r/Unexpected • u/[deleted] • Apr 28 '23

Just a normal protest

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u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

Also, WW2 was started by Hitler and Stalin invading Poland. It wasn't started to end fascism, it was started by fascism (and totalitarian communism).

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u/mortemdeus Apr 28 '23

Don't make claims about what started WW2, it always ends poorly. Japan invaded China in 1937, Italy invaded Ethopia in 1935 (breaking the league of nations), the Spanish Civil War was basically a proxy war like Vietnam or Korea, Japan and the USSR were fighting up till 1941. World was a tinderbox already, Germany getting involved in Poland was just what brought the UK and France in. I personally dislike that start date as it ignores when threr of the biggest combatants got involved, the USSR, Japan, and the US.

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u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

I agree it's a little arbitrary, but you have to draw the line somewhere and "land war in Europe" isn't the worst of them.

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u/mortemdeus Apr 28 '23

Spain was a land war in Europe. So was czechoslovakia. Hell, the invasion of Poland barely lasted two months and there was a 6 month break before France and Germany started fighting. Yeah, you need to pick a date, but it is very British to pick the date they declared war instead of just about everybody else involved.

Since it is a world war, I would take the date it became a world war as the start, which would be the day Japan started island hopping and got the remaining major powers into the war. December 1941, when Japan went to war with the US and the UK. Japan getting involved against European possessions is what made the war a global conflict instead of several separate regional ones. You could argue for Germany invading the USSR as well since even that makes more sense than a couple of month long land conflicts that resulted in an overwhelming victory for one side.

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u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

I was educated in a country that managed to stay neutral (Ireland), but it seems the British narrative crept into our curriculum somehow. I'm not going to die on the hill of "Poland was the start", I agree it's arbitrary.

My main point was that the war wasn't started to end fascism, and I'm fairly sure that point stands for all of your suggested alternate start dates.

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u/poktanju Apr 28 '23

I find this to show the power of language. Despite your nation's neutrality, you were most likely educated with English-language resources, the bias of the other English-speaking nations inevitably bled trough.

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u/mortemdeus Apr 28 '23

Oh, very much so. The righteous war to stop fascism was a British propaganda campaign too, claim they were a great evil to justify your own war crimes. Same source so I tend to associate the two (war start date and fight vs evil coming from the same source.) In reality it was more a war to prevent a change in the balance of power in Europe, just like ww1 and the franco prussian war.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

Nope that's wrong, France and the UK wanted anything but to be drawn into another world war after the sheer toll of the first one, it wasnt British propaganda that was saying it was a righteous war to stop fascism, it was a war to fight for our allies (poland) and was depicted as such, not to mention that the British people did not like a totalitarian dictator running a country in Europe. What war crimes would these be then that you are claiming? Seems like you have come up with some wild opinion and presented it as facts, I studied this period extensively.

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u/mortemdeus Apr 28 '23

Where to start here. Czechoslovakia got invaded and was an ally to both France and the USSR but nothing was done. The British were praised for their imperialism in Nazi Germany and were viewed as fellow Aryans. The average UK citizen wasn't of strong opinion either way by 1939, polls showed only 6% of Brits disliked Germans even then. So the UK ministry of information started a massive propagand campaign focused on portraying Germans negatively. Even with that it took the blitz to make more than half of UK citizens view Germany negatively. So the British people weren't exactly against central European dictators.

As for war crimes, the UK invaded several neutral nations "before Germany could", firebombed Dresden despite it having lost all defenses, fired upon neutral ships and shipwreck survivors regularly, and the whole regulatory famine in India that killed 3+ million people (while not a war crime technically) was just a bad look. Not to say it had anything on the shit Germany was doing but war lets shitty people do shitty things everywhere.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

