This applies especially well to Europe. Everyone cheering at military expenditure, let’s see how happy we are when the tanks manufactured during the socdems are in the hands of the European nazis…
Unfortunately, Russia started and continues their war of conquest in Europe and the USA isn’t helping nearly as much as they used to. Europe is the only one who can pick up the slack. And they are.
Russia can barely win a war against the poorest country in Europe, it has no interest or capabilities of invading Western Europe in my opinion. Regardless of that, I can’t remember one single time in which European nations have armed themselves and used their armies for a good cause. World War 1, World War 2, colonialism in Africa, South and Central America and Asia come to mind, as well as the bombing of Libya and Yugoslavia, collaboration in Afghanistan or Iraq… Surely, this one time is the right one?
I can’t remember one single time in which European nations have armed themselves and used their armies for a good cause
World War 2
Should European countries have just sat on their ass and let Hitler do whatever he wanted? They actually tried that, the Peace For Our Time declaration in 1938 made by England after Hitler took over large parts of Czechoslovakia. Then Hitler did what always happens when a dictator is appeased, they go for more…and invaded Poland with the Soviet Union’s help.
Quite a few European countries armed themselves and used their armies for a good cause in that war. Unless you don’t consider stopping Hitler and the Holocaust a good cause.
Bringing it back to modern day, this is Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine. Appeasing dictators does not work, again this is Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine. Dictators only understand force; force must be met with force; force is being met with force.
I’m gonna please ask you to actually read my comment and to be open to the historical evidence I bring (using Wikipedia as a source, hopefully not suspect of being tankie-biased), because I believe there is a great mistake in the way contemporary western nations interpret history of WW2 and the interwar period. Thank you for actually making the effort, I know it’s a long comment:
Should European countries have just sat on their ass and let Hitler do whatever he wanted?
They kinda did and that’s entirely my point: capitalist nations won’t do much to fight fascism. World War 2 wasn’t won by capitalist western-style democracies, it was communists, 80% of Nazi soldiers were defeated in the Eastern front!
They actually tried that, the Peace For Our Time declaration in 1938 made by England after Hitler took over large parts of Czechoslovakia
The only country who offered to start a collective offensive against the Nazis and to uphold the defense agreement with Czechoslovakia as an alternative to the Munich Betrayal was the USSR. From that Wikipedia article: “The Soviet Union announced its willingness to come to Czechoslovakia’s assistance, provided the Red Army would be able to cross Polish and Romanian territory; both countries refused.”
As a Spaniard leftist it’s so infuriating when the Soviet Union, the ONLY country in 1936 which actively fought fascism in Europe by sending weapons, tanks and aviation to my homeland in the other side of the continent in the Spanish civil war against fascism, is accused of appeasing the fascists. The Soviets weren’t dumb, they knew the danger and threat of Nazism and worked for the entire decade of the 1930s under the Litvinov Doctrine of Collective Security to enter mutual defense agreements with England, France and Poland, which all refused because they were convinced that the Nazis would honor their own stated purpose of invading the communists in the East. The Soviets went as far as to offer ONE MILLION troops to France (Archive link against paywall) together with tanks, artillery and aviation in 1939 in exchange for a mutual defense agreement, which the French didn’t agree to because of the stated reason. Please stop trying to rewrite history, the Soviets were BY FAR the most antifascist country in Europe.
The invasion of “Poland” is also severely misconstrued. The Soviets didn’t invade what we think of when we say Poland. They invaded overwhelmingly Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands that Poland had previously invaded in 1919. Poland in 1938, a year before the invasion:
“Polish” territories inavded by the USSR in 1939:
The Soviets invaded famously Polish cities such as Lviv (sixth most populous city in modern Ukraine), Pinsk (important city in western Belarus) and Vilnius (capital of freaking modern Lithuania). They only invaded a small chunk of what you’d consider Poland nowadays, and the rest of lands were actually liberated from Polish occupation and returned to the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian socialist republics. Hopefully you understand the importance of giving Ukrainians back their lands and sovereignty?
