Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
New Moldovan Government Wants Treaty With Romania
September 25, 2009Moldova's new pro-Western government said today it wants to sign a political treaty with neighboring Romania, RFE/RL's Moldovan Service reports. The new government, which was sworn into office today, could be setting the scene for renewed diplomatic...
Russia Must Face Up to Tragic Reality of Hitler-Stalin Alliance
September 17, 2009By Paul Goble Today’s Russians are in no way responsible for Stalin’s alliance with Hitler, but they must acknowledge its immorality if their calls for the creation of a new collective security system are to be taken seriously, the Memorial...
Molotov-Ribbentrop and Munich Not Equivalent Then or Now
September 02, 2009By Paul Goble Efforts by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials and commentators to justify the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Stalin’s ill-fated alliance with Hitler because of what British and French leaders had done in Munich...
Romania's King Michael Recalls Start Of World War II
August 31, 2009Romania's former sovereign, King Michael, is one of the three surviving heads of state from World War II (alongside Bulgaria's King Simeon and Cambodia's Norodom Sihanouk), and the only one involved directly in the war. RFE/RL correspondent Eugen Tomiuc...
Stalin Planned to Annex Parts of Iran, Turkey and China
August 31, 2009By Paul Goble Stalin viewed the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which allowed Moscow to seize the Baltic countries, Bessarabia, and part of Poland as “a model” for the subsequent annexation of portions of Iran, Turkey and...
- Moldova needlessly alienates neighbors
August 27, 2009By Louis O’Neill Moldova’s new government has some major work to do to fix the relationships with Romania and Ukraine, which deteriorated under the Communists. In his poem “Mending Wall,” poet Robert Frost concludes regretfully...
Seventy Years After the Hitler-Stalin Pact
August 27, 2009By Austin Bay "Communazi" became magazine shorthand for their collaboration, dark slang connecting the two totalitarian ideologies of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany after they ratified the Hitler-Stalin Pact. That faux-peace agreement...
- Historical Palliatives for the Phantom-Limb SyndromeAugust 25, 2009
By Louis O’Neill Gallons of ink have been arrayed and countless electrons rearranged with commentary over the 70th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and its secret protocols. Scholars, politicians, human-rights defenders, and historians...
Defenders of Molotov-Ribbentrop Reflect Moscow’s Authoritarianism
August 25, 2009By Paul Goble Pro-Kremlin ideologists have rushed to defend the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact not so much in order to revive Stalinism in all its dimensions but rather to exploit Stalin’s ultimately failed alliance with Hitler to promote “the...
- Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact And Slippery Slope Of Big Power Politics
August 23, 2009By Ahto Lobjakas On August 24, 1939, the British writer Evelyn Waugh wrote in his diary (I'm quoting from memory): "Russia and Germany have signed a cooperation pact. War now inevitable. Went for a stroll.'" Waugh here unwittingly offers...
