this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
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The Nazis took Brest, and when the Soviets arrived, the Nazis pulled back rather than directly antagonizing the Soviets and risking war before Barbarossa. This isn't complicated, had the Soviets not arrived, the Nazis would have stayed or pushed onward. As for the Nazi request for support, the Soviets only partially complied, trying to tread the line between collapsing the non-agression pact and giving as little support as possible. I didn't bother responding to this point because you were already lying elsewhere.
The Soviets informing Lithuania of the details of the non-aggression pact was a good thing. What's your point, exactly? That the nation that spent a decade trying to form an anti-Nazi alliance, was ideologically opposed to Nazism, when the Nazis were murdering communists, were secretly friends the whole time and that the war was an unexpected betrayal? This kind of nonsense anti-communism is historical revisionism and erasure of context.
It remains true that the country that did the most to try to stop the Nazi threat before World War II, and contributed the most to stopping the Nazis during it, was the Soviet Union, and it isn't close.
The Soviets arrived in Brest because that's what they had agreed upon with the Nazis. The Nazis just stuck to their end of the deal. Your attempt to frame this as the Soviets "liberating" Brest from the Nazis is laughably inaccurate. There was no antagonism when the Soviets arrived.
The Nazis would have had to stay in Brest if the Soviets didn't show up, because both parties also agreed to suppress any Polish resistance against either side. The Nazis suddenly leaving would have given an opening to Polish resistance.
The Soviets basically told Lithuania "we decided to divvy up eastern Europe with the Nazis. You are on our side of the demarcation line, and we already invaded Poland. Know what happens when you resist". It was a direct threat, not a promise of an alliance.
The UK and France guaranteed Polish independence and declared war on Germany when Hitler invaded. The Soviets could have done the same, but didn't. Instead, they joined forces with the Nazis. They were just as ineffective at stopping the Nazis as the Allies were, when he wasn't directly helping them out. Once war was declared that picture shifts, and the Soviets delivered an immense effort to stop the Nazis, most notably their sacrifice in human lives (something that must be respected and remembered). But before the war that was very different, despite attempts to minimize the Soviet collaboration by revisionists.
There was no antagonism from the Nazis because they had agreed to not press farther, or risk breaking the non-aggression pact. Without the non-aggression pact, Poland would have been totally colonized by the Nazis and subject to the Holocaust. It effectively stalled the Nazi advance without the Soviets needing to go to war quite yet.
The Soviets informed Lithuania to warn them of Nazi aggression, not to threaten them. Britain and France declared war but didn't do jack shit, to the point that this era was remembered as the "Phoney War." What happened next, was Britain extending diplomacy with the USSR and trying to finally form a cohesive alliance.
Again, because you're relentlessly dodging this, what’s your point, exactly? That the nation that spent a decade trying to form an anti-Nazi alliance, was ideologically opposed to Nazism, when the Nazis were murdering communists, were secretly friends the whole time and that the war was an unexpected betrayal? This kind of nonsense anti-communism is historical revisionism and erasure of context.
My point is that your link claiming the Soviets didn't agree to invade Poland with the Nazis is historical revisionism, blatantly ignores facts and context and just does not hold up under mild scrutiny. It's literally what I stated in my first comment.
When the Soviets did not manage to get an alliance with the west (the west still deemed the communists a huge threat as well), they did genuinely attempt to ally with the Nazis. And that's what initially happened. Stalin didn't believe the alliance would last of course, but ultimately he too was surprised by how early Hitler invaded. Molotov even called fascism "a matter of taste", to demonstrate the collaboration between the two nations at that point.
The "Phoney war" has always been a bit of a misnomer. Poland fell before the British expeditionary force could even be deployed. Later revealed French intelligence showed that France severly overestimated the German strength on the French border. They didn't press hard yet because they believed they wouldn't be able to.
But they UK and France didn't declare war for performative reasons. They stepped in, even if not immediately effectively, whereas the Soviets initially collaborated with the Nazis and waited to be attacked instead. They too could have unilaterally guaranteed Poland, yet chose not too. They spied an opportunity for themselves to regain lands lost to Poland in an earlier war instead and took it.
The Soviets, plainly and simply, did not agree to invade Poland. That was not a part of the non-aggression pact, nor what "spheres of influence" entailed. Those were lines the other party was not meant to cross if the likely war broke out, and secondly neither party expected the other to uphold them long-term. The Soviets never intended on allying with the Nazis, non-aggression is not an alliance. You are doing historical revisionism, as much as you deride me for it.
