That seems like a big number until you realize that most of those deaths didn't have to happen except Stalin traded lives for a continuation of the nation's military industry and purged the officer corps of all modern thinking in the 30s.

SockMonkeyHolocaust: That seems like a big number until you realize that most of those deaths didn't have to happen except Stalin traded lives for a continuation of the nation's military industry and purged the officer corps of all modern thinking in the 30s.

nope, that just makes it more shocking

liberalish: nope, that just makes it more shocking

I don't think it's shocking to see the cost of a leader's inability to prepare for the inevitable.

What is shocking is that Stalin held on to power but this was the kind of event Russian peasantry was built for.

SockMonkeyHolocaust: I don't think it's shocking to see the cost of a leader's inability to prepare for the inevitable.

He prepared, he killed everyone. That is why short-sighted leaders are the most dangerous kind. Mortgaging today for tomorrow almost never works. In Stalin's case, he had the industrial might of the U.S., and endless bodies behind him.

The Kremlin insists the event, which marks the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, is not meant to threaten anyone.

Especially not Georgia.

Heh, perhaps this is a fine time to settle on Russian as my third language.

Putin approves of this

Are there some Americans that are ignorant to politics in Russia???

stupidfarkingdighead: Are there some Americans that are ignorant to politics in Russia???

Eh? I'm sure you can find someone ignorant on a subject for every subject in existence. Your question is ... actually rather pointless. I will say, however, that it is rather disappointing Senator Clinton has been unable to name the new Russian president. You would expect that if any person would have updated information on the leaders of one of the most important countries in the world, it would be a Senator (of NY, nothing less) and former First Lady.

Stalin was worse than Hitler, even the Holocaust pales in comparison to the things Stalin did.

Nyet!

Ah, Russian strategy in WW2

"Comrades, shield the glorious Motherland from those Nazi machineguns as you charge into socialist history! Also, there are political officers behind you who will gun you down if you retreat..."

randomjsa: Stalin was worse than Hitler, even the Holocaust pales in comparison to the things Stalin did.

Yep. With no malevolence or antisemitism intended, the Holocaust has had much better PR than any other atrocity in human history. You don't hear about Pol Pot, Nanking, Stalin or the other baddies even 1/10th as much as you do about Nazi Germany.

It probably has to do with propoganda, though. WWII was the biggest war in human history, with the highest cost. It was also the absolute best illustration of the classic good vs. evil fight, with good eventually triumphing over evil. It balms the heart of the idealistic citizens of the allied countries, knowing that when it REALLY counted, their country was there fighting the good fight.

Of course, I'm not including the events of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While not really glossed over by history, those events are not the first thing to come to mind when thinking about the good vs. evil theme of WWII.

randomjsa: Stalin was worse than Hitler, even the Holocaust pales in comparison to the things Stalin did.

Full of win on this thread.

Mart Laar's beard shaver:
Full of win on this thread.

Link (new window)

randomjsa: Stalin was worse than Hitler, even the Holocaust pales in comparison to the things Stalin did.

This causes me physical pain, but I agree with you.

What Hitler did was horrible, but at the very least he was motivated by ideology and being more than a little insane. Stalin did what he did because he could.

Im thinking Hitler could have beat the USSR, had he given more freedom to the defected soviets (General Vlassov) and people in the occupied areas (OUN in Ukraine). But nooooooooo! He just had to be a douche.

It would have been perfectly fine if the UK-USA had beat the Germans in the end. :P

randomjsa

Actually, I consider Hitler worse.

Stalin killed more people, but the motivation was strictly professional, they were threats regardless of ethnicity or religion.

Hitler, on the other hand, actually sought the extinction of a particular group. It was personal and evil.

Sandwyrm: Mart Laar's beard shaver:
Full of win on this thread.

Link (new window)

I live in Estonia, a country depopulated by 1/4th by WW2 and Stalin. I think you should read your own link.

Mart Laar's beard shaver:

I live in Estonia, a country depopulated by 1/4th by WW2 and Stalin. I think you should read your own link.

Perhaps I'm missing your position here. My point was to show that Stalin did indeed do a lot of harm, I thought you were snarking at randomjsa

You were being sincere, though? In that case, my apologies.

Swampthing in Korea: randomjsa

Actually, I consider Hitler worse.

Stalin killed more people, but the motivation was strictly professional, they were threats regardless of ethnicity or religion.

