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Fabricated Stories About World War II Still Known by Many

Khalid Elhassan November 15, 2019 35 min

Stalin, overseeing the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Euromaidan

4. Did the German-Soviet Pact Really Hurt the USSR?

In late August of 1939, the world was shocked when avowed enemies Nazi Germany and the communist Soviet Union signed a treaty. Conventional wisdom has it that the German-Soviet Nonaggression Treaty, AKA the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, struck just a week before Germany invaded Poland, turned out disastrous for the USSR.

In reality, while Soviet leader Josef Stalin proved calamitously wrong in trusting Hitler to honor the agreement, and in stubbornly ignoring warnings of impending German attack in 1941, the fault lay with Stalin. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact actually served Soviet interests, and while the Soviets did not make the best use of it, they were better off for having signed it. From a Western and Polish perspective, the Pact was horrible, but from a Soviet perspective, it made good sense.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.