Josef Stalin: Most Prolific Mass Murderer In History

[Rick]

I agree with you on almost everything and I really don't want to nitpick, but the Japanese Imperial Army was busy fighting the Chinese, not us.

They certainly DID get busy 8 months later, didn't they?

 

[Centrehalf]

They certainly DID get busy 8 months later, didn't they?

Where? I'm not sure what your point is. Please clarify.

 

[Rick]

Where? I'm not sure what your point is. Please clarify.

December 1941 (you know - Pearl Harbor??? ) - April 1941 = 8 months.

 

[Centrehalf]

December 1941 (you know - Pearl Harbor??? ) - April 1941 = 8 months.

OK, yeah I get it. I was thinking about something else. They did get busy, and they paid for it. Probably the biggest miscalculation in human history. Strike that, WWII was chock full of miscalculation, mostly on the Axis side. And it was the IJN that got busy, not the IJA.

 

[Stalin]

conquered half of Poland and the Baltic States after Germany invaded.

This is a good example of a half truth

"...At the end of the First World War, the boundary between Russia and Poland was settled as being along a line which became known as the Curzon line - Lord Curzon being the British statesman who had proposed it.

This demarcation line was not to the liking of the Poles, who soon went to war against the Soviet Union in order to push their borders further eastward. The Soviet Union counter-attacked and were prepared not only to defend themselves but, against Stalin’s advice, to liberate the whole of Poland. Stalin considered such an aim to be doomed to failure because, he said, Polish nationalism had not yet run its course. The Poles were determined NOT to be liberated so there was no point in trying. Hence the Poles put up fierce resistance to Soviet advances. Ultimately the Soviet Union was forced to retreat and even cede territory to the east of the Curzon line to Poland. The areas in question were Western Byelorussia and the western Ukraine - areas populated overwhelmingly by Byelorussians and Ukrainians respectively rather than by Poles. The whole incident could not but exacerbate the mutual dislike of the Poles and the Russians.

On 1 September 1939, Nazi German invaded Poland. On 17 September, the Soviet Union moved to reoccupy those parts of Poland that lay east of the Curzon line. Having taken over those areas, the Soviet Union set about distributing land to the peasants and bringing about the kind of democratic reforms so popular with the people and so unpopular with the exploiters. During the battle to retake the areas east of the Curzon line, the Soviet Union captured some 10,000 Polish officers, who became prisoners of war. These prisoners were then held in camps in the disputed area and put to work road building, etc.

..

n April 1943, the Hitlerites announced that the Germans had found several mass graves in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, containing the bodies of thousands of Polish officers allegedly murdered by the Russians.

This announcement was designed to further undermine the co-operation efforts of Poles and Soviets to defeat the Germans. The Russo-Polish alliance was always difficult because the Polish government in exile, based in London, was obviously a government of the exploiting classes. They had to oppose the Germans because of the latter's cynical takeover of their country for lebensraum. The Soviet Union's position was that so long as the Soviet Union could retain the land east of the Curzon line, they had no problem with the re-establishment of a bourgeois government in Poland. But the alliance was already in difficulties because the Polish government in exile, headed by General Sikorski, based in London, would not agree to the return of that land. This is in spite of the fact that in 1941 after Hitler invaded Poland, the Soviet Union and the Polish government in exile had not only established diplomatic relations but had also agreed that the Soviet Union would finance "under the orders of a chief appointed by the Polish government-in-exile but approved by the Soviet government " the formation of a Polish army - this chief being, in the event, the thoroughly anti-Soviet General Anders (a prisoner of the Soviets from 1939). By 25 October 1941 this Army had 41,000 men including 2,630 officers. General Anders, however, eventually refused to fight on the Soviet-German front because of the border dispute between the Soviet Union and Poland, and the Polish army had to be sent elsewhere to fight - i.e., Iran.

Nevertheless, despite the hostility of the Polish government in exile, there was a significant section of Poles resident in the Soviet Union who were not anti-Soviet and did accept the Soviet claim to the territories east of the Curzon line. Many of them were Jewish. These people formed the Union of Polish Patriots which put together the backbone of an alternative Polish government in exile.

