Soviet (right) and Nazi officers celebrating the joint invasion of Poland as their countries both embarked on a genocide of the Polish people, Brest, modern-day Belarus, 1939
Soviet (right) and Nazi officers celebrating the joint invasion of Poland as their countries both embarked on a genocide of the Polish people, Brest, modern-day Belarus, 1939
so how did the ussr go from this to marching into germany at the end and helping defeat the nazis? genuine question. was it just a case of "ok you're getting a little too close or comfort" or something else?
Essentially, the Nazis and Soviets were allies of convenience. They both had a mutual interest in destroying the sovereignty and nationhood of all of Eastern Europe, but once that was out of the way, it was an issue of "Both sides want full control over the area, and neither side has acceptable goals to the other".
The Nazis eventually struck first in Operation Barbarossa; the Soviets didn't expect the Nazis to be ready to invade them for a few more years, so they were caught off guard, which is where a lot of the "NAZIS GREAT SOLDIERS 1 MILLION SOVIETS = 1 NAZI UBERMENSCH" bullshit comes from. The Soviets were scattered and disorganized, and had to hastily reconstruct a lot of their military doctrine around the fact that the Nazis had just occupied a big chunk of the Soviet Union's industrial equipment and population.
After a few months of chaos, the Nazis discovered that sucker-punching a powerhouse doesn't make you a champion boxer, and spent the next three years getting slowly brutalized into oblivion by the Soviet Army and the Nazis' own dumbass idea to invade.
The only reason endrd up losing to the Soviets was because he went back on his own original war plan. He didn't want to fight a war on two fronts. The idea was to knock out France, which he did, then defeat the UK, which he didn't do. He expected the UK to sue for negotiations but they ended up resisting him for far longer than he expected. Since the US was supplying the UK and keeping them afloat, Hitler was cautious. He wanted to avoid a war with the US, so he turned his attention elsewhere, which was invading the Soviet Union, while not securing the Western front.
Despite this, Hitler still managed to reach the outskirts of Moscow and he was close to winning, but he got cocky and impatient by ordering his armies to march through the winter and unwisely split a few of his armies at the wrong times. He also made his biggest mistake by declaring war on the US when the US declared war on Japan after they attacked Pearl Harbor... Even though didn't have to. After trying to previously avoid war with US, he went and did it for no good reason. This brought second wind to the allies as Americans weapons starting pouring into the UK and the Soviet Union as well as American troops pouring into the Western front. This forced Hitler to divide his attention and resources which gave the Soviets valuable time and opportunities to recover and strike back.
Too bad the Soviets ended up occupying Eastern Europe much like the nazis but under new management rather actually liberating them.
The Russians suck at war. They lost to the French, then the Germans and now the Ukrainians. They should really read a book.
The Soviet officer is Semyon Krivoshein, he's Jewish and not celebrating for multiple reasons. The Nazis occupied Brest when they weren't supposed to, Krivoshein got there and started negotiating to try to get them to leave. The Nazis were making a propaganda film out of this (which is where the picture comes from) so they wanted the Soviet army to have a parade with them. After an argument Krivoshein agreed that just him and some of his staff would stand there and watch the Nazis parade out of town in exchange for the Nazis leaving Polish prisoners they took in Brest.
Brest was 50% Jewish at this point, in Operation Barbarossa the Soviets defended for 6 days, Jewish Soviet officers were summarily shot by the Nazis, almost the entire Jewish population of Brest died in the Holocaust.
It really wasn't a good time to be Jewish then. The muslim world wanted you dead, the nazis wanted you dead, the Soviets hated you, and the US and UK greatly disliked you. There was no place where Jews were actually safe and protected until after WWII.
Reminder that Stalin was stupid enough to believe that Hitler was NOT stupid enough to renege on their little NAP over Poland. When Barbarossa rolled in, Stalin initially forbade his troops from fighting back because he thought it was a false flag ops by the Western Allies.
Motherfuckers all.
But do yourself a favor and read up on the Polish Resistance. Those were some seriously metal sons of bitches.
And for those of you who don't like reading history: Imagine watching 50-100 of your friends getting summarily executed every day, and it doesn't make you afraid to stop killing Nazis. It makes you even more emboldened, and that's exactly what you do. You exist to make them afraid to walk the streets.
Poles, historically, are seriously badass and do not deserve 1/10th of the jokes made about them
I wish our schools did a better job teaching about resistance movements. Here in the US most people don't know about the Battle of Blair Mountain, for example, even though it was the largest armed resistance action here since the US Civil War.
But if you know what the BoBM is, you know why it isn't taught, for the same reason churches don't teach what the Bible says about usury.
Sabaton - Winged Hussars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxlRJsQ7p2k
Conservatism has always been a plague of death. It is long overdue for a cure.
Both the Marxists in the Soviet Union and the Nazis in Germany tore down their countries and rebuild them in accordance to their tyrannical ideologies. It's a stretch to call regimes that brought radical change conservative when they clearly not for preserving anything from the previous regimes.
In both cases, they co-opted popular left-leaning movements to engage conservative voting bases. They combined these popular movements with nationalist conservative ideologies to garner wide appeal amongst conservatives.
After winning, they then used their momentum to tear down institutional checks and balances to make sure they would hold power indefinitely, even if their support started to wane. Conservative support, in both cases, remained strong for many years, resulting in the deaths of millions of innocent non-conservatives.
There can't really be a cure though, what's "conservative" is just whatever is on the right wing of a country's politics at any point in time.
So, a bag of complete goose-stepping morons, as directed by a couple of servient, underling-fascists, are RIGHT on their way...!
Well then-- HURRAY!, is it not..?
The soviets had no sense of fashion at all smh...
On a serious note, you'd think Belarus nowadays would be less keen on supporting Russia given their history.
You ask for an independent opinion from a country that mass protested the last bullshit elections before potato dictator with a joint support from russian siloviki beat, tortured, imprisoned and\or dissappeared thousands of people. Luka is behind the wheel, and he is playing his own game balancing between a neutral sovereign country and a region of russia, whatever fits him best at the moment. He's not asking what his* people want.
* 'His' is a weird word to put there, but I'd let it stay.