Comintern role in bringing about war

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Caldric
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#16

Post by Caldric » 07 Oct 2002, 21:10

I am not defending the actions or plans of the USSR. The fact is, according to Hitler’s own writing and the writing of many prominent historians, including Kershaw, Hitler wanted the East to be his colonial world like the UK was doing around the world. Remove the Slavs and any other non-desirables and move Germans in. Only unlike the UK the destruction of whole people was ok, and ordered.

Of course the Soviets would change sides to meet their own goals, consider for a moment that the whole world just about loathed the communist. Without the war in the west I doubt the West would have done much to help the USSR against Germany.

And this idea of Roosevelt building a colonial empire is so incorrect that most 6th graders can correct such a statement. He wished to destroy colonialism.

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Scott Smith
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#17

Post by Scott Smith » 08 Oct 2002, 04:53

Caldric wrote:I am not defending the actions or plans of the USSR. The fact is, according to Hitler’s own writing and the writing of many prominent historians, including Kershaw, Hitler wanted the East to be his colonial world like the UK was doing around the world. Remove the Slavs and any other non-desirables and move Germans in. Only unlike the UK the destruction of whole people was ok, and ordered.
That's certainly the theory of those who wanted to see Germany destroyed as a rival and wound-up enthroning the Soviet Union upon half of Europe, yes, and their modern-day apologists.
:mrgreen:

I disagree with the notion of a "Genocidal war," which serves to justify that Communist bungle because Genocide somehow had to be stopped. Sure, Hitler saw some advantages to conquering resources in the East, particularly the territories that Germany had "earned" from the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, as German nationalists would regard it--actually a dismemberment of the Russian empire, not of Russia proper.
Of course the Soviets would change sides to meet their own goals, consider for a moment that the whole world just about loathed the communist. Without the war in the west I doubt the West would have done much to help the USSR against Germany.
Communist sympathies were very strong in those days before Stalinism was discredited completely. There was lot of support for the Reds in the U.S. during the Depression, and the Roosevelt regime was chock full of them. This was one of the reasons why FDR was quick to recognize the Soviets in 1933--which is a good thing because it fosters international dialog--but it was also a cynical means to market hardware to the Soviet state, which was in a massive industrialization phase to build its warmachine. In fact, after the 1939 Ribbentrop-Molotov pact those Leftist intellectuals were pro-German against the British Empire until Barbarossa. Then they switched overnight to become anti-Fascists again. If the Soviet Union had fallen, Stalin and company probably would have been exiled safely in the U.S.
And this idea of Roosevelt building a colonial empire is so incorrect that most 6th graders can correct such a statement. He wished to destroy colonialism.
Roosevelt, of old New York Dutch extraction, was like those of his ensconced plutocratic class a committed Anglophile; however, he wanted an imperialist United States that stood to gain from the dissolution the old British Empire. In the Wilsonian mold this would be called Globalism rather than true Imperialism. The U.S. would run the United Nations, as the Allies called themselves during the war. With the Cold War, however, Truman went further and made the USA the "policeman of the world" to contain Communist expansion. This was a gravy-train for the Military Industrial Complex without being all that dangerous.
:)
Last edited by Scott Smith on 08 Oct 2002, 09:35, edited 1 time in total.


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#18

Post by michael mills » 08 Oct 2002, 05:29

Scott Smith wrote:
Communist sympathies were very strong in those days before Stalinism was discredited completely. There was lot of support for the Reds in the U.S. during the Depression, and the Roosevelt regime was chock full of them.
The book I referred to, "On a Field of Red", has quite a bit to say about Communist sympathisers in the Roosevelt Administration. It claims that the Vice-President, Henry Wallace, was a strong Communist sympathiser who later ran for President with Communist support. It raises the possibility that during the war Wallace, while a member of the Top Policy Group overseeing the atomic development program, may have given U-235 to the Soviet Union, but concludes that the accusation is unproven.

The material in this book is very interesting, but I would not advise accepting it 100%, as, like all history books, it is biassed in a particular direction.

With regard to Truman, the book has something very interesting to say regarding his attitude to the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. On pages 588-9, in a passage describing opposition in various circles in the United States to Roosevelt's proposal to extend aid to the Soviet Union, we find the following:
Various patriotic, Catholic, and ethnic organizations produced a torrent of arguments opposing sympathy for a country that had so recently gobbled up its neighbours. Declared an obscure senator from Missouri, Harry S. Truman: "If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany. And that way let them kill as many as possible".
The source for the statement by Truman is given as James McGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom 1940-1945, pp. 111-12.

