The article asserts that “the USSR had no alternative to pact with Germany in 1939.” But it had every alternative not to occupy the Baltics for fifty years after Nazi Germany was dead and gone, and not to deport, murder, oppress, impoverish and abuse their peoples throughout all that time. Likewise contemporary Russia has every alternative to its refusal to acknowledge the repression that Russians under the Soviet flag worked on the Baltics, to its refusal to apologise for their crimes, and to its failure to bring the criminals to justice in a court of law.

But Chamberlain and Daladier were the ones who wanted to push Germany eastwards to destroy USSR. Why didn't RT discuss on their plot? Heath: I think the Soviet Union has a lot of troubles. They are facing domestic economic difficulties and agricultural predicament, and there are also differences within the leadership, over questions of tactics and timing, not over long-term strategy. Mao: I think the Soviet Union is busy with its own affairs and unable to deal with Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, China and the Pacific. I think it will lose. Heath: However, its military strength is continually augmented. Although the Soviet Union has encountered troubles at many places in the world, its strength is continuing to grow. Therefore, we deem this to be the principal threat. Does the Chairman think the Soviet Union constitutes a menace to China? Mao: We are prepared for it to come, but it will collapse if it comes. It has only a handful of troops, and you Europeans are so frightened of it! Some people in the West are always trying to direct this calamity toward China. Your senior, Chamberlain, and also Daladier of France were the ones who pushed Germany eastward. Heath: I opposed Mr. Chamberlain then. http://english.pladaily.com.cn/special/mao/txt/w24.htm

Somehow, I have a feeling that the present world situation is very much alike to that of pre-WWII. But, the one who runs wars this time is not Germany anymore. Guess who that might be!

The alliances between Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union were made by enlightened despots. It only proves that misery likes it's own company and that there is no honour between dictators and madmen! Just ask Benito Mussolini, who was hanged by his own people when Adolph Hitler abandoned him. Sooner or later people pay for their evil actions!!!

Of course, RT seems to not publish the entire plot based on´´correctness´´, due to the product ment mostly for Americans/western Europeans. What it dooesnt mention is the weaker Russia is the stronger the Germans are (I mean rough ethnicity, western Europe) US doesnt have an ethnicity, since you know...The EU of today is commanded by pro-germans. What is natural they extort slavic countries living in their sphere of influence (why they are under germanic influence? Because Russia after USSR disintegration was weak) while officially bringing them heaven on earth. In 2005 usual work hour cost in WE was 25€, while here it was 2,7€, while they were saying that they cant give you more money, it would be unsustainable to them, while in WE it wasnt... Even though TV managed by the west ridicule Slavic somewhat of a unity we have, west nicely (US this time) fuels bad stuff with Poland. I want to laugh at poor Estonia or whatever it was who was nothing more than a Nazi puppet, which did help USSR take over territories it had as the Russian Empire. Baltics states were punished a bit too little for their collaboration and help to Nazis. Equalling nazism with communism is just a way of cleaning themselves their dark history who we arent going to forget. EU is an enemy of Russia, because EU does the bad things. Russia gives them resources, without which they would have to tighten their belts. EU as a wannabe empire is fragile, because even if said officially we went there freely, we were forced to it by traitor politicians we had. Same with NATO relic we finance. Still EU and the west in general criticizes Russia to drink water while they drink wine. Normal people can filter the PR. They were filled with one before, now theyre filled with other spin. No matter what was 41 years ago, I want to say hello to my Slavic brothers to the east from me :-)

We hear in modern history that the Former USSR was the first nation from the Allies to make a pact with Hitler, This is very false and which the west tries to hide, The very first was made by the west in the from of Chamberlain and Daladier which was in a way a pact for peace and the price was the chekoslovakia sudeten land.... Even when chekoslovakia was fully invaded the west did nothing... So this left no choice for the USSR as well to deal with the Nazis an unfortunate episode both by the West and USSR. So in a word it was the British and French who first dined with the devil... The formet WW1 PM Loyld George visited Nazi Germany and was very Impressed by Hitler along with the Duke of Windsor..

Well said Danny: Both UK and France were first to make a peace agreement with Hitler. Their hopes were that Hitler will go eastwards, on Russia, and they gave him Czechoslovakia as a pay-off. In this view, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact can be seen as Stalin's diplomatic victory at the time, even though he got only two years after that. As for the Baltic states, it is all well known they were engaged together with Hitler on attacking USSR. After the war they had to pay for their sins and that's a simple explanation. They've got what they deserved! Consider an opposite example: Finland! Even though the communists were those who first attacked Finland in 1939, Mannerheim didn't want to cross the Carelian layer in 1941(2) and so the 25th army was released to defend Peterburg . The gallant old nobleman simply couldn't stand to see his own city occupied by German troupes. That's why Finland has never been in danger from USSR after the WWII, and will never be from Russia in the foreseeable future, for Fins have proven they know how to take care about their neighbors.