Hitler, on the other hand, actually sought the extinction of a particular group. It was personal and evil.

a threat? really? They werent a threat to start with. They still pretty much werent a threat after the collectivization started. Yet they were imprisoned, shot, died in GULAG or frozen to death digging the White Sea-Baltic Canal.

The people up close to him were the threat at first, but after a lot of the higher echelons got shot, others were more willing to suck up to him.

jonnypeh

Sorry, I meant Stalin percieved them as threats to his power.

Occam's Chainsaw: This causes me physical pain, but I agree with you.

Once you start down the dark path forever will it... Sorry, trying to lighten the mood.

What Hitler did was horrible, but at the very least he was motivated by ideology and being more than a little insane. Stalin did what he did because he could.

I'm not so sure that Stalin wasn't insane, he was at the very least paranoid to a high degree.

Full credit to Russia in WWII. I've always been irritated by the Cold war masking the awful price paid by the soviet union in WWII (civilian & military). Plain fact is Russian defeated Germany at a horrendous price and the western 'allies' were totally irrelevant.

The Normandy invasion was just an end-game land-grab once victory was certain - should be considered as the first stage of the cold war, not the last stage of WWII

randomjsa: I'm not so sure that Stalin wasn't insane, he was at the very least paranoid to a high degree.

You're not paranoid when they really do want to kill you.

Stalin was "insane" in that he was a complete and total sociopath, an aberrant mental state. That said, he was lucid and grounded in reality. Hitler... it's hard to judge through the veil of time, but I'm pretty sure he was a few crayons short of a Crayola Big Box.

Heh, the only way Russia might hand us our ass is in all out ICBM warfare. Protect their own airspace against incursions? Maybe, and it's a big maybe. Conventional warfare - not a chance.

/props to their missile tech

Hysteria5: Full credit to Russia in WWII. I've always been irritated by the Cold war masking the awful price paid by the soviet union in WWII (civilian & military). Plain fact is Russian defeated Germany at a horrendous price and the western 'allies' were totally irrelevant.

The Normandy invasion was just an end-game land-grab once victory was certain - should be considered as the first stage of the cold war, not the last stage of WWII

Heh, One wonders how it's taught in the US. You're utterly right, but somehow I think there has to be some nationalistic skew down south.

Occam's Chainsaw: randomjsa: I'm not so sure that Stalin wasn't insane, he was at the very least paranoid to a high degree.

You're not paranoid when they really do want to kill you.

Stalin was "insane" in that he was a complete and total sociopath, an aberrant mental state. That said, he was lucid and grounded in reality. Hitler... it's hard to judge through the veil of time, but I'm pretty sure he was a few crayons short of a Crayola Big Box.

Well, technically, Hitler was so doped up that I don't really know that he could be considered "in his right mind" even beyond his own personal insanities.

Hitler's doctor had him on so many different drugs that the combination would have made even a sane person crazy.

It's also conjectured he had Parkinson's.

Stalin...

Meh. I mean, he was evil and paranoid... but really... Idi Amin almost did worse.

Morality... is it just a numbers game?

I will even go as far and say that Hitler did (non-intentionally) the Europe a favour (comparing the behaviour of soviet soldiers in eastern europe and german troops' behaviour in western europe -until the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, at least) by attacking the USSR first. Pre-emptive strike.

Here come the figures:
USSR had 12,782 tanks on their western borders, aircraft - 11,537
Germans: 3,350; 4,389
respectively.


Could argue over the claim that the German fighters were so much superior to the soviet ones - but they lost a fair amount in the Battle of France, against the "obsolete" designs. The soviet historians after WWII had to tell everyone how the USSR was not ready at all, everything was so outdated and inferior against the "outnumbering hordes of fascists".

Viktor Suvorov and Mark Solonin have written books on the subject, more info there.

Phil Moskowitz

Actually, Russia could not have won without support from the US.

The US exported huge quantities of equipment and vehicles to the Soviet Union.

This included more that 370,000 trucks, which was fundamental to logisitcs, transport and supply.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_USSR

Hysteria5: Full credit to Russia in WWII. I've always been irritated by the Cold war masking the awful price paid by the soviet union in WWII (civilian & military). Plain fact is Russian defeated Germany at a horrendous price and the western 'allies' were totally irrelevant.

The Normandy invasion was just an end-game land-grab once victory was certain - should be considered as the first stage of the cold war, not the last stage of WWII

The western allies weren't irrelevant. Russian historians give credit to Lend-Lease for providing the materials needed to defeat Germany.

