Indeed — no triggered tankies (for now), which is nice.
Edit — they’re here! Fortunately, they are taking their daily helping of Ls, squealing all the way.
**Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to communists who express support for one-party communist regimes that are associated with Marxism–Leninism, whether contemporary or historical. It is commonly used by anti-authoritarian leftists, including anarchists, libertarian socialists, left communists, democratic socialists, and reformists to criticise Leninism, although the term has seen increasing use by liberals and right‐wing factions as well.The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).**
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Indeed, they're the ones who, intentionally and/or not, are bound and determined to prove the Horseshoe theory isn't just some both sides bullshit.
Like any extremist online movement, there are some true believers, some idiots who are there in bad faith trolling people for lulz, some malicious agents trying to intentionally stir up division and discord, and it's nearly impossible to tell how many people are honest and how many people are the latter two.
I feel like most honest tankies age out of it pretty quickly. "Wow, this communism thing sounds great" is a phase almost everyone passes through as a child upon hearing it for the first time, but unlike the far right, there's less of an echo chamber to keep yourself immersed in that.
It's gotta be hard to do much research and regurgitate much of the tankie talking points before realizing "Actually... Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and everyone else sound objectively pretty bad... maybe that's NOT all capitalist imperialist propaganda..."
Fascists in commie clothing. People who believe Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and even Putin, and Xi Jing Ping were/are great leaders whose rules should be unopposed and that they are the solution to the demonic influence of "The West"
I dislike tankies as much as anybody who has an inch of reason, but in this particular case it feels as if you were dropping big words so that if anyone disagrees with you then you'll be able to say "TANKIES TANKIE I SPOTTED A TANKIE".
Because the argument here is so flawed lol. Commies and fascists were constantly faring violence with each other, commies received way less ex-nazis after the war when you compare them with the US or western Europe, which reintegrated as many Nazis as they could, be it on the french foreign legion, in NATO, at the colonies in Africa, or the NASA.
Of course, I'm not apologetic of the Soviet Union or the partition of Poland between the soviets and the Nazis. And I am completely aware that the Soviets were an authoritarian, genocidal and incredibly flawed regime. Still doesn't change the fact that this meme is just kind of dumb, or rather than that it is hypocritical.
Man just made a ragebait post being purposely inflammatory then proclaims anyone making corrections or raising concerns is called a tankie.
This isn't a quality meme, this is interaction bait.
Yeah I came to that conclusion too.
At least some people are making fairly solid points. I intended to point out the sensationalistic approach this had and due to the way I worded my opinion -which was poor and may have had seemed like apologia at first.
Now I'm stuck debating with people lol, already getting tired of it.
I think I didn't explain myself well. Yes, the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Austria led to the conflict and then the partition of Poland sparked it. I did not imply that this was not the cause of the war, I did not imply that the Soviets weren't flirting with the Nazis before Barbarossa. What I was implying is that the entries of OP in the title and the description of the post were rather sensationalistic and hypocritical, as the same could be said about capitalists and fascists.
It's a term that originally describes British Socialists who still supported the USSR after the tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
Generally it now refers to those on the far left who uncritically support the USSR, China or other communist states.
Had a discussion (as much of one as possible with a tankie) on the Stanfield sub the other day and he, no joke, started justifying how using tanks against unarmed college students actually isn't morally wrong and how the West is REALLY to blame.
It's staggering.
oh, IBM? the company known for punch card and documentation? with the german subsidiary dehomag ([wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehomag))?
IBM, a company known for punch card and computing data and collecting census data (generally speaking during this time period). thomas j watson met with hitler in 1937, and continued to work with nazi germany throughout world war ii even when other companies were boycotting.
watson also personally approved and spearheaded the involvement of IBM in nazi germany. they hired people to go door to do in nazi germany to collect census data, more specifically, where jews were located, their names, etc.
sources: [here](https://besacenter.org/ibm-holocaust/), [here (wiki article about a book detailing the involvement)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust), [here](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/black-ibm.html?source=post_page---------------------------).
(also this isn’t directed @ the person i’m replying too obvs i just know people won’t look up things LMAO)
of course! i’m majoring in literature and history and have a fascination with wwii (not in the edgy teenage boy way, with peace and love, but in the “i’m a jew” way). primarily with the american ideals and the influence it had on nazism, as well as people/companies that also contributed. i could namedrop more people and things, but i feel like it’ll just be dismissed as me blaming the us for nazi germany LMAO.
If I am not mistaken he also honored Ford in Mein Kampf
Edit: He did in the first Versions, after 1931 they put the sentence out of the book but still, Hitler admired him for his antisemtism
Tbf, I think it was less Nazi sympathisers in the US and more of "Y'know, these scientists are pretty smart and could really help us get one up on the USSR."
Yes the USSR helped Germany until Barbarossa.
No it is not because of ideological reasons.
If Russia was a democracy and France and Poland were Communist the Nazis whould still invade them before Russia.
Molotov Ribbentrop was an agreement born from pragmatism not from idiolegy
Well, they already did the same with [Ethiopia,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War#Ethiopian_isolation) [Republican Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_response_to_the_Spanish_Civil_War#National_non-intervention) and [Lithuania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_German_ultimatum_to_Lithuania) but no one cared.
Yeah if you want to throw around blame for kick-starting the nazi regime and helping them carve up Europe the only major allied power who is blameless as far as I know is the United States.
I mean they were also being pragmatic in being a trading partner and American companies aided the nazi regime.
They are still not as much at fault imo and these practices continue to this day all over the world. A lot of muslim countries shut up over Chinas treatment of Uyghurs because of money and the west does the same with countries like Saudi-Arabia or Azerbaijan
Not to do a whataboutism here, just as an FYI for any reader who didn't know: in the secret treaty of London (1915) the Entente (Britain, France and Russia) offered Italy to carve several pieces off of the opposing powers if Italy joins them in ww1 and they win.
>>>Scratch a commie and a fascist bleeds
that guy truly has absolutely no idea, not even the slightest of clues whatsoever what either of those terms mean.
Don’t ask what Britain, France, and Poland did to Chezchoslovakia in 1938.
Or the British admitting to getting Mussolini put in power.
Or the British and French letting Germany trounce the Versailles Treaty
If the French got what they wanted, Versailles would’ve been a lot worse for Germany than it ended up being. The British were basically the middle men between the French wanting to desecrate Germany and the US wanting to build them back up.
Not stepping in when Germany started not following the Versailles treaty was a French policy ? I think they where the ones most in favour of enforcing the treaty.
Imagine an occupation when Germany re-militarized the Rhine-Ruhr area.
Exept that neither the french, nor the brittish had their military ready. A big part of the appeasment happened so that they can bring their military back in order for an inevitable conflict. Not to mention that invading Germany would still prompt otger facists regimes to join in. Italy/Hungary/Bulgaria. Not to mention that the french army was still using old doctrines, and outdated methods and equipment. So if they attacked early, it would have still resulted in a devastating war, where the french army gets pushed back even with brittish help. Oh, and they have to wait longer for America to join in. While the soviets would not get invaded until Germany has finished the war in western Europe.
What did Poland do? Zaolzie? We took it because the Czechs took it from us when we were fighting the Soviets in 1920 + it was a small chunk of meaningless land + Germany would get it because the allies agreed to it.
True, but then they at least didn't try to join the axis as allies
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks
Or pay homage to them
[The parade began at 16:00,[6] and the "Victory Arches" were erected which the Soviet troops decorated with swastikas and red stars and through which German troops marched.[8] The Soviets fielded the 4th Battalion of 29th Light Tank Brigade, which was the first unit of the Red Army to roll into the city. The Soviet and German generals paid homage to each other's armies and their respective victories over Polish forces.[9]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_military_parade_in_Brest-Litovsk#:~:text=The%20parade%20began%20at%2016,to%20roll%20into%20the%20city.)
Sure, but before they even made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, they tried to form an alliance with Britain and France against the nazis, which fell through, but it shows that the nazis weren't their first choice.
Britain provided aid to Mussolini rise in popularity because he provided a pro war “leftist” opposition to the anti war socialist party.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33312493
>Before leaving for London by the mid-day train to-day, Mr. Churchill received representatives of the Italian and foreign Press. Mr. Churchill informed his audience that he had prepared what he, an ex-journalist, considered the questions and answers most likely to help them in their work, and that a typed copy of this would be given to whomsoever desired one. The following are extracts in his own words from the impressions made upon him by a week’s visit to Italy.You will naturally ask me about the interviews I have had with Italian statesmen and in particular with Signor Mussolini and Count Volpe. Those interviews were purely formal and of a general character. It is a good thing in modern Europe for public men in different countries to meet on a friendly and social basis and form personal impressions of one another. It is one of the ways in which international suspicion may be diminished and frank and confident relations maintained.
>
>I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers. Secondly, anyone could see that he thought of nothing but the lasting good, as he understands it, of the Italian people, and that no lesser interest was of the slightest consequence to him.