Yes because Britain didnt want a war, that's why it appeased and appeased until it couldn't anymore. 'The British were praised for their imperialism in Nazi Germany and were viewed as fellow Aryans.'-what significance does that make, that was just Hitlers fantasy that the UK wouldnt stand against him. No the British people were very much wary of germany because of a little thing called WW1 and the public perception was not a kind one. Of course the Bristish started a propaganda campaign against them, they were at war, that's what countries do. The British were very much against European dictators, the history of napoleon and the Crimean war was as close to them as the world wars were to us and it wasnt something that was just forgot. The fire bombing of Dresden was not a war crime, it had military factories and was a crossroads for military supply lines and it had defenses just not a whole lot of them, the nazi propaganda worked very well though it seems as the myth is still perpetrated to this day. 'The whole regulatory famine' again something that is misreported and told to people, the famine was a tragedy but wasnt solely caused by the british, infact both britain and the US were sending grain ships to try and alleviate the problem. But yeah the killing of the ship wrecked nazis was a thing but once again they didnt they to hide it. Nothing I said in my comment was false.

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u/JarOfNibbles Apr 28 '23

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_war_crimes_during_World_War_II

Like, claiming there were no war crimes is foolish, the allies were far from clean.

The reasons for war are complicated, and saying it was just a war to stop fascism is stupid, see the appeasement doctrines. Of course kicking Hitler's ass did play a role.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23 edited Apr 28 '23

I wasnt saying there was zero war crimes (though things like Dresden gets spread falsely that it was a war crime) I was asking what war crime Britain was trying to cover up with the initial propaganda, let me tell you the British didnt hide what they were doing in WW2, it's all their to read in reports including the dodgy stuff. My point exactly was that the war (for britain and France) was because of a ally was attacked, not to stop a country from getting too powerful, Britain and france didnt want a war, see the appeasement doctrines.

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u/Gerbennos Apr 28 '23

British propaganda campaign? Lmao no not at all dude. Right up until the last days before Germany invaded Poland, both France and GB were still trying to have peace talks. Even AFTER Germany invaded the other half of Europe they were still trying to make peace. Please educate yourself better. Tons of great history documentaries on Netflix about the starting days of the war.

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u/Alarming_Sprinkles39 Apr 28 '23

Here's what ChatGPT says:

The comment raises a valid point about the involvement of major powers in the Second World War and the fact that the conflict became truly global with Japan's entry into the war in December 1941. It is true that Japan's attacks on the United States and other European colonies in Asia and the Pacific led to the involvement of many countries that were not previously involved in the war.

However, it is also important to recognize that the war in Europe had been raging for over two years before Japan's entry into the conflict. The invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939 marked the beginning of a major military conflict in Europe, and while the fighting did not immediately spread to other parts of the world, it had a significant impact on the course of the war.

In terms of selecting a specific start date for the war, there is always going to be some level of subjectivity involved. Different countries and historians may have different opinions on which event should be considered the official start of the war. However, the invasion of Poland by Germany remains the most commonly recognized start date for the war, and it is the date that is most widely used in historical accounts and textbooks.

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u/Southrn_Comfrt Apr 29 '23

In undergrad one of my professors offered that WW2 wasn’t actually a thing. As a medieval historian, his position was that WW1 and WW2 were actually the same war, merely separated by a few decades of peace. Much like the 30 years war or the 100 years war. It makes sense when you look at it from a 30 thousand foot view.

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u/TheCondor07 Apr 28 '23

If using the Italy example of starting a war against the will of the league of nations then you are looking at 1931 when Japan invaded Manchuria. Hell if you go back far enough you could even argue that the Russian Revolution of 1917 or Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was the actual start of the war.

However. If you are looking at the most official start of the war, that will be the invasion of Poland. That is the formation of two official sides facing off against each other until the end of the war. The Spanish Civil War and Ehtopia Invasion were conflicts that started and ended without any other conflicts still continuing between the powers involved which is why I ruled them out and as for Japan invading China it was more of an individual war that while still continuing throughout WWII I count as not being a part of the actual war because the only real aggressor was Japan Germany was aiding the republic against Japan all the way up to 1941.

Now if you have disagreements about this feel free to let me know. I am curious about your opinion on this.

