paragraph_text: The Molotov -- Ribbentrop Pact, also known as the Nazi -- Soviet Pact, the German -- Soviet Non-aggression Pact or the Nazi German -- Soviet Pact of Aggression (officially: Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), was a neutrality pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, respectively. The pact was followed by the German - Soviet Commercial Agreement in February 1940.

paragraph_text: On January 25, 1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets renamed the unrecognized state the Soviet Russian Republic. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3, 1918, giving away much of the land of the former Russian Empire to Germany in exchange for peace during the rest of World War I. On July 10, 1918, the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, reducing the size of the country even more.

paragraph_text: The dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred on December 26, 1991, officially granting self - governing independence to the Republics of the Soviet Union. It was a result of the declaration number 142 - Н of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The declaration acknowledged the independence of the former Soviet republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although five of the signatories ratified it much later or did not do so at all. On the previous day, 25 December 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers -- including control of the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes -- to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That evening at 7: 32 p.m., the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag.

paragraph_text: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited a 780,000-man military force on its territory, equipped with the third-largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world. In May 1992, Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol in which the country agreed to give up all nuclear weapons to Russia for disposal and to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. Ukraine ratified the treaty in 1994, and by 1996 the country became free of nuclear weapons.Ukraine took consistent steps toward reduction of conventional weapons. It signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which called for reduction of tanks, artillery, and armoured vehicles (army forces were reduced to 300,000). The country plans to convert the current conscript-based military into a professional volunteer military.

paragraph_text: On August 19, the 1939 German–Soviet Commercial Agreement was finally signed. On 21 August, the Soviets suspended Tripartite military talks, citing other reasons. That same day, Stalin received assurance that Germany would approve secret protocols to the proposed non-aggression pact that would place half of Poland (border along the Vistula river), Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Bessarabia in the Soviets' sphere of influence. That night, Stalin replied that the Soviets were willing to sign the pact and that he would receive Ribbentrop on 23 August.

paragraph_text: Sassou Nguesso aligned the country with the Eastern Bloc and signed a twenty-year friendship pact with the Soviet Union. Over the years, Sassou had to rely more on political repression and less on patronage to maintain his dictatorship.

paragraph_text: In August 1940, the Soviet Union briefly suspended its deliveries under their commercial agreement after their relations were strained following disagreement over policy in Romania, the Soviet war with Finland, Germany falling behind in its deliveries of goods under the pact and with Stalin worried that Hitler's war with the West might end quickly after France signed an armistice. The suspension created significant resource problems for Germany. By the end of August, relations improved again as the countries had redrawn the Hungarian and Romanian borders, settled some Bulgarian claims and Stalin was again convinced that Germany would face a long war in the west with Britain's improvement in its air battle with Germany and the execution of an agreement between the United States and Britain regarding destroyers and bases. However, in late August, Germany arranged its own occupation of Romania, targeting oil fields. The move raised tensions with the Soviets, who responded that Germany was supposed to have consulted with the Soviet Union under Article III of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

paragraph_text: In 1971, Tito was re-elected as President of Yugoslavia by the Federal Assembly for the sixth time. In his speech before the Federal Assembly he introduced 20 sweeping constitutional amendments that would provide an updated framework on which the country would be based. The amendments provided for a collective presidency, a 22-member body consisting of elected representatives from six republics and two autonomous provinces. The body would have a single chairman of the presidency and chairmanship would rotate among six republics. When the Federal Assembly fails to agree on legislation, the collective presidency would have the power to rule by decree. Amendments also provided for stronger cabinet with considerable power to initiate and pursue legislature independently from the Communist Party. Džemal Bijedić was chosen as the Premier. The new amendments aimed to decentralize the country by granting greater autonomy to republics and provinces. The federal government would retain authority only over foreign affairs, defense, internal security, monetary affairs, free trade within Yugoslavia, and development loans to poorer regions. Control of education, healthcare, and housing would be exercised entirely by the governments of the republics and the autonomous provinces.

paragraph_text: Raisa Maximovna Gorbacheva ( "Raisa Maksimovna Gorbachyova", , Титаренко; 5 January 1932 – 20 September 1999) was a Russian activist who was the wife of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. She raised funds for the preservation of Russian cultural heritage, fostering of new talent, and treatment programs for children's blood cancer.

paragraph_text: Jura Soyfer (December 8, 1912, Kharkov, Russian Empire – February 15/16, 1939, Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany) was an Austrian political journalist and cabaret writer.

paragraph_text: Cooperation ended in 1933, as Adolf Hitler came to power and created Nazi Germany. The countries' economic relationship dwindled at the beginning of the Nazi era, but some diplomatic initiatives continued through the 1930s, culminating with the Molotov -- Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and various trade agreements. Few questions concerning the origins of the Second World War are more controversial and ideologically loaded than the issue of the policies of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin towards Nazi Germany between the Nazi seizure of power and the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941.

