America was isolationist until they were dragged kicking and screaming into the war. Churchill was regularly crossing the Atlantic to beg Roosevelt to try to garner enough support to join the war. The American people did not care. The majority were against joining the war.
All the same today, The majority of Americans either support MAGA or are indifferent. Short of some great personal injury such as a Pearl Harbor type event, Americans will continue to be as they are.
The idea that Americans were anti-fascist heroes is propaganda. They were only angry that they got got by Japan.
The soviets saved the world from fascism, 4/5ths of Nazi deaths were on the Eastern Front. The US took advantage of its new privledged position after World War II to become the world hegemonic empire, which leads us to today. Before World War II, it was and still is to this day a genocidal settler colony.
Hitler and Stalin were allies from 1939 to 1941. Stalin’s incompetence in the 1930s lead to the deaths of millions of Soviets, and imperiled millions more;
Churchill, for all his faults—and he had a several very bad faults—at least took Hitler seriously;
The communists were never allies with the Nazis. A non-aggression pact is not an alliance. The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
Churchill did not take the Nazis as a serious threat, and was horrified when FDR and Stalin made a joke about executing Nazis. Churchill starved millions to death in India in preventable ways, and had this to say about it:
I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.
Meanwhile, the soviet famine in the 1930s was the last major famine outside of wartime in the USSR, because collectivized farming achieved food security in a region where famine was common. As a consequence, life expectancy doubled:
The Nazis and soviets were never allies. A non-aggression pact is not an alliance, and the non-aggression pact between the soviets and the Nazis was unique among the other non-aggression pacts in that it was on the eve of war. The soviets knew war was coming, and so bought more time to prepare.
Not sure what including an example of the social fascism of the SPD at the end there is supposed to do for your point.
The communists were never allies with the Nazis. A non-aggression pact is not an alliance.
They kind of acted like allies, particularly with regards to Poland, which they split between themselves, and before you cite that it was a preemptive strike—I suppose a sort of “the Nazis-will-invade-Poland-before-us-so-we-might-as-well-have-a-chunk-of-it-right-now-to-fight-there-rather-in-our-beloved-Soviet-Motherland”—there are things like the wp:Katyn massacre. Again, Stalin’s purges hurt the Soviet’s ability to counter the Nazis, and I’ll add maybe scared more Germans into voting for Nazis.
The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French.
It might be due to bad PR: while Hitler was having his Nuremberg rally and the Berlin Olympics, Stalin was having his purges.
The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
Agreed, but both Communists and Nazis were also anti-liberal—a lot of Germans were liberal—but I suppose the KPD weren’t really into coalition-building with liberals and/or democrats in those days.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, …, It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Yes, but I don’t think the others involved carving up other countries, with the exception of Czechoslovakia, and the idiot British PM who was responsible for that resigned soon after it backfired, while after Molotov-Ribbentrop, Stalin continued to rule until his death in 1953.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
and some Americans believed in continued neutrality for similar reasons.
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis.
and kudos to the people of the USSR.
The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis,
I presume it was implied.
When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior.
Presumably they hit the areas defended not by the Nazis but by the Poles—i.e. the eastern part.
Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle?
For the next two decades, Poland was seen by the Soviet Union as an enemy and, along with Germany (under both the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich), as a “politically illegitimate” state created by the Allied Powers during World War I at the expense of Germany and Russia.[15][16] During the interwar period Joseph Stalin feared a coordinated Polish-Japanese two-front invasion. Numerous residents of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic also fled across the border to Poland in protest of the First Five-Year Plan’s collectivization policies and the Holodomor.[16] The Soviet Union supported subversive activities of the Communist Party of Poland, the Communist Party of Western Belarus, and the Communist Party of Western Ukraine. Poland in turn sent secret agents across the border to encourage rebellion against Soviet rule, which caused Stalin to begin to associate Poles in the Soviet Union with nationalist dissident and terrorist groups. The NKVD murdered 111,091 Poles during the Polish Operation and deported many families to Kazakhstan. Fears of a Polish invasion and external espionage also gave justification to the general internal repression of the Great Purge in the 1930s. Nevertheless, the USSR and Poland concluded a formal Non-Aggression Pact in 1932.[16]
So I guess Moscow and Warsaw weren’t getting along.
