Wasn't sure if this had already come up in a different thread, but here goes:
It's widely accepted that the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact cleared the last hurdle(s) for the German invasion of Poland and the start of WWII in Europe. But if the Pact hadn't been negotiated, or the talks had fallen apart (due maybe to a sudden spike in Stalin's paranoia towards Hitler's armies coming so close to Soviet territory, even with the "buffer zone" of conquered Poland and the Baltic nations?), would the invasion, and thus the war, still have happened? If so, how might it have played out in the absence of the Pact? Would both sides have still traded equipment, food and oil supplies and other raw materials (badly needed in Germany's case, and critical to its later military buildup and campaigns), or would they have remained, at best, "correct" towards each other, without the (temporarily) favorable relations between them?
It's widely accepted that the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact cleared the last hurdle(s) for the German invasion of Poland and the start of WWII in Europe. But if the Pact hadn't been negotiated, or the talks had fallen apart (due maybe to a sudden spike in Stalin's paranoia towards Hitler's armies coming so close to Soviet territory, even with the "buffer zone" of conquered Poland and the Baltic nations?), would the invasion, and thus the war, still have happened? If so, how might it have played out in the absence of the Pact? Would both sides have still traded equipment, food and oil supplies and other raw materials (badly needed in Germany's case, and critical to its later military buildup and campaigns), or would they have remained, at best, "correct" towards each other, without the (temporarily) favorable relations between them?