The Nazi propaganda relating to the Katyn massacres was designed to make it impossible for the Soviets to have any dealings with the Poles at all. General Sikorski took up the Nazi propaganda with a vengeance, claiming to Churchill that he had a "wealth of evidence". How he had obtained this "evidence" simultaneously with the German announcement of this supposed Soviet atrocity is not clear, although it speaks loudly of secret collaboration between Sikorski and the Nazis. The Germans had made public their allegations on 13 April. On 16 April the Soviet government issued an official communiqué denying "the slanderous fabrications about the alleged mass shootings by Soviet organs in the Smolensk area in the spring of 1940". It added:

"The German statement leaves no doubt about the tragic fate of the former Polish prisoners of war who, in 1941, were engaged in building jobs in areas west of Smolensk and who, together with many Soviet people, fell into the hands of the German hangmen after the withdrawal of Soviet troops".

The Germans had in fabricating their story decided to embellish it with an anti-Semitic twist by claiming to be able to name Soviet officials in charge of the massacre, all of whom had Jewish names. On 19 April Pravda responded:

"Feeling the indignation of the whole of progressive humanity over their massacre of peaceful citizens and particularly of Jews, the Germans are now trying to arouse the anger of gullible people against the Jews. For this reason they have invented a whole collection of 'Jewish commissars' who, they say, took part in the murder of the 10,000 Polish officers. For such experienced fakers it was not difficult to invent a few names of people who never existed - Lev Rybak, Avraam Brodninsky, Chaim Fineberg. No such persons ever existed either in the 'Smolensk section of the OGPU' or in any other department of the NLVD…"

The insistence of Sikorski in endorsing the German propaganda led to the complete breakdown in relations between the London Polish government in exile and the Soviet government - as to which Goebbels commented in his diary:

"This break represents a one-hundred-per-cent victory for German propaganda and especially for me personally … we have been able to convert the Katyn incident into a highly political question. "

At the time the British press condemned Sikorski for his intransigence:

more on this at http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/katyn.html

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

So who of you had heard of the Curzon Line before ?

Comrade Stalin

 

[Gipper]

I agree with you on almost everything and I really don't want to nitpick, but the Japanese Imperial Army was busy fighting the Chinese, not us.

You misunderstand...I think.

When Stalin moved his eastern troops west, this occurred during the Stalingrad campaign, which began in Summer '42. At that time, the Japanese were busy fighting the Americans and were not pushing campaigns in China...hence my point. The Japs knew they were going to need everything they had to succeed against the Americans.

Had the Japanese NOT been busy with the USA, Stalin likely would have had no choice but to bring those troops west anyway, since his military was getting their ass kicked by the Germans. But, then the Japs could have invaded the eastern USSR to help their buddies the Germans forcing the cold blooded killer Lil' Joey Stalin to fight a two front war, which his backward nation was ill prepared for.

The Germans losing the Sixth Army at Stalingrad was the turning point and the Russians were successful because they used those eastern divisions and they had one of the best tanks of the war...the T-34...to say nothing of Hitler's bungling. That tank ran on gas not diesel, which allowed it to perform even in very cold temps.

 

[Gipper]

This is a good example of a half truth

"...At the end of the First World War, the boundary between Russia and Poland was settled as being along a line which became known as the Curzon line - Lord Curzon being the British statesman who had proposed it.

This demarcation line was not to the liking of the Poles, who soon went to war against the Soviet Union in order to push their borders further eastward. The Soviet Union counter-attacked and were prepared not only to defend themselves but, against Stalin’s advice, to liberate the whole of Poland. Stalin considered such an aim to be doomed to failure because, he said, Polish nationalism had not yet run its course. The Poles were determined NOT to be liberated so there was no point in trying. Hence the Poles put up fierce resistance to Soviet advances. Ultimately the Soviet Union was forced to retreat and even cede territory to the east of the Curzon line to Poland. The areas in question were Western Byelorussia and the western Ukraine - areas populated overwhelmingly by Byelorussians and Ukrainians respectively rather than by Poles. The whole incident could not but exacerbate the mutual dislike of the Poles and the Russians.

On 1 September 1939, Nazi German invaded Poland. On 17 September, the Soviet Union moved to reoccupy those parts of Poland that lay east of the Curzon line. Having taken over those areas, the Soviet Union set about distributing land to the peasants and bringing about the kind of democratic reforms so popular with the people and so unpopular with the exploiters. During the battle to retake the areas east of the Curzon line, the Soviet Union captured some 10,000 Polish officers, who became prisoners of war. These prisoners were then held in camps in the disputed area and put to work road building, etc.

..

n April 1943, the Hitlerites announced that the Germans had found several mass graves in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, containing the bodies of thousands of Polish officers allegedly murdered by the Russians.

