Page 150 - The Chief Culprit

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Results of the Moscow Pact

Stalin was craftier then Hitler. Craftier and more sly.
—A. A-O

n August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed an agreement in
Moscow about the destruction of the Polish state and the division of the Polish
Oterritories. Poland had mutual assistance agreements with France and the United
Kingdom and, therefore, the attack by the Soviet Union and Germany automatically led to a
European—and hence world—war. Indeed, in eight days, on September 1, 1939, World War
II broke out. It was a direct and unavoidable result of the agreement reached in Moscow.
e USSR-Germany agreement is traditionally called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
is moniker misleads and does not truly reflect the essence of what happened. e pact that
was signed in Moscow was a plot between Hitler and Stalin to conduct an aggressive war in
Europe together. erefore, that agreement in effect was a Stalin-Hitler pact. Furthermore,
in international practice it is much more common to use not the names of the statesmen
that concluded the agreement, but the place where the documents were signed: the Munich
Agreements, the Warsaw Pact, the Baghdad Pact, and the Geneva Agreement. erefore, in
accordance with common diplomatic practice, the more precise name of the pact would be the
1939 Moscow Agreement on the Start of World War II. Both parties received approximately
equivalent shares—part of Poland went to Hitler, the other part went to Stalin. However, just
eight days after signing the Moscow pact, Stalin violated it. Hitler started a war of aggression
against Poland with hope that his ally Stalin would do the same. But Stalin cheated Hitler.
On September 1 and in the subsequent two weeks the Soviet troops stood next to the Polish
borders without conducting warfare and crossing the borders. e explanation of the Soviet
government to the German counterpart was: the time has not come yet for action by the
Red Army. As a result, the entire fault for the beginning of the war fell upon Germany, upon
Hitler and his entourage. ey entered world history as the chief and only cause of World
War II. Poland was divided not in the Imperial Chancellery, but in the Kremlin. Hitler was

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