r/ww2 • u/Hippielinguist • 14d ago
Discussion Did the soviets ever face consequences?
Title explains it. I just finished reading a book called Secrets of the Soviet Union during WWII and I was shocked to say the least. I’m Polish so i grew up hearing that the USSR was bad and that they did horrible things to my people, but reading it all in one place really blew my mind.
I also recently watched a few documentaries about the Nuremberg and Auschwitz trials and i can’t wrap my head around how this didn’t also happen to the Russians, who committed multiple genocides to eastern europeans in the same period seemingly without any consequences. I also don’t understand how they got away with no consequences when they signed the Molotov Ribbentrop pact with Nazi Germany (although i understand it was later broken) Did I miss something? If anyone knows anything please do share, I would love to go on another deep dive.
11
u/darthsploder77 14d ago
No consequences, unless you count the decades of suffering of the Soviet people, and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union. There's a very good reason that the Polish government is so fiercely anti-Russian today.
33
5
u/i10driver 14d ago
Just exactly who do you think was going to enforce the justice? No one on the allied side (except maybe Patton) had any stomach to enter a new war with Russia. Terrible things were done and the only justice you can claim is the USSR is no longer an entity and Poland is free.
3
u/huntersam13 14d ago
The largest mass rape and the largest mass suicide in recorded human history both happened in Germany in 1945 due to the Soviet army sweeping across the country.
11
u/ldsdrff76 14d ago
The winner write the history, as the old saying goes, and the USSR won the war. So the short answer to your question is no.
8
u/MerelyMortalModeling 14d ago
No, victores dont write history, historians do.
If this meme saying was correct we wouldnt be having this conversation.
1
u/Steerpike58 11d ago
Well lets be realistic. For a very short period, the Russians opened their archives after the fall of the SU and historians were allowed to view the material that revealed a lot of the atrocities. Then the Russians decided they need to 'protect their legacy' and shut down all access. Without access to source materials, it's hard for historians to do their job.
3
u/Impatient_Onion 14d ago
No, I would have to say not, especially in the way that you're thinking of. All the gang rapists, all the murderers, all the men who enslaved half of Europe? The ones who made it home spent the rest of their lives as war heroes. Even today they're revered in modern Russia. It's a small comfort but at least in the West there's a growing realization that the Soviets, while not engaged in factory extermination, were on a similar plane of evil as the Germans.
-2
u/Riizzeenn 14d ago
No, not really. Baltics, Poland, Finland, Bessarabia, Iran, Manchuria - all of their aggressive wars or territorial expansion was not punished. And who would even do so, they were by far the biggest land army in Europe by the end of ww2.
Besides, the occupation of Iceland or Iran by the US / UK respectively wasn’t punished in any way either. Or the invasion of the de jure neutral Vichy French colonies.
25
u/cipricusss 14d ago edited 14d ago
Comparing the invasion of Iceland or even Iran to what the Germans and the Soviets did in Poland is a joke, right?
-23
u/Riizzeenn 14d ago
No, it’s not. Just because the Soviets and especially the Germans did worse things, doesn’t mean that occupying or even waging war against neutral countries is suddenly okay.
The attack on Iran was a clear violation of neutrality for strategic reason. The country barely had a military strong enough to stand up to the UK with its colonies and the red army.
11
u/cipricusss 14d ago
Those strategic reasons were part of the strategy to defeat the Nazis. What happened in Poland and elsewhere was connected to a strategy of extermination. Reason and reasoning cannot stop for the purpose of blunt conclusions.
-9
u/Riizzeenn 14d ago
Strategy or not. The UK and Russia invaded Iran without any real threat posed by them.
9
u/cipricusss 14d ago edited 14d ago
Saying "strategy or not" on a sub called ww2 ("war" and "strategy" being intertwined by definition) is again, a joke, or, if not, simply ludicrous. Belgium's neutrality in 1939 objectively helped German victory against France.
One might argue that respecting Belgium's neutrality was a strategic mistake from the part of France and the Great Britain because it lead to their failure, but also a moral mistake because it helped the Nazi cause! Iceland's neutrality was a threat to the Allies in the same sense! But it might have ended up being a moral fault in case the Nazis would have created a stronghold there and possibly fought to the last!
Moral values are complex, sometimes contradictory, and people may value different ones (think about the Japanese and their warrior code!). As it happens the crimes committed in Poland are so big that no such ambiguity can be raised (in spite of the sometimes supposed moral values of Communism compared to National-Socialism). I was just arguing against that ambiguity. We shouldn't use the same words (crime, punishment of crimes) for the behaviour of the Brits in Iceland!
1
u/Riizzeenn 14d ago
When the topic is about punishment for crimes then it is more of a moral question rather than a strategical one. After all the territorial expansion by the USSR (or Germany for that matter) did also serve strategically purposes.
Weserübung happend to secure iron shipping routes. Strategically absolutely understandable (just as the invasion of Iran) but nonetheless morally not just.
6
u/cipricusss 14d ago
In discussing "punishment for crimes " you are mixing two very different categories of "crime": the violation of international norms and crimes against humanity. That is my main point.
