[0xbear]

Mostly Russians. And 20M is the “official” number. There are independent estimates that put the casualties even higher.

USSR was never “on the same side” as Hitler. It was never a part of The Axis. Stalin was just hoping that capitalist swine would take each other out and then he would roll in and take over. Same as the US was hoping Hitler would fuck up Russia and much of Europe so they could roll in and take over. As far as the spoils of war, the real winner was the US. Britain gave up its last ambitions of being a naval superpower and handed over its navy bases to the US. The US was propelled to the superpower status with relatively little loss of life, and became the dominant industrial power as well. Weakened USSR was denied power in Western Europe. What’s not to like?

[EliRivers]

Much of the world considers making a deal to carve up Poland as being "on the same side". You don't, but lots of people do, so terms need to be spelled out clearly if you're going to communicate.

[0xbear]

The alternative to not “carving up Poland” was to not sign the mutual non-aggression pact and essentially enter into war with Germany before it thoroughly fucks up Britain and France. Britain and France would be quite delighted if Hitler pursued that course of action. I’m pretty sure theyd even withhold any meaningful military assistance to help things along while Hitler makes his run on Russia, for the same reason Stalin did. In fact they sorta had done that already by refusing to enter into a pact against Nazi Germany.

You can’t reason about geostrategic considerations in terms of moral high ground. Those dudes were dealing with a very dangerous and volatile situation, and the decisions they made were literally matters of life and death for their respective peoples.

That’s not to absolve anyone of guilt, but if you’re going to be an armchair quarterback, do yourself a favor and study history a bit more thoroughly. At that negotiating table any of us today would have made the exact same choice.

[EliRivers]

Sounds like the point you're trying to make is that they did indeed agree to carve up Poland, but it was the least worst option, and in your opinion does not constitute "being on the same side". That was a reasonable contribution.

Your passive aggressive comments and your snide smug "look at me everyone, I'm so clever" childish put-downs; grow up. You actually managed to express a coherent and sensible opinion, and then blew it at the end; you just couldn't quite be an adult about it, and you transformed your whole comment from "rational discourse" to "petulant child".

[Sommersonn]

>USSR was never “on the same side” as Hitler.

Really? When they were parading captured Poland or conspiring to divide Europe - they were on different sides?

>Weakened USSR was denied power in Western Europe.

Not weakened, far from it. And it was denied _capturing_ Western Europe. Basically they were saved from horrors of soviet 'communism'.