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Main Paineframe posted:Every country is spying on every other country they're capable of spying on, whether they're ally or enemy. It is absolutely 100% certain that the US and UK were trying to spy on the USSR long before the end of WWII. We (the public) don't necessarily know how successful those efforts were, but there is no way at all the West wasn't at least attempting it. However, with an active war going on, I'm sure we focused on today's enemy before tomorrow's enemy, and I can't imagine any halfassed spying attempts got much traction in the Stalinist USSR where secret police were basically everywhere and people were getting sent to prison camps over the slightest irregularity or accusation. The West certainly tried to spy on the USSR but the Soviets always had an edge when it came to human intelligence. Part of that was because during World War II a lot of Westerners were relatively sympathetic to the USSR and held mixed feelings about capitalism thanks to the Great Depression and the War. That meant there were plenty of potentially disaffected people who were potential Soviet recruits. As time passed and the atrocities occuring within the USSR became more widely discussed, and as the Western economies started to perform much better, this pool of potential recruits shrank and the Soviets increasingly had to rely on people with gambling problems or other personal issues rather than idealistically motivated spies, so gradually the Soviet edge in human intelligence faded. The US, however, has always been best at 'signals' intelligence, i.e. intercepting and decoding transmissions or analysing patterns of communication. Their record at human intelligence is pathetic compared to the Soviets.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:37
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Helsing posted:Finland isn't a representative example though. It seems to me that it is closer to Yugoslavia than it is to the other countries we are discussing here, because the Finnish army played a large role in expelling German soldiers from Finnish territory during the Lapland War. Austria isn't a great example either since the Soviet grip wasn't tightened there until after Stalin's death. While Finland was defeated by the Soviet Union but it wasn't quite conquered the way that Poland was. Finland was in an extremely poor position at the time, and had to accept a lot of restrictions through out the Cold War period to maintain its independence. In addition, it had to completely demobilize its army (unlike Yugoslavia which didn't acquiesce an inch). Finland wasn't occupied, by it very could have and the Finns were smart to negotiate their way out of what could have been a bad situation. The Finnish army that fought the Nazis after 1944 was made of almost entirely new recruits, most of them teenagers. Poland was more or less a done deal either way, and the more you study Russian/Polish history you realize how long and bitter those feelings go.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:41
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euphronius posted:Well there was Lee Harvey Oswald for one. He was a spy? I always thought he was (temporary) defector.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:41
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Farecoal posted:He was a spy? I always thought he was (temporary) defector. I think that was the joke.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:44
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euphronius posted:WJB was mentioned earlier. I thought it would be a good time to post the Philippic by HL Mencken of WJB during the Scopes trial. This part comes right after a pro-science witness testifies. On the other hand, Mencken is SilentD's spiritual grandfather with his unabashed hatred of rural whites and WJB, evolution aside, was a breed of religious populist that it would honestly be a breath of fresh air to see today, so it's hard to enjoy this.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:44
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Nessus posted:Well, there's trust and then there's trust. I don't think the idea that Stalin was spying on all the bourgeois states and the idea that Stalin had a positive regard for Roosevelt compared to (say) Churchill, Truman etc. are mutually incompatible. Of course they're not. We've had generally good relations with western European nations for decades now and it's become very clear that we've also been spying the poo poo out of them through the NSA.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:45
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Ofaloaf posted:I know that there was at least some Soviet espionage within the US and UK during WWII, what with Manhattan Project leaks and so forth-- what wartime American and British spies were there in the USSR during the same period? I assume there's some, because if it was just the USSR spying on the western Allies without any reciprocation that wouldn't lend much to the idea of Stalin being a trusting sort of fellow during WWII. As mentioned above, the United States favored signals intelligence during the Cold War because American agents usually did not go unnoticed in Russia. There are several reasons for this difficulty, principally because the USSR was a closed society with a long history in counterintelligence. High ranking officials in the KGB use to call themselves the "Okhrana" in reference to Tsarist Russia's secret police. It could use tactics that would cause a scandal elsewhere. Meanwhile, the United States' experience with foreign intelligence dates back to to the early 1900s at the most. It did not have a large pool of experience to pull from until the late 20th century. These problems caused the United States to abandon human intelligence in favor of signals and image intelligence. When the United States did get human intelligence, it was almost always from defectors whom the CIA had no previous contact with. Open sources, like newspapers and periodicals, were also not readily available and usually not trusted by American sources. QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 21:13
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Helsing posted:Finland isn't a representative example though. It seems to me that it is closer to Yugoslavia than it is to the other countries we are discussing here, because the Finnish army played a large role in expelling German soldiers from Finnish territory during the Lapland War. Austria isn't a great example either since the Soviet grip wasn't tightened there until after Stalin's death. While Finland was defeated by the Soviet Union but it wasn't quite conquered the way that Poland was. Plus an occupied Finland would of course have antagonized and pushed Sweden squarely into the western fold. Considering Sweden's strategically valuable position, industrial resources and military potential (if allied with the west), occupying Finland would most definitely have been a net loss. Much better, then, to have, instead, two neutral (if pro-western) capitalist states, who pose no significant military or political threat on their own, acting as buffer states.
