neficial until 1933, the year Adolph Hitler took power.
             Underestimating the severity of Hitler's anti-Communism, the Soviets had actually helped him to take power. After Hitler had used the threat of Communism as an excuse for creating a totalitarian state, destroyed the German Communist Party, and began to gain popularity in other countries, Stalin and the rest of the Soviet government became understandably nervous. With their one time friend turned against them, they sought refuge with another Continental land power, France, in the form of the Franco-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact. Furthermore, an agreement was made with Czechoslovakia where the Soviets agreed to help if Germany attacked the Czechs and France also helped.
             Several things led the Soviets to question their relationship with France. The Spanish Civil War, starting in 1936, saw the Fascist forces of Francisco Franco backed by the Germans and Italians defeat a coalition of all the anti-Fascist parties. The defeated group had been aided by the Soviets, but the Capitalist powers had not helped. The last straw came at the Munich Conference in 1938 when Britain and France essentially sold out Czechoslovakia to the Nazis without consulting the Czechs. When France and Britain formed an alliance promising Poland assistance in the event of a German invasion and asked the Soviets to cooperate, Stalin opted to deal with the Germans.
             The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, signed in Berlin, was a two-pronged agreement, one public, and one private. The two countries openly agreed to be friends, vowing to trade and not to fight. In private they decided to divide Poland; the Germans would invade the western two-thirds, leaving the eastern third to the Soviets. Additionally, the Russians were given discretion in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. Stalin had hoped the agreement would give him more time to prepare for a fight with the Nazis that he may have known was inev...