Was it acceptable to ally with Uncle Joe in WWII?

[Dachs]

So if the Western Allies really wanted to, was there any possibility of driving the Soviets out of, say, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary?

I'd always thought any such attempt would be doomed to failure.

An extremely low possibility, and it would be even lower if it weren't easy to paint the Communists as the ones who started hostilities.

But quite a lot of US resource were still directed at Japan.

Correct. And that war would be over within a few months.

 

[red_elk]

Americans wanted USSR to declare war on Japan (for some strange reasons they weren't sure it was about to surrender) and starting operation Unthinkable in May-June 1945 would make them fight on two fronts.
Western allies had advantage over USSR in aviation and navy, but Soviet forces in Europe were stronger in terms of manpower, many land weapon technologies and combat experience.

The likely outcome would be USSR steamrolling continental Europe and then trying to negotiate peace deal, because it could not continue war on attrition much longer. On conditions, for example of breaking alliance with Japan and leaving territory of France and Western Germany.

 

[kochman]

There is no way we could be sure who would have prevailed...

 

[Crezth]

The brink of mutiny? What?

I had heard it that they were none too happy about the prospect of going to the Pacific to fight Japan, potentially. I don't know any details but the will to fight is supposed to have been not strong.

Of course, my source is SymphonyD and a smattering of details from that miniseries about WW2, so take it with a spoonful of salt. Perhaps you can illuminate these rumors?

I've never heard of any such thing either. They were filled with elation of having defeated Germany, morale was high.

I've heard it both ways. Happy at defeating the Hitlerites, shocked into depression by the discovery of the holocaust camps. War takes a heavy toll on a man's soul.

 

[kochman]

No one loves being in war (having been there myself)... but saying they were going to actually mutiny is really just a claim out of nowhere.

 

[History_Buff]

Yeah, I'd say there is a big difference in a conscript, having survived one war intact not wanting to be shipped to a (allegedly, to them at least) more brutal one, and an actual mutiny.

 

[bhsup]

With Patton (genuflect) heading the charge, USA #1 could not have failed!

Just kidding. Though I don't think it would have been as risky as you all seem to think. Soviet tactics just flat out suck. Why do you think they suffered such high casualties.

 

[Borachio]

Initially, high Soviet casualties were in large measure due to the Stalinist purges of the officer class. But I think they'd got the hang of it by '45.

 

[red_elk]

Give me a call when they crack upon the files about NKVD executions at Stalingrad. Yeah, those are still closed. Probably because the relatives are still alive.

Update:
If you were talking about deserters shot by NKVD troops, this information is declassified long ago. Just found "still closed" documents in the internet.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I never said it was a perfect idea that was perfectly implemented. Merely that they believed they were doing what was necessary.

I'd like to point out that it's a weak defence of anything. Every government believes that it does what it necessary. The British governments during their famines also believed that their policies are the best ones.

Your harvests are sucking badly. People are hungry.

Forced collectivization combined with forced grain confiscation didn't help these two points one bit (see also the less catastrophic famine of 1936). It did help with grain exports, though - which was its main reason.

Yes, the harvests in 1926 and 1927 put serious pressure on the Soviet government to do something different.

The crisis of 1927, which indeed raised issues in the government, pushing some functionaries, Stalin included, to collectivization, was not a harvest failure, but a failure to collect enough grain due to the village's refusal to sell it to the state according to the state prices. A wholly different issue then peasants not having enough food. There were food difficulties (though not on the famine level) in the industrializing cities, since grain was worth much more on the private markets.

At any rate, let's say that the top two tiers of your chart, which is 16% of farmers, slaughtered their cattle. That would be pretty close to 1/4 of total cattle head lost! Also, your percentages are average, obviously lower strata did not own .7 cows; proportionally, the upper strata did own the majority of cattle.

Keep in mind, however, that the second strata (13%) has only 0.6 more cows then average 1.1. Hardly a major difference that justifies placing it in the "Exploiter" category. That's one of my reasons to doubt the actual content of the "Kulak" label.

Anyway, it's quite possible that they did slaughter other cattle than their own,

That sounds implausible to me. Kulak bands going around secretly killing the Kolkhoz cattle belongs to the same category as bands of saboteurs and wreckers secretly sabotaging Soviet factories.

You have no way of knowing. But I don't think leaders or their subalterns engage in policies they know are, or will, cause great pain to their people without some level of regret or remorse, knowing that such measures are necessary.

If Stalin had any regrets, he did not acknowledge them. Everything he wrote was bombastic and triumphalist. He seems to have been a very self-righteous person.

Oh, and this Stalin quote :

All the objections raised by “science” against the possibility and expediency of organising large grain factories of 40,000 to 50,000 hectares each have collapsed and crumbled to dust. Practice has refuted the objections of “science,” and has once again shown that not only has practice to learn from “science” but that “science” also would do well to learn from practice.

That nasty science

What do you do?

This is your best argument - I am not denying that there were objective reasons that caused the government to act like it did. Still I'd advocate less bureaucratic voluntarism and use of force (which Stalin himself encouraged before backtracking for a bit with Dizzy) and more efforts to provide voluntary incentives for the peasants to join the Kolkhozy, less desire to squeeze them "for the good of the state". The whole thing was bureaucratic and undemocratic, apologies for sounding like a purveyor of That Ultraleftist Idealistic Garbage.

I'm still trying to understand the criticism of free markets when it was not to blame, but social programs or lack of would be, in the context you are speaking.

Social programs would distort the precious free market

 

[History_Buff]

Just kidding. Though I don't think it would have been as risky as you all seem to think. Soviet tactics just flat out suck. Why do you think they suffered such high casualties.

