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ORIGINAL: Footslogger

Is This Documentary Accurate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj7FEW8E184

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Rewriting history to leave out the failures is typical in autocratic regimes.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Recent commentary by former diplomats is that Russia is trying to re-write the history information available in their country to stoke nationalism and support their claims to more territory. Rewriting history to leave out the failures is typical in autocratic regimes.

China just celebrated 100 years since their Communist Party was founded; in their celebrations I did not hear any reports of the event addressing the Party's many failures. Denying reality always sets up the believers for pain further down the road when reality bites undeniably.

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ORIGINAL: Maallon

As always with Russian media some of it is true, some of it isn't and a lot of it is just out of proportion.
First and foremost, everything that was said in the video is already known since many years, so it's not really news.
Maybe they just found new documents about it, but claiming this as big news would also be fairly typical for Russian media.

To put it shortly with some examples.
What is true:
They Allies did plan to bomb the USSR oil fields before the invasion of France. Animosity between the western Allies and the USSR were high, which is kind of understandable because the USSR helped to invade their ally Poland. Also the USSR provided Germany with a lot of resources, including vital oil.
That the USSR suggested a anti Hitler pact is also true, but again, animosity and distrust was just too high for that to actually happen during that time.
What is not true:
Even though where were probably some people in Poland who welcomed a soviet occupation the vast majority of polish people under soviet occupation suffered a lot. Stalin suffered a very humiliating defeat during the Soviet-Polish war against Poland and was out for revenge. Given the cruelty he was willing to commit against his own people, polish people certainly didn't fare any better.
What is just out of proportion:
Nearly everything but to make a concrete example: While Finland did loose more territory during the Soviet-Finish war then at first demanded from them, the main reason why they didn't accept it was that the USSR "coincidentally" demanded all border territories that were heavily fortified or posed natural obstacles. So the Finnish fear was that after they would concede those territories they would have no means to effectively defend themselves against a soviet invasion and the soviets could just make even more demands that could eventually lead to the occupation of Finland as a whole.

It is all tailored to make an appeal to be a neutral opinion but in the end everything is very pro-Russian. I would generally not give too much credit to news channels that are funded by the Russian government. Also the whole documentary is just far too short and all over the place to give any meaningful information.

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ORIGINAL: Footslogger

However, is it true that France and Britain were going to war with the USSR and if the phony war had not be declared, I wonder how things would have turned out?

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

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ORIGINAL: Footslogger

However, is it true that France and Britain were going to war with the USSR and if the phony war had not be declared, I wonder how things would have turned out?

warspite1

No, there was never any real prospect of France and Britain going to war with the USSR.

Having declared war for the right reasons, sadly the actions of the French and British in 1939-40 were a lesson in muddle, confusion, inaction and indecisiveness. I am sure there are plenty more words that can be ascribed too.

We know what happened and so the Allied plan to wait until 1941 to launch offensive action against Germany, while the French and British built up their forces, is seen as wrong. However there was no reason to believe the Germans could achieve what they ultimately did and, with their superior purchasing power compared to Germany, the Allied plan was maybe not that off the wall. It was felt Germany's military lead would gradually be eroded over time and there was the hope that Hitler would be overthrown before a shooting war on the Western Front came about.

So while this 'Phoney War' came about (the German plans to attack in the west in the autumn of 1939/early 1940 never took off for a couple of reasons - another amazing piece of Hitler luck in the early war) what was to be done? After the horrors of the First World War, the French were desperate to have the fighting take place anywhere but on French soil. The British and French were also happy to undertake limited operations, but wanted the other to be in charge in case it all went wrong.....

The French plan to bomb the Caucasus (I've always read it was a spiffing wheeze dreamed up by Gamelin) was only ever really a contingency - at least for the British - and I don't think it ever remotely had any chance of being acted upon. The Allies realised they had bitten off quite a bit with Germany, without bringing the USSR in against them too.

But a shooting war with the Soviet Union was perhaps more likely had the Anglo-French expedition to Finland have taken off. However, this too was never really going to happen. The French wanted it to happen (the lack of action to support the Finns cost Deladier his job) but there was the thorny issue of how to get there (and how to actually man the project.....). Proving that off the wall nonsense was not just the preserve of the French, the British dreamed up the 'plan' of landing in Norway with an expeditionary force that would move overland to Finland, stopping off via the Swedish iron ore mines (which would just happen to stop German supply of iron ore from this source - well that's a nice coincidence!).... There was only one problem with this 'plan' - it was all total cobblers. How the Norwegians - let alone the Swedes - would react was not really considered over and above the idea that they would be delighted at help being provided to their fellow Scandinavians. After garrisoning the Swedish ore mines, what size force would actually make it to Finland was probably no more than a platoon of reservists and a Dachshund named Colin. This whole tragic-comedy episode could have its own thread.

So no, it was never really likely that the Allies would seek to go to war with the USSR in 1939/40.

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That the USSR suggested a anti Hitler pact is also true, but again, animosity and distrust was just too high for that to actually happen during that time.

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So no, it was never really likely that the Allies would seek to go to war with the USSR in 1939/40.

