This is ignoring the secret protocol in which the USSR and Nazi Germany carved up eastern Europe into spheres of influence: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/addsepro.asp And yes it does mention carving up Poland, it describes what the border should be if Poland is invaded (wink wink) and then declares that leaving a Polish rump state or not will be decided later. It also in no uncertain terms states that the Soviets can take Bessarabia.
It is the only non-aggression pact with such a protocol. The western powers did not sign such a deal with the Nazis in which third-parties are carved up.
Negotiations between the west and the USSR broke down for several reasons, notably:
Deep mutual mistrust, in part due to the mass terror and the purges in the USSR, and notably France failing to make good on an earlier promise for a military agreement. Both sides believed the other might abuse a pact to draw them into war with Germany.
Disagreement over the Baltics; the USSR believed Hitler would attack through those states, but the west did not want to commit to security guarantees to states that did not want them (Estonia and Latvia rejected them, fearing it would incense the Germans).
Once the west finally yielded on guaranteeing the Baltics, the USSR refused to do the same for the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
The USSR demanded that in case of war, the Red Army would be given free passage through Poland and Romania. The west told the USSR that they’d have to negotiate that with those countries themselves, and they could not unilaterally allow it without having either country agree.
There was disagreement over what would constitute “indirect aggression”, eg what the Nazis did to anschluss Austria.
The USSR kept hammering on immediate, unconditional action in case of war with Germany. The west wanted consultations first, as they were worried the USSR would do something in the Baltics to trigger war with Germany, drawing the west in for a cause they might not support.
The west had little motivation to push for a pact, as it had already provided security guarantees to Poland and Romania. The only other land access route was through Memel into Lithuania, but Lithuania had ceded Memel and signed a non-aggression pact with the Germans, so the west did not think an attack over the Baltics was as likely as the Soviets believed it was.
Ultimately the security guarantee on Poland brought the west into war with Germany. The USSR, despite hammering on immediate action against Germany during negotiations before, instead opted for the annexation of the Baltics, Bessarabia and eastern Poland, and an attack on Finland. It took nearly two years for the USSR to begin fighting the Nazis, and only because the Nazis invaded them first.
The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. Spheres of influence were not agreements to jointly work together. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
Further, you’re ignoring the Munich Agreement, where Czechoslovakia was given to the Nazis by the west. Not only was the west on good terms with the Nazis, signing many non-aggression pacts, they fostered healthy relationships. Finally, the Soviets were reasonably highly suspicious that Britain and Germany would ally. This was not unfounded, both were friendly enough until the outbreak of war. The Soviets desperately needed to make sure that the British and Germans would not ally, which reasonably would have happened had the Soviet Union taken unilateral action against the Nazis, rather than waiting to be attacked first.
Stalin was said to have “obsessed over quantitative and qualitative” improvements in arms in the years leading up to World War II, and had soldiers stationed on high alert, preparing for a German attack. Despite the insistence of many Generals to muster forces on the German border, it was Stalin’s insistence that forces not be so concentrated that prevented the Nazis from totally routing the Red Army, enabling the greatest counteroffensive in history.
Hitler himself was quite honest at times, to himself at least:
How can such a primitive people manage such technical achievements in such a short time!
…
The fact that Stalin has raised the Russian standard of living is unquestionable. People don’t go hungry [at the moment when Operation Barbarossa was launched]. In general, it’s necessary to recognize that they have built factories of similar importance to Hermann Goering Reichswerke where two years ago nothing but unknown villages existed. We come across railway lines that aren’t even marked on our maps.
The Soviets expected and planned for it, they were never allies with the Nazis.
The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. Spheres of influence were not agreements to jointly work together.
That’s historical revisionism not even supported by Russian historians. That page is full of nonsensical statements too. On the page dedicated to “disproving” the secret protocols, it makes two claims:
The secret protocols required that a Polish state exists still. Since the Germans destroyed it, the protocols were void.
