USSR and Europe's liberation. (WW2, war, Roman, influence)
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When we talk about Second World war, we usually get such proposions as "allies defeated nazis, liberated Europe and the war was over." This opinion is especially promoted by Russia nowadays.
But I'm from a country in Eastern Europe and I can assure you that we don't think that way. We think that in our case one dreadful superpower(USSR) won another terrifying country(nazi Germany) and that's all.
Liberation means that you give freedom for somebody but Russians just occupied us, slaughtered our people and tried to russify our nation.
I agree that US, UK, France and some other western countries liberated WESTERN Europe, that's for sure. But I can't call it liberation what happened in Eastern Europe.
So what is your, American, opinion about this?
P.S. Sorry for my mistakes and bad English. Will do my best efforts to improve my skills.
The Allies were able to prevent Greece, Italy and Austria, more or less, from suffering the same fate. Finland cut a deal with the Devil on their own. Otherwise, short of a major land war with the USSR (Patton and some others wanted this) while we had a monopoloy on atomic weapons, there was not much we could do about it. After suffering so much, its no surprise that France, the UK, the US and the others were not up to doing that.
You were sold out at the Yalta Conference by the ailing Franklin Roosevelt, whom was in no condition to be at that meeting in the first place (or a 4th term president for that matter). We wanted help from Russia with the invasion of Japan, but that was not a good enough reason to sell out eastern europe.
Especially when the US had a nuclear bomb to bring to the negotiating table, seems like Roosevelt could of whispered something in Stalin's ear to sober him up a bit. Stalin already knew about the bomb, but was he "influenced" with it ? We had 4 years to use the bomb to bring Stalin in line, until Julian and Ethel Rosenburg sold us out. Glad they made bacon out of those two, cant think of a better use for the death penalty than handing Stalin a nuclear bomb.
Hope you came from one of better east bloc countries, that had food, heat, and electricity.
Hope you came from one of better east bloc countries, that had food, heat, and electricity.
I think ALL the Eastern European countries suffered the same from cold, starving and diseases at least for some time after WW2. There weren't "better" or "worse" countries in my opinion.
Thank God I was born 40 years later.
Btw, I didn't expect such a competent opinions about our history. Sometimes it feels that only we, crazy Eastern European(or particulary the Baltics) fascists, think that way.
You were sold out at the Yalta Conference by the ailing Franklin Roosevelt, whom was in no condition to be at that meeting in the first place (or a 4th term president for that matter). We wanted help from Russia with the invasion of Japan, but that was not a good enough reason to sell out eastern europe.
Especially when the US had a nuclear bomb to bring to the negotiating table, seems like Roosevelt could of whispered something in Stalin's ear to sober him up a bit. Stalin already knew about the bomb, but was he "influenced" with it ? We had 4 years to use the bomb to bring Stalin in line, until Julian and Ethel Rosenburg sold us out. Glad they made bacon out of those two, cant think of a better use for the death penalty than handing Stalin a nuclear bomb.
Hope you came from one of better east bloc countries, that had food, heat, and electricity.
The thing is, there is no shortage of people who think using the A-bombs on Japan was wrong (see threads in this folder for examples). What would people then and now say about nuking the USSR although we were not at war with them? I doubt Stalin would have gave in to a whispered threat.
You are more or less right about Yalta. But...the reality was the Red Army was there and entrenched. Once again, short of a major war, not much we could have done.
And remember, Western Europe was a handfull. We were occupying three countries (Germany, Austria and Italy), trying to prevent two from choosing Communism (Italy, France), trying to prevent Communist guerillas from taking another (Greece) and trying to feed and rebuild most of the rest. And that is not factoring in Asia.
I think most Americans would agree that Eastern Europe was not "free" until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remember, we used to call these countries "behind the iron curtain". Most Eastern Europeans I know are very pro-America and pro-Democracy as they experienced an oppressive government. I think many Americans forget what freedom truly is and take it for granted.
