|
uncop posted:I didn't claim that Stalin's errors in general were born of dogmatism, I claimed that people upholding Stalin recognize him as having made significant errors out of dogmatism. You might as well ask what planet Mao was from, because CCP's critiques of the USSR's leadership during the Chinese revolution pretty much started it. Stalin required mountains of practical evidence against each shoddily researched orthodox marxist assumption in the East, but of course as he wasn't a dogmatist in general he did always eventually relent once there was enough for him. Ultimately though, making errors of dogmatism is normal. Everyone does a dogmatism when they decide to argue their badly researched assumptions against people with deep practical understanding of the thing in question. I owe you an apology, I shouldn't have been trying to have this argument while drinking, and my edit was way out of line. I'm sorry for that. I can certainly understand if you don't think the discussion will be productive at this point, but I'm willing to continue if you'd like. Pomeroy fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jul 14, 2020 |
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 22:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 07:13 |
|
|
Stalin proposed invading Germany but the UK & France balked so he signed the pact in order to industrialize enough to withstand a sustained war fought substantially alone. I don’t see how building up a counter-Nazi power and following through with the most titanic sacrifice a people has ever endured can be held against the Soviets. Sorry.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 22:38
|
|
|
Enjoy posted:People like Neville Chamberlain are correctly ridiculed for appeasement He is ridiculed for being a weak leader, but not necessarily as a war criminal. dex_sda posted:However, what percentage of the US leadership should have stood trial is irrelevant to the analysis of the problems USSR had. It is because all of this is in context of each other. That is how the world works.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 22:38
|
|
|
dex_sda posted:I don't know why you keep insisting that I'm suggesting the rest of the Allies shouldn't also be held accountable for their crimes too. However, what percentage of the US leadership should have stood trial is irrelevant to the analysis of the problems USSR had. okay, but here's the question: DID it benefit the nazis, given that it allowed the soviets to industrialize enough to later crush the nazis? like, were the soviets taking every possible step they could to beat the nazis, or were they not? the subsequent fight to the death certainly calls into question claims that the two states were ever working to mutual benefit
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 22:49
|
|
|
While the interim result was necessary raw materials flowing into Nazi Germany the end result of the agreement was a Red Army strong enough to march into Berlin, which it did. So no it didn’t help Germany all things considered.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 22:57
|
|
|
dex_sda posted:I don't know why you keep insisting that I'm suggesting the rest of the Allies shouldn't also be held accountable for their crimes too. However, what percentage of the US leadership should have stood trial is irrelevant to the analysis of the problems USSR had. what does the US have to do with the Munich agreement? there weren’t even American journalists in the city when the deal was being drawn up in 1938.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 22:59
|
|
|
I do not mean to downplay the Soviet strategy later in war, nor their sacrifices. However, going "well it worked didn't it?" has the exact same energy as defending the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Maybe it did work. That doesn't make the act itself less immoral, never mind the presentation of it as righteous. We have no way of knowing how the outcome looks in the alternative universe where the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact wasn't signed. If you think it was ultimately for the better, that's your prerogative and I understand that. But you gotta be comfortable with the "ends justify the means" argument, and very often, that sort of thinking led to purges and strife in many socialist states, USSR included. If you don't want to take that thinking too far, it would pay to be able to acknowledge when the means are really poo poo, which I firmly believe to be the case with the 1939-1941 USSR strategy. PawParole posted:what does the US have to do with the Munich agreement? there weren’t even American journalists in the city when the deal was being drawn up in 1938. I meant the Allies and many of their actions in general and just used US as an example nation, not referring specifically to the Munich agreement, which that post indeed could be read as referencing. My apologies for being unclear. dex_sda fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Jul 14, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 23:03
|
|
|
dex_sda posted:I do not mean to downplay the Soviet strategy later in war, nor their sacrifices. However, going "well it worked didn't it?" has the exact same energy as defending the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Maybe it did work. That doesn't make the act itself less immoral, never mind the presentation of it as righteous. I don’t think this is a good comparison. The US position leading up to the nuclear bombings was not any kind of existential threat. Not nuclear bombing Japan would not have resulted in the end of the US and its people. It was a choice made with the freedom to deliberate. By comparison the USSR in the ‘30s was facing an existential threat, in the sense that the Nazis made it abundantly clear they’d prefer a world without the USSR and everyone in it and had the means to act on that. You can criticize their choices but I don’t think this comparison makes sense. edit: also I would argue that it didn’t work, insofar as it wasn’t even the primary reason Japan surrendered and thus was just a pointless war crime, but that’s secondary. Lightning Knight fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Jul 14, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 23:07
