Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Idiots? (Bush Blames Winston Churchill Edition)

George W. Bush blames Winston Churchill (and Franklin Roosevelt) for not starting World War III in central Europe in July 1945:

Bush: U.S. Had Hand in European Divisions - Yahoo! News: 'We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability,' the president said. 'We have learned our lesson; no one's liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others.' Bush singled out the 1945 Yalta agreement signed by Roosevelt in a speech opening a four-day trip focused on Monday's celebration in Moscow of the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat.... 'Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable,' the president said. 'Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable.'... 'Secret deals to determine somebody else's fate %u2014 I think that's what we're lamenting here today, one of those secret deals among large powers that consigns people to a way of government,' Bush said...

Bush has the excuse of not understanding what the alternative to Yalta that he is wishing really would have been like. Condi Rice has no such excuse.

Comments

[Matt]

I really didn't understand this when I read it. What was he trying to get at? It's not as if we were in a good position to demand much from the Red Army- there is no way we could have beaten it short of using many nuclear bombs even if we had the will to try, and it's not clear that we would have, or that that really would have been better. So, what does Bush think the alternative was? I wondered if this was somehow supposed to make the Russians feel better, saying "hey- it was a bad thing to do, but we did it too." Somehow I don't think it will help there. My only guess is that it's a mixture of Bush being completely ignorant as to the reality of the situation and part of the plan to hurt Roosevelt's reputation. After all, as Janice Brown has shown us, he was the leader of "our socialist revolution", so no wonder he'd sell out Eastern Europe. Otherwise it's just nutty. Can anyone come up w/ a rational explination?

[teece]

What really bugs me about this type of talk by Bush is that it is so banal. You'll hear it from every 22 year old in a bar, talking about the horrors of despotism or what not: "Yeah, we should just take 'em all out! There shouldn't be any people that aren't free on our watch!"

Its trite crap. Yet Bush's followers will nod and talk sagely about his deep commitment to freedom. Never mind the fact that we aren't omnipotent, and those that we *kill* in the process of freeing people—even if you make the ludicrous assumption that we have perfect judgment in how and whom to free—are still dead.

And if it comes to doing non warlike things to help further freedom, well, then it's time to say "screw that!" Because that's just not manly.

[Max]

Of course that's all boilerplate, since Bush doesn't have and has never had any intention of spreading democracy anywhere.

But it's still infuriating because Bush seems to be delighted by his own ignorance of history: Yalta worked. In a mere half a century, all of those nations are free from Soviet rule, without requiring a global war. The alternative would have at a minimum moved Eastern Europe from "devastated" to "exterminated," retarded global economic and diplomatic progress several decades, and increase the proliferation of proxy wars. The worst case scenario is too frightening to contemplate, even in retrospect.

Yalta was, however, just a bunch of diplomacy and words and stuff, so it obviously Bush would think poorly of it. Real men start wars; they don't prevent them.

[Doug]

Whom among us dare question King George's comments and motives?

[jerry]

I think he saw this as a twofer: 1) buttress the claim that we did Iraq for democracy (prepare us for Iran) and 2) take FDR down -- better to pervert Social Security, don't ya know.

Professor DeLong, I think your headline is all wrong -- this isn't a "better press" headline, this is a "stop using orwell as a manual" headline.

[P O'Neill]

There's a nice symmetry between Bush's disengenuous praise of FDR for building the Social Security program and his disengenuous criticism of FDR for Yalta.

And as for teece's apt comment:

>>You'll hear it from every 22 year old in a bar, talking about the horrors of despotism or what not: "Yeah, we should just take 'em all out! There shouldn't be any people that aren't free on our watch!"<<

the only problem is that this hypothetical 22 year bar-room loudmouth has now multiplied and has an outlet at the National Review.

[Chuck Feney]

It might have been a good idea to go to war with the Soviets right after WW2. Maybe Bush Sr. would have bought the farm as a result and we would never have had to deal with his offspring.

[brad setser]

I would be rather shocked if we don't have a few secret deals with Musharaf right now. He is not Stalin, but not Jefferson either. But right now, we need Pakistan, and have not really objected to continued military rule there.

The intellectual origins of Bush's speech, i would bet, are rooted in the neoconservative critique of containment rather than rollback, just as many arguments around doing "arms control deals" with iran/ NK parallel the debate about doing arms control deals with the Soviet union. containment meant letting the soviet union have what it had, and betting that it would eventually collapse on its own. that was a good bet, it turns out -- but it created some opposition at the time from those who wanted a more aggressive policy/ those who were not willing to do deals with the soviets if they meant legitimizing them as negotiating partners, etc.

Putin gives a speech extolling the Soviet empire; Bush gives one criticizing Roosevelt for letting the Soviets have an empire ... should make for an interesting meeting

[DEEPGHETTO]

This just shows how little W really knows of history and what little logic the wingnuts and their toadies in the press corp display.If I remember from my history books and from my WWII vet uncles,the US,Brits,and Aussies had a little island hopping to do.It would be damn near impossible to continue a two front war(against the Soviets and Japan).W says please check common sense at cloakroom.

[A. Zarkov]

The Yalta agreement included provisions concerning the repatriation of POWs to their respective homelands. All well and good except the Russian POWs didn’t want to return to the Soviet Union because they knew what would happen to them—almost certain death because Stalin regarded Russian POWs as traitors. During the war those foolish Russian POWs who had managed to escape their German captors and returned home were immediately sent to the GULAG. In Stalin’s way of thinking only spies and saboteurs would return home. Nevertheless FDR wanted to please Stalin and agreed to a secret provision where Russians were handed over to Stalin against their will—“Operation Keelhaul.” Did the US and Britain have to comply with the extermination of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people to prevent World War III? And BTW Operation Keelhaul also resulted in the deaths of many non-combatants. So don’t tell me Yalta was not at least in part a sell out to Stalin.

[No. The repatriation of Russian POWS was a horrible mistake, and a crime. We did not do it again in Korea.]

[Dan Morgan]

Everyone knows that Yalta went badly. A worn-out and sick FDR was not up to the task of getting a better outcome. The choice was not simply giving away Eastern Europe or else starting WWIII. We may have not have been able to save all of Eastern Europe but we could have done much better in many ways.

[How, exactly? We do need a better class of trolling on this site...]

[William]

"So, what does Bush think ...?"
Bush doesn't think, that's the problem. (It's sad to say this about a guy who apparently majored in history at Yale, and you'd think he'd be a little self-conscious about being a legacy admittee, but I can still see him talking against affirmative action as "the bigotry of low expectations".)

He gets his history worldview from obsequious courtiers who recast it with a simple narrative - Bush as the latest in a long line of tough leaders with moral values: Lincoln, Reagan, Bush (yes, dear reader, he really believes he is in the same class) walking in the path of Christ, standing up for moral values, and pursuing freedom, peace and prosperty.

That George doesn't think? Witness his uncurious intellect (whole life he's had no desire to read, travel, meet other people different to himself) and aggressive ignorance, like confusing Switzerland and Sweden (they're both Germanic and cold I suppose, but that response is the bigotry of low expectations in action) and telling Pat Robertson there would be no casualties in Iraq. Pat Robertson said "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life. … You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces. … I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world..”

The President's delusions about the world simply could not survive in a mental landscape not fertilized with his appalling ignorance.

Let's not waste our time looking for any deeper meaning from the President's words, as teece said, you can find the same level of intellectual analysis from a 22 year old in a bar.

[Jon H]

Dan Morgan writes: "So what would leftists have Bush say on an occasion like this, "Well the deal you got wasn't so bad, now that I think about it. Hell, what did you expect us to do, start WWIII?" Try out that line on someone from Eastern Europe some time."

You talk as if Bush had never held hands with Prince Saud, a known tyrant and funder of Wahhabi hate, or been friendly with the tyrant who rules Uzbekistan and boils his subjects alive.

[Matt]

Zarkov,

The treatment of the former Soviet POW's is one of the most shameful moments in Russian history. To the extent we helped, it's shameful for the US, too. But of course that's not what Bush was talking about. What he was talking about was the occupation of Eastern and Central Europe by the Red Army, and there wasn't anything that could have been done about that. There was no way we could have fought it, even if we wanted to, and to do so would not have been to anyone's advantage, I'd think. It was much bigger than the US and British forces put together, more determined, and more willing to fight. The US had nothing that could stand up to the T-34 and wouldn't for at least 15 years. So, on the points Bush was actually talking about, he was blowing smoke at best, as it usual.

[radek]

Sorry Brad, but I think you're after a strawman here. So far as I can tell from reading what Bush said nowhere is there any talk of WWIII. He just says that Yalta was a sell out of less-important-nations.

[How, exactly? What (besides the crime of returning Russian POWS to Stalin) did Yalta do to make the situation worse?]

Same thing has been noted by many a historian. Put the speech in the context of the whole Putin celebration, coupled by remarks by the Russian foreign misnister, Sergei Ivanov, that "we won't appologize for Ribbentrob-Molotov" and that "the opinion that the Soviet Union ever 'occupied' the Baltic countries is absurd", not to mention Putin's "collapse of Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century" and it doesn't seem like anything outragous.

It's a perfectly legitimate argument that American and British dimplocay with regard to Stalin in the last years of WWII was, to be charitable, naive on the part of the Americans (Roosvelt sincerely believing Stalin's promise of free elections) and ineffectual on the part of the British (Churchill knowing full well that the days of the British hegemony were over. And, perhaps more importantly knowing that Stalin knew too.)

It's also true that the over riding goal - the defeat of Nazi Germany - and the military position of the time meant that Stalin had most of the bargaining power. The English speaking allies could not have threatened WWIII but they could have at least tried to put pressure on Stalin. As it was, Churchill was cynical and Roosvelt, well, he had the excuse - a good excuse I guess - that he was sick. So whatever Yalta was for the British and Americans, IT WAS a sell out for the less-important-nations. So where exactly is the problem with what Bush - whatever one might think of him otherwise - said?
(and whatever one might think of Roosvelt otherwise as well, I might add)

[radek]

"Yalta worked. In a mere half a century, all of those nations are free from Soviet rule"

I really don't know how to explain it to you in a polite way, but you're an idiot. You oughta get slapped four times, once for every letter in the word 'mere'. It sounds as if you meant "after a mere half a century under a somewhat incompetent, occasionally bumbling, we-could-do-somewhat-better-than-this, but occasionally affable, rule..."

Before you accuse others of ignorance of history you might learn a bit yourself.

[radek]

"I would tell any Eastern European that it was never the purpose of the US to save every inch of the planet just as it is not the job of the US to risk a small nuclear skirmish to save Taiwan from an attack."

Sure, sure, the only thing I ask is that you wear that Pat Buchannon for President button prominently displayed on your lapel.

If Americans go and talk about democracy and all that crap, then someone somewhere might just take them on their word.

