Before and After the Fall of Communism: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Soviet Foreign Policy in 1939–1940 in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian Textbooks

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is a controversial event in the history of the Second World War. Some scholars regard the Pact as essential to the security of the Soviet Union; others consider it a reason to equate the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany as the main initiator of the Second World War. Comparison of the historical representations of the Soviet territorial expansion in 1939–1940 in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian textbooks can uncover the conceptual transformations in historical consciousness since the fall of Communism, and reveal: does the current evaluation of the Pact in Russia and Eastern European states vary?