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Oct 29, 2013 21:36
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Jazerus posted:On the other hand, Mencken is SilentD's spiritual grandfather with his unabashed hatred of rural whites and WJB, evolution aside, was a breed of religious populist that it would honestly be a breath of fresh air to see today, so it's hard to enjoy this. Oh god you connected HL Mencken to SilentD. I don't think Mencken hated all rural whites. Just the dumb ones. Also you are right we have had religious populists before (MLK?) and they are pretty cool.
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Oct 29, 2013 21:42
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Ardennes posted:Finland was in an extremely poor position at the time, and had to accept a lot of restrictions through out the Cold War period to maintain its independence. In addition, it had to completely demobilize its army (unlike Yugoslavia which didn't acquiesce an inch). Finland wasn't occupied, by it very could have and the Finns were smart to negotiate their way out of what could have been a bad situation. Stalin was a cautious man above all else, and he wasn't inclined to invade a country when he didn't have to, especially given what had happened only a few years earlier when the Russians invaded Finland. I do not think its accurate to say Stalin could have "easily" occupied Finland. I think the bottom line here is that the USSR was totally unwilling to accept dissenting governments anywhere that it managed to place soldiers by the war's end. Pointing to edge cases like Finland (which wasn't occupied) or Austria (given independence after Stalin's death) are not a very good way to argue that the countries that actually were occupied by Soviet troops ever had much of a chance of real independence. After all, the USSR didn't just need political compliance, it needed economic compliance as well so that it could compete with the much larger and richer American empire. From a realpolitik perspective it would have been stupid of Stalin to let the Eastern European countries remain neutral. He needed them to help rebuild the USSR following the War. Benito Hitlerstalin posted:Plus an occupied Finland would of course have antagonized and pushed Sweden squarely into the western fold. Considering Sweden's strategically valuable position, industrial resources and military potential (if allied with the west), occupying Finland would most definitely have been a net loss. Much better, then, to have, instead, two neutral (if pro-western) capitalist states, who pose no significant military or political threat on their own, acting as buffer states. Exactly, quite aside from the potential military costs of attacking Finland there would have been huge diplomatic repercussions.
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Oct 29, 2013 21:45
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BrotherAdso posted:This is a fascinating, and huge, topic. Broadly, we can subdivide what you're talking about into: All that is really intriguing to me, but we can go with 2. I've done a little bit more research since I made my first post, and it seems that there's not much evidence that suggests the colonists even had a deep understanding of the Iroquois system of government in the 1780's, so I can see how it's considered unlikely. Does the Iroquois thesis assert some kind of Iroquois "lobbyists" that were actively pushing for their own representation, or just a gradual European trend of adopting some native values over time?
