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this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. Spheres of influence were not agreements to jointly work together. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
Further, you're ignoring the Munich Agreement, where Czechoslovakia was given to the Nazis by the west. Not only was the west on good terms with the Nazis, signing many non-aggression pacts, they fostered healthy relationships. Finally, the Soviets were reasonably highly suspicious that Britain and Germany would ally. This was not unfounded, both were friendly enough until the outbreak of war. The Soviets desperately needed to make sure that the British and Germans would not ally, which reasonably would have happened had the Soviet Union taken unilateral action against the Nazis, rather than waiting to be attacked first.
Stalin was said to have "obsessed over quantitative and qualitative" improvements in arms in the years leading up to World War II, and had soldiers stationed on high alert, preparing for a German attack. Despite the insistence of many Generals to muster forces on the German border, it was Stalin's insistence that forces not be so concentrated that prevented the Nazis from totally routing the Red Army, enabling the greatest counteroffensive in history.
Hitler himself was quite honest at times, to himself at least:
...
The Soviets expected and planned for it, they were never allies with the Nazis.
That's historical revisionism not even supported by Russian historians. That page is full of nonsensical statements too. On the page dedicated to "disproving" the secret protocols, it makes two claims:
But the text of the secret protocols as I have linked already handily disproves both notions. First, it explicitly mentions that the question of whether a Polish state should remain is to be decided later; clearly this means that the existence of Poland itself is not a precondition for the protocols holding. The protocols also basically outline "what happens after Poland is invaded and how should it be divided", you can call it a partitioning into spheres of influence if you like, but the protocols did not care exactly what the Soviets or Nazis would do on either side of the line, annexation, puppeting or otherwise. All that mattered was declaring where belonged to who. That's colloquially known as a partitioning.
The setting up of independent states east of the line is also not proof of anything. This was being considered before the USSR invaded, and the Germans needed to decide on something with the remaining land. They opted for independent countries over puppet governments or direct annexation, so as to leave the area to the USSR to deal with.
Ultimately both countries invaded, and the Nazis retreated back to the demarcation line.
The USSR was aware of the defensive pact between the west and Poland, and the west declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland.
The west was still on appeasement mode (which was a mistake in hindsight). But they were not on "friendly" terms at all, clearly evidenced by the fact they were still negotiating with the Soviets to form an alliance against the Germans. The west was actively negotiating treaties to contain Germany where possible, but not all countries targetted by the Nazis agreed to one since they were worried aligning against Hitler would make them a target (the concern of the Baltics for example).
This was, as far as I could find, never a Soviet concern. They did not believe the west would ally with Hitler, rather they were mistrusting that the west would let the USSR fight Germany on its own, weakening both states. This was actually the same concern the west had, they feared the Soviets would pull the west into a war against Germany without a cause they could support. This deep mistrust was a key reason why the triple alliance failed to materialize. Ultimately it was the west that declared war on Germany first, and the Soviets indeed let them fight before being forced into the conflict by Germany.
So you do think that the Soviets shouldn't have entered Poland (after the government had already collapsed to secure the parts of Ukraine Lithuania and Belarus the Poles had occupied in the interwar period) and instead let the Nazis have full reign of the entire country until the Nazis decided to move further east?
Once you agree with the Nazis on how to split the country, it makes sense to grab the part you wanted. But diplomatic cables reveal that the Germans would not have kept this part of Poland as they intended to uphold the pact with the Soviets. That's why there were extensive discussions to release these parts as independent states, so they could be controlled by the USSR as they had agreed.
Whether you agree on that the Soviets should have signed the pact in the first place is another matter, as it was a carte blanche to invade Poland gifted to the Nazis.
So if they didn't sign the pact or had left this request out of it as you seemingly desire they would have taken it wholesale? So again we're back to the Molotov-Ribbentrop saving eastern Poland (actually Western Ukraine Belarus and Lithuania that was simply occupied by Poland) from the Nazi scourge (for a time).
They absolutely should as the last power to do so allowing the time for them to build up the production capacity necessary cause 80% of the Nazi deaths of the war.
It really seems like you would have preferred the Soviets leave Western Belarus Lithuania and Ukraine for dead and do nothing to delay the inevitable war with the Nazis to actually recover to fighting strength post revolution. Maybe that would have been the more pure option but it also would have been suicidal idiocy.
The Nazis were somewhat surprised by the complete collapse of the Polish government. They originally had not planned to annex the entire territory, but instead pushed for a surrender of the Polish to let the Nazis take the territory they wanted, leaving a Polish puppet state. When the Poles didn't surrender and saw their government disintegrate, that plan went out of the window.
The Soviets had other options, eg joining the west in guaranteeing Poland or signing the triple alliance even if it wasn't everything they wanted. Too much distrust pushed them away from this option. At the time the Nazis weren't that powerful yet and fighting a two-front war, even against a less-than-ready Red army would have likely proven to be too much. Instead, Stalin opted to side with the Nazis in dividing Poland and sacrificed western Poland to the fascist terror regime (inflicting their own terror on the east). Ultimately the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was the final trigger for the invasion of Poland.
In 41 the Nazis had gathered enough strength for a prolonged campaign in Russia, which in 39 they absolutely weren't ready for.