were the first to plunge into the war, which they so diligently prepared for Russia, which they hated so much, even if it was then called the USSR! Until now, the West cannot calm down from the fit of rage that seized it, as soon as it became known about the conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact.

How is it that some unwashed, according to the West, Russia, led by a barbarian dictator, has rubbed its nose against the West in the highest question of world politics: peace or war?! But for six years in a row this supposedly barbarian dictator offered the West to agree honestly on a system of collective security, on conditions for honest mutual assistance in repelling Hitler's aggression! And in response I heard only dismissive, often simply insulting, and often also frankly boorish refusals in everything, on any issue, even the smallest!

The West cannot recognize all this, it is unable to recognize it, otherwise it will not be the West. And he can't calm down, he can't.

But vilely to avenge your own crimes against humanity, and to avenge the innocent, who also saved this damned West from brown slavery - this is always a great pleasure! The West, God forbid! .. That's why, at the end of the war, they began to prepare the for the future multi-year and multi-way propaganda campaign against the USSR. And when the slightest opportunity presented itself to concoct false "documents" allegedly incriminating the USSR in inciting war, then the zeal of the West knew no bounds.

This is where the Anglo-Americans have worked (and are working!) together. Exactly together. Because, due to their stupidity, the Yankees at that time could not have concocted such a fake to pass it off as a microfilm from the archive of the German Foreign Ministry. The hand of British intelligence is clearly felt here - this old, but by no means lost either the scent or the skills of special deceit, the "fox" can concoct such a thing that then all the devils in hell will break their legs, but they will not find and will not understand what's what. How many fakes she has launched in her entire history - even at MI6 headquarters they will not count! They had rough notes on the content of the oral agreements. Westerners had plenty of samples of Molotov's signatures - for the period of his tenure as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the period from 1939 to 1945. he signed many joint documents with the Anglo-Americans.

And Ribbentrop's signature was also no secret to the Anglo-Americans, especially to the Britons, where he was the ambassador of the Third Reich in London. Relevant craftsmen for fakes are available in every solid intelligence service. The Britons have such craftsmen - for a long time. A whole "school" and what else! And these people can concoct such things that not only a mosquito will not undermine the nose, but not a single biased examination will find anything. Especially, I emphasize this again, if the "product" was concocted by British intelligence. And through microfilms to introduce a fake into circulation - in general, spit a couple of times. "...

Andrey Fursov. About the Molotov Pact

Kurginyan on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

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On August 23, 1939, the Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union (German: Deutsch-sowjetischer Nichtangriffspakt; also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) was signed in Moscow. This intergovernmental agreement was signed on the Soviet side by Vyacheslav Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and on the German side, by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

The countries that signed the Treaty pledged to refrain from attacking each other and to remain neutral if one of the parties was subjected to external aggression. The treaty was accompanied by a secret additional protocol on the delimitation of spheres of mutual interests in Eastern Europe in the event of a "territorial and political rearrangement." The protocol provided for the inclusion of Latvia, Estonia, Finland, the eastern "regions that are part of the Polish state" and Bessarabia in the sphere of interests of the USSR, Lithuania and the west of Poland - in the sphere of interests of Germany.
Eight days after the signing of the document, on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland from the west, and on September 17, Soviet troops entered Poland from the east. Eleven days later, Molotov and Ribbentrop signed in Moscow a bilateral Treaty of Friendship and Border, securing the territorial division of Poland.

Winston Churchill, in his memoirs of the Second World War, wrote: "Only totalitarian despotism in both countries could decide on such an odious, unnatural act."

In turn, Hitler, immediately after the signing of the Pact, did not hide his joy: "Thanks to these agreements, Russia's benevolent attitude is guaranteed in the event of any conflict."

In a radio speech on July 3, 1941, Stalin tried to justify the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact with Germany: “I think that not a single peace-loving state can refuse a peace agreement with a neighboring power, if this power is headed even by such monsters and cannibals as Hitler and Ribbentrop.