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Is This Documentary Accurate?

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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That the USSR suggested a anti Hitler pact is also true, but again, animosity and distrust was just too high for that to actually happen during that time.

Yeah, that really oversimplifies things.

One of the biggest hurdles here was that for any pact to be signed, Stalin wanted the right to have Soviet troops to pass through Poland, and that just wasn't going to happen.

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That's what I thought. However, is it true that France and Britain were going to war with the USSR and if the phony war had not be declared, I wonder how things would have turned out?

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And to be fair, your point ultimately boils down to distrust.

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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And to be fair, your point ultimately boils down to distrust.

OK, possibly to a degree, but I think it was more that Stalin wanted the BBD (Bigger Better Deal, at least in his eyes), no matter where he got it.

And in all fairness I do believe Stalin knew that a confrontation with Germany was bound to happen, sooner or later.

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

No, there was never any real prospect of France and Britain going to war with the USSR.

Having declared war for the right reasons, sadly the actions of the French and British in 1939-40 were a lesson in muddle, confusion, inaction and indecisiveness. I am sure there are plenty more words that can be ascribed too.

We know what happened and so the Allied plan to wait until 1941 to launch offensive action against Germany, while the French and British built up their forces, is seen as wrong. However there was no reason to believe the Germans could achieve what they ultimately did and, with their superior purchasing power compared to Germany, the Allied plan was maybe not that off the wall. It was felt Germany's military lead would gradually be eroded over time and there was the hope that Hitler would be overthrown before a shooting war on the Western Front came about.

So while this 'Phoney War' came about (the German plans to attack in the west in the autumn of 1939/early 1940 never took off for a couple of reasons - another amazing piece of Hitler luck in the early war) what was to be done? After the horrors of the First World War, the French were desperate to have the fighting take place anywhere but on French soil. The British and French were also happy to undertake limited operations, but wanted the other to be in charge in case it all went wrong.....

The French plan to bomb the Caucasus (I've always read it was a spiffing wheeze dreamed up by Gamelin) was only ever really a contingency - at least for the British - and I don't think it ever remotely had any chance of being acted upon. The Allies realised they had bitten off quite a bit with Germany, without bringing the USSR in against them too.

But a shooting war with the Soviet Union was perhaps more likely had the Anglo-French expedition to Finland have taken off. However, this too was never really going to happen. The French wanted it to happen (the lack of action to support the Finns cost Deladier his job) but there was the thorny issue of how to get there (and how to actually man the project.....). Proving that off the wall nonsense was not just the preserve of the French, the British dreamed up the 'plan' of landing in Norway with an expeditionary force that would move overland to Finland, stopping off via the Swedish iron ore mines (which would just happen to stop German supply of iron ore from this source - well that's a nice coincidence!).... There was only one problem with this 'plan' - it was all total cobblers. How the Norwegians - let alone the Swedes - would react was not really considered over and above the idea that they would be delighted at help being provided to their fellow Scandinavians. After garrisoning the Swedish ore mines, what size force would actually make it to Finland was probably no more than a platoon of reservists and a Dachshund named Colin. This whole tragic-comedy episode could have its own thread.

So no, it was never really likely that the Allies would seek to go to war with the USSR in 1939/40.

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Militaries make lots of contingency plans. Some are more far fetched than others. Many are just theoretical things that assist force projection and acquisition policies.

Does anyone know the code name of the current US plan to stage a suprise tri-service assault from Japan bases to seize the Nakhodka-Vladivostok base area in the event of a Russian Federation melt-down?

Tell me there isn't one.

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ORIGINAL: Maallon

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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And to be fair, your point ultimately boils down to distrust.

OK, possibly to a degree, but I think it was more that Stalin wanted the BBD (Bigger Better Deal, at least in his eyes), no matter where he got it.

And in all fairness I do believe Stalin knew that a confrontation with Germany was bound to happen, sooner or later.

As far as I remember the deal came to a halt because Poland didn't want to allow soviet troops passage through their territory as they feared they would never leave again. Also the UK and France feared that this would ultimately lead to an Soviet hegemony in the east which they certainly didn't wanted. So it came down to it that the western Allies, especially Poland, didn't trust the USSR. Given what happened in the Baltic after the occupation of Poland, I would say that that distrust was well founded.
Only after the negotiations were suspended to an undefined time the USSR and Germany made an effort to make negotiations of their own.

What Stalin really thought about all this is hard to say, while he probably expected that a war with Germany was bound to happen, he certainly didn't expected it to happen so soon.
Stalin actually had a tendency to have deluded views on many things. He for example believed a report during the Finnish war that the Finnish people were just about to start a communist revolution and help the red army in "liberating" the country. This of course was not true and should have been hard to believe anyway because the red army currently killed the fathers and sons of these very people who were supposed to help the red army.
Not the best basis for cooperation.
So what Stalin thought at any given time can be hard to comprehend, maybe he put up this whole thing with the Allies as a farce to get a better deal out of Germany, maybe he actually would have preferred to get the deal with the Allies and Germany was his second choice. Without hard evidence, that I am not aware of exists, it is really just speculation. But it can be said for certain that the Allies didn't accept the deal with the USSR because they just simply didn't trust them enough in the end.

