WW2 question: how was Stalin better than Hitler?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
rudeguy

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
47,351
14
61
When the allies came together, it was decided to let Stalin have control of the eastern front. This was before we knew about the Final Solution and concentration camps.

I understand wanting to have a second front but why weren't controls put in place so that Stalin would have to relinquish the territory he conquered like the allies did?

In hind sight, he took over more territory than Hitler. He was just as cruel, if not more so. What made the allies decide to make him an equal?
 
O

OCGuy

Lifer
Jul 12, 2000
27,224
37
91
Woah inaccurate premise.......

You do know that the Red Army is what decimated the Nazis, right? We didn't "let" them do anything, they were insane and determined after some of the worst fighting this planet has ever seen in Stalingrad and elsewhere.

Also, we knew a mST about the concentration camps before the Rooskies liberated them.


Where did you learn history?
 
Last edited:
C

Crono

Lifer
Aug 8, 2001
23,720
1,502
136
It was "the devil you kinda have to trust" deal. Due to geography and resources, the Allies needed that eastern front covered, and what do you know, the Soviet Union fit the bill.

Stalin was just the leader not invading Western Europe at the time, had there been any other large power in the area, I'm sure the Allies would have done secret deals with them. Stalin was a duplicitous and treacherous man with power, but he did have power. The Allied leaders didn't really trust him at any point and he certainly didn't trust them (paranoia is a dictator's best friend). At Yalta, it was more agreements not to get into each others way than anything else, it wasn't a coordinated and friendly meeting. Earlier on during the war, it was Stalin who really took the initiative, and the Allies just realized he was going to play a part on their side by default, since Hitler had already broken his agreement with Stalin:

Wikipedia said:
While the Germans pressed forward, Stalin was confident of an eventual Allied victory over Germany. In September 1941, Stalin told British diplomats that he wanted two agreements: (1) a mutual assistance/aid pact and (2) a recognition that, after the war, the Soviet Union would gain the territories in countries that it had taken pursuant to its division of Eastern Europe with Hitler in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

The British agreed to assistance but refused to agree upon the territorial gains, which Stalin accepted months later as the military situation deteriorated somewhat in mid-1942. By December 1941, Hitler's troops had advanced to within 20 miles of the Kremlin in Moscow. On 5 December, the Soviets launched a counteroffensive, pushing German troops back 40–50 miles from Moscow, the Wehrmacht's first significant defeat of the war.
Click to expand...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Pact_with_Hitler

Hitler takes the cake for maliciousness and genocide, though (note: a "maliciousness cake" would not be delicious, nor would the name be good for marketing...), not that there's a competition or award ceremony for pure evil. He would get second place for the time period, though.

The relationship between the other Allies and Stalin/the Soviet Union was just out of perceived necessity. War and politics makes for strange bedfellows. Had Hitler not pressed his luck - though he might have been clinically insane at some point there, and not just evil - by turning against Stalin, things might have played out very, very differently.
 
Last edited:
MiataNC

MiataNC

Platinum Member
Dec 5, 2007
2,215
1
81
rudeguy said:
When the allies came together, it was decided to let Stalin have control of the eastern front. This was before we knew about the Final Solution and concentration camps.

I understand wanting to have a second front but why weren't controls put in place so that Stalin would have to relinquish the territory he conquered like the allies did?

In hind sight, he took over more territory than Hitler. He was just as cruel, if not more so. What made the allies decide to make him an equal?
Click to expand...

What controls do you think could have been put into place?

At the time of the Yalta conference (I assume that is what you are referring to), the US was hoping to get a guarantee of Russia's help fighting Japan and Truman was hoping to get Stalin to agree to join the UN. Stalin had all of the leverage he needed to dictate terms.

Short of declaring war on Russia, there was nothing the US or anyone else could do to stop Stalin from doing whatever he wanted in Eastern Europe.
 
Agent11

Agent11

Diamond Member
Jan 22, 2006
3,535
1
0
And the allies had their hands full, opening another front to fight the Russians would have cost the allies the war, it would have completely distracted the US and allowed Hitler time to consolidate his forces.
 
techs

techs

Lifer
Sep 26, 2000
28,559
4
0
The Russian army wouldn't have stopped until it reached the English Channel.
They had two and a half times the men, more tanks, more ground attack and low level fighters, more artillery than the US and Britain. They beat German armies twice as big as the one the Allies faced in the West.
The Russian equipment was also far better than the Allies. The T-34 was far superior to the Sherman and the Russians had more of them. Their ground attack aircraft were superior to the allies. Their low level fighters were at least the equals of the Allies.

Oh, and the US President would have been impeached if he tried to attack the Russians.
 
rudeguy

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
47,351
14
61
MiataNC said:
What controls do you think could have been put into place?

At the time of the Yalta conference (I assume that is what you are referring to), the US was hoping to get a guarantee of Russia's help fighting Japan and Truman was hoping to get Stalin to agree to join the UN. Stalin had all of the leverage he needed to dictate terms.

Short of declaring war on Russia, there was nothing the US or anyone else could do to stop Stalin from doing whatever he wanted in Eastern Europe.
Click to expand...

Right! I forgot Japan had already captured some of mainland Asia.

So allying with Stalin covered that front, plus the eastern front with Hitler. It basically helped tie up both Japan and Germany. So if we hadn't allied with him, that would have meant that Stalin would have joined the Axis and not just signed a stop gap treaty with Hitler?
 
Albatross

Albatross

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2001
2,344
8
81
To bad that after Japan,USA didn't nuke Moscow.Many things from the Korean war,Cuban missile crisis,Korean and Vietnam war could have been prevented.And still today Russia only exports Mafia,brutality and instability.The Golden Horde did a great job.
 
techs

techs

Lifer
Sep 26, 2000
28,559
4
0
rudeguy said:
Right! I forgot Japan had already captured some of mainland Asia.

