Politics
23 August: The Night Stalin And Hitler Redrew The Map Of Europe
Reading Time: 4 minutesA world slipping ever closer toward war awoke on the morning of August 24, 1939 to the shocking news that Adolf Hitlers Germany and Josef Stalins Soviet Union had signed a nonaggression pact.
By Robert Coalson
A world slipping ever closer toward war awoke on the morning of August 24, 1939 to the shocking news that Adolf Hitler’s Germany and Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union had signed a nonaggression pact.
Hitler was beaming when his foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, returned from Moscow with the agreements in hand.
"The name of party comrade von Ribbentrop, as [German] Reich foreign minister, will be forever associated with the political rise of the Germans and the German nation," he declared.
The pact, named colloquially for von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, was intended to give Hitler a free hand to deal with "the Polish problem" and, if necessary, fight Poland’s Western allies — Britain and France — without the threat of Soviet intervention and a war on two fronts.
From Stalin’s point of view, the goal of the pact was to buy time for him to rebuild a military that had been devastated by the purges of the 1930s and to prepare for what seemed an inevitable eventual showdown with Hitler.
‘Spheres Of Influence’
But there was a secret protocol to the public agreement, under which the two dictators divided Central Europe into "spheres of influence" in anticipation of "political and territorial rearrangements" in the region.
Although the secret protocol was widely believed to exist almost from the beginning, the precise wording of the text was not known until the Allies found and published a microfilmed copy that had been seized from German archives.
The Soviets maintained the document was a fake and denied the existence of the protocol until 1989. Three years later, Russia released the official protocol from its archives.
A week after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed, on September 1, 1939, German forces attacked Poland, beginning World War II. On September 17, Stalin’s Red Army moved into the eastern parts of Poland (see video here of joint Soviet-Nazi parade in Brest-Litovsk in September 1939).
In November, Stalin attacked Finland, which was assigned to the Soviet sphere of influence under the secret protocol. In June 1940, the Soviets forcibly installed pro-Soviet governments in the three Baltic states, governments that promptly requested annexation into the Soviet Union. Later that month, Stalin occupied the Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina regions of Romania.
Throughout the territories it occupied, the Soviet Union carried out harsh political reprisals, including mass executions and deportations.
Opposite Perspectives
There is little agreement on how the pact between the two dictators came to be. The Soviets claimed they tried for years to contain Hitler through collective security arrangements with the Western powers, but that Britain and France were unresponsive.
This view remains prevalent in Russia today.
"Russian historians — not all of them — have continued to maintain this view, because it suits them to look as if the Soviet Union might have saved the peace, and that it was the British and the French who were responsible for the failure, rather than the other way around," says Richard Overy, professor of history at the University of Exeter and author of numerous books about the war, "which was that the Soviet Union calculated, that it was better to get the British and the French to fight the Germans, than to fight them themselves."
In discussing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Russian historians tend to look at what came before — notably the West’s repeated failure to stand up to Hitler and the September 1938 Munich agreement, under which Britain and France sanctioned the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.
An official Soviet history published in 1948 established the argument that the Munich accord was "a secret agreement" and "a highly important phase in [the West’s] policy aimed at goading the Hitlerite aggressors against the Soviet Union."
By contrast, Western historians, and the people of Central Europe, tend to emphasize what came after — the de facto partitioning of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union and the establishment of a brutal Soviet sphere of influence across Central Europe.
Much In Common…To A Point
The news that Hitler and Stalin had reached an agreement came as a surprise to many. Hitler’s disdain for the Slavs, his loathing of Bolshevism, and his numerous declarations that the German nation required the land and resources of the Western parts of the Soviet Union were well known in Moscow.
"If I had the Ural Mountains with their incalculable store of treasures and raw materials, Siberia with its vast forests, and the Ukraine with its tremendous wheat fields, Germany and the National Socialist leadership would swim in plenty," he told a Nazi Party rally in Nuremburg in September 1936.
But Overy says it was similarities between the dictators that made an accord possible. "Quite a lot unites them. And I think that, in the end, is what made it possible for Hitler to reach an agreement with Stalin," he says.
"He felt he understood a fellow dictator, somebody else who was equally ruthless as he was, who would tear things up, turn things upside down," he adds. "But at the back of Hitler’s mind, of course, was always the idea that even if you did that, eventually a confrontation with Stalin was inevitable."
In addition, both Germany and the Soviet Union felt deeply aggrieved by the political settlements following the end of World War I. Russian diplomatic historian Sergei Sluch believes this played a role in the genesis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement.
"As you know, Soviet Russia and Germany were among the losers of World War I. Germany was defeated. Profound socioeconomic changes were going on in Russia that set Russia against the rest of the world," Sluch tells RFE/RL’s Russian Service.
"So the relations of these two countries with the rest of the world had a very specific character. There were serious mutual claims against one another…but the main thing is that Soviet Russia did not have any relations with the leading powers of the world."
Such factors pushed the two dictators into a pact that was for both of them a temporary alliance of convenience. Ultimately, Molotov-Ribbentrop only postponed the seemingly inevitable conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union. In June 1941, Hitler broke the pact and launched a massive surprise invasion.
