during the 1920s , 1930s , and 1940s , many of the jews of the old czarist empire suffered first by stalins hands as accused enemies of the soviet state , then by stalins hands in making the deal that turned western poland over to the nazis , and then to stalins foolishness at ignoring hitlers threat to the soviet union , and then by the hands not only of the nazis themselves but of those who hated stalin and associated the jews with communism .