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War is meaning less.

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Orwell
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02 Jun 2010, 9:39 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Yes, for the reason why we wouldn't prefer that, Stalin was the lesser of two evils.

Is that really true? Stalin was the greatest mass murderer in all of human history, and he built a more durable regime which menaced the world until the 90s. A Nazi-dominated Europe would have been a horrific thing to see, but would it have been worse than the Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe that we saw, and the greater horrors that we risked?

Orwell wrote:
The Polish were also fighting Hitler before us, and so were the French. The Soviets didn't need rescuing like the other nations did.

Yeah, that's the thing, I don't think we ever had an opportunity to fight Hitler without Stalin- he was there before us, and unlike Poland and France he was actually doing well. The Soviets would quite possibly have won the war by themselves if we just sat around at home.

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As it is, if we fought against both Hitler and Stalin, those two might have reformed their previous alliance to conquer the rest before attacking each other again.

They never had an alliance. They had a temporary "non-aggression pact" which they both fully knew would be broken as soon as was convenient. Stalin would never have allied with Hitler—at the dawn of the Nazi regime, he approached the leaders of Western Europe seeking an alliance to defeat Hitler before he got out of hand. When they spurned his proposals, he agreed to the non-aggression pact in order to buy some time to build up the Soviet military.


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WAR IS PEACE
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IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH


iamnotaparakeet
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02 Jun 2010, 10:52 pm

Orwell wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Yes, for the reason why we wouldn't prefer that, Stalin was the lesser of two evils.

Is that really true? Stalin was the greatest mass murderer in all of human history, and he built a more durable regime which menaced the world until the 90s. A Nazi-dominated Europe would have been a horrific thing to see, but would it have been worse than the Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe that we saw, and the greater horrors that we risked?


Stalin didn't specifically try to eliminate the Jewish people as Hitler did. Stalin's mass murdering, as far as I know, was a bit more indiscriminate.

Orwell wrote:
Orwell wrote:
The Polish were also fighting Hitler before us, and so were the French. The Soviets didn't need rescuing like the other nations did.

Yeah, that's the thing, I don't think we ever had an opportunity to fight Hitler without Stalin- he was there before us, and unlike Poland and France he was actually doing well. The Soviets would quite possibly have won the war by themselves if we just sat around at home.


And, if we didn't act as the Soviet's allies, where would the rest of Europe have been given that Stalin were to have conquered Hitler's would-be Germans-wanting-to-be-Romans/Third Reich Empire all by himself?

Orwell wrote:
Quote:
As it is, if we fought against both Hitler and Stalin, those two might have reformed their previous alliance to conquer the rest before attacking each other again.

They never had an alliance. They had a temporary "non-aggression pact" which they both fully knew would be broken as soon as was convenient. Stalin would never have allied with Hitler—at the dawn of the Nazi regime, he approached the leaders of Western Europe seeking an alliance to defeat Hitler before he got out of hand. When they spurned his proposals, he agreed to the non-aggression pact in order to buy some time to build up the Soviet military.


Sorry, I was confused on that point. Just going based on memory of what I studied in history about 7 years ago.



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02 Jun 2010, 11:03 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Stalin didn't specifically try to eliminate the Jewish people as Hitler did. Stalin's mass murdering, as far as I know, was a bit more indiscriminate.

There were Pogroms (ethnic riots) targeted against the Jews in Stalinist Russia, although obviously these were not as systematic as the Holocaust. Stalin went after several minority ethnic groups. He also murdered most of the Kulaks. On balance, his violence was less racially motivated and more based on ideology and class warfare notions. With the help of Trofim Lysenko, Stalin jailed or killed any biologist who supported evolution or conducted genetics research, along with the many of the rest of the educated class.

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And, if we didn't act as the Soviet's allies, where would the rest of Europe have been given that Stalin were to have conquered Hitler's would-be Germans-wanting-to-be-Romans/Third Reich Empire all by himself?

Who knows? The Soviets would have been stretched quite thin to defeat the Nazi war machine on their own. There may have been another revolution brought on by the hardship of prolonged war across all Europe, and no one can know what would have come from that. I think that if Stalin had tried to conquer all Europe, his regime would likely have collapsed.


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iamnotaparakeet
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02 Jun 2010, 11:58 pm

Orwell wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Stalin didn't specifically try to eliminate the Jewish people as Hitler did. Stalin's mass murdering, as far as I know, was a bit more indiscriminate.

There were Pogroms (ethnic riots) targeted against the Jews in Stalinist Russia, although obviously these were not as systematic as the Holocaust. Stalin went after several minority ethnic groups. He also murdered most of the Kulaks. On balance, his violence was less racially motivated and more based on ideology and class warfare notions. With the help of Trofim Lysenko, Stalin jailed or killed any biologist who supported evolution or conducted genetics research, along with the many of the rest of the educated class.


Really? He went after the evolutionists? Even Alexander Oparin? Do you mean that they went after the evolutionists who utilized Mendelian genetics in favor of those who supported Lamarck's version of evolution or are you trying to make it sound as if Stalin were a creationist terrorist or some other hyped up quasi propaganda?

Orwell wrote:
Quote:
And, if we didn't act as the Soviet's allies, where would the rest of Europe have been given that Stalin were to have conquered Hitler's would-be Germans-wanting-to-be-Romans/Third Reich Empire all by himself?