Cheers to the ones who mean it, whatever their particular political persuasion.

[teece]

>Cheers to the ones who mean it, whatever their particular political
>persuasion.

Well there's the rub, radek. Bush doesn't mean it. Neither would FDR or Churchhill have meant it in '45. I read a rather convincing article recently that the main reason for the fire bombing of Dresden et al. and the nuclear bombing of Japan was simply to show Stalin that the West was not powerless.

The small countries weren't "sold out" they were simply lost. There was absolutely nothing that could have been done by the British or the Americans to liberate them from the Soviets at the end of World War II. The Anglo-Americans could have fought the Soviets, but the cost in lives would have been sickening, and the outcome would have been very uncertain.

I am not an isolationist, I am a cynical idealist. In my fantasy world, I *would* free all oppressed people from their oppressors. I am just smart enough to know that that is a fantasy world. The reality of the situation at the end of WWII was stark: abandon Eastern Europe to life under Stalin, a grim but not completely known fate, or try some completely ill-advised military campaign that would have resulted in the deaths of millions, and quite possibly a loss anyway.

In short, Bush is full of shit. He's trying to stroke some European ego and tie his new-found democracy love (after Saddam didn't have WMD) to a rare part of the world where he hopes he can use it to curry favor, by talking the tough guy idealist talk he'll never have to back up.

[MTC]

Radek -

Your anger is understandable...but we all need forgive our ancestors for the choices that they made. War makes cowards of us all. Just as George Bush--when the call came for him to fight Stalinism with a gun and not his mouth, he found flying circles above Texas more appealing. Or Richard Cheney, who found he had other priorities (really, other than fighting and defeating Soviet Communism?). Or Tom DeLay...or...

America is currently led by a junta of incompetent liars. Their every utterance is an abomination--even the ones that sound noble...Especially the ones that sound noble!

[DEEPGHETTO]

To all who think that FDR and Churchill had some kind of leverage at Yalta I ask what were the alternatives realistically...Radek what would you have done?

[Roosevelt was hoping for a kind of "Finlandization" of Poland--although how that was to be accomplished is obscure to me. I don't even understand how Finland was Finlandized...]

[Bob H]

Recall that we were still facing an invasion of Japan that was looking costly and might well have failed. The European war could not have been continued.

[Bob B]

Some of us get the impression that the real intent behind the timing of the smearing of our legacy from Roosevelt and Churchill in WW2 is this:

"WASHINGTON - US government mismanagement of assets in Iraq, from the lack of proper documentation on nearly $100 million in cash to millions of dollars worth of unaccounted-for equipment, are setting back efforts to fight corruption in the fledgeling democracy, auditors and critics say. . . "
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050505/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_money

[joe]

ww2: germany suffers 85% of it's casualties at hands of ussr. ve day: 7000000 ussr soldiers and 60000 t34's (best ww2 tank) in germany plus several other armies throughout eastern europe. yalta: nuclear bomb uncertain at the time. patton option would have been worst stategic blunder in history exceeding biggest blunder to date: hitler invading ussr, only redeemed by use of scores of nuclear bombs. churchill & fdr at yalta were insignificant partners relying on any goodwill the ussr cared to proffer.

[Max]

"I really don't know how to explain it to you in a polite way, but you're an idiot. You oughta get slapped four times, once for every letter in the word 'mere'. It sounds as if you meant "after a mere half a century under a somewhat incompetent, occasionally bumbling, we-could-do-somewhat-better-than-this, but occasionally affable, rule...""

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Maybe in your dream world, and in George Bush's dream world, a heroic war where only evil people died freed all of eastern europe after WWII and turned it Greenwich, CT in a couple years. In the real world, destroying an empire's grip on all of its protectorates without a series of massive wars in a "mere" 50 years is a fantastic achievement unparalleled in human history.

Could all of the Cold War been done better? Absolutely. But to believe that one act of pseudo-courage on the part of a single politician would have bequeathed to planet Earth a pacific utopia is, well, "ignorant." Non-ignorance of history requires viewing possibilities realistically.

[Modavis]

The US (and post-Dunkerque UK) had the strategic luxury of choosing when to take on the German army full-tilt, as distinct from odd bits in N. Africa and Italy. They chose June 1944 -- by which time the Red Army, which had never had that choice, was halfway across prewar Poland and Romania. That has nothing to do with virtue or merit; it's geography and history.

So the right question to ask of the "betrayal at Yalta" crowd is: "How many extra casualties would you have been willing to take to stage Overlord in 1942 or 1943... fight a Wehrmacht in its prime instead of one already gutted on the Eastern Front... and meet the USSR's forces farther east?"

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/07/opinion/07grass.html?pagewanted=all

The Gravest Generation
By GÜNTER GRASS

Lübeck, Germany

TOMORROW, it will be 60 years to the day since the German Reich's unconditional surrender. That is equivalent to a working life with a pension to look forward to. It goes so far back that memory, that wide-meshed sieve, is in danger of forgetting it.

Sixty years ago, after being wounded in the chaotic retreat in Lausitz, I lay in a hospital with a flesh wound in my right thigh and a bean-sized shell splinter in my right shoulder. The hospital was in Marienbad, a military hospital town that had been occupied by American soldiers a few days earlier, at the same time as Soviet forces were occupying the neighboring town of Karlsbad. In Marienbad, on May 8, I was a naïve 17-year-old who had believed in the ultimate victory right to the end. Those who had survived the mass murder in the German concentration camps could regard themselves as liberated, although they were in no physical condition to enjoy their freedom. But for me it was not the hour of liberation; rather, I was beset by the empty feeling of humiliation following total defeat.

When May 8 comes round again and is celebrated in complacent official speeches as liberation day, this can only be in hindsight, especially as we Germans did little if anything for our liberation. In the initial postwar years our lives were determined by hunger and cold, the misery of refugees, the displaced and bombed-out. In all four zones occupied by the wartime allies - Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States - the only way to manage the ever increasing crush of the more than 12 million Germans who had fled from, or been driven out of, East and West Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia and the Sudetenland, was to force them into our own cramped living rooms.

Whenever the question is posed, "What can we Germans be proud of?", the first thing we should mention is this essential achievement - even though it was forced on us. We had hardly become used to freedom when compulsion had to be applied. As a result, in both German states, huge long-term camps for refugees and displaced persons were avoided. The risk of building up feelings of hate was thereby diverted, as was the desire for revenge engendered by years of camp life, which, as today's world shows, can result in terrorism and counterterrorism.

Even then there were spokesmen for the rhetoric of liberation. So many self-appointed anti-fascists suddenly set the tone, so much so that one was entitled to ask: how had Hitler been able to make headway against such strong resistance? Dirty linen was quickly washed clean, with people being absolved of all responsibility. Counterfeiters were busy coining new expressions and putting them into circulation. "Unconditional surrender" was changed to "collapse." Although in business, law and in the rapidly re-emerging schools and universities, even the diplomatic service, many former National Socialists maintained their hereditary wealth, stayed in office, continued to hold onto their university chairs and eventually continued their careers in politics, it was claimed that we were starting from "zero hour" or square one.

A particularly infamous distortion of facts can be seen even today in speeches and publications, with the crimes perpetrated by Germans described as "misdeeds perpetrated in the name of the German people." In addition, language was used in two different ways to herald the future division of the country. In the Soviet-occupied zone, the Red Army had liberated Germany from the fascist terror all by itself; in the Western occupied zones, the honor of having freed not only Germany but the whole of Europe from Nazi domination was shared exclusively by the Americans, the British and the French....

[liberal]

What Modavis said.

[liberal]

IIRC:
* The Americans were more in favor of an earlier date for the western Allied invasion of Europe than Churchill was.
* George Kennan wanted to push back against the Soviets before the war was over by limiting supplies to the Soviets unless they agreed to diminished influence over Eastern Europe. The fact that the Nazis would have shovelled that many more Jews, Gypsies, and others into the ovens didn't seem to have troubled him.

[Chuck Feney]

"Recall that we were still facing an invasion of Japan that was looking costly and might well have failed."

Recall too that the US badly wanted a commitment from Stalin to enter the Pacific War precisely in order to reduce the cost of an invasion of the Home Islands. Nobody knew in February 1945 whether that secret project out at Los Alamos would amount to anything. And in fact FDR did get a pledge from Stalin to go to war with Japan three months after the end of the war in Europe--a promise which incidentally he honored to the day. Problem was that to obtain that pledge FDR had to give up any realistic possibility of democracy in Eastern Europe.

OK, so it was a question of the lives of American GIs versus freedom for Lithuanians, Poles, Czechs, etc.. Can anyone seriously believe that FDR or any US President would have chosen any differently under the circumstances? Of course if he had chosen differently the same people who spent half a century denouncing FDR's "sellout" at Yalta would have accused him instead of sacrificing the lives of American boys for a bunch of dirty Polacks. You just can't win with some people.

[Richard Green]

This is consistent with the childish ranting againt Kim Jong-il. Is it really necessary to taunt this horrible, unstable person? What is accomplished by doing so?

North Korea is, as Hitchins notes, likely the worst place on earth (and I only say likely because I don't pretend to know what is happening in every corner of places like Saudi Arabia). We should do everything possible to help refugees get out of the place.

But South Korea has become a wonderful place, and I would prefer to know that our policy is something other than baiting a lunatic into destroying it.

[liberal]

teece wrote, "In short, Bush is full of shit."

Don't forget his being AWOL on the farce going on right now in Mexico's so-called democracy.

[rea]

Rade: tell us how a war for the liberation of Eastern Europe was winable, and we'd listen more patiently to your complaints about our failure to make the attempt. Extra points if you can figure out how it was winable without nuking the Red Army in its positions in Eastern Europe, which would have made "liberating" Eastern Europe a little counterproductve from the point of view of the people who lived there . . .

[A. Zarkov]

“I read a rather convincing article recently that the main reason for the fire bombing of Dresden et al. and the nuclear bombing of Japan was simply to show Stalin that the West was not powerless.”

On a CSPAN interview the historian Martin Gilbert responded to a telephone question about the terror bombing of Dresden. According to Gilbert, Churchill had issued specific orders NOT to terror bomb civilians. He says Stalin contacted lower Allied commanders directly and told them the bombing was an extreme necessity. When Churchill found out what happened he was furious. So if one is to believe the official biographer of Churchill then Stalin bears responsibility for this atrocity.

[Jay]

I accept the notion, proposed by Radek, that Bush was trying to counterpoint Putin's rhetoric a bit. On the other hand, he could have said, "It's unfortunate that Roosevelt and Churchill had to permit this at Yalta, consigning the smaller nations to undemocratic rule for 50 years."

But that's not what he said. Instead, he takes a cheap shot at Roosevelt. My term for this is "bullshit macho posturing."

