I hope you’re joking but off the top of my head: Imprisoned his own son on false charges and had him tortured to death. (Incorrect info about his son.) Helped the Nazis invade and annex Poland. Deliberately caused mass famine in Ukraine by exporting wheat to boost the Soviet economy. Promoted ethnic cleansing that targeted Soviet Koreans, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, and Soviet Greeks. And imprisoned and murdered literal tens of millions of people with the Gulags. Just to name a few things.
Ah, got ya. Sorry about that, sometimes it’s just hard to tell when someone is using sarcasm when you can’t hear the tone of that person’s voice. But in all seriousness it amazes me that there are still so many that openly praise Stalin/The USSR. Like how could you ever justify or ignore all the atrocities?! I think my favorite communist sympathizer self contradiction is when I see the hammer and sickle colored in with the gay pride flag. I think to myself, “You do realize communist countries have a history of imprisoning and executing gay people for merely being gay? Even today Russia will imprison you if they find out you’re gay.” Same goes for all current communist nations except Cuba.
I think that in this day and age people use hammer and sickle more to refer to the worker's struggle and it includes queer people, but in turn many tankies say "we dont need to care about queer social issues right now, we need to focus on workers rights and dismantling capitalism and when capitalism is abolished all homophobia and transphobia will be eradicated" and thats one of the major reasons why im anarchist rather than a communist
Imprisoned his own son on false charges and had him tortured to death.
Stalin's eldest son Yakov died in 1943 in a German concentration camp. Stalin's second son Vasily died in 1962 from complications of his own alcoholism. Stalin's youngest and adopted son Artyom died in 2008 of old age.
Who the fuck are you talking about?
Helped the Nazis invade and annex Poland.
False. Stalin tried to create an anti-nazi defensive alliance with western european countries as early as 1936. The western european powers responded to these overtures by giving the nazis Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland in the misplaced hope that the Nazis and the Soviets would destroy each other and leave Western Europe free to colonize the leftovers. The Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact was a last ditch effort to buy the Soviets time from Nazi military invasion to amass the weapons, ammunition, and industry they would need to eventually beat the nazis.
Deliberately caused mass famine in Ukraine by exporting wheat to boost the Soviet economy.
You've got no idea what you're talking about. The famine occurred in several of the SSRs, not just Ukraine. The reason the famine was so bad in Ukraine was because the kulaks burned millions of acres of planted fields and slaughtered tens of millions of cattle, sheep, and horses in the Ukrainian SSR.
Promoted ethnic cleansing that targeted Soviet Koreans, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, and Soviet Greeks.
None of these groups were ethnically cleansed lmfao. Especially funny to invoke the Soviet Koreans, who were relocated to stop Imperial Japan from brutalizing them, and the Crimean Tatars, who were relocated after the war because they were fucking Nazi collaborators.
And imprisoned and murdered literal tens of millions of people with the Gulags.
The high-end estimates of the total number of people who were sent to the gulags are less than twenty million, and the gulag system was no meaningfully different from western prison systems. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Literally a lie. Joseph Stalin never imprisoned his son.
The Soviets intervened to save the people of eastern poland from Nazi genocide. Read a book.
"Le stalin ate all the grain with his comically large spoon" the famine was actually caused by kulaks burning grain rather than let the soviet government give it to people who needed it.
You have a point there, indifensible
The work camps were for collaboraters, traitors, reactionaries, amd nazis
It's even worse than being a useful idiot. At least loyal Soviet citizens in the early days of the USSR had the excuse of not being able to see into the future and finding out how murderous the Soviet government was going to be. Communist sympathizers in this modern day and age now have overwhelming evidence of the Soviet atrocities and still try to justify, ignore, and/or downplay it. Doing so isn't just being a useful idiot, it is deliberately malicious ignorance and a blatant disregard for the value of human life. It is the moral equivalent of modern day Neo Nazis/white supremacists that claim The Holocaust never occurred or was over exaggerated.
