The course presents the life and deeds of Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 till 1953. It analyses the reasons for his actions and their results, as well as the causes of his popularity in Russia today. It offers an analysis of the phenomenon of Stalinism and of its significance for Russia and beyond. In the late 1920s – early 1930s Stalin directed the massive and rapid industrialisation of the country and the forced collectivisation of its agriculture. The industrialisation was based on forced labour, and collectivisation on repression, but both helped to create the material base for the Soviet defence industry. In the late 1930s Stalin unleashed mass terror against the Soviet people, in which millions perished. In his view this helped to rid the country of any potential internal enemies on the eve of the coming war. The USSR, together with its allies, won the Second World War, but at the cost of dozens of millions of lives. Stalin was instrumental in creating the post-war order. The system which he created in the 1930s shaped the USSR as it was during his lifetime and for decades after his death. It also influenced the lives of millions of people beyond the Soviet borders. The course will enable those who take it to develop an informed understanding of the Stalin era and of the phenomenon of Stalinism.
6.14.1.The Nazi-Soviet Pact, Poland and the Baltics
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From the course by National Research University Higher School of Economics
Stalin and Stalinism in Russian History
61 ratings
National Research University Higher School of Economics
61 ratings
From the lesson
Stalin's War
Lecture 6 is devoted to political developments before World War II and during its first years. It follows Stalin’s reasons for his Pact with Nazi Germany and its consequences. The second part of the lecture describes the retreat of the Red Army after the German invasion of the USSR (1941-1942) and Stalin’s policy during this period.
Meet the Instructors
Irina FilatovaProfessor
Faculty of Humanities / School of History
Hello and welcome back.
I have already mentioned that in September 1938,
Italy, Germany, Britain, and France signed the Munich Agreement.
The Soviet Union was excluded.
Which meant that there were no security arrangements for the Soviet Union.
This was very clearly understood by all the participants and also by the Western press.
Moreover, it was also clear that the Munich Agreement was actually
directed to a very large extent against the Soviet Union because,
well, as these cartoon shows,
the British and the French attempted to direct
the Nazi military towards the aggression to the east.
They wanted to protect their countries,
they wanted to protect the road to
their countries and to direct them to the road to the east.
Here you can see the border sign;
on the left is the road to the west,
on the right is the road to the USSR.
So, the Soviet Union continued to negotiate with the Western powers.
And yet, simultaneously, Stalin tried to find another solution.
On 19 August 1939,
the Soviet Union signed the credit agreement with
Nazi Germany which stipulated Soviet supplies of food such as grain,
soybeans, and oil to Germany.
Germany was to supply equipment here,
you can see the oil being delivered to Germany from the Soviet Union.
A few days after that,
the Soviet Union signed a pact with the Nazi Germany, 23rd August, 1939.
It was often called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
You can see here at the lower pictures of Molotov and Ribbentrop.
But of course, it was the Stalin- Hitler Pact because both leaders took
a very active and close look at what was going on and actually
dictated the conditions and every clause of the pact.
This was a risky decision for Stalin because, of course,
communists and many people on the left in the West were disappointed.
Even in the Soviet Union itself,
people were not really prepared to the fact that criticizing the pact,
criticizing the Union with Nazi Germany became a crime overnight.
And many people were actually arrested for this crime.
The verdict was usually several months of unpaid work.
Stalin really needn't worry too much because communists all
over the world thought that whatever Stalin did was correct.
Here you see Dolores Ibarruri,
a famous Spanish communist,
communist leader who is speaking to denounce Poland.
Poland was pronounced an aggressor against the Soviet Union and an oppressor
of Ukrainians and Belarusians and a platform for
British and the French to attack the country of socialism.
The Nazi-Soviet pact was a blow to the allies too.
They depicted it as a union of two dictators,
however, much they hated one another.
They said that Stalin did not care about democracy and did not trust western countries,
which was absolutely true.
But, they did not have any reason to respect or trust him either, and they didn't.
Just as Hitler was sure that the Soviet Union was militarily weakened and incapacitated,
so were the Western powers.
For Stalin, the pact was a great victory.
It brought peace at least for the time being.
It was a guarantee of security from
Japan because the Japanese knew
that the Germans would not help them against the Soviet Union.
In fact, the Nazi-Soviet pact did more
than just guarantee Stalin and the Soviet Union a respite.
It had a secret clause which defined
spheres of interest of Germany and the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.
Poland Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland,
and Romania were to be included,
divided into different spheres of interest between Germany and the USSR.