This announcement was designed to further undermine the co-operation efforts of Poles and Soviets to defeat the Germans. The Russo-Polish alliance was always difficult because the Polish government in exile, based in London, was obviously a government of the exploiting classes. They had to oppose the Germans because of the latter's cynical takeover of their country for lebensraum. The Soviet Union's position was that so long as the Soviet Union could retain the land east of the Curzon line, they had no problem with the re-establishment of a bourgeois government in Poland. But the alliance was already in difficulties because the Polish government in exile, headed by General Sikorski, based in London, would not agree to the return of that land. This is in spite of the fact that in 1941 after Hitler invaded Poland, the Soviet Union and the Polish government in exile had not only established diplomatic relations but had also agreed that the Soviet Union would finance "under the orders of a chief appointed by the Polish government-in-exile but approved by the Soviet government " the formation of a Polish army - this chief being, in the event, the thoroughly anti-Soviet General Anders (a prisoner of the Soviets from 1939). By 25 October 1941 this Army had 41,000 men including 2,630 officers. General Anders, however, eventually refused to fight on the Soviet-German front because of the border dispute between the Soviet Union and Poland, and the Polish army had to be sent elsewhere to fight - i.e., Iran.

Nevertheless, despite the hostility of the Polish government in exile, there was a significant section of Poles resident in the Soviet Union who were not anti-Soviet and did accept the Soviet claim to the territories east of the Curzon line. Many of them were Jewish. These people formed the Union of Polish Patriots which put together the backbone of an alternative Polish government in exile.

The Nazi propaganda relating to the Katyn massacres was designed to make it impossible for the Soviets to have any dealings with the Poles at all. General Sikorski took up the Nazi propaganda with a vengeance, claiming to Churchill that he had a "wealth of evidence". How he had obtained this "evidence" simultaneously with the German announcement of this supposed Soviet atrocity is not clear, although it speaks loudly of secret collaboration between Sikorski and the Nazis. The Germans had made public their allegations on 13 April. On 16 April the Soviet government issued an official communiqué denying "the slanderous fabrications about the alleged mass shootings by Soviet organs in the Smolensk area in the spring of 1940". It added:

"The German statement leaves no doubt about the tragic fate of the former Polish prisoners of war who, in 1941, were engaged in building jobs in areas west of Smolensk and who, together with many Soviet people, fell into the hands of the German hangmen after the withdrawal of Soviet troops".

The Germans had in fabricating their story decided to embellish it with an anti-Semitic twist by claiming to be able to name Soviet officials in charge of the massacre, all of whom had Jewish names. On 19 April Pravda responded:

"Feeling the indignation of the whole of progressive humanity over their massacre of peaceful citizens and particularly of Jews, the Germans are now trying to arouse the anger of gullible people against the Jews. For this reason they have invented a whole collection of 'Jewish commissars' who, they say, took part in the murder of the 10,000 Polish officers. For such experienced fakers it was not difficult to invent a few names of people who never existed - Lev Rybak, Avraam Brodninsky, Chaim Fineberg. No such persons ever existed either in the 'Smolensk section of the OGPU' or in any other department of the NLVD…"

The insistence of Sikorski in endorsing the German propaganda led to the complete breakdown in relations between the London Polish government in exile and the Soviet government - as to which Goebbels commented in his diary:

"This break represents a one-hundred-per-cent victory for German propaganda and especially for me personally … we have been able to convert the Katyn incident into a highly political question. "

At the time the British press condemned Sikorski for his intransigence:

more on this at http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/katyn.html

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

So who of you had heard of the Curzon Line before ?

Comrade Stalin

Who cares?

Your idols actions in Sept '39 were those of a brutal conquering imperialist dictator. And, he was allied with your buddy Adolph Hitler.

You fail to mention Lil' Joey's actions in conquering the Baltic states and his unprovoked sneak attack on Finland. All no doubt justified in your mind.

Your idol was nothing more than a brutal imperialist dictator...and you commies claim to be anti-Imperialist...yeah right...

May your idol burn in Hell for eternity.

 

[Centrehalf]

You misunderstand...I think.

When Stalin moved his eastern troops west, this occurred during the Stalingrad campaign, which began in Summer '42. At that time, the Japanese were busy fighting the Americans and were not pushing campaigns in China...hence my point. The Japs knew they were going to need everything they had to succeed against the Americans.

