this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
791 points (97.6% liked)

Memes

45726 readers
993 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (44 children)
[–] bi_tux@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (37 children)

don't worry, the soviets joined ww2 as well

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If by "joined WW2", do you mean "got refused from any military alliances with England, France and Poland despite a decade of trying in an attempt to unify Europe against Hitler"? Or do you mean "getting invaded by the Nazis and losing 25+mn people in the process of eliminating Nazism from Europe"?

[–] bi_tux@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean invading poland side by side with the nazis, they weren't interested in getting rid of the nazis, why do you think they had a nap?

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

invading poland side by side with the nazis

Again, literal Nazi revisionism. The invasion of Poland was mostly a peaceful process, and the only aim was to establish pro-communist forces in the area that would ensure Poland would join the USSR against the Nazis when the Nazis attacked. The same was attempted in Finland, and what do you know, Finland actually did join the Nazis during the Continuation War. And what do you know, the USSR retreated its troops from Poland after WW2.

Poland could have entered a military alliance with the USSR for the former 10 years, Stalin went as far as offering to send ONE MILLION soldiers, together with aviation and artillery, to military allies if France, England and Poland joined in a military alliance against the Nazis. But I guess they would rather see the Nazis massacre the communists first. That strategy didn't work out as planned now, did it?

They didn't want to get rid of the Nazis

This is incredibly ahistorical revisionism. The USSR prepared for the war against Nazi Germany for many years before it started. In the second half of the 1930s, seeing the Nazi rising to power (Nazis being overt enemies of Communism, as proven by what they did to Communists and to Unions in their controlled territories), they ramped up the weapon production and their military industry, and I'll say it again in case it didn't register: they spent the entire 30s seeking out military alliances with France, England and Poland against the Nazis. They offered military help to Czechoslovakia in 1938 during the Munich agreements in which Sudetenland was given to the Nazis.

Why do you think they had a NAP?

They had a non-aggression pact because Germany was an established industrial power for 100+ years at that point, while the USSR had had 19 years from 1921 after the Russian Civil War and WW1 to rebuild the country and to industrialise. They desperately needed every year they could get to reduce the industrial gap between them and the Nazis, as proven by the immense human cost to the USSR in the war against Nazis.

The Soviets literally saved Eastern Europe from an even worse fate, at immense cost of human lives (25+ million human lives lost in the USSR to Nazism), god knows how many millions more of Slavs (and other groups like Jews and Roma) the Nazis would have genocided if it hadn't been for the Soviets. Have some respect before spewing anti-communist, nazi propaganda here, please.

[–] kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You missed the part in between where they made a deal with the nazis and invaded eastern Europe

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

You missed the part in between where they made a deal with the nazis

I didn't miss that part because there was no "deal with Nazis". Nothing as bad as the Munich Agreement signed the previous year by England, France and Germany among others, allowing Hitler to occupy the Sudetenland, a land with more than 3mn people in Czechoslovakia (to whom the Soviet Union offered assistance but Romania and Poland denied pass to Soviet troops, possibly influenced by the fact that Poland also did a grab of land of Czechoslovakia). The USSR spent the entire 30s trying to push for a military alliance with England, France and Poland to stop Nazism, but they all refused because a good liberal would rather have Nazis first exterminate communists. Stalin went as far as offering to station 1 million troops, together with aviation and artillery, in France, in case Stalin invaded, to which England and France refused. Feel free to study the so-called "collective security policy" pushed by the USSR in Europe against Nazism.

The Soviet Union had been in a civil war until 1921 (right after a devastating WW1/, and before that it was a preindustrial nation. It had a whopping 19 years to rebuild the country from scratch and to industrialise, compared to the 100+ years of German industrialization. They desperately needed every single year of industrialization they could get in order to gain some advantage against the industrially superior Nazis, as evidenced by the 25+ million casualties the USSR suffered against the Nazis despite material help from the US. Making an agreement to postpone the war after every country in Europe refuses to enter a military alliance against Nazis just because you're a communist country, is just the logical action to defend your citizens.

Please stop pushing revisionist nazi propaganda. Without the USSR, the slavic population of Europe, including Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian, as well as many other ethnic groups, would have been genocided in vastly superior numbers than they were.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

but Romania and Poland denied pass to Soviet troops

I thought Romania did?

"Rumania had agreed to permit Russian troops to pass through her territory to the assistance of Czechoslovakia as soon as the League of Nations had pronounced Czechoslovakia to be a victim of aggression" - Munich, Prologue to Tragedy by John W. Wheeler-Bennet, p. 100

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sorry, I was going with Wikipedia there, care to elaborate more on what happened then?

