Why did the soviet union sign the nonaggression pact with Germany?

Answer 1

There are two schools of thought. One holds that Stalin was buying time, because he knew the Red Army was not yet ready to fight the Nazis. The other is that Hitler and Stalin became enthusiastic partners, which seems borne out by the facts. Stalin invaded Poland from the east two weeks after Hitler invaded Poland from the west. They divvied up Poland between them, down the middle. Nobody declared war on the Soviet Union over this, because they had already declared war on Germany and had all they could handle there, and they'd have to fight their way through Germany just to get at the Russians, and there would be time enough to worry about what to do after that was accomplished. There were a number of secret protocols which were not made public as part of the non-aggression pact, among them this plan to rip Poland in two. In the next two years Hitler invaded eight countries and Stalin invaded five, but Hitler was much more successful. Stalin had murdered most of his best army officers in the Great Purge of the late 30s, which severely hampered the Russian efforts.