Sunday, April 2, 2017

Book Review 385: Barbarossa

BARBAROSSA: The Russian-German Conflict 1941-45, by Alan Clark. 522 pages, illustrated. William Morrow

Almost all Americans share a belief that our fathers and grandfathers fought a “good war” that eliminated fascism. It is a false belief as regards European fascism but half-true for Asia, where we defeated the fascists in Japan but supported them in China, and, later, in Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere.

Even professional historians in America write about America’s role in the European war as if it determined something. English historians have a clearer view of the matter: They say the outcome was determined before the Americans got involved.

Alan Clark writes in his introduction: “It does seem that the Russians could have won the war on their own, or at least fought the Germans to a standstill.”

The “seem” is odd, since his book demonstrates not only that the Russians might but that they did.

The proof came in December 1941, when the Red Army counterattacked, but the decisive moment came earlier. Exactly when is a matter for interpretation, but Clark in “Barbarossa” puts it earlier than other historians; he sets it during July-August 1941, when the German blitzkrieg paused after astonishing advances and Hitler and his generals dithered about what path to follow next.

The choices were to press on and capture Moscow or turn south to engross the grain of south Russia and the oil of the Caucasus. For 19 dry, sunny days, the German army stopped its assault.

It would have had to pause for a time anyway, as the advance had gone so far, so fast that supplies had to be brought up and units had to repair and refresh. That did not require 19 days.

Although from time to time Clark pauses to elaborate on an individual experience of the biggest war ever, “Barbarossa” is history from 30,000 feet. It does not even sketch the month-by-month or even operation by operation history but instead considers three central events: the initial onslaught on a front of 2,000 miles, which petered out in the suburbs of Moscow as the winter closed in; the second year’s drive for grain and oil, which ended in the surrender of a whole army at Stalingrad; and the third year’s opening battle, the tank encounter at Kursk.

Each of these great encounters was won by the Red Army, which may surprise American readers used to a history of the war as a succession of enormous Russian defeats.

Indeed, the Russians lost battles in spectacular fashion, but never a campaign. And even as they wound up campaigns with powerful advantages, after Moscow and Stalingrad they stupidly threw away many gains by attempting to turn a campaign victory into a war-ending smash. They did not make that mistake after Kursk.

Clark’s book is more than 50 years old; it was written before much archival material became available for the Russian side, but Clark was more interested in the thinking of the Germans. It was, in his view, theirs to throw way success, which they did.

Indeed, it can be argued that Clark sets his date for the decisive event too late. Wars between industrial states are always wars of attrition (because the defensive power of a modern state is so vast). Germany with a population of about 80 million was sure to lose in a war against the USSR with almost 200 million.

Also, the chance that Germany could win a two-front war of attrition was nil.

Just as the Germans thought they could finesse those circumstances in 1914, they (or rather, he, Hitler) thought to do so in 1941.

With all the productive capacity of Europe, and much of its manpower as well, the Germans could balance the population and resources of Russia.

But, in reality, such thoughts were just map exercises. Neither Hitler nor his generals expected the Soviets to put up a fight. This was expressed openly and, more tellingly, logistically: the German army made no provisions for equipping itself for a winter war.  The generals were certain the fighting would be over long before the snow fell.

The Russians did fight, tenaciously if not skillfully. Clark says he wants to acknowledge the resilience, toughness and valor of the ordinary Russian, even if the book is mostly about what generals did. But he does not inquire into what made the Red Army man and woman fight, often to the death.

This remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma. After the fighting started, Stalin dropped the party program in his propaganda in favor of a Holy Russia theme, but that could not have influenced the fighting in the opening weeks: it was during that time that Russia beat Germany.

The common soldier had at best modest incentive to fight for the Bolshevik regime; he would not have remembered much about tsarism but no doubt he had heard about it. No on wanted to die for a renewal of tsarism.

Later in the war, it is obvious (from reading memoirs and contemporary letters and news reports though not from this book) that the Red Army soldier was motivated by revenge. Many said exactly that. They were ready to fight to the death because they had no families, no villages to return to.

Clark comes close to this motivation when he writes (from the German perspective) “no man coming fresh to the scene could stay sane without acquiring a protective veneer of brutalisation.” But this does not account for why the German soldier kept fighting when it was obvious the war was not winnable. (To anyone with a map, it was clear in May 1942, when the assault was renewed on a much reduced scale from June 1941, that Germany had not the strength to impose its will on Russia.)

