About Stalin's intentions regarding Finland in WW2

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Their way of life = relative individual and economic freedom. To claim people in the Eastern Bloc were free compared to pre-WW2 is laughable.

Those two aren't related. Besides, what does economic freedom mean? Freedom for the enterpreneur or freedom for the worker?

Ah yes, the classic "real communism has never been tried!" argument.

Before you go around criticising something, you should first learn what it is. This is literally Socialism 101.

Ironically, it was Russia who, after losing almost every single battle, cut their losses and settled for less than their goal of the total conquest of Finland.

Foreign pressure.

This is the only at least somewhat true statement I've seen you write, though saying Finland was a social democracy heavily influenced by the USSR is exaggeration. Or at least the way I read it, it sounds almost like you're claiming Finland was some kind of sphereling of Russia, which is not true. Finland rebuffed plenty of Russian pressuring attempts during the Cold War, made trade deals, including arms deals, with Western powers, etc. Actually Russia made some concessions to Finland, e.g. during Kruschev's premiership Russia returned Porkkala in 1956, originally slated to be returned in 1994, and dissolved the Karelo-Finnish SSR due to Finnish pressure, demoting it back to the Karelian ASSR, also in 1956. Additionally, the Russians wanted trade relations with Finland, as trade with Finland was a good source of high quality commodities that Russia herself was could not produce.

Thank you for the compliment. Karelo Finnish SSR was dissolved as there was little purpose to it, Khruschev made concessions to appear good as well as generally undo many policies made under Stalin, Soviet Union practiced Autarky up until Perestroika, barring the time of Khruschev's experiments which required them to import grain, hence their imports were miniscule. As well, their industries were very highly developed, leading to various products being home made. Name which types of products the Soviet union couldn't produce which Finland had.

You make the mistake of buying into official Russian propaganda, believing Russian expansion was "out of defence". If Russia was purely interested in defence, Stalin would have accepted an alliance with England and France, but instead he played his double-game, negotiating with both Germany and the West, to see which one made the better deal. In the end he settled with Hitler, as allying Germany allowed him to expand the Soviet Empire and swallow territories formerly part of the Russian Empire that already Lenin had tried to take in 1918.

Except it were the Western Allies who refused alliances and USSR was one of the last to make treaties with the Nazis.
Like I already stated, USSR had a defence treaty with Czechoslovakia in 1938 and promised up to a million troops to defend it. The Allies and Poland(who refused to allow troop passage) refused. Even prior to signing the Pact the Soviets urged the Allies to work together to beat them. Once again they refused.
Molotov Ribentrop was a last ditch attempt to prevent the USSR from being the next target after Poland(as USSR did not expect the Allies to do anything to save Poland, much like with Austria and Czechoslovakia).

Why did the Russian forces in the Winter War have orders to march to Helsinki in 2 weeks and occupy the entire country?

Soviets expected a cakewalk and occupying Helsinki quickly would pretty much signal the end to the war.

Why did Stalin found the Terijoki government and refuse to acknowledge Finland's actual government until the threat of Allied intervention and very little progress by the RKKA in 3 months?

The Soviet government expected the Finnish communists to rise up upon the attack and set up a government in order to legitimise the uprising and ensure stability. Due to the harsh persecution of communists after the Finnish Civil War and the general outrage at the attack, the people of Finland, even the socialists, united against the Soviet attack.

Why did Russian forces attack throughout the entire Finnish frontier, from the Artic to the Baltic Sea, and not just around Leningrad?

One of the main reasons for the Finnish refusal were the defensive works in the area they wanted. Of course the Soviets with their vast numerical advantage would attack at all sides possible, rather than push at the most well defended spot.

Why did Russia annex the Baltic States when the Baltics had already accepted the Russian demands for bases and military access?

I already said why.

As for the rest, they either aren't relevant to the question and/or worthy of response or they are post-Winter War, by which point both sides looked to screw each other over and another war was a certainty. Soviets knew the Fins would most likely offer the Germans to settle troops there in time, Fins wanted their territories back.

 

[Fulmen]

Did you play any avisimulators like IL-2 Sturmovik in real conditions (whitouht help of PC like map and so on)?

I did, I love that game. I have an installation of IL-2 1946 with HSFX and some other mods and a few mostly superficial changes of my own.

My impressions - I do not know where to fly (clear point on real land) and ... who killed me flying with speed 600 km per hour.