The Germans were talking about setting up independent states east of the demarcation line, so clearly it wasn’t about partitioning Poland.
But the text of the secret protocols as I have linked already handily disproves both notions. First, it explicitly mentions that the question of whether a Polish state should remain is to be decided later; clearly this means that the existence of Poland itself is not a precondition for the protocols holding. The protocols also basically outline “what happens after Poland is invaded and how should it be divided”, you can call it a partitioning into spheres of influence if you like, but the protocols did not care exactly what the Soviets or Nazis would do on either side of the line, annexation, puppeting or otherwise. All that mattered was declaring where belonged to who. That’s colloquially known as a partitioning.
The setting up of independent states east of the line is also not proof of anything. This was being considered before the USSR invaded, and the Germans needed to decide on something with the remaining land. They opted for independent countries over puppet governments or direct annexation, so as to leave the area to the USSR to deal with.
Ultimately both countries invaded, and the Nazis retreated back to the demarcation line.
Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
The USSR was aware of the defensive pact between the west and Poland, and the west declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland.
Further, you’re ignoring the Munich Agreement, where Czechoslovakia was given to the Nazis by the west. Not only was the west on good terms with the Nazis, signing many non-aggression pacts, they fostered healthy relationships.
The west was still on appeasement mode (which was a mistake in hindsight). But they were not on “friendly” terms at all, clearly evidenced by the fact they were still negotiating with the Soviets to form an alliance against the Germans. The west was actively negotiating treaties to contain Germany where possible, but not all countries targetted by the Nazis agreed to one since they were worried aligning against Hitler would make them a target (the concern of the Baltics for example).
Finally, the Soviets were reasonably highly suspicious that Britain and Germany would ally. This was not unfounded, both were friendly enough until the outbreak of war. The Soviets desperately needed to make sure that the British and Germans would not ally, which reasonably would have happened had the Soviet Union taken unilateral action against the Nazis, rather than waiting to be attacked first.
This was, as far as I could find, never a Soviet concern. They did not believe the west would ally with Hitler, rather they were mistrusting that the west would let the USSR fight Germany on its own, weakening both states. This was actually the same concern the west had, they feared the Soviets would pull the west into a war against Germany without a cause they could support. This deep mistrust was a key reason why the triple alliance failed to materialize. Ultimately it was the west that declared war on Germany first, and the Soviets indeed let them fight before being forced into the conflict by Germany.
You’re reading the spheres of influence aspect of Molotov-Ribbentrop with hermeneutics of suspicion. The implication on your end is that the Soviets expected the pact to hold, and to split Europe with Nazi Germany. This implies the expectation of a lasting alliance, which is immediately thrown out the window when you see just how much the Soviets were preparing for war against the Nazis, and that the Red Army was specifically told to watch out for German soldiers.
Regarding Poland in particular, the Soviet sphere of influence, again, was made up of areas Poland had violently annexed from countries like Lithuania and Ukraine only a couple decades prior. The Soviets did not plan on conquesting Poland, they simply stated that Nazi Germany was not allowed to take former Soviet land. When Poland was invaded by Germany, the state was destroyed, and the Red Army took formerly Lithuanian, Ukrainian, etc areas, sparing them from the Holocaust.
Would you want the entirety of Poland to go to the Nazis? Should the USSR have gone to war with Nazi Germany then and there, with the possibility of the west aiding the Nazis to take out the USSR?
As for the West, again, you ignore that at the time they were quite honest with wanting to contain the Bolsheviks. They were more than willing to work with the Nazis, America even kept trading with them during the war, and American factories were deliberately not targeted in Nazi Germany even if Nazis were hiding in them. Truman was honest:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
The whole time in the background, Britain and France were attempting to get the Soviets and Nazis to kill each other off. France spread faulty rumors of a fabricated speech by Stalin wanting to conquest Europe, Britain warned Germany of an impending soviet attack at the same time they warned Russia of Barbarossa, and the Nazis themselves were constantly posturing around either invading Britain, using Crete as a template for naval invasion, or making a deal with them. Before Barbarossa, Rudolf Hess flew to England, drawing the appearance of an impending deal.
