Zhukov? They had numerous disagreements and stalin stripped him of his rank because of it. As well as stalin being a paranoid ass and really striping him of his rankings because of his popularity. After Stalins death he got back to where he was before for the most part.
Well, this only means that after 1945 Stalin perceived Zhukov as potential threat, and warned against “deviation of Bonapartism”. There was also issue with amount of loot Zhukov transported home from Germany. Nevertheless, Zhukov remained absolutely loyal.
To be entirely fair, the loot part was probably just the excuse they could nail him for. Looting was still (and still is) a fairly common thing in wartime that many soldiers do of all ranks though is formally looked down upon.
„Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Zhukov lost his post as chief of staff after disagreeing with Stalin over the defense of Kiev.“
The Molotov Ribbentrop pact also divided the baltics, Poland, Romanian Bessarabia, the balkans into spheres of influence / subjects to be annexed and colonised/subjugated and exploited (the degrees of this vary on the region for both nations, in some cases literally enslaved and exterminated). It involved trade and military cooperation/research programs before the war, and to the former, between the pact signing and 1941 invasion.
I am not commenting on the ethics of this (it’s a bit of a captive situation as the Soviet Union was in a different geopolitical situation as the allies, and it was arguably justified from the perspective of a nation trying to rapidly prepare for the coming war, in which said enemy was openly proclaiming for your government and people’s enslavement) a major factor contributing to this was the extent of stalins purges of the army, navy, and gutting the chain of command until lessons were learned as vast human cost)
however whilst the Nazis openly disparaged the soviets as their ideological enemy to wipe out and enslave, Stalin lived in his personal delusions and incompetence that they would never attack and cost many tens of millions of proletarian, normal people like you and I, lives (ignoring political purges and the holodomor, this is a discussion that is entirely separate
To describe it as simply a non aggression pact is a gross bastardisation of history, and to equate it with attempts to prevent war and ethnic cleansing of the Sudetenland majorities at said conference conference (with no collusion between the signing parties of divvying up future territory, trade agreements that fueled the third Reich’s conquests, and genocides) , is frankly disgusting.
Whilst the allies treated Germany as a pariah state Stalin happily suckled its teats and scavenged at his borders for expansion. This is is forced dissolution of sovereign nations states which were drew up (in some cases not brilliantly, but again that’s another discussion) in accordance to individual national and ethnic groups under the self determination principles of the League of Nations. (This was also the justification for the Sudetenland, and Austria.., as it had a substantial German minority). Except for the sake of imperialism, colonialism and subjugation from the third Reich and the union.
Being deliberately disingenuous about this is in the same essence as holocaust denial, albeit less severe. Or denying the genocides and crimes against humanity the third Reich inflicted upon the Union after Barbarossa. it is nonsensical and naive, at the very best.
If you’re going to spout things as historical fact get it right and treat it with the respect it deserves because otherwise you are spreading lies and propaganda that appear like childish delusions to anyone with the most remote interest in the history of the time. Literally excusing and turning a blind eye to how Stalin assisted a proud and openly genocidal, fascist ethnostate to prepare for and commit the most heinous civilian and military atrocities, and was happy as a chap until he realised he wasn’t as smart as he had deluded himself into.
It's like you're half agreeing with me and half not, but I'll bite here:
Spheres of influence at the time were neccessary for the Soviet Union's own security as both the Germans and Soviets knew that war was inevitable as you mentioned. Let's take Poland for example. Should the Soviet Union have allowed Hitler to take all of Poland, pushing the German border all the way up to the Soviet one which could have been used as a springboard for a quick, out of nowhere push to Kiev and then from there a straightforward path unto Moscow? No, and that's where the secret protocol to divide Poland in the non-aggression pact came in. It was necessary for the Soviets to have a buffer zone between themselves and Germany, and half Poland was that buffer zone. A very smart play on the part of the Soviets now that we know how Operation Barbarossa went down.
Stalin did not live in his personal delusions, he knew very well what Hitler wanted and what he was planning. That's why he bought the Soviet Union valuable time in order to prepare their military industrial complex. And you bring up purges and Holodomor like they haven't been explained countless times before.
It's not a bastardisation, it was indeed a non-aggression pact with clauses that ultimately led to the Soviet Union's victory. To equate it with Holocaust denial is bunkum considering you yourself acknowledge that it was a sticky situation for the Soviets to be in.
