USSR Like it or not?

[Yeekim]

How do you get credibility. By not posting nonsense..

May I ask what are your credentials to decide what is "nonsense"? Graduate of Lavrenti Beria's Elementary School in Omsk?
Okay, I am busted. The reports are all lies. It was evil Estonia who attacked USSR in 1940. We were bribed to do so by Hitler and Roosevelt. You are free to quote my confession anywhere the kind of outrageous lies as in these reports still hold sway.

 

[red_elk]

The only similarity between Estonia and Russia in 1940 in this regard is, that they both were ruled by a regime which was illegitimate (ascended to power not through honest elections, but by simple use of force and terror). This means citizens of USSR, neither Estonian or Russian, had no obligations whatsoever in front of it. If Russians decided to fight for domestic a-holes instead of foreign ones, it was their choice of lesser evil.

Russians didn't fight for domestic or foreign a-holes. Russians fought for their country and people. Against invading power and all bastards who were helping it.

But I'd remind you, that hundreds of thousands of them chose otherwise. More Russians fought on "the other" side than ever before or after WW2. That's got to show something.

Yes, many people, especially a lot of Estonians, chose Nazi's side. Chose to help people who were going to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, and kill millions of Slavs, according to their ideology. That's got to show many things.

Well, it obviously took some great PR moves from USSR to make people desperate enough. Killings and deportations, that is. I am, however, pleased that your respect towards us is great enough to imply that it would have been feasible for Estonia to take on USSR and its ally Nazi Germany both at the same time.

What? I'd understand if Pole said this, though it would not be true either. But Estonia taking on USSR and its "ally" Nazi Germany
Estonia didn't "take on" anybody, it was passing to hands of strongest all the time.

 

[amadeus]

Yes, many people, especially a lot of Estonians, chose Nazi's side. Chose to help people who were going to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, and kill millions of Slavs, according to their ideology. That's got to show many things.

Slow down there, chief. Estonia was annexed a year before Germany invaded the Soviet Union, so how could Estonia have been for the enemy when no such enemy then existed?

You're just a Stalinist sympathizer.

 

[red_elk]

What's wrong? Estonia was not "for the enemy", it was a part of USSR in 1941. A lot of people there collaborated with Nazis, when they attacked USSR. Now such people are glorified in Estonia.

 

[lovett]

Yes, many people, especially a lot of Estonians, chose Nazi's side. Chose to help people who were going to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, and kill millions of Slavs, according to their ideology. That's got to show many things.

Yeah, you raise a good point. Any reasonable person should have seen that an alliance with Nazi Germany would be completely unconscionable. Any sort of collaboration with such a regime, a regime lead by a psychopathic dictator hell-bent on genocide and conquest, is simply morally indefensible. From any consistent view of morality there's simply no way one could even begin to justify that kind of collaboration. Your completely right, it goes to show a great many things about the type of people who would consider, even engage in, such an alliance.

Agreed?

 

[RedRalph]

Red Elk, since the early 90s in the west there has abeen a drive to portray the USSR as the equivalent of, or worse than, Nazi Germany. Part of this was to glorify the newly "liberated" former SSRs who also had the embarassing problem that large amounts of them had collaborated, or even begun killing the jews before the Nazis even got there. In almost every case, countries that collaborated are portrayed as the poor victims of communism and ones who fought it are now demonised. Note the western portrayal of the following countries

Good:

Ukraine: Lots of the population welcomed the Nazis
Hungary: Nazi allies
Baltic states: Need I say more, practically bent over for the wehrmacht
Croatia: Couldnt wait for the Germans to get there, were only too happy to join in

Bad:

Russia: Actually responsible for the Nazis defeat
Serbia: fought literally until the end, unlike most countries
Belarus: likewise

Just an interesting corelation...

 

[Yeekim]

Russians didn't fight for domestic or foreign a-holes. Russians fought for their country and people. Against invading power and all bastards who were helping it.

And so did we. Only difference was that invading power in this case was USSR. But you, of course, can't possibly begin to understand it. Seriously, are you afraid that I am going to sue you personally for damages if ever allow yourself to admit any wrongdoing from USSR's part? Because I can't believe someone could actually hold up such double standards and still believe what he is saying himself.

Yes, many people, especially a lot of Estonians, chose Nazi's side. Chose to help people who were going to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, and kill millions of Slavs, according to their ideology. That's got to show many things.