The entirety of the pre-War period was a tumultuous game of trying to decide what the lines of the war would be. The west made it clear that it hated the Soviets, and the Soviets made it clear that they hated the Nazis, but did not want to risk both the Nazis and the west coming after them, which would have been unwinnable most likely. Nobody could be confused of an actual Soviet-Nazi alliance.
The implication on your end is that the Soviets expected the pact to hold, and to split Europe with Nazi Germany.
Most certainly not. Stalin wasn’t that stupid. He knew war would eventually come, even if he was a bit blindsided because Hitler invaded before winning the battle of Britain. But the Soviets most definitely intended to make use of the pact with Hitler for their own gain, that being the annexation of eastern Poland, Bessarabia, the Baltics and eastern Finland.
The Soviets did not plan on conquesting Poland, they simply stated that Nazi Germany was not allowed to take former Soviet land.
Do you think that the Soviets intended to let eastern Poland in their “sphere” as independent states? Since the protocols specifically leave the independence of any sort of Poland state up for debate later, the Soviets almost certainly intended to annex the land back. This is not exactly a controversial view, historians east and west agree on this reading.
When Poland was invaded by Germany, the state was destroyed, and the Red Army took formerly Lithuanian, Ukrainian, etc areas, sparing them from the Holocaust.
The Soviets killed 100-150k people, deported another 300k to Siberia, and imprisoned half a million people. “Sparing them” has got to be a bit of a joke in this context, especially given that the USSR gave the Nazis carte-blanche to Holocaust away in western Poland. The Holocaust itself only became properly known to the world in 1942 anyway, so it’s not like the Soviets used that as their motivation to invade in 1939.
Should the USSR have gone to war with Nazi Germany then and there, with the possibility of the west aiding the Nazis to take out the USSR?
The USSR did not seriously believe that the west would ally with the Nazis against them. It was not a very realistic prospect either, since the west had already conceded quite a few points to the Soviets when they were negotiating the triple alliance regarding mutual defense, and that the west had signed several defense treaties to contain the Soviets specifically. They had not done so for say the Baltics, and even the guarantee for Poland only had provisions for direct action against Germany, not the Soviets. Neither side trusted the other though, and believed the other would try to play them off against the Nazis.
Ultimately it’s the same question but posed a bit later than “Should the west have agreed to cede the Sudetenland from the Czechs or gone to war immediately?”.
The whole time in the background, Britain and France were attempting to get the Soviets and Nazis to kill each other off.
The Soviets were attempting to let the west and the Nazis fight each other. Potato, potato. Hell, in 1940 Molotov was drinking tea with Hitler in Berlin, trying to get Hitler to give the USSR free reign in Bulgaria and Finland. Hitler meanwhile tried to get the USSR to fight the west over India and Iran. All three camps were consistently trying to get one to fight the other; ultimately the west decided the fight the Nazis first.
Britain warned Germany of an impending soviet attack at the same time they warned Russia of Barbarossa
Do you have a source on a British warning to Germany? I can’t find anything mentioning this (not even a disputed claim or something). The British warnings to the USSR were sadly ignored; Stalin did not order the Red Army to get ready for an invasion, which was partially why the first few months of the war went so disastrously poorly for the Soviets.
Nobody could be confused of an actual Soviet-Nazi alliance.
Socialists were. In fact it caused a great rift between the Soviets and the socialists in other countries, since they could not believe that the Soviets would align themselves with the Nazis. Some distanced themselves from it, others realigned (causing a few socialist organisations to be banned for, get this, promoting the Nazis). These were very confusing times for a great many people.
Regarding Poland, again, this was territory Poland had conquered previously that historically belonged to countries in the Soviet Union. This was a return of territory. By no means did it come without bloodshed, but nevertheless the soviets were not nearly the butchers the Nazis were.
