this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Confidently Incorrect

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When people are way too smug about their wrong answer.

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[–] Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)

The Soviets, as per the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Fucking funny to say this in the "confidently incorrect" community. It is historical revisionism.

The soviets did absolutely everything they could to try and convince France and the UK to take action against Hitler but they were hoping Hitler would attack the USSR.

The ACTUAL historic timeline is like this:

1: The United States Bourgeoisie bankrolled the rise of fascism in Europe.

2: The bourgeois leaders of England, France, Poland, Finland and other Western European nations either ignored, enabled, or appeased Hitler's worst behavior in the buildup to WW2.

3: The bourgeois leaders of these countries, England in particular, pushed for disastrous bilateral security arrangements which created a domino effect leading to war, while ignoring the USSR's suggestion of collective, anti-fascist security arrangements.

4: The bourgeois leaders of these countries pursued a policy not of containing fascist aggression, but of diplomatically isolating the USSR, in the hopes that Hitler would go East and carry out an anti-communist genocide on their behalf.

5: The bourgeois leaders of these countries, having ignored or stalled collective security proposals from the USSR, actively made bilateral non-aggression pacts with Hitler before Molotov-Ribbentrop was signed, making the USSR the last in a long line of nations to sign non-aggression pacts with Hitler, after the USSR's collective security proposals fell through.

6: The USSR only signed Molotov-Ribbentrop to buy time. The USSR only invaded East Poland to prevent a German front from forming right at the Soviet border. This is because attempts to make mutual security arrangements with Poland fell through. The Soviets only moved into the region after the existing government had literally fled the country, leaving it ungoverned. 2 million jews in eastern poland were saved from the nazis by this action.

7: The USSR tried to purchase a strategic corridor of land from Finland that the nazis could easily use to invade the USSR. The USSR not only wanted to legally purchase this land from Finland, but to trade Finland more acres of land in exchange. i.e. an asymmetrical trade that would have ultimately benefited Finland. Finland refused because the fascist leadership of Finland wanted to see Germany invade the USSR through this strategic corridor. This led directly to the Winter War. The Finnish lost the winter war but used their intelligence that they gathered during it to collaborate with the nazis.

8: When the North Atlantic allies finally teamed up with USSR after their strategy of appeasing Hitler backfired, they immediately attempted to make asymmetrical security arrangements that would have obligated the USSR to commit far more troops and resources to the war than any other ally, essentially using the USSR as a shield against the very fascist powers they had spent the better part of a decade appeasing. The British in particular kept stalling on arrangements and pretending to be confused.

9: When the war was over the North Atlantic allies, led by the USA, who came out of the war richer than any other country on Earth, immediately committed to rehabilitating nazis, blaming the USSR, who was decimated by the war, for causing the war, and created NATO to begin encircling the USSR, 6 years before the creation of the Warsaw pact.

10: The North Atlantic allies immediately set to using the Marshall plan to rebuild the fascist German, Italian, and Japanese economies, indebting them to the United States, and orienting them towards anti-communist policy.

11: The North Atlantic allies to tried to use the Marshall plan as a proto-IMF to privatize and deregulate the economy of the war-torn USSR, and open it up to foreign capital. That the USSR rejected this was framed as aggression and used as a justification for beginning the cold war.

But hey, don't just take my word for it, or this rough outline of what is contained in well regarded books (I implore you to read some). How about we read Albert Einstein's words spoken at the time these events actually occurred?

A lot to unpack in this speech but the basics of what Einstein says are:

  1. The USSR made all efforts to stop the war happening.

  2. The western powers(UK, France, US, etc) shut the USSR out of European discussions and betrayed Czechoslovakia.

  3. Molotov-Ribbentrop was an unhappy last resort that they were driven to, that the western powers were attempting to drive the nazis into attacking the USSR and that's why they would not help the USSR stop them.

  4. The USSR supported everyone while the other powers (UK, France, US, etc) strengthened the nazis and Japanese.

The appointment of Hitler as Germany’s chancellor general, as well as the rising threat from Japan, led to important changes in Soviet foreign policy. Oriented toward Germany since the treaty of Locarno (1925) and the treaty of Special Relations with Berlin (1926), the Kremlin now moved in the opposite direction by trying to establish closer ties with France and Britain to isolate the growing Nazi threat. This policy became known as “collective security” and was associated with Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet foreign minister at the time. The pursuit of collective security lasted approximately as long as he held that position. Japan’s war with China took some pressure off of Russia by allowing it to focus its diplomatic efforts on relations with Europe.

[–] Chatotorix@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (6 children)

I also thought it was funny for the guy to say this in !confidently_incorrect. Thank you for the history class.

[–] weirdwallace75@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (5 children)

They're just repeating old Stalinist propaganda.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/world/ch12.htm

Moscow, seeing that the Red Referendum manoeuvre had failed, threw all pretence aside and came openly out for letting Hitler in.

On October 14, 1931, Remmele, one of the three official leaders of the Communist Party, with Stalinist effrontery announced the policy in the Reichstag.

“Herr Bruening has put it very plainly; once they (the Fascists) are in power, then the united front of the proletariat will be established and it will make a clean sweep of everything. (Violent applause from the Communists)…We are the victors of the coming day; and the question is no longer one of who shall vanquish whom. This question is already answered. (Applause from the Communists). The question now reads only, ‘At what moment shall we overthrow the bourgeoisie?’…We are not afraid of the Fascist gentlemen. They will shoot their bolt quicker than any other Government. (Right you are! from the Communists) …”

The Fascists, so ran the argument, would introduce inflation, there would be financial chaos, and then the proletarian victory would follow. The speech was printed with a form asking for membership of the party attached and distributed in great numbers all over Germany.

Stalinist parties are led from above. Their leaders get the line and impose it. Disobedience is labelled Trotskyism, Right deviation, and what not, and the dissidents expelled. But the situation in Germany was too tense, and violent protests from the Left Wing caused the policy to be withdrawn. But from that moment it was certain that the Communist Party leadership would never fight, and the “After Hitler, our turn” [25] was the line on which they led the party. The German leadership did not follow blindly. Some of them carried on a ceaseless struggle to the very end. But built on Moscow they faced isolation if they broke with Moscow, and the organisational vice silenced or expelled them. [26]

[–] FlowVoid@midwest.social 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's amusing how contemporary Stalinists put so much effort into justifying a pact that Stalin himself tried to keep from public knowledge and Russians rarely want to acknowledge.

That ought to tell you that the USSR wasn't proud of Molotov-Ribbentrop.

[–] Chatotorix@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What's even more amusing is a bunch of history revisionists come here to defend the argument that the communists and not the fascists were the main partners of the Nazis, lol. Seriously. They were literally part of the same military coalition.

[–] FlowVoid@midwest.social 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Communists and Nazis were literally part of the same military coalition. Stalin made sure of that. He even made a toast for Hitler's continued good health.

[–] Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

'I know how much the German nation loves its Fuehrer; I should therefore like to drink to his health.’

You should really be reading this as an intelligently worded sleight. Particularly given they had already begun building the 102,000 tanks that would eventually kill him. It's the perfect thing to say when you know this man took power on just 42% of the vote, and that support would actually be lower after killing and suppressing all opposition if not for the terror campaigns and suppression.

When you know you're already planning to kill this man drinking to his health is quite apt.

[–] FlowVoid@midwest.social 1 points 2 years ago

Yes, the UK and France were likewise preparing for war. So how can Western nations be condemned for buying time by negotiating with Hitler, if you are willing to excuse Stalin for doing precisely the same thing?

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