While discussing the perpetually overrated German–Soviet Pact, antisocialists sometimes make claims like this:
Germany made a proposal for the Soviet Union to join the Axis on November 15, 1940.
Some of these claims involve interpreting information pessimistically. For instance:
Molotov also insisted that before the Soviet Union would agree to join the Axis it would require ‘a base for naval and air forces on the Bosporus and the Dardanelles’ and recognition that the area south of Batum and Baku in the direction of the Persian Gulf was the ‘center of the aspirations of the Soviet Union’.³¹
This is highly misleading. Although Molotov did confusingly refer to a ‘four power pact’, it was not Axis membership that was discussed, but a separate pact involving Berlin, Moscow, Rome, and Tōkyō. This may sound like a ‘meaningless’ distinction, but we have good reasons to doubt that Moscow ever sincerely anticipated long-term agreements with the Axis, including membership.
I have talked about this canard before. The reason that I have seldom mentioned it is that I consider it both unimportant and uninteresting: the little evidence available for this historic curiosity is unimpressive, limited to a few passing suggestions and rumours, as I shall soon show you. Wikipedia has an entire article on it, and includes dubious claims such as this:
After negotiations from 12 to 14 November 1940, Ribbentrop presented Molotov with a written draft for an Axis pact agreement that defined the world spheres of influence of the four proposed Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union).[5]
On the contrary, if you read the given citation (Pariahs, Partners, Predators, pg. 201), there is no such proposal for a Quadrupartite Pact. The earlier page does vaguely mention ‘the four Axis powers’, but the author provided no citation and his source of information is unclear. We have a bigger problem on our hands, though: this is a low-quality source. Quoting Gabriel Gorodetsky:
The […] weak point of the book is the fact that the primary evidence derives from German archives, which have long been open to western scholars. The sporadic use of Soviet archives becomes a serious shortcoming when Nekrich attempts to guide the reader through the labyrinth of events surrounding the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact and the calamity of 22 June. Only a few archival sources are quoted from the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Chiefs of Staff, or even the Foreign Ministry.
A graver fault is the tenuous thread that ties the story together. Nekrich’s intuitive tendency is to present a continuous determinist course for the “special relations.” He assumes that the relations were forged by a distinctive ideological symbiosis, a “brown–red” fascist–communist ideology that drew the two countries together. By so doing, he endorses the obsolete totalitarian model. Thus, for instance, he plays down Stalin’s intensive efforts to achieve alliance with the west by implementing a system of collective security in 1934–1939. Instead he blows out of all proportion the sporadic and low-level contacts maintained with the Germans, contacts that are attested only by dubious and unreliable sources.
Nekrich would not be the last, of course. One author referenced Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik, D, ii, but this is merely an internal note from a member of a German delegation dated September 3, 1938. (In fact the entire volume is about 1937–1938, not 1940.) Another writer referenced AMVnR, PRETI/ 1 / 3 pap.1 op.2sh pop.1 l.7, report by D. Shishmanov, general secretary of the Bulgarian FM, 25 Nov. 1940: a report by a Bulgarian diplomat, available only in an archive, and without further source.
Another author made reference to The Incompatible Allies, presumably page 323: no relevant information here either. (The closest is Stalin sending Molotov to Berlin ‘so that further development of the relationship between the two countries could be discussed.’) Another reference that a few authors use is Nazi–Soviet Relations: the closest line that supports this is presumably ‘[…] the Italian Ambassador to Matsuoka as to whether at the conversation between Matsuoka and Stalin the relations of the Soviet Union with the Axis had been taken up, Matsuoka answered that Stalin had told him that he was a convinced adherent of the Axis and an opponent [Gegner] of England and America.’ If this is verifiable then it appears to be no more than a third‐party source; worth little more than hearsay.