The Soviet Union paid the lion’s share of the cost of defeating fascism, with at least 20 million killed — 14 percent of its prewar population, compared to about 9 percent in Germany.
But by the time the war was over and the Red Army was in Berlin, Hitler’s vision of an all-powerful German nation was in ashes. Instead, the Soviet domination of Central Europe that was sketched on a map in the Kremlin on the night of August 23, 1939, had become the new geopolitical reality of the continent.
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RFE/RL’s Russian Service contributed to this report
A new football club has earned a leading place in the UEFA Champions League groups and starred in the headlines of worldwide football news yesterday. The Football Club Sheriff Tiraspol claimed a win with the score 2-1 against Real Madrid on the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid. That made Sheriff Tiraspol the leader in Group D of the Champions League, including the football club in the groups of the most important European interclub competition for the first time ever.
International media outlets called it a miracle, a shock and a historic event, while strongly emphasizing the origin of the team and the existing political conflict between the two banks of the Dniester. “Football club from a pro-Russian separatist enclave in Moldova pulls off one of the greatest upsets in Champions League history,” claimed the news portals. “Sheriff crushed Real!” they said.
Moldovans made a big fuss out of it on social media, splitting into two groups: those who praised the team and the Republic of Moldova for making history and those who declared that the football club and their merits belong to Transnistria – a problematic breakaway region that claims to be a separate country.
Both groups are right and not right at the same time, as there is a bunch of ethical, political, social and practical matters that need to be considered.
Is it Moldova?
First of all, every Moldovan either from the right or left bank of Dniester (Transnistria) is free to identify himself with this achievement or not to do so, said Vitalie Spranceana, a sociologist, blogger, journalist and urban activist. According to him, boycotting the football club for being a separatist team is wrong.
At the same time, “it’s an illusion to think that territory matters when it comes to football clubs,” Spranceana claimed. “Big teams, the ones included in the Champions League, have long lost their connection both with the countries in which they operate, and with the cities in which they appeared and to which they linked their history. […] In the age of globalized commercial football, teams, including the so-called local ones, are nothing more than global traveling commercial circuses, incidentally linked to cities, but more closely linked to all sorts of dirty, semi-dirty and cleaner cash flows.”
What is more important in this case is the consistency, not so much of citizens, as of politicians from the government who have “no right to celebrate the success of separatism,” as they represent “the national interests, not the personal or collective pleasures of certain segments of the population,” believes the political expert Dionis Cenusa. The victory of FC Sheriff encourages Transnistrian separatism, which receives validation now, he also stated.
“I don’t know how it happens that the “proud Moldovans who chose democracy”, in their enthusiasm for Sheriff Tiraspol’s victory over Real Madrid, forget the need for total and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from Transnistria!” declared the journalist Vitalie Ciobanu.
Nowadays, FC Sheriff Tiraspol has no other choice than to represent Moldova internationally. For many years, the team used the Moldovan Football Federation in order to be able to participate in championships, including international ones. That is because the region remains unrecognised by the international community. However, the club’s victory is presented as that of Transnistria within the region, without any reference to the Republic of Moldova, its separatist character being applied in this case especially.
Is it a victory?
In fact, FC Sheriff Tiraspol joining the Champions League is a huge image breakthrough for the Transnistrian region, as the journalist Madalin Necsutu claimed. It is the success of the Tiraspol Club oligarchic patrons. From the practical point of view, FC Sheriff Tiraspol is a sports entity that serves its own interests and the interests of its owners, being dependent on the money invested by Tiraspol (but not only) oligarchs.
Here comes the real dilemma: the Transnistrian team, which is generously funded by money received from corruption schemes and money laundering, is waging an unequal fight with the rest of the Moldovan football clubs, the journalist also declared. The Tiraspol team is about to raise 15.6 million euro for reaching the Champions League groups and the amounts increase depending on their future performance. According to Necsutu, these money will go directly on the account of the club, not to the Moldovan Football Federation, creating an even bigger gab between FC Sheriff and other football clubs from Moldova who have much more modest financial possibilities.
“I do not see anything useful for Moldovan football, not a single Moldovan player is part of FC Sheriff Tiraspol. I do not see anything beneficial for the Moldovan Football Federation or any national team.”
Is it only about football?
FC Sheriff Tiraspol, with a total estimated value of 12.8 million euros, is controlled by Victor Gusan and Ilya Kazmala, being part of Sheriff Holding – a company that controls the trade of wholesale, retail food, fuels and medicine by having monopolies on these markets in Transnistria. The holding carries out car trading activities, but also operates in the field of construction and real estate. Gusan’s people also hold all of the main leadership offices in the breakaway region, from Parliament to the Prime Minister’s seat or the Presidency.
The football club is supported by a holding alleged of smuggling, corruption, money laundering and organised crime. Moldovan media outlets published investigations about the signals regarding the Sheriff’s holding involvement in the vote mobilization and remuneration of citizens on the left bank of the Dniester who participated in the snap parliamentary elections this summer and who were eager to vote for the pro-Russian socialist-communist bloc.
