News Russia-Poland row over start of WW2 escalates

Funny that they warm this up again. Gorbachev had already admitted the existence of the secret part of the Hitler-Stalin-Treaty at the end of the USSR and the full text of the original treaty was published in 1993 by a Russian journal.

Before 1993, this secret treaty was part of German oral history, but only the Russians managed to locate an existing original of it, while the German one was destroyed by the bombing of the Reichskanzlei. Copys of it already circulated through Europe since 1939, but those had been considered fake in the USSR.

Also, the treaty was already highly embarrassing for the USSR right after World War 2. During the Nuremburg trials, they fought hard against any mentioning of such a treaty by Nazi officials, like Ernst von Weizsäcker.
 
Putin would have more of a leg to stand on with the whataboutism regarding Western appeasement (which has forever sullied Chamberlain's name in the West; Nobody today denies that the West appeased Hitler, or that it was a bad thing to do) if the USSR hadn't taken its own bite out of Poland. If the non-aggression pact had simply been signed by the Soviets to buy time while the Western powers were dithering, and the Soviets had left Poland alone, then Putin's position would be completely valid.
 
Soviet's could not have left Poland alone, because there are certain indications showing that USSR also planned to attack towards the west.
And let's not forget invasion in Finland in 1939.
If I have read correctly, in December of 1940 Molotov visited Berlin again and demanded changes in this division line (more territory than before).

USSR had much larger potential than it is depicted. Enough to invade Iran in 25 August 1941 (with UK), when blitzkrieg was underway.

Putin's stance actually is ridiculous. Red fascism has not been put under trial, and it shows.

And the main thing - seeing topics in internet about M.Gorbachev, I regularly read russian comments (~80% of them) "he betrayed our great USSR", "agent of CIA"... so"allies" in World War 2? Doubtfully.
 
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