Stalin's Contributions

Of course, again the problem is: the "alternatives" were probably worse.....




I can live with that last post Jenisch...I can live with quite a few of your posts..The problem I see on this debate in this thread is folks perceptions of what they think others are thinking...Most of us are on the same plane with this..

My gripe is that we don't have to agree with someones actions..in this case Stalins...to understand why he did the whats...That should never be seen as tacit support for someone who was just a lousy murdering git. But at the time he was as today as you state elsewhere...OUR lousy muredering git.

I understand why you link events of today...the precedent is there I'll admit. But thats life...thats the world as it is, has been and will always be...We see it even today..we acknowledge it...we accept it in the main..Some would say for the greater good...The world I'm afraid is not about to change my friend. But don't think that we don't see it...we do...And its not moral cowardice to not confront it...It is confronted...as similar things were before ww2 by brave souls.

 

The alliance between the West and the Soviets was a better thing not only because moral grounds, but also for geopolitical ones (the main stuff). It was better to have Europe divided between the Allies and Soviets, than have Germany having hegemony over Eurasia, Africa and most places in the earth.

About the moral issues in the world, definately they were still with us today. In some areas there were great improvements in human rights, but cynism of all sort is always present in government actions, and in my opinion history show us to be chaotic, so we never know if the situation in the word would not change for worse tomorrow.

Personally, I tend to support Realism as for international relations analyzes, and I extend it as a philosphy for my personal life. By viewing the people as not benelovent beings, but as always pursuting their interests, and by not exposing myself much (the security theory of Realism), many times I escape from unplesant situations of my personal life. Now talking about internation relations again: I don't discret Liberalism and other theories, the problem in my view is that our lifes are so sort, and those other policies are not able to provide an adequated understanding of what I considerate to be the working process of the world while still living. Definately I'm not an idealist, and obviously it would not be wrong to label me as egocentric.

 

A morally superior nation does not save it from problems. The best example is the Soviet Union in WWII. Hitler was largely defeated by the USSR, which was a brutal dictatorship at the time. Some "immoral" operations governments conduct, like a number of American interventions in Latin America during the Cold War, are the same thing. Apparentely, it would be nice for the US to let those countries have "freedom" to choose their governments. But not so to risk most or all of them become Communist and hence bring new enemies close to the US. Even today, according to Realism, the Americans would not want that Latin American nations become very powerful, since they would intervene in the American politics and also become military treats. Russia BTW, is already angry of see many ex-Warsaw pact countries in NATO. In my impression, by not allowing things like gay movemments, Putin wants to avoid the spread of Western political ideais and hence influence in his country.

 

Indeed. However the war didn't exactly go as he planned either did it? The Soviets payed a horrible price for Stalin's adventurism but he also stuck out the hard times and helped the allies prevale. It's some times called "giving the devil his due".

 

Personally I don't have any problems believing it, since it fits the picture of the soviet greed perfectly.

 

We know NOW that the soviets were not prepared for defence in 1941, and perhaps not ready to attack either - at least not before 22nd June.

However I wouldn't be so sure that the soviets themselves didn't think they could have attacked (or that they didn't feel they had to) - say mid-July 1941...

 

What Stalin thought truly after summer 1940 is not known about plans attacking nazi Germany. Stalin believed that Hitler and the Allied would destroy each other and later on Stalin would take advantage of this. Also I don´t think there is any evidence that Hitler was getting Stalin to join the Axis, as Hitler was having a hard time keeping Italy and Japan in the pact due to his pact with the USSR Aug 1940. If Mussolini had said goodbye to Hitler, that would have been a major blow to Hitler´s plans and definiterly something the Allied were wishing for.

Also I am hoping that anything that is more or less related to modern politics will be discussed elsewhere. Thanx!

 

When you said this I thought you meant you were going to quite more or less for good.

Then at the top of the next page you posted this (edited to reduce the bandwidth):

As several have mentioned it is off topic and I will no longer refute such statements here. If you wish to discuss this please start a thread in the appropriate forum and quit posting the $%@#$@#$ here.

 

We have fanatic defenders of nations like the USSR, Cuba, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Britain, and of course: the US!

