ABSTRACT
In Soviet Union, the cataclysm known in the West as World War II is usually referred to as the “Great Patriotic War.” Killing millions of Soviet citizens and uprooting tens of millions more, the Great Patriotic War actually changed the Soviet Union very little. Western businessmen began to knock at the Soviet Union’s door to sell the advanced machinery so vital to Russia’s industrialization drive. The two Western powers therefore negotiated with the Russians with a shocking lack of urgency. But Joseph Stalin calculated in terms of power politics, not ideology, and this was what impelled the Soviet dictator to favor an agreement with Berlin. Stalin made better preparations for his secret war than he did for the Soviet Union’s war with the Germans. Germany’s defeat in World War II brought the full horror of Hitler’s secret war against the Jews to world attention. The Soviet Union’s spectacular victory over the Nazis created a halo that obscured Stalin’s secret war.