So I am sure that all survived Russian bomber pilots were completely sure that they were attacked by "Hudie"/"Messers" (like it was called all enemy fighters next 3 years).
Like since summer 1943 all hitted German self propelled artillery was named in soviet reports as "Ferdinands"

So we have task to Russian pilots to destroy airfields. What did Russian pilots in situation like:

"The result of the bombing: according to the observations of the crews, the Joensuu airfield was not found"?

They started to bomb close buildings:

"The result of the bombing: according to the observations of the crews, the Joensuu airfield was not found, the Joensuu station was bombed, 4 direct hits in warehouses were noted, as a result a fire broke out. Yoroynen airdrome: direct hits on the materiel of aircraft on the southwestern outskirts and airfield were noted."

There's a long way from misidentifying a few aircraft and exaggerating a few kills, to claiming to have bombed literally dozens of airfields and destroyed 130 aircraft when the real sum of both is actually 0. Also note that e.g. Novikov and many other Russian sources claim that this is actually what happened, not that it was "merely ordered, but happened in a different way".

So reports weren't directly false. It was results that were received directly from pilots. Very often pilots were sure they fired enemy planes. Pilot thought they shot dawn it... May be... Of course bombers didn't change rout to see where it was landed...

Well the reality of the events has been available to Russians at least since the end of hostilities since 1944, and probably already during the war, but the communist regime in Russia did not allow for the publication of historical facts that put the official state propaganda version of history into question. That only really started to change in the 1980s-90s, but in the past almost 20 years the Russian state under Putin seems to be adopting a more traditional pro-Stalinist propaganda-driven "interpretation" of history.

As I read essential part of Finnish military elite were former solgiers and officers of German army in WWI?

Many generals and other high ranking officers were, but much of the decision-making top was old Tsarist era as well. And anyway Mannerheim himself made the big military decisions during the war. "Dreams of a Greater Finland", whether harbored by certain individuals or not, did not influence decision-making on either political or military level.

Finnish policy before WW2 was driven by neutrality and solidarity with other Nordic countries. After the Winter War this was attempted again, but Russian pressure made this impossible, and it was obvious Stalin was still trying to take over the entire country. Finland accepting German overtures was pure realpolitik to save the country from another Russian invasion where Finland would yet again be alone, but in a very weak position.

1. How it was possible to receive independence from "largest country that was also the most militarized country in the world by a long shot, and had over 50 times the population of Finland"?

What @Herbert West already said, and also I'd like to note that Lenin armed and incited Finnish Reds into rebellion. The rebellion, barring perhaps very few local clashes between Red and White militias, would not have at all been possible without these arms. Finnish socialists and communists were generally also more moderate than the Russian equivalents, and would not have rosen up to full-scale revolt without instigation, and without guns, of course.

It is thus easy to determine that Lenin "granting" independence (actually Finland had 6.12.1917 already declared and de facto had independence, Lenin just gave his signature to it on paper) was a ruse to secure his northern flank for the time being, a ruse he could also use as a propaganda stunt (look at how good and jovial Lenin is, committed to the self-determination of nations!), meanwhile of course arming the Finnish Reds. The ultimate aim was to re-incorporate Finland into Russia as an SSR. Had this happened, this Finnish SSR would have been assigned some territories from East Karelia along ethnic lines, with the exception of territories too close to strategic locations (e.g. Murmansk railroad), but the results of decades of Russian communist rule in Finland would have been catastrophic to the nation, even if Finland was now again independent and considerably larger compared to her 1947 borders.

I should have actually posted this before when talking about Stalin's Finnish puppet government during the Winter War, but here's the map of what was to be Otto-Wille Kuusinen's Soviet Finland. This "free government of the Finnish people", supposedly had immediately after its founding come to terms with Russia, and was granted portions of East Karelia, in exchange for the territories Russia had demanded from the real Finland before the Winter War:

You don't have to be a strategic mastermind to understand that Russia would have never allowed an actual independent Finland this much territory. These are the borders the Karelo-Finnish SSR would have had, had the Red Army succeeded in its goal of occupying Finland during the Winter War.

Had the Red Army succeeded later in the Continuation War, I think an Eastern Bloc-style communist puppet government with smaller borders (probably more or less the 1944 borders) would've been likelier than direct annexation, due to Western pressure.

Ideas of Great Finland was possible in the 1930s, not in the 1940s.