The Soviets demanded the right to enter these countries in case of a security threat.[50] Talks on military matters, that had begun in mid-August, quickly stalled over the topic of Soviet troop passage through Poland in the event of a German attack. British and French officials pressured the Polish government to agree to the Soviet terms.[51][52] However, Polish officials bluntly refused to allow Soviet troops to enter Polish territory upon expressing grave concerns that once Red Army troops had set foot on Polish soil, they might decline demands to leave.[53] Thereupon Soviet officials suggested that Poland’s objections be ignored and that the tripartite agreements be concluded.[54] The British refused the proposal, fearing that such a move would encourage Poland to establish stronger bilateral relations with Germany.[55]
So a country that was partially-at-least ruled by the Kremlin, didn’t want soldiers ruled by the Kremlin in their country again.
He served in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I, and in 1918, joined the Red Army and fought with distinction during the Russian Civil War. Rokossovsky rose to hold senior Red Army commands by 1937, when he fell victim to Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge and was branded a traitor, imprisoned and tortured. After Soviet failures in the Winter War, Rokossovsky was released from prison in 1940 and returned to command of an army corps.
What was this Polish commie doing in a commie prison?
more evidence of Stalin’s idiocy.
Churchill did not take the Nazis as a serious threat, and was horrified when FDR and Stalin made a joke about executing Nazis. Churchill starved millions to death in India in preventable ways, and had this to say about it:
I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.
I’ll have to check that out. Maybe I’ve overestimated him; and yes, he at least seems to have been genocidal, though such would give fuel (might have given fuel) to non-racist isolationists in the US and neutral European countries, such as those in Switzerland and Ireland.
Meanwhile, the soviet famine in the 1930s was the last major famine outside of wartime in the USSR, because collectivized farming achieved food security in a region where famine was common. As a consequence, life expectancy doubled:
anti-Communist ≠ necessarily pro-Tsarist
After Stalin died and Khrushchev took over, things seemed to improve.
Under capitalism—however regulated—Ukraine—IIUC—is a food exporter; though the the Kremlin is still making them suffer.
The soviets knew war was coming, and so bought more time to prepare.
Besides invading Poland and fighting the Poles, I wonder what did the Soviets do in those 22⅓ months to prepare that they didn’t do in the several years previous.
Not sure what including an example of the social fascism of the SPD at the end there is supposed to do for your point.
The KPD under Thälmann’s leadership regarded the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as an adversary and the party adopted the position that the social democrats were “social fascists”. Both the SPD and KPD were already previously split on many key issues, however, this new stance clarified it was impossible for the two parties to form a united front against the Nazi Party.
Thälmann was leader of the paramilitary Roter Frontkämpferbund. After the Nazi regime began, he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years. Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov originally sought Thälmann’s release;[3] after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, efforts to that end were abandoned,[4] while Thälmann’s party rival Walter Ulbricht ignored requests to plead on his behalf. Thälmann was shot dead on Adolf Hitler’s personal order in Buchenwald in 1944.
I hope he died with the consolation that at least maybe many “social fascists” were also executed by the Nazis.
“Of 225 shells found in this grave, 205 are the German 1941 “Hasag” type, 17 are the German 1941 “Dürlach” type, 2 are of the unmarked 1930s Soviet type; and one is marked “B 1906.” Hence 98.67% of the shells are of 1941 German manufacture.”
The soviets and Poland indeed did not get along, at least not until Poland turned socialist. Poland had been engaging in wars of conquest in the preceding decades, killing Hungarians, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians, annexing their lands. Considering that the soviet union was a multi-national federation of socialist countries, it makes sense that there would be bad blood between them. After Poland turned socialist, it recieved large investments and skyrocketed in industrial output and quality of life metrics.
What improved in the soviet union was the benefit of the decades of industrialization and planting the seeds for the future that existed in the 20s and 30s, fighting off the Nazis and saving the world from fascism, and recovery from that war. The early soviets had worked tirelessly to create a new world.
The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.
The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski’s Human Rights in the Soviet Union.
The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.
Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism in the USSR. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries.
Returning to World War II, the soviets continued their preparatory work for war. It involved dramatic, rapid industrialization, which they needed to continue to close the industrial gap with Germany. Their rate of growth was higher than that of Germany, but in absolute terms were still lagging, so any bit of time they could buy was worth it. See The Soviets Expected It.
