Goatfuckers and ....niks aside, I've always been curious about the storm around German-Soviet non-agression treaty (aka "The Nazi-Soviet Pact") of 1939. As you pointed out, Chris, the Italian Fascist State had signed a non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany early on; might have been 1933 or '34. In fact, it seems that the Soviet Union was signing non-aggression pacts left and right with the Axis powers. After the Red Army under Zhukov, defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army (under, I think Tojo's leadership) in 1941, the Japanese signed a non-agression treaty with the Soviets. Good thing too, because by then the Germans were within binoculor distance of downtown Moscow. And, if I'm not mistaken, the Soviets were attempting to get the British to sign a kind of mutual defense treaty in the very late 30s, but the British seemed to be dawdling about it, taking ships instead of planes and so forth and Stalin (never being one to be overly trusting) saw the writing on the wall, so he turned around and sent Molotov to Berlin to see about the negotiating the non-agression pact with the Nazi State.
The way it has seemed to me, all this diplomatic blather was a way of buying time. The mega-deadly chess game between the USSR and the rest of the world, especially the fascist world had started back in the 20s. The people at the top of the heap on each side knew very well what the stakes were--that World War II would break out sooner or later. The Japanese were already hard at work building their empire over the bodies of the Chinese and Koreans in the 30s. Party Congress after Party Congress in the 30s warned of the threat in the USSR. And then, of course, there was Hitler's STRUGGLE in the public domain.
And as for the subject line of this thread....no, Mussolini was no Trotskyist, although he did turn a lot of good ideas from the syndicalist movement on their head. Stalin had his henchmen label Trotskyists "fascist collaborators" in the aforementioned chess game, but that had more to do with the suppression, through terror of possible national divisions during what was seen as the lead up to an inevitable war with fascism, spearheaded by Hitler. This fear was not unfounded as the WWII history of the Crimean Tartars, among others had shown.
The movie, "Alexandre Nevsky" has always been a good way for me to vicariously get a sense of the mood of the impending war within the USSR. The music's great--Prokofiev! And the director, Eisenstein was lauded by Stalin shortly after he saw the film, as being a true Bolshevik. My understanding is that a member of the CPSU's Central Committee played the lead in the flick.
Regards, Mike B)
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