"Russia Still Re-Writing History" Topic

Just saw an article stating that a recent Russian TV documentary which criticized Stalin for expending a million men in human-wave attacks during the battles around Rzhev in the winter of 1942-43 has raised an enormous outrage among the authorities. They want pretty much anyone involved with the production (which Western historians have declared fair and accurate) to be tried for treason.

Democracy quick-stepping to the rear on the Eastern Front.

Haven't the producers been paying attention to the news on the home front lately?

I've read that the latest opinion of Stalin in Russia is that he saved Mother Russia in WWII and should be recognized for doing so.

There are also some who look back on those days as better than now.

So, I imagine that probably means they won't want to talk about the purges either…..

Rumor has it Stalin killed 10 – 12 million of his own people, making Hitler look like a rank amateur by comparison.

IIRC the Russians lost more tanks there, than they USED at the Stalingrad encirclement.

Top Gun, seems to me Gorbachev announced that it was as high as 20 million of his own people! This included political dissidents as well as the same peoples Hitler was killing along with a variety of others.

Could be.

I guess we will probably never know.

He almost lost the war due to the purging of all the military leaders before, and soon after Hitler attacked.

Scott: truth is quick stepping to the rear. Sadly democracy is no guarantee to truth.

Russia, of course, has neither authorities who like the truth nor democracy (in any meaningful sense).

I guess we will probably never know.

Not exactly, no. But indirect methods give broadly similar results, which tends to confirm the numbers cited by Medvedev.

The broadest method is to take the USSR's population in 1925 and in 1955 (counting only those parts consistently within it). Then apply standard birth rates and death rates from before and after, also comparing with similar countries (say Poland, Bulgaria). The difference (allowing for less births as a result of more deaths) is those who died as a result of Stalin's actions, one way or another. It's complicated, but nothing unusual for demographers.

As much as Uncle Joe was a paranoid, homicidal tyrant I have to wonder if he was the right man in the right place. would anyone else have been able to fight Hitler in that bare-knuckle, no rules, steel cage fight called the Eastern Front? Would any saner leader have refused to quit and just kept throwing troops at the Nazis?

As much as Uncle Joe was a paranoid, homicidal tyrant I have to wonder if he was the right man in the right place.

Hard to see how anyone else could have put the Soviet Union into worse shape leading into the war.

You know, if Hitler had been a little more patient and prudent, he should have sent gifts to Zhukov and Timeshenko to get Stalin to purge them

My neighbour's Dad survived the Holodor (Ukrainian famine) and then survived Buckenwald, so has a pretty low opinion of both – although when he had the chance to return to the Soviet Union after WWII he snuck out of a refugee camp, crossed two borders and managed to get on a ship to North America – and has never looked back

This summer in my college lit class, I have several young Russians/Georgians/Ect, mostly females, who moved here while teenagers. They think Stalin was awesome and that there is/was nothing wrong with the KGB. They also love Putin. I was a bad person for criticizing them.

Sadly, the other students in the class had no clue what the Russians were talking about. The latter attitudes scared me more.

In the same class I also have an ex-army guy who served in Iraq. He claims the whole affair was a waste of his/our time and like to keep saying this. But that is another discussion.

Please pray for me this summer!

If you can stay with David Glantz, and follow it closely, his book "Zhukov's Gretest Defeat", 2005, Univerity of Kansas Press, writes this history. By 2007 he was saying that the Russian archives guys were unhappy with him and were withdrawing their cooperation for dogging Zhukov on Operation Mars. Russian lossed were about 250,000 with 120,000 kia and the loss of 1,600 tanks as I understand it. Zhukov called it off after three weeks. The salient contained four German Korps including two Panzer (39th and 41st) with seven Panzer Divisions. Eventually the Germans gave up the salient…and those engaged elements could not help where there were desperately needed to the south. So, who were the losers, really.

But at the same time, his iron will forced the country to fight Germany with the same fanatical commitment to total war. General were shot that didn't win. It was kill or be killed for the Soviets. But, that being said, not the kind of guy I would want to be president if I had a vote.

Stalin's "iron will" would not have made an iota's difference if the population had been of a mind to fold. I doubt any Russian leader would have thought very differently in fact. (Note that the Bolsheviks, including Stalin, had been the surrender monkeys in 1917, when the bulk of the Russian leadership had wanted to continue.)

