The only thing worst than a strong enemy are weak allies.
Someone has to pay for the weapons. Duhh
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Whataboutism? This post is about the US and Ukraine, not about Russia
Then why do people feel the need to defend Russia?
Pointing out the defence of something unrelated isn’t Whataboutism
You can’t see a post about the two-sidedness of US policy without invoking the Russians.
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With rare exception (Israel) America can seem downright schizo from administration to administration.
This was always Ukraine’s fate.
The OG coup happened under the Obama admin, the far-right were forced into government under Trump pt I, Ukraine was forced to sell off state assets and take billions in loans by the Biden admin, and now the US is preparing to pick the bones clean over the next decades.
It’s nice that yall are recognizing that the US isn’t there to help the Ukrainian people now, but we’re all gonna repeat this next war.
Not even just changes in administration. The U.S. will often suddenly move on or just decide you will work better as a villain for internal politics. The US basically told Saddam Hussein that we wouldn’t care if he invaded Kuwait only to then use that invasion as justification to make him a boogeyman for the next decade.
That’s not what happen.
Who would’ve thought the government that installed a far right government in a coup wouldn’t have the best intentions?!
See, I can’t tell if you’re talking about America, Russia, or Ukraine.
I get what you’re saying, but to clarify I was speaking of the 2014 Maidan Coup where the US installed a far-right puppet government.
Sure, and Russia had their right-wing coup in 1991, and America is currently doing a self-coup.
People get these confused a lot, but russia has 2 coups in the 90s-
1991 was a failed anti-reformist “left wing” coup that deposed Gorbachev and ended with the fall of the USSR and Yeltsin in power.
1993 was a successful right wing self-coup that allowed Yeltsin to fully consolidate power away from the Russian parliament and towards the presidency. More hamfisted and violent, but in essence similar to what is happening in the US right now
The US was taken over in a coup when Kennedy was assassinated. We’ve been ruled by the CIA & Mossad ever since.
Eh, while they’re part of maintaining the status quo, we’re ruled by capital, and that was true before Kennedy too.
And the CIA has always been an attack dog of the capitalists. That’s its whole mission.
Self-coup would suggest someone is in control and actually wants what’s happening. That’d be nice.
And your evidence for the US installing this government is what exactly?
Let me say this as a westerner - if someone all of a sudden tried to put me in a Putinist puppet state, shit would burn. To the ground.
Im assuming you aren’t American, then 👀
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Fact check me.
How should I prove that the Euromaidan wasn’t some right wing CIA coup? How do you prove a negative?
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You and I share the same opinions. I was also permabanned from reddit. “Health” to Trump!
In some weird way, snuggles and comedy-roasts seem to be the perfect punishment for Trump. Not the easy way out, but humiliation, which is the only thing he is afraid of.
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Current likelihood is that there’s only a mineral deal if US pays Zelensky/Ukraine to fight more. Security guarantees don’t actually cost anything until you have to do something, and its pretty likely that any weapons would be used to provoke aggression during ceasefire instead of protecting Ukraine’s neutrality.
It’s Europe that wants war more than US, and so it’s far more likely they get the mineral deal to keep going to the last Ukrainian.
US is fatal even for itself
US is in a state of slow implosion. Rest of the world needs to look at collaborating while excluding the US.
My guess is China will fill the void left by the disintegration of USAID in order to boost its global standing.
I strongly encourage all nations to begin violating US intellectual property rights. Nations like India already do so with pharmaceuticals.
Eventually other nations will need to take on the mantle of tech and pharmaceutical research and development and we don’t want to live in a world where all this progress is lost.
Americans have chosen to nuke their own democracy and we need to minimize the damage done to the rest of the world as much as possible.
Our implosion isn’t so slow these days.
My guess is China will fill the void left by the disintegration of USAID in order to boost its global standing.
China will take large chunks. But I think we will also see a decentralization as china won’t be able to take it all. Countries like Turkey, Malaysia, Brazil and so on will probably increase their regional soft powers a lot.
This process also already started years ago, but will be catalyzed by this.