Additionally, the Soviets didn’t invade Poland together with the Nazis, they invaded a bit more than two weeks after the Nazi invasion, at a time when the Polish government had already exiled itself and there was no Polish administration. The meaning of this, is that all lands not occupied by Soviet troops, would have been occupied by Nazis. There was no alternative. The Soviet invasion effectively protected millions of Slavic peoples like Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians from the stated aim of Nazis of genociding the Slavic peoples all the way to the Urals.
All in all, my conclusion is: the Soviets were fully aware of the dangers of Nazism and fought against it earlier than anyone (Spanish civil war), spent the entire 30s pushing for an anti-Nazi mutual defence agreement which was refused by France, England and Poland, tried to honour the existing mutual defense agreement with Czechoslovakia which France rejected and Poland didn’t allow (Romania neither but they were fascists so that’s a given), and offered to send a million troops to France’s border with Germany to destroy Nazism but weren’t allowed to do so. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a tool of postponing the war in a period in which the USSR, a very young country with only 10 years of industrialization behind it since the first 5-year plan in 1929, was growing at a 10% GDP per year rate and needed every moment it could get. I can and do criticise decisions such as the invasion of Finland, but ultimately even the western leaders at the time seem to generally agree with my interpretation:
“In those days the Soviet Government had grave reason to fear that they would be left one-on-one to face the Nazi fury. Stalin took measures which no free democracy could regard otherwise than with distaste. Yet I never doubted myself that his cardinal aim had been to hold the German armies off from Russia for as long as might be” (Paraphrased from Churchill’s December 1944 remarks in the House of Commons.)
“It would be unwise to assume Stalin approves of Hitler’s aggression. Probably the Soviet Government has merely sought a delaying tactic, not wanting to be the next victim. They will have a rude awakening, but they think, at least for now, they can keep the wolf from the door” Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the United States, 1933–1945), from Harold L. Ickes’s diary entries, early September 1939. Ickes’s diaries are published as The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes.
"One must suppose that the Soviet Government, seeing no immediate prospect of real support from outside, decided to make its own arrangements for self‑defence, however unpalatable such an agreement might appear. We in this House cannot be astonished that a government acting solely on grounds of power politics should take that course” Neville Chamberlain House of Commons Statement, August 24, 1939 (one day after pact’s signing)
Again, thank you for reading so far. I’ll be glad to engage in constructive criticism.
For all the warmongers here who think it’s fine for the government to boost military spending and dump billions on “defense”.
Good luck.
Defense was renamed war.
This applies especially well to Europe. Everyone cheering at military expenditure, let’s see how happy we are when the tanks manufactured during the socdems are in the hands of the European nazis…
Unfortunately, Russia started and continues their war of conquest in Europe and the USA isn’t helping nearly as much as they used to. Europe is the only one who can pick up the slack. And they are.
Russia can barely win a war against the poorest country in Europe, it has no interest or capabilities of invading Western Europe in my opinion. Regardless of that, I can’t remember one single time in which European nations have armed themselves and used their armies for a good cause. World War 1, World War 2, colonialism in Africa, South and Central America and Asia come to mind, as well as the bombing of Libya and Yugoslavia, collaboration in Afghanistan or Iraq… Surely, this one time is the right one?
Should European countries have just sat on their ass and let Hitler do whatever he wanted? They actually tried that, the Peace For Our Time declaration in 1938 made by England after Hitler took over large parts of Czechoslovakia. Then Hitler did what always happens when a dictator is appeased, they go for more…and invaded Poland with the Soviet Union’s help.
Quite a few European countries armed themselves and used their armies for a good cause in that war. Unless you don’t consider stopping Hitler and the Holocaust a good cause.
Bringing it back to modern day, this is Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine. Appeasing dictators does not work, again this is Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine. Dictators only understand force; force must be met with force; force is being met with force.
I’m gonna please ask you to actually read my comment and to be open to the historical evidence I bring (using Wikipedia as a source, hopefully not suspect of being tankie-biased), because I believe there is a great mistake in the way contemporary western nations interpret history of WW2 and the interwar period. Thank you for actually making the effort, I know it’s a long comment:
They kinda did and that’s entirely my point: capitalist nations won’t do much to fight fascism. World War 2 wasn’t won by capitalist western-style democracies, it was communists, 80% of Nazi soldiers were defeated in the Eastern front!
