• RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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        8 hours ago

        Genuinely, what should the Soviet Union have done instead? Let the Nazis take all of Poland?

        Start with not making a pact with Nazis to divide Europe imo. That’s one part that was enabling the Nazi expansion.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          5 hours ago

          They didn’t, the closest is there being lines neither country should cross. Both the Soviets and Nazis knew war was coming between them and that the treaty would not hold for long, it wasn’t a long-term plan.

          • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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            4 hours ago

            Having a pact and zones of interest freed up manpower for Nazis to use in other parts of Europe. That’s how it was part in enabling them. Not that USSR would’ve been guilty of that alone or nowhere near the first to enable the Nazis.

            • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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              4 hours ago

              So your complaint is that the USSR didn’t take even more of the brunt of the Nazis forces.

              • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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                4 hours ago

                My complaint is making a deals and pacts with Nazis. Again, that includes everyone, not just USSR. If everyone had put up stronger opposition from the start then all could’ve been stopped way earlier.

                • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                  4 hours ago

                  The USSR tried extremely hard to form a unified opposition to the Nazis, and the Western powers responded by signing pacts with the Nazis. As a result, the USSR was left with the choice to also sign a pact to buy time and keep the Nazis out of some of Eastern Europe for a time, or to let them have Eastern Europe and then have to fight a war from a worse position with less preparation.

                  They literally did choose the option that allowed them to put up the strongest opposition possible. If they had done what you wanted, the Nazis would have won the Eastern front.

                  • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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                    4 hours ago

                    We don’t know when Nazis would’ve invaded USSR. They still had Western Allies to deal with. The pact gave breathing room to USSR but it also pointed them towards West. So same deal as what the West wanted to do.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  4 hours ago

                  The only one trying to do that legitimately was the USSR, Britain and France sabotaged talks of anti-Nazi alliance every single time. The west wanted the Nazis and Soviets to kill each other, and then finish off the weaker one if possible.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              4 hours ago

              Sure would’ve been great if the Soviet Union had the industrial power to take Nazi Germany on by itself, or had the trade with the west at the time to help close the gap. No perfect solution was available to the Soviets.

              • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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                4 hours ago

                I mean we don’t know what would’ve happened but yes everyone was playing time and hoping Nazis would look elsewhere for at least some time.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  4 hours ago

                  We know that the Soviet Union was industrializing at incredibly high rates, but was still far behind Germany in total industrialization. We know that the west was trading a ton with the Nazis, and were hostile to the Soviets. We know that the Nazis and Soviets hated each other. What should the Soviet Union have done? Declare war before they were ready, and risk everyone allying with Nazi Germany? Let the Nazis take all of Poland?

                  • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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                    4 hours ago

                    Prepare for war within their own borders, mobilize. That alone would’ve helped overall anti-Nazi effort. Now they could first divide Poland with the Soviets and then focus on the West and then head East. East and West being mobilized would’ve been a big barrier.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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          6 hours ago

          Them: “so what should they have done?”

          You: “Well I’ll tell you what they shouldn’t have done!”

          So, in short, you can’t actually answer the question.

          • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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            6 hours ago

            I’m not sure if you’re being purposefully obtuse or joking but deciding not to do something is an act in itself. You asked what they should have done, they should’ve decided against pact with Nazi Germany. That’s the start. Then prepare for all that entails.

            We know they chose to make a pact with the Nazis and to divide Poland, they chose to invade the parts the Nazis left to them, they decided on all of these actions. They weren’t some inevitable laws of nature bound to happen and impossible to avoid

            “I shot a man, what should I have done?”

            “Well not shoot him”

            “yOu haVen’T anSweRed thE quEstion”

            lol

          • iii@mander.xyz
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            5 hours ago

            Haha, what a crazy way of thinking.

            “Don’t eat your own shit!”

            “Well, what should I do instead of eating my own shit?! 😕”

      • machiavellian@lemmy.ml
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        8 hours ago

        If this isn’t a trollpost and your not getting paid for it, then I’m just baffled on how wrong someone can be regarding generic historical facts. Aside from the idea itself, that it is somehow normal and even commendable to assist foreign states against enemies without them requesting it, all the while criticizing the US for similar actions, your opinion ignores the whole Molotov-Ribbentrop secret pact.

        And for argument’s sake, let’s just pretend, that Soviets were of kind heart and mind and truly wanted to help and protect the Polish people from the horrifing Nazis they so clearly detested. Then why did they host a joint parade in Brest-Litovsk after having conquered Poland?? Or better yet, why did they mercilessly execute 20 000 officers in the woods of Katyn? Not to mention the fact that the Warsaw Uprising failed because the Soviets deliberatly waited for all future dissidents to be killed off, before “liberating” it.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          5 hours ago

          I didn’t ignore anything, I wrote about it in greater detail here. There was no “secret pact.” As for the parade, it was marked for the withdrawal of the Nazis from where they had overstretched. As for Katyn, the Nazis “discovered” the site, and Goebbels was the one to popularize it, yet the execution method of shooting civilians (children included) from behind into a mass grave was one the Nazis repeated countless times yet the Soviets were never found to “repeat” this method, and further, the ammunition was from Nazi Germany.