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Oct 29, 2013 21:57
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Main Paineframe posted:Every country is spying on every other country they're capable of spying on, whether they're ally or enemy. It is absolutely 100% certain that the US and UK were trying to spy on the USSR long before the end of WWII. We (the public) don't necessarily know how successful those efforts were, but there is no way at all the West wasn't at least attempting it. However, with an active war going on, I'm sure we focused on today's enemy before tomorrow's enemy, and I can't imagine any halfassed spying attempts got much traction in the Stalinist USSR where secret police were basically everywhere and people were getting sent to prison camps over the slightest irregularity or accusation. This is actually false, at least for this period. The United States did not have any kind of civilian intelligence agency (at least a permanent one like most countries have/had) until after WWII, and the military intelligence units were far too small and overworked (this is why even though the US military intelligence had cracked the Japanese naval code before WWII, and had received messages that would have pointed to Pearl Harbor, they didn't get around to actually decrypting and interpreting the messages until too late). Top leaders didn't think it was "gentlemanly" to listen to other leaders' messages and actively resisted keeping around the cryptography agency built up during WWI. The British had interest in spying on the Soviets before WWII, but no real way of doing so and very little actual investment or success. We actually know quite a lot about this period, especially in the US case - you can see plenty of documents about the founding and early years of the CIA's predecessor, the CIO, at the National Archives facility in College Park, MD, and the CIA's electronic FOIA page on their website.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:04
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Helsing posted:Stalin was a cautious man above all else, and he wasn't inclined to invade a country when he didn't have to, especially given what had happened only a few years earlier when the Russians invaded Finland. I do not think its accurate to say Stalin could have "easily" occupied Finland. That right there is true only because the US reneged on it's promise to pay for the rebuilding of Russia after the war. Because of that Russia literally had no choice but to dominate those countries because as you said Russia was flat broke and it's production base was in ruins after the war. Had Truman not bent to the will of the conservative wing of the democratic party and Churchill but instead followed through with the promises made to Stalin by Roosevelt it's very likely that Stalin and Molotov don't get pissed and defacto annex the eastern block around 48 but instead allow the free elections that originally occurred after the war to stand. Now because of Truman's nature things played out exactly the way it did in the history books, but Wallace wasn't Truman by any means and it could even be argued that he was more liberal and more willing to take an conciliatory tone with Russia than even Roosevelt did during the war, so not only do you have Wallace not bowing to the will of the conservative wing of his party but also acting as a neutral party between Russia and England instead of international politics being US+England vs. Russia which means the cold war would have played out completely different than it did.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:05
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Helsing posted:Exactly, quite aside from the potential military costs of attacking Finland there would have been huge diplomatic repercussions. I don't think an invasion would have seen the loses taken in the winter war simply because garbage tier general Voroshilov wouldn't be planning it but this is a discussion for the mil history thread.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:05
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Helsing posted:Stalin was a cautious man above all else, and he wasn't inclined to invade a country when he didn't have to, especially given what had happened only a few years earlier when the Russians invaded Finland. I do not think its accurate to say Stalin could have "easily" occupied Finland. Stalin had soldiers in like a fourth of Norway by area (granted it was the lovely fourth, but still). Left that pretty peacefully.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:07
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Helsing posted:Stalin was a cautious man above all else, and he wasn't inclined to invade a country when he didn't have to, especially given what had happened only a few years earlier when the Russians invaded Finland. I do not think its accurate to say Stalin could have "easily" occupied Finland. There isn't something other than complete independence and neutrality though, there was the possibility of a in between situation where popular front governments would dominate but Soviet rule might have been as authoritarian in exchange for demilitarization of Germany and maybe readjusting some of the demands of the Marshall plan. Those states weren't going to be full democracies, but Stalin's hesitation was purposeful, and he obviously was looking for a opportunity which would benefit the USSR the most, which wasn't to invade the West/dominate humanity but protect the USSR territoriality and thats better served with detente than an adversarial relationship...such as long as Soviet interests dominate in their sphere. As far as Austria, it wasn't give independence after Stalin's death but the occupation remained until he died, which left the door open. West Germany btw declared sovereignty about 5 months before the East did. Finland couldn't had put up much of a fight at that point, thats why they surrender in the first place. Finland doesn't have a giant population and had been fighting 2 wars since 1939, their had sapped their manpower and the Germans didn't have enough troops to support them and the Soviet