BLOODLANDS - EUROPE BETWEEN HITLER AND STALIN by Timothy Snyder

Most of the victims were not partisans nor the resistence but civilians.

How many people were tortured, executed and transported to the Gulags after the death of Stalin?

PS,
During the Cold War many nations all over the world had reason to be suspect for one reason or another. Executions, tortures, deportation were not only practiced by the Soviet Union.

 

When speaking of "partisan war" it is generally referred to the war vs the Germans NOT the Finns. The amount of Partisans which fought against Finland is less than 1% of the total number. If the Waffen SS conscripts after 1943 are innocent of war crimes, than the partisans are saints.


Also,
The archives are OPEN but you need a reason to go into them (they are not a museum). There has also never been any law forbidding any additional research which would further the scholarship of WW2. You just made that up.

 

Perspective is a tricky thing, it depends both on your history and your location. Kajala I can respect that you view Soviet Russia differently than those of us in the US do. As an example the history between the US and Mexico is viewed very differently depending upon which side of the border you are on.

I can conceed that to a point Stalin's Russia got a pass in the west for some of its actions simply because they were on the winning side, but this is true of all conflicts and is proven by the adage that the winner's write the history. I can also concede that as many people, and possibly more, suffered under Stalin's rule as did Hitler's. We must however recall that Stalin ruled for a decade before Hitler and a decade after his death.

While I suspect there was a touch of madness to Stalin, it paled in comparison to Hitler. Look at Stalin when the German Army were weeks or even days marching distance to Moscow and compare his actions to those of Hitler at the first signs of setback. Clearly Hitler was unhinged and capable of anything. Stalin was a tyrant yes, but a caculating one. One who knew where and when to stop. Hitler showed no such sensability.

 

Just a note on Hitler's reading list. One of his favorite authors as a young man was Karl Mays, a German who wrote adventure books in the late 1800's, many set in the Old West, though afaik, Mays never actually visited America.

Re: "Bloodlands", I read that a couple months ago. Excellent, but really quite depressing after a while. It's incredible what people will do once the restrains of civiity are removed.

 

Hitler also got the idea of sterilizing "undesirable" folks from the US where it was common practice to sterilize "feeble-minded" people in the 20's and 30's.

Not one of our better moments as a country...

 

True. Still those civilians were killed in/because of the partisan war.

Far too many.

The communism and the fear of it was the main reason.

True. The Soviet Union and her allies/puppet states/copiers were still the main offenders and the main reason for similar crimes by other countries.

 

I know it was done but was it really "common"?

 

It depends on who is speaking. The praised and decorated criminals murdering and raping babies in Finland were officially called "partisans" and were part of that organization. No doubt they committed similar/other crimes on other fronts as well - among their other activities.

I totally disagree.

"Today, conversations with nearly two dozen historians point to a worrisome tightening that has kept key archives closed and subjected others to unpredictable “re-secretization.” "

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/review/Donadio.t.html

The law(s) was(were) indeed passed on but seems to have been cancelled. However...

"Its (The Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests) former member historian Alexander Chubarian said that the commission had fulfilled its task leaving a certain legacy behind". (Emphasis mine)

"Russia Moves to Ban Criticism of WWII Win"



Read more: Russia Moves to Ban Criticism of WWII Victory - TIME
Russia Moves to Ban Criticism of WWII Victory - TIME

Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I agree with the most part of your post. Because it is only normal - although not rigth nor just - that the winners' write the history I think it is our duty to try to find a more balanced and truthful view of the events - and not only continue repeating the old propaganda - especially the soviet one.

Soviet atrocities did not start with Stalin nor finish with him (nor with the collaps of the USSR, for that matter), alhough he was the "grand master" of the soviet horrors.

I cannot agree with you with the degree of madness of the dictators you described. I'm not a supporter of either of the dictators nor their regimes. Still not all Hitler's ideas or actions were "totally mad" or "unjustified" - especially in the beginning of his power. Is is only "victors' history" to present him as a total lunatic and 100 % wrong in everything he ever did. Clearly he was unstable and guilty of countless atrocities - and more and more so towards the end - but so was Stalin. Similar dictators have been before and after those two - mostly only less effective. Nothing new under the sun then - unfortunately.

 

The siege of Leningrad had nothing to do with partisans yet roughly 1 million civilians died just in this city. How do youu explain this?

