The Warsaw Pact, as it was known in the West, was created in 1955 and included the USSR and a number of its neighbors. The West described it as a pretend treaty of victim countries subjugated by Soviet expansionism; the USSR described it as a voluntary fraternal union of socialists. But those are propaganda statements and have little to do with reality.
Forget the “socialist brothers” stuff and look at it from a post-war Soviet perspective. Germany – attacked the USSR. Czechoslovakia – the Czech half was absorbed by Nazi Germany in 1939 and the Slovakia half was an ally of Germany as were Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. (Albania doesn’t really count because it was too independent, rebellious during the anti-Stalin Khrushchev years and quit in 1968, probably to Moscow’s relief.)
Western countries see Poland as one of the great victims of the war, but Moscow has a different view. When Russia collapsed in 1917, Poland, recreated at Versailles, invaded and got deep into what we now call Ukraine and Belarus. The Red Army rebounded and, by the summer of 1920 had pushed the Poles out and advanced close to Warsaw where it was stopped. Poland was the first country to sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler’s Germany. Poland took a piece of Czechoslovakia in 1938. And, finally, during the abortive British-French-Soviet talks in 1939, it refused the Soviets passage rights to get at Germany.
A British-French-Soviet alliance with agreed access through Poland might have changed Hitler’s calculations, don’t you think?
This is missing from the conventional American story and Poland is presented as an innocent victim of a Hitler-Stalin attack. But, intelligent intelligence has to consider how Moscow sees Poland and I submit that, after the war, Moscow regarded Poland as 1) a former and potentially future enemy, 2) a Hitler collaborator and 3) an obstacle to the only chance of stopping him. Victim? Not from Moscow’s perspective – more of an unreliable neighbor that it had to get a good solid grip on.
Taking all this into account, how would Moscow regard these countries that it took under its control after the war and later assembled into the Warsaw Pact? (East) Germany – enemy. Poland – former enemy, unreliable; Czechoslovakia – enemy (sorry Czechia – you’re the only real innocent in this); Hungary – enemy; Romania – enemy; Bulgaria – enemy. Moscow’s take on Ismay’s famous saying would be “Us in, NATO out, them down”.
They called them socialist brothers but what they really meant was former enemies now under our tight control.
As to the Western line that these were innocent “captive nations“, to see them as that took a lot of revision. But reality was adjusted and they were rebranded as innocent victims of Soviet imperialism.
What’s that got to do with today? Well, every now and again we get a reminder of how much was buried. Like a standing ovation given to someone who fought in the Second World War “for Ukrainian independence against the Russians“. Against the Poles too, they say. And lots more where he came from. And not only in Canada.
Oops. Not supposed to remember that.
Most Americans are incredibly ignorant of history. It is now a subject that is disdained and mutilated here in the US. You can tell Americans almost anything about the history of any part of the world and they will believe you, if you seem sincere.
What do you expect? Nowadays American kids don’t like to study history, not even their own constitution! For God sakes they don’t know math not even algebra!
How can we expect better Americans or stop people like hillary or uncle bid or stupid congressmen like Graham if we are illiterate?
“How can we expect better Americans or stop people like hillary or uncle bid or stupid congressmen like Graham if we are illiterate?” -Agtr
Therein lies the point of deliberately sabotaging public education[sic] and why the war on charter and home schools in the blue states
The war on charter? Are you crazy? Private schools are one of the reasons Americans don’t know anything. There are basically two kinds of charter schools, the for profit ones that cut down on teacher salaries and resources to turn a profit and the religious nut one that teaches kids god created the earth in six days and other such nonsense.
Now, I’m European (Swedish). We used to have one of the best schools systems in the world where each and every school were held to the same standard. There were a few private schools of course, but not for profit ones. Swedish kids was always in the top in international surveys.
Then a right-wing government took over and implemented the Friedman idea of privatization and vouchers (previously only tried in Chile and that took a military coup to get going). Now the result have plummeted and our schools are among the worst in the western world.
“Now the result have plummeted and our schools are among the worst in the western world.”
Maybe that was the plan all along.
“History is written by the victors”
It was rewritten as it was written, it is re-written now as we speak…
I.e. Canada’s latest example.
Most of the “history” we’re all so ignorant about, was chalked full of lies then as we “enlightened” about now.
Traditional oral teachings at least had some truths in them.
“History” is overrated since it’s obvious even in our life spans, we never learn anything or change as a species anyways.
It’s just knowledge. Not truth. It’s dates, facts & accounts that get shuffled away as current events and power structures make new “histories.”
History would actually have value if it were applied instead of simply read and talked about. But it isn’t, and historically speaking m, never is.
The US lost in Vietnam but US authors have written the history we know in the west. The Germans lost in WW2, but it’s their history we read about on the eastern front, not the Soviet’s views of the battles. Not to mention Stalin kept hidden history he didn’t want revealed to protect his own interests.
The Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War but it was Thucydides, an Athenian who wrote about it.
History is like the Rashomon effect, there are as many different descriptions of the same event as there are witnesses to the event.
Franz Halder, the German army chief of staff from 1938 until Sept ’42, was paid by the pentagon to write the official history of WW2 in the east after the war. He of course painted a picture of pure and noble German knights fighting off asiatic hoards and losing the war due to meddeling of the Austrien corporal.
The USA also appointed Reinhard Gelhen the German head of military intelligence in the east to head the new West German intelligence agency … he of course kept the same network of spies and operatives he used during the war. They of course “shaped” the intelligence they gave to the USA to make themselves too important to throw in jail for war crimes.
And Gehlen was responsible for much of the lousy intel on Russia that the Wehrmacht relied on during World War 2. Seems that nothing has changed since.
It’s the same in India. Hindu Nationalist government is busy eliminating 800 years of Muslim rule in Indian history.
Not only that it’s busy creating history out of thin air.
And eliminating Buddhist rule and Sikh Empire and Greek and other invasions etc etc
Hindu is a religious term made up by others, the Moghuls, to describe those on the other side of the Indus, it is a coloniser term and not something the various tribes and kingdoms called themselves. It’s not a real united religion so the Moghuls and British made it one by grouping different sects together. Modi continues that to control the different ethnic groups. He a good English man.
India and Pakistan are both fake British made countries. But India at least treats minorities better than Pakistan which ethnically cleansed almost Hindus, 6mn Sikhs kicked out, 1mn killed, persecutes Christians far more severely than India and is in fact the mirror image of greater Israel.
India retains a huge Muslim population and the ethnic cleansing of non Muslims in Afghanistan (wiped out all it’s ethnic Sikhs and Hindus) and Pakistan and Bangladesh makes it unsurprising that Muslims in south east Asia are seen as a threat. Because they actually exterminate everyone. If they stopped and gave land back maybe things would change.
But if you are a minority India is a far safer place than Pakistan or Afghanistan or Bangladesh.
That said history should be accurate as possible and not politically manipulated obviously.
“India and Pakistan are both fake British made countries” When INDIA wanted partition, the Brits, eventually gave it to them. THEN, as Independence was becoming a reality, Muslims turned on other Indians, and vice versa.
When there is a common enemy, in this case the UK, people work together. Take away the common enemy then they turn on each other….
So, my question to you, as a Brit, is this: What was the alternative to partition? The trouble is, like in Palestine, people will end up fighting each other when the common enemy is taken away. That is the result of the End of Empires…….
The Brits COULD have stayed home, not set the East India and Hudson’s Bay Companies on the world. Ditto for the rest of the European Colonialist powers.
As comedian Dave Barry described the Age of Colonialism, “Hi, we own you”.
The current Colonialist “exit” strategy is “How about I watch you and him fight… here’s the weapons.”
That was so nice of Britain to give independence to Indians and Pakistanis.
Britain of course did sail thousands of miles to attack them first though, but couldn’t afford the military to keep them enslaved.