[ken melvin]

What the hell good does it do to revisit this stuff? So if Iraq was revenge for Poppa, is this suppose to be revenge for his grandpas? Is he trying to prove that he is JewIsh? Maybe it can be arranged for Bush to go round and round in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia for the next 3.6 years.

[Cranky Observer]

> According to Gilbert, Churchill had issued
> specific orders NOT to terror bomb civilians.

Throughout the war, Churchill agonized over area bombing of civilians - while simultaneously putting tremendous pressure on "Bomber" Harris to "get the job done". Since precision strike weapons really only started working in the Afghanistan campaign of 2002, that means the only weapon available to Harris and Bomber Command (and later the US 8th) in 194x was area bombing. They knew it, Churchill knew it - and much of his agonizing was for the record books.

Churchill was a great man IMHO but hypocracy was one of his tools of statecraft.

Cranky

[jaakkeli]

Well, here's the reaction from Russia's neighbours: IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME! I just wish it were some more credible leader, but still, it's wonderful to hear the Americans finally acknowledging some history.

As for Finlandization, it was initially done with the help of the Allies, ie. after the peace treaty demanded Allied control of key Finnish institutions, the British and the Russians stacked them with communists. Having an Allied-sanctioned secret police full of nothing but communists and having the Americans and the British announce that they would not help Finland in any way, if it were pressured by the Russians politically or militarily, there was no other way for Finns but to accept Finlandization - the only other choice was having communist agents in Finland attempt a revolution (the Soviet documents indeed reveal that they were ready to do this at any time, if Finlandization failed) giving a pretext for invasion.

One of the things Americans never realize is just how completely crazy the Soviets were. Their massive agent network constantly came up with utterly insane demands like removing 150-year-old gravestones of soldiers that were "evidence that Finns have fought Russians", OR ELSE. They had no clue whatsoever on how a democratic society works, so they took everything that was printed as an official position of the Finnish state (as, of course, in the Soviet Union you couldn't print anything but the official position).

In fact, many people in the Russian government still believe so and regularily demand apologies from the state over what some nutcase has written in a "letters from the readers" section. For example, last year there was a major diplomatic row over an opinion survey about Finnish attitudes towards Russia. Apparently it was a huge surprise for them to find out that we, eh, don't love Russia, and the Russian Duma issued one statement after another demanding an apology from Finland and demanding Finns to think more positively about Russia, OR ELSE.

Living next to the Soviet Union was like living in a slum dominated by a gang of violent crack addicts and having the cops tell you that they're better friends with the addicts than you. You have no choice but to develop your routines in such a way that you don't offend the gang, and every once in a while they still take their knives and come asking you "DID YOU JUST CALL ME A FAG?!?" for absolutely no reason at all.

[Kimmitt]

Somehow I doubt, had the situations been reversed, that Poland and Hungary would have gleefully thrown their sons into the meat grinder to possibly-but-probably-not liberate the occupied US.

[Oskar Shapley]

Professor Delong has NO excuse of not understanding what the alternative to MUNICH 1938 that he is wishing really would have been like.

And I shall also make use of an argument from authority by quoting John Paul II, "To Serve Peace, Respect Freedom" (1980).

"For what can be the freedom of nations, whose existence, aspirations and reactions are conditioned by fear instead of mutual trust, by oppression instead of the free pursuit of their common good?

Freedom is wounded when the relationships between peoples are based not upon respect for the equal dignity of each but upon the right of the most powerful, upon the attitude of dominant blocs and upon military or political imperialism.

The freedom of nations is wounded *** when small nations are forced to align themselves with large ones, in order to ensure their right to independent existence or to survival. ***

Freedom is wounded when dialogue between equal partners is no longer possible, by reason of economic or financial domination exercised by privileged and powerful nations."

[Altoid]

Considering the occasions on which bush has been saying these things, my reaction was and is that he's spitting on the graves of all the Russians who died in that war and thus helped (intending to or not, it doesn't matter) to keep *us* free of the Nazis. They weren't all agents of Stalinism.

The importance of extirpating the Nazis is by now, or should be, non-partisan and non-factionating.

That said extirpation resulted in a half-century of occupation was a bad thing. But it was a better thing than the survival of the Nazis, and in the circumstances of the time it was hardly avoidable. Possession is nine points of the law, says the old adage, and the Red Army had possession. The only question of moment then was on what terms the western Allies were going to deal with the Soviets who, in fact, controlled Europe as far west as Saxony.

Personally I don't think bush was trying to align himself with the anti-Yalta crowd. Rather, I think he was trying to position himself alongside Reagan ("tear down this wall") and Thatcher. Republicans think these two are at least as great figures as Lincoln. It's only an accident that it also sounds anti-Yalta.

Whatever his reasons, the statements are appalling and cheesily self-serving for such an important commemmoration.

[tante aime]

The origins of Yalta were entirely General Eisenhower, who elected to allow Soviets to take Berlin, over the objection of the Brits. Everything follows from that,
like Eisenhower's famous domino-theory of the Cold War, which had the CIA secretly kill millions of innocents, until "sacrificing stability for the sake of freedom" became Viet Nam and then Cambodia's killing fields.

But Rove forbid, you can't blame a decorated general in the US military and a former Republican US president at a war-dead tribute! You have to blame Democrat president FDRoosevelt, the most popular (3-terms!) CiC ever, and founder of the New Deal which saved our bacon, for his "incompetence" in not rolling back Eisenhower's command.

"Thrust the Soviets out of Berlin! Reduce the city to rubble and ashes!" "Liberate" the survivors, like we "liberated" Fallujah, now in ruins, and a ghost town, like we "liberated" Iraqi's, now prisoners in their own lands, disinfranchised and disinherited.

Read Baghdad Burning's blog about "Miracle of Carrots."
All part of rewriting US history into a NeoCon Crusade. You will see more and more of this as we approach 2008, as each page seems innocuous, in Bush's "My Struggle."

Maybe he's gunning for his own version of Article 48?
Article 48 of the (Pre-WWII) German Constitution:
"If public safety and order in Germany are materially disturbed or endangered, the President may take the necessary measures to restore public safety and order, and, if necessary, to intervene with the help of the armed forces. To this end he may temporarily suspend, in whole or in part, the fundamental rights established in (German Constitution)."

Hey, that sounds remarkably like the US Patriot Act!!
"Love it or leave it, you effete pinko-commie faggots."
New expanded prison construction funding this biennium,
so Wobblies at least will have three hots and a cot!

Condi? Condi is candy for the black middle-class vote.
She might as well wear stockings and a maid's uniform. All part of the tragedy, to preserve black opportunity in government, she'll have to become their lickspittle.

[mac]

...and what might we ask would Bush have done in Roosevelt’s shoes? Let’s see. We seem to have an analog. What was his family doing during Hitler’s reign -- why war profiteering by selling arms to the Nazis... [c.f., American Dynasty, Kevin Phillips]

[John Deere]

A Long Time Ago (yesterday) in a Galaxy, well, country, not too far away

You just can't make this shit up.

Our beloved Chancellor Palpatine demonstrates that either he is the sublime Sith master, using Jedi mind tricks to stifle irony, or he is as obtuse as a SovInformBuro apparatchik in the '30s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/international/Europe/08prexy.html

"Stable, prosperous democracies are good neighbors, trading in freedom and posing no threat to anyone."

The president pointedly said, "The United States has free and peaceful nations to the north and south of us" and "we do not consider ourselves to be encircled."

"All free and successful countries have some common characteristics - freedom of worship, freedom of the press, economic liberty, the rule of law and the limitation of power through checks and balances," Mr. Bush said.

"The idea of countries helping others become free, I hope that would be viewed as not revolutionary, but rational foreign policy, as decent foreign policy, as humane foreign policy," Mr. Bush said.

Hello Jedi mind fuck.

OK, riddle me this, Batman: Is he saying that the United States is NOT a "stable, prosperous democracy"? What did he really mean by "trading in freedom"? Was it, trading freely? Or was it more like Steve McQueen said in "The Magnificent Seven"---"We deal in lead, friend." America really poses no threat to anyone?
http://www.theinternationalsprawl.blogspot.com/

[bart]

i think the real point of bush's speech is not the ignorance itself, but the devisiveness behind it. getting instant approval by joe sixpack and putting thinking folk back on their heels trying to defend history is great for bushco.

how is bushco going to characterize someone "defending yalta, the appeasement of stalin", etc etc? pointy headed commie intellectuals who shouldn't be listened to, that's what.

this is yet another case where once you engage the argument, you have lost. you can't take bushco at face value, you have to get to the source and call a spade a spade.

[David Lloyd-Jones]

Just gotta pass this on:

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin meet at Yalta, and after the meeting they get together to relax and have a smoke.

Churchill pulls out a cigar and a silver cigar lighter, engraved "From the savior of Europe from the people of Europe."

Roosevelt pulls out a cigar and a gold lighter, engraved "To the savior of the world from the people of the world."

Stalin pulls out a cigar and a platinum lighter with rubies on it, engraved "To Count Esterhazy from the Vienna Jockey Club."

[jaakkeli]

Oh please. It is important to recognize that even if there weren't great alternatives at Yalta, the deal was still hell for half of Europe and meant no "liberation", especially now that the other half is celebrating and the other half is finally able to express its opinion. Bush perhaps isn't doing it ideally, but it's very important for Eastern Europe to finally hear these recognitions of what happened from the West.

No one there really cares about whether the deal was signed by a Democrat or a Republican. Bush may be using the opportunity also to take jabs at his internal opponents, but don't let it diminish the value of the condemnation of the Soviet occupation at a time when the inheritor of the Soviet Union, Russia, is denying that there was any occupation.

[David Lloyd-Jones]

Just gotta pass this on (typo corrected):

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin meet at Yalta, and after the meeting they get together to relax and have a smoke.

Churchill pulls out a cigar, and a silver cigar lighter, engraved "To the savior of Europe from the people of Europe."

Roosevelt pulls out a cigar and a gold lighter engraved "To the savior of the world from the people of the world."

Stalin pulls out a cigar and a platinum lighter with rubies on it, engraved "To Count Esterhazy from the Vienna Jockey club."

[shah8]

Well, I know some parts of WWII ok and some parts well. Yalta is not something I know at all well...

The magic of Google gave me this thoughtfull piece on the options and motivations of the parties at Yalta.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/733/1/80

[Wombat]

An attempt to push on against the Soviet Union after Germany surrendered could well have triggered a mutiny among US and British troops.

As noted above, the US and Britain had a comparatively weak hand compared to the Soviets in Europe, and wanted the Soviets to come into the war against Japan. Churchill and Stalin had already divided up Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, which--with the exception of Poland--recognized the facts on the ground at the time.