Not at all. The Finnish military was very badly funded in the 1920s and 30s. It is hilarious to claim Finland had any designs on Russia when her army didn't even have enough uniforms to equip a meager 250k men in December 1939. There were also in practice no tanks, and almost no anti-tank, artillery or anti-aircraft guns, or aircraft. What little there was, was often obsolete or outright ancient (e.g. artillery guns from circa the 1870s). The Finnish military was very badly funded before the war, and in 1940-41 more money was spent on defence needs than had been in the previous 20 years combined.

Much of the Finnish centre-left governments of the time naïvely believed in the non-aggression pact Finland had with Russia, and chose to focus on other areas, such as paying the country's WWI debts off to USA in their entirety (Finland AFAIK being the only country in history to do so), very badly neglecting defence needs.

EDIT:

Name which types of products the Soviet union couldn't produce which Finland had.

The USSR strived for autarky throughout most of its existence, but was in reality extremely reliant on Western high quality equipment and resources, machine tools for instance, as well as technical expertise. For example the Stalingrad tractor plant, the world's biggest tank factory, was built in America, then disassembled and shipped to Stalingrad to be reassembled by local workers under the supervision of American engineers. This sort of dependence on the West did not stop with WW2, and my understanding of it is that even today Russia has not fully closed this technology gap. Tankies will of course deny this, as it strongly goes against official Kremlin doctrine, but this is quite well-known and -documented among serious historians.

As to the list of items, it was vast and included things like high quality ships, automobiles, electronics, various metals, etc. An interesting bit of trivia here is that there were cases where the Russians requested Finnish-built ships to have their sauna boards be made out of copper, instead of wood. This of course rendered them completely unusable when the sauna was on, but was a way of sneaking copper into the country without it being listed as an official copper trade. Upon arrival the Russians of course took the copper out and repurposed it.

 

[Kovax]

By the time M-R pact was being negotiated, it was understood that Hitler was coming towards Poland, and the Soviets expected the Western Allies to not do anything once again, looking at Austria and Czechoslovakia. Not to mention them not being interested in working together with the Soviets. They were fearing becoming the next target, and so saw an opportunity in signing a nonaggression pact which would also give them the opportunity to secure their borders(like annexing the Baltic States and Eastern Poland and taking the areas around Leningrad).
It was either "reluctantly sign a deal with the devil and prepare for the inevitable" or "risk getting invaded and obliterated because you weren't ready"

That's still no excuse for including the occupation of Finnish territory in the M-R Pact as being within the Soviet sphere of interest. You don't negotiate the right to do something of that magnitude if you have no intent to use that right, particularly if you're "dealing with the devil" and trying to avoid a war as claimed, rather than trying to obtain a free hand for further conquest. The Soviets clearly wanted and intended to put Finland under Soviet control, if not annex it directly. They obviously didn't want Germany to interfere of take advantage of the distraction in the mean time, hence their willingness to sign such a document.

Fulmen may have overstated the Soviet motives, but dismissing all of them as pure propaganda seems to be far less credible.

 

[Fulmen]

Fulmen may have overstated the Soviet motives, but dismissing all of them as pure propaganda seems to be far less credible.

I don't think I have though. Everything I've said is backed by actual Russian orders and/or behaviour. Finland in her entirety was assigned to Russia in the M-R Pact. The reason the Kremlin pretends that Stalin only wanted a little bit of land to "protect Leningrad", is because it's too embarrassing to admit that the world's largest military failed in conquering a tiny nation with over 50x less population and barely any equipment or manpower of her own.

Did the US have the right to invade Cuba?

This is deflecting the crime with "look at that other bad guy, he did it too!".

Also, Cuba at the time was a communist nation in cahoots with Russia, and could allow nuclear weapons on her soil, which she of course did. Finland was a democratic neutral nation with no affiliation to national socialist Germany whatsoever. There is no comparison.

You would've made a better comparison by using the 1939 invasion of Poland, but of course that would defeat your argument, as Russia was also the criminal there.

 

[Nykyus]

Perhaps it was a question of whether the Russian people would live on the planet or not. And legal issues later.
A pragmatic Stalin, he prepared the country in advance for a total battle.
- The foundations of factories in the steppes of Kazakhstan and Siberia were built. Therefore, factories from Ukraine were quickly evacuated under the German bombers.
- Carried out industrialization. At the cost of tremendous tension of the people.
- Destroyed the Trotskyists, possible accomplices of the Nazis.
- Deported Volga Germans. This is of course a crime, but it was a question of whether the USSR would remain on the planet or not.
Nevertheless, the Red Army was much inferior to the Wehrmacht. Until 1943, before the battle of Stalingrad, no one believed that she would win. Many people ran to the Germans, they were shot at the same time (this is also a crime in the name of survival).

