tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post5330517460509871099..comments2024-03-29T17:12:19.648+13:00Comments on Bowalley Road: Trading With The Enemy?Chris Trotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-19120859903146148972015-08-20T15:14:43.819+12:002015-08-20T15:14:43.819+12:00@ Grant: " A ring of spies operating within t...@ Grant: " A ring of spies operating within the Manhattan Project, (including Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall) had kept Stalin well informed of American progress. They provided the Soviets with detailed designs of the implosion bomb and the hydrogen bomb."<br /><br />Given that state of affairs, Stalin might well have gambled that his troops could risk making a run for the Atlantic before the US could get its resources together - even if it had had the stomach for dropping one of those things anywhere in Europe or the USSR. In this household, our view is that Stalin would have pursued that strategy, had he seen it as being in Soviet interests. Evidently he did not.<br /><br />@ Anonymous: " in order to make this ridiculous claim that modern Russia is entitled to seize the Crimea and eastern Ukraine."<br /><br />I don't think anyone here has made such a claim. But your comment neatly illustrates my beef with propaganda, as expressed above. I repeat: the Crimea seceded, as was reported - even by such as CNN and the BBC - at the time. Crimea was given to the Ukraine in 1954 by Krushchev, and since independence, Crimeans have attempted twice before to decouple their territory from the Ukraine. In 2014, their third attempt, they made sure that it happened.<br /><br />With regard to Eastern Ukraine, citizens there certainly want to decouple from the Ukraine. Unsurprising when one looks at the nature of the government in Kiev. But it seems that Russia isn't interested in annexing the area. I suggest that you go read Russian news websites and blogsites for a dissenting view from that proffered by NATO and US mouthpieces such as CNN and the BBC.Peggy Klimenkonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-65382396709271998382015-08-20T14:07:26.059+12:002015-08-20T14:07:26.059+12:00Grant
Whilst Stalinism was an obscene phenomenon,...Grant<br /><br />Whilst Stalinism was an obscene phenomenon, Nazism was a whole lot worse.<br /><br />That's not just a matter of comparative "body counts". It's also a matter of what Hitler, Himmler et al had in mind for the places they'd conquered. <br /><br />To the best of my knowledge, nobody's ever seen a certified copy of the SS "Generalplan Ost" but we know enough about it to understand that it involved at least a hundred million additional(mainly but not exclusively Russian)civilian deaths, as well as the expulsion eastwards or reduction to perpetual slavery of much of the remaining population of Eastern Europe.<br /><br />Part of the terrible irony of World War Two is that we Westerners owe our freedom in no small part to the triumph of Soviet arms but that the Russians themselves (and the nations around them )had to endure decades of further tyranny, albeit in a modified form once Stalin died.<br /><br />Yet most Soviet citizens had survived and they were able to rebuild their country. Far too many ended up in the Gulags. But far more came home from the most terrible of all wars, perhaps to the arms of their sweethearts, as serving men and women were doing the world over. <br /><br />When they married, they laid flowers on the gigantic monuments to their fallen comrades and, on Victory Day, they stood tall in their baggy suits, frumpy dresses and newly polished medals, their often prematurely aged faces smiling broadly as the little children (whom Hitler had intended should never be born) marched past in their red kerchiefs, singing banal lyrics about "Mother Russia and Father Stalin". <br /><br />It wasn't an ideal outcome. But it was, so obviously, a whole heap better than the only possible alternative.<br /><br />Peggy<br /><br />I'll take some convincing that the Cold War was wholly the fault of the West or that the BBC is necessarily less reliable than 'Russia Today'.<br /><br />But those, alas, are arguments for another day, as my physio has ordered me to spend less time on the computer.Victornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-18068515558490330132015-08-20T12:09:54.296+12:002015-08-20T12:09:54.296+12:00@Chris. "Oh, and I'm a Russophile because...@Chris. "Oh, and I'm a Russophile because the Russian people saved Western civilisation."<br /><br />Except for that fairly large chunk of it in central and eastern Europe which they pretty much didn't save.. Do you think Stalin wouldn't have dearly loved to have rolled the rest of Europe and the UK if he thought he could get away with it? I'm with GS on this one. If Germany hadn't had to contend with the Allies in the West, hadn't had their dams and factories in the Ruhr bombed to buggery, hadn't had the Luftwaffe ground down to the point where it couldn't maintain air superiority in the east etc etc, do you think it might have been just a bit harder for the Soviets who were being supplied by the Allies with food, trucks etc to hold them off? Grantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-68525755209677374552015-08-20T03:32:15.021+12:002015-08-20T03:32:15.021+12:00even if you associate all soviet citizens only wit...even if you associate all soviet citizens only with Russia, in order to make this ridiculous claim that modern Russia is entitled to seize the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.