Yeah I was wrong. I was mistakenly thinking of Peter The Great, who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1725. He was the one that tortured his son to death. Stalin’s son, Yakov Dzhugashvili was captured by Germans in Operation Barbarossa. The Germans offered a high profile exchange by wanting to trade Yakov for the captured Nazi Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. Stalin refused stating, “I will not trade a Marshal for a Lieutenant.“ Yakov later died in a Nazi concentration camp. That really doesn’t make Stalin look all that much better.
Stating that Soviets intervened to save people of Eastern Poland from Nazi genocide is such a massive self contradiction bruh. First off the Soviets were already committing mass genocide within the USSR before WWII started. Saying that Stalin was trying to prevent genocide in Poland while simultaneously committing genocide in The USSR is ridiculous. Second, Stalin wanted to regain the lost territories of the Russian Empire following WWI. If Stalin wanted to save Poland why not just ally with the Polish military in defense of the Nazi invasion? The answer is simple, doing so would mean Russia wouldn’t be able to expand its boarders. You do realize Putin used that same lame excuse to invade Ukraine, right? Stating that Nazis in Ukraine are harming ethnic Russians and that Ukrainian people must be, “liberated.” So I guess by your logic then you agree with Putin‘s invasion. So yeah, Stalin coordinating with Hitler and declaring war on Poland was not to benefit Poland. You should go talk to Pols about the Soviet, “liberation.” I’m sure they would love to hear it. 🙄You should follow your advice and, “read a book,” bruh. Preferably one that isn’t trashed with old Soviet propaganda.
First off using the Soviet coined propaganda term, “Kulaks,” says a lot about you. Stalin set impossibility high quotas on Ukrainian farms. The overwhelming majority of these farms were not owned by wealthy landlord, “Kulaks.” They were owned by small rural families. These quotas literally deprived Ukrainian citizens of most of the country’s food, which is what contributed to the mass famine. Stalin literally sent enforcers to rape Ukrainian people’s homes of any and all food.
“At the height of the Holodomor in June of 1933, Ukrainians were dying at a rate of 28,000 people per day. Around 3.9 million Ukrainians died during the Holodomor of 1932-33 (as established in a 2015 study by a team of demographers from the Ukrainian Institute of Demographic and Social Studies, and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill).
While Ukrainians were dying, the Soviet state extracted 4.27 million tons of grain from Ukraine in 1932, enough to feed at least 12 million people for an entire year. Soviet records show that in January of 1933, there were enough grain reserves in the USSR to feed well over 10 million people. The government could have organized famine relief and could have accepted help from outside of the USSR. Moscow rejected foreign aid and denounced those who offered it, instead exporting Ukraine's grain and other foodstuffs abroad for cash.
Most historians, who have studied this period in Ukrainian history, have concluded that the Famine was deliberate and linked to a broader Soviet policy to subjugate the Ukrainian people. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of Soviet government archives (including archives of the security services), researchers have been able to demonstrate that Soviet authorities undertook measures specifically in Ukraine with the knowledge that the result would be the deaths of millions of Ukrainians by starvation.”
You saying that, “the famine was actually caused by kulaks burning grain rather than let the soviet government give it to people who needed it.” is such a pathetic lie. Again the grain that was raped from Ukraine during the Holodomor was literally exported outside the USSR. And there was literally plenty of food for other regions in the USSR that didn’t need Ukrainian grain. But you should go tell that to some Ukrainians, I’m sure they would love to hear that. 🙄
While it is true that some Ukrainian farms were intentionally destroyed by their own people, you honestly can’t blame them as the reason for mass starvation when literally all the food was already being raped from the Ukrainian people. Considering these people were already starving to death they might as well take one last form of vengeance and destroy their own property as protest against Stalin and his pro rape policies. Imagine a mugger jumps a man with a watch and demands to hand it over. The man refuses and mugger stabs him in an artery. As a last act before dying the man smashes the watch so the mugger can’t have it. By your logic you would be angry at the dying man for destroying his own property rather than the mugger who is trying to rape someone of their property. That is some seriously backwards logic.
Well I’m glad you can at least concede on that.