(Yes I know the U.S. is a Representative Republic not a true Democracy)
When we talk about Second World war, we usually get such proposions as "allies defeated nazis, liberated Europe and the war was over." This opinion is especially promoted by Russia nowadays.
But I'm from a country in Eastern Europe and I can assure you that we don't think that way. We think that in our case one dreadful superpower(USSR) won another terrifying country(nazi Germany) and that's all.
Liberation means that you give freedom for somebody but Russians just occupied us, slaughtered our people and tried to russify our nation.
I agree that US, UK, France and some other western countries liberated WESTERN Europe, that's for sure. But I can't call it liberation what happened in Eastern Europe.
So what is your, American, opinion about this?
P.S. Sorry for my mistakes and bad English. Will do my best efforts to improve my skills.
Yes I think we all agree. Roosevelt sold you out at Yalta. Roosevelt made a mistake that is still being made today "I have met Stalin and I think we understand each other, he is a good man". So naive. He just had no concept of what Stalin and the USSR were capable of. In Churchill's defense, he knew better about Stalin, but had to compromise with Roosevelt at Yalta. France was pretty much out of the decision - DeGualle afterall was just some oppurtunist mid-level French beaurocrat when German tanks marched into France.
As I said this mistake is still being made today. Bush did it with Putin, saying since he met Putin and talked to him in person "we understand each other, his heart is good". Yeah right. And it's still being done about Muslim extreemists "they are just misunderstood, if we just talk to them....".
This got me interested in Finland's position durring the cold war, did some research the other night. Finland played it pretty cool, from what I read. It may not have seemed that way in '48, as they had to pay war reparations and honor agreements to the letter, with the USSR. They could not join NATO, allow foreign troops on their soil, or participate in the marshall plan.
At the same time, the US secretly paid them around 200 million in aid. They remained independent of Russia as a free market western democracy, and after the reparations were paid off in the early 50s, built a strong industrial base. The Finns deported many russian defectors back to Russia, as per agreement. Iron ore, oil, and natural gas was supplied to Finland by Russia at reasonable rates.
Later after the breakup of the soviet union, Russia raised its energy rates, and the economy slumped for a short time. They joined NATO, the EU, built nuclear power plants, one of which is going online soon, and will be the largest in the world. The people of Finland also have a high level of religious participation among its citizens compared to other EU countries. They have great social welfare benifits, and a strong economy.
Im not so sure their deal with the devil worked out so bad for them. Yes, they had to crawl for a while, but they didn't end up like the other east bloc countries. Was the US going to protect Finland if Russia invaded her borders in 1948 ?
I think ALL the Eastern European countries suffered the same from cold, starving and diseases at least for some time after WW2. There weren't "better" or "worse" countries in my opinion.
East Germany and Hungary were better off than some of the others. Bulgaria actually had some high tech industry cloning IBM computers and benefited somewhat from doing Russia's bidding. Romania faired the worst, especially in the 80's, mainly because of Ceausescu. I dont quite consider Yugo as east bloc, as they remained free.
For the most part, many of these countries were slightly better off than back home in mother russia (but maybe for the city of Moscow). None of them performed like their neighbors to the west, but east germany was always the highest performing, and could of done better had russia not been ciphening off their economy.
Believe it or not, about half of former east germans say they liked it better under Erich Honecker's GDR.
Believe it or not, about half of former east germans say they liked it better under Erich Honecker's GDR.
Half sounds quite high - I would have to ask exactly how the question was paraphrased. I've spent plenty of time in the eastern part of germany, especially in Leipzig, a city that I enjoy a lot. Many who lived there in the former GDR days might be a bit nostalgic for certain things out of the past. Nearly everyone is nostalgic about certain things from our younger years. But that doesn't translate to a very many people who think that Honecker's SED brought them a better life within the tightly controlled one party marxist-leninist state than what they have today. The Left Party of Germany (containing the remnants of the former SED and PDS parties of the GDR) has about 8 percent of the seats in the Bundestag (German lower house of congress). I know they have polled much higher support in the former eastern germany than in the west, but nowhere close to 50 percent.
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