If Stalin was not Hitler’s cobelligerent, Moscow’s deal with Berlin made him the cobeneficiary of Nazi aggression. From 23 August onwards, the world saw Germany and the Soviet Union acting in concert, twin faces of totalitarianism. Because of the manner in which the global struggle ended in 1945, with Russia in the Allied camp, some historians have accepted the postwar Soviet Union’s classification of itself as a neutral power until 1941. This is mistaken.