Considering the above, there is a great probability that the Republic of Moldova will still be represented by a football club that is not identified as being Moldovan, being funded from obscure money, growing in power and promoting the Transnistrian conflict in the future as well.
Photo: unknown
Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Natalia Gavrilita, together with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicu Popescu, pay an official visit to Brussels, between September 27-28, being invited by High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles.
Today, Prime Minister had a meeting with Charles Michel, President of the European Council. The Moldovan PM thanked the senior European official for the support of the institution in strengthening democratic processes, reforming the judiciary and state institutions, economic recovery and job creation, as well as increasing citizens’ welfare. Natalia Gavrilita expressed her confidence that the current visit laid the foundations for boosting relations between the Republic of Moldova and the European Union, so that, in the next period, it would be possible to advance high-level dialogues on security, justice and energy. Officials also exchanged views on priorities for the Eastern Partnership Summit, to be held in December.
“The EU is open to continue to support the Republic of Moldova and the ambitious reform agenda it proposes. Moldova is an important and priority partner for us,” said Charles Michel.
Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita also met with Paolo Gentiloni, European Commissioner for Economy, expressing her gratitude for the support received through the OMNIBUS macro-financial assistance program. The two officials discussed the need to advance the recovery of money from bank fraud, to strengthen sustainable mechanisms for supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in Moldova, and to standardize the customs and taxes as one of the main conditions for deepening cooperation with the EU in this field.
Additionally, Prime Minister spoke about the importance of the Eastern Partnership and the Deep Free Trade Agreement, noting that the Government’s policies are aimed at developing an economic model aligned with the European economic model, focused on digitalization, energy efficiency and the green economy.
A common press release of the Moldovan Prime Minister with High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission, Josep Borrell Fontelles, took place today, where the agenda of Moldova’s reforms and the main priorities to focus on in the coming months were presented: judiciary reform; fighting COVID-19 pandemic; promoting economic recovery and conditions for growth and job creation; strengthening state institutions and resilience of the country.
“I am here to relaunch the dialogue between my country and the European Union. Our partnership is strong, but I believe there is room for even deeper cooperation and stronger political, economic and sectoral ties. I am convinced that this partnership is the key to the prosperity of our country and I hope that we will continue to strengthen cooperation.”
The Moldovan delegation met Didier Reynders, European Commissioner for Justice. Tomorrow, there are scheduled common meetings with Oliver Varhelyi, European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, Adina Valean, European Commissioner for Transport and Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy.
Prime Minister will also attend a public event, along with Katarina Mathernova, Deputy Director-General for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations.
Photo: gov.md
Politics
Promo-LEX about Maia Sandu’s UN speech: The president must insist on appointing a rapporteur to monitor the situation of human rights in Transnistria
The President of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, pays an official visit to New York, USA, between September 21-22. There, she participates in the work of the United Nations General Assembly. According to a press release of the President’s Office, the official will deliver a speech at the tribune of the United Nations.
In this context, the Promo-LEX Association suggested the president to request the appointment of a special rapporteur in order to monitor the situation of human rights in the Transnistrian region. According to Promo-LEX, the responsibility for human rights violations in the Transnistrian region arises as a result of the Russian Federation’s military, economic and political control over the Tiraspol regime.
“We consider it imperative to insist on the observance of the international commitments assumed by the Russian Federation regarding the withdrawal of the armed forces and ammunition from the territory of the country,” the representatives of Promo-LEX stated. They consider the speech before the UN an opportunity “to demand the observance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the Russian Federation with reference to this territory which is in its full control.”
“It is important to remember about the numerous cases of murder, torture, ill-treatment, forced enlistment in illegal military structures, the application of pseudo-justice in the Transnistrian region, all carried out under the tacit agreement of the Russian Federation. These findings stem from dozens of rulings and decisions issued by the European Court of Human Rights, which found that Russia is responsible for human rights violations in the region.”
The association representatives expressed their hope that the president of the country would give priority to issues related to the human rights situation in the Transnistrian region and would call on relevant international actors to contribute to guaranteeing fundamental human rights and freedoms throughout Moldova.
They asked Maia Sandu to insist on the observance of the obligation to evacuate the ammunition and the military units of the Russian Federation from the territory of the Republic of Moldova, to publicly support the need for the Russian Federation to implement the ECtHR rulings on human rights violations in the Transnistrian region, and to request the appointment of an UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation in the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova.
**
The Promo-LEX Association concluded that 14 out of 25 actions planned within the National Action Plan for the years 2018–2022 concerning respecting human rights in Transnistria were not carried out by the responsible authorities.
The association expressed its concern and mentioned that there are a large number of delays in the planned results. “There is a lack of communication and coordination between the designated institutions, which do not yet have a common vision of interaction for the implementation of the plan.”
Promo-LEX requested the Government of the Republic of Moldova to re-assess the reported activities and to take urgent measures, “which would exclude superficial implementation of future activities and increase the level of accountability of the authorities.”
Photo: peacekeeping.un.org
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