and the main reason for the deficit was preparation for the war, not the desire to make people’s lives in the country better. Nothing prevented the Soviet Union with the Communists at its head from being an ally before the war with the Germans, attacking Poland together and attacking Finland, suppressing protests in Czechoslovakia and Hungary
I’m really struggling to follow some of this. Are you saying the Soviets didn’t need to fight Germany and didn’t need to take as much time as they could manage to prepare to do so?
The problem is that they were allies of Germany until Germany attacked them :) and they also wanted to conquer all of Europe, not just preparing to defend their own territory
I chose to avoid most of the bait so far, even with those cloying :)s that you like adding so much, but this one is too disgusting. It’s historical revisionism pure and simple that they were ever “allies” with Germany. They had a treaty to try and stall German invasion, but they never imagined things would go otherwise than one party defeating the other (though they did underestimate how soon the Germans would attack).
