Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 15 – Seventy-five
years ago this weekend, Vyacheslav Molotov left Berlin without the second
Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty Moscow and Berlin had sought (and that would have
contained a second set of “secret protocols”) because Hitler refused to agree
to the Soviet annexation of Finland and Moscow’s expansion into the Balkans and
Turkey.
That made war between the two
totalitarian dictatorships inevitable, Boris Sokolov, a member of Moscow’s Free
Historical Society, says, and that outcome, the result of unrestrained greed on
the part of both, provides an object lesson to and about those who “strive for
expansion” now (rbc.ru/opinions/society/13/11/2015/5645b1eb9a7947d4a17f7e74).
During
the Soviet foreign minister’s visit to Berlin, Hitler and Ribbentrop proposed
that the USSR join the axis and that they sign a second “Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact” which formally would commit the members to respecting “the natural
spheres of influence of each other” and secretly define Moscow’s focus away
from Europe and toward the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.
Moreover,
Hitler told Molotov that the Soviet Union did not need to do anything to get
conquests in those areas because they could simply wait until Germany had
defeated the United Kingdom and then would parcel out its empire to others,
including to the USSR.
Speaking
for Stalin, Sokolov continues, Molotov said that the USSR was prepared to join
the Axis but for that to happen, Moscow required that Germany pull its forces out
of Finland and “permit the USSR to occupy this country,” end its guarantees of
territorial integrity to Romania, and transfer Bulgaria to the Soviet sphere of
influence.
But
perhaps most important, the Moscow writer says, Molotov required that Hitler
agree to “the establishment of Soviet control over the Black Sea straits and
the establishment of a [Soviet] naval base there. These demand were included “in the draft
agreement among the USSR, Germany, Japan and Italy” that Molotov gave the
German ambassador in Moscow.
That
document, Sokolov continues, also added another Russian demand that Germany
recognize as part of the Soviet sphere of influence “’from the south of Batumi
and Baku in the general direction toward the Persian Gulf,’ which would include
within it Turkey and Iran.”
Germany
did not respond to this note, as Moscow almost certainly must have known it
would not, the Free History Society writer says. “Already in Berlin,” he points
out, “Hitler had categorically opposed a new war of Stalin against Finland,
having indicated the importance for Germany of quiet in the Baltic region.”
Hitler
added that he would agree to the transfer of Bulgaria to Moscow’s sphere of
influence only if Sofia agreed, something that wasn’t likely to happen. And as
far as Turkey was concerned, the Nazi leader was prepared only to modify the
Montreux Conventions on the use of the straits in the Soviet Union’s favor.
After
this, Sokolov argues, “a Soviet-German war became inevitable in the next few
months,” something that memoirs and archival documents from both countries make
clear. Both began preparing for attacks
on one another. “Hitler didn’t trust Stalin … just as Stalin did not trust
Hitler.”
“What
might have happened had Stalin and Molotov accepted the proposal of Hitler and
Ribbentrop? It is likely that then Hitler would not have immediately attacked
the USSR but shifted the axis of attack of the Luftwaffe to the Mediterranean
and send there several of his best tank and motorized rifle divisions.”
“But,”
Sokolov argues, the German leader “would have lever the main part of his land
army in the east in the event of a Soviet attack.”
Had
Stalin agreed to join the Axis, “the Soviet dictator would have had the chance
to strike first, but he decided to play for larger stakes hoping that for his
positive neutrality, Hitler would conceded Finland, Bulgaria and Turkey.” But
from Hitler’s perspective, “such concessions had not sense.”
“The
Soviet occupation of Finland would have created a threat to Sweden from which
iron ore, something vitally important for the Reich’s industries, came.” And
making concessions to Stalin in the Balkans would call into question Hitler’s
ability to pursue his plans in the Mediterranean theater.
In this way, Sokolov concludes,“the
expansion which the two dictators sought led to a bloody war. The Nazi Reich
died, but even the Soviet Union, while remaining among the victors, lost
millions of its residents and was so weakened that it could not long hold on to
the territories it had acquired.”
That is something that anyone
thinking about expanding the borders of his country now should be reflecting
upon.
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