so how did the ussr go from this to marching into germany at the end and helping defeat the nazis? genuine question. was it just a case of “ok you’re getting a little too close or comfort” or something else?
Yeah, Stalingrad was pretty close for comfort lol. It was an alliance of convenience and then Hitler invaded and continued to genocide across the USSR planning to completely wipe them out and resettle their land.
Essentially, the Nazis and Soviets were allies of convenience. They both had a mutual interest in destroying the sovereignty and nationhood of all of Eastern Europe, but once that was out of the way, it was an issue of “Both sides want full control over the area, and neither side has acceptable goals to the other”.
The Nazis eventually struck first in Operation Barbarossa; the Soviets didn’t expect the Nazis to be ready to invade them for a few more years, so they were caught off guard, which is where a lot of the “NAZIS GREAT SOLDIERS 1 MILLION SOVIETS = 1 NAZI UBERMENSCH” bullshit comes from. The Soviets were scattered and disorganized, and had to hastily reconstruct a lot of their military doctrine around the fact that the Nazis had just occupied a big chunk of the Soviet Union’s industrial equipment and population.
After a few months of chaos, the Nazis discovered that sucker-punching a powerhouse doesn’t make you a champion boxer, and spent the next three years getting slowly brutalized into oblivion by the Soviet Army and the Nazis’ own dumbass idea to invade.
I would assume the plan of the Soviet Union was to invade Nazi Germany as well, just after they had organized? Or was it just foolish trying to invade the SU at any stage, with the better plan was to hope the two blocks would just somehow get along.
Nazi Germany was always planning on invading the Soviets EVENTUALLY, and both sides were aware of that - the Soviets just thought the Nazi timetable was a bit later. As for the Soviets, Stalin exercised such total control over the Soviet government apparatus and was furtive about his plans even in the best of times, so it’s hard to know what they were planning in the long-term - if anything - other than asserting their continued interest in dominating Eastern Europe.
The Soviets were scattered and disorganized
It is not a good idea to sign a pact with the devil when you’re not organized. I mean, it’s never a good idea, but it’s an exceptionally bad idea when you don’t have your house in order.
In their defense, the disorganization was because they were retooling their army for war. They had plans for mass-distribution of semi-auto rifles and widespread motorization and were reorganizing their entire chain of command. The thinking was that Nazi Germany was busy with Britain, and wouldn’t be stupid enough to fight a war on two fronts against the foremost powers of the world.
They underestimated Nazi stupidity.
Reorganizing their entire chain of command because Stalin murdered half the leadership in a paranoid rage over fears that they might have been loyal to
checks notes
The guy who built the Red Army and won the Revolution. Whom Stalin had assassinated. Immediately following the decade when fascism was sweeping through European parliaments and Hitler was straight up telling the world he considered the eradication of Jewish people and Bolshevism his greatest goals.
I think to an extent part of the reason they were disorganised was as a result of the invasion of Poland though, they suffered disproportionate manpower and equipment losses compared to the Germans
They were disorganized because Stalin had just murdered the entire command structure of the military.
Ah that’ll do it
The Russians suck at war. They lost to the French, then the Germans and now the Ukrainians. They should really read a book.
The only reason endrd up losing to the Soviets was because he went back on his own original war plan. He didn’t want to fight a war on two fronts. The idea was to knock out France, which he did, then defeat the UK, which he didn’t do. He expected the UK to sue for negotiations but they ended up resisting him for far longer than he expected. Since the US was supplying the UK and keeping them afloat, Hitler was cautious. He wanted to avoid a war with the US, so he turned his attention elsewhere, which was invading the Soviet Union, while not securing the Western front.
Despite this, Hitler still managed to reach the outskirts of Moscow and he was close to winning, but he got cocky and impatient by ordering his armies to march through the winter and unwisely split a few of his armies at the wrong times. He also made his biggest mistake by declaring war on the US when the US declared war on Japan after they attacked Pearl Harbor… Even though didn’t have to. After trying to previously avoid war with US, he went and did it for no good reason. This brought second wind to the allies as Americans weapons starting pouring into the UK and the Soviet Union as well as American troops pouring into the Western front. This forced Hitler to divide his attention and resources which gave the Soviets valuable time and opportunities to recover and strike back.
Too bad the Soviets ended up occupying Eastern Europe much like the nazis but under new management rather actually liberating them.
