Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact negotiations  The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was an August 23, 1939, agreement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany colloquially named after Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The treaty renounced warfare between the two countries. In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol dividing several eastern European countries between the parties. Before the treaty's signing, the Soviet Union conducted negotiations with the United Kingdom and France regarding a potential "Tripartite" alliance. Long-running talks between the Soviet Union and Germany over a potential economic pact expanded to include the military and political discussions, culminating in the pact, along with a commercial agreement signed four days earlier. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Bolshevist Russia ended its fight against the Central Powers, including Germany, in World War I by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Therein, Russia agreed to cede sovereignty and influence over parts of several eastern European countries. Most of those countries became ostensible democratic republics following Germany's defeat and signing of an armistice in the autumn of 1918. With the exception of Belarus and Ukraine, those countries also became independent. However, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk lasted only eight and a half months, when Germany renounced it and broke off diplomatic relations with Russia. Before World War I, Germany and Russia had long shared a trading relationship. Germany is a relatively small country with few natural resources. It lacks natural supplies of several key raw materials needed for economic and military operations. Since the late 19th century, it had relied heavily upon Russian imports of raw materials. Germany imported 1.5 billion Rechsmarks of raw materials and other goods annually from Russia before the war. In 1922, the countries signed the Treaty of Rapallo, renouncing territorial and financial claims against each other. The countries pledged neutrality in the event of an attack against one another with the 1926 Treaty of Berlin. While imports of Soviet goods to Germany fell after World War I, after trade agreements signed between the two countries in the mid-1920s, trade had increased to 433 million Reichsmarks per year by 1927. In the early 1930s, this relationship fell as the more isolationist Stalinist regime asserted power and the abandonment of post-World War I military control decreased Germany's reliance on Soviet imports, such that Soviet imports fell to 223 million Reichsmarks in 1934.