The Soviet Empire

[Brosip Tito]

This is a term, and a topic, which I rarely see discussed, and I always see denied by Stalinites and other factually impaired people. I've never understood the ability to accept Soviet Imperialism as something other than imperialism, or to deny that it never happened. So, let's analyze Soviet imperialism.

Soviet imperialism, as described by Dunayevskaya, manifests itself in three ways:

1. Direct Conquest
2. Trade agreements
3. Reparations

The outbreak of WW2 saw a mass expansion of Russian territory. The likes of Lithuania, Moldavia, East Prussia, and others brought a total expansion of 273 947 square miles of land. This land held a population of 24 335 500.

This can go on to include what are referred to as spheres of influence (or spheres of oppression, as Dunayevskaya cleverly puts), basically the entirety of Central Europe. It either pulls direct control, indirect stratification or to operate jointly, as with Rumania via trade agreements. Dunayevskaya says " It pays to stop for a moment on the Russian-Rumanian Trade Agreement, which is typical of Russia’s agreements with Central Europe, and which closely resembles the 'trade agreements' the Nazis elaborated precisely for the same region".

Lastly we can discuss the likes of reparations, where conquered nations have to "contribute to the motherland". Dunayevskaya uses the example of Finland, who was required to pay the Kremlin $300 000 000 in the form of timber, metal and papers.

How can ML's deny this? The facts are quite clear. How is this not imperialism? How is the direct conquest of land, resources and control of population equal to anything but?

This is just further evidence of the capitalist nature of the Soviet Union, and it's complete disregard of Marxist theory and disregard of the goals of Lenin and the early Bolsheviks. Stalin perverted Marxism to mean whatever he wanted it to mean, in this case he used it to justify his reign. He perverted the legacy of Lenin and led a successful counterrevolution to achieve power and control of society and the means of production. Like many bourgeoisie, Stalin and his bureaucracy led successful imperialist campaigns and maintained a state of oppression and exploitation at home and the nations he conquered. The Soviet Empire, led by Great Emperor Stalin, was so blatantly obvious.

So, what say you?

[Omsk]

The outbreak of WW2 saw a mass expansion of Russian territory. The likes of Lithuania, Moldavia, East Prussia, and others brought a total expansion of 273 947 square miles of land. This land held a population of 24 335 500.



Yes,and?The Baltic people were supportive of the USSR,and the USSR helped the advance greatly.



Lastly we can discuss the likes of reparations, where conquered nations have to "contribute to the motherland". Dunayevskaya uses the example of Finland, who was required to pay the Kremlin $300 000 000 in the form of timber, metal and papers.



The Soviets actually took the minimum from Finland.


How can ML's deny this? The facts are quite clear. How is this not imperialism? How is the direct conquest of land, resources and control of population equal to anything but?



This is imperialism:

"the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination."

None of this happened in the teritories controlled by the peoples democracies or the Soviet Union.

The rest of your post is just a baseless emotionalised un-Marxist couple of thoughts.

[Brosip Tito]

Yes,and?The Baltic people were supportive of the USSR,and the USSR helped the advance greatly.This is ridiculous, and similar to the neoconservative line that the Iraqi people want the American troops there.

This statement you made, seems quite the piece of chauvinist thought: "the USSR helped them advance greatly".


The Soviets actually took the minimum from Finland.
Did you think before you posted this? Dear lord.


This is imperialism:

"the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." According to wikipedia, yes. The same page has a section for Soviet Imperialism.


None of this happened in the teritories controlled by the peoples democracies or the Soviet Union.I beg to differ. The forced payment of reparations, as I mention with Finland, is an obvious example of this. The Kremlin held power over the Finnish government and peoples.


The rest of your post is just a baseless emotionalised un-Marxist couple of thoughts.This coming from a proponent of socialism in one country, one of the biggest anti-Marxist ideas ever thought up.

[Omsk]

This is ridiculous, and similar to the neoconservative line that the Iraqi people want the American troops there.

This statement you made, seems quite the piece of chauvinist thought: "the USSR helped them advance greatly".




And this is also,as you seem to say,riduclous,but again,what to expect from someone who has a quote from Zizek in his signature.

Next the Soviets presented Lithuania with her ancient capital Vilno, seized 20 years earlier by the Poles. It was an important gift, being twice the size of the present capital Kaunas; its 550,000 population increased Lithuania's total population by 20 percent. Molotov later stated that it was not given because Vilno had a Lithuanian population; after 20 years of Polish domination, most of Vilno's inhabitants were Poles and Jews. "The Soviet government took into consideration...the historic past and...the national aspirations of the Lithuanian people." In other words that gift was made, not for the sake of Vilno, which didn't particularly want to be transferred, but for the psychological effect on the Lithuanians.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 176

They added that the Soviets could have demanded anything up to annexation and complete Sovietization of their countries and neither Germany nor the Allies could have stopped it.” Their internal organization was no more affected by the new alliance than the governments in South America are affected by the acquisition of naval bases by the United States. The countries were not even required to join in the defense of the USSR unless the attack upon it came directly across their territory. Baltic diplomats and press therefore commented on the shrewdness and reasonableness of Moscow and on the expected trade advantages; they much resented the term "vassal" applied to them by the Anglo-American press.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 177-178

They [the Baltic Germans--ed.] formed the upper class in the Baltic states. For centuries they had been the outpost of German imperialism eastward; they owned the big estates and dominated the industries. At the time of the Russian revelation, much of the native population sided with the Bolsheviks; it was the Baltic Germans who overthrew the local Red governments, calling the troops of the Kaiser to their aid. The removal of these Baltic Germans by Soviet pressure on Hitler scattered what was, for the USSR the most dangerous Nazi fifth column anywhere in Europe. Baltic newspapers expressed regret mingled with pleasure at their going, and remarked that it gave the natives a chance at the better -- paid jobs.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 178

The Baltic countries were actually one of the richest of the USSR,so the idea that the everything was fine in the right-wing autocratic Nazi republics until the evil Soviets came and destroyed the countries is ridiculous.

Some more info:

Old-time Lithuanians said: "we have seen in our lives three armies -- the old tsarist Army, the German Army of occupation during the first World War, and now these Soviet troops. This is by far the most cultured Army we have ever known." As boosters for the Soviet Union's reputation, the Red Army did an excellent job.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 202


At the American Legation they explained that [Lithuanian] people were afraid not to come to the elections. But Smetona [right-wing Lithuanian president] had openly used police terror to make the peasants come to previous elections, yet they had not come. It was not terror that brought them to the places I visited; it was new hope.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 208

On July 21, 1940, Lithuania became a Soviet Socialist Republic by unanimous vote of the People's Sejm.... A few hours later, on the same day, Latvia and Estonia followed.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 212



Did you think before you posted this? Dear lord.

?

The Finnish right-wing dictatorship was openly friendly to the Nazis,and was one of the prime anti-Bolshevik countries.

And guess what?Finland was independant because of the Bolsheviks.