Returning to the KPD and SPD, the reason the SPD were so hated by the KPD is because the SPD aided the Nazis in killing communists. The SPD’s anti-communism aligned them with the Nazis, whom they found a common enemy. The SPD’s plan of voting for Hindenburg came true and failed spectacularly as Hitler took power anyways, proving the Communists correct, that the fascists needed to be fought directly. The SPD being killed by the Nazis for being too left wing is a direct result of their assistance with killing the communists first. See how the SPD betrayed the revolution.
As a side note, wikipedia is not a source. It is a compilation of sources at best, and at worst it can be wrong or misleading, lacking key context or mistranslating primary sources.
Thank you for your reply, and I appreciate the effort; but as a (decent) rebuttal to this would involve more reading on my part, it might take a while to reply to it—but I intend to.
Until then, have a nice day. 🙂
(It is now 19:01 UTC (3:01 PM EDT), Monday, 6 April 2026.)
The US only joined the war opportunistically and because Japan was stupid enough to drag them into it.
Ever heard of the guy named Harry Truman (I’m sure he wasn’t anyone too important)? That’s what he had to say about WW2:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
The Soviets did the majority of the fighting against the Nazis and the Chinese againt Japan.
The US only joined the war opportunistically and because Japan was stupid enough to drag them into it.
Not to defend Japan, they had it coming, but that part of WW2 was provoked by US as 100% classic interimperialist war for at least West Pacific and maybe even entire East Asia (and in fact Lenin predicted it in 1918, although he predicted it way earlier than it really erupted). At the point US embargoed Japan, it was already fully invested in genocidal brutal war against China and had war materials for half year with zero possibility to disentangle itself.
So they had only two choices: dismantling of their empire which was absolutely unacceptable to them and would probably end up with remnants being swallowed by US anyway or maybe even to face very angry China while having no supplies for armed forces, or take the resources by force which meant conquering Dutch colonies and in this case war with UK and USA was also certain, so their decision to go va banque was basically the rational option, and while it was noted back then by some like admiral Yamamoto to be suicidal, it proven to be less suicidal than alternative, especially that the Japanese nationalism was preserved by USA and is now surfacing itself in even stupider form.
And fuck them, good riddance, but USA had only imperialist motivation for that war and indeed ended up gobbling basically entire Pacific and their own Mare Nostrum in the process, the only thing stopping them even a little was USSR and China.
To be clear, the way the soviets treated the Nazis was entitely different from the way the US did. The soviets kept them under maximum security, paid them low wages, and kept them on the tightest leash possible. The US gave them high positions in government, sent many to countries like Canada and Argentina, and gave them leading roles in organizations like NATO.
Despite this, the affected specialists and their families were doing well compared to citizens of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Zone, apart from the suffering of deportation and isolation. The specialists earned more than their Soviet counterparts.
…
After this period of intellectual quarantine had passed, the specialists returned to Germany between 1950 and 1958, the majority of them before 1954.[5] Before leaving, they were taught to keep their years in the Soviet Union secret. Some specialists received chairs in GDR universities (e.g., Werner Albring, Waldemar Wolff), became an East German party official like Erich Apel.
He was tireless in his work of calculation, measuring and modelling.[6] He seems to have made a good impression, since in August 1940 he was relieved of all further obligations regarding military service. In November 1940 he was appointed to the position of plant engineer and assistant to the facility director.[1] He was totally uninterested in politics, never joining the party, and regarded by colleagues as a dedicated engineer, body and soul.[6]
…
Even if Apel had nothing to do with setting up and running the vast deadly forced labour infrastructure, as the engineer responsible for the rockets he was naturally associated with it.
…
In June 1954, already a junior government minister, Apel became a candidate for party membership. Membership was granted in March 1957.[1] Slightly more than one year later, in July 1958, he became a candidate for Central Committee membership.[9] In July 1960 Apel became one of approximately 112 members of the powerful Party Central Committee.[1][10]
Some people think conversions are possible, I suppose.
Yes, they were kept isolated and under strict observance, then expelled. They were not given high positions en masse and protected. Adolf Heusinger, for example, was made head of NATO for his experience as a Nazi. Apel was the exception, not the rule, Heusinger was the rule, not the exception.