Vladimir, Danny, The issue is not who did what first but what their intentions were. The SVR states that occupation of the Baltics was justified as Stalin had to gain time in the inevitable war against the Nazis. The young Baltic States had reasons to fear their Big Neighbour – only 25 years earlier they were part of the Russian Empire - a perspective of German protection might have seemed the only way to save their fragile independence. Also, Lithuania was in a bitter conflict with Poland over Vilnus. Consequently, similarly to the Czechoslovakia looking for Soviet support - having the Nazis next door - the Balts had to make a choice on which deadly team to join. But SVR's thesis fails completely when looking at the case of Poland: their government persistently opposed Hitler's demands. Although wary of Soviet power (mind the Polish- Bolshevik war in 1920), Poland was not hostile towards the USSR and at no point did they give a sing they would join the Nazis! Yet, the Ribentropp-Molotov pact ratified partitioning of Poland with a clear pen mark on the map, 50:50. Soldiers of both armies shook hands when they met near the River Bug. At the same time when the Nazis unleashed their terror in Warsaw, the NKVD began arrests and cleansing of Polish 'intelligentsia' in their part of occupied country; some 10,000 Polish P.O.Ws were secretly shot dead in the forests of Katyn. The first country that actually opposed Hitler was being systematically and ruthlessly destroyed by the Soviets and the Nazis alike. This brings us to the point that until 1941 Stalin was content to have Europe divided between Hitler and himself. Statement that he chose 'lesser evil' by signing the pact is naive when one objectively looks at what happened in the countries occupied by the Red Army in 1939-41, at the history of pre-war secret military co-operation between the USSR and Germany and finally at Stalin's way of holding the power in his totalitarian empire.

P.S.: inerestingly, a historician from the Russian MOD, Siergey N. Kovalov, was recently trying to prove that Poland is to blame for the World War II as they did not agree to Hitler's 'reasonable demands' (German incorporation of Danzig etc.) and made him declare the war (sic!); Now, I beg the Ministry's Past-Fiction writers (as one certainly cannot call them historicians) to come up with a coherent story and decide whether making a deal with Hitler was 'cool' or not; Or, could they simply write the truth...?

Hey commies! How “surprising” it is to see that Kremlin-commissioned journalists "forgets" to mention that the: “secret protocol”resulted not in “Germany invading Poland”, but in a joint, German – Soviet military aggression on Poland in September 1939 – this is how the WWII began and these are the two countries responsible for its outbreak. Of course, only an “incorporation” of Western Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova” is mentioned as if they all strived to be annected by the bloodthirsty stalinist – regime, thad had always had the good of its people, especially the Ukrainians, laying at the very depths of its heart. The Soviet-era propaganda version of these events was that the red army “entered these areas to protect the local population from the Nazis” – yes, they certainly did by mass-killings or mass-deportations of the local people, especially Polish and Ukrainians, to the concentration camps in Siberia, too far for the Wehrmacht to reach. We should all feel ascertained that the signing of this pact between the two scums of the Earth of that time has bought Stalin time to prepare for the German military invasion in 1939. He had more time to run his massive cleansings in the army and society which has made it easier for the Germans to conquer half of the soviet – european territory in few months! It is clear that Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians have welcomed the Soviet occupation of their countries in 1940 and 1945 with the open arms! As do Fins, who had to repel the clumsy soviet invasion attempt on their country in 1939/1940. There is a good, deep thought in what was written here: “Somehow, I have a feeling that the present world situation is very much alike to that of pre-WWII” – it is Russia that took role of the present day Third Reich with so many clear analogies between these two regimes. However, the student (USSR) has surpassed his master (III Reich).

Slava Rosii: Now, you have gone to far! I surely didn't mean on Russia, but on USA, for it is USA that has 800 military bases all around the globe, and Rus has only a handful of them (surely less than UK, for example). Le5iu: As to the communists crimes in "conquered" countries: I share your opinion that Pols, for example, suffered a lot from communists of USSR, and that other nations also suffered at which the communists came to power. But that was a general communist platform everywhere: to destroy "inteligentsia", to destroy church, to destroy villagers (and to make a "working class" from them, that would reside in cities), to proclaim that God doesn't exist anymore, to cancel "private property", etc. Prior to 1939 all that had already been done in Russia as well, and Russians themselves also suffered a lot. Therefore, I wouldn't blame Russians for Katyn disaster, but rather the communists, who predominantly were non-Russians. By the way, even Russian nationals hadn't really been ready to take an active participation in fighting German troupes until the church bells didn't ring somewhere in Oct. 1941 calling everybody to defend "otechestvo".