When we sailed the south west coast of India in 2006, enroute to Walvis Bay….
We learned to anchor off muslim towns. They had distinctive skylines… the minarets were visible far offshore. We were always treated hospitably, and left to ourselves, anchored off them.
In contrast, whenever we anchored off christian towns, we were soon mobbed by locals seeking “presents”.
To this day, I have great respect for muslim communities… They are invariably, clean and orderly…
INDY
The mentors of Joseph Goebbels and also his heirs are all in the West.
Among the most accurate and unforgettable statements by Vladimir Putin was called the US and its vassals “the Empire of Lies”.
It’s all communist subversion.
^Case in point….
^^Double-down on that.
The China Lobby of the fifties and sixties is the worst thing to ever happen to the USA, and by extension, the world.
The next-worst thing was the Powell Memo.
The current Uniparty in the USA takes each of those Oligarch declarations as fundamental to its existence, to the detriment of all us plebs.
There was no vast communist conspiracy. It was delusion in the fevered brains of a few radicals and, just like a few modern politicians, McCarthy used it to destroy his rivals and imagined enemies.
And the Kennedies—tho’ in that regard McCarthy had no role.
That was all and only the China Lobby.
If you want a good example of that faction, listen to any of Nikki Haley’s speeches. She’s been well programmed.
Then there is Project Unthinkable. To quote from History Press: “The plan called for a massive Allied assault on 1 July 1945 by British, American, Polish and German – yes German – forces against the Red Army. They aimed to push them back out of Soviet-occupied East Germany and Poland, give Stalin and bloody nose, and force him to re-consider his domination of East Europe. But the plan was fraught with danger and the Allied force risked being dragged deeper into Soviet territory to face the nightmare of fighting in a Russian winter. The ghosts of Hitler and Napoleon were never far away.”
Operation Unthinkable was Spencer-Churchill’s hare-brained scheme to attack Red Army around Dresden using German troops but Truman refused US forces and Red Army was simply too powerful
Plan Totality was another insanity
The Allies to include the UK, US, French and Canada send troops to fight against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. I’m sure Stalin probably remember this history which the west likes to bury.
True. In fact very few are aware that these countries fought the Russians in Archangel and there were some Australian soldiers there amongst the British.
Just to make sure everyone here understands:
The UK was doing everything in its power, at the time, to push the USA into full-on war against “the USSR/Russia”, and ultimately Churchill lost re-election because of all that. Labour emerged and made the UK great again, and then the Oligarchs reasserted themselves and inflicted that Maggie Thatcher on the world.
They weren’t Australian soldiers. They had to resign from the AIF and join the BEF. The Australian Government refused to join in the attack on Russia.
also soldiers of the Italian army…
not happy they replied in the second MW by sending 300,000 dilapidated soldiers to help “not requested, indeed not recommended…” to the Wermacht
also soldiers of the Italian army…
not happy they replied in the second MW by sending 300,000 dilapidated soldiers to help “not requested, indeed not recommended…” to the Whermacht
You forgot to mention Japan
Response to Pacifica: Labour made UK great again? Really? Austerity. Rationing – which did not cease until the late 50s. Brits were impoverished.
Thatcher was the best thing that happened to the UK. If nothing else, she curbed the powers of the unions which dragged the UK down in the 60s and 70s. I lived through that, in effect, tyrannical period.
Thatcher was NEVER liked by the Oligarchs/Establishment – she was a greengrocer’s daughter! Not a person of the Establishment.
Thatcher merely replaced one tyranny for another. As the Who said, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.
The pointless Falklands War cost over $1billion, killed over 250 Brit soldiers, 6 sunk ships, 10 damaged. By some estimates, about 20,000 pounds per British citizen… but it was “worth it” as TINA* applied. *There Is No Alternative
But everyone was doing it, so why not Maggie, the Iron lady…
I’ve been reading you for a good while now, but never been impelled to comment before now. What may have been conveniently memory-holed is how high a percentage of Amerians, before Pearl Harbor, favored Nazi Germany and the Axis over Britain and the Allies. My father (1911-1970) was a mechanical engineer, and at that time he was a lead engineer for Carl Norden’s company, working on the US Navy’s Norden Bombsight project. So he associated with other engineers and with military officers at work.
When I was about to go off to college in 1960, he took me aside because he wanted to tell me something important which (he said) would never be mentioned in any history course I might take or history book I might reads, for shame over the fact. What he told me was that of all the engineers and military officers he worked with, about one-third had wanted the US to stay completely out of the War, anothe third wanted the US to enter it on gthe side of the Allies — and the final third admired the achievements of German engineering, and strongly advocated for the US to enter the war on the side of the Nazis. One entire third of his associates very much liked what they knew of Nazi achievements so far!!!
(And of course in those days the historic American mistrust of Britain and all things British was still alive, which went back to the later 1700s. That much history, at least, has not been memory-holed.)
The Axis attack on Pearl Harbor, he said, changed all that almost overnight; and eventually the dark side of the Nazi regime, once it became widely known, shamed all the people who had pushed for a US-Nazi alliance. But the pro-Nazi attitude lived on underground, he said, and could reemerge within my lifetime, so I ought to be alert for its resurgence in the US within my lifetime.
I should mention that my father was a Danish-American; all four of his grandparents had been born in Denmark. He greatly admired the limited acts of resistance that Nazi-occupied Denmark had been able to make during the War. And he really hated to think of the world he and his family would be living in if Pearl Harbor had never happened and the US had actually entered the War on tne side of the Nazis.
And yes, as you said, every now and then “we get a reminder of how much was buried.”
The vast majority of Americans are not aware how close the US came to being a fascist state during the 1930s.
Nor are they currently aware of how quickly the Republican, Evangelical side of the Uniparty is currently marching our government towards that ugly end.
The American choice- that is, the choice of Roosevelt and his circle- was made long before Pearl Harbor. The US was engaged in trying to ‘contain’ the Japanese Empire and provoke a war with Japan for many years prior to Pearl Harbor, and Roosevelt was well-informed that the attack would take place well before hand. It was his 9/11, to get the war he wanted.
Of course, had Germany not allied with Japan in 1940, it’s possible that a realignment could have taken place, but the US was committed to expansion in the Pacific and it was clear that ‘allying’ with Germany would serve German interests, but do little or nothing for the US.
Very interesting to this descendant of Polish immigrants to US
during Russian revolution. We have a diary recollection of a family member who spent 20 plus years as a political prisoner in Russia including Siberia. He had good things to say about Russian people
but said the communists did the work of Satan.
Some of the Communist oppression has been exaggerated. They were besieged and invaded and several “western” powers were trying anything possible to make them fail. I would have been paranoid, too. My Great Grandfather immigrated from Russia in 1893 (upper middle class intellectual) and left behind his entire family. We learned from their descendants that they were split during the revolution but most of them supported it and fared pretty well after the civil war.
I can assure you that the Communist oppression has not been exaggerated. The opposite is true.There is plenty of information available for the entire era in Russia/Soviet Union following the bolshevik revolution.
The tribe has a lot to do with the level of bestiality and an effort to sweep it under the rug.
No…. It has been exaggerated by free market capitalists. Ask any Russian. There is some brutality in any civil war, including the US civil war.
Oh, I see you’re a jew hater…. No, I’m not jewish and not a zionist. Nazi f-ck.
You are a tru victim of a highjacked education system buddy.
@George
you know what an “ad hominem” is, buddy? No, you don’t, I’m sure.
Because ‘Saint Jimmy’ simply does not agree with you, that can only be because he is is a victim of (whatever). Which is only a subtle way (but very open to my eyes) of calling him stupid.
“I can assure you that the Communist oppression has not been exaggerated. ”
Yes, everybody must believe anything that you say, just because you assure it.
Pffffff. Pathetic.