Russophobia has been the big disease, really created by US/USAID/NED/CIA. Europe seems to need a moment to let go, but if US isn’t forcing them into it, the rest of the world has already been open to Russia and China. Trump is literally forcing the world to liberate itself from US. The US is still a nice market, but China is much larger to sell into, and tariff wars are not likely to bring investments into the US.
A multipolar world makes as much obvious sense as democracy. But it is pretty remarkable that US is pushing for it now.
Europe seems to need a moment to let go, but if US isn’t forcing them into it, the rest of the world has already been open to Russia and China
I mean, what would Europe need from russia? We’re currently more of a “global power” then they are. Only countries seriously aligning themselves with Russia those days are either extremely weak and near russia and so have 0 choice in the matter or try to play both sides for fun and profit LARPing as Tito.
We’re currently more of a “global power” then they are.
There’s a reason why the peace talks for Ukraine are between the US and Russia and the EU isn’t invited. Nobody takes Europe seriously anymore. The only thing resembling global power that Europeans have is their remaining colonies.
what would Europe need from russia?
Resources is big one, including infrastructure already in place for energy. Most of the world sides with Russia through this conflict. Even some US colonies have done well playing both sides. Russia is also an export market. World needs Russia to limit global warming. Futile attempts to destroy it, won’t work.
Cheap energy, labor, and resources and a slightly greater degree of independence from America.
Russia also still holds a lot of their traditional soft power in many countries, including several EU countries. They also greatly increased their softpower by helping to get far right parties into power or at least signinificant influence in several EU countries (like Orban or Germany just 2 days ago).
On the other hand Russia manouvered itself into a very weak geostrategical position lately (Ukraine and Syria). Everyone noticed that and this will likely lead to some restructuring in several regions, unlikely to be in Russias favour.
I currently find it really hard to make assumptions about Russias role in the mid-term future. That is also, why I didn’t mention Russia in my post.
I don’t see any country being able to engineer coups by supporting terrorists as effectively as the US, so I don’t see Russia or other local powers replacing the US’s influence in countries where the left presents a meaningful alternative to neoliberalism.
Going to start threatening to bomb Texas if it doesn’t hand over its oil reserves, at this rate.
based man, I’m so sad about this… hope EU+UA will forge an even more powerful alliance!
history truly is a flat circle
This image is almost 3 years old already lmao.
If any libs want to learn how tankies see the future you might want to read about the past for once. Pop history doesn’t count.
and its already outdated, we need to add jolani in there
That’s the kicker, Leftists are correct far more often than liberals yet libs never put 2 and 2 together.
It’s late stage capitalism, bro, revolution is just around the corner, bro.
Repeat for 150 years.
Revolution has already come in many countries, and the US Empire is on its way out. Not sure what your point is, this is correct.
China is ready to take over as the lead capitalist empire.
China is neither Capitalist nor an Empire, so not sure what your point is.
How is China not capitalist? The government keeps it’s capitalist leashed, but they are the driving force are they not?
I’m also not sure how you’d not see them as an empire? It’s a big ole place with a lot of folk.
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Only if you ignore all the obvious facts that make them wrong. For example two of the “allies” pictured here were never allies.
Seems to me it’s more saying that NATO’s stated goal for Libya was to “liberate” it, when in reality it was a disaster.
Either way, I’m more interested in continuing the conversations I tried to have with you regarding Marx’s Law of Value and your understanding of how the PRC functions.
Ok but Qaddafi wasn’t an ally of the USA.
Im not engaging in discussions that have zero to do with this thread in this thread.
Qadaffi kinda was between ~2003 and 2011. The CIA even captured and handed over enemies from all over the world, along with providing intelligence about dissidents within Libya.
You don’t have to respond in this thread, I just want you to give an example on the other thread that you say disproves Marx’s Law of Value, and ideally also elaborate on why you think workers in the PRC had it better 2-3 decades ago compared to today.
People are seriously acting like Bin Laden was bait and switched by the US. I somehow remember it differently…
…he was, though? We funded the Mujahideen to combat the Soviets in Afghanistan, and then when the USSR collapsed we cut him loose to get all chummy with the Saudi government so we could get that cheap oil.
How was Libya, a member of the non-aligned movement, a US ally? They literally were part of a group that took neither side in the Cold War.