[A. Zarkov]

The term “sell out” is too simple to grasp the complexity of what happened at Yalta. While it’s certainly true that Stalin had the upper hand because of the advances the Soviet Army, he still got too much.

The whole thing started off badly. Why the Crimea for example? Stalin had deported the entire native population to Siberia and Central Asia, every man, woman and child because he said the Crimean Tatars collaborated with the Germans. Isn’t it a little unseemly to meet at such a place? Churchill opposed the Yalta location, but FDR insisted they give in to Stalin. Good negotiators know-- never meet at the house of your adversary, it gives him a psychological advantage. It also gives him the opportunity to bug your rooms. That’s one demerit for FDR. But that’s just the start. Stalin wanted the Allies to recognize the Curzon line as Poland’s future eastern border—he got that. Churchill no longer insisted on the return of Lvov to Poland. This was a significant cave in because it put Britain on record as sanctioning the changes in the Polish-Soviet border memorialized in the Nazi-Soviet pacts on August 23 and September 28, 1939. These pacts retarded the war against Hitler as the Comintern want on worldwide campaign against the war. An early version of “give peace a chance.” Except after Stalin got attacked, now it was “give war a chance!” Stalin also got recognition to his claim for Koenigsberg (never a part of Russia). So Churchill take three demerits and FDR an additional two.

Finally we have the cavalier attitude of the Big Thee on fate of millions of post war displaced persons. For example where would the Germans of East Prussia go when that territory became part of Poland? Stalin said they would all flee to Germany when Soviet troops arrived (translation, they had better or we will kill them). Churchill said that they had already killed six million Germans and most like another million would be killed before the war was over. Stalin: “One? Or two?” Churchill: “Oh I’m not proposing any limitation.” I’ve run out of demerits.

It’s time to call a spade a spade.

[Neil Craig]

At Yalta the Soviet armies were on what is now the western Polish border 60 miles from Berlin & the allies had just survived the battle of the bulge. The idea that they would just do everything they were told merely because of our inate moral superiority is risible.

A better case could be made for Truman not getting aggressive at Potsdam if it were not for the evidence that he was waiting till he had the bomb "ostentatiously on his hip" before starting the cold war.

[dilbert dogbert]

I scanned the comments fast so someone may have made this point. My brother served in the 8th airforce during WWll and told me that if he had been shipped home to serve in the Pacific, he would have gotten off in California and they would have had to come with guns drawn to get him to go. This may have not been the reaction of most of the troops but I think maybe a lot of them. A continued war against an ally would have been a very tough sell. There were riots in the Pacific when the troops were not rotated home quickly.
I am not sure that the English and French and who ever else was fighting with us would have followed our lead in going east.

[liberal]

A. Zarkov wrote, "While it’s certainly true that Stalin had the upper hand because of the advances the Soviet Army, he still got too much."

The western Allies could have anteed up by invading Western Europe far earlier than they did (at a far higher cost in blood). They didn't. Again, my impression is that Churchill was far more reluctant than the Americans to invade on an aggressive timetable.

[Altoid]

Well, let's try a little thought experiment. Suppose FDR and Churchill had said no, we won't meet at Yalta; no, the Polish boundaries have to be pre-war; no, the Polish elections have to be truly free and open. What would have resulted?

We can stipulate that they would have been on record as saying the right things. From there, in my view, we have a range of other possibilities. Most extreme might be that Britain and the US sponsor a partisan war in Poland along Yugoslav lines. Less extreme is a cut-off of Lend-Lease and other supplies. Either would have meant something like a much earlier start to a Cold War when both the US and Britain were much weaker than they were in 1949. On the Soviet side, confronted with such a stance, maybe they end up doing to the Poles what they did to the Crimeans in order to end the partisan war. Or maybe they just stop where they are in February, which I believe was regarded as the most likely response to any significant stiffening of the western negotiating position.

I don't claim to speak for anyone else. For myself, I don't defend Yalta as a good deal. I also don't think anyone went there in good faith about the fate of Poland and other areas under Russian control. But I would like to know what any other democratic politician might have done that would have yielded better results for the people and places already under Soviet control.

Britain was bankrupt and knew it, and Churchill had to be preoccupied with marshaling his forces to hang on to India and Egypt against the independence movements that were already strong and were clearly the next fight. He really, really cared about keeping India, as he said himself.

The Americans were not eager to fight the Germans without an eastern front. American equipment (and probably motivation) was inferior, and we know that the German war economy was productive until the very last months of the war. Stalin's threat to lay down arms would have caused any American general some sleepless nights.

The US was basically doing well but it was only partially mobilized when we look at it on the European scale. More extensive mobilization approaching that scale would have been a completely untenable thing, especially since it was clear how the European war was going to end. It has to be remembered that this was an expeditionary war for the US, one that most of the public had no stomach for before Pearl Harbor and one they expected to be out of very soon-- the American pattern up to that time was near-immediate and near-total demobilization at the end of a war. Keeping it going, shifting focus, would have been extraordinarily difficult for any American leader. Look how hard it was for Truman to get buy-in on the Cold War itself, even after he followed Vandenberg's advice and scared hell out of the American people.

Here's the dirty little secret that, reportedly, Stalin waved around for FDR's contemplation. A certain number of soldiers was going to have to die in order to destroy the Nazis. No American president would, or perhaps could, do anything except try to make sure that the number of Americans among those dead bodies was as small as possible. As it turned out, the vast majority of them were wearing Russian uniforms-- many of them unwillingly, too, but that's the uniform they wore.

I think it has to come down to the question I asked earlier: what was it possible to do at that time that would have gotten better results for the people and places under Russian control? I'm sure A. Zarkov is right about the attitude FDR and Churchill took to Yalta, and jaakkeli about living next door to a regime like that. What could realistically have been different that would have gotten better results?

[gcochran]

If we (US and Britain) had fought the Soviets in 1945 after the fall of Germany, we would have won. Look at the correlation of forces: as Stalin put it, the US (even more so with Britian as an ally) was the strongest state in the world. Not even counting atomic weapons.

Of course we would have taken vast casualties. I would have never have been born.

The Soviets dominated the countries they occupied: there wasn't much we could do about it if we weren't prepared to fight that war. And no one was. I'm just as glad.

[ken melvin]

While he was at it why didn't he apologize for the mass slaughter of native americans, slavery, the civil war, the 2000 election and demand Japanese contrition for their acts prior to and during WWII. For shear emptiness, this was right up there at the top.

[The Angry Irishman]

"Well, here's the reaction from Russia's neighbours: IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME! I just wish it were some more credible leader, but still, it's wonderful to hear the Americans finally acknowledging some history."

Yeah, my sentiment too. I'm no friend of Bush and I think his plans for the ME, Iraq and otherwise, are forlorn at the start. But he does have a point. I'm not sure a full-fledged war against the USSR in 1945 would've made much sense, but the truth is that FDR (otherwise a great guy) wilted like a damn shrinking violet against Stalin at Yalta, when all intelligence had shown that the Soviets were far too weak to impose all of their demands on the East that Stalin eventually did get at Yalta.

I have a number of Polish friends, and I was surprised when one old, gentle, grandfatherly fellow-- who absolutely loves the USA-- expressed his hatred for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in particular. "FDR sold us out. How could he let Stalin steal nearly half our territory after all the massacres the Soviets forced upon us? What about Katyn? Any recognition for that? The Soviets in Poland were even worse than the Nazis." Not an isolated sentiment by any means. Stalin utterly brutalized Poland, and the Poles fought with bravery and discipline against both the Nazis and Soviets. Their reward? To be offered up as a sacrifice by Roosevelt to Stalin-- even as Churchill offered bitter objections at this.

Churchill actually had a spine against Stalin. He saw the Yalta terms as appeasement of a dictator, the same as Munich, and he lashed out against them. Had FDR only stiffened his own spine, Stalin would have had to face the stern disagreement of two strong men-- Churchill and FDR-- and he, taking a hint as he'd managed to do before, would have backed down. It wouldn't have required WWIII, Stalin was very pragmatic overall when it came to geopolitics and he capitulated when he realized he was asking for too much. Had FDR stood up to him, he would have pulled back (as he did, e.g., during the Berlin Airlift). Instead, FDR stupidly gave in on all fronts. So the USSR sliced Poland in half, took Konigsberg and expelled people whose families had lived there for centuries, and was allowed to occupy Eastern Europe indefinitely with FDR's meek assent. Yes, FDR was ailing at the time, but Churchill was the leader of the anti-Stalin faction and all Roosevelt had to do was to back Churchill up. That he didn't is a justifiable slight on his reputation.

Stalin very nearly got even more due to FDR's pusillanimity, as Roosevelt practically gave away northern China (Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, parts of Xinjiang and Chinese settlements on the Amur River) to Stalin, who very nearly took the territory. It was only Mao's victory in the Chinese Civil War-- and the resulting Soviet desire to reward Mao and ensure he remained as an ally in Soviet Cold War aspirations-- that prevented Stalin from taking Chinese territory. I'm sorry, but there's no way to fluff up FDR's image with respect to Yalta. It's false to claim that his only alternative was to begin WWIII against Stalin; all he had to do was follow Churchill's lead and Stalin would have backed down, as had before. This is more than a small blemish on FDR's record, and it's good that finally a US President-- even a guy with quite a few of his own problems, like George W. Bush-- has had the gumption to raise this issue and give it some publicity.

[liberal]

The Angry Irishman quoted, " 'The Soviets in Poland were even worse than the Nazis...' "

LOL! That has to be the dumbest thing written on this thread.

The Nazis murdered 3 million Polish Jews and 3 million Polish gentiles.

[bakho]

Bush really has a penchant for revisionist history. Lest we forget, the occupied countries, especially Eastern Europe were devastated. The war in France was relatively quick and relatively bloodless. The war from the German border to Moscow was long arduous, created 10s of millions of casualties and wrought far more destruction than the march through France.

After the WWI, the countries were under the control of the occupying armies, but were to be allowed self-government. Remember that Italy by popular vote would have installed a communist government, but that outcome was refused by the occupying western powers. Stalin then showed that he was every bit as good as the west at getting the electoral results he wanted and all the countries under Soviet domination adopted communist governments.

In the long run those countries were worse off, but communisim does have some advantages for building/rebuilding a devastated infrastructure.

[liberal]

I agree with what Altoid wrote (May 8, 2005 03:06 PM).

Furthermore, I want to emphasize this part: "Britain was bankrupt and knew it, and Churchill had to be preoccupied with marshaling his forces to hang on to India and Egypt against the independence movements that were already strong and were clearly the next fight. He really, really cared about keeping India, as he said himself."

Anyone who thinks Churchill's motives were "good" ought to square that belief with the historical record, which shows one of Churchill's prime concerns was maintaining the British hold on its colonies.

Moreover, my impression (again) is that Churchill had the chance to be bold by proposing a much earlier date for Overlord. He didn't, and was less aggressive than the Americans on that.

