Historical fact.
And you know it, too.
No, that makes no sense. Especially in light of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact itself.
Oh, BTW: many of the former Soviet countries are not free today, being ruled by dictators friendly to Moscow. Putin already has a new version of the USSR on the world scene, called the Eurasian Union. The European Union is Germany’s current empire too. How did things regress back to zero from the end of WWII so quickly?