OBL was never an ally. The US gave money to the Pakistani ISI who gave money to fixers who gave money to OBL. There was no direct channel. He was never an ally and it is a weird assertion to make given the history.
The other two were US allies. Noriega was even friendly with Bush 41. This is just bad history.
As far as OBL goes, the US armed and trained his faction against the soviets during the soviet-afghan war.
And MI6 and the CIA giving info about mutual enemies doesn’t make them an ally.
Again the CIA gave money to the ISI who gave money to fixers who decided who got money. The US soldiers training them doesn’t make them an ally of the USA.
Ukraine was never an ally of the US either, by that metric.
No, because we actually have negotiated signed treaties with Ukraine. Are ypu confused as to what an ally is?
We signed treaties with a government that was overthrown, and “signing a treaty” does not make a nation an ally. You seem to be the one confused about what an ally is. There was no formal alliance, just informal support, the same kind given to the people who you claim don’t count because they were never allies.
That’s not how Operation Cyclone worked. You can just read the wikipedia article, there’s several books on the subject, but honestly Blowback Season 4 is pretty good coverage. Episode 3 specifically deals with who at the CIA interfaced with the afghans and how.
It also includes the methods the US promoted the mujahedin as freedom fighters to the US before ultimately turning on them, which is what the meme is about.
From your link I have added emphasis to the part you seemed to have missed:
“ The distribution of the weaponry relied heavily on the Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who had a personal relationship with Congressman Wilson. His Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was an intermediary for funds distribution, passing of weapons, military training and financial support to Afghan resistance groups.[40] Along with funding from Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of China,[41] the ISI developed a complex infrastructure that was directly training 16,000 to 18,000 mujahideen fighters annually by early 1986 (and indirectly facilitating training for thousands of others by Afghans that had previously been recipients of ISI instruction).[42] They encouraged the volunteers from the Arab states to join the Afghan resistance in its struggle against the Soviet troops based in Afghanistan.[40] Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq also directed the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to establish contact with Israel’s Mossad.[43] Intelligence offices were set up at both countries’ embassies in Washington, where the ISI, MI6, CIA and Mossad jointly ran the operation.[44] During this operation, Israel supplied Soviet-made weaponry (seized from Palestinian militants) to the Afghan mujahideen. Pakistan and Israel cooperated very closely during the entirety of the conflict and the Pakistani military which was engaging Soviet aircraft and providing the mujahideen with funds and weapons—received a generous amount of Israeli armaments and aid as a result.[44]___
So how didn’t it work like that? It really seems the ISI, who would best know the parties involved, did the heavy lifting.
The CIA using the ISI to transport some weapons and train soldiers isn’t “this ISI did everything therefore the Mujahedin weren’t supported by the US”, it’s “the ISI were a tool of the CIA”, the operation was run out of Washington. It had US media providing glowing coverage of the Mujahedin as they committed war crimes.
The ISI being the go between for almost everything does mean those groups the ISI paid are not allies of the USA. If anyone in the Mujahideen needed help we would not have provided it because we are not allies. If the ISI needed help we likely would help depending on the circumstances (we wont fight India for example).
You ever heard of operation cyclone before?
Yes and the ISI were the intermediary for almost everything. The wiki link they provided even explains this.
What did you think I was missing or am I supposed to think a handful of CIA guys made all the decisions vs taking input from the ISI would would know all of the players involved.
I know you are a communist and not a huge fan of the USA, but are you one of the people that actually believes America’s intelligence agencies were good at spy-craft? We weren’t.
Funny wojak faces but to clear up an apparent misconception here, Ukrainian weren’t fighting for abstract concepts like “freedom” and Democracy", they were fighting to stop Russian soldiers from killing their families, raping their children, and burning their homes to the ground.
I hope this helps!
I guess those values like Nazism and goals of cultural suppression of Russian-speaking people in the Donbas was all just to “protect their families”
Ukrainians were/are still fighting to defend themselves from an illegal invasion. But America sees and has always seen Ukraine as a proxy to weaken a geo-strategic rival. NATO was not realistically on the table as long as the conflict in the Donbas was ongoing (it would have immediately triggered art.5) to keep promising NATO instead of working on a more realistic path to peace has probably caused the death of 100000s of Ukrainians. And just as with many other imperial proxies in history, the proxy is left to deal with the fallout while the empire retreats to the metropol and prepares for the next conflict.
