TREATY OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN GERMANY AND THE SOVIET UNION

After the four years of the Great War – World War I (1914–1918) – the peoples of Europe suffered many pains and losses.

Millions of people were killed, cities were reduced to rubble, towns and villages burned and destroyed. During the war, many Europeans starved. For the first time in military history, poison gas was widely used, and this frightened the European nations, affected their social psyche. As a result, the rhetoric of peace, the preservation of peace, and disarmament in Europe began to particularly thrive after the war ended. Conferences on disarmament were held. In this context, in the 1920s–1930s (the period between the two world wars), the conclusion of non-aggression pacts between different countries became a common and widespread practice. It was imagined that the more non-aggression pacts between states signed, the greater the geopolitical security in Europe and global peace – even stronger. As a result, nearly twenty such contracts were concluded during this period: Greece-Romania, USSR-Afghanistan, Romania-Turkey, Turkey-Yugoslavia, etc.

As a rule, all non-aggression pacts commit to in no way, under any circumstances, engage in or contribute, in any (military, political, diplomatic or propaganda) form, to possible aggression by third parties against the contracting party. By the mid-1930s, the non-aggression pacts between various countries actually did result in peace.

Lithuania was one of the first in Europe at that time to engage in the preservation of peace in Europe. Already on 28 September 1926, Lithuanian Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mykolas Sleževičius, signed the Soviet-Lithuanian Non-Aggression Pact with the USSR People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Georgy Chicherin. The non-aggression pact signed in Moscow with the Soviets, after two extensions, was to operate until the end of 1945. [For more information on the backstage workings and intrigues of the Soviet-Lithuanian Non-Aggression Pact, see: Kasparavičius, A. Didysis X Lietuvos užsienio politikoje. Vilnius: LII leidykla, 1996].

In subsequent years, all of Lithuania’s neighbours concluded similar agreements with the USSR. In 1932, the Soviet Union signed non-aggression pacts with Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland. All these pacts have in essence benefited both sides: Lithuania received some guarantees of its sovereignty in the Vilnius region. Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Poland secured geopolitical security from the East for some time. Meanwhile, the USSR guaranteed stability at its western borders, which was a great opportunity to continue its Bolshevik-social experiment safely and… to plan the export of Bolshevik “revolutions” to the West.

The situation began to change and became more dramatic when the Nazis came to power in Germany, and they soon began to pursue an openly aggressive revanchist foreign policy and to build the so-called Third Reich.

Adolf Hitler quickly figured out the propaganda benefits of non-aggression pacts. He used these pacts not only as a security cover enabling Germany to safely and quickly arm itself, but also as an instrument to geopolitically isolate and attack third countries that it did not like. This is why Germany signed a non-aggression pact with Poland in January 1934 and non-aggression pacts with Lithuania, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia in March–June 1939. The system of non-aggression pacts developed by Germany in 1934–1939 allowed Hitler to not only restore German military power, but also by peaceful diplomatic means in March 1938–March 1939 to invade Austria, Czechoslovakia, and rip Klaipėda and Klaipėda region away from Lithuania.

The 23 August 1939 Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the USSR differed from other agreements of a similar nature in that it consisted of two aggressive totalitarian states, that it had its secret protocols and was very clearly against the independence and sovereignty of third countries [For more about the political talks between Germany and the USSR on the eve and early beginning of World War II, see: Šepetys, N. Molotovo-Ribbentropo paktas ir Lietuva. Vilnius: Aidai, 2006]

SECRET SUPPLEMENTARY PROTOCOLS OF THE MOLOTOV-RIBBENTROP NON-AGGRESSION PACT

The non-aggression pact signed between Germany and the USSR in Moscow on 23 August 1939 caused mixed reactions in the world and in Europe. On the one hand, it left the impression of an “exploded bomb” because no one in the world believed that two openly hostile regimes were capable of diplomatic agreements and committing themselves to not attack each other.

On the other hand, even though it may seem strange and unnatural today, this Pact and even the rumours of its secret protocols that spread in the diplomatic backstage did not cause any panic in Europe. On the contrary – some European politicians and diplomats tended to believe and explain that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact could still serve the interests of their countries, because… it would “protect” the West against the possible invasion of Bolshevism.