There were no more gullags after 1960-61.

So just that I understand you fully. In your opinion, partisans were all criminals and Germany was justified in conducting their brutal polices against them and the civilian populations who supported them?

Your articles are over 3 yrs old. Today there is no law in Russia which forbids any further research into the conflict....

Russia has changed much since Stalin.

 

Karj;
The Partisan Wars? What we have in the USA on the subject are mostly from Jewish sources and I have found myself fascinated by the subject; http://www.ww2f.com/eto-mto-eastern-front/31872-books-jewish-partisans.html These readings are not for the weak. What emerges is a picture of a raging, out of control orgy of slaughter, starvation and disease across the board, with no clear cut "good guys"-in the "Hollywood Matinee" sense- anywhere to be found. In Belarussia-where the Partisan wars were the most white hot-an estimated 1/4 to 1/3 of the population was no longer there once it was all over. Who was to blame for the horrendous situation? Well who invaded who? Who put impossible food demands on the peasants and set to exterminating minority populations they hated, as well as anybody else they thought might be a problem-and made no secret of their goal of eventually depopulating the entire land? Who set the population to work as slaves? Who burned whole villages to the ground with the inhabitants inside for trivial offenses or slight suspicions? Who gave their soldier's virtual "licenses to kill" when on operations and anywhere else they decided to use peasants for target practice? Who robbed everything of value in the conquered lands?
... If you answered "NAZI" you are correct!
I think the greater part of the blame for this man made catastrophe falls on THE FASCIST! Hands down! It seems impossible that anybody could make a tyrant like Josef Stalin look good by comparison, but somehow Der Fuhrer did exactly that. I understand something of this apocalyse fell on some innocent villagers in your land-but to put it in perspective, such slaughters were going on on an hourly basis across Eastern Europe. And mostly at the behest of the Axis.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose wisely when he deemed Hitler the greater evil!
JeffinMNUSA
PS. My mother is of Karelian/Finnish descent.

 

You would say that. After all Finland was an Axis Powers with a very high death rate for her her Russian POW's.

There is only one thing more boring than an obsessed Pole frothing at the Soviet Union and that is an obsessed Finn frothing at the Soviet Union.

Yes and so 'excellent' the Finns set up their own for Civilians and POW's.

Nice thread here on how Soviet POW's were starved and shot.

Axis History Forum • View topic - "Finland shot 1000 POWs"

 

Come on over across the pond and go eyeball to eyeball with these "obsessed Tea Party members frothing at the liberals!" A blood chilling business for a student of history!
The Finns should count themselves lucky to have escaped both the Red and Black ideological plagues, but the more sober members of that nation no doubt realize that if you take the USSR out of the WWII equation then Hitler becomes King of the World-or at least half of it. If some Finns think that this is an acceptable scenario then some Finns need to be on medications.
The Poles? Well the rank and file are still pretty traumatized after having been run over by both dump trucks about seventy years back... (Our Tea Partyers have no such excuse).
Now here in the USA-at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s-there were fictional Russian heroes like Ilya Kuryakin and Mr Chekov appearing in US television series. Why? Well the WWII Americans never forgot those photos from the Elbe and those heady days in Germany that summer of 1945 http://news.webshots.com/photo/2829073580030546503tBefsu...
JeffinMNUSA

 

The soviet regime did not want to evacuate the civilians form Leningrad even when it could have done so. Therefore the explanation is: the soviet regime's deliberate disregard of the lives of own civilians.

Well - prisons, prison camps, work camps, mental hospitals... You pick your choice. True, many prisoners were freed after Stalin, but the atrocities continued - although in a (much?) smaller scale.

No, you do not (want to) understand me at all - which somehow does no suprise me...

In my opinion many partisans were criminals - and at least as many of them as of the Waffen-SS conscripts late in the war. Brutal policies against them were justified and indeed according to international law. Civilian population ACTIVELY and WILLINGLY supporting them were not "innocent civilians" but partisans as well. However civilians NOT ACTIVELY NOR WILLINGLY supporting the partisans are of course excluded.

Did you actually read my post? I wrote:

The law(s) was(were) indeed passed on but seems to have been cancelled. However...

"Its (The Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests) former member historian Alexander Chubarian said that the commission had fulfilled its task leaving a certain legacy behind". (Emphasis mine)

Yes. Unfortunately not enough and mostly only superficially!