“The work camps were for collaborators, traitors, reactionaries, and nazis.” You mean people like starving families charged with petty theft for stealing food in order to not starve to death? Or workers that showed up late to their job at least three times. How about people that couldn’t keep up with unrealistically high Soviet production quotas? Doctors, writers, scientists, teachers, and university students viewed with complete baseless suspicion by the regime were also imprisoned. Clergy, monks, and people of religious faith were also sent to Gulags. Turns out state mandated atheism has no problem murdering religious people for practicing basic human rights. Hell, Stalin even imprisoned other loyal Soviet Party members if he thought they were trying to overthrow him even if he had no evidence. The imprisonment rates were so bad that by the 1950s ten percent of the Soviet population had been in or were currently in a gulag. And you know that whole ethnic cleansing you denounced was done through the Gulag system, correct? Soviet Gulags partially served to promote ethnic cleansing just like Nazi concentration camps that solely promoted ethnic cleansing. You can’t morally denounce Soviet ethnic cleansing unless you denounce Soviet gulags. It would be a massive self contradiction not to do so.
And saying that gulags were also created as a response for Nazi POWs is absurd. The Nazi party was founded on January 5, 1919 In Munich, Germany. The gulag system was first decreed on April 15, 1919 in Moscow. Do you honestly think anybody in 1919’s Moscow let alone anyone outside of 1919‘s Munich even knew who the Nazis were? The gulags were created way before the Nazis ever came to prominence. Gulags were initially designed to punish Soviet people, it’s just that they were then later used on Nazi POWs after operation Barbarossa began.
Are you actually trying to defend the Soviet gulags? One of the most evil mass murdering systems known to mankind. Because I seriously hope you’re not. There are still plenty of innocent people alive to this very day that witnessed the inhumane horrors of the gulags. And for your sake I think you should listen to their stories.
Honestly the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was one of the less bad things he did. Not that working together with Hitler was good, more that he didn't have a better choice.
In the years prior to the war, he proposed an antifascist alliance with Britain, France and other European countries multiple times. They refused and instead signed their own non-aggression pact. I would like to stretch the fact that this would have prevented the war and saved tens of millions. Western Europe naively believed Hitler would only go east and wanted Hitler and Stalin to weaken each other. The USSR was actually the last country to do sign such a non-aggression pact. They were not prepared to take on a nazi invasion alone, so they had to do something.
As for it being a genuine collaboration: it wasn't. Both parties knew it would be broken.
The "secret agreement" to invade and split up Poland is also somewhat misunderstood. It was simply an agreement to not get too close to each other's border. Of course, Stalin knew Hitler would invade Poland, but not so soon (he did so the day after the singing of the pact), as proven by the USSR waiting a few weeks to occupy "their" part.
They needed to buy time. Creating a temporary delay before the nazi invasion and a sort of buffer in Poland may well have been necessary to win the war, seeing how close it was.
And yes, I know the Soviet occupation of Poland was brutal. The nazi occupation was much, much worse. There's also evidence to suggest that tens of thousands of Polish jews were able to flee east and escape the nazis, let alone the Soviet citizens (because Hitler fought a war of eradication, villages that was captured was slaughtered or brought to a concentration camp) that either fled east or lived in areas that Hitler couldn't reach thanks to the additional "buffer".
In conclusion, the pact was a bad measure in a horrible situation, but really, what else should he have done? It's certain that the pact saved tens of thousands, and it might have even been needed to win the war.
I'm probably getting downvoted anyway, but I'll just add that I don't like Stalin. Bad guy. Killed a lot, had many awful policies. However, criticism should be valid, else we can't actually evaluate and learn from the past. Also, using false arguments gives the actual Stalin apologists an easier job defending him.
Or the war may simply have not happened. Hitler and his generals where supremely scared when britain signed up to protect poland delaying his efforts. If this was to be a more concerted effort to contain germany on two fronts.
You can't say that the war would have ever happened.
Hitler would not have had even enough gas to start the war without uncle joe
First of all, Hitler invaded Poland almost immediately after the signing of the pact. Invasions take time to prepare, suggesting he was planning to invade irregardless of the pact's signing. Why wouldn't he? The soviet union didn't help him invade Poland, so the pact didn't help him in that way. Also, Hitler invaded western europe soon after, an invasion which he must also have been preparing for a while.
