ommit himself, Stalin secured a Western guarantee in the East which he had sought in vain for ten year... Once again attempts were made for an Anglo- Franco-Soviet alliance but it was doomed for failure again mostly due to the fact that Poland would absolutely not let any Soviet forces through their territory even as German forces were about to invade. From this point on a deal with Hitler was almost certainly on Stalin's mind. Stalin sought a deal with Hitler so he could keep his country out of the war and then possibly be an arbiter in the aftermath, so preparation he began to make a deal with his arch-enemy. All of Stalin's actions were intended to protect Soviet Union. It must have occurred to Hitler that he did not want to risk a two front war, at least in the early stages of the war. We can see this because all of a sudden his anti-Russian views changed to that of friendship. On August 23 a deal between Germany and the Soviet Union was hammered out. In the pact they undertook to remain strictly neutral towards each other if one of them should be involved in war. Stalin now had the breathing room and the time that he desperately needed. Stalin did not believe this to be a permanent arrangement but he thought that the Germans would not break the pack, or at the vary least officially break off relations and declare war before attacking. Defense preparations were already underway but through Stalin's diplomacy he had bought the Red Army valuable time in which to turn itself into a modern mechanized army. Stalin may have saved the Soviet union from the Germans but that does not mean he was without fault, quite the contrary. Stalin ignored a great deal of evidence that the Germans were going to attack in June 1941 and did nothing to bolster border defenses. A German deserter actually gave the Soviets the exact time and date of the attack, Stalin ignored this. This enabled the Germans to capture more territory than they initially should ...