...and millions of Slavs fought on German side. Strange. Perhaps it is now my time to ask for sources which confirm that German ideology implied killing "millions of Slavs".

What? I'd understand if Pole said this, though it would not be true either. But Estonia taking on USSR and its "ally" Nazi Germany
Estonia didn't "take on" anybody, it was passing to hands of strongest all the time.

But you yourself said that we should have fought you in 1940, at the time you were best friends with Nazi Germany. Which is totally cool in your book, as I can see. Only when others do it, there is suddenly just no justification.

 

[Yeekim]

Ukraine: Lots of the population welcomed the Nazis

And could you give your learned opinion why was that? After all, they were subhuman Slavs. Nazi ideology, at least according to our friend red_elk over here, meant killing the whole lot of them. They were so looking forward to it that they welcomed their exterminators?
Come on, tell us what do you think about it.

 

[RedRalph]

And could you give your learned opinion why was that? After all, they were subhuman Slavs. Nazi ideology, at least according to our friend red_elk over here, meant killing the whole lot of them. They were so looking forward to it that they welcomed their exterminators?
Come on, tell us what do you think about it.

a lot of them hated Stalin, often understandably. but a lot of them welcomed the Germans because they had absolutely no idea whatsoever what the Nazis were about. note how the people who welcomed them initially were soon educated enough on Nazis racial doctrine to decide to fight them off, knowing this meant reincorporation into the USSR. you dont have parades in Kiev today glorifying the few who joined the Germans, do you?

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Several points need to said here:

Nazi racial doctrine was not fully practised prior to the invasion of the USSR. In both German-occupied Poland and the Czech areas, the total number of Slavs killed was probably less than those that the Soviets had killed in their much less populated slice of Poland over the same time period.

Also, in Czechoslovakia, the Slavic Slovakians were allowed to have their own state and were more or less left alone on condition they supported the Germans. To the Ukrainians and other peoples who hated Stalin and wanted to resist, it probably seemed obvious that they would be treated the same way. They didn't know how things would turn out.

Finally, the USSR and Germany had been "the best of friends" for two years prior to the invasion. People in the USSR had been told that the Nazis were baby-bayoneting savages before the war, then that they were all great chaps during the Pact period and then finally that they were savages again. Would you have trusted what the Soviet propaganda had to say about the Germans by this point? Or would you just have assumed that they couldn't possibly be worse than Stalin and took a bet?

It took a herculean effort for the Germans to keep the Soviet people from supporting them and even after it became clear precisely how the Nazis were acting, there were still a lot of desperate people who hated Stalin enough to fight alongside the Wehrmacht and SS.

 

[red_elk]

Red Elk, since the early 90s in the west there has abeen a drive to portray the USSR as the equivalent of, or worse than, Nazi Germany. Part of this was to glorify the newly "liberated" former SSRs who also had the embarassing problem that large amounts of them had collaborated, or even begun killing the jews before the Nazis even got there. In almost every case, countries that collaborated are portrayed as the poor victims of communism and ones who fought it are now demonised. Note the western portrayal of the following countries

Good:

Ukraine: Lots of the population welcomed the Nazis
Hungary: Nazi allies
Baltic states: Need I say more, practically bent over for the wehrmacht
Croatia: Couldnt wait for the Germans to get there, were only too happy to join in

Bad:

Russia: Actually responsible for the Nazis defeat
Serbia: fought literally until the end, unlike most countries
Belarus: likewise

Just an interesting corelation...

You are right. All this is quite obvious for most of Russians, but usually not seen by Europeans and Americans. The interesting question is what is the reason of such portrayal?

 

[red_elk]

...and millions of Slavs fought on German side. Strange. Perhaps it is now my time to ask for sources which confirm that German ideology implied killing "millions of Slavs".

You want me to educate you in basic history?