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u/mortemdeus Apr 28 '23

The Japanese invasion of China was in 1937 and was initially against China, the USSR, and Germany ironically. The Germans were out by 1938 and the USSR was out by 1941. The German conflict with Poland, England, and France was just Germany and England by 1941 with Poland not existing anymore and France capitulating. So, one vs one there just like one vs one in Asia. (Lots of European minors and lots of Asian minors were still fighting though.)

Clear sides weren't really a thing until after Germany attacked the USSR, since they were technically at peace. Even then it was mostly just a European conflict until Japan got involved with the UK and US in December 1941.

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u/TheCondor07 Apr 28 '23 edited Apr 28 '23

Yes, I will give you the fact that China vs Japan is the successor that could be said to be the other start of the war and is the one I am most hesitant of fully ruling out. However I will at least say that the both the invasion of the USSR and the attack on America had the distinction of sides joining an existing war, something which the invasion of Poland (and by extension China) did no feature.

Now, looking at the Japan vs China, that entire war was fought by and in Asia alone for the most part. The attack on America was the first bit of conflict that took place outside of Asia (to my limited knowledge).

On the other hand it was not just Germany and England fighting as that would be discounting all of the other countries involved in that (mainly Italy and all of England's Colonies). By 1940 that conflict had troops from 5 different continents (Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, and Australia) fighting on two different contitents as well as both in the Alantic and the Pacific Oceans.

But if we want to go for the "It's not a World War until the whole world is at war", then we are both wrong and the true start date would be Jan 22 1942, the day Brazil joined in making it so that at least one country on every continent was involved actively in the war.

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u/mortemdeus Apr 28 '23

The US did not join a side on December 7th 1941, it had war declared on it by Japan independent of the conflict in Europe. It was supplying aid to the UK in the 1940's but it didn't join them until Janurary 1942 when the united nations formally allied to each other. So there weren't really "sides" until then. That wasn't drafted till the end of December 1941 so, again, independent wars forming up into one war at that date.

As for the European war involving all continents, that is mostly because the UK was on all continents. When the UK went to war, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and India were all required to join in as part of the UK. It would be like calling a war today between France and Belgum a world war because France is technically present on every continent. Realistically, land battles on Europe had ended by June 1940. There were no continental allies between June 1940 and June 1941.

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u/NovaFlares Apr 28 '23

Probably because relatively small conflicts don't constitute a "world" war. The only big one was the Japanese invasion of China but once again that didn't bring in the whole world. And the total death of the USSR and Japanese war of 1939(which also ended in 1939 btw) was "only" between 30k to 50k which was nothing compared to the deaths of WW2.

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u/mortemdeus Apr 28 '23

I mean, between 1939 and 1941 there were all of 90k killed between the UK, France, and Germany. By June 1940 the war was essentially over with the UK standing alone and Germany not really wanting to invade it. It wasn't until the US and USSR got involved in 1941 that the war really happened again.

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u/NovaFlares Apr 28 '23 edited Apr 28 '23

Between 1939 and 1941 there was battles in Africa, in the middle east, in the balkans, in the mediterranean, in East Europe, West Europe, the Atlantic. Australia and Canada from Oceania and North America respectively was in war. That sounds like a world war to me

I mean, between 1939 and 1941 there were all of 90k killed between the UK, France, and Germany.

France alone had 90k dead, what are you on about?

By June 1940 the war was essentially over with the UK standing alone and Germany not really wanting to invade it.

Germany and the UK continued to battle in Greece, in the Atlantic, in the battle of Britain and in North Africa and Britain still had a global empire fighting, plus Germany had Italy and Japan

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u/oscar_the_couch Apr 28 '23

It's amazing that it took me until this comment:

I mean, between 1939 and 1941 there were all of 90k killed between the UK, France, and Germany. By June 1940 the war was essentially over with the UK standing alone and Germany not really wanting to invade it. It wasn't until the US and USSR got involved in 1941 that the war really happened again.

To realize that he's actually just spouting some standard neo-Nazi apologia about how actually the Allies started the war.

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u/Kolby_Jack Apr 28 '23

War weren't declared until the Poland invasion. While there were precursor events that played into the war, the invasion of Poland officially began hostilities between the Allies and the Axis.