 

[Herbert West]

- Destroyed the Trotskyists, possible accomplices of the Nazis.

Damn Trotsky and his time machine.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

This is deflecting the crime with "look at that other bad guy, he did it too!".

Also, Cuba at the time was a communist nation in cahoots with Russia, and could allow nuclear weapons on her soil, which she of course did. Finland was a democratic neutral nation with no affiliation to national socialist Germany whatsoever. There is no comparison.

Except the Cuban missile crisis occured AFTER Bay of Pigs, America provoked it by placing Nukes in Turkey, you spent a ton of time talking about German overtures in Finland and it shows your bias when you defend something like Bay of Pigs which if we go by your approach would be fairly similar to the Soviet attack. Oh also, Cuba initially did not want the Nukes. Ironically, it was Bay of Pigs that was one of the major catalysts for Castro to eventually accept Soviet Nukes.

 

[Zeprion]

I am from Serbia. I'll be perfectly honest, I did not spend sleepless nights wondering about the Yugoslav focus tree, nor do I plan on any over a Serbian one. If a tree happens it happens, key is that priority comes in the global scale and countries that influenced on a global scale. The Great Powers were the ones pulling the weight and deciding WW2. It's cool that Paradox made one for Yugoslavia even though it did not do much(even though I am not impressed by it) but I didn't wet myself with excitement over hearing its announcement.

Personal experience doesn't make for a sound counter-argument or compelling evidence. Your isolated example is nothing more than a story. I don't like melons, that doesn't mean melons are bad.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Personal experience doesn't make for a sound counter-argument or compelling evidence. Your isolated example is nothing more than a story. I don't like melons, that doesn't mean melons are bad.

Within it is the less "personal" answer, sorry for the ramble

 

[hkrommel]

Perhaps the fact that Hitler violated the friendship agreement. And Stalin did not violate, he still wanted friendship with the Germans. First of course scolded the Nazis, but then stopped.

But he already had evidence that Germany would attack the USSR. I cited this: this evidence was obtained from the distribution of the Trotskyist Rakovsky https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...he-revelation-of-trotskyist-rakovsky.1202334/. Perhaps he wanted to postpone or fix it.

None of that justifies invading Finland, annexing Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, annexing portions of Romania, or invading Poland.

- Poland also participated in the division of Czechoslovakia. On the whole, it pursued an anti-Soviet policy and refused a treaty of mutual assistance with the USSR.

That doesn't justify invading, annexing, and oppressing them for decades.

- A white officer Yudenich arrived from the Baltic countries and Finland with the intention of seizing Petrograd.

You do know that the Estonians actually disarmed the Northern Army members in its territory, right? They wanted independence and thought the Whites would just restore the Russian Empire.

- Should Czechoslovak prisoners of war not obey a legitimate government? And they, at the instigation of the Entente countries, began an armed struggle with the Soviet regime.

You need to do more research. The government promised safe passage, yet they were continuously harassed, sent back and forth on various rail lines, etc. and when Trotsky finally tried to disarm them, they understandably didn't trust the Soviets and refused. If the Soviets kept their word and let the Czechs go to Vladivostok and leave the country, there wouldn't be a problem. The Soviets aren't particularly good at keeping their word.

Socialism is the transition stage. You establish a socialist society, and as the needs for a state and money wither, so does socialism slowly transition into Communism. Never has the USSR tried to force itself country into communism, nor did it claim such.
I guess we can blame Adam Smith for the Irish Potato Famine by that logic?

Have you even read Marx? And by that I mean more than the Manifesto. The fact that you treat Communism as separate from Socialism, rather than Socialism being an economic system inherent in Communism that can also be separate, speaks volumes.

The Russian people suffered irreparable losses: they lost the most active and heroic part.

Yes, they did. Because the Bolsheviks succeeded and murdered millions of them.

An important thing to note is that those countries in the middle would have either joined Germany or been overtaken by it. Poland is an obvious one, Fulmen noted various overtures by the Germans to Finland and Baltic states were designated as part of Hitler's Lebensraum. Had the Soviets not taken the opportunity, Hitler would have, via fascist coups, forcing deals or outright invasion, thereby stretching the frontline effectively from the Arctic to the Black Sea with almost no interurption from day 1. Was it evil, indeed it was. I beg you the question though. If the USSR wanted to survive, what should it have done to secure the survival?
Would you want Nazi Germany winning on the Eastern Front?

