Every time someone criticizes the Soviet invasion of Poland and the Baltics, I ask them what would you do in that situation, and I always get shitty, idealistic, Chamberlain-style responses. The Soviet Union tried to get anti-Nazi pacts with the West several times and was refused. People are forgetting that for a while the opinion of the Nazis in the West (especially Britain) was "well, at least they're not communists". Stalin read Mein Kampf, he was fully aware of the Hitler's expansionist aspirations towards the east, and knew that war with Nazi Germany was inevitable. What was he supposed to do? Let the Nazis take all of Poland and the Baltics, let them to his doorstep? Then Leningrad and Moscow would've been conquered with ease, and the war might've turned out differently.

I don't attempt to whitewash, I fully support and condone these invasions. What I don't condone is the subsequent 50 year occupation. The Soviets should've left the people of Poland and the Baltics decide which road they want to take, but hey, Marxist-Leninists are neither democrats nor liberals, they believed they were building a working class utopia. My point is, five decades of a failed economic system and widespread repression is the main reason for this huge anti-Soviet sentiment. If the Soviets left Poland and Baltics in 1945, then the previous invasions would've been seen in a similar light as the US occupation of Greenland or Iceland.