DISINFO: The secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact never existed
SUMMARY
The existence of the so-called "secret additional protocol" to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was officially confirmed by a resolution of the USSR's Second Congress of People's Deputies on December 24, 1989. However, this resolution contained an evident absurdity – it declared that the original version of the "secret additional protocol" had not been found.
This document was literally sold by Alexander Yakovlev (Communist Party Secretary for Ideology) with the permission of Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1992, he organised a press conference announcing the discovery of a certain paper called “Secret Additional Protocol”. For some reason, this document is kept not in the Russian State Archive but in the historical-documentary department of the Russian Foreign Ministry. There was no verification of the authenticity of this document.
RESPONSE
The claim advances a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative distorting the events leading up to the Second World War, in particular denying USSR responsibility for starting WWII after signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. Putin, in his recent conversation-interview with US journalist right-wing extremist Tucker Carlson, advanced a similar outrageous claim that Hitler was forced by Poland to attack it in 1939.
The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of August 1939 contained a secret supplementary protocol that resulted in a coordinated Nazi-Soviet campaign against Poland and decided the carving up of Eastern Europe between the USSR and the Third Reich. On the other hand, there is no historical evidence that any other pre-war agreements with Nazi Germany contained secret provisions of this kind and none had the devastating effects of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
The secret protocol was revealed after Germany’s defeat in 1945, although hints about its provisions had been leaked much earlier.
See here for our debunking of the claim that the Soviet Union was “forced” to conclude an agreement with Hitler. Read more about the Pact here.
See similar disinformation cases on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in our database: West rewriting history by claiming USSR colluded with Nazi Germany; Poland re-writes history claiming the USSR attacked it in September 1939; the West tries to revise history, questioning the decisions of the Nuremberg trial; Europe is to blame for the outbreak of WWII.