It just this kind of cold war distortion of history that makes any discussion of the war in the east and the USSR so hard to have and why I try to avoid these discussions, since it inevitably involves explaining Soviet and Western diplomatic relations, and this is often seen as a defence of Stalin.
i will say if you have difficulty here discussing any issue then either your presentation of that issue is coming across as vexing to others and thus you may reap a backlash due to that, or you are not keeping an open mind. there are some very knowledgeable scholars, authors, and amateur historians who post here. if you present a topic with solid evidence and in an air of open discussion you may change minds or have yours changed. that is the whole point of a forum. but if someone holds on to their ideal and disregards any argument contrary to that then any forum that does not share the same view as they is going make them feel alienated and frustrate them. you can call my perception of the ussr as "typical cold war distortion" and i can counter with yours as "typical revisionist whitewash". but when i have found that when my idea is in the minority in a forum of educated people with open minds...my idea is worth me questioning.
The USSR didn't invade Poland at the same time as Germany. They waited for 17 days after the German invasion; basically until the Polish military and government had both collapsed:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Poland2.jpg
and then occupied eastern Poland, basically up to the Curzon line (the ethnic dividing line between Poland and Russia/Ukraine). The USSR's occupation of these territories in no way hastened Poland's demise and in no way, shape or form, formed a military alliance with Nazi Germany. The Nazi-Soviet pact is quite specific in stating that the USSR would only occupy eastern Poland if the Polish state collapsed, which it did. If the western Allies and/or the Polish armed forces had been successful in stopping the German invasion, then the USSR was not obligated to invade Poland to aid Germany. The USSR was never in an alliance with Nazi Germany any more than Sweden or Switzerland was, both of which traded heavily with Nazi Germany, and the Swedes even allowed German troops to pass through Sweden.
as stated before...they still invaded. hitler and stalin carved up poland. so they waited 17 days until the polish government collapsed you say. what you are saying is that stalin let germany do all the heavy fighting to and reaped the reward of being able to advance easier with lesser causalities to his troops because of less opposition. this shows you one of the main soviet tactics. they also abandoned the ( non communist) polish resistance in their fighting of the german troops as they( the superior russian army) advanced and did not provide aid, supplies, or support to them. they let them take as much of a toll on the german army as possible. but after the resistance was crushed they advanced. it is plain and simple they did not want to have to face armed and organized non communist forces anywhere in eastern europe because they had an agenda. patriots in other eastern countries who fled and fought for the western allies were imprisoned upon returning to their homelands after the war. and how long did the russians keep german POWs?? hartmann was in a soviet prison camp how many years after the war?
The USSR declared War on Japan as it agreed to do at Truman's and Churchill's request, 90 days after the end of the war in Europe:
yes, according to the accord they did keep to their word and declare war on japan and attack within 90 days after the surrender of germany. but why did they keep on fighting 2 or 3 weeks after japan surrendered? there was no aggression there was absolutely no need to continue other than to seize territory. if you have another explanation i would like to hear it.
The USSR lost 25 million dead in the war, or about 15% of the population. I suspect that the USA would have also had a very hard balled negotiating stance if it were invaded and forced to endure the same casualties.
this has been my contention all along and why i say it would have been easier for stalin to talk the russian people into a continued war than it would have been for FDR and churchill. although i doubt the average russian knew the cost they paid in lives until well after the war. i could be wrong. but since the state controlled the media anything that could cast a bad light on the government was either not reported or spun in another direction. i agree! the western allies would no way have endured that degree of casualties in europe. when the lw pounded the bombers in 43 and inflicted heavy casualties the bomber stopped flying. the us would have run out of bombers and crews before too long at that rate but i think after several more missions like that the aircrews would have refused to fly. this is unlike stalingrad and other battles where the ussr sent unarmed soldiers into the battle. like i said i dont think the soviet citizens were mindless but i do believe the true nature and costs of the war were not made known to them. the ussr NEVER asked for western troops to be deployed in their country. knowing how we gave stalin everything he asked for i highly doubt had he asked we would have denied him troops. it was his decision to keep westerners out of the ussr. it took years of talks and the us fighting a lot of stone walling to get a couple airbases in western russia...and when it happened it was very restrictive.... why?