[log in to unmask] (a.d.danilecki) wrote in message news:<[log in to unmask]>...
> [log in to unmask] (Nick Cooper 625) wrote in message news:<[log in to unmask]>...
> > > The Soviet Union was on the side of the Germans when the war started,
> > > they invaded Poland along with the Germans.
> >
> > No, they had a non-agression pact.  Saying "we're not going to attack
> > you," isn't the same as, "we are with you."
>
> But having secret agreement that you will attack in the same time,
> dividing the country in that secret agreement, and then providing raw
> materials is kind of not the same as just "having non-aggression
> pact".
>
> Until 1941 USSR and Nazi were allies or at least something very close
> to that name.

Both Hitler and Stalin had territorial ambitions on Poland, but while
Katyn proved that the Soviets could be just as brutal as the Nazis,
they were not ideologically comparable.  The signign of the
non-agression pact came as a complete surprise to the rest of Europe,
simply because of previous German antipathy to communist Russia, and
vice versa.  It's obvious that both countries readily agreed because
each wanted to buy time against the other - Germany to avoid the WW1
scenario of a war on two fronts, and the Soviet Union to enable it to
build up defenec against a fully-expected German attack.

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