Just when you think you'd heard the worst of it ...

[jamespowers]

Well yes, they weren't widely known because prominent journalists spoon fed the American people whatever lies Stalin wanted perpetuated, as did our Ambassador and most of the Roosevelt administration. There is a big leap between reluctant allies and the propping up of Stalin that occurred here. It seems only Churchill saw the evil that had arrived.

Churchill wrote that FDR was blind to Stalin's treachery as they were close ideologically.

 

[jamespowers]

I dunno. Canadians live longer, have a lower divorce rate and infant mortality rate, are better educated, and tend to have a more equitable distribution of wealth than we do. We're OK, as nations go, but that doesn't mean we can't learn something from the rest of the world.

And we have been through this befpore as to the infant mortality rate being better as we a.) consider a child a child as soon as they are born, B.)have technology that allows us to try to save the youngest children that other countries let die in utero and C.) we keep copipous records as to births and deaths that other countries do not do.
The other aspects are also explained away in similar fashion. You can't compare apples to oranges without leveling the playing field.

 

[jamespowers]

I think I'd really like Canada, myself. My family comes from Nova Scotia, I've always enjoyed visiting Canada, I love poutine, I used to root for the Expos, and I actually had major surgery in a Canadian hospital ten years ago for half what it would have cost me in the states.

But I just don't think I could stand living up there in the cold.

It isn't THAT much colder than where you are now.

 

[Big J]

I think I'd really like Canada, myself. My family comes from Nova Scotia, I've always enjoyed visiting Canada, I love poutine, I used to root for the Expos, and I actually had major surgery in a Canadian hospital ten years ago for half what it would have cost me in the states.

But I just don't think I could stand living up there in the cold.

Lizzie, you're so contrary.
Sure, there's not a huge gulf in values between most anglophone western nations (and Australia & NZ), and many of our underlying cultural values are the same if not similar. Whilst I have no doubt that Canada is a nice place to live, ultimately it's never been able (for better or worse) to influence global events. Canada has a stellar record of UN Peacekeeping work (for example), but it wasn't going to save Europe from the Nazis, or Asia from the Japanese. The US did that, and only the US could. Out of self-interest, we were forced to act in the best interests of the human race.
Since then, you can argue about the rights and wrongs of US cold war military policy, and the role of the US in the world, and since WWII it's a history that is difficult to paint in simple and positive terms only, but on balance, all things considered, the US did the best it could and did pretty well at it. Canada has, since the end of the war, pretty much 'come along for the ride' on the US efforts to maintain the postwar order. They wouldn't have been able to maintain it themselves if we had chosen not to do so.
I'm sorry, US global power and influence is ever so unfashionable, and induces much insincere guilt from liberals, but just like indulging in WWII denial, people only have the opportunity to express these misguided (IMHO) opinions because we won the war, and established a global world order that enabled us to promote our values on a global scale (and by 'values' I mean the rule of law, democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, that sort of thing).

 

[jamespowers]

Lizzie, you're so contrary.
Sure, there's not a huge gulf in values between most anglophone western nations (and Australia & NZ), and many of our underlying cultural values are the same if not similar. Whilst I have no doubt that Canada is a nice place to live, ultimately it's never been able (for better or worse) to influence global events. Canada has a stellar record of UN Peacekeeping work (for example), but it wasn't going to save Europe from the Nazis, or Asia from the Japanese. The US did that, and only the US could. Out of self-interest, we were forced to act in the best interests of the human race.
Since then, you can argue about the rights and wrongs of US cold war military policy, and the role of the US in the world, and since WWII it's a history that is difficult to paint in simple and positive terms only, but on balance, all things considered, the US did the best it could and did pretty well at it. Canada has, since the end of the war, pretty much 'come along for the ride' on the US efforts to maintain the postwar order. They wouldn't have been able to maintain it themselves if we had chosen not to do so.
I'm sorry, US global power and influence is ever so unfashionable, and induces much insincere guilt from liberals, but just like indulging in WWII denial, people only have the opportunity to express these misguided (IMHO) opinions because we won the war, and established a global world order that enabled us to promote our values on a global scale (and by 'values' I mean the rule of law, democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, that sort of thing).

