IA - Stalin and Nazi-Soviet pact

[tournedos]

Hey I was wondering. How does thistopic sound? "A study on why Stalin kept faith in the Nazi-Soviet pact uptill the invasion in June 1941"

Is it too unfocused, or undoable? I read that Stalin indeed had intelligence from many areas about the German Invasion, and was probably planning a pre-emptive strike on Germany.
Is there another way I can rephrase my current research Q?

Please help guys!

Edited July 27, 2008 by tournedos

[cokesandcokes]

[quote name='tournedos' post='20890' date='Jul 27 2008, 02:35 PM']Hey I was wondering. How does thistopic sound? "A study on why Stalin kept faith in the Nazi-Soviet pact uptill the invasion in June 1941"

Is it too unfocused, or undoable? I read that Stalin indeed had intelligence from many areas about the German Invasion, and was probably planning a pre-emptive strike on Germany.
Is there another way I can rephrase my current research Q?

Please help guys! [/quote]

I'm guessing that's the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

[b]Why did the Nazi-Soviet Pact Happen? [/b] [b][color="#FF0000"][THUG][/color] [/b]

[b][color="#FF0000"]T[/color]ime to prepare for war[/b]

Stalin said: ‘We got peace for our country for 18 months, which let us make military preparations’.

[b][color="#FF0000"]H[/color]ope to gain[/b]

‘Stalin was sure that Russia could only gain from a long war in which Britain, France and Germany exhausted themselves.’

[b][color="#FF0000"]U[/color]nhappy with Britain[/b]

Stalin was insulted by Britain’s slowness to negotiate, and did not trust Britain. When the Anglo-Soviet alliance failed [SCAB], he turned to Germany.

[b][color="#FF0000"]G[/color]ermany[/b]

Hitler wanted the alliance because only Russia could keep Britain’s promise to defend Poland. He believed that, if he got a promise of peace with Russia, Britain would be forced to back down over Poland and Danzig.

Source: [url="http://www.johndclare.net/RoadtoWWII8.htm"]M-R Pact[/url]

[url="http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/damski/dlinks/gersovwar.html"]Hitler threatened by communism[/url] - interesting insight.

My guess is, Stalin did it to avoid potential German aggression. Also, look at the territory itself. Perhaps the territorial agreements in the pact allowed for a buffer zone between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Look into the media's role as well. German propaganda made it seem like the Red Army was going to launch an attack on Germany. Operation Barbarossa would therefore seem as if it were a preemptive attack.

If you can get your hands on [i]Mein Kampf[/i], Hitler explicitly writes of German interest in Russian natural resources.

[Scade]

Well personally I think it is an interesting topic, but rather hard to write well on. The fact is that in the Historical Investigation you will want to use different kinds of sources and formulate an analysis based on them. Now if you do your topic it will be quite hard to do that.

What I recommend is reformulate your topic a bit. You could for example take two rivalling views on why he kept faith in it. You know compare historian A to historian B. The first thing you should do is look what kind of sources can you get your hands into. If you can find some primary sources it would be great to compare them to a historian's view.

[IBStuck]

do dome research n the topic to see if there si enoguth information out there. if there isn't you can use soem of you new research to formulate a new thesis, but it will still be based on the same topic, and if there is enough inforamtion out there they you can narrow yur topic down to be more specific.

[imaginelifeless]

[quote name='tournedos' post='20890' date='Jul 27 2008, 01:35 PM']Hey I was wondering. How does thistopic sound? "A study on why Stalin kept faith in the Nazi-Soviet pact uptill the invasion in June 1941"

Is it too unfocused, or undoable? I read that Stalin indeed had intelligence from many areas about the German Invasion, and was probably planning a pre-emptive strike on Germany.
Is there another way I can rephrase my current research Q?

Please help guys! [/quote]

i think you should narrow your scope of view... stalin kept faith in the molotov-ribbentrop pact.. maybe narrow it down to a few aspects of the pact? also, definately state in your research qns about germany invading russia. "up till the german invasion of USSR in June 1941"... yupp. well, i think your topic has good timeframe.. a short 2 years. easy to stay in focus.