But another leader would not have placed the USSR in the terrible position it faced in 1940, with a military decapitated and a bunch of sullen neighbours, willing to co-operate with Hitler so great was their dislike of Stalin.

"Russia, of course, has neither authorities who like the truth nor democracy (in any meaningful sense)."…neither do most other countries--America Britain etc included…
The trouble is in war the leader you need should be a real SOB--Churchill was one, Stalin was one and Hitler certainly was an Uber SOB..

Also Mark remember in 1918 the Bolsheviks actually did what they promised- Peace, Bread and Land….If Kerenskys government had made peace the Bolshies wouldn't have had a chance..

In fact, Russia is on the verge of criminalizing those who "distort" Russia's/USSR's role in defeating the Nazis. What distortion in fact means is anything but the official Russian viewpoint (on any given day).

"In fact, Russia is on the verge of criminalizing those who "distort" Russia's/USSR's role in defeating the Nazis….."
Watch out any rulesets then that go against the idea that T34s/IS 2 etc weren't any good!!! Glad I collect Russians then!! LOL

It just depends on how historically correct your dice rolling is!

Also Mark remember in 1918 the Bolsheviks actually did what they promised – Peace, Bread and Land.

Peace: with Germany, yes. War with Whites, Mensheviks, Ukranians etc though.
Bread: starvation more like, though this was not the intention.
Land: until they collectivized.

The Bolsheviks also promised, among other things:
No secret treaties: that lasted until Rapallo, 1922.
Self-determination of peoples: <choking> depends on your allegiance a lot.</choking>
No death penalty: lasted about six months.

Keeping promises was never one of Stalin's strengths, as this list shows, so I think he would have backed reneging on peace with Germany if it had been to the Bolsheviks' advantage.

Lenin backed Brest-Litovsk because for him internal enemies were more important than external ones. I have no doubt Stalin was the same, judging by his behaviour against political enemies: basically they were to be disposed of, regardless of the effects of doing that on the USSR as a whole (that's what the purges were).

IMO, if he had faced internal enemies of any strength in 1943 he would have signed a peace treaty with Hitler on order to deal with them. His "iron will" to fight the Nazis would have melted very quickly.

I've seen the film, it was good.
Nobody will prosecute its creators. We do have plenty of issues, but sentencing the journalists for a film that made it to state TV (and it is not possible wihout certiain parties involved) will not happen.
Each Saturday we have an radio program on 1st main state channel where one of our leading journalists/writers (Mikhail Weller, if any one here knows him) regularly calling Zhukov a cruel butcher. He (Weller) is still free and well.
However there is a tendency in a great number of new books to polish many facts of Stalin's reign, giving undue compliments to certain generals and avoiding some facts that doesn't fit into the scheme. So far you can buy Patton's, Guderian's, Rokossovskiy's books – there're hundreds of them printed. If you want to get to the truth yourself, you can do that. On the other side, I don't like increased propagandistic pressure that is built by the government….

He was an evil sod with an army that had too many officiers that had a disregard for its men. The disparity of numbers between the russians and germans was shocking and the technlogical differences though wwere not that pronounced. Why then did the Soviets lose so many men? Both in defence and in attack?

Well, Russian historians and officials are currently pushing the "It was all Poland's fault" line. The suggestion is that Poland was at best at fault in encouraging Germany's invasion, at worse actively in cahoots with Germany.
"Fictions and Falsifications in Evaluating the USSR's Role On the Eve of World War II" by Col. Sergei Kovalyov, director of the scientific-research department of military history.
The fact is that Russia is attempting to re-write history to exhonerate themselves from the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the division of Poland.

"Hard to see how anyone else could have put the Soviet Union into worse shape leading into the war."

Umm, except the Five Year Plans converted Russia from a peasant economy into a modern industrial one in a couple of decades. Without that, along with a vastly more efficent mobilisation of the economic resources they did have (as their overall capacity was still dwarfed by Germany), they'd have lost.

"Why then did the Soviets lose so many men? Both in defence and in attack?"

Because division for division the Germans were more combat effective by a large margin, and casualty ratios (in general) are the square of the different in combat power. The Russians overcame this by developing their strategic and operational mobility to the level that they could concentrate sufficient numbers at the point of contact to overcome this difference, as well as careful preparation of set piece attacks and the use of operational surprise.

Don't underestimate the Red Army. Their manpower advantages were never overwhelming, and they found it very hard to close the combat effectiveness gap, so they learned to use what they had more effectively and fight in a different way. They won, but it was always going to be an expensive victory.