paragraph_text: The stated clauses of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact were a guarantee of non-belligerence by each party towards the other, and a written commitment that neither party would ally itself to, or aid, an enemy of the other party. In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol that divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland into German and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. Thereafter, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. After the Soviet–Japanese ceasefire agreement took effect on 16 September, Stalin ordered his own invasion of Poland on 17 September. Part of southeastern (Karelia) and Salla region in Finland were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. This was followed by Soviet annexations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania (Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertza region). Concern about ethnic Ukrainians and Belarusians had been proffered as justification for the Soviet invasion of Poland. Stalin's invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis.

paragraph_text: Soviet propaganda and representatives went to great lengths to minimize the importance of the fact that they had opposed and fought against the Nazis in various ways for a decade prior to signing the Pact. Upon signing the pact, Molotov tried to reassure the Germans of his good intentions by commenting to journalists that "fascism is a matter of taste". For its part, Nazi Germany also did a public volte-face regarding its virulent opposition to the Soviet Union, though Hitler still viewed an attack on the Soviet Union as "inevitable".[citation needed]

paragraph_text: Before creation of Warsaw Pact, fearing Germany rearmed, Czechoslovak leadership sought to create security pact with East Germany and Poland. These states protested strongly against re-militarization of West Germany. The Warsaw Pact was primarily put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO. Soviet leaders, as many European countries in both western and eastern side, feared Germany being once again a military power as a direct threat and German militarism remained a fresh memory among Soviets and Eastern Europeans. As Soviet Union had already bilateral treaties with all of its eastern satellites, the Pact has been long considered 'superfluous', and because of the rushed way in which it was conceived, NATO officials labeled it as a 'cardboard castle'. Previously, in March 1954, the USSR, fearing the restoration of German Militarism in West Germany, requested admission to NATO.

paragraph_text: The composition of the Council was changed several times. The number of non-permanent members was first increased to six on 22 September 1922 and to nine on 8 September 1926. Werner Dankwort of Germany pushed for his country to join the League; joining in 1926, Germany became the fifth permanent member of the Council. Later, after Germany and Japan both left the League, the number of non-permanent seats was increased from nine to eleven, and the Soviet Union was made a permanent member giving the Council a total of fifteen members. The Council met, on average, five times a year and in extraordinary sessions when required. In total, 107 sessions were held between 1920 and 1939.

paragraph_text: Joseph Stalin was also upset by the results of the Munich conference. The Soviets, who had a mutual military assistance treaty with Czechoslovakia, felt betrayed by France, who also had a mutual military assistance treaty with Czechoslovakia. The British and French, however, mostly used the Soviets as a threat to dangle over the Germans. Stalin concluded that the West had actively colluded with Hitler to hand over a Central European country to the Nazis, causing concern that they might do the same to the Soviet Union in the future, allowing the partition of the USSR between the western powers and the fascist Axis. This belief led the Soviet Union to reorient its foreign policy towards a rapprochement with Germany, which eventually led to the signing of the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact in 1939.

paragraph_text: The Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939. On that morning, 16 days after Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Subsequent military operations lasted for the following 20 days and ended on 6 October 1939 with the two - way division and annexation of the entire territory of the Second Polish Republic by both Germany and the Soviet Union. The joint German - Soviet invasion of Poland was secretly agreed to following the signing of the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939.

paragraph_text: In the early 1930s, the worldwide Great Depression hit Germany hard, as unemployment soared and people lost confidence in the government. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. His Nazi Party quickly established a totalitarian regime, and Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Remilitarization of the Rhineland came in 1936, then annexation of Austria in the Anschluss and parts of Czechoslovakia with the Munich Agreement in 1938, and further territory of Czechoslovakia in 1939. On 1 September 1939, Germany initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland. After forming a pact with the Soviet Union in 1939, Hitler and Stalin divided Eastern Europe. After a "Phoney War" in spring 1940, the Germans swept Denmark and Norway, the Low Countries, and France, giving Germany control of nearly all of Western Europe. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941.

paragraph_text: The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc of countries that it occupied, annexing some as Soviet Socialist Republics and maintaining others as satellite states that would later form the Warsaw Pact. The United States and various western European countries began a policy of "containment" of communism and forged myriad alliances to this end, including NATO. Several of these western countries also coordinated efforts regarding the rebuilding of western Europe, including western Germany, which the Soviets opposed. In other regions of the world, such as Latin America and Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union fostered communist revolutionary movements, which the United States and many of its allies opposed and, in some cases, attempted to "roll back". Many countries were prompted to align themselves with the nations that would later form either NATO or the Warsaw Pact, though other movements would also emerge.

paragraph_text: On 23 October 1954 – only nine years after Allies (UK, USA and USSR) defeated Nazi Germany ending World War II in Europe – the admission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the North Atlantic Pact was finally decided. The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on 9 May 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange, Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway at the time. In November 1954, the USSR requested a new European Security Treaty, in order to make a final attempt to not have a remilitarized West Germany potentially opposed to the Soviet Union, with no success.

Question: Who was the spouse of the president of the Russian republic at the time of the disintegration of the union that signed a 1939 non-aggression pact with Germany?
Answer: Raisa Maximovna Gorbacheva