Normally I’m with you all the way on tankie discourse but one thing I’ve always been a little out of step on is that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was anything more than a pact of convenience. A pact of convenience with fucking horrible consequences of course but it’s always been pretty clear to me based on my learnings it was definitely not a “Soviets love Nazis and Nazis love Soviets” moment especially since even as it was happening both sides were still pumping out propaganda about the perfidious Slav or the greedy gobbler Nazi or whatever, and the USSR was also planning their own backstabbing, just the Nazis got to their backstabbing first.
Again obviously this is like, the pact was still fucking awful and disastrous for Poland, but I’ve found the way you’ve discussed it not entirely accurate. Granted it may be a difference in sources or education, I come from a post-Soviet country that really truly has NOOOOOOO love for the ussr, so I can’t imagine this teaching is giving them a break as they certainly aren’t given a break in any other part of teaching, but I’m not as sure.
If it were just a non-aggression pact, it would not have included those secret clauses amounting to the Nazis getting to control one half of Europe and Russia getting to control the rest. If Russia cared about Nazisism, they'd have allied up with England, even if just sending war materials like the US was doing. Russia was completely, one thousand percent okay with Nazi Germany because they made a deal saying "if you don't bother us invading these places, we'll let you invade those places, and we'll be the two big superpowers of Europe together. :)"
Them doing this despite fascists being theoretically opposed to communism is no bigger - and is in fact much less - a contradiction than White supremacist Nazi Germany teaming up with Japanese people.