Hitler was never even close to winning. The fact is, the war plan was screwed from the moment the Sovs decided they were going to fight back after the surprise attack, despite Stalin’s initial breakdown. One of the first things the Sovs did after Operation Barbarossa began, after all, was to begin moving industrial equipment east. They were preparing for the long haul - while Germany exhausted itself considerably in the opening stages of the invasion. Once the initial surprise of the attack was over, the sheer material calculus was just not in their favor - casualty ratios and equipment loss were about equal, but the Sovs had something like 3 times the population and had the same proportional advantage in vehicle production. Taking Moscow just would not have made enough of a difference.
As for the UK, they were receiving lend-lease BEFORE the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Dude the Wehrmacht reached a town called Krasnaya Polyana which is 18 miles away from the center of Moscow. If they took over Moscow, which was a very real possibility then the Soviet Union would’ve fallen like France, or at the very least the European portion of it would. I would assume the oppressed minorities within the empire would used them opportunity to get independence. What the Soviet Union pulled is nothing short of miraculous. People don’t realize just how close Hitler was to taking down the Soviet Union.
As for the UK, they were receiving lend-lease BEFORE the invasion of the Soviet Union.
I didn’t imply that they weren’t?
Dude the Wehrmacht reached a town called Krasnaya Polyana which is 18 miles away from the center of Moscow. If they took over Moscow, which was a very real possibility then the Soviet Union would’ve fallen like France, or at the very least the European portion of it would.
That’s not how capitals work. France itself only nominally fell because it appointed an ultraconservative collaborator (Petain) to the highest position of government.
I would assume the oppressed minorities within the empire would used them opportunity to get independence.
Most of the oppressed minorities were in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, and very quickly found out that the Nazis were no liberators. Most of the remaining Soviet population was Russian, not ethnic minorities. A few of the central Asian SSRs were around, but their governments weren’t oppressed, but participants in the oppression - why would they rise up?
I didn’t imply that they weren’t?
After trying to previously avoid war with US, he went and did it for no good reason. This brought second wind to the allies as Americans weapons starting pouring into the UK and the Soviet Union
That’s not how capitals work. France itself only nominally fell because it appointed an ultraconservative collaborator (Petain) to the highest position of government.
Lol what? If you conquer a country’s capital, that country falls unless its government moves elsewhere and establishes a foothold which doesn’t happen often. When the Germans conquered Paris, the French government basically collapsed and from the Germans were able to take control and establish puppet governments.
Most of the oppressed minorities were in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, and very quickly found out that the Nazis were no liberators. Most of the remaining Soviet population was Russian, not ethnic minorities.
Nobody thought that the Nazis were liberators. Everybody knew Hitler wanted to expand Germany and turn it into an empire. However, the Soviets were thought of as liberators by non Soviet Eastern European nations, and they quickly learned after the war that weren’t exactly free, just under new management.
A few of the central Asian SSRs were around, but their governments weren’t oppressed, but participants in the oppression - why would they rise up?
Those governments were Russian puppets. Russia was always a multi ethnic empire that favored Russians and oppressed the rest. There’s a reason why Stalin went through his “deportation” (read: genocide) plans. They weren’t good.
This brought second wind to the allies as Americans weapons starting pouring into the UK and the Soviet Union
I think it’s pretty clear given the context that I meant the rate of shipments accelerated
Lol what? If you conquer a country’s capital, that country falls unless its government moves elsewhere and establishes a foothold which doesn’t happen often. When the Germans conquered Paris, the French government basically collapsed and from the Germans were able to take control and establish puppet governments.
Yeah, like when DC fell in the War of 1812, or when Moscow fell in Napoleon’s invasion, or when the Japanese took Nanking during the Second Sino-Japanese War, or-
Nobody thought that the Nazis were liberators.
See, this is the insane thing - many DID think of the Nazis as liberators. Numerous national independence movements were suddenly excited to collaborate after the start of Operation Barbarossa, for about all of three or four months, at which point it became apparent that the Nazis were even worse than the Soviets.
Those governments were Russian puppets. Russia was always a multi ethnic empire that favored Russians and oppressed the rest. There’s a reason why Stalin went through his “deportation” (read: genocide) plans. They weren’t good.