had vastly improved their armor and assault tactics. Finland gave in because they didn't stand a chance, and it is unlikely there would have been much of an uproar because lets be honest they were allies of the Nazis and had attacked the Soviets. There might have been pressure through back-channels, but if the Soviets wanted to there wasn't anyone to stop them. Yes it was smarter to compromise obviously (which was my point) but that doesn't mean there wasn't opportunity to compromise elsewhere, especially in Germany where the sources strongly suggest Stalin wanted a deal but had to settle with the DDR because he couldn't get one. The countries with the most flexibility otherwise would have been Czechoslovakia and Hungary then Bulgaria and maybe Romania. The Baltic states weren't getting their independence back, and Poland would be dominated by a pro-Soviet government either way. Strategically, holding on to Poland made way too much sense. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 22:07
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A Winner is Jew posted:That right there is true only because the US reneged on it's promise to pay for the rebuilding of Russia after the war. Because of that Russia literally had no choice but to dominate those countries because as you said Russia was flat broke and it's production base was in ruins after the war. Had Truman not bent to the will of the conservative wing of the democratic party and Churchill but instead followed through with the promises made to Stalin by Roosevelt it's very likely that Stalin and Molotov don't get pissed and defacto annex the eastern block around 48 but instead allow the free elections that originally occurred after the war to stand. That is, at best, an extremely questionable set of assertions. They're not disprovable by virtue of being counterfactuals and claims about people's character, but the idea that Stalin would let the East Bloc elect pro-Western democratic governments in 1948 is pretty absurd. He was brutal about crushing all political life in Poland long before the Marshall Plan.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:09
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berzerker posted:That is, at best, an extremely questionable set of assertions. They're not disprovable by virtue of being counterfactuals and claims about people's character, but the idea that Stalin would let the East Bloc elect pro-Western democratic governments in 1948 is pretty absurd. He was brutal about crushing all political life in Poland long before the Marshall Plan. Yeah, he wouldn't accept pro-Western governments but might have accepted Soviet-friendly governments that weren't completely Stalinist. Also Poland is a separate case.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:16
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berzerker posted:That is, at best, an extremely questionable set of assertions. They're not disprovable by virtue of being counterfactuals and claims about people's character, but the idea that Stalin would let the East Bloc elect pro-Western democratic governments in 1948 is pretty absurd. He was brutal about crushing all political life in Poland long before the Marshall Plan. Poland was hosed all the way back at Yalta and no matter what it was going to be the puppet of Russia because they wanted a buffer between it and Germany. Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Albania would not be pro western democracies, but they wouldn't be defacto annexes of Russia like they ended up being either. They would be closer to Finland/Austria in that they would be neutral, non militaristic, much more receptive to Russian diplomatic requests than anyone else but at the end of the day be allowed self determination. vvv Basically that, yeah vvv A Winner is Jew fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 22:24
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berzerker posted:That is, at best, an extremely questionable set of assertions. They're not disprovable by virtue of being counterfactuals and claims about people's character, but the idea that Stalin would let the East Bloc elect pro-Western democratic governments in 1948 is pretty absurd. He was brutal about crushing all political life in Poland long before the Marshall Plan. Nessus fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 22:27
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Also Stalin was had a direct hand in one of the fronts in the Polish-Soviet war, for him it was also personal. As Katyn, and the events surrounding the Warsaw uprising, and the formation of the Lublin government show, Stalin really didn't want the pre-war government to survive in Poland.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:41
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V. Illych L. posted:Stalin had soldiers in like a fourth of Norway by area (granted it was the lovely fourth, but still). Left that pretty peacefully. It was a relatively small amount in the far north of the country where Norway/Finland/Russia all come together where few people lived. Also another thing about Finland that's not being said. The Soviets could've conquered Finland if they wanted to and the Winter War shows Stalin had his eyes on conquering Finland. Fins are apparently tough as gently caress though. Even in 1944, the last Soviet offensive of the Continuation War before the truce was signed between started with the Soviets pushing the Fins back, but ended with the Fins grinding the offensive to a standstill. The Soviets could've taken Finland if they really wanted it since little Finland couldn't hold out forever, but it reached a point where it wasn't worth it. Finland was ready to sign a punishing peace treaty and use their army to drive the Germans out of rough terrain in Lapland essentially getting rid of the northern part of the Soviet-German frontline, but they also were ready to kill tens if not hundreds of thousands of more Soviets to keep their independence. No point to waste that much in resources to fight to the end against the Fins in a slow moving war when more fun things are happening to the south at the same time. 