[Frans Groenendijk]

Sometimes I think / hope the Bushists can not be so evil as depicted by our host.
So I took a look at Bush' text itself : at the whitehouse.
The sentence under discussion here turned out to be even worse in the exact phrasing of the white house:

"The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050507-8.html

In my opinion the most significant comments came from Matt and Bart.
Matt: "...it's a mixture of Bush being completely ignorant as to the reality of the situation and part of the plan to hurt Roosevelt's reputation"
Bart: "I think the real point of bush's speech is not the ignorance itself, but the devisiveness behind it. Getting instant approval by Joe Sixpack and putting thinking folk back on their heels trying to defend history, is great for bushco.
How is bushco going to characterize someone "defending yalta, the appeasement of stalin", etc etc? Pointy headed commie intellectuals who shouldn't be listened to, that's what.
This is yet another case where once you engage the argument, you have lost."
That is why I repeat (and I keep repeating it until our host asks me to stop or someone can convince me I am wrong about it): we have arrived in a phase of history where the real challenge is to save democracy from DIRECT elections (http://www.fransgroenendijk.nl/reactieding.php?id=P494_0_1_0)

[radek]

[How, exactly? What (besides the crime of returning Russian POWS to Stalin) did Yalta do to make the situation worse?]

Um, because it de facto accepted,..., no, legitimized, the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Yes, de jure, Stalin promised free elections. But these promises without any safe guards or oversight were meaningless - it's like putting the fox in charge of the hen house because he promises that the chickens will get to vote on whether he stays or not. The fact that Stalin was taken at face value means that the only two possibilities were naivete or cynicism on the part of the Americans and British.

Now I'm not sure if your question is about the Yalta Conference in particular, or "Yalta" as a general description of US/UK diplomacy with regard to EE in the last few years of the war. If the latter, then specifically one can point to the fact that the US/UK governments ceased to recognize the various governments-in-exile that were hanging around London and transferred diplomatic recognition to the Soviet created puppets (in case of Poland and the Czech it's a bit more complicated admittedly - as an aside, I think Polish diplomacy of the same period was pretty dismal as well). There's also the anectode of Churchill meeting Stalin and scribbling the "percentages" next to countries' names - referring to the degree of control the Soviets would have vis a vis the West. If that's not legitimizing Soviet domination over Eastern Europe, I don't know what is.

Further, sometimes the more telling thing is that which is missing. Where the Baltics even brought up at Yalta? Why not? The US/UK accepted the incorporation of these countries into the Soviet empirie as republics as a fait acompli. Again, they didn't have to do that. The fact that their fate was not even mentioned means that the Brits and Americans acquiesced to their subjugation.

Now, one can argue that the only alternative to letting Soviets have their way was WWIII. I disagree. But, if a bully's beating up on some kid, even if you can't do anything to stop it, you don't go and say out loud for everyone to hear "He's not really beating up on anyone. He's liberating him." because then to some extent you become culpable in the crime.

[Oskar Shapley]

Why Oh Why Is Brad Instinctively Bashing Bush? (Winston Churchill's 'secret deals to determine somebody else's fate' Edition)

Churchill - Stalin aggrement on spheres of influence (Moscow, October 1944) or what might be called the Eden - Molotov Pact.

####### Russia Others
Rumania 90% - 10%
Greece 10% - 90%
Yugoslavia 50 - 50%
Hungary 80% - 20%
Bulgaria 80% - 20%

[radek]

"a heroic war where only evil people died freed all of eastern europe after WWII and turned it Greenwich, CT in a couple years"

"So the right question to ask of the "betrayal at Yalta" crowd is: "How many extra casualties would you have been willing to take to stage Overlord in 1942 or 1943
OK, so it was a question of the lives of American GIs versus freedom for Lithuanians, Poles, Czechs, etc"

"Rade: tell us how a war for the liberation of Eastern Europe was winable, and we'd listen more patiently to your complaints about our failure to make the attempt"

People! Read what I freaking wrote. Nowhere do I say that Patton should have been allowed to roll his tanks to Moscow (which WOULD have been a terrible mistake). But the whole problem with the arguments presented above, as well as Brad's original post, is that it sets up a FALSE dichotomy:

Yalta vs. WWIII

Actually, there's two questions here. First is Bush's speech. Second is what were the alternatives to Yalta.

As far as the first goes, even if the only alternative to Yalta was an unfeasible WW3, still saying that 'you guys got screwed' is a right thing to do. If Pat Buchanan or Ralph Nader had won the last election instead of Bush, had gone to Latvia and made
the exact same speech I'd applaud it all the same. Hell, if evil aliens from outer space came down and made that speech I'd say, 'well, they're right'. Jaakkeli hits it on the head above. What seems to bother folks on this list - just like with almost everything else - is not the content and context of the speech but rather who made it.

Now, where there any alternatives to Yalta other than WW3? Come on, when a seller quotes a price he is willing to sell at you don't respond by overbidding!
"Ah Mr. Stalin, so you want to take the Baltics...not so fast! How about you take the Baltics, and Finland and Hungary, and Poland and Czechoslovakia and Rumania and Bulgaria and Moldova and Yugoslavia! Oh, you accept. Well, I must be a very skillful bargainer.". Zarkov is right, he got way more than he should've.

Brad himself suggests what a more realistic approach would have been.

[Roosevelt was hoping for a kind of "Finlandization" of Poland--although how that was to be accomplished is obscure to me. I don't even understand how Finland was Finlandized...]

Again, I think Jaakkeli explains pretty well how Finland was Finlandized (though for some reason omits the Winter War). But 'hoping' and 'trying' are two different things. The allies should have began by insisting on SUPERVISED referendums in the Baltics (by implications, refusing to recognize the Curzon line). Now, yeah, realistically, there was little hope for the Balts and other peoples that Stalin grabbed in 1938. But you don't start the bargaining by giving away the house.

Merrily taking a brutal dictator at his word is not a diplomatic strategy.

"Recall too that the US badly wanted a commitment from Stalin to enter the Pacific War precisely in order to reduce the cost of an invasion of the Home Islands"

Which is evidence in support of the "Roosevelt was foolish" view. Even without the knowledge of the bomb, what did Roosevelt hope this would accomplish? Did he really think that Stalin would co-invade Japan? Trading off Eastern Europe for an amorphous, ill specified and mostly non binding agreement to declare war on Japan doesn't seem like a good bargain.

"The Angry Irishman quoted, " 'The Soviets in Poland were even worse than the Nazis...' "

LOL! That has to be the dumbest thing written on this thread."

It's probably wrong, but it is not dumb. You're probably thinking of Soviet occupation as the control Moscow excercised over Warsaw from 1945 on, which yeah compared to the Nazis was pretty mild. But you gotta remember that Stalin grabbed half of Poland in 1939. With deportations and executions that took place that would add up to another million dead or so. Katyn gets some press because those killed happened to be 'the elite' (army officers, a good portion of them intellectuals) but the Soviets killed many more 'little people' that you don't hear about. For people who were born in present day Lithuania or Belarus (skipping Ukraine because that's an even more complicated story) it's quite conceivable that the Soviet occupation seemed worse than the Nazi one. It misses the big picture, but from an individual point of view may be correct.

[liberal]

radek wrote, "With deportations and executions that took place that would add up to another million dead or so."

How many of those were actually killed? How many survived WWII? "Deported" =/= "killed".

[Stuart Wilkes]

"If we (US and Britain) had fought the Soviets in 1945 after the fall of Germany, we would have won. Look at the correlation of forces: as Stalin put it, the US (even more so with Britian as an ally) was the strongest state in the world. Not even counting atomic weapons."

Those at the sharp end at the time had a different view. You might want to look up "Operation Unthinkable", a staff study Churchill ordered on the prospects a 1945 sneak attack on the Soviets would have had.

Here's what the British Chiefs of Staff, early members of the "reality-based community" (Gen. Sir Alan
Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Admiral of the Fleet Sir David Cunningham, the First Sea Lord, and the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal), had to say about it:

``It is clear from the relative strength of the respective land forces that we are not in a position to take the offensive with a view to achieving a rapid success.

``Since, however, Russian and allied land forces are in contact from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, we are bound to become involved in land operations. In support of our land forces we should have technically superior, but numerically inferior, tactical air forces.

``As regards Strategic Air Forces, our superiority in numbers and technique would be to some extent discounted by the absence of strategical targets compared to those which existed in Germany, and
the necessity for using these strategic air forces to supplement our tactical air forces in support of land operations.

``Our views, therefore, that once hostilities began, it would be beyond our power to win a quick but limited success and we should be committed to a protracted war against heavy odds.

``These odds, moreover, would become fanciful if the Americans grew weary and indifferent and began to be drawn away by the magnet of the Pacific War.''

Not an encouraging assessment, by some of the best in the business of waging war against another Great Power. But then, I suppose today they would be called "strategic girly-men" by someone who had never seen war.

[liberal]

Here's a webpage which looks like it has reasonable estimates for Nazi and Soviet killings of Poles:

http://www.dpcamps.org/dpcamps/poland.html

Excerpts:
"Then there were the Soviet deportations. During 1939 to 1941 the Soviets deported 1,200,000 Poles deported to the Soviet Union for forced labor or resettlement, of which perhaps 146,000 died. This number does not include those shot for failing or straying out of line during deportation, or disobeying an order.5"

Sickening, no doubt. But doesn't seem to add up to 1,000,000. (Not that I or anyone else here is disputing Stalin's title as one of the greatest mass murderers of all time.)

"To all this Polish misery, pain, and death, we must add what the Germans did in the Poland they ruled. They shot former politicians, and government, cultural, professional, and intellectual leaders, or sent them to die in concentration camps. Just in the city of Bydgoszcz, for example, Germans murdered about 10,000 non-Jewish civilians in four months of occupation. And from 1939 to 1941, they deported en mass about 1,6000,000 Poles, including 400,000 Jews. About 700,000 Poles were sent to Germany for forced labor,6 many to die there. And the most infamous German death camps had been located in Poland. Overall, during German occupation of pre-war Polish territory, 1939-1945, the Germans murdered 3,900,000 to 6,400,000 Poles, probably about 5,400,000, including near 3,000,000 Jews.7"

[liberal]

Stuart Wilkes wrote, "But then, I suppose today they would be called 'strategic girly-men' by someone who had never seen war."

Which is why I think the commenters saying Bush is write to " 'fess up" for Roosevelt's dastardly deed are naive.

Bush's apology won't bring back Stalin's (and his successors') victims, but they have obvious political implications and uses going forward.

[piotr]

Bush supported two coups: unsuccesful in Venezuela and successful in Haiti (Haiti remains a total mess in the aftermath). He was oblivious when a former Guatemalan dictator tried to run for president against Guatemalan constitution. Now he is oblivious to anti-democratic farce in Mexico.

