The Russo-German Alliance: August 1939 – June 1941, by A. Rossi (Angelo Tasca) 1949
If it is not yet possible to write a full history of German – Soviet relations between 1939 and 1941, we have at our disposal such a mass of documents and of vital and incontrovertible evidence that the following points can now be taken as definitely established.
1. Stalin’s decision to avoid becoming involved in the new world war, and to reach agreement with Germany in fulfilment of this aim, dates from 10 March 1939 at the latest.
2. On 17 April 1939, Moscow took the initiative in ‘officially’ exploring the possibilities of a rapprochement with Germany; by dismissing Litvinov on 4 May, Stalin made known to the Nazi leaders that he had firmly decided to reach an understanding with them; on 20 May Molotov steered the talks with Germany on to the political plane. It was Moscow which took the lead in proposing both the pact of non-aggression and the secret protocol which was to form an ‘integral part’ of it.
3. The Moscow talks with the Western democracies, although a kind of reinsurance in case the attempt at a rapprochement with Hitler’s Germany failed, began when Stalin had already decided to do all he could to reach an understanding, and his only reason for continuing them, especially during the last stage, was to force Hitler to pay a higher price for his collaboration.
4. The certainty that he would not have to reckon with a front in the East was one of the determining factors in Hitler’s war policy of 1939-40; the fact that it was possible for Germany to fight on a single front was one of the causes of the defeat of France.
5. The German – Soviet non-aggression pact of 23 August 1939 was a pact of aggression against Poland.
6. The German – Soviet agreements of August and September 1939 were based on the partition of Eastern Europe.
7. Formal effect was given to this partition in three secret protocols: the protocol of 23 August, on which the other two were based and which gave Estonia, Latvia, Eastern Poland (east of the ‘four-river’ line) and Bessarabia to Russia, and the rest of Poland to Germany; the protocol of 28 September, in which Germany assigned Lithuania to Russia, except for a small strip of territory in the south-west, and received in exchange another slice of Polish territory (the province of Lublin and part of the province of Warsaw); the protocol of 10 January 194 1, in which Germany gave up a small strip of Lithuanian territory in return for economic advantages. The text of the three secret protocols has been discovered and published.
8. It is untrue that Russia invaded Poland in September 1939 in order to defend the territory assigned to her by the secret protocol of 23 August against the German advance; the Russians intervened at the express invitation of Germany and took over this territory in full agreement and in close collaboration with the German government and army.
9. Under pressure from Stalin, the German government gave up any attempt to permit the survival of a small independent Polish state. This resulted in the creation by the Reich of the ‘Government General of Poland’, and the future status of the country was settled on the basis of a ‘fourth partition’.
10. Political collaboration between the USSR and Germany was very close between the end of August 1939 and the summer of 1940. It was shown, in particular, by the attitude adopted by all the parties belonging to the Communist International. Their campaign was directed exclusively against Britain and France, their activities ranging from ‘neutrality’ in Germany to defeatism and sabotage of the national defence and the war in France.
11. There was also political collaboration at government level in several fields:
i. Campaign for ‘immediate peace’, which started officially with the German – Soviet agreements of 28 September 1939. This gave rise, in particular, to the letter of 1 October from the French Communist deputies to President Herriot, advocating Hitler’s proposals and another Munich.
ii. Soviet protests against the British blockade.
iii. Soviet pressure on Turkey not to conclude a pact of mutual assistance with Britain and France.
iv. Soviet government and press campaign against Roosevelt’s proposed ‘Lend-Lease’ bill of aid to Britain.
12. The Soviet government made every effort to work in close collaboration with Fascist Italy on the basis of the following agreement: Russian hegemony in the Black Sea and Italian hegemony in the Mediterranean. Although backed by Mussolini, this agreement could not be carried through because of the German veto.
13. Russia’s economic collaboration enabled the Reich to break the British blockade and to fight the war under conditions more favourable than in 1914-18; the Russians continued to collaborate up to the eve of the German attack on 22 June 1941.
14. Friction between Germany and the USSR began during the summer of 1940, immediately after the German victory in the West; it was then that Hitler decided not to allow the Russians to expand beyond the Baltic countries and Bessarabia, which they had just occupied, and above all to prevent them from seizing the Balkans and the Dardanelles.
15. The Three-Power Pact signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 between Germany, Italy and Japan was directed fundamentally against Britain and the USA.
16. In the hope of inducing Russia to abandon her designs on the Balkans and the Dardanelles, the German leaders planned a new partition of the world based on the defeat of Britain and the disintegration of the British Empire. After joining the Three-Power Pact, Russia was to receive a new Lebensraum in Asia, in the direction of the Indian Ocean. This plan was discussed by Hitler, Ribbentrop and Molotov during their conversations in Berlin on 12 and 13 November 1940.
17. The Soviet chiefs agreed to this plan in principle, but without renouncing their ambitions in the West. Molotov explained their attitude in his note of 25 November 1940; they agreed that Russia should join the Three-Power Pact and enjoy the advantages to be derived from it in the Middle East, but proposed a number of secret protocols, the main points of which were that Russia would be allowed to occupy Finland, seize Bulgaria and set up bases in the Dardanelles, all within the framework of the new four-power alliance.
18. The German leaders were not prepared to pay such a high price for Russia’s adherence to the Three-Power Pact, and it was at this point that Germany’s war against Russia became inevitable.
19. The break between Hitler’s Germany and Soviet Russia was a break between two imperialist programmes. It had its origin in the same conflict of interests over the Balkans and the Dardanelles as had already caused a breach between the Germany of William II and the Russia of the Czars in 1914.
20. The Russo – Japanese pact of 13 April 1941 was a compromise intended to draw Japan away from the Soviet frontiers in the Far East and to force her into collision with Britain and the United States in the Pacific.
21. From the beginning of May 1941, the Soviet government made strenuous efforts, through a whole series of measures, to convince Germany of its desire for peace and cooperation, political as well as economic; but from then until the outbreak of war it was unable to renew contact with the German government, which avoided all discussion.
22. The German – Soviet war was the outcome of a unilateral decision on Germany’s part, since Russia had done everything to avoid it. Russia joined the democratic front in June 1941, simply and solely because Germany forced her to do so at the point of the sword.