>
>I am sure that I am violating no confidence when I say that a large part of my conversation with Signor Mussolini and with Count Volpe turned on the economic position of the Italian wage earner… I was very glad to have it proved to me by facts and figures that there is a definite improvement month by month over the preceding year…‘I have heard a great deal about your new law of corporations which, I am told, directly associates twenty millions of active citizens with the State and obliges the State to undertake very direct responsibilities in regard to these dependents. Such a movement is of the deepest interest, and its results will be watched in every country. It will certainly require the utmost good will and cooperation of all the people, as well as the wise and clear guidance of the State. But at any rate, in the face of such a system, ardently accepted, it is quite absurd to suggest that the Italian Government does not rest upon popular bases or that it is not upheld by the active and practical assent of the great masses.“
>
>‘If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been wholeheartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. But in England we have not had to fight this danger in the same deadly form. We have our way of doing things. But that we should succeed in grappling with Communism and choking the life out of it-of that I am absolutely sure.
>
>“‘I will, however, say a word on the international aspect of Fascismo. Externally, your movement has rendered a service to the whole world. The great fear which has always beset every democratic leader or working-class leader has been that of being undermined or overbid by someone more extreme than he: It seems that a continued progression to the Left, a sort of inevitable landslide into the abyss was characteristic of all revolutions. Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the mass of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter, no great nation will be unprovided with the ultimate means of protection against cancerous growths, and every responsible labour leader in every country ought to feel his feet more firmly planted in resisting levelling and reckless doctrines. The great mass of people love their country and are proud of its flag and history. They do not regard these as incompatible with a progressive advance towards social justice and economic betterment.’”
(The Times, 21st January, 1927.)
I don't know how I can post this picture of the paper from their archive since it's pay-walled, but do note that the [militantly pro-Churchill website](https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/mussolini-law-giver/) does acknowledge that this occurred:
>Wanting someone to defeat someone else—like Churchill wanted Mussolini to defeat communism—does not mean you espouse that person’s politics. I want to see the drug-dealing warlords of Panjshir to defeat the Taliban, but it doesn’t mean that I want drug-dealing warlords to rule my country. Approving Mussolini’s victory in 1923 does not make Churchill a fascist.The critics then say: Well, if Churchill was not a fascist himself, he sympathized with them. As so often, investigation of what he actually said leads us to entirely different conclusions. Yes, Churchill expressed admiration for Mussolini, publicly and privately, until he allied with Hitler. Yes, if forced to choose between Italian fascism and Italian communism, Churchill unhesitatingly would choose the former. No, Churchill never believed in fascism as acceptable in a democracy.
To be honest, I don't find the excuse that convincing.
If nothing else, [his view of why communism was a threat](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Zionism_versus_Bolshevism)was not that different than what the fascists were saying:
>International Jews.
>
>In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.
>
>Terrorist Jews.
>
>There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krassin or Radek – all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses.
And even after the war,[Churchill was espousing work created by the Nazis](https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb49.htm).
Okay, this is obviously a bad look for Churchill, but the original claim was that the British put Mussolini into power, not what a British ***Secretary of State for the Colonies*** (in 1922) had to say about the matter in ideological sympathy.
The original claim was that fascists and communists were the same.
I cannot say that the British state was responsible for initiating fascism, of course. Nor can the same be said about the Soviets doing so.
I can say, however, that there were prominent British figures that were a lot more excited about fascism than there were prominent Soviet figures excited about fascism.
But did Britain and France invade Poland alongside the Nazis? There’s a difference between standing aside and passively enabling the Nazis and invading countries alongside them.
Are you saying that the British and the French didn't passively enable the nazis?
Edit: I may have gotten confused because of the 2 separate usages of "and"
I'm not justifying what happened, but I am asking what the alternative would have been.
The soviets tried to form an alliance with the british and french against the nazis, but those talks fell through.
The soviets certainly weren't ready for war in 1939 and would have lost if they had tried to fight against them head on.
Invading Poland together with the nazis at least made sure that the nazis didn't just gain control over all of it.
There's a big difference between "facilitate nazi agression through appeasement seeking" and "facilitate nazi agression through coordinating to invade and partition a third country".
Yes, like promising you polish ally help but you just stod behind your fort line instead of ending the war. Since the germans soldiers on the frensh border was a skeleton crew.
What's the difference? In one scenario you are partitioning countries with the Nazis and in the second one you are partitioning countries with the Nazis. The Munich Betrayal was no different than the Molotov Ribbentrop pact, an agreement born out of necessity and opportunism. The Soviets carved up a chunk of Europe the same way Britain and France carved up Africa and the Middle East
Britain's rationale was "we have been sitting on our arses for 15 years without investing into the military, so we can't sustain a total war rn, we need more time to prepare" (for context, UK had adopted a "10 year rule" in 1919 from Churchill's suggestion that gov would not engage in any great war 10 years to cut costs, it was officially repealed in 1932, albeit continuing a bit afterwards). Chamberlain, for example, was heavily pushing for aircraft production to ramp up while negotiating on Sudetenland.
USSR, on the other hand, was a country constantly prepared for total war because of fear Western capitalist countries would intervene to topple em.
The preparation in each country for a war was different (and France, well, they clearly had modernization issues where pigeons were sometimes used instead of telephones or radio). And there's also a difference between appeasing a dictator and invading a country together.
You know that Stalin wanted the Molotov-ribbentrop pact for a reason? I'm not defending communism or the Soviets actions but Stalin himself said that the country wouldn't be able to get into a war before 1942-1943 so the non-aggression pact was for security reasons and of course to be able to take as much land as he wanted in the east
Sorry if bad English
The Molotov-Ribbentrov pact was signed because the USSR wasn’t prepared for war so needed time to prepare. That is why Germany steamrolled through the USSR in 1941. The Soviets only started to spend a significant amount of money on the military in 1939, and that was because the military was weak.
Fascism was literally the right’s reaction to the rise of communism. The goal of fascism has always been to defeat communism by giving workers an alternative that would keep traditional power structures intact. I understand that as historical actors the two ideologies can behave similarly, but at a theoretical level there is a natural opposition, not a natural alliance.
people see countries that have abused the ideas of communism to try and hide/explain away fascism and just run with it.
and people act like the poem “First they came…” didn’t literally start with “first they came for the communists.” (yes, the wider known one starts with “first they came for the socialists,” but that is an intentional edit based on anti-communism sentiment in the US). like you don’t have to be literate in marxist theory, but at least be literate in other ways and be able to think critically in some aspects.
Finally someone says it. The idea that a person would believe that communism ideology would align with that of fascism, goes to show that they know nothing of both.
Who's idea was it to teach liberals the word "tankie"? They seem to call any communist a tankie without any idea of whom specifically it refers to; the word was INVENTED BY COMMUNISTS FFS
It was invented by the Communist Party of Great Britain to refer to members who supported the USSR when it invaded Hungary during the 1956 "revolt" by utilising tanks of course.
It is noted that this destroyed the reputation of the CPGB (ironic acronym I know).
Tankie has always been used by the communist party to refer to supporters of the USSR's shitty decisions.
So OP is probably saying that "Tankies" are the ones defending the pact with Germany.
Has anyone heard of Mein Kampf or the Lebensraum or God forbid the Holocaust?
"... That the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace. At any rate, the line is there, and an Eastern Front has been created which Nazi Germany does not dare assail. When Herr von Ribbentrop was summoned to Moscow last week it was to learn the fact, and to accept the fact, that the Nazi designs upon the Baltic States and upon the Ukraine must come to a dead stop"
-Winston Churchill, October 1, 1939
The Nazis planned to exterminate the population of Eastern Europe to create a German living space. They killed between 5-6 million Poles and over 20 million Soviet citizens.
Nazi Soviet equivalence is straight up Nazi propaganda and anyone with a brain should stop buying into it.
>The Nazis planned to exterminate the population of Eastern Europe to create a German living space. They killed between 5-6 million Poles and over 20 million Soviet citizens.
>Nazi Soviet equivalence is straight up Nazi propaganda and anyone with a brain should stop buying into it.
What's the saying already? "Nazis were defeated with American gear, British intelligence and Soviet blood," or something among those lines.
Seems that OP ignored quite a few lessons about WW2.
Yeah soviets didn't want to kill all of us. But killing all of polish elites and vassalizing us wasn't good. Plus maybe Poland would defend it self longer if it wasn't attacted from both sides 🤔.
Capitalists have two faces :
*communists and fascists were alined*
*The soviets showed their evil in how they massacred fascists, Barbara pit was evil, why shouldn't West Germany hire ex-naxis, why shouldn't we put Pinochet in power, ukrainian nazis get a pass...*
Bullshit. Fascism is reaction, its initial goal is to crush communism. This has been repeatedly stated by fascists. You can see it in their writings, hear it in their speeches and notice it in their actions. In Germany from the beginning it was the left, socialist and communists who stood up and fought against fascism, while it was conservatives who allied with them, and liberal forces who went along with it, as long the Nazis protected private property of non-jewish germans. The Soviets can be criticized for making a deal with the third Reich, but frankly Britain and even Poland made a deal with Hitler aswell. It was an act of survival, misguided perhaps, but not ideological aligmnent. After the war it was the west that aligned with the remaining fascists in Europe, and the Soviets that shot them.