At that time, the Pact did not frighten Warsaw either. Polish diplomats in the European capitals explained that it was geopolitically insignificant and only showed Stalin’s fear of Hitler, while Poland itself mobilised almost a million troops and, having concluded the Agreement of Mutual Assistance between the United Kingdom and Poland on 25 August, was determined and capable of repelling any enemy.

At that time, the Pact was also considered by Lithuania. When Lithuanian diplomats learned in September 1939 that, according to the German-Soviet secret protocol of 23 August 1939, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland remained within the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, while Lithuania “went to Germany”, it attempted to resort to certain diplomatic attempts to prevent Lithuania from being cut off from its northern neighbours.

Lithuanians thought that Latvians and Finns were “luckier”, because Germany would sooner or later lose the war against the Western Allies and Lithuanians, along with the Germans, would have to suffer all the consequences of a foreign total war. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, even after annexing eastern Poland, remained formally neutral: neither Poland nor its British-French allies declared war on the Soviet Union. Therefore, according to the geopolitical calculation of Kaunas, the northern neighbours were in a safer position than the Lithuanians assigned to Germany, which was at war with the Western Allied Powers.

Moreover, Lithuanians in the German sphere of influence were also worried about the fate of Vilnius: in agreements with Lithuania in 1920 and 1926, the Soviet Union had already recognised Lithuania’s sovereignty in Vilnius and south-eastern Lithuania. On the other hand, Berlin’s position on the matter had never been legally fixed.

Today, looking purely retrospectively, it seems interesting that such a geopolitical calculation by the Lithuanians in autumn 1939 proved to be correct: according to the Secret Protocol of 28 September 1939, Lithuania actually regained Vilnius and about a third of south-eastern Lithuania; however, they paid a costly political price – for almost fifty years they remained annexed by the USSR. [For more information about the consequences of Hitler-Stalin’s fiendish plot for Europe, see: Moorhouse, R. The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939–1941. Bodley Head, 2014]

THE GERMAN-SOVIET TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP, COOPERATION AND DEMARCATION

At the very beginning of World War II, immediately after the defeat of Poland, another pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, signed in Moscow, gave testimony to two moments:

1) that the actual destruction of Poland’s statehood and denial of the sovereignty of the Polish nation was not an act of chance or spontaneous, but a pre-planned, deliberate and mature act by the signatory countries. This was essentially the result of long-term political-diplomatic, economic and military cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union. Strategic cooperation between Moscow and Berlin against the Treaty of Versailles peace system, with the aim of creating a favourable new geopolitical order in Europe, lasted seventeen years (with small breaks): from the cooperation treaty between Germany and Bolshevik Russia concluded in Rapallo in April 1922, until the signing of the  Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939 in Moscow;

2) the public content of this treaty clearly testified to the political and legal cynicism of the Nazis and Bolsheviks. It is particularly characteristic that the aggression against Poland, the occupation of the Polish state and the division of its territory in the official treaty are cynically defined as the “disintegration” of the former Polish state, while the political goal of the two aggressors is to “re-establish peace and order in these territories and to assure to the peoples living there a peaceful life in keeping with their national character.” [For more about the early anti-Polish political-diplomatic cooperation between Germany and the USSR, see: Rosenbaum, K. Community of Fate. German-Soviet Diplomatic Relations 1922–1928. Syracuse University Press, 1965].‘.

SECRET CONFIDENTIAL PROTOCOL OF THE GERMAN-SOVIET TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP, COOPERATION AND DEMARCATION

The so-called “confidential protocol”, drawn up by the Nazis-Soviets in September 1939, essentially established the principle of the “national policy” of Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union. By concluding a temporary political deal with Joseph Stalin, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler also sought to protect and take in his care not only German citizens in the “interest spheres” of the USSR, but practically all persons of German descent.

Meanwhile, Soviet dictator Stalin claimed to “return” to the Bolshevik Empire the Belarusians and Ukrainians remaining in Germany’s “influence spheres”. In this way, both sides achieved a certain degree of mutual understanding of national policies for a short period of time. What is even more significant is that, partly on the basis of this “confidential protocol”, the parties have for some time forgotten even their radical ideological contradictions. By developing a geopolitical partnership with Nazi Germany at the end of 1939–summer of 1940, Stalin gave Hitler, at his request, some of the famous German communist-anti-fascists who were at the time living and operating in the Soviet Union. [For more information on the consequences for Poland of Hitler-Stalin’s talk, see: Dębski, S. Stosunki niemiecko-sowieckie 1939–1941. Warszawa: Polski instytut spraw międzynarodowych, 2007]