What Truman suggested was very cold-blooded, but who can doubt that it was more in the self-interest of the United States than all-out support for the Soviet Union against Germany.

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#19

Post by Caldric » 08 Oct 2002, 18:38

Scott Smith wrote:
Caldric wrote:I am not defending the actions or plans of the USSR. The fact is, according to Hitler’s own writing and the writing of many prominent historians, including Kershaw, Hitler wanted the East to be his colonial world like the UK was doing around the world. Remove the Slavs and any other non-desirables and move Germans in. Only unlike the UK the destruction of whole people was ok, and ordered.
That's certainly the theory of those who wanted to see Germany destroyed as a rival and wound-up enthroning the Soviet Union upon half of Europe, yes, and their modern-day apologists.
:mrgreen:

I disagree with the notion of a "Genocidal war," which serves to justify that Communist bungle because Genocide somehow had to be stopped. Sure, Hitler saw some advantages to conquering resources in the East, particularly the territories that Germany had "earned" from the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, as German nationalists would regard it--actually a dismemberment of the Russian empire, not of Russia proper.
Well you can disagree if chose. But I doubt there is much argument in historical documents that will back of your claim that the East was not going to be settled with Germans. Jews and Bolsheviks were to be destroyed, and the Germans were to take over control of all the East up to the Urals. Why else would they invade, just to put in place NSDAP government? Come on, they were going to rape the place.
Of course the Soviets would change sides to meet their own goals, consider for a moment that the whole world just about loathed the communist. Without the war in the west I doubt the West would have done much to help the USSR against Germany.
Communist sympathies were very strong in those days before Stalinism was discredited completely. There was lot of support for the Reds in the U.S. during the Depression, and the Roosevelt regime was chock full of them. This was one of the reasons why FDR was quick to recognize the Soviets in 1933--which is a good thing because it fosters international dialog--but it was also a cynical means to market hardware to the Soviet state, which was in a massive industrialization phase to build its warmachine. In fact, after the 1939 Ribbentrop-Molotov pact those Leftist intellectuals were pro-German against the British Empire until Barbarossa. Then they switched overnight to become anti-Fascists again. If the Soviet Union had fallen, Stalin and company probably would have been exiled safely in the U.S.
There were some it was Cool to be Red in those days, sort of the rebellious types liked the idea. However, your assumption of the communist in Roosevelt camp is being drastically over blown. Not sure who you are talking about in the last sentence. Of course anyone tied to the Comintern were ordered to cease anti-German work and lower the fascist propaganda to a tolerable level.

U.S. Industry has for the most part a right to seek out markets, unlike us they had no foresight on what the USSR was going to become, no one really knew anything about the Stalinist years at this time, as far as most knew he was bringing a starving and backwards nation into the modern world. Most did not know they were murdering millions to do it.

And this idea of Roosevelt building a colonial empire is so incorrect that most 6th graders can correct such a statement. He wished to destroy colonialism.
Roosevelt, of old New York Dutch extraction, was like those of his ensconced plutocratic class a committed Anglophile; however, he wanted an imperialist United States that stood to gain from the dissolution the old British Empire. In the Wilsonian mold this would be called Globalism rather than true Imperialism. The U.S. would run the United Nations, as the Allies called themselves during the war. With the Cold War, however, Truman went further and made the USA the "policeman of the world" to contain Communist expansion. This was a gravy-train for the Military Industrial Complex without being all that dangerous.
:)
And what is wrong with improving to outlook of your own nation? I think you incorrect I think he wanted to bring an end to colonialism which was old fashion and dying anyway. Will be hard to prove he was an Anglophile and a Soviet Stalinist Communist also Scott, I mean the two do not mix very well. I have no problem with close relation with the UK then or now. Policemen of the World was not some planned event, it was a evolution of intervention in foreign nations, one I do not agree with but there it is. The military industrial complex? You speak as though it was some planned out program. In fact Ike the loathed US General of WWII would put a big dent in this so-called Complex. Guess he was not so bad after all.