Clark, who made his reputation with “The Donkeys” about the generals of the British Expeditionary Force in 1915, is ignored by the professional historians of the Russo-German war.  It is hard to see why.

He specialized in describing the idiocy of generals — not hard to find if you look — and his conclusions are generally similar to those of the academic historians, only enunciated earlier. He is much harder on the German generals than the academics are but this seems more to his credit than against it. The academics seem to be bemused by the undoubted tactical skill of the Germans — far better than that of the Russians even at the end of the war — while forgetting that generalship involves much more than directing combat and, even worse, that the Germans had lost the eastern war almost as soon as they started it.








66 comments:

  1. It is sure bemusing to think how the Nazis thought themselves so good in order to fight everyone at every side back then. It was a case of mass lunacy.

    But I sometimes like to think what would be our alternative future (or in this case, alternative past) if Hitler had more sense. Or if he had not even ascended to power.
    What would be Europe today? And America? And Asia?

    The Germans were not *that good* in order to take down the whole world. But they were indeed very, very good. Maybe they would be the superpower today - after conquering the nuclear bomb before anyone else.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ... but that could not have influenced the fighting in the opening weeks: it was during that time that Russia beat Germany.

    If it hadn't have been for Stalin first murdering the officer corps, then being strategically incompetent, and stupidly dismissive of convincing intel, Barbarossa wouldn't have lasted into the third week.

    One would think that worth mentioning.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Germany was too poor to organize the world, Clovis. Of the 3.6 million Germans who invaded Russia, 1 in 6 was a horse. In 1941, only the US and UK were rich enough to have wholly mechanized armies.

    Stalin's actions are not a large part of Clark's history, which is Germanocentric. It is the focus of Erickson's history, which RtO will be reviewing.

    However, the USSR was caught in a technological trap. As the first nation to arm, in the early '30s, by 1941 it had a huge force of obsolete equipment, not capable of halting a German blitzkrieg immediately. It could, with better management, have won more cheaply than it did; but then, with better management, the German assault could have been far more effective than it was.

    From the point of highest strategy, the USSR could not have resisted if the Bolsheviks had not had a strategy of rapid industrialization.

    From the point of highest political strategy, if the fresh democracies of central Europe not chosen fascism, there would not have been a common German-Soviet border and so no invasion.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It could, with better management, have won more cheaply than it did; but then, with better management, the German assault could have been far more effective than it was.

    Stalin ignored solid intel warning of Barbarossa. He absolutely refused defense in depth, of which there was plenty. Barbarossa succeeded only because Stalin's actions made a rout inevitable.

    Russian fortitude can't be doubted; it's a shame they have to keep proving it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. There wasn't defense in depth because the border had been advanced.

    The intelligence question goes back to the issue of German incompetence and their intelligence failure. The Germans did not expect the Russians to fight; they were certain Bolshevism would fall at a push. I tried in my review to address why that was incorrect, though it is still a mystery to me.

    Ignoring solid intelligence is what politicians do; not just Stalin. More interesting is the question: who would have believed intelligence that Germany would open a 2-front war? I don't think I would; at least, not in 1941.

    Today we know a lot more about how insane some leaders are, and how willing to support insanity other people are.

    ReplyDelete
  6. There wasn't defense in depth because the border had been advanced.

    Yes, part of Stalin's benevolence.

    That, however, says nothing about pulling forces back, deploying them in defendable positions, canalizing enemy forces, and preserving aircraft.

    Ignoring solid intelligence is what politicians do; not just Stalin.

    And?

    That doesn't change the conclusion one bit: had Stalin not murdered his officer corps, and not been delusional, Barbarossa would have been a disaster for the Germans.

    More interesting is the question: who would have believed intelligence that Germany would open a 2-front war?

    Communist fascists, determined to foment revolution. Nazi fascists, determined to grab lebensraum. Two scorpions in a bottle. How could it have been otherwise?

    Today we know a lot more about how insane some leaders are, and how willing to support insanity other people are.

    More insane than Stalin and communists?

    ReplyDelete
  7. 'Communist fascists, determined to foment revolution'

    The fascist revolutions in Europe were pretty much complete by 1941. The communist revolutions were also pretty much finished, but without producing any communist regimes. Outside of the USSR, most communists had been murdered by fascists by 1941. The USSR was not interested in aggression across international boundaries.

