Stalin's Good Calls

[Imperial]

Another good move by Stalin was Non-Aggression Pact and annexation of the Baltic States. The acquisition of territory provided just enough additional space to save Moscow and Leningrad. Had the Germans annexed Lithuania and been able to invade from the border near Minsk, the USSR may not have survived.

This admittedly aggressive moves arguably saved Europe from a far greater disaster.

Stalin gave Germany a 1-front war against France, economic cooperation against Britain's blockade, and the Balkans, in return for some additional space which turned out to be barely enough to save Moscow just 2 years later? It looks more like a huge error in judgement and the huge losses also gave the USSR a significant handicap in the Cold War.

The Pact was the final act in a long list of acts that created the setting for the disaster to take place in Europe on the scale it did, not something that saved Europe.

[grognard]

Stalin gave Germany a 1-front war against France, economic cooperation against Britain's blockade, and the Balkans, in return for some additional space which turned out to be barely enough to save Moscow just 2 years later? It looks more like a huge error in judgement and the huge losses also gave the USSR a significant handicap in the Cold War.

The Pact was the final act in a long list of acts that created the setting for the disaster to take place in Europe on the scale it did, not something that saved Europe.

That a two-front war against Hitler in 1939 would have defeated Germany sooner, agreed. But Stalin's whole idea was to let the capitalist countries wear each other out, then strike. In 1939, no one expected a rapid French collapse. so from Stalin's prespective, the pact made sense. He was able to gert the baltics, a piece of Romania and some of Poland at little cost. And it was only after the fall of france that Stalin realized the need for large armored formations. Given the situation at the time, 1939 his decision made sense.

[ShAA]

Stalin gave Germany a 1-front war against France,

The irony is had it joined it would've been a 1-front war against the SU with no assistance from Britain or France. Just like it happened to Poland. After Munich the trust in such allies could only be measured in negative values, so without the hindsight, Stalin was right to deal with Hitler directly and bypassing those who feared to take any action and hated him no less than Hitler, in the first place.

economic cooperation against Britain's blockade,

Why did he have to provoke Hitler into attacking? Britain was safe to play tricks and shout taunts, comfortably sitting on its unreachable island and protected by the strongest navy in the world. The SU had no such advantage.

and the Balkans, in return for some additional space which turned out to be barely enough to save Moscow just 2 years later? It looks more like a huge error in judgement and the huge losses also gave the USSR a significant handicap in the Cold War.

The error was rooted mainly in the Soviet pre-war doctrine to which Stalin or Communism had little to no relation. Otherwise one has to be consistent and say that Stalin's bloody hand reached out for the French generals in summer 1940 and did to them exactly the same as to the Soviet ones.

The Pact was the final act in a long list of acts that created the setting for the disaster to take place in Europe on the scale it did, not something that saved Europe.

While this was nothing to "save Europe", it was a direct consequence of the collapse of the European security system caused by the Munich agreement.

[bricklayer]

But Stalin's whole idea was to let the capitalist countries wear each other out, then strike.

Conjecture.

[grognard]

Conjecture.

Not according to the sources--have you read them?