The only country who offered to start a collective offensive against the Nazis and to uphold the defense agreement with Czechoslovakia as an alternative to the Munich Betrayal was the USSR. From that Wikipedia article: “The Soviet Union announced its willingness to come to Czechoslovakia’s assistance, provided the Red Army would be able to cross Polish and Romanian territory; both countries refused.”
As a Spaniard leftist it’s so infuriating when the Soviet Union, the ONLY country in 1936 which actively fought fascism in Europe by sending weapons, tanks and aviation to my homeland in the other side of the continent in the Spanish civil war against fascism, is accused of appeasing the fascists. The Soviets weren’t dumb, they knew the danger and threat of Nazism and worked for the entire decade of the 1930s under the Litvinov Doctrine of Collective Security to enter mutual defense agreements with England, France and Poland, which all refused because they were convinced that the Nazis would honor their own stated purpose of invading the communists in the East. The Soviets went as far as to offer ONE MILLION troops to France (Archive link against paywall) together with tanks, artillery and aviation in 1939 in exchange for a mutual defense agreement, which the French didn’t agree to because of the stated reason. Please stop trying to rewrite history, the Soviets were BY FAR the most antifascist country in Europe.
The invasion of “Poland” is also severely misconstrued. The Soviets didn’t invade what we think of when we say Poland. They invaded overwhelmingly Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands that Poland had previously invaded in 1919. Poland in 1938, a year before the invasion:
“Polish” territories inavded by the USSR in 1939:
The Soviets invaded famously Polish cities such as Lviv (sixth most populous city in modern Ukraine), Pinsk (important city in western Belarus) and Vilnius (capital of freaking modern Lithuania). They only invaded a small chunk of what you’d consider Poland nowadays, and the rest of lands were actually liberated from Polish occupation and returned to the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian socialist republics. Hopefully you understand the importance of giving Ukrainians back their lands and sovereignty?
Additionally, the Soviets didn’t invade Poland together with the Nazis, they invaded a bit more than two weeks after the Nazi invasion, at a time when the Polish government had already exiled itself and there was no Polish administration. The meaning of this, is that all lands not occupied by Soviet troops, would have been occupied by Nazis. There was no alternative. The Soviet invasion effectively protected millions of Slavic peoples like Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians from the stated aim of Nazis of genociding the Slavic peoples all the way to the Urals.
All in all, my conclusion is: the Soviets were fully aware of the dangers of Nazism and fought against it earlier than anyone (Spanish civil war), spent the entire 30s pushing for an anti-Nazi mutual defence agreement which was refused by France, England and Poland, tried to honour the existing mutual defense agreement with Czechoslovakia which France rejected and Poland didn’t allow (Romania neither but they were fascists so that’s a given), and offered to send a million troops to France’s border with Germany to destroy Nazism but weren’t allowed to do so. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a tool of postponing the war in a period in which the USSR, a very young country with only 10 years of industrialization behind it since the first 5-year plan in 1929, was growing at a 10% GDP per year rate and needed every moment it could get. I can and do criticise decisions such as the invasion of Finland, but ultimately even the western leaders at the time seem to generally agree with my interpretation:
“In those days the Soviet Government had grave reason to fear that they would be left one-on-one to face the Nazi fury. Stalin took measures which no free democracy could regard otherwise than with distaste. Yet I never doubted myself that his cardinal aim had been to hold the German armies off from Russia for as long as might be” (Paraphrased from Churchill’s December 1944 remarks in the House of Commons.)
“It would be unwise to assume Stalin approves of Hitler’s aggression. Probably the Soviet Government has merely sought a delaying tactic, not wanting to be the next victim. They will have a rude awakening, but they think, at least for now, they can keep the wolf from the door” Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the United States, 1933–1945), from Harold L. Ickes’s diary entries, early September 1939. Ickes’s diaries are published as The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes.
"One must suppose that the Soviet Government, seeing no immediate prospect of real support from outside, decided to make its own arrangements for self‑defence, however unpalatable such an agreement might appear. We in this House cannot be astonished that a government acting solely on grounds of power politics should take that course” Neville Chamberlain House of Commons Statement, August 24, 1939 (one day after pact’s signing)
Again, thank you for reading so far. I’ll be glad to engage in constructive criticism.