This work draws on both German archives and the recently opened Central Party Archive in Moscow to provide insight into Stalin's strategy and tactics and Hitler's real agenda in German-Soviet relations. It demonstrates that Hitler's gradual normalization of relations with Stalin was part of a plan to use Russian supplies for the German invasion of Poland. It also addresses the question of whether the Soviet Union was planning a preemptive attack on Germany in 1941, arguing that Stalin could never have countenanced such an attack. The culmination of decades of research by the late Soviet emigre historian, Pariahs, Partners, Predators is a definitive analysis of Nazi-Soviet relations in the interwar period. Drawing for the first time on both German archives and the recently opened Central Party Archive in Moscow, Aleksandr M. Nekrich provides new insights into Stalin's strategy and tactics and Hitler's real agenda, in a powerful, critical account of one of the most controversial chapters in twentieth-century history.