SECRET SUPPLEMENTARY PROTOCOL ON TRANSFERRING LITHUANIA FROM THE SPHERES OF INTEREST OF GERMANY TO THE USSR

This thesis of the German-Soviet Secret Supplementary Protocol of 28 September 1939 was significant in at least several aspects:

1) it recorded a partial change in Eastern Europe between “spheres of interest” of Germany and the USSR, when two dictators ignored the political will of the nations or the sovereignty of third countries, at their own discretion, manipulating territories beyond their control and the fate of the people living there;

2) assignment of the Lublin voivodeship and part of Warsaw voivodeship to Germany, and Lithuania’s transition from Germany to the Soviet Union’s “influence sphere” was then initiated by the Kremlin.

It was a very well thought-out and geopolitically carefully weighed decision by Stalin. The Soviet dictator pursued two goals. On the one hand, to extend Soviet power to all three Baltic States and Finland and thus to demonstrate to the world the geopolitical return of the Communist empire in north-western Europe, to the territories once ruled by the Tsarist Empire. On the other hand, by renouncing the purely Polish ethnic territories (Lublin voivodeship and the north-eastern part of Warsaw voivodeship) and the Soviet-German border, Stalin sent a message to Western democracies that the actual heir of the Tsarist Empire was ready for dialogue with the Western governments.

Such a policy allowed Stalin, for the near future, to relax from an actual alliance with Hitler and lay the foundations for the anti-Hitler coalition with Western democracies;

3) as history has shown, in the German-Soviet Secret Protocol of 28 September 1939 it was the cornerstone and fatal phrase for practically all Lithuanians (politically) and Lithuania itself. The phrase for about half a century determined the actual destruction of the State of Lithuania and the tragic fate of Lithuanians. With this phrase, de facto and de jure, Lithuania and Lithuanians were cut off from Western culture and civilisation for decades. They suffered mass Soviet repression, terror, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of people. [For more about the Soviet terror in Lithuania, see: Anušauskas, A. Lietuvių tautos sovietinis naikinimas 1940–1958 metais. Vilnius: Mintis, 1996].

SECRET SUPPLEMENTARY PROTOCOL ON PREVENTING POLISH AGITATION ON THE TERRITORY OF THE OTHER TREATY SIGNATORY

This secret protocol’s thesis claims that the actual destruction of Poland’s statehood in the autumn of 1939 was a far-reaching strategic goal for Berlin and Moscow. The Nazis designed the total destruction of the Polish nation, while the Soviets – the Polish people’s geopolitical subordination into the USSR (Russia).

However, despite the brutal persecution, the Polish political-military underground in Soviet and Nazi Poland continued to operate. This underground, under the diplomatic support of the French and British governments, operated partly in Vilnius, which was returned to Lithuania in October 1939, as well as in the entire Vilnius Region.

The structures of the government of the Republic of Lithuania – President Antanas Smetona, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of the Interior, and the State Security Department – even though they tried to carefully prevent Polish political activity in the territory of Lithuania, were aware of the difficult situation that the Polish nation found themselves in after their defeat in the military campaign of September 1939, and did not take any drastic repressive measures against the underground. This was even despite the fact that “not taking into account the Poles” and rather resorting to repression at the end of 1939–spring of 1940, was something Lithuanians were repeatedly urged to do by German and Soviet diplomats and military attachés residing in Kaunas. It could be said that the Lithuanian government had acted in a “gentlemanly” manner, much in contrast to Moscow-Berlin’s intentions and pressures: the Polish underground in Vilnius, as far as it was directed not towards the return of Vilnia to Poland but to the restoration of the principle of Polish statehood in the Polish ethnic lands, was often overlooked.

After the military defeat of Poland in September 1939, the Republic of Lithuania granted political asylum to tens of thousands of Polish civilians and interned several thousand Polish military personnel. [For more about Lithuanian-Polish relations on the eve of the war and at the beginning of the war, see: Kasparavičius, A. & Libera, P. Lietuvos ir Lenkijos diplomatiniai santykiai 1938–1939 metais. Dokumentų rinkinys. Vilnius: LII leidykla, 2010]

JOINT DECLARATION BY THE GOVERNMENTS OF GERMANY AND THE SOVIET UNION FOLLOWING THE SIGNING OF THE GERMAN-SOVIET BOUNDARY AND FRIENDSHIP TREATY ON THE FUTURE POLICY OBJECTIVES OF THOSE STATES

This phrase is significant in at least a few aspects. On the one hand, it is an excellent testimony that, after the destruction of Polish statehood, the Soviet Union and the Third Reich spoke essentially in political unison for some time. All the political blame for the war was for some time forced on the West’s Allied forces, the French and British.

