Editing Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (section)

===Denial of the secret protocol===
For decades, it was the official policy of the Soviet Union to deny the existence of the secret protocol to the Soviet–German Pact. At the behest of [[Mikhail Gorbachev]], [[Alexander Yakovlev]] headed a commission investigating the existence of such a protocol. In December 1989, the commission concluded that the protocol had existed and revealed its findings to the [[Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union]].<ref name="dreifields">{{cite book|last=Dreifeilds|first=Juris|title=Latvia in Transition|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1996|isbn=0-521-55537-X|pages=34–5}}.</ref> As a result, the Congress passed the declaration confirming the existence of the secret protocols and condemning and denouncing them.<ref name="VS1989">{{cite web|publisher=Law mix|place=[[Russia|RU]]|url=http://www.lawmix.ru/docs_cccp.php?id=1241|script-title=ru:Ведомости Съезда народных депутатов СССР и Верховного Совета СССР|year=1989|id=Ст. 579|type=text of the declaration|issue=29|language=ru|access-date=15 November 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101223141052/http://www.lawmix.ru/docs_cccp.php?id=1241|archive-date=23 December 2010|url-status=dead}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Jerzy W|last1=Borejsza|first2=Klaus|last2=Ziemer|first3=Magdalena|last3=Hułas|title=Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes in Europe|publisher=Berghahn|year=2006|page=521}}.</ref> The Soviet government thus finally acknowledged and denounced the Secret Treaty<ref name="chathamhouse.org, 2011">{{cite web|url=http://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/ia/archive/view/164427|title=Russian historians defend the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact|access-date=22 January 2015|archive-date=8 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208113010/https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/ia/archive/view/164427|url-status=dead}}</ref> and [[Mikhail Gorbachev]], the last [[List of heads of state of the Soviet Union|Head of State]] condemned the pact. [[Vladimir Putin]] condemned the pact as "immoral" but also defended it as a "[[necessary evil]]".<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11213255/Vladimir-Putin-says-there-was-nothing-wrong-with-Soviet-Unions-pact-with-Adolf-Hitlers-Nazi-Germany.html |work= [[Daily Telegraph]] |first= Tom |last= Parfitt |title= Vladimir Putin says there was nothing wrong with Soviet Union's pact with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany |date= 6 November 2014 |access-date= 20 May 2015 |archive-date= 3 September 2022 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220903221334/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11213255/Vladimir-Putin-says-there-was-nothing-wrong-with-Soviet-Unions-pact-with-Adolf-Hitlers-Nazi-Germany.html |url-status= live }}</ref><ref>Timothy Snyder, NYreview of books,[http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/nov/10/putin-nostalgia-stalin-hitler/ putin nostalgia hitler stalin] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151002042925/http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/nov/10/putin-nostalgia-stalin-hitler/ |date=2 October 2015 }}</ref> At a press conference on 19 December 2019, Putin went further and announced that the signing of the pact was no worse than the 1938 [[Munich Agreement]], which led to the partition of Czechoslovakia.<ref>[http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/62366 The great press-conference of Vladimir Putin (Большая пресс-конференция Владимира Путина)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201203233504/http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/62366 |date=3 December 2020 }}. [[President of Russia]]. 19 December 2019 {{in lang|ru}}</ref><ref>Ivan Beliayev. ''[https://www.svoboda.org/a/30345335.html Putin and pigs: social networks about interest of the president to history (Путин и свиньи: соцсети о странном интересе президента к истории)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230411131132/https://www.svoboda.org/a/30345335.html |date=11 April 2023 }}''. [[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty]]. 26 December 2019 {{in lang|ru}}</ref>

Both successor states of the pact parties have declared the secret protocols to be invalid from the moment that they were signed: the Federal Republic of Germany on 1 September 1989 and the Soviet Union on 24 December 1989,<ref>{{cite web|publisher=LFPR|url=http://www.lfpr.lt/uploads/File/1999-4/Loeber.pdf|title=Consequences of The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact for Lithuania of Today International Law Aspects|first=Dietrich A|last=Loeber|access-date=7 November 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090530061314/http://www.lfpr.lt/uploads/File/1999-4/Loeber.pdf|archive-date=30 May 2009}}</ref> following an examination of the microfilmed copy of the German originals.<ref name="Chavkin2007">{{Cite book|last=Борис|first=Хавкин (Boris Xavkin)|title=Inhalt ForuumRuss 1,2006|url=http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/inhaltruss7.html|place=[[Germany|DE]]|publisher=KU Eichstaett|script-title=ru:"К истории публикации советских текстов советско-германских секретных документов 1939—1941 гг." Форум новейшей восточноевропейской истории и культуры — Русское издание|year=2007|issue=1|language=ru|access-date=7 August 2010|archive-date=2 May 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110502134826/http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/inhaltruss7.html|url-status=live}}.</ref>

The Soviet copy of the original document was declassified in 1992 and published in a scientific journal in early 1993.<ref name="Chavkin2007"/>

In August 2009, in an article written for the Polish newspaper ''[[Gazeta Wyborcza]]'', Russian Prime Minister [[Vladimir Putin]] condemned the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as "immoral".<ref name="bbcbews0809">{{cite news|title=Putin condemns Nazi–Soviet pact|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8230387.stm|work=[[BBC News]]|date=31 August 2009|access-date=31 August 2009|archive-date=21 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321000122/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8230387.stm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Tom Parfitt|date=6 November 2014|title=Vladimir Putin says there was nothing wrong with Soviet Union's pact with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany|newspaper=Telegraph|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11213255/Vladimir-Putin-says-there-was-nothing-wrong-with-Soviet-Unions-pact-with-Adolf-Hitlers-Nazi-Germany.html|access-date=6 November 2014|archive-date=3 September 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220903221334/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11213255/Vladimir-Putin-says-there-was-nothing-wrong-with-Soviet-Unions-pact-with-Adolf-Hitlers-Nazi-Germany.html|url-status=live}} "The Russian president made the comments at a meeting with young historians in Moscow, during which he urged them to examine the lead-up to the war, among other subjects." - how does Parfitt know that ? Which young historicans ? Where in Moscow ?</ref>

The new Russian nationalists and [[historical revisionism (negationism)|revisionists]], including Russian negationist [[Aleksandr Dyukov (historian)|Aleksandr Dyukov]] and [[Natalya Narochnitskaya|Nataliya Narotchnitskaya]], whose book carried an approving foreword by the Russian foreign Minister [[Sergei Lavrov]], described the pact as a necessary measure because of the British and French failure to enter into an [[antifascist]] pact.<ref name="chathamhouse.org, 2011"/>