The Revisionist Attitude Towards The Pacific Theater

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by tater

Invading Poland was wrong. Doing so was enough to garner a declaration of war vs Germany by the UK and France... why then not the CCCP?

I'd actually dug deep into that question - wrote a paper about it based on diplomatic documents from that period. The short answer is that the Soviets were actually the ones who requested a exactly that kind of arrangement (i.e. protection pact with Britain/France/Poland) to be made back during March '39. Part of this arrangement required Soviet troops to be stationed on Polish territory as defensive deterrent. While that seems like a cynical grab in some regard (it partially probably was), I read a series of letters sent by the British military attaches in Moscow, who assessed the Soviet military capabilities and stated in no uncertain terms that strategically and tactically, it would make no sense for the Soviets to arrange for any kind of mutual defense unless Poland agreed to basing Soviet forces on their own territory. Seeing how the only way from Germany to the USSR was via Poland, what did Soviets have to gain in peacetime by signing up against Germany? And trying to re-base and establish defensive positions in Poland while Germany was invading would've been potentially disastrous. Stalin did not want to risk massive military losses, or a war with Germany to defend a country that refused to allow Soviets to reinforce their defense in the first place.

It's easy to see why Poland didn't exactly fancy Soviet troops on its territory, but (and this is right from British assessments in '39, not my own) there really was no way around it. The French and the British had signed a binding protection pact with Poland, so there was legal basis for them to act when Germany moved. The Soviets had no legal basis to do so. It would've been basically unconstitutional, not to mention (from their view) strategically unwise, for them to take action against Germany at that point

So, since the Soviets' first objective at the time was not to compromise their own strategic position and risk war that would risk Soviet territory being under attack, they behaved totally as they should have in that scenario. It would take Poland's agreement to Soviet conditions for mutual defense, and this agreement never happened. You don't defend someone who refuses your conditions and also openly does not like you (rightly or wrongly) - simple as that.

NB - none of this excuses Soviet actions after the German invasion of Poland of course. That was rightly criminal.