Changes

As late as 1939, it seemed highly improbable that the United States and the Soviet Union would forge an alliance. U.S.-Soviet relations had soured significantly following Stalin’s decision to sign a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in August of 1939. The Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in September and the “Winter War” against Finland in December led [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544876806/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0544876806&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=00ddba26049ec89a0ae2dd3551af812e President Franklin Roosevelt] to condemn the Soviet Union publicly as a “dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world,” and to impose a “moral embargo” on the export of certain products to the Soviets.

Nevertheless, in spite of intense pressure to sever relations with the Soviet Union, Roosevelt never lost sight of the fact that Nazi Germany, not the Soviet Union, posed the greatest threat to world peace. In order to defeat that threat, Roosevelt confided that he “would hold hands with the devil” if necessary.