    I do not think the Red Army, even with the pre-1937 officers, would have easily handled a German invasion. It would have handled it; as it did in fact. But its deficiencies were serious.

    For example, it did not have an effective antitank gun; it was using antitank rifles -- effective enough against its own tankettes but useless against the Panzers. (The German antitank gun was devastating against the Russian armor it knew about; it was useless against the T-34, which was a bad shock to the Germans. It is a grat condemnation of German competence that the German army took so many years to develop an effective antitank gun.)

    But there weren't many T-34s in July 1941, and they didn't have radios.

    The Red Army was badly out-of date.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 'More insane than Stalin and communists?'

    I do not think Stalin or the communists were insane. Evil, yes. Mistaken, often.

    Hitler was insane; there is a qualitative difference between wanting to control peoples and being willing to kill to attain that, and wanting to depopulate vast regions by mass murder.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The USSR was not interested in aggression across international boundaries.


    I can't imagine what other explanation there might be, since they did so much of it.

    there is a qualitative difference between wanting to control peoples and being willing to kill to attain that, and wanting to depopulate vast regions by mass murder.

    The quantitative difference is clear: communists managed many timed more corpses than Hitler.

    In what possible way could the dead care about this putative qualitative difference, whatever it is?

    I do not think the Red Army, even with the pre-1937 officers, would have easily handled a German invasion.

    Don't read much Clausewitz, do you?

    The Soviets, had they not been led by a paranoid incompetent, could have taken advantage of ample warning and deployed their forces and aircraft in defensive positions, taking advantage of ample depth, and the German's logistical shortcomings.

    Instead, Stalin ensured massive, pointless losses.

    ReplyDelete
  10. No, they didn't. Stalin was desperate to avoid war, which is why he ditched the Comintern, tried to form an antiGerman alliance with Britain and France and Czechoslovakia and Poland, and tried to buy Karelia.

    Only after he was rebuffed on all fronts did he begin to attempt to create buffers against German aggression.

    After the Nazis were defeated, Stalin soon withdrew from mot of the territory he had occupied during the war: Austria, Iran, Manchuria, Finland.

    What was most notable about Soviet military policy was its great reluctance to extend itself beyond the borders of the tsarist state.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Only after he was rebuffed on all fronts ...

    I wonder why that might be. Perhaps communism's ineradicable aim, to foment revolution everywhere. 1917 was well within living person's memories.

    Stalin soon withdrew from mot of the territory he had occupied during the war: Austria, Iran, Manchuria, Finland

    You forgot about all of Europe east of the IGB. North Korea. USSR invading its own puppet states. The Berlin blockade. Stationing IRBMs in eastern Europe. You seem unconcerned as to why the USSR was in Finland in the first place, or why it felt entitled to divvy up Eastern Europe with Hitler.

    What is notable is how blind you are to the mischief the USSR got up to around the world, and how few mourned the USSR's collapse.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Russia had good reason to want buffers against Germany. You are confused about who were the aggressors.

    Jupiter missiles in Turkey?

    Anyone reading your comments would suppose that 1) you have an ax to grind or 2) you know nothingof the history of the 20th c.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Jupiter missiles in Turkey?

    Which we withdrew in 1962.

    Russia had good reason to want buffers against Germany. You are confused about who were the aggressors.

    The Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement makes it perfectly clear that the USSR was quite aggressive.

    Remember Poland?

    ReplyDelete
  14. You are being obtuse. Stalin offered a different deal to Poland, Britain and France and they turned him down.

    So we withdrew them, but only because we had Polaris. It is incorrect to say that the USSR was fomenting trouble unless you also admit that the US was doing so and even more aggressively. We were flying into the USSR and sending separatists into the Ukraine to start a war.

    The US sponsored the murder of 250,000 communists in 1965. I do not recall that the USSR murdered so many Democrats or Republicans.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Stalin offered a different deal to Poland, Britain and France and they turned him down.

    What deal was that?

    The US sponsored the murder of 250,000 communists in 1965.

    What is it with you and uncaused effects?

    The rise in influence and increasing militancy of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and Sukarno's support for it, was a serious concern for Muslims and the military, and tension grew steadily in the early and mid-1960s.

