Black Ribbon Day 2024: The Hitler-Stalin Pact that started WW2 which communists want to erase.

 "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." - Milan Kundera

On August 23, 1939, the world learnt that Communist Russia and Nazi Germany had signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a "non-aggression" agreement that was in reality an alliance to wage war on Poland, and divide up the spoils. It was named after Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, the respective foreign ministers eighty five years ago today.

However it went far beyond Poland. 

Observers would have been even more horrified had they known of the secret protocols that divided Eastern Europe between the two totalitarian regimes. In actuality, what they dubbed a "peace treaty" was the treaty that plunged the planet into a general war for six years.

Nine days later on September 1, 1939 at 4:45am Nazi Germany invaded Poland, launching World War II.

Today, we commemorate #BlackRibbonDay.

It was set on the anniversary of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact signing, which tore apart Central and Eastern Europe between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

We honour those who died under Soviet and Nazi German terror. pic.twitter.com/6FMuZcJq5E

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs 🇵🇱 (@PolandMFA) August 23, 2024

Sixteen days later the Soviet Union exercising its secret agreement with the Nazis invaded Poland from the East and met their German allies in the middle of Poland. 

Rolling Soviet tanks and Nazi motorcyclists in Poland (September 1939).

On September 22, 1939 the German Nazi army joined with the Soviet Communist army in a military parade in Brest-Litovsk where the two sides celebrated together.

Nazi and Soviet soldiers greet one another in Poland (1939)

 Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in a October 31, 1939  speech spoke candidly about the Nazi-Communist alliance, and ridiculed its victims.

"The ruling circles of Poland boasted quite a lot about the ‘stability’ of their state and the ‘might’ of their army. However, one swift blow to Poland, first by the German Army and then by the Red Army, and nothing was left of this ugly offspring of the Versailles Treaty which had existed by oppressing non-Polish nationalities."

Approximately 230,000 Polish soldiers and officers and thousands of military service representatives were taken captive by the Russians. 

 

The Soviet precursor to the KGB was the NKVD. "From October 1939, the delegated NKVD officials from Moscow heard the prisoners, encouraged them to cooperate and collected data. Only a few of the prisoners agreed to collaborate. The commanding officers’ reports included opinions about hostile attitudes of the Poles and a minimal chance of them being useful to the USSR authorities."

On March 5, 1940, seven members of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) authorities signed a resolution to shoot the prisoners: Joseph Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria (proposer), Kliment Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan, Mikhail Kalinin, and Lazar Kaganovich.

Thousands of Polish Army officers and intellectual leaders were taken into the Katyn Forest near Smolensk in the Soviet Union, shot in the back of the head or in the neck and buried in mass graves.

Secret protocols of the Hitler-Stalin Pact not only partitioned Poland but also divided up Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Romania into Nazi and Soviet "spheres of influence." The Soviet Union invaded and annexed the Baltic States in June 1940.  

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov meets with Adolf Hitler (1940)

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in a speech delivered on August 1, 1940 while the Soviet Union was then still allied with Nazi Germany continued to describe their military alliance as a "non-aggression pact."   

 "A radical change for the better in the relations between the Soviet Union and Germany found its expression in the non-aggression pact signed last August. These new, good relations between the USSR and Germany have been tested in practice in connection with events in former Poland, and their strength has been sufficiently proved."

Another sign of Nazi-Soviet cooperation was the Soviet Union’s deportation of hundreds of refugees to Nazi authorities. Most of them were German anti-fascists, communists, and Jews who had sought asylum in the Soviet Union. 

Soviet and Nazi soldiers fraternize in Poland. Their alliance began 85 years ago today

This alliance ended on June 22, 1941 when Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, betraying his ally Josef Stalin.

"Stalin was shocked; he had received a plethora of warnings of an imminent invasion – notably from Winston Churchill, informed by British intelligence briefings. The communist dictator had refused to believe them," reported Agence France Press. Stalin preferred to rely on Hitler's assurances.  

Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, Joseph Stalin, and Soviet foreign minister, Molotov

Today, communist apologists will defend Stalin and try to hide the Soviet Union's complicity with Nazi Germany. It may also explain why there have been attacks on Winston Churchill's legacy. His book The Second World War, Volume 1, The Gathering Storm (1948) has a devastating and realistic assessment of the link between the Communists and the Nazis. 

"Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of communism… As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction." 

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the reckless strategy pursued by Stalin and the Communist International cost 22 to 28 million Russian lives alone in World War Two, and nearly led to the Nazi conquest and occupation of the Soviet Union.

We owe it both to the dead and the living not to forget, and also to share this memory with others to ensure it is not repeated.

23rd August is the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. What was its significance? Is it properly understood in the West? What was Stalin's long-term strategy? pic.twitter.com/jeZt1A9iPj

— Foundation for the History of Totalitarianism (@HofTotalitarian) August 22, 2024

The pledge is to remember, and share this memory with others.