>>> Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk 11/02/00 07:39PM >>>
In message <sa01796e.093 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>CB: "Collaboration" is not an accurate term for relations between states. The SU
>was under no obligation to make symbolic gestures to make fine distinctions
>among imperialist powers. It's diplomacy was appropriately targetted to maximize
>the splits among the imperialist nations and delay the inevitable assault that
>was most likely to come from Germany. So, getting some delay with the non-
>aggression pact was not collaboration, but pro-world working class policy, as
>preservation of the only socialist state was top priority of the world's working
>class and oppressed peoples.
A shame then that Molotov lavished praise on the German high command just days before they invaded the Soviet Union, which was, even accepting the 'pragmatic' argument, unnecessary and disorienting.
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CB: As if imperfections in the execution of the plan refute the important observation that it worked in the ultimately critical sense that the Germans were defeated.
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The argument that the pact 'bought time' is simply wrong. Firstly, Stalin didn't use the time but left the military wholly unprepared out of his tragic illusions in Germany's good intentions.
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CB: Such precision; "wholly unprepared" .So the Soviets did all of their preparation for the fight AFTER the invasion started. Patently false.
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More to the point, the pact bought time for the Third Reich, giving it a free hand in Western Europe. At the same time the left was ideologically disarmed by the pact, which as every one of any real insight understood was a disaster politically for the Communist Parties.
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CB: You are not a very good military scientist. Don't you get it ? The German attack on France first was an expenditure of time and forces that made a big difference in their ultimate failure to conquer the Soviet Union. The best thing that could happen for the SU was exactly for the Germans to force the Western Europeans into the war against them. Otherwise, Germany could have attacked the SU , and the "Allies" would have just let the Nazi anti-communist machine do its main job, which was always to destroy socialism. The Soviets played Hitler's German nationalism and historic rivalry with France perfectly ., played Hitler like a fiddle.
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>CB: Henry Ford was collaborating with the Nazis. The SU was maneuvering for
>time to save the world. And it worked.
>
It worked for Hitler, who bought time for his expansionist plans. For the Soviet Union it represented 20 million dead.
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CB: As if not signing the pact with the Germans would have saved Soviet lives. It is sick to blame the Soviets for the mass murders of the German Nazis. Talk about blaming the victim, this has got to be one of the extreme examples of it.
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>
>CB: SU couldn't have saved the KPD,
Maybe not, but it didn't have to protect the KPD's destroyers from blame. The KPD could, though, have saved the KPD, had it not followed the Communist International's disastrous policy of ignoring the special threat posed by fascism.
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CB: The Comintern ignored the special threat of fascism. What a disgusting slander.
And who was it that didn't ignore that threat, your political tendency of the era ?
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>
>CB: The whole Soviet policy during this period, including the People's Front was
>shown not to be foolish, because the SU won the war.
Only after a year of the most savage defeats, as the military was unprepared.
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CB: The fact that they won the war is the best refutation of your claim that the military was unprepared. It relies defies the obvious to claim that they somehow "got prepared" during the war and turned it around and won.
Again you are supremely arrogant in claiming you have some plan (without hindsight) that would have won the war more efficiently. As if Germany was not the most powerful war machine of the period.
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>You talk in counterfactual historical terms as if you, in hindsight have a
>better policy than the SU did. That is rather remarkable hindsight claim to
>fame.
I wasn't born, but there were plenty of people who warned against the pact.
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CB: You haven't established that the Pact didn't contribute to the Soviet victory. Those who warned against the pact would have lost the war, like you would have.