Agreed. We did not, however, enter the war all for self interests though. We were attacked and forced to participate after that point. Germany then declared war on us and we were forced into the Allies camp with troops when before we just supplied arms etc. :doh:

 

[Big J]

Agreed. We did not, however, enter the war all for self interests though. We were attacked and forced to participate after that point. Germany then declared war on us and we were forced into the Allies camp with troops when before we just supplied arms etc. :doh:

Quite right James. I think that when I wrote self-interest, I was thinking that that included the idea of self-protection. We didn't have a choice because we wanted to protect our way of life.

 

[pawineguy]

I'm not bringing all this up to wave the flag for Stalin -- I might be a pinko, but I'm not stupid. I'm merely noting that if we really want to understand history, we have to try to see it thru contemporaneous eyes, not thru the eyes of modern ideological interpretation. Given twenty years of generally-hostile treatment in the mainstream Western press, and a long history of hard-line red-baiting of anyone who expressed even the mildest public interest in the USSR, a sales job was an absolute necessity if Americans were to accept Russia as a wartime ally.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I certainly agree with the idea that history has to be understood in the context of the period in which it occurred. I think where we disagree is in the analysis of the motives of those in the anti-war movement of the late 30s through the attack on Pearl Harbor. While there was certainly a "pro-nazi / superior race" element, and should be condemned as such, there were many other sub-groups, including the CPUSA, League of American Writers, Pacifists, Catholic Worker Movement, and on and on... One only has to look at the original members of the America First Committee, their supporters, and their merger with the Keep America Out of War Committee to understand that the anti-war movement was not simply a racist, anti-Semitic clique.

We were not that naive to the works of Stalin, especially the purge of his own central committee, which was applauded by the CPUSA leadership. Somehow though, those who championed him in the 30s get a pass while Lindbergh and his buddies receive all of the criticism. (most of which is deserved)

 

[jamespowers]

Quite right James. I think that when I wrote self-interest, I was thinking that that included the idea of self-protection. We didn't have a choice because we wanted to protect our way of life.

Exactly! I don't like the idea of being a lampshade. :doh:

 

[jamespowers]

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I certainly agree with the idea that history has to be understood in the context of the period in which it occurred. I think where we disagree is in the analysis of the motives of those in the anti-war movement of the late 30s through the attack on Pearl Harbor. While there was certainly a "pro-nazi / superior race" element, and should be condemned as such, there were many other sub-groups, including the CPUSA, League of American Writers Pacifists, Catholic Worker Movement, and on and on... One only has to look at the original members of the America First Committee, their supporters, and their merger with the Keep America Out of War Committee to understand that the anti-war movement was not simply a racist, anti-Semitic clique.

We were not that naive to the works of Stalin, especially the purge of his own central committee, which was applauded by the CPUSA leadership. Somehow though, those who championed him in the 30s get a pass while Lindbergh and his buddies receive all of the criticism. (most of which is deserved)

Exactly! Stalin was so crazy that he purged the leadership of the military numerous times as he feared a coup. By the time WWII came around, his military leadership consisted of many "officers" who had no idea what it was to lead an army etc. Fortunately, through the Nomanhan incident of 1939, he has a few officers who distinguished themselves in small scale battle there. The problem was that their strategy was just to throw as many men into the battle meatgrinder as it would take to win. This strategy meant the death of tens of thousands of men that REAL strategy would have saved. They had such little regard for their soldiers that their tanks were only made to last 1500 hours on the battlefield---because that is what they calculated a tank would last in battle---no more. :doh: But I digress....

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'll stand by my earlier remark. In the Era, the "let's team up with Hitler to destroy the filthy Bolsheviks" mindset came almost entirely out of the anti-Semitic wing of the isolationist Right, as characterized by Lindbergh and his cronies. The leading voices in that movement considered the Russian people -- not just the Communists, but the Russian people themselves -- to be, like the Jews, a lesser "Asiatic race" and a natural enemy of the superior "Aryan" people. They believed the ideal result would be to stand back and allow Hitler to destroy the Soviet Union and enslave or eradicate the Russian people, thus preventing any threat to the "Aryan" peoples from the East, and to then have Britain and the US ally with Hitler to assure Aryan superiority around the globe.

There were tub-thumping "better dead than Red" anti-Communists in America First as well, and wide-eyed pacifists like the actress Lillian Gish -- and even the Socialist leader Norman Thomas believed Hitler could be "reasoned with," and allied with the Firsters, at least for a while. But the deep down leadership of the prewar isolationist movement had less to do with pacifism, political gamesmanship, economic ideology, or vein-throbbing hatred for That Man In The White House, than with doctrines of pure, simple, vicious "Aryan Superiority." Being a non-Aryan myself, I don't much care for that line of thought.

