Stalin's Contributions

Thanks Belasarfor consolation! Now, I don't have to worry about our friends' health. I know he will get back soon. .

 

1. The debunking of Katyn........Definitely sounds like Politburo propaganda. The details of Katyn are quite well documented.

2. Warsaw August - September 1944 I read numerous Churchill and FDR communiques begging the Russian Leadership and Air Force for clearance to land on Soviet controlled airstrips. These requests were diplomatically and humbly beseeching the Soviets to allow clearance into Soviet airspace for the logistical necessities of supplying the Warsaw Fighters in their quest to drive the Wehrmacht and SS out - in advance of the Soviet offensive, which languished and was delayed (to allow the Germans to finish the city and populus?) for some vague and obscure reason(s). These request were met with a reckless aloofness that almost defies the imagination but that's how Molotov and Stalin rolled when it suited them. Of course the partitioning of Third Reich occupied territory and The Second Front were always focused upon with crystal clarity in a demanding tone.


My rebuttal aside, Thank you for posting your journal and book to this site, Mr. Kowalski.

 

I read that the Soviets were on the Banks of the River Vistula when the Warsaw Uprising took place. They feared all non-Russian armed groups. The Poles wanted to liberate Warsaw ahead of the Red Army. The Germans turned the to city rubble. From all accounts it was quite a fight, and its a real shame that the Poles didn't win.

 

Let me play devil's advocate ....

The uprising is much more of a grey area than post war propaganda makes it.

After Pilsudski the soviets had no reason to either like or trust the Poles, letting your enemies kill each other is good strategy.

The refusal to allow basing (and provide logistical support in a situation where, according to Soviet sources, they had to stop their offensive because they had outrun their logistical tail) may well have multiple reasons, not allowing the Poles to liberate themselves is not necessarily at the top of the list.

I don't recall many instances of regular troops altering their timetable to "accomodate the needs" of irrregulars. The fate of the Italan campaign would have been very different had the airborne dropped on Rome as planned in September 1943 (for good or for bad, we may well have had Market Garden a year earlier, but surely different).

The mess at Poltava shows the basing was far from a low risk operation, and Poltava was much more rear area , so with better logistics, tham Warsaw would have been.

And finally I find there is some poetic justice to the fate of the rising after their very limited help during the crushing of the ghetto.

 

Devils Advocate is sometimes necessary. It tends to lead to the removal of rose tinted glasses...Although the poles in the uprising were heroic...From Stalin's strategic point of view...why should he do anything? Thats me being Devils Advocate. Same as with the original soviet German pact...Both dictators doing what they thought best for their own country...or themselves. Why would they not? This does not make it pallatable to many of us. But they were not in the business of being palatable to the western nations.

 

The whole thing was FORCED on Stalin by Hitler:

If Stalin did nothing,Hitler would occupy eastern Poland,a region Stalin considered as belonging to the SU

If Stalin was joining Poland,eastern Poland would remain Polish(but,as Poland refused an alliance with Stalin,we can discard this option)

Remained the third option(the Pact) which resulted in eastern Poland becoming Soviet .

Thus,Stalin had to chose between number one and number three .

 

I understand that completely...Uncle Joe was not in the game of helping anyone...except to see Russia and his regime...and himself survive...A safe bet would be to watch the Capatilist and facsist systems knock their heads together while he sat back and watched and hoped for the best...And be in a position to gain from it. Hence his bewilderment at fall of France so quickly...Even Churchill stated he would make a pact with the Devil against his enemy...why we think Stalin would or should be any different I don't know.

 

Even though I really don't give a stuff, I'm not a Devils attorney; quite in contrary, I just want to know the truth. Here is a short episode from life of Uncle Joe:

In April 1937, Bronka Poskrebysheva, the glamorous wife of Alexander Poskrebyshev, Stalin's chef de cabinet, arranged to meet Stalin alone at his dacha to plead for the life of her arrested brother. Stalin hated women begging for the lives of their relatives, but he had a large court, and as the Terror expanded such appeals became increasingly common. Nothing is known about the meeting except that Bronka's mission failed. Two years later, however, she decided to try again. This time, she called Lavrenty Beria, head of the Russian secret police, and asked if she could come to discuss her brother. She was never seen again.

After Bronka's arrest, Poskrebyshev begged Stalin to release his wife. "Don't worry," Stalin supposedly replied, "we'll find you another wife." Bronka was shot in 1941, but her disappearance did not diminish Poskrebyshev's dedication to Stalin. He even remained friends with Beria. The only awkwardness came when Beria hugged his daughter, Natalya, and sighed, "You're going to be as beautiful as your mother." Poskrebyshev turned green and, struggling to control his emotions, said, "Natalya, go and play."