The final version of Generalplan Ost, essentially a grand plan for ethnic cleansing, was divided into two parts; the "Small Plan" (Kleine Planung), which covered actions which were to be taken during the war, and the "Big Plan" (Grosse Planung), which covered actions to be undertaken after the war was won (to be carried into effect gradually over a period of 25-30 years).[3]
GPO envisaged differing percentages of the various conquered nations undergoing Germanisation (for example, 50% of Czechs, 35% of Ukrainians and 25% of Belarusians), extermination, expulsion and other fates, the net effect of which would be to ensure that the conquered territories would be Germanized. In ten years' time, the plan effectively called for the extermination, expulsion, Germanisation or enslavement of most or all East and West Slavs living behind the front lines in Europe. The "Small Plan" was to be put into practice as the Germans conquered the areas to the east of their pre-war borders. In this way the plan for Poland was drawn up at the end of November 1939 and probably is responsible for much of the WWII expulsion of Poles by Germany. After the war, under the "Big Plan", GPO foresaw the eventual expulsion of more than 50 million non-Germanized Slavs of Eastern Europe through forced migration, as well as some of the Balts (especially almost all of Lithuanians) through "voluntary" migration, beyond the Ural Mountains and into Siberia. In their place, up to 8-10 million Germans would be settled in an extended "living space" (Lebensraum) of the 1000-Year Empire (Tausendjähriges Reich)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

The Nazi crimes against Soviet Prisoners of War relates to the genocidal policies taken towards the captured soldiers of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. These efforts resulted in some 3.3 million to 3.5 million deaths, about 60% of all Soviet POWs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_Soviet_POWs

In addition:
Ветцель предполагал изгнание десятков миллионов славян за Урал. Поляки, согласно Ветцелю, «являлись наиболее враждебно настроенным к немцам, численно большим и поэтому самым опасным народом».
Немецкие историки полагают, что план предусматривал:
Уничтожение или изгнание 80-85% поляков. На территории Польши должны были оставаться только приблизительно 3-4 миллиона человек.
Уничтожение или изгнание 50-75% чехов (около 3,5 млн челове&#1082. Остальные подлежали онемечиванию.
Уничтожение 50-60% русских в европейской части Советского Союза, ещё 15-25% подлежали депортации за Урал.
Уничтожение 25% украинцев и белорусов, ещё 30-50% украинцев и белорусов подлежали использованию в качестве рабочей силы

Из директивы А.Гитлера министру по делам
восточных территорий А.Розенбергу
о введении в действие Генерального плана «Ост»
(23 июля 1942 г.)
Славяне должны работать на нас, а в случае, если они нам больше не нужны, пусть умирают. Прививки и охрана здоровья для них излишни. Славянская плодовитость нежелательна … образование опасно. Достаточно, если они будут уметь считать до ста…
Каждый образованный человек — это наш будущий враг. Следует отбросить все сентиментальные возражения. Нужно управлять этим народом с железной решимостью…
Говоря пo-военному, мы должны убивать от трех до четырёх миллионов русских в год.
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/План_«Ост»

About why many Slavs fought on German side, RRW and Corsair already answered.

But you yourself said that we should have fought you in 1940, at the time you were best friends with Nazi Germany. Which is totally cool in your book, as I can see. Only when others do it, there is suddenly just no justification.

Yes, if you were occupied, why didn't you resisted? Like Finland in the same year. BTW, our "best friends" Germans supplied them with weapons.

 

[Yeekim]

You want me to educate you in basic history?

I hereby reject everything you referred to, on grounds that all cited source material comes either from Slavs or British/American historians, whose countries fought against Germany. Therefore it is not possible in the slightest that what they say is neutral or unbiased.
See, this game can be played in both ways.

About why many Slavs fought on German side, RRW and Corsair already answered.

Yes. Inconsistent Soviet propaganda and earlier alliance with Nazi Germany, alongside with the fact that they "understandably were desperate and hateful of Stalin enough to fight with Wehrmacht". And the fact that nobody was killing and Germanizing them. These explanations are acceptable.

Yes, if you were occupied, why didn't you resisted? Like Finland in the same year. BTW, our "best friends" Germans supplied them with weapons.

Because we were, strikingly, simple-minded enough to hope that USSR would actually honor its agreements at least until ink has dried on them? You do know that it was not until we had agreed to sign a pact of mutual assistance and non-aggression and allowed over one hundred thousand of Soviet soldiers across the border, that you pulled your little coup d'etat? Finland was smart enough not to do such a mistake. Not to mention they were still over 3 times larger than Estonia, population-wise.