As for the west conspiring to kill of the Soviet Union, and letting Germany do so, again, I gave naked testimony that this was the case. The Soviet Union wanted above all else to survive, the Nazis wanted new colonial territories, and the west wanted to not get colonized by the Nazis while also wanting the Soviets to stop being socialist.
Do you have a source on a British warning to Germany?
Wolkow W. K. (2003), Stalin wollte ein anderes Europa. Moskaus Außenpolitik 1940 bis 1968 und die Folgen, Edition Ost, Berlin, p. 110.
The British warnings to the USSR were sadly ignored; Stalin did not order the Red Army to get ready for an invasion, which was partially why the first few months of the war went so disastrously poorly for the Soviets.
I already explained this earlier. There was a massivedisinformation campaign, with feints from both Germany and the western powers. The first few weeks went as everyone expected, the Nazis advanced quickly over largely open land until running face to face with the full industrialized might of the Red Army. Goebbels’ diary is quite telling of the change in attitude. On the 22nd-23rd of June, the Nazis attacked confidently. On July 2nd, Goebbels wrote the following:
Overall, the fighting is hard and stubborn. We can in no way speak of a walk in the park. The red regime has mobilized the people.
July 24th:
We can have no doubt whatsoever about the fact that the Bolshevik regime, which has existed for nearly a quarter of a century, has left a deep mark on the peoples of the Soviet Union […]. It would be right, therefore, if we clearly informed the German people about the harshness of the struggle taking place in the East. The nation must be told that this operation is very difficult, but that we can and will survive it.
August 1st:
At the Führer’s headquarters […] they also openly admit that they were somewhat mistaken in their assessment of Soviet fighting power. The Bolsheviks are showing stronger resistance than we expected, and above all the material means at their disposal are greater than we had anticipated.
August 9th:
Privately, the Führer is very displeased for having allowed himself to be so deceived about the potential of the Bolsheviks by the reports [sent by German agents] coming from the Soviet Union. In particular, the underestimation of the enemy’s tanks and aircraft caused a great deal of trouble for our military operations. He suffers a lot because of this. We’re dealing with a serious crisis […]. The previous campaigns were a walk in the park by comparison […]. The Führer is not worried about the West […]. In our German thoroughness and objectivity we have always overestimated the enemy, except, in this case, the Bolsheviks.
September 16th:
We have totally underestimated the strength of the Bolsheviks.
This was not a walk in the park for the Nazis, because the Soviets planned for it. Modern historiography makes it quite clear that the Nazis and Soviets were never allies in any capacity, for any length of time, and were always conspiring against each other with no expectation of actual peace, just biding their time before what they desired to be a favorable start to war.
The USSR was aware of the defensive pact between the west and Poland, and the west declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland.
So you do think that the Soviets shouldn’t have entered Poland (after the government had already collapsed to secure the parts of Ukraine Lithuania and Belarus the Poles had occupied in the interwar period) and instead let the Nazis have full reign of the entire country until the Nazis decided to move further east?
Once you agree with the Nazis on how to split the country, it makes sense to grab the part you wanted. But diplomatic cables reveal that the Germans would not have kept this part of Poland as they intended to uphold the pact with the Soviets. That’s why there were extensive discussions to release these parts as independent states, so they could be controlled by the USSR as they had agreed.
Whether you agree on that the Soviets should have signed the pact in the first place is another matter, as it was a carte blanche to invade Poland gifted to the Nazis.
But diplomatic cables reveal that the Germans would not have kept this part of Poland as they intended to uphold the pact with the Soviets
So if they didn’t sign the pact or had left this request out of it as you seemingly desire they would have taken it wholesale? So again we’re back to the Molotov-Ribbentrop saving eastern Poland (actually Western Ukraine Belarus and Lithuania that was simply occupied by Poland) from the Nazi scourge (for a time).
