the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact
Putting aside all the usual arguments that get dismissed: What were the complex and mitigating factors that required supplying the Nazi war machine with more raw materials (oil, iron, grain, cotton, rubber, et al.) after the invasion of Poland? At the same time that the famously duplicitous Americans were enacting German tariffs and shifting economic support entirely to the Allies?
The Soviets desparately needed finished goods that they either couldn’t produce, or couldn’t produce in necessary quantities, and the West would not trade them for them.
The US’s tariffs were notoriously symbolic. Ford, Coke, Dow Chemical, and many more continued business even into World War II. USian bombers were instructed to avoid USian factories in Nazi Germany.
Damn, if only there were suppliers of finished goods that also were strategically aligned on fighting the Nazis. But if you can’t blame the USSR for a half measure non-aggression pact with the Nazis then you surely can’t blame the Allies for withholding trade to a country not committed to the fight. After all, the Soviets got the supplies they wanted once they were actually in the war.
Nazi economic policy prevented profits from leaving Germany, and the fascist regimes were not subtle in their nationalization threats. Not much of a surprise that private enterprise will toe the line when faced with takeover vs nominal ownership. In terms of actual trade (ie: not Coke factories staying open to make Fanta), US exports to Germany dropped 97% from 1938-1939.
I’m by no means arguing for the Democratic™️ ideological purity of the Allies, but it’s pretty clear what the universal political thinking was in the lead up to WWII. Everyone (from Hindenburg up to the USSR) thought they could keep the Nazis at arms length and aimed at their rivals. A few fascist atrocities can be overlooked so long as they happen to the right people.
The USSR spent a decade trying to form an anti-Nazi alliance, the west wanted the Nazis and communists to kill each other. The west had multiple non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany, and turned down many offers of alliances with the Soviets against the Nazis.
US exports fell, they were of course at war, but the US continued business and was doing a ton of business in the lead-up to the war. Further, post-war, the US protected Nazis and even put them in charge of NATO to make use of their anti-communism, like Adolf Heusinger.
It’s pretty clear that the decade leading up to World War II, the Soviets begged and pleaded for an anti-Nazi alliance, but people like Churchill, Ford, etc. loved the Nazis so much that this was impossible until the Nazis did what the Soviets said they would.
Those survey data are highly misleading. Even if U.S. businesses never withheld or consciously distorted their economic reports, they still cloaked hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Third Reich assets. In many cases, U.S. businesses simply exported their wealth indirectly to the Third Reich by using other dictatorships of the bourgeoisie (e.g. the Spanish State) as intermediaries.
Yes, the West wanted the Nazis and communists to fight and the Soviets wanted the Nazis to fight the West. Both sides acted accordingly. Why is this hard to admit?
So? The other countries on the belligerent list are receiving more support by several orders of magnitude. Not to mention trade to the Allies and other European countries continuing to go up as the war went on, clearly the war wasn’t the deciding factor.
The numbers OBJECTIVELY show a decrease in German trade to a pitiful amount. In the lead up to the US’s entry, quite literally the lowest of any European country (let alone adjusted per-capita). German U-boats were sinking US trade vessels up until the end, strange way to treat your trade parter?
The numbers OBJECTIVELY show USSR-German trade in war materials increasing as the war starts, with no significant support to the Allies right up until they’re invaded. There’s not any arguing this.
Pointing to post-WWII is entirely irrelevant to this discussion. Either country could (and often does) gesture broadly at the Cold War to justify their actions.
Why is it so hard to admit that Saint Stalin and the USSR engaged in hard geopolitics? Somehow you’re trying to push the narrative of the Soviets being weak victims that begged and pleaded and were forced to concede to German demands. But you’ll also claim they’re the sole reason that the Allies won WWII. Which is it?
There’s a counterfactual history where the Soviets remain neutral and the Allies will still almost certainly win (though at a greater cost). The Axis simply didn’t have the manpower or resource access to keep up, hence their need to engage the USSR for oil. They certainly sped the war to it’s end, but that doesn’t change the fact that they could have made many different decisions if snuffing out fascism was their top priority.
The Soviets wanted to fight the Nazis with the west the entire time, hence the numerous proposals for allied anti-fascist coalitions. The Soviets weren’t on good terms with the West, but saw the Nazis as the far greater threat and acted rationally.
As comrade @[email protected] pointed out (that you cannot see) in this post, the US distorted economic reports and cloaked their continued ties to Nazi Germany throughout the war.
The Soviets were able to beat the Nazis, but at massive personal cost in human lives. They barely eaked out a win, because while they were massively industrializing, they were a poor, developing country against a country with a century-long industrial headstart. They needed to buy as much time as possible, as they were catching up, but the distance was still large. Those are the basic facts.
Ah the classic .ml responses: the USSR really wanted to do something but was forced to do the opposite because of those nasty capitalist states and also we’ll just reject all sources we don’t agree with. It’s as iconic as the inverse US claims but you never fail to see the irony.
