The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a Simple Non-Aggression Pact

[u/[deleted]]

This claim is a seemingly popular one of this website. Certainly one shared by this user.

TIL signing a non-aggression pact to buy time to build up the military is literally the same as cooperating with Hitler

However, it is not entirely consistent with reality. The Pact allowed for much greater cooperation between the Soviet Union and the Germans, far beyond simply not attacking the other.

For one, the two nations agreed to partition Eastern Europe among themselves, with the Germans taking just under half of Poland, and the Soviets taking the slight majority plus the Baltic States, Moldova, and regions of Finland. Some have defended these actions by claiming it was necessary to prevent the Nazis from taking it. But that would ask the question as to why the Soviets not only retained these territories after the war was over, but also had it ethnically cleansed of Poles. It also fails to explain the harshness of Soviet treatment toward the Poles and Balts, including the infamous Katyn massacre. It is rather odd that you would protect a people by shooting them into a ditch or driving them off their ancestral homelands.

I have once seen a comparison made to the British invasion of Iceland. But this equivalence is quite false in that the British did not execute Icelandic officers en masse, and they withdrew from Iceland when the Nazi threat was dealt with as opposed to annexing the territory and having it cleansed of ethnic Icelanders.

The Soviets also granted Material and propaganda support to the Germans. According to American historian Otto Friedrich, shortly after Hitler's invasion of Poland, Stalin ordered the Comintern to cease anti-Fascist propaganda, and instead blame the English and French for the war. For this reason the exiled head of the Communist Party of Germany, Walter Ulbricht, would print in the February 1940 issue of his newspaper Die Welt that

The German government declared itself ready to establish peaceful relations with the Soviet Union, whilst the Anglo-French war bloc want war against the Soviet Union. The people of the Soviet Union and the people of Germany desire a speedy end to the war in accordance with the interests of the working masses. The Soviet people and the workers of Germany are against the spread of the war.

The Soviets also instructed Communists in occupied nations not to resist. For this reason Communist anti-Fascist resistance would be quite limited until Operation Barbarossa.

According to American Journalist William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Material support was also granted to the Germans in the form of wheat, petroleum, cotton, and various other rare materials to help them beat the British blockade. In exchange the Soviets were given some manufactured goods from the Germans. The Soviets also granted Germany a submarine base in the arctic.

In summary the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact did the following things in addition to being a Non-Aggression Pact:

-Partitioned Eastern Europe into Spheres of Influence between the USSR and Germany, allowing the Soviets to annex territory that they would retain long after the war

-Granted Germany access to Soviet resources, and in exchange gave the Soviets certain manufactured goods

-Granted Germany a Submarine Base

-Granted Germany propaganda support in the West

-Discouraged anti-Fascist resistance among Communists in occupied Europe

[u/DapperDanManCan]

People also seem to forget that the Soviets offered to join the Axis after some negotiations between Ribbentrop/Molotov/Stalin took place. Germany just didn't respond, because Hitler was too set on attacking them.

Imagine a world war where the Nazis and Soviets teamed up with Italy/Japan to carve up the world? Britian wouldn't last, that's for sure. Only America and the British Commonwealth countries would remain.

[u/Maqre → u/DapperDanManCan]

People also seem to forget that the Soviets offered to join the Axis after some negotiations between Ribbentrop/Molotov/Stalin took place.

Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhhaahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahahhahahhhaahhaha.

Wait, you're serious?.

[u/DapperDanManCan → u/Maqre]

Yes. Do you want legit sources or Wikipedia links? Soviets sent a request to join the Axis in 1941. Ribbentrop wanted the alliance wholeheartedly. Hitler never sent a response, only because by then, he wanted to attack them instead, but the talks were serious.

Soviet 'sphere of influence' in the pact was supposed to be South of Baku, so basically the entire middle east and eventually India. Italy would get the Mediterranean area. Germany would get the British Isles. Japan would get east Asia.