He received the Silver Star for gallantry in action in the Balkans and Mediterranean (according to his citation, “Lt. Hamilton displayed great courage in making hazardous sea voyages in enemy-infested waters and reconnaissance through enemy-held areas”), a Bronze Arrowhead device for parachuting behind enemy lines, and a commendation from Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito. He left active duty on December 24, 1945.[19] Tito awarded him the Order of Merit.[20]
I want to note that the grandparents of the modern day Americans saved us from oppression and fascism
If you’re talking about WW2 then you’re wrong
Like many of his contemporaries, he was an American who had/has modern day grandchildren, and probably did more to fight fascism than many Lemmy leftists.
Pointing to individual soldiers as opposed to looking at broader movements and forces at play just obfuscates the concrete reality that the US Empire was very happy to sit out, loaning the allies weaponry, and profiting off the war. It wasn’t until Pearl Harbor that they really got involved, and the US Empire did so with the aim of establishing itself as a new imperial hegemon, a status it has today but is quickly losing.
Without contesting your reply, I think the reference was about the individuals soldiers and those other Americans who fought the fascists, including Nazis.
No, when referring to a generation as having saved the next generations from fascism, the credit is being assigned to that generation, not individuals. It isn’t about individual anti-fascists.
I suppose such grandparents might have been/be members of the “Greatest Generation”, such as Hayden; or “Silent Generation” (which included/includes Chomsky, MLK, Gloria Steinem, Lee Harvey Oswald, Frank Zappa, Larry Ellison, Ted Kaczynski, or Biden); Baby Boomers; or possibly even Gen-Xers (a few might have grandchildren who post on Lemmy).
Though to be fair, the reference to WWII might whittle it down to the first 2, and maybe add the wp:Lost Generation (1833 to 1900).
My grandfather served in the same Americanmilitary who thought it was inappropriate for him to die in the same trench as a black man or for women to wear pants. I’m not really interested in fluffing their generation - they’re perfectly happy doing it themselves.
deleted by creator
America was isolationist until they were dragged kicking and screaming into the war. Churchill was regularly crossing the Atlantic to beg Roosevelt to try to garner enough support to join the war. The American people did not care. The majority were against joining the war.
All the same today, The majority of Americans either support MAGA or are indifferent. Short of some great personal injury such as a Pearl Harbor type event, Americans will continue to be as they are.
The idea that Americans were anti-fascist heroes is propaganda. They were only angry that they got got by Japan.
you did nothing loser, it was the soviets and the chinese who did that, you piece of shit
I’m so sorry that you got your education at a clown school.
The soviets saved the world from fascism, 4/5ths of Nazi deaths were on the Eastern Front. The US took advantage of its new privledged position after World War II to become the world hegemonic empire, which leads us to today. Before World War II, it was and still is to this day a genocidal settler colony.
Hitler and Stalin were allies from 1939 to 1941. Stalin’s incompetence in the 1930s lead to the deaths of millions of Soviets, and imperiled millions more;
Churchill, for all his faults—and he had a several very bad faults—at least took Hitler seriously;
but yes, the Soviets fought harder than any Ally.
The communists were never allies with the Nazis. A non-aggression pact is not an alliance. The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
Churchill did not take the Nazis as a serious threat, and was horrified when FDR and Stalin made a joke about executing Nazis. Churchill starved millions to death in India in preventable ways, and had this to say about it:
Meanwhile, the soviet famine in the 1930s was the last major famine outside of wartime in the USSR, because collectivized farming achieved food security in a region where famine was common. As a consequence, life expectancy doubled:
The Nazis and soviets were never allies. A non-aggression pact is not an alliance, and the non-aggression pact between the soviets and the Nazis was unique among the other non-aggression pacts in that it was on the eve of war. The soviets knew war was coming, and so bought more time to prepare.
Not sure what including an example of the social fascism of the SPD at the end there is supposed to do for your point.
They kind of acted like allies, particularly with regards to Poland, which they split between themselves, and before you cite that it was a preemptive strike—I suppose a sort of “the Nazis-will-invade-Poland-before-us-so-we-might-as-well-have-a-chunk-of-it-right-now-to-fight-there-rather-in-our-beloved-Soviet-Motherland”—there are things like the wp:Katyn massacre. Again, Stalin’s purges hurt the Soviet’s ability to counter the Nazis, and I’ll add maybe scared more Germans into voting for Nazis.
It might be due to bad PR: while Hitler was having his Nuremberg rally and the Berlin Olympics, Stalin was having his purges.
Agreed, but both Communists and Nazis were also anti-liberal—a lot of Germans were liberal—but I suppose the KPD weren’t really into coalition-building with liberals and/or democrats in those days.