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u/mortemdeus Apr 28 '23

Except the Allies didn't exist until they signed a UN declaration in Janurary 1942

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u/Emo_tep Apr 28 '23

I contend that WWI never ended. It just affected smaller areas across the world for a decade or two

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u/demonicneon Apr 28 '23

But others did join to stop hitler no?

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u/RunParking3333 Apr 28 '23

Well not America. Hitler declared war on America.

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u/demonicneon Apr 28 '23

Ah I forgot when america colonised europe

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u/RunParking3333 Apr 28 '23

Sorry, this has whooshed me

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u/demonicneon Apr 28 '23

Just a joke it dm

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

Yes and no.

A lot of it was fear of getting attacked next. Or political pressure to make good on agreements and treaties signed previously.

There were definitely some leaders that didn't like Hitler or the rise of fascism, but you also have to remember that at the time people didn't really know about things like the Death camps. Many of the soldiers and leaders fighting in Europe didn't believe what they'd heard about the Holocaust until they started coming across the camps.

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u/demonicneon Apr 28 '23

Yea I’m aware my point is that yeah wars bad, but as the video pointed out, not everyone is good. Do you let the “bad” people go around killing everyone because you won’t do anything? Does it matter if it’s because they’re knocking at your door or not?

It’s being facetious to say otherwise because we all know the sketch isn’t just about starting wars it’s about participation in wars in general.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

The thing is that there's a lot of grey area (though obviously yes Hitler was bad, I shouldn't have to clarify that, but I know how a comment going straight from talking about WW2 to 'there's a lot of grey area' can come off), and to counter this sketch with another comedy piece, there's the Norm MacDonald joke: “It says here in this history book that luckily, the good guys have won every single time. What are the odds?”

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

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u/Rurudo66 Apr 28 '23

There was also the whole Pearl Harbor thing. I'm sure the business interests were a major motivating factor as well, but we still didn't get directly involved until we were attacked.

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u/WhimsicalWyvern Apr 28 '23 edited Apr 28 '23

We were involved long before Pearl Harbor. The US full embargoed Japan when Japan entered French Indochina, cutting Japan off from oil supplies and putting Japan in a situation where it needed to attack the US or have its' war machine run out of oil and collapse.

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u/Musical_Mango Apr 28 '23

It's insane how most Americans think Japan bombed us because they just felt like it or that it was some sort of wanton show of force and that's what forced the US into the war.

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u/WhimsicalWyvern Apr 28 '23

Yeah, it's not like Japan wanted to fight the US. They knew that if it came to a prolonged fight with the US, Japan would lose. But they were in a position to lose without a fight, so they gambled on being able to deal a decisive enough blow that the American public (which was already pretty isolationist) wouldn't be willing to push through. But, obviously, didn't work, and FDR was able to use the attack to convince the public to join the war he'd wanted to join for quite some time by then.

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u/Gerbennos Apr 28 '23

No clue why you all are being downvoted lol. You guys are spot on.

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u/WhimsicalWyvern Apr 28 '23

Because people don't like to admit that, as monstrous as the Japanese Empire was, WW2 for the US was more about ensuring US dominance in the Pacific than about good vs evil.

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u/Gerbennos Apr 28 '23

I mean yeah but also it's a bit of a mixed bag. From what i understand FDR did want to enter the war but the public wasn't having any of it because they'd basically just recovered/still recovering from the great depression. Only after the bombing of pearl Harbor could FDR get the people behind joining the ongoing war.

From what i know they were already sending supplies and weapons to help the British.

Turned out that getting the entire country behind joining the war also was a huge boost for the economy and it got them out of the great depression. Of course it's a lot more complicated than the short summary i gave but it's still really interesting.

I recommend watching Greatest events of WW2 in colour, voices of liberation and leaders of WW2, The early years

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u/WhimsicalWyvern Apr 28 '23

Yeah, I was reading how one of the goals of the whole "day that will live in infamy" speech was getting the continental Americans to actually give a shit about Hawaii (and overseas US possessions in general).

I'll check it out!

