History repeating itself, and just be wary of Russia

[EndlessWire]

Here on DU several times posters have remarked that the Russians were heroes in WW2, and we couldn't have won without their sacrifices.

Well, here's what the rats did in WW2:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nazis-and-communists-divvy-up-poland

Hitler came to power in 1933. In 1939, Germany and Russia agreed to divvy up the country of Poland. We know the brutality that Germany visited on Poland, assisted by the Soviet Union. Two years later, in 1941, Germany turned on Russia and invaded, reneging on their pact, and forcing Russia to ally themselves with England and the United States, in order to save themselves.

WW2 started in 1939 with the invasion of Poland, which caused Britain and France to declare war on Germany, due to defense pacts. And there you have it, Europe on fire. In particular, take note on what happened to Latvia and Estonia. Swallowed up by the Soviet Union, because they could not defend themselves. They signed agreements with the Soviet Union, only to be taken over completely. This time around, they are NATO members and are busily fortifying themselves militarily. Not sure how Russia gets to "reclaim" their territory, which they stole from those citizens.

Belarus, which apparently used to be part of Poland, is ruled by a dictator named Lukashenko, who is a Russian puppet. And, that's why they are in trouble. Meanwhile, Moldova is in peril, because they have some kind of nonaggression principle written right into their constitution. Still, Russia is nibbling at them via controlled territory which is just illegally occupied territory. This is the same thing they did in Georgia, and the Donbas.

For Ukraine to concede territory to Russia just to end a war is foolish. It will never end. Russia needs its nose bloodied and to be pushed completely out of Ukraine. Otherwise, we are going to see WW3, with or without nukes. I think NATO should sign up those countries who want in.

I see that the UN has boots on the ground in Africa. Where were they early on when they could have thrown weight around to help Ukraine? There's lots of stuff I don't understand, but I can see a dam breached, and that Russia is very afraid of losing Crimea, another illegally occupied portion of Ukraine.

I just don't want to ever again hear how heroic Russia was in WW2. We always forgive those that make war against us. Japan, Germany, all forgiven, and one day we'll be friends with Russia. I'm rooting for any patriotic Russian who is trying to free themselves of Putin and his evil Duma. But those idiots who are advocating to concede to Russia, they are just stupid. It won't work. It didn't then, and it won't now.

Thank you for letting me rant about this. Lately in the news there have been bytes about China, and that Congress Critter, advocating to feed bits of Ukraine to Russia. I'm sure that Ukraine has its faults, but poor Ukraine didn't deserve this.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Russia was a hesitant ally during WWII.

Because Germany was devastating its borders at the time as troops were nearing Moscow.

[EndlessWire]

4. A taste of their own medicine

They were okay to take over and carve up Poland, never dreaming that Der Fuhrer would turn on them. Their dirty, never-mentioned secret is that they helped start WW2 in the first place.

[brewens]

2. The Russians didn't learn enough from WWII. They are wasting their troops much like they often

did fighting the Germans. The Russians would at least have had a much rougher time of it without massive aid from the west. They especially relied on us for weapons and supplies in the south where the Crimea and most of the fighting is going on now.

I know they resettled a lot of that territory with Russians after they threw the Germans out, but I don't think those people of Russian heritage would be big fans of Putin. It's showing up now with the anti-Putin Russians now attacking in southern Russia. It was the support of those people that supposedly justified Putin moving in in the first place.

[BeyondGeography]

3. Before they were "heroic" they were dependent on US and we delivered

We completely saved their asses earlier in the war with Lend-Lease, per Stalin and Kruschev themselves:

”I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war," Stalin said. "The most important things in this war are the machines....The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war."

Nikita Khrushchev offered the same opinion.

"If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me."

https://www.rferl.org/amp/did-us-lend-lease-aid-tip-the-balance-in-soviet-fight-against-nazi-germany/30599486.html

Putin and his anti-American enablers somehow routinely manage to omit this fact.