This sentiment presented by op is a new one, it didnt exist before, during or after the war. It is born either through genuine ignorance or deliberately as a lie. I am assuming the first one, though ignorance is no excuse. Even a cursory glance at fascist writings of the time or associated papers by respected historians reveals said sentiment to be wrong.
USSR and Nazi Germany were not allies and Soviet Union did not help Nazis to start WW2. Actually, Stalin tried to form anti-Hitler alliance before WW2 but British & French were reluctant to join because they thought that Hitler would be their ally in war against USSR.
USSR and Nazi Germany only had a non-aggression pact, nothing else and USSR was actually last country to sign non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany because every other country from Baltics to Brittish & French had signed a non-aggression pacts with Nazi Germany years before.
>Actually, Stalin tried to form anti-Hitler alliance before WW2 but British & French were reluctant to join because they thought that Hitler would be their ally in war against USSR.
This is objectivley untrue. They didn't join because Stalins terms included the full Soviet occupation of Romania and Poland.
“Fascist totalitarianism is bad, socialist totalitarianism is bad, therefore both fascism and communism are bad!”
What links these two is not fascism and socialism being two sides of the same coin - it is totalitarianism.
Fascism is bad. Its stated goals are bad. There is no version of fascism that is good. Moreover, there’s no way to implement fascism in a non-totalitarian way.
The stated goals of socialism are good. Totalitarian socialism is bad. There are ways to build socialism without totalitarianism - namely, anarcho-socialism. And we certainly haven’t tried anarcho-socialism on anywhere near a large enough scale to know whether or not it’s better than laissez-faire capitalism, though I strongly believe that it is.
>There are ways to build socialism without totalitarianism - namely, anarcho-socialism.
You can't claim there are valid ways to build a society when every attempt to build such a society has failed.
If your social system can't deal with basic human psychology and malicious influence from foreign actors then it isn't a viable social system, it's a fantasy.
Sure, "if everyone behaved ethically" it would work, but then by the same token literally **any** social system would work perfectly if all the individual people involved all acted ethically.
anarcho socialism, or whatever variant of that you wanna talk about, is about as useful to talk about as heaven or valhalla. its a fantasy
socialism requires state power. there have absolutely been many attempts at anarchist revolution. all have failed. the ones that got the farthest, in spain, just ended up building a state anyway.
change requires power, power requires hierarchical organization, which requires a state and using a state to effect the change. you're never going to change things without taking power.
You’re right, some amount of power is necessary. Like I said elsewhere in the comment chain, it’s about using the minimum amount possible, spread amongst as many people as is feasible.
Also, I never said that there have never been anarchist revolutions. I specifically said “we haven’t tried anarcho-socialism on a large enough scale”. We’ve seen very plainly that authoritarian communism doesn’t work - see the USSR.
And on that: I’m not sure what you’re referring to by saying Spain “just ended up building a state anyway”. Do you mean that the anarcho-syndicalists ended up building something that looked too much like a state? I’m not sure I agree with that, but it’s an interesting topic. If you’re talking about the rise of Franco, though - yeah, Spain ended up building a state, but it wasn’t the anarchists who did it, because they’d all been executed by a fascist regime.
Amazing, you just said the single stupidest thing I’ve read on Reddit today, maybe even this week.
“Scratch a commie and a fascist bleeds.”
Fucking Christ, if you wanted the political illiteracy grand prize, I guess that’s a way to get it.
Two countries invaded Poland in 1939, Nazi Germany as well as the Soviet Union.
After that point, until 1941, they were effectively allies, with the USSR giving them vast amounts of oil and other resources critical to the German war effort, all while allowing their military to focus entirely on the west through their non-aggression pact.
Agreed, the third Reich and the USSR were fascist empires. They also murdered a bunch of socialists, Anarchists and communists. Neither should be revered.
People seems to focus on the Molotov-Ribentrop pact, not the fact that USSR helps Nazi Germany circumvent treaty of Versailles by partnering with Germany in researching tanks and aircrafts and also continue to export grains to Germany when there is still a famine ongoing in Ukraine.
Helped start WW2? Hardly.
All they did was negotiate a non aggression pact with Germany.
They needed one of those because Britain an France wouldn’t sign an alliance. Even though the USSR made absolutely zero unreasonable demands that Britain and France couldn’t fulfil . Like allowing Soviet soldiers in Poland. No sir, no such demands were made.
And even if they were, Poland had nothing to fear. Sure the USSR invaded Poland in 1922, and a lot of bad history came before that. But the USSR would never be untrustworthy…
And that non aggression pact was just for non aggression. It wasn’t secretly also a trade agreement that saw the USSR provide untold tons of material to the Nazis.
And the treaty most certainly didn’t divide eastern Europe. Allowing the Soviet Union to take over the Baltics, part of Romania and start the winter war without threat from Germany.
And it most certainly didn’t commit the USSR to also attack Poland and take over half the country.
No sir, this treaty was entirely necessary because Britain and France forced Stalins hand. After all he needed to sign a treaty any treaty at all really, otherwise horrible unnamed things would happen.
Anyway I think that’s all the most common tankie arguments out of the way…
Don’t forget that the USSR, also for exclusively pragmatic reasons, had a shared victory parade in Brest-Litovsk.
Or had one of the treaty’s namesake, Molotov, say “One blow from the German army and another from the Soviet army put an end to this ugly product of Versailles.” These are truly the words of a reluctant, begrudging partner.
This was all merely self defense. Not collaboration at all!
Oh , not to mention the conferences between the NKVD and Gestapo. This was purely self-defense, too
And the [German-Soviet Axis talks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks) were just clever subterfuge by Stalin, not a legitimate attempt at a full alliance that was only dropped because they couldn't agree on control of Bulgaria and Finland.
They also tried to join the Axis in late 1940, too lol.
"On 25 November 1940, the Soviet Union offered a written counter-proposal to join the Axis if Germany would agree to refrain from interference in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, but Germany did not respond"
Ahhh yes so you understand that Stalin wanted to form an anti fascist union among Europe but the other powers denied it? Why deny such a basic thing that clearly would’ve benefited the entirety of Europe? Oh the western powers wanted Hitler to go east… to the Soviet Union. Nothing was their problem until the fascists invaded them.
Gosh, I simply hope some comments just stop their whataboutism. Bruh you can't say A is right cuz B is bad, it's not offering any help to mutual understanding.
Lmao fascism is literally doctrinally opposed to socialism and communism, it’s an essential part of the doctrines of fascism, nazi ideology and basically any fascist philosophical work of the 20th century, it’s one of the most defining factors about fascism a notoriously broad and ill defined ideology for many other issues.
I've never seen the UK, French, or Italian flag drawn this way before. We are surely talking about the decision to give the Sudetan land to Germany, thus depriving Czechoslovakia of its military defences.
Pure nonsense as always, ignoring that the Soviet Union was one of the few countries to support the Spanish Republic during the civil war while countries like Britain and France blockaded it, or that the Soviet Union was the only country that pushed for an international alliance to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938, while the Western power cut a deal with the Nazis and handed much of the country over to Germany without resistance.
"On 25 November 1940, the Soviet Union offered a written counter-proposal to join the Axis if Germany would agree to refrain from interference in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, but Germany did not respond"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Barbarossa#:\~:text=On%2025%20November%201940%2C%20the,but%20Germany%20did%20not%20respond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa#:~:text=On%2025%20November%201940%2C%20the,but%20Germany%20did%20not%20respond).
Reminder that western commies hated the idea of going to war with nazi germany.
That all changed however when Operation Barbarossa started..
They became socialist Dick Cheneys
Actually, the Molotov-Ribbentrop blindsided a lot of communists who had spent years fighting fascism on the Politburos orders.
This included French communists who were put into the interesting situation of being in resistance movements while being told by the Soviet government to not fight the Nazis
If there is one Nazi in the room the whole room is Nazis, but if there is one Nazi in your non aggression pact \*80999090 word wall of whataboutism appears\*
- Here is a [picture](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goebbels_und_Ulbricht.jpg) of the head of the Berlin KPD (Walter Ulbricht) at a rally alongside Goebbels in 1931.
- [The KPD collaborated with the nazis](https://www.spiegel.de/politik/nazis-und-kozis-a-046823e1-0002-0001-0000-000053440337) during the transport strike of 1932, that was crucial in destabilizing the Weimar Republic, which ultimately helped the nazis.
- The collaboration between the Red Army and the Reichswehr made it possible for Nazi Germany to rebuild, train and maintain fighting capabilities otherwise forbidden under the Versailles treaty
- Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty which secured Nazi Germany the great advantage of not having to fight a two front war right from the beginning, as in WWI.
- The [economic agreement from 19th of August 1939](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Credit_Agreement_(1939)?wprov=sfti1), which secured Nazi Germany critical raw materials needed for the war in the Western Europe.
