Anyone got any layman friendly resources on, one, the invasion of Poland, and two, the war with Finland, that I can lightly sprinkle into liberal discussions on either?
Anyone got any layman friendly resources on, one, the invasion of Poland, and two, the war with Finland, that I can lightly sprinkle into liberal discussions on either?
For Poland, the part they invaded had only been part of Poland for about 20 years and it was part of the Ukrainian and Belarusian SSRs until the Polish-Soviet war in the early 20s. Poland was also not as innocent as most people say, as it had a non-aggression pact with Germany for years before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and participated in the annexation of Czechoslovakia.
Also Polish government and central command ran off to Romania shortly before, leaving still fighting army without command and with explicit orders to not fight against the Soviets.
And then when the Soviet Union liberated Poland, the government in exile had the nerve to call them evil tyrants despite the USSR extending cooperation and allowing elections.
That government was also repeatedly fucked over by their western allies, there is even suspected murder on its head by the British (probably it was really an accident, but the fact Brits are prolonging the reveal of their own documents about the case do cause suspicions).