Now, would you please answer just two simple questions:
1) Try and predict progress and result of following military confrontation:
Defender: Estonia.
Population: ~1,136,000
Armed forces: ~15,000 men total in all categories, plus civil guard of 36,000 men and 14,000 women.
Has declared neutrality and is thus not part of any military alliance. (Except with Latvia?)
Attacker: USSR.
Population:~170,000,000
Armed forces: ~1,800,000 ground forces alone (1939 data, as much as 3,000,000 in 1941), of those ~100,000 already stationed in Estonia, several times as many right across the border. Never mind full aerial and naval superiority.
Is allied with Nazi Germany.
If the task is too difficult, feel free to consult military experts of your liking.
2) If I take your family hostage at the gunpoint, then ask for your wallet and you give it to me without resistance, does that mean I become its rightful owner and you are not justified to take it back later nor take any legal action? Simple yes or no please.

 

[red_elk]

I hereby reject everything you referred to, on grounds that all cited source material comes either from Slavs or British/American historians, whose countries fought against Germany. Therefore it is not possible in the slightest that what they say is neutral or unbiased.
See, this game can be played in both ways.

Very well. Just to clarify, you refuse to accept the fact that number of Soviet POW died in German concentration camps exceeds 3 millions? If not, there is no need to search for sources which will satisfy you. If yes, this will be even more interesting discussion than I expected.

Yes. Inconsistent Soviet propaganda and earlier alliance with Nazi Germany, alongside with the fact that they "understandably were desperate and hateful of Stalin enough to fight with Wehrmacht". And the fact that nobody was killing and Germanizing them. These explanations are acceptable.

About "alliance with Nazi" stuff, which a few people here are about to claim. USSR was never doing joint military actions with Germany (during WW2). USSR and Germany were allied to the same extent as Poland and Germany were. Both USSR and Poland annexed territories previously belonged to 3-rd countries, together with Germany, but no one sane person would claim Poland and Germany were allies.

And the fact that nobody was killing and Germanizing them.

Are you serious? I thought Nazi's crimes don't need to be proven here.
Nobody was killing... yes, 23 millions of people just suddenly died for no reason.

Because we were, strikingly, simple-minded enough to hope that USSR would actually honor its agreements at least until ink has dried on them? You do know that it was not until we had agreed to sign a pact of mutual assistance and non-aggression and allowed over one hundred thousand of Soviet soldiers across the border, that you pulled your little coup d'etat? Finland was smart enough not to do such a mistake. Not to mention they were still over 3 times larger than Estonia, population-wise.

Now, would you please answer just two simple questions:
1) Try and predict progress and result of following military confrontation:
Defender: Estonia.
Population: ~1,136,000
Armed forces: ~15,000 men total in all categories, plus civil guard of 36,000 men and 14,000 women.
Has declared neutrality and is thus not part of any military alliance. (Except with Latvia?)
Attacker: USSR.
Population:~170,000,000
Armed forces: ~1,800,000 ground forces alone (1939 data, as much as 3,000,000 in 1941), of those ~100,000 already stationed in Estonia, several times as many right across the border. Never mind full aerial and naval superiority.
Is allied with Nazi Germany.
If the task is too difficult, feel free to consult military experts of your liking.
2) If I take your family hostage at the gunpoint, then ask for your wallet and you give it to me without resistance, does that mean I become its rightful owner and you are not justified to take it back later nor take any legal action? Simple yes or no please.

Answers:
1. Estonia will be defeated.
2. No.
A few comments:
"USSR allied with Germany" - wrong. For number 2 - comparison is incorrect, but anyway, legal action will be to call police as soon as possible. You will not be justified if one year later you will join the gang, trying to kill and robber me.

 

[Yeekim]

Very well. Just to clarify, you refuse to accept the fact that number of Soviet POW died in German concentration camps exceeds 3 millions? If not, there is no need to search for sources which will satisfy you. If yes, this will be even more interesting discussion than I expected.

Soviet POW-s? What? Who were they? "There are no Russian prisoners of war, only traitors." - Joseph Stalin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._270
...
No, I do not deny that Nazi treatment of Soviet POW's was inhumane...that is, if they even bothered to take prisoners. But then, did Soviets treat theirs any better?

About "alliance with Nazi" stuff, which a few people here are about to claim. USSR was never doing joint military actions with Germany (during WW2). USSR and Germany were allied to the same extent as Poland and Germany were. Both USSR and Poland annexed territories previously belonged to 3-rd countries, together with Germany, but no one sane person would claim Poland and Germany were allies.

