Hitler and Stalin's Alliance — Accident or Logic: interview for 'Orestocracy' (05.12.2025)
An interview with Vitaliy Dribnytsya for the program “Orestocracy” about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: the economic and military collaboration between the USSR and Nazi Germany in 1939—1941, Stalin’s motivation, the collapse of Soviet mobilization in Ukraine in 1941, and the postwar condemnation of the pact, rolled back under Putin.
Key moments
- 00:51 The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as the 'peace treaty' of the 20th century
- 01:26 The Stalinist USSR's responsibility for the outbreak of World War II
- 03:11 Economic collaboration: Soviet deliveries of grain, oil, and raw materials
- 04:59 Stalin's motivation: collective security, the Comintern, world revolution
- 07:35 The depth of cooperation: division of territories, the Lithuania↔Lublin swap, the parade in Brest
- 09:18 The identity of the Stalinist and Nazi regimes (the NKVD and the Gestapo)
- 10:14 Why Stalin chose Germany rather than Britain and France
- 13:03 When Stalin planned the attack; the purges of the military leadership
- 14:40 The balance of forces in June 1941 and the myth of technological backwardness
- 16:34 Why the Wehrmacht advanced quickly; the collapse of mobilization in Ukraine
- 19:44 How the USSR avoided the status of a collaborator
- 22:12 Condemnation of the pact by the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the RSFSR; Putin's rollback
- 25:58 The continuity of the Russian imperial tradition of domination
- 28:43 How social stereotypes form and change