I have seen mentioned that, without an aggressive Germany in the 1930s the USSR would have invaded Europe? I guess I didnt think Stalin was that aggressive, but I really don't know. Is it fairly probable to see this happening in the 30s or 40s?
I have seen mentioned that, without an aggressive Germany in the 1930s the USSR would have invaded Europe? I guess I didnt think Stalin was that aggressive, but I really don't know. Is it fairly probable to see this happening in the 30s or 40s?
I have seen mentioned that, without an aggressive Germany in the 1930s the USSR would have invaded Europe? I guess I didnt think Stalin was that aggressive, but I really don't know. Is it fairly probable to see this happening in the 30s or 40s?
Certainly it would be in character for what I know of Stalin to invade if he believed he could win with an acceptable cost.
I quite agree. That assumption owes more to the subconscious influence of Red Alert than to any analysis of the facts, which are that one great power very seldom suddenly decided to up and fight four great powers at the same time. The Russians accidentally fought two great powers at the same time in the 1850s and look how well that went.
Stalin explicitly cited the lessons of tsarist foreign policy in discussing his own. He was acutely aware of being behind the western European countries: indeed, he was paranoid, and thanks to that he saw confederacies against him everywhere. The whole point of the M-R pact was to divide Germany from the Entente and prevent them from uniting against Russia, so why should the Soviet policy be any different if Germany isn't Nazi?
And what is there in eastern Europe that's of so much value? There were a variety of Soviet interests in the cordon countries - the national connections to western Ukraine and Belarus, the claim to Besserabia, anxieties about Leningrad, desire for more Baltic ports - but without the pressing need to establish a military buffer against Germany, these goals are hardly worth risking a disastrous general war. The real prizes for the Soviets in a world without an agressive Germany would be in Asia.
As usual, you stated my opinion far more eloqently then I ever could.
Stalin took some risks in his career, but we're talking about the guy who gave up a militarty advantage in Finland at the first whiff of Entente intervention. Where does everyone get the idea that he'd have been another Hitler given the chance?