This is the most logical thing you've said so far, and thank you for acknowledging it was evil. Now, as to the rest, would that have caused the Nazis to win on the Eastern Front? I seem to recall you believing that the Soviets could have won WWII alone, so why would this change that? It seems a bit inconsistent to argue that the Soviets would win in one case but not the other, no?

As for what it could have done better to prepare: learn better lessons from the Spanish Civil War, don't purge the officers, don't sign the M-R pact so Germany takes longer to conquer Poland and maybe the Romanian bridgehead strategy succeeds, Romania isn't forced into the German corner since the Soviets didn't annex Bessarabia and Bukovina, so maybe Germany is hurting for oil, etc. Hell, maybe Germany doesn't even make it past France since they would certainly be delayed in taking out the Poles, and even a small delay on the historical timeline helps the French. People don't realize how close the actual breakthrough in the Sedan was. Reinhardt was stopped cold, Guderian got lucky, and Rommel was audacious enough to make up for that. Without Guderian or Rommel's breakthrough, there's no breakthrough since one spearhead alone wasn't enough.

As for if the Germans won against the Soviets, I think the Western Allies would have won the war anyways. The result may even have been that the Russian people would not be under a brutal autocratic regime!

I am actively translating a video game from Russian to English as we speak(Crisis in the Kremlin 2017). Google Translate actually does its job pretty well, I just need to do tweaks on slang words and some word orders.

Please do a better job than the current state. It's impossible to tell what is happening in those games because the descriptions are pure gibberish half the time.

By that logic USSR wasn't an aggressor for attacking Finland for the bits around Leningrad, annexing Baltic states and entering the eastern parts of Poland taken from them in 1921.

Except not. Those weren't Russian or Soviet lands, they were Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian. The Soviets claimed to be anti-imperialist, then turned around and invaded nations to retake portions of the old Russian Empire. It's pure hypocrisy.

snip

A site called "stalinism.ru" is not a reliable source comrade. What you provided reads like bad fanfiction. Considering it has no citations to sources, and is in narrative form, it is probably about as reliable.

 

[Fulmen]

defend something like Bay of Pigs which if we go by your approach would be fairly similar to the Soviet attack

I fail to see how by "my approach" would be similar to the Russian attempts at conquering Finland:

Finland was a democratic neutral nation with no affiliation to national socialist Germany, that posed no threat whatsoever to Russia. Cuba was a communist nation allied to Russia, that could potentially pose catastrophic threat against USA, regardless of what actually caused them to accept Russian nukes on their soil. Where's the similarity?

Had Stalin never attacked Finland in the first place, Finland would have simply stayed out of WW2, like Sweden did.

I suppose here you'll bring up your argument of "Hitler would have simply taken Finland and used it against Russia!". Let's see:

In a scenario where Russia never invades Finland and thus the latter remains neutral, Germany could not have taken over Finland had they tried, it was not logistically possible. Just taking over the Norway, who had neglected her defence even worse than Finland, proved very costly and difficult to the Wehrmacht, and it was right next door. Even if we assume Germany somehow had control of Estonia (which I don't see happening if Stalin is actually thinking about just defence and allies the Western Powers against Germany in 1939, insteading of allying Hitler and taking over Estonia as per the M-R Pact), the Gulf of Finland would've been very hard to cross; Finnish coastal defence was much better than Norway's, not to mention that at this point Russia would be intervening as well, and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet would've been able to operate freely, because closing the Gulf of Finland requires the same side controlling both the north and south coasts of it.

Conquering the country through Norway was also practically impossible due to infrastructure. At the very least Germany would've had to conquer Sweden as well (the Swedish government allowing troop transit rights for a few thousand Germans is one thing, allowing it for entire armies is another, and wouldn't have happened), which in turn would have starved Germany from various resources (the Swedes would've blown up their ore mines; one reason they weren't invaded IRL) and just opened up another front for the Allies, and even then I don't think it was really possible. The infrastructure necessary for such a big operation just wasn't there.

Real WW2 was not a video game like Hearts of Iron. Germany could not have simply conquered everything and everyone.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Have you even read Marx? And by that I mean more than the Manifesto. The fact that you treat Communism as separate from Socialism, rather than Socialism being an economic system inherent in Communism that can also be separate, speaks volumes.

I have read Marx and regularly dabble in Socialist analysis. This is as basic as it gets when it comes to socialism. I question whether or not you have read Marx, or anything socialist for that matter.

