On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression treaty with Nazi Germany. The Nazi-Soviet Pact gave Germany assurance it could attack Poland without fear of a Soviet military response—and barely more than a week later the German invasion of Poland began World War II in Europe. The agreement also reflected important concerns that would continue to shape Soviet foreign policy during the war and after, including the Soviet Union’s alienation from the United States and the other western democracies, its fear of Germany, and its territorial aspirations in eastern and northern Europe.
The treaty came as a shocking blow to many COMMUNISTS and others in the United States and elsewhere who had seen the Soviet Union as leading the opposition to Nazi Germany (though some lauded it as a brilliant piece of statecraft that saved the Soviet Union from attack). After signing the agreement, the Soviets abandoned the Popular Front effort to work with liberals against fascism. Increasing American suspicions of the Soviet Union, the Nazi-Soviet Pact contributed to troubled Soviet-Ameri-CAN relations during and after World War II.
The nonaggression treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union reflected the circumstances, concerns, and calculations of German fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin. As Hitler planned his invasion of western Poland, which seemed certain to bring declarations of war from England and France, he feared provoking conflict also with the Soviet Union and having to fight a major war on two fronts. Stalin knew that his military was not ready for war with Germany, and he believed that Britain, France, and the United States would not come to the support of the Soviet Union. In addition, Stalin had his eyes on territories in eastern Poland, the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia), Finland, and Romania that had been part of the prerevolutionary Russian Empire.
Following several months of negotiations (while the Soviets were also talking with Britain and France about an alliance against Germany), Germany and the Soviet Union announced their nonaggression treaty on
August 23, 1939. The pact included secret protocols that divided Poland between the two powers and allotted the Soviets spheres of influence in the Baltic states, Bessarabia (then part of Romania), and Finland. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and World War II officially began with the resulting declaration of war against Germany by Britain and France. The Soviet Union then seized the eastern part of Poland, invaded Finland later in the fall to take territorial and other concessions there, and annexed Bessarabia and the Baltic states in the summer of 1940.
After Germany abrogated the nonaggression treaty and attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, the United States and Great Britain gave support to the Soviet Union that paved the way for the wartime Grand Alliance of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union against Germany. But the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, a disturbing treaty that reinforced American suspicions of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent Soviet seizure of territory contributed to tensions within the Grand Alliance during the war. Soviet territorial aspirations evident in the secret protocols, and especially the issue of Poland, played a major role in the unraveling of the Grand Alliance and the onset of the cold war.
Further reading: Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979); Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, I939-I94I (New York: Norton, 1988).
Nelson, Donald M. (1888-1959) government official After a successful career with Sears, Roebuck, Donald Marr Nelson headed the War Production Board (WPB) during the economic mobilization for World War II.
Nelson was born in Hannibal, Missouri, on November 17, 1888. After graduating from the University of Missouri with a B. S. degree in chemical engineering in 1911, Nelson became a chemist for Sears, Roebuck and Company in 1912. Made manager of the men’s and boys’ clothing department in 1921, he was promoted to head of merchandising in 1928, and in 1939 was appointed executive vice president and chairman of the executive committee.
Because of his business experience, his wide-ranging contacts gained through his work at Sears, and his support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and New Deal policies, Nelson was asked to serve in several positions in defense mobilization agencies. He first came to Washington as one of the dollar-a-year men in 1940 to coordinate purchasing for the National Defense Advisory Commission and then headed the Division of Purchases of the Office of Production Management (January 1941-January 1942) and the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board (July 1941-January 1942).
On January 16, 1942, FDR replaced the Office of Production Management with the WPB and named Nelson as chairman. The WPB’s purpose was to oversee procurement, allocation, and production in the economic mobilization for war. However, Nelson was indecisive, lacked full authority over manpower and labor issues, and did not respond effectively to the military’s refusal to surrender the power to control procurement and contracts. In the summer of 1944, Nelson battled unsuccessfully with military officials and big war contractors with respect to his program for limited RECONVERSION to civilian production. Nelson favored gradual reconversion as war production needs declined, so as to sustain full employment, while the large war contractors feared that competitors might get a head start on peacetime production and markets and the military opposed any reduction of war production capacity. Nelson resigned and went to China as the president’s personal representative to discuss economic problems.
After the war ended, Nelson returned to private business. He died of a stroke in Los Angeles in 1959.
Further reading: Donald Marr Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1946).
—Michael T. Walsh
World History