Whether you agree on that the Soviets should have signed
They absolutely should as the last power to do so allowing the time for them to build up the production capacity necessary cause 80% of the Nazi deaths of the war.
It really seems like you would have preferred the Soviets leave Western Belarus Lithuania and Ukraine for dead and do nothing to delay the inevitable war with the Nazis to actually recover to fighting strength post revolution. Maybe that would have been the more pure option but it also would have been suicidal idiocy.
This is ignoring the secret protocol in which the USSR and Nazi Germany carved up eastern Europe into spheres of influence: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/addsepro.asp And yes it does mention carving up Poland, it describes what the border should be if Poland is invaded (wink wink) and then declares that leaving a Polish rump state or not will be decided later. It also in no uncertain terms states that the Soviets can take Bessarabia.
It is the only non-aggression pact with such a protocol. The western powers did not sign such a deal with the Nazis in which third-parties are carved up.
Negotiations between the west and the USSR broke down for several reasons, notably:
Ultimately the security guarantee on Poland brought the west into war with Germany. The USSR, despite hammering on immediate action against Germany during negotiations before, instead opted for the annexation of the Baltics, Bessarabia and eastern Poland, and an attack on Finland. It took nearly two years for the USSR to begin fighting the Nazis, and only because the Nazis invaded them first.
No notes on Churchill being a dickhead though.
Poland makes sense, but why Romania?
The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. Spheres of influence were not agreements to jointly work together. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
Further, you’re ignoring the Munich Agreement, where Czechoslovakia was given to the Nazis by the west. Not only was the west on good terms with the Nazis, signing many non-aggression pacts, they fostered healthy relationships. Finally, the Soviets were reasonably highly suspicious that Britain and Germany would ally. This was not unfounded, both were friendly enough until the outbreak of war. The Soviets desperately needed to make sure that the British and Germans would not ally, which reasonably would have happened had the Soviet Union taken unilateral action against the Nazis, rather than waiting to be attacked first.
Stalin was said to have “obsessed over quantitative and qualitative” improvements in arms in the years leading up to World War II, and had soldiers stationed on high alert, preparing for a German attack. Despite the insistence of many Generals to muster forces on the German border, it was Stalin’s insistence that forces not be so concentrated that prevented the Nazis from totally routing the Red Army, enabling the greatest counteroffensive in history.
Hitler himself was quite honest at times, to himself at least:
…
The Soviets expected and planned for it, they were never allies with the Nazis.
That’s historical revisionism not even supported by Russian historians. That page is full of nonsensical statements too. On the page dedicated to “disproving” the secret protocols, it makes two claims:
But the text of the secret protocols as I have linked already handily disproves both notions. First, it explicitly mentions that the question of whether a Polish state should remain is to be decided later; clearly this means that the existence of Poland itself is not a precondition for the protocols holding. The protocols also basically outline “what happens after Poland is invaded and how should it be divided”, you can call it a partitioning into spheres of influence if you like, but the protocols did not care exactly what the Soviets or Nazis would do on either side of the line, annexation, puppeting or otherwise. All that mattered was declaring where belonged to who. That’s colloquially known as a partitioning.
The setting up of independent states east of the line is also not proof of anything. This was being considered before the USSR invaded, and the Germans needed to decide on something with the remaining land. They opted for independent countries over puppet governments or direct annexation, so as to leave the area to the USSR to deal with.
Ultimately both countries invaded, and the Nazis retreated back to the demarcation line.
The USSR was aware of the defensive pact between the west and Poland, and the west declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland.
The west was still on appeasement mode (which was a mistake in hindsight). But they were not on “friendly” terms at all, clearly evidenced by the fact they were still negotiating with the Soviets to form an alliance against the Germans. The west was actively negotiating treaties to contain Germany where possible, but not all countries targetted by the Nazis agreed to one since they were worried aligning against Hitler would make them a target (the concern of the Baltics for example).