Hostilities between Finland and the Soviet Union ended on March 13, 1940. According to the peace terms, Finland gave to Russia to Karelian Isthmus, the Western and Northern Shores of Lake Ladoga, a number of strategic islands in the Gulf of Finland essential to the defense of Leningrad, the Soviet government restored to Finland the port of Petsamo, which had been occupied by the Red Army, and took a 30 year lease on the Hango Peninsula for an annual rental of 8 million Finnish marks.
Addressing the supreme Soviet of the USSR on March 29 Molotov declared: the Soviet Union having smashed the Finnish Army and having every opportunity of occupying the whole of Finland, did not do so and did not demand any indemnities for its expenditures in the war as any other power would have done, but confined its desires to a minimum.... We pursued no other objects in the peace treaty than that of safeguarding the security of Leningrad, Murmansk, and the Murmansk railroad...."
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 334

Here is an interesting part from Georgi Dimitrovs diary:

On 21 January 1940 Stalin said, "We have no desire for Finland's territory but Finland should be a state that is friendly to the Soviet Union.
Dimitrov, Georgi, The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933-1949. Ed. Ivo Banac. New Haven: Yale University Press, c2003, p. 124



I beg to differ. The forced payment of reparations, as I mention with Finland, is an obvious example of this. The Kremlin held power over the Finnish government and peoples.



No it did not,as i proved,it even didnt use the chance to make Finland a part of the USSR,or make it into a peoples republic.



This coming from a proponent of socialism in one country, one of the biggest anti-Marxist ideas ever thought up.


What do you know about my views and opinion?

How can you be so sure i am an proponent of SiOC?

Maybe im not.Who knows.You certainly dont.

[moulinrouge]

Imperialism wrapped in a red flag is still imperialism.
The working class had no say in this annexiation.

[moulinrouge]

Imperialism wrapped in a red flag is still imperialism. The working class had no say in this annexiation.

[Zulu]

Let's see...

1. Socialism in one country is bad, because it's anti-Marxist.
2. Liberation of the Baltic countries from the bourgeois power is bad, because it's imperialism wrapped in red flags.

So, what we got is yet another logically impaired (or voluntary and deliberate) imperialist lackey smiting Stalin for actual revolutionary practice. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.

[Rooster]

2. Liberation of the Baltic countries from the bourgeois power is bad, because it's imperialism wrapped in red flags.

Excuse me? Liberation of countries? FUCK! And here's me thinking that we were supposed to liberating humanity through a revolution in the means of production!

[Dire Helix]

This is ridiculous, and similar to the neoconservative line that the Iraqi people want the American troops there.

The Baltic states were the most advanced Soviet economies with the standard of living comparable to that of Western European countries and in some ways served as an exhibition of the achievements of the Soviet-style socialism. If you are going to claim that the occupation of the Baltic states was an act of imperialism, you`re going to have to provide evidence in regards to the supposed economic exploitation of these lands.


This statement you made, seems quite the piece of chauvinist thought: "the USSR helped them advance greatly".

Putting aside the argument about the nature of the Soviet system and whether it was socialist or state-capitalist, it did bring tremendous social progress to every piece of land that it covered, be it Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania or Tajikistan. That much is a fact. So, I don`t see what exactly is so wrong or let alone "chauvinist" with that statement.

[Deicide]

Yes,and?The Baltic people were supportive of the USSR,and the USSR helped the advance greatly.

I don't know about Estonia and Latvia (although I'm guessing it's the same story), but in Lithuania, partisans were fighting guerrilla wars against soviets from the early 1940s to late 50s/early 60s. A lot of people were not ''supportive'' in fact ''hated'' would be more accurate.

At least 100k or so died from fighting the soviets alone. That doesn't include the people sent to siberia or executed. One of the reasons why Lithuanians were sent to Siberia was to diffuse anti-sovietism. And by the way.. The majority of people that were sent to Siberia to work in gulags were women and children.

Edit - There were underground anti-soviet movements alive throughout the entire occupation. The punishment for these guys was brutal. At least in the wast, we can actually say that our governments are a bunch of corrupt, useless idiots. Try that in the soviet union before 1980.. Chances are you wouldn't be seen again (depending on how severe your anti-communist activities were). There's no way you could criticise the government, ''socialism'' or ''communism'' in public, without getting put in jail and geting a beating.. at the least.

[Omsk]

I don't know about Estonia and Latvia (although I'm guessing it's the same story), but in Lithuania, partisans were fighting guerrilla wars against soviets from the early 1940s to late 50s/early 60s. A lot of people were not ''supportive'' in fact ''hated'' would be more accurate.

At least 100k or so died from fighting the soviets alone. That doesn't include the people sent to siberia or executed. One of the reasons why Lithuanians were sent to Siberia was to diffuse anti-sovietism. And by the way.. The majority of people that were sent to Siberia to work in gulags were women and children.

Edit - There were underground anti-soviet movements alive throughout the entire occupation. The punishment for these guys was brutal. At least in the wast, we can actually say that our governments are a bunch of corrupt, useless idiots. Try that in the soviet union before Gorbachev.. Chances are you wouldn't be seen again.

A lot of the partisans were reactionary,and some of them were veterans from the Baltic Waffen SS divisions.(In Estonia and Latvia) - in short,most of them were reactionaries,like the Polish groups.

[Dire Helix]

I don't know about Estonia and Latvia (although I'm guessing it's the same story), but in Lithuania, partisans were fighting guerrilla wars against soviets from the early 1940s to late 50s/early 60s. A lot of people were not ''supportive''.

You mean the Forest Brothers far-right guerrillas? Of course they were not supportive of socialism. It`s objectively against their class interests. Kulaks and cossacks didn`t much like socialism either.


And by the way.. The majority of people that were sent to Siberia to work in gulags were women and children.Source of that, please. I hope it`s not "The Soviet Story".


Try that in the soviet union before 1980.. Chances are you wouldn't be seen again. Kinda like how the monarchist crackpot Solzhenitsyn or many other openly reactionary shitheads were never seen again, right?


There's no way you could criticise the government, ''socialism'' or ''communism'' in public, without getting put in jail and geting a beating.. at the least. Seriously now. I`m not even sure if you really mean it or just trolling. If you are going to be making up bullshit, at least try to make it creative. Like "you couldn`t criticize socialism in public without getting gang-raped and murdered in cold blood right on the spot". How evil was the evil Soviet system? - So evil.


At least in the wast, we can actually say that our governments are a bunch of corrupt, useless idiots.As long as you`re a nobody and your name is no one, you can say whatever your want. Nobody is going to give a shit, because your opinion doesn`t matter and you can`t change anything. If you in some way interfere with the dealings of the ruling class and the capitalist state deems you dangerous, "measures" will be applied to you.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

A lot of the partisans were reactionary,and some of them were veterans from the Baltic Waffen SS divisions.(In Estonia and Latvia) - in short,most of them were reactionaries,like the Polish groups.

