Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 22:50:22 +0200 From: jeffrey sommers <jsommers at latnet.lv>
Brad,
The Soviets, through Litinov, pleaded repeatedly for collective action earlier than this, and Churchill (not in power) wanted to cooperate with them. The Soviets were repeatedly rebuffed. The Soviets then completely lost confidence in Britain in France in 1938 when they refused the Soviet offer to jointly stop Germany in its latest advance against Czechoslovakia. When England and France finally did declare war, it was the "Phony War," with no real action taken against Germany. The Soviets observed this all with great alarm. Seeing how swiftly France fell to Germany in 1940, the Soviets then grabbed the Baltics and prepared for a war they perceived would come after a German defeat of England. Their miscalculation on the chronology cost them untold lives lost and almost the war as Stalin refused to believe the war was at hand when the Germans invaded.
Double-crossed many times by England and France, the Soviets by 1939 thought it clever to turn the tables on them. Nothing admirable here, just realpolitik....
Michael Jabara Carley's 1939: THE ALLIANCE THAT NEVER WAS (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999), is quite useful for surveying this history.
Best,
Jeff Sommers
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 10:57:13 -0800 From: Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> Subject: Re: Zizek on Haider
>>
>
>I don't know that "the world" tried to defuse fascism in the 20s and 30s.
Well, Chamberlain and Daladier declared war on it in September 1939--late I agree, but better late than never. Don't they get brownie points for being willing to take on the beast, given that everybody else waited for the beast to come after them?
Brad DeLong