Chapter Eleven - Deal with the Devil

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Deal with the Devil

IN AUGUST 1939, the world was holding its breath.

Everyone knew war was coming. Hitler had already taken Austria and Czechoslovakia, and now he had his eyes on Poland. Britain and France had promised to defend it. The question was what the Soviet Union would do.

The answer came out of nowhere.

On August 23, 1939, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. It shocked the world. Two regimes that had spent years denouncing each other, one communist, one fascist, suddenly shook hands.

Officially, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (named after the foreign ministers) said that the two sides agreed not to attack each other. But the real deal was in the secret protocol: they agreed to carve up Eastern Europe.

Germany would take western Poland.
The Soviets would take eastern Poland, plus the Baltics and part of Romania.

It was pure strategy. Stalin didn’t trust Hitler, but he wasn’t ready for a war. The purges had gutted his army. His officers were green, his supply lines were shaky, and his factories weren’t at full strength. The pact bought him time.

It also gave him territory, and he was happy to take it.

Seventeen days after Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Red Army invaded from the east. Polish resistance collapsed. The country was split in two, just like the deal said. Then came the Baltic states. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were absorbed into the USSR, then eastern Romania, then Finland.

That last one didn’t go according to plan.

The Winter War against Finland in 1939 was supposed to be a quick win. Instead, it turned into a disaster. Finnish forces held the line, outmaneuvered Soviet troops, and embarrassed the Red Army. The Soviets eventually pushed through with sheer numbers, but the whole campaign exposed how badly the army had been damaged by the purges.

Still, Stalin got what he wanted: a buffer zone. A cushion of territory between Russia and Germany.

And while Britain and France declared war on Hitler, Stalin stayed out of it. At least for a while.

He didn’t believe Hitler would turn east. Not yet.
But he was wrong.