But some of them had fought among the international brigades in the spanish civil war. Infact, if i do rember right, the baltic countries, counted on theire population size, had the biggest amount of volunteers to Spain.

[l'Enfermé]

"Everyone that doesn't want Stalin to conquer their country is a reactionary fascist trotskyite titoist revisionist nazi japenese spy"

Sounds a bit similar to:

"Everyone that doesn't want the US to invade their country, destroy everything, steal all the natural resources, and build military bases to do the same to other countries is a TERRORIST AND WANTS TO KILL OUR FREEDOM!!111!!"

By the way, Stalin didn't annex Finland because the UK, France and their friends were about to send their troops to Finland to fight the Soviets. Stalin's motive for starting the war was to gain the entire country, not just some land next to Murmansk and Leningrad, and either way, the only way to protect Leningrad was to annex at least half of Finland. As you might have read in history books, Leningrad didn't fall during the "Great Patriotic War" only because the Finnish were hesitant to press on, to the annoyance of the Germans on the other side of the siege.

Anyways, Finland didn't like this option either, as it meant handing over the country to the British and French. Either give some land to Stalin or give the entire country to the British and French, so they decided to accept peace with Stalin.

Also, if you wanna paint Finland, before and during, the Winter War as some sort of Nazi-loving paradise, German puppet, you're a an idiot. It was the German blockade of armament shipments to Finland that brought Finland to it's knees. And who was it that threatened Sweden with invasion if Sweden allowed British and French forces into Finland through Sweden? Oh, right, Hitler. But then again, this is nothing compared to when Hitler and Stalin jointly invaded Poland.

[Grenzer]

Putting aside the argument about the nature of the Soviet system and whether it was socialist or state-capitalist, it did bring tremendous social progress to every piece of land that it covered, be it Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania or Tajikistan. That much is a fact. So, I don`t see what exactly is so wrong or let alone "chauvinist" with that statement.

Because the question of whether it was socialist or state capitalist is entirely relevant. If the Soviet Union was in fact not socialist, then supporting their implementation of welfare policies amounts to reformism at best, nationalism at worst.

If you are going to defend countries based on how vigorous their social programs are, rather than whether they are really socialist or not, then I suggest you should start focusing on defending the United Kingdom and Germany rather than the Soviet Union. It's not revolutionary, but it would be consistent with your logic.

[Omsk]

By the way, Stalin didn't annex Finland because the UK, France and their friends were about to send their troops to Finland to fight the Soviets. Stalin's motive for starting the war was to gain the entire country, not just some land next to Murmansk and Leningrad, and either way, the only way to protect Leningrad was to annex at least half of Finland.


You can't really prove all this,and i dont like to speculate when it comes to history,there were no intentions to seize the whole of Finland,on the other hand,Finnish ideas of an joint asault on the USSR,were well known and are a fact: (Many examples) for instance,:This early democratically elected Finland was quickly suppressed. Baron Mannerheim, a tsarist general, called in German troops to overthrow the government.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 180

There are also examples of Finnish-German cooperation,and mutual help in the case of the USSR.

With the aid of German officers and engineers, Finland had been converted into a powerful fortress to serve as a base for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Twenty-three military airports had been constructed on Finnish soil, capable of accommodating 10 times as many planes as there were in the Finnish Air Force.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 332

The Finns also participated in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union,in an attempt to hide thier own horrors,such as mass eliminations of communists and a right-wing dictatorship that was,in its essence,Finland.

Finland also started the entire war,we should not forget that.The Finnish artillery bombed and killed Red Army soldiers.

What the Soviets proposed?Something completely reasonable.

The proposal that Stalin put to the Finns on Oct. 12 was to move the existing Soviet-Finnish border on the Karelian isthmus 25 miles farther away from Leningrad; and, for better protection of the city from attack by sea, for the Soviet Union to take over all the islands in the Gulf of Finland and lease the port of Hankow for use as a naval base. In the north, he asked for the cession of the Rybachi Peninsula, which commanded the approaches to Murmansk, the Soviet Union's only ice-free port on its western side. In return the Russians offered twice as much territory adjoining the center of Finland, where the narrow "waist" between the Russian frontier and the Gulf of Bothnia exposed the Finns to the danger of an invader cutting the country in two.
In the negotiations, which continued until November 8, Stalin showed himself willing to moderate his demands but not to withdraw them. Both Marshall Mannerheim, the hero of the earlier Finnish-Soviet war, and Paasikivi were in favor of coming to terms with the Russians, but the Finnish government, fully supported by public opinion, refused;...
Stalin was surprised at the Finnish intransigence; he appears to have hesitated before accepting the view of the hard-liners led by Zhdanov, the party boss of Leningrad, that they should not waste any more time but take what they needed by force. He finally agreed, subject to the proviso that only troops from the Leningrad Military District were to be involved.
Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. New York: Knopf, 1992, p. 660


Are you aware that the Soviets tried in all ways to come to a deal with Finland?They,as a big country,even proposed that Finland would get 5500 km2 in exchange for 2700,yet the Finns refused,and continued dreaming of a Hitlerite invasion which would destroy the " Judeo-Bolshevists " .

There is also this fragment;[+A comment from Molotov]


The Government of Finland declined, one after another, all the friendly proposals made by the Soviet Government with the object of safeguarding the security of the USSR, particularly of Leningrad, and this in spite of the fact that the Soviet Union was willing to go out to meet Finland and satisfy her legitimate interests.
The Finnish Government declined the proposal of the USSR to shift back the Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus a few dozen kilometers, although the Soviet Government was willing to compensate Finland with an area twice as large in Soviet Karelia.
The Finnish Government also declined the proposal of the USSR to conclude a pact of mutual assistance, thereby making it clear that the security of the USSR from the direction of Finland was not safeguarded.
In his speech at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on March 29, 1940, Molotov said:
"...The Soviet Union having smashed the Finnish army, and having had every opportunity of occupying the whole of Finland, did not do so and did not demand any indemnities for its war expenditure as any other Power would have done, but confined its demands to a minimum....
We pursued no other object in the Peace Treaty than that of safeguarding the security of Leningrad, Murmansk, and the Murmansk Railway."
Foreign Lang. Pub. House. Schuman, F. L. Intro. Falsifiers of History. Moscow, 1948, p. 44


I can't belive 'leftists' go so far as to actually defend the right-wing dictatorship that was Finland,just because they have this gigantic hate for the Soviet Union.

Good job white-washing a fascist dictatorship and protectorate..

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Hey Omsk, how you doing? You know I actually agree with your posts more than these anti-soviet dunderheads -- but your sources, they are really awful, and you overstate what is true.

Basically, the key here is the class composition of the USSR -- my view is that it was a deformed workers state, meaning that it had proletarian social and economic forms, but with a nationalist bonapartist bureaucratic caste running the political show.

Therefore, it would have been fine if the USSR brought Finland in to the Union -- I think that there were a number of peasant uprisings supporting the confiscation of lands, etc. as the Soviet Army moved into Finland. I also tend to agree that they were having all kinds of military problems and the words of Stalin and Molotov, amounting to "we meant to do that," were probably bullshit.