I’m not arguing that the Sovs were good. Far from it. My point is that there weren’t well-formed independence movements waiting in the wings to take power should the Soviet government falter - all power was tied up in the Party and its bureaucracy, and the only organized institutions capable of taking action would have been Soviet puppets who were ‘all-in’ on the Soviets by a mixture of clientism and purges. If Moscow fell, the idea that the Central Asian SSRs would suddenly turn, or lose their grip, just… doesn’t strike me as realistic.
I think it’s pretty clear given the context that I meant the rate of shipments accelerated
I wouldn’t say ‘pretty clear’, but if I misread it, I misread it.
Because Hitler invaded them. It’s basically the same way Britain went from handing over Czeckoslavakia (who they were allied with) to fighting him. Nobody wanted to get involved in another World War, but Hitler forced everyone’s hands.
Nobody wanted to get involved in another World War, but Hitler forced everyone’s hands.
That’s one of the crazy things about Hitler. He was basically handed half of Europe, and could have kept that and tolerable relations with the major world powers, but it wasn’t enough for him. He had his sights set on total global domination, and nothing short of that would satiate his desires. I suspect that even the world would not have been enough, but thankfully we never had to find out.
It’s one of the big weaknesses of these sort of egotistical maniacs imo, they make decisions based on their own egos, and create an environment where nobody is willing to call them out on it
ooh makes sense!
“Blitzkrieg” by Len Deighton is my favorite one volume history of Hitler and WW2.
British Prime Minister Chamberlain shaking hands with Hitler after selling out the Czechs.
Anyone: Russia or China did something fucked up.
lemmy.ml: BUT WHAT ABOUT…!
These people are so black and white, it completely boggles the mind. They live in “X is bad so Y must be good!”
X and Y are both completely fucked and if you can’t see that, then so are you.
You’re making an awful lot of assumptions about what I believe when I haven’t said a word of that.
What is it with you people and just making up what people believe, whole cloth? Guess it’s just easier to argue against someone who’s made of straw and only exists in your head.
You’re right, assumptions were made, though your lack of context for posting that picture definitely lends itself to my narrative. Not refuting anything I said also doesn’t help to destraw yourself.
Please, take this opportunity to clear the air and let us all know that you’re aware of how damaging Chinese and Russian policies are for their people, just like Western capitalism for its people.
Please, take this opportunity to clear the air and let us all know that you’re aware of how damaging Chinese and Russian policies are for their people, just like Western capitalism for it’s people.
Russia is a reactionary, capitalist state with policies damaging to their people, especially LGBT people but also generally towards everyone.
I could understand why you might think that I like the USSR based on the context of the image I shared, but the Russian Federation destroyed and replaced the USSR with a capitalist government, so I can’t say I follow your reasoning about my supposed beliefs at all.
As for China, how on earth is that even relevant to the conversation? I have a more sympathetic view of China than of Russia, on account of the whole, “Responsible for three quarters of all poverty reduction in the past 40 years” thing, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have flaws, like anywhere does. It wasn’t that long ago that the majority of Americans held a favorable view of China, before the whole propaganda blitz we’re in now started.
I’m sure that by complying with your request (irrelevant as it was), you’re going to back off from your false, imagined claims about me and not just use this opportunity to latch onto something I said and jump down my throat again, right? Because you’re definitely acting in good faith.
I’m not part of the conversation, but I wanted to let you know that I appreciated your response. I believe that the USSR was very fucked too, hence the coup, but I appreciate your candid and honest reply.
Right, I mean, the whole idea of someone who just blindly agrees with anything that has ever done by anyone waving a red flag is kind of silly. If the USSR didn’t have flaws, then it wouldn’t have collapsed. People would rather just pretend communists are all like that because they don’t want to engage with what we actually believe, which is generally more nuanced.
There are certainly those types of people on Lemmy, but you have shown that you’re not one of them.
Here’s a couple observations: you attempted to discredit what I said by invoking the straw man argument while asserting what “you people” all do in the same breath.
You also ended your last comment by offering the false dichotomy that my 2 options are “backing off my false claims” or not acting in good faith.
Third, for how active you are in commenting and debating, it’s disingenuous at best to pretend that my assumptions were random words strung together. If you comment in lemmy.ml on any of the omnipresent Chinese or Russian-centric posts with anything other than adoration, you’re banned… Criticism isn’t allowed in any of the major communities there and you’re obviously aware of that.
