slvemike4u
Posts: 17896
Joined: 1/15/2008 From: United States Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent quote:
ORIGINAL: slvemike4u Do you think Churchill,a rabid anti-communist,had he been in power in Sept .'39 might have possibly been of a like mind. Not that England declaring war on Russia and Germany wouldn't have been damm near suicidal No. At the outbreak of WW1 there was bewilderment in some quarters that Britain could fight a war on the side of Russia against Germany - the Germans were seen as like minded and the Russians barbarians - 20 years later things hadn't changed much - except the Germans' political system. So - convenience alone dictated that the USSR was an ally during the war - not that it started that way - they had a pact with the Germans when Britain declared war on Germany - but yeah you're right on one thing - as soon as the war was over the British Government saw the USSR as the threat. What's probably not so well known is that there was a certain amount of sympathy among the British people from the 1920s - 1940s - much anti-establishment sentiment among the working classes - but the excesses of the Soviet regime simply weren't known then - the stories filtered through in the 1950s. And - protecting the sovereignty of Poland? Not likely. Britain simply couldn't have one dominant power on the contintent - same as WW1 - as that would have meant Germany controlling the Northern coast and the ports - which would have compromised our trading routes. Napoleon's France wasn't that far in the distance - and the government had the experience of what that meant for us. In terms of the Soviet actions in Poland - violence was an accepted tool in the Soviet state's arsenal - it was conceived in violence and functioned in violence. There was a lot of state sanctioned and controlled ethnic cleansing all over the place - with people being transported and 'repatriated' from and to various parts of the Soviet Union - with loads of people just being murdered along the way or shipped off to some labour camp. I'm not sure that people realise just what a mad/ruthless/paranoid state that the Soviet Union was. And there's a popular misconception that the wheels came off with Stalin - it didn't - Lenin and Trotsky were equally ruthless and paranoid. Forget about not declaring war on Russia as an example of expediancy(or whatever other term you wish to lend it) the real betrayal and perhaps the most bitter pill Churchill was ever forced to swallow was the carving up of Europe which led to Poland being behind what Churchill later dubbed an "Iron Curtain"...to add salt to the wound the knowledge(or lack thereof ) of the fate of the Polish government in exile which was returned to Poland soil ,and Soviet control shortly after the war.Their fate was both predictable....and ,it seems to me highly avoidable had their been soem backbone showm by the postwar English Government. Still no tommie...what a shame.
< Message edited by slvemike4u -- 4/9/2010 7:00:38 PM >
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If we want things to stay as they are,things will have to change...Tancredi from "the Leopard" Forget Guns-----Ban the pools Funny stuff....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNwFf991d-4
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