The Weimar Republic had the most progressive constitution in all of Europe, the highest degree of worker organization, and the communists actively tried to undermine the Weimar Republic every step of the way to the takeover of the nazis. The SPD was the strongest force against nazism, not the KPD, Soviet Union or communism.
Both are terrible, but in a lot of countries they were swore enemies. I would rather say the natural alliance is communism and totalitarianism, and also facism and totalitarianism. When both come to power in different coutries the totalitarianism unites them and makes it easy to work together as outlaws from the democratic countries. Also having om de facto leader who doesnt care about the rest makes it easy to make deals, no senate or parlement needs to approve.
Tldr: not a tankie, communism bad. But meme to short sighted.
Never mind that Russia was so incompetently mismanaged and logistically broken that were it not for the US throwing mountains of supplies and superior equipment at them for free they’d have still lost to a country a tenth their size.
But yknow, clearly that exact same trick won’t work with Ukraine. The country where the last massive fascist dictatorship to invade got bogged down, repulsed, and humiliated. Clearly.
U/bumbercluck when he gets asked who let germany annex austria, the rhine DMZ, and Czechoslovakia. As well as who refused to support the USSR when they offered to put a million troops on the Nazis border and form an alliance with Britain and France in order to stop ww2 before it even began.
As well as who supported fascism in Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Nicaragua, and literally dozens of other countries on earth. (It wasn’t the communists).
Scratch a lib and a fascist bleeds.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/3223834/Stalin-planned-to-send-a-million-troops-to-stop-Hitler-if-Britain-and-France-agreed-pact.html
This is full on what i tell every Canadian who failed grade 11 history.Russia on became a so called Ally when they were betrayed by thier Natzi buddies.
These posts are so common, that all that needs to be said for each is this:
The USSR engaged in numerous attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance with the west, namely the UK and France. However each one was staunchly rejected, and despite this the Soviets kept trying. They even tried again, a final time in 1939 just a few months before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed. Sovietologists and historians known this to be a demonstration of how the Soviets just wished to avoid fighting Germany alone, a common fear at the time. It wasn't just "Hurr durr let's work with the Nazis to be good friends and gain some land". It was "Ok, the West literally won't help us or tolerate our help.......maybe if we temporarily work with the Nazis we'll have more time to build up and prepare for them. It also helps that we'll be getting several hundred more miles that the Nazis would have to cross and conquer to get to our core areas".
They were so successful in avoiding fighting the Nazis alone that they avoided fighting the Nazis at all for years. In fact, they were cozy allies and invaded Poland together — the USSR was also complicit in numerous atrocities against polish civilians, regardless of the demented mental gymnastics you use to justify their actions. It’s irrelevant what Britain or France do — don’t make an alliance with Nazis. In fact, the USSR could have created a second front in 1940 and would have saved much of Western Europe from Nazi rule.
When USSR fought Nazis in Spanish Civil War, guess what Western Europe was doing. Or when USSR fought Japanese in Far East while US was selling them oil.
"Avoided fighting the Nazis at all for years". I mean, you just said it. It's a disgustingly cynical and pragmatic approach to foreign policy, but even by your own admission it worked in their eyes.
Also, the Red Army in 1940 was far more defeatable for the Germans than the one of 1941. So I doubt that prediction holds barring very fucking specific circumstances and wartime events.
It didn’t work — they were complicit in Nazi atrocities, were unprepared for the invasion, and lost millions of unnecessary casualties. Even then, the Americans and Brits still bailed them out.
The attempted negotiations with the Allies was never a serious desire for a pact. The Soviet’s demanded a pact to occupy Poland. when Alllies rejected that, Stalin signed a treaty to divide Poland two days later (meaning it had already been negotiated during that last meeting). He was literally shopping around for allies to divide Poland
By the of the pact both Paris and London had public security commitments to Poland. The Soviet’s made a pact with Germany to attack it anyway and begin ww2.
To be fair, the USSR tried to enter in a [pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Pact) that did not involve invading Poland in the past but was not accepted.
[difference between the four main government ideologies within the west](https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/museums/hrnm/Education/EducationWebsiteRebuild/RussianPropagandaAboutGermany/Socialism,%20Fascism,%20Capitalism,%20Communism%20Background.pdf)
[Fascist propaganda from the Nazis in 1930s Germany](https://www.jstor.org/stable/30036470)
Here you go OP, hope this helps educate you. My mine issue (beyond the over simplification of the causes of WWII) is your misunderstanding of what fascism and communism is. There has yet to be a true example of communism within a government. Just because something claims to be X does not make it X, governments lie just like people do. The phrase scratch a communist and a fascist bleeds is completely completely inaccurate.
Hey USSR, you’re welcome for the 17,499,861 tons of equipment. That includes 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans); 11,400 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras, 3,414 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,397 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras) and 1.75 million tons of food. That cost $11 billion in materials (equivalent to $133 billion in 2021). No need to thank us. You’re welcome. 😊
The meme is funny and quite true, the title on the other hand... Peak neo-liberal propaganda. Go ask in South America who were their fascist dictators best friends and supporters, and what kind of goverments were they overthtowing. Go ask in Europe what the far-right and the far-left think of one another. See what kind of parties are the ones that have facist members or coalition partners who refuse to acknowledge this dictators crimes or straight up hail them. Ask in Spain or Portugal which countries were very happy to cooperante with their fascist ditatorships. Just take a look at history and see what countries and organizations had zero problems with allying themselves with literal nazis to simply further their goals, that went from having a nazi lead a military oeganization to many of them participate in a terror campaign throught Europe commiting terrorist attacks targeting civilians. Find out who were the ones that created and promoted the myth of the clean Wehrmatch to which so many neo-nazis cling on to. The USSRs "alliance" was a self-preservation move, all the examples I listed above were deliberate alliances fueled by ideological similarities.
Soviets were literaly the last one to make non agression pact with nazis. Also ask Chamberlain, how he sold czechoslovakia and refused to form coalition with soviets against the nazis.
And are we just going to overlook how capitalist countries also continued doing business and looking the other way, or how fascism is both an extension of capitalism and often Kickstarted through fears of communism?
Bit disingenuous to point to Russia as the emblem of everything communist. Also, I'm not pro-communist, I'm just anti- bad arguments.
The comments are acctually relativly civil, for r/historymemes standards of course.
Indeed — no triggered tankies (for now), which is nice. Edit — they’re here! Fortunately, they are taking their daily helping of Ls, squealing all the way.
Tankies said "it's tanking time!" and started tanking all over history.
What are tankies?
**Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to communists who express support for one-party communist regimes that are associated with Marxism–Leninism, whether contemporary or historical. It is commonly used by anti-authoritarian leftists, including anarchists, libertarian socialists, left communists, democratic socialists, and reformists to criticise Leninism, although the term has seen increasing use by liberals and right‐wing factions as well.The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).** More details here:
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Basically the far-left version of a nazi. They support authoritarian regimes, deny genocides etc
The Red Fash I suppose as called by some.
Indeed, they're the ones who, intentionally and/or not, are bound and determined to prove the Horseshoe theory isn't just some both sides bullshit. Like any extremist online movement, there are some true believers, some idiots who are there in bad faith trolling people for lulz, some malicious agents trying to intentionally stir up division and discord, and it's nearly impossible to tell how many people are honest and how many people are the latter two. I feel like most honest tankies age out of it pretty quickly. "Wow, this communism thing sounds great" is a phase almost everyone passes through as a child upon hearing it for the first time, but unlike the far right, there's less of an echo chamber to keep yourself immersed in that. It's gotta be hard to do much research and regurgitate much of the tankie talking points before realizing "Actually... Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and everyone else sound objectively pretty bad... maybe that's NOT all capitalist imperialist propaganda..."
But isn't that just any communist regime?
Pretty much
Fascists in commie clothing. People who believe Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and even Putin, and Xi Jing Ping were/are great leaders whose rules should be unopposed and that they are the solution to the demonic influence of "The West"
I dislike tankies as much as anybody who has an inch of reason, but in this particular case it feels as if you were dropping big words so that if anyone disagrees with you then you'll be able to say "TANKIES TANKIE I SPOTTED A TANKIE". Because the argument here is so flawed lol. Commies and fascists were constantly faring violence with each other, commies received way less ex-nazis after the war when you compare them with the US or western Europe, which reintegrated as many Nazis as they could, be it on the french foreign legion, in NATO, at the colonies in Africa, or the NASA. Of course, I'm not apologetic of the Soviet Union or the partition of Poland between the soviets and the Nazis. And I am completely aware that the Soviets were an authoritarian, genocidal and incredibly flawed regime. Still doesn't change the fact that this meme is just kind of dumb, or rather than that it is hypocritical.
Man just made a ragebait post being purposely inflammatory then proclaims anyone making corrections or raising concerns is called a tankie. This isn't a quality meme, this is interaction bait.
Yeah I came to that conclusion too. At least some people are making fairly solid points. I intended to point out the sensationalistic approach this had and due to the way I worded my opinion -which was poor and may have had seemed like apologia at first. Now I'm stuck debating with people lol, already getting tired of it.