You’re not the paragon of fairness, honesty, or logic that you’d like us to believe.
If you comment in lemmy.ml on any of the omnipresent Chinese or Russian-centric posts with anything other than adoration, you’re banned… Criticism isn’t allowed in any of the major communities there and you’re obviously aware of that.
That’s demonstrably false, and you’re obviously aware of that.
If all you’re interested in is strawmanning, ad hominem, and repeated lies, then I’m not interested in continuing this conversation.
“If all you’re interested in is describing the exact experience of a lot of people, all I can do is disengage because I have no leg to stand on.”
The Uyghur genocide is an abomination, don’t you agree?
That’s demonstrably false
It’s demonstrably true and has been widely discussed for at least a year now.
The Soviet officer is Semyon Krivoshein, he’s Jewish and not celebrating for multiple reasons. The Nazis occupied Brest when they weren’t supposed to, Krivoshein got there and started negotiating to try to get them to leave. The Nazis were making a propaganda film out of this (which is where the picture comes from) so they wanted the Soviet army to have a parade with them. After an argument Krivoshein agreed that just him and some of his staff would stand there and watch the Nazis parade out of town in exchange for the Nazis leaving Polish prisoners they took in Brest.
Brest was 50% Jewish at this point, in Operation Barbarossa the Soviets defended for 6 days, Jewish Soviet officers were summarily shot by the Nazis, almost the entire Jewish population of Brest died in the Holocaust.
It really wasn’t a good time to be Jewish then. The muslim world wanted you dead, the nazis wanted you dead, the Soviets hated you, and the US and UK greatly disliked you. There was no place where Jews were actually safe and protected until after WWII.
Krivoshein was born into the well-to-do family of a Jewish artisan shop owner and in 1917 graduated from a gymnasium, a Russian secondary school for the educated elite. In 1918 he enlisted in the Red Army to fight against the Whites in the Russian Civil War, seeing service in the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny.
Krivoshein continued to command his corps until 1946 when he was appointed Head of Department at the M. V. Frunze Military Academy. In 1950 he moved to Odessa to command the mechanized and tank forces of the small Odessa Military District. In 1951 the Ministry of Defense selected him as a candidate for the Soviet Army higher command and sent him to study in the Higher Military Academy of the General Staff. Krivoshein graduated in 1952. The death of Stalin in March 1953 brought an end to Krivoshein’s military career: as the new leadership began to reduce the huge Soviet army and, on May 4, 1953 the Soviet Ministry of Defense retired him after 35 years of service. He spent the last quarter century of his life writing four books of his war memoirs.
Unfortunately, this man was an exception, not the rule.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Union
Within USSR crimes against jews don’t even break top 20 if we are going to do this victim Olympics bullshit tho…
In fact many crimes were executed by the Jewish party members against others.
Example:
Yeah… No, you’re not gonna wash away what happened to the Jews in the Soviet Union, especially under Stalin. There’s a reason why so many of them ended fleeing to Israel. It’s literally in the article I linked, the Soviet Union had a bad history. It’s not as bad as the nazis, but then again, who is? Maybe a few islamic empires, but I digress. Antisemitism in the Soviet was pretty extreme, systematic, and has lasting effects.
Reminder that Stalin was stupid enough to believe that Hitler was NOT stupid enough to renege on their little NAP over Poland. When Barbarossa rolled in, Stalin initially forbade his troops from fighting back because he thought it was a false flag ops by the Western Allies.
Motherfuckers all.
But do yourself a favor and read up on the Polish Resistance. Those were some seriously metal sons of bitches.
And for those of you who don’t like reading history: Imagine watching 50-100 of your friends getting summarily executed every day, and it doesn’t make you afraid to stop killing Nazis. It makes you even more emboldened, and that’s exactly what you do. You exist to make them afraid to walk the streets.
Poles, historically, are seriously badass and do not deserve 1/10th of the jokes made about them
I wish our schools did a better job teaching about resistance movements. Here in the US most people don’t know about the Battle of Blair Mountain, for example, even though it was the largest armed resistance action here since the US Civil War.
But if you know what the BoBM is, you know why it isn’t taught, for the same reason churches don’t teach what the Bible says about usury.
Sabaton - Winged Hussars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxlRJsQ7p2k
Since were sharing sabaton🙃
Inmate 4859 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pc1oSYXlUQ (goes hard)
Conservatism has always been a plague of death. It is long overdue for a cure.
