• Corn@lemmy.ml
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          38 minutes ago

          Stalin spent the 30s doing everything in his power to form a bulwark against fascism, the western allies also made non-aggression pacts with Nazi Germany, as they were content to let fascism be the solution to the red menace. Stalin only made his non-aggression pact AFTER every western power refused to make a mutual defense pact, or join in if the USSR committed 1 million troops to an invasion.

          Then after dividing Czechoslovakia between Germany and Poland, Hitler invaded Poland and France instead of working with Poland to invade the USSR as the western allies intended.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        13 hours ago

        Stalin couldn’t have done it without the vast amounts of money the US sent his way (Russian nationalists don’t like to talk about Lend-Lease), and without the US and Western European countries fighting the Nazis on a second front.

        Even then, Stalin’s psycopathy and ruthless incompetence caused far a far higher casualty rate than on the western front. He was fine throwing infantry into the meat grinder in a war of attrition, because Russia had more bodies than Germany did.