But you are correct in that the war was essentailly over by D-Day (Albert Speer admitted as much in his memoirs).

The western allies weren't irrelevant. Russian historians give credit to Lend-Lease for providing the materials needed to defeat Germany.

But you are correct in that the war was essentially over by D-Day (Albert Speer admitted as much in his memoirs).

Agree totally. If not for the reassurance of the alliance with western allies, Russia would almost certainly been sought an end to the war with Germany by the end of 1941 .
- and while I believe the conclusion of the war would be the same, it would have been American/British soldiers paying the devastating cost that Russia did.

Occam's Chainsaw: Hitler... it's hard to judge through the veil of time, but I'm pretty sure he was a few crayons short of a Crayola Big Box.

Video tapes of some of his speeches as well as historical accounts of some of temper tantrums would point to "Yes" on the crayons metaphor.

Hysteria5: The western allies weren't irrelevant. Russian historians give credit to Lend-Lease for providing the materials needed to defeat Germany.

But you are correct in that the war was essentially over by D-Day (Albert Speer admitted as much in his memoirs).

Agree totally. If not for the reassurance of the alliance with western allies, Russia would almost certainly have sought an end to the war with Germany by the end of 1941 .
- and while I believe the conclusion of the war would be the same, it would have been American/British soldiers paying the devastating cost that Russia did.

Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up.

USCLaw2010: Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up.

Yes....

That's just what we wanted you to think!
Bwahahahhaa!

Russia needs to elect appoint a leader with a larger penis.

How many people does it takes to screw up Poland?
2: Stalin and Hitler

Sandwyrm
Yep. With no malevolence or antisemitism intended, the Holocaust has had much better PR than any other atrocity in human history. You don't hear about Pol Pot, Nanking, Stalin or the other baddies even 1/10th as much as you do about Nazi Germany.

It probably has to do with propoganda, though. WWII was the biggest war in human history, with the highest cost. It was also the absolute best illustration of the classic good vs. evil fight, with good eventually triumphing over evil. It balms the heart of the idealistic citizens of the allied countries, knowing that when it REALLY counted, their country was there fighting the good fight.

Both sides of the holocaust were highly literate people who took excellent notes on what happened and later wrote lots and lots of books and directed lots and lots of documentaries and movies based on those notes. No other major genocide had nearly as many literate people involved, it's not surprising that the Holocaust is discussed more because there's more records to discuss.

Also, European countries could no longer pretend that genocide only happened by or to "barbarians". The Germans were the most highly educated nationality in the world and the Jews were the most highly educated ethnic group in the world circa 1939-1945. Genocide wasn't supposed to happen that way, either it was supposed to be screaming barbarians killing their own or professional colonial armies quietly disposing of riff-raff no one would miss. It came as quite a shock when education and wealth proved not to be barriers to mindless massacre.

Lastly, the mechanized, assembly line nature of the killing was unique and magnified the worst fears of the various Luddites (see Modern Times, Carlie Chaplin film of 1936, man is literally fed to the machines).

Throw in Israel's eventful, Holocaust-driven existence keeping it constantly relevant.

The Holocaust was kind of a perfect storm of unique factors that make it the most discussed genocide in history.

choice and consequence:

Hmm, never considered it from that angle. Thanks, choice.

I always find Hitler v Stalin discussions to be interesting. To me, it always comes down to "Why, in Civ 4, are you allowed to play as Stalin, but not as Hitler?"

What, no mention that Russia's main threat to the West was it's nukes and that it's conventional military was never a real threat? Yeah, they look nice, but an A-10 does wonderful things to those impresive pieces of machinery. Even the Hind was relatively useless (See Stinger missile). Their navy is useless as well. Their ships fire 100 missiles, and hope one hits, we fire one to sink a ship and we still have 99 left over. Technology is a biatch.

/Their military was inferior in every way, except nukes.

What, no mention that Russia's main threat to the West was it's nukes and that it's conventional military was never a real threat?

Correct half the time, opposite that half the time. The Soviet Union could have marched to the Channel whenever they wanted during the early 60's to late 70's if they weren't afraid of tactical nukes and escalation. It wasn't until the early 80's that Western technology clearly trumped Soviet quantity. A-10 first deployed in 78', M1 tank 78', AH-64 in 84', improved TOW 78', TOW 2 '84, F15 in 79', F16 in 78', etc. etc. Huge jump in capabilities in that era. It's not a coincidence that Gorbachev kicked off perestroika/glasnost in 85', it took them a couple of years to realize they were losing and try to organize a response.