    --

    I do not recall that the USSR murdered so many Democrats or Republicans.

    You are a self acknowledged historical expert. How many people did the USSR murder?

    It is incorrect to say that the USSR was fomenting trouble ...

    Berlin blockade, Berlin wall, Iron Curtain, Korea, IRBMs in eastern Europe ...

    You don't want to read this, it contains actual facts.

    ... sending separatists into the Ukraine to start a war.

    I believe we have covered this before; it was as laughable then as it remains today.

    ReplyDelete
  16. 'it was as laughable then as it remains today.'

    Nevertheless, it happened.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Nevertheless, it happened.

    Until you can provide me a link, or your search terms, I have no idea what, if anything happened.

    If memory serves, it was nothing, which makes you so laughable.

    By all means, though, provide substantiation and humiliate me.

    ReplyDelete
  18. 'I have no idea what, if anything happened.'

    Then you cannot say it didn't, can you?

    ReplyDelete
  19. And until you can provide proof of what happened, and when, then you can't say it did.

    Since you are once again scarpering, wasting far more time avoiding the question than answering it, then the answer must be you are once again making stuff up.

    Without that super power, you progs would cease to exist.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I don't recall the details of my previous comments about the CIA attempt to start a war in Ukraine, but I wrote about it in print and on the blog.

    Te story is told by the case officer, William Sloane Coffin Jr, in 'Once to Every Man'

    ReplyDelete
  21. So that is completely no help whatsoever. No reviews of the book mention the incident, and searching on [CIA Ukraine] date range 1/1/1945 to 12/31/1977 produces exactly zero results.

    IIRC, the effort you talk about amounted to seven people, and went exactly nowhere.

    That isn't a patch on the subversion the USSR did throughout the world, until it finally collapsed.

    I'm still wondering why you are carrying water for a regime and ideology that have so murderously discredited themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Perhaps we could spend some time discussing this.

    Paragraph by paragraph.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Ah so, now we get to where you are coming from. No, thanks, Skipper, and as a courtesy to any of my readers who might not recognize the Institute for Historical Review for what it is -- the principle voice of the Holocaust deniers -- please don't link to them again here.

    Who you want to associate with on your own blog is, of course, up to you.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I wasn't aware of that; I regret linking to them this time.

    ReplyDelete
  25. So instead, I will link to this from the BBC.

    It has long been known that Stalin received warnings of an impending attack, prompting one of the great questions of military history: why were Soviet forces, despite their impressive numbers, so ill-prepared to withstand the Nazi blitzkrieg?

    Some accounts of the war have sought to play down the amount of intelligence the Kremlin had to go on, but this week a wealth of damning detail has emerged in the Russian media.

    In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Russian military historian Arsen Martirosyan revealed that Soviet intelligence had named the exact, or almost exact, date of the invasion 47 times in the 10 days before Germany struck.

    Moscow knew of Nazi invasion plans from 1935, the historian argues, and was aware as early as 1936 of an attack plan called the Eastern Campaign.


    Or this, from History Extra:

    Owing to Stalin’s orders that the troops remain in place, large units were enveloped.

    Or this, from the Foundation for Economic Education:

    Stalin admired his fellow-despot, Adolf Hitler. He was apparently delighted when the German- Soviet Non-aggression Treaty was signed (1939), leading to the partition of Poland between their two countries. Stalin considered Hitler a friend. It was with complete disbelief that he ]earned, on June 22, 1941, that German military forces had attacked Russian soldiers stationed along their common border in the middle of Poland. Warnings of a possible German attack had reached Stalin from U.S., British and Russian intelligence sources, but he had chosen to ignore them. As a result, the Russians were utterly unprepared and chaos reigned. When his men at the front reported to Moscow they were under fire, they were told, “You must be feeling unwell,” or “Do not give in to provocation, and do not open fire!” According to Nikolai Tolstoy, “There was in fact no battle-plan; only Stalin could issue instructions.”

    ReplyDelete
  26. And then there is this:

    [Hey Skipper:] So that is completely no help whatsoever. No reviews of the book mention the incident, and searching on [CIA Ukraine] date range 1/1/1945 to 12/31/1977 produces exactly zero results.

    ReplyDelete
  27. 'Moscow knew of Nazi invasion plans from 1935'

    Really? 1935, when Germany had no army, no navy and no air force?

