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hardcore_gamer

Why doesn't anyone talk about Stalin?

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Abyssalstudios1 said:

tl;dr version: Any estimate of American losses that is over 45,000 is fail.

the only invasion scenario with american losses under 45 thousands is the one where soviet union does the invading. a lengthy passive blocade would only reinforce japan's fanatical zeal, think north korea. the a-bombs managed the unthinkable, they broke japanese fighting spirit within a few days instead of decades.

Abyssalstudios1 said:

No. I'm not doing this. My purpose here is not to deal with stupidity.

HURRRRRRRRRRRRRR. what is your purpose here?

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I think we had dealt with why a quick surrender of Japan was "required" in other threads. Yeah, if you think about it in terms of just relaxing and kicking back a bit since the war was practically ended and Japan powerless, Operation Downfall made no sense.

Why plan a costly and bloody invasion of a country that can no longer project military force, instead of sieging it to death while focusing on more important things like e.g. rebuilding? It made no rational sense, UNLESS they wanted to occupy it before the Soviets did and use it as a base for future operations. In that case, AND ONLY IN THAT CASE, they had no time to lose. Which was actually the case.

I'm convinced that the US had (and still has) the best long-term strategic analyists in the world, and that their every geopolitical move is made by thinking 20-30 years ahead, even today. E.g. see how the foothold they set in the Balkans in the late 90s helps them now...

Their greatest fear at the end of WW II was Communism, not Japan, since that awkward alliance with the Soviets was wearing thin. They needed to set a foothold in Asia (and lo' and behold, it turned out useful for Korea and Vietnam!) and for enforcing the later M.A.D. doctrine.

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Mr. T said:

OK if you are going to call me stupid and post nothing except a link to a magazine article from 1986, then you can GTFO

And you think that Wikipedia is a more trustworthy source? GTFO yourself.

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Hmm...I sense some ad personam attacks here, complete with other logical fallacies...

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eargosedown said:

And the Asians slaughtered many many civilians, and they are rarely recalled as sinister or evil as Adolf Hitler.

IIRC, the worst genocide in history was the Mongols who killed tens of millions of Chinese alone.

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Danarchy said:

IIRC, the worst genocide in history was the Mongols who killed tens of millions of Chinese alone.


Actually, I believe that Khan was the greatest mass murderer ever until the 20th century [citation needed].

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I'm still fairly certain that the Mongols killed more people than Stalin and Hitler combined. They massacred entire NATIONS down to every last woman and child. Multiple times. Hell, the Middle East used to be a tropical paradise, and it mostly got turned into a desert by bad agricultural practices, but I'm sure the fact that the Mongols salted the shit out of the earth there didn't help either. Oh, and there's the city they wiped out of existence by burning down then diverting a river through. Or the largest and most comprehensive library in the world that they burned down after throwing all the books there in the river, setting human knowledge back a couple centuries. Or they fact that they fired plage-infested bodies at fleeing Venetian soldiers who then took the Black Plague back to Europe, wiping out a third of the continent.

Yeah, the Khans were a bunch of mean bastards.

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Danarchy said:

IIRC, the worst genocide in history was the Mongols who killed tens of millions of Chinese alone.


Basically, point of the matter is.

Shit happens. A lot. Throughout history. Talking about them all would take too much time, so we only talk about the popular ones.

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Danarchy said:

I'm still fairly certain that the Mongols killed more people than Stalin and Hitler combined. They massacred entire NATIONS down to every last woman and child. Multiple times.

They massacred entire cities in order to break the will of nations they invaded, think of it as a form of applied psychology - resistance=death. The Roman's operated on a similar principle whereby the longer a siege lasted the more inhabitants they'd massacre.

Hell, the Middle East used to be a tropical paradise, and it mostly got turned into a desert by bad agricultural practices

Blame it on climate change. The Middle East, north Africa and parts of central Asia (like the Taklamakan) have been drying out since the end of the last Ice Age.

but I'm sure the fact that the Mongols salted the shit out of the earth there didn't help either.

Salt was a valuable commodity back then, I expect it's use would have been little more than symbolic as part of a curse placed on a city's ruins.

Or the largest and most comprehensive library in the world that they burned down after throwing all the books there in the river, setting human knowledge back a couple centuries.

Surely not the Library of Alexandria? It's final destruction is usually attributed to the Muslim conquest in AD642.

Or they fact that they fired plage-infested bodies at fleeing Venetian soldiers who then took the Black Plague back to Europe, wiping out a third of the continent.

The Mongols and Venetians had signed a secret treaty so why would they fire on people who were providing them with much needed information about potential adversaries? In any case, it took another century for the Black Death to hit Europe.