If you don’t want to believe US reports, just look at Germans attacking US ships well before their entry into the war. It’s not some secret conspiracy that the Allies were benefitting more from the US’s position than the Axis by orders of magnitude.
They saw the Nazis as such a great threat that they needed to give them the materials to fuel Panzers and make the ammunition that killed Allied soldiers? What? If they truly wanted the Nazis gone first and foremost they would not have done that. It doesn’t hold up to any logic.
The US did more trade with the allies, never said they didn’t, but that they continued to profit off the Nazis throughout the war.
Secondly, the Soviet Union was severely underdeveloped. It was rapidly industrializing, but needed finished goods that they couldn’t produce and the Allies would not trade them for. The goods they got from the Nazis as a trade contributed towards the defeat of the Nazis.
I have not researched the Fascists’ aggression on U.S. merchant vessels prior to December 1941, but the Fascists did, for byspel, intercept neutral vessels such as the Kingdom of Sweden’s Gurtrud Bratt on Sept. 24, 1939 because they were heading for Allied régimes like the United Kingdom, and we know fora fact thatSwedish capitalists were generally on good terms with the Fascists anyway.
Apart from .world blocking Lemmygrad content, the other reason that I am not bothering to engage directly with this anticommunist is that I know that they’ll defend Finland the nanosecond that anybody brings it up, proving that all their hype over the Molotov Cocktease Pact is based on false pretenses. (Sometimes, merely mentioning the word ‘Finland’ is enough to make generic anticommunists immediately drop their make-believe antifascism.) Try telling anticommunists that the Fascists knew from experience that Soviet demands were ‘much harder to meet than Finnish demands’, and watch how little they’ll care.
they continued to profit off the Nazis throughout the war
As did the Soviets, what are we even talking about here?? You just respond to each criticism with “they needed to do it and what about the US”, ignoring the multitude of other actions they could have taken if their priorities matched your claims.
Allies would not trade them
Which they did once they had Soviet support. They almost certainly would have received the same support if they joined them in 1939.
It was official USSR foreign policy that the communist revolution should spread to workers of the world in all countries. Regardless of the detriments or merits of that, you can’t ignore it when examining their foreign relations. Of course they got a different treatment…
The goods they got from the Nazis as a trade contributed towards the defeat of the Nazis.
They absolutely did not! One of the main factors that broke down the USSR-German relationship was a refusal to reciprocate military technology and materials.
Not just after the invasion of Poland, right up until the invasion of the Soviet Union.
On the Russian side, General Thomas, Chief of the German War Industry Department, recorded that “the Russians carried out their deliveries as planned, right up to the start of the attack. Even during the last few days, transports of India rubber from the Far East were completed by express transit trains.”30
This was not because the Russians did not expect to be attacked. As early as September 18, 1940, the Germans learned about anti-German propaganda in the Red Army, and interpreted it as a response to fear of attack by Germany.31 The Kremlin fulfilled its economic commitments to the end because it was determined to give Hitler no cause to attack. Until late in the day, also, the industrial and war materials received from Germany were a very important supplement to Russia’s armament efforts. The raw materials which Germany received were mostly perishable, while the arms and machines received by Russia remained when war came.
The Cold War & Its Origins, 1917-1960, Vol. I, Denna F. Flemming, 1961, Chapter 6.
Putting aside all the usual arguments that get dismissed: What were the complex and mitigating factors that required supplying the Nazi war machine with more raw materials (oil, iron, grain, cotton, rubber, et al.) after the invasion of Poland? At the same time that the famously duplicitous Americans were enacting German tariffs and shifting economic support entirely to the Allies?
The Soviets desparately needed finished goods that they either couldn’t produce, or couldn’t produce in necessary quantities, and the West would not trade them for them.
The US’s tariffs were notoriously symbolic. Ford, Coke, Dow Chemical, and many more continued business even into World War II. USian bombers were instructed to avoid USian factories in Nazi Germany.
I’m by no means arguing for the Democratic™️ ideological purity of the Allies, but it’s pretty clear what the universal political thinking was in the lead up to WWII. Everyone (from Hindenburg up to the USSR) thought they could keep the Nazis at arms length and aimed at their rivals. A few fascist atrocities can be overlooked so long as they happen to the right people.
The USSR spent a decade trying to form an anti-Nazi alliance, the west wanted the Nazis and communists to kill each other. The west had multiple non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany, and turned down many offers of alliances with the Soviets against the Nazis.
US exports fell, they were of course at war, but the US continued business and was doing a ton of business in the lead-up to the war. Further, post-war, the US protected Nazis and even put them in charge of NATO to make use of their anti-communism, like Adolf Heusinger.
It’s pretty clear that the decade leading up to World War II, the Soviets begged and pleaded for an anti-Nazi alliance, but people like Churchill, Ford, etc. loved the Nazis so much that this was impossible until the Nazis did what the Soviets said they would.
