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That is certainly a point of view - I suspect that few people will share it and I certainly don't
Venezuela the failed socialist state - Rising tensions.
Soldato
I have no idea how this is a reply to my post or what you are even saying?
If you simply google breaking the treaty of Versailles, you can read in depth how they continuously built up.
From moving weapons companies out of Germany to bypass sanctions, and classifying soldiers as HR.
I know it was well known, they did it blatantly, all of the time, it was in the times like 1923 or something how Germany has 800,000 troops, with massive stockpiles of munitions and food etc.
It was more about the general point - I can't remember specifically what I was posting about now other than a bit of frustration how often action isn't taken about some obviously bad situation until things come to a head and the world can't wash its hands of the problem any more.
That is a completely warped interpretation.
Not least we never allied with Communism. Did the Americans actively support Communism?
Of course they did, even before they officially joined they were funding them, then directly after the war when Churchill realised how naughty the Soviets were and wanted the US to declare war on them, they declined.
Then we spend almost 50 years say oops.
Allowing the Soviet Union to defeat Germany resulted in the economic prospects of whole continents being compromised. Billions of people had their lives blighted and countless numbers, 100 million or more (Possibly a lot more), unnecessary deaths.
The consequences of the soviet unions victory over Germany 70 years ago reverberate to this day and will continue far into the future (The chaos that is Venezuela is just an example of it)
In many ways, WW2 led seamlessly to WW3, but WW3 was fought mostly in the third world, via proxies, so nobody noticed the devastation that it wrought
At the same time, through the period 45-80 (The worst of the cold war had died down by 1980 even though the Soviet Union struggled on for another 10 years) the whole world teetered on the edge of total destruction. It was a far closer run thing than most people think. People look back at the early days of Windscale and criticize the seemingly reckless manner in which nuclear materials were handled and processed. But they forget that this wasn't just about doing some interesting physics and possibly creating a new source of electricity.
It was about national survival. The threat of war with the soviet union was very real and, the US having knifed us, (British scientists were key to the US Atomic Bomb program but after it was all over, the US Government confiscated all our work and refused to share theirs) it was considered that developing our own Bomb was a matter of national emergency, since for all their bluster, there was no guarantee that the US would defend Europe on their own should the Soviets kick off.
(Historically the US has been one of our less reliable allies, the special relationship thing is a myth!)
As far as alternative histories go. I can certainly envisage a world where a neutral Britain (And France) might have resulted in Barbarossa taking place a year earlier, with a stronger Germany, a weaker Soviet Union and it really being all over by Christmas (Which it very nearly was in 1941. Germany lost Babraossa by a squeak, they really did. Had Germany defeated the Soviet Union, there would have been no prospect of ever launching a second front in the west)
I can certainly envisage the possibility that the result of this being a world that was a far more pleasant and prosperous one than the one I was born into and grew up in...
Acts speak louder than words.
We may not have supported the Soviet Union ideologically.
But we supported them with resources, fuel, and all the trappings that go with it.
Soldato
I saw a very insightful comment on the split in the American Right:
It's not dissimilar to a split here in the UK, though far less obvious in our case. Increasingly when "Right-Wing" is discussed, critics are focused on the left column, proponents on the right. Just as critics of the Left focus on Antifa, Dianne Abbot, et al. rather than say more reasonable Left members.
Interesting. Thanks for posting all that.
No system doesn't have its ups and downs. If you can pick the start and end points of any measure you can prove anything fails. Capitalism is like democracy (and not really separable, imo). It's the worst system there is, except for all the others.
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I'm not entirely convinced that the situation in Venezuela is a result of "inaction" by the Americans. Many American Administrations (and certainly ALL the Republican Administrations) have gone to considerable lengths to ensure the failure of any Socialist experiment.
The Get Rich Quick Americans are still devoted to the concepts of "Might is Right - ALWAYS!", "Greed is Good" and "Just deal with today; ridicule and ignore anyone who worries about tomorrow".
As a country that purports to believe in Christianity they have clearly never read ANY scripture at all.