 

This thread is rapidly running out of lives, so let us remain on topic or find a new expired equine to abuse.

 

If you want to continue this PLS do so here:
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/49539-realist-now-an-analog-of-treker-or-progressive/
and leave it out of this thread where it has no place.

 

Unfortunately this post is a bit off-topic, sorry for that, but I cannot resist of making some corrections.

These percentages you gave were NOT for different nationalities to be (only) exterminated but mainly to be removed to Siberia. Naturally many would have died in this, but that is an other story. (Of course the German war tactic to live of the conquered land was to cause many civilian casualties). No original copy of the GPO (Generalplan Ost) has been preserved and all the information about it has been collected piece by piece from various sources. Thus we cannot be absolutely sure of the plan and it's details.

When one comperes the evilness of these two dictators one has to judge whether the mere plans were more evil than the actual real events. Hitler's plans were evil for sure, but we will never know what actually would have happened, since so many plans are/were changed or cancelled - starting with the original German plan to resettle the Jews in Madagascar.

The GPO was so vast that it's possibility to be fully implemented remains to be questioned. For the starters there wouldn't have been enough Germans for colonising. Also the expulsion of so many people would have had a negative effect on Germany's economy.

Because of this I personally prefer to count the bodies of people really killed, not the imaginary ones. in real life Stalin's regime was at least as murderous as Hitler's - probably even more.

Here's some examples (from Wiki) about events that really happened...:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union

"During the 1930s, categorisation of so-called enemies of the people shifted from the usual Marxist-Leninist, class-based terms, such as kulak, to ethnic-based ones.[8] The partial removal of potentially trouble-making ethnic groups was a technique used consistently by Joseph Stalin during his career;[9] between 1935 and 1938 alone, at least nine different nationalities were deported.[10] Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union led to a massive escalation in Soviet ethnic cleansing.[11]
Looking at the entire period of Stalin's rule, one can list: Poles (1939–1941 and 1944–1945), Romanians (1941 and 1944–1953), Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians (1941 and 1945–1949), Volga Germans (1941–1945), Ingrian Finns (1929–1931 and 1935–1939), Finnish people in Karelia (1940–1941, 1944), Crimean Tatars, Crimean Greeks(1944) and Caucasus Greeks (1949-50),[12]Kalmyks, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Karapapaks, Far East Koreans (1937), Chechens and Ingushs (1944). Shortly before, during and immediately after World War II, Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a huge scale which profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union.[2] It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949 nearly 3.3 million were deported to Siberia and the Central Asian republics.[13]By some estimates up to 43% of the resettled population died of diseases and malnutrition.[14]"

Maybe, maybe not. Nothing hints to that direction, although naturally Germany expected to be able to be in control. However this is only speculation.

 

The "moral grounds" to support the soviets, really?!

Many Europeans preferred the German hegemony in Europe over the soviets, if given only those two choices - like it often happened.

AFAIK Germany was not aiming for the hegemony in "Africa and most places on earth" - unlike the soviets.

 

According to Bloodlands: Europe Between Stalin and Hitler, by Timothy Snyder, Basic Books, 2010, page 416, after the expected lighting victory over the USSR in '41, some thirty million Soviet citizens would be starved in the winter of '41-42, as food would be diverted from those territories to Germany.

 

You are right. There was no moral in letting the Soviets dominate the Poland the Allies supposed went to war to protect.

In some cases, yes. Perhaps after Hitler died, Nazism could change for better. Ribbentrop proposed a plan for Hitler to give the Grossraum countries some independence, in order to put the Western leaders as warmongers. But Hitler rejected the plan, and scollars are divided if it had honesty or not.

 

Well bugger me...I'm guilty....I didn't even know it was about the diaries...Well pointed out Biak.

 

Well to be fare (and I missed it too) this was suggested in post #8. Of course suggestions from that source carry a bit of weight ...

I think I need to read through them a bit more before posting on this thread again.

 

never mind ...

 

Concern about Finland and the Turkish straits are Russian concerns, not just Soviet. Russian governments have in particular always been extremely interested in the straits.