ABSTRACT
Soviet treaties in eastern Europe
From to Stalin sought to regain for the Soviet Union the territory that had once constituted the Tsarist Russian Empire in with two exceptions: Poland and Finland. Although accepting separate Polish and Finnish states, Stalin was not prepared to recognize as final their frontiers as established after the First World War, or to follow policies of enmity to the Soviet Union. The twin impulses of expanding Soviet power and of creating a ‘buffer’ of greater security against the west motivated Soviet policies from to . Stalin regarded both ‘fascist’ and ‘bourgeois-democratic’ Europe as basically hostile to the Soviet Union; if the ‘capitalists’ were divided, the Soviet Union, still weaker than the capitalist world, should seek advantage and safety from any capitalist conflicts. Its policy towards them would be governed by the opportunism of Soviet selfinterest. From to Stalin achieved his territorial objectives in alliance with Hitler.
