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73rd Anniversary of Operation Barbarossa
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Author Topic: 73rd Anniversary of Operation Barbarossa  (Read 5703 times)
learstang
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« on: June 22, 2014, 07:30:07 PM »

On this day, 73 years ago, Nazi Germany launched an unprovoked invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. In the resultant war, the Great Patriotic War, some 27 to 30 million Soviet citizens died, at least 17 million of them civilians. Let us not forget them, and the terrible sacrifice they and the living made in defeating the Nazis. Let us also not forget that on this day, 3 years later, the Soviets gained a measure of vengeance by launching Operation Bagration, which smashed the once mighty Army Group Centre, which had come within 15 miles of Moscow in 1941. Even those of us in the West should remember these, as the sacrifices of the Soviet people and military saved countless American and British and Commonwealth lives. За Родину!

Best Regards,

Jason
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xan
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« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2014, 09:19:33 PM »

Jason thank you to remenber us the day...
I totally agree with your message
За Родину!

Xan
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expositor
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« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2014, 11:20:24 PM »

I was reluctant to post a disagreement, but..."unprovoked invasion;" really?  Would that mean that the
soviet invasion of Finland was provoked, not to mention that of the other Baltic states?  How should one consider Russian cooperation with Germany with their own invasion of Poland?  The point is that one can
be a Russophile without praising the brutal communist regime, no?  The Germanophiles among us certainly don't praise the nazis.  Many good people on both sides, German and Russian, died in two bad causes.
To be honest, there is little to choose between the racial hatred of the nazis and the idealogical hatred
of the soviets, both the wicked progeny of nebulous Marxian socialism....

Cheerio!
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learstang
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« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2014, 12:23:43 AM »

"I was reluctant to post a disagreement, but..."unprovoked invasion;" really?  Would that mean that the
soviet invasion of Finland was provoked, not to mention that of the other Baltic states?  How should one consider Russian cooperation with Germany with their own invasion of Poland?  The point is that one can
be a Russophile without praising the brutal communist regime, no?  The Germanophiles among us certainly don't praise the nazis.  Many good people on both sides, German and Russian, died in two bad causes.
To be honest, there is little to choose between the racial hatred of the nazis and the idealogical hatred
of the soviets, both the wicked progeny of nebulous Marxian socialism....

Cheerio!"

I am afraid you should have stayed reluctant to post a disagreement. No one here is incognizant of the evils of Stalinism and Communism or that a great number of people died under both, but to equate the two with Nazism is sheer and utter nonsense. I am getting extremely tired of people doing this sort of "well they were both bad, so what's the difference" sort of false equivalency. Communism, for all its faults, was still based on the idea that all people were equal. There was also legal equality for women in the Soviet Union (in theory at any rate) - something they didn't achieve even in theory in the liberal democracies of the West for decades. There was no legal apartheid, nor were there Jim Crow laws, and there was certainly never anything remotely approaching the hideous racist policies of the Nazis, such as the Nuremburg laws. I am not unaware of how far short Communism fell of its better ideals, such as internationalism, the brotherhood of man, non-racism, workers? rights, and equality for women, but it at least had these ideals, even if they were very unevenly practiced (if at all). Nazism had absolutely nothing to recommend it in terms of ideals, unless you believe in rampant nationalism, savage racism, unchecked militarism, and obnoxious misogyny (I run out of derogatory terms whilst describing the evil that was Nazism). There never was, and hopefully there never will be again an ideology as completely morally corrupt and foul as Nazism, both in theory and practice. To say Nazism and Communism were basically the same shows an utter lack of historical understanding.

I fail to see how the Soviets' incorporation of the Baltic States has anything to do with Barbarossa. Perhaps you think that Germany was exacting revenge for the Baltic States? forced incorporation into the Soviet Union (and I do recognise that it was forced)? Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Period. Not the other way around. There is no credible evidence, certainly not the drivel put out by Mr. Suvarov (an ex-KGB man writing under a pseudonym), to suggest that an invasion by the Soviet Union was imminent. The invasion and incorporation of the western part of the Soviet Union was such an integral part of Hitler?s weltanschauung, or "world view" that there is nothing the Soviet Union could have done to stop it. Even if the Soviet Union had unilaterally disarmed, thereby removing the threat of invasion, the Germans would have attacked. Much sooner rather than later.

And where do you read that anyone here is ?praising the brutal communist regime?? I praised the Soviet people and military for defeating the Nazis, for destroying that truly most evil regime of all time, I praise them and the Red Air Force for their tremendous sacrifice and losses, and for their immense courage and hardiness. Or perhaps you would have wished an entire Europe under Nazi rule?

To give a concrete example of how different things would have been under Nazism and Communist rule, let?s look at Poland. After five or so years of Nazi rule, six million Poles were dead (no, I haven?t forgotten about Katyn Wood, but ten or fifteen or even twenty-five thousand dead killed there is not six million dead). After forty-five years of Communist rule, despite the Soviet repression (let?s also remember that Poland was a dictatorship before the war) Poland emerged out the other side a reasonably well-educated nation, with a much better standard of living than it had had before the war, with hospitals and schools, and that soon became a functioning democracy. After forty-five years of Nazi rule, there would not have been a Polish nation, because there were not have been any Poles, except perhaps for a few million, wretched, half-starved, illiterate slaves.

I'm afraid you're a little confused about the connection between Nazism and Marxism. The "Socialism" part of "National Socialism" was mainly a ruse, to obtain the support of anti-Jewish working class Germans. It's true that high-up (and early) Nazis such as Otto and Gregor Strasser, and Ernst Roehm and many in the Sturmabteilung (SA, or "brownshirts") actually believed in the "Socialism" part of "National Socialism", but they were taken care of in the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934, and after that, any tenuous relationship between National Socialism and socialism or Communism was illusory. To say the two were both the progeny of Marxian socialism is simply historically incorrect. Nazism's deep roots in the nationalistic, militaristic, and anti-Semitic "Volkische" right-wing ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries is well-established, and could have hardly been more different than the teachings of Karl Marx, other than both had a disdain for "liberal bourgeoisie" democracies.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 04:08:28 AM by learstang » Logged

"I'll sleep when I'm dead."

- Warren William Zevon
Massimo Tessitori
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« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2014, 06:13:44 AM »

Hi,
sorry, but political discussions are not welcome on this forum. One can build or draw Soviet warplanes without being said communist or not communist, as one can do the same with German planes without being considered a nazist or not a nazist, etc.
So, please, stop here the discussion. You could always continue it by personal mail, if you want.
Regards
Massimo
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