Re-examining the Nazi-Soviet Pact 70 Years On

David Marples

August 23 marks the 70th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a nonaggression treaty between the two totalitarian powers of USSR and Nazi-Germany, as well as a secret protocol that divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence between Hitler and Stalin.

In May 2009, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev authorized a commission to investigate cases of historical revisionism of the Second World War to the detriment of Russia. The move followed the approval a year ago of new school textbooks in Russia that reassessed the role of Stalin, acknowledging that he made some errors but noting in turn his achievements and successes, particularly in the war years. Taken together they symbolize the new Russian policy of identifying contemporary Russia with the former Soviet regime.

Last month, Russia responded furiously to a proposal by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to declare the date August 23 one of commemoration of the victims of Fascism and Communism. In Moscow’s view, it is not possible to equate the evils of Nazism with Stalin’s regime.

A recent article in Vesti Nedeli by Il’ya Kanavin (June 21) also focused on the Pact, citing historian Natalya Narochnitskaya’s view that by the terms of the Pact, the USSR was only regaining territories that were formerly part of the Russian Empire. Citing this same author, Kanavin maintains that Stalin was obliged to make a deal with Hitler for the following reasons.

First, it was essential to keep the German army as far from the Soviet border as possible as the USSR was at war with Imperial Japan in the Far East and could not be fighting on two fronts simultaneously.

Second, Germany and Poland to that point were in close collusion and could even be termed allies, based on the agreement of 1934, that contained secret clauses on mutual military aid. He emphasizes that such secret protocols were a staple of treaties in this period.

Third, with the removal of some 38,000 Soviet officers during the Purges, Stalin needed time to train new military leaders and produce more arms.

Fourth, Stalin was isolated because the only potential allies, Britain and France, had no intention of reaching an agreement with the USSR. A year earlier the two democratic countries had participated in the notorious Munich agreement that led to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia through the policy of appeasement. Only Churchill opposed Hitler but world leaders were allegedly more afraid of Stalin than the German dictator.

Lastly, Kanavin maintains that the Soviet Union should not take be blamed for permitting Hitler a free hand in his assigned sector of Poland. Stalin then had little choice but to sign the agreement, in full knowledge that he was only postponing the conflict.

These arguments can be questioned on a number of grounds, and not least because they distinguish between a rapacious Hitler regime and a defensive-minded and implicitly benign Stalin government that eventually would bear the brunt of the war.

The comment that Stalin was occupying only territories formerly under the Russian Empire is inaccurate. In the summer of 1940, for example, after forcing the Romanians out of Bessarabia, Stalin also occupied northern Bukovina (today it is the Chernovtsy Oblast of Ukraine) that had never been under Russian rule. When Molotov visited Germany late in 1940 he made several more territorial demands that reportedly led Hitler to accelerate plans for the invasion of the USSR.

Eastern Poland’s Volhynia region was part of the Russian Empire but Eastern Galicia had only been under Russian rule briefly during the First World War. It is hard to perceive acquisition of these territories as anything other than the westward expansion of the USSR.

But it is the assault on the annexed population that belies the arguments of Kanavin and Narochnitskaya, and particularly because there are several instances of collaboration between the two occupying powers. Both systematically eradicated the Polish population—the Nazis overtly and the Soviets through deportations and secret executions in forests such as Katyn. More than 15,000 Polish officers were executed.

Stalin, however, claimed to be liberating subject populations—Ukrainians and Belarusians—who wished to join the USSR. The Soviet advance only took place 16 days after the German invasion of Western Poland. In this way the Russian side did little fighting—only in Grodno did the Poles offer much resistance—and was able to pose as a friendly power.

However, having eliminated all vestiges of Polish rule, the new government organized mass deportations of Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Jews in 1940 and 1941. A similar policy was deployed after the USSR occupied the three Baltic States in the summer of 1940.

President Medvedev and Russian historians have to face a few home truths. Even Kanavin concedes that the mass execution of Red Army officers weakened the Soviet military. But this action was part of the Terror that the Stalin regime applied both domestically and in newly conquered territories, committing mass murders on an epic scale. Today, the Baltic States consider the entire period 1940-90 to have been one of Soviet occupation. That is why their citizens initially welcomed the Germans in the summer of 1941. Large sectors of Western Ukraine remain alienated from Moscow today for the same reason.

By the agreement of August 23, 1939, two dictators acted in Machiavellian fashion. It is facile to suggest that Stalin should be regarded differently because he emerged as a victorious war leader responsible for the defeat of Fascism. His naïve trust in Hitler, manifested by the Treaty, also was responsible for the Soviet failure to respond in the first days of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ leading to the mass loss of territory and capture of millions of Soviet citizens.