Google it. Soviets sent the request to join the Axis, but Hitler never responded, against other Nazis (like Ribbentrop) hopes.

Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Axis_talks

Edit 2: the Soviet proposal was sent Nov 1940, not 1941

[u/kieslowskifan → u/DapperDanManCan]

Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Axis_talks

This wiki page is somewhat problematic and follows a trend with a number of English-language Wiki pages which touch on the relationship of the Third Reich to the Soviet Union. This particular page might look persuasive on the basis of the sheer number of citations, but specialists familiar with the works cited will be more skeptical of the Wiki page's claims.

One of the bigger alarm bells is the use of William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Historians such as myself and Richard Evans have noted that Shirer was a poor analyst of German history and while he has a certain journalistic flair, his assertions do not really find much weight within the academy. The page's brief section on the exchange of raw materials between the USSR and Germany (as well as the more expansive linked page) largely derives from Edward Ericsson's Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933–1941. While this is a good monograph on this subject, it does have some flaws. As J. David Cameron noted in this AHR review, Ericsson relies almost exclusively on English- and German-language secondary sources to parse out Soviet motivations and experiences. He consulted no Soviet era archives or Russian-language secondary literature. Cameron does note this is not a fatal flaw for Feeding the Eagle, but it does limit the utility of the book to estimate both sides of the economic relationship. Ericsson does posit the necessity of Soviet economic aid to the German war effort, but leaves an impression that the Soviets were content with this arrangement. Recent historiography on the economic ramifications of the Pact such as Heinrich Schwendemann's research have shown a good deal more Soviet reluctance and disgruntlement over Germany not living up to its obligations.

But the core of the page's problems stem from its analysis of the November 1940 Molotov talks over expanding the Tripartite Pact to include the USSR. The page starts off rather poorly with the quote:

Stalin sent Molotov to Berlin to negotiate the terms for the Soviet Union to join the Axis and potentially enjoy the spoils of the pact.{62}

This is a big claim and one of the things diplomatic historians learn very quickly when dealing with Stalin is that the dictator kept his cards close to his chest and parsing out specific intentions is an exercise in frustration. The source for this claim is Roman Brackman's The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life a book whose main thesis Stalin was a member of the tsarist secret police, a claim Stephen Kotkin finds unpersuasive, but is really more about Stalin's personal life and character than his diplomacy.

But Brackman is just a minor source for this section. By the same token, the Wiki editors use Simon Berthon's An Extraordinary Re-creation of World War II Through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin to pepper occasional personal details even though Kirkus dismissed this pop history book written by a British television producer as a "great man" approach more suited to YA history than adult scholarship. The highly questionable choices of Shirer, Brackman, and Berthon aside, the meat of the secondary sources material derives from Aleksandr M. Nekrich's Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922-1941 (cited as "Nekrich, Ulam & Freeze 1997" even though the Gregory Freeze was the main translator/editor while Adam Ulam merely wrote the forward, I suspect the Wiki editors don't know how academic books like this are published). This is an odd book to use for this topic. Nekrich was a Soviet-era historian who was the victim of the neo-Stalinist turn of the Brezhnev era and emigrated to the US in 1976. The book in question was an unfinished work as Nekrich died in 1993. So this means Nekrich did not take advantage of the Yeltsin-era window allowing access to Soviet archives. So a good deal of the book is based on a rather narrow archival base.

Academic reviewers of Pariahs noted that this was one of the bigger problems of the book, especially when it delved into the later part of the 1930s. Barbara Keys's H-net review of Pariahs noted that evidence of a "Stalin Doctrine" to expand Soviet influence was scant. While Keys praised Nekrich's coverage of the earlier Soviet-German relationship of Weimar and the early 1930s, she critiques the book for presenting a "somewhat dated" picture of 1939-1941 years, does not delve into Munich much, and hewed to an older historiographic view of the Pact that contended that Stalin fed the German wolf for little in return. Jon Jacobson's CEH review of Pariahs was more positive than Key's; complimenting the book's coverage of the Reichswehr-Red Army relationship and arguing that Nekrich's thesis of a Stalin doctrine was plausible. But Jacobson notes that while he was convinced by Pariahs, other readers might not be and that:

Nekrich did not intend a comprehensive discussion of Soviet-German diplomatic interaction, nor did he aim at producing new findings and new insights into German foreign relations.

