Brushing aside the still valid Soviet-Estonian non-aggression pact, Molotov threatened war against Estonia, unless it agreed to sign a mutual assistance pact for ten years, which would include establishment of military, naval and air bases on Estonian territory. The helpless Estonians submitted to this Soviet pressure; they were assured by Stalin and Molotov that Estonia’s internal regime would not be infringed upon and that Soviet garrisons would be withdrawn immediately after the war.
Then came Latvia’s turn. On October 2, a Latvian delegation was summoned to the Kermlin to hear a similar ultimatum and similar soothing assurances. During the talks, some sixteen Red Army divisions were ominously present along the Soviet-Latvian border. The Latvians heard from Stalin that they threatened Soviet security; astonished, the Latvians asked who could threaten Soviet interests in the Baltic area. Stalin replied: “The Swedes and the British.” The Latvians submitted and on October 5, signed another extensive mutual-aid pact.
Next, Lithuania was requested to send a delegation to Moscow. To the Lithuanians Stalin offered the city of Wilno (Vilnius) to soften their fears of Soviet garrisons on their soil. For over two decades the city had been written into the Constitution of the Lithuanian Republic as its legal capital. Possession of Wilno by the Poles had been the main apple of discord between the two countries.
Lithuanian patriots had desired nothing more than to regain Vilnius from Poland. Yet, Kaunas refused Berlin’s urging to join in the attack on Poland at the coveted price. Now, faced again with the Danaian gift offered by Stalin, the Lithuanian Minister hesitated. Expressing his fear for his country’s independent existence, he made a dramatic appeal to Stalin to spare Lithuania.
As “a son of a small nation,” Georgia, which has lost its freedom at the expense of a great neighbor, Russia, Stalin should understand Lithuanian’s plight. Stalin ignored the plea and replied that he was “already a Russified Georgian.” On October 10, after long soul-searching, the Lithuanian delegation frightened by a mounting concentration of the Red Army along their eastern borders complied with the Soviet demands. To punish them for their hesitation, Molotov extended this Soviet-Lithuanian pact of mutual assistance from ten to fifteen years.
Thus, the destruction of Poland was followed by the disintegration of all other sovereign states in East Central Europe. The unfolding of events in East Central Europe in 1938-1940 is evidence of the close interdependence of the countries of the area. The collapse of Czechoslovakia was followed by the downfall of Poland and the Baltic States, and finally of the remaining independent nations situated between Germany and Russia. This was a perfect illustration of the domino theory.
Meanwhile, on October 22, 1939, the Soviet commander of the occupation forces in Eastern Poland ordered elections for the selection of deputies to the local Soviets. The electorate, of course, had no voice in the nominations of the candidates, who came mostly from the Soviet Union and were often complete strangers to the voters. Voting was permitted only for the one candidate whose name appeared on the ballot; Soviet occupation troops were also given the right to vote. Chosen deputies were then elected to the Supreme Soviet by a show of hands. They proceeded to pass resolutions providing for the “admission” of their territories into the Soviet Union, for the confiscation of large estates, and for the nationalization of banks and industries. Shortly after these political actions, deportations of “undesirable” and “unreliable” elements started anew, affecting an even greater number of people than before.
Some have seen Stalin’s decision to grab as much territory as he could, even in alliance with Hitler, as a rejection of the ideological premises of Communism and definite shift in the traditional Russian approach to territorial expansion. Probably some such shift had occurred. The loss of a broad belt of territory in the West to Russia’s western neighbors at the end of World War I has been painful to all Great Russian nationalists, with whom Stalin by then came to identify himself. These losses, a humiliating reminder of Russia’s defeats during 1914-1920, had also damaged the U.S.S.R.’s strategic situation by depriving it of Baltic ports in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland, thus making Leningrad a dangerously exposed frontier city.
Beyond the defeat of the enemy on the battlefield, the purpose of war is the achievement of political and other aims of the victor. The conqueror desires to consolidate the benefits of victory. Hitler, however, failed to establish meaningful advantages in Poland. No political party accepted German rule and no pro-Nazi government was ever formed, in contrast to all the other occupied countries of Europe. The terror and persecution which prevailed from the beginning in both parts of divided Poland produced uncompromising opposition drawn from a broad cross-section of the population. A resistance movement was organized by the major Polish political parties not only in the German-controlled regions toward the end of September 1939 , but also later and on a smaller scale in the Soviet zone of occupation. Moreover, to preserve the continuity of Polish statehood a government-in-exile was formed in France by General Wladyslaw Sikorski, who became its Prime Minister, as well as Commander-in-Chief of all Polish armed forces, at home and abroad.
The article is based on M.K. Dziewanowski’s book, War at Any Price. A History of World War II, 1939-1945, Prentice Hall, 1991.