Eighty seven years ago on August 23, 1939 the world learned that Communist Russia and Nazi Germany had signed a non-aggression pact, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It was named after their respective foreign ministers, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Observers would have been even more horrified had they known of the secret protocols that divided Eastern Europe between the two totalitarian regimes. What they called a "peace treaty" in reality was a war treaty.
Nine days later on September 1, 1939 at 4:45 am Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War II started.
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.
On September 22, 1939 the German Nazi army joined with the Soviet Communist army in a military parade in Brest-Litovsk and the two sides celebrated together.
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."
The decision to shoot the prisoners was signed on March 5, 1940 by seven members of the All- Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) authorities: 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 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.
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.
Communist apologists continue to defend Stalin and attempt to cover up this history of collaboration between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. It may also explain the real reason behind attacks on the legacy of Winston Churchill. His observation on the relationship between the Communists and the Nazis in his book The Second World War, Volume 1, The Gathering Storm (1948) is damning and accurate.
"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.
It also led to Poland spending another half century under Soviet domination and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia occupied by the Russians. A conquest that arose out of the Hitler-Stalin pact that endured following the end of the war.
It was a nonviolent movement thirty six years ago that liberated the Baltic nations. The Baltic Way brought an end to this part of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact.
On June 4, 1989 the Solidarity labor movement won in free elections and the Polish people finally regained their sovereignty after nearly 50 years under Soviet domination. They did it nonviolently.
So did the people of the Baltic states when two million Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined hands together in a giant human chain stretching 370 miles on August 23, 1989. Fifty years to the day after the treaty that brought them so much grief had been signed.
This history must not be forgotten. The Spanish scholar George Santayana understood that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
On August 15, 2025 in Alaska, Vladimir Putin attempted to obfuscate the Soviet Union’s shameful role in starting Word War Two in alliance with Nazi Germany by laying a wreath commemorating Russian-U.S. cooperation, thus focusing on the later alliance with the United States.
However, the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact that started this calamitous world war with German and Russian troops invading Poland in 1939 reveals the true nature of Soviet communism, and the sinister nature of Vladimir Putin’s KGB background.
Confusing an enemy for a friend can have catastrophic consequences. This is why it is important to observe Black Ribbon Day, and never forget this catastrophic alliance between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in 1939. It is important to resist Putin’s disinformation with both facts and acts of remembrance.
Therefore, on August 24, 2026 at 2:00pm in Washington DC at McPherson Square join the Joint Baltic American National Committee - JBANC, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and the Embassy of Estonia, Embassy of Latvia to the USA, and Embassy of Lithuania in Washington, D.C. for this commemoration of the Baltic Way anniversary, which marked the beginning of the end of the last remnant of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that was finally achieved in 1991.
A blessed Black Ribbon Day to all in the western world especially in The Baltics! The 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is an important piece of European history that should never be forgotten. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union two of the most evil regimes in history, signed a pact to work together and carve up Eastern Europe amongst each other. Hitler and Stalin both sought to carve up Eastern Europe for their own purposes. They realized they had a clear mutual interest. National Socialism and Communism were merely two sides of the same coin. The Nazis and the Soviets actually invaded Poland together in 1939. Germany took Western Poland and the USSR took Eastern Poland.
Both the Nazis and the Soviets would commit unspeakable acts of brutality against the Polish people. The Soviets would then follow that up in 1940 by annexing Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and subjugated the free peoples of those nations. The Nazis murdered millions of Poles who they deemed to be racially inferior as they were Slavs. This would include millions of Polish Jews. About 2.7 to 3 million Polish Jews and 1.8 to 2.77 ethnic Poles perished in the Holocaust. The Germans forcibly expelled 2,470,000 Poles from their homes in total. Up to 928,000 Poles were ethnically cleansed so their land could be given to German settler colonists. The Nazis used this land for Lebenstrum or living space in English, in Eastern Europe. These expulsions were so abrupt that German colonists often found half eaten food on the tables of the Polish former occupants. The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls oversaw the expulsions. Polish Jews were segregated from the rest of population into ghettos and then sent to concentration camps. The Nazis executed thousands of Polish civilians. Some three million Poles were deported to Germany and used for forced labor. Many of them were teenage boys and girls. They were forced to work long hours and were paid chicken feed for doing so. The Germans frequently kidnapped Polish women to be used as prostitutes in military brothels, some were as young as fifteen-years old
The Nazis sought to “Germanize” Poland and forced Poles to learn the German language and about German culture. About 10% of Poles were considered to be of “Germanic blood” and were forcibly assimilated to German culture. Elementary schools that taught the Polish language were closed down. Germans and people of German heritage were given preferential treatment over ethnic Poles. At least 20,000 Polish children were kidnapped by the Germans, taught they were Germans, “Germanized”, and sent to live with adopted German families. The Nazis looted and destroyed libraries, museums, scientific institutions and laboratories, and national monuments and historic treasures. They closed down all universities and high schools. They also engaged in the systematic murder of Polish scholars, teachers and priests. Millions of books were burned including 80% of all school libraries. The Catholic Church in Poland was brutally repressed. The Nazis also committed many atrocities against Polish civilians as they worked to put down the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
The Soviets were equally as ruthless and cruel to Polish civilians. They had locked up 500,000 of them by 1941. 22,000 military officials and personnel were murdered in the horrific 1943 Katyn Forest Massacre. 320,000 Poles would find themselves deported to Siberia. Possibly as many as 100,000 Polish women were raped by the Red Army. 150,000 Poles altogether were murdered by their Soviet occupiers. The Soviets imposed land reform and collectivization on the population. They dismantled Polish government and social institutions. Between 40,000 and 50,000 Poles were deported to forced labor camps. By the way, They also deported German refugees back to Germany and to their deaths. These folks were anti-Nazi Germans, Communists and Jews. The Soviets would dominate Poland in one form or another for the next fifty years until the end of the Cold War. It would not be until the 1990s that the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian people would finally gain their freedom from the Soviet Empire.
CIERTO 💯❌️💯 «La lucha del hombre contra el poder es la lucha de la memoria contra el olvido.» - Milan Kundera