Not sure how that picture prompted this comment…
It is a photo of conservatives.
Both the Marxists in the Soviet Union and the Nazis in Germany tore down their countries and rebuild them in accordance to their tyrannical ideologies. It’s a stretch to call regimes that brought radical change conservative when they clearly not for preserving anything from the previous regimes.
In both cases, they co-opted popular left-leaning movements to engage conservative voting bases. They combined these popular movements with nationalist conservative ideologies to garner wide appeal amongst conservatives.
After winning, they then used their momentum to tear down institutional checks and balances to make sure they would hold power indefinitely, even if their support started to wane. Conservative support, in both cases, remained strong for many years, resulting in the deaths of millions of innocent non-conservatives.
Wtf are you even talking about?
There can’t really be a cure though, what’s “conservative” is just whatever is on the right wing of a country’s politics at any point in time.
Not quite, IMHO, seeking the imaginary ideal of yesteryear is what conservatism is, everything new is bad. The right wing of any political system is regressive and also looks back to this same imaginary ideal.
The right wing of any political system is regressive
Yes, I completely agree. That’s what I’m saying. I don’t see how you can fix that other than universally disallowing the right wing of politics any influence over decision making, in which case the left will likely fracture in between its most left wing elements and it’s most centre-left elements and the process starts again.
So unless you want endless purging of whatever happens to be on the right wing of your political spectrum, I don’t see what the cure to Conservatism or the right wing is.
Prosperity and education would be a start. Also media literacy. Or literacy in general.
From left to right:
Mauritz von Wiktorin, Heinz Guderian and Semyon Krivoshein.
Tankies in shambles
Why would tankies be in shambles? They love genocide and helping fascists. This is basically a motivational poster for them.
You are being disingenuous lol
You know they hate this picture and get bent out of shape over this historical fact.
Westoid tankie has to ignore many historical facts in order to make his or her “idealogy” work “logically”
You are being disingenuous lol
More like smarmy, but yes, not literal.
Fuck russia. Russia as a geopolitical entity must be destroyed. It’s them or us.
Oligarchy vs the rest of us. It’s happening right where you live too darling.
So, we shouldn’t fight against it? Fuck off.
Interesting interpretation.
😭
So, a bag of complete goose-stepping morons, as directed by a couple of servient, underling-fascists, are RIGHT on their way…!
Well then-- HURRAY!, is it not…?
The soviets had no sense of fashion at all smh…
On a serious note, you’d think Belarus nowadays would be less keen on supporting Russia given their history.
You ask for an independent opinion from a country that mass protested the last bullshit elections before potato dictator with a joint support from russian siloviki beat, tortured, imprisoned and\or dissappeared thousands of people. Luka is behind the wheel, and he is playing his own game balancing between a neutral sovereign country and a region of russia, whatever fits him best at the moment. He’s not asking what his* people want.
* ‘His’ is a weird word to put there, but I’d let it stay.
Removed by mod
7/10 Nazis killed in WWII were at the hands of the Soviets
And 10/10 of the Polish officers and civilians killed at Katyn were at the hands of the Soviets too. There’s no point in defending a regime that did horrific things, just because they happened to kill a lot of people who also did horrific things.
There’s also no point in arguing that “one nation won the war” against anyone in World War 2, the war would’ve been significantly worse and more brutal had almost any of the allied nations not participated.
Without the US lend lease and factories, the Soviets wouldn’t have had a chance, and it would’ve been a much much more brutal battle even if they succeeded. Not to mention the massive amount of work the U.S. put into fighting Japan in the Pacific almost alone.
Without the Soviets the other allies would have had no continental power to distract the Germans, and North Africa would likely have fallen along with the UK.
Without the UK, the Axis would’ve had a much much easier time navigating waterways and trading with the world, not always having the possibility of being harassed from one of the UK’s colonial ports or airports. Not to mention the constant threat of invasion from the sea and the opening of a second front that the UK provided.
There’s others I won’t even mention because it would take too long like the invaluable support of India and China without which Japan would’ve dominated Asia, and the people of Africa and South America who also contributed.
There’s literally no way a non-propagandizing historian could put the victory solely on any of the Allied nations, each and every one was completely indispensable
comment history lmao
Caught one