The pact, from the Third Reich's point of view, simply secured and protected Germany's eastern borders so that the Reich could better defend its western borders. They knew that France and England would open up the Western Front again, and they did. This time Germany (May 6th 1940) struck first and both France and England were ignominiously defeated.

We look at the water jet coming from a fountain. If the valve suddenly shuts – a water jet remains still visible free in the air following its downward path to death. Same is with the starlight we see looking at the sky – they are already dead considering their wellspring stopped emitting. So is the discussion about two ideologies. The sources stopped emitting, but their forensic remains stay in media representing two different wings of Judeo-Christianity legacy. This one has been best expressed without a symbolic cross, but as the abstract sculpture of Henry Moore called “Oval” located in the garden of Princeton University. We pretend to be able of making the comparison of “two evils” and discuss if they were equal or not? What we have is the resultant political legacy of Judeo-implications of Christianity understood as the progressively addicting civilization without religious roots or any brakes. And this civilization remained frenetically anti-Slavic incomparably more than any resulting scattered political vector of communism against anybody. Thus – paradoxically - we associate communism as the better forensic remains of Christianity than the joint venture with Judaism ever succeeded. Nobody of us, being initially Commies or Nazi ever expected the turnout of this actuality. The world is parting from Jews pretending to the monopoly of teaching. We don’t know the future but know we don’t build new walls as China attempted long ago and Israel now re-applying. We stay silent around this Jewish tongue of a bell – like the hollow environment not willing to move anymore. They might win but there will be no clapping sound. Hemingway was not aware of the meaning “To whom the bells toll?” because he also took the bells as granted environment.

Vladimir, what you write is astonishing. You write, “As for the Baltic states, it is all well known they were engaged together with Hitler on attacking USSR.” I don’t know of any historian who knows this at all, let alone knows it well. Operation Barbarossa had no Baltic element to it at all. How could the Baltics attack Russia in 1941? They were already under Russian occupation since 1940. It was only when the war drew on and Germany was clearly on the losing end of it, that it started conscripting men from the occupied Baltic countries. The conscripts had no choice but to go; others joined voluntarily not to “attack the USSR”, but specifically and precisely to try to delay Russia re-invading their countries, and continuing Stalin’s mass atrocities of 1940-41 against their civilian populations. This is what is well known, Vladimir. It is also well-known that Estonia was totally and determinedly neutral in the years leading up to its 1940 invasion by Soviet Russia .

Vladimir, Note, that in my previous comments I haven’t used the word ‘Russians’ once while writing about Soviet co-responsibility for the outbreak of World War II. I was referring to Stalin’s intentions and the decision his government made – not those of the people of the Soviet Russia who were themselves subject to terror. My point is that by committing Molotov to sign the pact with Ribbentrop (with its secret protocol which partitioned Poland and gave the Baltic States to the USSR) Stalin intently gave Hitler a green light to European expansion; moreover he participated in it and benefited from it through occupation of the aforementioned countries. The Katyn executions were committed by the NKVD on Beria’s direct order but the decision was accepted by the entire Politburo, including Stalin. Should Russians feel responsible for this? In a just society there isn’t place for ‘group responsibility’; each and one of us is liable for his or her decisions individually. However, it is a good practice among heads of states to take historical responsibility for their predecessors’ actions; we have seen it in de-nazified Germany, more recently in Poland (apologies for acts of anti-Semitism during the war) and France (apologies for the Vichy government’s help in the Holocaust). In Russia the Stalinist heritage should seem even more burdensome as the FSB proudly traces its roots to Cheka and the NKVD. The more, I believe, Russia needs to honestly look back at the dark chapters of its history and the government’s role in doing so is crucial as many documents remain classified. If the current Russian government admitted Stalin’s co-responsibility for the outbreak of World War II, for Katyn killings and mass terror throughout his dominion – which I believe is the wish of many in Europe 70 years later - it is not equivalent with the statement that Russians are responsible for those acts.

Remember that place: harków, miednoje, ostaszków.....

When world war 1 finished, how much did the Germans have to pay to us? Was it 6,600 or was it 6,6000?