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Oct 29, 2013 22:42
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But also East Germany - maybe Stalin would have agreed to some kind of neutered, neutral Germany that it could still push around, but not one open to expressing its disgust with Soviet wartime occupation. The East Germans rejected the Soviets in fairly open elections, after which the Soviets basically just did away with those and forced it to be the East Germany we know and love instead. A democracy in which one party getting elected means your entire country gets brutalized is no democracy at all. Basically I just don't like the framing of "it's Truman's fault because he didn't rebuild Russia" because it seems to let Stalin (and his successors) off the hook for the evils of postwar Eastern Europe. I'd equally reject arguments that US imposition of anti-democratic, pretty evil regimes in Latin America were because Stalin kept putting spies in the US and forcing American paranoia. Maybe I'm reading too much into the original claim, there's just a very strong anti-US/marxist contingent on this forum and I want to emphasize that the Soviets were in no ways "the good guys" in the Cold War - there were no "good guys," just a lot of sons of bitches. The history of postwar Eastern Europe includes an awful lot of really horrific and tragic stuff, and really shouldn't be glossed over as "the capitalists made them do it."
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Oct 29, 2013 22:48
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Granted, the two are tied together, at the time the Germans were still supporting the Finns extensively and German units assisting in its defense were eventually going to be pulled out to defend the Reich itself. The situation wasn't going to improve for the Finns even if they were still fighting. Anyway, as far as reparations, the Soviets were going to get them one way or another (and they did get them from Finland and Austria btw) and it is unlikely Soviet forces themselves would leave. American forces were unlikely to leave Western Europe either. However, the necessity of political repression and totalitarianism in Eastern Europe is more of a open question, or at least to that degree. quote:But also East Germany - maybe Stalin would have agreed to some kind of neutered, neutral Germany that it could still push around, but not one open to expressing its disgust with Soviet wartime occupation. The East Germans rejected the Soviets in fairly open elections, after which the Soviets basically just did away with those and forced it to be the East Germany we know and love instead. A democracy in which one party getting elected means your entire country gets brutalized is no democracy at all. I actually agree, there weren't good guys and the Soviets did plenty of truly horrible things even after Stalin died. However, the reason I think there is such a strong reaction against the traditional American narrative of events, is because it is so biased itself. I mean if you read some books on Soviet history by American scholars you could swear that little pointy horns must have grown on top of their heads. The American (and Western) media isn't even better, at least the academics pretend to use sources sometimes. There weren't good guys though, but the problem is right now we are still being told there absolutely were and there needs to be a much more fuller realized consensus about what happened and why. As far as Germany, I assume a neutral Germany would end up like Austria (eventually), it would have to cut down its military, pay reparations (a poo poo load of them) but probably retains some type of mixed market system with some open concessions to the Soviets as far as politics. I think Stalin knew he could only get so much out of the West, they wouldn't accept a Soviet puppet but if he could neutralize the much larger and richer Western zones militarily it would have probably been a net gain to him. More or less at that point the Soviets would have the buffer it wanted. However, Turkey might have been an issue but the Soviets had been going back and over the straits for a while at that point. I should dig into some more sources on it, I actually did a research paper on it a few years ago but was mostly using Soviet newspapers at the Library of Congress at that point. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 22:54
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Ardennes posted:Granted, the two are tied together, at the time the Germans were still supporting the Finns extensively and German units assisting in its defense were eventually going to be pulled out to defend the Reich itself. The situation wasn't going to improve for the Finns even if they were still fighting. I think you're conflating traditionalists with post-revisionists here.
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Oct 29, 2013 23:51
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Silver2195 posted:I think you're conflating traditionalists with post-revisionists here. As time goes on, I think the difference between the two is mostly methodological not political. The totalitarian framing is still all there.
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Oct 29, 2013 23:58
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I never knew there was so much American history in Russia!
