Antony Beevor: The Soviet Union and the Second World War

[@asmodeus0454]

The Battles of Khalkhin Gol were fought from May 11 to September 16, 1939, not in 1938.

[@RT-tn3pu]

"Are you going to school to learn how to believe or are you going to school to learn how to think?"- Ralph Nadar

[@paulstewart6293]

Our English teacher told us of a day, "you are here to learn and to think". Mr Mc Conduch. I liked him.

[@mattanderson6336]

Could you do a presentation about the suppression of the Russian Memorial society by Putin and the new glorification of Stalin-the Cult of Personality 2.0. Putin as Joe Jr.

[@McIntyreBible]

I would love to sit in Beevor's presence and drink in his wisdom of modern historicity!

[@wesstubbs3472]

That's what I do when I'm reading one of his books. A very readable writer.

[@tellsparck]

He might have a point that Soviets/Russians take too much credit. However, it is incontrovertible that they deserve the lions share of credit for defeating the Nazis, and there is an equally criminal ignorance of this fact in the west.

[@bretedwards2899]

You forgot that that the Soviet Union was an ally of Nazi Germany for awhile until Hitler invaded them, also that they refused to attack Japan until the US had already beaten them, hardly a hero nation.

[@hnnsy]

To say it is 'incontrovertible that they deserve the lions share of credit'...I hate to say sounds borderline ignorant. If you study the second world war I find it hard to see how you'd draw that conclusion. The russians also always avoid any blame for their direct responsibility in kicking off world war 2 to begin with when they held hands with the nazis and carved up Poland. They enjoy (and afford themselves) too much credit for the part they played. Without U.S. aid and the mouth-opening disregard for their own soldiers lives they'd have been overrun. They were also quite shy about joining the effort against Japan once the allies had defeated the nazis (perhaps remembering the humbling they received the last time they fought the Japanese). They put in a valiant effort. The lions share of the credit...don't make me laugh!

[@qounqer]

Nah, they shared a land border with the Germans so they suffered the vast majority of the casualties. That’s not the same as winning the war.

[@tellsparck]

@@hnnsy No surprise that the interpretation of WW2 is very subjective and emotional. I have done a fair bit of reading/research about WW2 to dispel my ignorance. 75-80% of German soldiers died in the eastern front, and they also lost a proportionate amount of equipment there. This is a lion's share by me- and is also the reason why all serious historians concur that Nazis lost the war because of the losses in the Eastern front. Do not forget that Hitler started WW2 primarily to seize territory in the east, and Stalin was well aware of this. The Molotov Ribbentrop pact was only a tactic to buy the Soviet Union some time, and it worked in hindsight (although Poland suffered immensely in the process). They fought tooth and nail to defeat the Nazis, and succeeded. Disregard for the lives of their own soldiers is not a war winning strategy by any stretch of imagination. This might have happened to some extent, especially in the early stages of the war. When Nazi generals got a chance to write their memoirs after the war (that became the go to resource for Western military historians to learn about the Soviet army during the cold war), they exaggerated this to cover up their missteps and incompetence. Soviet Union joined the war against Japan after Germany was defeated, and this is probably the reason why Japan surrendered (even more so than the atomic bomb, some historians claim).

[@davidtrindle6473]

@@hnnsy 80% of the fighting and dying occurred on the Eastern Front. Of course I agree the soviets were monsters in many ways.

[@MegaSteve1957]

Hmmm - I will stick to my thirty books written & massively researched by the American ex cavalry officer David M. Glantz who had no political axe to grind.

[@xys7536]

Europe feed itself 😮 well. DON'T BREED em IF YOU CAN'T FEED THEM there peace in the world

[@gysgijsbers4202]

...and in Africa?