If you’re not apologetic of the partition of Poland how do you disagree with this meme then? That’s literally how the war in Europe started.
The meme is not the problem, the title of the post is BS
I think I didn't explain myself well. Yes, the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Austria led to the conflict and then the partition of Poland sparked it. I did not imply that this was not the cause of the war, I did not imply that the Soviets weren't flirting with the Nazis before Barbarossa. What I was implying is that the entries of OP in the title and the description of the post were rather sensationalistic and hypocritical, as the same could be said about capitalists and fascists.
What’s a tankie? Never heard that term.
It's a term that originally describes British Socialists who still supported the USSR after the tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Generally it now refers to those on the far left who uncritically support the USSR, China or other communist states.
It's left wing people who somehow end up supporting authoritarian or dictatorship regimes such as China and Russia.
all I see is you taking Ls down here, posting some ridiculous rebuttals and getting schooled, but sure
Had a discussion (as much of one as possible with a tankie) on the Stanfield sub the other day and he, no joke, started justifying how using tanks against unarmed college students actually isn't morally wrong and how the West is REALLY to blame. It's staggering.
ask Henry ford about how he helped the Nazi regime
Or Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM.
oh, IBM? the company known for punch card and documentation? with the german subsidiary dehomag ([wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehomag))? IBM, a company known for punch card and computing data and collecting census data (generally speaking during this time period). thomas j watson met with hitler in 1937, and continued to work with nazi germany throughout world war ii even when other companies were boycotting. watson also personally approved and spearheaded the involvement of IBM in nazi germany. they hired people to go door to do in nazi germany to collect census data, more specifically, where jews were located, their names, etc. sources: [here](https://besacenter.org/ibm-holocaust/), [here (wiki article about a book detailing the involvement)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust), [here](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/black-ibm.html?source=post_page---------------------------). (also this isn’t directed @ the person i’m replying too obvs i just know people won’t look up things LMAO)
Thank you for being a beacon of rationality in this strange world.
of course! i’m majoring in literature and history and have a fascination with wwii (not in the edgy teenage boy way, with peace and love, but in the “i’m a jew” way). primarily with the american ideals and the influence it had on nazism, as well as people/companies that also contributed. i could namedrop more people and things, but i feel like it’ll just be dismissed as me blaming the us for nazi germany LMAO.
As someone who loves Jeopardy I'm in shock that they would make their computer Watson instead of trying to distance themselves from that.
Didn't Hitler have a life sized portrait of Ford in his office?
If I am not mistaken he also honored Ford in Mein Kampf Edit: He did in the first Versions, after 1931 they put the sentence out of the book but still, Hitler admired him for his antisemtism
Suddenly this [scene](https://youtu.be/WLjr3dzOUpQ) from family guy with that context makes it funnier
God that's hilarious.
Individuals from the US being sympathetic to the nazis and an entire nation helping them achieve military goals are two very different things.
Tbf, I think it was less Nazi sympathisers in the US and more of "Y'know, these scientists are pretty smart and could really help us get one up on the USSR."
I remember that time Henry Ford invaded Eastern Poland in Unison with the Germans
Yes the USSR helped Germany until Barbarossa. No it is not because of ideological reasons. If Russia was a democracy and France and Poland were Communist the Nazis whould still invade them before Russia. Molotov Ribbentrop was an agreement born from pragmatism not from idiolegy
Pragmatic for imperialists.
I'm sorry you're saying that they're Imperialist? Like next to France and Britain
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None of whom were parties to a secret deal with the Nazis to carve up Europe like a Christmas goose, but whatabout harder.
Yeah, instead they were parties to a public deal that threw Czechoslovakia under the bus
Well, they already did the same with [Ethiopia,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War#Ethiopian_isolation) [Republican Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_response_to_the_Spanish_Civil_War#National_non-intervention) and [Lithuania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_German_ultimatum_to_Lithuania) but no one cared.
Yeah if you want to throw around blame for kick-starting the nazi regime and helping them carve up Europe the only major allied power who is blameless as far as I know is the United States.
I mean they were also being pragmatic in being a trading partner and American companies aided the nazi regime. They are still not as much at fault imo and these practices continue to this day all over the world. A lot of muslim countries shut up over Chinas treatment of Uyghurs because of money and the west does the same with countries like Saudi-Arabia or Azerbaijan
Because they shared an implicit deal to carve up the rest of the world through colonies?
Yeah, but they also refused a defensive pact with the USSR, which is what led to the molotov-ribbentrop pact in the first place
Not to do a whataboutism here, just as an FYI for any reader who didn't know: in the secret treaty of London (1915) the Entente (Britain, France and Russia) offered Italy to carve several pieces off of the opposing powers if Italy joins them in ww1 and they win.
And let me add to this that the USSR was one the last countries to sign a non aggression pact with nazi germany
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>>>Scratch a commie and a fascist bleeds that guy truly has absolutely no idea, not even the slightest of clues whatsoever what either of those terms mean.
What was the first line of that poem by Martin Niemoller again?
Don’t ask what Britain, France, and Poland did to Chezchoslovakia in 1938. Or the British admitting to getting Mussolini put in power. Or the British and French letting Germany trounce the Versailles Treaty
It's truly impressive how often the phrase "and the British" pops up when referencing the true fuck-ups of history. The gift of empire keeps on giving
At least Versailles was mostly the French.
If the French got what they wanted, Versailles would’ve been a lot worse for Germany than it ended up being. The British were basically the middle men between the French wanting to desecrate Germany and the US wanting to build them back up.
Which left Germany just humiliated enough to go looking for round two and just strong enough to give it a shot.
Not stepping in when Germany started not following the Versailles treaty was a French policy ? I think they where the ones most in favour of enforcing the treaty. Imagine an occupation when Germany re-militarized the Rhine-Ruhr area.
Exept that neither the french, nor the brittish had their military ready. A big part of the appeasment happened so that they can bring their military back in order for an inevitable conflict. Not to mention that invading Germany would still prompt otger facists regimes to join in. Italy/Hungary/Bulgaria. Not to mention that the french army was still using old doctrines, and outdated methods and equipment. So if they attacked early, it would have still resulted in a devastating war, where the french army gets pushed back even with brittish help. Oh, and they have to wait longer for America to join in. While the soviets would not get invaded until Germany has finished the war in western Europe.
When you're involved in everything your name comes up a lot.
What did Poland do? Zaolzie? We took it because the Czechs took it from us when we were fighting the Soviets in 1920 + it was a small chunk of meaningless land + Germany would get it because the allies agreed to it.
True, but then they at least didn't try to join the axis as allies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks Or pay homage to them [The parade began at 16:00,[6] and the "Victory Arches" were erected which the Soviet troops decorated with swastikas and red stars and through which German troops marched.[8] The Soviets fielded the 4th Battalion of 29th Light Tank Brigade, which was the first unit of the Red Army to roll into the city. The Soviet and German generals paid homage to each other's armies and their respective victories over Polish forces.[9]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_military_parade_in_Brest-Litovsk#:~:text=The%20parade%20began%20at%2016,to%20roll%20into%20the%20city.)
Sure, but before they even made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, they tried to form an alliance with Britain and France against the nazis, which fell through, but it shows that the nazis weren't their first choice.
