Russin officer executions

You know what, canadian..., please, remove from my mouth what had not been there.
Where have I written that Stalin was a great commander? Find it for me, pleese.

I was talking about Stalin - politician. I think Machiavelli would have been proud of his faithful disciple.
Sure, whatever you do to be !00% sure you don´t have a little stauffenberg somewhere around, is going to cost many non-stauffenbergs. Very many. But Stalin didn´t care. He was an incredibly gifted bandit who made it as a politician. What do you expect? Clausewitz? (another Slavic name). Besides, Stalin didn´t care about the Russians all the more because he was Georgian and also antisemit and there were quite a bunch of Jews in the old bolshewik guard.

 

Canadiansuperpatriot didn't exactly say this. You might want to consider adjusting your corrective tone if you wish to avoid further insulting posts from the more touchy members...

 

Thanks, Ricky.
Stalin is known to have kept very few things on his table. One of those was Machiavelli´s "Prince". Another - a book on military strategy "Mozg armii" (The brain of army") by marshall Shaposhnikov. The first one was instrumental in the purges, the other - in the Soviet theory of "deep thrust" - essentially - identical to the doctrine of blitzkrieg.

To my previous entries in this discussion, I would like to add, that virtually thousands of officers that had been sent to gulag, have been taken out of it shortly before June 41, and were told that their actions in the near future would show whether they are worthy of being Soviet officers or they are traitors. Most of them were made commanders of so called "black divisions" - the units of Gulag prisoners, formed in the spring of 1941 (they have not even received military uniforms, that´s why the Germans called them "black" - they served in their Gulag prisoners´clothes). The Germans have been meeting the divisions from the very start, which means that they had been formed long before the start of Barbarossa - a sure sign that Stalin was serious about his preparations for war.

 

Some thing we could all do with remembering from time to time here is that there are different levels of mastery of English throughout the Forum. There are some native speakers, some truly excellent none-native speakers and some not so articulate native speakers.

I think the best policy really is to assume that no offence is intended and to ask for clarification as far as possible unless the opposite is blatantly the case.

Not trying to step into the shoes of the moderator team here, just trying to add some hopefully useful input...

 

Roel, I don´t think canadian...´s post could possibly have been undersood otherwise than a kind of response to my previous post.

Your reaction is very disappointing to me. I think canadian´s tone and content of conversation is way below the level of this forum and way below a level of conversation I enjoy.

 

I know you're a moderator on another forum, Simon, and I do appreciate this input since after all it's good advice.

 

I have recently found out that Reinhard heydrich(sorry , might be mispelled) and his "intellegence" network convinced soviet intellegence that some of stalins field marshalls were plotting against him. My source is a book series on the third reich , ( if needed i can scan some pics and passges from the book) Izaak Stern i don't think anti-semitism played a significant role in the executions , stalin more or less supressed the religion , not really "hurting" the people who followed it ( allthough , the jews weren't exactly treated like the toast of the town in eastern europe). This isn't an insult or a reply but heres an interesting quote that may get people thinking .... "Stalin , intellegent leader , ... or paranoid dictator" or a little of both ..... I posted this in the morning in school , it might not make sense because im not awake yet.(posting in school , because grounded from computer at home ! :lol: )

 

Stalin never trusted intelligence without proofs. If he wante do kill of some people he didn´t need proofs at all. He had people to take care of “proofs”.

Yes, to a certain extent, Stalin disliked the Jews. But – to be just here: whom did he like?
No doubt tha the old RKKA officer corps was heavily jewish. It was Trotsky (Bronstein) who created it and staffed it. Many leading bolsheviks were Jewish or Latvian or Polish. Not so many Russians, at least – not initially. Dzierzhinski, a Pole, created Cheka – the later KGB etc etc…

As to the antisemitism of Eastern Europe (I´m talking mainly of Poland and Russia): of course, there was and is much dislike for Jews. But, mind my words (I know these nations in and out): their antisemitism is all in words. The next day they are your good and trustworthy friends. What is all this talk about Polish antisemitism? Before 1939 10% of population there was Jewish (up to 60-70%-80% in some eastern towns) and often lived in parallel world with their strange attire, locks, hats and very strange language. Add to that that some Very rich people were Jewish, and you have a ready made conflict. Actually the life in Poland was and remained peaceful.
Jewish emigration of that time was totally economic, not due to persecutions.

I am very much more afraid of institutionalized antisemitism or antisemitism with few words but painful doings. The western type (like in USA before and after WW2).

 

From what I remember the Soviet officer purge was part of a much larger program to remove ALL "politically unreliable" people from the Soviet Union. During the civil war in the 1920's, the Bolesheviks kidnapped family members of the Czarist officer corps, and forced the officers to fight for the communists. These officers still made up the core of the Soviet Army in the 1930's, and made Stalin nervous about a military coup to restore the monarchy. German efforts to destabilize the Soviet Union might have also had an effect.

 

I think I have a few relevent points..

1) the Russian Army (red) had better maps of Germany than they had of the USSR.. Stalin knew a war was coming, but not so soon, he disappeard at first, pouting, thenm pulled himself together.

2) Stlain had a good intelligence netwoork in Germany..

Google 'red orchestra' or Lucy spy network

Russia had more tanks than Germany in 1941..


Stalins main goal was to stay in power, then win the war, as a pragmatist he did what was required in his own interst.

 

always stalin the dictator ,stalin the killer....when do we discuss stalin the gardener or stalin the dancer....

 

that stalin did not existed!!!!!
only a daydream!!!!

 

or a fantasy

 

Yes, and what about how nice Hitler was to his dog. Let's talk about Hitler the painter, too. You gotta love his work, I mean, the man only consciously ordered the deaths of millions and millions of human beings but let's talk about his paintings, shall we?

Stalin was pretty dedicated to killing people. Of all dictators in history I think it's fair to say that he was the most dedicated of all, because he did it constantly, arbitrarily, and very very consciously.

 

hmm, they had to take their bad childhoods out at somebody.

 

I wonder if that would have worked at a Nuremburg style trial... :roll:

"OK, I murdered more than 6 million men, women and children, but you wouldn't believe how much my schooldays sucked...."

 

Not what i meant. I was being rhetorical.

 

I guessed that, but it is hard to come over as rhetorical on a discussion forum with typed text. Consider it playing devils advocate.

 

The keyword in that 6 milion is the word no one uses infropnt of it. It is an estimate. An estimate is an educated guess and since this is a WWII forum everyone should know how everyone over and under estimated each other. It could be higher or lower than that number, by very little or a lot. By the way are we reffering to Death camps or just civilians in general?

 

No, the estimated 6 million is the Death Camps AFAIK, not the civilians. Even if it's the estimated so what? Even if you reduce it to 1/10th 600,000 is still a hell of a lot, and given that according to my A-level History teacher some sources think that the true figure could be close to 12 million...

What exactly are you trying to say here? It's estimated because accurate records just don't exist. So what if it isn't exactly 6 million? That's the accepted figure from what historians and intelligence people have been able to gather. Let's say that it's "just" 3 million instead. Does that make Hitler and the Nazis less of a Monster?