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Most People Picture History Wrong, These Facts Will Set them Straight

Khalid Elhassan April 25, 2020 34 min

Franklin D. Roosevelt - Joseph Stalin — The Big Three of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, at the Tehran Conference in 1943. Rare Historical Photos

13. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact From a Soviet Perspective

The divvying up of territory in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Wikimedia

From a Western and Polish perspective, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was calamitous. But from a Soviet perspective, it made good sense. The Western Powers had demonstrated their unreliability during the Munich Crisis, exhibiting greater distaste for dealing with Stalin than with Hitler. The Soviets made solid offers to defend Czechoslovakia, but the Poles refused them permission to march through Poland to reach Czechoslovakia, while Britain and France negotiated halfheartedly and ended up appeasing Hitler.

After Munich, the USSR had something to offer both sides. The Germans negotiated seriously and made attractive offers, while Britain and France did not. In the meantime, the Poles, looking at the only force physically capable of coming to their defense, were astonishingly shortsighted in refusing the Red Army permission to enter their territory.

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.