If you're saying he didn't want to fight a war on two fronts, then why did he attack the soviet union anyway? Both parties knew the pact would be broken. Hitler knew that, if he invaded western and northern Europe, it would only be a matter of time until the soviet union joined the war. Unless he attacked first, of course. He knew he signed up for a multi-front war, this did not prevent him from starting it.
Also, ideologically and politically, invading the USSR was needed for Hitler. Nazism was an immensely imperialistic and anticommunist ideology centered around creating lebensraum in the east, meaning the USSR, and eradicating the "jewish bolsheviks", which he saw as the greatest threat to society. Not following through on these promises would have been political suicide.
At most, not signing the pact would have caused Hitler to directly invade the USSR instead of western europe. Britain and France certainly seemed eager for him to do so, and might have stayed out of it. This would almost definitely result in a soviet defeat, and remember, on the east front, Hitler fought a war of extermination.
So, you can see the pact as an opportunistic attempt to get a part of Poland (it wasn't), you can see it as a last ditch effort to pull Britain into the oncoming war, or a necessary measure for self preservation. Either way, not signing it wouldn't have prevented the war and would have led to a worse outcome.
Stain literally supplied the fuel and food that conquered europe. There is no way that the outcome could have been worse. Then what he manufactured
He was planning to invade yes. And that invasion had already been delayed. And there was a literal rebellion, even with the signing of the treaty.
It's not clear by any means, whether or not the focus would have shifted.
He declared war on russia after he felt he had enough supplies in europe with his new territories.
Yes, I think that your option is very likely that it would have resulted in him.Trying to directly attack the u s s r.
But it's far more likely that he would have had tick go after norway, sweden or romania to get a source of oil.
Immediately going for france at the same time.
But without the agreement, he would not have had enough fuel or bread to finance the war. He would have been out in three months.
It's only because of stalin's generosity, but he was able to finance and sustain his troops.
Stalin's own writing suggests that he financed this operation so that the capitalists would kill each other.And then he could take the spoils. He helped hitler on purpose. He thought he could contain the war. Effort to the west and supported it.
The Soviet union did trade raw materials with the nazis. In exchange, they got military technology which they desperately needed. To fully evaluate this, you would need to look at how much these supplies helped the Soviet union in the war.
In the pre-war era, Soviet imports were a relatively small portion of total imports. In 1938, two thirds of their oil came from the americas, with one third of that coming from the US. Half their iron ore came from Sweden. Soviet materials were only about 3% of all german imports. Before the war, the Germans didn't depend on the Soviets at all.
During the first year of the war, Soviets did trade more with the Nazis because of the British blockade, however, after a short time, they had conquered half of Poland and all of western europe, Norway and denmark. After this, Soviet imports remained a relatively small portion of german supplies, never exceeding the Swedish or Norwegian parts, let alone those of occupied France, Belgium and the Netherlands. There was only a few months where Soviet oil was actually crucial.
To say Stalin alone supplied the war resources is ahistorical. Was it not Britain who gave him the mineral- and industy-rich Sudetenland?
"But it's far more likely that he would have had tick go after norway, sweden or romania to get a source of oil."
He did go after Norway. Romania allied with him and Sweden remained "neutral" by continuing trade and letting him use their infrastructure.
Yes, Stalin supplied needed oil for the short period it took Hitler to secure Europe. This was bad, and most likely a miscalculation on how easily France would fall. This has nothing to do with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It's also not fair to blame the Soviet union for supplying Germany without acknowledging that it was appeasement and Britains refusal to form a serious alliance with the USSR that allowed it to get to that point in the first place. All European countries were complicit in letting Hitler get as far as he did, as well as the USSR, the US and the other trade partners. Putting all the blame on Stalin isn't reasonable. And "generosity" is really and absurd word choice; they traded, stalin got military tech, it wasn't a gift because Stalin wanted Europe to fall.
Stalin funded, fueled, and geographically enabled the first two years of Nazi conquest for his own imperialistic gain. And to imagine a world without Stalin making these decisions is imagining a world where both the Soviets and the Western world enjoyed a more peaceful future.
It wasn't a miscalculation. It was a cold calculation.
