Roberts, Geoffrey R. The Unholy Alliance: Stalin's Pact with Hitler. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989. xi, 296 pp. $37.50.

Vizulis, Izidors Joseph. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. New York: Praeger, 1990. 176 pp. $38.95.

http://users.ju.edu/jclarke/wizzj.html

Last year marked the Silver Anniversary of the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 23, 1939. Historians are looking once again at that event, now that the passing of a generation ought to make possible the cooling of passions for scholarly reevaluations. The pact, which unleashed the holocaust of World War II, has contemporary political implications as well, because Hitler and Stalin therein forged the political-military-economic regime that has ever since dominated Europe. Despite present euphoria, the collapse of Stalin's empire potentially threatens yet another cataclysm, as the sundry peoples of East Europe scramble to reassert their national identities, identities too often defined by their traditional hatreds. We, for good or ill, stand poised on the threshold of brave new worlds.

Over the last several years, a number of scholars have written important books on Stalinist foreign policy, and Geoffrey Roberts' The Unholy Alliance: Stalin's Pact with Hitler will take its place among them. He begins his discussion with a solid description of Soviet historiography on the pact. Displaying a wide range of reading and an ability to synthesize, he admirably fulfills one of his purposes, that is, to show that a credible history, even on sensitive topics, can be written by extensively using Soviet sources.

Roberts cogently argues that Stalin did not finally decide to cement a deal with Berlin until mid-August 1939. He signed his "Unholy Alliance" because of the general failure of collective security, a failure punctuated by the collapse of negotiations with Britain and France in August. He particularly feared that London and Paris would abandon the USSR in the coming invasion of Poland. The Soviets then retreated into isolation and sought to guard their interests and security through territorial expansion. Desiring to stay out of the war as long as possible, Moscow had to reconcile its requirement for cooperation with Germany with its need to forestall Nazi expansion. Misled by his belief that Britain was trying to provoke war between the USSR and Germany, Stalin failed to anticipate the German attack in June 1941 despite ample intelligence. Roberts presents a credible case.

His work does have minor problems, however. Beyond a few factual and spelling errors, he sometimes sounds a bit too uncritical of Soviet aims and means. More seriously, Roberts and the Indiana Press have oversold his work and its contribution. Contrary to claims, this is not a work of original research in the sense that Roberts, as implied, has haunted Soviet archives to scare up original documents. Rather, with minor exceptions, he has relied entirely on published documents and secondary works. This does not to diminish his effort, however, because in fact Roberts is correct. Much has been released over the last decade and more, and it is time that Western scholars reevaluate pre-war Soviet policy.

Nor can the claim that Roberts has written a definitive history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact be accepted. He himself concedes that history in the Soviet Union is used for political purposes, and there remain limits to Soviet published sources. Whole categories of archival documents such as personal papers, inter-departmental memorandum, and such remain closed. Roberts' citations bespeak large areas where the documentation remains weak. Finally, his end notes and bibliography are distractingly sloppy and inconsistent in style and punctuation. Nonetheless, until that fabled time when western historians have access to all archival materials, Roberts has done an excellent job, and researchers will gladly draw upon the evidence and arguments that he has marshaled.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of Izidors Joseph Vizulis' The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939: The Baltic Case. This is a polemic, haphazardly thrown together presumably for its commercial appeal. Indulging in an understandable but hardly scholarly quest for vengeance, Vizulis describes without nuance the actions and presumes without subtlety the purposes of the USSR.

This is not a work of original research. In fact, Vizulis himself already has covered much of his present material in his Nations Under Duress: The Baltic States (1985). His bibliography ignores many important and standard works as well as significant recent monographs. Further, he has left out the many recent journal articles which could have supported his case. The historical section relies on several general textbook accounts; the section on present Baltic disturbances primarily cites newspapers and emigré newsletters. Vizulis does not always cite his quoted material, nor does he always use the best sources to support particular points. Distressingly long and worthless bloc quotations frequently float in mid-air with no textual clue as to their origin and generally clutter the work. Vizulis often gratuitously quotes his own Nations Under Duress to support his current conclusions. Roberts covers many of these issues more succinctly and ultimately more persuasively.

In his effort to condemn the Soviets of the obvious--that what they did to the Baltic States was not terribly nice--Vizulis reaches in his arguments. For example, he cites (p. 43) United States v. Ferris, a 1927 case from the district of Northern California, to demonstrate that states have moral and legal obligations to carry out their agreements, and that therefore neither Stalin nor Hitler were scrupulous gentlemen, behaving with fidelity toward their treaties. Hardly an astounding conclusion that surely, if needed to be said at all, could have found more appropriate support. This sort of thing is typical in this book.

Many of Vizulis' interpretations, presented as unimpeachable fact, are questionable. For example, he denies that the USSR in the summer of 1940 faced any threat from Germany. He claims that at the Teheran Conference, "Stalin was visibly in deep water" (p. 53) and was the supplicant--this after the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk and even while the Americans and British were embarrassingly stalled in Italy! Vizulis morally castigates the United States for not having been willing to go to war against the USSR over the Baltic States at the end of World War II, and he simplistically maintains the myth of the Yalta give-away. Believing that the West could have defeated Hitler without the USSR, Vizulis dramatically oversells the value and leverage of Lend Lease Aid. He states all of this and more with only minimal attempts to demonstrate these "facts" through sound sources or argument.

The constant repetitions of points large and small and the stream of irrelevancies quickly grate. They cease being merely boring to become insulting to the reader. In many places the book's organization, paragraph structure, and even verbiage are held captive to its sources, especially undigested newspapers and newsletters. It is indicative that he quotes (p. 106) the New York Times (without using quotation marks which is also far too typical) on events happening "in recent weeks"--those weeks were "recent" in July 1988; they no longer are.

This book proves that passion does not necessarily produce inspired scholarship or writing. This is a shame, because the cause is just and merits better. Nor does Praeger deserve praise for its lack of rigorous editing in either acquisition or production.

J. Calvitt Clarke III
Jacksonville University

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