When I talk about "imperialism" I try to adhere to Lenin's definition. I think that you are are imparting some kind of vague meaning to it, akin to "superpower." The standard of living was higher in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia -- not to mention in most of the central european countries, than in the Russia. This does not look like imperialism.

But if you see the class nature of the USSR as not essentially different than the USA you will tend to arrive at the reactionary conclusions that you do. You wind up supporting the Forest Brothers, and Islamic reactionaries in the name of Marxism.

So, if France led by "Emperor" Napolean was actually a bourgeois republic, how is it impossible that the USSR, led by Stalin was a workers' state?

[l'Enfermé]

You can't really prove all this,and i dont like to speculate when it comes to history,there were no intentions to seize the whole of Finland,on the other hand,Finnish ideas of an joint asault on the USSR,were well known and are a fact: (Many examples) for instance,:This early democratically elected Finland was quickly suppressed. Baron Mannerheim, a tsarist general, called in German troops to overthrow the government.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 180

There are also examples of Finnish-German cooperation,and mutual help in the case of the USSR.

With the aid of German officers and engineers, Finland had been converted into a powerful fortress to serve as a base for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Twenty-three military airports had been constructed on Finnish soil, capable of accommodating 10 times as many planes as there were in the Finnish Air Force.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 332

The Finns also participated in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union,in an attempt to hide thier own horrors,such as mass eliminations of communists and a right-wing dictatorship that was,in its essence,Finland.

Finland also started the entire war,we should not forget that.The Finnish artillery bombed and killed Red Army soldiers.

What the Soviets proposed?Something completely reasonable.

The proposal that Stalin put to the Finns on Oct. 12 was to move the existing Soviet-Finnish border on the Karelian isthmus 25 miles farther away from Leningrad; and, for better protection of the city from attack by sea, for the Soviet Union to take over all the islands in the Gulf of Finland and lease the port of Hankow for use as a naval base. In the north, he asked for the cession of the Rybachi Peninsula, which commanded the approaches to Murmansk, the Soviet Union's only ice-free port on its western side. In return the Russians offered twice as much territory adjoining the center of Finland, where the narrow "waist" between the Russian frontier and the Gulf of Bothnia exposed the Finns to the danger of an invader cutting the country in two.
In the negotiations, which continued until November 8, Stalin showed himself willing to moderate his demands but not to withdraw them. Both Marshall Mannerheim, the hero of the earlier Finnish-Soviet war, and Paasikivi were in favor of coming to terms with the Russians, but the Finnish government, fully supported by public opinion, refused;...
Stalin was surprised at the Finnish intransigence; he appears to have hesitated before accepting the view of the hard-liners led by Zhdanov, the party boss of Leningrad, that they should not waste any more time but take what they needed by force. He finally agreed, subject to the proviso that only troops from the Leningrad Military District were to be involved.
Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. New York: Knopf, 1992, p. 660


Are you aware that the Soviets tried in all ways to come to a deal with Finland?They,as a big country,even proposed that Finland would get 5500 km2 in exchange for 2700,yet the Finns refused,and continued dreaming of a Hitlerite invasion which would destroy the " Judeo-Bolshevists " .

There is also this fragment;[+A comment from Molotov]


The Government of Finland declined, one after another, all the friendly proposals made by the Soviet Government with the object of safeguarding the security of the USSR, particularly of Leningrad, and this in spite of the fact that the Soviet Union was willing to go out to meet Finland and satisfy her legitimate interests.
The Finnish Government declined the proposal of the USSR to shift back the Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus a few dozen kilometers, although the Soviet Government was willing to compensate Finland with an area twice as large in Soviet Karelia.
The Finnish Government also declined the proposal of the USSR to conclude a pact of mutual assistance, thereby making it clear that the security of the USSR from the direction of Finland was not safeguarded.
In his speech at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on March 29, 1940, Molotov said:
"...The Soviet Union having smashed the Finnish army, and having had every opportunity of occupying the whole of Finland, did not do so and did not demand any indemnities for its war expenditure as any other Power would have done, but confined its demands to a minimum....
We pursued no other object in the Peace Treaty than that of safeguarding the security of Leningrad, Murmansk, and the Murmansk Railway."
Foreign Lang. Pub. House. Schuman, F. L. Intro. Falsifiers of History. Moscow, 1948, p. 44


I can't belive 'leftists' go so far as to actually defend the right-wing dictatorship that was Finland,just because they have this gigantic hate for the Soviet Union.

Good job white-washing a fascist dictatorship and protectorate..
I don't need to prove general historical knowledge of which there are many verifiable accounts.

There are no accounts of Finnish-German co-operation during the Winter War. There are accounts of Fascist aid to Stalin in Stalin's attempt to annex Finland, however. Hitler's threat to Sweden that he will invade if Sweden allows British and French troops into Finland through Sweden, and the German armaments blockade of Finland that killed Finland's war effort, for example. As you might know, Scandinavia, was of major strategic importance during the Second World War, to both sides. Swedish iron ore, for example, was of gigantic importance to the German war effort, the loss of which would have been as catastrophic to Hitler as the loss of the Romanian oil fields(the reason behind the invasion of Greece was that Hitler was afraid the British would use Greek air fields to bomb Romanian oil fields). From this, you might realize that the allies had some reason to intervene in Scandinavia.

Regarding the Soviet Union's aims to annex Finland, this is widely known and accepted by any unbiased scholar. Stalin actually formed a puppet government that had authority in the Soviet-occupied areas of Finland, which he was going to install in all of Finland after the military conquest was complete. Obviously, this government would have "democratically" voted to join the glorious Motherland and become a Soviet Republic. Oh, as an extra, do you know who supported this puppet government besides the Soviet Union? No? Germany.


Finland declined "friendly" Soviet offers to steal Finnish land? What?

Anyways, enough with this "Finland collaborating nazis bla bla bla".

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H27337%2C_Moskau%2C_Stalin_und_Ribbentrop_im_Kreml .jpg/408px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H27337%2C_Moskau%2C_Stalin_und_Ribbentrop_im_Kreml .jpg
Stalin and Nazi Ribbentrop.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-121-0011-20%2C_Polen%2C_deutsch-sowjetische_Siegesparade.jpg/411px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-121-0011-20%2C_Polen%2C_deutsch-sowjetische_Siegesparade.jpg
Solders of the Allied states of Russia and Germany, after invading Poland together.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1984-1206-523%2C_Berlin%2C_Verabschiedung_Molotows.jpg
Molotov(I noticed you inserted a quote from him) with Ribbentrop, just arrived in Berlin.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Armia_Czerwona%2CWehrmacht_23.09.1939_wsp%C3%B3lna _parada.jpg
A Nazi-Red Army parade in Brest, after Stalin and Hitler just invaded Poland.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-013-0068-18A%2C_Polen%2C_Treffen_deutscher_und_sowjetischer _Soldaten.jpg
Stalin and Hitler's soldiers in Lublin, after they invaded Poland. Must I stress that they invaded Poland together? As allies?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Spotkanie_Sojusznik%C3%B3w.jpg
Russian and German soldiers shaking hands after invading Poland.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/MolotovRibbentropStalin.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1990-1028-500,_Dtsch.-Sowjet._Grenz-_u._Freundschaftsvertrag.jpg

[Omsk]

Regarding the Soviet Union's aims to annex Finland, this is widely known and accepted by any unbiased scholar.