Really spot on except America isn’t exactly retreating, it’s just now under the leadership of an administration that would prefer to have Russia as an ally.
Instead of two imperialist powers fighting via proxy, they could just work together and strip smaller counties of their natural resources, side by side. Imperialism united.
Ukraine was always getting stripped of its resources and immiserated; the IMF loan required them to privatize and sell off their ports, power grids, factories, schools, etc for pennies.
I think you’ll find they were fighting other Ukrainians (if you can call the carpet bombing of civilians “fighting”) to maintain the US financed Poroshenko in power long before Russia went in, about eight years in fact.
umm actually history started on February 24th, 2022 ☝️🤓
It actually started on February 2014 and then abruptly stopped around May for 8 years
long before Russia went in
There’s a problem with this, because Russia has had troops in Ukraine since early 2014, before Poroshenko’s government
The Sbovoda interim was also financed by the USA, with Victoria Nuland discussing on a leaked call who to name after they deposed Yanukovich.
Russia had troops in Crimea as requested by the Crimean government, which also seceded via referendum after said coup, as is its right under Ukrainian law. That proved to be the right move given that they didn’t have the astronomical number of casualties that Donbas had, with over 14 thousand dead before 2022, most of them civilians, and a huge number of injured civilians and destroyed infrastructure as per the Donbas documentary.
If America’s goal was to put Svoboda in power, they didn’t do a very good job of keeping them there, did they?
I have read the Nuland transcript. She’s talking about the existing leader of the opposition. Of course she said Yatsenyuk was the guy, he was the goddamn leader of the opposition. He was the one guy avalable with the best democratic mandate at the last election. Yanukovych even offered to make him prime minister at one point.
Russia put troops into Crimea before the referendum, and the referendum was run by the occupying army. Do you normally trust occupying armies to run referendums about whether or not they should get to keep the land they’re occupying?
Perhaps if Russia was so concerned about casualties in the Donbas, it should not have invaded and caused hundreds of thousands more casualties.
Russia put troops into Crimea before the referendum, and the referendum was run by the occupying army. Do you normally trust occupying armies to run referendums about whether or not they should get to keep the land they’re occupying?
97% in favour of Crimea joining Russia. Western polling was a solid 70%+. The new 2014 regime was legitimately divisive to the point that the majority ethnic Russian populations in Ukraine did not want to submit to them.
Lmao so the US did finance them, did appoint their best liked interim, did have congresspeople on the ground supporting the coup, did send in the money to arm the Nazis but just… quietly let democracy take its course once they spent all that time and money? America doesn’t give a fuck if Sbovoda remains as long as the shock therapy has happened already, by then they’ll take anyone who’ll toe the line.
I want to give y’all the benefit of the doubt and conclude that you think we’re stupid but sometimes I think there’s a more obvious answer.
Ukrainians already wanted to align with the EU. The US didn’t need to do a damn thing to influence that, a long history of Russian imperialism did it all for them
America spent fuck all on Ukraine in the entire history of its independence up until Euromaidan (pg 167). They simply did not spend “all that money”, because a single digit millions of dollars a year is a rounding error in the US budget. American spending on Ukraine in 2013 was 0.00024% of the federal budget.
America spent fuck all on Ukraine in the entire history of its independence up until Euromaidan
Oh fr? Let’s ask as-US-backed-as-US-backed-gets Kyiv Independent then: https://kyivindependent.com/how-us-foreign-aid-transformed-ukraine-through-the-years/
With the signing of a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and USAID in 1992, the agency started working alongside the Ukrainian government to build a competitive market economy, implement crucial social reforms […] In over 30 years of working in Ukraine, USAID has played a key role in transforming numerous sectors […] Dmytro Boyarchuk, the executive director of the Centre for Social and Economic Research (CASE Ukraine), said that Ukraine would not have been able to implement vital reforms without the support of international donors like USAID.
Obfuscate it as much as you want, pro-western Ukrainians themselves are telling everyone how maintaining a pro-western system depends on US funds.
