Alternate History Could Operation Barbarossa had been succesful megathread
- Thread starter Buba
- Start date
Yet Cuba and North Korea keep on tormenting their populations ...
Becouse NK get help from China,and Cuba made deal with USA.Nobody would pay their bils in this TL,even Wall Street.
themarcksplan
Member
sillygoose
Well-known member
1941 and 1943 were quite different given that fighting was much more concentrated and less intense in 1943 than 1941. Krivosheev's figures are far too low for casualties due to the reporting breakdown; 1941 saw worse Soviet losses overall, but especially in terms of permanent losses to the military given MIA/PoWs. Not only that, but in 1941 the Germans were attacking, which is generally more costly than defending especially if the defenders has prepared defensive positions. Plus the rapid advance made it easier for the defending Soviets to counterattack, which they did heavily in 1941, as well as break out of pockets and overrun German units, which were strung out after massive advanced (leaky pockets). 1941 was much messier than 1943 in terms of how organized the lines were; there were few organized front lines in 1941, just a bunch of intermixed maneuvering units, which creates all sorts of problems and makes it easier for an defending to gain local advantages, especially given the number of operational mistakes field commanders made throughout the year. Even Manstein's corps very nearly suffered a disaster when approaching Leningrad in July. Contrast that with 1943 when the Soviets had crushing advantages, but were still badly smashed up by German counterattacks or their ability to counter Soviet mistakes with their counterattacks (see Prokharovka).
The Heer was certainly less effective relative to the Soviets in 1943. Technologically they closed the gap, but they had a more organized/coordinated partisan problem that disrupted supply lines, diversion of reserves of everything to Italy, less food (even Germany was getting into starvation level rations by now), much less air support (which was undeniably a huge problem given the importance of the Luftwaffe to the Heer's doctrine and how many resources it was consuming), strategic bombing was a big issue, and manpower quality had dropped off significantly, same with training cycles. What helped them was being on the defensive while the Soviets were still learning the ropes of how to launch successful offensives; they had to brute force it in 1943 with ham-handed attacks and were only able to pull it off with hideous losses and a deep reserve pool that had been exhausted by the end of the year.
Yep.
I used to think so, but I've become less certain that there wasn't an attack coming in July. Albert Weeks in "Stalin's Other War" makes a pretty interesting case that Suvorov might not have been wrong and that Glantz's book was actually quite flawed. It is still up for debate though given the lack of documents made public (I'm sure the archives have been sanitized or at least whatever documents there are are kept strictly secret).
Certainly Hitler made the decision to get ready for war in December 1940, even if the 'Barbarossa order' wasn't necessarily a guarantee of war; Soviet actions over the course of early 1941 ensured Hitler wouldn't change his mind though.
Agreed that letting the Soviets continue to build up their military would be insane; they had already doubled the size of their army in peacetime since late 1939 as of 1941, dismantled the Stalin Line while barely getting started on the Molotov Line, engaged in a massive modernization effort too, and were reorganizing as well as mobilizing 800k men secretly (though it was detected) that spring plus building up a bunch of airbases near the border that were clearly only offensive in nature. Clearly if not in 1941 a Soviet attack was coming in 1942.
Suvorov's Ice Breaker thesis about Stalin using Hitler to wear out the Allies so he could sweep in on the cheap and take Europe is basically undeniable. Really it is only Stalin or at least Communist fans who invent all sorts of twisted ideas of who Stalin would never attack and they've badly distorted the historiography of what happened in WW2.
100% agree. Stalin apologists. WW2 becomes a lot murkier if you don't twist the facts to make it look like the Soviets were only peace-loving fuzzy bunnies who dindu nuffin' to anyone. Because if they acknowledge Stalin was getting ready to attack at some point and Hitler just preempted him and in fact the invasion was at least partially about heading off a Soviet attack at some point then a some of what happened in the East is actually somewhat morally justified. Note I said SOME, not most, and certainly not the deliberate massacres of innocent civilians. The dirty nature of the way the Soviets fought the war from the very beginning make it somewhat explicable, but not morally justified or acceptable.
History shows that the sorts of wars Communists fight even turns relatively moral armies like the US's into rather brutal ones too:
Vietnam War Crimes Working Group - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
That's not counting the Phoenix Program or what we supported the South Vietnamese in doing. Or what was going on in Cambodia with US support or the rest of Southeast Asia.
