Page 220 - The Chief Culprit

Trotsky Murdered, Molotov in Berlin y 181

power with Stalin’s help. “Without Stalin, there would be no Hitler,” said Trotsky. “Hitler
was preparing for war. . . . e strike against the West in the near or far future could only be
realized in the conditions of a military alliance between Fascist Germany and Stalin.” 5
On September 4, 1939, Trotsky reminded the world that “the Kremlin had fed oil
to the Italian campaign into Abyssinia,” and now it fed oil to Hitler’s war against Europe.
Trotsky asked why the pact of non-aggression between the Soviet Union and Germany had
turned into war. “Is it unclear why Hitler began the advance on Poland immediately after
the embraces between Ribbentrop and Molotov? Stalin knew very well what he was doing.
For an attack against Poland and a war against England and France, Hitler needed favorable
“neutrality” from the USSR, plus Soviet raw materials. e political and economic agreement
provides Hitler with one and the other.” 6
At that point Trotsky stopped being useful to Stalin, and Stalin decided to get rid of
him. Moreover, Trotsky had become dangerous. He warned Great Britain and France that the
root of all evil was not Hitler, but Stalin. Without Stalin’s “neutrality” toward Hitler, without
Soviet petroleum, chrome, tin, nickel, platinum, iron ore, cotton, grain, manganese, copper,
vanadium, molybdenum, and tungsten, Hitler could not have unleashed the war in Europe.
But Trotsky warned Hitler as well. Back in June 1939, when very few people in the world
had any idea that in a couple of months World War II would start, Trotsky exhibited amaz-
ing foresight when he wrote: “Hitler is going to strike to the west with his main forces and
Moscow will be eager to fully take advantage of the situation.”
Trotsky’s predictions began to come true. In May 1940, Hitler invaded Belgium, the
Netherlands, and France, and Stalin fully exploited the situation. On November 12, 1940,
Soviet foreign minister Molotov arrived in Berlin and presented to Hitler a long list of ter-
ritorial claims on behalf of the Soviet Union. ese demands were repeated on November 25,
1940, when the Soviet Union proposed a peace pact between Germany, Italy, Japan, and the
USSR. e Soviet Union demanded:

n from Finland: Pechenga, the only Finnish port on the Barents Sea, and Porkkala-Udd,
the strategically located peninsula on the Baltic Sea controlling the entrance to the
Gulf of Finland;
n naval bases on the Danish side of the straits of Kattegat and Skagerrak, controlling ac-
cess to the North Sea and to the Baltic Sea;
n from Yugoslavia: a naval base on the Adriatic Sea;
n from Greece: a naval base in the Greek port of essaloniki;
n from Romania: the province of Southern Bukovina , a strategic foothold in the
Carpathian Mountains to control access to the Ploeşti oil fields;
n from Bulgaria: a pact of alliance with the Soviet Union including Bulgaria in the Soviet
sphere of influence;
n from Turkey: bases in the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits;
n from Iran: bases in the Persian Gulf;
n the transfer of territories south of the Baku-Batumi line (in eastern Turkey, north of
Iraq and Iran) to the Soviet sphere of influence;
n from Japan: the renunciation of its oil concessions in the province of Northern
Sakhalin.