18. A Valuable Buffer That Saved the USSR
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact also gave the USSR half of Poland, and pushed the border hundreds of miles westwards, giving the USSR additional buffer. Space and distance proved decisive to Soviet survival in 1941: the Germans came within ten miles of the Kremlin before they were turned back. Without the Pact, the Germans would have launched their invasion from a start line hundreds of miles further to the east. The same effort that ran out of steam within sight of the Kremlin, would likely have pushed far beyond had it started hundreds of miles closer to Moscow.
As the Soviets saw it, they owed the Western Powers and Poland nothing. Indeed, they had outstanding border claims against Poland. The Germans offered to satisfy those claims, while the British and French offered little. If they had sided with Britain and France against Germany, the Soviets were expected to do the bulk of the fighting and dying. From a Soviet perspective, it seemed like chutzpah for Germany’s foes to offer so little in exchange for the high price the USSR would pay for siding with them. So they opted instead for benevolent neutrality with Germany.