By attacking the USSR, Hitler sought to realize his bloody racial fantasies and aspirations of enforcing the German Reich’s domination over the entire world. By defeating Hitler, Stalin, on the other hand, hoped to achieve world revolution that would transform the world or its substantial part into the Kremlin’s empire.

There is even a fully argued theory that Stalin intended to use Hitler as an “icebreaker” of the world Communist revolution. According to this hypothesis, Hitler, by subjugating the nations of Europe and destroying their military capabilities, was unwittingly doing groundwork for the Soviet dictator. Stalin was biding his time, waiting for Nazi Germany to overstretch itself in its global conquests. As soon as the Nazis had exhausted themselves in battles in Europe and elsewhere, the Red Army would be ready to launch a preventive war against Germany. The liberation of German-occupied countries by the Soviets would trigger Communist takeovers across Europe. According to this theory, Stalin’s plan was foiled only because Hitler had surmised Stalin’s intentions and preempted him by launching his own attack.

There has yet been no conclusive evidence either to prove or refute the theory about Stalin’s plan of a preventive war against Hitler. But even if there was no such plan, it is clear that Stalin’s vision of the world’s future was dictatorial and inhuman. Bolshevism and Stalinism played a vital and positive historical role by routing fascism in alliance with the Western democracies. In its turn, fascism may have impeded the expansion of Communism into the global arena and prevented world revolution. Communism outlived fascism, but only by a few decades: by the late 1980s communism itself had collapsed.