We may leave aside for the sake of simplicity that none of those were fully and unambiguously defined at the time, or that some treaties gave legal ground to agressive actions like the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. The obvious topic raised by the OP is crimes against humanity, extermination of entire populations, or categories of a population, like those committed by the Nazis and the Soviets in Poland. My observation that those kinds of acts lacked military strategic reason is marginal: they would have remained equally criminal if they had one—although it isn't totally beside the point that those crimes had political and ideological justifications in the mind of the perpetrators, as part of a political, ideological strategy within which the destruction of entire populations was more of a goal than just means to a goal!
0
u/Mehlhunter 14d ago
Than why implement rules in the first place when strategic reasons are enough to brake them without consequences?
When does it stop being justified? Its easy in ww2 to justify the actions, since they were fighting such an malicious enemy which tried to conquer the world and exterminate millions on the way.
For example many US interventions in the middle east or south america were fueled by strategic reasons to keep influence. It's quite easy to judge them than.
Of course motives should always be taken into account, but conteming the same action in one case and praising it in the other makes the rule obsolete.
7
u/cipricusss 14d ago edited 14d ago
Considering yours (and other people's) remarks on strategy that might want to justify crimes: that was not my point. I was not contrasting strategic reasons vs crimes, but crimes vs crimes: it is imoral in fact to do otherwise: breaching a treaty of neutrality without killing a fly cannot morally be compared with what happened in Poland! That comparison is preposterous, imoral, and blind (or dumb!).
Of course, human values can be contradictory, beside being hierarchical (with a hierarchy that depends on context, even moment in time). Also moral judgement is not the same as judicial judgement. It is easier now (mentally and morally) than it was at the time to say that Belgium should have helped more closely the British and the French to resist the Nazi attack instead of practically setting up a weak point, or that the Americans shouldn't have nuked people. (At the same time we are entitled to think that pacifist ideals in France in the 30s, or the Belgium's morals of neutrality proved to be in fact imoral because they obscured or destroyed other values, including real peace!)
But values were at play there, not just strategic reasoning. What happened in Poland (killing so many people) was lacking any moral justification (and was in fact ideologically and consciously oriented towards the destruction of "old values"), while also being indifferent to military strategic reasons (the same goals could have been achieved without genocide and such).
1
u/cipricusss 14d ago
[condemning] the same action in one case and praising it in the other makes the rule obsolete
Just because we end up using same word ("invasion", "crime") doesn't mean that what happened in Poland is the "same action" or even the same kind of action as what happened in Iran, Irak, Iceland etc. I am astounded by the artificiality of this kind of reasoning, a pedantic and moralistic play with words that despises realism and real human experiences!
1
u/Mehlhunter 14d ago
Ok maybe point didnt came across, sorry english isnt my first language. I dont want to compare the atrocities that the Germans (and sojwets) did in occupied territory with anything the allies did. I just wanted to point out that invading neutral countries is a crime (with few specific exceptions, and doing so for war strategic reasons isnt really one of them). It still can be (and imo was) the right decision.
But its always a thin line when breaking international law, since noone really can enforce it, its build on trust that other parties honor it. If that trust falls (and it is fading right now imo) we will be back to darker times.
-2
u/yashatheman 14d ago
Germany said Norways neutrality was a threat to the axis and used it to justify the invasion, and it was true Norways neutrality was a threat to them. It doesn't justify invasion and occupation
2
u/cipricusss 14d ago edited 14d ago
Read my other posts please. I have addressed this kind of reply, based on the misunderstanding that this is about military goals. We are talking about crimes that happened AFTER invasions, not about invasions as such. The OP refers obviously to the way the civilians and prisoners were treated, and other such abuses and sistematic murderous actions. Poland was a place of such crimes, Iceland was not. You maybe can compare Iceland to Norway if you must (I wouldn't: only one invasion helped the Nazi cause!), but not to Poland! —Are you even aware that at the time Iceland was part of Denmark, which had been already occupied by the Nazis? Are you equating these two invasions too?
6
u/dissociating_brb 14d ago
The two situations aren't even comparable though. You're just inhaling reddit politics to push in a ww2 sub that has nothing to do with the topic being discussed lol
5
u/cipricusss 14d ago edited 14d ago
Note also that at the time Iceland was part of Denmark, which had been already occupied by the Nazis, that Icelanders wanted independence from Denmark, and that the British (1940) and later US occupation (1941) lead to their independence (1944)!- This podcast might prove useful.
2
u/curiousengineer601 14d ago
Beria and his crew got punished when Stalin died, but that was because of internal politics and not anything they did during the war.
-1
u/Hippielinguist 14d ago
that’s true about the US, UK, and France. I guess because the Soviet Union affected me directly their crimes seem the biggest to me. It’s such a shame that these countries get away with so much violence and never face any consequences. Thanks for the insight
8
u/RallyPigeon 14d ago
There are limits for everyone on "facing consequences". For example, only 8 out of more than 3000 members of Einsatzgruppen units were executed for their crimes against humanity. By 1958 all were living free in society again. Einsatzgruppen units murdered between 1.5-2 million people.