This is the most logical thing you've said so far, and thank you for acknowledging it was evil. Now, as to the rest, would that have caused the Nazis to win on the Eastern Front? I seem to recall you believing that the Soviets could have won WWII alone, so why would this change that? It seems a bit inconsistent to argue that the Soviets would win in one case but not the other, no?

The Soviets suffered devastating losses in the first weeks of the war and were very close to reaching Moscow in our timeline. Now imagine a timeline where those disasters occur on a larger level from the get go, Leningrad is besieged on all sides from day 1 and with overstretched defences. The extra kilometers gave the Soviets time to prepare their defences, transfer industry and get the Siberian troops ready. After the Germans lost momentum due to the Soviets holding and re-establishing industry in the Urals and the general Winter, they were done for.

As for what it could have done better to prepare: learn better lessons from the Spanish Civil War, don't purge the officers, don't sign the M-R pact so Germany takes longer to conquer Poland and maybe the Romanian bridgehead strategy succeeds, Romania isn't forced into the German corner since the Soviets didn't annex Bessarabia and Bukovina, so maybe Germany is hurting for oil, etc. Hell, maybe Germany doesn't even make it past France since they would certainly be delayed in taking out the Poles, and even a small delay on the historical timeline helps the French. People don't realize how close the actual breakthrough in the Sedan was. Reinhardt was stopped cold, Guderian got lucky, and Rommel was audacious enough to make up for that. Without Guderian or Rommel's breakthrough, there's no breakthrough since one spearhead alone wasn't enough.

The Great Purge was a conflict of influence between the Army and NKVD.
By the time Soviets entered the land, Poland was already done for, the Polish leadership fled to Romania. Allies didn't want to do squat to help them and Germany could get access to the Oil in the eastern bits of Poland, which the Soviets actually prevented. Even with the Pact, both sides looked to secure their interests. It wasn't merry harmony, as some might imply.
Poland wouldn't have held out for long, and the attack on France would most likely proceed as normal, only with Germany not as fearful of their oil reserves.
As for Romania, they were already forced regardless of Bessarabia. They were surrounded on almost all sides by Axis countries, and we can all agree that Carol II would not allow Soviets to help him. Not to mention that the actual joining was done by Antonescu who couped the government and forced Carol to abdicate.

As for if the Germans won, I think it may actually have resulted in a better world. We're way off in "what if" territory here but if the Soviets lose to the Germans, the Germans still lose the war for two reasons. One, occupying the USSR and all the conquered territories would take so much manpower that the Western Allies could still land and take the fight to the Germans. Two, even if they couldn't, they still had nukes and could force surrender that way. The Wehrmacht had been trying to kill Hitler for years, who knows what would have happened if the Allies took out the entire Nazi command structure in a single blast?

No, it wouldn't. One of the main reasons why DDay succeeded was because the troops manning the Atlantic wall were mere recruits as all the good troops were sent east to get stomped by Operation Bagration. Had the Nazis won it would have led to unprecedented tragedy and a most likely white peace with Britain. Luckily they lost, and unspeakable horrors were averted.
As for Wehrmacht, while there were disagreements between Hitler and the High Command on what to do, when it mattered they generally agreed. This picture of Wehrmacht officers opposing Hitler wasn't a norm, and was often just used as an excuse for the Wehrmacht officers in their diaries, among many other falsehoods.

Please do a better job than the current state. It's impossible to tell what is happening in those games because the descriptions are pure gibberish half the time.

A major update is coming, which will improve the game a lot, be on the lookout for it. Lovely that you heard of it

A site called "stalinism.ru" is not a reliable source comrade. What you provided reads like bad fanfiction and is probably about as reliable.

Attacking by the source does nothing to disprove it.

 

[hkrommel]

No, it wouldn't. One of the main reasons why DDay succeeded was because the troops manning the Atlantic wall were mere recruits as all the good troops were sent east to get stomped by Operation Bagration. Had the Nazis won it would have led to unprecedented tragedy and a most likely white peace with Britain. Luckily they lost, and unspeakable horrors were averted.

Attacking by the source does nothing to disprove it.

Actually it does in this case. If it's some clearly biased propaganda without citation to sources, then it's not reliable. If it's a peer-reviewed academic source with citations, it's generally reliable. If it's something in between then you need to get more into what it actually says/cites but what the other poster provided was barely even propaganda, it was so bad.