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Starinov
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#20

Post by Starinov » 08 Oct 2002, 20:07

On the same topic, I opened a thread called "Why the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was signed". In this thread I quoted a speech that Stalin said in front of the Politburo of the VKP(b) on August 19th 1939. Stalin says the same thing as Dimitrov. A war between Germany and the western powers will start a second Imperialist war which will allow the Revolution in Europe.

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#21

Post by Caldric » 08 Oct 2002, 20:16

Starinov wrote:On the same topic, I opened a thread called "Why the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was signed". In this thread I quoted a speech that Stalin said in front of the Politburo of the VKP(b) on August 19th 1939. Stalin says the same thing as Dimitrov. A war between Germany and the western powers will start a second Imperialist war which will allow the Revolution in Europe.
A very true statement also, German aggression opened Eastern Europe up to 70 years of Communist Domination. Stalin was very correct, all he lacked was the far Western portion of Europe.

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#22

Post by Scott Smith » 10 Oct 2002, 04:50

Caldric wrote:A very true statement also, German aggression opened Eastern Europe up to 70 years of Communist Domination. Stalin was very correct, all he lacked was the far Western portion of Europe.
German aggression did this, huh? How come the Allies, who were so concerned about German aggression, did not declare war against the Soviet Union when they violated Poland, Bessarabia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland? And why did they sign away these countries and more at Yalta?
:)

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#23

Post by Caldric » 10 Oct 2002, 09:04

Same reason the US did not declare war on Germany when they invaded Poland, France and bombed the UK.

The UK/France was in an impossible position, how could they go to war with both the USSR and Germany at the same time? German aggression already had the Brits and French pinned.

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#24

Post by SerbTiger » 10 Oct 2002, 12:13

Did I hear Scott Smith say Hitler wasn’t an aggressive and expansionist leader???

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#25

Post by Scott Smith » 12 Oct 2002, 17:52

Caldric wrote:Same reason the US did not declare war on Germany when they invaded Poland, France and bombed the UK.

The UK/France was in an impossible position, how could they go to war with both the USSR and Germany at the same time? German aggression already had the Brits and French pinned.
Then their stated goals were false. Their real goal was the aggressive containment of Germany. The fate of Poor Poland was only an excuse, one that had been carefully-stirred by the Allies for a long time.
:)

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#26

Post by Scott Smith » 12 Oct 2002, 17:55

SerbTiger wrote:Did I hear Scott Smith say Hitler wasn’t an aggressive and expansionist leader???
Yeah, like Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin.
:)

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Roberto
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#27

Post by Roberto » 16 Oct 2002, 19:44

Reigo wrote:
On May 15th a document of which only one copy was produced called "Considerations on plans for the strategic deployment of Soviet armed forces in the event of war with Germany and its allies " was signed by Timoshenko and Zhukov. The plan envisaged a pre-emptive strike by 152 Soviet divisions but the Soviet leaders realised the Red Army was in no condition to carry out such a move the alternative was to order a general mobilisation.
At first just a sidenote: the plan can be called preemptive put surely not preventive. The plan considered that it is useful to attack the Germans before they finish the concentration of their troops (which the Soviets knew was going on). The German attack was considered only as a possible (Hitler also believed that somewhere in the future a Soviet attack can come - does it make Barbarossa preventive?)
As I understand the terms, "preemption" means the anticipation of an attack that is held to be imminent, while "prevention" means the anticipation of an attack that is expected to occur at some time in the future.

Thus your statement would have to be that the planned attack was preventive but not preemptive, in my opinion.

Barbarossa was neither because there is no evidence to Hitler having been concerned about the Soviet buildup signalling either the imminence of an attack or preparations for an attack somewhere in the future. His goals were to curb Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, to break the stategic deadlock with Britain and to destroy his Bolshevist arch-enemy and gain "living space" - not necessarily in that order.

What - if anything - is known about the goals of the preventive attack (according to my interpretation of the term, see above) that Stalin had in mind in order to anticipate a German attack "considered only as possible"?

How far was he intending to go?

Was his attack to be an all-out reckoning, such as Adolf had in mind?
Reigo wrote:Secondly: the version that this plan wasn't accepted at all is based only on some memoirs and fex Meltiukhov has shown how these memoirs are quite questionable.