 

What ruins history are the moral and political discussions around it. There are no countries better or worst than others. Those ruling countries only have interests (and this does not necessarily means they are thiefs). You can support a political party when it's from your interest, but take their ideas literally is naiviness, and try to defend them for others without a good reason is stupidness (do this in an internet history forum is supreme stupidiness!). When that understanding of the world is in mind, the history study can really serve it's purpose: use lessons from the past to the present and future.

The case of WWII is a classical example. There's no need to enter in things like "who started the war?". Rather than that all the factors which contributed to the conflict must be analyzed and several reasons can be found, like the the Axis agressive policies, the Versailles treaty, the Soviet secret rearmamment of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, the West letting Japan take over Manchuria, the US isolacionism, the Munich agreement, the MR Pact, etc.

 

While I agree with you that to conclude issues like "who started the war" by rash finger pointing is rather naive and that we need to look at surrounding factors (Some argue that some of the powerkeg goes back to the thirty years war, and call 14-45 the second thirty years war), I have to disagree with saying that no countries are worse then others, making statements like that is a very easy way to invite a bandwagon of "my country never committed genocide" comments. I'm a fond adherent of rationalism and objectivity and think it should always be applied, but war is something of an exception. When we deal with the apocalypse of world war, appeals to emotion can be permissible, especially on a history forum where we have war vets of our own.

 

When I said that "no countries are better than others", I want to say that countries can try to hide this, but the end always justifies the means when interests are in game. You can say "oh Stalin and Hitler were monsters!". But what do you think of the Anglo-American bombing offensive against Germany? What about how the Soviets treat the populations of Eastern Europe? What about the dictatorships and coups that the US government/CIA has financed or finances all over the world and lead to thousands of people arrested, tortured and dead? Nowadays we have all this "Human Rights" stuff, but for example, see what Saudit Arabia does, it's a medieval state! Even so, Europe and the US have interests with the Saudits (i.e. oil), so the Human Rights are always secondary to interests.

I'm not proposing a solution for those things, neither I'm saying the countries were "wrong or right" by doing them, I'm just saying how the things always worked with countries. Popular descontent in democracies can help to avoid such things? In some cases it can, but democracies not always listen to the popular will, and can commit or propose hair-raising things (e.g. Operation Northwoods).

About the emotion appeals of war veterans, they can be understood, but they should not blind ourselfs as for how the world works.

 

@Jenisch: You've just hit the nail right on the head. A great post and I agree with your view.

 

The first I agree to in a relativistic way, the second and third I agree were unavoidable consequences of total war (thats not to say people can't be held accountable for their conduct) and the last I won't claim to know anymore then the western funded Mujahideen controversy. As for your last sentence, did I assert the opposite? My mistake if it looks that way. I think that background context is crucial, and trumps opinions.

Finally, my point wasn't that we should be blinded by emotion, thats something I detest personally. What I meant was its hard to argue against that when we have universal revulsion to many aspects of war. In addition to that its very difficult to fight against consensus reality when you hold an outsider opinion. For example, who would we in the west be to tell the Saudis that they live under appalling human rights conditions? As far as they are often concerned they are following the instructions of Allah through their prophet, and that is worlds apart from the opinion of westerners (context). Yes, that is a distant example, but I believe it paralleled. I sincerely hope I'm coherent, I go to great lengths to try to be concise but have a habit becoming jumbled in the process.

 

Hitler was inspired by the US conquest of America and its treatment of the natives.

 

Tell me more, oh great sage.

 

You are correct, but the countries do not necessarily see the things in that way. They can have any position regarding human rights depending of the case.

 

Hitler wanted to built an Empire, and one that would claim the lives of millions and slave many others (such policies being partially implemented). However, the West also had Empires at that time. By the time of WWII they could not slave people or be as violent as the Nazi Empire, but even so there people who were subjected or were still being subjected to domination in general and also in determined specific levels. Those who use the numbers of Nazi vicitms as an "eraser" to desconsiderate Western policies that are really wrong. Even because it depends of the criteria you analyze the things. For example, when the US financed dictatorships in Latin America during the Cold War, they were in accomplice with what was being done there. Before finance coups or support them, the Americans tried to finance democratic opposition against the Left governments. When that failed, the American position was "we not gonna take any risk of new Cubas, we gonna overtrow the regimes and replace them with military Juntas!". But actually it was not good for the Americans to see the Juntas formed in those countries victimizing so many people. In my country, Brazil, the Americans supported the coup in secrecy, but when the military started with repression, Rio de Janeiro became associated with torture in the US, which was not good for the image of the US government. The US then started to take distance from the Brazilian dictatorship, but always enjoying the economic relations and also making pressure to the dictatorship become less harsher as the situation permited. In Latin America during the Cold War, it's obvious that the US used the policy of the end justifying the means. Of course that the Latin American countries also have blamme for be so fragile and try to push for Left governments in a situation in which this was not recommended (here the damage of study history incorrectly can be clearily understood).

