On The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Since the end of World War II, the bourgeois historiography has made an effort to embellish a number of events in order to disparage Socialism and the USSR. One of these occurrences, known as the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact," was struck in 1939 and has served as a "banner" for supporters of imperialism and other anti-communists. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is portrayed by bourgeois propaganda as a tool of expansion policy by the USSR and Hitler's Germany in its illogical, unhistorical attempt to connect Communism with Nazism. By distorting historical facts and combining lies and half-truths, Imperialists and their allies hope to discredit the Soviet Union's significant contribution to the anti-fascist campaign during World War 2.

The reality, however, is not the same as what the bourgeois historiography portrays. In order to disprove the anti-communist propaganda surrounding the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, we will now look at the circumstances and events that led to it.

In the middle of the 1930s, Hitler's Germany started to bolster its armed forces with the financial and technological assistance of US and European monopolies. The Nazis began militarising the Rhineland in 1936, assisting Mussolini in conquering Abyssinia (Ethiopia), and playing a significant role in the establishment of Franco's fascist regime in Spain. Under the acquiescence of the then-dominant "democratic" imperialist nations, Britain, France, and the US, fascism began to spread in Europe and Nazi Germany strengthened.

Following Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany in March 1938, the Allies—Britain and France—moved on to the Munich Agreement (30 September 1938). Those who support imperialism typically attempt to minimise the significance of this accord between Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, and Britain under France. The Munich Agreement, which was an attempt to pacify the Nazis, did, however, have a considerable effect. The Nazis increased their expansionist aggression toward Eastern Europe by annexing Czechoslovakia with the consent of the then-British and French Prime Ministers, Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier.

Later, on April 7, 1939, the Italian fascist state invaded and occupied Albania. The governments of Britain and France signed bilateral agreements of mutual assistance with Poland on March 31, 1939, assuring Poland's protection in the event of a Nazi assault. Despite not taking any military action until the next year, Britain and France declared war on Hitler when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The United States proclaimed their neutrality from their perspective.

The participants of Munich Conference, 1938. From left to right:
Neville Chamberlain, Eduard Daladier, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini.

Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia are Baltic states. Following the counter-revolution in the USSR, these arguments—about the purported "Soviet occupation"—have encouraged the emergence of fascist and neo-Nazi parties in various nations. The reality is, however, very different. Poland had actively taken part in the allied imperialist assault that was started in 1918 against the newly established Soviet state. The Bolshevik leadership had relinquished Tsarist claims to Poland with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918). Several regions in the Baltic region, notably western Belarus, western Ukraine, and a portion of Lithuania, remained under the jurisdiction of the Polish government. The Red Army marched towards the Soviet-Polish boundaries after the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 and freed the aforementioned regions.

Part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact published in the Soviet newspaper "Pravda" on September 28, 1939

When the term "Soviet occupation" is used, bourgeois-imperialist propaganda attempts to rewrite history; on the other hand, the Soviet Army was the force that drove the Nazis from eastern Europe and the Baltic States. There was no provision for a "division" of Poland in the Motolov-Ribbentrop accord. Instead, the Munich Agreement of 1938 between Britain, France, and the Axis (Germany, Italy) resulted in the division of Czechoslovakia and the invasion of the nation by Hitler's forces.

Also remember the Nazi-Poland Pact of 1934. Both Poles and Nazis wanted to invade Soviet Union—Poland would take Ukraine, Nazis take the Baltics. Poland-Nazi alliance invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938. Hitler considered this alliance key first step to his larger war plan against the Soviet Union.

Reich Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels (second from right) visits Poland's Marshall Józef Polsudski in Warsaw on 15 June 1934. On the left is the German ambassador, Hans von Moltke; on the right is Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck

So as to conclude, 

One of the many instances of obvious anti-communist lies is the imperialist propaganda surrounding the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Through bourgeois historiography, imperialism seeks to demonise socialism and the Soviet Union while equating communism and fascism. To do this, supporters of imperialism fabricate the most heinous accusations against the Soviet Union and socialist countries, like the "Moscow trials," "gulags," the alleged "Stalin-Hitler partnership," and the "Soviet invasion" of Afghanistan. The reality that fascism is simply another form of bourgeois authority is what the Imperialists aim to conceal. As Bertolt Brecht put it, fascism is the “most naked, brazen, oppressive and deceitful form of capitalism”.

Raising a Flag over the Reichstag, by Yevgeny Khaldei, is one of the most iconic photographs from the Battle of Berlin and the Second World War