They say one picture tells more than thousand words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:B...olen,_Siegesparade,_Guderian,_Kriwoschein.jpg
Did Poland Germany also hold joint victory parade?

Are you serious? I thought Nazi's crimes don't need to be proven here.
Nobody was killing... yes, 23 millions of people just suddenly died for no reason.

Apparently all kinds of basic things need to be proven here Well, I obviously referred to those who supported Germany, like Czechs and Slovaks and many Ukrainian Cossacks. Ideology did not demand they be killed. Anyway, that is beside the point, as I certainly do not intend to argue that the choice of those who decided to fight for their country, even while ruled by Bolsheviks, was wrong or without reason.

1. Estonia will be defeated.

Yes. So what is the gain? And what happens then? Mass deportation as with Chechens? If there's anyone left to deport? Doesn't matter, you've got yourself an answer. Resistance has only point if there is hope for success - at least for leader of a country. One man can grit his teeth and decide to die standing rather than live kneeling - as many indeed decided. But should head of state risk the existence of his entire people for some "This! Is! Tartu!" moment? What would you have done?

2. No.

True. "Justice is not born from injustice", or however this basic legal principle reads in English. Extorting it shall not make me an owner of your wallet. Forceful annexation did not make Estonia part of USSR. Why did we have to go through all these pages to get here?

For number 2 - comparison is incorrect, but anyway, legal action will be to call police as soon as possible.

And what if there is no such thing as police? For who would they be in our case?

You will not be justified if one year later you will join the gang, trying to kill and robber me.

First, one year was the duration of our hostage situation, so it should not be an issue.
Second, I'd be justified to try and recreate status quo, (retake my wallet/liberate my country). It is not as if we tried to annex USSR in turn (correct analogy for killing and robbing). And recreating status quo is what the men in question tried. At least those who:
1) Started partisan warfare against Soviets before Germans actually arrived; or
2) Volunteered in 1944 when front was being pushed into Estonia, or
3) Continued partisan warfare after 1945.
Those who do not fit under these categories (volunteered in 1942-1943 and carried offensive into Russia) indeed can't be called freedom fighters. Does not mean I can condemn them either. They could have very good reasons to do so, given earlier Soviet track record here. But I think there were few. At least I've never heard any veteran admit, much less boast, that he volunteered into German army in 1942.

 

[red_elk]

Soviet POW-s? What? Who were they? "There are no Russian prisoners of war, only traitors." - Joseph Stalin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._270

I read text of the order and didn't find the citation you gave here.

No, I do not deny that Nazi treatment of Soviet POW's was inhumane...that is, if they even bothered to take prisoners. But then, did Soviets treat theirs any better?

Incomparably better.

Apparently all kinds of basic things need to be proven here Well, I obviously referred to those who supported Germany, like Czechs and Slovaks and many Ukrainian Cossacks. Ideology did not demand they be killed. Anyway, that is beside the point, as I certainly do not intend to argue that the choice of those who decided to fight for their country, even while ruled by Bolsheviks, was wrong or without reason.

Then, what's the point in refusing that Nazi were going to kill millions of Slavs? If they actually killed?
You said "nobody was killing and Germanizing them".

They say one picture tells more than thousand words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:B...olen,_Siegesparade,_Guderian,_Kriwoschein.jpg
Did Poland Germany also hold joint victory parade?

From memoirs of Krivoshein, their agreement with Guderian:

In 16.00, your forces in marching column leaving town, and my forces, also in marching column, will enter the town, stopping on the streets where German forces passing and giving them salute with flags.

Is this a parade?

Guderian mentioned German parade in his memoires, but also didn't say that Soviets took a part in it.
Neither of a few photo from there gives a proof of joint military parade of Red Army and Wehrmacht in Brest.

In the same time, 19 of September 1939, when Lvov was sieged by German troops and Soviet forces approached, German 2-nd batallion of alpine troops and Soviet 24-th armored squadron were involved in direct fight. It was not a friendly fire - Germans attacked Soviet squadron and Soviets returned fire. There were casualties from both sides. After several such occasions, agreement was signed that German and Soviet troops must not approach each other closer than 25 km.
Is this a good example how allies should perform joint military operation?