The Communists of Stalin’s era do not exist today anywhere. People have trouble accepting that fact. Stalin had his own brand of communism which had nothing to do with Lenin. But he pretended that was his blue print. Stalin was informed by his paranoia of some lurking counter-insurgency. Much like Neocons of America today except we transpose it onto China, Iran and NK and Russia:) Altho the Biden regime is acting very paranoid about MAGA counter-insurgents.
Well said, with Occam’s Razor no less. It was said if you want the history of mankind, it’s one group of monkeys beating the crap out of another group of monkeys. (period)
Tiresome, very tiresome. I’d rather meet new people and learn new things…till I die.
Thanks and a Happy New Year!
I’ve whipped this hobby horse before; the Brits were the villain of the piece! As soon as Hitler was elected, the Soviets started preparing; the purges! Britain spent most of the thirties trying to ensure Hitler rolled east. The French hadn’t recovered from WW1, & wouldn’t go against the Brits, a Franco Sov treaty was the logical place to go. But the Poles wouldn’t allow Soviet access, not surprising after the Sov Pole war.
Britain thought they had things worked out, until almost the last moment; Hitler Stalin pact, “Isms are wasms”
Churchill proposed to the chiefs of staff, that the allies hit the Soviets, in 1944. There was some clearing of throats around the table & someone muttered ‘snowballs chance in hell’. At the end, in ’45 there were: 80-120 Amer Brit divisions, 40 Ger divisions & 320 Soviet divisions. Soviet divisions were smaller than Allied but not by that much.
Author forgot to mention U.K.+US deciding to merge their German Zones and have a new currency – D-Mark printed in USA and massive strikes in their zones in fact a general strike 1948 as people experienced huge inflation in basic living costs. Troops were used to enforce Labour discipline and U.S. newspapers called trades union leaders arrested “Communists”
1949 NATO was created
1955 Warsaw Treaty Organisation in reaction
1952 Stalin proposed a United Neutral Germany with all zones merged by U.S. opposed and Adenauer blocked the 3 “Stalin Notes”
It was a proposal akin to that agreed for Austria 1955 when Red Army withdrew
The article is an excellent introduction to the idea that standard unquestioned narrative we were all ‘educated’ with in the west about WW11, and constantly reinforced in media, actually collapses under even the slightest bit of scrutiny.
Most of us have been told that:
A) the Nazis could not have been stopped
B) the Allies tried to avoid war by appeasement
C) an alliance with Stalin was what enabled Nazi Germany
As the article rightly begins to elucidate, there is a lot more than meets the eye to the story about the West’s, & Poland’s, betrayal of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, and the surrender of its prodigious military industrial complex to the Nazis. As well as neutralisation of the 2nd most powerful military in Europe (Czechoslovakia).
In the years before this, German Generals had been so outraged at Hitler’s plan to increase Army Divisions from 7 to 27 (enough for another World War) they reached out to London. But repeatedly met by silence from British. Their proposed coup subsided as Hitler was consistently met with collaboration & support from the West.
And as the article suggests, Russia had been making repeated entreaties for an alliance with the West to contain Nazi Germany, which were simply ignored by the West. (Familiar pattern?) Russia was the only country that wanted to send troops to defend Czechoslovakia but was denied passage by Poland.
There was no alliance with Germany , but as a last resort there was an agreement, and Russia ended up taking back territories containing Russians that had previously been from before 1918. Baltic States etc. (Familiar pattern again, maybe?)
Hastily written, but it seems like a relevant place to share. 25mins long, some fair questions. WWII and such is not exactly my thing but as the article well argues, it provides essential context for NATO and the present geopolitical situation. Not to mention the fact that after WW11 the West denied Russian demands for a formal Peace Treaty with Germany along the lines of that conducted in Tokyo aboard the USS Missouri. Instead it embarked on its NATO project.
In summary, Britain’s Neville Chamberlain and the West should understood as Hitler’s essential collaborators in a war to conquer and engineer regime change in Russia. Without this active collaboration (there was nothing ‘passive’ about it) the Nazis would have disappeared in infancy.
🔥
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QfbF3y2HZH8
Well said!
So few realize that the original “Nazi Collaborators” were Churchill, Neville, and the West European “Nobility”, as those parasites name themselves.
Thanks for the link! Excellent summary. I had unsurprisingly not heard of Michael Parenti, given the suppression and cancellation of anyone speaking the truth and threatening the Western narrative.
Impressive academic history.
Thanks again. I recommend everyone listen to the posted link.
***Si
There is so much “inconvenient” history that has been rabbit holed.
The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia’s Early Soviet Regime
Assessing the Grim Legacy of Soviet Communism
by Mark Weber
https://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n1p-4_Weber.html
Personal memoirs of Wehrmacht German soldiers on the WW2 Eastern Front document the terrible conditions and extreme brutality of both sides. The memoirs also provide an insight into the current Ukraine SMO (war) which is currently being fought in the same areas in Ukraine as was WW2 Eastern Front. The mutual distrust of many countries in the region linger to this day.
Stalin was, of course, the worst leader in Human History, the most brutal, the most underhanded and vicious and took the most delight in slaughtering his fellow (?) humans- until Putin, that is.
Like Putin, he understood the imperatives of western imperialism clearly, and put his energy into thwarting them, or at least defending Russia against them. He tried to ally with the ‘democratic’ west, but like Putin, was rebuffed. He saved half of Prussia from Germany, for a time, and if he’d been able to hang on to it, many, many Polish Jews from the Final Solution, and many Polish goyim from the Banderites, but, we must remember, at the cost of their Freedom. Then Stalin took the lead in defeating the Nazi, just like the Monster Putin. Clearly, these Russians can never be trusted.
I’d “upvote” your post, if we had that feature here.
Would you mind providing any evidence to support you notion about Putin slaughtering his fellow humans?( Russians?)
According to “, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the literary giant who wrote harrowingly about the Soviet gulag system, claimed the true number of Stalin’s victims might have been as high as 60 million.”
https://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kill-1111789
As far as I can see, war in Uki was a justified action. It was debated on this forum plenty of times.
Go ahead, tell me how many Russians did Putin kill? I will wait…..
IT IS SARCASM. HUMOR. Jesus…. dense people in every crowd.
Solzhenitsyn has been discredited as a fraud, now, for decades.
The fact that you pretend as if his work is anything other than trauma-porn makes you out to be a laughable goon in service to lucre.
Fie, thee, imp, and back to your mother’s silks.
Good question to ask here. Welcome to the blog.
Sorry for the irritated reception, but we are mostly a well meaning lot.
We all come to the truth bit by bit. The BS most of us were fed since childhood has been layered thick.
Heil Unz!
South Africa files genocide charges against Israel in ICJ, Dec 29 2023.
Crickets from the media.
Well said Larry. It is time for Americans to know the true story of WWII. Especially when we see the West rewriting history again. Any day now, no one knows what really happened between the Wars. And they should also know who sowed Nazism in Germany and financed the Nazi war machine. And above all how the British Empire betrayed Russia and the still incipient international law in the League of Nations and was delirious with the idea of Hitler destroying or taking over Russia.
Next you should start deconstructing the myths of the USSR from films. Which never posed any threat to the US. As today Russia in Ukraine, in Cuba in 1962, Moscow it was limited to reacting. After years of begging the US to remove missiles from Turkey. Which the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty prevents. Just one more that the US continues to violate.
USSR like USA was never a member of League of Nations and Germany left
The League of Nations is a direct consequence of the spirit and ideas of the International Court of Arbitration resulting from the International Peace Conferences promoted by the last Tsar. And Nazism is a direct consequence of the US and UK having managed to impose at the end of WWI the return of the law of the strongest on the still incipient international law. As they continue to do to this day. I have no patience for Wikipedia trolls who don’t even know how to read.
This Telegraph article from 2008 corroborates Stalin’s strategy to invade Germany in 1939.
