The Soviet Union, Tripartite Pact, and Anti-Comintern Pact

After a bit of my occasional reading on WWII I had a sudden realisation. I was surprised that the Soviets originally intended to sign the Tripartite Pact in 1940, something I did not know. This intention, although supported by Ribbentrop was immediately(?) dismissed by Hitler, as he originally intended to go to war against the Soviets, it seems. Both parties had already signed a non-aggression pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) in 1939 and German-Soviet diplomacy was actually in good terms, at least until Operation Barbarossa (sooner?), in 1941. What surprises me the most, is that Germany had already signed the Anti-Comintern Pact (with Japan) back in 1936 - which is why dates are important to my question.

Given the Anti-Comintern pact's anti-communist nature, signed by Germany and Japan, and Stalin being, well, Stalin, why on earth would the USSR ever even consider signing the Tripartite Pact? Wasn't it relevant that Germany had signed the anti-Comintern Pact four years ago? How could they be in such good relations?

I do not consider myself to be deeply aware of the goals and purpose of the anti-Comintern Pact (or any of the mentioned pacts, for that matter), and I get the idea that it was mostly anti-Chinese. Does that justify Stalin's stance on this regard? Was it something else? It just doesn't make much sense to me that the soviets would ally themselves with anti-communists, or does it?

 

Stalin was first and foremost a player of real politic, anything that served what he felt were the interests of the Soviets was justified, its why he signed a treaty with Hitler.

 

very interesting subject here.....as we see in today's world [1947 to present ], friends now, become enemies later, ...and they come back to haunt their friends.....

 

Stalin expected that Germany would end in a long bloody war in the west and after that was over, Germany would be a shadow of itself, and the Red Army would simply walk in to central Europe and perhaps all the way to the coast,too. Stalin was a gambler, so Sichelschnitt came as a surprise and Stalin was in a hurry to get his army ready as in the first place he did not believe the concentration of armor was the future, and then in 1940 he had to believe it was. For Hitler the deal with Stalin was a costly one as he alsmost lost Mussolini´s backing, and the Japanese definitely were shocked and did not trust Hitler after that ever again.

 

From what I have read,it's the opposite : Stalin refused to join the Tripartite Pact,and this was the main reason why Hitler attacked the SU .

Why was Stalin saying :no ? If the Tripartite Pact became a Fourpartite Pact,the risk was that Britain would give up,and the SU would remain isolated facing Hitler.Remember the panic in the Kremlin when the news leaked of the trip of Hess to Scotland .

 

Mussolini and the Japanese were leaving the pact if Hitler had made any negotiations with Stalin. It could never have been a fourpartite pact. I think Hitler himself was in panic especially as Mussolini was saying with harsh word to Hitler that he was close to leaving the pact. For instance in Winter War Mussolini sent help to Finland even if Hitler told him not to but Benito was furious about the co-operation between hitler and Stalin whatever the reason.

 

Mussolini and Hitler and Winter war

http://www.ww2f.com/topic/44715-mussolini-and-italy-and-winter-war/

 

Expansion to the east was Hitler's fundamental goal all along. Treaties like the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact were just maneuvers to gain a temporary advantage which could be discarded when no longer needed.

 

Interesting that Hitler was so dependent on the pact with Stalin to be able to invade the USSR

http://stonebooks.com/archives/000107.shtml

Indeed, between 1936 and early 1939, Ericson chronicles no fewer than six failed attempts to re-establish an economic agreement between the nations with the Soviets trading grain and raw materials for German machinery and weapons. By March 1939, the last in the series of negotiations ended when Hitler refused to pursue them any further.

...[the Soviets] finally submitted a forty-eight page, single-spaced list of detailed demands on November 30. Instead of 58 million RM in military goods and the up-front shipment of Russian raw materials called for in the September 28 treaty, the Soviets now wanted an impossible 1.5 billion RM in total deliveries by the end of 1940, 700 million RM from the navy alone, not counting extensive development costs. From ships to aircraft to synthetic fuel plants, the Soviets wanted the best Germany had to offer at rock-bottom prices, and they wanted it all right away! The Germans were stunned.

By the end of May ( 1940 ), the Soviets had shipped only 155,000 tons of oil to the Reich in comparison to German oil stocks of 1,115,000 tons, 8,600 tons of manganese in comparison to reserves of 230,000 tons, and 128,100 tons of grain in comparison to stockpiles of 4,693,000 tons. And these were the most important categories. The rest of Soviet deliveries mattered even less to Germany's raw-material situation during the first few weeks of the conflict in France. In short, Soviet economic aid had relatively little impact on the initial fighting in the West.

Ericson concludes that without Soviet deliveries of oil, grain, manganese, and trans-shipped rubber, Hitler would have been unable to expand and equip his armed forces for the invasion. "Hitler had been almost completely dependent on Stalin to provide him the resources he needed to attack the Soviet Union."

 

now that you mention it, sorry if I'm off topic, but didn't the Japanese have a pact with Russia?? how did that work?

 

The Japanese did actually have two plans at least for the autumn/winter 1941/42. Go North or South. In August the Japanese delegation visited the German Ostfront and considered the Germans had lost the war there. The Front had not collapsed. Anyway, the order for southern action i.e. against the US was chosen at some point. So the pact is simply just words. Just like Stalin did in 1945 and took the Asian mainland from the Japanese although the pact was still on.

 

I think it was hypocritical that the Russians wanted a second front, but did not attack Japan until the war was almost over...

 

One aspect of that was that almost half of Lend-Lease to Russia passed through Japanese waters en route to Vladivostok and could easily have been cut off in event of hostilities. It was carried in Russian-flagged ships, although many of them were American-built.

This is also a revealing comment about the German-Japanese axis.

Ironically the greatest danger to these ships was American submarines, four of which sank a total of five Russian ships.

 

why sunk?? mis-IDed?

 

Exactly. Unknown ship in Japanese waters.........not much to say but that mistakes happen. In a couple of cases they picked up survivors and reported their error to COMSUBPAC. One time the Russians agreed to tell their superiors that a Japanese sub had sunk them and the Americans rescued them.

 

Not to quibble, but I thought it was 7 Soviet vessels sunk by 6 US Submarines. Also, 6 of those 7 were sunk later in the war (1943 - 45). To that list, S-44 damaged the Soviet transport Odessa with a torpedo, but did not sink her on October 4, 1943.

Still, early in the Pacific War, the Japanese posed their own threat to Soviet shipping. 4 Soviet freighters were sunk during the assault on Hong Kong. A further 2 were sunk by Japanese aircraft in December, 1941. Rounding out this list is 1 freighter sunk by a Japanese submarine in October, 1942.

And, let's not forget that I-25 sank the Soviet submarine L-16.