DISINFO: WWII started in 1938 with the Munich Agreement and partition of Czechoslovakia
SUMMARY
The Second World War actually started in 1938, following the Munich Agreement and the resultant partition of Czechoslovakia.
RESPONSE
This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism and an attempt to erode and diminish the disastrous historical role of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by stating that WWII started before 1 September 1939 (referring to the Munich Agreements, the Anschluss, etc.).
The attempts to move the date of the outbreak of WWII to various pre-war events is an example of historical revisionism, carried out in order to shift and confuse the co-responsibility of the acts of the USSR in the outbreak of WWII on to other European states. Historians traditionally see such historical developments as the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935), the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the Japanese invasion of China (1937), the Anschluss (1938) and the Munich Agreements (1938) as pre-war events.
World War II started on September 1, 1939, from the German attack on Poland. This invasion was a consequence of the Secret Protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, where Nazi Germany and the USSR divided the “spheres of influence” in Eastern and Central Europe. The Soviet Union attacked Poland on September 17, 1939, implementing its part of the Secret Protocols.
Read similar examples of the Russian historical revisionism concerning Poland - Poland posed a military threat to the USSR in 1938-1939, Nazi Germany considered Poland its best ally, If Poland realised a rational policy in 1939, Moscow would have had a different approach towards it and Poland re-writes the history of the Warsaw uprising accusing the USSR of its failure.