“The Soviet offer – made by war minister Marshall Klementi Voroshilov and Red Army chief of general staff Boris Shaposhnikov – would have put up to 120 infantry divisions (each with some 19,000 troops), 16 cavalry divisions, 5,000 heavy artillery pieces, 9,500 tanks and up to 5,500 fighter aircraft and bombers on Germany’s borders in the event of war in the west, declassified minutes of the meeting show.”
https://archive.ph/iQ0Cq
I wasn’t a bit impressed with that old Telegraph article, so I made a few searches of my own. Turns out the situation was very complicated with too many of the people involved being distrustful of everyone else – and also quite untrustworthy themselves. Example:
https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Fiasco_The_Anglo-Franco-Soviet_Alliance.pdf
IMO Stalin had decided the French and British, and especially the British, weren’t going to cut any kind of a useful deal with him. Still an opinion, but I suspect that he had decided to go with Germany as far back as May of 1939 when he replaced Litvinov with Molotov.
The conjectures I’ve read are that Stalin figured Molotov would get along better with Hitler on account of Litvinov being Jewish. Except for the way later events played out, Stalin would appear to have made the right choice. It’s a fact that even by August neither the Brits nor the French were taking that conference seriously.
Chamberlain was a fanatical anti-Communist, and the Poles were even worse. Wishful thinking 70 years afterwards can’t alther that reality.
Molotov was Foreign Minister and was not discussing with Hitler but with Ribbentrop – it is called protocol
Chamberlain was betrayed by USA – he faced a problem with Japan in Asia and Italy in the Med with a major navy and troops in Horn of Africa and in Libya and Germany in Spain
He had been re-arming Britain since 1935 and needed more time
US refused to help even after Japan sank USS Panay because US was anti-British
Hitler wanted alliance with Britain but Ribbentrop as Ambassador screwed it up
No one in Europe trusted Stalin and knew what was going on there
Hitler was regarded as.l bulwark against USSR which is why US funded him and Standard Oil gave technology without which Germany could not produce synthetic oil or fly high- compression aircraft engines
Funny that after purging the officer corps
In fact in Sept 1939 USSR had a land border with German Reich and still had 3 million German troops invade in June 1941
You can’t mention how many of Israelis worked with the Nazis to drive out Jews to Palestine. It has all been documented, but written out of the history books along with how Jewish bankers like Jacob Schiff financed the Bolsheviks. Trotsky (Lev Bronstein) was financed out of NYC with gold. Our rulers hate the truth getting out.
Anybody notice that raymcgovern.com has been blacklisted when accessed through an EU VPN?
Busy little bees, those euros.
Putting all names and pretense aside, the Nazi cause seems to be alive and well in, and in all the former Nazi alliance nations PLUS the majority of Western ones.
And nobody bats an eye, even as everyone is inundated with high-handed paeans to “Diversity and Inclusion” which manages to successfully coexist with, almost literally, resurrecting World War 2 and siding with the succession of the Nazi cause.
Even in this comment section there are multiple not-Nazi-trust-me-bro types, trying to educate everyone about the benefits of Reich, and evils of those untermensch that have to exterminated like Amalek. They are like Jehovah’s Witnesses, but more annoying, and with worse talking points.
Call me Nostradamus:
https://sonar21.com/ctil-files-1-us-and-uk-military-contractors-created-sweeping-plan-for-global-censorship-in-2018-new-documents-show/#comment-205121
Allow me to add that Poland was not a democracy but run by a dictator. He bullied Lithuania to give up one third of its territory in 1938. Germany was starved until it gave up some territory in 1919. By 1939 Germany had recovered and wanted a few small areas back that were 90% German, but Poland refused after it foolishly allied with the French and Brits.
More here: “Poland Lost World War II”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOgNHBa_ZPM
Ukraine 2022 believed the same assurances of protection from the anglo-west as Poland did in 1939. Protections due to simple geography the west could not do.
For the stupidity of their leaders and hatred in their regimes UKR and POL were both destroyed.
Talking about stupidity, right as we speak Poles are believing the same assurances of protection from the anglo-west. Or, maybe it’s not stupidity. They say that doing the same thing repeatedly expecting different results is insanity.
Hope you do not mean Pilsudski whom Hitler admired – he did in 1935
Died
It seems some people always assume that every article on this blog is written by Larry Johnson. Credit to Helmholtz Smith for this one.
Yep. It’s hilarious.
Good article by Helmholtz but incomplete.
Some context is necessary on how the historical politics shaped the Warsaw pact. A number of significant things are not mentioned. Before the end of the WWI (1918) Europe looked very different than it does now. There was the Austro Hungarian empire, Germans living in various parts of eastern Europe etc. Russians had their influence, so did the Germans and Austrians. But going back to Poland they were partitioned starting in 1795 and ceased to exist as a country. They were occupied by Austro Hungarians, Germans and Russians. Only in 1918 after over a century of not having a country the republic was established. This was a product of the end of WWI negotiations. But by then Germans, Austrians, Russians were a significant portion of the population living in what is now poland, almost a third.
When the country was recreated in 1918 the person who headed the new government was Pilsudski who was allegedly previously in German captivity. I say allegedly because after he became a de facto dictator of Poland he leaned heavily towards the Germans. So much so that after he died in 1935 and Germans invaded Poland in 1939 they held an honour guard at his grave in Krakow. He was just a German plant, but just like a dictator he killed the opposition and served his masters. See the link below for your viewing pleasure.
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/adolf-hitler-memorial-pilsudski-1935/
Then came the end of WWII. As part of WWII agreements, Stalin moved the German, Austrian, Russian population back to their respective countries. Nevertheless historical links and memory persisted. Eastern lands were always pro Russian, while western lands pro German. However by now also because of WWII actions MI6 was heavily entrenched in Poland through their involvement with AK underground polish army. So now emerged a third and then later on a fourth player in the presence of American alphabet agencies. Then you have to look at the diaspora in UK, America, Russia. The Warsaw pact served the Russians but it also served the countries where it existed. It gave them stability and a fairly high level of autonomy compared to previous partitions.
After 1989 came the new world order and the rest you know. However when Helmholtz says “Polish government” referring to ruling elites of 1918-1939 period from that area I have to strongly disagree with the use of that term. When Hitler gives those leading figures honour guard while in the process of wiping out 6 million civilians in that same country some things are at odds here.
But in conclusion the Russians were right not to put too much trust in the governments of the Baltic states. They were proven right in 1989 that they were right. However that applies to ruling elites. The sentiment of the population was very different from what is usually shown in the media. That’s another discussion altogether though.
Some references below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_(1918%E2%80%931939)
Russian trust and love for the Poles predates all this. It is still celebrated on Unity Day, as a commemoration of events from 1612.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Day_(Russia)
Just the way in which the EU is subservient to NATO, COMECON (the Soviet block economic alliance (CCCP, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania) was subservient to the Warsaw Pact.
It did not introduce a common currency but it did not need to: exchanges were more often than not “in nature.” They exchanged products that would not be bought on the Western markets,
A division of labor determined by the different levels of industrialization in each “socialist sister”meant that that the Warsaw Pact was armed by weapons made in CCCP and Czechoslovakia, fine machinery and optical instruments by East Germany, were fueled by oil from Romania, fed by Ukraine and Romania, etc. Their promising military studied at the Frunze Military academy and the “gilded youth” to become future political leaders at Lomonosov. All, of course, learned Russian and spoke it in meetings, just as now Ursula Vonderlüge addresses the Europeans in Brussles in English.
“It did not introduce a common currency … exchanges were more often than not “in nature”.”
That’s not entirely true – in COMECON there was something called преводна рубла (roughly translated – convertible ruble) which was used to settle accounts between the countries. For all practical intents and purposes, for COMECON it served the same purpose as the USD, until recently, for international settlements.
The преводна рубла was used to settle accounts in the block but was not currency as the Euro is now in the EU. Each “socialist sister” retained its own local currency (zlots, levas, lei, etc).
