Julien Pierrehumbert:
> Reading this, Mark, one would ont imagine that stuff like the
> imperialist war with
> Germany and Japan or Finland happend.
I do deal with these issues, and especially with the 1939 Pact, in articles on
the website:
A note on the Stalin-Molotov correspondence :
http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base/STAL-MOL.htm
Stalin and the Second World War revised, expanded :
http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base/stalin.doc
>One would not imagine what
> the content
> of the 1939 pact was nor that the imperialists genuinely supported
> the USSR war
> effort from Barbarossa onwards. One would also not imagine that the
> hope of many
> left-wing nationalists in Asia were about Japan and not the USSR.
> I don't like the mainstream rendering of WWII at all, but yours
> looks a abit like a
> mirror image of it, as much inconsistent.
These are interesting issues, indeed.
The draft chapter I posted is exactly that, an in need of editing, expaning
and clarification. But the main point is to show that there really was a
confrontation (called the Second World War) and this is the context in which
allegations (to my mind not justified by many facts) that Stalin 'ordered the
CPUSA to close' etc.
> >But
> >Litvinov understood the truth: there could only ever be uneasy, short-lived
> >truces, and the Soviet state could never depend on diplomacy or treaty
> >arrangements for its security.
>
> Stalin apparently did not, as his abscence of preparation for war
> against Germany
> shows. If Stalin understood this and faced his responsibilities,
> 1941 wouldn't have
> been such a disaster.
Well, if you want to know what I think, read the articles mentioned. I don't
agree with you. Was Stalin appeasing Hitler? Yes, after 1939 he tried to buy
some time. But this was after a whole decade spent do his damnedest to STOP
the appeasement of Hitler by the British and French. Look at the context.
What would YOU have done?
There is so much anti-socialist, anti-marxist, anticommunist claptrap talked
that the evidence of a half-century of cold war brainwashing has left its
marks everywhere, unforttuinately, and few are immune. The anti-Stalin
outbursts of Jared Israel are a case in point, as is the to my mind
nonsensical attempt to buff up and retrieve from oblivion that squalid episode
in true appeasement, the so-called 'Non-aligned' movement.
>
> Then why was Stalin bribing Hitler with oil? Why were
> reconaissance, fortifications,
> etc. not carried out? I call that appeasement. That is something
> that one does when
> one's afraid.
> And how could Soviet intelligence miss such a huge military
> deployment as the
> one needed to carry out Barbarossa? Unexpected??? No, denied!
Since I do deal at length with all these isses, and others you mention, in the
abovementioned articles I'm not going to repeat myself here.
>
> > Meanwhile the British army had nearly 60 divisions in India, not
> to fight the
> >Japanese but to garrison the Raj.
This is not just a matter of record, but of contemporary mass knowledge; the
shame of the 'Forgotten Army' in Burma and India was endured by its soldiers
who sat in the jungles doing very little, for almost four years. My father was
among them.
>
> This sounds truly extraordinary. What's your source? What kind of
> divisions were
> these? Against what menace were they garrisoning the Raj?
>
> >pending the arrival of the Atomic
> >Bomb, the Americans were anxious to secure Soviet assistance against Japan
>
> What for? Why would the US need assistance? Unlike in 1942, they had a vast
> economic and military superiority and had devised effective tactics.
No, they had not, and until they were sure the Bomb worked they were very
anxious indeed to secure Soviet help.
Mark
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