HeavyWeaponsGuy
Banned
Thus explaining the Berlin Crisis and Korean War, right? Or Stalin's strong opposition to the Nazis and Japan before Munich?
For that matter, I would argue the USSR's response to Germany was hardening in late 1940, and early 1941, as well.
I believe this should be amended to "Stalin appeased the Western powers if it suited him" because ultimately Stalin was an extremely careful leader who would take an opportunity if he felt he had one (i.e. making the US pay the piper at wartime conferences when it came to Soviet interests) but otherwise realized that belligerent Soviet expansionism of the Red Dawn school of thought ran a strong possibility of getting the Soviet Union into a war it was very likely to lose.
Ultimately Stalin realized that the West could hate him all it wanted but once it came to the point where they were uniting against the Soviet Union then it was a problem. This is why the Soviets never undertook a policy of blitzing across Europe until it was actually attacked and got a blank check because the Soviet Union and the Western Allies had a common foe in the Axis.