cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/85768
A new book by historian and author Grover Furr, The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Explained: The Soviet Struggle for an Anti-Nazi Alliance, published by Erythros Press, examines the diplomatic developments leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War, challenging dominant bourgeois interpretations of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939. Drawing on historical evidence, Grover Furr argues that the Soviet Union consistently sought to establish a collective security agreement against Nazi Germany, while the governments of Britain, France and Poland obstructed efforts to create a united front against Hitler’s expansionism.
According to the book’s central argument, Western ruling circles regarded communism and the prospect of socialist revolution as greater threats than Nazi aggression. Their policies of appeasement, Furr maintains, encouraged German expansion eastward, ultimately paving the way for the devastating war against the Soviet Union.
The book also addresses a historical episode frequently exploited by anti-communist propaganda to equate the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany, while minimizing the responsibility of Western powers for the failure to establish an effective anti-Hitler alliance.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Explained seeks to revisit these events from the perspective of Soviet diplomatic efforts, the international struggle against fascism and the historical circumstances preceding the Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941.
From In Defense of Communism via This RSS Feed.
Anyone willing to read this is already fully aware of the historical reality of Molotov-Ribbentrop
It’ll probably be good to mine for arguments.
I hate how UK appeasement is framed as wise realpolitik to buy time while they retooled and ran local propaganda but the MR pact is dastardly evil sinister plotting.
Also the way invading Poland is framed. Like should they have just let the Nazis take more of it? Sorry that a rapidly assembled army of former serfs facing insurgency, existential threat, and raised with long running bigotries and ancentral grieviances treated some people like absolute shit, would the nazis have been better? There was no possibility of a squeaky clean army materialising out of the aether and all alternate arrangements were rebuffed sooooo.
Also the way invading Poland is framed. Like should they have just let the Nazis take more of it?
More accurately, reclaiming western Ukraine and Belarus from a dissolved state
Also worth considering that nazi occupied Poland is where the holocaust took place, and soviet occupied Poland is where most of the successful escapees got out. Letting the Nazis have all of Poland only makes them more able to carry out the holocaust. M-R may not have been ideal but what other choices did the USSR have at that point? Their officer corps had been gutted by the purges (which, whether or not they were excessive, were absolutely a response to a fifth column developing inside the red army) and the western allies all refused to sign any kind of agreement.
Stalin, and the USSR at large, absolutely knew they couldn’t trust Hitler and that the M-R pact wouldn’t last, but they really were between a rock and a hard place.
For ages I thought Grover Furr was the full name of the Sesame Street character
It’s the same guy
I always get him confused with Joel Furr from Usenet.
Grover Furr is still alive?
Grover Furr exists through sheer force of will due to the knowledge that Timothy Snyder still is
Yeah, he’s still curmudgeonly moving about
Not sure why the publishers page has zero metadata like publishing date and ISBN, this is what’s listed on Amazon
Field Value Publisher Erythros Press & Media Publication date 9 Sept. 2026 Language English Print length 276 pages ISBN-13 979-8234192905 Dimensions 15.24 x 1.6 x 22.86 cm is Furr a crank or what. i have heard some vague criticisms of him from comrades but not looked into it further
He’s a crank but he’s right about some things and extremely knowledgable about the content of the Soviet archives and other sources. I would be surprised if he managed to fuck up something as open and shut as this topic, though.
He’s a crank but he’s right about some things and extremely knowledgable about the content of the Soviet archives and other sources.
yeah this was more or less my impression
whomst amongst us ain’t considered a crank. he’s a fellow traveler and kindred spirit
We smoking on that Budapest pack. This shit will turn your Putsch into a fucking tank tread. They thought they could dismantle the pact? I had to step out of the Kremlin crypt just to show these counter-revolutionaries how a real general secretary handles a deficit.
from what I have been able to gather over the years he’s legit
No, he isn’t, he’s the only guy out there that actually look at the most basic anticommunist bog, things long accepted as paradigm even among communists and demolishes it as lies.
Huh… Years ago I read some anarchist argument against “red-brown alliances” which cites the MR pact as an example of why not to try it: the Nazis will always betray you. It struck me as an obvious argument and also weird to imply that anyone would think a “red-brown alliance” would be a good idea. Was that just a strawman made up by anarchists who ignored the real history of the “pact” as a move to buy time to arm up before war and a way to try to liken Communists to Nazis?