<br /><br />to argue that they can do so because they beat the Germans, is no different from arguing that the Americans should be supported in Vietnam because of D-Day.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-2999079706948176142015-08-19T23:21:12.705+12:002015-08-19T23:21:12.705+12:00@Peggy. " But unless his intelligence was ver...@Peggy. " But unless his intelligence was very slick, it wasn't the nuclear threat that stopped him."<br /><br />From Wikipedia's article entitled Nuclear Arms Race referring to Stalins briefing about the new nuclear weapons at the Potsdam conference: "When President Truman informed Stalin of the weapons, he was surprised at how calmly Stalin reacted to the news and thought that Stalin had not understood what he had been told. Other members of the United States and British delegations who closely observed the exchange formed the same conclusion.<br />In fact Stalin had long been aware of the program, despite the Manhattan Project having a secret classification so high that, even as Vice President, Truman did not know about it or the development of the weapons (Truman was not informed until shortly after he became president). A ring of spies operating within the Manhattan Project, (including Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall) had kept Stalin well informed of American progress. They provided the Soviets with detailed designs of the implosion bomb and the hydrogen bomb."Grantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-27487646419462055312015-08-19T22:59:19.032+12:002015-08-19T22:59:19.032+12:00@ Grant: "....there is a very good chance tha...@ Grant: "....there is a very good chance that having mopped up the Nazis, the red army which had 13 million men under arms would have pressed the relatively much less powerful Allied forces back to the Atlantic seaboard if it hadn't been for the threat of a nuclear deterrent."<br /><br /><br />Stalin could have ordered his troops to do as you suggest, yet he did not. But unless his intelligence was very slick, it wasn't the nuclear threat that stopped him. The Red Army had entered Berlin by mid-April 1945, and the Germans surrendered in early May, but the bombing of Hiroshima wasn't until early August. Even the Manhattan Project's successful test in New Mexico wasn't until July of that year.Peggy Klimenkonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-6321029050733983562015-08-19T21:12:49.328+12:002015-08-19T21:12:49.328+12:00@ Victor: "Welcome back. Many of us have long...@ Victor: "Welcome back. Many of us have long known about the extent of Soviet loss and achievement in World War Two. It's just not, to my mind, a "clincher" on every single issue connected with Russia and its "near abroad", although, clearly, traumatic memories play their role in complicating such issues and are easily manipulated by the power hungry of all political complexions."<br /><br />Thanks, Victor. I'm not sure that it's so widely known as to challenge people's views on the Soviets. And the persistence of Cold War - and post-Cold War - propaganda distorts perspectives, both on the Soviet role in WW2, and on what's happening in the Ukraine. I've just heard a TV news presenter assert again that Putin "seized" Crimea, despite evidence to the contrary reported at the time. This kind of unreflective revisionism is pervasive, but is very difficult to challenge.<br /><br />I wouldn't want to suggest that Russia should be given a free pass over everything that's happened in the Ukraine, for instance. But I believe that the effects of propaganda mean that whatever it does or doesn't do is interpreted and reported negatively, whereas the US and NATO do get a free pass. Suggestions that news outlets could go to Russian sources for a countervailing view of what's happening there are brushed off with the claim that they're biased, or just a mouthpiece for the Kremlin. Do people seriously believe that they're getting unbiased reports from CNN or the BBC?<br /><br />The thing about the Red Army victory over the Nazis is that all the other negative stuff people adduce about the USSR - murderous dictatorship, the deaths and disappearances of the Terror, and all the rest of it - is true, but it's irrelevant. Of course those soldiers were fighting to defeat the invaders: we would do the same. And none of them would have had highfalutin thoughts about saving any civilisation other than their own: such judgements can only be made after the event, in any case.<br /><br /><br />@ Charles E: "What about intelligence? Was it not the case that the Allies brilliance here was vital to defeating the Nazis? Did they not manage to delay Hitler's attack on Russia a bit so he got caught by deadly winter weather which then helped Russia's massive effort to defeat him? Or is this fiction?"