As for the British and French, again, they did absolutely nothing of value and watched it all happen. Should the soviets have let Poland fall entirely to the Nazis? Should the soviets have launched a war they weren't ready for? Seems to me you wished the soviets were stronger than they were at the time and could have taken on a far more industrialized power with a fair degree of confidence, or otherwise let Poland fall to the Nazis and be subject to Nazi slaughter and the Holocaust.
Explain to me why the Soviets agreed on a sphere of influence that went straight down the middle of a sovereign country. Explain to me why the Soviets coordinated militarily with the Luftwaffe during the invasion, even before the Soviets entered the war. You keep incessantly dodging these questions because the facts do not fit your false narrative.
The UK and France weren't ready for war either. As already mentioned (which you also keep ignoring) the BEF wasn't deployable before Poland fell, and France believed they weren't able to attack and defeat Germany yet. Despite that, they declared war.
The Soviets could have unilaterally guaranteed the Poles. Such a guarantee, on top of the Allied one, could have deterred Hitler for longer. The Soviet army could at least have given the Poles a fighting chance. The Germans would have been less effective without the military assistance from the Soviets. Instead, they did prepare the Red Army for war; one against Poland.
The Germans weren't ready for a two-front war yet. With no eastern front left, they were able to break through France and capitulate them. With the knowledge that the Germans would be fighting in Russia, France may have successfully invaded the Nazis.
I didn't dodge either of those points. They agreed to spheres of influence that contained areas of Ukraine and Lithuania, inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians and Lithuanians, and they didn't give support, they only partially complied in a way that didn't really help.
I'm aware that France didn't do anything, the BEF wasn't deployable in time and they actively sabotaged talked of alliances leading up tk that moment.
The Soviets could not risk their lives protecting a country that hated them and starting a war they would have likely lost. The west had proven incapable of allying with the Soviets as a preventative measure. Germany would not have been less effective, if you actually checked the article I linked the impact of the Soviet's partial compliance was marginal at best.
This is all alt-history fanfic on your part. It remains true that the country that did the most to try to stop the Nazi threat before World War II, and contributed the most to stopping the Nazis during it, was the Soviet Union, and it isn’t close.
You did not address the fact that the Soviets directly collaborated with the Luftwaffe from Minsk. You did not address the fact that the Soviets had already geared up for an invasion on the Polish border.
Don't claim you did when anyone can read you didn't.
You misrepresent the facts surrounding Brest. The article you referred to does these things to: omit the facts that don't match your narrative. You ignore historical context and have now resorted to putting up a strawman regarding which country did most to stop the Nazis, which was never the point I challenged you on (the historical fact that the Soviets did indeed agree to divide Poland with the Nazis and collaborated on the invasion).
There's no point in continuing this conversation if you keep failing to address these key points that directly undermine your narrative.
I did address those. Plus, based on the voting ratios, it seems that "anyone that can read" is siding more with me than you. Normally I think referencing vote ratios is a stupid frame of argument, but if you're going to make the appeal first I may as well point out that it's in my favor, not yours.
I'm not ignoring historical context, you're trying to invent a narrative where the Soviets, for a very short period, were actually super pro-Nazi and totally fine with them, surrounded on both sides by decades of hostile opposition and offers to send a million troops on the conditions of forming an anti-Nazi alliance. The country that hated the Nazis from the beginning, and killed 85% of the total Nazi deaths in World War II, somehow forgot its history and decided to collaborate with the Nazis willingly.
I guess I'll show you a mirror: there’s no point in continuing this conversation if you keep failing to address these key points that directly undermine your narrative.
Please cite this directly because I'm not reading it in your replies.
Here's the thing: this is exactly what the communist parties outside Russia also struggled with. Stalin made a deal with Hitler. Molotov literally said "Fascism? Fascism is purely a matter of taste".
For the first two weeks of the war, the communist parties felt conflicted but ultimately didn't need to change their stance. They were anti-fascist after all, and the UK and France had now declared war on the Nazis so this received the CPs support. Maurice Thorez even joined the French army (for a couple weeks until he left to go to Moscow).
But then, Stalin invaded Poland, and they met the Nazis as allies in the middle. Stalin publicly came out in support of Hitler's "peace programme". This caused some serious conflicts in the CPs in the west. Suddenly the logic shifted:
So surely, it was better to focus on being anti-imperialist, focused against the UK and France instead of focusing on Germany.
You'll find many socialist and communist newspapers started putting out pro-German propaganda (and some were banned for it). This only changed after 41, when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.
The Soviets were never "totally fine" with the Nazis. But for a time they were happy to see the Nazis turned towards the west, and they saw the opportunity to get some benefits for themselves too.
