Wow, you are trying so hard to whitewash the history of the USSR so you can portray Russia as "the poor, misunderstood saviors of humanity".
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- Thread starter Silvanus
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Ah so Russia didn’t slaughter thousands of their own citizens, colluded with Hitler end tyranized Eastern Europe for decades because it’s a backwards hellhole, but instead in opposition to “Western imperialism?”
Just to point out but that Kremlin behaved completely psychotic to neighbors and their own citizens alike long before the US became a world power.
maybe compare the countries liberated by the “evil west” compared to the ones subjugated and butchered by the Russians after WW2 before taking an “America bad” stance on Russia.
Er, what definition of world power are you going with? Because the US was, by many definitions, a world power before the USSR was formed.
Well, the partitioning of Poland in 1772 was even before the United States even existed as its own nation. And that little piece of Great Power Politics isn't even the oldest act of imperialism from Russia.
Ah, if you are talking about Tzarist Russia, then fair enough, though there's little continuity as such between the government then and the USSR.
personally I think in regards to foreign policy there is a direct continuation between the Tsars, the Soviets and the current robber barons. All three incarnations violently expand into Eastern Europe. They themselves seem to think so too because they keep using their previous crimes as justification why they ought to own those regions. Misrule over conquered subjects and Russia alike is also a constant factor in all three Russias.
and while I suppose the US was a great power during WW1 they were not THE great power yet, and as mentioned the partition of Poland predates even the US itself.
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In that sense, yes, though only really the current incarnation (and scale of the Soviet era policies) are unusual for the periods. Perhaps misrule over their own people, instead of just the ones they conquer as well.
Not trying to defend or diminish them, though.
I'm inclined to agree. You can change the people at the top, but a lot of the ideas baked deep into the nation/government continue anyway. The Communists inherited a state with a certain way of doing things, and perhaps unsurprisingly decided to continue a lot of those ways of doing things. The rebels take over and let the old regime's political enemies out of the gulags, and then a couple of years later start piling their own political enemies into gulags.
Russia Empire was an imperial nation, where ethnic Russians dominated the other races/cultures of their empire, stole lands from its neighbours and expected its voice to be heard hundreds of miles from its borders. The Soviet Union wasn't really any different. It's just a lot of the lingo of empire became unpalatable, so it invaded, stole territory and repressed and controlled under the language of defending itself and protecting them from capitalism.
In a sense, Putin offers the clarity of this. A product of and believer in the Soviet Union, who has explicitly drawn this sort of connection between the Russian Empire, USSR, and now Russia as the modern inheritor.
By September 17, the Polish military has taken massive losses but it was still fighting. Numerous strongpoints were still holding on, units from the Soviet border were moved west and the Polish government took residence in east near the Romanian border. The Germans were severely bloodied and their logistics were stretched. The Polish army could have established new defensive lines along the rivers in the east and fought on for at least another month. This would have tied up the German army and could have prompted France into a proper invasion of Germany. Even after the Soviet invasion, many units fought on well into October and Polish government and thousands of soldiers were able to retreat southeast toward the Romanian border where they were interned after crossing.
You sound like one of those guys who sees a hit-and-run and decides that they are morally justified in stealing the victim's wallet.
that is extremely optimistic. Anyway, I'm sure Poland's territorial gains as a result of the Munich agreement were worth it.
If you wanted to defend the USSR taking bits of Poland, you could have gone with the "But mum, everyone was doing it", as colonial Imperialism was still the fashion of the time (though less so then in previous years). Somewhat of a weak defence on moral grounds, but better than the Munich agreement.
The Soviet Union offered to defend Czechoslovakia from Germany (actually was under treaty obligation to do so much like France) with a substantial number of troops. Poland and Romania denied them transit; Poland and Hungary participated in pressuring Czechoslovakia to give up the Sudetenland by deploying their armies alongside Hitler's. Czechoslovakia then ceded territory to Germany, Hungary, and Poland while under threat of military attack by each of them. By the standards employed in this thread, Poland "allied with Hitler". And yet for some reason this is of no importance or consequence or note whatsoever-- to say nothing of Finland which literally did unambiguously ally with Hitler. It is almost as if "the Soviet Union allied with Hitler" is just a stupid anti-communist propaganda line that isn't really meant to hold up to scrutiny, instead being more of a symbolic belief for liberals that like to huff their own farts.
in 1938, that's exactly what Poland and Hungary did: ally with Hitler to seize territory.
Yet of course, the actions of the USSR towards Poland go way beyond anything Poland and Hungary did in 1938. Not merely building up forces on the border, but actually invading, with a treaty promising territory and assistance to Nazi Germany. And updating that treaty with additional territorial promises and practical aid to the Nazis into 1941. Providing the Nazis with over half their imports and heaps of war material. Offering to join the fucking Axis.
And to counter this, you have a counterfactual scenario in which the USSR comes to Czechoslovakia's aid. OK, but it didn't happen, and they pivoted towards the Nazis to realise their territorial ambitions. That's the scenario that actually played out-- with heaps of Soviet assistance to the Nazis, fuelling their war machine for years.
By reasonable sane standards, those that practically assist the Nazis with their territorial seizures are "allied with Hitler" as long as that assistance lasts and until they stand against them. Uhrm, yes, that's uncontroversial. Poland and Hungary allied with Hitler briefly in 1938; the USSR allied with Hitler for fucking ages against numerous Eastern European targets and aided them against the allies until 1941.
Whereas by your standard, the USA isn't allied with Israel.
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or it’s not about communists and liberals but the Russian state being a consistent existential danger, consistently barbaric and war mongering, and that there is no moral low, not even allying with the Nazi’s that Russia is unwilling to stoop to in order to satisfy their land hunger and bloodthirst
its simply beyond any doubt that Russia colluded with the Nazi’s to start the war, and that after the war they kept all their neighbors occupied and brutalized for decades.
It's not remotely complicated that Germany wanted to keep the USSR sweet so it could keep it's rear safe whilst it dealt with France (+ UK if necessary), and the USSR wanted Germany sweet because it was years behind on rebuilding its military and wanted to buy time to get up to strength.
They carved up everything between them with the expectation they would be at war with each other in a few years anyway.
Remembering here that the Soviet Union not only got half of Poland, but the Baltic States and a significant chunk of Romania, too. (The legacy of that remains in the form of Moldova and the breakaway state of Transnistria.)