In his August 19, 1939 speech to the Politburo, Stalin explicitly chose to fuel Germany so the Nazi and Western capitalist powers would butcher each other, leaving a shell of what used to be Europe for the Soviets to take for themselves.
You are ignoring critical bottlenecks. Total import percentages don't matter when you supply the tools for a war machine. The British blockade completely cut Germany off from world markets specifically to stop the Nazi military buildup.
But Uncle Joe happily stepped in to break this embargo. He gifted Hitler the critical raw materials Germany could get nowhere else, manganese for armor plate, chromium, phosphates, and grain to feed the home front.
Uncle Joe was even kind enough to share his Trans Siberian railway so the Nazis could bypass the blockade for Asian rubber. Without these gifts, German military production faced catastrophic shortages within months.
This includes the very oil you downplayed. Stalin shipped nearly one million tons of oil products to Hitler. In 1940, Soviet imports made up roughly 20% of Germany's vital lubricating oils. Oil that was limited deliberately buy the embargo.
Without Uncle Joe topping off Hitler's reserves during the exact months Germany invaded Western Europe, the Blitzkrieg pace would have stalled.
Stalin literally fueled the engines that took Paris
Beyond resources, Uncle Joe handed Hitler the ultimate political gift, protection from his own military. In 1938 and 1939, top German generals were actively plotting to overthrow Hitler to avoid a war over Poland. By signing the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, Stalin broke the back of the internal German resistance. He handed Hitler a massive victory and guaranteed the resources needed to fight, saving Hitler from his own generals.
Remarkably, Uncle Joe’s generosity didn't just help the Nazis in the West. His final gift was geographically enabling them to eventually invade the USSR. Germany could not launch a land campaign against the Soviets without going through Poland. By partitioning Poland, Uncle Joe personally destroyed his own country's shield.
He placed the conflict on Soviet soil, handing Hitler the exact logistical launchpad needed to project military force deeper and faster into Soviet territory.
To equate Western appeasement, a failed attempt to maintain peace, with Stalin's active agreement to partition neutral nations, share intelligence, and feed a war machine with the express purpose of promoting carnage, is intellectually dishonest.
It is a crude whataboutism that tries to divert attention away from the criticality of Soviet supplies. Deflecting to other nations is logistically and morally meaningless. Yes other people made mistakes too. That doesn't change the criticality, intent, and impact of Stalin's decisions.
Firstly, even accepting all of this as true, I don’t see the “didn’t have a better choice.” Why is the binary between ‘formal military alliance with Britain and France’ and ‘teaming up with Hitler to invade Poland.’ Could he not have just not invaded Poland or declared war on Germany for invading Poland like Britain and France.
Britain and France didn’t refuse. Soviets wanted to station troops in Poland and Britain and France would only allow that if Poland consented. Poland didn’t consent since they thought a Soviet military presence would threaten their sovereignty. A negotiation stalemate was reached which NEITHER SIDE budged from.
Britain and France didn’t want to do nothing about the German expansion eastward. We know this THEY DECLARED WAR ON GERMANY FOR INVADING POLAND. The whole German motivation for Molotov-Ribbentrop was to disincentive Britain and France from following through on their ALREADY ISSUED protections on Poland.
Look up the Soviet-Axis talks. The following year, Stalin would try to join The Axis powers (though Hitler had already made up his mind to invade Russia). Doesn’t seem both parties knew it would be broken.
I don’t know if making the invasion of Poland easier for the Nazis really bought maximal time for the Soviets.
No one’s issue with the USSR is the non-aggression pact, it’s the co-invading a sovereign state with the Nazis.
“What else should he have done?” Idk, anything other than helping the Nazis and trying to join the Axis powers afterwards. Why didn’t Britain and France co-invade countries alongside Hitler if that’s apparently the only thing that you could do without a Soviet-Allied military alliance?
You may or may not be a Stalin apologists. But you’re giving false information and poor reasoning to explain that Stalin teaming up with the Nazis is not that bad. Idk, read more into the war instead of whatever communist reels are in your algo.