It seems you keep shifting and shifting and shifting. The soviets remained the most consistent, largest, and most millitant anti-Nazi group, while the west made it clear that they had quite a large pro-Nazi population. And I addressed them in the comments I linked, not going to rewrite it out for you.
(Emphasis added. Source.)
Fantastic, thank you very much as always, comrade.
Yeah this was my point. It took a bit for various communist groups to pivot back to being primarily anti-reich. Those who suffered directly under the Nazis turned faster, e.g. those in northern France took the anti-reich position before the British communists did (they remained more anti-imperialist aimed at the UK, until the Soviets were invaded).
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I'm a bit confused as to what you're trying to say here. You seem to be supporting my point that in 39, the communists were primarily anti-imperialist, which by 41 had pivoted back to being primarily anti-reich. They obviously didn't like the reich in that time, that would be ridiculous. But they did in some ways echo some of the pro-German propaganda (eg blaming London for the war).
Your first source also confirms what I'm saying about the confusion caused by the war and the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. The assumption was that the imperialist west would ally with the Nazis and that the Soviets would be fighting the fascists. Yet in a span of 2-3 weeks, the reality was that the Nazis had allied with the Soviets and that the imperialists were fighting the fascists instead. Hence the mentioned confusion and the lack of heterogeneity in the response; various reasons were invented to support the Soviets in this new arrangement (quite interestingly a fair few of those I've seen mentioned here actually, e.g. the "protecting the Poles" line, but at the time it was also argued by some that the USSR had a right to take back those lands from Poland. Though none of them seemed to deny an invasion had taken place altogether like some here are suggesting).
Oh. That is a good point. You really showed me how wrong I was. I wish that I were as smart as you.
I'm not really sure what the snark is for, I'm asking you a genuine question because you seem to be genuinely engaging and doing actual research.
You listed a number of sources but I didn't quite get what exactly you were replying, so that's why I asked for a clarification. It's a genuine attempt at conversation :(
The comment you linked did not address the direct military collaboration, e.g. the Luftwaffe being coordinated from Minsk. So please, do spell it out. You can't, because you never did address it.
It did, because I did. I don't care to play your posturing games.
To be honest, when I first saw the claim about the Minsk radio station I immediately wondered if it was real, but The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pg. 621 does briefly discuss it and the author cited the ‘German Foreign Office papers, […] p. 480’. Strangely, though, not that many sources discuss it, and the few that I did find had surprisingly little to say about it; finding in depth English information on this radio station is frustratingly uneasy. A couple sources (The Fate of Poles in the USSR and The Polish Review) specifically claim that this station helped the Luftwaffe bomb towns, villages, and cities: a serious accusation that has attracted suspiciously little attention and reeks of Cold War sensationalism. Now I’m starting to wonder: did the Soviets even make good on their presumable promise to help the Luftwaffe?
Here is what pg. 480 of the German Foreign Office papers says:
I don’t know if it’s because of my limited expertise in this particular subject or if there is some context that I am overlooking, but judging from this report alone, it really doesn’t sound that scandalous. It sounds downright boring, actually. What do you think: is sending out a continuous dash and repeatedly introducing a name in navigational tests a cause for concern…? Can you feel yourself sweating at all…? Do you think that you’ll lose any sleep tonight…? Even just a little bit…? Be honest.
A funny thing, though:
(Source.)
Thanks for doing the digging! All I could find is partial compliance, in not even repeating the name, but just the word "Minsk." I presume it may be capable of triangulation of some sort, but I don't know for sure, and the only source I found showed the Soviets refusing to fully comply with the request.
Nice dig! I found a Russian source which says the same: https://hrono.ru/sobyt/1900war/1939pol.php
So to clarify here, this is indeed used for navigation. At the time no GPS existed of course, so pilots had to rely on either radio signals or visual clues on the ground to tell them where they are. The radio signals, if the pilot could tell where they were coming from, would indeed help triangulate their location. Quite necessary, particularly in eastern Poland where German radio signals had a harder time reaching.
If the radio tower continually transmitted the requested callsign in between the other stuff, it would be easy to tell where the radio tower was. The Germans at this point expected the Soviets to help invade already as they had agreed upon. By mentioning "Minsk" a lot in the transmissions they effectively did the same thing, but a bit less overt. This allowed the Soviets to retain some element of surprise against the Poles.
On the 10th of September, the Nazis urged Molotov to begin the Soviet side of the invasion to uphold their end of the agreement, but Molotov held off due to the war with Japan. This gave them a convenient reason to wait until Polish resistance had been broken before going in. One week later, war was declared and the Soviets invaded.