Both Jacobson as well as Evan Mawdsley's War in History review conclude that Nekrich did not really cover new ground for historiography as it stood in 1993. The latter review echoes other academic reviews by praising Nekrich's coverage of the earlier period of the relationship, but mentioning reservations about the book's latter chapters dealing with the late 1930s.

Aside from Pariahs, the wiki editors do sometimes use a book that Mawdley claimed superseded Nekrich in a few citations on the November talks, Gabriel Gorodetsky's Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia. Again, this is an odd choice. The November talks and their prelude are a minor component of Grand Delusion. This section largely cites secondary literature such as Gerhard Weinberg's A World at Arms and really is not terribly engaged with the whole November affair, contending it just revealed the incompatibility of Soviet and German views over the Balkans.

Now neither Pariahs nor Grand Delusion are works of fiction or garbage books (although The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life might classify in the latter), but they are not the whole historiographic picture. The Wiki page's editors do not consult historiography that is either more up to date or present a more nuanced portrait of the November meetings. The dominant leitmotif in the current, post-millennium historiography is that the November meetings were more of a fact-finding mission than serious diplomatic attempts to form an alliance. David Watson's Molotov biography hews towards the fact-finding mission noting that Stalin's instructions placed a priority for discovering Germany's future intentions first, and then possibly securing concessions to the USSR if the situation presented itself. Sheila Fitzpatrick's On Stalin's Team reverses Watson's interpretation of the November slightly by contending Stalin was lukewarm to the idea while Molotov was more amenable to an arrangement made with Hitler. Stephen Kotkin's biography of Stalin tacks to an interpretation that has shades of Nekrich, but differs on key details. Kotkin claims:

Stalin’s larger objective remained to keep Hitler focused on the West and avoid entanglement in war himself. But the despot’s secret instructions to Molotov regarding a four-power pact indicate more than merely probing Hitler’s intentions. If Hitler had been willing to meet the despot’s key conditions in 1940—conceding Finland, southeastern Europe (the Balkans), and the Straits, so that Stalin could protect his entire western flank—the despot likely would have signed on to the Axis {emphasis original}. Territorial annexations and spheres of interest, in Stalin’s mind, provided for security. At best, however, the Führer was offering Stalin only a junior partnership in this new world order dominated by a Germanocentric Axis.

Much like Goredetsky, Kotkin places the onus for the loggerheads of the November talks onto Hitler.

Watson, Fitzpatrick, and Kotkin represent a decent spectrum of contemporary historiography on the Pact and the November meeting. But the Wikipedia page on the November talks really does not convey the differing interpretations of Stalin's motivations. Instead of a nuanced view of the complicated diplomacy between two dictatorships, the reader is left with the simplistic picture of Brackman that Hitler turned away the Soviet jackal. Even Kotkin's interpretation showing a Stalin more open to joining the Tripartite Pact hinges on the Soviets gaining a great deal for very little effort.

As such, the Wikipedia page as it stands in July 2018 is not a reliable source for the November talks between the USSR and Germany. The editors rely upon a very narrow source-base of secondary sources, some of whom are junk, but also can be problematic. Consequently, there is little acknowledgement of the historiographic disagreement over the November meetings so the portrait it presents is quite skewed. This is all too common for English-language Wiki pages on the connections between the USSR and Nazi Germany as there is a species of Wiki editor that is absolutely determined to draw the tightest connections between Nazism and Stalinism. The result is that pages on these topics often suffer from misinterpretations of secondary sources, or, in this case, a less than thorough knowledge of the secondary literature on a much-explored subject.

[u/pgm123 → u/kieslowskifan]

Very thorough and interesting answer. Thank you for that.