The US didn’t need to do a damn thing
Nice deflection but the fact is that it did, often and extensively. If the US didn’t need to spend that money, then you shouldn’t worry, pretty soon they might not be. Let’s see how friendly that world is to the US and their chickenshit vassals in the UK et al, I yearn to see it. Most of all I yearn that y’all see it.
If Ukrainians already wanted to align with the EU, then why did they democratically elect Yanukovych, which the US subsequently couped in coordination with the Banderites?
American spending on Ukraine in 2013
Good thing we’re talking about the money it spent on the coup and the aftermath, then.
So the fact that America funded through USAID 9 out of every 10 media outlets means they didn’t spend “anything” in Ukraine because… It spends way more fucking money than that everywhere else too?
Also, implying the US only spends the money in a country via direct government cash injection lmao. Most of the money the US spends is channelled through NGOs for propaganda and covert action. Why the fuck would they ever just give money away to a government before it’s thoroughly vassalized. What’s more: there’s ample evidence that US and UK propaganda specialists were employed by Subversive elements within Ukraine as well as extensive funding of NGOs and collaboration with psyop specialists.
In future resumes, they cited the Ukraine coup as well as the selling of the civil war as a “war against russian separatists” as an example of a successful psychological operation.
You are backing the Russian invasion of Ukraine which they did to steal minerals and you are criticizing the US doing the same now that POTUS is a Russian asset?
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Do you have a source that Putin sent soldiers to rape children?
So, just NBC news doing the usual and boosting baseless claims like it did about Hamas and beheaded babies? Do y’all even read the shit you post or do you just skim for a headline that matches what you want to say?
The report cites no evidence and only points to “anonymous sources” (how surprising). NBC also doesn’t cite any evidence and points to other articles posted by themselves, one of which says are in the process of collecting the evidence but:
Experts worry that investigations could be less efficient and that some evidence could be mishandled or not make its way to investigative teams with the International Criminal Court and the Prosecutor General’s Office in Ukraine
Really convenient. Excellent standards of proof as always. No wonder the ICJ has denounced the lawfare of Ukraine.
The Court has held that certain materials, such as press articles and extracts from publications, are regarded ‘not as evidence capable of proving facts.’
Indeed.
https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g24/037/31/pdf/g2403731.pdf
Here is the report right from the UN.
That article doesn’t contain anything about Putin sending soldiers to rape children. Did you post the wrong link?
Raped children? I read a lot of western news and I never heard about that.
The report:
In the cases we have investigated, the age of victims of sexual and gendered-based violence ranged from four to 82 years. The Commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined. Children have also been killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons.
UN back at it again with “we have witness testimony but no evidence of this adversary of the US doing horrifying acts”
Or:
"We have found the evidence to be nonexistent, the case to be exaggerated, the timing and backers to be suspect
But US media needs a soundbite so here’s a short dismissal and a long condemnation"
I followed the sources they link and the ones those link and found that the best substantiation they have is “according to the accounts collected by some NGOs”.
Here’s some more up-to-date info regarding a previous ICJ case against Russia, so we can weigh up how much these accusations might be based on fact. Spoiler alert: every accusation is a confession. I’ll quote a relevant bit to your atrocity propaganda peddling:
The Court has held that certain materials, such as press articles and extracts from publications, are regarded ‘not as evidence capable of proving facts.’
And this one, regarding the reliability of testimonies presented by Ukraine.
The ICJ was also highly condemnatory of the quality of witnesses and witness evidence produced by Kiev to support these charges[…] Statements attesting to this were “collected many years after the relevant events” and “not supported by corroborating documentation”
I don’t doubt there must be unspeakable shit happening, there’s been a war for so long that monsters are bound to take part. But I’ll hold my judgement as to how systematic it is until evidence is presented (which it absolutely hasn’t been), not just claims by notorious liars who said the same shit about Hamas without any evidence and no pushback from these very same publications.
According to the report though there have just been some cases of Russian soldiers doing it. There doesn’t appear to be the weaponised use of sexual violence a la Isreal, but ya wars are always like this. I’ll never understand the people who simp for them.
Edit: Before any one wants to call me out for minimising SA
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_rape_and_killings
Literally every war ever is full of SA
And the report provides… zero evidence. How come there’s plenty of evidence for Ukraine’s crimes (always discredited as Russia propaganda) but Ukraine can just say shit and it’s up to everyone else to prove they’re lying?
Fucked up. War sucks
Yes it’s been posted. Thanks
Libs really do just have the one line for every enemy of the State Department don’t y’all? First it was Hamas, now it’s Russia, and y’all never bring a source.
Probably because you know once you do bring one we’ll let you know the article only points to credible anonymous sources as always.
You need a source that Russia is invading Ukraine? bruh just ask Putin
You know very well I need a source that contains any evidence to the claims that Russians are systematically raping children. But it’s easier for libs to fight windmills than it is to walk back jingoist stances they readily swallowed without any evidence and repeat as fact.
Us in the global south know that white westerners like to paint their opponents as monstrous animals at the slightest provocation to justify their genocidal drives. So either prove your accusations or shut the fuck up.
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Oh look, holocaust trivialization
Calling a Nazi a Nazi is not “Holocaust trivialization”.
Yeah, and what you did was Holocaust trivialization
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Imma be honest with you chief the amount of times I come here for funny leftist memes and then see a bunch of pro imperialistic takes or starting school yard “nuh uh your crimes are worse then my crimes” is so draining.
I get that when you gather a bunch of people under one banner of a nuanced concept you are gonna get a range of people from mild mannered to fanatical about it.
Like this must be why people throw around “othering” loaded terms like tankie and liberal in here.
This is why I wish it was just high level concept lefty memes, cause you’ll never get satisfying low level discussion online, just high level screeching and slap fights. So now I just try to not engage, just look for memes to talk to people IRL about instead.
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If it was simple mob extortion it would be reasonable. Zelensky originally agreed when he thought the deal would be to pay for American protection.
But Trump wants the money AND wants Ukraine to surrender. Trump is a stupid mob boss who doesn’t understand why “Pay me and I’ll let the rival gang burn your business.” isn’t going to be accepted.
It’s confusing to him because he is a street level member of the rival gang.
Trump works for the rival gang though. He’s just demanding the minerals so the dipshits will blame the USA instead of Russia. Putin gets what he wants to steal and he looks good in the eyes of the pro-authoritarian class traitors in this thread.
To me, we are back to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, except this time it’s Ukraine instead of Poland and the US replace Nazi Germany…
its like the memoradum, where ukraine wasnt invited and like the sudentlands with ww2 nazi germany, the countries in question wasnt allowed at the table. and in recent history , israel was unilaterally given without hte palestines in attendance.
I am once again begging liberals to learn any history other than WW2. (And ideally actually learn about WW2 as well)
its worst for younger people, some dont even know about WW2 at all,
Fair point… Don’t know much about history…
But I know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world it would be
In my humble opinion, this is nothing like the Molotov-Ribbentrop. Molotov-Ribbentrop gets a lot of bad advertising due to cold war propaganda, but even western leaders in the west at the time like Churchill admitted that the Soviets had no other option (if you want evidence I have plenty of reference, feel free to ask :)
The Soviets spent the entire 30s warning of fascism and trying to build mutual defense agreements with France, England and Poland and they refused systematically, even when in 1939 the Soviets offered to send 1 million troops together with artillery, tanks and planes, to the Polish and French borders on exchange for a mutual defense agreement, but the French and English ambassadors received orders not to engage in actual negotiations and just to postpone the agreement, since they wanted the Nazis to invade the Soviet Union.
Either way even if you fundamentally disagree with what I’m saying, what was the alternative? Poland was going to get steamrolled by the Nazis with or without the soviets controlling the eastern part of it (as proven by the fact that soviets started invading some weeks after the Nazis). What’s more desirable, half of Poland having concentration camps, or the entirety of Poland having concentration camps?
All of this could have been prevented in my opinion if western countries agreed to engage the Nazis together with the Soviet union, as the soviets suggested as an alternative to the Munich agreements. So the lesson in my view is: to fight fascism, listen to socialists (who are the ones who actually defeated most Nazis in the eastern front)
since they wanted the Nazis to invade the Soviet Union.
I’d dispute that based on the fact that they declared war on Germany immediately when Hitler invaded Poland, dispite the fact that he was closing the buffer to the USSR. The capitalists’ real hope was that Hitler would be more of a bulwark, a guard dog who would be content suppressing communists within Germany’s own borders and being militarized and prepared in case the USSR tried to expand. Hitler was granted a lot of leeway in that hope, and it’s possible he misread that as either weakness or wanting him to attack the Soviets. But and the end of the day, if he wanted to fight the USSR, and Britain and France wanted him to fight the USSR, then he would’ve wound up fighting the USSR with little conflict with the other Allies, possibly even with their support. There’s a grain of truth to what you’re saying but imo it’s exaggerated and doesn’t fit with the facts/timeline.
I’d dispute that based on the fact that they declared war on Germany immediately when Hitler invaded Poland
They already had a mutual defense agreement with Poland, that’s why they intervened at that point. Additionally, they didn’t want Nazis to get too big because they were competing for resources and markets, as are all capitalist nations.
I find it very easy to believe that the very nations that invaded the Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war and supported the tsarists with no other reason than to attempt to destroy communism, would be happy to see Germany destroy the Soviet Union which, as a nation which had only began to industrialise in the late 1920s (compared to the extra century that Germany and England had had to industrialise), was very weak in military industrial capabilities.
In any case I understand that that’s just my opinion based on historical precedents, and there may be more nuance. However, I seem to share the same point of view of many western allies from the period:
“In those days the Soviet Government had grave reason to fear that they would be left one-on-one to face the Nazi fury. Stalin took measures which no free democracy could regard otherwise than with distaste. Yet I never doubted myself that his cardinal aim had been to hold the German armies off from Russia for as long as might be ” (Paraphrased from Churchill’s December 1944 remarks in the House of Commons.)
“It would be unwise to assume Stalin approves of Hitler’s aggression. Probably the Soviet Government has merely sought a delaying tactic, not wanting to be the next victim. They will have a rude awakening, but they think, at least for now, they can keep the wolf from the door ” Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the United States, 1933–1945), from Harold L. Ickes’s diary entries, early September 1939. Ickes’s diaries are published as The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes.
“One must suppose that the Soviet Government, seeing no immediate prospect of real support from outside, decided to make its own arrangements for self‑defence, however unpalatable such an agreement might appear. We in this House cannot be astonished that a government acting solely on grounds of power politics should take that course ” Neville Chamberlain, House of Commons Statement, August 24, 1939 (one day after pact’s signing)
“We could not doubt that the Soviet Government, disillusioned by the hesitant negotiations with Britain and France, feared a lone struggle against Hitler’s mighty war machine. It seemed they had concluded, in the interests of survival, that an accord with Germany would at least postpone their day of reckoning ” Cordell Hull (U.S. Secretary of State), The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (Published 1948)
“It seemed to me that the Soviet leaders believed conflict with Nazi Germany was inescapable. But, lacking clear assurances of military partnership from England and France, they resolved that a ‘breathing spell’ was urgently needed. In that sense, the pact with Germany was a temporary expedient to keep the wolf from the door ” Joseph E. Davies (U.S. Ambassador to the USSR, 1937–1938), Mission to Moscow (1941)
Britain and France also had an alliance with Czechoslovakia, which they sacrificed. I’m very confused about where exactly Germany was supposed to invade from without a shared border, and the fact that Britain and France had an alliance with Poland in the first place contradicts the idea that they wanted Germany to invade the USSR.
Of course there was no love between them and the USSR and the capitalists were persuing material interests and all, but there was also a widespread hope/belief that WWI was “the war to end all wars.” “Peace in Europe” was a major political selling point.
I read all of your quotes and none of them seem to support your narrative over mine. My only point of disagreement with you is whether Britain and France wanted Germany to invade the Soviet Union, not about the Soviet assessment of the situation. It’s not even that big of a disagreement, I agree that they wanted to use Hitler but it’s clear they wanted to keep him on a leash and have him serve as a first line of defense, not offense. It shouldn’t be that hard to believe that the powers that be wanted to preserve the status quo and their position in it rather than throwing everything into chaos.
