ABSTRACT
Following the Munich agreement of September 1938, in which Britain and France sought to appease Hitler by allowing him to occupy the German-settled Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, the USSR began negotiations with Germany which led to the non-aggression treaty (the Nazi-Soviet pact) of 23 August 1939. Vyacheslav Molotov was at the time both prime minister (he was chairman of Sovnarkom from 1930 to 1941) and foreign minister (1939-49, and 1953-6). The pactthrewthe communist world into confusion and strained the loyalties of all but the most slavishly pro-Moscow communist parties. In the immediate aftermath of the pact Stalin incorporated eastem Poland into the USSR, provoked a war with Finland, and occupied the Baltic republics and Bessarabia. Stalin ignored all warnings and punctiliously adhered to the terms of the pact, allowing Hitler to absorb much of Eastern Europe and then to defeat the Low Countries and France. All the while, Hitler was preparing for war with his nominal ally, and when he struck on 22 June 1941 the USSR was caught thoroughly unprepared. There are suggestions that Stalin had been preparing foran offensive war against Hitler, possibly to be launched in July 1941, and thus left his defences woefully unprepared and his best forces and equipment lined up on the border, most of which was destroyed in the first days of the German offensive. The war in the East was fought with unprecedented brutality, forging a reconciliation between the Stalinist regime and its own people-but only forthe duration of hostilities and even then atthe minimum level possible to ensure victory. The war appeared to have been won not because of the system and Stalin but despite them. Too often political concerns were placed over strategic and tactical requirements resulting in the wasteful loss of life. Victory gave the regime a legitimacy that it had hitherto lacked, but hopes for a permanent reconciliation between regime and society were disappointed.
