The beginnings of Stalin's unlikely allegiance with Churchill and Roosevelt, following his betrayal by the Nazis, is investigated in this episode. In 1941, the Soviets were struggling to repel a Nazi invasion. The Red Army was simply too ill-trained and too ill-equipped to stop the Germans. In just seven days, the Soviets had lost over 100,000 soldiers. Stalin was now at his weakest and he thought his new allies, the British, weren't doing much to help. Churchill was in two minds about the Soviet Union. He despised Communism, but he also valued anyone who fought against the Nazis. Stalin knew he needed all the allies he could get. And he was about to gain another much more powerful one in America, when Germany and Japan joined forces. Having been betrayed by his first ally, as the war progressed, Stalin was convinced that the British and the Americans might be almost as duplicitous.