I said “it served the same purpose for international settlements” not that it was actual physical currency – in fact it was similar to Euro’s predecesor – the ECU – and the Euro itself before 2002, when it was first circulated in physical form.
That convertible ruble sounds less like USD, and more like what new BRICS currency is supposed to be.
Within the block is was a bureaucratic paper cover for the Soviet exchange with its satellites, which the locals summarized as “You give us your wheat and in exchanged we take your oil.”
It is this memory that the West is exploiting in its propaganda against the RF by repeatedly telling its East European vassals the lie that the Soviet Union = the Russian Federation.
Warsaw Treaty Poland and Bulgaria supplied arms to the contras in Nicaragua.
Id rather not continue the same diatribe, but in early 1939, the issue was Sudetenland; a piece carved off Germany in 1919. The Czechs had the French build them a defensive line there, from which they could shell German industry. The Czechs would fight, but could only hold out for a month or two. What would Britain do? Americans as Nazis? The Brit ruling class was very Nazi. That’s why Dunkirk, Hitler thought the Brits would make a deal! They made some good decisions at Versailles, but political leaders of the 30s were bastards, ignorant bastards. they threw away every advantage. Millions of soldiers, sailors & airmen died to fix that. Let us hope there is not another round!
The Sudetenland you are referring to was part of Austro Hungary until it became Czechoslovakia in 1918.
I would love to smack a political map of Europe in 1912 from the wall in my room, but you can dig it up study for yourself.
It is true that it was mostly occupied by german speaking population, most of which however, was loyal to Czechoslovakia.
France had a mutual defence treaty with Czechoslovakia as did USSR
Britain did NOT
USSR treaty required France to mobilise first but Daladier did not want to fight
Apart from the perfidious Poles, it should be forgotten that Anschluss Austria was also rebranded as “First Victim” nation by the Benighted States. Its occupation was quickly ended (by all four ‘victors’) to ensure that there was a handy sacrifice country, surplus to requirements, should Russia’s long time quest for a warm water port continue to move south.
This article puts an interesting – and for me completely novel – light on the subject. I like these new views and this new light. 🙂
For more history, including several centuries predating WW2, but covering the interwar period and even WW1, you might read “The War That Had Many Fathers” by Gerd Schulze-Rhonhof. It is a well researched, highly informative work.
Found it on Amazon! It says: “Ages: 1 and up”. xD And it’s not too expensive. 🙂
We see in our current media and academia a constant stream of lies, misinformation and censorship of any view bar the official deep state narrative, why then assume that modern history has much in common with reality? And then the old axiom that history is written by the victors.
As such these other views of history are always interesting, the problem though as we see in the comments there are also many alternative views giving very different stories.
“And then the old axiom that history is written by the victors.”
Not true. Western version of WWII Eastern Front history was written by losers. They said that Red Army soldiers were attacking in human waves in order to steal toilet bowls. Not much has changed since.
True or not, that hardly invalidates the veracity of the old axiom.
Regarding taking Zaolzie in 1938 by Poland from Czechoslovakia – things are not as simple as one might think. The source of the conflict lies in decision of te Council of Ambassadors (Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan) from 28 July 1920 which granted disputed areas to Czechoslovakia. Without carrying out a referendum amongst people living there, in most of whom were Poles. But previously, in 1919, Czechoslovakia simply military attacked that territory – and incorporated them.
Well whatever it is, seem that Trump has decided that Elon Musk is every bit the enemy as does Biden, whom would have the world believe Musk has become electric vehicle target # 1 that the MAGA crowd, believing Trump is only speak gospel truth, so should be interesting to what happens to Tesla drivers.
So I guess if Biden could not get the singing Nina Jankowicz make Americans give up their free speech, I wonder if MAGA will make us give it up?
Standard oligarch operating procedure.
Anyways, Happy New Year, I guess…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up-VP9y3APE
https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/10/15/why-is-it-so-hard-to-finnish-nazism-natos-growing-suicide-pact-threatens-to-light-the-world-on-fire/
Oh, jeez. 🤦♀️
“Poland is presented as an innocent victim.”
It is in American high school history classes, by many a football coach disguised as a “history teacher.”
My point remains; Czechoslovakia had a strong defensive line up against the German belly. Nazi Germany fomented trouble in Sudetenland, which allowed Britain to carve up Czecho, ‘to preserve peace in europe’. It was to get Hitler to go against the Soviets. When the rest of Czecho was gobbbled up, by Poland among others, it became obvious that Hitler was coming west. By then Britain had totally pissed off the Soviets, who decided to buy more time by making friends with Nazi Germany. Its no accident the thirties were called ‘The devils decade’! The Brits had already spent their military budget on new battleships to fight the Japenese, off Malaya!
Hello, interesting point of view. However I tend to slightly disagree with respect to Bulgaria. There has been strong communist movement in Bulgaria before WW2 that resulted in defacto civil war, won by the fascist later nazi collaborators. In the International itself, there have been very high ranked officials, e.g., G. Dimitrov and V. Kolarov. Last but not least, the whole existence of what is today known as Bulgaria is due to the Russians. We gave them their alphabet few centuries ago, they gave us our freedom. All this is irrelevant for the corrupt pigs ruling the present state, but ordinary people, do not forget. Cheers, SJRed p.s. the former People’s Republic of Bulgaria was the greatest time in the history of the state, with great advancements in all facets of society (regardless what they would like you to believe today), a peaceful and beautiful life for everyone.
Poland was like a paradise.
“From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in 1025 until the early years of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569, Poland was the most tolerant country in Europe.[6] Historians have used the label paradisus iudaeorum (Latin for “Paradise of the Jews”).[7][8] Poland became a shelter for Jews persecuted and expelled from various European countries and the home to the world’s largest Jewish community of the time. According to some sources, about three-quarters of the world’s Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century.[9][10][11]”
“In 1939, at the start of World War II, Poland was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact). One-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II; the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in the Holocaust, who constituted 90% of Polish Jewry, made up half of all Poles killed during the war.[18][19] While the Holocaust occurred largely in German-occupied Poland, it was orchestrated by the Nazis. Collaboration by non-Jewish Polish citizens, while sporadic, is well documented and the topic has been a subject of renewed scholarly interest during the 21st century.[20][21][22] Polish attitudes to the Holocaust varied widely, from actively risking death in order to save Jewish lives,[23] and passive refusal to inform on them, to indifference, blackmail,[24] and in extreme cases, orchestrating and participating in pogroms such as the Jedwabne pogrom.[25]”
Quotes from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland
If the Poles misjudged and underestimated the Nazis, most other countries did the same.
