[throwaway290]

There were valid reasons to not be friendly to USSR. Does this justify USSR entering friendship pact with Germany, thus enabling it to start the war?

I also want to know more conditions under which Stalin (who really handled foreign policy then?) offered to send troops to Europe, considering USSR was sort of fighting Japan at the same time. I'm sure UK and France could corroborate and provide more details, if this offer was real.

For the record, the position* of Sotskov (the only source mentioned in the article you linked) is also that occupying Baltic states and dividing Europe between USSR and Germany was not in fact a land grab by USSR but rather a necessary measure to be able to resist Germany.

Never mind that this protection buffer would not have been needed if Germany did not expand its invasion... which it did thanks to USSR siding with it. Dubious twist of logic.

It seems obvious that leaving Germany to take more of Europe in the beginning of WWII would have drastically reduced the ability of USSR to withstand a subsequent attack by Germany, so the argument seems to be "our geniuses could foresee this, so they invaded Europe in order to save the world from fascists". This argument is canceled out, however, by considering that at the end of the day not entering a pact with the UK does not imply USSR needed to side with Germany, the act that enabled Germany to start the war (which presumably USSR was aware of) in the first place.

I'm not sure to which degree this treatment of WWII is truth vs. revisionism.

* Which also seems to be the official position of the Kremlin: http://www.svr.gov.ru/material/sbornik-dokumentov/otzyvy-na-...

[berdario]

> There were valid reasons to not be friendly to USSR. Does this justify USSR entering friendship pact with Germany, thus enabling it to start the war?

This is not about "friendship pact", this is about non-aggression pact.

Was Poland not justified in entering a non-aggression pact with Germany?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Polish_declarat...

Was France not justified in entering a non-aggression pact with Germany?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement#Consequences

> Never mind that this protection buffer would not have been needed if Germany did not expand its invasion... which it did thanks to USSR siding with it. Dubious twist of logic.

Good questions/points, but we're judging decisions made at the time with the hindsight of decades after the war. I don't think it was clear to anyone who would've joined the war, which sides would've won, and the likelihood of such events.

Every country, depending on the circumstances, was probably trying to do what's best for them. Either avoiding war, or exploiting the messy situation by expanding their territory by annexing small part of neighboring states.

In fact, after seeing what happened to Poland, I think that every party in such agreements realized that they could provide, at best, temporary respite and delay confrontation (but that's not a weird isolated phenomenon: circumstances changes, and that provides ammunition to arguments that old agreements are not valid anymore).

It's not as much to enable other countries' war, but rather to delay one's own involvement in one war.

In fact, the USSR state budget was dedicated to defense for only about ~5%. A confrontation with Nazi Germany at the time would've been disastrous. But in the extra couple of years since, it increased to > 40%

https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-military-spending/

[throwaway290]

> Was Poland not justified in entering a non-aggression pact with Germany?

Did they also devise secret protocols dividing the world into spheres of influence, which were subsequently expanded with clauses that had "friendship" in their titles?

> we're judging decisions made at the time with the hindsight of decades after the war

This is exactly what allows us to see objectively what was happening.

It's always easy to say "we didn't mean it, we were playing 3D chess" (like Trump apologists) right afterwards.

However, we can judge based on the actions, which were:

1) sign a non-agression pact with Nazi Germany

2) almost immediately after, jointly with Nazi Germany invade and divide a country

3) extend the pact with a further "friendship" treaty, dividing Europe*

4) further discuss joining Axis**

Where do you think things were really headed?

> I don't think it was clear to anyone who would've joined the war, which sides would've won, and the likelihood of such events.

> Every country, depending on the circumstances, was probably trying to do what's best for them

You're quick to rob all countries and their leaders of moral baselines. There was documented massive surprise (including Western communists) and outrage worldwide when USSR signed the pact. I think the pact at the time was somewhat of a blow to general morale, a sign that another major player takes the world as a zero-sum dog eat dog arena that you allude to.

It seems feasible Stalin/Molotov would've joined Axis if it's "better" for USSR. And furthermore what was going on in USSR under Stalin (ethical cleanses, mass murder) is not too different from what Hitler did, USSR and Nazi Germany are fairly similar in many regards.

But I don't think this is somehow just an instance of how every normal country disregards ethics in the name of own profit. For one, USSR was geopolitically differently situated compared to small countries within immediate vicinity of Germany. It had immense territory. It was actively forging agreements and trade with Germany at the time.

I'm happy USSR ultimately didn't get to win the initial war and divide the world alongside Axis.

> It's not as much to enable other countries' war, but rather to delay one's own involvement in one war.

USSR invaded Poland as soon as Germany did. You're right, this is not enabling other countries' war. This is actually joining the war, and not on the side of the good guys.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Boundary_and_Fri...

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Axis_talks#Molot...