<br /><br />You're right: it's fiction, and a neat example of the way in which the winner has rewritten the story of victory. The attack could not have happened earlier than June in any event, because the airbases to support it were not completed until then, and because time was needed for the spring mud to clear. Allied intelligence at that stage wasn't equal to that sort of interference.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Peggy Klimenkonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-2410182585978598752015-08-19T17:32:05.538+12:002015-08-19T17:32:05.538+12:00The British obviously broke the German codes in a ...The British obviously broke the German codes in a sustained way, through Bletchley. The Americans broke the Japanese codes as did the British. Advanced knowledge of what was going on was often very handy. The Russians had a spy in the top echelons of the German Armed Forces, and of course had infiltrated British intelligence with upper-class communists :-). The Japanese and the Germans didn't have nearly the same success.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-57374492856033181712015-08-19T15:37:21.113+12:002015-08-19T15:37:21.113+12:00I'm impressed with some of the knowledge you g...I'm impressed with some of the knowledge you guys have to contribute to this interesting debate. Masters in WWII history abound.<br /><br />What about intelligence? Was it not the case that the Allies brilliance here was vital to defeating the Nazis? Did they not manage to delay Hitler's attack on Russia a bit so he got caught by deadly winter weather which then helped Russia's massive effort to defeat him? Or is this fiction?Charles Enoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-22411502310482547262015-08-19T11:46:18.449+12:002015-08-19T11:46:18.449+12:00I can't pretend to be as knowledgeable as some...I can't pretend to be as knowledgeable as some other commenters here, but I think I've read enough to feel secure in suggesting that the USSR under Stalin was a totalitarian dictatorship every bit as murderous and dangerous as Hitlers fascist enterprise. As I suggested above, the USSR in 1941 (which does not equal the modern Russian Federation), did not fight for OUR freedom and values. It fought an existential battle with an opposing totalitarian regime for its OWN survival and there is a very good chance that having mopped up the Nazis, the red army which had 13 million men under arms would have pressed the relatively much less powerful Allied forces back to the Atlantic seaboard if it hadn't been for the threat of a nuclear deterrent. Grantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-84806929137026651322015-08-19T09:51:34.005+12:002015-08-19T09:51:34.005+12:00Dammit forgot to say – it wasn't today's R...Dammit forgot to say – it wasn't today's Russians that saved Western civilisation anyway. Putin's Russia is closer to fascism than socialism let's face it.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-90778884565989178172015-08-19T09:49:25.384+12:002015-08-19T09:49:25.384+12:00Not to deny that the Soviets' contribution to ...Not to deny that the Soviets' contribution to defeating Hitler was minimised in the past, or the sacrifices they made. But saying they won the war is academic and somewhat frivolous. Frankly they wouldn't have won it without Western aid. They probably would have starved. If only because they had to choose between tractors and trucks. And as I said before it's a very, very complicated thing, and I suspect people's attitude depends more on their emotions than their reason. This argument has been going on for years, and I investigated it years ago as a student at Massey. For every argument there is a counter argument, and it all becomes too convoluted for a person with no dog in the fight to make up their mind :-)Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-63167437715243848222015-08-19T09:22:22.396+12:002015-08-19T09:22:22.396+12:00GS
David Edgerton would probably agree with you o...GS<br /><br />David Edgerton would probably agree with you over the significance of other World War Two fronts but not over the quality of British weaponry. Either way, I think you'd enjoy his book, "Britain's War Machine", if you haven't already read it: <br /><br />http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1114<br /><br /><br />Peggy<br /><br />Welcome back. Many of us have long known about the extent of Soviet loss and achievement in World War Two. It's just not, to my mind, a "clincher" on every single issue connected with Russia and its "near abroad", although, clearly, traumatic memories play their role in complicating such issues and are easily manipulated by the power hungry of all political complexions.Victornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-58625727416939955422015-08-18T23:47:05.049+12:002015-08-18T23:47:05.049+12:00@ Victor: "Nothing in my previous post is int...