This is a

the CBS I in the world. I'm John Bachelor with Professor Sean McMeekin,

whose wondrous and extremely rich new book. Stalin's war tells the story of what we remember

as the Second World War from the point of view of the Kremlin manipulating all

sides, many different sides, through all of the machinations of September 1939

to the crisis that becomes the Cold War in 1948. We're now in September 1940 when the Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin, including

the Japanese, the Italians, and the Germans, not Russia.

What's critical here is how Russia regarded this non-inclusion,

given that Stalin had some kind of relationship with Berlin at this moment. We go now to November 12, 1940,

Molotov, the gangster, who is now the representative of Stalin to foreign governments.

Travels under what you'd have to say operatic circumstances from Moscow to Berlin.

He's received with people singing the international and Sean assures us they played

at double time so that nobody in the area would be tempted to sing.

There were still lots of communists in Berlin in November of 1940.

Ribbentrop Hitler, Himmler, and Kaitel, ahead of the army, greet Molotah.

What they're concerned about is the possibility that Moscow will enter into the Tripartite Pact, which is for peace.

Sean, everything about this is operatic. I want to go to what Hitler said to Molotov or might have said to Molotov when he greets him at the

foreign ministry. What did Hitler want from Molotov about the Tripartite Pact?

Well, the Tripartite Pact? Well, the Tripartite Pact was in part a kind of cosmetic updating of the old anti-Cumanturn

pack which had after all been directed against the Soviet Union.

Effectively, it was now against the Anglo-Saxons

as both the Germans and at times the Soviets

...