People are posting wiki articles with non existent “sources” as proof the soviets were going to join the axis and helped the Nazis.
Rent free. Just as Lenin intended.
Gonna go ahead and say it, the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact was unironically a good thing given the circumstances (Britain and France both refusing to enter into an anti-fascist alliance with the USSR). A master stroke of diplomacy that forstalled the inevitable and gave the Soviet Union time to develop and arm.
It also let the Soviet Union take back territory that had been stolen during the Polish-Soviet war and save a big chunk of Poland from Nazi rule.
I prefer to think of it as a necessary evil rather than a good thing, but I understand what you mean. Another outcome was that it allowed the Soviets to focus on resisting and weakening Japanese Imperialism, which I almost never see anticommunists mention (let alone discuss).
An anticommunist would probably reply to you saying that the Soviets went in deporting and exterminating millions of peaceful civilians who were simply minding their own business or, at worst, politely expressing their disagreements with Joseph Stalin’s government.
That’s what I tell people too, if Molotov-Ribbentropp wasn’t signed, the Nazis wouldn’t have lost.
Most likely. Look at the timetable of Barbarossa and Soviet retreat and mobilisation effort. If Germans started from the 1939 former Polish-USSR borders (and if independent Baltics let them through, which they would most likely did) Leningrad would fall for sure and Moscow and Stalingard most probably.
Also like 2 of them are even smiling, pretty sad “celebration”. Looks to me like on both sides even ordinary troopers knew they are enemies with eachother.
While for example, this happened while Soviets and Americans met, when both side soldiers genuinly considered themselves allies:
