I know about "saving Ukrainians, Belorussians" story, what I hadn't seen before was how magnanimous Stalin would have been happy to give Poles all land back if they drove away Germans.
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Stalin did give land (very rich Silesia) to Poland in compensation. He didn't need to compensate otherwise.
Also if the mighty combined British/France/Polish can defeat Germany and knock at Stalin's door, I am sure he would sincerely consider return the territory! He left that as a possibility!
Poland did steal places with no Polish people in them,it doesnt seem that unfair for the Soviets to just steal them back.
As if interwar Poland wasnt a warmonger hellbent on attacking everything within range of itself.
He did give the Poles all of Germany east of the Oder.
rly ? and which one enemy, and where was germany fighting when stalin grabbed poland and baltick states ? same goes for winter war.
and if stalin wanted to prevent german invasion to poland, why he disnt simply guaranted polish independed, same way as uk did ?
sure, poles will not be very happy to have soviets assist them against germans, but im sure it will be prefered to german ocupation.
just look at how invasion to poland hapaned in history, there are many records that poles didnt restisted soviet invasion, and actualy helped them, because they were coming with words "which way against germans? ".
sure, there were situations in which poles fiercely resisted to soviet troops, so it was situational dependent.
i never told that polish policy in interwar period was smart or reasonable one, but again, that doesnt justify invasion and partitioning it with germany.
ok, at exacly which places did germans and uk clashed in 41 ? in time of barbarose, to justify stalins dream about that they will bleed each other ?
and how losing teritory without resistance, with manpower and resources useful for war, is actualy helping you to wage war in long - or even short - term ?
and well, stalins order was not to shot at germans, so if they were dresed as martians, that will only save these martians, that will not save germans dresed as germans.
and honestly, at which one germens should dress to use "polish trick" ? hmmm ? anyone other than russian will not make sense at all, and stains order was not about not shoting strange russians.
you totaly missed point, my point was exactly about what you wrote, that soviet army was no better or worse, than any other army, doesnt matter if western, eastern or axis. except german one, which brutlity and crimes are widely known.
so in no way that soviet army was "saint" and finnish one "devils" as other poster implied.
what you writen is gangster logick, not of civilized state.
and using your second part logic, then finns, ukrainans and all others will be totaly justfig in killing every russian, only because he was former opressor and ocupier.
and for third part, just lol, you meaned partioning of otomans after WW1 right ? well, they were cerating new independednt states from existing one. they didnt partioned existing indepening nation and including it to bigger one.
no, they dont absolutely dont make sense in grander picture in preparation for against germany. feedeing your potential enemy to buy wime NEVER works, and never will. just try reading of sun tzus art of war.
and when "strengten up germany to prepare for war" didnt worked at all for france, when they sacrisfied czechs to get time to rearm, totaly failed not only in polish campaign, but greatly bacfired during fall of france, because it was czechs tanks which were part of most famous "ghost division", not german ones.
so when it totaly failed for france and uk, why you are certain it worked (or should work) for soviets ?
and it can work for defensive purposes ? im not sure.
shortening front ? well, ocupation of poland, baltick states and winter war actualy make it greater.
building up of defensive lines ? well, they take time, so they work best if you start making them on territory which you allready own, so you can start anytime, from 1922 onwards, not on newly gained (39, 40).
and for other nations figting against soviets, just lol, do i have that to interpret it that you are sugsting that soviets should ocupy all these states before war with germany, just to be sure ? why not take it to even larger picture, and as prevention to invasion occupy whole europe ? and then whole world
.Britain and France declared war on Germany,as such there was an active state of war.
As for the Winter War,the only reason it flared up so much is because the Finn's made such a big fuss over a simple land swap,had it not been the middle of winter the Finn's would have been smashed fairly rapidly,but as it was the Red Army of 1939-1940 had some serious command and control issues which helped the Finn's get out of the whole mess alive.
Stalin had already offered a united front,which the allies refused.
What was he suppose to do?
Guarantee Poland then watch the French and British laugh as the Red Army and the Poles bleed white fighting the Germans?
If Britain and France wouldnt take their fair share of the burden of fighting the Reich then he would simply take what he was offered and let them slaughter each other.
Besides,Stalin waited until Warsaw itself was encircled before making his move,which at that point amounted to salvaging what was left of Poland before the Nazis could get to it.
Warsaw was already encircled,getting involved at that point would simply mean throwing the Red Army against the bulk of the Wehrmacht while the French happily camp in their Maginot line.
An utterly pointless effort from a Soviet point of view.
Its simple geopolitics.
The Allies wont help you,Germany is going to take all of Poland anyways,and you arent prepared to fight the war solo and bear all the cost.
Only reasonable course of action is to at least ensure you can limit what Germany can take.
I doubt you would think that it would have been reasonable for France to declare war on Japan and then expect the USSR to fight it for them.
Same situation here.
They were fighting across North Africa,Britain was raiding coastal areas,Germans were raiding the Atlantic shipping,and they were carpet bombing each other,that classifies as them bleeding men and material resources in a war.
Stalin didnt think there would be an invasion,nobody did.
Even high ranking members of the Reich leadership thought it was a terrible idea,Goring being among them.
I dont see why you are so obsessed about this one order meant to simply avoid any escalations.
I dont suppose that you are suggesting that Stalin somehow intentionally sabotaged the front line.
It was a simple misunderstanding of the situation.
Given how many resources the USSR was trading with the Reich,together with Germany still having to keep control over half the continent and fight Britain,there was no reason to believe the Germans would open up a new front.
They could try,they would just lose horribly.
Geopolitics exists for a reason,so nations can judge what they can and cant get away with.
Besides,if we will judge who has more grievances then i think the Soviets had the most,since practically everyone betrayed them around 3 times.
In the civil war,in WW2 and then in the 90s.
No,i was talking about the Allies and Soviets invading a neutral country from 2 directions ala Poland for the sake of simpler logistics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran
I have the book and read it multiple times.
He says the best way to win a war is to do it without fighting.
That is what Stalin was trying to do.
Let the Allies and Axis bleed each other white and then waltz in.
The French folding like a wet tissue paper put a dent in his plan so he switched to buying more time so he could be fully prepared for the war.
You are missing the timeline here.
By the time of the invasion of France all the partitioning of Eastern Europe was already done.
As such Stalin had no way of knowing the French would fail so horribly.
How so?
It cleaned out the entire Baltic coastline,dug deeper into Romania pushing the border away from Ukraine and got half of Poland as a buffer.
As for Finland,i dont even know what they were trying to achieve in WW2.
They refused to go past their old borders,allowed their German allies to get wrecked and then back stabbed them to appease the Soviets who simply took back everything the Finn's had captured.
As such Finland went into WW2 doing nothing of value and achieving nothing.
Well thats not totally true,they did manage to get over a million civilians starving to death in Leningrad.
The simple fact Stalin allowed Finland to live after such foolishness is truly remarkable.
If the Western Front had been a stalemate like in WW1 then the Soviets would have had all the time in the world to fortify their new borders and build up their armies to smash the Germans when the time was right.
They simply got caught with their pants down due to Allied incompetence.
and for other nations figting against soviets, just lol, do i have that to interpret it that you are sugsting that soviets should ocupy all these states before war with germany, just to be sure ? why not take it to even larger picture, and as prevention to invasion occupy whole europe ? and then whole world
The Soviets had 4 options:
1.Fight the Germans alone.
2.Let the Germans take all of Eastern Europe.
3.Form a united front with the Allies.
4.Grab what they could while the Allies and Germans kill each other.
First is madness,since it gives the Soviets no tangible benefit while costing them greatly.
Second is out of the question,since it means giving the Germans every advantage.
Third was attempted but the French and British wouldnt cooperate.
As such only the Fourth remained.
Stalin wanted to make sure the West do real fighting, not just words. That is from the fact the previous alliance of USSR-France-Czech become useless to protect Czech because France didn't send troop. Also the West refused to do anything if German attack USSR through Baltic states and Finland.
It was an emergency time. Germany become very near in invading Poland and Japanese troop already pour in in the East. No way Soviet can take on both of them, alone!
Thats not really true.
Japan was fully committed to China with the bulk of their army.
And the Wehrmacht was still limited in what resources and manpower it could use compared to the size it had in 1941.
As such it was highly unlikely either would have dared fight the USSR directly.
Doesnt mean the USSR wouldnt have lost a lot of men and material beating them back,which makes the proposition unattractive.
After all nobody ever blamed Stalin for being overly empathetic,and fighting the Axis solo would require Stalin to care about neutral nations getting wrecked.
What? the Japanese can take on British, France, USA too! At that time they were probing the Soviet to decide go North or go South, and they are in alliance with Germany. In China Front they can stop expand and go defense, the Chinese was weak in attack.
The Wehrmacht have Germany, Austria, Czech, and soon Poland under their strenghth. Is that not enough? And don't forget Italy and Hungary.
if we ignore that there is difference between gaining indepence and grabing teritory from existing state, using your logic mongols will be very happy to hear that they have legitimate claim on realy realy big part of russia.
well, did you, as many other russians, missed small, and usless invention called TELEPHONE ? you know, by using this thing, you can know what is happening, not only 5km from you, but even 500km or even more.
so only one problem reported - just nothing important. ignore it. multiple incidents in small area ? stay alert, but dont try to escalate thing, just defend and wait. countless number of incurions around whole borders ? well, why anyone should doubt thi is real invasion ?
i just love taht irony , when you are justifiing all soviet conquest as just preparing for certain war against germans, and when they finaly comed, you are defending soviet passivity by " nah, they dont meaned it".
and when some restiction on ground to prevent genuine incident on ground are justifiable, you cant find any excuses for ignoring all that airraids and german planes flyovers.
yeah, you see hundrets of german planes flying over you head to soviet mainland, and yeah, you will think it just nothing serious.
no we cant, since i never heard that they pupeted them because of fear that they will invade them, or any other security reasons.
imperialists ? sure.
thugs ? not a chance.
realy ? have you anything to back up it ? and im very sure that every soviet citizen was extremly happy that soviet goverent is spending national resources to help chinese, for which they didnt cared, against someone, which they didnt feared at all, rather than to help thier own citizens to deal with terrible sate of economy just after end of civil war.
czar was not popular at all, ever heard of 1905 rebelion ? and many other rebelions against him ? and since all entete states were democratic regimes, except russia which was dictatorship, i realy fail to see why they should be unhapy that dictatorship ended and was replaced by democracy (dont forget commies dictatorship formed later).
if only using existing resources , and when we are talking at peace times, sure.
but to put you more into picture i meaned - how much resources soviets invested in new trains, wagoons and railroad itself to bring supplies to far east soviets invested ? how much manpower was tied down to drive and load these trains from europe to far east ?
and now compare it to americans, they needed to build new ships, booth tranport to transport goods and military to protect them, tey needed to expand/repair ports to acomodate all that cargo.
they did have to spend a lot of resources to make sure that cargo will arive and make them safe from japanese attack, and they did lost a lots of cargo to enemy actions (yeah, japanese theat in later 45 was minimal, than in 42 or 43 , so tey have to defend them in way smaller area than before,but they still have to).
and dont you want to tell me that soviets did have to repair railoards on own teritory due to enemy actions, right ? or that they lost cargo due to them.
no, stalin didnt comed up with operation unthinkable, since he didnt comanded western armies.
and what you think about that name ? why you think it was chosen ?but he have differently named plan against west.
They did that by bum rushing under-defended US territory while ambushing an ineptly lead British force in Singapore that outnumbered them.
Not to mention Indochina was handed over without a fight.
These tactics flat out dont work in the Far East for a few reasons.
1.There are a lot more Soviets.
2.They actually have good tanks(British had none).
3.They have all the strategic depth they could ever want.
4.They can call up auxiliaries to from Mongolia.
5.The Japanese Navy would be pretty worthless in the Far East.
What will they do?Invade Kamchatka?Really decisive action for an army rapidly running out of resources to fuel itself.
There is also the issue of millions of Chinamen who will be getting generous equipment donations from the USSR bum rushing any sector the Japanese dare weaken in their efforts to send more men to face the Soviets.
Germany had to keep Czech and Poland occupied.
Not to mention that Hungary and Italy are pretty worthless in this type of warfare.
There is also the tiny issue that many other nations are still intact.
If the fighting doesnt go as well you suddenly have Romania and Yugoslavia giving Hungary nasty looks while France,Yugoslavia and Greece might figure that Italy has been getting a bit over ambitious.
Only way these 2 could hope to survive such attention is if their contribution to the Eastern Front is so small to be meaningless,in which care they dont matter.
As such its just the Germans and Austrians against the bulk of the USSR,while under international blockade,while lacking the logistics or munitions for total war,while also being horribly outnumbered and outgunned in terms of equipment.
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who need justified reason ? put that way, answer is no one. but if you dont have justifable reason, other may thing you are thug/barbarian/put what you like, and no civilized person/state.
and justifiing invasion and ocuping of eastern poland by "saving them from german war" is realy retarded, because that war was BOUND to happen, because soviets did signed m-r pact.
or can you pls point me to that part of m-r pact, in which is stated that poland will be partioned by peacefull way ?
in case i missed that.
and that two front war is most ironic part of your comment since second front was opened by soviets.
and for that part, that you "just" recaiming of lost teritories in previous wars. well, put that way you can have permant wars for ethernity.
since every time you gain terotory in war, other side will lose it and have "justifiable" reson to get it back.
and to use your "lost territories" cause, will you be totaly ok if ukraine will go full scale war against russia over lost krymea ? and will win it, due to backing by west.
With this statement, you have proven yourself to be anti-Russian racist, and therefore ineligible to be argued with. Cannot argue with a fanatic, that ignores facts, and has his own kind of logic.
There has been nothing anti-russian in those posts, nor would posting something anti-russian be racist, since Russian isn't a race.
It's also rather weird to see you accuse someone else of being a "fanatic" or "ignoring facts" when your entire activity in this topic has been a giant attempt to whitewash Soviet history. The revisionist history you have delivered in this topic is bordering on the absurd, only topped by Cavalry's attempts to pretend the Soviets went into Poland to protect non-Polish citizens.
Saying its ok for one nation to do something and not ok for another - that's double standards. That's racism based on ethnicity.
Topic starter claimed, that taking territory from Soviet Russia/USSR during it's civil war is ok, but when Moscow got its act together and demanded it back - it is bad. That's double standards again. Poles wanted independence? They got it. Then they proceeded on a war of conquest, and then you complain they get their asses whooped?
That's the fact. I listed the official reason. (as I said who need a justified reason to protect your peoples from Hitler) And that official reason is very important for Poland and British later.
Stalin can use the reason to regain the lost territory from Poland, but he chose not to.
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For your information, there is no article on joining any war between Germany and USSR. It just says this and that territory belong to USSR sphere of influence,
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https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html
Secret Additional Protocol.
Article I. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party.
Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.
The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.
In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.
Article III. With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinteredness in these areas.
Article IV. This protocol shall be treated by both parties as strictly secret.
Moscow, August 23, 1939.
well, mayby , just mayby, they didnt liked russians/soviets because how they treated them in the past ?
just look at sweden and norway, norway got indepence, and no bad feeleing between them at all.