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm not really sure how much more I can elaborate. I haven't read the book—I read Flemmings book, see below, and found it to reference "Munich, Prologue to Tragedy", so I went ahead and quoted it. Here is the full footnote which that part came from (with my own inserts in []):

quote

On September 11 [1938] M. Bonnet, at Geneva, conferred with M. Litvinov and M. Comnen, the Rumanian Foreign Minister. On this occasion M. Litvinov repeated his assurances that Russia would support France in accordance with the Pact of 1935 and informed him that Rumania had agreed to permit Russian troops to pass through her territory to the assistance of Czechoslovakia as soon as the League of Nations had pronounced Czechoslovakia to be a victim of aggression. He therefore advocated to M. Bonnet the urgent necessity of a joint démarche to the League. M. Bonnet again refused this suggestion and, in reporting the results of his conversation to the French Cabinet on the following day, said that the Russians and Rumanians had "wrapped themselves in League procedure" and had shown little eagerness for action

 

France didn't uphold their part of the 1935 Pact, so the Soviet Union never came to help Czechoslovakia under the Pact. And President [of Czechoslovakia] Benes didn't call upon the Soviet Union "outside" of the Pact:

The Cold War and Its Origins, Denna Frank Flemming, p. 84

In justification of the crucifixion of Czechoslovakia at Munich it was said that Russia could not be trusted and that her assistance would not be worth much in any case. On the points there could be honest difference of opinion, but not about the diplomatic record. Certainly the Czech Government did not doubt Russia's sincerity. At a session of the Harris Institute at the University of Chicago in August 1939 I asked President [of Czechoslovakia] Benes whether Russia would have supported him had he decided to fight in September 1938. He replied, without an instant’s hesitation: “There was never any doubt in my mind that Russia would aid us by all the ways open to her, but I did not dare to fight with Russian aid alone, because I knew that the British and French Governments would make out of my country another Spain.”

 

The rest of your comment is quite consistent with my own understanding of how things went down, which I got from Flemmings book.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ok, that's really good insight, so it boils down to France not respecting the 1935 treaty by refusing to declare Czechoslovakia as a victim of aggression?

As a Spanish, I can relate too well (sadly) to the part where the president of Czechoslovakia says "I did not dare to fight with Russian aid alone, because I knew that the British and French Governments would make out of my country another Spain", I assume they're talking of how the Soviet Union was the only country to sell weapons to Republican Spain in their fight against fascism, even as the Nazis and Italian Fascists were militarily and economically helping the reactionaries in Spain, and how France and England didn't do anything under the guise of "non-interventionism".

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ok, that’s really good insight, so it boils down to France not respecting the 1935 treaty by refusing to declare Czechoslovakia as a victim of aggression?

No. So, there are two parts here: Romania allowing Soviet troops to pass through it and French and Soviet aid to Czechoslovakia.

I can't find the part I was thinking about when I wrote "so the Soviet Union never came to help Czechoslovakia under the Pact", and just I realized that there are actually two pacts.

The treaty mentioned is either the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance or the Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance. Had France decided to fight for Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union would also have. But the French didn't, and Czechoslovakia didn't fight (and therefore didn't call upon the Soviets to come to their aid), and so the Soviets didn't.

In the case that fighting had broken out, Romania would allow Soviet troops to pass through their borders, if the League of Nations declared Czechoslovakia to be a "victim of aggression" (not France).

I assume they’re talking of how the Soviet Union was the only country to sell weapons to Republican Spain in their fight against fascism, even as the Nazis and Italian Fascists were militarily and economically helping the reactionaries in Spain, and how France and England didn’t do anything under the guise of “non-interventionism”.

Yes.

[–] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There a whole article about Russian disinformation on this topic here. They certainly did have a pact with the Nazis. Your argument is basically "it didn't happen, but if it did then it the West forced us into it" which is a 100% classic disinformation line. It's like when Putin says there is no war with Ukraine, but if there is it's because the West forced us to do it.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Source: euvsdisinfo

We are the East Stratcom Task Force, a team of experts with a background mainly in communications, journalism, social sciences and Russian studies.

We are part of the EU’s diplomatic service which is led by the EU’s High Representative

"Your comment is state propaganda! Here's some state propaganda from my side to discredit it!!" Oh I wonder, why would a European state agency directed by Josep Borrell (Social Democrat party of Spain, the PSOE), well-known NATO cocksucker (he was in the government when the Spanish government pushed the referendum to join NATO after 4 years of pro-NATO propaganda), want to create anti-communist and Russophobic propaganda?

If you read my comment, I'm not denying the existence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, I'm framing it in context. All that the article you sent says, is "Russian nationalists sometimes also put context to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, so everyone who puts context to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is reproducing what Russian nationalists say!!"

The article vaguely points to a few dubious claims* of "USSR sending Jews to Germany" (USSR being the most progressive country against antisemitism back in its time, eliminating former pogroms in the former Russian Empire, and with overrepresentation of Jewish people in government and science, and even going as far as creating a Jewish Autonomous Oblast for Jewish people who might have felt like moving to a region with higher Jewish representation). It also makes a few claims of "tech transfer" between Nazi Germany and the USSR (ignoring why the USSR would want technology to defend itself from Germany and ignoring that the US had plenty of factories in Nazi Germany for example). And it completely ignores the existence of the Collective Security attempted for the 10 prior years by the USSR.

You're just choosing to ignore everything I said in my comment because "Russian nationalists sometimes try to put context to Molotov-Ribbentrop". I'm literally a communist, I'm the first and foremost hater of fascist Putin. The fact that Russian nationalists stoke the USSR occasionally for nationalist purposes (while removing any socialist ideology from their claims to keep it nice and capitalist), doesn't mean they can't sometimes make a better historical claim to some events by pure chance.

*Edit: the "USSR SENT JEWS TO NAZI GERMANY" claim apparently refers to a "few hundred" people, including Jews, that requested asylum in the USSR from Nazi Germany and were denied asylum and returned to Nazi Germany. I don't think EU countries, who are now rejecting Russian refugees (let alone from northern Africa or middle east) by the thousands, have the high moral ground to complain about this

load more comments (34 replies)
load more comments (40 replies)