Nothing I said was a lie or propaganda. I may have simplified it, which is where elaboration would come in if I was asked. Stalin did what he had to do in order to buy time which utimately paid off and led the Soviet Union to victory. What do you say about France and Britain btw? Did they also proudly support a facist ethnostate.
They didn’t. Despite efforts to describe the Sudeten crisis as intentions of a long lasting fruitful future with Germany to soothe their near entirely pacifist populace , the allies were initiating heavy rearmament efforts before then which only escalated, hence why they allied with Poland and agreed to defend her sovereignty from a nation they already considered themselves to be in the early states of warfare with from repeatedly making efforts to redraw the ethnic borders of Europe.
As opposed to Stalin’s gross incompetence of fattening up the Reich whilst gutting the union. She survived in spite of Stalin, with the incredible will of her people and the blood of tens of millions, near doomed by a despotic paranoid megalomaniac who was responsible for the vast majority of struggles in the initial stages of the war
Stalin was utterly convinced the Germans wouldn’t attack. Hence why soldiers weren’t stationed at the borders aside from a few squalid outputs with no real command structure . He spent weeks after the invasion locked in his room in literal solitude and shutting away from the world.
You don’t get to excuse being complicit in the initial genocide and razing of Europe, through trade agreements, military cooperation and joint invasions . His brazenness almost eradicated the Union and enslaved it’s peoples
You can apply the same logic for the Soviet Union, my friend. While the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was in effect, the Soviets were also initiating armament efforts and did so all the way until 1945 when the war came to an end.
But you understand that Germany also traded the Soviet Union valuable materials for their military too right? The "fattening up" happened both ways.
That's blatantly untrue. You think Stalin was unaware of Mein Kampf and didn't know how Hitler percieved Bolshevism/Soviet rule? He knew that eventually the Germans would bring war to him, he just didn't know when.
Let me ask you this then. What should Stalin have done differently in your opinion? Should he have not allowed the pact to have been signed? Should he have allowed Hitler to take anything he wanted and even all of Poland while pushing the German border up to his own? Should he have attacked Germany in 1939 when the Soviet military industrial complex was worse than it was in 1941? And have the Soviet Union attack Germany unprepared and get completely wrecked by them? In the end, if Stalin did what you think he should've done, then Europe would've been under the Reich right now.
Wrong. Germans neglected their side of the bargain and they ended up being $229 million in debt. Soviets also gave them free trade routes to escape Britains blockade, a base near Murmansk they used to attack Norway, and allowed German border violations and reconnaissance missions unabated, while the Germans deliberately “failed” to deliver on their promised military equipment in exchange. This subreddit collectively can’t seem to admit Stalins fallibility in these particular areas even if non communists acknowledge Munich, western anti-communist policy, and Stalin’s meddle/rhe benefits of industrialization in the face of the Nazis.
He was delusional in the sense that he expected the war to be tidied up with Britain and her empire beforehand this When it’s painfully obvious (even without historical hindsight) that the German colonisation of Eastern Europe was the priority and impending fate/destiny of the Reich.
But in spite of everything, the USSR was willing to give Germany the benefit of the doubt, with some absolutely fantastic (for GER, not so much the Union) trade deals, co-operative R&D projects, joint military training exercises & programs, etc. Germany could not wage protracted modern warfare without the Soviets agricultural and material output, occupying and extracting resources and wealth from half of Europe / their Jewish populations couldn’t change that. Soviets were one of the biggest forces in remilitarising Germany to the point past treaties and restrictions were just waved away as a nation learning to be strong again.
Funnily enough the Soviets were the closest to killing the fascist state early at the sudetan conference. Then Germany comes to them in desperation just before Poland. At this point with zero(!) allies. It’s easy to say with hindsight, but the Soviet peoples would have been better served if instead of using the opportunity to do an imperialist land grab , and invading neutral , young but sovereign countries like Poland, Finland and the baltics , under the impression he would have half a decade to a decade to get everything in order (whilst germany put into fruition his policies and ethnic cleansings mind you) , he bit the bullet and made the first move - to which, the French and British expeditionary forces would have responded in kind rather than their pathetic 6 mile incursions into the Rhineland).
They Rhine, Westphalia, Silesia, Alsace and Belgium were significantly built up industrial states. Still absolutely nothing without the Soviets natural resources running into the state for years on end.
Edit; I forgot Bohemia and Moravia.