Of course the ability to travel, to earn money and to buy different goods is a lot. Still Russia is imperialistic, expansionist and militaristic dictatorship without the freedom of speech.

 

The jews were not the only partisans. Here's some more about the topic:

Axis History Forum • View topic - Atrocities of Soviet partisans against Finnish civilians

The blame was on those who started the war together as allies - namely 1. Stalin 2. Hitler. Out of those two it was Stalin who wanted the war - although between the western countries mainly. Hitler wanted to continue having easy victories without war by bullying and bluffing - at least in 1939. If Germany had not been faster the USSR would have invaded Germany. The USSR (Stalin) got only what he was asking for. Unfortunately it was not him who paid the price.

The USSR did not care of her own civilians, but deliberately left the civilians behind after destroying everything they had - food included. The civilians were starved to death in their millions and put to work as slaves - already years before the Germans arrived. So no great difference there.

The answer is: the nazis AND the commies.

The greater part of the blame falls on the commies - but the nazies were a close second.

Unfortunately FDR did not understand the evilness of "uncle Joe" at all. Maybe he was too ill, too naiive or both. The Americans of today should be wiser...

Hi almost fellow countryman! I doesn't surprise me, since Minnesota was one of the most popular states for the Finns to emigrate - if not THE most popular. Never been there, but it looks a lot like Finland.

Unfortunately (for USA) disproportionate number of the Finnish emigrants were (ex-)reds, after our liberation/civil war and even before that, because of the supression of the czarist regime. I hope their legacy is not speaking here...

 

Actually Finland never was an Axis power. Feel free to check your facts.

Indeed the death rate was far too high on the first year of the new war the soviets again started - the Continuation war. There were many unfortunate reasons for that:

- Finland was not producing enough food for her population even in the peace time
- after the Winter War the USSR had robbed 12 % of the best agricultural land
- because of the war there were not enough fertilizers
- the harvest of 1941 was bad
- not all of it could be harvested, because of the shortages of men, petrol, transportation etc.
- the war was expected to be very short, so the prison camps were only built for temporary use
- the number of POW was far greater than expected
- the winter 1941-42 was very severe and the grain ships form Germany could not sail
- the well-being of the evil enemy was not the top priority
- the basic health and the condition of the soviet POW was often low to start with. They were already malnutrioned, ill and wounded

After the situation was acknowledged and the fighting at the fronts cooled down the situation was improved considerably. E.g. many POW's were to work at farms often as members of the family. About 200 babies were born for them. After the war many wanted to stay and were afraid of returning - for a good reason...

To be continued...

... and continuing again.

After that unfortunate first year the conditions of the POW were improved and the death rate returned to "normal" level.

For comparison: the death rate (the real one, not the soviet version) of the Finnish POWs in the USSR was higher, even though the soviets had had many years to practice and the number of the Finnish POW was low. If one takes the time of prisonment into consideration (most of the soviets were captured in 1941, most of the Finns in 1944), as one should, the death rate of the Finns in the USSR was about six times of that of the soviets in Finland.

Maybe the Poles have a point as well...

If you get bored, maybe skipping this topic would be a good idea for you...?

See my text above.

Yes, some of the 64.000 soviet POW were indeed shot, while trying to escape. Some of them even killed their guards before escaping.
Of course not every one of the shootings were justified. The offenders were sentenced in the court martial.

I hope you read that link of yours through. The heading is misleading to start with.

 

Excuses, excuses.

If food was short then why didn't Finns die of starvation?
Ws it just bad luck that only Soviet soldiers who died?

 

From the link you provided some Finns did die of starvation. So your premise seems flawed.

 

White Sea

The total length of the " Stalin channel "route is 227 kilometres - 100,000 dead... "one dead per each meter" as the old saying goes.They were not in Gulags, that is true, but this was only one project. How many suffered horribly if 100,000 died? Different sources say 100,000 to 200,000 dead.

 

happen to think Snyder’s numbers are a little low—the figure for Gulag deaths is certainly higher than a million—but the proportions are probably correct. In the period between 1930 and 1953, the number of people who died in labor camps—from hunger, overwork, and cold, while living in wooden barracks behind barbed wire—is far lower than the number who died violently from machine-gun fire combined with the number who starved to death because their village was deprived of food.

The Worst of the Madness by Anne Applebaum | The New York Review of Books