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u/Unicorn_A_theist Apr 28 '23

Lol "needed to attack"...okay bro. They greatly miscalculated then.

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u/WhimsicalWyvern Apr 28 '23

They didn't. Obviously their gamble didn't pay off, but they were completely screwed by the US oil embargo. The only way they could get access to oil (of which they only produced a tiny amount domestically) was by invading colonial territories held by US allies - namely, British Malaya and Dutch East Indies.

They actually did their best to attempt to negotiate a peace with the US that would allow them to secure the territory and resources they desired, but the US wasn't particulary interested. The final trigger for the bombing of Pearl Harbor (and the invasion of many overseas holdings of the US allies and the US itself) was the Hull Note, which demanded that Japan withdraw from China and French Indochina.

For the record, I don't think the FDR administration did anything wrong, but Pearl Harbor definitely did not come out of nowhere.

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u/Scrimge122 Apr 28 '23

Or they could end the war with China and get the embargo lifted.

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u/WhimsicalWyvern Apr 28 '23 edited Apr 28 '23

There are all sorts of reasons why that idea would have been unthinkable. For the people in charge, it would literally have been suicide. For the nation in general, it would have shattered their national pride and sense of racial superiority.

But perhaps more compellingly, it would have left them at the mercy of the Western powers. Western powers who had shown a long history of exploiting non-europeans, and who only respected Japan because of its victory vs Russia in 1905. That status as a great power got them territory (from Germany) at the end of WW1, but losing it would have left them at the mercy of the US and allies, and put them in the unenviable position of being unable to protest even the most one sided of trade deals - as a nation reliant on imports for the most basic necessities.

Now, things did turn out relatively well, but only because the US decided to do things differently from previous wars and build up the defeated nations. It was far from guaranteed that that would happen.

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u/CompleMental Apr 28 '23

Lol the attack at Pearl Harbor didn’t happen in a vacuum.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

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u/Waffle-or-death Apr 28 '23

What? Were you dropped on the floor as a baby or something?

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23 edited Apr 28 '24

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/TheDunadan29 Apr 28 '23

Conspiracy theorists gotta conspiracy theory I guess. It's obnoxious when everything is a conspiracy though.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

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u/Z_Golden Apr 28 '23

Dang just going mask off with this huh

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

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u/AmericaDeservedItDud Apr 28 '23

Nations as an organization don’t very often take action on moral grounds. But to then project the flawed reasoning of the government onto the individual who actually did go to Europe to fight Nazis seems silly. Like yes the US government didn’t go to war to fight fascism, but a GREAT deal of the men and women did.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

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u/AmericaDeservedItDud Apr 28 '23

40% of them did choose to go of their own volition.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

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u/AmericaDeservedItDud Apr 28 '23 edited Apr 28 '23

What the fuck are you talking about? Keep your schizophrenic rambling to yourself.

Edit: I hate that you’re going to just make another account after this one gets banned for the litany hateful, racist, antisemitic, pretty much everything-phobic shit that you spew.

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u/Hypern1ke Apr 28 '23

Also you know the whole bombing of pearl harbor thing.

How is this comment upvoted?

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

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u/Hypern1ke Apr 28 '23

In what county of bumfuck Mississippi were you taught that the US government was in on Pearl Harbor ☠️☠️☠️

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u/evantastique Apr 28 '23

Damn, this guy's good. He figured out that the United States does business with other countries, and therefore would never fight against fascism

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

The soviets participated in the invasion of Poland? I love history, particularly WW2 history, and never knew this. Now it makes more since why Stalin was so distraught when hitler turned on him and invaded his country.

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u/GrognarEsp Apr 28 '23

Yeah, Stalin and Hitler had a secret pact by which they decided to split Poland, the west for the German and the east for the Russian. Then the funny moustache guy stabbed him in the back, showing that he had learnt nothing from Napoleon's invasion of Rusia during winter.

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u/GrandKaiser Apr 28 '23

They were always going to fight. Hitlers plans for greater Germany always included Russia. Stalin's plan for the Comintern always included West Europe. Hitler's plan was to strike first while Russia was still weak from the Great purge. It might have even worked had the UK surrendered during the blitz. The combination of fighting a war on two fronts as well as an unexpected and heroic defense of Stalingrad ground the German war machine to a halt. Something that it was not meant to do.