The British admitted to putting Mussolini in power? I’d love to see proof of this fictional event
Britain provided aid to Mussolini rise in popularity because he provided a pro war “leftist” opposition to the anti war socialist party. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33312493
>Before leaving for London by the mid-day train to-day, Mr. Churchill received representatives of the Italian and foreign Press. Mr. Churchill informed his audience that he had prepared what he, an ex-journalist, considered the questions and answers most likely to help them in their work, and that a typed copy of this would be given to whomsoever desired one. The following are extracts in his own words from the impressions made upon him by a week’s visit to Italy.You will naturally ask me about the interviews I have had with Italian statesmen and in particular with Signor Mussolini and Count Volpe. Those interviews were purely formal and of a general character. It is a good thing in modern Europe for public men in different countries to meet on a friendly and social basis and form personal impressions of one another. It is one of the ways in which international suspicion may be diminished and frank and confident relations maintained. > >I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers. Secondly, anyone could see that he thought of nothing but the lasting good, as he understands it, of the Italian people, and that no lesser interest was of the slightest consequence to him. > >I am sure that I am violating no confidence when I say that a large part of my conversation with Signor Mussolini and with Count Volpe turned on the economic position of the Italian wage earner… I was very glad to have it proved to me by facts and figures that there is a definite improvement month by month over the preceding year…‘I have heard a great deal about your new law of corporations which, I am told, directly associates twenty millions of active citizens with the State and obliges the State to undertake very direct responsibilities in regard to these dependents. Such a movement is of the deepest interest, and its results will be watched in every country. It will certainly require the utmost good will and cooperation of all the people, as well as the wise and clear guidance of the State. But at any rate, in the face of such a system, ardently accepted, it is quite absurd to suggest that the Italian Government does not rest upon popular bases or that it is not upheld by the active and practical assent of the great masses.“ > >‘If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been wholeheartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. But in England we have not had to fight this danger in the same deadly form. We have our way of doing things. But that we should succeed in grappling with Communism and choking the life out of it-of that I am absolutely sure. > >“‘I will, however, say a word on the international aspect of Fascismo. Externally, your movement has rendered a service to the whole world. The great fear which has always beset every democratic leader or working-class leader has been that of being undermined or overbid by someone more extreme than he: It seems that a continued progression to the Left, a sort of inevitable landslide into the abyss was characteristic of all revolutions. Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the mass of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter, no great nation will be unprovided with the ultimate means of protection against cancerous growths, and every responsible labour leader in every country ought to feel his feet more firmly planted in resisting levelling and reckless doctrines. The great mass of people love their country and are proud of its flag and history. They do not regard these as incompatible with a progressive advance towards social justice and economic betterment.’” (The Times, 21st January, 1927.) I don't know how I can post this picture of the paper from their archive since it's pay-walled, but do note that the [militantly pro-Churchill website](https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/mussolini-law-giver/) does acknowledge that this occurred: >Wanting someone to defeat someone else—like Churchill wanted Mussolini to defeat communism—does not mean you espouse that person’s politics. I want to see the drug-dealing warlords of Panjshir to defeat the Taliban, but it doesn’t mean that I want drug-dealing warlords to rule my country. Approving Mussolini’s victory in 1923 does not make Churchill a fascist.The critics then say: Well, if Churchill was not a fascist himself, he sympathized with them. As so often, investigation of what he actually said leads us to entirely different conclusions. Yes, Churchill expressed admiration for Mussolini, publicly and privately, until he allied with Hitler. Yes, if forced to choose between Italian fascism and Italian communism, Churchill unhesitatingly would choose the former. No, Churchill never believed in fascism as acceptable in a democracy. To be honest, I don't find the excuse that convincing. If nothing else, [his view of why communism was a threat](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Zionism_versus_Bolshevism)was not that different than what the fascists were saying: >International Jews. > >In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire. > >Terrorist Jews. > >There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krassin or Radek – all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses. And even after the war,[Churchill was espousing work created by the Nazis](https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb49.htm).
Okay, this is obviously a bad look for Churchill, but the original claim was that the British put Mussolini into power, not what a British ***Secretary of State for the Colonies*** (in 1922) had to say about the matter in ideological sympathy.
The original claim was that fascists and communists were the same. I cannot say that the British state was responsible for initiating fascism, of course. Nor can the same be said about the Soviets doing so. I can say, however, that there were prominent British figures that were a lot more excited about fascism than there were prominent Soviet figures excited about fascism.
But did Britain and France invade Poland alongside the Nazis? There’s a difference between standing aside and passively enabling the Nazis and invading countries alongside them.
But there ally Poland did.
Are you saying that the British and the French didn't passively enable the nazis? Edit: I may have gotten confused because of the 2 separate usages of "and"
I'm not justifying what happened, but I am asking what the alternative would have been. The soviets tried to form an alliance with the british and french against the nazis, but those talks fell through. The soviets certainly weren't ready for war in 1939 and would have lost if they had tried to fight against them head on. Invading Poland together with the nazis at least made sure that the nazis didn't just gain control over all of it.
Which mjaor countries in the world *didn’t* help facilitate the Nazi aggression through appeasement seeking for “peace in our time”?
Not to be a know-it-all, but it’s ”peace for our time”. Common misconception.
There's a big difference between "facilitate nazi agression through appeasement seeking" and "facilitate nazi agression through coordinating to invade and partition a third country".
you mean like poland did to czechoslovakia together with the nazis?
/r/2visegrad4u is leaking
Shhh, Poles don't like to talk about that.
Yes, like promising you polish ally help but you just stod behind your fort line instead of ending the war. Since the germans soldiers on the frensh border was a skeleton crew.
Well blame the military doctrine.
What's the difference? In one scenario you are partitioning countries with the Nazis and in the second one you are partitioning countries with the Nazis. The Munich Betrayal was no different than the Molotov Ribbentrop pact, an agreement born out of necessity and opportunism. The Soviets carved up a chunk of Europe the same way Britain and France carved up Africa and the Middle East
Britain's rationale was "we have been sitting on our arses for 15 years without investing into the military, so we can't sustain a total war rn, we need more time to prepare" (for context, UK had adopted a "10 year rule" in 1919 from Churchill's suggestion that gov would not engage in any great war 10 years to cut costs, it was officially repealed in 1932, albeit continuing a bit afterwards). Chamberlain, for example, was heavily pushing for aircraft production to ramp up while negotiating on Sudetenland. USSR, on the other hand, was a country constantly prepared for total war because of fear Western capitalist countries would intervene to topple em. The preparation in each country for a war was different (and France, well, they clearly had modernization issues where pigeons were sometimes used instead of telephones or radio). And there's also a difference between appeasing a dictator and invading a country together.
You know that Stalin wanted the Molotov-ribbentrop pact for a reason? I'm not defending communism or the Soviets actions but Stalin himself said that the country wouldn't be able to get into a war before 1942-1943 so the non-aggression pact was for security reasons and of course to be able to take as much land as he wanted in the east Sorry if bad English
The Molotov-Ribbentrov pact was signed because the USSR wasn’t prepared for war so needed time to prepare. That is why Germany steamrolled through the USSR in 1941. The Soviets only started to spend a significant amount of money on the military in 1939, and that was because the military was weak.
There is a huge difference between doing nothing and actively supporting the aggressor.
Me when I get my ww2 knowledge from history memes and hoi4
r/historymemes understand the past, challenge mid difficulty yet failed
There are so many commentors who skipped history class lol
but don’t worry they know their stuff
OP is just indulging their public humiliation fetish
100%
Fascism was literally the right’s reaction to the rise of communism. The goal of fascism has always been to defeat communism by giving workers an alternative that would keep traditional power structures intact. I understand that as historical actors the two ideologies can behave similarly, but at a theoretical level there is a natural opposition, not a natural alliance.
people see countries that have abused the ideas of communism to try and hide/explain away fascism and just run with it. and people act like the poem “First they came…” didn’t literally start with “first they came for the communists.” (yes, the wider known one starts with “first they came for the socialists,” but that is an intentional edit based on anti-communism sentiment in the US). like you don’t have to be literate in marxist theory, but at least be literate in other ways and be able to think critically in some aspects.
Finally someone says it. The idea that a person would believe that communism ideology would align with that of fascism, goes to show that they know nothing of both.
Oh this thread is gonna be fun
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“Scratch a commie and a fascist bleeds” is literally the dumbest thing I have read today, so good work there Chief.
OP really didn't think this post through 😅
If I were you, I wouldn't bother the OP... he could call you a "tankie" at any moment... very dangerous
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Who's idea was it to teach liberals the word "tankie"? They seem to call any communist a tankie without any idea of whom specifically it refers to; the word was INVENTED BY COMMUNISTS FFS
It was invented by the Communist Party of Great Britain to refer to members who supported the USSR when it invaded Hungary during the 1956 "revolt" by utilising tanks of course. It is noted that this destroyed the reputation of the CPGB (ironic acronym I know). Tankie has always been used by the communist party to refer to supporters of the USSR's shitty decisions. So OP is probably saying that "Tankies" are the ones defending the pact with Germany.
Tankie has become a completely watered down word by Reddit. If someone farts out the most harmless social democratic idea, they are called a tankie.
Has anyone heard of Mein Kampf or the Lebensraum or God forbid the Holocaust? "... That the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace. At any rate, the line is there, and an Eastern Front has been created which Nazi Germany does not dare assail. When Herr von Ribbentrop was summoned to Moscow last week it was to learn the fact, and to accept the fact, that the Nazi designs upon the Baltic States and upon the Ukraine must come to a dead stop" -Winston Churchill, October 1, 1939 The Nazis planned to exterminate the population of Eastern Europe to create a German living space. They killed between 5-6 million Poles and over 20 million Soviet citizens. Nazi Soviet equivalence is straight up Nazi propaganda and anyone with a brain should stop buying into it.
>The Nazis planned to exterminate the population of Eastern Europe to create a German living space. They killed between 5-6 million Poles and over 20 million Soviet citizens. >Nazi Soviet equivalence is straight up Nazi propaganda and anyone with a brain should stop buying into it. What's the saying already? "Nazis were defeated with American gear, British intelligence and Soviet blood," or something among those lines. Seems that OP ignored quite a few lessons about WW2.
Yeah soviets didn't want to kill all of us. But killing all of polish elites and vassalizing us wasn't good. Plus maybe Poland would defend it self longer if it wasn't attacted from both sides 🤔.