So allying with Stalin covered that front, plus the eastern front with Hitler. It basically helped tie up both Japan and Germany. So if we hadn't allied with him, that would have meant that Stalin would have joined the Axis and not just signed a stop gap treaty with Hitler?
Click to expand...

Uh, no.
 
D

darkswordsman17

Lifer
Mar 11, 2004
23,444
5,852
146
OP, WTF are you talking about? They didn't agree to let them have the territories, but they didn't really have a choice at the time. Then after Germany fell, neither side wanted to continue fighting. Russia's troop/tank/etc advantage was neutralized by the US having the bomb so it was a stalemate preventing them from really fighting. The tensions over it was what the Cold War was all about.
 
Gintaras

Gintaras

Golden Member
Dec 28, 2000
1,892
1
71
OCGuy said:
Woah inaccurate premise.......

You do know that the Red Army is what decimated the Nazis, right? We didn't "let" them do anything, they were insane and determined after some of the worst fighting this planet has ever seen in Stalingrad and elsewhere.

Also, we knew a mST about the concentration camps before the Rooskies liberated them.


Where did you learn history?
Click to expand...

Who the fuck are you - "we"?
 
techs

techs

Lifer
Sep 26, 2000
28,559
4
0
Albatross said:
To bad that after Japan,USA didn't nuke Moscow.Many things from the Korean war,Cuban missile crisis,Korean and Vietnam war could have been prevented.And still today Russia only exports Mafia,brutality and instability.The Golden Horde did a great job.
Click to expand...

Well, yeah. We all know the Russians secretly loved the US. If we just conquered them they would love us. In fact, we could pay for the war with Russian oil...Oh, wait. That was Iraq.

Of course with the US producing one or two nukes a month it would only have taken a year to defeat Russia. Though we would have had to drop the bombs on the Russian armies occupying countries like Romania. Unfortunately you wouldn't be here to have made your post.
 
Albatross

Albatross

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2001
2,344
8
81
techs said:
Well, yeah. We all know the Russians secretly loved the US. If we just conquered them they would love us. In fact, we could pay for the war with Russian oil...Oh, wait. That was Iraq.

Of course with the US producing one or two nukes a month it would only have taken a year to defeat Russia. Though we would have had to drop the bombs on the Russian armies occupying countries like Romania. Unfortunately you wouldn't be here to have made your post.
Click to expand...

Japan surrendered and there is no reason to believe Russia wouldn't have.But USA had no real reason to care,a rich democracy being asked to wage war for political reasons is too much.
 
rudeguy

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
47,351
14
61
darkswordsman17 said:
OP, WTF are you talking about? They didn't agree to let them have the territories, but they didn't really have a choice at the time. Then after Germany fell, neither side wanted to continue fighting. Russia's troop/tank/etc advantage was neutralized by the US having the bomb so it was a stalemate preventing them from really fighting. The tensions over it was what the Cold War was all about.
Click to expand...

They agreed to let him control the front and didn't stop him from keeping the territory. 2 different things. Sorry I wasn't clear.
 
rudeguy

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
47,351
14
61
IndyColtsFan

IndyColtsFan

Lifer
Sep 22, 2007
33,655
688
126
rudeguy said:
Wow...you are correct. I always assumed they kept fighting. I knew that Russia didn't stop fighting Japan until a week after they surrendered but I didn't know there was such a large break in there.

I found a pretty interesting article on it:
http://thediplomat.com/2012/08/28/the-forgotten-soviet-japanese-war-of-1939/
Click to expand...

The Russians and Japanese signed a non-aggression pact and it was to the benefit of both sides to keep it as long as there was a war in Europe tying up the Allies. For Russia, they didn't need/want a second front in the war while fighting Germany. Japan was stretched too thin fighting in the Pacific to fight Russia as well. As others have said, Roosevelt and Churchill made agreements with Stalin that after the Germans were defeated, Russia would declare war on Japan within 3 months. IIRC, the Japanese leadership was actually in an emergency meeting when they got nearly simultaneous reports that Nagasaki had been nuked and that the Soviets had entered the Pacific War. It was pretty much curtains for them then.
 
adlep

adlep

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2001
5,287
6
81
Stalin was evil, Hitler was insane. JS was a master of intrigue, manipulation, and playing various fractions against each other. Not to mention that he was in power since 1920. The most people he killed were the Soviet people.
 
D

darkxshade

Lifer
Mar 31, 2001
13,749
6
81
The sad truth is that history is written by the victors. If you would all pull your head out of your asses for a sec and read a real history book you'd find out WW2 was fabricated. Pearl harbor was not bombed by the Japanese but was in fact staged by the US government just like 9/11. The US had already developed the atomic bomb and needed a location to drop it on and Europe wasn't exactly a great place with so many allies around. So the looked to a little remote island of Japan and started this whole thing and now they spy on you and watch you change your underwear because they are just protecting you. :ninja:
 
C

Crono

Lifer
Aug 8, 2001
23,720
1,502
136
darkxshade said:
The sad truth is that history is written by the victors. If you would all pull your head out of your asses for a sec and read a real history book you'd find out WW2 was fabricated. Pearl harbor was not bombed by the Japanese but was in fact staged by the US government just like 9/11. The US had already developed the atomic bomb and needed a location to drop it on and Europe wasn't exactly a great place with so many allies around. So the looked to a little remote island of Japan and started this whole thing and now they spy on you and watch you change your underwear because they are just protecting you. :ninja:
Click to expand...

Don't do that, some poor, paranoid soul will latch on to this theory and cite you 10 years from now. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom