About signers and subscribers
In August 1939, the USSR, which at that time had no real allies, had practically no alternatives to signing an agreement with Hitler's Germany. Only a few days remained until the collapse of Poland, which by all indications were ready to be abandoned by Britain and France and which in no way wanted Soviet help.
In the General Staff of the Red Army in the summer of 1939, they understood well the inevitability of a quick defeat for the Poles if it faced Germany one-on-one. For a long time, Moscow did not want to believe that the British and French would not get into a fight, limiting the large-scale criticism of the Munich Agreement in the media.
Moreover, through the Comintern, it was also customary not to criticize all the peace initiatives of London and Paris, but simply to take it for granted. Then there was the notorious pact and the notorious Liberation Campaign, which made it possible to push the borders of the USSR far to the west.
And even further, many years later, followed by territorial claims to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova from neighboring European countries with their financial claims to the same "defendants". The actual or possible these claims are no longer so important, but they mostly stem not even from 1939, but from 1989.
It is impossible not to clarify that the hands of the thirsty for Russian land were actually untied by the elected representatives of the people at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR on December 24, 1989. Let us recall very little from the text of the then adopted resolution "On the political and legal assessment of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact of 1939".
So, in a document already thirty years ago, it was quite clearly stated:
[quote] 2. The non-aggression pact with Germany … had one of the goals of warding off the threat of an impending war from the USSR. Ultimately, this goal was not achieved. [/Quote]
Is it? Or almost two years of just such a delay just doesn't count? Why was it so primitive to distort the realities of that situation?
But even from the work of the people's deputies, it suddenly becomes clear:
[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 so far this decree, de facto and de jure, challenging 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 legal successor of the USSR …
By the way, of all countries of the world, only Albania officially condemned the decision of that congress of Soviet people's deputies - on December 26, within the framework of the statement of its Foreign Ministry. In Tirana, the decree was directly named
[quote] … deliberate connivance with the revanchism of Germany and other countries, as well as the falsifications of world history. Soviet revisionism finally degenerated into an accomplice of imperialism and revanchism. [/Quote]
However, of course, the position of the Albanian Communist Party was not reported in the Soviet media. 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 Congresses of the CPSU. Many people today are tormented by the question: why did it happen that way?
With all the Bolshevik generosity
In this regard, we will have to recall that in 1919-21. it was the leader of the Bolsheviks and the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Lenin initiated the transfer to Finland of a number of regions near Petrograd, Petrozavodsk and Murmansk, as well as to Latvia and Estonia - a number of neighboring regions of the Leningrad and Pskov regions.
Interestingly, at the same time, most of Western Armenia and part of southwestern Georgia were transferred to Turkey, and even with Batumi. At the last moment, I. Stalin personally managed to prevent the transfer of the future capital of Soviet Adjara to the Turks. Therefore, the document prudently did not specify what were the real borderline accents of the "Leninist principles of Soviet foreign policy" …
But let us return to the lawmaking of the Soviet people's deputies. Further, they noted:
[Quote] The undertaken delimitation 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]
Moreover, [/quote] … the relations of the USSR 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 in 1926-1933, their participants pledged to mutually respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity in all circumstances. The Soviet Union had similar obligations to Poland and Finland. [/Quote]
It turns out that it was only the USSR (Germany seems to have nothing to do with it. - Author) violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of those countries! And from this “new thinking” already, by definition, one cannot but result, among other things, financial and territorial claims against the Russian Federation and the countries of the Western region of the CIS.
We go further according to the text of the decree still in force today:
[quote] 6. Negotiations with Germany on secret protocols were conducted by Stalin and Molotov in secret from the Soviet people, the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the entire party, the Supreme Soviet and the government of the USSR. Thus, the decision to sign them was in essence and in form an act of personal power and did not in any way reflect the will of the Soviet people, which is not responsible for this conspiracy. [/Quote]
In a word, those agreements with Berlin, conditioned by the well-known (more and more tense) military-political situation on the western and eastern borders of the USSR, are a “product”, it turns out, of Stalin's personal power. Stanislavsky would definitely say: “I don’t believe”! The leader of the peoples, of course, then personally decided a lot, but Molotov did not need to be forced to anything. Because the international situation itself compelled.
First, in Izvestia of August 27, 1939, and then at the sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on August 31 and October 31, 1939, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V. Molotov and People's Commissar for Defense K. Voroshilov explained in detail the reasons why the USSR concluded a pact with Germany about non-aggression. Further military-political measures of the USSR were also clearly outlined, and these materials were published in all Soviet and in many foreign media.
Why in 1989 such unfounded streams of accusations against Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov were required is not easy to explain even today. Was it really just the "fashion" to smash everything that was Soviet? Doubtful, very much so.
Negotiations and negotiators
However, the same resolution of the Congress of People's Deputies does not say a word about the fact that from March to August 1939, very intensive negotiations were conducted 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 authority. 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 negotiate 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 "post-Munich" Czechoslovakia, but also almost the entire Lithuanian coast of the Baltic.
In a broader context, according to the resolution of the same congress, those political agreements between the USSR and Germany, it turns out, “were used by Stalin and his entourage (that is, not by Germany, but only by the Soviet Union. - Auth.) To present ultimatums and force pressure on other states in violation of their legal obligations”.
But with such a passage, it is all the more possible to justify anything on the part of our newly-minted partners and opponents. It is possible to justify the above-mentioned "promising" territorial claims of a number of Eastern European countries against Russia. And along with Russia and Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the official direct territorial claims of the "victims" will most likely be put forward when they receive what is called an American or NATO signal?
In all likelihood, their territorial claims, based on the resolution of the same congress of Soviet people's deputies, will soon be able to politically "activate" revanchist groups, for example, in Finland and Latvia and Estonia. Indeed, until the middle of 1940, they included a number of regions of the Karelo-Finnish SSR (since 1956 the Karelian ASSR), Leningrad, Murmansk, Pskov regions.
By the way, maps of “lost territories” are not uncommon in museums and cities of these countries for a long time. This kind of "public" cartography, say, in Suomi started in the early 70s (see map). And all this orgy began, as you know, from the Damansky Island.
Let us recall that in 1969 this island on the Ussuri River, abundantly drenched with the blood of Soviet border guards, was defended 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 react to that Finnish cartography … Historical truth reminds that the official cancellation of the dubious resolution of the same deputy congress (at least, the need for its objective revision) is more than relevant today.
