I didn't miss that part because there was no "deal with Nazis". Nothing as bad as the Munich Agreement signed the previous year by England, France and Germany among others, allowing Hitler to occupy the Sudetenland, a land with more than 3mn people in Czechoslovakia (to whom the Soviet Union offered assistance but Romania and Poland denied pass to Soviet troops, possibly influenced by the fact that Poland also did a grab of land of Czechoslovakia). The USSR spent the entire 30s trying to push for a military alliance with England, France and Poland to stop Nazism, but they all refused because a good liberal would rather have Nazis first exterminate communists. Stalin went as far as offering to station 1 million troops, together with aviation and artillery, in France, in case Stalin invaded, to which England and France refused. Feel free to study the so-called "collective security policy" pushed by the USSR in Europe against Nazism.

The Soviet Union had been in a civil war until 1921 (right after a devastating WW1/, and before that it was a preindustrial nation. It had a whopping 19 years to rebuild the country from scratch and to industrialise, compared to the 100+ years of German industrialization. They desperately needed every single year of industrialization they could get in order to gain some advantage against the industrially superior Nazis, as evidenced by the 25+ million casualties the USSR suffered against the Nazis despite material help from the US. Making an agreement to postpone the war after every country in Europe refuses to enter a military alliance against Nazis just because you're a communist country, is just the logical action to defend your citizens.

Please stop pushing revisionist nazi propaganda. Without the USSR, the slavic population of Europe, including Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian, as well as many other ethnic groups, would have been genocided in vastly superior numbers than they were.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

but Romania and Poland denied pass to Soviet troops

I thought Romania did?

"Rumania had agreed to permit Russian troops to pass through her territory to the assistance of Czechoslovakia as soon as the League of Nations had pronounced Czechoslovakia to be a victim of aggression" - Munich, Prologue to Tragedy by John W. Wheeler-Bennet, p. 100

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Sorry, I was going with Wikipedia there, care to elaborate more on what happened then?

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm not really sure how much more I can elaborate. I haven't read the book—I read Flemmings book, see below, and found it to reference "Munich, Prologue to Tragedy", so I went ahead and quoted it. Here is the full footnote which that part came from (with my own inserts in []):

quote

On September 11 [1938] M. Bonnet, at Geneva, conferred with M. Litvinov and M. Comnen, the Rumanian Foreign Minister. On this occasion M. Litvinov repeated his assurances that Russia would support France in accordance with the Pact of 1935 and informed him that Rumania had agreed to permit Russian troops to pass through her territory to the assistance of Czechoslovakia as soon as the League of Nations had pronounced Czechoslovakia to be a victim of aggression. He therefore advocated to M. Bonnet the urgent necessity of a joint démarche to the League. M. Bonnet again refused this suggestion and, in reporting the results of his conversation to the French Cabinet on the following day, said that the Russians and Rumanians had "wrapped themselves in League procedure" and had shown little eagerness for action

France didn't uphold their part of the 1935 Pact, so the Soviet Union never came to help Czechoslovakia under the Pact. And President [of Czechoslovakia] Benes didn't call upon the Soviet Union "outside" of the Pact:

The Cold War and Its Origins, Denna Frank Flemming, p. 84

In justification of the crucifixion of Czechoslovakia at Munich it was said that Russia could not be trusted and that her assistance would not be worth much in any case. On the points there could be honest difference of opinion, but not about the diplomatic record. Certainly the Czech Government did not doubt Russia's sincerity. At a session of the Harris Institute at the University of Chicago in August 1939 I asked President [of Czechoslovakia] Benes whether Russia would have supported him had he decided to fight in September 1938. He replied, without an instant’s hesitation: “There was never any doubt in my mind that Russia would aid us by all the ways open to her, but I did not dare to fight with Russian aid alone, because I knew that the British and French Governments would make out of my country another Spain.”

The rest of your comment is quite consistent with my own understanding of how things went down, which I got from Flemmings book.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ok, that's really good insight, so it boils down to France not respecting the 1935 treaty by refusing to declare Czechoslovakia as a victim of aggression?

As a Spanish, I can relate too well (sadly) to the part where the president of Czechoslovakia says "I did not dare to fight with Russian aid alone, because I knew that the British and French Governments would make out of my country another Spain", I assume they're talking of how the Soviet Union was the only country to sell weapons to Republican Spain in their fight against fascism, even as the Nazis and Italian Fascists were militarily and economically helping the reactionaries in Spain, and how France and England didn't do anything under the guise of "non-interventionism".

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ok, that’s really good insight, so it boils down to France not respecting the 1935 treaty by refusing to declare Czechoslovakia as a victim of aggression?

No. So, there are two parts here: Romania allowing Soviet troops to pass through it and French and Soviet aid to Czechoslovakia.

I can't find the part I was thinking about when I wrote "so the Soviet Union never came to help Czechoslovakia under the Pact", and just I realized that there are actually two pacts.

The treaty mentioned is either the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance or the Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance. Had France decided to fight for Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union would also have. But the French didn't, and Czechoslovakia didn't fight (and therefore didn't call upon the Soviets to come to their aid), and so the Soviets didn't.

In the case that fighting had broken out, Romania would allow Soviet troops to pass through their borders, if the League of Nations declared Czechoslovakia to be a "victim of aggression" (not France).

I assume they’re talking of how the Soviet Union was the only country to sell weapons to Republican Spain in their fight against fascism, even as the Nazis and Italian Fascists were militarily and economically helping the reactionaries in Spain, and how France and England didn’t do anything under the guise of “non-interventionism”.

Yes.

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