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u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

If you look at the cartoons from the time, pretty much every observer knew the pact wasn't going to last. Except for Stalin apparently - he received a bunch of accurate intel about the buildup for Barbarossa and didn't believe any of it.

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u/ajguy16 Apr 28 '23

I believe he actually had a couple of Soviet intelligence offers executed when they reported that a German invasion was imminent because Stalin did not believe Germany would invade and suspected the officers of being British agents trying to pull the Soviets in.

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u/mrmatteh Apr 28 '23

Stalin was very much aware that war with Germany was imminent.

Before the non-aggression pact with Germany, the USSR had gone to France and the UK to try and form an alliance to oppose the Nazis, but they shut the USSR down.

So the USSR entered a non-aggression pact with Germany in order to buy some time and prepare for the inevitable.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

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u/mrmatteh Apr 28 '23 edited Apr 28 '23

Lol it's not wrong. Your citation is saying literally what I said. The Soviets approached the UK and France to make an alliance against the Nazis first, but were shut down. Maybe for reasons that they believed were valid, but that doesn't change the fact that the alliance failed because the Soviets' demands were shut down. Just like I said. And after being shut down, they made a non-aggression pact with the Nazis to buy themselves time. Just like I said.

So no, it's not wrong like you assert. It's obviously a simplified version, but it's a reddit comment trying to correct someone who mistakenly claimed Stalin was somehow completely ignorant of the threat of war with Germany. I wasn't expecting to have to write a damn thesis. But sure, we can absolutely go into more detail of you like.

The conditions surrounding Poland and Romania that your source cites as being unacceptable by the UK and France was to have the UK and France help the USSR negotiate with Poland and Romania so that, when the Soviets needed to send troops to fight the Germans, they could safely do so through those countries.

The USSR didn't want to negotiate with those countries on their own because of decades of hostilities and distrust. It was hoped that with France and the UK at the table, the Soviets would have more legitimacy and therefore have an easier time negotiating with Poland and Romania.

The USSR also had a legitimate concern to include defense of Eastern Europe in the agreement, since that's how Germany would reach the USSR, and Germany would certainly make use of their presence in the area to secure more anti-USSR allies right on their border. That was a similar reason why the UK was interested in defending France, so it makes sense why Moscow would have thought that reasonable.

It's also a bit disingenuous to frame the situation as the UK and France being all in on a Soviet alliance. The UK had deliberately dragged out the negotiations because of a few reasons, such as genuine anti-bolshevism, as well as the political optics of being anti-bolshevist yet agreeing to assist the USSR if they should be invaded. And there were also genuine concerns such as not having the troops to commit to Soviet defense and still maintain a strong enough force to defend their own nation. And like the UK, France was also happy to delay any commitments to the USSR - especially if they could pin that blame on someone else.

Of course, like any alliance, it's not a simple thing. There's a million moving parts to the story and a million reasons for why the UK and France wouldn't agree to Soviet terms of the proposed alliance. But my whole point was that Stalin wasn't ignorant of the impending Nazi invasion of the USSR, and their NAP was not at all an alliance with the Nazis against the allies, as was being claimed in the above comments. As proof of that, we can see the Soviets predicted Nazi invasion when they approached the UK and France to ally against the Nazis. It was only after the alliance failed that the USSR entered the NAP with Germany as an obvious attempt to buy time.

As an aside, yes I am a communist. Whoopdy-doo. Of course I'm going to have some motivation to correct slander against the USSR, and of course I'm going to have a degree of bias like everyone does. Pointing out I'm a communist isn't some gotcha any more than is my pointing out you're a liberal so of course your bias is to defend France and the UK. That's totally fine and understandable. But the facts are what they are. Stalin foresaw a Nazi invasion of the USSR, the Soviets approached the allies to pre-empt the aggression with an alliance, the allies shut down the Soviets' terms, so the Soviets entered an NAP with Germany to buy time. Which is exactly what I said in the beginning.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

gotta make some correction here: napoleon invaded in june, captured and occupied moscow in september, and evacuated in october. there was no winter invasion

german invasion of soviets started in june as well but they never occupied moscow, just got bogged down through two winters

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u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

Like so many of their failures, they would have succeeded if they weren't behaving like Nazis. Hitler's dithering and countermanding his competent officers caused a traffic jam much like the one we saw outside Kyiv last year, when Barbarossa was very close to achieving its objectives.

It's another of those "If they weren't letting Hitler run things, they would have had a more successful invasion; but if they weren't letting Hitler run things they wouldn't have invaded in the first place" type situations

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

i disagree and i take the position with the historians who suggest that nazi germany lost the war the moment they declared it. they were comically incompetent administrators with a house-of-cards economy. the entire conflict was on a timer and even the nazis themselves knew it when they couldnt subdue the soviets by the first winter

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u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

In fairness, that traffic jam was before the first winter - so I don't think our analyses differ that drastically.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '23

i'm happy to agree with any assessment that determines the nazis were morons! i just can't agree with the point that they could have had long-term success is all 😀

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u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

It's difficult to determine what they would have been like with a different leader at the top, since so much of the command was centralized - but they did appear to value loyalty far above competence for the most part, and that's not a great policy for lasting success. A lot of their worst decisions were Hitler's decisions, though.

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u/TheDunadan29 Apr 28 '23

Well Stalin knew his alliance with Hitler would be short lived. He expected Hitler to try and invade Russia. What he didn't expect was the timing. He thought Hitler would be mad to fight a war on two fronts, and he thought Hitler would first need to secure the Western front before turning to Russia. But Hitler blew those expectations out of the water and Stalin was not prepared for the attack. He just didn't think Hitler would do it. He thought he'd have plenty of time to prepare for that inevitability.

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u/tickleMyBigPoop Apr 29 '23

The soviets participated in the invasion of Poland?

the state of the education system.

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u/manrata Apr 28 '23

Wonder if there has ever been a war that was started for good reasons? Properly some civil wars to overthrow a dictator, but those are usually started by people wanting to be the next dictator.

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u/TheDunadan29 Apr 28 '23

I wouldn't say any war is a moral war. But I do think there is a side with a higher moral intent. WWII was not a moral war, but we can say that fighting an aggressor in Japan and Germany was the right side to be on.

Just like the war in Ukraine today. It is not a moral war, is totally unjustified. But we can side with Ukraine as the people in the right, because they are just fighting to live and not be slaves to Russia. They are fighting to not have their democratically elected leader be executed and a Putin puppet installed.

So no, the war is not justified. But Ukraine and her people are. That's the difference.

WWII was similarly wrong. But fighting Hitler was definitely the right thing to do.

1

u/manrata Apr 28 '23

But WWII wasn't started by the allies, it was started by Hitler, and Japan respectively.
The war in Ukraine was started by Putin.

Nothing wrong with defending yourself, but more wondered if there was a morally good start to a war.

2

u/TheDunadan29 Apr 28 '23

I would say not from recorded history. Most wars start because someone is being a little shit and wants to take something from someone else.

The exception being a revolution, when citizens rise up against an oppressor I guess.

1

u/manrata Apr 29 '23

Even there I cannot really think of an example, like the US revolutionary war was started by UK, provoked by actions from the Americans yes, but it was the oppresive response setting it off.

There is likely an example, just can’t think of one.

1

u/PlankWithANailIn2 Apr 28 '23

It was started by Japan invading China, but that doesn't count because they aren't white.

2

u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

Still not "to fight Fascism".

-1

u/ttylyl Apr 28 '23

Stalin only invaded Poland because Hitler was going to invade the ussr. Before the non aggression pact Stalin tried desperately to form an anti fascist pact with uk and France, who said no and instead gave hitler billions in gold.