It was in effect,
a go ahead both to Germany and to the USSR to occupy some of these countries,
to occupy the countries which are within their spheres of interest.
Germany moved ahead very quickly and on the 1st September,
1939, the Second World War started.
When the fact of the signing of the secret clause became known,
the Soviets always denied it.
It was only in 1989 that they actually admitted that the secret clause was signed.
Until then, all of the Soviet leaders always said that it was a fake.
The Soviet Union introduced its troops into Poland on 17 September.
Two weeks, well, just a bit over two weeks later than the Nazis.
It is interesting that in that time the West did nothing,
in these two weeks the West did nothing and Chamberlain actually said,
"There is no need to hurry,
the time was on our side.".
On 22nd September, 1939,
an amazing event happened.
It was often described as the German and Soviet parade in Brest-Litovsk.
It was not quite what it looked.
Yes, the Germans and the Soviets did meet in Brest-Litovsk.
According to the Nazi Soviet pact Brest-Litovsk belong to the Soviet sphere of interest,
but it was occupied by the Germans.
So, on 22nd September, 1939, the Germans,
according to the conditions of the pact,
were to hand over Brest-Litovsk to the Soviets.
One of the conditions of that additional protocol which actually appeared in September,
was a common parade of German and Soviet troops in Brest-Litovsk.
So, the Russian commander who brought the Russian troops there,
asked for the parade to be not a common parade,
which meant that the German troops were to march past
the commanders of both Russian and German contingents there,
first and then the Soviet troops.
So, they never marched together.
Nevertheless, you can see here in this slide,
you can see that the German commander and the Soviet commander do
stand together and do receive the parade together.
The occupation of the parts of Poland by the Soviet Army
was presented to the world as the liberation of Ukrainians and Belarusians,
and that the unification,
reunification of the Belarusians and the Ukrainians with the Soviet brothers,
with their Russian brothers.
As Stalin said, "Our army is the Army of Liberation of working people."
In this picture you can see a Ukrainian kissing passionately the Soviet soldier.
And not opposed to Soviet poster says,
"To offer a helping hand to brotherly nations."
Some did indeed welcome the emergence of the Soviet troops
because they started with something that the poor peasants loved,
which was redistributing landlord's land in Western Ukraine for example.
But this did not last because private property was confiscated or nationalized.
Land was redistributed then collectivized.
And that was a different thing which not everybody liked.
Then food requisitioning started.
Prisoners of war, or Polish military were branded as enemies of the people.
Their officers were murdered,
soldiers sent to the Stalin's Gulag.
21,857 Polish military personnel,
politicians and officials were executed in the Katyn Massacre alone.
Many civilians were arrested and imprisoned.
Dozens of thousands executed.
More than a million POWs were deported to Siberia.
Katyn was a particularly gruesome murder and until now,
POWs do deplore this Soviet crime.
Katyn was reoccupied by the Germans in 1941,
and then that the Germans discovered the Katyn massacre.
They publicize it and of course the Soviet government said that it was a fake,
that it was a German crime.
The Russian government admitted that it
was the Soviet crime only in 1990 and only in 2010,
the Russian Duma, the parliament put the blame for the executions
on Soviet officials and the blame for ordering it directly on Stalin.
The Baltic states suffered a similar fate but just a bit later.
In September 1939,
Soviet Navy approached the Estonian ports.
Soviet bombers patrolled over Tallinn and then flew over all three Baltic states.
In September, October,
Soviet mutual assistance treaties were signed by Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
The idea of the treaties was that all these three countries
lend their ports for military bases of the USSR.
Also, they admitted garrisons of several dozen Soviet troops into their territory.
It was at that time that Hitler issued
a call home for the German citizens of these states.
So they were resettled in Poland.
In May, June 1940,
all three states were accused of military collaboration against the USSR.
And this was followed in mid June by ultimatum to
all these three states to permit
the Soviet troops on the territory of the three states.
Late June, popular front governments were organized in all three states.
They consisted of communists and fellow Travelism.
They quickly organized rigged elections for
the new assemblies mostly consisting of communists.
The assemblies met and then passed the resolutions to join the Soviet Union.
Already in August, the Supreme Soviet accepted the requests.
The presidents of the states were depost,
arrested, deported and then perished in Stalin's gulag.
Mass arrests, expropriation and executions followed.
About 370,000 people were deported to
the remote areas of the Soviet Union from three Baltic states,
Bessarabia and the Bukovina which were parts of Romania.
These are Soviet tanks in Riga,
the capital of Latvia, June 1940.
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