Hinge of History

Submitted by JD Will (United States), Oct 19, 2018 at 11:19

I am doing a history reading project to better understand the 1930's lead up to June 22, 1941. I have gotten through two volumes on Stalin by Kotkin (and a lot of side reading), and am now focusing on Hitler. I am struck by the idea that the late 1930's were a great hinge of history where things could have gone several ways.

For example I hadn't known that Stalin was making formal alliance negotiations with Britain and France in early 1939 and if they had taken that deal, they might have together deterred Hitler and the bloodbath that followed. They wound up allied to him in the end and he got a large chunk of Europe as he had planned. A pact with Hitler may have been his second choice.

I do think there are some high level parallels between today and then. Then the old political order was collapsing or teetering, nationalism was on the rise, militant ideologies were pushing to control old societies that had lost faith in the old system. We could be approaching another hinge moment.

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