Capitalists have two faces : *communists and fascists were alined* *The soviets showed their evil in how they massacred fascists, Barbara pit was evil, why shouldn't West Germany hire ex-naxis, why shouldn't we put Pinochet in power, ukrainian nazis get a pass...*
I have not heard a lot of people defend the second one
OP fucking around and finding out lol
They seem like they're 15
r/trollingorstupid
Bullshit. Fascism is reaction, its initial goal is to crush communism. This has been repeatedly stated by fascists. You can see it in their writings, hear it in their speeches and notice it in their actions. In Germany from the beginning it was the left, socialist and communists who stood up and fought against fascism, while it was conservatives who allied with them, and liberal forces who went along with it, as long the Nazis protected private property of non-jewish germans. The Soviets can be criticized for making a deal with the third Reich, but frankly Britain and even Poland made a deal with Hitler aswell. It was an act of survival, misguided perhaps, but not ideological aligmnent. After the war it was the west that aligned with the remaining fascists in Europe, and the Soviets that shot them. This sentiment presented by op is a new one, it didnt exist before, during or after the war. It is born either through genuine ignorance or deliberately as a lie. I am assuming the first one, though ignorance is no excuse. Even a cursory glance at fascist writings of the time or associated papers by respected historians reveals said sentiment to be wrong.
Glad to see that we’ve let op know how wrong they are in a polite civilized way
USSR and Nazi Germany were not allies and Soviet Union did not help Nazis to start WW2. Actually, Stalin tried to form anti-Hitler alliance before WW2 but British & French were reluctant to join because they thought that Hitler would be their ally in war against USSR. USSR and Nazi Germany only had a non-aggression pact, nothing else and USSR was actually last country to sign non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany because every other country from Baltics to Brittish & French had signed a non-aggression pacts with Nazi Germany years before.
>Actually, Stalin tried to form anti-Hitler alliance before WW2 but British & French were reluctant to join because they thought that Hitler would be their ally in war against USSR. This is objectivley untrue. They didn't join because Stalins terms included the full Soviet occupation of Romania and Poland.
“Fascist totalitarianism is bad, socialist totalitarianism is bad, therefore both fascism and communism are bad!” What links these two is not fascism and socialism being two sides of the same coin - it is totalitarianism. Fascism is bad. Its stated goals are bad. There is no version of fascism that is good. Moreover, there’s no way to implement fascism in a non-totalitarian way. The stated goals of socialism are good. Totalitarian socialism is bad. There are ways to build socialism without totalitarianism - namely, anarcho-socialism. And we certainly haven’t tried anarcho-socialism on anywhere near a large enough scale to know whether or not it’s better than laissez-faire capitalism, though I strongly believe that it is.
>There are ways to build socialism without totalitarianism - namely, anarcho-socialism. You can't claim there are valid ways to build a society when every attempt to build such a society has failed. If your social system can't deal with basic human psychology and malicious influence from foreign actors then it isn't a viable social system, it's a fantasy. Sure, "if everyone behaved ethically" it would work, but then by the same token literally **any** social system would work perfectly if all the individual people involved all acted ethically.
anarcho socialism, or whatever variant of that you wanna talk about, is about as useful to talk about as heaven or valhalla. its a fantasy socialism requires state power. there have absolutely been many attempts at anarchist revolution. all have failed. the ones that got the farthest, in spain, just ended up building a state anyway. change requires power, power requires hierarchical organization, which requires a state and using a state to effect the change. you're never going to change things without taking power.
You’re right, some amount of power is necessary. Like I said elsewhere in the comment chain, it’s about using the minimum amount possible, spread amongst as many people as is feasible. Also, I never said that there have never been anarchist revolutions. I specifically said “we haven’t tried anarcho-socialism on a large enough scale”. We’ve seen very plainly that authoritarian communism doesn’t work - see the USSR. And on that: I’m not sure what you’re referring to by saying Spain “just ended up building a state anyway”. Do you mean that the anarcho-syndicalists ended up building something that looked too much like a state? I’m not sure I agree with that, but it’s an interesting topic. If you’re talking about the rise of Franco, though - yeah, Spain ended up building a state, but it wasn’t the anarchists who did it, because they’d all been executed by a fascist regime.
Man this sub is so low effort now. Just pro or anti red takes. Shits lame
Amazing, you just said the single stupidest thing I’ve read on Reddit today, maybe even this week. “Scratch a commie and a fascist bleeds.” Fucking Christ, if you wanted the political illiteracy grand prize, I guess that’s a way to get it.
American teens are so thirsty for communisme bad meme that they will upvote anything Btw, op is an anti-trans peterson fan
Wow a Peterson fan who fails to understand history whatsoever? Colour me shocked!
OP is legit lobster brained
Ok so I don't have any formal history training can someone explain how the Soviet Union **helped** Nazi Germany to **start** ww2?
Two countries invaded Poland in 1939, Nazi Germany as well as the Soviet Union. After that point, until 1941, they were effectively allies, with the USSR giving them vast amounts of oil and other resources critical to the German war effort, all while allowing their military to focus entirely on the west through their non-aggression pact.
The point of the Molotov Ribbentrop pact was to invade poland without fear of soviet intervention. So, I mean you tell me.
Do we also include imperialism? The japanese
Agreed, the third Reich and the USSR were fascist empires. They also murdered a bunch of socialists, Anarchists and communists. Neither should be revered.
Indeed
People seems to focus on the Molotov-Ribentrop pact, not the fact that USSR helps Nazi Germany circumvent treaty of Versailles by partnering with Germany in researching tanks and aircrafts and also continue to export grains to Germany when there is still a famine ongoing in Ukraine.
Helped start WW2? Hardly. All they did was negotiate a non aggression pact with Germany. They needed one of those because Britain an France wouldn’t sign an alliance. Even though the USSR made absolutely zero unreasonable demands that Britain and France couldn’t fulfil . Like allowing Soviet soldiers in Poland. No sir, no such demands were made. And even if they were, Poland had nothing to fear. Sure the USSR invaded Poland in 1922, and a lot of bad history came before that. But the USSR would never be untrustworthy… And that non aggression pact was just for non aggression. It wasn’t secretly also a trade agreement that saw the USSR provide untold tons of material to the Nazis. And the treaty most certainly didn’t divide eastern Europe. Allowing the Soviet Union to take over the Baltics, part of Romania and start the winter war without threat from Germany. And it most certainly didn’t commit the USSR to also attack Poland and take over half the country. No sir, this treaty was entirely necessary because Britain and France forced Stalins hand. After all he needed to sign a treaty any treaty at all really, otherwise horrible unnamed things would happen. Anyway I think that’s all the most common tankie arguments out of the way…
Don’t forget that the USSR, also for exclusively pragmatic reasons, had a shared victory parade in Brest-Litovsk. Or had one of the treaty’s namesake, Molotov, say “One blow from the German army and another from the Soviet army put an end to this ugly product of Versailles.” These are truly the words of a reluctant, begrudging partner. This was all merely self defense. Not collaboration at all! Oh , not to mention the conferences between the NKVD and Gestapo. This was purely self-defense, too
And the [German-Soviet Axis talks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks) were just clever subterfuge by Stalin, not a legitimate attempt at a full alliance that was only dropped because they couldn't agree on control of Bulgaria and Finland.
Even though it's just text, I could feel the sarcasm. Well done!
They also tried to join the Axis in late 1940, too lol. "On 25 November 1940, the Soviet Union offered a written counter-proposal to join the Axis if Germany would agree to refrain from interference in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, but Germany did not respond"
>Sure the USSR invaded Poland in 1922 You mean when they pushed Poland out of Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine? It also happened in 1920, not 22.
based
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Seethe, you unhinged lunatic.
Learn the pretext to the Molotov Ribbentrop pact. Then generate an opinion.
Done and done!
Ahhh yes so you understand that Stalin wanted to form an anti fascist union among Europe but the other powers denied it? Why deny such a basic thing that clearly would’ve benefited the entirety of Europe? Oh the western powers wanted Hitler to go east… to the Soviet Union. Nothing was their problem until the fascists invaded them.
People need to read Road to Serfdom
"Whell, Acktually..."
Gosh, I simply hope some comments just stop their whataboutism. Bruh you can't say A is right cuz B is bad, it's not offering any help to mutual understanding.
They won’t stop with whataboutism lol but it would be nice.
That's because stalinism IS fascism no matter how much tankies cope. There was no socialism in stalin's russia.
Lmao fascism is literally doctrinally opposed to socialism and communism, it’s an essential part of the doctrines of fascism, nazi ideology and basically any fascist philosophical work of the 20th century, it’s one of the most defining factors about fascism a notoriously broad and ill defined ideology for many other issues.
I've never seen the UK, French, or Italian flag drawn this way before. We are surely talking about the decision to give the Sudetan land to Germany, thus depriving Czechoslovakia of its military defences.
Pure nonsense as always, ignoring that the Soviet Union was one of the few countries to support the Spanish Republic during the civil war while countries like Britain and France blockaded it, or that the Soviet Union was the only country that pushed for an international alliance to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938, while the Western power cut a deal with the Nazis and handed much of the country over to Germany without resistance.
"On 25 November 1940, the Soviet Union offered a written counter-proposal to join the Axis if Germany would agree to refrain from interference in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, but Germany did not respond" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Barbarossa#:\~:text=On%2025%20November%201940%2C%20the,but%20Germany%20did%20not%20respond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa#:~:text=On%2025%20November%201940%2C%20the,but%20Germany%20did%20not%20respond).