August 23 was a dark day for Russia, as it was for the rest of Europe and that is how it should be remembered.

[This article first appeared in the Moscow Times, August 20, 2009]

Yanukovych Grabs Early Lead in Ukraine’s Presidential Campaign

David R. Marples

Two recent opinion polls monitoring Ukraine’s presidential election campaign in the lead-up to the January 2010 vote indicate that Regions Party leader Viktor Yanukovych is well ahead.

The Kyiv Research and Branding group, which canvassed respondents between August 4 and 14, has Yanukovych with 26%, followed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko at 16.5%, and Arseny Yatsenyuk 12.6%. Angus Reid reported on August 12 that Yanukovych has the support of 29.9%, with Tymoshenko at 15%, and Yatsenyuk with 12.8%.

The latter poll is the first to suggest that Yanukovych could poll more than the combined votes of his main challengers.

Although Ukrainians have often mocked the self-styled “Proffesor” (as the word was misspelled in his campaign literature in 2004) who in 2006 managed to expunge from the record his incarceration for manslaughter during his youth, and while electors seem weary of the familiar faces in political life, the 59-year old lawyer and engineer still looks the likely winner in January.

It is only five years since Yanukovych ran for president against current incumbent Viktor Yushchenko. In that campaign, not only did he have implicit backing from Vladimir Putin, but also Russia (partly through Gazprom) helped to fund his campaign. In Moscow his campaign posters were everywhere, and 560,000 Ukrainians resident in Russia signed his support list for presidential candidacy. At a Congress of the Ukrainian Diaspora in Moscow, city mayor Yuri Luzhkov and then First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev endorsed him as the next president of Ukraine.

During the 2004 campaign Yanukovych reportedly used funds designated for the Prime Minister’s office for his campaign, promised to make Russian the second state language of Ukraine, and offered dual citizenship to ethnic Russians. During the protests in Kyiv that followed the rigged vote of the run-off, Yanukovych supporters said that a referendum on the autonomy of Donetsk and Luhansk regions would be held if Yushchenko became president.

Many observers considered that Yanukovych’s political career was over when Yushchenko won the rerun second round of the election in December 2004 and became Ukraine’s third president.

However, in the 2006 parliamentary elections, Yanukovych staged a comeback and once again became Prime Minister. His Regions party won more than 45% of the vote in 9 districts of Ukraine, all in the east and south of the country.

How did he achieve such a revival of fortunes?

First, his party had financial support from several businessmen, including Ukraine’s richest tycoon, born and raised in Donetsk, Rinat Akhmetov. Second, his party’s organization was centralized and even autocratic, prohibiting any factionalism. Third, the Orange coalition had split and its leaders were fighting each other. Lastly, he promised that his party would focus on economic issues and rectify problems promptly. He had little chance to do so because another parliamentary election followed in 2007 and a new Orange coalition was formed.

Yanukovych has always had solid backing. As the former governor of Donetsk province, he is assured of overwhelming support from Ukraine’s eastern industrial regions. His backers control the country’s leading banks, machine-building and metallurgical factories, steelworks, and coal mines.

Western Ukrainians and Ukrainians in the Diaspora hold Yanukovych in low esteem. His sycophantic responses to Russia’s various attacks on the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko suggest he will quickly move Ukraine into the Russian sphere of influence. Nation building will end and the pro-European direction will be halted. Yanukovych has promised a referendum on Ukraine’s membership of NATO, and although he favors trade with the EU, he does not endorse full membership.

However, no Ukrainian president can change course so abruptly. In 1994, Leonid Kuchma became president on a platform of moving Ukraine closer to Russia, but once in office he maintained a firm distance. Belarus’ president, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, sought a union with Russia in 1997, but today promotes independence and distance from Moscow. In the current climate, friendship with Moscow means being a client state.

Conversely, Ukraine’s path to the EU is closed as long as Germany and France persist in blocking it. Germany’s close economic ties to Russia preclude any short-term change of direction. The Eastern Partnership notwithstanding, Brussels has been a big disappointment from Ukraine’s perspective; its major players have made a mockery of Yushchenko’s goals of joining European structures.

The economic and political climate today does not allow for a radical change of direction. The current path to reduce dependency on gas supplies from the Russians will likely be maintained. Most voters are concerned primarily about jobs, wages, and pensions.

Ukrainians have reservations about NATO but they have no wish to become a pawn of Russia. A solution must also be found to the constant wrangling over power between president and parliament, likely through amendments to the Constitution.

As Ukraine celebrates 18 years of independence on Tuesday, it is at a difficult stage both economically and in its political evolution. To Western observers it seems unthinkable that voters would choose Yanukovych as the next president. The lack of suitable alternatives suggests nonetheless that it could happen.