Narrative: Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was urgent and forced decision; the Soviet Union did not invade Poland, as there was no Poland then

The DFRLab previously reported on the use of official Twitter accounts by Russian diplomatic missions to present false narratives concerning World War II. Some of these tweets concerned Poland.

On August 28, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted an animated video on its Twitter account that claimed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact — signed between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany on August 23, 1939, to divide Poland into “spheres of influence” — was “an urgent and extremely difficult decision for the USSR.”

Tweet by Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs attempting to justify the Soviet-Nazi Non-Aggression Pact. (Source: @mfa_russia/archive)

The narrator of the video explained that there were obvious signs before the outbreak of the war that Germany would attack Poland but that

…the Polish government was reluctant to let Soviet troops through its territory to fight the German units. The hatred in Warsaw’s ruling elite for the Soviet Union, their anti-Semitism, and dalliance with the Nazis all affected their judgment […] By mid-August of 1939, negotiations had finally reached an impasse. The Soviet Union had to urgently deal with its own security issues and prepare to ward off an attack in the west at a time when Japan remained a threat on its eastern borders. The country faced the prospect of waging a two-front war without allies. Under these circumstances, the Soviet government was looking to buy some time to prepare for the inevitable war. The Kremlin decided to accept Germany’s proposal to start political negotiations. The Non-Aggression Pact, as well as the accompanying Secret Protocol which delimited spheres of influence, yielded certain strategic benefits for the Soviet Union such as additional time to mobilize forces and move Soviet borders westward. However, Moscow had no illusions about Hitler’s hatred for Communism and that he would strike sooner or later.

According to the video, the Soviet Union was effectively forced into signing the pact with Nazi Germany.

This line of reasoning serves one purpose: to whitewash the Soviet Union’s history and justify the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Furthermore, on September 17, the Russian Embassy in South Africa wrote in a tweet that the Soviet Union did not invade Poland, but rather “entered Polish territories” after the Polish government fled the country, its forces defeated following the Nazi offensive of September 1, 1939.

Russian Embassy in South Africa denied the Soviet invasion of Poland. (Source: @EmbassyofRussia/archive)

These claims contradicted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statements from a decade ago, in which he admitted that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was “from a moral point of view unacceptable and from a practical point of view pointless, harmful, and dangerous.”

Nowadays, Russia insists on denying that the decision to attack Poland was a deliberate and coordinated one with Nazi Germany under the “secret additional protocol” of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, executed in violation of a 1932 Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact. Before the war, Polish state borders were recognised internationally, including by the Soviet Union.

The Russian Embassy in the United States claimed that Poland no longer existed when the Soviet Union invaded its territory on September 17, 1939, because Germany’s earlier invasion had put an end to its statehood.

Tweet by the Russian Embassy in the United States denying the existence of the Polish state at the time of its invasion. (Source: @RusEmbUSA/archive via Twitter)

The Russian Embassy’s claim was false. The Polish government was still in place, and the Polish army was still fighting against foreign enemies in Warsaw, when the Soviet Army invaded. Furthermore, the Polish government never signed a formal capitulation; Polish officials instead fled the country and continued to operate as the Government of Poland while in exile.

Conclusion

The current leadership of the Russian Federation still denies the role of the Soviet Union in the dismemberment of Poland and division of Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. Furthermore, the Kremlin accuses Poland of starting World War II, justifying its invasion of the country with an urgent need to ensure own security. Russian propaganda sources characterize Poland as an imperialist country, despite it having been subject to Soviet Russia’s oppression for almost half a century. Meanwhile, they exalt the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as an achievement of Soviet diplomacy.

All of these narratives represent a dangerous attempt to rewrite history by whitewashing the Soviet Union’s role in World War II and falsely portraying Poland as the villain.