Bush cooperated with the rather dastardly dictatorships to torture prisoners. Now he tolerates genocide in Sudan because the government promised aid against al-Qaeda.

Bush runs an experimental concentration camp.

Bush's credentials as supporter of freedom are not good.

Now, for those who think that Yalta was a bad deal. USA tried to stop Communists in China, not succesfully, in Greece, succesfully, in Korea, rather successfully, but with a lot of effort. This shows that USA was rather stretched as it was. Now suppose that Roosevelt makes bold demands to Stalin, pisses him off, and Stalin makes a pact with still undefeated Japan? Thousands of Soviet planes join the defence of Japan?

Of course, Stalin would never made a pact with a fascist regime. Wait...

[radek]

liberal, i don't have sources at hand but you might be right that i'm conflating deportations with killings. 1,200,000 deported sounds somewhat low for what I've read, but ok. More importantly given the nature of these deportations and the Gulag system 146,000 out of that 1.2 million seems really low. From what I remember on average 70% of prisoners died within a year of arrival in the Gulag (actually according to Wiki it was 80%). But no matter.
The broader point was that it's perfectly conceivable that to some individuals living in territories which experienced both systems the Soviets seemed worse than the Nazis (by sheer chance Soviets killed three of your family members and Nazis only one...) so the sentiment isn't necessarily 'dumb'. Mistaken, as the overall figures show, yes, but not 'dumb'.

[Alex]

Regarding the Correlation of Forces (a fine old Soviet doctrine phrase!), the Joint Planners' study of Operation Unthinkable came up with the result that, if everything went well, we might get as far as the Germans did..and then what? Alan Brooke diaried about this that we would then have to remain mobilised indefinitely to keep them there, if we didn't overstretch and get rolled back to Berlin and beyond.

Speaking of AB, his unexpurgated diary is well worth reading - imagine a blog from the Chiefs of Staff in the second world war

[DOR]

liberal,

AWOL is good for up to 30 days. After that, the Military Code of Justice calls it desertion. Oh, and there were people prosecuted for desertion during wartime, even though Vietnam wasn’t a declared war.

Tante amie,
FDR was elected president four times, not three.
.

[liberal]

radek wrote, "The broader point was that it's perfectly conceivable that to some individuals living in territories which experienced both systems the Soviets seemed worse than the Nazis (by sheer chance Soviets killed three of your family members and Nazis only one...) so the sentiment isn't necessarily 'dumb'. Mistaken, as the overall figures show, yes, but not 'dumb'."

You completely misunderstood my point. I didn't mean the statement itself was "dumb," I meant that adding it to this thread was "dumb." Which should have been clear from the context.

"liberal, i don't have sources at hand but you might be right that i'm conflating deportations with killings. 1,200,000 deported sounds somewhat low for what I've read, but ok."

Have you tried googling to check facts before you post them?

"More importantly given the nature of these deportations and the Gulag system 146,000 out of that 1.2 million seems really low. From what I remember on average 70% of prisoners died within a year of arrival in the Gulag (actually according to Wiki it was 80%). But no matter."

Logical fallacy. Just because 70% of prisoners in the Gulag died within a year doesn't mean that 70% of the *Poles* who arrived in the gulag were dead within a year. There's the additional problem of how "gulag" is defined, and which definition your 70--80% applies to.

[dearieme]

dilbert dogbert: "I am not sure that the English and French and who ever else was fighting with us would have followed our lead in going east." My father was in the Royal Armoured Corps in Germany in 1945 and, yes, they were mustering to fight Japan. He was very relieved by the success of the atom bombs in bringing the war to an end.

[erg]

Of course, FDR was on Stalin's side all along (for whatever reasons). He wanted to have a cross channel invasion at the outset to relieve the pressure on Stalin.

How idiotic can you get. FDR asked for a cross-channel invasion to relieve pressure on Russia, which was taking terrible casualties. FDR was rightly concerned that Russia could collapse (which was a very real possibility in 1942). That would leave Germany free to move troops back to the Western Front.

He sent Geo. Marshall and, iirc, Harry Hopkins to Britain to propose it, only to have Churchill explain the facts of life to them about protecting sea lanes in the Pacific and Middle East oil, first.

Churchill, that great defender of human rights, was perfectly willing to sacrifice Russian civilian lives (just as Stalin was) simply so that Russia could take the brunt of the war against Germany. And incidentally, it need hardly be mentioned that if Russia had collapsed, Germany could have obtained access to the oil of Maikop and Grozny.

Truman wasn't much better.

Yup, the Berlin Airlift was such an appeasment. Talk about revisionist nutcases.

[erg]

"As for Finlandization, it was initially done with the help of the Allies, ie. after the peace treaty demanded Allied control of key Finnish institutions, the British and the Russians stacked them with communists."

Let me point out something that you didn't mention. Finland fought on the Nazi side during WW-II. Yes, it never fought America. Yes, it was responding to the brutal Russian invasion before that. Yes, it protected its own Jewish population against the Nazis.

But the fact remains that Finland fought on the wrong side. Furthermore, Finland participated in the siege of Leningrad, in which one million Russians died. There are also other examples of Finnish atrocities against Russians.

Yes, the Finns had a good excuse after Russia's brutal invasion. But please spare me the notion that Finland was blameless in Finlandization. I should add that your comments about the British in Finland are also somewhat inaccurate.

[erg]

'But, if a bully's beating up on some kid, even if you can't do anything to stop it, you don't go and say out loud for everyone to hear "He's not really beating up on anyone. He's liberating him." because then to some extent you become culpable in the crime.'

Well, Great Britain at that time ruled over 100s of millions of people in India and elsewhere. India (+ Pakistan, Bangladesh + Burma etc.) had a population larger than the Soviet Union + East Europe combined. And that doesn't even mention South-East Asia, Kenya etc. That certainly seems like a serious crime to me. Is the US culpable in the crime of Britain's empire because it allowed Britain to maintain and even extend the empire ? I would take Bush's statement (or other statements here) a lot more seriously if he had bothered to mention that Yalta also amounted to recognizing Britain's empire.

Now Britain gave up India in 2 years, but that was no thanks to that great humanitarian Churchill who would have held onto India as long as possible. Furthermore, after near bankruptcy, it was clear to Britain that it could not hold on to India any more. But I consider any deal that legitimized the British Empire to be as bad as legimitizing the Soviet Union's dominion on East Europe.

[ I wouldnt even go into France, which tried to hold on to Vietnam and Algeria with brutality. Or Britain's long war in Malysia or Kenya]

[piotr]

radek, you are wrong.

I knew personally people who went to "internal exile". Deportations were to places like Kazakhstan, Altai or industrial cities in the Urals, and nothing really bad was done to deportees except for skimpy food rations, cholera, thyphoid -- whatever the rest of population was enjoying. This was the fate of "podkulachniks", foks who were saved by the State just in time before they became fully-fledged "enemies of the people".

It is a sad fact that perhaps the largest group of Polish Jews that survived WWII and who did not emigrated before were those who were sent to that exile. (More precisely, it is sad that so few others did).

"Enemies of the people" would be send to prisoners' camp and this was an entirely different beast. First of all, it was a beast. The most infanous camps along Kolyma River in the particularly harsh part of Arctic had 90% mortality rate, but this was the innermost circle of that hell. Unfortunately, quite a number of Polish officers went there.

Step father of my friend survived his "podkulachnik" years in Altai. His group was sent to a collective farm created for or by a group of "kulaks" who were sent there earlier. The place had good soil and climate (it is southernmost Siberia), and the farm was reasonably well suplied, so they had no problems in getting enough food (even with war-time acquisitions by the State). What was eery was the fate of their predecessors -- all of them died before the Polish group came, and the Poles did not know why.

[captainblak]

Just to set the record straight:
1)Churchill was not against the cross-Channel invasion, he merely wanted the Italian front given a little bit more priority. According to his memoirs, if the Italian front had received more support the UK/US would have been first in Vienna and possibly more ON THE GROUND in Eastern Europe.
2) Churchill wanted Eisenhower to head straight East to Berlin but Eisenhower preferred gallivanting in the South.
3) When the occupation zones were first drawn nobody expected the Soviets to actually come all the way to Germany. It had been expected that the Soviets would quit the war once the Nazis had been ejected from Soviet territory. The Soviet occupation zone had been drawn to give them incentive to fight on.

Then apply that old adage about possession being 9/10th the law.

[radek]

liberal, I really do not wish to argue about numbers as such things should be done only when one has the various sources sitting right next to the computer. And googling for
such things can be very misleading (though in general I find that this guy: http://users.rcn.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Blame has too much time on his hands which means he seems to do a good job - and yes, he'd agree with you that the death toll was lower than I suggested). At any rate, if I misunderstood you then I apologize. But it did not seem like it was clear from the context.

[A. Zarkov]

Did the Allies treat the small Eastern European countries as expendable pawns in the big power politics of WWII? The answer has to be “yes.” Bush is the first American president to really come clean on this. When Bush says:

“Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable.”

He is correct. As I pointed out earlier, “Operation Keelhaul,” the secret codicil to the Yalta Agreements whereby millions people (some citizens of small nations, and not just POWs) were forcibly repatriated to their deaths in the Soviet Union to please Stalin, is in itself sufficient to sustain Bush’s statement. However we can go beyond “Keelhaul.”

The 1944 Warsaw Uprising (not to be confused with the 1943 uprising in the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto) provides another vivid example of how the Allies let down small countries. The primary purpose of the underground army in Poland was to stage an uprising at the opportune time. Soviet radio broadcasts promised to support them with both men and supplies. The US and Britain failed warn the Polish government-in-exile that Stalin would renege on his promise, and of course, true to form, he did. While the Germans slaughtered underground army, the Red Army sat idle nearby. The uprising and how the Allies failed (betrayed?) the Poles is covered in the 1970s PBS documentary “World at War” (now available on DVD for those of you who missed it) and in a book that came out last year “Warsaw Rising” by Norman Davies. And speaking of Davies. I watched him on CPSAN a few months ago and he claims that Soviet WWII casualties have been inflated by reclassifying many Poles as Soviets. So the Poles killed by Russians (and Germans) get counted as Soviet casualties. If Davies is correct, (I haven’t read his book, but I do have “World at War”), then this is an example of Enron-type accounting.

So radek is quite correct to point out that Delong’s commentary sets up a false dichotomy. We had a lot of choices between what we did and starting WWIII.

[Neil Craig]

Or one could say that Stalin proved himself a girly-boy by accepting that the capitalists got France, Italy, Belguim, Greece (all of which could have been run by the largely communist resistance), Holland, Denmark, Norway & 3/4s of Germany & all the commies got was Poland, East Germany & points south. On working the balance of forces it must be remembered that NATO insisted they needed nukes to stop the overwhelming Russian armies.