More than a little of the Firsters' propaganda came straight from Berlin -- Congressman Hamilton Fish, one of the leading spokesman for America First, was nearly indicted as a foreign agent when propaganda circulars originating with Nazi agents were mailed from his office under his Congressional franking stamp. Fish's chief of staff ended up taking the fall for that one, but it's hard to imagine that the good Congressman wasn't unaware of what was going out under his name, or where it had come from. It later came out that Fish had taken over $3000 in German-originated payments dating back to 1939.

As for the CPUSA, there was actually a lot of internal dissension about what to do when the Hitler-Stalin pact was announced. Earl Browder was a passionate and sincere anti-Fascist who tried to keep the CPUSA line on track with the earlier "Popular Front Against Fascism" movement until he was brought to heel by Moscow, and he resented this for the rest of his life. He tried to lead the "Communist Political Association" on an independent , moderate course during the war, but ended up being expelled for his efforts and replaced by the hardliner William Z. Foster, who saw to it that his policies were all reversed. And yet, much of what Browder endorsed -- specifically, a policy of postwar "detente" between the Soviet Union and the US -- eventually came to pass.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It isn't THAT much colder than where you are now.

Yeah, but their thermometers are all in centigrade. Even when it's 32 degrees, it's zero.

 

[jamespowers]

I'll stand by my earlier remark. In the Era, the "let's team up with Hitler to destroy the filthy Bolsheviks" mindset came almost entirely out of the anti-Semitic isolationist Right, as characterized by Lindbergh and his cronies. The leading voices in that movement considered the Russian people -- not just the Communists, but the Russian people themselves -- to be, like the Jews, a lesser "Asiatic race" and a natural enemy of the superior "Aryan" people. They believed the ideal result would be to stand back and allow Hitler to destroy the Soviet Union and enslave or eradicate the Russian people, thus preventing any threat to the "Aryan" peoples from the East, and to then have Britain and the US ally with Hitler to assure Aryan superiority around the globe.

That Man in the White house had a pretty darned anti-semitic staff around him as well. Just read In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. Telephone Book Dodd had a Hell of a time with FDR and his staff concerning the "Jewish problem." They buried the truth at every turn about how the Jews were being treated even though Dodd was right there to see it in person---along with his Soviet Union spy daughter Martha. Dodd himself was anti-semitic-----"As Germany prepared to deprive Jews of their citizenship, Dodd — only slightly less casually disparaging than his daughter — advised the president: “Give men a chance to try their schemes.”" I would relate further members of FDR's staff's comments but they are just anti-semitic nonsense that should be buried with them. They knew what was going on and refused to interceed.
Rabbi Wise---the head of the American Jewish Congress at the time was constantly warning and trying to get help but nothing materialize. FDR's administration tried to quash his Madison Square Garden protest of Hitler's chancellorship in 1933. They tried later that same year to quash his boycott of German goods as well. It was a mess. They never won though---thank God!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Exactly! Stalin was so crazy that he purged the leadership of the military numerous times as he feared a coup. By the time WWII came around, his military leadership consisted of many "officers" who had no idea what it was to lead an army etc. Fortunately, through the Nomanhan incident of 1939, he has a few officers who distinguished themselves in small scale battle there. The problem was that their strategy was just to throw as many men into the battle meatgrinder as it would take to win. This strategy meant the death of tens of thousands of men that REAL strategy would have saved. They had such little regard for their soldiers that their tanks were only made to last 1500 hours on the battlefield---because that is what they calculated a tank would last in battle---no more. :doh: But I digress....

"It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army."
...Iosif Vissarianovich Dzhugashvilli
(Stalin)

 

[jamespowers]

"It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army."
...Iosif Vissarianovich Dzhugashvilli
(Stalin)

It takes a brave man to be in that army in the first place. If you don't get killed by the enemy then you will be by your own people. :doh:

 

[pawineguy]

I'll stand by my earlier remark. In the Era, the "let's team up with Hitler to destroy the filthy Bolsheviks" mindset came almost entirely out of the anti-Semitic wing of the isolationist Right, as characterized by Lindbergh and his cronies. The leading voices in that movement considered the Russian people -- not just the Communists, but the Russian people themselves -- to be, like the Jews, a lesser "Asiatic race" and a natural enemy of the superior "Aryan" people. They believed the ideal result would be to stand back and allow Hitler to destroy the Soviet Union and enslave or eradicate the Russian people, thus preventing any threat to the "Aryan" peoples from the East, and to then have Britain and the US ally with Hitler to assure Aryan superiority around the globe.