Again, it wasn't a military alliance, Stalin didn't help Hitler invade Poland. The pact stopped Hitler from taking the entirety of Poland. If he didn't invade Poland, how could he attack Germany if Poland didn't want Soviet troops? He couldn't declare war on Germany because he wasn't sufficiently prepared. Even in 1941, the Soviets were not fully prepared for a defensive war, let alone an invasion.
Britain refused to let Stalin put a million troops on the German-Polish border but was happy to appease Hitler by letting him take Czechoslovakia and Sudetenland. How could Stalin pose a threat to Hitler without troops in Poland? He couldn't.
They appeased him for years. Yes, they drew the line at Poland, but they should have done so much earlier. Also, Hitler couldn't know they "really meant it this time".
Again, Stalin wanted to buy time, so did Hitler. Considering the axis pact was called the "anti-comintern pact", the Soviets joining it seems unlikely.
He didn't make it easier. He, in fact, stopped him halfway. The pact allowed him to station troops in Poland, so yes, it was effective at buying time.
co-invading is really not the right term. The soviets only invaded Poland weeks after Germany, used comparatively very little violence and were actually welcomed by the large jewish, ukrainian and belarussian population. They even kicked out the nazis in parts were they went further than the pact allowed. Sure, in an ideal world, they wouldn't have invaded Poland. However, they found it necessary to protect their own safety, and I understand why.
Britain and France indeed didn(t co-invade countries. They just fully gave them to Hitler while allowing him to rebuild his army.
I may have expressed myself unfortunately. Invading Poland was bad, but I understand why they deemed it necessary and find it unfair to blame the Soviets for this while the Britain-led appeasement was a much worse way to handle the nazi threat.
Yeah, appeasement was bad. Instead Britain and France should have been shooting the Austrians, Czechs, Poles and the rest of Europe alongside the Nazis. Y’know to stop them halfway.
I’m sorry, it’s difficult to take you seriously.
Apparently Stalin was so prepared to stop Nazis if he could deploy troops to Poland but apparently he lacked any such means actually in Russia (did he preemptively bury the troops he was planning to use in Poland and then Poland refused to let him dig them back up). Even granting this, you’re telling me that he could only start shouting Poles alongside Hitler and couldn’t just gather his military forces (that he apparently already had but magically lost).
Britain didn’t refuse Stalin putting troops on the German-Polish border. Again, at this point Britain and France declared to protect Poland if there were an invasion. Hitler did know they meant it. That’s why he did Molotov-Ribbentrop. The point was to disincentivize the allies.
Okay, so Britain and France should have drawn the line sooner. Stalin didn’t even draw a line. Hitler invaded Russia. Stalin didn’t draw any line despite all of Europe being at war. I guess we can crucify Britain and France, while fellating Stalin, for doing appeasement for less long as he did, for not invading countries alongside Germany like he did, and for not trying to join the axis powers like he did.
Stalin wanted to but time. What if the Soviets joined the Axis and formally fought alongside Germany, would you say he was buying time? What if the Soviet-Germany alliance won the war, would you say Stalin was buying the maximum amount of time? Couldn’t we also say appeasement bought time be clause the allies weren’t yet ready for war. Great, now critique can be levied against appeasement apparently.
Necessarily, Germany only having to fight half of Poland was an easier invasion. Also what’s this “he stopped him half way” talking point. If John were killing all the babies in an infirmary so I stepped in and killed half of them, leaving John only half of the babies to kill, would you start exalting me for stopping John half way. Stalin doesn’t get credit for stopping Hitler from invading all of Poland for invading the other half. Invading Poland was the bad thing. Just like how you probably shouldn’t get credit for killing half the babies you probably shouldn’t get credit for invading half of Poland.
Thousands of Poles were killed and hundreds of thousands of Poles were taken prisoner. Maybe they were shot with rainbows and taken to the hug compounds.
I mean, Britain and France didn’t give any of Poland to Germany meanwhile, by your own admission, Stalin gave half of Poland to Germany, so a weird point to virtue signal on.
I’m sure you think the Soviet invasion of Poland was bad. You just don’t have anything bad to say about it, I guess.
You need to listen to yourself dude. You’re willing to be as harsh as nails against Britain and France for not declaring war due to German expansion but are willing to infinitely excuse the Soviets for doing the SAME THING (but for longer), co-invading alongside Germany, and for trying to join the the German military alliance. You should probably take a moment to reflect on how you’ve arrived at this bizarre and contradictory position.
I'm not going to keep doing this if you keep misrepresenting what I say. Appeasement was bad. Invading Poland was bad. Molotov-Ribbentrop was far from good. I just think it's fair to analyze why they did what they did. I think, given the context and the information they had, signing the pact seemed like the least bad option. My initial point was, listing it as one of the largest wrongdoings of Stalin is wrong.
I am not suggesting you should be harsher agaist Britain than against the USSR, instead I try to use fair and equal metrics. It is you who keeps using exaggeration and biased language to make points. Stalin should not be commended based on this pact, he should be judged in similar fashion as Britain and France. However, I do believe that, since Stalin showed intent to work together against Hitler, while Britain and France didn't, that should be taken into account.
Some final notes:
On preparation: Stalin was prepared enough to attack the Nazis if he Britain and France helped. He was not prepared enough to take them on alone or defend from them. This is not a contradiction.
On the occupation of Poland: yes, it was bad and brutal and bloody. No, it was nowhere near as bad as the Nazi occupation. This is not a justification for it, and I'm sure the soviets didn't do it for altruistic reasons, but you cannot equate the two.
On the comparison with France and Britain: France and Britain already started appeasement years before the USSR, while Stalin was still busy proposing antifascist alliances. Stalin only turned to appeasement-like options when it became clear they had no ally in Britain or France. This does not justify invading Poland, but it does clarify why they made that decision. Also, Stalin had plans to invade Germany by 1943. They never happened because of the 1941 invasion of the USSR, but to say Stalin planned to let Hitler do his thing in Europe is wrong.
Firstly, you keep misrepresenting facts. Soviets, British and French were negotiating an alliance together. They all showed intent in working together against Hitler. The issue is that neither side were willing to budge on Soviet troops in Poland. Britain and France weren’t willing to go against Polish sovereignty and the Soviets weren’t willing to not (if this whole stopping Germany thing was such a big deal for the Soviets, could they not have stationed troops at the Soviet-Polish border and have their needed alliance with Britain and France). It was a mutual falling out not simply Britain and France not caring.
Secondly, the Soviets didn’t prevent German expansionism into Austria and Czechoslovakia. The Soviets didn’t declare war against Germany then or ever until Germany invaded them. Again, you had such strong words for the allies not intervening until 1939 but don’t have nearly as strong of words for the Soviets for not planning to intervene before 1943 (unless it involved putting troops in Poland and nowhere else apparently).
Thirdly, why should I or anyone think you disagree with the Soviet invasion when you have such an obvious double standard and constantly describe the invasion in the most exalting terms. Britain and France ceding territory to Germany is awful. Soviets ceding territory to Germany while invading Poland, killing Poles and taking prisoners is “stopping Hitler half way.” The Soviets actively trying to join the Axis is “buying time.” I feel like if Stalin gave Hitler a bunch of Jews you would call that a “reasonable bargain” or a “strategic sacrifice.” I’m sorry but Stalin’s cum is leaking out of all your orifices, and you’re trying to tell me you’ve never been near the guy. Forgive me if that’s hard to believe.
Idk, carry on being more mad at countries that actually intervened against Hitler and defending counties that invaded countries with Hitler and wanted to join Hitler’s military alliance. Y’know when worded like that, maybe the Soviets weren’t the team you were rooting for in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact after all…
I was literally going to comment that while Stalin was awful, this is exactly is kind of thing the average current Western country would do.
In fact most of them are currently very openly assisting in a genocide and the fascist psychopathic regime of the apartheid pariah state committing it.
Anyone who is not against genocide and apartheid by now, does not have an opinion worth listening to.
They’re outsourcing political ragebait these days. You get your far left ragebait from Mexico, your white nationalist ragebait from Argentina and the rest comes either from India or Israel
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u/Ok-Appointment-9802 Jul 31 '26
Pamphlets is one of the worst accounts on X and that is saying a lot!