And Korea:
After WW2,soviet NKWD generals was frightened how send 50% of population there to gulags after winning WW3,so 20% mortality is plausible.French do not lived there long.
Western european praise soviets now - they really need soviet boot to undarstandt reality.50 years of commie hell would help that.And,entire system lacked so long only becouse Wall Street supported it.
Not longer possible in this TL,they would fall even quicker.Or start war and lost it.
themarcksplan
Member
Yep,i am american and estonian spy,too.If your KGB friends get me,i would even agree to be martian one.
That aside - Anthony Sutton proved,that Wall Street financed soviets.Possible,when they look relatively harmless to USA.When they take Western Europe and send 50% of populations to gulags,that would change.
Without USA support,soviet economy would fall.That,or lost war.After all,in OTL they yeld after Reagan prevent supporting them for 5 years.
sillygoose
Well-known member
It is pretty well established that Trotsky was getting financing from US banks in NYC. He came back to Russia directly from NYC and despite being arrested by the Canadians they released him on orders from some major authority in London. US and British military intelligence has all sorts of files on the connections. You should read what Churchill himself published articles on about the Bolshevik revolution in 1920.
Though this author dismisses it as anti-semitism he cites a bunch of declassified reports about the Revolution in Russia from US intelligence services including some about the Wall Street-Bolshevik connection:
This guy was the major conduit of money until November 1917:
Jacob Schiff - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Now to be clear Schiff wanted the Czar gone for his anti-semitic actions against Russia's Jews, not to put the Bolsheviks int0 power. He cut them off when the November revolution happened, because he supported the provisional government and thought it would lead to a modern republic, not a dictatorship.
However other financiers had different opinions, seeing profit potential in the Revolution once it was internationally sanctioned:
Olof Aschberg - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Be very careful about Antony Sutton's work. Though he's not wrong about everything he leans too much into conspiracy theory and claims more than his sources support.
It is pretty well established that Trotsky was getting financing from US banks in NYC. He came back to Russia directly from NYC and despite being arrested by the Canadians they released him on orders from some major authority in London. US and British military intelligence has all sorts of files on the connections. You should read what Churchill himself published articles on about the Bolshevik revolution in 1920.
Though this author dismisses it as anti-semitism he cites a bunch of declassified reports about the Revolution in Russia from US intelligence services including some about the Wall Street-Bolshevik connection:
This guy was the major conduit of money until November 1917:
Jacob Schiff - Wikipedia
Now to be clear Schiff wanted the Czar gone for his anti-semitic actions against Russia's Jews, not to put the Bolsheviks int0 power. He cut them off when the November revolution happened, because he supported the provisional government and thought it would lead to a modern republic, not a dictatorship.
However other financiers had different opinions, seeing profit potential in the Revolution once it was internationally sanctioned:
Olof Aschberg - Wikipedia
Be very careful about Antony Sutton's work. Though he's not wrong about everything he leans too much into conspiracy theory and claims more than his sources support.
All true.I do not belive,like Sutton,that cabal from one american university rule USA/Skull&bones/ ,but he proved,that Wall Street helped soviets,even after WW2.
Not for free,of course.They take tsar gold,when it end gold stealed from churches,when it end money from grain taken from dying farmers.And buyed stolen russian art,too.
sillygoose
Well-known member
Yeah the Skull and Bones thing is way overblown. It is just a fraternity of a bunch of rich kids that go to the same school, not some secret plot to dominate the country or the world. Rich people just hang out with rich people and help their friends out.
In the sense of some bankers profiting off of the Soviets, that undoubtedly happened. The US was trading with the Soviets for quite a while but for the early period of the Cold War. IIRC Khruschev is when it restarted. In fact FDR and quite a few business people in the US in the 1930s wanted trade with the Soviets to help the economy, so they ended the embargo on them, as did most European states. Even the Nazis were willing to trade with them.
I really get the impression regarding the early financing of revolutionaries in Russia that it was really just about removing the Czar so more liberals could get into positions of power and modernize the country (and stop Pogroms) as well as being indebted to the US banks so those banks could get rich off of Russian industry and resources. Really no different from how the US operates today via the IMF and World Bank or through the petrodollar. Powerful capitalists are going to capitalist.