There were tub-thumping "better dead than Red" anti-Communists in America First as well, and wide-eyed pacifists like the actress Lillian Gish -- and even the Socialist leader Norman Thomas believed Hitler could be "reasoned with," and allied with the Firsters, at least for a while. But the deep down leadership of the prewar isolationist movement had less to do with pacifism, political gamesmanship, economic ideology, or vein-throbbing hatred for That Man In The White House, than with doctrines of pure, simple, vicious "Aryan Superiority." Being a non-Aryan myself, I don't much care for that line of thought.

More than a little of the Firsters' propaganda came straight from Berlin -- Congressman Hamilton Fish, one of the leading spokesman for America First, was nearly indicted as a foreign agent when propaganda circulars originating with Nazi agents were mailed from his office under his Congressional franking stamp. Fish's chief of staff ended up taking the fall for that one, but it's hard to imagine that the good Congressman wasn't unaware of what was going out under his name, or where it had come from. It later came out that Fish had taken over $3000 in German-originated payments dating back to 1939.

As for the CPUSA, there was actually a lot of internal dissension about what to do when the Hitler-Stalin pact was announced. Earl Browder was a passionate and sincere anti-Fascist who tried to keep the CPUSA line on track with the earlier "Popular Front Against Fascism" movement until he was brought to heel by Moscow, and he resented this for the rest of his life. He tried to lead the "Communist Political Association" on an independent , moderate course during the war, but ended up being expelled for his efforts and replaced by the hardliner William Z. Foster, who saw to it that his policies were all reversed. And yet, much of what Browder endorsed -- specifically, a policy of postwar "detente" between the Soviet Union and the US -- eventually came to pass.

Haha, ok, I give up. The Party should give you a promotion for sticking to the line.

 

[LizzieMaine]

W. E. Dodd was a fascinating figure. I own his personal collection of radio transcriptions of broadcasts he made on various local New York stations during the height of the debate over "neutrality" in 1939-40, and in listening to these it becomes evident that whatever views he may have held earlier in his career had sharply changed by that time. His broadcasts were absolutely unflinching in their attacks on the administration's political shilly-shallying -- he was the Interventionist's Interventionist in these programs. He teamed up in one series of broadcasts with the French journalist Genevieve Tabouis and between them they really held the administration's feet to the fire. Given the political climate of 1939-40 there was no way an uncompromisingly interventionist message was going to cut it on the national level, but these broadcasts were very popular in New York.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Haha, ok, I give up. The Party should give you a promotion for sticking to the line.

Well, I'd settle for being the Daily Worker's radio critic. "Rochester vs. Mr. Benny -- The Triumph of the Proletariat over the Exploiter Class."

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

It takes a brave man to be in that army in the first place. If you don't get killed by the enemy then you will be by your own people. :doh:

There were quite a few Soviet POWs who after surviving hellish conditions in German captivity found themselves in the Gulag after the war for the "crime" of having surrendered or "having allowed themselves to be captured."

 

[jamespowers]

W. E. Dodd was a fascinating figure. I own his personal collection of radio transcriptions of broadcasts he made on various local New York stations during the height of the debate over "neutrality" in 1939-40, and in listening to these it becomes evident that whatever views he may have held earlier in his career had sharply changed by that time. His broadcasts were absolutely unflinching in their attacks on the administration's political shilly-shallying -- he was the Interventionist's Interventionist in these programs. He teamed up in one series of broadcasts with the French journalist Genevieve Tabouis and between them they really held the administration's feet to the fire. Given the political climate of 1939-40 there was no way an uncompromisingly interventionist message was going to cut it on the national level, but these broadcasts were very popular in New York.

1939-1940 was long after he left his post in Germany and was replaced by Hugh Wilson. What did he do from 1933 to 1937? Either way, the administration was completely against him---especially anti-semitic William Phillips. He was called in and sent messages numerous times telling him to leave the issue alone even if he had changed his mind....... He died in 1940 so I am glad he saw the light late in life.

 

[jamespowers]

There were quite a few Soviet POWs who after surviving hellish conditions in German captivity found themselves in the Gulag after the war for the "crime" of having surrendered or "having allowed themselves to be captured."

Exactly what I mean.