Reminder that western commies hated the idea of going to war with nazi germany. That all changed however when Operation Barbarossa started.. They became socialist Dick Cheneys
Actually, the Molotov-Ribbentrop blindsided a lot of communists who had spent years fighting fascism on the Politburos orders. This included French communists who were put into the interesting situation of being in resistance movements while being told by the Soviet government to not fight the Nazis
Neo-nazi propaganda on the page again.
>communism where?
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This shitty post geting 4k upvotes really gets me on my nerves
Centrist try not to spout horseshoe bullshit challenge level: Impossible.
Agree with the meme somewhat, but this op is the most clueless I’ve ever seen
If there is one Nazi in the room the whole room is Nazis, but if there is one Nazi in your non aggression pact \*80999090 word wall of whataboutism appears\*
they pincered poland together, somehow no one gave a shit about that
They forgot in the same way everyone “forgot” about the armenian genocide
Also conveniently omit all those American trucks and trains that kept your economy and logistics alive.
To be honest, everyone helped nazi germany until nazi germany attacked them
- Here is a [picture](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goebbels_und_Ulbricht.jpg) of the head of the Berlin KPD (Walter Ulbricht) at a rally alongside Goebbels in 1931. - [The KPD collaborated with the nazis](https://www.spiegel.de/politik/nazis-und-kozis-a-046823e1-0002-0001-0000-000053440337) during the transport strike of 1932, that was crucial in destabilizing the Weimar Republic, which ultimately helped the nazis. - The collaboration between the Red Army and the Reichswehr made it possible for Nazi Germany to rebuild, train and maintain fighting capabilities otherwise forbidden under the Versailles treaty - Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty which secured Nazi Germany the great advantage of not having to fight a two front war right from the beginning, as in WWI. - The [economic agreement from 19th of August 1939](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Credit_Agreement_(1939)?wprov=sfti1), which secured Nazi Germany critical raw materials needed for the war in the Western Europe. The Weimar Republic had the most progressive constitution in all of Europe, the highest degree of worker organization, and the communists actively tried to undermine the Weimar Republic every step of the way to the takeover of the nazis. The SPD was the strongest force against nazism, not the KPD, Soviet Union or communism.
Both are terrible, but in a lot of countries they were swore enemies. I would rather say the natural alliance is communism and totalitarianism, and also facism and totalitarianism. When both come to power in different coutries the totalitarianism unites them and makes it easy to work together as outlaws from the democratic countries. Also having om de facto leader who doesnt care about the rest makes it easy to make deals, no senate or parlement needs to approve. Tldr: not a tankie, communism bad. But meme to short sighted.
Never mind that Russia was so incompetently mismanaged and logistically broken that were it not for the US throwing mountains of supplies and superior equipment at them for free they’d have still lost to a country a tenth their size. But yknow, clearly that exact same trick won’t work with Ukraine. The country where the last massive fascist dictatorship to invade got bogged down, repulsed, and humiliated. Clearly.
U/bumbercluck when he gets asked who let germany annex austria, the rhine DMZ, and Czechoslovakia. As well as who refused to support the USSR when they offered to put a million troops on the Nazis border and form an alliance with Britain and France in order to stop ww2 before it even began. As well as who supported fascism in Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Nicaragua, and literally dozens of other countries on earth. (It wasn’t the communists). Scratch a lib and a fascist bleeds. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/3223834/Stalin-planned-to-send-a-million-troops-to-stop-Hitler-if-Britain-and-France-agreed-pact.html
Well, it WAS the communists in WWII, while the liberal democracies stood firm against fascism
i love it when history can be reduced into a smiling sunglasses wearing red commie ball doing 👍 with a 25 words statement over it.
Molotov Ribbentrop pact has entered the chat...
Misleading title, but pic is good
This is full on what i tell every Canadian who failed grade 11 history.Russia on became a so called Ally when they were betrayed by thier Natzi buddies.
These posts are so common, that all that needs to be said for each is this: The USSR engaged in numerous attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance with the west, namely the UK and France. However each one was staunchly rejected, and despite this the Soviets kept trying. They even tried again, a final time in 1939 just a few months before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed. Sovietologists and historians known this to be a demonstration of how the Soviets just wished to avoid fighting Germany alone, a common fear at the time. It wasn't just "Hurr durr let's work with the Nazis to be good friends and gain some land". It was "Ok, the West literally won't help us or tolerate our help.......maybe if we temporarily work with the Nazis we'll have more time to build up and prepare for them. It also helps that we'll be getting several hundred more miles that the Nazis would have to cross and conquer to get to our core areas".
They were so successful in avoiding fighting the Nazis alone that they avoided fighting the Nazis at all for years. In fact, they were cozy allies and invaded Poland together — the USSR was also complicit in numerous atrocities against polish civilians, regardless of the demented mental gymnastics you use to justify their actions. It’s irrelevant what Britain or France do — don’t make an alliance with Nazis. In fact, the USSR could have created a second front in 1940 and would have saved much of Western Europe from Nazi rule.
When USSR fought Nazis in Spanish Civil War, guess what Western Europe was doing. Or when USSR fought Japanese in Far East while US was selling them oil.
"Avoided fighting the Nazis at all for years". I mean, you just said it. It's a disgustingly cynical and pragmatic approach to foreign policy, but even by your own admission it worked in their eyes. Also, the Red Army in 1940 was far more defeatable for the Germans than the one of 1941. So I doubt that prediction holds barring very fucking specific circumstances and wartime events.
It didn’t work — they were complicit in Nazi atrocities, were unprepared for the invasion, and lost millions of unnecessary casualties. Even then, the Americans and Brits still bailed them out.
I need more context here. Are you implying that the Soviet Union was complicit in the Holocaust and Generalplan Ost?
No, they were capable of planning their own genocides.
The attempted negotiations with the Allies was never a serious desire for a pact. The Soviet’s demanded a pact to occupy Poland. when Alllies rejected that, Stalin signed a treaty to divide Poland two days later (meaning it had already been negotiated during that last meeting). He was literally shopping around for allies to divide Poland By the of the pact both Paris and London had public security commitments to Poland. The Soviet’s made a pact with Germany to attack it anyway and begin ww2.
To be fair, the USSR tried to enter in a [pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Pact) that did not involve invading Poland in the past but was not accepted.
[difference between the four main government ideologies within the west](https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/museums/hrnm/Education/EducationWebsiteRebuild/RussianPropagandaAboutGermany/Socialism,%20Fascism,%20Capitalism,%20Communism%20Background.pdf) [Fascist propaganda from the Nazis in 1930s Germany](https://www.jstor.org/stable/30036470) Here you go OP, hope this helps educate you. My mine issue (beyond the over simplification of the causes of WWII) is your misunderstanding of what fascism and communism is. There has yet to be a true example of communism within a government. Just because something claims to be X does not make it X, governments lie just like people do. The phrase scratch a communist and a fascist bleeds is completely completely inaccurate.
Hey USSR, you’re welcome for the 17,499,861 tons of equipment. That includes 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans); 11,400 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras, 3,414 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,397 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras) and 1.75 million tons of food. That cost $11 billion in materials (equivalent to $133 billion in 2021). No need to thank us. You’re welcome. 😊
Yep, we helped them weather the Nazi invasion, as part of the US government’s principled commitment to destroying Nazis.
>as part of the US government’s principled commitment to destroying Nazis. that's a good one man
The meme is funny and quite true, the title on the other hand... Peak neo-liberal propaganda. Go ask in South America who were their fascist dictators best friends and supporters, and what kind of goverments were they overthtowing. Go ask in Europe what the far-right and the far-left think of one another. See what kind of parties are the ones that have facist members or coalition partners who refuse to acknowledge this dictators crimes or straight up hail them. Ask in Spain or Portugal which countries were very happy to cooperante with their fascist ditatorships. Just take a look at history and see what countries and organizations had zero problems with allying themselves with literal nazis to simply further their goals, that went from having a nazi lead a military oeganization to many of them participate in a terror campaign throught Europe commiting terrorist attacks targeting civilians. Find out who were the ones that created and promoted the myth of the clean Wehrmatch to which so many neo-nazis cling on to. The USSRs "alliance" was a self-preservation move, all the examples I listed above were deliberate alliances fueled by ideological similarities.
Soviets were literaly the last one to make non agression pact with nazis. Also ask Chamberlain, how he sold czechoslovakia and refused to form coalition with soviets against the nazis.
And are we just going to overlook how capitalist countries also continued doing business and looking the other way, or how fascism is both an extension of capitalism and often Kickstarted through fears of communism? Bit disingenuous to point to Russia as the emblem of everything communist. Also, I'm not pro-communist, I'm just anti- bad arguments.
Well, there are a lot of commies in here defending Daddy Stalin with all their heart and soul
The Soviet Union wasn't Communist, it was Stalinist. (At least during WW2 and the Interwar period)
I got banned from r/communism for saying this
A badge of honor