In the same time, USSR in 1939 continued trade with Britain which was at war with Germany.
Later, during Winter war, Germans supplied Finland with flak cannons and fighter planes.
If these are allies, what are enemies then?

Yes. So what is the gain? And what happens then? Mass deportation as with Chechens? If there's anyone left to deport? Doesn't matter, you've got yourself an answer. Resistance has only point if there is hope for success - at least for leader of a country. One man can grit his teeth and decide to die standing rather than live kneeling - as many indeed decided. But should head of state risk the existence of his entire people for some "This! Is! Tartu!" moment? What would you have done?

Was there hope for success for Finland? For Czechoslovakia in 1968? If you did not resist, there is no evidence that you were occupied.

True. "Justice is not born from injustice", or however this basic legal principle reads in English. Extorting it shall not make me an owner of your wallet. Forceful annexation did not make Estonia part of USSR. Why did we have to go through all these pages to get here?

And what if there is no such thing as police? For who would they be in our case?

First, one year was the duration of our hostage situation, so it should not be an issue.
Second, I'd be justified to try and recreate status quo, (retake my wallet/liberate my country). It is not as if we tried to annex USSR in turn (correct analogy for killing and robbing). And recreating status quo is what the men in question tried. At least those who:
1) Started partisan warfare against Soviets before Germans actually arrived; or
2) Volunteered in 1944 when front was being pushed into Estonia, or
3) Continued partisan warfare after 1945.
Those who do not fit under these categories (volunteered in 1942-1943 and carried offensive into Russia) indeed can't be called freedom fighters. Does not mean I can condemn them either. They could have very good reasons to do so, given earlier Soviet track record here. But I think there were few. At least I've never heard any veteran admit, much less boast, that he volunteered into German army in 1942.

I already said, the analogy is incorrect. There is no evidence that somewhat significant amount of people living in Estonia in 1940 were against joining USSR.

 

[red_elk]

Lovett, correct your link, it's broken.
For "alliance" with Nazis, see my answer above.
There are no much sense to sign non-agression pact between allies, don't you think so?

 

[plarq]

Red Elk, since the early 90s in the west there has abeen a drive to portray the USSR as the equivalent of, or worse than, Nazi Germany. Part of this was to glorify the newly "liberated" former SSRs who also had the embarassing problem that large amounts of them had collaborated, or even begun killing the jews before the Nazis even got there. In almost every case, countries that collaborated are portrayed as the poor victims of communism and ones who fought it are now demonised. Note the western portrayal of the following countries

Good:

Ukraine: Lots of the population welcomed the Nazis
Hungary: Nazi allies
Baltic states: Need I say more, practically bent over for the wehrmacht
Croatia: Couldnt wait for the Germans to get there, were only too happy to join in

Bad:

Russia: Actually responsible for the Nazis defeat
Serbia: fought literally until the end, unlike most countries
Belarus: likewise

Just an interesting corelation...

Let's take it that way: there's no one successing Nazi Germany, but there's someone successing Soivet Union. Thus, blaming Russia score points, while blaming Nazi scores nothing.

 

[Yeekim]

I read text of the order and didn't find the citation you gave here.

The order, however, clearly says that those who surrender are deserters and must be executed on spot, whereas their families are to be deprived of any state support, no?

Incomparably better.

Wiki reports death rate around 36% of German POW-s against 57% of Soviet POW-s. Better, yes, but "incomparably"?

Then, what's the point in refusing that Nazi were going to kill millions of Slavs? If they actually killed?
You said "nobody was killing and Germanizing them".

And I clarified what I had in mind.

From memoirs of Krivoshein

It took until 1991 for USSR to even admit the existence of MRP. Would you really expect Krivoshein to admit receiving a victory parade together?

Neither of a few photo from there gives a proof of joint military parade of Red Army and Wehrmacht in Brest.

The goddamn photo shows German and Soviet officers standing on a podium side by side, as soldiers drive by. What do you think they are doing? Scouting from elevated vantage point?

In the same time, 19 of September 1939, when Lvov was sieged by German troops and Soviet forces approached, German 2-nd batallion of alpine troops and Soviet 24-th armored squadron were involved in direct fight. It was not a friendly fire - Germans attacked Soviet squadron and Soviets returned fire. There were casualties from both sides. After several such occasions, agreement was signed that German and Soviet troops must not approach each other closer than 25 km.
Is this a good example how allies should perform joint military operation?