@ Victor: "Nothing in my previous post is intended to diminish the amazing Soviet achievement in relocating and rebuilding the USSR's armament and other industries behind the Urals after the shock of Barbarossa.The Soviets went on to produce some highly effective weaponry, particularly rockets and tanks, and very successfully adopted US mass production techniques with interchangeable parts etc."<br /><br />A relative worked in armaments manufacture; the large-scale relocation of those industries after Barbarossa was an astonishing feat. It was very hard on the workers, though: face being "scorched-earthed" to an area very far from home and family, or the firing squad.<br /><br />@ Guerilla Surgeon:"But the whole idea of who won the war is sort of academic and ridiculous to be honest..."<br /><br />No it isn't. You're quite right about all the other areas of conflict tying up Allied troops. But that doesn't diminish in any way the decisive role played by the Red Army in defeating the Germans, and the terrible price paid by Soviet citizens for victory. Chris is right: that Soviet accomplishment - and the debt we all owe to them - was elided post-War from the WW2 narrative, as the US and other Western polities pursued the new Cold War narrative.<br /><br />It matters now, because we need to be able to see Cold War propaganda for what it was. And when we're alert to it, we can see US and NATO intervention in the Ukraine for the shabby little enterprise that it is.Peggy Klimenkonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-13462393321046786412015-08-18T17:31:12.987+12:002015-08-18T17:31:12.987+12:00The weapons sent by the West to Russia had a minim...The weapons sent by the West to Russia had a minimal effect on their participation in the war. The tanks were inferior, and the planes tended to be too complex to maintain properly and not suited to the weather conditions in winter. What made the difference basically was food, and trucks. Without those, particularly trucks, the Russian army would have hardly been able to move. Even so, they hardly made the dashing long distance advances made by the Germans, the Americans or even the British.<br />A friend of mine's father drove a Sherman tank all over Italy, and several others drove British tanks. They were pretty scathing of British and American tank design, and I was watching a documentary recently where some old guy claimed that the tank manufacturers, who allegedly received medals after the war – well – let's put it this way - they shouldn't have. <br />And it's true that the Russians do appreciate this. My father received a Russian medal for convoy PQ 19. It was certainly a damned sight easier to get than the British one which was issued about six months before he died, but they made it so complicated to get we were never able to get it for him before he passed away. - Fuck 'em.<br /><br />But the whole idea of who won the war is sort of academic and ridiculous to be honest – sorry Chris – it basically ignores the Japanese, against whom approximately 26 million soldiers fought. And without which the United States and Commonwealth would have had millions more troops to contribute to Western Europe. It ignores the contribution of the Chinese, who tied up a million or so Japanese troops. It ignores the necessity to build a huge Navy for the Pacific war which tied down a lot of American industrial capacity which would have been better used making decent tanks for Western Europe and so on and so on. It's just not a simple question. Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-3463219182105930802015-08-18T15:14:27.967+12:002015-08-18T15:14:27.967+12:00Nothing in my previous post is intended to diminis...Nothing in my previous post is intended to diminish the amazing Soviet achievement in relocating and rebuilding the USSR's armament and other industries behind the Urals after the shock of Barbarossa.<br /><br />The Soviets went on to produce some highly effective weaponry, particularly rockets and tanks, and very successfully adopted US mass production techniques with interchangeable parts etc.<br /><br />They would not have won without these weapons but, equally, they probably would not have won without the weapons provided by their allies and delivered to them at a huge cost in lives amongst merchant seaman and their naval escorts. <br /><br />My impression (and it's only an impression) is that older Russians understand this and respect the memory of those who perished in the cold seas to and from Murmansk.Victornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-42698491680909762842015-08-18T15:11:52.278+12:002015-08-18T15:11:52.278+12:00"The Cold War required the subtle blanking-ou..."The Cold War required the subtle blanking-out of the Soviet contribution to the defeat of fascism."<br /><br />Indeed. We in the post-War West were comprehensively propagandised in respect of the Soviet Union. And it continues to the present day. The end of the Cold War, and the resulting loss of the USSR as an adversary, left the US without a military purpose. As a consequence, it has, through NATO, done everything possible to force a confrontation with Russia. Fomenting the violent overthrow of the democratically-elected government of the Ukraine was just the most recent attempt.<br /><br />"I well remember the shock experienced by a young member of the Nuclear-Free NZ movement, back in the 1980s, when I told her that 20 million Russians had perished at the hands of the Nazis."<br /><br />My extended family has direct experience of this. It's certainly not nearly as well-known as the tragedy of the Jews of Europe. But it explains the Russian fear of the rise of Ukrainian Fascism, which has been supported by NATO and the US in recent times. Their concern is well-founded.<br /> Peggy Klimenkonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-21823463547096671822015-08-18T14:19:40.388+12:002015-08-18T14:19:40.388+12:00Bushbaptist