"If you can stay with David Glantz, and follow it closely, his book "Zhukov's Gretest Defeat", 2005, Univerity of Kansas Press, writes this history. By 2007 he was saying that the Russian archives guys were unhappy with him and were withdrawing their cooperation for dogging Zhukov on Operation Mars. Russian lossed were about 250,000 with 120,000 kia and the loss of 1,600 tanks as I understand it. Zhukov called it off after three weeks. The salient contained four German Korps including two Panzer (39th and 41st) with seven Panzer Divisions. Eventually the Germans gave up the salient…and those engaged elements could not help where there were desperately needed to the south. So, who were the losers, really."

Got a copy right next to me actually.
Overall, the Soviets still lost that particular one IMO.

Unless the Salient had been withdrawn from after the August attacks, there would have been no way to get the few Panzer Divisions available in AG:C to the south in time to make a serious difference to Stalingrad. Given that the Germans still had intentions to attack Moscow after the south was taken, this is extremely unlikely to have happened.
And when considering the Soviets fortune to have hit the 9th PzD and the 78th ID as they were in the middle of exchanging frontages, rather than after the 78th ID were in place with the 9th PzD able to provide an armoured counterattack, things could have gone worse for the Soviets. This could be countered by their mistakes on the Eastern flank of the Salient though.

Last time I watched something about the purges I was pretty shocked by the numbers.
When starvation was added in, the numbers the programme quoted were higher than lost in ww2.
Don't know how accurate the numbers were but still pause for thought.

Operation Bagraton, was planned with Stalin's interest and approval. But by the invasion of East Prussia, Stalin was hands on, directing the three main lines of advance, and directing Zukov's territorial goals and those of his other generals. He became, in the simple sense, Russia's version of Eisenhower: the theatre commander. But a much more effective one at that: no need for the Russians to be shy of celebrating that.

He was also a pioneer of slave-industrialisation: where economic expansion is directed by compulsion rather than undirected by market forces: you just imprison as many people as possible in work-gangs to ensure its success. A great organiser in every sense.

I also read an article lately that criticised Stalin heavily for ignoring any hints of a German attack in spring 1941: apparently there was plenty of intelligence information passed to him, suggesting that the Germans were preparing for an attack, but he wilfully ignored them.

Griefbringer

All nations rewrite their histories of WW2 \ GPW in one way or another, including the UK, US, Russia\USSR, Japan and Germany, and all of them are happy to point fingers when the others do it.

What surprises me is why we all seem shocked \ surprised \ ready to man the barricades. We can't even agree what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan yesterday, let alone something that happened 70 years ago.

Umm, except the Five Year Plans converted Russia from a peasant economy into a modern industrial one in a couple of decades. Without that, along with a vastly more efficent mobilisation of the economic resources they did have (as their overall capacity was still dwarfed by Germany), they'd have lost.

I don't believe that Russia was comparatively more industrialised, nor efficiently mobilised in 1940 than in 1914. In actual terms they were, of course, but then everyone had industrialised more in the three decades.

1914 Russia was a heavily industrialised country, which exported large amounts of food and was booming economically. It's a myth promoted by the Soviet need to be better than the Tsars that pre-1914 Russia was non-industrialised.

By 1940 Russia had actually slipped down the industrialisation list, comparatively, and no longer exported as much food (indeed, had only just got back to feeding its own population properly).

While Stalin was touting the great Five Year Plans, other countries just went about industrialising quietly, and generally more efficiently. The West was prepared to admit to failures -- that's the big difference -- rather than the idea that the USSR leaped to the front of the industrialised nations. Pre-1940 Soviet machines (tractors, locomotives, planes) were still far behind in quality to their Western neighbours.

Even if the Five Year Plans did take the USSR forward, they would have gone a lot faster but for the brutal collectivisation Stalin insisted on. And him backing Lysenko was a disaster for Soviet agriculture, from which they never properly recovered.

(The Soviets went on skiting about their industrial prowess well past WWII, but it's pretty obvious with hindsight that they were actually always falling behind.)

"1914 Russia was a heavily industrialised country…."

Compared to Germany, the U.S. or the UK? Not even close.

WW2 was a battle of machines. In WW1 the Russians lacked the ability to design, produce, and distribute the machines on the scale needed for war. In WW2, the Russians did it very well indeed, sometimes better than anyone else.