Word: stalinize
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...early hours of Aug. 24, 1939, Stalin was in a good mood. He told me that Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, had come the previous day with a draft treaty on friendship and nonaggression for us to sign. Stalin was elated. "Hitler wants to trick us," he said, "but I think we've got the better...
Still, it was a very difficult step to take. Here we were -- communists, antifascists, people who were philosophically opposed to Hitler -- suddenly joining forces with him in this war. Stalin thought he was buying time. The % treaty wouldn't save us from a German attack -- it would only give us a chance to catch our breath. The day he signed the pact with Ribbentrop, Stalin said, "Well, for the time being at least, we've deceived Hitler" -- showing he understood the inevitability...
When Hitler moved with such lightning speed against France in 1940, it was clear that the war in the West was a rehearsal for one in the East. Stalin was extremely nervous. Even in normal times he had the habit of pacing during a meeting. On this occasion, he was racing around, cursing like a cabdriver. He cursed the French and the English. How could they allow Hitler to roll over them this way? Now it was our turn. Stalin understood that...
...with an ounce of political sense should buy the idea that we were caught flat-footed by a treacherous surprise assault. Yet to this day some of Stalin's lackeys are trying to whitewash his failure to prepare us adequately by saying Hitler fooled us by breaking the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact...
...remember coming to see Stalin at the beginning of the war at the High Command Headquarters on Myasnitskaya Street. He was by then a sack of bones in a gray tunic. He asked me, "How's it going...