“COMMUNAZIS” AND THE MOLOTOV–VON RIBBENTROP PACT

The signing of the Molotov–von Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in August 1939 caused Communists to completely reassess their position on Nazism and to strongly downplay the issue of antisemitism. Since 1935, the Communists had urgently appealed to the Western democracies to take immediate measures to block Nazism’s advance. Now, suddenly, they denied that Germany constituted a serious menace. The Soviets extended Nazi Germany’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, a cordial welcome when he flew to Moscow to sign the Pact, hoisting six swastika flags at the Moscow airport. The Soviet Revolutionary Army band struck up the Horst Wessel song for him, the Nazi anthem. While meeting with von Ribbentrop in Moscow, Stalin toasted Hitler, declaring: “I know how much the German nation loves its Führer; I should therefore like to drink to his health.” The Swastika flag was again “boldly in evidence” at the airport when von Ribbentrop departed from Moscow on August 24. The Moscow band again played the Horst Wessel song “without a single slip” when von Ribbentrop returned on September 27 for further meetings with Stalin and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov. When von Ribbentrop departed for Germany two days later, the members of the Soviet honor guard raised their right hands in the Hitler salute as he entered his airplane.

In an abrupt about-face, the Communists denied that there existed any significant difference between the democracies and the fascist powers. They were merely two imperialist coalitions competing to control world markets. The Communists now insisted that it was the working class’s duty to “fight against its enemies at home,” that is, against its nation’s capitalists, “instead of serving as [their] gun-fodder.” As Arthur Koestler noted, this policy, “put into practice ... mean[t] [to] surrender France to Hitler and the French working class to the Gestapo.” Having signed the Non-Aggression Pact, the CP announced that it no longer supported the boycott of German goods.