Who knows? The Soviets would have been stretched quite thin to defeat the Nazi war machine on their own. There may have been another revolution brought on by the hardship of prolonged war across all Europe, and no one can know what would have come from that. I think that if Stalin had tried to conquer all Europe, his regime would likely have collapsed.


It would at least look something like this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABDm2JcnTPs[/youtube]



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03 Jun 2010, 12:15 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Really? He went after the evolutionists? Even Alexander Oparin? Do you mean that they went after the evolutionists who utilized Mendelian genetics in favor of those who supported Lamarck's version of evolution or are you trying to make it sound as if Stalin were a creationist terrorist or some other hyped up quasi propaganda?

Evolution (as well as Mendelian genetics) went against the official Marxist ideology, and was thus persecuted. Given that he was an atheist, Stalin clearly would not have been a creationist either, and I did not mean to imply anything of the sort. But Lysenko was not a Lamarckian, popular though that misconception may be.


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03 Jun 2010, 12:33 am

Towards the end of the war, Hitler was trying to secretly woo Stalin to switch sides. Of course, the plans fell through. But one of the conditions Hitler called for was for Stalin to continue the holocaust on Russian soil. Stalin personally had no problem with this.
Not long before Stalin died, he had accused a number of Jewish doctors of trying to assassinate him. Many historians believe this may have been the beginnings of plans for his own mass murder of Jews.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



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03 Jun 2010, 12:37 am

ruveyn wrote:
As to massacres of Japanese we treated them as well as they treated others. In addition to fighting dirty they were insanely stubborn.


"but they make such bloody good cameras."



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03 Jun 2010, 5:43 am

auntblabby wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
As to massacres of Japanese we treated them as well as they treated others. In addition to fighting dirty they were insanely stubborn.


"but they make such bloody good cameras."


That was after we burned them out. Prior to the Pacific War they made mostly junk.

ruveyn



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03 Jun 2010, 7:12 am

ruveyn wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
As to massacres of Japanese we treated them as well as they treated others. In addition to fighting dirty they were insanely stubborn.


"but they make such bloody good cameras."


That was after we burned them out. Prior to the Pacific War they made mostly junk.

ruveyn


Your comment demonstrates a total ignorance of superb Japanese craftsmanship and design and your snotty hubris does get rather irritating.



iamnotaparakeet
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03 Jun 2010, 10:38 am

Sand wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
As to massacres of Japanese we treated them as well as they treated others. In addition to fighting dirty they were insanely stubborn.


"but they make such bloody good cameras."


That was after we burned them out. Prior to the Pacific War they made mostly junk.

ruveyn


Your comment demonstrates a total ignorance of superb Japanese craftsmanship and design and your snotty hubris does get rather irritating.


Ok, prior to their assimilation of Western technology then, what did the Japanese make that was all that impressive? Or are you saying the craftsmanship and attention to detail alone is what is important even if it were lower level technology?



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03 Jun 2010, 1:29 pm

Image



ruveyn
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03 Jun 2010, 1:54 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Ok, prior to their assimilation of Western technology then, what did the Japanese make that was all that impressive? Or are you saying the craftsmanship and attention to detail alone is what is important even if it were lower level technology?


During the 1930s the Japanese made wonderful parasols, fans and exquisitely laquered wooden boxes. There are art work was rather good. There consumer industrial work was almost non-existent. The output of their heavy industry was mostly for war ships and other weapons. The center of technology in those days was in Europe, very much in Germany where quantum physics was a cottage industry.

After the Pacific War, Japanese industry was rebuilt along modern lines with Western capital and then the Japanese surprised the folks in the West, sometime unpleasantly. It turns out they could build cars, planes, cameras and most important, electronic stuff for thirty cents on the dollars. Suprise!

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03 Jun 2010, 2:23 pm

While I can't vouch for pre-Hiroshima I remember clearly reading in one of my school history textbooks that after that bombing they put all there technology/power behind tanks etc. so one day they'd be ready next time (so to speak) So while America is great with all the robot news coming out of Japan and surely secret military stuff a U.S./Japan battle would be tough!



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03 Jun 2010, 2:49 pm

zeldapsychology wrote:
While I can't vouch for pre-Hiroshima I remember clearly reading in one of my school history textbooks that after that bombing they put all there technology/power behind tanks etc. so one day they'd be ready next time (so to speak) So while America is great with all the robot news coming out of Japan and surely secret military stuff a U.S./Japan battle would be tough!


Post war japan was a complete makeover. It turns out the the Japanese become world class manufacturers and technologists. They are a bit behind in the original thinking department but they can take anything we make, miniaturize it and sell it for thirty cents on the dollar. They did not do that in the early part of the 20th century. Japan first entered the industrial phase in the latter third of the 19th century so it was 200 years behind Europe then. But they caught up so that in 1904 they creamed the Russian navy and by 1940 were on a par with the U.S. in aircraft development. Once the war started the Allies went into high gear scientifically and techologically. By the end of the Pacific War our machinery was much better than theirs. It was only after the Japanese economic was rebuilt, largely with American capital that the Japanese were able to show what they could do. Loosing the War was the best thing that ever happened to them.

ruveyn