Yes, but I don’t think the others involved carving up other countries, with the exception of Czechoslovakia, and the idiot British PM who was responsible for that resigned soon after it backfired, while after Molotov-Ribbentrop, Stalin continued to rule until his death in 1953.
and some Americans believed in continued neutrality for similar reasons.
and kudos to the people of the USSR.
I presume it was implied.
Presumably they hit the areas defended not by the Nazis but by the Poles—i.e. the eastern part.
wp:Poland–Russia relations#Soviet Union
So I guess Moscow and Warsaw weren’t getting along.
wp:Soviet invasion of Poland#Soviet invasion of Poland
So a country that was partially-at-least ruled by the Kremlin, didn’t want soldiers ruled by the Kremlin in their country again.
I just checked this out:
wp:Konstantin Rokossovsky
(my bold)
What was this Polish commie doing in a commie prison?
more evidence of Stalin’s idiocy.
I’ll have to check that out. Maybe I’ve overestimated him; and yes, he at least seems to have been genocidal, though such would give fuel (might have given fuel) to non-racist isolationists in the US and neutral European countries, such as those in Switzerland and Ireland.
anti-Communist ≠ necessarily pro-Tsarist
After Stalin died and Khrushchev took over, things seemed to improve.
Under capitalism—however regulated—Ukraine—IIUC—is a food exporter; though the the Kremlin is still making them suffer.
Besides invading Poland and fighting the Poles, I wonder what did the Soviets do in those 22⅓ months to prepare that they didn’t do in the several years previous.
wp:Ernst Thälmann
(my bold)
I hope he died with the consolation that at least maybe many “social fascists” were also executed by the Nazis.
The soviets did not “split Poland” with the Nazis, the soviets only went in weeks after the Nazis did. Most of the area the Soviets took are areas in modern Lithuania and Ukraine. Poland had annexed them in the Polish-Soviet War and the Polish-Lithuanian War earlier. Katyn gets pinned on the Soviets because Goebbels reported on it and it became a useful story, but the execution method was distinctly Nazi, ie killing men, women, and children from behind into mass graves. The ammunition was German-produced in 1941, and the rope used to bind the hands of the victims was German made. It was entirely characteristc of Nazi execution methods and with Nazi equipment.
The soviets and Poland indeed did not get along, at least not until Poland turned socialist. Poland had been engaging in wars of conquest in the preceding decades, killing Hungarians, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians, annexing their lands. Considering that the soviet union was a multi-national federation of socialist countries, it makes sense that there would be bad blood between them. After Poland turned socialist, it recieved large investments and skyrocketed in industrial output and quality of life metrics.
As for the purges, the need to investigate the party for traitors was legitimate. After the assassination of Kirov, a conspiracy against the soviet state was found, along with infiltration from fascists. Khrushchev did not improve the soviet union, but rather set the seeds for its dissolution. For more on the topic of Stalin, the early soviet period, and Khrushchev, see Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend.
What improved in the soviet union was the benefit of the decades of industrialization and planting the seeds for the future that existed in the 20s and 30s, fighting off the Nazis and saving the world from fascism, and recovery from that war. The early soviets had worked tirelessly to create a new world.
The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.
Literacy rates, societal guarantees in the 1936 constitution, reports on the healthcare system over time, and more are good sources for these claims.
The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski’s Human Rights in the Soviet Union.
The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.
Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism in the USSR. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries.
Returning to World War II, the soviets continued their preparatory work for war. It involved dramatic, rapid industrialization, which they needed to continue to close the industrial gap with Germany. Their rate of growth was higher than that of Germany, but in absolute terms were still lagging, so any bit of time they could buy was worth it. See The Soviets Expected It.
Returning to the KPD and SPD, the reason the SPD were so hated by the KPD is because the SPD aided the Nazis in killing communists. The SPD’s anti-communism aligned them with the Nazis, whom they found a common enemy. The SPD’s plan of voting for Hindenburg came true and failed spectacularly as Hitler took power anyways, proving the Communists correct, that the fascists needed to be fought directly. The SPD being killed by the Nazis for being too left wing is a direct result of their assistance with killing the communists first. See how the SPD betrayed the revolution.
As a side note, wikipedia is not a source. It is a compilation of sources at best, and at worst it can be wrong or misleading, lacking key context or mistranslating primary sources.
