Who framed Molotov under the Ribbentrop Pact?
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In August 1939, the USSR, which at that time had no real allies, had practically no alternatives to signing an agreement with Nazi Germany. Before the collapse of Poland, which Britain and France were ready to abandon by all indications and which by no means wanted Soviet help, there were only a few days left.
In the General Staff of the Red Army in the summer of 1939, they well understood the inevitability of a quick defeat of the Poles if it confronted Germany one on one. For a long time in Moscow, they did not want to believe that the British and French would not get into a fight, limiting large-scale criticism of the Munich Agreement in the media.
Moreover, through the Comintern, all the peace initiatives of London and Paris were also decided not to criticize, but simply to be taken for granted. Next was the notorious pact and the notorious Liberation Campaign, which allowed pushing the borders of the USSR far to the west.
And even further, many years later, territorial claims to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova from neighboring European countries with their financial claims against the same "defendants" followed. The actual claims or possible ones are no longer so important, but they stem mainly not from 1939, but from 1989.
It is impossible not to clarify that the hands of those who were thirsty for Russian land were actually untied by the chosen people at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR on December 24, 1989. Let us recall quite a bit from the text of the resolution “On the Political and Legal Assessment of the Soviet-German Non-aggression Pact of 1939”.
So, in a document thirty years ago it was quite clearly said:
[quote] 2. The non-aggression treaty with Germany ... had one of the goals of averting the threat of the impending war from the USSR. Ultimately, this goal was not achieved. [/ Quote]
Really? Or almost two years just such a delay is simply not counted? Why was it so primitive to distort the realities of that situation?
But even from the work of people's deputies it suddenly turns out:
[quote] The protocol of August 23, 1939 and other secret protocols signed with Germany in 1939-1941 were a departure from the Leninist principles of Soviet foreign policy ”[/ quote]
And still, this decree, which de facto and de jure disputes the legitimacy of the modern western, southwestern and northwestern borders of the USSR (from October 1939 to July 1940), has not been revised by post-Soviet Russia. Apparently, because the Russian Federation is the successor of the USSR ...
By the way, from all countries of the world, only Albania officially condemned the decision of that congress of Soviet people's deputies - on December 26, as part of the statement of its Foreign Ministry. In Tirana directly called the decree
[quote] ... intentionally indulging the revanchism of Germany and other countries, as well as falsifications of the world stories. Soviet revisionism finally degenerated into an accomplice of imperialism and revenge. [/ Quote]
However, the position of the Albanian Communist Party in the Soviet media, of course, was not reported. On December 24, 1989, the former Stalinist leadership of the USSR got no less dirt and even outright lies than from Khrushchev at the notorious XX and XXII CPSU congresses. Even today, many are tormented by the question: why did this happen?
With all the Bolshevik generosity
In this regard, it will be recalled that in 1919-21. it was the leader of the Bolsheviks and the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, V. Lenin, who initiated the transfer of Finland to a number of regions near Petrograd, Petrozavodsk and Murmansk, as well as Latvia and Estonia - a number of regions adjacent to them in the Leningrad and Pskov regions.
Interestingly, at the same time, most of Western Armenia and part of southwestern Georgia, even with Batumi, were transferred to Turkey. At the last moment, I. Stalin personally managed to prevent the transfer of the future capital of Soviet Adzharia to the Turks. Therefore, the document did not prudently specify what the real borderline accents of the "Leninist principles of Soviet foreign policy" were ...
But back to the lawmaking of the Soviet people's deputies. Further they noted:
[quote] The delineation of the "spheres of interests" of the USSR and Germany and other actions were, from a legal point of view, in conflict with the sovereignty and independence of a number of third countries. [/ quote]
Especially since
[/ quote] ... Soviet relations with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were regulated by a system of treaties. According to the peace treaties of 1920 and the non-aggression treaties concluded between 1926-1933, their participants pledged to mutually respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Soviet Union had similar obligations to Poland and Finland. [/ Quote]
It turns out that it was only the USSR (Germany in general, it seems that it had nothing to do with it. - Auth.) Violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of those countries! And from this “new thinking”, by definition, financial and territorial claims against the Russian Federation and the countries of the Western region of the CIS cannot but result.