The Soviets were concentrating for something.
The evidence that the plan wasn't accepted may be feeble, but what evidence - other than Soviet troop concentrations, which all by themselves can mean a lot or nothing at all - does Meltiukhov provide that it was accepted?
Reigo wrote:
To cut a long story short Stalin decided on a policy of appeasment believing Hitler was bluffing hence his supposed refusal to believe warnings.
As a sidenote: appeasement was showed for the outside world, there was no appeasement in Soviet inside propaganda.
What did that propaganda look like? Was the word "fascist" re-introduced as a derogatory term, for instance?
Reigo wrote:When talking about appeasement remember that Hitler was also before Barbarossa interested that the Soviets didn't suspect anything.
What did he do to avoid suspicions, other than order reconnaissance flights over Soviet territory (to which Stalin did not object)?
Reigo wrote:
In June 41 Colonel-General Halder dismissed the idea of a Soviet offensive as "nonsense" and I would humbly agree with him.
Halder's opinion is irrevelant, because:
* German intelligence on SU was poor.
* If there was to be a Soviet offensive in 1941, it most surely wouldn't have happened on 23rd June fex. Like already said, preparations for something were on the middle and on 22nd June 1941 the Soviets weren't ready for nothing. Halder saw that the Red Army wasn't ready for nothing and concluded that they weren't also ready for attack.
If the "preparations for something" were preparations for attack, then why did the German troops, although they captured the staffs of whole armies and army groups during the encirclement battles of 1941, not come upon a single piece of evidence that would have indicated a Soviet intention to stage a preventive attack?

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#28

Post by Caldric » 16 Oct 2002, 20:04

Scott Smith wrote:
Caldric wrote:Same reason the US did not declare war on Germany when they invaded Poland, France and bombed the UK.

The UK/France was in an impossible position, how could they go to war with both the USSR and Germany at the same time? German aggression already had the Brits and French pinned.
Then their stated goals were false. Their real goal was the aggressive containment of Germany. The fate of Poor Poland was only an excuse, one that had been carefully-stirred by the Allies for a long time.
:)
No actually in the defense of the US war was waged against the nation. Germany started the war Scott and you will never change mine or the vast majority of people in the world opinion on that fact.

At any rate you are still wrong, their real goal was the containment of German aggression, anyone without blinders on can see that, are flapping Red White and Black flags in their eyes.

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#29

Post by michael mills » 17 Oct 2002, 04:43

Roberto wrote:
As I understand the terms, "preemption" means the anticipation of an attack that is held to be imminent, while "prevention" means the anticipation of an attack that is expected to occur at some time in the future.
An example of a"preventive war" would be the war that the United States is currently preparing to unleash against Iraq. The stated justification is that Iraq will in the near future pose a threat to the United States through weapons of mass destruction that it is supposedly developing.

If Iraq in 2002 poses a future threat to the United States, such that a preventive war is justified, then the Soviet Union in 1941 posed an immeasurably greater future threat to Germany, since its military capability was equal, if not superior, to that of Germany, whereas Iraq's capability is vastly inferior to that of the United States.

Accordingly, the justification for Germany's launching a preventive war against the Soviet Union in 1941 was far greater than the justification for a preventive war against Iraq now.

I would presume that Roberto and the other "usual suspects" are not going to come out in open opposition to a "preventive war" against Iraq, given that the ethnic lobby whose cause they espouse is one of its main supporters.

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#30

Post by Roberto » 17 Oct 2002, 13:26

michael mills wrote:If Iraq in 2002 poses a future threat to the United States, such that a preventive war is justified, then the Soviet Union in 1941 posed an immeasurably greater future threat to Germany, since its military capability was equal, if not superior, to that of Germany, whereas Iraq's capability is vastly inferior to that of the United States.
Assuming there was a reason to assume that potential future military capability would be used to support a policy of all-out aggression, that is.

But then, that was not what the Führer was concerned with at the time let alone one of his reasons for launching the attack, was it?
michael mills wrote:I would presume that Roberto and the other "usual suspects" are not going to come out in open opposition to a "preventive war" against Iraq, given that the ethnic lobby whose cause they espouse is one of its main supporters.
It may come as a surprise to Mr. Mills, but I think that Mr. Bush has a few loose screws more than even our esteemed fellow poster, whose inevitable display of what worries his paranoid mind day and night is duly taken note of.

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