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Oct 29, 2013 23:58
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Really this should just be called the history thread. Trying to limit the scope of a thread to just american history is going to be hard because history is intertwined by nature.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:03
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It isn't easy to keep them separated but I have found the thread very interesting so far, and I think keeping it more to domestic history (not because that is more important but because it'll be easier to follow) would be beneficial.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:07
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temple posted:I never knew there was so much American history in Russia! Raskolnikov38 posted:Really this should just be called the history thread. Trying to limit the scope of a thread to just american history is going to be hard because history is intertwined by nature.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:13
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Really this should just be called the history thread. Trying to limit the scope of a thread to just american history is going to be hard because history is intertwined by nature. This is especially true since the US has been a dominant world power since the very early 1900's, and a super power since 1945. temple posted:I never knew there was so much American history in Russia! It would probably blow you mind to know how much English history there is in France.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:30
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Consider it a history thread with particular emphasis on the United States. If conversation naturally steers toward other topics, then fine, but I do not think it is an issue to discuss Russia in context of the US' Cold War behavior.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:32
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John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy is a great read, but I'm far from done with it. Published in 1938, it's a stream of consciousness collage of America starting at the end of the 19th century. http://www.amazon.com/U-S-Parallel-...=U.S.A.+Trilogy It's important to note that Internationalism was a major part of early 20th century left rhetoric; as the Russian Revolution continued public opinion about Russia became a wedge issue. The actions of the Rosenbergs were the death warrant for internationalist leftism, in my opinion. The whole weird time between the fall of Berlin and the Korean War seems like it would have been a golden opportunity for real peace if they had modern IT  That would make one hell of an ad. FDR skypes Stalin and Churchill and lives longer by not being stressed by flight. We get atomic rocket ships and moon cities 
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Oct 30, 2013 01:02
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Amused to Death posted:The fact the Soviets were deeply suspicious of the Marshall plan and seemingly unlikely to accept it even before knowing the details isn't a good counterpoint? quote:This is doubtful because this partition or not, this would just leave a failed German nation(s) already more broken than Germany already was. The feeling of gently caress Germany prevalent in the Morgenthau plan was great while the war was going on and right after it, but it's not so great 2-3 years later when the allies realize they have a massive humanitarian problem on their hands and ripping Germany of its industrial capacity isn't going to help mitigate this or the problems on the continent as a whole. Raskolnikov38 posted:I don't think an invasion would have seen the loses taken in the winter war simply because garbage tier general Voroshilov wouldn't be planning it but this is a discussion for the mil history thread. Amused to Death posted:The Soviets could've conquered Finland if they wanted to and the Winter War shows Stalin had his eyes on conquering Finland. temple posted:I never knew there was so much American history in Russia!
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Oct 30, 2013 01:05
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R. Mute posted:America just isn't interesting, sorry.
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Oct 30, 2013 01:10
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QuoProQuid posted:Consider it a history thread with particular emphasis on the United States. If conversation naturally steers toward other topics, then fine, but I do not think it is an issue to discuss Russia in context of the US' Cold War behavior. I'm OK with this to an extent. Given the nature of DnD, there's going to be a lot of people who are interested in Soviet and Cold War era history that are going to completely drown out the other centuries upon centuries worth of content there is to talk about. If you're going to jump into a conversation about one topic, eat your vegetables and contribute to other ones that you may not be as interested in to keep the discussion diverse. I don't want to read the same poo poo on page 20 that I read on page 10 and page 5. Also, if this thread is going to contain a lot of concurrent discussions on complex issues, it's going to get cluttered really quickly if people are posting just for the sake of posting. Unless you've got a question to ask that you'd really like to know the answer to, want to bring up a topic, or have actual, longer than one line worth of information content to share, just read. The pictures thread is always available for general Cold War chat as well.