If you are shooting somebody you are not at war with, but who is, in fact, fighting common enemy, it is friendly fire by very definition. And I doubt there has ever been any military operation involving allies, where no such incidents ever happened.

Was there hope for success for Finland?

At least there was front they could hope to hold. Not the case in Estonia. Also, situation was somewhat different in November 1939. Finland could at least hope for Allied help. In June, Paris had recently fallen to Germans.

I already said, the analogy is incorrect. There is no evidence that somewhat significant amount of people living in Estonia in 1940 were against joining USSR.

Yup. Joining USSR was at the top of our priorities ever since we kicked you out in 1920. Just couldn't get it done with so many things in our hands. Also, there is no evidence that you weren't intending to give me your wallet anyway, the nice and charitable type you are. Entire gun-pointing from my side was just an act undeserving of mention, I guess? Anyway, I believe there is ample evidence that great majority was most certainly against USSR as soon as 1941, when they had gotten taste what it was like.

EDIT: Also, you might want to read this article by Russian historian. She has some pretty good points:
http://www.polit.ru/lectures/2009/01/13/pribalt.html

 

[red_elk]

The order, however, clearly says that those who surrender are deserters and must be executed on spot, whereas their families are to be deprived of any state support, no?

No. Read original version. It describes exactly who, and under which circumstances, must be considered as deserter.

Wiki reports death rate around 36% of German POW-s against 57% of Soviet POW-s. Better, yes, but "incomparably"?

From what I read, approximately 60% of Soviet POW died in German concentration camps - more than 3 millions, and 40% were liberated by allies. Those who survived, were not released by Germans, they were liberated after war.

USSR, when war begun, declared that it will maintain Geneva Conventions for treating POWs.
For German POWs in USSR, 15% died (tens of thousands of Stalingrad POWs died because of hunger and diseases, captured being in awful condition), and 85% of them were released later after war.
I'd say German and Soviet treating of POWs were opposite.

It took until 1991 for USSR to even admit the existence of MRP. Would you really expect Krivoshein to admit receiving a victory parade together?
The goddamn photo shows German and Soviet officers standing on a podium side by side, as soldiers drive by. What do you think they are doing? Scouting from elevated vantage point?

Joint military parade is strictly formal thing, it requires time to prepare and many formalities must be maintained. Neither Guderian nor Krivoshein mentioned about formal joint military parade. Photo also don't show German and Soviet troops marching together. There are no such materials.
What is evident, is that German troops were solemnly withdrawing from town, Krivoshein was in this action and gave some kind of greetings to Germans.

If you are shooting somebody you are not at war with, but who is, in fact, fighting common enemy, it is friendly fire by very definition. And I doubt there has ever been any military operation involving allies, where no such incidents ever happened.
At least there was front they could hope to hold. Not the case in Estonia. Also, situation was somewhat different in November 1939. Finland could at least hope for Allied help. In June, Paris had recently fallen to Germans.

Allies don't attack each other. Allies don't trade with countries, their ally is at war. Allies don't supply enemies of their ally with weapons. USSR and Nazi Germany were not allies.

Yup. Joining USSR was at the top of our priorities ever since we kicked you out in 1920. Just couldn't get it done with so many things in our hands. Also, there is no evidence that you weren't intending to give me your wallet anyway, the nice and charitable type you are. Entire gun-pointing from my side was just an act undeserving of mention, I guess? Anyway, I believe there is ample evidence that great majority was most certainly against USSR as soon as 1941, when they had gotten taste what it was like.

EDIT: Also, you might want to read this article by Russian historian. She has some pretty good points:
http://www.polit.ru/lectures/2009/01/13/pribalt.html

Good article, it's pretty close to my opinion. Except a few facts and numbers which I would check from other historians, but just a few.

Interesting points:
1. Author considers actions of 1940 as "sovetization", incorporation - not occupation. Though she doesn't refuse negative aspects of this.
2. Reaction of people to Soviet forces was ambiquous. Many people met them with flowers.

Soviet troops in Riga

Demonstration in support of joining USSR. Lots of people.

3. Official position of Baltic states to the subject is highly politically motivated and non-objective. Official Russian position pretty much does not exist.

Have you read this article completely? I mostly agree with author's view to the subject.