Why did Stalin sign the Nazi-Soviet Pact?

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Why did Stalin sign the Nazi-Soviet Pact?

On August 28th, 1939, the foreign minister of Nazi Germany, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and of the Soviet Union, Vyacheslav Molotov, signed in Moscow a Nazi-Soviet pact of nonaggression and neutrality, as a result of Hitler’s efforts to ensure safe grounds in Eastern Europe. The agreement really guaranteed the Soviets Finland, Latvia, Estonia and the lands East of the line of Vistula, which divided Poland in between the two powers; the Nazis could conquer west from these lines, and neither power would judge one another’s actions in their ‘spheres of interest’.

What was the real interest, however, of the Soviet leader , behind the signing of this pact, which rather guaranteed the proximity of another world war considering the terms under which it was signed? Why did Stalin overlook the communist policy and forge an alliance-like treaty with his nation’s worst enemy and clearly an ideological counterpart? This essay will attempt to answer these questions and unveil the real motivations of Stalin’s actions, much as most of his dictatorship’s own foreign (and internal) policy.  

Stalin’s first objectives-

Throughout the first years of the 1930’s it became clearly perceivable for Stalin’s empire that the rise of Hitler was to be the largest threat to his empire. The anti-communist attitudes portrayed in ‘Mein Kampf’, as much of his campaign ideals were to psychologically align the german people towards a war in the east, much as the extermination of the jews. However, Stalin argued that Hitler would not start a war against a unified Europe, and that he should form an anti-fascist alliance within.

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However, Stalin’s plans would soon fall apart. Neville Chamberlain, British foreign minister, would openly defy the trustworthiness of  the Soviet Union thus refusing such an alliance. Winston Churchill, soon to take his post, was highly critical of this foreign policy. So far, however, Stalin would believe Britain and Germany were plotting against his country; this thought was reinforced when Chamberlain met Hitler in Munich, in 1938.

By this time Stalin realizes war with Germany had become inevitable. The unexpected and exponential army buildup of the Reich was not something he had kept up with, so he needed ...

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