Following Germany’s invasion of Poland, The Soviets took the eastern half, invaded Finland, and later grabbed the Baltic States as well. Outside of these acts, did the Soviets act against the Allies?
Thanks,
Rob
There was an interesting ganging-up on Romania, which came out of WWI with vastly enlarged borders. Itwas forced by a German-Russian joint effort to cede land in all directions. Hungary took the greater share of Transylvania, Bulgaria the Southern Dobrudja (roughly the south part of Romania’s Black Sea coast), and the USSR Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, the first being the half of Moldavia east of the River Bug (the name is after the city of Basarab, and has nothing to do with “Arabia”; the territory is roughly equal to present-day Moldova) and the other being a Ruthenian-Moldavian melange north of Moldavia. It wasn’t strictly an invasion, but the forced cession came across as pretty naked aggression.
Also I believe this was the right time frame for the annexation of Asian puppet state Tannu Tuva into the USSR proper (it was thereafter an ASSR until the USSR itself broke up). It was located northeast of Mongolia. I don’t know any more background than that it was formally independent (though pretty much a satellite) and then it was annexed.
A great place for WWII info and it covers all history actually is the Axis Forums
The Romanian situtation was interesting as when threatened Turkey issued an assurance to Romania that they would aid them if the Soviets attacked. This makes for a very interesting “what if,” and was covered at the above mentioned Axis Forums.
Stalin’s purpose of getting those areas was to provide a buffer for him, should a German invasion ever come.
If you look on a map, Lenningrad is close to Finland now, before WWII it was even closer. The Baltics were very weak and could be siezed by Germany from sea. This would make an easy bee-line to Lenningrad and/or Moscow.
The Soviet Union and Japan fought several border battles in 1938-39, which the Soviet Union decisively won at the Battles of Khalkhyn Gol . This led to the the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact. This explains why Germany declared war on the US, a Soviet ally, but Japan refused to declare war on the Soviet Union. One has to wonder what effects any defeats or pyrrhic victories between Imperial Army and the Red Army would have had on Operation Barbarossa if the Soviet Union had fought a two-sided war.
This was about 20 years before Barbarossa, but it technically fits the OP’s requirement (USSR attacking someone): the Polish-Soviet war.
This was agreed at the same time as the invasion of Poland, by the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact.
I was never convinced of this. Sure, Romania and Poland were never friendly toward USSR, but I really don’t see any of them (especially Poland) allowing free passage to the germans just because Hitler wanted to kick Stalin’s ass. Of course, Germany could have invaded both Romania and Poland, but this would have taken some time (a couple of months, at least) and USSR would have been warned. This would have been a really useful buffer; instead, when the invasion came, it came right from the new soviet border, on which the germans had plenty of time to store supplies.
I believe there may have been unofficial involvement in the Spanish Civil War, particularly with aircraft.