Page 200 - The Chief Culprit

Destruction of the Buffer States between Germany and the Soviet Union y 161

frankness sounded with a new power. But Hitler could not attack Stalin, because they did
not share any borders.
Hitler began his movement to the east by turning to Stalin with a proposal for joint ef-
forts in making a hole in the dividing wall between them. Stalin, with pleasure, accepted and
enthusiastically tore down the Polish wall, hacking a corridor to meet Hitler. Hitler’s motives
were understandable. But how does one explain Stalin’s actions?
Communist historians invented explanations for the deeds of the Soviet Union. e
first explanation: having bloodied and ripped apart Poland, the Soviet Union moved its fron-
tiers to the west, and thus fortified its security. What a strange explanation. Soviet frontiers
were indeed moved two to three hundred kilometers, but at the same time Germany moved
its frontiers two to three hundred kilometers to the east. is move decreased, rather than
increased, the Soviet Union’s security. Furthermore, the completely new factor of a common
Soviet-German border arose, which carried as a consequence the possibility of sudden war
between Germany and the Soviet Union. Explanation number two: having axed Poland in
the back at the moment of her desperate fight against the Nazis, Stalin attempted to delay
the moment the Soviet-German war would start. is explanation stems from the old pre-
text: we started a fire in the neighbor’s house, hoping that the fire will reach and destroy
our house later than it destroys his. e third explanation: France and Great Britain did
not want to make a deal with the Soviet Union. It is a blatant lie. France and Great Britain
did want an anti-Hitler treaty with the USSR and started negotiations in Moscow. e
negotiations were suddenly stopped by the Soviets who immediately signed the Molotov-
Ribbentrop Pact with Germany.
Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, and Romania were natural allies of the
USSR. Unlike France and Britain, these countries were potential victims of Hitler’s Drang
Nach Ost (Drive towards the East). With them, the USSR should have sought an alliance
against Hitler. But Stalin was not seeking such an alliance, and in the cases where pacts did
exist, the Soviet Union did not act in accordance with them. Stalin could have remained
neutral, but instead he stabbed in the back those who fought against Hitler.
Having crushed Poland, Hitler broke a corridor through the dividing wall. Now, he had
a common border with the Soviet Union that was 570 km in length. Hitler calculated this
to be sufficient and went back to his affairs in the west, in Africa, in the Mediterranean, and
in the Atlantic. What should Stalin have done, when presented with a corridor 570 km in
length and with some time to spare? He should have hurriedly fortified his defenses precisely
in this area. Along the old borders, there was a powerful row of fortified regions. It should
have immediately been reinforced and improved. And it should have been complemented by
a second line of defense, and a third, fourth, and fifth line. He should have urgently begun to
lay mines under roads, bridges, fields, begun to dig anti-tank trenches and cover them with
anti-tank artillery.
Sometime later, in 1943 in Kursk, the Red Army prepared to push back the advance
of the Germans. During a short period of time Soviet troops created on the huge front six
continuous lines of defense, each one hundreds of kilometers in length. e lines were situ-
ated one behind the other, so the total depth of defense was 250 to 300 km. Each kilometer
was saturated with trenches, communication tunnels, covers, and firing positions. e aver-
age concentration of mines in a given area was brought to seven thousand anti-tank and