“By 1942, the Nazis were implementing their plan to murder every Jew in German-occupied Europe, and had also developed plans to reduce the Polish people through mass murder, ethnic cleansing, enslavement and extermination through labor, and assimilation into German identity of a small minority of Poles deemed “racially valuable”. During World War II, the Germans not only murdered millions of Poles, but ethnically cleansed millions more through forced deportation to make room for German settlers (see Generalplan Ost and Lebensraum). These actions claimed the lives of 2.7 to 3 million Polish Jews and 1.8 to 2.77 million ethnic Poles, according to Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance.[a][4][5] German occupation policies in Poland have been recognized in Europe as a genocide, characterized by extremely large death tolls compared to Nazi atrocities in Western European states.[6][7]
The genocidal policies of the German government’s colonization plan, Generalplan Ost (GPO), were the blueprint for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Polish nation from 1939 to 1945.[8] The Nazi master plan entailed the expulsion and mass extermination of some 85 percent (over 20 million) of ethnic Poles in Poland, the remaining 15 percent to be turned into slave labor.[9] While the final objectives of Hunger Plan and GPO were always pursued by the Nazi regime, it could not complete these programmes due to German defeat in World War II.[10] In 2000, by an act of the Polish Parliament, dissemination of knowledge on World War II crimes in Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was entrusted to the Institute of National Remembrance.[11][12]
From the start of the war against Poland, Germany intended to realize Adolf Hitler’s plan, set out in his book Mein Kampf, to acquire “living space” (German: Lebensraum) in the east for massive settlement of German colonists.[2][13] Hitler’s plan combined classic imperialism with Nazi racial theories.[14] In the Obersalzberg Speech delivered on 22 August 1939, just before the invasion of Poland, Hitler gave explicit permission to his commanders to murder “without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language.”[15][16]
Ethnic cleansing was to be conducted systematically against the Polish people. On 7 September 1939, Sicherheitsdienst head Reinhard Heydrich stated that all Polish nobles, clergy, and Jews were to be murdered.[17] On 12 September, Wehrmacht chief of staff Wilhelm Keitel added Poland’s intelligentsia to the list. On 15 March 1940, SS chief Heinrich Himmler stated: “All Polish specialists will be exploited in our military-industrial complex. Later, all Poles will disappear from this world. It is imperative that the great German volk consider the elimination of all Polish people as its chief task.”[18] At the end of 1940, Hitler confirmed the plan to liquidate “all leading elements in Poland”.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_the_Polish_nation
“Paradise of the Jews”
Basically Israhel.
Not right now… not anymore
“They called them socialist brothers but what they really meant was former enemies now under our tight control.”
I don’t know about Romania and Hungary, but by the time when the 3rd Ukrainian Front, commanded by Marshal Tolbukhin, entered Bulgaria proper, the tzarist government, allied with Nazi Germany, was already removed from power and replaced with a government led by the Bulgarian Communist Party.
The attempts of the bulgarian governments since 1991 to rewrite the history notwithstanding, in 1944 the russians were indeed met like brothers in Bulgaria.
Yea, the old switcheroo. I wonder what would happen this time. Once Russians get to Izyum, I expect Romanians to have second thoughts about their life choices yet again. Other Danube countries too.
In recent days, I have seen news about WWII monument being removed in Bulgaria. That doesn’t look like a smart move to me.
“WWII monument being removed in Bulgaria. That doesn’t look like a smart move to me.”
It wasn’t. But, as the good ol’ Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) wrote – the history doesn’t repeat itself, but often rhymes.
During WW2 we had a government, allied with the Nazis; today we have, for all practical intents and purposes, colonial administration, which call itself “government” but it takes its marching orders from the local U.S. Embassy.
During WW2 we had resistance coalition, led by the communists, called Отечествен Фронт (literally translated it means Fatherland Front), which took over the power just in time before the russians entered Bulgaria; today we have Възраждане (it means Revival), which is our today’s Faterland Front.
I think that, unlike the romanians, bulgarians will manage just fine, when Vladimir Vladimirovitch starts to roll back NATO back to its 1997 borders.Unlike after WW2, however, I think the hungarians will fare much better as well.
“I think that, unlike the romanians, bulgarians will manage just fine, when Vladimir Vladimirovitch starts to roll back NATO back to its 1997 borders.Unlike after WW2, however, I think the hungarians will fare much better as well.”
I agree.
I suspect the friendly reception of the Soviet troops in Bulgaria had as something to do with the “slav brothers” feeling. This was seen later on too, when Bulgaria remained steadfastly loyal to the Soviet Union without the ”deviations” that sprung up in the rest of the block, not to speak of bloody revolts like Hungary 1956.
Hungary and Romania definitely did not share the sentiment. They did not regard the Soviet troops as liberators. The Hungarians remembered Bela Kuhn’s (Cohn) attempt, helped by the Soviets, to install a bolshevik regime by coup d’etat in Hungary.
The Romanians still had their unprocessed hangover after the violent nationalist (anti-communist and anti-jewish) nationwide turmoil led by the “Legion.”
The Bulgarian Communist party before and during WWII (enlarged by the partisan movement) was larger than those in Hungary and Romania, where they were smaller than regional chess clubs. So, different pond sizes from which to fish new leaders to install.
The governments of these three countries after the Soviet troops’ arrival were ethnically different: mostly Bulgarian former resistance fighters in Bulgaria, but mostly Jews (some arriving from Russia, who did not even speak the local language well) in Hungary and Romania.
I am not Bulgarian. I have “extended acquaintances” (copyright Paul Greenwood) in the Balkans so my knowledge and understanding is not first hand like yours. The only Bulgarian leader whose name I remember anymore is Zhivkov.
“I suspect the friendly reception of the Soviet troops in Bulgaria had as something to do with the “slav brothers” feeling.”
It went much deeper than that – in 1944 only 66 years have passed since the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman Empire after the Russo-Turkish war in 1877-1878 – the memories were still fresh and back then they didn’t have any NGOs to rewrite history in service of the Hegemon 😉 Yes, liberation of Bulgaria was a side effect of Russia’s strategic interests on the Balkans, but still…
A point that seems to be missed and that Mr. Smith did not make clear, is that from 1935 Czechoslovakia had a mutual defense agreement with France and the USSR. (https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnichovsk%C3%A1_dohoda#Československo_a_jeho_mezinárodní_smlouvy). However, the USSR and Czechoslovakia shared no common border. Moscow was willing to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia in September 1938, however the Poles would not allow Soviet troops to pass over their territory. The Brits, just like the Italians and the Germans, were keen to keep Soviet influence out of Central Europe and managed to pressure Daladier to abandon his Czechoslovak and Soviet allies. Despite the fact that there was this alliance between France, Czechoslovakia and the USSR, no Soviet delegation was invited to Munich. In Czechoslovakia the ensuing agreement is known as the “Munich betrayal”. As for the hoary narrative, that experienced politicians and diplomats like Chamberlain were duped into appeasing the wily Hitler, you can make of it what you will.
Everyone treats Poland as a sovereign country, and it was a sovereign country… during the communist rule. Before the war and now he follows London’s orders. Why the term,from the hunting meetings in the Białowieża Forest to Beck’s statement “we won’t even give up the button” a year later? The answer is – London. You don’t see any analogy with Ukraine. First, negotiations, Ukraine’s consent to Russia’s proposals, and after Johnson’s visit, Butch and… war.
If anyone is interested there is a lot to studu about the European coalition under Napoleon whor marched towards Russia.. The run up 1870–1914 is also very telling.
Communism led to poverty. In 1989, the west had good cars, nice houses, and a government that let free hand to working people.
In the east you had lousy cars, small apartments and a political party that pestered all free working people.
Situation now is reversed, what means the West will now loose like the east in 1989.
No matter what is written in media.
It’s always the communism.
Very good, Mr. McC!
Enter the principle of “Competition” and the concept of “EAB/GO 1984:”
When the “West’s” ruling oligarchs saw the real danger of the proles led by the middle class to refuse “eating the cake” — they graciously kept the apparent poor vs. rich gap in some reasonable proportion; however, the moment the “commies lost,” they very quickly came up with the (long planned WMF) WEF scheme to establish the neo-feudal system. Had it not been for US (after 9/11) war blunders, and, most likely, Mr. Putin’s and other BRICS leaders’ “separation” form the “rules based” world system, the scheme would have been implemented already (e.g. ~2004 – 1984 ~ 20y delay).
Then the CONVID19 came, and the impatient oligarchs were hoping for just 40y delay — sorry, this apparently it did not work out as planned either…
Now comes the next pre-set goal — 2025 (see Daegel) — ouch, shall we move to Ecuador before TSHTF???
Just musing ;-( — the 2007-8 financial crises may have an important timeline role as well.
Cheers, JaKo
You sure about this? Have you ever lived in a socialist country? Because I lived both through the late socialism and the so called “capitalism” so I have the experience to see the difference. Frankly, if it was possible to turn the history back (it isn’t, but man can dream a little), I’ll chose the socialism from the 80-ies and for the “capitalism” – well, you can keep it.
