'No evidence' of plans by Stalin to attack Germany
17:37 01/09/2009 MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - There is no evidence suggesting that Joseph Stalin planned to attack Nazi Germany in the 1930s-40s, a Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) official said on Tuesday.
Maj. Gen. Lev Sotskov, who compiled a collection of recently declassified documents, entitled Polish Policy Secrets: 1935-45, told a news conference hosted by RIA Novosti that the Soviet General Staff had "never received any orders to start planning an operation against Germany."
"No such plans were ever developed," he said.
The collection includes Polish foreign and domestic policy reviews, letters and briefs from Polish ambassadors and military attaches, and a selection of telegrams from Polish diplomatic missions. It is timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, which began with Germany's attack on Poland on September 1, 1939.
Sotskov said that declassification of the documents would help improve Polish-Russian relations.
Asked about Poland's foreign policy ahead of World War II, he said "Poland could have done much more to help create a collective security system."
He added that historical clarity could not harm Russia's relations with Poland, pointing out that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had just arrived in the former Warsaw Pact country to attend international events in Gdansk to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of WWII.
Moscow has been angered by attempts to challenge the Soviet Union's role in the war, which claimed the lives of 27 million Soviet nationals, according to official figures. Ex-Soviet states, including Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries, view Stalin's Soviet Union as an aggressor.
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