The rest of your post is mere assertion. You do nothing to really engage with anything I've said, just saying "no" most of the time. My discussion of the French campaign is a prime example. You've done nothing to actually demonstrate you've thought about it for more than a few seconds, much less actually refute any of my arguments.

It's the typical tankie method: Discount the contribution and involvement in the war for anyone but the Soviets, then use the exaggerated Soviet contribution to justify everything the Soviets did. The problem is that nobody outside the Soviet/Russian nationalist bubble buys the first step of that plan.

Edit: And as to your bit about "unspeakable horrors" being averted, they weren't. They were just perpetrated under an assortment of red flags rather than a swastika.

 

[NormieCamo]

- Destroyed the Trotskyists, possible accomplices of the Nazis.

Wow, you really have been drinking the tankie kool-aid. Is there any piece of Soviet propaganda that you can name that you don't believe in?

 

[olm]

stalinism.ru? What's next, people posting links to Stormfront?

 

[JodelDiplom]

stalinism.ru? What's next, people posting links to Stormfront?

Not unlikely. There's a poster in one of the Darkest Hour AARs who is posting neonazi propaganda about how the Poles forced poor Hitler to declare war on him by refusing his reasonable demands three times.

 

[hkrommel]

Not unlikely. There's a poster in one of the Darkest Hour AARs who is posting neonazi propaganda about how the Poles forced poor Hitler to declare war on him by refusing his reasonable demands three times.

Probably the same people who complain about mechanics being too complicated when they're more than an "I win" button that paints the map their preferred color. The world is just too unreasonable!

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Issue with the nuke Rommel, is that it requires the allies having effective Air Superiority over mainland Germany to be effectively used. An Axis victory would lead to secured Oil Fields in the Caucasus, meaning more effective planes flying the skies of Europe. German airplanes kept up well technologically in our timeline and the Allies would first have to ship theirs across the Atlantic before they were useable, as the bulk of the Allied Industry was done by America for most of the War.
Only alternative would be nuking closer targets like in France and Netherlands...

Actually it does in this case. If it's some clearly biased propaganda without citation to sources, then it's not reliable. If it's a peer-reviewed academic source with citations, it's generally reliable. If it's something in between then you need to get more into what it actually says/cites but what the other poster provided was barely even propaganda, it was so bad

You jumped at the name and called it bad without elaborating on it. That's pretty much it. What matters not is the name, but the argument. Every poor argument can be debunked. You lot choose not to, and instead ramble on and make comparisons to the Nazis, as if they are comparable.

The rest of your post is mere assertion. You do nothing to really engage with anything I've said, just saying "no" most of the time. My discussion of the French campaign is a prime example. You've done nothing to actually demonstrate you've thought about it for more than a few seconds, much less actually refute any of my arguments

There is nothing to discuss about the French campaign. If the Pact doesn't get signed and Germany gets all of Poland, how does that change the later actions of the French and British, who effectively did nothing and watched Poland fall?
Also, nice way to simply dismiss everything without actually reading. Sadly no one buys it.

It's the typical tankie method: Discount the contribution and involvement in the war for anyone but the Soviets, then use the exaggerated Soviet contribution to justify everything the Soviets did. The problem is that nobody outside the Soviet/Russian nationalist bubble buys the first step of that plan.

Edit: And as to your bit about "unspeakable horrors" being averted, they weren't. They were just perpetrated under

Except no one actually did that and you're pulling a strawman.
Also, to anyone reading this, look up on Generalplan Ost. Tell me how that is comparable.
Also I am not an ML, not that you care most likely.

 

[hkrommel]

Issue with the nuke Rommel, is that it requires the allies having effective Air Superiority over mainland Germany to be effectively used. An Axis victory would lead to secured Oil Fields in the Caucasus, meaning more effective planes flying the skies of Europe. German airplanes kept up well technologically in our timeline and the Allies would first have to ship theirs across the Atlantic before they were useable, as the bulk of the Allied Industry was done by America for most of the War.

The Luftwaffe, for the entire war, was sent more West than East. The UK alone outproduced Germany in fighters. There's no problem there. Plus, the majority of the fighters the Luftwaffe sent east were Me 109s, which were ineffective against Allied bombers and fighters at typical combat altitudes, which were much higher on the Western front than the Eastern. Allied fighters wiped out the German fighters time and again. Again, there's no problem there.

You jumped at the name and called it bad without elaborating on it. That's pretty much it. What matters not is the name, but the argument. Every poor argument can be debunked. You lot choose not to, and instead ramble on and make comparisons to the Nazis, as if they are comparable.