“In the east you had lousy cars, small apartments and a political party that pestered all free working people. ”
I agree about the cars, but as “working people” (we weren’t even party members) my family owned (not rented, but owned) two three-room apartments and a villa. Today, in the “capitalism”, most working people can barely afford to rent a small apartment. And lets not forget how the communist pestered people with free healthcare (which was remarkably good compared to today’s) and free higher education. Personally, I believe that the healthcare was much better back then because we didn’t have health insurance companies and the hospitals were run, well, as hospitals, not business enterprises.
You are 100% right, Yuri. I lived in the same times in a socialist country. Despite many imperfections, they were normal countries, with normal governments that cared about ordinary people, and paradoxically, economic freedom at the end of the 1980s (at least in Poland) was greater than in capitalism. This is how doctors treated and did not carry out legal procedures, which for the most part only serve to sell drugs, not to improve the patient’s health.
Of course he’s shure. Mericans know everything about everything.
Men like Smith seem to think of the Bolsheviks as Russian patriots, thank God Putin knows better. Smith ignores Marxist ideology, as if Russia was not taken and used as a base for world revolution. All ‘capitalist’ nations were enemies, of course, until ‘converted.’ There was nothing legitimate about the communist regimes in any country, imposed by fraud, force, and terror, no self determination involved. It is oxymoronic to support Novorosiya’s right to self determination while apologizing for communist aggression. Hitler couldn’t keep Europe, if the whole of Europe had fallen to Stalin that tyranny would have lasted much longer. It lasted too long even with the competition from a relatively free western Europe. The Poles, once a nation again, had more excuse to reclaim historic Polish land than the Bolsheviks had to Russia. Going back a little further, we all owe Poland for stopping the Turkish conquest of Europe, as well as defeating the Soviets in 1920. Who else in Europe was strong enough at that time to do so?
LOL, Poland stopping the Turkish conquest of Europe.
The Trotskyite neo-cons pushing this war today are the heirs of the Lenin/Trotsky/Stalin ideology of perpetual revolution until the whole world is dominated. We oppose that now, but make excuses for the original criminals?!
Thanks to Larry Johnson and everyone who provides articles and comments. The forum is becoming more and more interesting, because it shows different perspectives of the history behind current events.
“Taking all this into account, how would Moscow regard these countries that it took under its control after the war and later assembled into the Warsaw Pact? (East) Germany – enemy. Poland – former enemy, unreliable; Czechoslovakia – enemy (sorry Czechia – you’re the only real innocent in this); Hungary – enemy; Romania – enemy; Bulgaria – enemy.”
Those geographycally savy would have to notice that there is an East European communist country missing from that list. Yugoslavia – not an enemy (also, Ustashe got away with crime).
Making parallels with the situation we have today is also interesting. Hungarians got smarter. Others, no so much.
Hungarians did not just get smarter. They were always smarter. Others not so much? I’d say others not at all.
WestGermany (BRD) never accep-ted the Oder-Neisse peace, but kept to the borders of 1939. They called East Germany (GDR)”MittelDeutsch-land”, and new Poland “abgetren-nte gebiete” in the German school-books we had to read. By that and BRDs Nato-entrance 1955, the War-sawpact must be organised to pro-tect both, GDR, and Poland,from the then old Wehrmacht generals in Nato, as Heusinger, Speidel.
First with Willy Brandt’s new Ost-politik, 1970s that Germany accep-ted the new order, in Europe. Russia left both Poland and GDR, the Baltic states. In 1990s, in that typical Russian generous style but for what gain?
Germans seem much more accep-ting nowdays. They took the whole pipeline without even flinching.
“how would Moscow regard these countries that it took under its control after the war and later assembled into the Warsaw Pact?”
Framing is a mode of controlling perception.
The Second Polish Republic was an entry point of “The United States of America” into Central Europe facilitated by The Treaty of Versailles and in part by their diaspora/lobby, thereby becoming one of the vectors to affect the penetration of Europe by “The United States of America”: The Second Polish Republic being controlled in large measure by a combinantion of investments/loans and the imposed internal nationality requirements including in Galicia and Wolyn of The Second Polish Republic, The Weimar Republic being controlled in large measure by investments/loans and in embryo by some “refugees” from The Russian Empire.
Hence I would suggest a more illuminating matter to elaborate would be achieved by changing the register of “how would Moscow regard these countries that it took under its control after the war” to “Why did “The Soviet Union” deem it necessary to take these countries under its control after the war ?”
The end goal was always Intermarium. USA has it now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermarium#Failure
“The end goal was always Intermarium. USA has it now.”
The constant in lateral procesess is change, and hence there is no end or goal, merely beliefs/virtual realities that they are attainable without definition of what they are.
“The United States of America” has constant war presenting in changing forms now and until they have been transcended with their own complicity, accelerated by being tied to others with approximately similar purpose, as a function of their interacting convergent/divergent purposes.
In the vernacular this could be rendered as:
The culture self-misrepresented as “The United States of America” is drowning in their own, and those to whom they are tied’s, shit.
The German minister of defense, Boris Pistorius sent German troops to Lithuania, and calls today Kaliningrad – instead the old
German name, Königsberg.
This German foreign policy taboo, was broken in September, a message that Germany, not longer accepting the result of 1945, but
is on the revanchist path, again, time for Wehrmacht to arrive to Poland again ?
” calls today Kaliningrad – instead the old”
In 1992 Poland and Lithuania made joint “initial enquiries” to The Russian Federation whether Kaliningradsky oblast could be sold to these parties.
The initial enquiries received a one word answer.
The way things are going, Lithuania is more likely to be sold to Kaliningrad.
“The way things are going, Lithuania is more likely to be sold to Kaliningrad.”
In another thread through this portal the lubrication of the independence of “the near abroad” including Lithuania by The Russian Federation was deemed to be treason by one who said he was a former Soviet citizen.
“GordiannotReally says
31 December 2023 at 08:56
Posed a question which remains unanswered namely:
“Hence I would suggest a more illuminating matter to elaborate would be achieved by changing the register of “how would Moscow regard these countries that it took under its control after the war” to “Why did “The Soviet Union” deem it necessary to take these countries under its control after the war ?”
Although not restricted to Lithuania after the 4th of May 1945 “The United States of America including The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the “defeated” Germany” trained and subsidised stay behind forces such as The Forest Brotherhood to defeat the intentions of “The Soviet Union” in regard to post-war Central Europe to facilitate their concentration on rebuilding primarily the Western Soviet Union subjected to scorched earth destruction.
This effort by “The United States of America including The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” replicated the motivation of the expansion of NATO eastwards presently being attempted, the efforts between 1945 until 1954 wer designated as “The Cold War” despite it being efforts mostly reliant on things that go bang, and returning to notions of buffer zones of 1939 “The Soviet Union” resorted to occupying and “de-nazifying” what became known as “The Soviet bloc”.
“The Soviet Union” never intended to occupy “the near abroad” and subsequently agreed to the independence of Austria and a reconstituted united Germany before 1989, whilst during “The Cold War The United States of America including The United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland and all of Germany ” did not agree to a reconstituted united Germany” a position that some in “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” continue to hold.
“The United States of America” as a function of dumbing down undermining their facility in “strategy” often resort to precedents of mantras, one such being approximately – “better to have the bad guys in the tent pissing out, rather having the bad guys outside pissing in”.
The focus of “The Soviet Union” from 1954 onwards was increasingly on delayed reconstruction and hence “The Soviet Union” made major strategic errors in relation to external and internal nationalism and hence reflected the behaviours of “The United States of America” in positions chosen to piss from.
