Eighty-six years ago today, on August 23, 1939 (July 9, 1939), Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact. The Soviet representative Molotov signed the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact. Ribbentrop left for Moscow by plane on August 22, 1939. He carried Hitler's full powers with him, the power to conclude non-aggression treaties and "other agreements" with the Soviet Union that would take effect immediately upon signature, and a large number of attendants. On the first night, the German delegation spent the night in Konigsberg, East Prussia, where, according to Dr. Schmidt, Ribbentrop worked all night, constantly talking on the telephone with Berlin and Berchtesgaden, and taking extensive notes in preparation for talks with Stalin and Molotov. Two "vulture" transport planes carrying the German delegation arrived in Moscow at noon on August 23. After a quick lunch at the embassy, Ribbentrop hurried to the Kremlin to meet the Soviet dictator and his People's Commissars for Foreign Affairs. The first meeting lasted three hours. According to Ribbentrop's "urgent" telegram to Hitler, the meeting went well for the Germans. Judging by the German Foreign Minister's telegram, there was no difficulty at all in agreeing on the terms of the non-aggression pact that would keep the Soviet Union out of the war that Hitler was waging. In fact, the only difficulty, he reported, was the apparently small question of how to divide the spoils. The Russians demanded that the Germans recognize the small Latvian ports of Libao and Windau as "within their sphere of influence." Since all of Latvia lay on the Soviet side of the line dividing the two countries' spheres of influence, this request was not much of a problem, and Hitler quickly agreed. Ribbentrop also told the Fuehrer after the first meeting that "a secret protocol is expected to be signed on the division of spheres of influence throughout Eastern Europe." All the documents - the Non-Aggression Pact and the Secret Protocol - were signed that evening at the second meeting in the Kremlin. It was so easy for the Germans and Russians to reach an agreement that most of the time in this banquet-style meeting, which lasted until one or two o'clock the next morning, was not spent on some serious bargaining, but on a country-by-country, lively and friendly discussion of the world situation, filled with the invariable toasts and cheers of the Kremlin celebrations. Two years later, when German troops invaded Russia in large numbers in violation of the above-mentioned treaties, Stalin still thought that he had justified this ugly deal with Hitler by carrying a British and French military delegation to negotiate in Moscow. On July 3, 1941, he boasted in a radio broadcast to the Russian people: "We have guaranteed a year and a half of peace in our country and the possibility of preparing our own forces to fight back against the enemy, if Fascist Germany dares to violate the treaty and invade our country. So there is no doubt that we have won and Fascist Germany has lost." Whether this is the case has been debated ever since. This dastardly deal gave Stalin a respite - peredyshka in Russian - just as Tsar Alexander I achieved from Napoleon in Tirsit in 1807 and Lenin in Brest-Litovsk in 1917 is obvious. It also gave the Soviet Union for a short period of time an advance position far beyond Russia's original borders, including bases in the Baltic states and Finland - at the expense of the Poles, Latvians, Estonians, and Finns. Above all, as the official Soviet Diplomatic History later emphasized, it reassured Russia that if Russia was later attacked by Germany, the Western countries would also be irrevocably involved in the war against the Third Reich, and the Soviet Union would not be alone against the mighty Germany, as Stalin feared all summer of 1939. All of this is undoubtedly true. But there are arguments to the contrary. By the time Hitler turned around and attacked Russia, the Polish and French armies, as well as the British expeditionary force sent to the mainland, had been destroyed, so that Germany could mobilize the human and material resources of all Europe to attack Russia, but there was no Western battlefield that could tie its hands and feet. For three full years in 1941, 1942, and 1943, Stalin complained that there was no second battlefield in Europe, and that Russia had to bear the pressure of almost all German troops. Now there was a Western battlefield in 1939-1940 that could contain the German army. If Russia had supported Poland rather than stabbed it in the back, it would not have been wiped out in half a month. Moreover, if Hitler knew that he would have to fight Russia if he wanted to fight Poland, Britain, and France, it would probably not have been able to fight at all. Even the politically timid German generals, if judged by their later testimony at Nuremberg, might have stood firm against going to war with such a powerful alliance. According to the French ambassador to Berlin, both Keitel and Brauchich had warned Hitler at the end of May that victory was unlikely if Russia joined the enemy. Since joining the League of Nations, the Soviet Union has built up a certain moral force, appearing before the world as the defender of peace and the main opponent of fascist aggression. Now that moral capital has been completely lost. Above all, by completing this dirty business with Nazi Germany, Stalin had signaled that a war was about to unfold, which would surely turn into a world war. He undoubtedly understood this. It turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life.