Soviet Union time in their lives Astonished by the relative prosperity of even war-devastated regions of Poland and East Prussia when compared to their own impoverished villages, their shock turned into a murderous rage that led to plunder, rape, and death of innocents on a vast scale Diplomatically, Stalin sought to organize internationally against the rising danger from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan earlier than most Western leaders His effort to form an anti-German front with the Western powers was rebuffed, in part because Stalin pursued Bolshevism’s subversive foreign efforts through the Comintern, but partly because Western governments were intent on appeasement of Germany and avoidance of war at almost any cost before January 1939 In addition, most Western leaders could not see past their visceral anti-Communism to the Realpolitik truth that “the enemy of my enemy is my ally,” if not quite my friend That problem was exacerbated rather than relieved by the manner of Soviet intervention on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) Excluded from the Munich Conference in September 1938, Stalin looked to a separate deal with Adolf Hitler The two great dictators agreed to the Nazi–Soviet Pact (August 23, 1939) Their deal stunned the world Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st (Operation FALL WEISS) On September 17th the Red Army invaded Poland from the east, meeting the Wehrmacht on a line drawn across the map of Poland in secret Meanwhile, the threat of war loomed in Siberia and Outer Mongolia Some fighting with the Japanese Army took place in the Soviet far east in 1938, and far more seriously at Nomonhan in July–August, 1939 The blunt military rebuff at Nomonhan and announcement of the Nazi–Soviet Pact shocked Tokyo Japanese strategic interest was subsequently drawn south to the nanshin path, away from the hokushin (“northern advance”) or attack out of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia into Outer Mongolia and Siberia On April 13, 1941, Japan and the Soviet Union signed a fiveyear neutrality pact, freeing Japan to move south In October 1939, Winston Churchill said: “I cannot predict to you the action of Russia It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Upon dividing Poland with the other great tyrant of Europe, Stalin made the Soviet Union a de facto associate power of the Axis alliance He launched the unprovoked Finish–Soviet War (1939–1940), annexed the Baltic States, and forced cession of Bessarabia and Bukovina from Rumania in 1940 Stalin even cooperated in the German invasion of Norway and congratulated Hitler on the success of FALL GELB that June The bet on Nazi Germany did not pay off: the Soviet Union lost all its newly seized territory and one-third of European Russia, along with Ukraine and the Crimea, in just the first months of Hitler’s Operation BARBAROSSA, begun on June 22, 1941 The Red Army lost millions of men and was in abject crisis by October It was smashed in the south, reeling in front of Leningrad, and Army Group Center threatened to take Moscow in Operation TAIFUN Party and government officials relocated to Kuibyshev, accompanied by the foreign diplomatic corps The exodus seemed to repeat the flight of French officials to Bordeaux, and thence to Vichy Discipline and public order broke down NKVD troops blocked escape routes from Moscow and ruthlessly shot down ordinary citizens trying to follow their government out of the city Some 65 million people, about 40 percent of the prewar population of 171 million, were 1007