Speaking as someone who has been studying Fascism for years, I can’t say that I have ever found the German–Soviet Pact per se to be especially interesting. I am unhappy about it, but what I find much more disturbing are the relationships that various dictatorships of the bourgeoisie had with Berlin in particular:

[Berlin’s] decision to withdraw from the League and the World Disarmament Conference on October 14, 1933, provided further impetus for this move, which resulted in the conclusion of a German–Polish nonaggression pact on January 26, 1934.

Needing Slovakia as a staging ground for war on Poland, Hitler all but gave in, agreeing to a 125,000‐man limit.

“Germany and Russia,” he said, “were two different worlds, especially in their social structure.”** [The Third Reich] had only one ally and partner, and that ally and partner was Italy, he declared. This two‐hour tirade impressed Mussolini.

Albert Speer, [the Chancellor’s] architect and wartime armament minister, would later state that without certain kinds of synthetic fuel made available by U.S. firms, [the Fascist bourgeoisie] “would never have considered invading Poland.” The American historian Bradford Snell agrees; alluding to the controversial rôle played by Swiss banks during the war, he comments that “the Nazis could have attacked Poland and Russia without the Swiss banks, but not without General Motors.”

General Antonescu believed [that the Third Reich] would soon defeat Britain and thus become the sole arbiter over Europe. The conducător asked the führer to send a [Fascist] military mission soon after implementing the Second Vienna Award. He trusted that the presence of [the Wehrmacht] would deter further Soviet demands. He also wanted [Fascist] advisers to train the Romanian Army for a future conflict.

In fact, the Finnish Army and its related services would from the start mobilize a larger proportion (16 percent) of the country’s population than any other European nation at the time. In the morning of 22 June 1941, Hitler made his famous radio speech, in which he declared war on the Soviet Union and mentioned that “the brave Finnish comrades‐in‐arms” would take part in this huge offensive.

Even if I ‘hated’ the Stalin administration (and I do find it disappointing in some respects), I would be far more preoccupied with all of these dictatorships of the bourgeoisie. The only reason to continue overrating the German–Soviet Pact anyway is if you think that it was Moscow’s job to babysit the world. Otherwise, I just don’t get it.