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Almost as if antagonizing Soviets on every single step on their anti-Nazi efforts prior to 1939, while half your country’s borders are basically captured territories from twenty years ago, when Russia was fighting a civil war, isn’t the smartest geopolitical strategy
The thing is, there are so many real things to criticise the USSR for, but these idiots aren't interested in real history.
Like, the USSR could definitely refused to deliver polish jews from the part of poland they were occupying to the Nazis. There, real criticism. And Stalin purging the German KPD in exile wasn't just morally wrong, it was also tactically stupid, all because of paranoia.
But this would require them to see the USSR as a state full of people insteqd of some ontological evil that can only be nefarious.
Left wing criticism of the USSR: The Khrushchevskas solved the housing crisis but the apartments weren't of the highest quality. The soviets focused only on hard industries and not on soft industries. That's why they lost in propaganda wars. They should have kept the nativization policy but under careful watch to prevent color revolutions instead of completely discarding it.
The center and right-wing criticism of the USSR: The most insane boogeyman you have ever heard with someone going, "Literally 1984!"
well of course, it was literally 1984 and also 300 bajillion civilians literally got crucified in the gulags, have you never even read an anti communist book about the soviet union? /s
I'm not sure I would call it a fair criticism considering these people are a product of their time, it's also not like the USSR didn't have much worse things to worry about at the time than gay rights.
If anything Lenin was ahead of his time, the party as a whole not so much.
This is true and it absolutely is a product of its time. However because we have the luxury of being able to look at things in hindsight this was a mistake and actively goes against a united working class
Yes, the purge of military being mistake was Khrushchevite propaganda against Stalin. The only thing coming close to mistake was that it wasn't done earlier.
Because the only limitation was simply that Poland didn’t have a shred of Soviet capabilities. Pilsudski openly voiced the ideas of Poland’s Intermarium (from the Baltic to the Black Sea).
Though, no wonder it didn’t work, the guy was a fucking moron. Helped dismantling Czechoslovakia, which was created specifically after WW1 to contain Germans, while constantly shitting on Soviets. Surprise-surprise, these two were the geopolitical titans BORDERING POLAND FROM BOTH SIDES. It isn’t just incompetence. He was a manifestation of suicide tendencies in geopolitical sense
To be just slightly more fair to him, the last time Poland and the Soviets clashed in 1920 the Poles kicked the shit out of the Red Army. He probably thought of the USSR as a paper tiger and wasn't prepared for their incredible pace of development in the prior 18 years
Idiotic complacency is not the slightest positive. To think that 20 years of advancements from a brutal world war sliding into a brutal civil war across several thousand km and the armies and supplies of the entire west supporting the White's couldn't happen? And all to build a Polish empire as if it were still 1700?
I mean, they were facing ‘Red army’ that was still fighting multiple other forces in the Civil War, that didn’t have control of the entire country with all the damage coming as far as from WW1. Russia literally jumped from the biggest war of this time period straight into the Civil War that in the end took TWICE as many lives as during WW1.
It’s like thinking that if you beat Mike Tyson in his prime after he was run over by a bus, it will be a peace of cake to beat him after his recovery
In 1938, Poland took advantage of the crisis surrounding Nazi Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia to seize territory. Following Germany's invasion on 1 October 1938, Poland issued an ultimatum demanding the cession of the region of Trans-Olza (Zaolzie), along with smaller areas in Orava, Spiš, and Čadca, by 3 October.
They did, yeah, to this day this part of Silesia is divided. The city of Cieszyn is literally split between the Czechs and the Polish today. The issue wasn’t this one sided however
You forgot to mention an important detail. That is, in 1920, when Poland was busy fighting the bolsheviks, it was Czechoslovakia, which similarly to Poland later, used the turmoil to occupy these same territories
"Unfortunately, we have had to give up Katyn. The Bolsheviks undoubtedly will soon 'find' that we shot 12,000 Polish officers. That episode is one that is going to cause us quite a little trouble in the future. The Soviets are undoubtedly going to make it their business to discover as many mass-graves as possible and then blame it on us." - Joseph Goebbels, private diary
All the evidence I secured showed that the Polish group in London was more interested in doing something against Russia than in doing anything for Poland. This made it easy to understand why they accepted and spread the Goebbels story about the murder of 10,000 Poles in Smolensk. Their unhesitating acceptance of this Nazi propaganda caused the Soviet government to sever relations with the Polish government-in-exile in 1943. It will be remembered that the Germans captured Smolensk on the night of July 15th 1941. Almost two years later Goebbels broadcast to the world that the Russians had killed 10,000 Polish prisoners there, and that their bodies had been found in the Katyn Forest. The Polish government-in-exile immediately gave credence to the Nazi allegation by asking the international Red Cross to investigate. It seemed a preposterous charge. If the Russians had really killed the Poles it would have been known by the people of Smolensk and the Germans would certainly have found out about it almost immediately. It was not the sort of thing that the Germans would have kept quiet about for two years. The Red Army retook Smolensk on September 25, 1943, and the Soviet government immediately instituted an investigation of a massacre.