[Mike]

If given the choice between something like Yalta "working" at the expense of the lives of hundreds of thousands of people living in the countries we traded away - or standing toe to toe with a bastard like Stalin and demand that they be free to choose their own way. I'll take the second thank you.

For all Bush's failings he's on the right side of this concept. And its sad and ironic watching his detractors, who fancy themselves morally and intellectually his superior, look down their noses and call such talk on his part simplistic.

That’s one of the nice things about freedom. It’s a pretty simple concept. Not too many grey areas.. Probably why so many of the intelligencia prefer more nuanced ideas often associated with totalitarian slavery over something as pedestrian as freedom.

MS

[Mike]

(Left out of my prior post by accident)

Max,

Are you privy to Bush's thoughts? Is that how you can make such an unequivocal statement as to his intentions?

And Yalta did not work, nor did it take 50 years to work. Had other forces totally unconnected to Yalta not evolved its very possible many, if not all, of the countries sacrificed to appease Stalin would not be free today.

MS

[jaakkeli]

erg,

I'll thank you for getting some facts right, but then you launch straight into this:

"Furthermore, Finland participated in the siege of Leningrad, in which one million Russians died."

No, Finland specifically did NOT participate in the siege of Leningrad. This was a calculated diplomatical move, to attempt to maintain the claim that the fight was separate from the Nazi agenda and to avoid an American declaration of war.

"But the fact remains that Finland fought on the wrong side."

Oh, really? This is precisely the kind of offensive bullshit Eastern Europe is so used to hearing - Americans in their distant, safe ivory towers judging everyone else while not getting even the simplest facts right (see above). There was no "right" side in WWII, there were only two wrong sides. Imagining wars to be some sort of great struggles between good and evil is just the sort of infantile rhetoric Bush gets rightfully bashed for.

This is not to say that the Nazis weren't evil, of course - all I'm saying that one Ally was hardly less evil. The Americans and the British fought on the side of the Soviet Union, which had conspired to start the war as a Nazi ally and was, at the time, known to be a much worse mass murderer than Nazi Germany and, most importantly for Finns, known to have slaughtered ethnic Finns and kindred peoples. Remember, the Final Solution was decided in 1942 - it hadn't even been decided on when Finland's second war with the USSR began, so when you're making these moral judgements after the things have happened, try to remember that now you have much more information than anyone but outside Germany had then.

Can you please tell me what is it here that makes the US-British alliance with Stalin less shady than the Finnish fighting alongside with Hitler? If merely fighting against a common enemy together with a state that has slaughtered millions, Finland, the US and the UK all fought on the wrong side, or sides. For the US, joining to attack was even more of a choice - so, why is attacking Nazi Germany to reverse their territorial conquests acceptable, but attacking Stalinist Russia to (try to) reverse their conquests "wrong"?

"There are also other examples of Finnish atrocities against Russians."

True - and war criminals have been prosecuted. Care to guess what happened to Russian war criminals? And care to tell me the army that has ever fought a war without some soldiers committing atrocities?

It's as if you're making it sound like there were such atrocities knowingly sanctioned by the Finnish leadership. There weren't. That is a very dishonest rhetorical strategy, if it was intentional.

"But please spare me the notion that Finland was blameless in Finlandization."

Errr... blameless? It's not something anyone except the communists here would've wanted, so I can't imagine what you could mean by this. Are you putting the moral blame on Finns for hurting... themselves?

[erg]

'If given the choice between something like Yalta "working" at the expense of the lives of hundreds of thousands of people living in the countries we traded away - or standing toe to toe with a bastard like Stalin and demand that they be free to choose their own way. I'll take the second thank you.'

Well, it would be a little more convincing if you also spent some outrage on America's silence on the vast British Empire, far larger than the Soviet Union + East Europe combined. Britain gave up the jewel in its crown in a few years, but there was certainly no intention on its part to do so -- Churchill would have held on to his dying breath. One should note that British policies were at least partly responsible for the great Bengal Famine of 1943 (in which millions died).

Was Yalta a bad bargain ? Perhaps, but on purely humanitarian grounds, it was as evil to agree to the British Empire as it was to agree to Stalin's domination of East Europe.

For the British at least, Yalta was just a continuation of the Great Game.

[jaakkeli]

I should probably clarify this statement of mine, as it came out as a weird platitude:

"There was no "right" side in WWII, there were only two wrong sides."

I obviously did not mean to claim that the British or the Americans were wrong to fight in WWII (that would be completely ridiculous, or worse), I merely claim that the Americans and the British are in no moral higher ground than Finns in this. If having a murderous superpower as a common enemy with another murderous superpower puts you on a "wrong" side, then everyone was on a "wrong" side.

That's my point - I see no way to blame Finns for willingly associating with a really terrible power without ending up blaming the US and the UK for the same. If we were on a "wrong" side, then so was everyone else.

[erg]

'No, Finland specifically did NOT participate in the siege of Leningrad. '

False. Finland most definitely participated in the siege. They were junior partners after the Germans, but they did participate. Read Harrison Salisbury's, 'The 900 days'.

'Oh, really? This is precisely the kind of offensive bullshit Eastern Europe is so used to hearing - Americans in their distant, safe ivory towers judging everyone else while not getting even the simplest facts right (see above). '

1) I'm not American or European.
2) You're the one who's got your facts mixed up on the siege.

'
- so, why is attacking Nazi Germany to reverse their territorial conquests acceptable, but attacking Stalinist Russia to (try to) reverse their conquests "wrong"?'

Reversing their conquests would be fine. But the Finns went beyond that in WW-II.

'True - and war criminals have been prosecuted. '

Really ? What happened to Marshal Mannerheim ?

'Care to guess what happened to Russian war criminals? '

I'm not equating Russian actions with Finnish, certainly.

'It's as if you're making it sound like there were such atrocities knowingly sanctioned by the Finnish leadership.'

The siege was itself an atrocity.

' Are you putting the moral blame on Finns for hurting... themselves?'

I'm saying that the Finns fought on the wrong side in WW-II. Finlandization was not the worst thing that could have happened. Far worse things have happened to countries that end up on the losing side.

[radek]

erg - your point about the British Empire is perhaps correct, but it is also a red herring. Just like the commentator who insisted that Bush's speech was worthless because he didn't take the opportunity to apologize for American slavery. Perhaps (probably - I tend to think this whole apology business is a bit silly - just telling the truth is significant and valuable step) Bush should apologize for slavery, but why should he do it while visiting Latvia? Similarly I don't think the British Empire was an issue discussed at Yalta (unlike the fate of EE).

[jaakkeli]

"False. Finland most definitely participated in the siege. They were junior partners after the Germans, but they did participate. Read Harrison Salisbury's, 'The 900 days'."

What are you talking about? I have no idea about what he's claiming (he seems to be a journalist, not a historian), but Finland did not actively participate in the siege of Leningrad. Finns stopped near the old border and refused to move forward, shell or attack Leningrad through air, despite pleas from the Nazis. That's the Finnish participation.

If you have evidence to the contrary, please contact the Republic of Finland. We will be most interested to find out that the most basic things about about history are wrong.

"Really ? What happened to Marshal Mannerheim ?"

If you're implying him guilty of some war crimes, please tell me precisely which war crimes he's guilty of and why did the Soviet Union not demand him charged for those. It is actually popular lore in Finland that Stalin decided not to demand such charges against Mannerheim largely precisely because of Mannerheim's firm refusal to bomb Leningrad - may be myth, but that's how it's seen.

"I'm saying that the Finns fought on the wrong side in WW-II."

And I'm asking you to tell me why the same logic doesn't tell you that everyone else, including all the Allies, were "on the wrong side". Unless, of course, your opinion is that the "wrong" side is always the one that loses.

So far, your example of a Finnish atrocity sanctioned by the leadership is that Finland held a position dozens of miles from a city and refused to shell or bomb it. This is what proves that Finland was "fighting on the wrong side". Well, the Soviets certainly did not refuse to bomb any Finnish cities nor did they have problems shelling German ones. The Nazis wanted to raze every city in Russia. The Americans and the British bombed Japanese and German cities into nothing but ashes.

And little Finland was on the wrong side, because it refused to bomb a city but held the territory it had reclaimed near it and thus "participated" in a siege. (Finland did not conquer "extra" territory towards Leningrad.)

Can't you see any hypocricy here? Or do you indeed agree that by your standards, everyone was on "the wrong side".

Reversing their conquests would be fine. But the Finns went beyond that in WW-II.

First of all: so? The Allies advanced into all of Germany. Why is that different? Because they were fighting a totalitarian dictatorship that was known to have murdered millions of people?

And what was Finland fighting, then?

The area between what's now Finland and the White Sea is, mostly, traditionally Finnic territory, even though it ended up outside Finland in 1917. Some villages there held votes to join Finland, until in 1920 Finland and Russia signed a peace deal and agreed on the border *on the explicit condition that the Finnic population would be granted cultural autonomy*.

Now, you can imagine how much Stalin respected that.

Finland quite legitimately, according to the treaty, would've had a right to intervene there in the 1930s, as the Soviet Union had broken agreement. Needless to say, that was not tried, but once the German invasion gave a chance, the Finns decided that it is time to rush in to see how the kindred people were treated. Naturally, they were hardly there to be found then, after Stalin had had his way, but that was the intention. Does this differ from the Allies' common argument that invading Germany to protect the minorities that were left was just?

Besides that, there would obviously be pure military use for holding an isthmus instead of one shore of an isthmus - check the map and you'll see what area I mean.

[A. Zarkov]

“Or one could say that Stalin proved himself a girly-boy by accepting that the capitalists got France, Italy, Belguim, Greece (all of which could have been run by the largely communist ...”

I’ve heard Stalin called many things, but never a “girly-boy” or any of its equivalents. Stalin was a tough, shrewd negotiator, and he was at the top of his form at Yalta. It also helps to bug the rooms of your opponents. While FDR was a master politician by American standards he was no match for the likes of Stalin. It also doesn’t help to have your State Department infiltrated and be in very bad health. And let’s face it, a lot Americans then and now tend to hold an overly benign view of Communism. Remember Jimmy Carter and his “inordinate fear of Communism?” Well he took that back after the invasion of Afghanistan. Or George McGovern (a war hero) who had a habit of referring to Soviet atrocities as “mischief.” I myself had direct experience dealing with this kind of mindset. In the 1980s I wrote a technical memo on my analysis of some data the Soviet Union gave the US, which strongly suggested that they “cooked” the numbers. I expected a technical discussion, but all I got was “they wouldn’t do such a thing.” I call that blind faith in their good intentions.