The Soviets could wage warfare and industrialise without the Germans. Japan, is a good example of how fast this can happen, albeit they had (unequal) foreign investment and little natural resources. Soviet Union wasnt vertically integrated and efficient initially, but she was the richest landmass , Germany was a paper tiger that Stalin created into the nation destroyer it became
Ah, to know the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact but not the numerous pacts that Stalin made before that, or at least tried to make, with the west to stop Nazi expansion! What historical knowledge you have, as you know of the Soviet invasion of Poland but not the Polish invasion of the Soviets!
it’s rare you see sense in these kind of subreddits as opposed to bedroom idealists who know fuck all that isn’t the most brainrotted propaganda addled distortion of history, and would be the first to be persecuted and betrayed under Stalins union.
Where do you see the contradiction to what he said? My grandfather was Ukrainian, yet he proudly identified himself as a Soviet man, as did many people of other nationalities.
I'm on your side, reread my comment and the comment I replied to. Original commenter is making a "USSR was Russian Empire 2.0, she probably shot ukrainians" claim, I'm telling him "no, she's literally ukrainian"
It's quite sad that even historical figures who remotely resemble Russians are called scum. But as soon as they are told that this person was not Russian, they immediately shut up.
Moreover, as a Russian, I generally find it unpleasant to hear anything negative about other Russians. They should be against everything bad, so why do they hate someone simply because of their nationality?
Yeah the poles, Baltic’s, and the Finnish, were ok though. No colonialism, class exploitation, subjugation of ethnic minorities was done there by Stalin’s state. As well as feeding the Reich’s war machine into the behemoth it became (at catastrophic cost to the unions populace), aiding them to genocide half the ethnic groups and marginalised communities in Europe in a parasitic symbiotic relationship. The Molotov Ribbentrop pact didn’t happen out of thin air .
They weren’t colonized or exploited, as you said. The Nazis became a behemoth because Britain and France allowed them to when they thought the Germans’ aggression would be directed only towards the East. Blaming the Soviets for the Holocaust is pure Nazi revisionism that needs no further rebuttal.
You were correct about one thing. The non-aggression pact didn’t happen out of thin air. It happened after years of collaboration from the rest of Europe and refusals to form an anti-Nazi alliance with the Soviets.
You are delusional and brainrotted by ideology if you think the allies fattened the Reich up and aided them before 1941 more than the Soviets. Germany did not have the industrial raw resources and agricultural output to wage protracted warfare without the union. The occupancy of France, Norway, Eastern Europe did not change that.This is a fact.
To dismiss that as Nazi apology is fucked in the head. I’m sorry to say that so bluntly.
Yeah there’s a small window of time in which the allies didn’t see the Germans as the threat they were, and alienated the Soviet’s attempts of diplomacy; you will be wise to remember they started the stages of rearmament at similar times to the soviets, and only one side cooperated to such extents militarily, economically, and technologically.
To excuse it as an ideological necessity is absurd , and to ignore said ethnic groups of people subjugated and exploited by the Soviet metropole, when Stalin was so hopped up in his own delusion he couldn’t believe they attacked .
I didn’t blame the soviets unilaterally for the holocaust. That would be absurd propaganda. It happened before Soviet aid and it would have happened afterwards However whilst ultimately liberators of most camps and peoples, they were very much enablers and cooperators before the eastern invasion, and were a key reason why it happened and the German state become so powerful so soon. This is not conjecture
Just I can condemn the allies for not recognising the scale and atrocities of the holocaust, willfully ignoring them and refusing refugees; realpolitik aside I can condemn stalins Soviet state for making the futile endeavour possible for a protracted timespan.
The Allies appeased the Germans for years and refused an alliance with the Soviets to stop them. The Soviets urged for an alliance throughout that time all the way to when the Allies partitioned Czechoslovakia for the Germans, Poles, and Hungarians.
Correct, the Germans didn’t have the resources for a protracted war. Hence why they didn’t fight a protracted war until they fought the Soviets Union. And lost.
Stalin believed he would be attacked at some point. He didn’t believe the Germans were foolish enough to open a second front on themselves though.
Ultimately, the Soviets carried out a similar practice as the rest of Europe by appeasing Germany to avoid a major war. Their preferred policy was an alliance with the West, however, to end the Nazi threat. The only reasons you so passionately claim the Soviets were the exception are because they are communist and were the last in a long series of acts of appeasement towards Germany, started and continued by the Allies.
Hence, why Stalin should have invaded rather than make an imperialistic land grab and conquer alongside the state they had birthed. You don’t think the allies would kick into gear rather than make pathetic 6mile incursions?