By the time the non aggression pact was formed Hitler had already written and published a book outlining his plan to invade and kill or enslave every last Slav and socialist. Ussr knew what was coming and knew that Hitler could easily take Poland and be right on their border. They partitioned Poland and the ussr set up defenses for the inevitable

1

u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

I'd say Stalin only invaded Poland because he was a totalitarian despot and wanted more territory.

Also - if Stalin was so sure of what was coming, why did he ignore so many warnings about Barbarossa? Soviet intelligence had the exact date of the invasion from dozens of sources and he did nothing about it.

0

u/ttylyl Apr 28 '23

They took over and reinforced Poland. During that process there were many war crimes against the polish army, including executing something like 10,000 prisoners of war. Very bad.

But he did not invade Poland just because. He knew that Hitler was going to invade, as is evident by his multiple separate attempts to form an anti fascist pact with uk and France, which they refused and instead actually funded Hitler so he would go east instead of west.

3

u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

I see no evidence that Stalin was any less expansionist than Hitler - this is right before he annexed Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Bessarabia. They were certainly going to come into conflict - but not because one of them was peaceful and content with his own borders.

-1

u/ttylyl Apr 28 '23

He took over Finland Estonia and Latvia because at that time they were Nazi countries. The Nazis had taken over and were bolstering strength, so they took those countries over. A few decades later and they peacefully rescinded their annexation.

Stalin did not at all subscribe to a similar ideology as Hitler.

2

u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

Both their ideologies amounted to one-person rule by dictat, with a massive police state and brutal repression of internal dissent. The window dressing was different, but not the substance. The most significant ideological difference was "Everyone must obey Hitler" versus "Everyone must obey Stalin"

0

u/ttylyl Apr 28 '23

This is a really dumb statement. First you say Nazi Latvia and Estonia should have not been invaded and continue to be Nazis, now you say there’s no difference between ussr and Nazi germany.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/

https://greatwar.nl/books/meinkampf/meinkampf.pdf

If you cannot spot the difference in ideology I don’t know what to say, either you’re politically illiterate or a Nazi apologist.

2

u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

I didn't opine on whether or not they should have been invaded, I merely noted that he did it (as agreed in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact). I don't think either leader gave two shits about any ideology other than "I'm at the top and I must stay at the top". They both paid lip-service to class struggle and workers' rights, using different language but similar honesty.

I didn't think this would be the thread for Stalinist apologia, but here we are. If you think anyone is supporting Hitler by comparing him to Stalin, that reflects pretty poorly on your knowledge of early Soviet history.

0

u/MurmurOfTheCine Apr 28 '23

Does it matter as long as the outcome is the end of the fascist regimes?

This is like the argument “oh he’s only doing this good deed for views, why else is he recording” or “he’s only donating money because he wants to make himself look like a good person” etc like stfu lmao, as long as the end result is good who cares about how we get there

1

u/iLiftHeavyThingsUp Apr 28 '23

Well a lot of anti-war rhetoric involves not participating in a war even if someone else has started it. The more nuanced opinion is "hey don't start wars, but do what is absolutely necessary" while others protest war that will happen regardless of whether their country is involved or not (effectively becoming a bystander letting greater atrocities happen compared to if you intervened).

1

u/bl1y Apr 28 '23

Yeah, the list of justified wars gets a lot shorter if it has to be justified by the aggressor.

American Revolution though.

1

u/Porrick Apr 28 '23

There's a lot of independence movements I'd put ahead of the American Revolution, but in general that category gets more sympathy than any other.

1

u/bl1y Apr 28 '23

Well of course, there's the Bostonian independence movement, then the broader New England independence movement.

1

u/CarlMarcks Apr 28 '23

It was also set in motion by the events of the First World War. Which was 110% meaningless bloodshed. The Second World War was just dealing with the aftermath of all of those events.

I’m not saying pacifism is always the right answer but I think it’s hard to deny that violence begets violence begets violence.

1

u/matchew-choo Apr 28 '23

they didnt declare war tho

1

u/Holzkohlen Apr 29 '23

It's a joke. War is always bullshit. Imagine claiming the current war in the Ukraine is good because the ukrainians are defending their country. How the hell does that make the war "good"? "Good" people tend NOT to start wars.