What I think is the most overlooked factor when people discuss Soviet deaths in WWII is the fierce resistance and determination displayed by Soviet troops throughout the war.

The more cynical among you will claim that political officers were the reason for this, but I've read several works that refute this. Soviet soldiers had a lot of national pride, having been spoon-fed nationalism since birth. Couple this with the Russian cultural mistrust and hatred of the German people, and it explains why Soviet soldiers were fighting to the last man in large numbers from the first day of the war.

Also, credit must be given to the German Army for its significant advantages in organization, tactical doctrine, and communications at the battlefield level. It was not until the Soviets achieved a parity or superiority in these things that the war began to turn in their favor for good.

In addition, many make the claim that Soviet leaders were indifferent to the casualties they were taking while fighting the Germans. This is demonstrably false, seeing as memorandums issued by STAVKA (the Soviet General Staff) as early as September 1941 stressed the need to minimize losses and preserve unit integrity while still accomplishing the mission. The Red Army of WWII is often seen by westerners as this unstoppable juggernaut, and in terms of overall size, it was. What fewer people realize is that most Soviet divisions were averaging 40-50% understrength by 1943, and even more by the end of the war. The Soviets could not find enough manpower to fill the ranks of their units, unless they cannibalized one unit to bring another up to strength (which they did often).

This thread does not contain enough discussion about tanks.

The Soviet tanks win (vs. German tanks in WW II). German designs like the Panther were technically superior in terms of guns and armor, but woefully inadequate other respects such as drive train, durability, and complexity of manufacture. Most of the Panthers broke down, and they were outnumbered something like 10 to 1 by Soviet T-34s which could be built much faster.

The Soviet advance to Berlin was greatly aided by lots of American trucks and boots. But they turned the corner at Stalingrad without any Allied help.

Well, at first Panthers sucked because Hitler ordered them into battle too soon. But their tanks were quality later on. T-34 was no match to the Panther when it came to armament and armor, but there were simply too many of them. Obviously its not always about who produces the best weapons, but who produces more. the lack of fuel greatly contributed to German losses.

Also gotta mention that a lot of soviet aircraft losses were because of poor manufacturing quality. I have the stats somewhere but cant be arsed to look it up right now.

Monkey_Pants: The more cynical among you will claim that political officers were the reason for this, but I've read several works that refute this. Soviet soldiers had a lot of national pride, having been spoon-fed nationalism since birth. Couple this with the Russian cultural mistrust and hatred of the German people, and it explains why Soviet soldiers were fighting to the last man in large numbers from the first day of the war.

The Germans shot a lot of people, that might have also had something to do with it, causing personal grudges etc.

In the Winter War it was different: the Finns were surprised at first, seeing some guy with pistol forcing others to run straight into machine gun fire. But in 1939 the Russians weren't fighting for the "desperate survival of the Motherland" either :P

A serious discussion of history in a fark thread? Unpossible!

It was the Italians that farked up the German plans. The Germans wasted what was to become two precious weeks bailing out the Italians before setting off the Russian invasion.

jonnypeh: I will even go as far and say that Hitler did (non-intentionally) the Europe a favour (comparing the behaviour of soviet soldiers in eastern europe and german troops' behaviour in western europe -until the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, at least) by attacking the USSR first. Pre-emptive strike.

Here come the figures:
USSR had 12,782 tanks on their western borders, aircraft - 11,537
Germans: 3,350; 4,389
respectively.


Could argue over the claim that the German fighters were so much superior to the soviet ones - but they lost a fair amount in the Battle of France, against the "obsolete" designs. The soviet historians after WWII had to tell everyone how the USSR was not ready at all, everything was so outdated and inferior against the "outnumbering hordes of fascists".

Viktor Suvorov and Mark Solonin have written books on the subject, more info there.

Of the ~13000 tanks, only 900 were T-34's. The rest were either heavies like KV-1 and KV-2 (with horrible accuracy) or light tanks like T-26 and the BT series. Of the 900 T-34, none were fit for action after two weeks, mostly thanks to Stukas. Then again, the German armored arsenal wasn't that impressive, either. PzIII's and a few short-barreled PzIV for infantry support.