Oh yes?Give me examples.




Finland declined "friendly" Soviet offers to steal Finnish land? What?

Steal Finnish land?

Sacred Finnish land!

How dare they!Damn the Judeo-Bolshevists..

Seriously,as a leftist you should not going down that path,with the entire: "Finnish land ".

They [Soviets] made a genereous proposal.


Anyways, enough with this "Finland collaborating nazis bla bla bla".


Why?Why does it bother you?You have a problem with accepting the truth?

And i expect you answer my post properly,if you expect me to participate in this dicussion.

[Khalid]

Oh Jesus. In 1918 there was a workers revolution in Finland but it was soon crushed by capitalists with the help of imperialist powers. After the counter-revolution Finnish quasi-fascist forces attacked Soviet Union many times ("Kinship Wars"). They also murdered over 10,000 reds in prison camps and banned communist activity.

After the Winter War (during the Interim Peace) Finnish workers established the Finland-Soviet Union Peace and Friendship Society (SNS) and only in five months 35,000 people joined it. In comparison: the largest political party in Finland right now has 41,000 members (and remember the population was smaller back then). I think that shows that Finnish workers didn't feel threatened by the "imperialist" USSR, not even after the Winter War. But the bourgeoisie was scared and the SNS was banned quickly.

[svenne]

After the Winter War (during the Interim Peace) Finnish workers established the Finland-Soviet Union Peace and Friendship Society (SNS) and only in five months 35,000 people joined it. In comparison: the largest political party in Finland right now has 41,000 members (and remember the population was smaller back then). I think that shows that Finnish workers didn't feel threatened by the "imperialist" USSR, not even after the Winter War. But the bourgeoisie was scared and the SNS was banned quickly.

It's a lot more honest to compare numbers in the same year, i however couldn't find statistic over membership in the political parties in the beginning of the 1940s. Also, it seems that the attack (the same thing happened in Sweden, by the way; a couple of anarcho-syndicalist veterans from the Spanish Civil War even went to fight for the Finns in the Winter war) made the working class somewhat forget the white sides crimes in the civil war. It's pretty clear that even big parts of the working class supported Finland in the winter war.


And Omsk, seriously, you are out on really thin ice. The idea that Finland started the war is, well, absurd. Why would they do that? They had no chance at winning, and usually, you don't start war with one of the biggest military powers in the world. Anyway, it ended somewhat good for them; Wikipedia puts the numbers at 323 k dead Soviet soldiers, and 70 k dead Finnish. But they still lost territory. That's some big waste of human life.

And using sources from the 1940s propably would get you banned from every historical institution in the world, even if your teacher/professor was a marxist-leninist. I really can't remember ever seeing your claims backed up, except by people really faithful to the Soviet Union. While everybody else may be wrong, it's more propable that you're doing some good ol' historical revisionism. I only had time to check one source, Anna L. Strong, but my instant instinct after reading a bit out of the book you quoted, was that she is incredibly biased for the Soviet cause.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Finland may have been foolish not to accept the Soviet "offer they couldn't refuse", but they initiate hostilities, that was done by the Soviet Union.

[Zulu]

Finland may have been foolish not to accept the Soviet "offer they couldn't refuse", but they initiate hostilities, that was done by the Soviet Union.

Collaboration with the Nazis or not, Mannerheim's regime was pretty much fascist in its own right. In any case Finland was a bourgeois state. That alone justified any hostilities the socialist Soviet Union initiated against it.

[Omsk]

And Omsk, seriously, you are out on really thin ice. The idea that Finland started the war is, well, absurd.

Finland did not start a war,conventionally,by an invasion etc etc,but it did provoke the USSR and bombard some villages and Red Army winter outposts,in some of the incidents,a lot of people died,and the constant refusal to make a quite fair diplomatic deal is also unexplainable,if a big country like the Soviet Union,which,in theory,could out-produce Finland and completely destroy it with the Red Army,sends a country that was quite hostile to it,and completely on the right-wing,essentially a right-wing dictatorship that was extremely hostile to the Bolsheviks,an actual quite fair and reasonable deal,a small exchange for territory,in which the Finns would actually gain ground,and the government of Finland refuses such diplomatic deals,and ignores them? Plus,at the same time the country has some,shady,diplomatic deals with Nazi Germany,and has a history of hostility to the USSR.


Why would they do that?

I think it is fair to say that they could have expected some,'help'.From a third factor.


They had no chance at winning, and usually, you don't start war with one of the biggest military powers in the world.

But they still started it.


Anyway, it ended somewhat good for them; Wikipedia puts the numbers at 323 k dead Soviet soldiers

For historical accuracy: some 126,875 Soviet soldiers are mentioned,but this number is shaky.I would not recomned wikipedia as a source for historical information.



But they still lost territory. That's some big waste of human life.



Yes,their [Finnish] decissions were not reasonable.



And using sources from the 1940s propably would get you banned from every historical institution in the world, even if your teacher/professor was a marxist-leninist. I really can't remember ever seeing your claims backed up, except by people really faithful to the Soviet Union. While everybody else may be wrong, it's more propable that you're doing some good ol' historical revisionism. I only had time to check one source, Anna L. Strong, but my instant instinct after reading a bit out of the book you quoted, was that she is incredibly biased for the Soviet cause.


Last time i checked,some of the books i cited from are recongnised as legitimate sources.The 'historical revisionism' you speak of happened after 91' . The right-wing,nationalist historians usually look on the Winter War as some sort of 'Soviet Stalingrad' so to speak,and their approach is linked with being horribly biased toward the USSR,and being anti-communists.

[svenne]

Finland did not start a war,conventionally,by an invasion etc etc,but it did provoke the USSR and bombard some villages and Red Army winter outposts,in some of the incidents,a lot of people died,and the constant refusal to make a quite fair diplomatic deal is also unexplainable,if a big country like the Soviet Union,which,in theory,could out-produce Finland and completely destroy it with the Red Army,sends a country that was quite hostile to it,and completely on the right-wing,essentially a right-wing dictatorship that was extremely hostile to the Bolsheviks,an actual quite fair and reasonable deal,a small exchange for territory,in which the Finns would actually gain ground,and the government of Finland refuses such diplomatic deals,and ignores them? Plus,at the same time the country has some,shady,diplomatic deals with Nazi Germany,and has a history of hostility to the USSR.