    I will discuss Stalin's management of the crisis in terms of Erickson's assessments when I review his book.

    In a nutshell, almost all of Stalin's preparations to defend against a German attack -- he unquestionably knew one was coming -- proved wrongheaded. He was fighting the last war. His attempt to buy, then to conquer Karelia; and to conquer the Baltic states disproves the substance of your last snippet, but in the event controlling Karelia and Estonia did not provide protection to Leningrad

    ReplyDelete
  28. Moscow knew of Nazi invasion plans from 1935 ...

    You don't know a damn thing about military planning, do you?

    He was fighting the last war.

    Then he was even more stupid than I already thought. People who fought the last war new how idiotic running trench lines would be. Unless he was a complete retard -- aided by his murdering his entire officer corps -- then he would have instantly seen that mechanized infantry and the terrain (completely unlike the Ardennes) were completely suited for each other.

    Instead, he wrote off astonishing numbers of his own soldiers, and along with them the most potent force against armor in the open: his air force.

    Had he not done these things, Barbarossa would have made perhaps 300 miles.

    Why you are attempting to explain such epic tactical and strategic stupidity is a singular mystery.

    What this does clear up, though, is that everything you write on military matters is filtered through overpowering ignorance and unwillingness to learn.

    ReplyDelete
  29. You were a professional officer?

    ReplyDelete
  30. Enough of one -- having served on a planning staff for three years -- to know that with this remark, Moscow knew of Nazi invasion plans from 1935 ... you don't know square root of heck-all when it comes to military planning.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I wonder if Stalin used the war as an excuse to purge even more of his army officers, but this time blaming it on Hitler...

    ReplyDelete
  32. Shame about all his infantryman.

    Of course I speak ironically. Stalin could not possibly have cared less about how many people he murdered. Why Harry feels compelled to cast Stalin as a victim is the real mystery.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Allow me to quote the Belgian ambassador to Germany as he demanded his passports following the German invasion of his country in 1914. The foreign minister tut-tutted, and told the ambassador, 'Who can say what history will say about this sad event in the future?'

    To which the ambassador replied, 'Whatever history says, it will not say Belgium invaded Germany.'

    ReplyDelete
  34. And your point?

    I'm pretty certain history will not say Poland occupied the USSR, too.

    ReplyDelete
  35. My point: communism was nearly extinct by 1941. Fascism's failed attack gave it the opportunity to recover for 2 generations.

    What history does say:

    USSR offered to join UK and France in attempting to guarantee Czechoslovakia against Germany. The victim, Britain and France said no. Poland then attacked Czechoslokvakia.

    Now, if Czechoslovakia, or, later, Poland, had accepted Soviet help, they might have ended up with the NKVD and the Red Army running things. But they didnd't, so they ended up with the NKVD and the Red Army running things, but with the privilege of having the RSHA and the Wehrmacht do it first.

    Your tendentious reading of events leaves out all the crucial information.

    It's impossible to say what would have happened had Czechoslovakia accepted and Poland permitted the Red Army to attempt to guarantee Czechoslovakia's integrity. The experience of Spain suggests a bad outcome, but the good behavior of the USSR along the Manchurian border suggests that the USSR recognized that it could gain more from better behavior.

    Molotov did not replace Litvinov until Stalin was convinced that the western countries had no interest in resisting fascism.

    ReplyDelete
  36. [Harry:] My point: communism was nearly extinct by 1941.

    Bollocks.

    USSR offered to join UK and France in attempting to guarantee Czechoslovakia against Germany. The victim, Britain and France said no. Poland then attacked Czechoslovakia.

    I have to ask again, what is it with you and uncaused effects?

    (Pro-tip: if you want anyone to believe you about the USSR offering to join the UK and France, then, since you weren't there link to it.)

    In 1938, the horror shows called the Russian Revolution and WW I were well within living memory. Communists were promising more revolutions to come. And for those more perceptive than Duranty, the Holodomor had barely ended. Yet you wish to make the USSR the poor victim despite all that, and the fact that Hitler's predations, unlike Stalin's, hadn't happened yet.

    Molotov did not replace Litvinov until Stalin was convinced that the western countries had no interest in resisting fascism.

    I have no interest in your unfounded pronunciamentos.