Stupid security "breach" leaking the fact they're getting ready for a move in, or just a false "leak" to flex the muscles?
It's a public orchestrated leak by a confirmed war hawk ********, what do you think he means by it? He want's Russia and China to know ( i mean technically if their intelligence is good enough, 5000 movement would be easily confirmed, but he want's it public as well for added pizzazz) so that they make moves.
Soldato
Bolton is a very nasty piece of work. Personally made threats to the family of the head of the OPCW if he didn't tow the party line on Iraqi WMD. He threatened the man's children.
Soldato
Sinn Fein of Northern Ireland and ROI, were there to support the "new" president. Shady socialists
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46871221
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46871221
In an ideal world it would have been nice to fight both tbh... Hitler was the immediate threat that needed to be dealt with though.
Both National Socialism and International Socialism ought to be opposed IMO, both have lead to millions of needless deaths.
Except that that wasnt true.
The Soviet Union was always a far greater threat than Nazi Germany ever was.
While fascist style movements were popular during the 1920/30's, I dont think there is any suggestion that individual countries nationalist movements were under any sort of direct control from Berlin as part of some sort of plan for global domination. By contrast international Communist organizations were under direct control from Moscow and the specific intent was to sow the seeds of revolution across western Europe, around the rest of the world, and even in north America.
Hitlers rise to power, regardless of the consequences, was actually very likely to have been a good thing. The alternatives would have been very much worse for the world.
In 1920's Germany it really was a toss up between the Communists and the Nazis. This of course is why The Nazi party gained the support of the middle classes and industrialists, and even the army (Which otherwise they would never have got) and why, as soon as he came to power, pretty much the first thing Hitler did was round up all the communists and their sympathizers and put them in concentration camps. They really were too much of a threat to his position to leave free to cause trouble.
A communist revolution in Germany, in 1930, would have been a catastrophe.
I am amazed that so many people seem to forget just how WW2 actually started.
In the immortal words of Basil Fawlty "You started it, You invaded Poland!"
Yes the Germans did invade Poland. But the Soviet Union did too! They were allies to begin with.
And the Soviets were every bit as savage as conquerors as the Germans were. Probably rather more so in fact, at least in the early years of the war. (Katyn Massacre anybody?)
Indeed they carried on being allies until well after the Battle of Britain had been won (Just) and the Blitz era was over. And yet, for some unfathomable reason. while we declared War on Germany, we never declared War on the Soviet Union.
Had the Communists come to power in Germany in 1930, there would probabally still have been an alliance with the Soviet union, there would probabally still have been an invasion of Poland, and the combined forces of Germany and the Soviet Union would have swept across western Europe in a wave of destruction that would have resulted in the deaths of probabally around 1/3 of the population (Historically a typical figure for Communist revolutions. From 1920's Russia to 1970's Cambodia).
It is alleged that at the end of WW2, Churchill was heard to say, "We Killed the wrong Pig". I do not believe that there is any proof in this, but the sentiment is there.
In some ways we should be grateful for Hitler and the Nazis. Even if they had won WW2, the consequences would have been far less severe than if they had never existed in the first place.
Had Hitler stayed in art collage, the world today is likley to have been a far darker placed!
Soldato
I'm not quite sure what to make of this post. But it's fascinating.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a non-aggression pact, not an alliance or mutual defense pact. Yes it also defined the respective spheres of influence and the partitioning of Eastern Europe, but to describe it them as allies is going too far I think.
Well except that a (THE even) key part of that was an agreement for a combined and cooperative assault on Poland. (CW mass slaughter of Polish POW's by the Soviets, Not even the Germans were into that at the start!)
As I have said elsewhere, Actions speak louder than words!
Britain declared war on Germany for invading Poland within days (Hours??). Why not the USSR, at all, ever?
Really, I would love to see the historical documents that might explain this bizarre difference in treatment.
Caporegime
As with anything, extreme socialism is bad, and extreme capitalism is bad.
It's about finding a well-tuned balance of the 2, which only a few countries seem to be even vaguely close to.
It's about finding a well-tuned balance of the 2, which only a few countries seem to be even vaguely close to.