The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

Relations) are the focus of special attention in which each modification/change
to the text (addition or editing) has to be closely examined.
Our approach will consist first in investigating the analysis of the contents
of the agreement between Ribbentrop and Molotov, then that of the origins of
the pact, and finally, that of the significance of the event.
The content of the „German-Soviet Pact”: from „agreement” to
„alliance”, from „non-aggression” to „crime against peace”.
The evolution of the designation of the the German-Soviet agreement is
significant of the analysis historians have made of its content.
During the fifties, quite neutral terms were used to designate the text signed
on August 23, 1939 in Moscow by Ribbentrop and Molotov („treaty”,
„agreement”, „pact”). The focus was on the content of the public document
(„non agression”) but the secret protocol (revealed in 1946 but only published
by Russia in 1992) was already presented as a „much more important text”
whose „existence was absoluteley indisputable” 7 . The second treaty signed
September 28th, 1939 was presented more briefly and always separately.
From the seventies on, both texts were thus linked and from then on,
historians explain that „there was not simply one German-Soviet pact on
August 23, 1939 but German-Soviet pacts, on August 23 and September 28,
1939” 8 This approach entails first the following consequence: the pacts cannot
be considered as a „simple” circumstancial diplomatic or „neutrality”
agreement but they establish an actual „alliance” between Germany and the
USSR. In 1957, J.B. Duroselle and his team, concerning Soviet policy from
August 23 on, explain that they can neither „be moral judges or even political
ones of the Soviet attitude in these circumstances”, and they write: „Let’s
simply say that it is perfectly coherent and that in the absence of any moral
justification in the non-communist perspective of relations between states, it
had strategic bases for justification. The June 1941 events are a testimony of
particular significance.” (J.B. Duroselle). „It is perfectly normal that having
signed a pact of non-agression with the Reich, the USSR had led a diplomatic
game which was fair and necessary from its point of view in order not to
ressucitate a state, a satellite of Germany, in this case the Polish state which
had created so many problems for it since the first day of its founding and
which in 1939, had been one of the main causes of the failure of the triad’s
pact” (Benjamin Goriely) 9 . In 1979, René Girault insisted on the meaning of
the pacts: „it was no longer a question of remaining at an equal distance
between the two capitalist camps; it was a question of a real opportunity for
7
DUROSELLE, Jean-Baptiste: Histoire diplomatique…op.cit., 1953. 284.
8
GIRAULT, René: art.cité. 111. COURTOIS, Stephane and FURET, François also use the
word „pacts” and not „pact”.
9
DUROSELLE, Jean-Baptiste : Les frontières…op.cit., 1957, XIII. et 284.
25