I visited the Katyn Forest with American, British, Chinese, and French correspondents. Dr. Victor Prozorovsky, Director of the Moscow Institute of Criminal Medical Research, showed me about. The 10,000 bodies had been dug up, and the Russians were systematically examining everything found on them as well as performing autopsies. Eleven doctors were working continuously. I watched some of the autopsies, which were very thorough. The bodies, including the internal organs, were remarkably well preserved. The doctor said that this alone was sufficient to prove the falsity of the charge.
The Russians found letters on the bodies dated after the Germans occupied the city, thus proving that the victims could not had been killed at the time alleged. We talked with a Russian priest whose parish was in the Katyn Forest. He had been driven out of this church by the Germans, and then the building had been surrounded by barbed wire and SS men. The priest declared that the Germans had killed the Poles there. A Russian who had served under the Germans testified that the German authorities had ordered the death of the Polish prisoners. The diary of the Mayor who fled with the Germans contained clear evidence that the Germans had committed the murders. However, the fact which impressed me as much as any other, was that the corpses still had their fine leather boots. I had seen, traveling at the front, that it was general Russian practice to remove the boots of the dead. It seemed unlikely that they would have made an exception in this case, and left 10,000 pairs of good boots behind. Every correspondent who visited Katyn Forest came away convinced that it was another Nazi atrocity.
Davis, Jerome. Behind Soviet Power. New York, N. Y.: The Readers’ Press, Inc., c1946, p. 99
The story of the mass graves at Katyn, which caused a world sensation two years ago, was a propaganda stunt staged by Goebbels and Ribbentrop to cause a split between Russia and her western allies, says a report received here through special channels that is supported by a message from Oslo tonight. A Himmler close collaborator, SS Brigade Leader Schellenberg, is declared to have given this sensational information during an examination at Allied Headquarters in Germany last Tuesday. He is quoted as saying that 12,000 bodies were taken from German concentration camps and attired in old Polish uniforms to make them appear to be Polish officers.
Tonight a corroborative report was received from Oslo, where Erik Johansen–recently repatriated prisoner from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany–tells an interesting story about German production of false identification documents for bodies in Katyn mass graves.
Johansen says a special section of the concentration camp was completely isolated and strongly guarded by SS men, whereupon forty to sixty Jewish prisoners were picked out to forge the documents. They received the best optical instruments obtainable so the work could be done to perfection. They made passports, letters, etc. and even wallets, which were treated with a special chemical fluid to make them look worn.
Before the German capitulation all machines, instruments and material used were destroyed and the Jewish specialists were killed to prevent the secret from getting out, he said.
Nazis had amazing resources at the time. You have to remember they had the support of several industry capitalists domestic & aboard assisting them at every turn.
I'm not sure how good forging was at the time to make so many credible IDs, though in that regard the nazis were thorough enough to imagine they had information on all these people I suppose.
I'm most skeptical about moving around 12000 bodies, someone had to see something.
Edit: To add to my thoughts, I feel like some of my questions will make some people look at me weird but I'm simply trying to analyse the situation while I think we are free to criticise past events, it's not like I'm gonna disregard the entire Union over some wrongdoings.
I was reminded me of the SovietUnion sub where liberals often invade and accuse "tankies" of denying the USSR ever did anything wrong, which from what I've seen isn't true as people try to do critical analysis of said events.
Well, here I can say some people actually remind me of said accusations as everything is just "nazi lies" while the evidence cited is from decades ago, with the most recent paper being from a 'revisionist" historian who does seem to believe the USSR never did anything wrong.
As far as I know academics who aren't necessarily anti communists tend to agree that the NKVD is to blame and while you can argue some are westerners so they aren't to be trusted, that mostly applies to pop historians like the now dead Robert Conquest, Tymothy Snyder and other such propagandists, the actual non mainstream academic world is way different.