Well, just about everything I've read about the Soviets says they really had their number together by '45. I don't think the classic human wave trope really still applied at that point. And since the West would be attempting to liberate eastern Europe, they would primarily be on the defensive anyway.

 

[King Kalmah]

So if the Western Allies really wanted to, was there any possibility of driving the Soviets out of, say, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary?

I'd always thought any such attempt would be doomed to failure.

An extremely low possibility, and it would be even lower if it weren't easy to paint the Communists as the ones who started hostilities.

Correct. And that war would be over within a few months.

I still think with all the tanks,infantry and generals on the front line I'm positive the allies would have driven the Soviets back to Moscow...maybe not take them out,but atleast create a buffer zone for a free Democratic Eastern Europe....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassa_attack

Not to mention that on 26JUN another incident happened, too. Soviet planes with proper red star insignia strafed a passenger train near Rahó. So Hungary was not a "no-fly-zone" to Soviet aircraft at all

I still think that even thought the Soviets played their cards right...

1956 showed their true colors...

 

[kochman]

Well, just about everything I've read about the Soviets says they really had their number together by '45. I don't think the classic human wave trope really still applied at that point. And since the West would be attempting to liberate eastern Europe, they would primarily be on the defensive anyway.

They also had the T-34... a beast of a tank.
However, they appeared to have their crap more together than really did when compared to the remains of a German military being completely dominated by the head honcho whose good military decisions faltered years earlier. The guy calling the shots was completely out of touch with reality, because he destroyed anyone who tried to tell him what was really going on on the battlefield.

 

[GoodGame]

And no, I do not mean Vice President Biden.

Anyway, should the allies have gotten into bed with the Soviets in WWII? They were just as evil and murderous under Stalin as the Nazis were. Enemy of my enemy? Is it as simple as that?

For the record, I do think we did the right thing, btw. I'm just curious what others think about this.

We allied with Gaddafi too for a while. Is it right to play "enemies of my enemies"? Probably yes when those enemies are not a piece of cake.

If Russia had stayed neutral during WW2 (and Germany not giving any provocation to Russia), how long would WW2 have lasted? I'd bet another 5 years, and I'd project Fat Man would have take a lot longer to have made.

 

[Patroklos]

Americans wanted USSR to declare war on Japan (for some strange reasons they weren't sure it was about to surrender) and starting operation Unthinkable in May-June 1945 would make them fight on two fronts.
Western allies had advantage over USSR in aviation and navy, but Soviet forces in Europe were stronger in terms of manpower, many land weapon technologies and combat experience.

The likely outcome would be USSR steamrolling continental Europe and then trying to negotiate peace deal, because it could not continue war on attrition much longer. On conditions, for example of breaking alliance with Japan and leaving territory of France and Western Germany.

Russia was at the end of it's logistics and demographic chain in 1945. They were pumping a dry well and just took over half a million casualties in the offensives leading up to and at Berlin.

I don't know about any great success in pushing Russia out of Eastern Europe being possible, but there as no chance of the Soviets overcoming the Western allies.

 

[History_Buff]

However, they appeared to have their crap more together than really did when compared to the remains of a German military being completely dominated by the head honcho whose good military decisions faltered years earlier. The guy calling the shots was completely out of touch with reality, because he destroyed anyone who tried to tell him what was really going on on the battlefield.

The exact same statement can be made about the western Allies as well.

 

[red_elk]

Russia was at the end of it's logistics and demographic chain in 1945.

Heard this statement about logistics many times, but never heard proper explanation. From logistics point of view, USSR was in more favorable position than Allies who would have to supply their forces over Atlantic ocean. Another thing is that Europe is small and well covered with roads and railroads - the distance remaining between West Germany border and Atlantic coast is about half of a distance between Moscow and West Germany.

 

[kochman]

The exact same statement can be made about the western Allies as well.

Yes, this is true.

@Red_Elk, I agree with you there. France and UK were closer of course, but the USA was needed... It would not have been pretty for anyone. In the end we allies would have won though, thanks to Oppenheimer.

 

[Dachs]

Heard this statement about logistics many times, but never heard proper explanation. From logistics point of view, USSR was in more favorable position than Allies who would have to supply their forces over Atlantic ocean. Another thing is that Europe is small and well covered with roads and railroads - the distance remaining between West Germany border and Atlantic coast is about half of a distance between Moscow and West Germany.

All of the Red Army's lines of potential supply were in easy reach of Allied bombing interdiction. In addition, partisans were active against Soviet forces and their lines of supply in eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine and Poland, at least until 1948. By comparison, there was zero threat to Allied shipping after the end of the U-boat campaigns.

The distance between Antwerp and Berlin is ~700 km. The distance between Berlin and Moscow is ~1800 km.

Transport of large amounts of war matériel over water is significantly faster and more cost effective than doing so over land, even with the aid of a large in-place rail network.

Transportation infrastructure in western Europe is and has always been superior to that in eastern Europe even without the devastation of an apocalyptic war.

In addition, the USSR would be very hard pressed to make up for losing rolling stock to Allied bombers, since a very large amount of its engines and cars were provided by Lend-Lease.

During 1944 and 1945, eastern Europe was hit by very severe famine, such that several Fronts were forced to augment their meager rations with American-supplied foodstuffs during the final drive to Berlin (Spam is usually cited here). Agricultural and industrial production in Ukraine actually dropped between 1944 and 1945. In 1946, things would end up getting even worse, if that was possible, with widespread drought conditions.

 

[Borachio]

And yet...and yet Operation Unthinkable never actually took place, because it was thought "infeasible".

What would you suggest then as an explanation? The Western Allies simply had no appetite for further war?