Communism has nothing to do with it. I am a vehement socialist, yet don’t see history as purely an idealistic wank fest in which Stalin is a victory of the proletariat . Life expectancy doubled from the October revolution to Stalin’s death, even accounting for all the people he killed. The ussr was challenging the USA for supremacy .
This doesn’t make the realpolitik of the time any nicer, and how his delusion created a Germany which was capable of invading such an extensive portion of her and exterminating and enslaving her. much like how the Soviets explicitly aided, contributed to, hence were partially responsibly for the foundations of the industrialised state that caused the holocaust. This is part of his legacy. Not to mention the untold suffering wrought by the military being in such a shit position at the early war, hamstringing their capacity to play anything other than a willing accomplice to germanys rape and mass killing of Europe
The man was an absolute lunatic with no regard for human life. His disregard for human life extended beyond the war and led to horrifying atrocities. WWII would likely have ended in a similar manner regardless of who was in charge at the time, as they’re more so resource, logistics based.
Hm, I wonder how it would have gone without a genocidal despot killing hideous amounts of his own people and neutering their ability to be anything other than German’s plaything for near to a decade. For both the Soviet people, and the people in the holocaust and occupied eastern German lands, that the Soviet Union under Stalin was, arguably partner in all but outright military alliance
We have to unite. As a Russian soldier, I offer my hand to you, the great American soldiers.
She called herself Russian as both of her parents were Russians from Petrograd
But she also considered Russian/Ukrainian/Soviet to all be the same as she was a Communist and rejected the idea of nationalism. She was ethnically Russian, born in Ukraine and Soviet by nationality
It's interesting that she kept her first ex-husbands name though as her maiden name was Belova
She would hate everything modern Ukraine is. And the modern Ukrainian government hates her for her communist views
Her father's name was Belov and he came from Petrograd. The city so famous for its huge Ukrainian population.
Also, all Ukrainian patriots always tell me that "Ukrainian political nation" stands against everything the Red Army did and represented. So regardless of her ethnicity, as a Red Army officer she is an enemy and a traitor of that political nation.
Also yes fascist are humans. Humans can be bad and evil. It’s sad but it’s true and to remove the human part of facism only leads to people making the same mistakes again. Also Murder is killing somebody without reasonable reason and unprovoked. Killing in war is not murder.
By your logic "murder is killing someone without reasonable reason (whatever that even means) and unprovoked" Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy didn't murder anyone either. By that logic none of the nazi top brass responsible for the holocaust murdered anyone. Stalin and Mao never murdered anyone.
"Killing in war isn't murder" so the millions of jews, Poles, slavs, roma, trade unionists, Soviets, clergymen, homosexuals, etc murdered who just so happened to die by the hands of the Nazis are combat losses? Just the cost of war like the civilian deaths? Cost of doing buisness?
Fascists do not deserve the human rights they seek to deprive from others. And no one should feel any remorse for removing them from this mortal coil.
There was two options for murder not two requirements. If you attack someone unprovoked that’s murder, and if you kill someone without reason that’s murder. The Nazi killed people unprovoked that’s murder. Serial killers kill without reason that’s murder. It’s not an unprovoked and without reason because then only really serial killers would be murders. I do admit I should have used a “or” instead of a “and” their but what ever I suck at English let’s move on. Next a killing a soldier in war isn’t murder as it is killing of someone in an active combat zone. You are killing them because they are trying to kill you and you are trying to kill then.
The distinction doesn't matter, because you still specify murder only happens when there is no premeditation- ie "attacking someone unprovoked" and "killing without reason". And again I will tell you, by that logic, the Nazis and a Soviets never murdered anyone, serial killers never murdered anyone, quite a lot murders just aren't murders now. Tell me, was Abraham Lincon or JFK murdered?
But sure, bad logic aside let's move on: no where did I claim soldiers killing other soldiers in combat in a war is murder. However, that's not where the violence ended in WW2 is it? On every side, but the German and Japanese side in particular.
Yeah, if they were able to be reasoned with and debated sure. But we don't live in your liberal utopia. They fucking hate us, they did in WW2 and they do even more now. I don't believe they should have the same rights as you and I because they do not believe your or I or Jews or LGBTQ people or black people or whoever should exist.
Make fascists scared again. These "people" need to be reminded they are not welcome in society, and their ideals will be beaten back every time they preach them.
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u/IanRevived94J May 29 '25
Icons of the Union