Well, it wasn't a right-wing dictatorship in the sense of the european fascist states, or even Spain. While it certainly wasn't a western democracy, as Sweden, Norway or France, it still was somewhat democratic, with elections where the social democrats (the same party that was the red party in the class war of 1918) was the biggest party. And you do know that states has a tendency to start wars by blaming the opposing force, saying they started it? The US has tried it a couple of times, as well as Sweden in it's feudal period, and i'm pretty sure the Soviet Union did the same thing.


I think it is fair to say that they could have expected some,'help'.From a third factor.You don't start a war (by mistake or deliberately) just because you expect help - which didn't even come; except from volunteers (mostly right-wingers, yes) and some material help from Sweden (ruled by the social democrats). It's not like they could have won any kind of war with nothing lesser than the western allies or the Germans attacking SU in a full war.


But they still started it.Of course. And the North Vietnamese forces started the Vietnam War by attacking American ships. And the apollo program was a hoax. And the holocaust is just a jewish lie. That's the kind of territory you're into.



For historical accuracy: some 126,875 Soviet soldiers are mentioned,but this number is shaky.I would not recomned wikipedia as a source for historical information.My mistake, i realised i watched the combined numbers of dead, hurt and captured... I wouldn't usually recommend Wikipedia on political subjects, but the historical articles are usually pretty ok, at least in the english version.


Yes,their [Finnish] decissions were not reasonable.I find it a pretty expected reaction. The country was in large anti-communist, and propably didn't want a deal with the bolsheviks. Just because a country (SU) wants something and find it reasonable, it doesn't mean that another country (FI) - which had illegalised it own communist party! - will concede. The Soviet Union knew that the Finnish armed forces would try to withstand the attack. And since the Soviet Union started the war, i think it's pretty fair to blame them for the lives worthlessly lost.


Last time i checked,some of the books i cited from are recongnised as legitimate sources.The 'historical revisionism' you speak of happened after 91' . The right-wing,nationalist historians usually look on the Winter War as some sort of 'Soviet Stalingrad' so to speak,and their approach is linked with being horribly biased toward the USSR,and being anti-communists.I would love to have that source from people, after 1991, whom aren't Marxist-Leninists. Because at least one of your sources is faithful to Stalin, and it was written in 1941. A quote from Anna L. Strong may be in place (from the book you used as a source):


Since the German-Soviet war began, Stalin has become chief of the army and government. He will see more foreigners now. He made a good beginning with Harry Hopkins and W. Averell Harriman. They seem to have been impressed! I know how they were impressed for I also met Stalin. In the light of the impressions that leading Americans and Britons are now going to have of him, the legend of the inscrutable dictator will die. We may even come to hear Stalin spoken of, as a Soviet writer once described him, as “the world’s great democrat”!
This is tendentious writer. She can't be trusted, in the same way i don't trust right-wing historians - they a political agenda, rather than a will to explain history as faithful as possible. And the problem is, i've read historical books - from both left-wing and right-wing historians. And never have i stumbled upon anyone that has the idea that Finland started the Winter War by bombing Soviet towns and/or forces. It's just preposterous. The idea is treated the same way as the German lie that Poland began the Second World War. It's a political lie.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Let's see...

1. Socialism in one country is bad, because it's anti-Marxist.
2. Liberation of the Baltic countries from the bourgeois power is bad, because it's imperialism wrapped in red flags.

So, what we got is yet another logically impaired (or voluntary and deliberate) imperialist lackey smiting Stalin for actual revolutionary practice. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.

The issue is whether to focus on supporting indigenous movements as opposed to imposing it from abroad without much local support, and also how much real "worker's freedom" there was in the form of Socialism which was being exported. Support Spain's Leftists in the 30s or Angola's Leftists and the ANC in the 80s, for instance, are better examples of internationalism because there was already large scale discontent with the bourgeoisie that was able to manifest itself in indigenous worker's movements, (though there were legitimate questions about how committed those groups were to social revolution as well).

[Omsk]

Well, it wasn't a right-wing dictatorship in the sense of the european fascist states, or even Spain. While it certainly wasn't a western democracy, as Sweden, Norway or France, it still was somewhat democratic, with elections where the social democrats (the same party that was the red party in the class war of 1918) was the biggest party. And you do know that states has a tendency to start wars by blaming the opposing force, saying they started it? The US has tried it a couple of times, as well as Sweden in it's feudal period, and i'm pretty sure the Soviet Union did the same thing.


A constant refusal of any kind of a dimplomatic deal,followed by a military act of aggresion caused the war. -
A month of bargaining went on in which Moscow raised her offers. Finland stood to get nearly 3 to 1 in the territorial trade; and Hangoe base would be held, not 30 years, but only during the Anglo-German war and would then come to Finland fully equipped. Many Finns were boasting of the "smart bargain" their diplomats were getting. Then, suddenly, the Finnish negotiators broke off discussions with the cryptic remark that circumstances would decide when and by whom they would be renewed....
So when Finnish artillery shot over the border in late November and killed Red Army men, Moscow sharply protested, and, when Finland disregarded the protest, Soviet troops marched into Finland on November 30, 1939. Finland declared war and appealed for foreign aid.
Strong, Anna Louise. The Stalin Era. New York: Mainstream, 1956, p. 83



I would love to have that source from people, after 1991, whom aren't Marxist-Leninists.




All right,how about Dimitri Volkogonov?He is acutely against Stalin,and even Lenin,what is worse.


Encouraged by the success of his [Stalin] measures on the western borders, he now turned his attention to the northwest. He was worried by the proximity of the Finnish border to Leningrad and Finland's obvious inclination towards Germany. Talks were conducted with the aim of compelling the Finns to move their border further from Leningrad for appropriate territorial compensation, but the Finnish foreign minister, Tanner, was under instruction from the country's head of state, Field Marshal Mannerheim, a former general in the tsarist army, not to yield to the Russians.... At the end of November mutual recriminations started up over unprovoked exchanges of fire, notably in the vicinity of the Soviet village of Mainilo. Molotov handed the Finnish envoy, Irne-Koskinen, a note which contained a demand, amounting to an ultimatum, 'for the immediate withdrawal of your forces 20 to 25 kilometers away from the frontier on the Karelian peninsula.' Two days later the envoy replied that his government was 'ready to enter talks on the mutual withdrawal of forces to a certain distance from the frontier'. Finland had taken up the challenge and, being equally unyielding, announced mobilization. On Nov. 28, 1939 the USSR renounced the 1932 Soviet-Finnish treaty of non-aggression. Neither Moscow nor Helsinki had exhausted all means to avoid war, to put it mildly.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 363




You don't start a war (by mistake or deliberately) just because you expect help - which didn't even come; except from volunteers (mostly right-wingers, yes) and some material help from Sweden (ruled by the social democrats). It's not like they could have won any kind of war with nothing lesser than the western allies or the Germans attacking SU in a full war.







You didn't understand me,they started the war because they were unreasonable and unwilling to budge,even being offered some very good terms.However,it is possible that they could have dremt of a war with the USSR,in which they would be helped by various similar anti-communist countries.