On the other hand, the thesis demonstrates de facto political understanding, strategic partnership and even a kind of military union between the two countries.

Also, it shows the difficult geopolitical situation of Western democracies at the end of 1939. In this case, it is important to underline that the tragic geopolitical situation of Western countries at the end of 1939 was in large part the result of their own activities in previous years. Firstly, the so-called “appeasement” (reconciliation) carried out by London for many years was the result of German revanchist actions. As early as April–June 1940, this British and French policy led to the fact that most of continental European was occupied by Nazi Germany, France surrendered, and Britain was completely expelled from continental Europe and for many years was alone in the “fight for Britain”. [For more about the geopolitical situation of Lithuania and Europe on the eve of World War II, see: Kasparavičius, A. Neutraliteto iliuzijos. Lietuva 1938–1939 metais. Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2010]

GERMAN-SOVIET BORDER AND COMMERCIAL AGREEMENT

The “issue” of Užnemunė arose in Berlin and Moscow at the end of September 1939, after the de facto destruction of the Polish state, when the Nazis and the Soviets continued to share Eastern Europe, and other independent states, despite the sovereignty and political will of these nations, were simply plundered in pieces. As the Germans sought a “natural border” in the territory of Lithuania through pacts/secret protocols with the Soviet Union, it was decided that such a “natural border” in the territory of Lithuania was the Nemunas river.

Thus, Molotov and Ribbentrop signed a secret protocol on the transfer of Lithuania to the Soviet Union on 28 September 1939. As the Nazi-Soviet negotiations in Moscow didn’t take very long, in late September 1939 the issue of the transfer of Užnemune to Germany was not detailed.

However, in early October 1939, i.e. before the transfer of Vilnius and Vilnius Region to the Republic of Lithuania and the conclusion of the mutual assistance agreement between Lithuania and the Soviet Union, the Kremlin took initiative on this matter. On 3 October, Molotov proposed to the German Ambassador in Moscow, Schulenburg, to link the future transfer of Vilnius to Lithuania with the transfer of Užnemunė to Germany and to sign the relevant documents. The Kremlin planned to win a propaganda victory and the sympathy of the small countries. The aim was to demonstrate to the public that the socialist state is a defender, patron and ally of the interests of small nations, as it returned Vilnius, which had been taken from the Poles, back to Lithuania.

Having accepted the Kremlin’s proposal, Germany would have found herself in the leading position of Lithuania’s “landlord”; in March 1939, they ripped the Klaipėda Region away from Lithuania, and in October of the same year – Suvalkija as well. The Nazis understood the plan of the Bolsheviks and did not want to “quickly fix” the issue of Užnemunė. On 8 October, it was agreed that when the Soviet Union would begin to de facto realise its intentions in Lithuania (occupation of Lithuania), the Red Army will not march into and occupy Užnemunė – joining the Third Reich will take place at the time and in the manner that Hitler would deem most fit.

However, the Bolsheviks did not comply with this agreement. In the afternoon of 15 June 1940, after the military invasion and occupation of the Republic of Lithuania, they also occupied Užnemune. That Moscow did not intend to let Germany take the promised Užnemune, Hitler began to raise concerns in early July 1940, when the rapid actual Sovietisation of Lithuania and preparation for its annexation began.

Berlin’s attempt to appeal to the Secret Protocol of 28 September did not produce results. The head of the Soviet government, Molotov, briefly explained to the Nazis that for moral reasons no territory, “already under Soviet rule”, would be transferred to the Third Reich. For Suvalkija, Germany was offered 3,860,000 gold dollars. Since Hitler had already planned a victorious war against Russia (USSR), the Lithuanian region of Suvalkija was not a special priority. The issue of Suvalkija led to further negotiations between the Nazis and Bolsheviks, during which the former were able to almost double the price.