You’ve actually confused Catherine wi...Bushbaptist<br /><br />You’ve actually confused Catherine with Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Alix of Hesse- Darmstadt, who became the Tsarina Alexandra. One of her many other names was Viktoria but that's not how she's known to history.<br /><br />She was born, as you would expect, in Darmstadt, which is nowhere near either Vienna or Pomerania and she grew up mainly in England. And, of course, she was born two and a half centuries after Catherine. So you really have to work hard to confuse the two.<br /><br />As to Peter II’s height, it was universally remarked upon and no more a matter for doubt than the girth of Henry VIII in middle age, Theodore Herzl's beard or the fact that Napoleon wore a hat that stretched from right to left instead of back to front.<br /> <br />It may be that some Russians talk of the Tartars as Turks. If so, this may say something about Russian racial attitudes.<br /><br />As mentioned earlier, the Tartar stronghold of Kazan came under Russian rule two centuries before Catherine’s reign but it’s certainly true that some Tartar tribes were involved in Pugachev’s rebellion and that the rebels and Catherine's forces fought a major battle at Kazan. <br /><br />However, the Pugachev rebellion (a huge peasant rising) was essentially an intra-Russian and intra-Cossack affair. So, at best, amidst the mythology that seems to cloud your mind, you’ve glimpsed one small smidgen of half truth, albeit ‘through a glass darkly’. Was it a good thing that Catherine won and shored up serfdom? You tell me.<br /><br />Similarly, you tell me if you think it was a good thing that the Russians and their weather defeated Napoleon in 1812, thus laying the ground for half a century of political reaction and repression across much of Europe, often enforced by Nicholas I's cossacks? <br /> <br />And, by the way, I too tend to agree with Chris that the Soviet armed forces saved civilization in World War Two. <br /> <br />Of course, many of the men and women involved were from the non-Russian nationalities of the USSR, including none less than Marshall Konstantin Rokossovsky, who was half Polish and half Belarusian. But I’d also agree that the Russians made by far the biggest numerical contribution, reflecting the size of their population.<br /><br />It’s also the case that the Soviets were very dependent on British and (later on) American arms supplies. Even as early as the Battle of the Gates of Moscow in late 1941, around half the tanks were of UK manufacture. In the US, 'Rosie the Riveter' was rightly lauded for her contribution to the common victory<br /><br />Where I would differ from Chris, though, is that he seems to think that past Russian heroism and sacrifice should give the Russian state a free pass and justify just about any steps to defend (and, if need be, extend) the frontiers of the Motherland, even against the least substantial of threats. <br /><br />Chris<br /><br />I, of course, know it’s a nickname.<br /> <br />But you’re sounding more like Tukhachevsky than his even more notable predecessor.Victornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-84982103034164125282015-08-18T13:35:41.361+12:002015-08-18T13:35:41.361+12:00@Chris "I told her that 20 million Russians h...@Chris "I told her that 20 million Russians had perished at the hands of the Nazis."<br /><br />I know you use "Russian" as shorthand for citizens of any of the States of the USSR, but it is as well to be clear that of the approximately 26 million Soviet deaths, nearly 7 million were Ukranian (16.3% of population) nearly 2.3 million were Belarussian (25.3% of their population) and nearly 14 million were actually Russian (12.7% of population). It would also be interesting to know what percentage of that total was caused by Soviet internal terrorism and enforcement by agencies such as the NKVD as well as the simply ruthless and careless throwing away of civilian and military lives by the Stalinist regime in general.<br /><br />All this without even getting into the casualties amongst military and civilian populations during The Great Terror and other lesser purges within the pre 1939 borders of the USSR.Grantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-61744687186319906582015-08-18T11:51:22.161+12:002015-08-18T11:51:22.161+12:00molotov-ribbentrop pact...