This was, as far as I could find, never a Soviet concern. They did not believe the west would ally with Hitler, rather they were mistrusting that the west would let the USSR fight Germany on its own, weakening both states. This was actually the same concern the west had, they feared the Soviets would pull the west into a war against Germany without a cause they could support. This deep mistrust was a key reason why the triple alliance failed to materialize. Ultimately it was the west that declared war on Germany first, and the Soviets indeed let them fight before being forced into the conflict by Germany.
You’re reading the spheres of influence aspect of Molotov-Ribbentrop with hermeneutics of suspicion. The implication on your end is that the Soviets expected the pact to hold, and to split Europe with Nazi Germany. This implies the expectation of a lasting alliance, which is immediately thrown out the window when you see just how much the Soviets were preparing for war against the Nazis, and that the Red Army was specifically told to watch out for German soldiers.
Regarding Poland in particular, the Soviet sphere of influence, again, was made up of areas Poland had violently annexed from countries like Lithuania and Ukraine only a couple decades prior. The Soviets did not plan on conquesting Poland, they simply stated that Nazi Germany was not allowed to take former Soviet land. When Poland was invaded by Germany, the state was destroyed, and the Red Army took formerly Lithuanian, Ukrainian, etc areas, sparing them from the Holocaust.
Would you want the entirety of Poland to go to the Nazis? Should the USSR have gone to war with Nazi Germany then and there, with the possibility of the west aiding the Nazis to take out the USSR?
As for the West, again, you ignore that at the time they were quite honest with wanting to contain the Bolsheviks. They were more than willing to work with the Nazis, America even kept trading with them during the war, and American factories were deliberately not targeted in Nazi Germany even if Nazis were hiding in them. Truman was honest:
The whole time in the background, Britain and France were attempting to get the Soviets and Nazis to kill each other off. France spread faulty rumors of a fabricated speech by Stalin wanting to conquest Europe, Britain warned Germany of an impending soviet attack at the same time they warned Russia of Barbarossa, and the Nazis themselves were constantly posturing around either invading Britain, using Crete as a template for naval invasion, or making a deal with them. Before Barbarossa, Rudolf Hess flew to England, drawing the appearance of an impending deal.
The entirety of the pre-War period was a tumultuous game of trying to decide what the lines of the war would be. The west made it clear that it hated the Soviets, and the Soviets made it clear that they hated the Nazis, but did not want to risk both the Nazis and the west coming after them, which would have been unwinnable most likely. Nobody could be confused of an actual Soviet-Nazi alliance.
Most certainly not. Stalin wasn’t that stupid. He knew war would eventually come, even if he was a bit blindsided because Hitler invaded before winning the battle of Britain. But the Soviets most definitely intended to make use of the pact with Hitler for their own gain, that being the annexation of eastern Poland, Bessarabia, the Baltics and eastern Finland.
Do you think that the Soviets intended to let eastern Poland in their “sphere” as independent states? Since the protocols specifically leave the independence of any sort of Poland state up for debate later, the Soviets almost certainly intended to annex the land back. This is not exactly a controversial view, historians east and west agree on this reading.
The Soviets killed 100-150k people, deported another 300k to Siberia, and imprisoned half a million people. “Sparing them” has got to be a bit of a joke in this context, especially given that the USSR gave the Nazis carte-blanche to Holocaust away in western Poland. The Holocaust itself only became properly known to the world in 1942 anyway, so it’s not like the Soviets used that as their motivation to invade in 1939.
The USSR did not seriously believe that the west would ally with the Nazis against them. It was not a very realistic prospect either, since the west had already conceded quite a few points to the Soviets when they were negotiating the triple alliance regarding mutual defense, and that the west had signed several defense treaties to contain the Soviets specifically. They had not done so for say the Baltics, and even the guarantee for Poland only had provisions for direct action against Germany, not the Soviets. Neither side trusted the other though, and believed the other would try to play them off against the Nazis.
