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(22,845 posts)and have forged relationships with other threatened indigenous groups around the world, such as Native Americans.
I might add that the secret deal between Hitler and Stalin, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was used to carve out a sphere of influence for each of the two powers. The little nations in the middle got the screweing.
From Wikipedia:
"The MolotovRibbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the Nazi German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, officially the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,[a] and also known as the RibbentropMolotov Pact or NaziSoviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939.
The pact's publicly stated intentions were a guarantee of non-belligerence by either party towards the other, and a commitment that neither party would ally with or aid an enemy of the other party. This latter provision ensured that Germany would not support Japan in its undeclared war against the Soviet Union along the Manchurian-Mongolian border, ensuring that the Soviets won the Battles of Khalkhin Gol.[2]
In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol that divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland into Nazi and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. Thereafter, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. After the Soviet-Japanese ceasefire agreement took effect on 16 September, Stalin ordered his own invasion of Poland on 17 September.[3] Part of southeastern (Karelia) and Salla region in Finland were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. This was followed by Soviet annexations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertza region."