Because if I have to explain why some narrative-form, zero citation crap on stalinism.ru is not a good source, that's "administering medicine to the dead." I'm not going to waste time on that.

As to whether they're comparable, both were totalitarian regimes with no respect for human rights that murdered millions of their own people in the name of some ideological utopia and invaded neighboring countries and oppressed/murdered those people too. Mass murder is mass murder. Same shit different ideology. The Soviets managed a higher body count than the Nazis.

There is nothing to discuss about the French campaign. If the Pact doesn't get signed and Germany gets all of Poland, how does that change the later actions of the French and British, who effectively did nothing and watched Poland fall?
Also, nice way to simply dismiss everything without actually reading. Sadly no one buys it.

If you actually read my post before responding then you would understand what I actually said, rather than say this crap which is completely irrelevant to what I was saying. If Germany has to fight Poland the whole way, then they get delayed with their later operations. Delay means that it's unlikely the Sedan breakthrough happens. If the Sedan breakthrough doesn't happen, the Dyle plan works and Germany is stopped cold.

Except no one actually did that and you're pulling a strawman.

1. Was it evil, indeed it was. I beg you the question though. If the USSR wanted to survive, what should it have done to secure the survival?
Would you want Nazi Germany winning on the Eastern Front?

Apparently you're "no one".

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

The Luftwaffe, for the entire war, was sent more West than East. The UK alone outproduced Germany in fighters. There's no problem there. Plus, the majority of the fighters the Luftwaffe sent east were Me 109s, which were ineffective against Allied bombers and fighters at typical combat altitudes, which were much higher on the Western front than the Eastern. Allied fighters wiped out the German fighters time and again. Again, there's no problem there.

What about the combined Luftwaffe force, rather than one split due to 2 fronts? Would like some numbers on that tho.

Because if I have to explain why some narrative-form, zero citation crap on stalinism.ru is not a good source, that's "administering medicine to the dead." I'm not going to waste time on that.

Well now you actually provided some argument. Also, whomever made this text left the brackets for citations [364] and such, but the site is too poorly organised to sort it out. Looking at the site map though, there is a lot of documents to go through.
http://stalinism.ru/sitemap-1.html

As to whether they're comparable, both were totalitarian regimes with no respect for human rights that murdered millions of their own people in the name of some ideological utopia and invaded neighboring countries and oppressed/murdered those people too. Mass murder is mass murder. Same shit different ideology. The Soviets managed a higher body count than the Nazis.

The USSR practiced Soviet Democracy and Democratic centralism. While it could be argued that the system behaved more like a Olligarchy with the way the Politburo operated, especially during times of crisis, the system was never a totalitarian dictatorship. Many officials were elected, there was plenty of criticism, and ironically Stalin wanted to resign 4 times but was refused by the Politburo, not to mention being overruled on various decisions. For example, after Yezhov was arrested for allegedly conspiring with the Nazis, he wanted Malenkov to lead the NKVD. Instead, it was Beria who got elected to the position.
As for the death count, do you really wanna open that can of worms here?

If you actually read my post before responding then you would understand what I actually said, rather than say this crap which is completely irrelevant to what I was saying. If Germany has to fight Poland the whole way, then they get delayed with their later operations. Delay means that it's unlikely the Sedan breakthrough happens. If the Sedan breakthrough doesn't happen, the Dyle plan works and Germany is stopped cold.

I did read your comments. I note that the Polish defences were already crumbling by the time the Soviets entered the fight, which led to the Polish leadership fleeing. The amount of time needed to clean up and/or isolate the Polish organised resistance in a few pockets would not have been much larger than in our timeline, and the German 1940 offensive would most likely begin similarily to our time line, assuming French do not switch tactics as a result of the Polish falling completely to Nazi Germany. A major key to the German success in 1940 was the unexpected strike through the Benelux and Ardennes. Unless you find a situation where the French have more time to prepare for the attack which continues the timeline normally(say, if the French high command found the German plans early, letting them reinforce Sedan in time), the invasion of France would most likely continue normally, albeit slightly later than in our timeline most likely, as they would spend a few more weeks defeating the remaining Polish resistance.

Apparently you're "no one".

What you said was

It's the typical tankie method: Discount the contribution and involvement in the war for anyone but the Soviets, then use the exaggerated Soviet contribution to justify everything the Soviets did. The problem is that nobody outside the Soviet/Russian nationalist bubble buys the first step of that plan.

Which is unrelated to my statement.