    ReplyDelete
  37. If you do not know sufficient history then blog comments from me will not be adequate to inform you.

    There are only 2 possible interpretations of your recent comments: 1) you have not studied the events; or 2) you do but are pretending again to be ignorant.

    ReplyDelete
  38. ' if you want anyone to believe you about the USSR offering to join the UK and France, '

    The more I think about that, the more I am forced to conclude you really have never bothered to read any of the numerous histories of the Munich diplomacy. I am not expecting anyone to accept it on my say-so. It's in all the histories.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I am not expecting anyone to accept it on my say-so. It's in all the histories.

    Then to stop me thinking you are full of crap, provide evidence other than your frequently crappy say-so.

    Which is the third interpretation of my comments. You certainly don't know anything about military planning, or the state of communism in Europe at the time. Consequently, the absence of evidence is evidence you are making it up.

    But never mind: evidence I have provided is clear. Had Stalin not been a murderous incompetent, Barbarossa would have been upside down in a ditch.

    ReplyDelete
  40. 'USSR offered to join UK and France in attempting to guarantee Czechoslovakia against Germany. The victim, Britain and France said no. Poland then attacked Czechoslovakia.

    I have to ask again, what is it with you and uncaused effects?'

    And what is it with you and your tendentious cherry-picking? The Poles had plenty of reason, going back over 150 years and having nothing to do with bolshevism, to distrust the Russians.

    Nevertheless, the immediate threat they faced was not from bolshevism

    ReplyDelete
  41. [Harry:] Only after he was rebuffed on all fronts did he begin to attempt to create buffers against German aggression.

    Oh, really.

    In the mid-1930s the Soviet Union made repeated efforts to reestablish closer contacts with Germany.

    The Moscow Trials of the mid-1930s seriously undermined Soviet prestige in the West.[20] Soviet purges in 1937 and 1938 made a deal less likely by disrupting the already confused Soviet administrative structure necessary for negotiations and giving Hitler the belief that the Soviets' were militarily weak.

    Stalin then proved amateurs talk tactics, professionals logistics. n May, German war planners also became increasingly concerned that, without Russian supplies, Germany would need to find massive substitute quantities of 165,000 tons of manganese and almost 2 million tons of oil per year.

    Perhaps it is worth considering centuries of British foreign policy with regard to continental Europe. On August 14, the question of Poland was raised by Voroshilov for the first time, requesting that the British and French pressure the Poles to enter into an agreement allowing the Soviet army to be stationed in Poland.

    And then there are the actions of the Soviets themselves: The Soviets sent mixed signals thereafter. In his first main speech as Soviet Foreign Minister on May 31, Molotov criticized an Anglo-French proposal, stated that the Soviets did not "consider it necessary to renounce business relations with countries like Germany" and proposed to enter a wide-ranging mutual assistance pact against aggression.



    Only [sic] July 18, Soviet trade representative Yevgeniy Barbarin visited Julius Schnurre, saying that the Soviets would like to extend and intensify German-Soviet relations.


    Long before being rebuffed on all fronts, the Poles — astounding, I know — objected to being dismembered. … on August 21, Voroshilov proposed adjournment of the military talks with the British and French, using the excuse that the absence of the senior Soviet personnel at the talks interfered with the autumn manoeuvres of the Soviet forces though the primary reason was the progress being made in the Soviet-German negotiations.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Why would that be?

    That same day, August 21, Stalin has received assurance would approve secret protocols to the proposed non-aggression pact that would grant the Soviets land in Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and Romania.

    But wait, there's more:

    The day after the Pact was signed, the French and British military negotiation delegation urgently requested a meeting with Voroshilov. On August 25, Voroshilov told them "[i]n view of the changed political situation, no useful purpose can be served in continuing the conversation." That day, Hitler told the British ambassador to Berlin that the pact with the Soviets prevented Germany from facing a two front war, changing the strategic situation from that in World War I, and that Britain should accept his demands regarding Poland. Surprising Hitler, Britain signed a mutual-assistance treaty with Poland that day, causing Hitler to delay the planned August 26 invasion of western Poland.

    Stalin was as cynical as he was incompetent. The only leader with any moral vision or backbone was Churchill.

    Yet you wish to defend Stalin, who defenestrated his military, stupidly deployed his forces, and astonishingly refused to believe the glaringly apparent.