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Often, when someone directly or even remotely connected interests with a controversial historical figure/entity are still living and/or in a position of authority, there's little talking about it/questioning.

For example, Greek history books hardly mention the collaborationist "Security Battalions" created by the Germans in WW II, and which had an anti-communist, anti-resistance and zero-tolerance policing role. And they stay awkwardly silent about the Civil War that ensued after the war, and the atrocities of both sides, as well as the atrocities of the 1967 Junta.

Why? Because many of its important exponents are still alive, some even still hold positions of power/authority or enjoy benefits that date back to those deeds and days (e.g. many of the limited cistern truck licenses date back to the Civil War, being given by the state as a "reward" for those that ratted out potential "subversives".

Unlike Japan and Germany, there was no allied occupation army stepping in and forcibly dismantling all the apparatus of collaborationists, opportunists and traitors/snitches that had formed in those days, on the opposite they continued to thrive and grow ever powerful.

In the USSR, Stalin wasn't sieged to death like Hitler, or atom-bombed to surrender like Hirohito: he died naturally as the leader of a supreme and powerful state at the height of its power, and his party just continued his ongoing legacy. If a little miserable wannabe-capitalist country like mine can have such a massive coverup and psyop going on to this day, surely a colossus of forgery and brainwashing like the USSR can do better.

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hardcore_gamer said:

Then there is also the appropriately named "Holodomor" or the great Ukrainian famine where Stalin stole all of the food from the Ukriane in 1933 (at roughly the same time where Hitler got to power) where Stalin killed something like 7-10 million people in less then a year. That's almost as many people as the ones killed in the entire holocaust in less then a third the amount of time.

i finally got my ass to actually read the OP and i find this bit a bombastic hyperbole. first, the death toll of the ukrainian famine is usually estimated at 3 millions. second, while the famine did happen during stalin's reign, the blame should fall mainly on one of the cornerstones of communism - the colossally retarded idea of collective agriculture. the cetral planning bureaus took the farmland from experienced farmers and started running the agriculture in their own fashion, reinventing the wheel by making it square. their policies were ineffective from day 1 and it's almost ironic that famine stroke the hardest in the country known as the granary of europe.

of course stalin is to blame for robbing ukraine of the already poor crops, but this catastrophe was predestined by lenin's grandiose reforms. the whole soviet union hungered in that era and had to start importing grain massively for ever since.

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GreyGhost said:

Blame it on climate change. The Middle East, north Africa and parts of central Asia (like the Taklamakan) have been drying out since the end of the last Ice Age.

Still, there's a lot of speculation that it was human-induced.

Surely not the Library of Alexandria? It's final destruction is usually attributed to the Muslim conquest in AD642.

No, the Library of Baghdad, the most comprehensive library after the Library of Alexandria was destroyed.

The Mongols and Venetians had signed a secret treaty so why would they fire on people who were providing them with much needed information about potential adversaries? In any case, it took another century for the Black Death to hit Europe.

Sorry, it was actually the Genoese. I knew it was one of the Italian city-states.

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I posed the question from the title of this thread to a class today and at least half the class said "who's Stalin"? /shakes head in disbelief

At least it really underlined that no one talks about him. O_o

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dew said:
of course stalin is to blame for robbing ukraine of the already poor crops, but this catastrophe was predestined by lenin's grandiose reforms. the whole soviet union hungered in that era and had to start importing grain massively for ever since.

You mean war communism, from the period of the civil war? The later reforms that reverted to a more liberalized approach? The more totalitarian Stalinist industrialization policies also caused stagnation in various other countries emulating them, during different periods, such as in China almost three decades later. So, if Lenin tried something first, saw its limitations empirically, and then Stalin implemented a (perverse, I would say) variant of previous initiatives in spite of the experiences, it's Lenin's fault?

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Enjay said:

I posed the question from the title of this thread to a class today and at least half the class said "who's Stalin"? /shakes head in disbelief

At least it really underlined that no one talks about him. O_o

You should have made them play Civilization. The original one, were Stalin was an expansionist dickhole. I learned real quick who he was from an early age.

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ARMCHAIR HISTORIAN TIME!

If the US threw tons of its forces into Japan and got mired there, do you think Stalin would have launched an attack on Western Europe?

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Shaikoten said:

ARMCHAIR HISTORIAN TIME!

If the US threw tons of its forces into Japan and got mired there, do you think Stalin would have launched an attack on Western Europe?


Depends on how well their intelligence was informed of the US Nuclear program's status, and if they would perceive it as a realistic threat. IMHO they'd hold back just as they did in the "normal" timeline, but would perhaps intervene more directly in some local conflicts e.g. the Greek Civil war, with less US intervention.