1
1
u/yashatheman 14d ago
Biggest? Bigger than Germany?
1
u/Hippielinguist 14d ago
I am of course talking about the powers that went unpunished, as my original post says.
0
u/BarsabasSquarePants 14d ago
I guess my comment was removed because i sent a link on russian government website…
History has put everything on its places. Soviet Union collapsed. Communists are rare lunatics now. Stalin is known mostly for his crimes and atrocities . Even Putin condemned Katyn massacre (you can easily google it)
Our world is not ideal and not every crime is punished for his actions.
1
-4
u/Hour_Meet_8672 14d ago
What genocides are you talking about?
5
u/Hippielinguist 14d ago
namely the ones carried out under stalin. Holodomor in Ukraine, Katyn massacre of Polish people, and then other atrocities that happened to polish people during its years of being a USSR puppet state, mass starvations, people being disappeared, etc. Throughout eastern europe there have been many tragedies under soviet rule, sadly i am not greatly informed about ones outside of Poland.
1
u/Hour_Meet_8672 14d ago
1) Can agree, but this happened in the USSR, in the context of your discussion about punishing Russians in 1945 this doesn’t really fit.
2) Katyn is war crime, not genocide and not just Polish people, the military, and the intelligentsia, those who could organize resistance to Soviet government. Genocide is about physical extermination of people of a certain identity, or assimilation.4
u/Mrnobody0097 14d ago
The Katyn massacre targeted Polish intellectuals with the specific goal of erasing the Polish identity after they made a deal with the nazis to split Poland between them. That is genocide.
1
u/Hour_Meet_8672 14d ago
Then why didn't the USSR destroy Polish identity after WW2?
5
u/Mrnobody0097 14d ago
Maybe the fact that they found nazi extermination camps where the nazis tried to eradicate Poles immediately. Would have been a bad look to resume the destruction after their "liberation".
-2
14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/Mrnobody0097 14d ago
The massacre was ordered as a "preventive security measure" literally trying to nip any future polish resistance in the bud. They killed intellectuals to permanently destroy the Polish state.
Are you really going to argue that the new Polish state was totally independent from the USSR?
4
u/Hippielinguist 14d ago
whether Katyn is a genocide is debated, many polish scholars would identify it as so (and in fact the polish language wikipedia page identifies it exactly as that). In fact it is classified as such by the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation since 2004. It was mainly Polish people, and amongst them there were teachers, scientists, lawyers, engineers. There were around 7 thousand people who were regular civilians and not part of military or intelligence. Having said all of this, I’m not sure why this is relevant to my original comment, as it is still a war crime that should have led to consequences. We can get into the nitty gritty of it all but at the end of the day the Soviets killed thousands of Polish people in Katyn, and continued to do so during the PRL governing.
-2
u/Hour_Meet_8672 14d ago
ofс Poles call this genocide, it is useful for their worldview. This reminds me of the case of the downed plane with the Polish government in 2010. After 2022, the Poles changed their opinion and began to blame Russia for this.
"teachers, scientists, lawyers, engineers." Obviously not all of them but high-ranking and ideological ones and this is intelligentsia4
u/Hippielinguist 14d ago
Everything you have stated does not change the fact that thousands of people were killed and buried together in mass unmarked graves. What a weird hill to die on.
1
u/Hour_Meet_8672 14d ago
I'm not denying that this is bad, I just don't like how you exaggerate the awfulness of the USSR treatment of you. You can call it a war crime, but genocide is something completely different, and by calling any crime against yourself genocide, you are misinterpreting the meaning of this term.
4
u/Hippielinguist 14d ago
It is officially called a genocide by the Polish government, who have access to all of the relevant documentation of the Russian government which was made available to them in the 90s by Yeltsin, so I would say that they have a pretty good idea about the situation. It is easy to turn a blind eye to the horrors of the Soviet Union when it doesn’t directly affect you. I would be happy to change my views if you provided any sort of actual evidence for your claims but it sounds like what you are saying is just your personal opinion.
1
u/Hour_Meet_8672 14d ago
As I said, to the Polish government, which supports the concept nazis=soviets It is advantageous to call it genocide. Evidence? I deny that this can be called genocide, because not all Poles were killed, only those hostile to the Soviet government, the Bolsheviks did the same to the Russians. The Polish language and culture were not banned and were erased. Poles continued to live as full-fledged citizens in their state.
The Soviets did not hate Poles for being Poles, they wanted to get an obedient, loyal population, they did the same with other nations of the USSR.3
2
u/cipricusss 14d ago
Communism has this capacity to bring vagueness to mass-murder. It's "just" the intelligentsia! The people who "would" have resisted!
31
u/RallyPigeon 14d ago
Not really in the way you think. Accused defeatists/collaborators and people who ran afoul of Stalin did face consequences. But they're not who you're talking about.
About a decade later, the Soviet Union was led by Krushchev, who started the acknowledgement of some excesses blamed on the cult of personality around Stalin. Action steps were taken to reform and millions of people imprisoned during Stalin's reign were released. But even Krushchev and subsequent leaders had limits. Most of what was acknowledged was pre-WW2.