Stepashin Says Stalin Made a Major Mistake in Annexing Western Ukraine, But Other Russian Historians Dissent

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 4 – Western analysts have long debated whether Stalin made a major mistake in annexing the Baltic countries, western Belarus, Western Ukraine and Moldova after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact assigned those areas to the Soviet Union as part of Moscow’s sphere of influence.
    Some argue that this action helped Moscow to prevent Japan from joining Germany in an attack on the USSR and that it helped Stalin win the war by forcing the German army to begin its initial advance far further from major Soviet cities, while others suggest that by absorbing these regions, Stalin inserted a delayed action mine under the Soviet Union that blew it apart in 1991.
    Soviet and more recently Russian historians have generally approved the action either because they have until recently denied the existence of the secret protocols involved or because they focused on the tactical issues of the start of the war rather than the social and political consequences of absorbing anti-Moscow territories.
    But now the debate has been joined seriously. Speaking at a conference this week on the 80th anniversary of the Yalta Conference, Sergey Stepashin, a former Russian prime minister, said that by absorbing Western Ukraine, Stalin has committed his “greatest error” (vz.ru/news/2025/2/4/1312734.html).
    Speaking as a military man, Stepashin says, Stalin’s action prevented Moscow from having the time to “establish a new line of defense.” But even more than that, the Soviets annexed areas that contained anti-Moscow and anti-Russian populations who later allied with the Germans and worked to destroy the Soviet Union.
    Now, he suggests, Western Ukrainians have spread their anti-Moscow and anti-Russian views to the rest of Ukraine, something that would not have happened had Stalin not absorbed them and their territory. Consequently, Stalin’s mistake continues to echo across the region with negative consequences.
    Other Russian historians have already responded with sharp attacks on Stepashin’s position (vz.ru/news/2025/2/4/1312776.html). But it seems clear that this is just the beginning of a larger debate, one that may very well affect the Kremlin’s approach to redrawing Ukrainian borders in the course of a potential peace deal.