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Are yes, Operation Hidden Tiger. Or id that Couching Dragon?

No doubt the PRC will cite the mere existence of said plan (even if their cyber warrior directorate actually invented it as a elite maskirovka exercise directed at the proletariat) as a reason to invade the ROC.

I had started, 20 years ago, to think the collapse of the bipolar world order & economic enmeshment of the PRC and the immediate west (or their east - ROC, ROK, Japan etc) had made the concept of commencing economically dislocating military hostilities unthinkable.

I am, unfortunately, starting to think that the current autocratic regime is so arrogant and belligerent that it might actually try.

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

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ORIGINAL: Maallon

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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And to be fair, your point ultimately boils down to distrust.

OK, possibly to a degree, but I think it was more that Stalin wanted the BBD (Bigger Better Deal, at least in his eyes), no matter where he got it.

And in all fairness I do believe Stalin knew that a confrontation with Germany was bound to happen, sooner or later.

As far as I remember the deal came to a halt because Poland didn't want to allow soviet troops passage through their territory as they feared they would never leave again. Also the UK and France feared that this would ultimately lead to an Soviet hegemony in the east which they certainly didn't wanted. So it came down to it that the western Allies, especially Poland, didn't trust the USSR. Given what happened in the Baltic after the occupation of Poland, I would say that that distrust was well founded.
Only after the negotiations were suspended to an undefined time the USSR and Germany made an effort to make negotiations of their own.

What Stalin really thought about all this is hard to say, while he probably expected that a war with Germany was bound to happen, he certainly didn't expected it to happen so soon.
Stalin actually had a tendency to have deluded views on many things. He for example believed a report during the Finnish war that the Finnish people were just about to start a communist revolution and help the red army in "liberating" the country. This of course was not true and should have been hard to believe anyway because the red army currently killed the fathers and sons of these very people who were supposed to help the red army.
Not the best basis for cooperation.
So what Stalin thought at any given time can be hard to comprehend, maybe he put up this whole thing with the Allies as a farce to get a better deal out of Germany, maybe he actually would have preferred to get the deal with the Allies and Germany was his second choice. Without hard evidence, that I am not aware of exists, it is really just speculation. But it can be said for certain that the Allies didn't accept the deal with the USSR because they just simply didn't trust them enough in the end.

warspite1

As you say, the deal with the Western Allies was never going to happen because Poland (quite reasonably) wouldn't allow it. Britain and France had nothing really to offer Stalin - and certainly nothing Stalin would get excited about. But then along came Hitler with a tempting bag of goodies.....

I still think the most plausible reason for the deal with Hitler was that Stalin (again quite reasonably) thought of WWI and foresaw the Germans and Western Allies slaughtering each other to a standstill.

Ergo. The west (inc. Germany) is no longer a threat to the USSR and, if he wants to, Stalin can start dictating the terms of the NS Pact 2.0. The The straits would be high on the agenda no doubt.....

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ORIGINAL: Zorch

It's odd that Stalin apparently believed Hitler would not break the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and attack him, in spite of Hitler having broken other treaties (and breaking many himself). Did Stalin make the mistake of believing his own propaganda?

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ORIGINAL: Maallon

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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And to be fair, your point ultimately boils down to distrust.

OK, possibly to a degree, but I think it was more that Stalin wanted the BBD (Bigger Better Deal, at least in his eyes), no matter where he got it.

And in all fairness I do believe Stalin knew that a confrontation with Germany was bound to happen, sooner or later.

As far as I remember the deal came to a halt because Poland didn't want to allow soviet troops passage through their territory as they feared they would never leave again. Also the UK and France feared that this would ultimately lead to an Soviet hegemony in the east which they certainly didn't wanted. So it came down to it that the western Allies, especially Poland, didn't trust the USSR. Given what happened in the Baltic after the occupation of Poland, I would say that that distrust was well founded.
Only after the negotiations were suspended to an undefined time the USSR and Germany made an effort to make negotiations of their own.

What Stalin really thought about all this is hard to say, while he probably expected that a war with Germany was bound to happen, he certainly didn't expected it to happen so soon.
Stalin actually had a tendency to have deluded views on many things. He for example believed a report during the Finnish war that the Finnish people were just about to start a communist revolution and help the red army in "liberating" the country. This of course was not true and should have been hard to believe anyway because the red army currently killed the fathers and sons of these very people who were supposed to help the red army.
Not the best basis for cooperation.
So what Stalin thought at any given time can be hard to comprehend, maybe he put up this whole thing with the Allies as a farce to get a better deal out of Germany, maybe he actually would have preferred to get the deal with the Allies and Germany was his second choice. Without hard evidence, that I am not aware of exists, it is really just speculation. But it can be said for certain that the Allies didn't accept the deal with the USSR because they just simply didn't trust them enough in the end.

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I still think the most plausible reason for the deal with Hitler was that Stalin (again quite reasonably) thought of WWI and foresaw the Germans and Western Allies slaughtering each other to a standstill.