MARTINA CARR: What do you think were Stalin’s expectations of the Germans at this time, before 1941?

KIRILL ANDERSON: Well, first of all I would say he really wanted to avoid a military clash for some time, and second, it happened that Soviet Union and Germany had a lot of strong economic and industrial connections. German industry, including military industry, was closely connected to the Soviet system. When Hitler came to power this cooperation became even closer, especially in different technologies. Even more, for example – German officers trained on Soviet territory, etc. So there were certain connections. They kept going but they were not getting better. At the time Stalin was more afraid of Great Britain and France. He was afraid that they would provoke Germany to attack the Soviet Union soon. That was constantly on his mind and he was quite afraid of it.