[thucythucy]

5. There's some nuance here that needs to be addressed.

Stalin all through the late 1930s tried to get Britain and France to enter into an alliance to deter Germany from further aggression, an alliance that would have included Czechoslovakia. The French--and especially the British under Chamberlain--were more interested in appeasing Germany at the expense of the Czechs, this despite the fact that France and Czechoslovakia had a mutual defense treaty. By selling out the Czechs the western allies demonstrated that no treaty they signed was worth the paper it was written on. The Soviets weren't even invited to the Munich conference, though Chamberlain had no problem with Mussolini being there.

Even on the brink of war in July and August 1939 the western allies preferred to blow Stalin off. It was only then, when confronted with the possibility of a war with both Germany and Japan during which Britain and France would continue to be "neutral," that he chose to enter into the infamous Molotov Ribbentrop pact, hoping to deflect Hitler away from an attack on the USSR.

This is not to excuse any of the atrocities the Soviets committed, which included undermining the Social Democrats in Germany, the engineered famine in Ukraine that killed millions, the spiking of the anti-fascist movement in Spain, the destruction of Poland and the slaughter of its citizens, aggressions against Finland and the Baltic States, and the continued suppression of minorities within the USSR.

But we should always remember, as we commemorate the sacrifices made in June 1944, that Czechoslovakia was sold out by the West in 1938, occupied by the Nazis 1939 to '45, and then had its democracy destroyed and its people suppressed by the Russians after the end of the war. It's no wonder the Czech Republic joined NATO as soon as it could, and that Trump's coddling of Putin sent shock waves all through Central and Eastern Europe.

Thankfully President Biden is aware of this history, which is one more reason why the defeat of Trump in 2020 was so crucial, and why the Putin worshipping GOP has to be kept well away from the White House in 2024 and beyond.

[EndlessWire]

6. Czechoslovakia was aware of the Munich Agreement

After Hitler threatened to engulf all of Europe in a war, Czechoslovakia was heavily pressured to give up the Sudetenland border region, as requested by Hitler. Taking this border region enabled Hitler to grab strategic elements which made the taking of all of Czechoslovakia easy for Hitler. Although Czechoslovakia had a great reputation for advanced military capabilities, without that border region, they were weakened. He invaded the rest of the country a mere 5 months after the signing of the Munich Agreement, in violation of the Munich Agreement.

Stalin wasn't there because none of those guys trusted him. He wasn't a signatory to the agreement, which forced him to make his own pact with Hitler later--funny how those 2 agreements divided Poland up. Stalin actually had a military alliance with Czechoslovakia but was not able to come to their aid because Poland would not allow them to cross Polish territory. Or, so it is said. This doesn't excuse their cozying up to the snake that was Hitler.

As soon as Poland was taken, both Britain and France lived up to their defense agreements by declaring war on Germany.

The Munich Agreement did not start WW2. Stalin and Hitler effing around with Poland was what did it. Appeasement failed here, and that is why Ukraine should not give up. Putin has copied pages from Hitler's strategies. The excuses are the same or similar, and we know what the outcomes will be.

[thucythucy]

9. Czechoslovakia was "aware" of Munich

but only after the British and French had sold it out.

Representatives of Czechoslovakia were deliberately excluded from the negotiations, and presented with a fait accompli. They were told, in fact pretty much ordered, to give in. In short, they were sold out, told they had to accept the mutilation of their country in order to save Britain and France from going to war.

Poland also had a hand in this, annexing a part of Czechoslovakia in the aftermath of Munich.

The Munich sell out had the additional effect of undermining German resistance to Hitler. German officers were planning a military coup against Hitler on the event of his ordering an attack on the Czechs in September 1938, an attack they knew would be no walk over. The Chamberlain government was aware of these plans, but went for appeasement anyway.

And it's true, the allies didn't trust Stalin. They did, though, trust Hitler and Mussolini, enough to surrender significant military and diplomatic advantages. Britain and France--and Poland--were far less able to resist German aggression in September 1939 than they were year earlier. The surrender of Czech border fortifications, and the subsequent seizure of the Skoda armaments works and Czech military equipment--enough to arm several German divisions--not to mention the loss of the first rate Czech army--was a serious blow to the Allies. All of this on the basis of Chamberlain's delusion that Hitler could be trusted.

