"Yes it was."
No it was not as somebody said "The Nazis were the natural enemies of the Bolshevics" - oh - that was you!!
The Soviets signed a non-aggression pact with Hitle, them prepared for war with him.
The Soviets allies were Britain and the US (when the latter finally decided to join the war)
"Rubbish. The Moscow Trials were well-known at the time"
Of course they were, and Stalin sold them as an anti Nazi move against enemies of the State (so much for an alliance with Hitler).
Stalin's opponents, Trotsky being the leading one, were presented as allies of Fascism - and that line was accepted inside and outside Russia (by bothe the left and the liberal 'fellow travellers'.
He presented The Soviet Union as a 'Workers State, in need of defending
The Soviet people idolised Stalin because basically they never reaslised what he was until long after his death.
His relationship with the people was largely based on being in the right place at the right time - pretty much like Churchill, who could happily shoot down striking miners in South Wales and then become an adored wartime leader.