Thank you for your reply, and I appreciate the effort; but as a (decent) rebuttal to this would involve more reading on my part, it might take a while to reply to it—but I intend to.
Until then, have a nice day. 🙂
(It is now 19:01 UTC (3:01 PM EDT), Monday, 6 April 2026.)
The US only joined the war opportunistically and because Japan was stupid enough to drag them into it.
Ever heard of the guy named Harry Truman (I’m sure he wasn’t anyone too important)? That’s what he had to say about WW2:
The Soviets did the majority of the fighting against the Nazis and the Chinese againt Japan.
Not to defend Japan, they had it coming, but that part of WW2 was provoked by US as 100% classic interimperialist war for at least West Pacific and maybe even entire East Asia (and in fact Lenin predicted it in 1918, although he predicted it way earlier than it really erupted). At the point US embargoed Japan, it was already fully invested in genocidal brutal war against China and had war materials for half year with zero possibility to disentangle itself.
So they had only two choices: dismantling of their empire which was absolutely unacceptable to them and would probably end up with remnants being swallowed by US anyway or maybe even to face very angry China while having no supplies for armed forces, or take the resources by force which meant conquering Dutch colonies and in this case war with UK and USA was also certain, so their decision to go va banque was basically the rational option, and while it was noted back then by some like admiral Yamamoto to be suicidal, it proven to be less suicidal than alternative, especially that the Japanese nationalism was preserved by USA and is now surfacing itself in even stupider form.
And fuck them, good riddance, but USA had only imperialist motivation for that war and indeed ended up gobbling basically entire Pacific and their own Mare Nostrum in the process, the only thing stopping them even a little was USSR and China.
Look up operation paperclip
FWIW,
wp:Operation Paperclip
and,
wp:Operation Osoaviakhim
To be clear, the way the soviets treated the Nazis was entitely different from the way the US did. The soviets kept them under maximum security, paid them low wages, and kept them on the tightest leash possible. The US gave them high positions in government, sent many to countries like Canada and Argentina, and gave them leading roles in organizations like NATO.
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I checked out the article on this guy:
wp:Erich Apel
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Some people think conversions are possible, I suppose.
Yes, they were kept isolated and under strict observance, then expelled. They were not given high positions en masse and protected. Adolf Heusinger, for example, was made head of NATO for his experience as a Nazi. Apel was the exception, not the rule, Heusinger was the rule, not the exception.
The expulsions don’t seem to be too harsh, but otherwise fair enough.
It’s still a good thing that you brought up the soviet version of paperclip because facing contradictions is important for growth
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Makes me sick just thinking about so many getting away with everything
If you’re talking about WW2 then you’re wrong
wp:Sterling Hayden (March 26, 1916 – May 23, 1986)
?
Like many of his contemporaries, he was an American who had/has modern day grandchildren, and probably did more to fight fascism than many Lemmy leftists.
lol
Pointing to individual soldiers as opposed to looking at broader movements and forces at play just obfuscates the concrete reality that the US Empire was very happy to sit out, loaning the allies weaponry, and profiting off the war. It wasn’t until Pearl Harbor that they really got involved, and the US Empire did so with the aim of establishing itself as a new imperial hegemon, a status it has today but is quickly losing.
Without contesting your reply, I think the reference was about the individuals soldiers and those other Americans who fought the fascists, including Nazis.
No, when referring to a generation as having saved the next generations from fascism, the credit is being assigned to that generation, not individuals. It isn’t about individual anti-fascists.
The word was “grandparents”.
The generation wasn’t specified.
I suppose such grandparents might have been/be members of the “Greatest Generation”, such as Hayden; or “Silent Generation” (which included/includes Chomsky, MLK, Gloria Steinem, Lee Harvey Oswald, Frank Zappa, Larry Ellison, Ted Kaczynski, or Biden); Baby Boomers; or possibly even Gen-Xers (a few might have grandchildren who post on Lemmy).
Though to be fair, the reference to WWII might whittle it down to the first 2, and maybe add the wp:Lost Generation (1833 to 1900).
My grandfather served in the same Americanmilitary who thought it was inappropriate for him to die in the same trench as a black man or for women to wear pants. I’m not really interested in fluffing their generation - they’re perfectly happy doing it themselves.
Who’s “us”, asshole? America has been a genocidal settler colony for centuries