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Oct 30, 2013 01:21
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Anyone who complains about a discussion of Cold War history in an American history thread is an idiot.A Winner is Jew posted:That right there is true only because the US reneged on it's promise to pay for the rebuilding of Russia after the war. Because of that Russia literally had no choice but to dominate those countries because as you said Russia was flat broke and it's production base was in ruins after the war. Had Truman not bent to the will of the conservative wing of the democratic party and Churchill but instead followed through with the promises made to Stalin by Roosevelt it's very likely that Stalin and Molotov don't get pissed and defacto annex the eastern block around 48 but instead allow the free elections that originally occurred after the war to stand. "Very likely" based on what? Stalin's demonstrated history of respecting people's sovereignty and his generally relaxed approach to political disagreements? V. Illych L. posted:Stalin had soldiers in like a fourth of Norway by area (granted it was the lovely fourth, but still). Left that pretty peacefully. Like Finland I do not think this is a representative example. I mean yeah, I guess Stalin could have pointlessly held on to a basically useless part of Norway but I don't think it would have really served his purposes very effectively and would have come at great diplomatic cost. I'm not trying to argue Stalin was some kind of mindless expansionist, I just am incredulous, given his record, that people are so quick to accord him the benefit of the doubt. Why, exactly, would he choose not to exert maximum control over the territory he had conquered? To quote the man in his own words: "this war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise." Ardennes posted:There isn't something other than complete independence and neutrality though, there was the possibility of a in between situation where popular front governments would dominate but Soviet rule might have been as authoritarian in exchange for demilitarization of Germany and maybe readjusting some of the demands of the Marshall plan. Those states weren't going to be full democracies, but Stalin's hesitation was purposeful, and he obviously was looking for a opportunity which would benefit the USSR the most, which wasn't to invade the West/dominate humanity but protect the USSR territoriality and thats better served with detente than an adversarial relationship...such as long as Soviet interests dominate in their sphere. Stalin couldn't afford to invade Finland as his army was also quite exhasuted despite its impressive list of accomplishments. You're also wrong to assert that it wouldn't have been extremely diplomatically costly for Stalin to invade Finland. quote:Yes it was smarter to compromise obviously (which was my point) but that doesn't mean there wasn't opportunity to compromise elsewhere, especially in Germany where the sources strongly suggest Stalin wanted a deal but had to settle with the DDR because he couldn't get one. The countries with the most flexibility otherwise would have been Czechoslovakia and Hungary then Bulgaria and maybe Romania. The Baltic states weren't getting their independence back, and Poland would be dominated by a pro-Soviet government either way. Strategically, holding on to Poland made way too much sense. Given how Stalin treated opposition within the USSR, even when he obviously could have taken a more relaxed stance, I am rather incredulous that you're so certain he would have given even a degree of freedom to the governments of eastern Europe. He's on the record on numerous occasions asserting the importance of suppressing dissent and his behaviour as a leader demonstrates one of the least flexible appraoches to opposition in history. I'm certainly no defender of America, its conduct in the Cold War, or the Truman Presidency, but this whole idea that its Truman's fault that the Soviets came to exercise direct domination in Eastern Europe is ridiculous. Just look at how the Soviets subsequently behaved in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
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Oct 30, 2013 01:26
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R. Mute posted:The Winter War is also one of the most painfully overhyped wars ever. What was the Winter War really about, then, in your opinion?
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Oct 30, 2013 01:31
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Volkerball posted:I'm OK with this to an extent. Given the nature of DnD, there's going to be a lot of people who are interested in Soviet and Cold War era history that are going to completely drown out the other centuries upon centuries worth of content there is to talk about. If you're going to jump into a conversation about one topic, eat your vegetables and contribute to other ones that you may not be as interested in to keep the discussion diverse. I don't want to read the same poo poo on page 20 that I read on page 10 and page 5. Also, if this thread is going to contain a lot of concurrent discussions on complex issues, it's going to get cluttered really quickly if people are posting just for the sake of posting. Unless you've got a question to ask that you'd really like to know the answer to, want to bring up a topic, or have actual, longer than one line worth of information content to share, just read. The pictures thread is always available for general Cold War chat as well. Obviously the thread should have limitations. I only meant to suggest that the United States cannot be discussed in a vacuum and it is necessary to bring in other topics and discussions. As the OP, I think you get to determine how far that extends though. What was the domestic reaction to the Marhsall Plan? Were Americans generally supportive or was there public opposition? QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 01:31
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Can anyone explain to me, a historical ignoramus, what the situation was with slavery in the early days of British colonization of America? More precisely, I want to know when and specifically how it became a matter of race. I'm aware of a certain Anthony Johnson, whom I vaguely remember from history class. He was an African, born and raised, who was kidnapped and turned into an indentured servant in the American colonies. He had a pretty interesting life overall, but the thing that really interests me is that he wasn't a slave for life, and in fact, eventually became a land owner himself, and held several slaves(or servants, not sure which). Does this imply that he, as a black man, was really no better or worse in the eyes of his captors than the white Europeans who were locked in indentured servitude at the time? Or did he just get lucky? I've also heard that it was apparently considered to be illegal to keep a Christian man as a slave for life, but I don't know if that's accurate whatsoever.
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Oct 30, 2013 01:33
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