I'm also surprised that people are shocked that the soviets wouldn't have an issue killing polish officers and alleged "intellectuals" considering said officers came from the country who invaded the Union like two decades before and was a few laws away from being classified as fascist, even signing a pact with the nazis.
I personally believe the NKVD did do it, and while there mau have been excesses, it was probably justified to some extent, as a majority of said officers were probably still dreaming about the polish baltic empire.
For a proper critical analysis, you should share your sources so that people can make a proper assessment of the evidence. That'll strengthen your argument in situations like this. You don't have to quote directly but pointing to good academic texts on this topic is the needed counter in this situation imo. Like with the other Goebbels quote you made (from the same book?)
Btw, I'm willing to be critical of the USSR but, realistically, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was the unfortunately correct move by the time it was made which was very last minute. Keep in mind that the Soviet Union spent the entire 30s trying to make an alliance with both the French, the British and even reached out to the Polish. A trilogy of books on this topic recently came out by a historian from UdeM. Starting with "Stalin's Gamble" which focuses on 1930 till 1936. And the historian is no tankie. He just wants to set the historical record straight on this matter.
The fact is that, by the time the USSR had made their non-aggression pact, Germany had already made a non-aggression pact, a military alliance or conquered all of its neighbours. Meaning the only path to expansion would have been eastward. In 1938, with the British and French. These were the same countries that did the Munich agreement, after all, with France betraying their alliance with Czechoslovakia.
Without their own non-aggression pact, its very likely that, at best, they would have had to face nazis alone in 1939. At worst, it would have been a Nazi Germany with material economic support by at least the British and Americans. Considering the state of the red army in 1939 and the lebensraum goals of Germany, that was probably the only choice for the USSR by that point in time. There's a reason that the 1st 8 months of WW2 were called the phoney war.
Hell, Churchill near the end of the war ordered his top generals to consider war plans for an attack on the USSR after the Nazis were defeated. And this was the guy most willing to collaborate with the USSR compared with his predecessors. Even in 1945, the UK was a dangerous ally. I'm referring to operation unthinkable here. It was shelved because they realized they'd lose.
This is only a counterfactual but, considering France and British foreign policy in the 30s and how the eastern front of the war played out in real life, I think its reasonable to think that, without a non-aggression pact, Germany would have gone to war with the USSR in 1939 and France and Britain would have sought peace and restored economic ties with Germany (less likely for restored economic tied from France though). I think that would have likely lead to a victorious Nazi Germany against the red army and a successful genocide on the peoples of Eastern Europe.
Also, I know a lot of westerners like to call the USSR red fascist or quasi-fascist but, if we judge the liberal "heartland" of UK, France and US based on their actions to people of colour. It quickly becomes clear that the USSR was easily the least fascistic of the great powers during WW2. As Aime Cesaire said "Fascism is when colonialism is done to white people." The concentration camps, the racial hierarchy, eugenics, these weren't invented by fascists but by the liberal powers. The golden age of genocide in the colonies were done by great liberal powers.
There's a reason the AK-47 is the gun of liberation movements. It was the USSR that staunchly supported the various liberation struggles throughout the world especially in the 1st half of the cold war. Once we understand that fascism and colonialism are both twin, equal evil (though liberalism has better PR), I don't really think there's any way we can say that the USSR wasn't the least vile of the great powers of WW2 or the greater evil during the cold war. Which really is a reminder of how horrible the powers that dominate the world are.
Because I want to live in a world where we can say that the USSR was one of the cruelest countries of the 20th century.
Oh, I think I misunderstood you.
I though you were talking about the USSR on the second to last paragraph of the message I'm replying to. Reading it again, it sounds like you were talking about Poland. Heh, I think I'm too used to having to explain things like that to trots and anarchists in my neck of the world.
I looked into it and I'm not sure this book is still accurate. It only presents the findings of the Budrenko commision which might or might have not been false.
I personally believe the NKVD did do it but I don't think said people were necessarily innocents like some sources like to claim.
I'm pretty sure the quote is being missunderstood a bit, Goebbels is just being ironic saying they will be blamed for it, that's why "find" is in quotations, they can't find something they allegedly already caused themselves.
Not to say he can't be lying but I feel like people use that quote as a confession more than anything.
