The Winter War, the Baltic Republics and Bessarabia






The Hitler-Stalin-Pact and Soviet Expansion



At the MUNICH CONFERENCE of 1938, the breakup of Czechoslovakia was decided upon without the Soviet Union being represented. STALIN believed that the post-war order would undergo a major change soon, and wanted the USSR to have a say in it. The Soviet Union, as the successor of the Russian Empire, could claim as much as Germany that territory had been taken away from it after World War I.
On August 23rd, Ribbentrop and MOLOTOV, foreign ministers of Germany and the USSR, signed a NON-AGGRESSION PACT. In a secret memorandum, both sides agreed on partitioning among them the chain of states created after World War I. Poland's Posen and West Prussia provinces, as well as Lithuania, were to fall to Germany, Estonia, Latvia and most of Poland to the Soviet Union.

On September 1st 1939 German troops began the invasion of Poland, France and Britain declared war on Germany. German troops, violating against the agreed secret memorandum, occupied Central Poland. Stalin hesitated; only on September 27th did he order the Red Army to occupy Poland's eastern provinces. Poland surrendered; a large part of Poland's army was taken prisoner. Stalin had officers and enlisted men separated; the officers were executed and buried in mass graves, such as KATYN. Just like Germany, the USSR had attacked Poland. Yet Poland's allies, France and Britain, did not declare war on Russia. Stalin's policy to wait and see had paid off.
Germany signed a border and friensship treaty with the USSR, waiving it's claim on Lithuania for Central Poland.



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This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 8th 2004

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