|
|
|
dex_sda posted:I do not mean to downplay the Soviet strategy later in war, nor their sacrifices. However, going "well it worked didn't it?" has the exact same energy as defending the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Maybe it did work. That doesn't make the act itself less immoral, never mind the presentation of it as righteous. it doesn't actually make sense to try to separate an action from its consequences. the ussr took the action it thought would be most likely to lead to the nazis' defeat. how would it be better if they took some other action that didn't give them as good a chance of defeating the nazis? what would have been the moral action? giving all of poland to the nazis rather than half? we can say "well it worked, didn't it" about the atomic bombings too, but the question is, worked to do what? in the us vs. japan case it solidified usamerikkkan hold over the region, which i would not actually call a good consequence, especially given that the japanese were ready to surrender to the ussr in a few weeks or something Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Jul 14, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 23:12
|
|
|
Lightning Knight posted:I don’t think this is a good comparison. The US position leading up to the nuclear bombings was not any kind of existential threat. Not nuclear bombing Japan would not have resulted in the end of the US and its people. It was a choice made with the freedom to deliberate. I will admit it's not a parallel, I was just trying to illustrate that a lot of rhetoric put forward for why Hiroshima Was Good is very similar to the rhetoric of why Ribbentrop-Molotov was good. e; and yes I agree that it was completely unnecessary and a capital C war crime, in comparison to the little c war crime of the R-M pact
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 23:12
|
|
|
dex_sda posted:I don't know why you keep insisting that I'm suggesting the rest of the Allies shouldn't also be held accountable for their crimes too. However, what percentage of the US leadership should have stood trial is irrelevant to the analysis of the problems USSR had. That's absurd, by the same logic you'd have to say it was a "war crime" for the Iranian government to agree to the nuclear deal.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 23:17
|
|
|
Pomeroy posted:That's absurd, by the same logic you'd have to say it was a "war crime" for the Iranian government to agree to the nuclear deal. chuckling heartily at the thought of an ultraleft criticism of iran for breaking bread with the murderous tyrant barack obama
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 23:19
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:chuckling heartily at the thought of an ultraleft criticism of iran for breaking bread with the murderous tyrant barack obama I've had the misfortune of running into folks who take more or less that line on the DPRK, so I'm sure it exists.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 23:25
|
|
|
i guess i just don't see how you can rationalize the options of the USSR throwing a weak army towards Germany to suicide by Nazi without allies, or alternatively having that weak army suicide by nazi at the USSR borders, as the Good Guy options, and the option that attempted to preserve soldiers' lives until their position was defensible and they could successfully push into and liberate concentration camps as some sort of horrific war crime.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 23:45
|
|
|
Whenever discussion about the invasion of Poland happens, I keep thinking about how Poland helped dismantle Czechoslovakia.Ferrinus posted:chuckling heartily at the thought of an ultraleft criticism of iran for breaking bread with the murderous tyrant barack obama Ahmadinejad 2021
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 23:59
|
|
|
Atrocious Joe posted:Whenever discussion about the invasion of Poland happens, I keep thinking about how Poland helped dismantle Czechoslovakia. Poland is definitely not without its sins. Don't even get me started on the actions against Ukrainians CYBEReris posted:i guess i just don't see how you can rationalize the options of the USSR throwing a weak army towards Germany to suicide by Nazi without allies, or alternatively having that weak army suicide by nazi at the USSR borders, as the Good Guy options, and the option that attempted to preserve soldiers' lives until their position was defensible and they could successfully push into and liberate concentration camps as some sort of horrific war crime. I guess what I don't buy is that if the odds were so skewed in Nazi favor, they wouldn't need any agreements. They'd just steamroll in and not let USSR build up. The fact they bothered to write one up and even respect it for two years suggests that the Soviets could have fought quicker. In the time before they did (and I commend their fight, you know, once they got to it - better late than never), a lot of the extermination network got built up.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 00:03
|
|
|
