[lbo-talk] Oliver Stone's first episode

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Mon Dec 3 13:27:03 PST 2012


Chuck Grimes

In my remembered school histories the Russians and especially the Chinese are merely blank spots. There were a few mentions of southern China, Burma, and very distant US airfields. As for Russia I had no idea at all of the relative numbers. Stone uses the figure of 27 million Russian dead. These are tremendous numbers I only came across sometime in 1990s.

^^^^^ CB: I've been using the 27 million figure since this list started. The destruction of economic infrastructure was gargantuan. Few people take account of the fact the SU had to start almost from square one after The Great Patriotic War when they point to the fall of the SU in 1989. The industrial giant SU had to be built twice. It burned them out. It was not a failure of socialism qua socialism , but of socialism bludgeoned by capitalism.

The Soviets inflicted 90% of the Nazis casualties. So, clearly it was the Red Army that defeated the Nazis. The Western front was tiny compared to the Eastern front.



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