[@earljohnson50]

The Soviet Unions role during WWII is without a doubt controversial. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were cooperating with each other for their own gains. The Soviets annexed the Baltic states as well as Bessarabia (now known as Moldova) as the Germans were invading the rest of Western Europe. Ultimately culminating in a coordianted invasion of Poland. Some of pre war Polish territory lies inside Belarus. Once Operation Barbarossa began, there was an incredible loss of both Soviet lives and territory. This could be attributed to multiple things. The first is the leadership of the Red Army was for the most part purged. The generals in these positions were either indecisive or completely unprepared. Many Ukrainians greeted the Nazis as liberators as the Holdomor was fresh in the minds of many. In the aftermath of Stalingrad and eventually Kursk, as the tide started to turn in Stalins favor, the Soviets began to liberate Eastern European countries. Stalin promised free and fair elections in the immediate aftermath of the war. Of course he did not commit to this. As a result the iron curtain went up and Eastern Europe was communist until 1989-1992 varying which country youre talking about. People often completely miss the Soviet participation in the Pacific war. The effects from their approximately one month long operation can be clearly seen today. The Soviets invaded Japanese held Manchuria and a good bit of the liberated territory was handed over to the Chinese communist party. Most to the Nationalists but the Communist no doubt benefited from the resource rich havens of Manchuria. The Soviets also conducted an amphibious assault in Korea. That country today is now known as North Korea. And lastly the Kuril Japanese home islands were formally annexed into the Soviet Union. Soviet involvement in the Pacific War led to the Japanese surrendering rather than the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviets for better or for worse got the most land and influence in the aftermath of WWII. 75%-80% of the Nazi armed forces were destroyed by the Red Army. The resulting fatalities of the war directly go as high as just under 30 million people depending on the source.

[@malaydhar917]

Most historians will never understand the real situation of a war/ fight for survival, like 2nd world war ! 🤔-bmd

[@adep1544]

There's no doubt that Russia played the biggest part, and by a wide margin, in defeating the Nazis and this winning WW2.

[@Ratkill]

Imagine the amount of russian lives that could have been saved if the communists would not have tried to ally with the nazis. Hitler may never have been able to enter the country very far if he was actually met at the border by the red army.

[@gopher7691]

Without American material support the USSR would have been defeated by the Nazis

[@Ratkill]

@@gopher7691 Absolutely. Hell, when Paulus and the 6th surrendered, the Soviet delegation sent to accept it drove an American Jeep, because it was the nicest vehicle they had. Its shameful that Stalin took shipments of American grain, and painted over the USA markings to hide where it came from.

[@thevillaaston7811]

@@Ratkill Its a definite no. Paulus drove to the Russian HQ to surrender, in a battered looking car. Where is there a shred of reliable evidence that shipments of American grain hadr the USA markings painted over to hide where they came from?

[@Ratkill]

@@thevillaaston7811 How many civilians knew where the 9,000,000,000 pounds of food they were eating came from? The soldiers definitely knew, they would open up a tin of meat and joke they were "opening the second front!" Also the russians would never, ever let the german delegation into their lines before a formal agreement was signed. Can you imagine what stalin would do, if paulus waltzed into a red army field HQ and was able to leave without signing anything? This is a hilarious risk no red army commander would take. There were several delegations prior to the actual surrender, there was never certainty that any one would yield fruit. Further, the 6th army was out of fuel long before then, or did "a battered car" run on schnapps? lol

[@tonyholmes962]

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[@zackali9934]

This man has made a career of throwing mud at anything Russian....his anti-russian antics stinks to the high heavens

[@RodWilliams-m7r]

Incorrect.

[@ДмитрийДепутатов]

Walker Christopher Thomas Angela Brown Frank

[@BraveSausage99]

What is the horrorfying fact about all of this…. there will be more… we will soon reach a population of 10 mrds on earth… and e 3rd World war will cost milliards of victims… it seems that we don‘t have a serious answer to solve the problem of over population… and the rich countries are still concerned to have the whole ressources for them selves…. a really bad future

[@rezzob]

yeah Sterling was very ruthless, like super duper ruthless, unlike humanitarian, Churchill, Roosevelt, or Truman, who firebombed, and nuked cities after cities without any military reason.

[@eviloverlordsean]

What a travesty... I love Antony Beevor, but really, can he ignore the contribution of Lend-Lease trucks, jeeps, barbed wire, copper, telephone line (for goodness' sakes)... this is disappointing.

[@KMN-bg3yu]

How true, it was American vehicles, food, boots, aviation fuel, etc that carried the Red Army to Berlin

[@ceciljohnrhodes4987]

And he did more than cover this around 30 mins in.

[@eviloverlordsean]

@@ceciljohnrhodes4987 well jeepers, now I feel bad... I did not see that, thanks for clueing me in

[@ceciljohnrhodes4987]

@@eviloverlordsean props to you my friend 👍✊

[@purplemonkey649]

30 min mark onwards it comes up.. 4.5 billion tonnes of food stuffs. 17.5 billion tonnes of war material to keep them fighting. Billions!! Hard for anyone to visual what that even looks like... OK, not specifically calling it the lend lease program, but it's certainly not ignoring the contributions that were made and were necessary.

[@JosephMitchellMitchell]

😢 OH POOR SOVIETS, FAMINE BY DESIGN. INVADED POLAND AND BALTIC STATES AND FINLAND AND 1938 JAPAN .. WHY GIVE LENDLEASE

[@rusoviettovarich9221]

A lot of nuggets here to digest and good ones and even though one cannot expect everything to be noted it is a shame there was no mention of Stalin's move to sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 'voila' World War II. The reds intentionally delayed invading Poland from the east until 17th September as Khruschev cynically but correctly noted, since the Germans had first invaded on 1st September, '...the Germans will be blamed for starting the war..." Also no mention of the move by Stalin in seizing No. Bukovina (Romania) where a rail line was direct to Ploesti as well as the laundry list of outrageous demands Molotov handed over to Ribbentrop and Hitler on his (Molotov's) visit to Berlin November 1940 as the switch that began to move Germany to look east as their real threat. No Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact no war.

[@Odysseus88]

The Bottom line is WWII was a coordinated team effort. The rest is just politics. The reason why Russia suffered the most was because the main theatre of operations was in the East! If the main theatre of operations was in the West then the West would’ve carried the burden and it would’ve been up to Stalin to break the pact. If Britain and Germany came to terms after the fall of France the Russians wouldn’t have stood a chance, especially if Germany got the contracts from the West. The rest is just politics and bullshit!

[@johanpuotila7210]

Also the way of fighting contributed to the Soviet casualty numbers, like in Ukraine today. Minimizing human losses was not a key considerstion the way it was in many western armies. Crucial to the final outcome was also the huge U.S. military support in terms of equipment, raw materials and foodstuff.

[@gysgijsbers4202]

The rest is just millions of deaths...not much to worry about...? Yet here in Africa our leaders still idealise Communism & Russia...

[@420bengalfan]

@@johanpuotila7210 exactly soldiers dying has never won a war for anyone

[@__-bc4bs]

Never attack the bear there will be dire consequences.🐻

[@sl5932]

they are not looking capable today.

[@janskovjensen]

Not the best performance of Beever

[@yournaturalfather]

He is great, but he repeats the same speech over and over. How about not being so lazy and having some respect for your customers?

[@thevillaaston7811]

It pours out of Beevor, like dung out of a cow's backside. Plop, plop, plop.

[@Ratkill]

If it was a lie, the russians would not have banned him from going back to their archives. Why would they have to hide anything if it was all a fabrication anyway? Also I wonder if they have any cool music concerts coming up in russia, or if all the bands already left lol. Anyone with half a brain jump off that sinking ship months ago.

[@kevindonaldson8655]

What's he getting wrong my friend?

[@thevillaaston7811]

@@kevindonaldson8655 He parades opinion as fact. He passes judgement on people and their actions withoit being in such a position himself. His published works have been completed long after proper historians been all over the subjects that he writes about. There are no new relevent facts in his works, no contemporary documents that have not been in the public domain for decades, no one to one interviews with key people from that time. Example: 'Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944' of 2018 - 74 years after the event, about the fifth of sixth work about MARKET GARDEN in the last 15 years or so, each one claimed to be the definitive account. What is his big new angle on the subject?.. the suffering of the Dutch people in the winter of 1944/45... So new, its only been in the public domain sine the Spring of 1945 when the RAF 'Manna' flights were all over the news reels. No wonder the Russians slung him out of Russia.

[@kevindonaldson8655]

@@thevillaaston7811 This talk seemed pretty accurate. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

[@Ratkill]

@@kevindonaldson8655 Beevor is banned from re-entering russia since they allowed him access to their historical archives and expected the results to be more.... heroic. Hes persona-non-grata by default. I doubt the commenters are actually even familiar with his work.

[@americanpro6980]

The best take on WWiI, no other historian come close 🇺🇲