One maybe acceptable source is Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945: The war years, Sept. 1, 1940–Jan. 31, 1941, but references to the Soviet Union, or ‘Russia’ as they usually called it, entering the Axis are scarce and limited to shallow, off-the-cuff remarks. An example from page 621:
Whether the Americans would really take an active part in the war was, moreover, uncertain, for, in view of the world coalition which Germany was gradually assembling, the United States would, upon active intervention in the war, practically have to declare war on the whole world. This would be difficult even for Roosevelt.
A number of other states would join the Tripartite Pact. A way was being found by which Russia could also be enrolled in the combination. If this succeeded there was hope that Turkey, too, could be drawn into the sphere of this world coalition.
According to it Soviet Russia “renewed” the proposal of mutual assistance made last autumn.⁴ If it is accepted, Russia will raise no objection to Bulgaria’s accession to the Tripartite Pact, which Russia herself “very probably, almost certainly” will also join. Besides, the proposal stated anew Russia’s sympathy for Bulgaria’s national aspirations.
The Minister President replied, as he told me, that the proposal was entirely new to him, he knew nothing of a concrete proposal having been made on a previous occasion, and he could now only receive it and promise to study it. For the rest he referred the Russian to the reply which meanwhile was being sent to Moscow. He told me that the proposal would, of course, be rejected. The difficulty lay in finding a formulation (text en clair apparently missing) that would not offend the Russians.
handwritten leaflets have publicized Russia’s proposal of a mutual assistance pact and the declaration of her readiness to support “the return of the area from Adrianople to the line Enos-Midia, and western Thrace including Dedeagach, Drama, and Kavalla,” and join the Tripartite Pact together with Bulgaria.⁵ […] one Russian source is said to have characterized the leafleft as the act of provocateurs.
The fact that the Russian Government itself is considering the possibility of acceding to the Tripartite Pact proves that Bulgaria has not done anything contrary to Russian interests.
The objections of the Soviet Union to the accession of Bulgaria to the well-known Tripartite Pact will be dropped, on condition that the mutual assistance pact between the Soviet Union and Bulgaria be concluded. It is entirely possible that in that case the Soviet Union will join the Tripartite Pact. [The Tsardom of Bulgaria had no such interest in a pact with the Soviets.]
The Foreign Minister then emphasized in conclusion that the Russians themselves would be invited to join the Tripartite Pact, but all these things must not be done too hastily.
While a few of these may look alarming, I would not stress over claims lacking corroborating evidence. Considering that Adolf Schicklgruber announced his plan in Mein Kampf to seize Eastern land, and succeeded at it for a while, the very suggestion that Moscow seriously considered allying with the Third Reich ought to strike everybody as ridiculous on its face. Only by pointing out superficial similarities between the Soviet Union and the German Reich do antisocialists trick people into taking it seriously.
This trivia was very boring for me to research, because primary sources have so little to say about it and are much more concerned with other matters. Much like the trivia that ‘Nazi’ is short for ‘National Socialist’, this is another distraction that is ‘important’ solely because antisocialists have decided that it is, to the point where they completely overlook the Third Reich’s much more important (and much more interesting) relations with foreign capitalists and even the other Axis powers.
The only interesting aspect in this trivia is that it raises the question of why either Berlin or Moscow would talk about an alliance if, according to antisocialists, they were already allied by means of the German–Soviet Pact. I am sure that antisocialists can concoct some clever little explanation for that, but there are plenty of better things that you could be doing than indulging in their petty distractions.
[Footnote]
There is a similar rumor of a ‘secret series of conferences’ said to have taken place between the Gestapo and the NKVD sometime during 1939 and 1940—usually no exact dates are provided, and it is unclear who attended them or where exactly they took place or how the discussions went. Given the scarcity of evidence at hand, it is probable that these conferences never happened.
Hitler literally thought that Communists were Jewish puppets sent to destroy German greatness. Why on earth would he then ally with them. Especially since he planned on a genocide of Slavic people
More importantly, why would the Soviets align themselves with a party that was not shy about its disdain for communism and Slavic people