Trotskygrad wrote:
you sure stalin didn't want to expand further into eastern europe before settling on a border?
nothing can be said "for sure" when it's a history being discussed. even less can be said for sure when it's as touchy a subject as ww2. most historians agree though that soviet army immediately prior to the war was gearing more towards
offensive operations. that doesn't necessarily mean the goal was to expand - you know, communist propaganda, collectivization and stuff, all that's pretty mean business, and stalin had already got a huge piece off of hitler's cake by that time. also, soviets firmly believed that the best defense is a good offence. the grand plan was, iirc, to create a diversion in romania and then launch a massive attack against hitler's forces in poland. would stalin want to expand then? i dunno. maybe. probably even. still, according to russian historians, there's still a lot of info sitting in archives and not available - the info without which it's impossible to tell if there was a plan to actively expand.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.