Alternative history...USSR joins Axis in 1940

Great Debates
61

I guess it depends on your definition of allies (note the small “a”).

*ally
noun [ C ] us ​ /ˈæl·ɑɪ, əˈlɑɪ/

politics & government a country that has agreed to give help and support to another, esp. during a war, or a person who helps and supports someone else*

*On August 23, 1939, representatives from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union met and signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (also called the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact), which guaranteed that the two countries would not attack each other.

In return, as part of a secret addendum, the Soviet Union was to be awarded land, including parts of Poland and the Baltic States.

The first pact was an economic agreement, which Ribbentrop and Molotov signed on August 19, 1939.

On August 23, 1939, four days after the economic agreement was signed and a little over a week before the beginning of World War II, Ribbentrop and Molotov signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.

In addition to this agreement, Ribbentrop and Molotov added a secret protocol onto the pact – a secret addendum whose existence was denied by the Soviets until 1989.

The secret protocol held an agreement between the Nazis and Soviets that greatly affected Eastern Europe. In exchange for the Soviets agreeing to not join the possible future war, Germany was giving the Soviets the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). Poland was also to be divided between the two, along the Narew, Vistula, and San rivers.*

Hitler and Stalin were allies until Hitler was reasonably sure that his western borders were secure, and he wouldn’t have to fight on two fronts. Hitler and Stalin shared the bad habit of betraying their allies, friends, and neighbors. There is no reason to believe that Stalin would have joined the Allies side without Hitler’s betrayal.

62

I think it was called something like the Tripartite pact (between Italy, Germany and Japan). It’s basically why Hitler took Germany to war with the US, though technically he could have refrained since Japan attacked the US, not the other way around. However, in the video in the OP it is the other way around, so Germany and Italy would have been bound by treaty to declare war on the US…and Russia would have as well, assuming they made it a foursome.

As for the rest, I think there was a plan to move the government as well as some of the industry and art and such to Canada from the home islands if an invasion happened. I don’t know how serious they were, though.

63

:dubious:

Do you even read what you are citing? Nothing in the text of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact you quoted constitutes “help and support”. As I said earlier, it was a non-aggression pact (from your Cambridge Dictionary link: “a situation in which countries or groups avoid fighting each other: a non-aggression pact”) between trading partners (“COMMERCE a region or country that another region or country buys goods from or sells goods to: The United States is Vietnam’s largest trading partner.”). They did not agree to come to each other’s aid if either was attacked by a third party. They did not coordinate military operations. They did not share intelligence. They did not gift either resources, materiel, or technology to each other. They did not share basing facilities or even permit their respective military forces access to the other’s territory. They were not co-belligerents in each other’s conflicts. All of these are considered elements of WW2 military alliances that were not present in the Nazi-Soviet case.

To the rest of the thread - I’m sorry for the hijack, but words and phrases do have meanings and Germany and the USSR were not allies from 1939-41 in the common understanding of the term.

64

So, they were just assholes splitting up the spoils?

65

Fighting a common foe (Poland) and agreeing to a specific border, that included each respective state keeping all of the materials and resources captured inside their new mutually-recognized borders as well as recognizing the Soviet conquest and annexation of the Baltic States, once the conquest of Poland was completed.

There is no one set standard for what constitutes a military or political alliance. People in the West tend to think of alliances strictly in terms of mutual defense treaties a la NATO, but alliances can come in much more limited and informal forms as well. The Baathist Assad regime in Syria, formerly an ally of the Baathist Hussein regime in Iraq opted to ally itself with the Western coalition led by the U.S. in the first Persian Gulf war. This informal (as in, not involving a treaty or other legally binding or pledged general political or military mutual defense pacts) alliance was limited to the purpose of engaging Iraq’s military with the end goal of removing Iraq’s forces from Kuwait and restoring the Kuwaiti government in exile to power. After the war was over, so was the limited alliance between the U.S. and other Western forces and Syria.