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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.
Have you had time to read my other comment? I would appreciate some discussion if you have anything to say, I spent quite a while writing that
Yeah, read it and gave it that updoot, but have been busy today. Will respond. :)
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.
Timeline:
23 Aug 1939 - Germany and Soviet Union sign a non-agression pact
1 Sept 1939 - Germany invades Poland
3 Sept 1939 - France and UK declare war on Germany (Soviets still have a non-aggression pact with Germany)
17 Sept 1939 - Soviet Union invades Poland (Soviets still have a non-aggression pact with Germany)
10 May 1940 - Germany invades France (Soviets still have a non-aggression pact with Germany)
22 Jun 1941 - Germany invades the Soviet Union and the non-agression pact between the Soviets and Germans is terminated
No, you don't get to say countries like England "won’t do much to fight fascism", despite being at war with Germany for years, while praising the Soviets, despite having a non-agressin pact with Germany for those same years
It's not surprising Poland didn't want Soviet troops in their country, the Soviets literally invaded them shortly later.
Again, England and France declared war on Germany in 1939, and for those two years England was at war with Germany, the Soviets had a non-agression pact. No, you don't get to be "by far" the most of something when others beat you out by two years.
Correct, they were annexed into the Soviet Union. Much liberation by the Soviets there! These countries weren't free until FIVE DECADES LATER when the Soviet Union fell.
Germany and the Soviet Union literally agreed to partition Poland between the two of them as part of their non-aggression pact signed before either invaded Poland. Don't downplay what the Soviets did here.
France and the UK declared war on Germany in 1939, the Soviet Union had a non-agression pact with Germany for TWO MORE YEARS. Come now, claiming the Soviets were fighting against Nazism before England just makes you look bad. These are easy to look up dates.
I know you are bringing up the Spanish Civil War here, but that was vastly overshadowed by their non-agression pact and mutual invasion of Poland with Germany.
The overarching point here is you seem to be doing quite a bit of apologizing for the bad shit the Soviet Union did. It's quite honest to say the Soviets fought against the Germans in WWII, but it's not honest to say they were doing it before anyone else or to downplay them working with the Germans by mutually invading Poland. Both are true, and and honest look at history includes both the good things and the bad things the Soviet Union did in WWII.
Ok, I've read through your comment and I'm a bit disappointed. You're ignoring most of what I said, and your entire point is "but Poland, but Poland and but Poland".
Your timeline conveniently starts in 1939 and ends in 1941, and you made no mention whatsoever of the Litvinov doctrine I brought up which explicitly was "seeking a collective security agreement with France and England against Nazis" for the entire 30s. You just reject the Spanish civil war as a nothingburger as if it weren't the first antifascist war in Europe. You also don't mention the Munich Agreements and somehow disregard the fact that France and Poland signed them with Hitler.
Maybe it's because Poland participated actively in the Munich agreements and got part of Czech land? By your own logic, Poland made an unforgivable deal with Hitler when invading Czechoslovakia. No blame there? History starts in 1939?
Poland never belonged to the Soviet Union after the war, so your point is moot regarding Poland. As for Belarus and Ukraine, they respectively voted 83% and 71% IN FAVOR OF REMAINING IN THE SOVIET UNION IN THE 1991 REFERENDUM. What the hell are you talking about being free? Belarusian and Ukrainian people OVERWHELMINGLY DEMOCRATICALLY DECIDED TO BELONG IN THE SOVIET UNION. Please, tell me, how were Ukraine and Belarus not free?! Catalonia, for reference, recently had an independence referendum in which 50% of the population voted to leave Spain and the promoter of the referendum is a political refugee in Brussels. Please tell me in which fucking way Ukraine or Belarus weren't free in the Soviet Union when they were two of the highest "yes" voters in the referendum.
You never addressed the public speeches by the leaders of France, USA and England admitting to what I'm saying. You never addressed the alternative to Eastern "Poland" (i.e. Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuanian territories) knowing that they would otherwise be invaded by Hitler, you never addressed the MILLION SOLDIERS that the Soviets offered and France rejected on exchange for a mutual defense agreement.
You simply ignored all of my comment, went on with the "but Motherboard-Ribbedcock" ignoring the history of the 10 previous years of consistent Soviet antifascist geopolitical position, and claim that the poor "Poles" (i.e. ethnic Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians and Lithuanians) whose territories were returned to the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian republics, were somehow oppressed Poles who somehow could have avoided Nazi genocide if it weren't for Soviet intervention both in 1939 and in 1941.
I honestly expected a bit more of good faith from the exchange instead of doubling down on narrowing history to a skewed version of one treaty and ignoring the DEMOCRATIC WILL OF TENS OF MILLIONS OF VOTERS in the 1991 referendum by calling them "non-free" in the Soviet Union. So much for freedom.
The core reason the joint German-Soviet Union invasion of Poland is relevant is it shows the Soviets working with the Nazis. You portray them as being the first and primary countries willing to fight the Nazis, yet they were literally partnering with the Nazis for years while others had declared war on them. It wasn't until Germany invaded the Soviet Union that the Soviets switched teams.
If that is a point we can't agree on, then there isn't much more going to happen here.
Edit: going to just post the timeline again:
23 Aug 1939 - Germany and Soviet Union sign a non-agression pact
1 Sept 1939 - Germany invades Poland
3 Sept 1939 - France and UK declare war on Germany (Soviets still have a non-aggression pact with Germany)
17 Sept 1939 - Soviet Union invades Poland (Soviets still have a non-aggression pact with Germany)
10 May 1940 - Germany invades France (Soviets still have a non-aggression pact with Germany)
22 Jun 1941 - Germany invades the Soviet Union and the non-agression pact between the Soviets and Germans is terminated
After the evidence I've shown you, calling it "invading Poland together with the Nazis" is honestly just lying. Ignoring that the territories returned were Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Belarusian for the overwhelming part is simply twisting history. It's not "innocent poles getting oppressed by soviets", it's Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians being saved from Nazi invasion by Soviets. Again, answer this one question: what was the alternative to Soviet occupation of Eastern "Poland". Please answer that.
You're dishonest by refusing to entertaining the idea that the Soviets, as stated by Churchill, Chamberlain and Roosevelt, were not "collabbing with the Nazis", but instead simply buying time to prepare for war. Evidence of the Soviet antifascist intervention on the opposite corner of the continent in the Spanish Civil War, the Litvinov doctrine, the collective security policy, pursued, the fact that the lands "invaded" weren't even Polish for the most part, the mutual defense agreement with Czechoslovakia that made them want to start a collective war against Nazis which France refused, or asking yourself what was the alternative to Soviet occupation of the territories of Eastern Poland, none of this is enough.
And it's not enough because you're dishonest with your approach, because your starting point is "USSR bad, how can I justify this", instead of "let's look at the facts and reach a conclusion". It doesn't matter to you that Ukrainians and Belarusians overwhelmingly wanted to remain in the Soviet Union, you'll still call them "unfree" because USSR bad. It doesn't matter that the USSR saved Europe from fascism at the horrible cost of 25mn deaths, USSR bad. It doesn't matter that literally every country in Europe had mutual nonaggression pacts with the Nazis at some point, history begins in 1939 and ends in 1941 because USSR bad. Munich Agreements don't matter, Polish invasion of Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania doesnt matter, France rejecting to honor the Munich agreements doesnt matter, Spanish civil war doesn't matter. Nothing matters, except for a 2-year interval in which the USSR was not at war with the Nazis.
What a serious historical analysis. Good job.