Putin's folly
Russian president's manipulation of history for political ends.
In a move that is as transparent in its motives as it is meaningless, Vladimir Putin is preparing to "annul" the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. The Pact, agreed to by Hitler and Stalin, pledged mutual nonaggression between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. It further allocated control of the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to the USSR and agreed on how Germany and the Soviet Union would share conquered Polish territory. Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 rendered the Pact void. Nevertheless, the Soviets kept the Baltics until 1991.
The nation of Poland was forced to cede 70,000 square miles of land in the east in exchange for 40,000 square miles of German territory in the west. This "westward shift" of the nation of Poland forced the relocation and resettlement of one and a half million eastern Poles and three and a half million Germans.
Hitler's betrayal of Stalin shocked and depressed the Soviet dictator. His speech, broadcast by Molotov stated in part:
Today at 4 o'clock a.m., without any claims having been presented to the Soviet Union, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders at many points and bombed from their airplanes our cities; Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunas and some others, killing and wounding over two hundred persons.
This unheard of attack upon our country is perfidy unparalleled in the history of civilized nations. The attack on our country was perpetrated despite the fact that a treaty of non-aggression had been signed between the U. S. S. R. and Germany and that the Soviet Government most faithfully abided by all provisions of this treaty.
The attack upon our country was perpetrated despite the fact that during the entire period of operation of this treaty, the German Government could not find grounds for a single complaint against the U.S.S.R. as regards observance of this treaty.
Ex-KGB man Putin understands the power of framing history. As such, he has attempted of late to recast Joseph Stalin not as the mass murderer and totalitarian dictator he was, but instead as a glorious warrior in the struggle against Fascism. Stalin today gets favorable treatments on Russian television, and newly built statues of him have been erected in Moscow and on the Ukrainian border. By justifying Stalin's unyielding application of state power he hopes to justify his own increasingly stern rule.
The Pact, of course, ceased to be relevant when German tanks crossed the Russian border. Operation Barbarossa, as the invasion was called, involved over three million troops - making it one of the largest military endeavors in history. The Soviets, trusting their German ally, were caught completely unaware by the attack. The notion that Putin can "annul" an agreement made between two nations that no longer exist is absurd on its face. Presumably, Putin understands this. However, with this gesture Putin can claim he has made an effort to close a period in history that resulted in four decades of Soviet occupation that the Baltic nations still resent. In rewriting Stalin's history, Putin need not be reminded that Soviet occupation and oppression is not such a distant memory for some of his nation's neighbors.