Stalin's agreement with Hitler was no less cynical than Chamberlain's. Both were done in their own national interests, to the detriment of the Czechs. And when war did come, the British and French did nothing to aid Poland, despite their pledge to help. This despite the German western fortifications being virtually unmanned all through September 1939. Indeed, rather than attempting any substantial operation to aid Poland, Chamberlain instead asked his military to plan an attack on Soviet installations in the Caucasus.

The Hitler Stalin pact was the last domino in a succession of blunders and cynical attempts to further the perceived interests of the various parties. Europe was set on the road to war from the moment Hitler came to power in January 1933. Churchill understood this, as did FDR no later than the spring of 1938.

The roots of the war might be seen as going back even earlier. Foch in 1919 famously said, talking about the Versailles Treaty, "This isn't peace. It's an armistice for twenty years." He proved to be quite prescient.

[Chainfire]

7. Russia was allied with us in WWII on the basis of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Nothing more or less. Churchill knew that all along, he realized that it was a pact with the devil, and he held his nose closing the deal. Roosevelt was more naïve and we have paid ever since. I am not bashing Roosevelt as I see him as the most successful President that we have ever known, but he did not read Stalin very well.

That said, no matter how rotten Russia is today, you can not ignore their peoples sacrifices in WWII. The fact is that if WWII was a movie, the credits would be something like this: Starring the USSR and Germany. Also appearing, in order of appearance, Poland, England, France, the US, Japan, and a cast of hundreds of millions.

Hitler sealed his defeat when he launched Barbarossa; he had made the fatal military mistake of underestimating his enemy. Hitler sealed the deal by being a horrible warlord; he may have been a fine corporal, but he was a horrible general. The Germans lost over 2,000,000 men killed, wounded or captured on the Eastern Front. Had those armies been available for defending Fortress Europa all of Europe would be speaking German today.

The Soviets lost somewhere in the range of 27,000,000 people during the war. (military and civilian, killed, wounded, captured, missing and deaths by hunger and disease) Those numbers fueled their post war paranoia; is it any wonder? In comparison, total American causalities, Killed, wounded, MIA and captured were just over 1,000,000 in both Europe and the Pacific. (about a third in the Pacific theater)

American industry and agriculture and shipping certainly helped the Soviet Union, but it was not a critical element to their final victory. It surely shortened the war, but it was not decisive. Germany, much like the American South in the Civil War, just did not have the resources to compete with the Russians, and just like the Confederacy, they did not realize it at the start.

I know that someone will want to misconstrue this post as being pro Russian. I assure you, I am not pro Russian, but I am pro history.

[EndlessWire]

8. Churchill did not close the deal.

Churchill did not believe in appeasement, but Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, did, and that was the meaning of the Munich Agreement. It was a disastrous attempt to appease Hitler, who was threatening an all encompassing war with Europe. Churchill served under Chamberlain, until Chamberlain was forced to resign in 1940 and then served under Churchill.

When Hitler overran Poland in 1939, Chamberlain abandoned his appeasement effort and declared war on Germany. That was the start of WW2. We are not going to ignore or sweep under the rug the Soviet Union's part in dismembering Poland, nor the part about their aggression to the Baltic countries. They were aligned with Germany; it just backfired on them.

The United States did not enter the war until Japan did by attacking Pearl Harbor, in 1941. Starting in June of 1941, before we were officially in the war, the United States started shipping tremendous amounts of war materials including food and clothing to the Soviets to keep them going. To say that we had no influence on their success is to ignore reality. As noted upthread, even their own leaders acknowledged this.

There is no doubt that they lost a lot of people. I have heard this argument before. This alone is not a measure of utility or of prowess on the battlefield. It does show that they weren't prepared for Hitler and needed some help to get rolling.

Today, the Russians are probably still not ready, and pissing off NATO is undoubtedly not a good idea. You and I both know that one day we will have mended ties with Russia, but not until Putin and his generation are dead and buried.

No one is saying that the Soviets did not suffer. But, if you are a bully, and some David comes along and knocks you on your ass, how sorry are we supposed to be? Saying that the Soviets saved our butts is absurd. Truth is, the whole world suffered because of Hitler and his people's willingness to follow along with what he wanted.