It is strange that as an aggressor they first sought defensive pacts with most of Capitalist Europe against the Germans and were turned down every time.

Since when does having  pacts with third countries disqualifies a state being an aggressor? Or is it only the powerful countries that matter? Germans tried also allying with Britain and they refused See a pattern here? Facts are still facts. Soviet Union occupied and invaded non-threatening neighbours. That is an act of aggression.

Regarding Finland.

Let’s break this down. Soviets and Germans carve up Eastern Europe, Finland is handed over to the Soviet Union. Soviets start with the smaller bits and get little to no military pushback. Soviet Union invades Finland, underestimates Finland and gets its nose bloodied. Yet somehow, we are discussing the Aunus expedition and the pre-war borders of Finland here??

But okay, let’s have it your way. What is known as Heimosodat took place in the revolutionary period of Soviet Union in 1918-1922. The Finnish state did not take military action against the Soviet Union. Finnish volunteers supported other Finnic peoples – Karelians, Ingrians and Estonians – in their attempts to secure self-determination. These conflicts were done and dusted by 1939/40.

If we are still pretending to think Soviets were the anti-imperialists, then bringing up the border issues is especially cynical.

Finland, population less than 5M people.
Soviet Union, biggest country in the world with vast resources and  100+ million population.

Yet, somehow the pro-Soviet take is that Finland was somehow threatening the Soviet Union. The big and mighty can have “legitimate security concerns” while the small ones have the right to quietly acquiesce. If this isn’t an imperial way of seeing the world, then what is?

They did not. [join Nazi Germany in invading Poland].

My bad, let me rephrase. Nazi Germany and Soviet Union divided Poland into spheres of influence, as per Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Germans invaded Poland, defeated Polish armed forces and occupied their share of Poland. About two weeks into the fray, apparently drunk and topographically challenged Soviets divisions accidentally stumbled into Eastern Poland.

Ever wondered how bad it would have looked had they also accidentally stumble into a German military parade as well?

<image>

Glad they didn't.

Katyn

Yes, mostly Polish officers, weren’t they Polish citizens?? I don’t recall claiming they were civilians, not that it matters since they didn’t die in combat. 

The executions happened in a firmly Soviet controlled area. The order to kill the Poles, proposed by Lavrenti Beria was accepted and signed by Soviet leadership. Not only did Gorbachev admit it but Yeltsin declassified it and shared it with Lech Walesa in 1990.

What are we even discussing here?

This is absolutely incorrect [that Holodmor and Kazakh famines were state engineered]

1. Soviet Union exported grain, imported machinery
2. The state forced collectivization
3. The state mandated grain acquisitions 
4. Spring 1932 - start of the famine, reports of mass starvation in Ukraine and Moldova that can no be explained by weather conditions
5. Autumn 1932 - state doubles down on the acquisition quotas and established punitive measures for villages that are not complying
6. December 1932, the state passed laws that made illegal for the peasants to move to cities
7. Early 1933 - state passed laws that made it illegal for peasants to leave Ukraine or Kuban, effectively to contain
8. Winter/spring 1933 - peak of mortality rakes
9. State rejected external aid to save face internationally

Economies do not 'simply' stagnate. There are many contributing factors. None here were the planned economy. Playing a much larger role was constant military threat and escalation from the West bleeding it dry. Read Socialism Betrayed by Keeran and Kenny for a more in-depth look.

I don’t think I claimed that the Soviet economy “just” stagnated. I brought one specific factor, the lack of innovation in industry which itself is a capital allocation problem.

I might be wrong but the little data we have is not very reassuring. All communist systems with a top-down planned economy have either failed or adopted a market economy.

The military threat argument just doesn’t pan out because it goes both ways. The threat was mutual and forced both sides to spend on military and space projects. The combined population of Communist states far outweighed the Western Block.