Doctor of Historical Sciences Vladlen Izmozik believes that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact unleashed the hands of both countries, and they hastened to use it to increase their own territories. At the same time, according to Izmozik, the lessons of the First World War remained unlearned:

“The Soviet Union and its Stalinist leadership, pushing, as it seemed to them, the border to a safe distance, made it possible for Germany to go directly to its borders,” the historian notes. “Since 1935, the official ideology was dominated by the thesis that the USSR would fight on foreign territory and with little bloodshed, so it pushed the bulk of its troops to the new frontiers.”

Vladlen Izmozik, in an interview with the Voice of America correspondent, noted that negotiations between the Soviet Union and Germany had been going on since 1937, and intensified in the spring of 1939. At the same time, Hitler was conducting secret negotiations with Great Britain. “Therefore, none of the large countries of that time was “white and fluffy”. Behind France and England was Munich. That is, everyone tried to observe their own interests and set the others against each other, while remaining on the sidelines,” emphasizes Vladlen Izmozik.

In general, according to Izmozik, the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact remains "a shameful page in Soviet history." Including because after the conclusion of the Non-Aggression Pact, "the USSR was called the intendant of the German army, supplying the Wehrmacht and the entire Third Reich with everything necessary."

As for the point of view prevailing in official Russian historiography that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the only chance for the USSR to prepare for war with Germany, Mark Solonin, the author of a number of books on the history of the Great Patriotic War, refutes it. He notes:

“In the summer of 1939, Stalin had the most powerful military machine in Europe. In terms of the number of divisions, his army surpassed the newborn Wehrmacht by 2.5 times, by the number of tanks - by 6 times, by the number of tanks with cannon weapons - by 20 times (14 thousand versus 700), by the number of combat aircraft - by three times.

Solonin believes that, given the armed forces of potential allies - Poland, France and Great Britain - the superiority became overwhelming. Hitler at that time could not fight not only on two fronts, but also one on one against the Red Army. That is why the very first hints of the need to develop plans for war against the USSR will appear in the leadership of Nazi Germany only in the summer of 1940.

“In the real situation of August 1939,” continues Mark Solonin, “the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had only one meaning - it was a pact on Stalin’s non-aggression against Hitler, or, to put it more accurately, on the non-interference of the Soviet Union in the aggressive actions of Germany. In exchange for this, Hitler was forced to give Stalin half of his "booty" in Poland, won by blood, and in the future to show the same non-intervention during Stalin's aggression against Finland and the annexation of the three Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Five years ago, the European Parliament proclaimed August 23 the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. At the same time, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe by a majority of votes approved the resolution "On the unification of disparate Europe."

It is known that the Russian delegation of PACE opposed this document, believing that "the equalization of the Nazi regime and the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union, which made a decisive contribution to the defeat of fascism, is an outrage against history."

Boris Sokolov is convinced that there is no abuse of history in the resolution "On the unification of disparate Europe". "I believe that the Stalinist and Hitler regimes - the Soviet and the Nazis - are similar to each other and both of them are responsible for the Second World War," says Boris Sokolov. According to the historian, there are differences between the Hitlerite and Stalinist regimes, and there are many of them, but they are of a secondary nature.

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Discussion of Viktor Suvorov's book "The Holy Cause". The author focuses on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or rather, those assessments of this document that prevail in Russian military history. According to this version, according to the official version, the pact - well, firstly, it delayed the war with the Third Reich, and secondly, it gave the USSR additional time to prepare for a future war. It is with these two theses that Viktor Suvorov argues.

Pavlova I.V.

In Soviet historiography for many decades there were provisions that the October Revolution was “the great beginning of the world proletarian revolution; it showed all the peoples of the world the path to socialism. However, as the authors of the six-volume "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" convinced readers, the party "saw its mission not in "pushing", not in "exporting the revolution", but in convincing the peoples of the advantages of the socialist system by practical example. In reality, everything was done exactly the opposite.

