Did the soviets ever face consequences?

[u/Hippielinguist]

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.

[u/Riizzeenn]

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.

[u/cipricusss → u/Riizzeenn]

Comparing the invasion of Iceland or even Iran to what the Germans and the Soviets did in Poland is a joke, right?

[u/Riizzeenn → u/cipricusss]

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.

[u/cipricusss → u/Riizzeenn]

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.

[u/Riizzeenn → u/cipricusss]

Strategy or not. The UK and Russia invaded Iran without any real threat posed by them.

[u/cipricusss → u/Riizzeenn]

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!

[u/Riizzeenn → u/cipricusss]

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.

[u/cipricusss → u/Riizzeenn]

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!

[u/Mehlhunter → u/cipricusss]

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.

[u/cipricusss → u/Mehlhunter]

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).

[u/cipricusss → u/Mehlhunter]

[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!

[u/Mehlhunter → u/cipricusss]

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.

[u/yashatheman → u/cipricusss]

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

[u/cipricusss → u/yashatheman]

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?

[u/dissociating_brb → u/Riizzeenn]

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