I find it a pretty expected reaction

For a right-wing non-workers state,yes.


And since the Soviet Union started the war
As i have explained now and before,it didn't.



, i think it's pretty fair to blame them for the lives worthlessly lost.




You are completely ignoring the Finnish role in the start of the war? That is hardly a serious note.



This is tendentious writer. She can't be trusted, in the same way i don't trust right-wing historians - they a political agenda, rather than a will to explain history as faithful as possible. And the problem is, i've read historical books - from both left-wing and right-wing historians. And never have i stumbled upon anyone that has the idea that Finland started the Winter War by bombing Soviet towns and/or forces. It's just preposterous. The idea is treated the same way as the German lie that Poland began the Second World War. It's a political lie.


Finland started the war by a diplomatic process which was absurd,and by ignoring any Soviet offers.The bombing's were just the 'official' declaration of the war.

[svenne]

A constant refusal of any kind of a dimplomatic deal,followed by a military act of aggresion caused the war. - Strong, Anna Louise. The Stalin Era. New York: Mainstream, 1956, p. 83

I have told you before, and will tell you again: Anna L. Strong is NOT, i repeat, twice, NOT, NOT, a good and usable source. You would be graded F in every school in every historical institution in the whole world if you'd use her without mentioning her extremely tendentious views about Stalin and the Soviet Union.


All right,how about Dimitri Volkogonov?He is acutely against Stalin,and even Lenin,what is worse.


Encouraged by the success of his [Stalin] measures on the western borders, he now turned his attention to the northwest. He was worried by the proximity of the Finnish border to Leningrad and Finland's obvious inclination towards Germany. Talks were conducted with the aim of compelling the Finns to move their border further from Leningrad for appropriate territorial compensation, but the Finnish foreign minister, Tanner, was under instruction from the country's head of state, Field Marshal Mannerheim, a former general in the tsarist army, not to yield to the Russians.... At the end of November mutual recriminations started up over unprovoked exchanges of fire, notably in the vicinity of the Soviet village of Mainilo. Molotov handed the Finnish envoy, Irne-Koskinen, a note which contained a demand, amounting to an ultimatum, 'for the immediate withdrawal of your forces 20 to 25 kilometers away from the frontier on the Karelian peninsula.' Two days later the envoy replied that his government was 'ready to enter talks on the mutual withdrawal of forces to a certain distance from the frontier'. Finland had taken up the challenge and, being equally unyielding, announced mobilization. On Nov. 28, 1939 the USSR renounced the 1932 Soviet-Finnish treaty of non-aggression. Neither Moscow nor Helsinki had exhausted all means to avoid war, to put it mildly.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 363

Okay. Two things. He does not mention anything about the artillery fire coming from the finnish side, only that it was "in the vicinity of the Soviet village of Mainilo." The second, you do realise, that a withdraval for the finns in this situation would mean placing themselves in a much worse defensive position, since the troops already was digged in, with trenches and anti-tank barriers? Also, the little problem is that while the Soviets only wanted the finnish troops withdrawn from the border, but the finns wanted BOTH armies to withdraw. Which of these two claims do you find most for peace?

The mobilisation is also a pretty usual reaction when someone gives you an ultimatum which propably would lead to war? The Soviet Union, having something like 50 or 100 times more man power, didn't need to mobilise, since it's peace time army propably wasn't counted in the tens of thousands, but rather in the millions. You seem to have no idea at all about military tactics, nor military history.



You didn't understand me,they started the war because they were unreasonable and unwilling to budge,even being offered some very good terms.However,it is possible that they could have dremt of a war with the USSR,in which they would be helped by various similar anti-communist countries.

Well, of course they wouldn't budge. The Soviet Union acted aggressive as to get in a better position before the war with Nazi Germany started, and i am sure that they understood there was a possibility of war with Finland. It was part of the gamble.


For a right-wing non-workers state,yes.

Well, yes? Doesn't really prove a point for you, isn't it?


As i have explained now and before,it didn't.

You are completely ignoring the Finnish role in the start of the war? That is hardly a serious note.

No. The problem is that it was the Soviet Union which acted aggressive, it was the Soviet Union who wanted to trade territory, and it was the Soviet Union which waged an OFFENSIVE war against Finland. Finland didn't wage an offensive war, and the whole war played out in Finlands territory. You can hardly place Finland as the aggressor in the conflict. Rather, it was one of the earliest instances where the Soviet Union suddenly was viewed as an aggressive imperialist state, even by people on the left. This conflict had, especially in Scandinavia, a really bad effect on the left in big.


Finland started the war by a diplomatic process which was absurd,and by ignoring any Soviet offers.The bombing's were just the 'official' declaration of the war.

This should be fully expected from a right wing state, shouldn't it? As i have said before, like five times, the Soviet Union was (and if it wasn't, it propably had the worst diplomats and military planners in the history of mankind, which i'm pretty sure neither you nor i think) playing a diplomatic gamble, in which there was a big chance of war happening.

You can't blame Finland for this, dude. This is also a somewhat interesting quote from Wikipedia: "Finland proposed a neutral investigation of the incident, but the Soviet Union refused and broke diplomatic relations with Finland on November 29". Why didn't the Soviet Union want a neutral investigation? There's also a lot of sources to be found in the article, (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelling_of_Mainila), including a source where Nikita Khrushchev is said to have recognised that the shelling was a Soviet false flag operation.

[Zulu]

The issue is whether to focus on supporting indigenous movements as opposed to imposing it from abroad without much local support,
Part of the problem was that in the countries bordering the Soviet Union indigenous communist movements had been harshly repressed, beginning from the time of th Civil War (which had taken place not only in Russia proper, but also in the newly independent former parts of the Russian Empire). So most of the real Red Finns, as well as Red Poles, and Red Lithuanians and so on ended up in the Russian Communist Party, since the Whites managed to crush them domestically.





and also how much real "worker's freedom" there was in the form of Socialism which was being exported.

The "worker's freedom" as you non-Leninists understand it, is definitely not viable as long as there are powerful imperialist states out there, and arguably not viable at all, until full communism is built, and everybody is a conscious communist, and there are no workers in the modern meaning of the word.





Support Spain's Leftists in the 30s
was a good example to prove my latter points.

If you're looking for an successful indigenous movement that received internationalist aid from the Soviet Union in a "better form" than direct military intervention, look at China.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

by the way; a couple of anarcho-syndicalist veterans from the Spanish Civil War even went to fight for the Finns in the Winter war) .


Yep and we have guys like Conny Andersson, who first went to fight Franco in Spain. Then when he came home he went to Finland, and after that, when the nazis invaded Norway he joined the resistance movement there, got wounded, got back and continued to suport them in other ways trough the war.

[hatzel]

This is a hilariously bad thread. Sorry but it's true and you all know it is.