Albert L. Weeks

One of the biggest blind spots in Soviet history is the question concerning the intentions and plans of Joseph Stalin during and after the signing of the Soviet-German treaties and secret protocols drawn up by Berlin and Moscow in August-September 1939. As well as questions relating to Stalin's strategy on the eve of the German attack in June 1941.

Doroshenko V. L., Pavlova K. V., Raak R. Ch.

On November 28 and 29, 1939, a message from the Gavas agency was published in French newspapers, which was a presentation of the speech of I.V. Stalin, uttered at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on August 19 of the same year. The message appeared in such newspapers as Le Figaro, Le Petit Journal, Le Journal, Le Temps, L "Action franaise" and others. These publications were immediately reported to Stalin. His refutation "On the false report of the Gavas agency” was published by the Pravda newspaper on November 30.

Great Britain declared war on Hitler not in 1942, but back in 1939, in those very days when the Soviet and Nazi troops were preparing for a joint parade and the transfer of German anti-fascists to the Gestapo in Brest-Litovsk. From that time on, Churchill insisted on the need for a military alliance with the USSR - although Stalin, as we remember, preferred other allies at that time.

Address by Adolf Hitler on June 22, 1941, Speech by V. M. Molotov on the radio on June 22, 1941, Speech by Winston Churchill on the radio on June 22, 1941, Speech by I. V. Stalin on the radio on July 3, 1941, Speech by Franklin Roosevelt on December 9, 1941 of the year.

Mark Solonin

In the summer of 1941 something bad happened to the Red Army. In different periods of the history of our country, this "something" received various names: from "temporary failures" to "catastrophic defeat". Accordingly, the search for the causes and explanations of what happened acquired a different severity. It's one thing to look for the causes of "temporary failures." Simple common sense and personal experience of every adult immediately prompts the obvious answer: "Eka is unseen, with whom it does not happen." It is quite another thing to try to explain the catastrophic defeat of the largest land army in the world. Therefore, before looking for the causes of the phenomenon, we will try as accurately as possible to determine the scale and actual content of what happened.

HIGHER THEATER SCHOOL (INSTITUTE)

THEM. M.S. SCHEPKINA

SUMMARY ON GENERAL HISTORY

"Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" - a brilliant merit or a diplomatic failure of the Soviet government.

Completed by 1st year student

(Artistic director Klyuev B.V.)

Vyacheslav Leontiev

Checked

Professor Vepretskaya T.Yu.

Abstract Plan

Introduction

Source Analysis

Source characteristic

Conclusion

Introduction

I have chosen the theme of the study "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" - a brilliant merit or a diplomatic failure of the Soviet government. This choice is due to the historical significance of this agreement, signed before the start of the Second World War. It was with his help that Stalin managed to win the time necessary for our country to prepare for war.

In the study, I mainly used the method of analyzing a historical source - the text of the contract.

The purpose of the study is to clarify the reasons for the historical significance of the pact and the events that followed in connection with its signing.

To achieve this goal, I have set and implemented following tasks :

Acquaintance with the text of the specified document.

Studying the history of the adoption of the document

Studying the conditions of its writing.

Historical assessment of this treaty.

Source Analysis

Source characteristic

This historical document has two names: "Non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR." or "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact". It was signed by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (Germany) and the head of the Council of People's Commissars Vyacheslav Molotov (Soviet Union) on August 23, 1939. They are the "authors" of this historical document.

The document consists of two parts: the first is the treaty itself, which includes seven small articles on relations between countries, proceeding only from some of the main provisions of the neutrality treaty concluded between the USSR and Germany in April 1926.

And the second part is a special protocol on the delimitation of "spheres of influence" in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. This protocol was to be kept secret by both Germany and the USSR, and it would only be made public in 1989. The pact was printed in two languages.