dex_sda posted:The fact they bothered to write one up and even respect it for two years suggests that the Soviets could have fought quicker. this is a wild extrapolation to make about Soviet military strength. not to mention assuming that if the Soviets unilaterally steamrolled into Germany (by necessity, probably through Poland), Britain and France would have stayed out of it. the USSR had to prepare for a scenario where it'd be completely on its own
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 00:09
|
|
|
indigi posted:this is a wild extrapolation to make about Soviet military strength. not to mention assuming that if the Soviets unilaterally steamrolled into Germany (by necessity, probably through Poland), Britain and France would have stayed out of it. the USSR had to prepare for a scenario where it'd be completely on its own That's fair for the very beginning of the war, but not by the end of 1940. Indeed, were it not for Barbarossa, Soviets would have waited even longer to get involved. All I'm saying is that regardless of their reasons, which I from the start admitted they had, the willingness of the USSR to collaborate with the Nazis should make you uncomfortable, because it belies the "ends justify the means" attitude that led to quite a few atrocities despite the overall goal of the USSR to attempt implementing socialism. Things that are good can have made extraordinary mistakes. Stalin's Russia made a lot of them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 00:17
|
|
|
Admittedly it’s easy to say some of this in hindsight when at the time I presume that the leaders of the USSR, Britain, and France were probably not pricing “Hitler is a huge dumbass who sucks at war” into their equations.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 00:19
|
|
|
if you wanna talk about ussr whoopsies remember the airbase they let the reichswehr build to train pilots in secret and oops now its the luftwaffe what happened to the german revolution lol
Goast fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Jul 15, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 00:49
|
|
|
dex_sda posted:That's fair for the very beginning of the war, but not by the end of 1940. Indeed, were it not for Barbarossa, Soviets would have waited even longer to get involved. At the end of 1940, the Soviets had just seen the Nazis inflict a shockingly quick, definitive defeat on what was universally regarded as the best army in the world, apparently without breaking a sweat.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 00:50
|
|
|
Goast posted:if you wanna talk about ussr whoopsies remember the secret airbase they let the reichswehr build to train pilots in secret and oops now its the luftwaffe what happened to the german revolution lol I haven't heard of that and that sounds hilarious lol
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 00:57
|
|
|
Don’t think the Luftwaffe (1933-1945) had much to do with suppressing the German Revolution (1918-1919)
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 01:09
|
|
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipetsk_fighter-pilot_school
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 01:14
|
|
|
GalacticAcid posted:Don’t think the Luftwaffe (1933-1945) had much to do with suppressing the German Revolution (1918-1919) thats not what i said?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 01:14
|
|
|
Goast posted:if you wanna talk about ussr whoopsies remember the airbase they let the reichswehr build to train pilots in secret and oops now its the luftwaffe what happened to the german revolution lol A big part of that deal was a bunch of German technical and industrial equipment that allowed the Soviets to industrialize in the first place oops! lol! Oh yeah in 1940, the Nazis shipped the Soviets a bunch of Zeiss sniper scopes. I will give you a guess about how those were used.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 01:19
|
|
|
dex_sda posted:I guess what I don't buy is that if the odds were so skewed in Nazi favor, they wouldn't need any agreements. They'd just steamroll in and not let USSR build up. The fact they bothered to write one up and even respect it for two years suggests that the Soviets could have fought quicker. In the time before they did (and I commend their fight, you know, once they got to it - better late than never), a lot of the extermination network got built up. the germans thought that the primitive slavs to their east had no hope of resisting an eventual invasion even with years of buildup
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 01:38
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:A big part of that deal was a bunch of German technical and industrial equipment that allowed the Soviets to industrialize in the first place oops! lol! im curious how large of an effect the technical training and seized junkers factories actually had on the soviets industrialization as a whole most the stuff i find about this is boring nerd poo poo that never stops loving talking about recon planes the soviets never really used Goast fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Jul 15, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 01:38
|
|
VictualSquid posted:The tendency to become an autocratic dictatorship is inherently prefigured in the idea of a vanguard party. lmao
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 03:27
|
|
|
dex_sda posted:That's fair for the very beginning of the war, but not by the end of 1940. Indeed, were it not for Barbarossa, Soviets would have waited even longer to get involved. It was quite literally the last resort. Britain and France rejected all proposed collective security measures involving the Soviets. Ardennes posted:Oh yeah in 1940, the Nazis shipped the Soviets a bunch of Zeiss sniper scopes. I will give you a guess about how those were used. 