Ultimately it’s the same question but posed a bit later than “Should the west have agreed to cede the Sudetenland from the Czechs or gone to war immediately?”.
The Soviets were attempting to let the west and the Nazis fight each other. Potato, potato. Hell, in 1940 Molotov was drinking tea with Hitler in Berlin, trying to get Hitler to give the USSR free reign in Bulgaria and Finland. Hitler meanwhile tried to get the USSR to fight the west over India and Iran. All three camps were consistently trying to get one to fight the other; ultimately the west decided the fight the Nazis first.
Do you have a source on a British warning to Germany? I can’t find anything mentioning this (not even a disputed claim or something). The British warnings to the USSR were sadly ignored; Stalin did not order the Red Army to get ready for an invasion, which was partially why the first few months of the war went so disastrously poorly for the Soviets.
Socialists were. In fact it caused a great rift between the Soviets and the socialists in other countries, since they could not believe that the Soviets would align themselves with the Nazis. Some distanced themselves from it, others realigned (causing a few socialist organisations to be banned for, get this, promoting the Nazis). These were very confusing times for a great many people.
Regarding Poland, again, this was territory Poland had conquered previously that historically belonged to countries in the Soviet Union. This was a return of territory. By no means did it come without bloodshed, but nevertheless the soviets were not nearly the butchers the Nazis were.
As for the west conspiring to kill of the Soviet Union, and letting Germany do so, again, I gave naked testimony that this was the case. The Soviet Union wanted above all else to survive, the Nazis wanted new colonial territories, and the west wanted to not get colonized by the Nazis while also wanting the Soviets to stop being socialist.
Wolkow W. K. (2003), Stalin wollte ein anderes Europa. Moskaus Außenpolitik 1940 bis 1968 und die Folgen, Edition Ost, Berlin, p. 110.
I already explained this earlier. There was a massivedisinformation campaign, with feints from both Germany and the western powers. The first few weeks went as everyone expected, the Nazis advanced quickly over largely open land until running face to face with the full industrialized might of the Red Army. Goebbels’ diary is quite telling of the change in attitude. On the 22nd-23rd of June, the Nazis attacked confidently. On July 2nd, Goebbels wrote the following:
July 24th:
August 1st:
August 9th:
September 16th:
This was not a walk in the park for the Nazis, because the Soviets planned for it. Modern historiography makes it quite clear that the Nazis and Soviets were never allies in any capacity, for any length of time, and were always conspiring against each other with no expectation of actual peace, just biding their time before what they desired to be a favorable start to war.
So you do think that the Soviets shouldn’t have entered Poland (after the government had already collapsed to secure the parts of Ukraine Lithuania and Belarus the Poles had occupied in the interwar period) and instead let the Nazis have full reign of the entire country until the Nazis decided to move further east?
Once you agree with the Nazis on how to split the country, it makes sense to grab the part you wanted. But diplomatic cables reveal that the Germans would not have kept this part of Poland as they intended to uphold the pact with the Soviets. That’s why there were extensive discussions to release these parts as independent states, so they could be controlled by the USSR as they had agreed.
Whether you agree on that the Soviets should have signed the pact in the first place is another matter, as it was a carte blanche to invade Poland gifted to the Nazis.
So if they didn’t sign the pact or had left this request out of it as you seemingly desire they would have taken it wholesale? So again we’re back to the Molotov-Ribbentrop saving eastern Poland (actually Western Ukraine Belarus and Lithuania that was simply occupied by Poland) from the Nazi scourge (for a time).
They absolutely should as the last power to do so allowing the time for them to build up the production capacity necessary cause 80% of the Nazi deaths of the war.
It really seems like you would have preferred the Soviets leave Western Belarus Lithuania and Ukraine for dead and do nothing to delay the inevitable war with the Nazis to actually recover to fighting strength post revolution. Maybe that would have been the more pure option but it also would have been suicidal idiocy.