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cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/10554311
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this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
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USSR didn't expect France to fold so quickly and assumed that the war on the Western Front would be long and costly.
Again, as ive emphasised repeatedly:
Again, I understand why, with limited info, the soviets would be cautious etc given the fall of france, it made the germans look very scary. The point isnt "the soviet leadership were incompetent" it is "modern communists should study history and learn from their miscalculations using the much broader base of knowledge available so we dont similarly overestimate fascisms power and underestimate revolutionary power"
With this historical knowledge, the fall of france turns out to be 1) partially the soviets fault (bc they supplied and fueled the nazi war machine) and 2) more caused by the unwillingness of the french elites to risk a revolution than by the strength of the german army
What lesson can we gain from a sober analysis of ww2? That 1) fascism is indeed capitalism in crisis and always looks much stronger than it actually is, to the point that without expansion it will rapidly collapse under its contradictions (and would have collapsed faster if the soviets had supported antifascism instead of the nazis for the first two years of the war when the germans were most isolated) and 2) that liberal democracies, bourgeois states, cannot be trusted to fight fascism bc they fear revolution more; if the war gets too intense, they will surrender to the fascists instead of risking revolution
The reason for French defeat was about 90% incompetence of Allied generals, who managed to send most of the Anglo-French forces straight into the trap in Belgium. The fear of the revolution started influencing their decisions later, when it was already the choice between capitulation and continuing the war from the colonies.
Nah the fear of revolution and preference for fascism was there from the beginning, particularly bc the socialist movement in france was so strong (strong enough that the early 30s attempt at domestic fascism was thwarted).
Some examples i have offhand from Bambery's book on ww2:
I could also point to the french, british, etc, position on the spanish civil war being "its better for us if franco wins" but thats more circumstantial and i feel i've given enough evidence anyways
I was referring exclusively to the post-September 1939 part. In fact, pre-war fear of revolution of Britain and France and their unwillingness to commit to cooperation with USSR was one of the reasons, why USSR wanted to delay fighting Germany. USSR wanted to avoid being alone against Germany and even feared worse scenario with Germany getting direct support from other capitalist powers.
We seem to be repeating ourselves at this point, but reposting from what ive said in this chain:
Only new things i have to add to this is that looking back from 2026, the conflict between nazi, french, british and american imperialism was inevitable and that MR in no way reduced the chance of western support of the Nazis (e.g. the near declaration of war against the ussr in 1940 described in the previous reply)