As for those European countries that the capitalists got. Post WWII Italy had the largest Communist party in Western Europe. France had a smaller but more Stalinist party. Stalin didn’t think he needed to get those countries at Yalta, they would come later in the economic chaos after the war. He didn’t realize the Marshall Plan would dash those hopes. And BTW we avoided using international agencies for the Marshall Plan, that helped make it a success.

The only guy I can think of that might have regarded Stalin as a wimp was Enver Hoxha.

[jaakkeli]

Argh, I forgot the quotes from this erg's statement:

"Reversing their conquests would be fine. But the Finns went beyond that in WW-II."

Like I said, you should study the history of those areas; the Finnish claim was that they were not Russian areas, but Karelian [an ethnicity closely related to Finnish] and were victims of forced russification and ethnic cleansing violating the agreement between Russia and Finland on the protection of their culture (which, by the way, is almost extinct, now).

I'm not denying that atrocities were commited by many during this occupation. Nor am I denying that there was strategic thinking about holding positions not exactly on the old borders, because the old borders were not set up with defense in mind. The point is, both things were also done by the winning Allies, even the democratic ones, and you still can't claim that Finns were on a more "wrong" "side" because of those.

This is just the usual "small countries are not supposed to have equal rights" BS that I was so glad Bush avoided in Latvia.

[Stuart]

"The 1944 Warsaw Uprising (not to be confused with the 1943 uprising in the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto) provides another vivid example of how the Allies let down small countries. The primary purpose of the underground army in Poland was to stage an uprising at the opportune time. Soviet radio broadcasts promised to support them with both men and supplies. The US and Britain failed warn the Polish government-in-exile that Stalin would renege on his promise, and of course, true to form, he did. While the Germans slaughtered underground army, the Red Army sat idle nearby."

This would come as news to the 10,500 personnel of Soviet 3rd Tank Corps, 15km away from Warsaw, who spent the early part of August 1944 being utterly annhiliated by German 39th Panzercorps, made up of the Hermann Goering Panzer Division, 4th Panzer Division, 19th Panzer Division, and 5th SS Panzer Division. It would also come as news to the personnel of Soviet 8th Guards Tank Corps, which spent early August 1944 retreating from Warsaw like mad to avoid a similar fate. Soviet 3rd Tank Corps surrendered on 7 August 1944 in the Warsaw suburb of Wolomin. Soviet forces vicinity Warsaw lacked the combat power to relieve Soviet 3rd Tank Corps.

What makes you think they had the combat power to take Warsaw?

(A German Panzer Division was about 40% larger than a Soviet Tank Corps)

The broadcast occured before the counterattack of 39th Panzercorps.

[erg]

'What are you talking about? I have no idea about what he's claiming (he seems to be a journalist, not a historian),'

Salisbury has written the definitive account of the siege of Leningrad (The 900 days). I would suggest reading it for the most comprehensive, balanced description of the siege.

' but Finland did not actively participate in the siege of Leningrad. Finns stopped near the old border and refused to move forward, shell or attack Leningrad through air, despite pleas from the Nazis. That's the Finnish participation.'

Finland did not attack Leningrad through the air. It did shell Leningrad and some of the convoys through the Lake Ladoga road that the Russians used to resupply Leningrad. They did definitely help to seal off Leningrad and were thus actively complicit in the siege. Leningrad was never a very communist city anyway, and the great victims of the siege were youngsters and women. Leningrad was one of the great atrocities of WW-II perpetuated by German brutality, Soviet incompetence and Finnish acquisience.

'If you have evidence to the contrary, please contact the Republic of Finland. We will be most interested to find out that the most basic things about about history are wrong.'

If the history you've been reading is that Finland took no role in the siege or even allowed Russian convoys through, then you've been reading the wrong history.

'So far, your example of a Finnish atrocity sanctioned by the leadership is that Finland held a position dozens of miles from a city and refused to shell or bomb it.'

1) The Finns shelled Leningrad. They did not bomb it, although I don't know if the Finnish air force was capable of the same anyway
2) They helped to besige a city in which 1 million people died of starvation. If thats not a war crime, I don't know what is.

I remember reading that the casualties in the Russo-Finish war were around 16000 on the Finnish side. That is certainly a large number, in a small country, but does that justify participation in an atrocity that killed 60 times as many people ?

'It is actually popular lore in Finland that Stalin decided not to demand such charges against Mannerheim largely precisely because of Mannerheim's firm refusal to bomb Leningrad - may be myth, but that's how it's seen.'

Its most definitely myth. Stalin didn't have much of a problem sending the defenders of Leningrad to Gulags. I wouldnt speculate on why Mannerheim was not charged other than the fact that Britain and the US probably would have protested and that there were far, far greater criminals to go after, not to mention that it would have brought up the uncomfortable matter of the Soviet Union's original attack.

Other countries were able to stay out of the war. Switzerland did and Sweden did. Finland could have done so as well.

[Marsh Afson]

'Remember Jimmy Carter and his “inordinate fear of Communism?” '

Carter's full quote was in essence:

“we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism, which had led the United States to ally with anti-communist dictators."

How is this different from what Bush claims to propose -- not allying with dictators any more ? It was a bad phrase from Carter, as bad as Ford's claim that Poland was not under Soviet Domination, but in Ford's case we recognize it clearly as a slip, whereas in Carter's case, people continue to bring it up again and again.

"And BTW we avoided using international agencies for the Marshall Plan, that helped make it a success."

Well, duh. There were no international agencies at that time capable of handling this, so yes, that did make it a success since it wasn't done by a non-existent agency.

[jaakkeli]

"Other countries were able to stay out of the war. Switzerland did and Sweden did. Finland could have done so as well."

Are we talking about the same fucking war?!?!?

I'm through with this "argument". That is a completely ludicrous claim. It's the Stalin-sympathizer crowds' equivalent of neo-Nazi revisionism.

And I mean it. You're scum. I wish you a miserable life.

[erg]

'ust like the commentator who insisted that Bush's speech was worthless because he didn't take the opportunity to apologize for American slavery. Perhaps (probably - I tend to think this whole apology business is a bit silly - just telling the truth is significant and valuable step) Bush should apologize for slavery, but why should he do it while visiting Latvia? Similarly I don't think the British Empire was an issue discussed at Yalta (unlike the fate of EE).'

I was responding to a post which said that the US should have in essence demanded that Stalin grant freedom to East Europe and others who said we were complicit because the US didn't stop Stalin from doing that (the analogy used would be to stop a bully from beating someone else). Slavery is totally irrelevant since it had been eliminated in the US 60 years before Yalta.

By contrast, the British Empire is totally and completely relevant since it existed at Yalta, and Churchill, that great defender of human liberty, wanted to keep it forever. And Yalta was not just about East Europe, it was about the whole post-war world order. The fate of the British Empire was not discussed because Britain wanted to keep it. But as a matter of the post-war order, the formation of the UN and the like, the British Empire which held more people in thrall than Germany or the Soviet Union ever did was extremely relevant. If someone is so struck with guilt over not acting on East Europe at Yalta, how much guilt should be expended over not even mentioning the British Empire.

You have a point that this would not be the proper forum for Bush to express contrition over that. I will wait eagerly for the day that Bush (or Blair for that matter) expresses contrition to India, Kenya, Malaysia etc. for the US's role in essentially allowing Britian to keep its empire.

In any case, my point wasn't so much to defend Yalta as to point out that in those days vast empires were maintained by all kinds of states and were defended by all sorts of people (including the great statesman Churchill). In the context of East Europe, Stalin may have been a unique evil - througout the world, he most definitely was not.

[erg]

'"Other countries were able to stay out of the war. Switzerland did and Sweden did. Finland could have done so as well."

Are we talking about the same fucking war?!?!?'

Uh, yes. I'm not talking about the Winter war, which Finland could obviously not have avoided. I'm talking about participating in the siege of Leningrad, which Finland did, despite your claims to the contrary. Sweden helped Germany in some ways including allowing troop transport, but they did stay out of the war proper.

'I'm through with this "argument". That is a completely ludicrous claim. It's the Stalin-sympathizer crowds' equivalent of neo-Nazi revisionism.'

And that is a lie. I challenge you to find a single Stalin sympathizing statement above. My sympathy was simply with the people of Leningrad.

'And I mean it. You're scum. I wish you a miserable life.'

Well, I'm not the one peddling the lie that the Finns did not participate in the siege of Leningrad. Russia hasn't completely come to grips with its atrocious Stalinist past, but Finland (judging by your comments) needs to come to terms with its actions in WW-II, rather than portraying them all as some sort of heroic resistance to the Soviets (true in the Winter War, but not after that).

[Solar Pons]

Bush's statement was largely intended to improve American relations with these small Baltic countries. It should should not be taken any more seriously than just that, a good will gesture to these countries.

As to what should have happened at Yalta, its certainly hard to second guess what might have happened after 60 years. One reason for this action on the part of the US was to ensure that Stalin did attack Japan, which might have been badly needed before the bomb (remember that Marshal Zhukov administered a first class beating to Japan in 1938).

Also, while it may seem atrocious today, the idea of dividing the world into blocs of influence was pretty common in 1945. Most of the Western Hemisphere was in the American bloc, Britain and France controlled much of Africa, Britan controlled most of the Middle East, India, and a large part of South-East Asia.

[A. Zarkov]

Stuart:

I think you need to provide sources because what you write certainly seems at variance with the sources I have seen. While I did not read the Davies book, I did hear him speak at length on this topic on CSPAN. If you go to the faq at:

http://www.warsawuprising.com/faq.htm

Under the question “why did it fail? You get:

“Lack of Support The Russian East front offensive had stopped on August 3rd just ten miles from Praga, Warsaw's right bank district. Although Russia controlled over 100 airfields within Warsaw's range, their planes disappeared from the Warsaw sky until September 10th. Moreover, the first massive Allied airdrop took place on September 18th at the time the Uprising was already doomed.This delay was in large part caused by the Soviet Union's refusal to allow Allied planes on missions to Warsaw to land on its airfields. On September 16th, when the Red Army had reached Warsaw's right bank, it made only a half-hearted effort to storm the city. All their attempts were conducted by the Russian-commanded Polish Army of Gen. Berling.”

The sources used for the above site are here:

http://www.warsawuprising.com/res.htm

Consider the source “Destroy Warsaw: Hitler’s Punishment, Stalin’s Revenge.” In particular page 143:

“The Soviet grand design was not so much military as political. In light of subsequent events the doomed Warsaw uprising happened to be a helpful factor in Moscow’s plans for a post war Europe.”

Or how about:

“But he [Stalin] had no intention of giving it [the uprising] substantial help, and he used Warsaw’s slow death to his own advantage”

It seems obvious that Stalin did not want to help the government in exile because that would boost their chances to rule Poland after the war, and he clearly had other plans.

Perhaps the events you described happened, but we need context, clearly Stalin had no intention of helping the uprising.