On 23 August, Europe will mark the European Day of Remembrance for the victims of totalitarian regimes and will commemorate 80 years since the notorious non-aggression agreement between the two biggest totalitarian tyrannies of the 20th century, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The agreement, signed on August 23, 1939, and better known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, contained secret protocols in which Stalin and Hitler plotted to divide Europe between themselves.
By signing the pact Stalin paved the way for Hitler to start a military attack on Poland and triggered World War 2. The Polish Republic was invaded first by Hitler and, two weeks later, by Stalin. The two aggressors celebrated the success of their coordinated military operation against Poland with a joint Nazi-Soviet parade in Brest-Litovsk.
The Soviet Union went on to occupy territories in Romania. In December 1939, the USSR started an aggressive war against Finland and, in June 1940, forcefully annexed the independent Republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
Over the first 22 months of World War II, the Soviet Union secured Nazi Germany’s back, provided it with manifold strategic goods, including oil and grain, and political support by ordering, for example, the French communists not to oppose the Nazi invasion.
EU and NATO membership erase dividing lines
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols resulted in mass murder, genocide, and suffering of millions of people on the scale unseen in human history. However, 80 years later, its consequences have only partially been liquidated. The crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime were judged and some justice was achieved in the Nuremberg trials. The crimes of the Soviet regime remain to this day without a proper legal and moral evaluation. Modern history has proven that only membership in NATO and the EU could finally erase the dividing lines drawn by totalitarian tyrannies in the Baltic States, Poland and other Central European countries.
However, countries in the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood – Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia – remain under active influence of the successors of the Molotov doctrine in the Kremlin and are still struggling to break free. Just as Hitler was not satisfied after the Munich agreement and the Soviet Union showed its true face by dividing Europe for decades to come and locking democracies in fear of a nuclear threat, so does today's Kremlin refuse to be satisfied with the occupied territories in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Putin wants to keep entire countries within the Kremlin's sphere of authoritarianism, human rights abuses and lawlessness.
Some politicians and businesspeople are actively arguing for a “dialogue” with the Kremlin. But such a strategy is doomed to failure because appeasement never works with a tyrant. Abolishing the remaining dividing lines in Europe is, in greater part, a responsibility for the European democracies, the EU and NATO – to help those countries that are willing to join the Euro-Atlantic community of freedom, security, democracy and the rule of law to reform themselves and achieve their goal.
We need an EU strategy for Russia
As you read these lines, many political prisoners, captured in the occupied territories in Ukraine, continue to suffer in Russian prison cells just because they spoke out against the Russian occupation and aggression; Russian people who want to have their say in elections are beaten by the police on the streets of Moscow. It is therefore a moral question for the Europeans: do we need a dialogue with the Kremlin, a force that invades and occupies territories of neighbouring countries, meddles in democratic elections, sows discord among countries and within societies, wages information wars and other forms of hybrid warfare.
In fact, Russia remains the biggest victim of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to this date. Not only because it paid the greatest price of human sacrifice later in the war. Merely because, until today, Russia has not come to terms with its gruesome past. Instead, the Kremlin openly stokes “nashism”, Soviet nostalgia, hatred towards the EU, NATO and liberal democracies.
Therefore, Western democracies should not merely seek a dialogue with Putin, but prepare for a post-Putin Russia. For that, a well-considered longer-term EU strategy is needed. The EU also should continue helping countries around Russia on their path of pro-European reforms and prepare itself for eventually inviting countries like Ukraine to join the EU. Ukraine's European success story would be the best example for the Russian people, a sign that a positive transformation is possible in Russia, too.
Educating young Europeans
The true significance of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact may be obvious for scholars and historians, but there is little awareness of it in the wider societies of Europe, especially among the young generation. In today's world, the lessons of those times are as important as ever, as Europe faces the rise of radicalism, populism and anti-European sentiment as well as external challenges, such as information wars.
The young generation should be able to understand the wider context of their time and critically judge the actions of statesmen and tyrants, be able to analyze reasons and wider consequences of their dealings for Europe. We also need to remind the young generation what the origins of the European Union are, why the EU and NATO are important, not only as a vehicle for a better life, but as a safeguard of the values of democracy and freedoms that must be defended every day. The 20th century history of European countries must become a shared European history not only in textbooks, but also in our minds.
The commemoration of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on August 23 is not just about the past. It is about history that we still have to overcome. The generation of Europeans who remember the horrors of Nazism and Communism bears a very special responsibility to enable us to finally abolish the blood-soaked dividing lines drawn by dictators.
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Rasa Juknevičienė is a member of the European Parliament, former minister of national defence of Lithuania and former president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
