Word: stalinism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...second important consequence was convincing Stalin that the Western powers would never resist Hitler's increasingly aggressive expansion eastward. Stalin had several times proposed a treaty with the Western powers to check Hitler's ambitions, but he had been ignored. With the treachery characteristic of him -- he had purged dozens of his top army officers on false charges of conspiring with the Germans to overthrow him -- he began exploring the possibility of signing an alliance with those same Germans. To Hitler, who had been ranting about "the struggle against Bolshevism" for nearly 20 years, it seemed like an offer...
...aimed at and prepared . . . any time from Sept. 1, 1939, onward." If anything more was needed, it was the neutralization of Poland's other big neighbor, Soviet Russia, and Hitler had achieved that just the previous week by suddenly concluding a treaty of cooperation with his supposed archenemy Joseph Stalin. And so, at the appointed hour of 4:45 a.m. (Poland time), Hitler struck all along the 1,750-mile Polish frontier. The catastrophic war of revenge that he alone wanted was now his to command...
...disaster: the Soviet army invaded eastern Poland and proceeded to grab whatever had not yet been grabbed by the Germans. Actually, this had all been preordained in several secret protocols of the previous month's Nazi-Soviet treaty. Only the date of the Soviet invasion had been left uncertain. Stalin had a little difficulty in thinking up an excuse to attack, but he finally declared that he was acting "to restore peace and order in Poland, which has been destroyed by the disintegration of the Polish State...
...knew nothing of the secret protocol between Hitler and Stalin that contained provisions for the attack on Poland. German newspapers were full of reports of Polish violence and provocations against the German minority. Who knew whether the reports were correct? Most were believed...
Before the main feature, as usual, the weekly newsreel was shown. The camera showed Moscow. A troop parade on Red Square. Stalin appeared in close-up. I watched Hitler intently looking at Stalin's face. Hitler interrupted, asking the projectionist to repeat the sequence two or three times. Visibly excited, he commented, "I rather like the way this man looks. I believe one could come to terms with him." Then he rose and retired to his room...