this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
801 points (97.5% liked)

Memes

45660 readers
1601 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
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (4 children)

don't worry, the soviets joined ww2 as well

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Yep, and beat the Nazis.

[–] [email protected] 7 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"?

[–] [email protected] -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?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

invading poland side by side with the nazis

This would actually be a more accurate description of the Slovak Republic’s contribution to the Fascist invasion of Poland, though it is very rare to see anticommunists mention that even in passing. I wonder why. (Presumably they’d say that it is unimportant or uninteresting, of which—as I showed in my thread—it is neither.)

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] [email protected] 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".

[–] [email protected] 4 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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

He already said capitalists, state capitalism is still capitalism, no matter if you call it communism.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The USSR was Socialist, what on Earth are you talking about?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Calling something state capitalist when capitalism heavily relies on the state by default shows you need to hit the books on how capitalism actually functions.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Calling something state capitalist when capitalism heavily relies on the state by default

I have no idea what you are trying to say with this, but perhaps you should look things up before pompously trying to diss people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Perhaps you should read theory. The USSR was State Capitalist with respect to the NEP, but was Socialist for its entire existence

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago

People's theory is just fine. The problem for you is that they kept reading theory that was written after thr 1970s.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I can only read 2 pages from what you linked, and am not paying 40 dollars to read the rest, certainly not when they already display a gross oversimplification and anti-Marxist definition of Capitalism (critically leaving out competition, Capital accumulation, and so forth), and therefore take a vulgar revisionist stance. There's no analysis of class dynamics, just an over-reliance on the presense of Wage Labor.

Please read theory, I can make recommendations for the basics if you'd like.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago