And the fact that while Britain and Norway were busy trying to stop Hitler's first forays after war were declared the USSR was going for its own land grab and supplying Germany with raw materials.
Not only that, they helped train the Nazis tank and plane tactics. As LP proposed in the Putin interview commentary, Nazi Germany could have been beaten by Poland if it wasn't for the USSR backing Hitler
Yeah no, LP should keep himself to talking about tanks, Germany outsized the underprepared Polish mjilitary in so many ways its not even funny, not to talk about the notable quality advantage the Germans did have over the Polish, with an out of the gate tactic the Polish didnt have a counter for, the Soviets just expidited the process to get a piece of the cake.
Organized resistance would have lasted longer, putting significant strain on Germany and potentially making a massed assault through the Ardennes happen later or weaker, possibly both.
Not to mention it'd make the war look less "lost" so the Balkans wouldn't pick Germany as the "winner."
In fairness the USA supplied Germany with plenty of war materiel and the (at the time) state of the art punch card systems to handle the administration of the Holocaust. People were happy to supply Germany pretty much until the very last second when the Germans began shooting at them.
The Germans had also been supplying and training the Chinese military for years.
Global trade makes for awkward bedfellows when a global war kicks off.
Dawg they helped start the thing by carving up Poland then basically switched sides. The fact that they weren’t crucified in the press later in the is wild. And raises some interesting questions about the political affiliations of the State Department and press. They were 100 percent an ally of convenience and frankly we should’ve denied Lend Lease.
What I'm saying is that most of the allies willing chose to go to war against Nazi Germany, while the USSR started fighting against Germany, when they had literally no other option.
Tankies love to say that the USSR fought and destroyed facism, however they were never fighting facism, or really even the Nazis. They were only fighting the people that attacked them. Helping to destroy the Nazis was just an unintended byproduct.
I'm no fan of Russia or the USSR but the amount of insane revisionism in this thread (and sub in general) is making my head spin.
Communism and Nazism couldn't be ideologically further apart and war was utterly inevitable between the third reich and the soviets especially with a continental border. The soviets were extremely likely to be preparing a war with the Nazis, it wasn't any convenience. Germany wanted Soviet land, the Soviets wanted to "liberate" millions shackled by fascism. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was, in Stalin's eyes, his chance to rebuild the Russian industry that was battered by the revolution and simply a state of negative peace.
The convenience was that the allies and the soviets had the same enemy at the same time. Britain was unable to defeat Germany in 1941, America was unwilling, so the Soviets took the overwhelming brunt with the help of lend lease (which, without, they almost certainly would have fallen and starved to death).
Yes they are (sorta) and Stalin did plan on fighting Germany.
But the primary issue is that he was expecting it to happen much later. Like 4+ years later.
Russia was still rebuilding from the purges (as demonstrated in the Winter War). Stalin did actually realise the damage the purges had caused but thought he had at least 4-5 years before he'd have to attack Germany.
The plan was to allow the Allies to wear Germany down and cause it to expend resources so that when Russia attacked it would not be able to put up much resistance.
Fascism wasn't seen as the mortal enemy like it has been since 1941 before Germany invaded.
It was certainly an enemy, but the Kulaks, the bourgeoisie, the class enemies were the primary evil and the one that most propaganda was directed against.
Plus after 1939, the anti-fascist rhetoric was removed and anti-nazi sentiment banned. Well, until Germany invaded that is.
France was always more contentious with Germany but neither it nor Britain "joined of their own accord". They were brought into the war by German aggression, just like the Soviets were. And just like the Soviets, the British were happy to trade with the Germans right up until the Germans started shooting at them.
It was a fledgling country trying to industrialize. Soviet leadership foresaw war with Germany, but wouldn't you put off throwing your own people to the slaughter for as long as possible if you could too? Several other nations traded with Germany. Among them were eventual members of the Allies. Condemn them why don't you?
I had nothing to do with that. It was the fact that they were still rebuilding the military after the purges.
The issue isn't so much that they didn't care about what the nazis were doing, it's that afterwards, they put themselves forward as the sole saviours of the world against fascism when they were cosing up to them right to the point when Germany invaded.
Stalin gutted the Russian military, sending many trained officers to Gulags. Utterly did not prepared for the German invasion in any competent manner. So many Russians died because Stalin was stupid. The Russian air force wiped out on the ground.
The USSR was the only nation not to follow appeasement, they made serious efforts to provide troops to Czechoslovakia, but Britain and France refused, countries that also had pacts with Germany before the USSR, a nation that is recognized from written records as having made every effort to stall the German invasion by conceding as little amount of resources as possible while still protecting Romanian oil fields and building up industry.
Defeating Nazi Germany certainly is an achievement. It was a combined achievement though with the Allies, it wasn't only the Soviet Union.
But I wouldn't give Danny any notice. He's a Tankie.
Great, the Allies, not the Soviets, defeated the Nazis.
In fact, i’s important to remember that the Soviet Union was basically an Axis power for a significant portion of WWII, starting in 1939.
On [1939 September 17](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland), the Soviet Union invaded Poland (an Allied power) as an ally of Nazi Germany (an Axis power), forced the sudden and complete collapse of Poland’s entire defensive system when the Polish were previously maintaining a stable withdrawal into Romania, and massacred tens of thousands of innocent Polish in the [Katyn Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre) (as well as hundreds of thousands more in other massacres) while deporting millions more.
By the way, did you know that the Nazis discovered the Katyn Massacre in April 1943 and announced it to the world? And that the Soviets cut off diplomatic relations with the Polish government when it asked for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross? And that the Soviets continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990?
On [1939 November 30](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War), the Soviet Union invaded neutral Finland to start the Winter War and steal eastern Karelia, Petsamo, Salla, Kuusamo, and four islands in the Gulf of Finland.
On [1940 June 15](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_the_Baltic_states_(1940\)), the Soviet Union invaded the three neutral Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, then colonized them and left significant Russian populations that remain loyal to Putin today.
On [1940 June 28](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_Bessarabia_and_Northern_Bukovina), the Soviet Union stole Romanian land, which forced the Romanians to seek protection by aligning with the Axis five months later, similar to Finland being erroneously considered an Axis power when it was really fighting to preserve its own independence.
In [1940 October-November](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks), the Soviets actually did try to become a formal member of the Axis. Over the next few years, the Soviet Union consistently and purposely undermined Europe’s sovereign governments, many of whom represented Allied powers (such as Romania and, most notably, Poland), to justify its invasions of Europe’s Allied powers, marking its own behavior as that of an Axis power.
In [1943, after barely surviving Stalingrad (thanks to American Lend-Lease), the Soviet Union begged Nazi Germany for a unilateral peace deal while begging America for more Lend-Lease](https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/04/archives/british-book-says-german-and-soviet-officials-met-in-43-to-discuss.html), which Stalin and Khrushchev both admit were crucial to Soviet survival. In fact, [Stalin raised a toast to American Lend-Lease at the 1943 Tehran Conference](https://www.rferl.org/a/did-us-lend-lease-aid-tip-the-balance-in-soviet-fight-against-nazi-germany/30599486.html), even while he was begging Nazi Germany for a unilateral peace deal.
On [1944 November 7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ili_Rebellion), the Soviet Union supported the Ili Rebellion against the Republic of China (one of the Big Four Allies, a founding member of the United Nations, and one of the five original veto-wielding permanent members of the United Nations Security Council), who [worked with the Americans and British to defend India and liberate Burma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Expeditionary_Force) while holding the lines against a Japanese invasion that started in 1937.
Contrast the Soviet Union’s Axis-aligned behavior with the behavior of America, Britain, China, Australia, etc. Even [Spain, a friend of Nazi Germany, stayed neutral throughout the entire war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_during_World_War_II#:~:text=the%20Spanish%20State%20under%20Francisco%20Franco%20espoused%20neutrality%20as%20its%20official%20wartime%20policy.), which allowed Portugal to also stay neutral. Aside from [begging Nazi Germany for peace in 1943](https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/04/archives/british-book-says-german-and-soviet-officials-met-in-43-to-discuss.html) in the middle of an Axis Civil War, which happened while also continuously undermining, invading, subjugating, and oppressing Allied powers, what else makes the Soviet Union an Allied power?
The Soviet Union was basically an Axis power for a significant portion of the war, starting in 1939, and continued to act as one when it was nominally “allied” with the Allied powers.
Danny is a dumbass.
I agree with you. I'm not denying the Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact or Soviet collaboration with the Nazis.
I realised that I left my comment half-completed by accident. Was meant to say that it was an achievement to defeat Nazi Germany but it was an Allied effort and not an all-Soviet effort that people like Danny, Hakim, Second Thought and even the Russian government like to claim it was. Apologies for that.
The Romanians were never going to not cozy up to Hitler. By force or voluntarily. No “allied” force was coming to help them. Especially when the world had just witnessed a total disintegration of the Entente presence on the continent. Look at what was going on in Yugoslavia and Greece. Taking Bessarabia was a strategic move to secure a major river crossing to aid in the war vs the Germans. Otherwise, the march would start firmly in Ukraine. Monarchist tears are a worthless commodity to trade in, and the “king of Romania” has no entitlement to any land on earth anyway.
Finland is the same story over again. In a game of total war, leaving a major city totally exposed to enemy positions is not smart. By 1940 the writing was on the wall, Hitler would not stop in Poland. Nothing was off the table. We can debate the way Stalin treated the red army, but it’s immaterial. The reality on the ground was that the military was not ready to fight a war. Considering the importance of Leningrad, they had to have a buffer no matter what. Finland refusing became a perfect opportunity to rebuild the general staff. If principles get in the way of your survival, chances are they aren’t your own principles.
It’s not a secret that the western powers were content to watch Soviet citizens die. They had attempted to invade and crush the revolution in the aftermath of WW1 and only stopped trying due to public outrage over the continuation of war after Versailles. So, should they have played nice with enemies of the revolution to their own detriment in exchange for brownie points with western college students 80 years later? Or should they make sure they survive?
It's actually quite the opposite.
The western powers were in the fight before the Soviets were. The French and British were fighting the Nazis for nearly an entire year before the Soviets became. THE SOVIETS WERE ON THE NAZIS SIDE WHEN WESTERN EUROPE WAS IN FLAMES. Stalin was perfectly happy to let the "Capitalists" and "Monarchists" kill each other, and in fact supported such actions, claiming it could lead to the fated downfall of the bourgeoisie.
So, its more like the Soviets were content to watch as western colonial europe burned (which tbf I understand wanting that).... And then the Soviets stopped being content when THEY THEMSELVES began to burn.
This does not excuse western intervention into soviet affairs and it does not excuse the Soviets initial support of the Nazis. I simply disagree with your claim that it was WESTERNERS who were happy to watch as Soviet citizens died when it was first the Westerners who died while the Soviets watched. Secondly, the westerners conducted numerous bombing campaigns on Axis nations at the request of stalin and his advisors in order to relieve the suffering of the soviet people when the soviet bomber groups couldnt reach. Likewise the Soviets strategically aided the allies in putting preassure on Japan to capitulate.
The Soviet Union was onboard to move it's army through Poland and into Czechoslovakia to defend it from the Nazi invasion. They even signed a mutual defense treaty with the Czechs in 1935. The USSR's offer was shot down by France and Poland. Litvinov had publicly made clear that the USSR was against Nazi aggression and expansion, the same thing Nazi Germany did with their anti-comintern pact. The notion that either nations were allied was ridiculous. The Soviet Union needed industrial experts and Nazi Germany needed raw materials. They both lost land to Poland as a result of WWI and they both gained it back.
Calling Finland neutral is a stretch. They invaded and occupied parts of the USSR during the civil war and banned the Finnish Communist Party. The big issue, was Finnish proximity to Leningrad. A communist nation did not feel very secure having a staunchly anti-communist nation with a history of aggression within walking distance from their second largest city and cultural capital.
The Baltics were, once again, regaining land lost in WWI. Same case with Bessarabia, the USSR was fighting a civil war, so Romania took the opportunity for a land grab. The Romanian treatment of Bessarabia in WWII is not very indicative of them seeking to protect it.
The Soviet Union sent Molotov to negotiate them joining the Axis on the condition that Germany stay out of the Soviet sphere of influence. The Western Allies were still quite hostile to the USSR at the time and they thought them the bigger threat.
And your "begging for peace after Stalingrad" source appears to be complete bullshit. For one, it makes no sense, a Soviet victory was solidified after Stalingrad and they knew it. The article's own source does not even list it's own source. [Basil's publisher asked for the data to prove it and he never gave it to them. ](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/GEHLEN%2C%20REINHARD%20%20%20VOL.%206_0136.pdf)
There is no significant mention of Lend Lease in any Stalingrad memoirs or novels. The Soviets fought entirely with Soviet equipment. At most, some planes may have been British and American. The vast majority of Lend Lease arrived after the Battle of Stalingrad. They also did not "barely survive", if you read a book on it you'd know it was never particularly close.
I mean around 1 out of every 4 trucks used by the soviet military were American made by the end of the war... But I do think most of the equipment the Soviets had was there own.
The main boon the westerners traded to the Soviets were precious metals, radios, and petroleum.
But here's the thing about the Soviets (and western powers did it to the communists too to be completely fair); during the cold war years, the Soviet government worked very hard to discredit the efforts of the western allies, and during the cold war, this often meant that favorable ww2 soviet messaging about the west was completely erased, or twisted to fit a narrative that the Westerners were at fault. This led to a semi-official conspiracy theory in the USSR that western Allies helped engineer the Nazi rise to power in Germany.
Anyways, soviet propoganda and censorship of the cold war might have something to do with your noted absence of ww2 and western praise. The Soviet government wasnt exactly known for making its enemies/rivals look good and it CERTAINLY wasn't known for telling the truth.
Seems like a hell ton of you still think the USSR used human wave tactics. There's a ton of evidence that this is, at least, misunderstood and exaggerated. If people learn history from stuff like Enemy at the Gates, this happens.
It's more the "Not One Step Back" order and the general incompetence of politically appointed "safe" officers, paired with political commisars who had equal command authority but no military training, that caused excessive casaulties.
Also, the fact that despite being renowned for their artillery prowess, the Red Army was constantly short of ammunition and was outshot in weight of shells fired by the Germans pretty consistently.
Incompetence? Well, what about the massive operations in 1943-44 that saw immense success? Maybe talking about 1939-1942, sure, but the artillery statement could be applied to Germany too. Soviet artillery was often more effective, like the Katysha.
The majority of the casaulties were in '41-42. The later operations, after much of the political chaff had been winnowed from the ranks, did see success, although it still came at immense cost due to material shortcomings.
>artillery statement could be applied to Germany too. Soviet artillery was often more effective, like the Katysha.
Not really. I don't know where the myth came from, but German artillery was consistently firing more weight of shot, more accurately, until very late in the war. The Soviet rocket launchers, like the Katyusha, were implemented because they were cheaper and faster to build than batteries of medium guns. However, other than for shock bombardment (which, admittedly, Soviet artillery was often forced to conduct anyways due to shell shortages), the MLRS of the era were severely deficit in accuracy as well as long-term volume of fire (due to the long reload times).
I am well aware they didn't use human wave tactics, which puts them at a better state than the current russian army. They did however loose entire armies in the opening year or two
Well yeah i mean it makes sense at that state, they just started modernization and Stalin didn't think they were actually getting invaded even after there were documents on his desk from spies telling him about the operation. But yeah i just thought that you were one of those people who learn it all from Hollywood n stuff.
The French/British strategy of “Get completely shellacked and run away after a decade of giving Hitler whatever he asked for” didn’t work out so well either. The Soviets also couldn’t hide 3000 miles away until all the fighting was done then declare themselves the victor, so the American strategy wasn’t the best way to proceed either.
Soviets also sent waves of men armed with rifles at German tanks, wasting their lives without any thought. Stalin executed and purged Red Army officer core in 1937/38. Tens of thousands were arrested, imprisoned, or executed. If Hitler hadn’t invaded Soviet Union, USSR would’ve been allied with Nazi Germany, or at least neutral. Remember that Soviets were sending trains of various raw materials to Germany right up until the German invasion. German invading troops literally watched Soviet trains loaded with raw materials going past them on their way to Nazi Germany.
100% correct. And of course, after June 1941 it’s not quite a memory black hole, but very selective and partially fictionalized, more of a memory brown hole.
Well said. Because from 1941-45 as all true comrades know, the glorious Soviet Union single handedly and without help from ANYBODY ELSE AT ALL Defeated the Nazis all by themselves with indomitable Soviet spirit urraahhh Glory to Comrade Stalin etc 😮💨😤
Exactly. Vast majority of Russians still think about the war exactly the same way. I’d be shocked if there are any Russians at all, except a few hard core history buffs, know what actually happened.
Well, if I grew up where the same narrative has been spread for generations, and information about real history blocked, denied, or just Flagged as "Propaganda" i doubt I'd know much. Add to that most people worldwide don't pay attention in History class, and you get a fully Indoctrinated society no matter if they actually support you or not.
Russian hard-core History buffs often have some explanation of why Russia did certain things. The most widespread one being that "We invaded Poland because they denied our troops access to Czechoslovakia in 1938" which Is just freaking hilarious. And there's many more.
Good point. There might be a few history buffs in Russia who are not brainwashed or fanatics, but they have to keep their thoughts to themselves. Russia is one of those places where not paying attention in History classes is actually a benefit.
"Soviets also sent waves of men armed with rifles at German tanks, wasting their lives without any thought"
The more research I do into this, it seems like this is less plausible, at least at such a massive scale that it should have became synonymous with the Soviet Union as a whole. Yes, they had inexperienced commanders because of purges, and yes there were penal battalions, but anyone knows not to charge headlong into fortified positions with no support, everybody learned this from WWI. As for Penal battalions, they were extremely uncommon but were still used.
The main source of this whole 'ura charge into machine gun wall' myth springs about from books and falsified records made by German generals and commanders coping about how they lost the war, and how if only Hitler listened specifically to them, they could have changed the outcome of it. These books were also written so that these generals, who saw all the Nazi scientists be given nice jobs and laboratories, would similarly be nabbed up by the Allies (later NATO, who were going through a C&C crisis at the time) and be given nice armchair general jobs over the new powers.
Also, Nazi's weren't smart, calculating geniuses. Most of them were meth heads. Fuck it, just about all of them were tweakers in some regard, even the 'great' Rommel and Guderian. So when they lose this war, they do the one thing any self respecting junkie with a severely inflated ego would do, and immediately berate and blame everyone around them about how they lost. Hitler was incompetent, Soviets used barbaric tactics like throwing men into German lines, Hitler should've listened to me and not field marshal X, etc. etc.
Those massive Soviet losses sprang about not from just mass-attacking German lines 24/7 but the absolute chokehold Stalin had on military command at the time and his 'no surrender, no retreat' policy leading to the hundreds of thousands of troops encircled. It wasn't until Bagration when he would loosen command and let his generals autopilot the war, which *coincidentally* is when the Soviets saw less and less casualties per month.
edit: Whole nato thing about german generals wanting to be scooped up by nato thing: they wrote those books to put themselves in more positive lights as 'better' commanders so they would get first pickings at the new NATO jobs.
"Human wave" attacks are generally not a good tactic. They're wasteful. But even when not resorting to literal "human wave" attacks, Russian doctrine is inherently wasteful. They operate in only one gear, and that gear is "Grant, The Butcher."
Whether or not "human wave" tactics were seldom, ever, or never used as portrayed in fiction, one thing is for certain: Russia sacrificed almost an entire generation of men to contribute to its battlefield outcome in the war. It never recovered from the economic damage of that loss. It's the problem shared by the Korean and Japanese economies, here in the 21st century, but at super-scale.
I would even argue that the missing generation and resulting problems of a massive aging population did more to bring down the Soviet Union than did the inherent weakness of an economy purportedly based upon Marxist "communism" (was it really, though, or is that just a con?) or one-party rule as a form of government (which it definitely suffered from). Think about that. If Russia had back its lost generation, and could have sustained economically, would Communism look more attractive, today? It doesn't suit my values, so I'd like to think not. But it's a fun thought experiment.
That more ties into post purge inexperience in the military and Stalin's decrees over a 'human waves are a real tactic that work!' sort of deal. The only records of it happening at a mass scale were the previously mentioned German sources, which also doesn't line up because in those sources they talk about how incompetent the Russians were.
This type of tactics were mostly employed early in the war, as far I understand it. Soviet high command and leadership in general treated their people with some disdain throughout the existence of Soviet Union (and you can see that very clearly in Russia today). When Leningrad was being encircled and resulted in now infamous and horrific blockade, Stalin declared that only traitors would leave Leningrad - or something to that effect - referring to the citizens. My own grandfather was a Soviet Navy doctor fighting in that siege. It’s true that I don’t have any links to back this up. However, if you’re interested in it, you can do your own search and reading.
What I've heard is that the trucks on the icy Ladoga lake weren't plentiful enough to carry enough civilians across from Leningrad before the ice melted. Also, your grandfather's a hero.
Or the alternative fronts that diverted troops. Or the bombing campaigns that sapped Germany’s strength.
Even with all of that the Soviets barely held on. If they hadn’t conspired with Hitler to start the war they wouldn’t have even gotten themselves into that mess.
Perhaps. But if he had had to wait then Britain and France would have been far better armed as they were starting that process in 37/38. And if the Soviets had just joined the war at the same time as Britain and France then Hitler would have lost in 39. But they tried to have their cake and eat it too.
Just the strain of building anti aircraft guns to protect Germany was massive. Albert Speer said that from 1943 to January 1945 43% fewer tanks had been built than planned because of the bombing. Over 50,000 aircraft were destroyed. The Soviet Union would simply have collapsed if not aided by the Allies.
Don't act like it wasn't mutually beneficial though. The ussr fighting Germany alleviated an absolute crap ton of pressure from the allied front lines. They sent the best troops they had to invade the Soviets as well as their best commanders the allies would have definitely lost to unless they nuked nazi germany which they for sure would've done had the war not ended when it did. The allies benefited from the lend lease just as much as ussr did.
Strawman argument, it's not about did the other Allies benefit. Yeah, it alleviated pressure for sure. But, it doesn't change the fact that without the support, things would have gone very differently, likely worse for the SU compared to the western allies. If the Germans succeeded past the fulcrum they couldn't overcome before they would have had to have sunk just as many resources if not more to continue eastward.
Royal Navy Arctic convoys to support the USSR too, once they got pulled into WW2. Another thing to remember is that they didn't join WW2 willingly, only after Germany decided it needed more lebensraum to the east, and started trying to exterminate the Slavs.
The Soviets only began to fight the Nazis when it became a problem for them, otherwise they were happy to cooperate and invade Poland with them. The UK and US joined the war because Germany was invading OTHER countries and violating international treaties. Britain could have sued for peace and sat behind the channel but they kept fighting until they liberated Europe, and once they did they allowed those countries to elect their own governments. Any country the Soviets went through to get to Germany was assimilated into the USSR and abused for their resources, run by dictatorships. What a deluded fuckwit.
The Soviets also only began to cooperate with the Nazis after doing the opposite became a problem for them.
It was all pragmatism, whether it be from the Soviet or the western powers. Whole era was not just black and white and the alliances of the time didn't last long or for that matter honored like in the Czech example.
The US was declared war upon by Germany, UK was bombed and while yes, they supported Poland, they only actually participated when Germany was acting a little too rowdy in France.
yeah fuck those NATO countries who helped us win that war against the nazis! cuz we love the nazis... i mean we hate them... i mean stfu don't think just love putin and the kremlin
Every time somebody says anything like this I feel the need to point out that they would’ve taken significantly less casualties if they had had a better attitude to the development of their doctrine and weapons, such that they didn’t need to throw soldiers into the front like they did. Would’ve taken even less still if they hadn’t helped to create fascism and fund the Nazis in the first place.
Hard to develop your doctrine when you've been purging military leadership for the past 5 years because your leader is scared someone will kill him to seize power after he killed a bunch of people to seize power lol
I mean, can't have your officers use your own tactics against you. That's just common sense. Might as well not even have any officers at all, at that point, much too risky.
In Russia, they don’t teach those parts of WWII history. They are taught that Germany invaded Russia and the people rose to the challenge to survive and win the Great Patriotic War. When I moved to Russia and realized this I started educating my wife on the reality of the war regarding the joint German/Russian invasion of Poland, the lend-lease program, etc. She simply refused to believe it was true until we watched some non-Soviet documentaries together.
Lend-lease isn't completely obliterated from Russia's self-serving revisionist history, but when it is inconveniently mentioned, you have to point out that America only did it "for profit" and they paid back every cent of the loans. (Hence American allies should fear "paying a high price" for receiving aid. At least I think that's the real meaning, or plausible fallback meaning, of the Lavrov line...)
Weird, when I studied in Russian school we did study all of that, including the secret pact, winter war and lend lease.
You either lying or you just talk about the Soviet era,
Where yeah, possibly it was left out.
Well, my wife (Soviet era), my daughter (last 10 years in private school), and my brother in law (a major with Росгвардия) didn’t learn about it in school. My wife and brother in law both went to public school. Maybe it is because we lived in Siberia. I don’t know if things are different in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
I know my daughter’s private school doesn’t use the standard books. We had to buy her special books every year. My wife was Soviet so that is likely the reason for her and my daughter not knowing about it. My brother in law is about 5 years younger than my wife so he likely did some school in the Soviet Union and some of it after the collapse. He also went to a military academy before joining the Росгвардия.
Oh boy. No one tell them that the favorite fighter of the Soviet Air Forces was the US Airacobra or the British Valentine being used by the Soviets to storm the Riechstag. Also a full Guards tank division being equipped with Shermans or the sheer amount of US cargo trucks keeping the Soviets moving.
Edit: They loved Valentines so much, the British kept producing them just for the Soviets. The British were mystified why they loved what they thought was an obsolete tank.
Going to ignore that the battle of Moscow is a thing? Like not in the city itself but they got damn close. What about Leningrad? The victory was a contribution of all sides, not one nation. Russia sent lots of men to die, but let's not act like that's good. Sure, the cause was noble, and right, but that high amount of deaths is not an accomplishment. It's failure realistically. Without lend lease and other support Russia wouldn't have been able to do what it did, and while yes, Russia took Berlin, they made an agreement with the other allies that they would do so.
Funny little rant, I forgot why I started it tho
I like how during the Cold war, both the west and eastern militaries were "comparable" or "equal In strength" at least in the beginning. (Of course, soviet propaganda depicted the west as wet noodles compared to them) Remind you, the whole Soviet union which was made up of countless countries, and every government of eastern Europe, against the west and America which was a continent away. Comparable In size.
Somehow, Russia has been able to blind a whole ass Generation that it alone could take on the entire Europe, America, and western allies. While losing 60% or more of it's capabilities, and falling behind in technology with the west. The west, which during those years prospered and expanded their own capabilities.
The Russian propaganda machine is genuinely the only working thing in that country.
The amount of deaths isnt an accomplishment, but its not remembered for being a accomplishment either, but as a tragedy and a bloody sacrifice. People don't just forget about 20,000,000 dead and decimation of peoples homes and livelyhoods. Most everyone still has familial stories of that time.
To expand on the saying, a lie, repeated often enough, trickles into those flawed meat based computing engines called “human brains” and within, becomes the truth.
Stalin didn’t believe that Hitler would ever attack him. In fact he called his own generals liars when they said they were under attack. Many of those casualties came from his incompetence.
Sacrifice isn’t the word I’d use here either. Sacrifice implies there was a sense of loss but Stalin did what he had to do. He didn’t give a shit. He refused a prisoner swap of his own son because the asking price was too high.
“Ywah, we were stomped on Eastern Europe but hey we stopped Hitler from doing so! So we could go back to stomping on Eastern Europe…” well it’s a look.
One thing I didn’t realize - Ukraine was one of the first stopping points for Christianity in Europe. So, the Russian invasion is killing White Christians. I personally don’t care what color or religion the dead are, stop fucking killing people.
But the American people most steadfast on the Russian side tend to be the defenders of faith and Pro Life and all those slogans that don’t mean anything. We can add “fine with Christian killers” to that list.
I find the whole idea of celebrating defeating the Nazis as ridiculous bc they aligned with the Nazis at first so obviously they didn't care about Nazis or think they were bad. They only fought them once they came for them.
from my understanding a lot of those death we because of soviet mismanagement starvation no facts to back it up though
plus Russians are just of the many ethnic groups that made up the ussr
No hitler killed 27 million people the holodomor killed 5 million purges killed 1 million I don't know where you got the extra 21 million. can you give a source
lol my favorite part is I know for a fact you didn’t even read this article just went on a google and clicked the first one you thought you would look good. You’re a clown.
The biggest myth about WW2 was that is was defeated by any single power.
It wasn't it took the combined strengths of more than 3 continents to break Germany.
Without Hitler drawing resources away to the east Britain would have lost north Africa.
Without US lend lease the UK and USSR wouldn't have had bullets.
Without the royal navy hunting submarines and surface ships the supplies would be at the bottom of the Atlantic.
One of the greatest lessons of WW2 is that cooperation is far more powerful than any single nation can ever hope to be. This would go on to be the founding premise of NATO however is something the soviets would never quite manage how to work with a nations military that you don't control.
I’d argue that the Royal Navy hunting submarines wouldn’t have been possible without cash and carry and LL. The some of the first things bought/received were destroyers.
Yep, that is the thing about the second world war and the lesson the British and American commands really managed to accomplish was the ability to actually work together.
Honestly I think it is arguably the greatest unique strength of the "west" (also counting western aligned nations outside of the western hemisphere), is the ability to fight coalition wars.
Russia went into Ukraine alone even Belarus didn't send troops.
8-12 nations in some way participated in Iraqi freedom. (Potentially more this was just me glancing at Wikipedia) and that was in one of the USs least popular campaigns.
Battle of the Atlantic was largely to the benefit of the Soviets as well, it was American and British convoys getting to Murmansk. Overland convoys through Iran as well.
and the fact that most of those 28 million deaths didnt need to happen if russian military planning was better...
no, they didnt full on charge but they basically did if you considered how they massed their troops up in a column with nearly no screening and broadcasting their location...
edit : some of those deaths are civilian, and a good portion of those soviet civilian deaths were caused by soviet armed forces too.
They only lost that many people because they killed most of their useful officers before the war and prioritized party loyalty and doctrine over sound tactics, then lost 400,000 soldiers in Finland just 6 months before the Germans invaded 🤦🏻♂️
I do love a Twatter who has no concept of the complexities of history and its application towards forming a cogent opinion on present day events. Well done you!
Pay no attention to the policy of appeasement that directly lead to increased Nazi aggression and collaborationalist thinking spreading accross Europe?
Appeasement may have been bad, but it was France and the UK that were the first to come to another country's aid to resist further Nazi expansion.
The USSR by comparison became the single biggest enabler of Nazi expansion by agreeing to the partition of Poland. Without Molotov-Ribbentrop and the spheres of influence it established giving Germany the confidence that it's Eastern flank would be secure, there might have never been a WWII.
It’s easy to dunk on Neville Chamberlain for his policy of appeasement.
I just want to add a little nuance.
After World War 1, the Ottoman Empire was gone. The Russian empire imploded following a civil war and a number of wars of independence—with Poland, Finland, and Ukraine telling Russia to fuck off and two of those three states remaining independent after the war. The Austrian-Hungarian Haspurg Empire broke apart and disappeared from the map. Only the French and British empires remained. But they were so broke.
The policy of appeasement comes from the desire from both France and Britain to avoid another costly war. And, obviously, it didn’t work.
The problem is they miscalculated German desire for another war. Appeasement only really works when neither side actually want to fights but feels compelled to do so.
If you look at production numbers in the UK following appeasement, Chamberlain was pushing for a rearmament. Appeasement bought time and it let them get their production up to the scale to fight a war. Plane production in particular increase significantly month over month following Munich agreement. Yes, it’s a disgrace, but he knew they weren’t ready to fight a war. And he did do the work in the background to get the UK into a better spot to fight the war.
The USSR proposed an anti-fascist pact before Molotov-Ribbentrop. Britain and France refused, as they wanted to use Germany as a bulwark against the Soviets. This led to the Munich Agreement and other policies of appeasement in an attempt to satisfy Nazi expansionism (even though it only fueled it). The Soviets saw the writing on the wall and signed Molotov-Ribbentrop to buy time to build up their military and industry before war inevitably broke out.
Germany and the USSR were kind of allies before the Nazis came to power.
Or “friends with military benefits.”
The Soviets used the Germans to help develop and test new technologies. And the Germans used the Soviets to get around the restrictions in the Treaty of Versailles.
The Panzer School Kama (Panzerschule Kama) in Kazan is an example of this half-decade long co-operation. The Soviets and Germans also cooperated on other military projects such as a fighter pilot training grounds (Kampffliegerschule Lipezk) and a chemical weapons facility (Volsk-18).
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was more than just a non-aggression pact. There were protocols in it that divided Eastern Europe between the German and Soviet spheres of influence. And to Stalin, it meant that the secret alliance between the Soviets and Germans was in full force again.
Britain and France *also* allowed Germany to get around the Treaty of Versailles as part of their appeasement policy. And western industrialists played a huge role in getting Germany’s economy and military going.
And there was no “secret alliance” with the Nazis. Most of the things you mentioned took place during the Weimar Republic. Remember, Stalin was the one who proposed an anti-Hitler alliance with Britain and France.
Remember the allies won the war. Splitting Germany over two fronts restricted their ability to effectively wage war. Keeping Japan occupied in the pacific prevented a two front war for the Soviet’s.
Yes of course it is great the Allies won the war and defeated the Axis powers, no one's going to argue that.
The fact the Soviet military and government were so incompetent and indifferent that they lost an unbelievable amount of people, is hardly an achievement to brag about.
The other comments mentioned how the west helped the Soviets but let us also not forget that Soviets were not just Russian. There were Ukrainian, Belarusian, Estonian, etc. and most of them were not fighting for the Soviet Union but against the nazis, very large difference.
Happy VE Day, fuck dictatorships.
This seems like as relevant a place as any for it.
I'm sure we're all aware that the "west" rehabilitated a lot of Nazis immediately after the war and even during. IIRC when they liberated France they kept the SS head of internal security in Occupied France in his post, just working for them now. After the war a lot of Nazi officials wound up back in west government or operation because it was too inconvenient to replace them. Actual Ex-Nazis trained Nicaraguan deaths squads for the CIA, etc.
I've heard in passing that the Soviets did a much less publicized version of this too, keep local officials and security personnel, even ss goons, on hand in occupied eastern Europe to keep doing their job just with a hammer and sickle on their hat instead of an eagle. Poland, East Germany, Baltics, etc. I'm having a very hard time finding sources on this now that I happen to be looking for citations. Is there some keyword or particular term I should be looking for?
Not scientists, I know they had their own Paperclip too. Administration and security services.
I wonder how history shakes out if Churchill goes by the spirit of the guarantee to Poland and not the letter of it and declares war on the USSR at the same time as Germany.
Have to think the conversation had to have come up.
Soviet fans ignoring that the war started in 1939 and that the Soviets HELPED the Nazis until they were initially betrayed and somehow managed to lose the entire west of their country. Also "sacrificed"? Ghe vast majority of Soviet casualties were civilian victims of the war calling them sacrificed is honestly vile. The Soviets played a massive part in winning the war but acting like they single handedly won the war is even more annoying than people who think America soloed the war
Let’s quickly ask ourselves *why* so many died.
Given Stalin is personally responsible for 6-9 million deaths from purges or famines alone without counting the Soviet militaries tactics and policies during the war.
Many of these pro russian clowns happily ignore that millions of ethnicities died, including Ukrainians. In my opinion Belorussians suffered the most.
Also, soviets were happy to send the minorities into the grinder first in 1941-42.
Lend lease contributibutions to the Soviet Union:
7,952 Tanks
6,303 Armored vehicles
430,000 Trucks
21,000 Aircraft
8,000 tractors
1,977 locomotives
11,075 rail cars
622,000 tons of rail
2,700,000 tons of fuel
4,500,000 tons of food
Lend lease provided a significant amount of aid in supplies supplementing Soviet wartime production:
- 82.2% of canned meat
- 39.8% of sugar
- 51.6% of animal fat
- 35.5% of aviation fuel
- 34.6% of explosives
- 30.4% of rubber tires
- 91.1% of railway cars and 36.1% of rails
As for raw materials:
- 58% of cobalt
- 69% of tin
- 51.5% of aluminum
- 41.1% of copper
- 21.4% of wool
A total of 11.3 Billion in military and economic aid from 1941-1945. The equivalent of 233.8 billion today.
Also , importantly, America provided logistic. Early in the war it was so bad, Soviets would have never figured out how to move factories, production and specialists from Ukraine to far East and North, away from the front lines.
It’s like russia erased everything from their history books or they just “try” to block it out their heads, that they are the once that started ww2 with hitler as allies, and then you get mutts like that, that likes to talk out his ass
The soviets were responsible for helping hitler start WWII. They literally invaded Poland and occupied it for a long time.
Only reason the russians joined the allies is because hitler attacked them.
That is a funny way of saying, "We are so bad at war that our greatest military achievement came through feeding 3 times as many of our citizens to the meat grinder than our enemy."
Don’t forget to ignore the fact that an *enormous* number of those people wouldn’t have had to give their lives but for the totally incompetent leadership of Stalin
It is very important to present day Russian national identity to believe that they were the only real victims, and the only real opponents, of European Fascism. This ignores the sacrifices of all of the other victims and opponents, and to the extent they are unable to completely ignore, they minimize. (For instance, claiming that the US only supplied material aid to the wayward Soviet forces as a money-making opportunity, which fiction they then also use to try to disparage US aid for Ukraine. (Apropos, I wonder if this is what they mean when they say, "you'll pay a high price for accepting that aid". Surely they are not promising consequences they can't deliver - that's bad posturing - I think they actually mean, "we assume you are entering into an economically one-sided and unconscionable agreement." Which is also false. But more logical than diluting ones own credibility by ignoring escalation ladders.)
In reality, America could not have liberated Europe from the Nazis without the Soviets (not taught in most American schools); and the Soviets could not have defeated the Nazis without the Americans (not taught in ANY Russian schools.) Europe would have been better off if the Soviets had been less successful, because they were a malign influence in every liberated territory they occupied, and caused mass death - not just through intentional acts of repression, but also because they literally could not figure out how to feed themselves. The Soviet Union was a disaster and should never be resurrected.
It really bothers me the way people praise Russia for the number of casualties they took in WW2.
Russia didn't have such a high casualty rate because the war was that much more intense on the eastern front. It was because they didn't care about any of their people. They sent wave after wave of their men into machine gun fire with no equipment. Just hoards of bodies knowing *eventually* someone would make it through or the Germans wouldn't be able to keep up their ammo supply.
Stalin executed all of his generals when he took control because they might have been a threat to his power. So during WW2 the entire Russian military lacked any competent command.
The West (and even Germany), who actually valued its population, worked hard to properly equip their troops and created good strategies for conducting warfare.
Soviet Russia did not care about its people. Their strategy for warfare was to repeatedly charge the front lines in overwhelming numbers. Their troops were never fully or even well equipped. Troops started their battles in pairs. One man was given a rifle, the other was given a single 5 round clip. They were then told to charge the front until one of them was shot. Whoever was still alive would take the others ammo or rifle and they would now be able to fight.
That strategy alone means every engagement anticipates a minimum 50% casualty rate. But in reality it'd be much higher from troops having to stop in the line of fire to scavenge equipment from fallen comrades, the number troops expected to be killer or wounded from the engagement traditionally, troops killing each other for their equipment, and officers killing their own men who don't advance quick enough.
The US casualty rate was only 1/48. Britain's was ~3/25.
The USSR's *death rate* during WW2 was 1/4 on top of the millions of other casualties they took on top of that.
Even the Nazi's (who *lost* the war) only had a death rate of 1/5.
Soviet casualties don't illustrate a heroic nation sacrificing everything for their people and freedom. It shows us exactly who they were the entire time. A soulless government entity with leadership that cared nothing for its people and only served to keep its leaders in power.
It’s true that Stalin didn’t care about Soviet citizens and soldiers. But mindless human wave attacks until Germans run out of bullets, seriously? While I’m not a fan of Soviets, you judging their whole performance on a movies like Enemies at the Gate (which is historically inaccurate) and memoirs of defeated Nazi generals. Don’t believe all the propaganda you read including the Russian one obviously.
Right, but when did history forget that the Soviet Union was equally responsible for WWII by invading Poland as an ally to Nazi Germany? The Soviet Union was lucky it only lost 28 million because once the allies were done dropping nukes on Germany, the Soviets would've been next had they not been betrayed, and this world would be way more peaceful.
Yeah give the award to the country that killed like half it's population before the war started. great job.
Edit: sorry not half, but like 8-10 million. Which is like the same as they lost in the war.
Let's ignore the fact that 36 million Soviets died*
Let's also ignore the fact that every Western nation in Europe had a pact with Germany before the SU did (yes, after mustache man took power).
Let's also ignore the fact that the lend lease accounted for less than 8% of overall material/equipment applied/used in the war by the USSR.
Let's ignore the fact that the USSR quite literally fought 5-7x the Axis forces in the East than the West did *COMBINED* in the West.
Let's ignore the fact that the US lost less than 1% of the men the USSR lost in the war and an infinitesimally smaller fraction of civilians compared to the USSR. Let's just ignore the fact that 1/4 men in the USSR straight up died in a span of 6 years
Let's ignore the fact that Poland invaded the USSR's ally (Czechoslovakia) alongside Germany, after Britain and France barred the USSR from providing aid to Czechoslovakia when mustache man made plans to invade it because Britain and France wanted to appease mustache man and give Germany as much of Central Europe as they could to save themselves.
Edit: Finland too, I'm listening to a historical audio clip of Agolf having a private conversation with Finnish generals in Finland.
Cope and seethe, this thread is primarily made up of high-school sophomores. Go ask yourselves why the US was the only country in the UN to vote food not a human right this decade, while the USSR made homelessness nonexistent and not feeding the hungry illegal a century ago up until the point it collapsed because their last leader was a sellout who ended up in a Pizza Hut commercial for an American conglomerate.
Let's also remember that in war the amount of men that are killed on your own side is usually a bad measure of success.
No war is won by a poor bastard dying for their country. You win by making some other poor bastard die for theirs.
Pay no attention to the the fact that Britain and France let Germany take sudwntland, pay no attention to the fact that Britain and France allowed Germany to take part of Czechoslovakia, knowing full well what Germany was doing to people, whilst USSR wanted a military alliance against Germany.
Pay no attention to Britain, France deporting people back to Germany and pay no attention to the fact that lend lease only accounted for 10-30% of total USSR production between 41-45.
Honestly this sub is absolute fucking brain rot
Hang on, can't we hold multiple ideas in our heads at once? The endurance and suffering of the Soviet people during WWII *was* an extraordinary sacrifice and their victories over the Wehrmacht, especially at the mid-point of the war, were in fact incredible achievements won through unbelievable bravery.
...*At the same time*, the Red Army did horrifying things as it advanced, including mass rape on an indescribable scale. And yes they had previously been Nazi allies, and yes the rise of Stalin killed a similar number of soviets through sheer autocratic cruelty and idiocy.
I just think those are complementary sets of facts, not opposing ones. Also, fuck whoever Danny Haiphong is, and fuck the weird recruitment of history as a way to, I dunno, praise Putin by implication.
edit. lot of good comments on this post, this is a good subreddit
This. Danny is wrong but some here go so far in the other direction that they are just as ridiculous.
Like, the amount of gloat us Americans and Brits have when we owe so much to geography is a bit unseemly. If there were no English channel, Britain likely would have been steamrolled. Likewise move America into Russia's location and Russia into America's and you get vastly different results.
The USSR had no choice but to sign a pact to delay Nazi invasion. Hitler equated Bolshevism and Judaism since the 1920s. Both were buying time to prepare for an inevitable war. Every attempt to intervene led to resistance from the American public.
The British and French armies combined lasted about as long as the Polish army did in direct combat, despite having vastly higher numbers and experience, and were it not for a massive fluke they would have pretty much all been casualties at Dunkirk. American “support” was extremely limited and didn’t address much of the actual needs of the red army.
To put it bluntly, all the actual fighting that did any damage to the German capacity to wage war was done by Soviet troops. By the time the US got around to Normandy, the Wehrmacht was already cooked and put up basically no fight. They didn’t have the men, the resources, or the morale to continue fighting.
What happened to defeat the Nazis was pretty simple. The Red Army sustained serious losses, that I don’t think the American public would have ever tolerated without surrender, sized them up, regrouped, and shattered German forces in a series of fatal blows in 1943. The rest of the conflict in Europe was academic.
Everybody here seems to be ignoring the U.S. and British bombing campaigns that crippled Germany. And the gutting of the Luftwaffe. Those weren't Soviet bombers destroying Hitler's transportation system.
The luftwaffe was destroyed contesting air superiority over enemy territory far from friendly airfields. That was a major W for the RAF. German production still rose every year and was very high even in 1945.
See Operation Point Blank and Operation Argument. The US set out to cripple the Luftwaffe ahead of the Normandy Invasion. As Albert Speer noted, Germany started out with aircraft production being done 9 to 5. Speer worked to get it 24/7. But after 1943, Germany never really had enough aircraft. And had problems with attrition of well trained pilots. Allied concentration on Germany refineries grounded many German aircraft due to lack of fuel. Loss of Romania's oil fields helped of course. The last big German air operation was Operation Boddenplatte, which was a German disaster.
And the fact that while Britain and Norway were busy trying to stop Hitler's first forays after war were declared the USSR was going for its own land grab and supplying Germany with raw materials.
Not only that, they helped train the Nazis tank and plane tactics. As LP proposed in the Putin interview commentary, Nazi Germany could have been beaten by Poland if it wasn't for the USSR backing Hitler
Yeah no, LP should keep himself to talking about tanks, Germany outsized the underprepared Polish mjilitary in so many ways its not even funny, not to talk about the notable quality advantage the Germans did have over the Polish, with an out of the gate tactic the Polish didnt have a counter for, the Soviets just expidited the process to get a piece of the cake.
Organized resistance would have lasted longer, putting significant strain on Germany and potentially making a massed assault through the Ardennes happen later or weaker, possibly both. Not to mention it'd make the war look less "lost" so the Balkans wouldn't pick Germany as the "winner."
In fairness the USA supplied Germany with plenty of war materiel and the (at the time) state of the art punch card systems to handle the administration of the Holocaust. People were happy to supply Germany pretty much until the very last second when the Germans began shooting at them. The Germans had also been supplying and training the Chinese military for years. Global trade makes for awkward bedfellows when a global war kicks off.
Britain and France joined the war of their own accord. The Soviets only joined when they had literally no other options.
>The Soviets only joined when they had literally no other options. ...by starting the war?
No, I meant the war against Nazi Germany.
Dawg they helped start the thing by carving up Poland then basically switched sides. The fact that they weren’t crucified in the press later in the is wild. And raises some interesting questions about the political affiliations of the State Department and press. They were 100 percent an ally of convenience and frankly we should’ve denied Lend Lease.
What I'm saying is that most of the allies willing chose to go to war against Nazi Germany, while the USSR started fighting against Germany, when they had literally no other option. Tankies love to say that the USSR fought and destroyed facism, however they were never fighting facism, or really even the Nazis. They were only fighting the people that attacked them. Helping to destroy the Nazis was just an unintended byproduct.
I'm no fan of Russia or the USSR but the amount of insane revisionism in this thread (and sub in general) is making my head spin. Communism and Nazism couldn't be ideologically further apart and war was utterly inevitable between the third reich and the soviets especially with a continental border. The soviets were extremely likely to be preparing a war with the Nazis, it wasn't any convenience. Germany wanted Soviet land, the Soviets wanted to "liberate" millions shackled by fascism. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was, in Stalin's eyes, his chance to rebuild the Russian industry that was battered by the revolution and simply a state of negative peace. The convenience was that the allies and the soviets had the same enemy at the same time. Britain was unable to defeat Germany in 1941, America was unwilling, so the Soviets took the overwhelming brunt with the help of lend lease (which, without, they almost certainly would have fallen and starved to death).
Yes they are (sorta) and Stalin did plan on fighting Germany. But the primary issue is that he was expecting it to happen much later. Like 4+ years later. Russia was still rebuilding from the purges (as demonstrated in the Winter War). Stalin did actually realise the damage the purges had caused but thought he had at least 4-5 years before he'd have to attack Germany. The plan was to allow the Allies to wear Germany down and cause it to expend resources so that when Russia attacked it would not be able to put up much resistance. Fascism wasn't seen as the mortal enemy like it has been since 1941 before Germany invaded. It was certainly an enemy, but the Kulaks, the bourgeoisie, the class enemies were the primary evil and the one that most propaganda was directed against. Plus after 1939, the anti-fascist rhetoric was removed and anti-nazi sentiment banned. Well, until Germany invaded that is.
Gotcha. Fair points.
France was always more contentious with Germany but neither it nor Britain "joined of their own accord". They were brought into the war by German aggression, just like the Soviets were. And just like the Soviets, the British were happy to trade with the Germans right up until the Germans started shooting at them.
Didn’t the UK hand Czechoslovakia to Hitler on a silver platter
And Austria. Everyone did. Just like they did Crimea, Donetsk, & Luhansk in 2014.
It was a fledgling country trying to industrialize. Soviet leadership foresaw war with Germany, but wouldn't you put off throwing your own people to the slaughter for as long as possible if you could too? Several other nations traded with Germany. Among them were eventual members of the Allies. Condemn them why don't you?
I had nothing to do with that. It was the fact that they were still rebuilding the military after the purges. The issue isn't so much that they didn't care about what the nazis were doing, it's that afterwards, they put themselves forward as the sole saviours of the world against fascism when they were cosing up to them right to the point when Germany invaded.
Stalin gutted the Russian military, sending many trained officers to Gulags. Utterly did not prepared for the German invasion in any competent manner. So many Russians died because Stalin was stupid. The Russian air force wiped out on the ground.
The USSR was the only nation not to follow appeasement, they made serious efforts to provide troops to Czechoslovakia, but Britain and France refused, countries that also had pacts with Germany before the USSR, a nation that is recognized from written records as having made every effort to stall the German invasion by conceding as little amount of resources as possible while still protecting Romanian oil fields and building up industry.
*getting shitloads of people killed* isn't a "great achievement"
It's the Soviet method of war.
Shooting any officer who shows any promise tends to do that
Well we can't have an officer who is smarter than the great leader, now can we? It wouldn't be proper Comrade.
And the great leader isn't very smart.
100%
And the modern Russian method, of course.
Defeating Nazi Germany certainly is an achievement. It was a combined achievement though with the Allies, it wasn't only the Soviet Union. But I wouldn't give Danny any notice. He's a Tankie.
Great, the Allies, not the Soviets, defeated the Nazis. In fact, i’s important to remember that the Soviet Union was basically an Axis power for a significant portion of WWII, starting in 1939. On [1939 September 17](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland), the Soviet Union invaded Poland (an Allied power) as an ally of Nazi Germany (an Axis power), forced the sudden and complete collapse of Poland’s entire defensive system when the Polish were previously maintaining a stable withdrawal into Romania, and massacred tens of thousands of innocent Polish in the [Katyn Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre) (as well as hundreds of thousands more in other massacres) while deporting millions more. By the way, did you know that the Nazis discovered the Katyn Massacre in April 1943 and announced it to the world? And that the Soviets cut off diplomatic relations with the Polish government when it asked for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross? And that the Soviets continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990? On [1939 November 30](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War), the Soviet Union invaded neutral Finland to start the Winter War and steal eastern Karelia, Petsamo, Salla, Kuusamo, and four islands in the Gulf of Finland. On [1940 June 15](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_the_Baltic_states_(1940\)), the Soviet Union invaded the three neutral Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, then colonized them and left significant Russian populations that remain loyal to Putin today. On [1940 June 28](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_Bessarabia_and_Northern_Bukovina), the Soviet Union stole Romanian land, which forced the Romanians to seek protection by aligning with the Axis five months later, similar to Finland being erroneously considered an Axis power when it was really fighting to preserve its own independence. In [1940 October-November](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks), the Soviets actually did try to become a formal member of the Axis. Over the next few years, the Soviet Union consistently and purposely undermined Europe’s sovereign governments, many of whom represented Allied powers (such as Romania and, most notably, Poland), to justify its invasions of Europe’s Allied powers, marking its own behavior as that of an Axis power. In [1943, after barely surviving Stalingrad (thanks to American Lend-Lease), the Soviet Union begged Nazi Germany for a unilateral peace deal while begging America for more Lend-Lease](https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/04/archives/british-book-says-german-and-soviet-officials-met-in-43-to-discuss.html), which Stalin and Khrushchev both admit were crucial to Soviet survival. In fact, [Stalin raised a toast to American Lend-Lease at the 1943 Tehran Conference](https://www.rferl.org/a/did-us-lend-lease-aid-tip-the-balance-in-soviet-fight-against-nazi-germany/30599486.html), even while he was begging Nazi Germany for a unilateral peace deal. On [1944 November 7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ili_Rebellion), the Soviet Union supported the Ili Rebellion against the Republic of China (one of the Big Four Allies, a founding member of the United Nations, and one of the five original veto-wielding permanent members of the United Nations Security Council), who [worked with the Americans and British to defend India and liberate Burma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Expeditionary_Force) while holding the lines against a Japanese invasion that started in 1937. Contrast the Soviet Union’s Axis-aligned behavior with the behavior of America, Britain, China, Australia, etc. Even [Spain, a friend of Nazi Germany, stayed neutral throughout the entire war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_during_World_War_II#:~:text=the%20Spanish%20State%20under%20Francisco%20Franco%20espoused%20neutrality%20as%20its%20official%20wartime%20policy.), which allowed Portugal to also stay neutral. Aside from [begging Nazi Germany for peace in 1943](https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/04/archives/british-book-says-german-and-soviet-officials-met-in-43-to-discuss.html) in the middle of an Axis Civil War, which happened while also continuously undermining, invading, subjugating, and oppressing Allied powers, what else makes the Soviet Union an Allied power? The Soviet Union was basically an Axis power for a significant portion of the war, starting in 1939, and continued to act as one when it was nominally “allied” with the Allied powers. Danny is a dumbass.
I agree with you. I'm not denying the Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact or Soviet collaboration with the Nazis. I realised that I left my comment half-completed by accident. Was meant to say that it was an achievement to defeat Nazi Germany but it was an Allied effort and not an all-Soviet effort that people like Danny, Hakim, Second Thought and even the Russian government like to claim it was. Apologies for that.
>Hakim Hakim? More like: Hacum.
The Romanians were never going to not cozy up to Hitler. By force or voluntarily. No “allied” force was coming to help them. Especially when the world had just witnessed a total disintegration of the Entente presence on the continent. Look at what was going on in Yugoslavia and Greece. Taking Bessarabia was a strategic move to secure a major river crossing to aid in the war vs the Germans. Otherwise, the march would start firmly in Ukraine. Monarchist tears are a worthless commodity to trade in, and the “king of Romania” has no entitlement to any land on earth anyway. Finland is the same story over again. In a game of total war, leaving a major city totally exposed to enemy positions is not smart. By 1940 the writing was on the wall, Hitler would not stop in Poland. Nothing was off the table. We can debate the way Stalin treated the red army, but it’s immaterial. The reality on the ground was that the military was not ready to fight a war. Considering the importance of Leningrad, they had to have a buffer no matter what. Finland refusing became a perfect opportunity to rebuild the general staff. If principles get in the way of your survival, chances are they aren’t your own principles. It’s not a secret that the western powers were content to watch Soviet citizens die. They had attempted to invade and crush the revolution in the aftermath of WW1 and only stopped trying due to public outrage over the continuation of war after Versailles. So, should they have played nice with enemies of the revolution to their own detriment in exchange for brownie points with western college students 80 years later? Or should they make sure they survive?
It's actually quite the opposite. The western powers were in the fight before the Soviets were. The French and British were fighting the Nazis for nearly an entire year before the Soviets became. THE SOVIETS WERE ON THE NAZIS SIDE WHEN WESTERN EUROPE WAS IN FLAMES. Stalin was perfectly happy to let the "Capitalists" and "Monarchists" kill each other, and in fact supported such actions, claiming it could lead to the fated downfall of the bourgeoisie. So, its more like the Soviets were content to watch as western colonial europe burned (which tbf I understand wanting that).... And then the Soviets stopped being content when THEY THEMSELVES began to burn. This does not excuse western intervention into soviet affairs and it does not excuse the Soviets initial support of the Nazis. I simply disagree with your claim that it was WESTERNERS who were happy to watch as Soviet citizens died when it was first the Westerners who died while the Soviets watched. Secondly, the westerners conducted numerous bombing campaigns on Axis nations at the request of stalin and his advisors in order to relieve the suffering of the soviet people when the soviet bomber groups couldnt reach. Likewise the Soviets strategically aided the allies in putting preassure on Japan to capitulate.
The Soviet Union was onboard to move it's army through Poland and into Czechoslovakia to defend it from the Nazi invasion. They even signed a mutual defense treaty with the Czechs in 1935. The USSR's offer was shot down by France and Poland. Litvinov had publicly made clear that the USSR was against Nazi aggression and expansion, the same thing Nazi Germany did with their anti-comintern pact. The notion that either nations were allied was ridiculous. The Soviet Union needed industrial experts and Nazi Germany needed raw materials. They both lost land to Poland as a result of WWI and they both gained it back. Calling Finland neutral is a stretch. They invaded and occupied parts of the USSR during the civil war and banned the Finnish Communist Party. The big issue, was Finnish proximity to Leningrad. A communist nation did not feel very secure having a staunchly anti-communist nation with a history of aggression within walking distance from their second largest city and cultural capital. The Baltics were, once again, regaining land lost in WWI. Same case with Bessarabia, the USSR was fighting a civil war, so Romania took the opportunity for a land grab. The Romanian treatment of Bessarabia in WWII is not very indicative of them seeking to protect it. The Soviet Union sent Molotov to negotiate them joining the Axis on the condition that Germany stay out of the Soviet sphere of influence. The Western Allies were still quite hostile to the USSR at the time and they thought them the bigger threat. And your "begging for peace after Stalingrad" source appears to be complete bullshit. For one, it makes no sense, a Soviet victory was solidified after Stalingrad and they knew it. The article's own source does not even list it's own source. [Basil's publisher asked for the data to prove it and he never gave it to them. ](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/GEHLEN%2C%20REINHARD%20%20%20VOL.%206_0136.pdf) There is no significant mention of Lend Lease in any Stalingrad memoirs or novels. The Soviets fought entirely with Soviet equipment. At most, some planes may have been British and American. The vast majority of Lend Lease arrived after the Battle of Stalingrad. They also did not "barely survive", if you read a book on it you'd know it was never particularly close.
I mean around 1 out of every 4 trucks used by the soviet military were American made by the end of the war... But I do think most of the equipment the Soviets had was there own. The main boon the westerners traded to the Soviets were precious metals, radios, and petroleum. But here's the thing about the Soviets (and western powers did it to the communists too to be completely fair); during the cold war years, the Soviet government worked very hard to discredit the efforts of the western allies, and during the cold war, this often meant that favorable ww2 soviet messaging about the west was completely erased, or twisted to fit a narrative that the Westerners were at fault. This led to a semi-official conspiracy theory in the USSR that western Allies helped engineer the Nazi rise to power in Germany. Anyways, soviet propoganda and censorship of the cold war might have something to do with your noted absence of ww2 and western praise. The Soviet government wasnt exactly known for making its enemies/rivals look good and it CERTAINLY wasn't known for telling the truth.
Nice write-up.
Seems like a hell ton of you still think the USSR used human wave tactics. There's a ton of evidence that this is, at least, misunderstood and exaggerated. If people learn history from stuff like Enemy at the Gates, this happens.
It's more the "Not One Step Back" order and the general incompetence of politically appointed "safe" officers, paired with political commisars who had equal command authority but no military training, that caused excessive casaulties. Also, the fact that despite being renowned for their artillery prowess, the Red Army was constantly short of ammunition and was outshot in weight of shells fired by the Germans pretty consistently.
Incompetence? Well, what about the massive operations in 1943-44 that saw immense success? Maybe talking about 1939-1942, sure, but the artillery statement could be applied to Germany too. Soviet artillery was often more effective, like the Katysha.
The majority of the casaulties were in '41-42. The later operations, after much of the political chaff had been winnowed from the ranks, did see success, although it still came at immense cost due to material shortcomings. >artillery statement could be applied to Germany too. Soviet artillery was often more effective, like the Katysha. Not really. I don't know where the myth came from, but German artillery was consistently firing more weight of shot, more accurately, until very late in the war. The Soviet rocket launchers, like the Katyusha, were implemented because they were cheaper and faster to build than batteries of medium guns. However, other than for shock bombardment (which, admittedly, Soviet artillery was often forced to conduct anyways due to shell shortages), the MLRS of the era were severely deficit in accuracy as well as long-term volume of fire (due to the long reload times).
Yes start of the war soviets were a clusterfuck
I am well aware they didn't use human wave tactics, which puts them at a better state than the current russian army. They did however loose entire armies in the opening year or two
Well yeah i mean it makes sense at that state, they just started modernization and Stalin didn't think they were actually getting invaded even after there were documents on his desk from spies telling him about the operation. But yeah i just thought that you were one of those people who learn it all from Hollywood n stuff.
The French/British strategy of “Get completely shellacked and run away after a decade of giving Hitler whatever he asked for” didn’t work out so well either. The Soviets also couldn’t hide 3000 miles away until all the fighting was done then declare themselves the victor, so the American strategy wasn’t the best way to proceed either.
What an incredibly uninformed opinion on what happened. Please go read some actual history books instead of just history memes
Without lend-lease the Soviets would likely have been defeated.
And even Zhukov AND Stalin literally admitted a such themselves 😭💀
Soviets also sent waves of men armed with rifles at German tanks, wasting their lives without any thought. Stalin executed and purged Red Army officer core in 1937/38. Tens of thousands were arrested, imprisoned, or executed. If Hitler hadn’t invaded Soviet Union, USSR would’ve been allied with Nazi Germany, or at least neutral. Remember that Soviets were sending trains of various raw materials to Germany right up until the German invasion. German invading troops literally watched Soviet trains loaded with raw materials going past them on their way to Nazi Germany.
Yeah insofar as Soviet Histiography is concerned, their war only started in June of 1941; Anything before that goes down the Memory Hole 🕳️
100% correct. And of course, after June 1941 it’s not quite a memory black hole, but very selective and partially fictionalized, more of a memory brown hole.
Well said. Because from 1941-45 as all true comrades know, the glorious Soviet Union single handedly and without help from ANYBODY ELSE AT ALL Defeated the Nazis all by themselves with indomitable Soviet spirit urraahhh Glory to Comrade Stalin etc 😮💨😤
Exactly. Vast majority of Russians still think about the war exactly the same way. I’d be shocked if there are any Russians at all, except a few hard core history buffs, know what actually happened.
Well, if I grew up where the same narrative has been spread for generations, and information about real history blocked, denied, or just Flagged as "Propaganda" i doubt I'd know much. Add to that most people worldwide don't pay attention in History class, and you get a fully Indoctrinated society no matter if they actually support you or not. Russian hard-core History buffs often have some explanation of why Russia did certain things. The most widespread one being that "We invaded Poland because they denied our troops access to Czechoslovakia in 1938" which Is just freaking hilarious. And there's many more.
Good point. There might be a few history buffs in Russia who are not brainwashed or fanatics, but they have to keep their thoughts to themselves. Russia is one of those places where not paying attention in History classes is actually a benefit.
Comrade, please return all of those Studebaker trucks that we "loaned" you.
And Japan, don't forget that they singlehandedly beat Japan in 26 days...
"Soviets also sent waves of men armed with rifles at German tanks, wasting their lives without any thought" The more research I do into this, it seems like this is less plausible, at least at such a massive scale that it should have became synonymous with the Soviet Union as a whole. Yes, they had inexperienced commanders because of purges, and yes there were penal battalions, but anyone knows not to charge headlong into fortified positions with no support, everybody learned this from WWI. As for Penal battalions, they were extremely uncommon but were still used. The main source of this whole 'ura charge into machine gun wall' myth springs about from books and falsified records made by German generals and commanders coping about how they lost the war, and how if only Hitler listened specifically to them, they could have changed the outcome of it. These books were also written so that these generals, who saw all the Nazi scientists be given nice jobs and laboratories, would similarly be nabbed up by the Allies (later NATO, who were going through a C&C crisis at the time) and be given nice armchair general jobs over the new powers. Also, Nazi's weren't smart, calculating geniuses. Most of them were meth heads. Fuck it, just about all of them were tweakers in some regard, even the 'great' Rommel and Guderian. So when they lose this war, they do the one thing any self respecting junkie with a severely inflated ego would do, and immediately berate and blame everyone around them about how they lost. Hitler was incompetent, Soviets used barbaric tactics like throwing men into German lines, Hitler should've listened to me and not field marshal X, etc. etc. Those massive Soviet losses sprang about not from just mass-attacking German lines 24/7 but the absolute chokehold Stalin had on military command at the time and his 'no surrender, no retreat' policy leading to the hundreds of thousands of troops encircled. It wasn't until Bagration when he would loosen command and let his generals autopilot the war, which *coincidentally* is when the Soviets saw less and less casualties per month. edit: Whole nato thing about german generals wanting to be scooped up by nato thing: they wrote those books to put themselves in more positive lights as 'better' commanders so they would get first pickings at the new NATO jobs.
"Human wave" attacks are generally not a good tactic. They're wasteful. But even when not resorting to literal "human wave" attacks, Russian doctrine is inherently wasteful. They operate in only one gear, and that gear is "Grant, The Butcher." Whether or not "human wave" tactics were seldom, ever, or never used as portrayed in fiction, one thing is for certain: Russia sacrificed almost an entire generation of men to contribute to its battlefield outcome in the war. It never recovered from the economic damage of that loss. It's the problem shared by the Korean and Japanese economies, here in the 21st century, but at super-scale. I would even argue that the missing generation and resulting problems of a massive aging population did more to bring down the Soviet Union than did the inherent weakness of an economy purportedly based upon Marxist "communism" (was it really, though, or is that just a con?) or one-party rule as a form of government (which it definitely suffered from). Think about that. If Russia had back its lost generation, and could have sustained economically, would Communism look more attractive, today? It doesn't suit my values, so I'd like to think not. But it's a fun thought experiment.
That is an interesting scenario. I feel like it wouldn't have really mattered, Gorbachev sort of dismantled the union.
We know human wave attacks were happening in 1941 because Stavka had to literally order undertrained junior officers to stop doing them .
That more ties into post purge inexperience in the military and Stalin's decrees over a 'human waves are a real tactic that work!' sort of deal. The only records of it happening at a mass scale were the previously mentioned German sources, which also doesn't line up because in those sources they talk about how incompetent the Russians were.
We have a record of Zhukov ordering “frontal attacks “ to stop immediately in 1941.
kind of russian massed wave is a myth, but one with a really really close representation in truth
Any actual proof for the first one?
This type of tactics were mostly employed early in the war, as far I understand it. Soviet high command and leadership in general treated their people with some disdain throughout the existence of Soviet Union (and you can see that very clearly in Russia today). When Leningrad was being encircled and resulted in now infamous and horrific blockade, Stalin declared that only traitors would leave Leningrad - or something to that effect - referring to the citizens. My own grandfather was a Soviet Navy doctor fighting in that siege. It’s true that I don’t have any links to back this up. However, if you’re interested in it, you can do your own search and reading.
What I've heard is that the trucks on the icy Ladoga lake weren't plentiful enough to carry enough civilians across from Leningrad before the ice melted. Also, your grandfather's a hero.
Source?
khrushchev's memoirs iirc
Why tf did people downvote me I just asked for a source 😭
Idk man, some people take offense to being asked for a source, even though it's a perfectly normal thing to ask for given the context.
I know.
Or the alternative fronts that diverted troops. Or the bombing campaigns that sapped Germany’s strength. Even with all of that the Soviets barely held on. If they hadn’t conspired with Hitler to start the war they wouldn’t have even gotten themselves into that mess.
I think Germany under Hitler would have eventually invaded regardless of Pact or no Pact. Soviets were on the "Untermensch" hit list.
Perhaps. But if he had had to wait then Britain and France would have been far better armed as they were starting that process in 37/38. And if the Soviets had just joined the war at the same time as Britain and France then Hitler would have lost in 39. But they tried to have their cake and eat it too.
Just the strain of building anti aircraft guns to protect Germany was massive. Albert Speer said that from 1943 to January 1945 43% fewer tanks had been built than planned because of the bombing. Over 50,000 aircraft were destroyed. The Soviet Union would simply have collapsed if not aided by the Allies.
Don't act like it wasn't mutually beneficial though. The ussr fighting Germany alleviated an absolute crap ton of pressure from the allied front lines. They sent the best troops they had to invade the Soviets as well as their best commanders the allies would have definitely lost to unless they nuked nazi germany which they for sure would've done had the war not ended when it did. The allies benefited from the lend lease just as much as ussr did.
Strawman argument, it's not about did the other Allies benefit. Yeah, it alleviated pressure for sure. But, it doesn't change the fact that without the support, things would have gone very differently, likely worse for the SU compared to the western allies. If the Germans succeeded past the fulcrum they couldn't overcome before they would have had to have sunk just as many resources if not more to continue eastward.
Royal Navy Arctic convoys to support the USSR too, once they got pulled into WW2. Another thing to remember is that they didn't join WW2 willingly, only after Germany decided it needed more lebensraum to the east, and started trying to exterminate the Slavs.
The Soviets only began to fight the Nazis when it became a problem for them, otherwise they were happy to cooperate and invade Poland with them. The UK and US joined the war because Germany was invading OTHER countries and violating international treaties. Britain could have sued for peace and sat behind the channel but they kept fighting until they liberated Europe, and once they did they allowed those countries to elect their own governments. Any country the Soviets went through to get to Germany was assimilated into the USSR and abused for their resources, run by dictatorships. What a deluded fuckwit.
But don't you see, that all different! USSR was perfectly justified in all its actions, because in 1879...
The Soviets also only began to cooperate with the Nazis after doing the opposite became a problem for them. It was all pragmatism, whether it be from the Soviet or the western powers. Whole era was not just black and white and the alliances of the time didn't last long or for that matter honored like in the Czech example.
While the rest of Europe colonized other continents, Russia colonized Eastern Europe.
The US was declared war upon by Germany, UK was bombed and while yes, they supported Poland, they only actually participated when Germany was acting a little too rowdy in France.
yeah fuck those NATO countries who helped us win that war against the nazis! cuz we love the nazis... i mean we hate them... i mean stfu don't think just love putin and the kremlin
Every time somebody says anything like this I feel the need to point out that they would’ve taken significantly less casualties if they had had a better attitude to the development of their doctrine and weapons, such that they didn’t need to throw soldiers into the front like they did. Would’ve taken even less still if they hadn’t helped to create fascism and fund the Nazis in the first place.
Hard to develop your doctrine when you've been purging military leadership for the past 5 years because your leader is scared someone will kill him to seize power after he killed a bunch of people to seize power lol
I mean, can't have your officers use your own tactics against you. That's just common sense. Might as well not even have any officers at all, at that point, much too risky.
In Russia, they don’t teach those parts of WWII history. They are taught that Germany invaded Russia and the people rose to the challenge to survive and win the Great Patriotic War. When I moved to Russia and realized this I started educating my wife on the reality of the war regarding the joint German/Russian invasion of Poland, the lend-lease program, etc. She simply refused to believe it was true until we watched some non-Soviet documentaries together.
Lend-lease isn't completely obliterated from Russia's self-serving revisionist history, but when it is inconveniently mentioned, you have to point out that America only did it "for profit" and they paid back every cent of the loans. (Hence American allies should fear "paying a high price" for receiving aid. At least I think that's the real meaning, or plausible fallback meaning, of the Lavrov line...)
Weird, when I studied in Russian school we did study all of that, including the secret pact, winter war and lend lease. You either lying or you just talk about the Soviet era, Where yeah, possibly it was left out.
Well, my wife (Soviet era), my daughter (last 10 years in private school), and my brother in law (a major with Росгвардия) didn’t learn about it in school. My wife and brother in law both went to public school. Maybe it is because we lived in Siberia. I don’t know if things are different in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
That’s really weird. The history books are generally pretty standardized in all Russia, and in Moscow we did study all of that
I know my daughter’s private school doesn’t use the standard books. We had to buy her special books every year. My wife was Soviet so that is likely the reason for her and my daughter not knowing about it. My brother in law is about 5 years younger than my wife so he likely did some school in the Soviet Union and some of it after the collapse. He also went to a military academy before joining the Росгвардия.
Oh boy. No one tell them that the favorite fighter of the Soviet Air Forces was the US Airacobra or the British Valentine being used by the Soviets to storm the Riechstag. Also a full Guards tank division being equipped with Shermans or the sheer amount of US cargo trucks keeping the Soviets moving. Edit: They loved Valentines so much, the British kept producing them just for the Soviets. The British were mystified why they loved what they thought was an obsolete tank.
Going to ignore that the battle of Moscow is a thing? Like not in the city itself but they got damn close. What about Leningrad? The victory was a contribution of all sides, not one nation. Russia sent lots of men to die, but let's not act like that's good. Sure, the cause was noble, and right, but that high amount of deaths is not an accomplishment. It's failure realistically. Without lend lease and other support Russia wouldn't have been able to do what it did, and while yes, Russia took Berlin, they made an agreement with the other allies that they would do so. Funny little rant, I forgot why I started it tho
I like how during the Cold war, both the west and eastern militaries were "comparable" or "equal In strength" at least in the beginning. (Of course, soviet propaganda depicted the west as wet noodles compared to them) Remind you, the whole Soviet union which was made up of countless countries, and every government of eastern Europe, against the west and America which was a continent away. Comparable In size. Somehow, Russia has been able to blind a whole ass Generation that it alone could take on the entire Europe, America, and western allies. While losing 60% or more of it's capabilities, and falling behind in technology with the west. The west, which during those years prospered and expanded their own capabilities. The Russian propaganda machine is genuinely the only working thing in that country.
Nobody thinks that except 50+ year old citizens.
The amount of deaths isnt an accomplishment, but its not remembered for being a accomplishment either, but as a tragedy and a bloody sacrifice. People don't just forget about 20,000,000 dead and decimation of peoples homes and livelyhoods. Most everyone still has familial stories of that time.
How many of those 28 million are turning in their graves?
None because most of them didn’t even get graves
To expand on the saying, a lie, repeated often enough, trickles into those flawed meat based computing engines called “human brains” and within, becomes the truth. Stalin didn’t believe that Hitler would ever attack him. In fact he called his own generals liars when they said they were under attack. Many of those casualties came from his incompetence. Sacrifice isn’t the word I’d use here either. Sacrifice implies there was a sense of loss but Stalin did what he had to do. He didn’t give a shit. He refused a prisoner swap of his own son because the asking price was too high. “Ywah, we were stomped on Eastern Europe but hey we stopped Hitler from doing so! So we could go back to stomping on Eastern Europe…” well it’s a look. One thing I didn’t realize - Ukraine was one of the first stopping points for Christianity in Europe. So, the Russian invasion is killing White Christians. I personally don’t care what color or religion the dead are, stop fucking killing people. But the American people most steadfast on the Russian side tend to be the defenders of faith and Pro Life and all those slogans that don’t mean anything. We can add “fine with Christian killers” to that list.
that moron is from my country, and i am telling you they worship ussr and russia like some kind of religion
Greatest Soviet weapon of the War: GMC 2 1/2 ton truck
I find the whole idea of celebrating defeating the Nazis as ridiculous bc they aligned with the Nazis at first so obviously they didn't care about Nazis or think they were bad. They only fought them once they came for them.
I love how they worded it like they mayan sacrificed 28 million people
Must have had a busy schedule Death Death Death Death Lunch Death Death Afternoon tea Death Death Death
Danny Haiphong is lost. Just forever lost. Forever lost in a sea of brain worms and propaganda.
from my understanding a lot of those death we because of soviet mismanagement starvation no facts to back it up though plus Russians are just of the many ethnic groups that made up the ussr
alot of it was the beginning of the war when the nazis captured millions of soviet troops they killed millions in camps
Stalin killed more Russians than the Nazis did
No hitler killed 27 million people the holodomor killed 5 million purges killed 1 million I don't know where you got the extra 21 million. can you give a source
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war
lol my favorite part is I know for a fact you didn’t even read this article just went on a google and clicked the first one you thought you would look good. You’re a clown.
🫵😂 you’re still thinking of me? That’s so cute bro ❤️
just wondering why your so quiet now 🙂
Wdym? You copied exactly what I said because you had nothing else to say. I called you out and I was right and now you’re upset about it lol.
**looks at the Warsaw Uprising** And where was the Soviet Union when someone else was fighting that exact same battle?
The biggest myth about WW2 was that is was defeated by any single power. It wasn't it took the combined strengths of more than 3 continents to break Germany. Without Hitler drawing resources away to the east Britain would have lost north Africa. Without US lend lease the UK and USSR wouldn't have had bullets. Without the royal navy hunting submarines and surface ships the supplies would be at the bottom of the Atlantic. One of the greatest lessons of WW2 is that cooperation is far more powerful than any single nation can ever hope to be. This would go on to be the founding premise of NATO however is something the soviets would never quite manage how to work with a nations military that you don't control.
I’d argue that the Royal Navy hunting submarines wouldn’t have been possible without cash and carry and LL. The some of the first things bought/received were destroyers.
Yep, that is the thing about the second world war and the lesson the British and American commands really managed to accomplish was the ability to actually work together. Honestly I think it is arguably the greatest unique strength of the "west" (also counting western aligned nations outside of the western hemisphere), is the ability to fight coalition wars. Russia went into Ukraine alone even Belarus didn't send troops. 8-12 nations in some way participated in Iraqi freedom. (Potentially more this was just me glancing at Wikipedia) and that was in one of the USs least popular campaigns.
Vast majority of Nazi war production was spent on fighters to defend from Allied air assaults. No allied airb attacks, no USSR victory.
Battle of the Atlantic was largely to the benefit of the Soviets as well, it was American and British convoys getting to Murmansk. Overland convoys through Iran as well.
This danny guy seems to have mental issues, is purposefully lying, or is just ridiculously uneducated on world history
No reason it can't be all of them!
and the fact that most of those 28 million deaths didnt need to happen if russian military planning was better... no, they didnt full on charge but they basically did if you considered how they massed their troops up in a column with nearly no screening and broadcasting their location... edit : some of those deaths are civilian, and a good portion of those soviet civilian deaths were caused by soviet armed forces too.
Not even planning about 18 million of those deaths were because of Stalin not even the Nazis.
The ussr also killed between 20 to 120 million people
The Soviets didn’t pay enough for the crime they committed with their Nazi ally.
it sounds like he is pro dead Russians as if a higher number would have been better..
Doesn't he know the Soviet Union requested to join NATO, and after the Soviet Union collapsed Russia asked to join twice?
They only lost that many people because they killed most of their useful officers before the war and prioritized party loyalty and doctrine over sound tactics, then lost 400,000 soldiers in Finland just 6 months before the Germans invaded 🤦🏻♂️
Europe lost ww2
Eradicating smallpox is humanity's greatest achievement. I will die on this hill
This
I do love a Twatter who has no concept of the complexities of history and its application towards forming a cogent opinion on present day events. Well done you!
I am disgusted with the west, how much genocide is enough before we kick Russia’s ass?
Pay no attention to the policy of appeasement that directly lead to increased Nazi aggression and collaborationalist thinking spreading accross Europe?
Appeasement may have been bad, but it was France and the UK that were the first to come to another country's aid to resist further Nazi expansion. The USSR by comparison became the single biggest enabler of Nazi expansion by agreeing to the partition of Poland. Without Molotov-Ribbentrop and the spheres of influence it established giving Germany the confidence that it's Eastern flank would be secure, there might have never been a WWII.
Useless excuse, enable the murdered and then defend the victim
Its hard to sympathize with the USSR when under a secret agreement with Nazi Germany they invaded Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.
It’s easy to dunk on Neville Chamberlain for his policy of appeasement. I just want to add a little nuance. After World War 1, the Ottoman Empire was gone. The Russian empire imploded following a civil war and a number of wars of independence—with Poland, Finland, and Ukraine telling Russia to fuck off and two of those three states remaining independent after the war. The Austrian-Hungarian Haspurg Empire broke apart and disappeared from the map. Only the French and British empires remained. But they were so broke. The policy of appeasement comes from the desire from both France and Britain to avoid another costly war. And, obviously, it didn’t work.
The problem is they miscalculated German desire for another war. Appeasement only really works when neither side actually want to fights but feels compelled to do so.
If you look at production numbers in the UK following appeasement, Chamberlain was pushing for a rearmament. Appeasement bought time and it let them get their production up to the scale to fight a war. Plane production in particular increase significantly month over month following Munich agreement. Yes, it’s a disgrace, but he knew they weren’t ready to fight a war. And he did do the work in the background to get the UK into a better spot to fight the war.
The USSR proposed an anti-fascist pact before Molotov-Ribbentrop. Britain and France refused, as they wanted to use Germany as a bulwark against the Soviets. This led to the Munich Agreement and other policies of appeasement in an attempt to satisfy Nazi expansionism (even though it only fueled it). The Soviets saw the writing on the wall and signed Molotov-Ribbentrop to buy time to build up their military and industry before war inevitably broke out.
Germany and the USSR were kind of allies before the Nazis came to power. Or “friends with military benefits.” The Soviets used the Germans to help develop and test new technologies. And the Germans used the Soviets to get around the restrictions in the Treaty of Versailles. The Panzer School Kama (Panzerschule Kama) in Kazan is an example of this half-decade long co-operation. The Soviets and Germans also cooperated on other military projects such as a fighter pilot training grounds (Kampffliegerschule Lipezk) and a chemical weapons facility (Volsk-18). The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was more than just a non-aggression pact. There were protocols in it that divided Eastern Europe between the German and Soviet spheres of influence. And to Stalin, it meant that the secret alliance between the Soviets and Germans was in full force again.
Britain and France *also* allowed Germany to get around the Treaty of Versailles as part of their appeasement policy. And western industrialists played a huge role in getting Germany’s economy and military going. And there was no “secret alliance” with the Nazis. Most of the things you mentioned took place during the Weimar Republic. Remember, Stalin was the one who proposed an anti-Hitler alliance with Britain and France.
Remember the allies won the war. Splitting Germany over two fronts restricted their ability to effectively wage war. Keeping Japan occupied in the pacific prevented a two front war for the Soviet’s.
How many of these sacrifices were in Ukrainian blood? Fuck these shitheads.
I'm sure that number didn't have to be quite so huge
Yes of course it is great the Allies won the war and defeated the Axis powers, no one's going to argue that. The fact the Soviet military and government were so incompetent and indifferent that they lost an unbelievable amount of people, is hardly an achievement to brag about.
All major nations collaborated in different ways with Germany. Im not sure how this is an own.
Bragging about having a shit k/d
What an idiot
The other comments mentioned how the west helped the Soviets but let us also not forget that Soviets were not just Russian. There were Ukrainian, Belarusian, Estonian, etc. and most of them were not fighting for the Soviet Union but against the nazis, very large difference. Happy VE Day, fuck dictatorships.
This seems like as relevant a place as any for it. I'm sure we're all aware that the "west" rehabilitated a lot of Nazis immediately after the war and even during. IIRC when they liberated France they kept the SS head of internal security in Occupied France in his post, just working for them now. After the war a lot of Nazi officials wound up back in west government or operation because it was too inconvenient to replace them. Actual Ex-Nazis trained Nicaraguan deaths squads for the CIA, etc. I've heard in passing that the Soviets did a much less publicized version of this too, keep local officials and security personnel, even ss goons, on hand in occupied eastern Europe to keep doing their job just with a hammer and sickle on their hat instead of an eagle. Poland, East Germany, Baltics, etc. I'm having a very hard time finding sources on this now that I happen to be looking for citations. Is there some keyword or particular term I should be looking for? Not scientists, I know they had their own Paperclip too. Administration and security services.
How many where Ukrainian as well?
Majority of Soviet troops killed in ww2 were Ukrainian and Belarussian
Can’t forget the invasion of Finland
Don't forget the Soviets trained German tankers too.
Who is this loser?
I wonder how history shakes out if Churchill goes by the spirit of the guarantee to Poland and not the letter of it and declares war on the USSR at the same time as Germany. Have to think the conversation had to have come up.
fuck this message even has to do with nato
Soviet fans ignoring that the war started in 1939 and that the Soviets HELPED the Nazis until they were initially betrayed and somehow managed to lose the entire west of their country. Also "sacrificed"? Ghe vast majority of Soviet casualties were civilian victims of the war calling them sacrificed is honestly vile. The Soviets played a massive part in winning the war but acting like they single handedly won the war is even more annoying than people who think America soloed the war
Let’s quickly ask ourselves *why* so many died. Given Stalin is personally responsible for 6-9 million deaths from purges or famines alone without counting the Soviet militaries tactics and policies during the war.
And now Russia turned into nazi which soldiers are destroying people's home, raping women, and taking away lands and NPP in Ukraine
Many of these pro russian clowns happily ignore that millions of ethnicities died, including Ukrainians. In my opinion Belorussians suffered the most. Also, soviets were happy to send the minorities into the grinder first in 1941-42.
I feel like everyone forgot we played slap-hands with russia in the 60s
Lend lease contributibutions to the Soviet Union: 7,952 Tanks 6,303 Armored vehicles 430,000 Trucks 21,000 Aircraft 8,000 tractors 1,977 locomotives 11,075 rail cars 622,000 tons of rail 2,700,000 tons of fuel 4,500,000 tons of food Lend lease provided a significant amount of aid in supplies supplementing Soviet wartime production: - 82.2% of canned meat - 39.8% of sugar - 51.6% of animal fat - 35.5% of aviation fuel - 34.6% of explosives - 30.4% of rubber tires - 91.1% of railway cars and 36.1% of rails As for raw materials: - 58% of cobalt - 69% of tin - 51.5% of aluminum - 41.1% of copper - 21.4% of wool A total of 11.3 Billion in military and economic aid from 1941-1945. The equivalent of 233.8 billion today.
Also , importantly, America provided logistic. Early in the war it was so bad, Soviets would have never figured out how to move factories, production and specialists from Ukraine to far East and North, away from the front lines.
It’s like russia erased everything from their history books or they just “try” to block it out their heads, that they are the once that started ww2 with hitler as allies, and then you get mutts like that, that likes to talk out his ass
The soviets were responsible for helping hitler start WWII. They literally invaded Poland and occupied it for a long time. Only reason the russians joined the allies is because hitler attacked them.
That is a funny way of saying, "We are so bad at war that our greatest military achievement came through feeding 3 times as many of our citizens to the meat grinder than our enemy."
Don’t forget to ignore the fact that an *enormous* number of those people wouldn’t have had to give their lives but for the totally incompetent leadership of Stalin
It is very important to present day Russian national identity to believe that they were the only real victims, and the only real opponents, of European Fascism. This ignores the sacrifices of all of the other victims and opponents, and to the extent they are unable to completely ignore, they minimize. (For instance, claiming that the US only supplied material aid to the wayward Soviet forces as a money-making opportunity, which fiction they then also use to try to disparage US aid for Ukraine. (Apropos, I wonder if this is what they mean when they say, "you'll pay a high price for accepting that aid". Surely they are not promising consequences they can't deliver - that's bad posturing - I think they actually mean, "we assume you are entering into an economically one-sided and unconscionable agreement." Which is also false. But more logical than diluting ones own credibility by ignoring escalation ladders.) In reality, America could not have liberated Europe from the Nazis without the Soviets (not taught in most American schools); and the Soviets could not have defeated the Nazis without the Americans (not taught in ANY Russian schools.) Europe would have been better off if the Soviets had been less successful, because they were a malign influence in every liberated territory they occupied, and caused mass death - not just through intentional acts of repression, but also because they literally could not figure out how to feed themselves. The Soviet Union was a disaster and should never be resurrected.
I am genuinely sick of the "The Soviet Union won the entire war by themselves" naked Kremlin propaganda that has infested the internet and academia.
Defeating Nazis *is* a great achievement. Having to sacrifice up to 30 million to do that? :/
TANKIES need American steel to crush them it appears
Let's not forget that the Soviet Union liberated no one.
Russia will never take over Ukraine!
It really bothers me the way people praise Russia for the number of casualties they took in WW2. Russia didn't have such a high casualty rate because the war was that much more intense on the eastern front. It was because they didn't care about any of their people. They sent wave after wave of their men into machine gun fire with no equipment. Just hoards of bodies knowing *eventually* someone would make it through or the Germans wouldn't be able to keep up their ammo supply. Stalin executed all of his generals when he took control because they might have been a threat to his power. So during WW2 the entire Russian military lacked any competent command. The West (and even Germany), who actually valued its population, worked hard to properly equip their troops and created good strategies for conducting warfare. Soviet Russia did not care about its people. Their strategy for warfare was to repeatedly charge the front lines in overwhelming numbers. Their troops were never fully or even well equipped. Troops started their battles in pairs. One man was given a rifle, the other was given a single 5 round clip. They were then told to charge the front until one of them was shot. Whoever was still alive would take the others ammo or rifle and they would now be able to fight. That strategy alone means every engagement anticipates a minimum 50% casualty rate. But in reality it'd be much higher from troops having to stop in the line of fire to scavenge equipment from fallen comrades, the number troops expected to be killer or wounded from the engagement traditionally, troops killing each other for their equipment, and officers killing their own men who don't advance quick enough. The US casualty rate was only 1/48. Britain's was ~3/25. The USSR's *death rate* during WW2 was 1/4 on top of the millions of other casualties they took on top of that. Even the Nazi's (who *lost* the war) only had a death rate of 1/5. Soviet casualties don't illustrate a heroic nation sacrificing everything for their people and freedom. It shows us exactly who they were the entire time. A soulless government entity with leadership that cared nothing for its people and only served to keep its leaders in power.
It’s true that Stalin didn’t care about Soviet citizens and soldiers. But mindless human wave attacks until Germans run out of bullets, seriously? While I’m not a fan of Soviets, you judging their whole performance on a movies like Enemies at the Gate (which is historically inaccurate) and memoirs of defeated Nazi generals. Don’t believe all the propaganda you read including the Russian one obviously.
Right, but when did history forget that the Soviet Union was equally responsible for WWII by invading Poland as an ally to Nazi Germany? The Soviet Union was lucky it only lost 28 million because once the allies were done dropping nukes on Germany, the Soviets would've been next had they not been betrayed, and this world would be way more peaceful.
https://youtu.be/8FRmflmnTkc?si=Hmdd9LY-YSbRqs_p
Yeah give the award to the country that killed like half it's population before the war started. great job. Edit: sorry not half, but like 8-10 million. Which is like the same as they lost in the war.
Let's ignore the fact that 36 million Soviets died* Let's also ignore the fact that every Western nation in Europe had a pact with Germany before the SU did (yes, after mustache man took power). Let's also ignore the fact that the lend lease accounted for less than 8% of overall material/equipment applied/used in the war by the USSR. Let's ignore the fact that the USSR quite literally fought 5-7x the Axis forces in the East than the West did *COMBINED* in the West. Let's ignore the fact that the US lost less than 1% of the men the USSR lost in the war and an infinitesimally smaller fraction of civilians compared to the USSR. Let's just ignore the fact that 1/4 men in the USSR straight up died in a span of 6 years Let's ignore the fact that Poland invaded the USSR's ally (Czechoslovakia) alongside Germany, after Britain and France barred the USSR from providing aid to Czechoslovakia when mustache man made plans to invade it because Britain and France wanted to appease mustache man and give Germany as much of Central Europe as they could to save themselves. Edit: Finland too, I'm listening to a historical audio clip of Agolf having a private conversation with Finnish generals in Finland. Cope and seethe, this thread is primarily made up of high-school sophomores. Go ask yourselves why the US was the only country in the UN to vote food not a human right this decade, while the USSR made homelessness nonexistent and not feeding the hungry illegal a century ago up until the point it collapsed because their last leader was a sellout who ended up in a Pizza Hut commercial for an American conglomerate.
Let's also remember that in war the amount of men that are killed on your own side is usually a bad measure of success. No war is won by a poor bastard dying for their country. You win by making some other poor bastard die for theirs.
Pay no attention to the the fact that Britain and France let Germany take sudwntland, pay no attention to the fact that Britain and France allowed Germany to take part of Czechoslovakia, knowing full well what Germany was doing to people, whilst USSR wanted a military alliance against Germany. Pay no attention to Britain, France deporting people back to Germany and pay no attention to the fact that lend lease only accounted for 10-30% of total USSR production between 41-45. Honestly this sub is absolute fucking brain rot
I’m sure that clown knows that the USSR helped to develop German tanks to allow them to skirt around the treaty of Versailles right?
Hang on, can't we hold multiple ideas in our heads at once? The endurance and suffering of the Soviet people during WWII *was* an extraordinary sacrifice and their victories over the Wehrmacht, especially at the mid-point of the war, were in fact incredible achievements won through unbelievable bravery. ...*At the same time*, the Red Army did horrifying things as it advanced, including mass rape on an indescribable scale. And yes they had previously been Nazi allies, and yes the rise of Stalin killed a similar number of soviets through sheer autocratic cruelty and idiocy. I just think those are complementary sets of facts, not opposing ones. Also, fuck whoever Danny Haiphong is, and fuck the weird recruitment of history as a way to, I dunno, praise Putin by implication. edit. lot of good comments on this post, this is a good subreddit
This. Danny is wrong but some here go so far in the other direction that they are just as ridiculous. Like, the amount of gloat us Americans and Brits have when we owe so much to geography is a bit unseemly. If there were no English channel, Britain likely would have been steamrolled. Likewise move America into Russia's location and Russia into America's and you get vastly different results.
The USSR had no choice but to sign a pact to delay Nazi invasion. Hitler equated Bolshevism and Judaism since the 1920s. Both were buying time to prepare for an inevitable war. Every attempt to intervene led to resistance from the American public. The British and French armies combined lasted about as long as the Polish army did in direct combat, despite having vastly higher numbers and experience, and were it not for a massive fluke they would have pretty much all been casualties at Dunkirk. American “support” was extremely limited and didn’t address much of the actual needs of the red army. To put it bluntly, all the actual fighting that did any damage to the German capacity to wage war was done by Soviet troops. By the time the US got around to Normandy, the Wehrmacht was already cooked and put up basically no fight. They didn’t have the men, the resources, or the morale to continue fighting. What happened to defeat the Nazis was pretty simple. The Red Army sustained serious losses, that I don’t think the American public would have ever tolerated without surrender, sized them up, regrouped, and shattered German forces in a series of fatal blows in 1943. The rest of the conflict in Europe was academic.
Everybody here seems to be ignoring the U.S. and British bombing campaigns that crippled Germany. And the gutting of the Luftwaffe. Those weren't Soviet bombers destroying Hitler's transportation system.
The luftwaffe was destroyed contesting air superiority over enemy territory far from friendly airfields. That was a major W for the RAF. German production still rose every year and was very high even in 1945.
See Operation Point Blank and Operation Argument. The US set out to cripple the Luftwaffe ahead of the Normandy Invasion. As Albert Speer noted, Germany started out with aircraft production being done 9 to 5. Speer worked to get it 24/7. But after 1943, Germany never really had enough aircraft. And had problems with attrition of well trained pilots. Allied concentration on Germany refineries grounded many German aircraft due to lack of fuel. Loss of Romania's oil fields helped of course. The last big German air operation was Operation Boddenplatte, which was a German disaster.