• 0 Posts
  • 4 Comments
Joined 2 days ago
cake
Cake day: September 18th, 2025

help-circle

  • Unironically, yes. While the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a horrible idea, it came as a result of Western Europe handing Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany while they were still appeasing Hitler. There was legitimate fear of Hitler invading the SU and Western Europe giving him the green light in the name of “appeasement”, hence the non-aggression pact (which was later broken).

    As for the Soviet invasion, Poland had no way of winning against the initial Nazi invasion and even though the United Kingdom declared war in response to the invasion, they sent NO aid to Poland and left them to the wolves. When the Soviet Union invaded from the East, they did so in the name of protecting Slavic and Jewish Poles who were under threat of Nazi extermination.

    Stalin concluded that the West had colluded with Hitler to hand over a country in Central Europe to the Germans, causing concern that they might do the same to the Soviet Union in the future to allow its partition between the western nations. This belief led the Soviet Union to reorient its foreign policy towards a rapprochement with Germany, which eventually led to the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939.[89]

    The response of non-ethnic Poles to the situation caused considerable complications. Many Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews welcomed the invading troops.[100] Local Communists gathered people to welcome the Red Army troops in the traditional Slavic way by presenting bread and salt in the eastern suburb of Brest. A sort of triumphal arch on two poles, decked with spruce branches and flowers was fashioned for this occasion. A slogan in Russian on a long red banner, glorifying the USSR and welcoming the Red Army, crowned the arch.[101] The event was recorded by Lev Mekhlis, who reported to Stalin that the people of the West Ukraine welcomed the Soviet troops “like true liberators”.[102]

    Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War for more info.