The Russian Federation was/is a vehicle in transcendence of “The Soviet Union” hence it was understood focus and sustainability of transcendence would be best served by lubricating the independence of “the near abroad”, although Mr. Gorbachov and Mr. Scheverdnadze after a “disappointing” meeting with Lithuanian representatives not restricted to piano players in Zonikai airbase next to Siaulai in Lithuania, they instituted an armed attack against locals demonstrating in front of the Vilnius television station facilitating further complicity of “The Soviet Union” in the efforts of The Russian Federation, illustrating once more that emotionalism is not the best policy.
Snovim Godim.
Mr Smith have you any clarity of the role of Tadeusz Brzezinski, last Polish amb to Germany and the Soviet Union before he fled to England. Excellent mention of Pilsudski, the father of Prometheism(presently coined Terrorism).
“Poland was the first country to sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler’s Germany.” When did that happen? I never heard of it! Poland proceeded mass murdering Germans, which alone would have made any German-Poland deal on anything impossible.
“Poland… refused the Soviets passage rights to get at Germany.”
When did that happen? I never heard of it, but heard the opposite of that!
Actually Poland refused the German offers either to join a holy war against the Soviet Bolsheviks or grant passage rights!
I gave links. Check them.
There’s Christian brothers and sisters as per Putin. Whether there are atheist or socialist brothers and sisters is questionable. Or whether there was a kinder more religious side to Stalin that we may be unaware of is questionable. He probably committed heinous acts. Almost all wartime or dictatorial politicians do. But did he repent? Did he repent of repenting?
“They called them socialist brothers but what they really meant was former enemies now under our tight control.”
Putin gives Stalin honourable mention about his speech that included the words “brothers and sisters”. Putin is a Christian apologist in his own right as being Russian Orthodox.
He takes historical account of Galician orthodoxy being freed from Australia-Hungarian imperial suppression, along with the Russian Orthodox.
“Since the late 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian authorities had latched onto this narrative, using it as a counterbalance to the Polish national movement and pro-Muscovite sentiments in Galicia. During World War I, Vienna played a role in the formation of the so-called Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. Galicians suspected of sympathies with Orthodox Christianity and Russia were subjected to brutal repression and thrown into the concentration camps of Thalerhof and Terezin.”
Freedom of religion is essential in Putin’s Russia.
“The south-western lands of the Russian Empire, Malorussia and Novorossiya, and the Crimea developed as ethnically and religiously diverse entities. Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Karaites, Krymchaks, Bulgarians, Poles, Serbs, Germans, and other peoples lived here. They all preserved their faith, traditions, and customs.
I am not going to idealise anything. We do know there were the Valuev Circular of 1863 an then the Ems Ukaz of 1876, which restricted the publication and importation of religious and socio-political literature in the Ukrainian language. But it is important to be mindful of the historical context.”
“Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavic and other tribes across the vast territory – from Ladoga, Novgorod, and Pskov to Kiev and Chernigov – were bound together by one language (which we now refer to as Old Russian), economic ties, the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, and – after the baptism of Rus – the Orthodox faith. The spiritual choice made by St. Vladimir, who was both Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Kiev, still largely determines our affinity today.”
From Search: religion OR faith.
Article by Vladimir Putin ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
Some analysts can try to forget that Putin is Russian and politically astute but that analysis is on a VERY weak foundation.
“Vladimir Putin: No, of course, not. You know, in the Soviet times there were attempts to eradicate religiousness among our people. Did they succeed? When the Great Patriotic War broke out, during his speech on the radio, Vyacheslav Molotov addressed the nation as “fellow citizens.” But Joseph Stalin, who spoke after we all realised the looming catastrophe of the war started by Nazi Germany, addressed the nation as “brothers and sisters.” This is what people call each other in church. Later, the patriarchate was restored. Today, the church plays its well-deserved role in society.”
Vladimir Putin answered questions on the article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66191
Also see religious freedom in Russia, or see nothing.
Meeting with representatives of religious associations
In the Kremlin’s St Catherine Hall, Vladimir Putin met with representatives of Russia’s religious associations.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/72593
Bill Binney called it “population control”. There might be a better way to say it or phraseology to describe it.
The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control
Jul 10, 2014857 W illiam Binney is one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA. He was a leading code-breaker against the Soviet Union during the Cold War but resigned soon after…
The Guardian
Whistleblower: NSA Goal Is ‘Total Population Control’
https://youtu.be/xF_VYNtDgN8?si=Z8miTssXmItDCcvX
Censorship is a big part of it. What we get to see is probably the tip of the iceberg.
The Biggest Revelation Of The JFK File Releases Isn’t In The JFK Files
Schumer: Trump ‘being really dumb’ to fight with intel agencies
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talks with Rachel Maddow on January 3 about Donald Trump’s antagonistic tweeting at U.S. intelligence agencies over evidence of Russian hacking. https://t.co/QbGSmx9Xvp
“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
“So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”
from
Ray McGovern
https://raymcgovern.com › 2017 › 10 › 28 › the-biggest-revelation-of-the-jfk-file-releases-isnt-in-the-jfk-files
But try to say that anywhere. Ray can say it but there’s a so called “six degrees of separation” between every individual in the world. AI could easily increase that separation as a form of separation. Otherwise ideas can spread like wildfire or like seed, as the word, the good seed or the bad seed.
Six degrees of separation – Wikipedia
Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of “friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is also known as the six handshakes rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
At the highest level, there could be an algorithm to separate politicians, judges and other persons in power and authority from each other or what the shadow government deems to be other social deviants. Those barriers already exist for class and culture but they could be artificially enhanced in the surveillance society by AI.
A great untold story about the second world war was unsuccessful effort of the Soviet Union (Russia) to form a collective security alliance of European states, plus the USA, against Hitler’s Germany. At its core would be a military alliance of Britain, France, Poland and Russia against Nazi Germany. That might not have deterred Hitler. However, a war of those countries would only have been a short European affair and not escalated into a world war.
The source for this information is Russia at War by Alexander Werth, Skyhorse Publishing, 1964, chapter titled Russia’s 1939 Dilemma.
Every American should read this book. Alexander Werth was a Russian speaking journalist who was a British subject. His reporting from Russia paralleled that of William Shirer who reported from Nazi Germany. Werth shows a different side to what we learn in the West.
Maxim Litvinov severed as Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR (their Secretary of State) from 1928 to 1939.When Hitler came to power in 1933 Russia adopted a policy of attempting to create a collective security pact opposing Hitler’s Germany. While this policy became associated with Litvinov, “He was pursuing a policy laid down and approved by the Soviet Government and Party…”
Litvinov reached out to Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, USA, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia and other European countries. Only Czechoslovakia reciprocated and signed a defense pact with Russia.
As part of his efforts to sell this policy of collective security to the Europeans Litvinov would use the words of Adolph Hitler from Mein Kampf to make his case. From a 21th century perspective it is impossible to imagine what the Europeans were thinking. Hitler himself said he intended to conquer Poland, France and Russia. Did the Europeans believe Litvinov was making that up? Did they think Hitler didn’t mean it?
Russia was not invited to the Munich Conference of 1938. Russia was prepared to honor its defense agreement with Czechoslovakia by it needed to send its army thought either Poland or Romania. However, both countries refused to allow to Russia to aid Czechoslovakia.
Poland played a spoiler role in all of Litvinov’s efforts.
William Shirer reported on these events from Nazi Germany. In The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Shirer said Poland’s efforts in 1939 called into question Poland’s national character.
Cooperation with Russia in 1939 would have avoided World War II. Cooperation with Russia in 2023 will avoid World War III. Americans today are as clueless as European were before 1939.
Did Russia and Iran just hit Israel’s capital?
The news is saying so. I guess since it is the new year, Iran is now officially part of BRICS.
I, as am American citizen do not in anyway want to interfere with the stoping Palestinian Genocide. We, the American people need to hold the Biden Administration accountable for crimes against humanity.
America is in pearliest times I fear for the country I saw briefly as a Child, but the US has a cancer, and this is the future of the world https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28cg3iCEtWM