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[[File:Stalin and Ribbentrop.jpg|thumbnail|left|275px|Stalin greeting German Foreign Minister Rippentrob.]]
On August 23, 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression treaty, popularly called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It shocked the world. The two countries were bitter ideological enemies and many expected a war between the two to be imminent. Instead, they had pledged not to attack each other. They had gone from sworn enemies to allies in the space of months. This article will discuss the impact of this diplomatic agreement on Europe and on the origins of the Second World War. It will argue that the pact was a strategic mistake by Stalin and it allowed Nazi Germany to take control of western Europe and this gave them to strength to attack the Soviet Union.