We follow the text of the current regulation today:
[quote] 6. Negotiations with Germany on secret protocols were conducted by Stalin and Molotov secretly from the Soviet people, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the whole party, the Supreme Council and the government of the USSR. Thus, the decision to sign them was essentially and in form an act of personal power and did not in any way reflect the will of the Soviet people, who are not responsible for this conspiracy. [/ Quote]
In a word, those agreements with Berlin, caused by the well-known (increasingly tense) military-political situation on the western and eastern borders of the USSR, are a “product”, it turns out, of the personal power of I. Stalin. Stanislavsky would definitely say: "I do not believe it!" The leader of the peoples, of course, then personally decided a lot, but Molotov did not have to be forced into anything. As forced by the international situation itself.
First, in Izvestia of August 27, 1939, and then at sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on August 31 and October 31, 1939, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V. Molotov and the People's Commissar of Defense K. Voroshilov explained in detail the reasons why the USSR concluded a pact with Germany non-aggression. Further military-political measures of the USSR were clearly outlined, and these materials were published in all Soviet and many foreign media.
Why in 1989 such unreasonable flows of accusations against Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov were required, even today it is not easy to explain. Was it really all about the “fashion” to smash everything Soviet? It is doubtful, even very.
Negotiations and negotiators
However, in the very decision of the Congress of People's Deputies a word was not said that from March to August 1939 very intensive negotiations were held between the USSR, Great Britain and France on mutual military assistance.
They ended in failure solely through the fault of the Western "partners", who gave their representatives practically no real powers. Firstly, their delegations did not even have the right to sign the corresponding agreement. And secondly, the governments of Great Britain and France refused to agree with Poland, Lithuania and Romania on the passage of Soviet troops to the borders of these countries with Germany and Czechoslovakia occupied by it.
By the way, those negotiations in Moscow began shortly after the German occupation without military action (mid-March 1939) with the connivance of London and Paris, not only the “post-Munich” Czechoslovakia, but also almost the entire Lithuanian Baltic coast.
In a broader context, according to the decision of the same congress, those political agreements of the USSR with Germany, it turns out, “were used by Stalin and his entourage (that is, not Germany, but only the Soviet Union. - Auth.) To present ultimatums and force pressure on other states, in violation of their legal obligations. ”
But with such a passage, all the more you can justify anything on the part of our new partners and opponents. One can justify the above-mentioned "promising" territorial claims of a number of East European countries against Russia. And at the same time with Russia and to Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. Is it reasonable to suppose that the official direct territorial claims of the “victims” are likely to be put forward when they receive what is called American or NATO go-ahead?
In all likelihood, their territorial claims, based on the decision of the same congress of Soviet people's deputies, will soon be able to politically “activate” revanchist groups, for example, in Finland and Latvia with Estonia. Indeed, until mid-1940 they included a number of regions of the Karelian-Finnish SSR (since 1956 the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic), the Leningrad, Murmansk, and Pskov regions.
By the way, maps of “lost territories” are not a rarity in museums and cities of these countries. This kind of “public” cartography, say, started in Suomi since the beginning of the 70s (see map). And all this bacchanalia began, as you know, from Damansky Island.
Recall that in 1969 this island abundantly watered with the blood of Soviet border guards managed to defend the island on the Ussuri River in a fierce conflict with the PRC. But ... already in 1971, it was secretly, and in 1991, it was officially handed over to China. But even in the 70s, Moscow did not respond to that Finnish cartography ... Historical truth recalls that the official cancellation of the dubious decision of the same deputy congress (at least the need for its objective review) is more than relevant today.
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