Prince Myshkin fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Jul 15, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 03:33
|
|
|
Enjoy posted:People like Neville Chamberlain are correctly ridiculed for appeasement hey quick question but what did Neville Chamberlain do on September 3rd, 1939?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 03:35
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:hey quick question but what did Neville Chamberlain do on September 3rd, 1939? he energized, legitimized, uh energized the uh-
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 03:42
|
|
|
Goast posted:im curious how large of an effect the technical training and seized junkers factories actually had on the soviets industrialization as a whole The training school itself was relatively minor compared to a large amount of trade the Soviet Union was doing with Weimar Germany after the Treaty of Rapallo. If anything Germany was one of the Soviet Union's steadiest destination for exports, particularly of oil and in return the Soviets got a lot of industrial equipment they desperately needed. American-Soviet trade was far more one-sided, the US barely allowed any Soviet exports in. If anything the rise of Hitler is one of the reasons the Soviet Union was in such poor economic shape in 1933-34 since they lost one of the few trade partners, a factor that lead to relative failure of the second Five-Year plan.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 03:58
|
|
|
I realized that lovely WW2 takes really get me nowadays because of the extreme disrespect baked into the narratives for countless people who decided to suffer for higher ideals and did literally nothing wrong. *That’s* why the difference of criminal war and war crimes is so important, supporting a criminal war effort makes one a useful idiot at best and a villain at worst. That’s why erasing dissidents is so messed up, it shits on people going to prison for opposing needless imperialist war and fascism. gently caress Stalin, gently caress the leadership, they are actually deep into a moral grey area instead of shining heroes that deserve a hundred times more respect than their attackers.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 07:16
|
|
|
uncop posted:I realized that lovely WW2 takes really get me nowadays because of the extreme disrespect baked into the narratives for countless people who decided to suffer for higher ideals and did literally nothing wrong. *That’s* why the difference of criminal war and war crimes is so important, supporting a criminal war effort makes one a useful idiot at best and a villain at worst. That’s why erasing dissidents is so messed up, it shits on people going to prison for opposing needless imperialist war and fascism. gently caress Stalin, gently caress the leadership, they are actually deep into a moral grey area instead of shining heroes that deserve a hundred times more respect than their attackers. are you saying the people who defeated the nazis don’t deserve more respect than their attackers, the nazis
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 15:53
|
|
|
i was not quite sure how to read that post either
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 16:19
|
|
|
I'm not a Stalinist, but it seems like some people here really absorbed that lie that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was all about Stalin's boner for half of Poland. I haven't seen any of these people raise a better choice for the USSR than it. I also see "War Crime" being thrown around a lot, which--forgive me--is somewhat of an arbitrary concept. Wars are full of awful, horrendous crimes. Charges of "war crimes" are something the winners of wars levy against the losers, not a divine reckoning. The concepts of justice you're invoking are liberal figments. They don't exist.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 16:44
|
|
|
I meant detractors, but had to finish in a hurry. That’s an opportune misunderstanding though, because lol it’s completely normal not to give them that sort of respect even over literal nazis. That’s what equating the USSR and Nazi Germany as totalitarian warmongers is, and I believe the EU parliament just recently officially declared them to be equally responsible for WW2. It’s everywhere. And its purpose is also to absolve those who fought with fascists and present people who opposed their governments as dupes. Pity the poor Wehrmacht and the Red army soldier equally. Be suspicious of the anti-fascist with questionable loyalties.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 16:53
|
|
|
uncop posted:I meant detractors, but had to finish in a hurry. That’s an opportune misunderstanding though, because lol it’s completely normal not to give them that sort of respect even over literal nazis. That’s what equating the USSR and Nazi Germany as totalitarian warmongers is, and I believe the EU parliament just recently officially declared them to be equally responsible for WW2. It’s everywhere. And its purpose is also to absolve those who fought with fascists and present people who opposed their governments as dupes. Pity the poor Wehrmacht and the Red army soldier equally. Be suspicious of the anti-fascist with questionable loyalties. I'm still not sure what you're trying to say. I think you're slipping into sarcasm but there is zero indication when you're doing it so it reads weird. I agree that equivocating the nazis and the ussr is really stupid, and they were significantly better than the fascists especially as the war went on
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 17:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 07:13 |
|
|
Jeff Fest is about enough of Poland I can stand in a single year, so who gives a poo poo about Poland already
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 17:27
|
|