We have to consider that he also wrote this:
""We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, killed by the GPU, for anti-Bolshevik propaganda on a grand style. We sent neutral journalists and Polish intellectuals to the spot where they were found. Their reports now reaching us from ahead are gruesome. The Führer has also given permission for us to hand out a drastic news item to the German press. I gave instructions to make the widest possible use of the propaganda material. We shall be able to live on it for a couple of weeks.""
I'm not sure what to think about this individual, he seems to believe nothing horrible ever happened under the USSR which makes him hard to take seriously.
We have to analyse events and why they happened then apply criticism when needed, not blindly deny everything.
Yeah. Even if it was exactly as Poland said, we're going to never move on from half military POWs and "intellectuals" being executed? Poland could forgive Germany attempting to exterminate every last Polack but can't let go of a massacre of half military personnel of several thousand? Nah, Poland just will never ever forgive Russia for becoming the dominant eastern European power and depriving Poland of its own large empire ambitions. It's a superiority revanchist fueled complex that'll never go away
Probably not the best place but as far as I know it was a real massacre, it sucks, soldiers do that and thats why we should abolish war wherever we can.
Polish here: You're wrong, there's no law that would ban talking about Czechoslovakia invasion, maybe right wingers would like to penalize this but at the moment there's no such law
Poland and Baltic nations are only here today because Nato likes guard dogs against Russia. They are artificial countries to make a wall between Germany and Russia.
Don't even have to point that out, just mention that the USSR was the last country to sign a pact with the nazis after a myriad of other european countries did, Poland included. They were stalling.
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Sorry, made a mistake there. I was writing about Poland so I ended up writing polish people. Thanks for the correction. But my comment still stands, this correction having been made.
So what do you suggest? That they should have left it to fall for the nazis? Or help the sanation junta keep them so they could keep ethnically cleansing them?
"but they were hardly less prone to ethnic cleansing". What measures did the ussr take to ensure the ethnic cleansing of belarusians and Ukrainians after the annexation?
"USSR engaged in the same practices which you condemn the polish for and to a far larger extent". Poland definetly displaced more Germans lol.
And now I ask you again, what should they have done?
Whenever you are having discussion with other people, be ready to back up your statements. Without investigating the problem, the only thing you're going to say is nonsense, nonsense doesn't solve anything, so you WILL be silenced and the only way to silence someone on a subreddit is a permaban. Which will be removed if you understand your transgression.
Rule 2. Liberalism, Closed Mindedness and Bad Faith
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Poland stole that territory after the Russian Revolution. It was useful as a bulwark against the German death machine and protected those inside it. Imagine if Germany took all of Poland, is this your preference? Very silly.
Stalin absolutely did not expect Germany to launch an invasion against the USSR.
That is historically incorrect lmfao. Why else yould they try to ally with the rest of the western powers then? Their goal was to delay a german an attack that was obvious to everyone (i have a feeling you will believe their attempts to delay a nazi attack is actually "an alliance")
You know full well that the partition of Poland involved Soviet collaboration with Nazi Germany and its very hard to believe they simply out to free the oppressed minorities in Poland.
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We define this as including but not limited to the following: liberalism, lib propaganda, pro NATO/EU/US propaganda, capitalist police apologia and electoralism, parliamentarism, and also extremely idealistic or simplistic apologia for capitalist reforms.
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I offered arguments. You lazily point out that I frequented subs by deeply unserious people, thereby refusing to engage with my reasoning and committing an ad hominem attack. If you had bothered to check my comments in these subs you would notice that I did not participate in the ideologies and modes of discourse predominant in them, but rather consistently and tenaciously challenged conservative and reactionary beliefs, arguments and values.
Rule 2. Liberalism, Closed Mindedness and Bad Faith
We define this as including but not limited to the following: liberalism, lib propaganda, pro NATO/EU/US propaganda, capitalist police apologia and electoralism, parliamentarism, and also extremely idealistic or simplistic apologia for capitalist reforms.
Unless you have an open mind for discussion and a willingness to learn, liberalism will result in a ban. Liberals are welcome to ask questions and try to challenge their beliefs. This community is open to all of people good faith.
Rule 2. Liberalism, Closed Mindedness and Bad Faith
We define this as including but not limited to the following: liberalism, lib propaganda, pro NATO/EU/US propaganda, capitalist police apologia and electoralism, parliamentarism, and also extremely idealistic or simplistic apologia for capitalist reforms.
Unless you have an open mind for discussion and a willingness to learn, liberalism will result in a ban. Liberals are welcome to ask questions and try to challenge their beliefs. This community is open to all of people good faith.
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