My favourite bit was probably when somebody who had started the whole shindig off by saying "the Soviet Union was very kind to Lithuania because it gave them back the land that they felt such a sentimental national(ist) attachment to - this was an act of extreme kindness to the Lithuanian people, recognising their noble aspirations to reclaim the land taken from them decades earlier by the Poles despite their not even being all that many Lithuanians living there" then turned around all "oh no, how dare the Soviets take Finnish land?! How terrible for all those poor Finns who lived there and ended up having to be shipped back to Finland...but I don't care about their sentimental national(ist) attachment to it, as of course there was nothing Finnish about the land and assuming there was anything Finnish about it or that its supposed Finnishness is in any relevant to the discussion is totally un-Marxist and reactionary, waaaaah!!!" I mean seriously? What the fuck you actually maintain those two positions simultaneously? :confused:

...oh no actually I'm not surprised at all because this is one of those "if the Soviet Union did it I have to justify it any way I can and by the way FUCK CONSISTENCY because that's revisionist or something"-threads, isn't it? Typical...

Oh and the rest of you aren't exactly any better, by the way, so don't go getting all smug...

[Prometeo liberado]

And they were all, and we were all.........

[svenne]

I'm gonna drink some coca cola, be smug as hell, put in some snus and then read some Lenin. Fuck yeah.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Have a Coke and a Vladimir? Shouldn't it be a cup of chai?

[Robocommie]

This is a hilariously bad thread. Sorry but it's true and you all know it is.

My favourite bit was probably when somebody who had started the whole shindig off by saying "the Soviet Union was very kind to Lithuania because it gave them back the land that they felt such a sentimental national(ist) attachment to - this was an act of extreme kindness to the Lithuanian people, recognising their noble aspirations to reclaim the land taken from them decades earlier by the Poles despite their not even being all that many Lithuanians living there" then turned around all "oh no, how dare the Soviets take Finnish land?! How terrible for all those poor Finns who lived there and ended up having to be shipped back to Finland...but I don't care about their sentimental national(ist) attachment to it, as of course there was nothing Finnish about the land and assuming there was anything Finnish about it or that its supposed Finnishness is in any relevant to the discussion is totally un-Marxist and reactionary, waaaaah!!!" I mean seriously? What the fuck you actually maintain those two positions simultaneously? :confused:

...oh no actually I'm not surprised at all because this is one of those "if the Soviet Union did it I have to justify it any way I can and by the way FUCK CONSISTENCY because that's revisionist or something"-threads, isn't it? Typical...

Oh and the rest of you aren't exactly any better, by the way, so don't go getting all smug...

I like you, and I'll tell you why: You don't give a fuck about breaking bottles over some motherfucker's heads.

[Robocommie]

Comrade hatzel's comments notwithstanding, while the Soviet Union has plenty of things it did wrong and plenty of things it could have done better (alas, such is the peril of being human) there is really nothing all that Marxist by just affirming as true everything Ronald Reagan said about the Soviet Union.

[Omsk]

My favourite bit was probably when somebody who had started the whole shindig off by saying "the Soviet Union was very kind to Lithuania because it gave them back the land that they felt such a sentimental national(ist) attachment to - this was an act of extreme kindness to the Lithuanian people, recognising their noble aspirations to reclaim the land taken from them decades earlier by the Poles despite their not even being all that many Lithuanians living there" then turned around all "oh no, how dare the Soviets take Finnish land?! How terrible for all those poor Finns who lived there and ended up having to be shipped back to Finland...but I don't care about their sentimental national(ist) attachment to it, as of course there was nothing Finnish about the land and assuming there was anything Finnish about it or that its supposed Finnishness is in any relevant to the discussion is totally un-Marxist and reactionary, waaaaah!!!" I mean seriously? What the fuck you actually maintain those two positions simultaneously? http://www.revleft.com/vb/soviet-empire-t168447/revleft/smilies/confused1.gif

...oh no actually I'm not surprised at all because this is one of those "if the Soviet Union did it I have to justify it any way I can and by the way FUCK CONSISTENCY because that's revisionist or something"-threads, isn't it? Typical...

Oh and the rest of you aren't exactly any better, by the way, so don't go getting all smug...

And you are not making it any better by worthless comments such as this one.The quote i posted was in relation to the quite fair Soviet treatment of Lithuania.On the other hand,some 'leftists' started to cry how 'Soviets took Finnish land!!' - and the rest of the infantile lunacy. Lithuania later became a part of the Soviet Union,so there are hardly any 'nationalist' interest's there.A

And the thread was not that bad until people started doing this,citing wikipedia as an acurate and valid source and tried to defend Mannerheim's regime,something they failed completely. And by your note,the thread was all right,until someone who actually knows something about the event stopped the vicious slandering of the USSR and countered the accusations of people who gladly defend Finland (Mannerheim) in this case? Are you serious?

[The Borg]

Speaking as a finn, the issue of nazi ties is irrelevant. While there were no official diplomatic alliances between the finns and the nazis at the start of the winter war, it was common knowledge that the finnish marshall mannerheim was in very warm relations with the German marshall Rommel. Besides, the finnish government itself was as close to fascism as one can get without actually being fascist. Radical leftists were executed since the civil war, and even the legal social democratic representatives were under strict surveillance and preassure by the secret police, which in itself was originally set up to persecute leftists. (radical or not) Most left-wing policies were strictly banned by law. Seeing this, I would have to say that the modern social democratic welfare state could not have been possible without the soviet union kicking the fascism out of us during the WW2.

As to the claim that finns were hesitant to siege leningrad to some "humanitarian reasons", finnish command launched several offensives against the soviet line in Suho, in order to bring finland to the siege and cut the leningrad supply line. These offensives, I claim, were not motivated some humanitarian effort to help the people of leningrad. The only reason why finns were so much behind the germans on the leningrad front, was that the finns ran into a heavily fortified bunker-line, which they could not penetrate. The germans, having modern bunker-busting assault guns, fared better. So what the finnish nationalists painted as "humanitarian compassion" after the war, was really just military incompetence.

For someone interested in the finnish-soviet wars, I suggest the book "Mannerheim without the mask", and for finnish-nazi connections the much older book "finland without a mask"

[Pelarys]

I thought as well, and seeing so many people ignoring finland fascist ways surprising. I didn't think it was a matter of debate.

[hetz]

Question is, why did the Finnish government so stubbornly obstruct the negotiations, even though its own negotiators said that the deal was more than fair?

[Bakunin Knight]

The Soviet state clearly sought to expand its domination over its neighbours for the benefit of the elite that controlled it. In this it was aided by the capitalist elites of the West, who sought the same goal within their own sphere and saw that it was to their advantage to recognise the sphere of the Soviet elites that it would be easier for each group to profit from their hegemony (there was, of course, some crossover between those gorups). Thus in that period we saw the division of Europe (and, indeed, the world) into such spheres of control whose owners only opposed eachother rhetorically and did not come to any real conflict with eachother.

[hetz]

Thus in that period we saw the division of Europe (and, indeed, the world) into such spheres of control whose owners only opposed eachother rhetorically and did not come to any real conflict with eachother.
Ever heard of Korea, Vietnam, Angola...?