I'm not misunderstanding you. The bulk of the IJA was in China, for most of the war. They pulled some units from Japan and China to garrison the islands, some of the divisions from Mauchuria/Manchukuo went to Dutch East Indies, Singapore, Indochina and the Phillipines, but we never faced most of their Army, there are only so many soldiers you can put on an island before the additional manpower becomes a detriment. Our main opponent was the IJN, not the IJA. To be fair, even if Japan had been able to throw most of their Army at us, we still would have won and the island hopping campaign would have worked out pretty much the same. The Phillipines and Okinawa may have been harder to take. The USSR/Japan non-aggression pact didn't make our life much tougher than it would have been anyway.

 

[Gipper]

I'm not misunderstanding you. The bulk of the IJA was in China, for most of the war. They pulled some units from Japan and China to garrison the islands, some of the divisions from Mauchuria/Manchukuo went to Dutch East Indies, Singapore, Indochina and the Phillipines, but we never faced most of their Army, there are only so many soldiers you can put on an island before the additional manpower becomes a detriment. Our main opponent was the IJN, not the IJA. To be fair, even if Japan had been able to throw most of their Army at us, we still would have won and the island hopping campaign would have worked out pretty much the same. The Phillipines and Okinawa may have been harder to take. The USSR/Japan non-aggression pact didn't make our life much tougher than it would have been anyway.

Agreed.

But, your initial point was the Japanese were fighting the Chinese not us. This is not completely correct as you just indicated. Yes, the JIA was limited in their ground campaigns against us by the size of the islands and transportation limitations. But, the Japs knew they needed to spend their limited resources fighting the US who they also knew was much more powerful than China.

This in no way is meant to diminish the contributions of the Chinese. They did fight bravely and prevented the Japs from moving more troops to battle the US.

Yes the JIA was forced to keep a large segment of their army in China, but by August 1942 when the Stalingrad campaign began their leaderships focus was on fighting the US and the Chinese. Stalin knew this and it allowed him to move those divisions to his western front.

However, had the Japanese not had to fight the US, it is possible they would have attacked the USSR. This could have prevented Stalin from stopping the German advance at Stalingrad with his eastern divisions.

 

[Rick]

There's a lot of simpleminded analysis in this thread. The Japanese quickly seized everything in the western pacific in the beginning of the war. Then the US had to take it away from them with amphibious operations against a super-entrenched enemy - for example, FARRRRRRR more difficult than soviet tank armies maneuvering on the vast russian plains. And this usually in the presence of the skilled and experienced japanese navy. To just count the number of soldiers way understates the accomplishment of US forces.

 

[Centrehalf]

There's a lot of simpleminded analysis in this thread. The Japanese quickly seized everything in the western pacific in the beginning of the war. Then the US had to take it away from them with amphibious operations against a super-entrenched enemy - for example, FARRRRRRR more difficult than soviet tank armies maneuvering on the vast russian plains. And this usually in the presence of the skilled and experienced japanese navy. To just count the number of soldiers way understates the accomplishment of US forces.

I think we need a new thread on this issue. We have 3 people in here arguing 3 different points, and apparently misunderstanding the other two, not to mention that WW2-era Japan is a wee bit off-topic.

 

[Rick]

I think we need a new thread on this issue. We have 3 people in here arguing 3 different points, and apparently misunderstanding the other two, not to mention that WW2-era Japan is a wee bit off-topic.

Every thread drifts to new topics - don't panic - suppress your Thread Police instincts.

 

[clarkatticus]

Geez, why are the most horrific chapters of history the subject of so many falsehoods. The Holodomor was waged by the soviets to suppress Ukrainian nationalism, and to punish their active refusal to support the collectivization of agriculture and the first five year plan. Read a damn history book.

Oh my god! they have a name for it!! it must be true! so sorry I took a different opinion

 

[clarkatticus]

Sometimes we read too much into single events, I don't think Stalin was devious enough to do some of the things claimed nor clever enough to do others. He was simply paranoid beyond comprehension and his actions were dictated by this trait. Because of his purges his best and brightest were imprisioned or worse and only boot lickers like Beria and Zukov remained. The Soviet system flies in the face of common sense, none of their programs functioned for the benefit of the people as stated. Millions died not just because they were put to death, but from massive incompetence and failure. Stalin did not love the Russian people, he loved power, and being a sociopath he cared little for their comfort or well being. Pining for the days of bread lines and rebranded Fiats, no heat in winter and borsht for breakfast, lunch and dinner seems odd to me.

 

[Centrehalf]

Every thread drifts to new topics - don't panic - suppress your Thread Police instincts.

This has nothing to do with being a thread policeman. Every thread does drift, but because of, as I count it, 3 different issues being addressed simultaneously on the Japan issue alone, a new thread would make it easier to follow and easier to respond to.