Those survey data are highly misleading. Even if U.S. businesses never withheld or consciously distorted their economic reports, they still cloaked hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Third Reich assets. In many cases, U.S. businesses simply exported their wealth indirectly to the Third Reich by using other dictatorships of the bourgeoisie (e.g. the Spanish State) as intermediaries.
Thanks for the information, comrade!
The numbers OBJECTIVELY show a decrease in German trade to a pitiful amount. In the lead up to the US’s entry, quite literally the lowest of any European country (let alone adjusted per-capita). German U-boats were sinking US trade vessels up until the end, strange way to treat your trade parter?
The numbers OBJECTIVELY show USSR-German trade in war materials increasing as the war starts, with no significant support to the Allies right up until they’re invaded. There’s not any arguing this.
Pointing to post-WWII is entirely irrelevant to this discussion. Either country could (and often does) gesture broadly at the Cold War to justify their actions.
Why is it so hard to admit that Saint Stalin and the USSR engaged in hard geopolitics? Somehow you’re trying to push the narrative of the Soviets being weak victims that begged and pleaded and were forced to concede to German demands. But you’ll also claim they’re the sole reason that the Allies won WWII. Which is it?
There’s a counterfactual history where the Soviets remain neutral and the Allies will still almost certainly win (though at a greater cost). The Axis simply didn’t have the manpower or resource access to keep up, hence their need to engage the USSR for oil. They certainly sped the war to it’s end, but that doesn’t change the fact that they could have made many different decisions if snuffing out fascism was their top priority.
The Soviets wanted to fight the Nazis with the west the entire time, hence the numerous proposals for allied anti-fascist coalitions. The Soviets weren’t on good terms with the West, but saw the Nazis as the far greater threat and acted rationally.
As comrade @[email protected] pointed out (that you cannot see) in this post, the US distorted economic reports and cloaked their continued ties to Nazi Germany throughout the war.
The Soviets were able to beat the Nazis, but at massive personal cost in human lives. They barely eaked out a win, because while they were massively industrializing, they were a poor, developing country against a country with a century-long industrial headstart. They needed to buy as much time as possible, as they were catching up, but the distance was still large. Those are the basic facts.
Ah the classic .ml responses: the USSR really wanted to do something but was forced to do the opposite because of those nasty capitalist states and also we’ll just reject all sources we don’t agree with. It’s as iconic as the inverse US claims but you never fail to see the irony.
If you don’t want to believe US reports, just look at Germans attacking US ships well before their entry into the war. It’s not some secret conspiracy that the Allies were benefitting more from the US’s position than the Axis by orders of magnitude.
They saw the Nazis as such a great threat that they needed to give them the materials to fuel Panzers and make the ammunition that killed Allied soldiers? What? If they truly wanted the Nazis gone first and foremost they would not have done that. It doesn’t hold up to any logic.
The US did more trade with the allies, never said they didn’t, but that they continued to profit off the Nazis throughout the war.
Secondly, the Soviet Union was severely underdeveloped. It was rapidly industrializing, but needed finished goods that they couldn’t produce and the Allies would not trade them for. The goods they got from the Nazis as a trade contributed towards the defeat of the Nazis.
I have not researched the Fascists’ aggression on U.S. merchant vessels prior to December 1941, but the Fascists did, for byspel, intercept neutral vessels such as the Kingdom of Sweden’s Gurtrud Bratt on Sept. 24, 1939 because they were heading for Allied régimes like the United Kingdom, and we know for a fact that Swedish capitalists were generally on good terms with the Fascists anyway.
Apart from .world blocking Lemmygrad content, the other reason that I am not bothering to engage directly with this anticommunist is that I know that they’ll defend Finland the nanosecond that anybody brings it up, proving that all their hype over the Molotov Cocktease Pact is based on false pretenses. (Sometimes, merely mentioning the word ‘Finland’ is enough to make generic anticommunists immediately drop their make-believe antifascism.) Try telling anticommunists that the Fascists knew from experience that Soviet demands were ‘much harder to meet than Finnish demands’, and watch how little they’ll care.
Corporate America could have been an Axis power with the sheer amount of stuff that it was marketing to the Third Reich throughout its existence. Personally, I think that that was far more consequential than the German–Soviet transactions of 1939–1941, and that anticommunists can blow that off as ‘no biggie’ is another reason that I cannot take their obsession over the German–Soviet Pact seriously.
As did the Soviets, what are we even talking about here?? You just respond to each criticism with “they needed to do it and what about the US”, ignoring the multitude of other actions they could have taken if their priorities matched your claims.
Which they did once they had Soviet support. They almost certainly would have received the same support if they joined them in 1939.
It was official USSR foreign policy that the communist revolution should spread to workers of the world in all countries. Regardless of the detriments or merits of that, you can’t ignore it when examining their foreign relations. Of course they got a different treatment…
They absolutely did not! One of the main factors that broke down the USSR-German relationship was a refusal to reciprocate military technology and materials.
Not just after the invasion of Poland, right up until the invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Cold War & Its Origins, 1917-1960, Vol. I, Denna F. Flemming, 1961, Chapter 6.