"what some renegade ex-russian provinces thought about it was entirely irrelevant" and exactly this line of think you show today, is reason why you only make enemies and not friends.
wow, i knew that soviet leadership after stalins great purge was not formed from smartest ones,but this is whole new level of stupidity. where they were in 39 and 40 when blitzkrieg happened ? on mars ?
why they asumed that germans in future war against soviets will abandon this doctrine , which bring them victory, and will go back to WW1 tacticks which broutgh them draw and after prolonginged war, defeat.
and they asumed that infantry combat will be done via bayonet chagres, napolenic wars style. URAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
this is not meanned serious.
every great power do have dark deeds, some more , some less. and nazi germany and soviet union have most of them.
sure, corrupt imperialist is not good picture, but how this make stalin look better ?
TECHNICALY, you can use anything to transport things, even 40 man row canoe, but that dont automaticaly mean EFFICIENT way of transport. remember these are fixed ports of loading at china/korea and unloading at japan. and only limited way - even if very wide - how to transport thing between these two points efficintly, time and fuel spend wise. and everyone know about these routes.
and it is relative easy to cover these areas with radars, so the more bigger ship for more efficient transport, they bigger chance it will be spoted and sunk. period.
changing of points of loading and unloading only reduce efficiency.
for island hoping starategy, what you think ? they wanted to or have to adapt it ?
and for that 1,5 mil soviet troops, and comparing to forces bringed by americans..., well, just try thinking about it. why didnt us bring to europe alone (with thiers europe first policy), close to this number ? while transports to europe were faster and more safe than in pacific ?
just some hint, around 28 % of all amercians drafted to war served in NAVY, which onlyest task was to secure transport lines and make sure that "land rats" will do thier job on land.
thanks for proving to my coment, that rairload transport is way superior to sea transport, in speed, transport capacity and manpower needed.
well, as russian you should know that generals can wage war as long as civilians want to support it. or you will face revolution.
and nuking definitely changed civilians options.
yeah, i later readed about them, so soviets for kurils campaign did only one major battle, which they won but with way greater loses than japanese.
and without us made ships, sended to soviets, they shouldnt make even this invasion at all.
yeah, they did this invasion soviet style. small time for perparation, no proper training or plans, and dont care about causalties, nas mnogo.
bring supplies to japan with what ? japanese merchant navy was practicaly non existant at that time. and they did knowed they have no navy at all, not merchant, not combat.
yes, i knewed about japanese plan in case of invasion, but there was no way that amercians will be tired of figting as long as they have resources to fight.
germans didnt caled for peace when they killed big amount of russians, and realized that for every killed commie you have 3 behind him.
so why americans should give up ?
well, it realy dont matter if stalin was revolution export pronent or not. soviets did have that reputation. period.
for trotsky...why stalin hated him so much that he ordered his murder in exile ?
and you are taking me whole time wrong, i didnt chaalenged stalins goal, but his means.
actualy conquring anyone who dont like me, make you actualy more enemies and make things more dangerous to you, than make you more secure. because anyone which is in close proximity to your empire, and will see how you devour one nation after another, will start thinking "i will make pact with devil to make me safe from this satan".
and reson why stalin meddled in "small pond" was because he simply lacked power to meddle in large pond, not because he didnt wanted to.
a) soviet invasion maked polish situation only worse, not better in facing against germany, and it speeded up thier defeat.
b)well, germans didnt wanted to enter eastern poland too, in repect to m-r pact, but they decided to go east of warshaw, because it was onlyest way how to stop polish resistence.
c) what relationship have signing of sogning of soviet-japanese non agreion pact and soviet invasion of poland ?
d)because war was never declared, it dosnt mean itwasnt war or ocupation.
e) yeah, sure poles were perfectly safe on soviet side of borders, especialy at katyn right ?
to which poland ???? poland ceased to exist in 39 due to german and soviet invasions.
stalin will love to give back anexed territories ? like he did give back baltic states or finnish lands ? oh, wait.
It is funny how you almost never see anyone nowadays justifying Hitler's landgrabs with "he was just taking back his rightful clay", but with Stalin it is still a common excuse.