Stalin and the USSR we...molotov-ribbentrop pact...<br /><br />Stalin and the USSR were quite prepared to watch Nazi Germany and it's partners knock the shite out of 'western civilization' as long as they got a bite of the apple (Poland) and were left alone by the new Reich to develop there own hegemony in the east. If Hitler & co. hadn't broken the pact and attacked Russia do you think Russia would have fired a single shot in defence of the 'west'.Grantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-3875220290780020182015-08-18T11:13:07.831+12:002015-08-18T11:13:07.831+12:00Sorry Chris, but it is indeed not that simple. Per...Sorry Chris, but it is indeed not that simple. Perhaps you should read this, which is still an oversimplification.<br />https://orangeraisin.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/did-the-red-army-defeat-the-third-reich/<br /><br />Two examples of where you oversimplify perhaps.<br />Firstly Russian divisions were smaller than Western divisions. You need to look at the total numbers of troops. Still more Russians, but as I said oversimplification.<br />You also perhaps need to look at the strategic bombing campaign, which for all its faults, did transfer resources from ground troops to air defence, particularly anti-aircraft guns, which make excellent anti-tank guns.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-82758079813999951582015-08-18T10:12:46.167+12:002015-08-18T10:12:46.167+12:00I'm sorry, GS, but who else can claim that hon...I'm sorry, GS, but who else can claim that honour? Certainly not the UK and the USA, who came with too little - and much too late - to affect the outcome of the war.<br /><br />All you need do is count the divisions deployed for D-Day and then compare that number with the Soviet total on the Eastern Front. The great victories of the war: Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin were all Russian - against which Allied victories like El Alamein and the Battle of the Bulge can only rank as minor skirmishes.<br /><br />The Cold War required the subtle blanking-out of the Soviet contribution to the defeat of fascism. I well remember the shock experienced by a young member of the Nuclear-Free NZ movement, back in the 1980s, when I told her that 20 million Russians had perished at the hands of the Nazis. <br /><br />The truth of the matter is expressed best in the final verse of the Soviet national anthem:<br /><br /> We fought for the future, destroyed the invaders,<br /> And brought to our homeland the laurels of fame.<br /> Our glory will live in the memory of nations<br /> And all generations will honour her name. <br /><br />Everything else, GS, is revisionism and spin.Chris Trotterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-48969372667495742232015-08-18T09:45:26.319+12:002015-08-18T09:45:26.319+12:00It's too simplistic to say that Russia defeate...It's too simplistic to say that Russia defeated the Germans. It's far too complicated to make a bald statement like that.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-76328969178586325872015-08-18T07:27:32.847+12:002015-08-18T07:27:32.847+12:00Thank you Charles for your insight into the anti-T...Thank you Charles for your insight into the anti-TBP "crowd", and for so casually dismissing our concerns and misinterpreting them. I presume you have evidence of the way we think? Because no one I know actually thinks that way. As they say on American news sites "citation needed."Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-87613882833267078322015-08-18T03:57:34.626+12:002015-08-18T03:57:34.626+12:00different Russians though.
Putin's Russia is ...different Russians though.<br /><br />Putin's Russia is hardly a socialist state in the making.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com