The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941

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The Soviet Union and Communism have received an amazing pass with respect to their complicity in starting World War II. In Rolf Hochhuth's bloated whale of a play, [[ASIN:0802142427 The Deputy (Black cat book)]], Hochhuth has a character condemn the Pope for not siding with Russia over Germany. Hochhuth has his character, Father Riccardo, ask:

“Riccardo: Permit me, Your Eminence - the moral right, surely, is on the Russian side, without a doubt. They are waging a just war! They were attacked, their country devastated, their people carried off, slaughtered. If they are threatening Europe now, the blame is only Hitler's.”

As propaganda, this is excellent; as history, it is a nauseating oversimplification that misses the fact that the Nazi versus Communist war was a war between thieves, robbers, murderers and thugs.

This excellent book by Roger Moorhous sheds rare light on the Stalin-Hitler Pact, aka the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, which reoriented the official positions of the two totalitarianisms, which had involved mutual animosity, into a mutually advantageous trading relationship. The roll-out of this changed position confused the populations of the two nations, who had previously been trained into believing that the opposing ideology was the incarnation of evil.

The advantage of the treaty was clear. The treaty removed the threat at Germany's back, so that it was free to go to war with the western powers of Britain and France, particularly after the treaty had divided Poland up between the Nazi and Communist powers. Germany struck first, but Russia did not waste a lot of time before making sure that it took possession of its territorial claims in Poland. Moorhous describes the extent of Communist-Nazi cooperation in Poland, with Germany handing over cities to the Russians according to their treaty obligation. Moorhous also describes the nauseating similarity with which the conquerors administered their respective Polish territories. Moorhous exactingly describes the atrocities committed by both powers on their conquered Polish peoples.

The Soviet Union used the treaty as an opportunity to absorb the Baltic states and Bessarabia into the Soviet Union. It also launches a war against Finland for the same purpose, which was initially repulsed with great losses to the Communists. Ultimately, the Soviet Union prevailed with more men and better tactics.

The Soviet Union's real hope was that Germany and the western powers would find themselves in an interminable war like the prior war that it could exploit.Hitler dashed those hopes with his quick victory over France.

For its part, Germany's need was for raw material for its industry. It hoped to obtain those resources through trade deals with Russia. Communists being Communists, Russia stalled its negotiations and cheated on its obligations, except when Stalin panicked about his need for German peace. For its part, it seems that Russia did very well in its dealings by obtaining trade secrets and models of advanced technology, and, in one case, a partially constructed battleship in the Bismarck class.

In many ways, this book makes a nice complement to Timothy Snyder's [[ASIN:B00B3M3VE6 Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin]]. Snyder explains the logic of Hitler's move against Russia, to wit, the need to secure a continental supply of resources in order to sustain Germany against the blockade of resources that England could impose. Moorhous points out the maddening way that Russia threatened Germany with its arbitrary actions concerning providing Germany with the resources it needed. Could more enthusiastic contract-fulfillment by Russia have prevented Operation Barbarossa? Probably not, as Moorhous points out, Hitler was having “buyer's regret” when he observed the Soviet Union extending its hegemony to the Baltic states and Bessarabia. The incorporation of Romanian Bessarabia into the Soviet Union, in particular, was considered to be evidence of Stalin's duplicity.

This book is a fascinating look at a little-discussed but vastly important aspect of twentieth century history, particularly an aspect that continued to play a role throughout the rest of the twentieth century.