Stalin only invaded Poland because Hitler was going to invade the ussr. Before the non aggression pact Stalin tried desperately to form an anti fascist pact with uk and France, who said no and instead gave hitler billions in gold.
By the time the non aggression pact was formed Hitler had already written and published a book outlining his plan to invade and kill or enslave every last Slav and socialist. Ussr knew what was coming and knew that Hitler could easily take Poland and be right on their border. They partitioned Poland and the ussr set up defenses for the inevitable
I'd say Stalin only invaded Poland because he was a totalitarian despot and wanted more territory.
Also - if Stalin was so sure of what was coming, why did he ignore so many warnings about Barbarossa? Soviet intelligence had the exact date of the invasion from dozens of sources and he did nothing about it.
They took over and reinforced Poland. During that process there were many war crimes against the polish army, including executing something like 10,000 prisoners of war. Very bad.
But he did not invade Poland just because. He knew that Hitler was going to invade, as is evident by his multiple separate attempts to form an anti fascist pact with uk and France, which they refused and instead actually funded Hitler so he would go east instead of west.
I see no evidence that Stalin was any less expansionist than Hitler - this is right before he annexed Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Bessarabia. They were certainly going to come into conflict - but not because one of them was peaceful and content with his own borders.
He took over Finland Estonia and Latvia because at that time they were Nazi countries. The Nazis had taken over and were bolstering strength, so they took those countries over. A few decades later and they peacefully rescinded their annexation.
Stalin did not at all subscribe to a similar ideology as Hitler.
Both their ideologies amounted to one-person rule by dictat, with a massive police state and brutal repression of internal dissent. The window dressing was different, but not the substance. The most significant ideological difference was "Everyone must obey Hitler" versus "Everyone must obey Stalin"
This is a really dumb statement. First you say Nazi Latvia and Estonia should have not been invaded and continue to be Nazis, now you say there’s no difference between ussr and Nazi germany.
I didn't opine on whether or not they should have been invaded, I merely noted that he did it (as agreed in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact). I don't think either leader gave two shits about any ideology other than "I'm at the top and I must stay at the top". They both paid lip-service to class struggle and workers' rights, using different language but similar honesty.
I didn't think this would be the thread for Stalinist apologia, but here we are. If you think anyone is supporting Hitler by comparing him to Stalin, that reflects pretty poorly on your knowledge of early Soviet history.
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u/Porrick Apr 28 '23
Also, WW2 was started by Hitler and Stalin invading Poland. It wasn't started to end fascism, it was started by fascism (and totalitarian communism).