    But wait, there's more more:

    However, during Stalin's Great Purge in the late 1930s, which was still partially ongoing at the start of the war in June 1941, the officer corps of the Red Army was decimated and their replacements, appointed by Stalin for political reasons, often lacked military competence. Of the five Marshals of the Soviet Union appointed in 1935, only two survived Stalin's purge. 15 out of 16 army commanders, 50 out of the 57 corps commanders, 154 out of the 186 divisional commanders and 401 out of 456 colonels were killed, and many other officers were dismissed. In total, about 30,000 Red Army personnel were executed. Stalin further underscored his control by reasserting the role of political commissars at the divisional level and below to oversee the political loyalty of the Army to the regime. The commissars held a position equal to that of the commander of the unit they were overseeing.

    How many millions of people would not have died violently if not for Stalin and communism?

    ReplyDelete
  43. 'How many millions of people would not have died violently if not for Stalin and communism?'

    What about fascism? The intention of the Nazis was to depopulate western Russia. Snyder estimates that would have killed 35,000,000 to 42,000,00, not counting Jews.

    The dismemberment of Poland was not a novelty thought up by bolsheviks.

    So the answer to your question of how many is, fewer than if the bolsheviks had not resisted fascism.




    ReplyDelete
  44. So the answer to your question of how many is, fewer than if the bolsheviks had not resisted fascism.

    And way more than if Stalin hadn't been a murderous incompetent -- which is the point you refuse to address: without that, Barbarossa fails. Indeed, without that, Barbarossa might well not have been attempted.

    BTW, how many of his own people did Stalin murder?

    ReplyDelete
  45. 'without that, Barbarossa fails. Indeed, without that, Barbarossa might well not have been attempted.'

    Nonsense. Ever hear about lebensraum? It was part of the Hitler plan before Stalin took power.

    I'll have more to say about Churchill when I get time, but he, unlike you, had a problem with nazism

    ReplyDelete
  46. Nonsense. Ever hear about lebensraum? It was part of the Hitler plan before Stalin took power.

    Indeed, it was. But the Germans assessed that as a result of Stalin gutting his own officer corps, destroying command authority with political officers, and generally making a hash out of logistics, the Soviet military was very weak.

    I'll have more to say about Churchill when I get time, but he, unlike you, had a problem with nazism

    You have a real problem with reading comprehension.

    It would be nice if you took some time to address the grotesque shortcomings in your assertion of what the "histories" say about Molotov-Ribbentrop.

    It is astonishing, though not surprising, how much you left out.

    ReplyDelete
  47. 'the Soviet military was very weak.'

    The Germans also assessed the British as very weak, although they had not murdered any of their officers.

    ReplyDelete
  48. That they had not murdered any of their officers?

    Hard to prove a negative.

    But let us return to your tendentious source, that wrote:

    'on August 21, Voroshilov proposed adjournment of the military talks with the British and French, using the excuse that the absence of the senior Soviet personnel at the talks interfered with the autumn manoeuvres of the Soviet forces though the primary reason was the progress being made in the Soviet-German negotiations.'

    As anyone who reads the history knows, Stalin had been trying to form an antifascist front since 1936 and even more desperately since September 1938. He suspected, and was correct in thinking, that the imperialist powers had no interest in opposing fascism as such but probably thought, and again, would have been correct in thinking, they were interested in balance of power relations among the states.

    Indeed, eventually they went to war to maintain them.

    However, he was rebuffed at every initiative, and in the crisis (manufactured by the Germans in order to move their border east) Stalin's request was met with indifference; the negotiators were headed to Leningrad by ship.

    He concluded, correctly, that the western powers (and especially their militaries) were not interested in collective action.

    So he tried to get the best deal he could with the nazis.

    Low's famous cartoon says it all.

    ReplyDelete
  49. The Germans also assessed the British as very weak ...

    Prove it, you tedious, tendentious, twit.

    As anyone who reads the history knows ...

    As anyone who knows anything about history knows, the words "the history" can only have been written by an axe grinder.

    My link above contradicts your simplistic The History in nearly every regard. And somehow, The History leaves out that the murderous purges had happened just a few years before. Why the heck would countries not consumed by cancerous communism want to ally themselves with that?

    What is it with you and uncaused effects?

    ReplyDelete
  50. 'Why the heck would countries not consumed by cancerous communism want to ally themselves with that?'

