In my humble opinion, this is nothing like the Molotov-Ribbentrop. Molotov-Ribbentrop gets a lot of bad advertising due to cold war propaganda, but even western leaders in the west at the time like Churchill admitted that the Soviets had no other option (if you want evidence I have plenty of reference, feel free to ask :)

The Soviets spent the entire 30s warning of fascism and trying to build mutual defense agreements with France, England and Poland and they refused systematically, even when in 1939 the Soviets offered to send 1 million troops together with artillery, tanks and planes, to the Polish and French borders on exchange for a mutual defense agreement, but the French and English ambassadors received orders not to engage in actual negotiations and just to postpone the agreement, since they wanted the Nazis to invade the Soviet Union.

Either way even if you fundamentally disagree with what I'm saying, what was the alternative? Poland was going to get steamrolled by the Nazis with or without the soviets controlling the eastern part of it (as proven by the fact that soviets started invading some weeks after the Nazis). What's more desirable, half of Poland having concentration camps, or the entirety of Poland having concentration camps?

All of this could have been prevented in my opinion if western countries agreed to engage the Nazis together with the Soviet union, as the soviets suggested as an alternative to the Munich agreements. So the lesson in my view is: to fight fascism, listen to socialists (who are the ones who actually defeated most Nazis in the eastern front)

[–] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (10 children)

Not to defend the flawed comparison with Trump's treason, but that's a very useless take on the M-R pact...

Stalin could have

not promised the nazis to attack the Poles from the rear
not attacked the Poles from the rear
not murdered hundreds of thousands of Poles after high-fiving the nazis after having succesfully attacked the Poles from the rear

I think all of these alternatives would have been more desirable than, well, actively teaming up with the nazis

edit: list layout

[–] AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Stalin could have not promised the nazis to attack the Poles from the rear not attacked the Poles from the rear

Again, please tell me what was the alternative to Soviet occupation in Eastern Poland, once Poland rejected a mutual defense agreement against Nazis with the Soviets.

murdered hundreds of thousands of Poles

I don't think those numbers are honest, can you provide a source for that? I know about the Katyn massacre and about other events in which Nazi collaborators/Bourgeois Polish nationalists were killed (as well as some innocent civilians), but AFAIK the numbers don't go that high

I think all of these alternatives would have been more desirable

Again, how is tens of thousands of deaths in occupied Poland (many of which were Nazi collaborators and bourgeois Polish nationalists) preferable to Nazi occupation? Or can you think of an alternative to either of these two options?

[–] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

please tell me what was the alternative to Soviet occupation in Eastern Poland, once Poland rejected a mutual defense agreement against Nazis with the Soviets

There were several alternatives, actually. But most of them would start with Russia not attacking them in the rear after they moved their troops west to fight off the nazis

can you provide a source for that? I know about the Katyn massacre and about other events in which Nazi collaborators/Bourgeois Polish nationalists were killed (as well as some innocent civilians), but AFAIK the numbers don’t go that high

Yeah sure, here's one that estimates between 250k and 1.5m (but which I believe also includes post-war)

But I presume that if you're the type that already convinced themselves that all these murdered Poles "must have deserved it" in one way or another, then that number probably couldn't be high enough anyway

[–] AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

There were several alternatives, actually

Great, please name one of them that doesn't imply complete occupation of Poland by Nazis, I've asked you already several times to do so and you keep avoiding it. To me, a great alternative would have been the mutual defense agreement that the Soviet Union spent the entire 30s pursuing with England, France and Poland, which the latter countries repeatedly rejected. What's your alternative?

Yeah sure, here's one that estimates between 250k and 1.5m

That's a book on migrations and deportations, not a book on casualties, it doesn't seem to support a claim of "hundreds of thousands murdered" which you made in your previous comment, could you please elaborate?

already convinced themselves that all these murdered Poles

Again, you're conflating murdered with deported.

"must have deserved it"

I explicitly mentioned in my previous comment that there were innocents caught in this process of class war and collectivisation of the economy in times of war, which I deeply lament. I just can't envision an alternative reality where, after a decade of denying mutual defense agreements with the Soviets, there was a better alternative to Soviet occupation as opposed to Nazi occupation.

