Russia revokes MRP and rejects history

In December of 1989 the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR adopted a resolution condemning the Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact (MRP) of 1939. This was widely interpreted as an apology for the USSR’s complicity in the Nazi and Communist atrocities that followed.

The MRP formalized military and political co-operation between Moscow and Berlin, sanctioned the mutual invasions of Poland, gave pre-approval for war crimes such as the Katyn murders of Polish officers, and paved the way for the Soviet invasion and occupation of most of Eastern Europe. It endorsed each other’s use of concentration camps (helped in sharing trade secrets enhancing their efficiency) to suppress and kill people based on political and racial criteria. It marked the internationally recognized beginning of WWII.

Now the Russian State Duma is ready to pass legislation that would revoke the 1989 Soviet condemnation of the MRP, in essence rescinding any apology. The existence of the MRP’s secret protocols was vehemently denied by the Soviets for decades. The content of this new bill directly contradicts undeniably determined facts, that have been clearly established by original documents and proven by genuine historical evidence. It’s a politically driven distortion of actual facts – once again, the Kremlin’s rejection of truth.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have all summoned their local Russian ambassadors and protested the justification of tyranny by the Soviet and Nazi regimes that this new bill represents. This proposed legislation would in essence approve internationally recognized criminal atrocities.

One must note Moscow’s usual inconsistency to justify its internationally contentious actions. The condemnation of the MRP was declared by a SOVIET institution, the Congress of People’s Deputies. Now a RUSSIAN State Duma is prepared to revoke a SOVIET declaration, Russia thereby asserting its status as the legal successor of the USSR. It claimed the same when it took over the Soviet embassies worldwide and assumed its rights to Soviet continuity when it’s to its advantage.

Russia’s variability is intentional and its inconsistencies are an insult to the countries affected. Moscow chooses to distance itself from the regime that signed the Tartu Peace Treaty. Nor will it claim any responsibility for the invasion, annexation and oppressive occupation of Baltic states – countries that have no international political leverage, other than moral principles and historical integrity – that have any consequences for the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin’s popularity thrives on his contempt for world opinion. His recently waning popularity rating is the result of Russia’s abject economic mismanagement, not Putin’s disdain for historical truth.

Putin’s own about-faced on the MRP matches the creeping Stalinism evident in Russian society. In 2008, while a prime minister, Putin approved the 1989 Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies condemnation of the MRP and said the Pact was strictly a personal matter between Stalin and Hitler.

But now Putin approves the rehabilitation of Stalin, and thus the MRP was necessary to ensure the security of the Soviet Union. His acolytes echo Putin’s pro-Pact stance. His minister of culture says the MRP was a “great achievement of Soviet diplomacy”.

Stalin’s return to acceptance, even greatness, is reflected by the increasing number of postings on social media that rejected the existence of the MRP’s notorious secret protocols. This is seemingly a cultural regression to the Soviet era when a similar government denial lasted well beyond the US release of the original documents discovered in German archives. Facts will not budge Putin’s Kremlin whose total control of mass and digital media regulate the ‘truth’. The scholarly establishment seems to acquiesce.

Is this sufficient cause for Baltic anxiety? Certainly not yet, but authoritarian manipulation and control of historical reality eventually gives unacceptable facts acceptability, normalcy and inevitability. Just witness Hitler’s domestic and foreign atrocities, Mao’s brutal Cultural Revolution, and Stalin’s establishment of a vast Gulag system.

Is it alarmist to say as many in Russia itself have observed – that the Kremlin is laying the groundwork for new aggression? Just in the last decade and half the invasion of Georgia’s South Ossetia, the uncontested annexation of Crimea and continued Russian military involvement in Ukrain’s Donbass initially aroused local Russian consternation and spurred international outrage. But this has deteriorated to cynicism and ennui in the opposition movement in Russia and to a new normal of pro forma, impotent sanctions internationally.

Leaving well enough alone is not an option.

LAAS LEIVAT