Was Stalin's Alliance with Hitler a 'Good Idea?

 

OK allow me to deal with your specific suggestions:

 

1.  Britain bombing Germany in Sept. 1939

 

As I stated previously, the Luftwaffe was viewed as being far superior.  The 'fear' was that if strategic bombing was started early, Britain would get the 'worst' of the exchange.  Again, that is not to excuse the 'inaction', but merely to help understand it.  However, you give the impression that Britain had a large 'fleet' of modern heavy bombers in 1939 which they could have unleashed, but chose to hold back.  This was not the case.  In fact the British had inadequate numbers of inadequate bombers.  The RAF did not have proper 'heavy bombers' available until much later in the war (Halifaxes - late 1940-41 and Lanchasters - 1942).  In 1939, all the RAF Bomber Command had were Blenheim's,  Hampden's, Wellington's and  Whitley's.  To have adequate range to reach Germany with a reasonable bomb load, these aircraft would have to have been rebased to France, at a considerable delay as the French did not have bases ready to allocate for such a purpose.  Further, the French themselves objected to such a project.  Whereas the British had made a good start at building up some fighter defenses (bases, radar etc.) the French had not.  There were also concerns about accuracy, and hitting civilian targets.  Of course these concerns went 'out the window' once Germany started bombing with a wanton disregard for civilian casualties (e.g. Rotterdam).  However, that was still in the future in early Sept. 1939.  Further, the British bombers available did not themselves have adequate defensive armament, and fighters lacked the range for most escort duty.  So, as the British would later discover anyway, daylight raids would be decimated.  So even if the British had been more aggressive in their bombing of Germany, it did not promise to be very effective.

 

2.  Encourage France to attack earlier

 

Honestly, with the British having no ground presence on the continent, how effective would you expect such 'encouragement' to be in getting the French to move?  The French had been more reluctant to declare war in the first place - their DoW on Germany had come 6 hours later than Britain's and they had been 'pushed' hard to do even that (it was originally scheduled for the following day, Sept. 4).  As I have noted the French mobilization was an outdated WWI schedule.  As it was the French did commence 'probing' attacks by Sept 7/8 (a few days after their DoW and start of mobilization).  However, given their mobilization schedule, they simply were not prepared to launch a major offensive until much too late (15th day of mobilization or Sept. 18 at the earliest).  By that time the Poles were already in a poor state against the Germans and the Soviets had already attacked from the east against light resistance.  The entire French philosophy, left over from WWI was to first stop the enemy attack with strong defenses and then to counterattack.  This was the one 'method' that had 'worked' for them in WWI (first in 1914 at First Marne and then in 1918 after the German offensive had spent itself).  Pretty much everything inbetween had a costly failure.  Thus, the French were very reluctant to commit themselves to attacking first, even though the circumstances dictated that that was exactly what they needed to do.  Again, this is not to excuse their failure to act, but simply to explain it.  Also, to note how ineffective any British 'encouragement' to act more quickly would likely have been. 

 

 

 

As I stated, you can 'take' my response anyway YOU choose to, and reach whatever ridiculous conclusion YOU choose to, it makes no difference to me.

 

The Nazi-Soviet Pact was certainly not simply a 'non-aggression' pact.  The secret clauses and Nazi-Soviet cooperation make that clear.  As I stated previously, it was an aggreement between two parties in furtherance of their mutual objectives and goals.  For example, the cooperative attack on, destruction of and partitioning of Poland.

 

Once again you make false statements regarding British policy.  Statements which you have completely failed to back up in your own thread on the topic.  However, just like a 'good communist sycophant', you continue to spew out your rhetoric without letting establish facts get in the way.  Since the British themselves 'foiled' the plans of Hitler to conquer Poland and 'drive into Russia', please explain why having Germany drive across the Baltic States would have been any more acceptable to Britain? 

 

Regarding your other points, are you so sure the alliance with Nazi Germany was such a good move for Stalin?  Perhaps it 'seemed' as such at the time, and certainly it allowed Stalin a 'free hand' in eastern Europe, to attack and occupy all or part of each of his European neighbors.  However, it also greatly strengthened Germany, first by supplying critcal raw materials that the lack of would have otherwise crippled German industry.  Further, it allowed Germany to concentrate on and defeat France, and thereby removed that front and allowed Germany to gain more strength by 'looting' France and the low countries. 

 

So Stalin gained, but so did Germany.  The key question is, was Stalin better or worse off facing Germany in 1941, with Germany occupying much of Europe vs. facing him in 1939 before Germany had obtained those conquests?  Did Stalin manage to increase Soviet production more, via the acquisition of German industrial machinery, than Germany gained by the supply of necessary raw materials?

 

Originally posted by Bankotsu My views are similar to Mao Zedong: http://marxists.org/reference/archive/

 

Gee, what a huge surprize this is.

 

If there was a simple 'right' or 'wrong' answer to the question, I wouldn't have posted it here for discussion.  There were of course advantages and disadvantages from Stalin's perspective.  The point is to discuss and weigh them, as well as the possible merits of other alternatives. 

 

You have clearly demonstrated that you 'don't see' obvious facts that are inconvenient given your preconcieved ideas and philosophy.  The Soviet Union invaded Poland on Sept. 17 with 2 'fronts' (Belorussian and Ukrainian) consisting of 6 armies - a total of 800,000 men.  As the Poles were fully engaged against the Germans, the Poles only had 20,000 men to defend with.  The Soviets suffered approximately 1,800 casualties in the 'campaign'.  All Polish resistance ended about 3 weeks after the Soviet invasion.  The Soviet invasion saved the Germans the additional time and effort to 'mop up' Polish forces to the east.  It further destroyed Polish plans to draw out the campaign further by retreating (from the Germans) to the east.

 

Even your stongest supporter here, Sarmat, doesn't deny the Soviet invasion of Poland.  You are simply demonstrating your incredible pro-Stalin bias here, and undermining what little credibilty you have by trying to deny obvious facts.