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Shaikoten said:
If the US threw tons of its forces into Japan and got mired there,

Why would they? Japan's sea power and economic possibilities were broken. Taking over the islands at a high strategic expense seems like a wasteful action.

do you think Stalin would have launched an attack on Western Europe?

The Soviets had agreed beforehand to participate in an invasion of Japan. Wouldn't they have had something to gain from doing so, just like they did in Europe? A things went, the US took Japan unilaterally. Would it have been safe for the Soviets to leave the pacific to the Americans in an attempt to keep volatile Europe for themselves?

The Soviets also knew the US was at work on nukes due to spying, and ahead of where they could get, so most likely didn't want to start hostilities with them unless they made advancements with some sort of super-bomb themselves.

So, most probably not, and the Soviets would have ended with partial responsibilities over the remains of the Japanese Empire. Being allies and participating was not only about supporting each other, but also about making sure the other didn't get too much of the spoils.

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hardcore_gamer said:

[...]Nazis just so happen to populate 75% of all first person shooters and 25% of all action movies[...]

The statistic is wrong, but I think the reason why you find video games against Nazis is because Nazi-Germany was the enemy and the USSR was an ally. Sure, the USA should had invaded the USSR for their evil behaviors, but it didn't happen :-( ...

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Deeforce said:

Sure, the USA should had invaded the USSR for their evil behaviors, but it didn't happen :-( ...

Wait, you put a sad face behind that? Like...you are upset that the united states and the soviet union did not engage in a hot war? WTF is wrong with you?

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Quast said:

Wait, you put a sad face behind that? Like...you are upset that the united states and the soviet union did not engage in a hot war? WTF is wrong with you?


It's a well known opinion that certain DW members are crypto-fascist, tromolagneiac, militaristic-hedonist misers.

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Quast said:

hot war

Yes, they had nuclear weapons, but I really would like to know, where they got it from... And to the invasion: the americans there would have taken out the good persons (unlike in the Iraq war [there were no good persons, only terrorists]), but it was too dangerous. Many good people were tortured to death by the USSR regime. It is a really sad story that the USA couldn't intervene there.

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Deeforce said:

It is a really sad story that the USA couldn't intervene there.


Yeah because as well all know, the only good People are American people and those who kiss their ass. The rest are commie scums and terrorists, and the Good American People have a Moral Duty to God to Intervene and eradicate this abomination, pronto! Manifest Destiny, biatches! [/sarcasm]

Deeforce said:

Yes, they had nuclear weapons, but I really would like to know, where they got it from...


'tis was them commie Jeeoows, I'm telling ya!

Apparently it was not in their best interests to do so. End of story.

Tell me, Deeforce, do you have wet dreams involving this guy, perhaps?

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Deeforce said:

Yes, they had nuclear weapons, but I really would like to know, where they got it from...

What? Where did they get them? They built them.

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Deeforce said:

Yes, they had nuclear weapons, but I really would like to know, where they got it from... And to the invasion: the americans there would have taken out the good persons (unlike in the Iraq war [there were no good persons, only terrorists]), but it was too dangerous. Many good people were tortured to death by the USSR regime. It is a really sad story that the USA couldn't intervene there.

What the fuck?

Which alternate dimension are you living in?

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Maes said:

'tis was them commie Jeeoows, I'm telling ya!

Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg definitely weren't the ones that talked about the atomic bomb, here you have chosen the wrong source. I searched around a bit and I found out that no one actually knows how the USSR got the atomic bomb.

Maes said:

Picture of Joseph McCarthy

From what I've read so far about him: I dislike him very much, so: wrong source again! Here is the one to be honored: Arthur Harris. I like him, because he gave peace to germany. Now I live in a country way more friendly than in the past (1933-1945).

Arthur Harris quotation:
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

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Deeforce said:

Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg definitely weren't the ones that talked about the atomic bomb, here you have chosen the wrong source.


TBQH, so far you didn't seem to be the type NOT to stick to govn't issued propaganda and official explanations for controversial cases, and your stance on geopolitics seemes pretty radical even by Cold War standards.

Usually, such types start ranting about how they great-grandfather, they grand-father, their father and now their brother/their cousin/their uncle fought in WWI/WWII/Korea/Vietnam/Iraq?Afghanistan against the Kaiser/Nazis/Charlie/Charlie/Saddam/"Terrorism" etc. etc.

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I haven't read the thread because, hey, it's a Doomworld politics thread. But I can add that I know someone who was an acquaintance of Stalin's daughter.

One thing that can be thought over is why, despite decades of absolute rule by Stalin, it was still statues of Lenin that decorated Soviet cities. His power was surely such that he could have had them replaced. So why didn't he?

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