Conclusion: Hitler was not "good" neither for Capitalists or Communists. He was "bad", but everyone also is. When a country has to intervene in the affairs of other, it has to use geopolitical euphemism. But what is really desirable is that an unstable region develops, because the more developed a region becomes, the lesser the chance of extremisms and hence the need of black operations or even expensive invasions be necessary (actually the countries can even become allies of the dominant power in the region). The case of Western Europe after WWII is a good example. There there was only cooperation between the countries, and the major American worry was with the direct Soviet treat. Now we have a culmination with the EU. However, it should not be expected that new "UEs" would pop up all over the world and mankind will finally live with peace and progress. History proves to be chaotic, and therefore the classical geopolitical changes can definately be expected for the future (countries having new enemies and allies, wars, economic crises, etc), and actually changes were always occuring in the world. That's how this B* called international community always worked and always will work. =D

 

I don't subscribe to the "everybody is bad" theory, Hitler was a monster, Mussolini, Tojo, FDR and Churchill were politicians, and Stalin something in between. While all looked for their self interests, and that of the countries they led, they mostly operated within a framework of humanly acceptable (by XX century standards) parameters. There were exceptions like the fire bombings or Japanes behaviour in China, but genocide was not part of their policies, and they did follow some rules despite talk of "total war".

Stalin's policies can be viewed as an extreme case of "ethnic cleansing" aimed at breaking the opposition of the peasants, local nationalists and anyone else he saw as a threat to central Communist rule. How much of that threat was real and how much his paranoia is debatable, but the happenings during the breakdown of the USSR prove these forces did exist. Stalin was forged by a rather brutal civil war where the west supported his enemies, his paranoia is not hard to explain though his actions before the civil war show he was not someone you'd like to have as a neighbour even befor the war. The question about Stalin is would a less ruthless character manage to hold the USSR together in the face of Barbarossa ?

IMO Hitler's initial foreign policy is not outstandingly aggressive, up to the time the western allies declared war on him most of his targets contained a significant percentage of Germans (Czechoslovakia being the notable exception).
But his racism puts him in a cathegory apart and is hard to link to any sort of rational political objective.
I say racisn not anti-semitism as while the holocaust stands out for the cold blooded "scientific approach" the treatment of the local populations in Eastern Europe, and of Soviet POWs, that was also fully in line with the ideas he expressed in his writings, is possibly an even greater crime.

 

Neither do I think there is equality or equilibria in guilt. History is a written interpretation of the past. Not a copy, not a record but a linguistically correct interpretation of the past. Of course, it is not possible to simplify history to just narrative form; it should retain important components of the “truth”: ethical aspects, political impact/reasons, causes, consequences etc. However, it is true that the “victors” had also their share of responsibility and that victors request a priori excuse in advance for their past, present and future faults like Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Poland, Afghanistan, Hungary, Iraq etc. I guess that was Jenisch's thought. I'm not talking for himself but for myself but I just try to understand his view.

Also, I can see the present day and earlier Germany in isolation from events 1933-1945. It helps me to relate just Nazis to the crimes, not the Nation.

 

But this is also due to interests. Those men were "social" creatures, while Hitler was more like a psychopat (but of course he would never admit an implementation of the Generalplan Ost or the Holocaust). It cannot be ruled out, however, that if Nazi Germany somewhat conquered the USSR and entered in a (probably nuclear) equilibirum with the US, Britain and a Communist China in a Cold War scenario, Nazism would change it's attitute. If Hitler died, perhaps this would be more likely. The USSR changed dramatically from Stalin to Gorbachev. Again, this change wasn't for "humanitarian" reasons, but actually for practical ones. This was not only with the USSR, but it can be understood that countries do not need to exist with a determined modus operandi indefinately.

To conclude: I'm saying what Tamino said. What the West commited in terms of lives claimed due to their actions in euphemistic manner should not be desconsiderated simply because Hitler and Stalin were "worst". There cannot be respect in the strictu sensu for countries that use Maquiavelism to promote their interests. And in reality, all countries have done and always will do this. This is my point with "everyone is bad". Arguably the most efficient criminal is not the most violent one (Hitler), but actually the "smarter" one (remaning countries, valid for today).