By Ambassador Ilya Rogachev
We took note of an article, published in the “Back in the Day” column of The Star on August 21, 2023. The column on historically significant events reports following the Western propaganda reports that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a 10-year non-aggression treaty, signed in 1939 between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany “proved to be the fuse” of World War II as the latter broke it “in less than 5 years”.
Unfortunately, not only the column fails to publish the information on the actual date the treaty was signed – 23 August, but also misinterprets the facts to hold the USSR responsible for the outbreak of WWII – along with the German Reich. At the meantime, it is glossed over that it was the Soviet leadership that, after Hitler came to power, made every effort to stop the aggressor and set up a system of collective security in Europe.
These endeavours were blocked by the leading Western powers, Great Britain and France, which eventually found themselves trapped in their own schemes. The Munich Agreement signed by the heads of government of Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy in September 1938 became the most glaring example of the “policy of appeasement” of Hitler by Western countries. By signing it, the European leaders “greenlighted” the annexation of parts of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, in an obvious attempt – on a larger scale – to channel German aggression to the East.
In fact, the Soviet Union became the last to conclude a treaty with Germany after Poland (1934), Great Britain (1935, 1938), France (1938), Italy (1939), Denmark (1939), Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia (1939).
The conclusion of the Pact was a severe necessity for the Soviet Union after the final failure of negotiations with the British and the French, a lifesaver within the aggravating international situation. The decision was taken in an extremely short period of time, when the futility of Moscow’s calls for an effective anti-Hitler coalition was fully revealed. The USSR also could not risk a war on two fronts, given that clashes with Japan were already ongoing and there was no guarantee that they would escalate into a large-scale confrontation.
Therefore, the Soviet decision was primarily dictated by a need to ensure national security and any parallels between the USSR and Germany in starting WWII are simply cooked up.
* Ilya Rogachev is Russia’s Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa and the Kingdom of Lesotho.