    Hmmm. Why indeed? Could it be because those countries were not opposed to fascism?

    ReplyDelete
  51. My link above contradicts your simplistic The History in nearly every regard.

    In particular, the USSR was negotiating in secret with the Germans while public negotiations were still ongoing with Britain, France and Poland.

    And concluded the M-R agreement while those public negotiations were still ongoing.

    A point you have glossed over.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Insignificant, other than to provide (yet another) example of Stalin's mistrust of the empires.

    He certainly had plenty of reason to distrust them (and vice versa) but he also had every reason to want their cooperation in resisting nazi aggression. A point they came to share, too late.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Harry, you have left so much out of the circumstances surrounding M-R that either a) you are wallowing in ignorance; or, b) are lying through omission.

    A point they came to share, too late.

    A complete inversion of the facts: M-R was a noose of Stalin's own making. Just like murdering his officer corps, ignoring explicit warnings of impending invasion, and not relying on defense in depth.

    Yep, you are right. All of it Britain and France's fault.

    ReplyDelete
  54. 'All of it Britain and France's fault.'

    Germany's fault.

    Stalin was actively fighting fascism from 1936. Britain and France were not. Stalin appears to have concluded they never would. Hitler, too, perhaps.

    The world was shocked by the Nazi-Soviet pact but it was almost equally shocked by the guarantees France and Britain gave to Poland.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Harry, you pronounce with authority whilst leaving out everything that matters. And, btw, changing your story along the way.

    In 1936, before WWII, but after the purges and Holodomor, why would anyone think Nazism would be worse than Communism?

    After all, from the outside they look almost exactly alike: murderous totalitarianisms. With one difference. Communism aimed for world revolution; nazism lebensraum that was a piddling in comparison.

    Which is what you haven't ever, and will never, get: the only difference between fascism and communism is reach.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Ah, numbers. Let's look at the first column in your list. All the dates, except one, start in 1944 or later.

    The exception is China, where fascists killed almost all the communists in 1927.The reds rebuilt and got up to 100,000, then the fascists killed all but 6,000 of them.

    Fascism saved communism.

    ReplyDelete
  57. "Except one."

    Which one, Harry? Seems like you are being, to put it kindly, a bit economical with the truth.

    ReplyDelete
  58. No one denies that the Soviet Union was a deadly place -- although it was more deadly where the fascists were -- but your point (if you had one) was that communism before 1941 was a threat to other nations.

    In fact, no nation went communist after the USSR and almost all the communists outside the USSR had been murdered by fascists by 1941.

    I note that your list of democide has no asterisks or footnotes. For example, it does not note that in Indonesia, the number of people killed by communists was less than 1% of the number murdered by American imperialists.

    Several other countries on that list deserve footnotes.

    ReplyDelete
  59. *In fact, no nation went communist after the USSR*

    Do not EVER again make fun of Earp for not knowing history. You are a walking self inflicted wound.

    Alex Trabek: The category is Murderous totalitarian fascist communist countries for $250. The answer is 1949.

    Any contestant less ignorant and arrogant than Harry: "The year long after 1917 when China, the most populous nation on earth, went Communist, which would go on to murder more than 70 million Chinese."

    ReplyDelete
  60. We were discussing the situation of communism up to 1941. I already said that fascism saved communism. That's what I meant.

    By forcing the democracies to league with the USSR while it built up is power, communism spread.
    please stop pretending to be stupid. I know you are not and your posturing does not contribute to the discussion

    ReplyDelete
  61. Harry, your previous comment was five-dimensional stupid. So stupid, the only thing to do while I am on a family vacation and stuck with only an iPad was to take on the first dimension stupid.

    Your second dimension stupid is even worse. But it's going to be a week before I have a real keyboard, and your ignorance and strategic ineptitude is so formidable that I'm not going to waste my time on this thing.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Feel free to list ll te countries that went communist before 1941.

    I know you are not stupid but I do not think you know the first thing about strategy. No one who praises Churchill could. Let me remind you that communism was in such parlous condition in the '30s that Stalin threw out nearly a century of fundamental doctrine to announce a new theory of communism in one country.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Let me remind you that every assertion you make without substantiation isn't worth the effort it takes to ignore it.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Then leave and don't come back. You are tiresome and not adding anything to the discussion.

    ReplyDelete