From the archives: Soviet-German pact, 28 August, 1939

A WEEK-END conference, under the auspice of the Workers’ Education Trade Union Committee, was held at Newbattle Abbey College, Dalkeith. Councillor Thomas Murray, vice-president, Trades Council, Edinburgh, and prospective Socialist candidate for North Midlothian, said motives, not morals, were the explanation for the German-Soviet Pact.

A WEEK-END conference, under the auspice of the Workers’ Education Trade Union Committee, was held at Newbattle Abbey College, Dalkeith. Councillor Thomas Murray, vice-president, Trades Council, Edinburgh, and prospective Socialist candidate for North Midlothian, said motives, not morals, were the explanation for the German-Soviet Pact.

The German Government was compelled to make peace with the Soviet Union in the hope that it would strengthen its bargaining powers with Britain and France, while avoiding a major war which the German war machine could not sustain. The Soviet Government seized upon the German dilemma to neutralise the Fascist drive to the East, destroying the Anti-Comintern Pact, weakening the Axis, and throwing the British and French capitalists into confusion. The cause of peace and the interests of the people gained, therefore, from the German-Soviet Pact.

• archive.scotsman.com

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