You make the point yourself that they didn’t want “The Nazis to get too big” but if they invaded the Soviets and emerged victorious, they’d be much bigger and pose a major threat to the other Allies (of course, there was also the possibility the USSR won, which would also pose a threat).
it’s clear they wanted to keep him [Hitler] on a leash and have him serve as a first line of defense
This is basically the thing I’m arguing. The Soviet Union was never an expansionist project in the military sense (they wanted to spread the revolution abroad, such as by assisting the Republicans in Spain and giving weapons to the Vietnamese in their anti-imperialist struggle), never projecting their military force outwards except because of serious provoking by third party foreign actors (such as in the case of the funding and arming in Afghanistan of radical theocratic militias by the US).
The fact that all of these western leaders talk of the USSR using the Molotov-Ribbentrop as an “odious but necessary defensive measure”, proves to me that they understood that the USSR wasn’t something they needed to be militarily defended of by a weaponized Germany acting as a buffer, hence that can’t be understood as Germany’s role in the situation in my opinion.
Fait point. Let’s put it that way: Trump is trying to share Ukraine’s resources with Russia the way laymen understand Nazi Germany and USSR agreed to devide Poland’s territory in 1939.
Not to defend the flawed comparison with Trump’s treason, but that’s a very useless take on the M-R pact…
Stalin could have
- not promised the nazis to attack the Poles from the rear
- not attacked the Poles from the rear
- not murdered hundreds of thousands of Poles after high-fiving the nazis after having succesfully attacked the Poles from the rear
I think all of these alternatives would have been more desirable than, well, actively teaming up with the nazis
edit: list layout
Stalin could have not promised the nazis to attack the Poles from the rear not attacked the Poles from the rear
Again, please tell me what was the alternative to Soviet occupation in Eastern Poland, once Poland rejected a mutual defense agreement against Nazis with the Soviets.
murdered hundreds of thousands of Poles
I don’t think those numbers are honest, can you provide a source for that? I know about the Katyn massacre and about other events in which Nazi collaborators/Bourgeois Polish nationalists were killed (as well as some innocent civilians), but AFAIK the numbers don’t go that high
I think all of these alternatives would have been more desirable
Again, how is tens of thousands of deaths in occupied Poland (many of which were Nazi collaborators and bourgeois Polish nationalists) preferable to Nazi occupation? Or can you think of an alternative to either of these two options?
please tell me what was the alternative to Soviet occupation in Eastern Poland, once Poland rejected a mutual defense agreement against Nazis with the Soviets
There were several alternatives, actually. But most of them would start with Russia not attacking them in the rear after they moved their troops west to fight off the nazis
can you provide a source for that? I know about the Katyn massacre and about other events in which Nazi collaborators/Bourgeois Polish nationalists were killed (as well as some innocent civilians), but AFAIK the numbers don’t go that high
Yeah sure, here’s one that estimates between 250k and 1.5m (but which I believe also includes post-war)
But I presume that if you’re the type that already convinced themselves that all these murdered Poles “must have deserved it” in one way or another, then that number probably couldn’t be high enough anyway
There were several alternatives, actually
Great, please name one of them that doesn’t imply complete occupation of Poland by Nazis, I’ve asked you already several times to do so and you keep avoiding it. To me, a great alternative would have been the mutual defense agreement that the Soviet Union spent the entire 30s pursuing with England, France and Poland, which the latter countries repeatedly rejected. What’s your alternative?
Yeah sure, here’s one that estimates between 250k and 1.5m
That’s a book on migrations and deportations, not a book on casualties, it doesn’t seem to support a claim of “hundreds of thousands murdered” which you made in your previous comment, could you please elaborate?
already convinced themselves that all these murdered Poles
Again, you’re conflating murdered with deported.
“must have deserved it”
I explicitly mentioned in my previous comment that there were innocents caught in this process of class war and collectivisation of the economy in times of war, which I deeply lament. I just can’t envision an alternative reality where, after a decade of denying mutual defense agreements with the Soviets, there was a better alternative to Soviet occupation as opposed to Nazi occupation.
42·23 hours agoI ask that you read Denna F. Flemmings, The Cold War and Its Origins 1917-1960, Vol I, at least the chapters regarding the build-up to and early days of WWII (Chapter 4-6/7).
Could you paraphrase the parts of the book that would be relevant?
GODDAMMIT, MARY!!
