this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
135 points (96.6% liked)
HistoryPorn
4823 readers
347 users here now
If you would like to become a mod in this community, kindly PM the mod.
Relive the Past in Jaw-Dropping Detail!
HistoryPorn is for photographs (or, if it can be found, film) of the past, recent or distant! Give us a little snapshot of history!
Rules
- Be respectful and inclusive.
- No harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
- Engage in constructive discussions.
- Share relevant content.
- Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.
- Use appropriate language and tone.
- Report violations.
- Foster a continuous learning environment.
- No genocide or atrocity denialism.
Pictures of old artifacts and museum pieces should go to History Artifacts
Illustrations and paintings should go to History Drawings
Related Communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Very important photo historically, people tend to forget Soviets were also the bad guys in the WW2
Putin gets very annoyed when people remember the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, that’s for sure
For more context: Before the pact w Nazi Germany, Stalin asked Churchill how many divisions he could put up for the defense of Poland. Stalin offered 15 and Churchill said he could only put up 2. A division is about 15k troops iirc. So Stalin was rightfully disappointed. Britain was very unprepared. Soviet Union also wasn’t prepared yet for full war with Germany. It should also be added that Stalin also hated Jews, and was absolutely a murderous psychopath
I think it's more accurate is to say that they were on the good side (allies), but they had their own imperialistic interests. Well, and also committed a lot of war crimes.
So yeah, they were the bad guys, just on the other side.
They literally signed a public pact with the Nazis and a secret pact to split Europe up, before the Nazis invaded them. They had a common enemy in the "West" and plenty of European lands (Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Finland, Lithuania) to split in between.
Stalin got greedy though and decided to invade a part of the then Romania outside the sphere of influence that had been agreed in the secret pact. It's not clear if the Nazis would have launched Barbarossa anyway, but Stalin claiming lands beyond their agreement in their eastern flank didn't help.
They were hardly "good guys", invading sovereign lands and imposing terror, they just had to fight against the Nazis when it turned out the Nazis invaded them before they finished fighting the West.
Polish here. They were baddies as much as Germany. Full stop.