Signing history: In 1938, England and France concluded the "Munich Pact" with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, after which the Sudetenland, inhabited by Germans, was torn away from Czechoslovakia, and then all of Czechoslovakia was occupied. And in 1939, the USSR decides to sign the non-aggression pact proposed by Germany, but subject to the addition of secret protocols on the division of Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, according to which the Baltic states and Eastern Poland, as well as Bessarabia and Finland, fell into the sphere of interests of the USSR, and German troops cannot advance beyond the Curzon Line.

This treaty shows that it is now impossible to resolve important issues of international relations - especially those of Eastern Europe - without the active participation of the Soviet Union, that any attempts to bypass the Soviet Union and solve such issues behind the back of the Soviet Union must end in failure. The Soviet-German non-aggression pact means a turn in the development of Europe... This pact not only gives us the elimination of the threat of war with Germany... - it should provide us with new opportunities for the growth of forces, strengthening our positions, further growth of the influence of the Soviet Union on international development.

Shortly before the signing of the treaty, Vyacheslav Molotov was appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the USSR, instead of the staunch rival of the Nazi regime, Mikhail Litvinov, an extremely influential figure who earned respect and honor from many party leaders, including Stalin. Molotov himself spoke of the signing of the treaty in the following way:

Germany's representative was Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs and Hitler's adviser on foreign policy.

When analyzing this historical document, first of all, it is worth emphasizing its authenticity, which is undeniable, since this is an official contract.

Conclusion

A non-aggression pact is a peace pact between two states. It was this pact that Germany proposed to us in 1939. Could the Soviet Government refuse such a proposal? I think that not a single peace-loving state can refuse a peace agreement with a neighboring power, if at the head of this power there are even such monsters and cannibals as Hitler and Ribbentrop. And this, of course, on one indispensable condition - if the peace agreement does not affect either directly or indirectly the territorial integrity, independence and honor of a peace-loving state. As you know, the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR is just such a pact.

When analyzing this historical document, we can safely highlight that the signing of this pact was beneficial to both one and the other side. Hitler hoped with the help of this treaty to neutralize the USSR for a while, and to provide Germany with a "free" seizure of Poland and freedom of action in Western Europe. Steel, in turn, intended to buy time to prepare the country for war. In July 941, Stalin, in his speech on the radio, will speak of this treaty in the following way:

I have taken steps to change relations with Russia. In connection with the economic agreement, political negotiations began. In the end, a proposal came from the Russians to sign a non-aggression pact. Four days ago, I took a special step that led to Russia yesterday announcing its readiness to sign the pact. Established personal contact with Stalin. The day after tomorrow Ribbentrop will conclude a treaty. Now Poland is in the position I wanted to see it in…. Now that I have made the necessary diplomatic preparations, the way is open for the soldiers.

Hitler wrote this about the pact:

But, summing up, I would like to say that this pact received many different assessments, both positive and negative. Many still believe that this pact is a diplomatic failure of Stalin and Molotov, however, it is very difficult to look at such documents through the prism of time.

And besides, the fact remains - Stalin won time to prepare for the most terrible war in which we managed to win. And the winners are not judged.

List of used literature

www.de.ifmo.ru "Foreign policy of the USSR in the 30s of the 20th century".

“Beginning of the 2nd World War. English-French-Soviet negotiations. German Diplomacy "History of Russia-textbook for universities 2006

"The Molotov-Ribentrop Pact in Questions and Answers" Alexander Dyukov Moscow 2009

www.km.ru Encyclopedia.

Wikipedia.

6. http://hrono.info/dokum/193_dok/1939ru_ge.php

7. "100 great events of the twentieth century" N.N. Nepomniachtchi

8. http://xx-vek-istoria.narod.ru/libr/istochnik/vnpol/ussryug1941.html

9.http://www.runivers.ru/doc/d2.php?SECTION_ID=6379&CENTER_ELEMENT_ID=146943&PORTAL_ID=6379