Just ask Smedley Butler:
War Is a Racket - Wikipedia
Yeah the Skull and Bones thing is way overblown. It is just a fraternity of a bunch of rich kids that go to the same school, not some secret plot to dominate the country or the world. Rich people just hang out with rich people and help their friends out.
In the sense of some bankers profiting off of the Soviets, that undoubtedly happened. The US was trading with the Soviets for quite a while but for the early period of the Cold War. IIRC Khruschev is when it restarted. In fact FDR and quite a few business people in the US in the 1930s wanted trade with the Soviets to help the economy, so they ended the embargo on them, as did most European states. Even the Nazis were willing to trade with them.
I really get the impression regarding the early financing of revolutionaries in Russia that it was really just about removing the Czar so more liberals could get into positions of power and modernize the country (and stop Pogroms) as well as being indebted to the US banks so those banks could get rich off of Russian industry and resources. Really no different from how the US operates today via the IMF and World Bank or through the petrodollar. Powerful capitalists are going to capitalist.
Just ask Smedley Butler:
War Is a Racket - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Just like british,who financed anti-royal plots in France after 1780,do not wonted jacobins or Napoleon.
Or germans,after using Lenin,wonted replace him with somebody less bloody - but,sadly,nobody in Russia agreed.They all wonted fight for England.
Althought,it would be logical if Wall Street supported Trocky to destroy russian economy - after Stołypin reforms it could become as strong,or stronger,then USA.Thanks to soviet they remained shithole unable to be USA competition.
Napoleon was Britain's punishment for not stopping France from annexing Corsica like some British politicians back then actually wanted to do:
Corsican Crisis - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Napoleon was Britain's punishment for not stopping France from annexing Corsica like some British politicians back then actually wanted to do:
Corsican Crisis - Wikipedia
Indeed.What an interesting TL - Napoleon fighting for british.French republic defeated and Bourbons restored,what else...maybe retake at least part of USA?
Entire North America under british rule would be better for world in long term.
themarcksplan
Member
There's a fundamental difference between short-term, opportunistic uses of Bolshevists in support of broader agendas (German victory over Russia, hurting the Czar, getting a particular business deal) and long-term propping up of the Communist regime by Wall Street in general (ATP's claim). The former is obvious, the latter has only been articulated as part of a Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy.
sillygoose
Well-known member
Agreed. The degree to which the Soviet regime was propped up by bankers was only insofar as they could profit off of it, much as they did with Hitler and the Japanese in the 1930s. Schiff in particular with Trotsky was doing nothing the Germans themselves didn't do with Lenin. In fact because Schiff was German born and still had some loyalty to the country it is entirely possible he was acting in conjunction with what Germany was doing by getting revolutionaries into Russia to destabilize it. Or did so because it was thought that removing the Czar would help keep Russia in the war by getting smarter people into government...which didn't end up working out so well.
Edit:
Just started this book and have been somewhat impressed by the nuanced take the author has:
The author is a Russian history professor and has published several Great History Courses, so doesn't seem like a conspiracy wacko, especially given his takes and corrections to Sutton's work on the subject as well as wider perspective by considering the entire Russian revolutionary period from 1900 to the final revolution.
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Wall Street after WW1 buy tsar gold from bolshewik,when it end they buy stolen church gold/they knew it was stolen/,later grain taken from soviet farmers,when millions as a result died.They also knew that.
Big soviet "tractor" manufacturies which made 20.000 tanks before WW2? all thanks to Wall Street.
Not conspiracy,facts.
If France already falls (except this time in 1939 rather than in 1940), wouldn't Romania still want to join the Axis rather than the Allies? And if the Soviets invade Romania, then it seems like Romania will be asking the Germans and Poles for assistance, no?
Poland have anti-soviet pact in 1939.Romania do not helped us when soviets attacked - but you could blame it on our leaders,who run instead of fighting.
But ordered first not fight soviets.Katyń and other soviet crimes are partially their fault.
Especially since Poland was also being invaded by Nazi Germany. As such standing by its defence pact with Poland would have meant war with both those powers.
I do remember reading some comments, a decade or so ago so all rather vague - that Romania was willing to offer some support to Poland when the German invaded but when the Soviets joined in as well they decided it wasn't practical.