TheFirebird said:
CBR, you are aware that Nazi Germany spent two years trying to bomb the UK to smithereens before they ever went to war with the Soviets? I'd argue that the Brits had a very good handle on who posed the bigger threat beyond knowing "what the Nazis were up to."
I think you're conflating how the USSR behaved internally during the early years of revolution and then Stalinism with how it behaved geopolitically. We have a historical record of how the Soviets behaved after the war and it is nothing similar to how the Nazis did.
Along the front-line zones of competition the USSR maintained the status quo and did not attempt aggressive expansion into the U.S. core sphere of influence, excepting the Cuban misadventure. Within their satellites, they supported and maintained repressive authoritarian regimes but unlike the Nazis they did not establish death camps, commit genocide, or attempt to replace local populations with Russians or Soviets (once they completed immediate postwar population exchanges and border stabilization). They did not establish direct colonial governments. The Nazis did all of these things. The Soviets were content to conduct limited persecution of internal dissidents and intervene to prevent full-scale revolt against their puppet governments (Hungary and Czechoslovakia). They even tolerated limited foreign policy independence from ostensibly aligned satellites (Yugoslavia and Romania).
For the most part, both the Soviets and the U.S. limited aggressive, kinetic completion to the non-aligned periphery ("Third World") in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This is the complete opposite of the behavior seen from Nazi Germany. You can chalk it up to nuclear restraint if you wish, but the fact remains that neither side started a world war.
This isn't to apologize or justify Soviet atrocities internally or externally. Just a statment of fact the USSR was a much more stable and responsible global player than Nazi Germany.
my point was before the war, the soviets were underestimated, and by the time the war started, the chess pieces were already set.
stalin's geopolitical ambitions were to crush western europe and install a soviet system. that's what their offensive military was designed to do, and their deployment was offensive, which is why they lost so much in the early months of the war. hell, they invaded poland when germany did.
the fact that the soviets were recovering from czarism malaise, ww1 disaster, the revolution, and the civil war through the depression and COULDN'T yet go on the offensive doesnt change their brutal goals.
the fact that a soviet country that lost tens of millions of people and was facing an opponent with nukes and a massive army as well was deterred from further aggression in the late 40's is no sign of benevolence either.
even hitler would not have started a major war if the allies had had nukes in 39. nukes ended traditional major power wars. they made the cost-benefit balance unwinnable.
but hitler's ideology was incapable of international subversion, proxy wars, etc., no one wants to fight for an ideology that says they are inferior to germans.
however, lots of poor people can be suckered into fighting for international socialism, and generally dont see the disaster coming until it is too late.
further, the soviets most certainly started death camps, and put their people in charge of their satellite states, complete with secret police and the works.