Unfortunately, during the video bridge, which took place on the anniversary of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact on August 23 at the Rossiya Segodnya Pact, the organizers did not manage to involve its most fierce critics in the discussion. And in general, the 79th anniversary of the signing of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact was, perhaps, celebrated only by specialists.
Meanwhile, Western propaganda has long characterized the then Russian-German agreements as nothing other than the fourth partition of Poland. And politicians from Estonia and Latvia, two ministers of justice, clearly timed their dubious demand for compensation from Russia for the years of occupation to coincide with the anniversary.
Disputes about whether the Pact itself contributed to the outbreak of World War II, or whether it delayed, if not its start, then at least Germany's blow to the Soviet Union, are still ongoing.
However, it was from Estonia that this time we managed to hear a really alternative point of view on this Non-Aggression Pact. And by no means critical, since an Estonian by passport and half Estonian by nationality, a well-known international journalist, political scientist Vladimir Ilyashevich in the past generally believes that the pact became one of the first stones that the Soviet leadership managed to lay in the foundation of a future victory.
Moreover, there are many experts who believe that the origins of the current state sovereignty of many countries, including the Baltic states, lie, among other things, the position taken by the USSR in negotiations with Germany. In addition, the conditions on which, a few months after the signing of the pact itself, the Baltic republics were part of the Soviet Union, have been completely forgotten.
In 1938, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were actually abandoned by their main anti-Soviet ally - Great Britain, which even withdrew its fleet from the Baltic ports. The prospect of a takeover by Germany was becoming so real for them that it seemed that hardly the poorest countries of Europe at that time had any other alternative than joining the USSR.
It was a good idea to remind our neighbors more often that political regimes that were very similar to Hitler's had been established in the Baltic countries by that time. The well-being of the population was very, very doubtful, unemployment reached 70 percent, there was no question of any observance of human rights or freedom of speech either in Lithuania, or in Latvia, and especially in Estonia. In a sense, the road for local communists to power was paved by their predecessors, and by no means Soviet troops.
Military historian Alexander Bondarenko recalled that at the same time, the Soviet Union itself at that time also hardly had a real alternative to agreements with Germany. The Russian ambassador to Estonia, Alexander Petrov, recalled, in this regard, that back in the 90s, the German politician, long-term chairman of the CSU Theo Weigel resolutely dismissed all speculations on this topic, believing that history put the aggressor and the one who then I had to defend myself.
Today it is not easy to find such courageous politicians in the West, especially since the topic of “Russia's guilt” is very popular there again. However, in the opinion of Vadim Trukhachev, associate professor of the Russian State Humanitarian University, it is imperative to remember that the theme of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, as almost the source of all the troubles that happened then, was promoted at the suggestion of British politicians in the same way as it is done today in Crimea, Donbass and the same the Skripals case.
But the Non-Aggression Pact itself, and even its infamous secret protocols, were fully consistent with pre-war political practice. By the way, the same treaties and pacts were concluded by Germany with Poland, and Poland with the Baltic countries. In Estonia, the current authorities prefer not to recall the Selter-Ribbentrop pact at all, and in Latvia - the Munters-Ribbentrop pact.
Both pacts signed by the Baltic diplomats with the minister of Nazi Germany are also about non-aggression, although the Germans, in order to attack Estonia with Latvia, would first have to do something with Lithuania. But even today there are people in the Baltics who are well aware that without these pacts there could be no Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.
However, their voices in Riga and Tallinn prefer not to be heard, which was recalled by Estonian citizen Vladimir Ilyashenko during the video bridge. The gaps in the memory of those in power there are clearly connected with the fact that Hitler could promise anything to the Baltic countries, but in reality he was not going to do absolutely anything.
In addition, not in modern Russia, but even in the USSR, at the Congress of People's Deputies, a legal assessment was given both to the main provisions and thus to the secret protocols to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The congress recognized the legal inconsistency of the latter, and condemned the very fact of signing the protocols.
And this despite the fact that formally the treaty, neither in form nor in content, did not stand out from a whole series of similar agreements between certain countries at that time. Nor can we characterize it as the issuance of a kind of carte blanche to Hitler at the start of hostilities against Poland. At the same time, the notorious Munich Agreement, otherwise, how exactly such a carte blanche is not regarded even by Western politicians and historians.
Yes, Nazi Germany began the war with Poland literally a few days after the signing of the non-aggression pact by Molotov and Ribbentrop. However, it was not at all the provisions of the secret protocols that became the basis for the introduction of Soviet troops into Western Ukraine and Belarus - the legendary "Liberation Campaign".
The collapse of what was then Poland, as a sovereign state, became such a basis. And no matter how much the Western media repeats about the "fourth section," not a single serious politician, even in Poland itself, would even think of talking about the return of the territories lost in 1939.
In this regard, Ambassador Alexander Petrov recalled his conversation with an outstanding diplomat, the late Yuri Kvitsinsky. He directly described the Non-Aggression Pact as a victory for Soviet diplomacy, recalling the extremely difficult situation in which the USSR found itself then. The fighting was in full swing on Khalkhin Gol, and on the northwestern border, everything was already clearly heading towards war with Finland.
Vladimir Ilyashenko noted that the question of the responsibility of the USSR for the agreements with Germany is frankly inflated, for which Great Britain has made considerable efforts. Everything was done consistently using a powerful layer of falsification, as it is now called - fake news, done on purpose, when the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was turned into a long-term propaganda tool.
However, as noted by Alexander Petrov, the pact itself was no different from dozens of similar documents of that era. Even the notorious secret protocols, all the hype around which is connected precisely with their secrecy, are more technical in nature. And they were classified only in order not to notify the countries that they might affect. This is a common diplomatic practice.
According to Alexander Bondarenko, at the same time there was, for example, a secret protocol to the treaty of the same Great Britain with Poland, which gave the British the right to invade in case of an attack on Poland by Germany. As you know, during the "strange war" Great Britain was somehow in no hurry to use this right.
The long-term attacks on the Soviet-German treaty are clearly calculated to erode political sentiment in Europe. Moreover, against the backdrop of the numerous political combinations that Great Britain was making in those years in the north of the old continent, the pact can generally be regarded as an insignificant detail, Alexander Bondarenko is convinced.
Vadim Trukhachev, supporting such an assessment, generally insists that it would be simply naive to assess the Soviet-German treaty as a prerequisite for a world war. By that time, both the German and Polish armies were already prepared for battle, the British and French were also practically ready for war. The causes of the war matured much earlier, and it is no coincidence that the Second World War is considered by most serious historians as a continuation of the First.
A direct slide into war, according to Trukhachev, began at the negotiations in Locarno in 1925, when England and France forced Germany to give guarantees regarding its western borders, and did not set any conditions regarding the eastern ones. In the future, the Soviet Union was left with no other alternatives except to go to an agreement with Germany.
But even then, the USSR was actually the last to negotiate with Germany, although the country's leadership understood quite well that it would hardly be possible to avoid a global conflict with the Nazis. In the end, the pact most likely helped to delay the start of the big war.
Well, the direct entry of the Red Army into Western Ukraine, Belarus, and then into the Baltic States, connected with it, pushed the border tens of kilometers to the west. No matter how one evaluates the tragic events of 1941, the German invaders still had to overcome these kilometers. And overcome with battles.
