WWII: We Westerners Needed the Russians to Help to Defeat the Nazis But the Soviets Were No Heroes

In the following article reported in the UK news site of http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/07/vladimir-putin-defended-nazi-soviet-pact-west-world-war-two- it is reported that current Russian Present Vladimir Putin has defended the Nazi Soviet Pact. 

The reason he gave is that Russia did not want to go to war against Germany. 

What he didn't mention is that Hitler would not have invaded Poland without secured Soviet cooperation. 

He also left out the part of Soviet brutality of the peoples, especially the Poles in the eastern side of the country during the Soviet side of the Polish invasion - the invasion that ensued after the establishment of the secret protocol in the Nazi Soviet Pact that allowed for Soviet spheres of interest.  

One of the worst episodes was the Katyn Forest Massacre tragedy.

 

                                                                                                                                                                 A Polish movie dealing with this tragedy was produced. Some footage is available here thanks to Youtube.com

I agree that German atrocities were the worse in the case of Poland. After all, without the Nazis attacking and savaging the country, the Soviets would not have then invaded and committed their atrocities but the Soviets did not merely occupy eastern Poland while the Nazis overran western Poland.  Their atrocities against the Polish people were every bit as loathsome as were the Nazi atrocities against the Polish people.

 

Youtube.com video of the Polish invasion by both the Nazis and the Soviets 

"22/09/1939. Брест. Совместный парад Вермахта и РККА / Marsсh Erika" by Youtube.com 

 This is not to dismiss the sacrifices of the Soviet troops and civilians who acted heroically against the Nazis.  The Western Allies rightly sided with the Russians who bore incredible burdens in the war against Hitler. 

But then the Soviet Union did not act in this war in a noble manner as did the UK, Canada, the United States, Australia, and France.  

The intentions of Stalin, officers of his Stavka, and numerous Soviet soldiers who did fight bravely was also sordid in many ways.  Their crimes are not to be ignored or covered over. 

Their crimes against German civilians were atrocious and unjustified.  Yes, yes, the Germans committed horrific crimes against Russian civilians and POWs from the Red Army.  However, two wrongs don't make a right.  

Their crimes against countless German women were horribly sordid as were German military crimes against Russian women. So it can be said that on the battlefield the Russians were heroic and brave and admirable. 

However when dealing with civilians of countries that fell to the Soviet advance during the course of Operation Bagration - the Soviets acted in a brutal monstrous manner and that deserves condemnation of civilized peoples.