The relationship between Nazis and Communists is fascinating. Not just the ideological similarities but also the even less well known intertwining of their geopolitical paths to power.

Below are a couple of excerpts on the geopolitical relationship between Stalin and Hitler from a biography on Stalin by Russian historian Radzinsky. Make your own judgment on its meaning.

Radzinsky wrote that, by accident, or “grave miscalculation,” Hitler came to power because of Stalin’s meddling in domestic German politics [highlights my own]:

“The accession of Hitler, as some saw it, was the result of a grave miscalculation on the Boss’s part. He who had managed the Comintern as his own fief had forbidden the German Communists to ally themselves with the Social Democrats. The anti-Hitler coalition was split as a result and had lost to Hitler.”

Then Radzinsky, without irony, goes on to say that Hitler was a great boon to Stalin’s geopolitical designs:

“In fact Stalin needed Hitler to expedite his next move. If Hitler had not existed Stalin would have had to invent him. The threat of Hitler, the threat of intervention, conferred on him enormous powers, justified the most extreme measures. It also compelled European radicals to support him in spite of everything. He, after all, was the focal point of opposition to fascism, the object of hatred for fascism. Hitler put an end to the international isolation of the USSR…”

Now tell me. Was Stalin a naive ideologue who aided in Hitler’s rise by mistake?