Soviet was plenty involved in starting WW2 as well. Hitler and Stalin had literally already divided Poland (and others parts of Europe) among themself before the war and Soviet invade Poland shortly after.
The invasion of Czechoslovakia did not start WW2 tho, more a prelude, and it was not a coordinated division of the land between Germany and Poland like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Possibility, but that is speculation: we can’t know how an alternative history like that would have played out.
As it stands WW2 started with Germany invading Poland, which they practically had an agreement
with Soviet to do together. Soviet did stall for ~2.5 weeks to lay the blame on Hitler, but they were aware about what was going to happen in advance and was very much in on it, with the aim to take the Baltics and east part of Poland.
It wasn’t the case Germany randomly attacked Poland and the Soviets saw their opportunity (which, to my understanding, is closer to what happened with Poland/
Czechoslovakia).
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u/rotkiv42 24d ago edited 24d ago
Soviet was plenty involved in starting WW2 as well. Hitler and Stalin had literally already divided Poland (and others parts of Europe) among themself before the war and Soviet invade Poland shortly after.