With a resolution adopted on 23 January 2025, the European Parliament is expanding on its 2019 resolution entitled “The importance of European historical awareness for the future of Europe”. The objective is to rewrite history and present the Soviet Union as an accomplice of fascist aggression rather than a victim. As proof of this, the resolutions cite the German-Soviet non-aggression treaty:
“the unforgivable initial role of the Soviet Union in the early stages of World War II, for example through the 1939 Treaty of Non-Aggression between Nazi Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) and its secrets protocols, commonly referred to as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, in which both totalitarian regimes conspired to divide Europe into exclusive spheres of influence”
For the post-1945 period, the resolution claims a Soviet “occupation of the Baltic states” and the “subjugation of Eastern Central Europe” and calls for an EU-wide ban on “the use of both Nazi and Soviet communist symbols”.
This kind of historical revisionism is by no means new. As early as 1948, the US State Department published a collection of reports and documents under the title “Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939–1941” with the collaboration of the British and French Foreign Ministries. The intention was to spread a defamatory narrative about the role of the Soviet Union in the Second World War. This publication laid the foundation for a narrative that is still effective today. It remains the basis of school curricula in Germany and many other Western states today.
The Soviet Information Office responded in 1948 with a brochure of its own under the title “Falsificators of history”.
The brochure cites numerous documents to reveal the close links between US and German capital, which made the development of Fascist Germany’s heavy industry and armaments industry possible in the first place. The chronology of intergovernmental treaties between European powers and Hitler’s Germany is meticulously traced out. From the German-Polish Non-Aggression Treaty of 1934, to the German-English Naval Agreement of 1935, to the Munich Agreement of 1938 between Germany, England, France and Italy, which paved the way for the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. The objective of these states was not to combat fascist aggression, but to further isolate the USSR.
The consultations between France, England and the Soviet Union, which lasted from March to July 1939, are described in detail, although the Western powers were never prepared to offer equal guarantees and the negotiations thus failed. This is how the brochure summarises the situation:
“It would be a gross slander to assert that the conclusion of a pact with the Hitlerites was part of the plan of the foreign policy of the USSR. On the contrary, the USSR strove at all times to have an agreement with the Western non-aggressive states against the German and Italian aggressors for the achievement of collective security on the basis of equality. But there must be two parties to an agreement.
Whereas the USSR insisted on an agreement for combating aggression, Britain and France systematically rejected it, preferring to pursue a policy of isolating the USSR, a policy of concessions to the aggressors, a policy of directing aggression to the East, against the USSR.
The United States of America, far from counteracting that ruinous policy, backed it in every way. As for the American billionaires, they went on investing their capital in German heavy industries, helping the Germans to expand their war industries, and thus supplying German aggression with arms. They might as well be saying: ‘Go on, Messrs. Europeans, wage war to your hearts’ content; wage war with God’s help; while we, modest American billionaires, will accumulate wealth out of your war, making hundreds of millions of dollars in super-profits.’ ”
Winston Churchill – who certainly cannot be suspected of holding a pro-Soviet position – is cited as the key witness against the myth that Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union had divided up Europe between themselves as part of the secret agreements. From the Soviet Union’s point of view, the line of defence against the Nazis had to be brought forward as far as possible:
“That the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace. At any rate, the line is there and an Eastern front has been created which Nazi Germany does not dare assail. When Herr von Ribbentrop was summoned to Moscow last week, it was to learn the fact and to accept the fact that the Nazi designs upon the Baltic States and upon the Ukraine must come to a dead stop.” (Churchill, 1 October 1939)
It raises profound concerns when influencial political bodies and historians seek to redistribute the causes and responsibilities for the Second World War, in particular shifting blame from German fascism to its victims. Political motivation replaces a serious examination of history, to which we as a research centre are committed.
We strongly recommend reading the brochure of the Soviet Information Office. The full English translation is available online.
