Originally Posted by
Burney
Certainly Stalin knew there would eventually be war with Germany. However, he was totally unprepared and in denial in 1941 - so much so that he refused to believe his own intelligence services when they told him Germany was going to attack - even after they'd actually invaded, in fact. He had lost six million troops by early 1942 - that is not my idea of 'barely prepared' and, if it was as a result of calculation, I'd say those calculations had been pretty flawed, wouldn't you?
We didn't occupy Czechoslovakia and start murdering people as far as I'm aware, p, so that comparison doesn't work.
We allied with Russia because we had a common enemy - no other reason. And of course, as soon as the common enemy disappeared, Stalin showed that we had been right not to trust him before the war by immediately reverting to type, grabbing the whole of Eastern Europe and trying to seize Berlin.