As a result, in early January 1941, the Soviets purchased Užnemunė from the Third Reich for a higher price than the US paid to the Russian Empire in 1866–1867 – $7.2 million in gold – for Alaska. The fate of Poland, Finland, Lithuania, and the other Baltic States, and especially Užnemunė, in 1939-1941, testifies to the exceptional political cynicism of the totalitarian regimes in the mid-20^th century, when nations and states, regardless of their will and sovereignty, were ripped in pieces, their territories and citizens bought, sold and exchanged. The content of the German-Soviet Agreement of 10 January 1941 was like a dark warning that the world must constantly protect peace and that nations should always worry about their security in order to prevent such or a similar political slavery market from being restored in the arena of international relations. International relations should be based only on law and justice, not on force and coercion.

ON THE POLITICAL AND LEGAL ASSESSMENT OF THE 1939 SOVIET-GERMAN NON-AGGRESSION TREATY (RESOLUTION OF THE CONGRESS OF PEOPLE’S DEPUTIES OF THE USSR)

In June 1989, a special Commission to investigate and evaluate the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was established at the First Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR. The Commission prepared two preliminary draft resolutions on the political and legal evaluation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed by the progressive-minded majority of its members. The historic Second Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR on 24 December 1989 adopted a compromise decision and issued a resolution in which it politically condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and declared it illegal and invalid from the date of its signature.

The historic vote of the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR on the Draft Resolution prepared by the Commission took place on the Catholic date of Christmas Eve – 24 December 1989. 1,435 deputies voted in favour of the Resolution drafted by the Commission. The vote of 1,122 deputies would have been sufficient for the adoption of the document. However, due to it being Christmas Eve and with Christmas the next day, this vote of vital importance to the Baltic States was not attended by as many as 33 deputies from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia: 15 Lithuanians, 9 Latvians and 9 Estonians were not present. Nevertheless, there were many political leaders of the USSR who voted in favour of the Resolution: Mikhail Gorbachev, Anatoly Lukyanov (Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR), Nikolai Ryzhkov (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR) and his Deputy Chair, Gennady Yanayev, Boris Pugo (Chairman of the Control Commission of the Communist Party), the first president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, Anatoly Sobchak (leader of the democratic movement in Leningrad), as well as a number of others.

On 24 December 1989, the Resolution of the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR was of historical significance to the Baltic nations. For the first time since 23 August 1939–10 January 1941, the highest Soviet government of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia finally recognised and condemned its own illegal actions towards the Baltic States by the signing of the documents of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the occupation/annexation of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in June–August 1940.

The Commission’s decision to delegitimise the secret protocols of the RMP was the first major diplomatic victory of the three Baltic nations in the fight against the USSR for regaining independence after World War II. And not only because of the content of the Resolution, which legally and politically recorded the illegal actions of the Soviet government, but also because of the successful national liberation peaceful resistance tactics. A political and moral victory was won against a few dozen times greater, stronger, more dangerous enemy, on their own home front and playing by the rules they created. For the first time since World War II, when democratic masses in Russia were attracted to the other side by purely diplomatic means, the enemy was defeated, an enemy that possessed enormous propaganda opportunities, impressive diplomatic-legal potential and an arsenal of difficult-to-imagine physical violence. Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian deputies in Moscow managed to convince not only the special Commission, which drafted the Resolution, but also the absolute majority of the members of the People’s Deputies of the USSR, who voted for this historic ruling. This victory of the deputies of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the Kremlin on Christmas Eve of 1989 becomes even more significant given that it was then achieved practically on its own and the power of the USSR’s democratic masses, without any significant political-diplomatic support from the West.

Thus, on 24 December 1989, at the initiative of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the Resolution on the Political and Legal Assessment of the 1939 Soviet-German Non-Aggression Treaty was a significant political, legal and diplomatic step towards the restoration of national independence. It could be said that it was a successful prelude to the peaceful tactics of the restoration of the independence of Lithuania and the other two Baltic States, making it only a matter of time when the Baltic States would free themselves from Soviet annexation. Only two and a half months (76 days) after of this event, Lithuania was the first to proclaim the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania and was freed from the grip of Soviet sovereignty. The political consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in Lithuania were liquidated de facto and de jure.

However, politics and geopolitics, history and history politics do not stand in place. In recent years, even from the highest powers we have once again heard some crooked interpretations of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, its content and geopolitical discourse. Therefore, it is vital to preserve, publish and remember historical documents, because historical memory is important for the identity of every nation and state.