[–] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 1 points 52 minutes ago

That’s a book on migrations and deportations, not a book on casualties, it doesn’t seem to support a claim of “hundreds of thousands murdered” which you made in your previous comment, could you please elaborate?

Again, you’re conflating murdered with deported

It most certainly includes direct casualty numbers as well, for Poland and many other conflicts.

Great, please name one of them that doesn’t imply complete occupation of Poland by Nazis

I just can’t envision an alternative reality

Well, I think that's the main issue here. Siding with the nazis, attacking Poland in the rear when they were fighting the nazis, committing horrible crimes against the Polish population and POWs ... You really, really cannot imagine not having to do even one of those

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I ask that you read Denna F. Flemmings, The Cold War and Its Origins 1917-1960, Vol I, at least the chapters regarding the build-up to and early days of WWII (Chapter 4-6/7).

[–] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Could you paraphrase the parts of the book that would be relevant?

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

It's hard to paraphrase all that, the short of it is that there were no alternatives, not at that point.

The Allied chiefs knew well that their failure to make an alliance with Russia would mean the destruction of Poland. There was no other conceivable hope of preventing Poland’s liquidation

[–] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I get that the book you want me to read claims, like the previous poster, that the only option Russia had was to secretly team up with the nazis and attack the Poles from the rear

But my question is not so much to repeat that but to support it with arguments

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

My arguments are the same as those laid out in the first comment by AES_Enjoyer, as are those of Denna.

Importantly, you never stated what those "several alternatives" are.

Actually, the Nazi determination to settle accounts with Poland had for months been as plain as anything could be. This time, too, only the most heroic measures could prevent them from taking what they wanted in an orgy of violence and blood-letting. They had been frustrated at Munich, prevented from trying out their new war machine. Now they were determined to see for themselves just how much destruction it could cause. When the Italian Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, talked with Hitler and Ribbentrop on August 11–13, he wrote in his diary: “The decision to fight is implacable. . . . I am certain that even were the Germans given much more than they ask, they would attack just the same because they are possessed by the demon of destruction. . . . There is nothing that can be done. Hitler has decided to strike and strike he will.” He added that Il Duce “believes the democracies will still give in.”^29^ The decision to obliterate Poland was therefore fixed before the pact with Russia was signed. Without it the Nazi Panzer divisions would have rolled up to the borders of the Soviet Union, occupying the White Russian and Ukrainian half of Poland to which the Soviet Union had a far better right.
This fact alone should dispose of the contention that if the Soviet Union could not come to terms with Britain and France it should have at least stood neutral like the American Congress. Moscow, it is said, did not need to make a deal with Hitler and give him the green light, but in reality the Soviet Government did not have this choice. By standing aloof it would have lost not only Eastern Poland but the Baltic states as well. By rejecting Hitler’s promises, and the threats that always went with them, the Soviets would have placed themselves in the daily and imminent danger of fighting the German-Russian war which they believed the West had tried to bring about.
By making the truce with Hitler the Soviets gained four things. (1) They got everything in the Baltic states which the Allies had refused them, and more, plus the ability to ship home to Germany 100,000 Baltic Germans, as well as 300,000 other Germans from Poland and other Eastern areas. These huge fifth columns were quickly cleaned out of the Russian sphere, to the deep chagrin of the Nazi supermen. (2) They achieved freedom to correct their boundary with Finland and reclaim Bessarabia from Rumania. (3) Instead of incurring the full power of the Nazi war machine, while the West viewed their plight with satisfaction, they turned Hitler back upon the West. (4) They also acquired nearly two years of precious time in which to prepare for a German onslaught.

[–] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 1 points 17 hours ago

Well I'm not sure if that's from the book you suggested, but if it is I must say the language is a tad bit romanticized lol. Might I suggest better sources

I don't know if the other three chapters you suggested get any better but in your quote it only argues that collaborating with the nazis was "their only option" if you first agree to start from the premise that they *checks notes* "just had to claim those territories" to which they "had a far better right"

Imagine if the UK or the US had allied with the nazis and attacked Western Europe in the back, out of fear and begging them for spoils... (as some politicians argued, I might add)?

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